that’s how you want it? His only child living a few miles away from him
and he’s completely cut out of her life. Did you ever think about how he
feels?
Did your hate ever let you do that?”
She didn’t answer.
“Don’t you ever wonder why your mother loved him? Is your picture of
Luther Whitney so goddamned distorted that you can’t see why she loved
him?”
He grabbed her shoulders, shook her. “Does your goddamned hatred ever
let you be compassionate? Does it ever let you love anything, Kate!”
He pushed her away. She stumbled backward, her eyes locked on his face.
He hesitated for a moment. “The fact is, lady, you don’t deserve him.”
He paused and then decided to finish. “You don’t deserve to be loved.”
In one furious instant her teeth gnashed, her face contorted into rage.
She screamed and flew at him, hammering her fists into his chest,
slapping his face. He felt none of her blows as the tears slid down her
cheeks.
Her assault stopped as quickly as it started. Her arms like lead, they
clutched at his coat, holding on. That’s when the heaves started and she
sank to the floor, the tears bursting from her, the sobs echoing through
the tiny space.
He lifted her up and placed her gently on the couch.
He knelt beside her, letting her cry, and she did so for a long time,
her body repeatedly tensing and then going limp until he felt himself
growing weak, his hands clammy. He finally wrapped his arms around her,
laid his chest against her side. Her thin fingers clutched tightly to
his coat as both their bodies shook together for a long time.
When it was over she sat up slowly, her face red, splotchy.
Jack stepped back.
She refused to look at him. “Get out, Jack.@
“Kate–r ‘Get out!” Despite her scream the voice was fragile, battered.
She covered her face in her hands.
He turned and walked out the door. As he headed down the street he
turned to look at her building. Her silhouette was framed in the window,
looking out, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking for
something, he wasn’t sure what. Probably she didn’t even know. As he
continued to watch, she turned from the window. A few moments later the
light in her apartment went out.
Jack wiped at his eyes, turned and walked slowly down the street,
heading home after one of the longest days he could ever remember.
“GODAWMIT! How LONG?” Sm FFANK STOOD NEXT TO THE car. it was not quite
eight in the morning.
The young Fairfax County patrolman didn’t know the significance of the
event and was startled by the detective’s out burst.
“We found her about an hour ago; an early-morning jogger saw the car,
called it in.”
Frank walked around the car and peered in from the passenger side. The
face was peaceful, much different from the last corpse he had viewed.
The long hair was undone, streamed down the sides of the car seat and
flowed across the floorboard. Wanda Broome looked like she was asleep.
Three hours later the crime scene investigation was completed. Four
pills had been found on the car seat. The autopsy would confirm that
Wanda Broome had died from a massive overdose of digitalis, from a
prescription she had filled for her mother but obviously had never
delivered. She had been dead for about two hours when her body was
discovered on the secluded, dirt path that ran around a five-acre pond
about eight miles from the Sullivan place just over the county line. The
only other piece of tangible evidence was in a plastic bag that Frank
was carrying back to headquarters after getting the okay from his sister
jurisdiction. The note was on a piece of paper torn from a spiral ring
notepad. The handwriting was a woman’s, flowing and embellished. Wanda’s
last words had been a desperate plea for redemption. A shriek of guilt
in four words.
I am so sorry.
Frank drove on past the rapidly fading foliage and misty swamp that
paralleled the winding back road. He had fucked that one up royally. He