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CHAPTER ONE no freedom
SHE HAD NOT been accustomed to orange jumpsuits, nothing as sinful as that. Bernadette Blanchard knew of blasphemous things, she recalled the taste of bitter cigarettes, the rough cut of vodka straight down ones throat, and the loving feeling of a body writhing against her own, but she had never been in something as profane as a prison getup. The tangerine did not compliment her face, it did not flatter her pale skin, it only made her look guilty. Bernie's skin was gaunt like it had been pulled taut over glass, though smooth, it was hollow with shock and peppered with sweat. Rings of purple brought on from crying torrents of tears drooped on her face, and if it wasn't from how hard she had been sobbing in the cop car on her way to the police station, exhaustion wouldn't be poking at her brain like an agitator.
Bernadette believed in God, she read the bible in her bed before she fell asleep, a rosemary hung against her right bedpost. The pearls were white, glistening pale in the twilight that streamed through the window. A crucifix stood tall above her door, but the only thing that irked her was the praying. Bernadette Blanchard didn't pray. No one could crawl into her mind and listen to what she was proclaiming, certainly no God, not deity force was divine enough to seep past her flesh and listen to the whispering words she breathed into the vacancy of her mind. The police officer had placed the handcuffs on Bernie's wrists too tightly, she knew he thought she was guilty. It was a small act inflicted out of anger, but it would conclude in a large amount of pain. Bernadette watched the clock above the one way glass window. She prayed.
She was aware that the officers or agents behind the door were watching her, if profilers had arrived already, they would be picking her apart like a frog being dissected in a seventh grade science class. They wanted to read her, see her behaviour, detect any guilt. Any insanity. Any grief. Bernie was nervous by this, she didn't know how to respond perfect enough to prove her innocence. She hadn't raised the knife to Anne Blanchard, she had pulled it out after Anne performed a self-inflicted injury. She lodged the blade between her own heart and her rib cage, sheathing it with her own warm organs. Out of horror and disgust, Bernadette lunged forward and withdrew the knife. Anne stumbled forward, collapsing against her jumper and smearing the blood, then she began to fall onto her back. That was when Wilhelmina stormed into the room, alerted by the ringing scream of Bernadette. Anne was dead before she collided with the floor.
The only flaw in this story was that no one could seep under the flesh of Bernadette and land in her skull to listen to the truth, therefore, no one materialized in the darkness as the Blanchard girls were found in their deaths, no one could say what definitely happened, and if Bernadette was a murderer. She knew she wasn't, she looked innocent and she would use that to her advantage, but if a mother could turn a cold shoulder to her only remaining daughter, during such a large loss, it was questionable to the claim of purity in the first place.
