Monday saw Bogdan Wolynetz and IRS Special Agent James Picarus take the stand. Bogdan was loud and angry and finger-pointing but didn't have very much actual information, so Prosecutor Martin soon dismissed him after Kim had done what she could to get him to contradict himself. The IRS Special Agent was a lot more damaging. Kim shifted in her seat as she listened to him, painfully aware that her research had not revealed a single bit of dirt she could use against him in her cross examination. He explained everything he knew calmly, methodically and in very great detail, firstly every single detail of how Beneke Fabricators' books had been tampered with and how Ted Beneke had eventually been convicted of this, and then a surprisingly lyrical description of the "painted and physically accentuated" woman who had "accosted all five senses" - sight, sound, touch, "potent perfume my sense of smell could not escape" and, "in Mr Beneke's case, possibly taste. I'm not saying that the two of them were sleeping together - I don't know either way and actually he looked quite embarrassed to be seen with her. But it was strongly implied by her performance, and by his reaction, that he had hired her for her looks rather than her brain.
"I fell for it hook, line and sinker," Picarus continued. "I at that time did not recommend the IRS press charges for a greater than $600,000 tax debt, because I had been convinced by Mr Beneke's obvious awkwardness, regret and embarrassment, and by Mrs White's five-star performance of a blonde bimbo, that he had hired her because he found her attractive and given her a job she wasn't qualified for. During our meeting, I asked her questions about the tax code and she told me she did not understand what I had said. She then told me that she had used Quicken, a very basic computer program intended for personal finance management and wholly unsuitable for a company that was grossing in the millions, to manage the accounts. Therefore I assumed, or at least I was conned into believing, that Beneke Fabricators' undocumented revenue to the tune of over one million dollars, and resultant underpayment of tax of $617, 226.31, was due to an honest, if very stupid, mistake."
"When did you realise that that was not the case?" asked Prosecutor Martin.
"When Skyler White popped up on the news as the accomplice of the drug lord Walter White, and it was revealed that she had been running the books of his money laundering business. At first I wasn't sure if she was the same person, because she looked so different."
"In what way?"
"Her make-up and clothing. In the meeting she had with me and Beneke, like I said, she was an affront to the senses; she was wearing very heavy make-up, high heels, short skirt, and a blouse that revealed as much skin as possible. Over the top of all of this was a lot of jewellery - bangles that were making a noise, rings, necklaces. She's not wearing any of that now, and she wasn't in any of the news reports I saw of her. If it hadn't been for her name, I would've thought she was a different person altogether. But she did have the same name, so I reopened the investigation, this time looking not only at Beneke but also at her. I found out that she was very qualified to run the books of Mr Beneke's company, and of Mr White's car wash, and that she was very intelligent, having graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Accounting in 1993.
"My team then placed Mr Beneke under arrest and he was not very co-operative, but he did admit that nobody had ever used Quicken to run the accounts of Beneke Fabricators. I then took this information to the Albuquerque Police Department, and I told them everything I'm telling you, including a detailed description of Mrs White's clothing, make up, jewellery and manner of talking in her meeting with me and Mr Beneke. I told them that she hadn't looked anything like that in any of the news footage I had seen, and the officers showed me a file tape of her in interview with them, and I realised she didn't sound anything like she did in our meeting either. It was like she was an actress. She had completely changed her entire persona, just to con me."
Skyler, her forearms on her knees, chanced a look up at Marie in the public gallery. She was sitting perfectly straight, her lips pursed, her eyes wide. Skyler watched her taking in everything the IRS man said, looking completely in control but for the occasional clenching of her jaw or twitching of her eye. Then she looked down at Skyler, their eyes met, and time stood still. The younger sister, high up and righteous, her eyes deep with confusion and anger. The older sister, her head bowed, looking up guiltily like a dog that had just been found next to a pile of excrement. Looking up in fear.
...
Marie charged through the courthouse doors and out onto the street, her eyes angry and her fists clenched. She ran straight into the media huddle that had been gathering there every day of the trial, but getting smaller with each day that went past. That day, there were only three journalists and one cameraman, who magnetised towards her as soon as she came out the doors. "Fuck off!" she barked at them, and powered off down the street. After ten minutes of brisk walking, she arrived in the downtown shopping district, where she entered a clothing store, angrily grabbed a couple of dresses off a rack and walked into the changing rooms, wanting privacy more than anything else. She banged her head on the wall a few times, then moved her arms up and buried her face in them. She stood there for a long time. Her message tone went off. Pulling her phone from her bag, she found a text from Skyler. I'm sorry, it said.
