The Best Laid Plans, Chapter 19
 

Dara's father was sitting on the porchswing when her mother came out.

" I thought you had gotten rid of all the pictures, Mattie..."

" I thought I had to. Do you think  that I would want to hurt our daughter?"

" I wouldn't put it past you."

" Dara is MY child. You and Daddy seem to think that I mean her some harm. Well, I don't. And I don't need either one of you telling me what's best for her."

" You haven't listened to her in years. How in the hell would you know what's best for her."

" I listen. I just don't coddle her, like you and Daddy."

" How is respecting her, coddling her."

" Respect? Is that what you were doing with Mr. Jacks?"

" Yes. She seems to like him. What's the matter with that?"

" You are her father, and you can't see what's wrong?"

" The man is White. We never put caveats on who she should date. We didn't say, 'Treat people decently, Dara. And try and get to know them, for themselves. But, remember that all of this is crap and don't ever bring a White boy home.'"

" He is going to do nothing but hurt her."

" You don't know that."

" The hell I don't. Our daughter is some experiment to him. Some species that he hasn't sampled yet. Sorry, if I don't want her to be hurt."

" History doesn't have to repeat itself, Madeline."

" What did you say?"

" You heard me. I'm going for a walk." Mr. Jensen gets up and walks towards the beach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jax is stunned. " What?"

" Her name is Melanie Jacobs. And I killed her. " Dara takes a deep breath, and looks at over the ocean as she begins.

" I think I met Mellie the first day of Nursery school. We were in he same playgroup. Some kids were picking on her, and I stepped up, in all the badness that a 4 year old can muster, and defended her. We were inseperable from then on. She lived 3 blocks from me. Our mothers would take turns picking us up from school. She was bright. The smartest kid in our class, besides me. We challenged each other in everything: school, sports, music, dance. She couldn't sing, but she knew how to play 3 instruments, and was already under the tutelage of  the best music teachers. She could mesmerize you with her Chopin. But, she played for the joy. She never wanted at all to do it professionally. She loved to see the look on people's faces after a performance. When she'd do an impromptu concert. It gave her a lot of satisfaction."

" What did she want to do?"

" From the minute that they have you fill out those questionnaires in school, she wanted to be a doctor. A kid's doctor. It took her until the third grade to find out that they were called pediatricians. And after she found that out, it became her focus. She never waivered. She was going to heal sick kids. She didn't think that there could be a better job, than to come out to a parent who's worried and tell them that their child would be alright. Our families became close. Our mother's were in the same sorority, our father's, the same fraternity. Holiday parties were alternated at each other's houses. Now, their summer home was in Sag Harbor, but we went to the same Summer Camp, Camp Atwater, from the time we were 6 until we were 17, and were counselors together. And each family would go visit one another. So, there really were only a few weeks out the year that we were apart. And since we wrote everyday, that seemed incidental."

Dara got up, went to the beach, picked up some rocks and came back to sit down next to Jax. She started tossing the rocks.

" When college time came around, both of us wound up at Spelman, of course. Roommates for 4 years. Pushing each other, picking one up when the other was down. Graduated Magna Cum Laude, both of us. Then graduate school. We wound up applying to the same schools. And we got into all of them. We both chose Harvard...well, because it was Harvard, and we wanted to live in Boston. We would, in early spring and fall, take weekend trips out here, to the Vineyard. The Vineyard is wonderful in the Fall. All the people gone; you get to see it in its most natural state. The leaves falling on the trees. It's a beautiful, peaceful season here. Well, I graduated in the 3 years alotted to Law School, and I stayed here, with a firm in Boston that had connections all over the U.S. Mellie graduated from Medical School, and had her choice of Hospitals in the country. She got chosen for this special pediatrics rotation at Columbia-Presbyterian in NYC. I got a transfer, and there we were, two young, up and coming professional women in NYC. Things were busy. I was one of the best young defense attorneys that the firm had. If there was a loophole, I found it. If there was a way to get our high-paying clients off, my nose could sniff it out. Two more years had passed. I was definitely on 'THE TRACK' . To it all. I had more clients than I could handle, and I was getting one high-profile case after another. Mellie was at the top of her rotation. Then, I was assigned the Broderick Mitchell case."

