I have a handgun. I told her to keep it by her bed when I wasn’t here. But she wouldn’t touch it. No way. I offered to teach her how to shoot it, to get her one of her own. But no way. No way! And now this! She’s gone! Oh, God! And all these things I’m supposed to tell you about her, about her habits and everything, it doesn’t matter!”
“It does matter. Everything matters . . .”
“None of it matters because I know it wasn’t her he was after! He didn’t even know about her! He was after me!”
Silence.
“What makes you think that?”
Marino calmly asked.
“If it was him in the black car, then I know he was after me. No matter who he is, I’m the one who’s been writing about him. He’s seen my byline. He knows who I am.”
“Maybe.”
“Me! He was after me!”
“You may have been his target,” Marino matter-of-factly told her. “But we can’t know that for sure, Miss Turnbull. Me, I’ve got to consider all possibilities, like maybe he seen your sister somewhere, maybe on the campus or in a restaurant, a shop. Maybe he didn’t know she lived with somebody, especially if he followed her while you was at work – if he followed her at night and saw her come in when you wasn’t home, I’m saying. He may not have had any idea you’re her sister. It could be a coincidence. Was there any place she frequented, a restaurant, a bar, any place?”
Wiping her eyes again, she tried to remember. “There’s a deli on Ferguson within walking distance of the school. The School of Broadcasting. She ate lunch there once or twice a week, I think. She didn’t go to bars. Now and then we ate out at Angela’s on Southside but we were always together on those occasionsshe wasn’t alone. She may have gone other places, shops, I mean. I don’t know. I don’t know every single thing she did every minute of the day.”
“You say she moved in last August. She ever leave, maybe for the weekend, take any trips, that sort of thing?”
“Why?” She was bewildered. “You thinking someone followed her, someone from out of town?”
“I’m just trying to ascertain when she was here and when she wasn’t.”
She said shakily, “Last Thursday she went back to Chapel Hill to see her husband and spend some time with a friend. She was gone most of the week, got back on Wednesday. Today classes started, the first day of classes for the summer session.”
“He ever come here, the husband?”
“No,” she warily replied.
“He have any history of being rough with her, of violence-”
“No!” she blurted out. “Jeff didn’t do this to her! They both wanted a trial separation! There wasn’t any animosity between them! The pig who did this is the same pig who’s been doing it!”
Marino stared at the tape recorder on the table. A tiny redlight was flashing. He checked the pockets of his jacket and looked irritated. “I’m gonna have to go out to the car for a minute.”
He left Abby and me alone in the bright white living room.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence before she looked at me.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her face puffy. Bitterly, miserably, she said to me, “All those times I’ve wanted to talk to you. And now, here it is. This. You’re probably secretly glad. I know what your opinion of me is. You probably think I deserve it. I get a dose of what the people I write about must feel. Poetic justice.”
The remark cut me to the bone. I said with feeling, “Abby, you don’t deserve this. I would never wish this on you or anyone.”
Staring down at her tightly clenched hands, she painfully went on, “Please take care of her. Please. My sister. Oh, God. Please take care of Henna . . .”
“I promise I’ll take care of her . . .”
“You can’t let him get away with this! You can’t!”
I didn’t know what to say.
She looked up at me and I was startled by the terror in her eyes. “I don’t understand anything anymore. I don’t understand what’s going on. All these things I’ve been hearing. And this happens. I tried. I tried to find out, tried to find out from you. Now this. I don’t know who’s us or them anymore!”