Marie sat on the small chair in the changing room, bit the knuckles of her left hand and screamed. She stayed there for a while and then, when her breathing slowed, she tried on the dresses. One was too small, and made her even more frustrated, grunting, swinging her arms around and almost ripping it as she struggled to get it off again. The other dress was quite nice. She stuffed it inside her handbag, returned the other dress to the rack and powered out of the store.
...
Flynn arrived home - yes for some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on he did still consider his mother's tiny apartment home - at 8pm after spending four hours in the university library working on a paper. He found his sister sitting on the floor in front of the television, which was tuned to a kids' channel, and his mother lying on the sofa behind her hugging a cushion. Her legs were curled up, so there was plenty of room for him to sit beside her. She said hello to him very softly, and Holly came to sit on his lap.
Flynn looked between them. Holly seemed engaged by the television. Their mother seemed to be watching it too, but her eyes didn't look right. They were unfocused and unblinking, and she looked more like she was looking at the floor below the television than at the television itself.
"Are you ok?" he asked.
Skyler breathed in and out. "I'm never ok," she said slowly. "I cannot think of a single time in the last three years when I have been ok."
Flynn swallowed, then put his hand on her arm and rubbed it. Holly yawned and leaned back into his chest.
"Did you talk to Aunt Marie?" he asked.
"No."
"Well, I did, but…I think it has to come from you. J-just apologise, it'll be ok."
"No it won't."
She still hadn't even looked at him. He rubbed her arm again. "We're family. We've got you."
"There's no point, Flynn, I… you shouldn't even try and be nice to me tonight because you're gonna read the newspapers tomorrow, and the scales will fall from your eyes. Just like they did with your father."
Flynn looked at her with dark, hurting eyes. She didn't look back. Holly looked at the television and her eyelids begin to fall. Flynn looked at the television and then back at his mother again. "Shouldn't Holly be in bed?" he said.
"What time is it?"
"After 8."
"Oh. I lost track of time. Holly?" She sat up, her demeanour changing completely as she addressed her youngest child. "Hey, honey. It's past your bedtime." She rubbed her back. "Oh, you're sleepy." She picked the child up and carried her to the bathroom.
Flynn sat slouching on the sofa as a Disney princess danced across the television screen. He looked at it but didn't see it. There were too many thoughts and fears pounding around his head. When his mother and sister emerged from the bathroom he was shaken from his reverie briefly, and he picked up the remote and began scrolling through the channels. The speed with which he pushed the button increased until the picture was flicking through four channels a second, Flynn seeing none of them. It built to a crescendo until he angrily turned the TV off and sat there in silence.
Time passed. He checked his phone. No messages. The large digits on the home screen said 21:02. He looked up. Surely his sister must be asleep by now. Where was his mom? Standing, he began to slowly climb the stairs. Her bedroom door was closed, but there was light underneath it. He stood on the landing looking at it for a moment, then knocked. There was no reply, but he entered anyway.
She was lying on the bed in the same position she had been on the sofa, hugging a pillow.
"I think you should talk to Aunt Marie," he said. "If…something bad came out in court today then sh-she's gonna be unhappy. And she was already m-mad at you, so… it'll get worse if you don't explain it."
"I saw the look in her eyes," Skyler said. "She's never gonna speak to me again." She pulled her knees closer and hugged the pillow tighter.
"Well wh-what you said the other night was that you were…trying to fight the court case a-as hard as you can for…Holly's sake. From what I've heard, Aunt Marie's testimony was qu-quite favourable to you. You don't want her to…retract it."
"When I was working for Beneke Fabricators. This was before I knew what your father was doing, I went back to work there because I thought we needed the money. And because I was in charge of the accounts, I found out that Ted Beneke had been deliberately hiding a lot of the incoming revenue so that he wouldn't have to pay tax on it. And I asked him about it and he said that the company was struggling, and that if he didn't do this it would go bankrupt. He said he didn't want his father's work to be for nothing, and he didn't want all of his employees to become unemployed and not be able to pay their mortgages. I believed him. So I signed off on it. I even helped to make it so that the tax fraud wasn't so obvious. And I signed the books and sent them to the IRS. And about six months later, right after we'd bought the car wash, which I was obviously very significantly meddling with the accounts of, Ted came to see me and he told me that the IRS were investigating him. They'd discovered the undocumented revenue, and he was required to attend a meeting with them the very next day. Which he'd known about for ages but he was only just telling me now. And what he didn't seem to understand was that he'd compromised me as well as himself. He didn't know that I was laundering the profits of an illegal meth operation through my car wash, so he just kept saying, 'You'll be fine, they just want me,' and he hadn't taken any action on it - he hadn't even got legal advice. So I dressed myself up in the sluttiest clothes I could find, and I went into that meeting and I put on an act. I talked like I was some stupid blonde bimbo who didn't have a clue how to do accounts, and strongly implied that Ted had only hired me for my looks. And I told the IRS agent that I'd been using Quicken to do the accounts, and generally acted like I didn't have a clue about the tax code or how to report revenue or anything like that. It was an act. It was a good one, the guy believed it and they stopped investigating Ted.
