‘Teun, the metal shavings from the Shephard case. Let us take them to Richmond so we can compare them with what we’ve got. Your investigators can receipt them to Marino.’
She looked at me with eyes that were skeptical, tired, and sad.
‘You need to deal with this, Kay,’ she said. ‘Let us do the rest of it.’
‘I am dealing with it, Teun.’
I got up from my chair and looked down at her.
‘The only way I can,’ I said. ‘Please.’
‘You really should not be on this case anymore. And I’m placing Lucy on administrative leave for at least a week.’
‘You won’t pull me off this case,’ I told her. ‘Not in this life.’
‘You’re not in a position to be objective.’
‘And what would you do if you were me?’ I demanded. ‘Would you go home and do nothing?’
‘But I’m not you.’
‘Answer me,’ I said.
‘No one could stop me from working the case. I would be obsessed. I would do just what you’re doing,’ she said, getting up, too. ‘I’ll do what I can to help.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank God for you, Teun.’
She studied me for a while, leaning against the counter, her hands in the pockets of her slacks.
‘Kay, don’t blame yourself for this,’ she said.
‘I blame Carrie,’ I replied with a sudden flow of bitter tears. ‘That’s exactly who I blame.’
18
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Marino was driving Lucy and me back to Richmond. It was the worst car trip I could remember, with the three of us staring out and saying nothing, an oppressive depression heavy on the air. It did not seem true, and whenever truth struck again, it was with the blow of a heavy fist into my chest. Images of Benton were vivid. I did not know if it were grace or a bigger tragedy that we had not spent our last night together in the same bed.
In a way, I wasn’t sure I could bear the fresh memories of his touch, his breath, the way he felt in my arms. Then I wanted to hold him and make love again. My mind tumbled down different hills into dark spaces where thoughts got caught on the realities of dealing with his possessions at my house, including his clothing.
His remains would have to be shipped to Richmond, and despite all I knew about death, the two of us had never devoted much attention to our own or the funeral service we might want and where we should be buried. We had not wanted to think about our own, and so we hadn’t.
I-95 South was a blur of highway running forever through stopped time. When tears filled my eyes, I turned to my window and hid my face. Lucy was silent in the back seat, her anger, grief, and fear as palpable as a concrete wall.
‘I’m going to quit,’ she finally said when we passed through Fredericksburg. ‘This is it for me. I’ll find something somewhere. Maybe in computers.’
‘Bullshit,’ Marino answered, his eyes on her in the rearview mirror. ‘That’s just what the bitch wants you to do. Quit law enforcement. Be a loser and a big fuck-up.’
‘I am a loser and a fuck-up.’
‘Bull fucking shit,’ he said.
‘She killed him because of me,’ she went on in the same heartless monotone.
‘She killed him because she wanted to. And we can sit here and have a pity party, or we can figure out what we’re gonna do before she whacks the next one of us.’
But my niece was not to be consoled. Indirectly, she had exposed all of us to Carrie a long time ago.
‘Carrie wants you to blame yourself for this,’ I said to her.
Lucy did not respond, and I turned around to look at her. She was dressed in dirty BDUs and boots, her hair a mess. She still smelled of fire, because she had not bathed. She had not eaten or slept, as best I knew. Her eyes were flat and hard. They glinted coldly of the decision she had made, and I had seen the look before, when hopelessness and hostility made her self-destructive. A part of her wanted to die, or maybe a part of her already had.