Dara sat there, and stared for a while.

" Broderick Mitchell was scum. But, since he was rich scum, they just whispered about him and called him, 'troubled.' His case was brought to my attention by one of the Senior Partners. They brought me in, one day, and talked to me about the case. How, Mitchell needed the 'best'. How I was the 'only one' who could do justice to this case. How, I should be a 'team player' and roll with the punches. That, it's not our jobs as attorneys to judge people, only to defend them within the system of law that exists. And then they dangled Junior Partner in front of me. I knew that ordinarily that it would take at least 2-3 more years of work like this before getting a Junior Partnership. In that firm, they were more difficult to come by than Senior Partnerships. Only TWO Junior Partners had ever been rejected for full Partnership. So, this offer, was, the opportunity of a lifetime. I would be head and shoulders ahead of any woman that graduated with me. Completely above my peers. So, I took the case. And my firm took the boatload of money that Mitchell's parents gave them."

Dara began to tremble slightly.

" Mitchell had raped a teenage girl. But, since they had had consensual sex before, I was able to get the parents to back off. BUT, the DA wouldn't. It was an election year, and they pressed onward. They could do that because of recent laws passed that took the control out of the parent's hands in a statutory rape situation. It was the cornerstone of the DA's re-election bid. I found out that the police officers had done completely incorrect procedures when booking Mitchell, so, I blew the DA away, on a technicality, and ruined his campaign focus. I was a hit. I had earned some stripes. I was written up in the paper.

Everything was a go for me.

My future couldn't have looked brighter.

And then, one day, 4 months later, Mellie didn't come home from her shift.

3 hours turned into 12, then 24, then 3 days. It wasn't until five days later that they found her body in a forest preserve in New Jersey. Same county as the rape. Fibers and tissue samples led them back to Broderick Mitchell. When they searched his home, they found the locket that Mellie always wore that belonged to her grandmother. He had stalked her for weeks. He was following me, and I led him to her. He knew her schedule better than she did. He waited for her latenight shift, and hunted her like a panther. He beat, raped, sodomized and tortured her before strangling her to death."

By this time, the tears were pouring down Dara's face.

" I went to the funeral. I don't  know how I made it there. I don't remember, to this day, of dressing or getting there. When I got there, Mellie's mother came over to me. She slapped me and spit in my face. And called me a murderer. She was right."

" Dara, you didn't kill her."

" Jax, yes I did. It was slick, legal brain that let him out to hurt again. I KNEW that he would hurt someone else. I just thought it was 'someone else's problem'. I helped kill my best friend. No, my sister. I never had a sister, and neither did Mellie. That's what we were to one another. And my arrogance and greed and ambition got her killed. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her. But, she's like this distant dreamy memory that I have. Almost an etheral presence in my life.You know, if you go far enough away from a death, the memories fade. I think its self-protection. But, seeing her, in that picture, flesh and blood today, made it all come back. All the summers she never had. The wedding dress never bought. The children never christened or baptized. When you're directly involved with the loss of a life like that....how can you ever be normal again?"

" You can't. But, you can't stop living, either, Dara. You can't sacrifice your life here, for what could have been."

" And why not? WHY did she have to die? And I got to live? He was MY client, not hers."

" That bastard made the decision. Not you. Not Melanie. HE CHOSE to take a life. But, you can't stop living. And you can't shut youself off from happiness. I know. I tried. For several years after Miranda, I tried not to feel anything. Doesn't work. You are a good person, Dara. One of the finest women I have ever known. And if you were such good friends, I doubt that Melanie would want you to stop living. To stop being happy. Because if you do that, then Mitchell claimed TWO victims that night. And that's not right. Not at all."

Dara quietly sobbed in Jax's arms until she fell asleep. They stayed there  until dawn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~