"That guy came in to court today. The IRS agent. Told the court all about it. How I am a very effective liar and con artist. Which is also of course how I got you all to believe that Walt was gambling and counting cards. It was bullshit, but it was my lie, I came up with it. I rehearsed it. I made him go through it with me with bullet points."
"Wh-why are you telling me this?"
"I don't know. Your aunt knows it and she's never gonna talk to me ever again because of it, and you have a right to be on the same page as her and to do the same thing."
"Where was Dad wh-when all this was happening?"
"Working with Gus Fring."
"I thought you said you w-weren't gonna talk about the court case because if you l-let something slip or whatever, th-then we would be obliged to…tell the court and then you might go…to prison for longer."
"Yeah well I deserve it anyway so it doesn't matter."
"What about Holly?"
"The more I think about that the more I think that she is going to go through this huge upheaval now, when her home and her primary caregiver suddenly changes, and you can tell she's really confused about it and she's hurting and that's only gonna get worse. From now. But then it'll get better. She'll get used to it and it'll get better. And she'll be happy with Marie, I mean they get on well together and she's really good with her. So then say I spend five years in prison - I mean that's nowhere near the maximum sentence, so assuming things go alright for me and I only get five years - so five years from now she's eight years old and she's used to living with her aunt and she's happy and well-adjusted and everything. Am I supposed to put her through that again at that point? Switch it all around on her, make her come back and live with me when she will hardly know me!"
"Y-yes she will."
Skyler shook her head. "Five years is a long time in a child's life. Can you remember things that happened before you were three?"
"N-no, but…she'll visit you and talk to you…on the phone."
"I'm supposed to let my three-year-old into a prison? Why would I do that? They probably don't even let the prisoners touch the visitors - am I supposed to sit on the other side of a table or, worse, on the other side of one of those glass walls with little phone handsets you have to talk through, and, what, just look at her? A child that age needs to be held! If I am there but separated, disconnected, not even reaching out for her…" Skyler's voice broke. "She won't understand why. What's that gonna do to her psychology - she'll think I'm rejecting her!"
Flynn swallowed. "But we'll explain it to her."
"Psychology doesn't work like that. I've read a bunch of books on it, it's not… what you say to a child has nothing to do with it, it's what they feel. That's why I keep saying to her, 'I don't know if you can visit me,' or how often or whatever because I don't think I should let her come at all. I'm meant to protect her! Why would I let her go to a prison?"
"I… I think she needs you either way, though, it... It just, she just ... y-you can't pull out of her life now. She's had you for three years, it…doesn't matter that she won't remember what actually happened in those three years, sh-she'll remember the feelings! She adores you!"
"Yeah and I'm just gonna be ripped away from her, and then when she's eight I'll rip her aunt away from her instead."
"Wh-why do you think you'll get five years? The thing with Ted…Beneke, h-he was the one doing the wrong thing a-and he told you people would lose their jobs if you didn't…go along with it. He played on your kind heart and your…loyalty to others, and he made you go along with it. That's what…Dad did too. Uncle Hank w-would've lost his job and we would've lost our-our house... and our family would be…split in half a-and in a lot of pain if you didn't go along with it. That's what he made you believe. A-and it was true…except for the family split in half bit."
"That's the bit that's coming true now."
Flynn took his phone out of his pocket and begin dialling.
"What are you doing?"
"Calling Aunt Marie. Y-you two need to talk."
"She won't want anything to do with me now."
"This is about Holly's w-welfare. We need to…all talk about it and decide what's best to do. Hey, Aunt Marie, can you come over?"
...
Marie walked slowly up the path to the terrace apartments, her jaw clenched and her fists tight. The downstairs light in number 60 was on, and she could see two people moving around inside. They were arguing. "Holly needs you and so do I!" she heard her nephew yell. She knocked on the door.
