The Most Wanted Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Jacquelyn Mitchard
found trouble in any quarter of the lower forty-eight.
The eldest of four sons of a mother widowed once by a refinery explosion and once by a knife fight, Dillon seemed to have more or less raised himself in the little town of Welfare, one of those single-tavern burgs on the ragged hem of San Antonio’s outskirts. Arley’s family lived only a few miles west, but their orbits didn’t seem to have overlapped, despite their having attended the same magnet school in Alamo Heights. Dillon’s brothers were roughneck punks, in and out of foster care and baby jail for the usual drinking-fighting-truancy stuff, but Dillon seemed to have stayed out of trouble—officially, anyway—until the night he and his brother Kevin decided to take a friend and his handgun and hold up a gas station in Comfort, a few miles north of their home. The hapless kid working the cash register ended up with his left arm shattered by a gunshot wound, and Dillon and Kevin wound up in Solamente River Prison. As the elder and, supposedly, the shooter, Dillon had been given eight years.
Arley and Dillon had begun corresponding in September. She’d visited him once. He’d pledged his troth. For two full weeks, they’d been husband and wife.
I sighed. Ordinarily, I started interviews with a stab at outlining goals: Why were we here together? What had happened and what was needed? But for some reason I found myself eager that day to influence a situation I knew very well was none of my business.
And so I asked Arley, “What possessed you to do this thing? What possessed your mom to sign for it? Was he your boyfriend before he went in?”
Arley shook her head. “I didn’t have a boyfriend before him. I just got to know him through the letters.”
“Three months ago.”
“Three months.” She squared her shoulders then and said, “He’s really good.” And I knew what she meant—good in the sense that applies to a child, or to a nun. “I know what I’m doing. I might only be fifteen—”
“You’re fourteen.”
“Okay, but I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing when it comes to this. My husband—Dillon—has a clean record for his . . . incarceration, and he really should be out in less than two years. It’s all right there.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Ma’am,” said Arley, coloring deeply, “he needs me to be with him before that.” I could tell it was killing her to do this, and I felt like a shit. She would not have said any of this for worlds, except that Dillon mattered more to her than her sense of decency. I didn’t realize then what an exaggerated sense that was, or why, though I would come to see that Arley’s decency was exactly like her skein of heavy hair—equal parts discomfort and joy.
“He wants a conjugal visit,” I suggested.
“And I do too.”
“It’s been denied.”
“Yep.”
“You want to have sex with him.”
“I want to . . . be close to him.”
I put my face in my hands. “Well, Missus LeGrande, unless there is something that you are not telling me, unless there is something I learn about your husband that you have not told me: for example, that his record suggests that he constitutes a risk to your health or well-being”—beyond the obvious, I thought—“or a risk to the security of Solamente River Prison, your request and his petition together should work. Now, your responsibility—”
“I can pay. . . .”
I sighed. “Well, you pay what you can pay. We generally work those things out fairly well. But what I was going to say was, your responsibility is to tell me the truth and give me some patience while I try to work this out without litigation—that is, without having to—”
“Without going to court.”
“Exactly. Because I think that would be best for everyone involved, including you and your husband and the state of Texas and, God knows, me.”
“Well, I can be patient.”
I hope so, I nearly said, looking at her and thinking, You
The eldest of four sons of a mother widowed once by a refinery explosion and once by a knife fight, Dillon seemed to have more or less raised himself in the little town of Welfare, one of those single-tavern burgs on the ragged hem of San Antonio’s outskirts. Arley’s family lived only a few miles west, but their orbits didn’t seem to have overlapped, despite their having attended the same magnet school in Alamo Heights. Dillon’s brothers were roughneck punks, in and out of foster care and baby jail for the usual drinking-fighting-truancy stuff, but Dillon seemed to have stayed out of trouble—officially, anyway—until the night he and his brother Kevin decided to take a friend and his handgun and hold up a gas station in Comfort, a few miles north of their home. The hapless kid working the cash register ended up with his left arm shattered by a gunshot wound, and Dillon and Kevin wound up in Solamente River Prison. As the elder and, supposedly, the shooter, Dillon had been given eight years.
Arley and Dillon had begun corresponding in September. She’d visited him once. He’d pledged his troth. For two full weeks, they’d been husband and wife.
I sighed. Ordinarily, I started interviews with a stab at outlining goals: Why were we here together? What had happened and what was needed? But for some reason I found myself eager that day to influence a situation I knew very well was none of my business.
And so I asked Arley, “What possessed you to do this thing? What possessed your mom to sign for it? Was he your boyfriend before he went in?”
Arley shook her head. “I didn’t have a boyfriend before him. I just got to know him through the letters.”
“Three months ago.”
“Three months.” She squared her shoulders then and said, “He’s really good.” And I knew what she meant—good in the sense that applies to a child, or to a nun. “I know what I’m doing. I might only be fifteen—”
“You’re fourteen.”
“Okay, but I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing when it comes to this. My husband—Dillon—has a clean record for his . . . incarceration, and he really should be out in less than two years. It’s all right there.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Ma’am,” said Arley, coloring deeply, “he needs me to be with him before that.” I could tell it was killing her to do this, and I felt like a shit. She would not have said any of this for worlds, except that Dillon mattered more to her than her sense of decency. I didn’t realize then what an exaggerated sense that was, or why, though I would come to see that Arley’s decency was exactly like her skein of heavy hair—equal parts discomfort and joy.
“He wants a conjugal visit,” I suggested.
“And I do too.”
“It’s been denied.”
“Yep.”
“You want to have sex with him.”
“I want to . . . be close to him.”
I put my face in my hands. “Well, Missus LeGrande, unless there is something that you are not telling me, unless there is something I learn about your husband that you have not told me: for example, that his record suggests that he constitutes a risk to your health or well-being”—beyond the obvious, I thought—“or a risk to the security of Solamente River Prison, your request and his petition together should work. Now, your responsibility—”
“I can pay. . . .”
I sighed. “Well, you pay what you can pay. We generally work those things out fairly well. But what I was going to say was, your responsibility is to tell me the truth and give me some patience while I try to work this out without litigation—that is, without having to—”
“Without going to court.”
“Exactly. Because I think that would be best for everyone involved, including you and your husband and the state of Texas and, God knows, me.”
“Well, I can be patient.”
I hope so, I nearly said, looking at her and thinking, You