The door was shut, and when I opened it she was there, sitting placidly on the edge of the bed where Marino lay, a plastic trash bag over his head and taped around his neck. What happened next was simultaneous. I released the safety and racked the shotgun as she grabbed his pistol off the table and stood. Our guns raised together and I fired. The deafening blast hit her like a fierce gust of wind, and she fell back against the wall as I pumped and fired and pumped and fired again and again.
She slid down the wall, and blood streaked the girlish wallpaper. Smoke and burned powder filled the air. I ripped the bag off Marino’s head. His face was blue and I felt no pulse in his carotids. I pounded his chest, blew into his mouth once, and compressed his chest four times, and he gasped. He began to breathe. Grabbing the phone, I called 911 and screamed as if I were on a police radio during a mayday.
“Officer down! Officer down! Send an ambulance!”
“Ma’am, where are you?”
I had no idea of the address.
“The Steiner house! Please hurry!” I left the phone off the hook.
I tried to sit Marino up in bed but he was too heavy.
“Come on. Come on.”
I turned his face to one side and slipped my fingers under his jaw to keep it pulled forward so his airway would stay clear. I glanced around for pill bottles, for any indication of what she might have given him. Empty liquor glasses were on the table by the bed. I sniffed them and smelled bourbon, and I stared at her numbly. I saw blood and brains everywhere as I trembled like a creature in its agonal stages. I shook and twitched as if in the throes of death. She was slumped, almost sitting, with her back against the wall in a spreading puddle of blood. Her black clothes were soaked and riddled with holes, her head hanging to one side and dripping on the floor.
When sirens sounded they seemed to wail forever before I was aware of many feet hurrying upstairs, of the sounds of a stretcher banging and being unfolded, and then somehow Wesley was there. He put his arms around me and held me hard as men in jumpsuits surrounded Marino. Red and blue lights throbbed outside the window and I realized I had shot out the glass. Air blowing in was very cold. It stirred blood-spattered curtains of balloons flying free through a sky pale yellow. I looked at the ice-blue duvet and stuffed animals all around. There were rainbow decals on the mirror and a poster of Winnie the Pooh.
“It’s her room,” I told Wesley.
“It’s all right.” He stroked my hair.
“It’s Emily’s room,” I said.
21
I left Black Mountain the next morning, which was a Monday, and Wesley wanted to go with me but I chose to go alone. I had unfinished business, and he needed to stay with Marino, who was in the hospital after having Demerol pumped out of his stomach. He would be fine, at least physically, then Wesley was bringing him to Quantico. Marino needed to be debriefed like an agent who’s been under deep cover. He needed rest, security, and his friends.
On the plane I had a row to myself and made many notes. The case of Emily Steiner’s murder had been cleared when I had killed her mother.
I had given my statement to the police, and the case would be under investigation for a while. But I was not worried and had no reason to be. I just did not know what to feel. It bothered me some that I did not feel sorry.
I was aware only of feeling so tired that the slightest exertion was an effort. It was as if I had been transfused with lead. Even moving the pen was hard, and my mind would not work fast. At intervals I found myself staring without seeing or blinking, and I would not know how long I had been doing that or where I had gone. My first job was to write up the case, and in part this was for the FBI investigation, and in part it was for the police investigating me. The pieces were fitting together well, but some questions would never be answered because there was no one left to tell. For example, we would never know exactly what happened the night of Emily’s death. But I had developed a theory.