The door was opened quickly by Flynn. "Thanks for coming," he said, stepping aside to let her in. "Sh-she's really not ok, she's talking about giving…Holly up!"
Marie looked at her sister, her hands flexing. Skyler looked back, her head bowed slightly, the same guilty dog look on her face.
"Were you working with Walt?" Marie asked.
Skyler took a shaky breath. "Yes. I was in charge of the money. He would've been caught a lot sooner if I hadn't. He was just buying things lavishly - he bought you a Challenger!" She looked at Flynn. "An unemployed school teacher doesn't buy his fifteen-year-old son a brand new car! I sent it back because if the IRS or the police had found out about that, they would've found out about everything. I kept his unthinking fiscal excesses in check so we wouldn't get caught. I found the car wash business and I bought it. And I ran it."
"You conned an immigrant man into selling it to you!"
"Yep." Skyler nodded. "Yes I did."
"But Dad put you in that situation!" said Flynn.
"Yes he did, and I hate him for it. But he would've got caught a lot sooner if it wasn't for me."
"Y-you do this thing, Mom, where you get it…into your head that you…have to do something, th-that it's the best thing that will help our family, and you don't talk…to anyone about it, y-you just get these ideas in your head and…r-roll with it and…end up making really stupid decisions and…d-digging yourself into a bigger and bigger hole! When if you'd just…been honest with us and l-let us help you with the decisions, l-let us have ideas too, because with something…this big you can't possibly figure out what to do on your own! Th-that's why I called Aunt Marie over here, so w-we can have three brains working on this problem i-instead of one."
His mother and aunt gave no indication that they had heard him, continuing to stare each other down and breathe in strangled gasps. "When did you find out?" spat Marie. "And when did you start working with him?"
"I found out when Gretchen Schwartz told me they hadn't given him a dime for the cancer treatment. I thought he was dealing marijuana. I kicked him out of the house. When I went round to serve him with divorce papers, he told me that he was actually making methamphetamine. I started working with him after Hank got shot. I wanted to help you with the money for Hank's treatment and I wanted the money to be clean. I also didn't want Walt to get caught, because that would split our family in two and cause Hank to lose his job and us to lose our house. And Walt to die in prison and Flynn to lose his innocence." Her voice broke. "No-one else seemed to be capable of cleaning Walt's money, so I did it."
"That's what you told me before."
"Yeah. I told you the truth before. Now you find out all the extra details, like that I'm actually a con artist, and it all sounds a lot worse, right? The truth can be manipulated. I didn't tell you any lies, but I left a lot of stuff out. It was like that with Walt and me too; I thought I knew, I thought I'd figured it out and he told me one or two things, like not very much but one or two. And I thought I knew what was happening. And then I find out later that h-he's also killing people! And that he's become this really frightening man who…" Skyler gasped, and coughed. "He let me think I knew the truth, while leaving all the really bad bits out so that I would go along for the ride. And I've been doing the same to you. I'm manipulative same as him. I didn't want you to know the full truth because I needed your help. I needed your help with Holly, I needed you to help me pay rent and pay our medical expenses and I needed what remains of our family to be together, so that there could be a seamless transition period. For the kids. And I didn't want Flynn to have to be dealing with the two of us fighting. But that's all over now. Both of them are now fully transitioned to being with you instead of me. I don't need you anymore. And you never needed me, in fact all I caused you is pain, so if you wanna step out of my life now, and if you wanna change your testimony so that I spend longer in prison, that's fine."
"N-no, Mom, Holly needs you!"
"No, she's better off without me. You want to disrupt her life again five years from now, switch her around again, put her in a different house with a different parent?"
"W-why do you think you're gonna get five years?" whimpered Flynn.
"Because I deserve it. Because I'm guilty."
"But nothing has changed," said Marie. "So it turns out that you were very dishonest and manipulative when you bought the business, well we already knew that, you conned us with the gambling story! Flynn's right, you get into your head that something is the right thing to do, you don't seek any input from anybody else, you commit yourself to it fully leaving no stone unturned…. But the other thing you do is change your mind and completely switch sides on things! When you found out what Walt was doing, you kicked him out of the house and served him with divorce papers. You wouldn't speak to him, you wouldn't speak to me about it and you didn't even want him to see the kids! And then suddenly you switch sides and jump so far over to his side that you're working with him! And you've just done the same thing again - the other night you were arguing black and blue with us that you weren't gonna discuss anything about the case, that you were gonna fight it strongly so you could get the shortest sentence possible so that you could come back home to Holly! Now you're deliberately jeopardising the case by telling us all sorts of things we'll be obliged to pass on, and telling me to keep her! I mean God, your decision-making process is a goddamn boomerang!"
