“That’s right.” I get up and jab logs with the poker, heat pressing against my face, sparks exploding up the chimney like a flock of spooked starlings. “God forbid that we should be inconvenienced.” I jab hard with my good arm, as if I am trying to kill the fire. I sit back down, flushed and suddenly on the verge of tears. I know all about post-traumatic stress syndrome and accept that I am suffering from it. I am anxious and startle easily. A little while ago I turned on a local classical music station and Pachelbel overwhelmed me with grief and I began to sob. I know the symptoms. I swallow hard and steady myself. Righter watches me in silence, with a tired look of sad nobility, as if he is Robert E. Lee remembering a painful battle.
“What will happen to me?” I ask. “Or do I just go on with my life now as if I never worked these God-awful murders as if I never autopsied his victims or escaped with my life when he forced his way into my house? What will my role in this be, Buford, supposing he’s tried in New York?”
“That will be up to Ms. Berger,” he replies.
“Free lunches.” It is a term I use when referring to victims who never see justice. In the scenario Righter is suggesting, I, for example, would be a free lunch because Chandonne will never go to trial in New York for what he intended to do to me in Richmond. More unconscionably, he will not be given so much as a slap on the hand for the murders he committed here, either. “You’ve just thrown this entire city to the wolves,” I tell him.
He realizes the double entendre the same moment I do. I see it in his eyes. Richmond has already been thrown to one wolf, Chandonne, whose modus operand! when he began killing in France was to leave notes signed Le Loup-Garou, the werewolf. Now justice for this city’s victims will be in the hands of strangers, or more to the point, there will be no justice. Anything can happen. Anything will.
“What if France wants to extradite him?” I challenge Righter. “What if New York allows it?”
“We could cite what ifs until the moon turns blue,” he says.
I stare at him with open disdain.
“Don’t take this personally, Kay.” Righter gives me that pi-ous, sad look again. “Don’t turn this into your personal war. We just want the bastard out of commission. Doesn’t matter who accomplishes that.”
I get up from my chair. “Well, it does matter. It sure as hell does,” I tell him. “You’re a coward, Buford.” I turn my back on him and walk out of the room.
Minutes later, from behind the shut door in my wing of the house, I hear Anna showing Righter out. Obviously, he lingered long enough to talk to her, and I wonder what he might have said about me. I sit on the edge of my bed, utterly lost. I can’t remember ever feeling this lonely, this frightened, and am relieved when I hear Anna coming down the hall. She knocks lightly on my door.
“Come in,” I say in an unsteady voice.
She stands in the doorway looking at me. I feel like a child, powerless, hopeless, foolish. “I insulted Righter,” I tell her. “Doesn’t matter if what I said was true. I called him a coward.”
“He thinks you are unstable right now,” she replies. “He is concerned. He is also ein Mann ohne Ruckgrat. A man without backbone, as we say where I come from.” She smiles a little.
“Anna, I’m not unstable.”
“Why are we in here when we can be enjoying the fire?” she says.
She intends to talk to me. “Okay,” I concede, “you win.”[“_Toc37098907”]
CHAPTER 5
I HAVE NEVER BEEN ANNA’S PATIENT. FOR THAT MAT-
ter, I have never had psychotherapy of any sort, which is not to say I have never needed it. Certainly I have. I don’t know anybody who can’t benefit from good counsel. It is simply that I am so private and don’t trust people easily and for good reason. There is no such thing as absolute discretion. I am a doctor. I know other doctors. Doctors talk to each other and to their family and friends. They tell secrets that they swear upon Hippocrates they will never utter to another soul. Anna switches off lamps. The late morning is overcast and as dark as dusk, and rose-painted walls catch firelight and make the living room irresistibly cozy. I am suddenly self-conscious. Anna has set the stage for my unveiling. I pick the rocker and she pulls an ottoman close and perches on the edge of it, facing me like a great bird hunched over its nest.