"Wh-what did you mean about..." Flynn swallowed. "What did you mean when…y-you said that Dad was…frightening?"
Skyler's eyes snapped shut, and she winced. "Forget I said that."
"N-no."
"I didn't say that."
"Yes you did."
"I'm sorry." Skyler winced again. Flynn realised she was trembling.
"He made you do it."
"I ch...chose the car wash and it was my, it was my idea, the car wash was my idea. And the gambling story was my idea."
"What you said j-just now was that he…pulled you along for a r-ride, and then later you found out that he…was killing people, a-and you were frightened."
"So what? I mean not so what that… I mean…" Skyler winced again, and her entire body shuddered.
"You said that before as well," said Marie. "That by the time you found out what was really going on, it was too late for you to do anything about it because you were too deeply involved."
"I... I should have just talked to Hank when he asked me, I…." Skyler's body shuddered again, and she gasped.
"Mom, are you alright?" Flynn step towards her. "Wh-what's going on?"
Skyler's body was shaking violently. He took hold of her hand, and then she began to fall. Marie quickly stepped forward and caught her. Holding her close, Marie awkwardly manoeuvred the two of them onto the sofa. Skyler's teeth were now chattering also, making it difficult for her to speak, but she seemed to be saying, "I should have talked to him" over and over.
Flynn fell to his knees in front of them, still gripping his mother's hand. He looked at his aunt with fear in his eyes. "What's going on?"
"Panic attack, I think," she replied. "Come here. It's ok." She pulled her sister close and rubbed her back. "Just breathe, remember. In and out. In and out."
"I should have just talked to him." Skyler whimpered. "He'd still be alive if I'd talked to him."
"Shhh shhh shhh, it's ok."
"I'm sorry."
"I know. You say that to me all the time. Forgive yourself."
Skyler's body began shaking in a different way, this time with sobs. Looking to her right, Marie saw the look of horror on Flynn's face and she reached out her hand. She stroked his hair and pulled him closer. He started crying too, and this made Skyler sob harder.
Marie pulled out her phone and begin dialling Kim Wexler. "Hi, Kim, it's Marie Schrader," she said. "I'm sorry to call you so late. Listen, Skyler is really not well, is there any way we can get some kind of medical pass to give her a time out tomorrow?"
"Oh," said Kim. "Ah, what's wrong with her?"
"Not quite sure, it's either a panic attack or a trauma trigger or both, but she's shuddering and shaking and she's really not well."
"Ok, sure, well I can apply to the judge in the morning. She'd need a medical certificate."
"Oh don't worry, this time I am definitely taking her to a doctor."
"Ok, well let me know what time the appointment will be, so I can tell the judge when to expect a medical certificate."
"Sure. I'll let you know when I phone them in the morning."
"I can't make any promises on this. But I'll try."
"Thank you."
"Is Skyler there? Can I talk to her?"
"She's not capable of talking right now."
"Ok. Jeez, I'm sorry."
"Thank you, Kim, you're doing a really good job."
"Sure. We'll talk tomorrow morning."
"Ok, thanks." Marie hung up her phone and sat it on the arm of the sofa.
"You're both better off without me." Skyler whimpered. "You all are."
"N-no we're-we're not," Flynn said in a shaky voice.
"I'm so sorry."
"Stop it," said Marie. She pushed her sister's body back from her just slightly and placed her hand on her chest, just over her heart. "Skyler, you - Jesus, your heart is beating fast!" Marie sighed, and looked her in the eye. "You have a good heart. You're a good person. You did some astronomically stupid things. You did some wrong things. But you're a good person and we, all three of us, feel better if we have you in our lives. You are not getting rid of Holly, I will not allow that to happen. My god your heart is beating fast! I'm gonna ask the doctor about that as well!"
"It's just the anxiety, it... it's normal."
"That is not normal. Now you are actually coming to the doctor with me this time, right? The court demands a medical certificate."
"I can go to court, I'll be ok."
"You are not ok and this is not a choice, this is a demand. I am taking you to the doctor tomorrow."
"Yeah, y-you have to go to the doctor, Mom," said Flynn. "Th-that was really scary, you just started shaking and…then you collapsed."
Skyler closed her eyes. "I'm so sorry."
"Stop it."