by Mario Bolduc
“There’s something else,” Roselyn flatly stated. “Albert owns a gun.”
The night before, Brian Pallister had called her back. He was standing in front of the box she’d asked him to pick up at the warehouse. Roselyn told him to open it. Inside, targets, ear and eye protection. Anything else? No. Nothing.
So the handgun that should have been there had disappeared. Likely taken by Albert. Unbeknownst to Roselyn.
A Beretta. Purchased by Roselyn in 1976 when the wives of Huntsville penitentiary COs had been offered weapons classes.
Peter sighed. “Do you remember the gun’s serial number?”
That night Roselyn went out to grab a bite in town, despite Peter’s invitation to share a meal with him and Adrian. She needed to clear her head. Alone.
She slipped on a flattering dress, tamed her hair, and put on some makeup. Then she stepped out to prowl the streets on her own, as she used to do when she was sixteen. A fantastic feeling that, too. Nostalgia had been her closest companion since her return to Huntsville. That night, for the first time, she had no desire to push it away, to ignore it. No, instead, she let herself fall prey to it entirely, not denying herself the pleasure of enjoying the city where she’d once been happy. Time had moved on, endlessly on. She missed her youth, that blessed period when her life still held all the promises that adulthood would take away.
She hadn’t truly fulfilled those promises, had she? Norah’s passing had been a terrible shock. And yet Roselyn didn’t think her daughter’s death had truly modified the way she evaluated her own life.
Her only real failure had been Albert. She had never been able to change him as she had so desired when they first met. She was the one who had compromised, shaped herself to his cracks and bumps and mounds. Made herself his negative.
Despite all that, she’d loved him. And still loved him. Despite everything she knew, or thought she knew, about him. Another woman might judge him harshly. But she wasn’t another woman; she was Roselyn Kerensky, who would have given anything to see Albert appear suddenly around a corner and force him to answer a few questions about some stray locks of hair.
A trophy, she thought.
So he’d found pleasure in killing. That was the reason he’d refused promotions: to continue to kill in utmost impunity, to add a few more locks of hair to his collection.
Roselyn was sure she’d end up running into prison guards, maybe some of her husband’s old colleagues, no matter which restaurant she chose. But tonight it didn’t matter. She ended up at Fenian’s Pub, a place that hadn’t existed when she lived in the city. A sort of Irish coffee bar that tried a bit too hard to look modern — at least what passed for modern five years ago in Houston. Young waitresses in black tights, younger customers, some young enough to be her grandchildren! One day, not too far away, Adrian would come here with his girlfriend.
She sat at the bar and soon enough was chatting away with the barman — he was Norah’s age — and then with a few customers who came near to chat her up. I’ll feel guilty tomorrow, she told herself as she danced with one of them, twirling around like a teenager. Roselyn hadn’t danced in a century, at least! The first time she went to the Christmas party of a theatre troupe she’d participated in, some computer technician drunk as a skunk had chased her all night. She’d sworn off such activities since.
But here, now, it was different. After a few glasses of wine, she began to feel light, free, unburdened as she spoke with one customer after another, as if every person she talked with could offer a life-changing experience, though surely they’d fade into a haze as soon as the night was over. She was carefree, a tantalizing and surprising feeling all at once.
Roselyn burst out of the bar at two in the morning, closing time. The barman locked the door behind her. He offered to drive her back to Peter’s place, but Roselyn declined the invitation. She could just imagine herself arriving at her son-in-law’s place with the barman on her arm — an old woman with a young man. She was just imagining things, of course; the barman’s intentions were surely sincere. At her age you couldn’t expect anything else from men.
She found herself suddenly alone in the middle of the night surrounded by thousands of inmates, and smiled at the notion. Exactly the same as when she was a young woman, though she hadn’t thought about it at the time. These days she couldn’t help but turn her mind to that reality. Irony, she told herself, sharpens with age when we begin to sense the absurdity of the world surrounding us.
Naturally, her feet guided her to her old house. How many times had Roselyn pretended to be sleeping deeply when Norah came home late at night, some new boyfriend in tow. Or returning with Peter, her best friend, the one who’d become her lover and would ask for her hand. Why hadn’t he ever remarried? Too kind perhaps. And a little beige, you had to admit. Roselyn could easily imagine the long, boring nights with a policeman who couldn’t help but yammer away about his work. At least Albert had always spared her the details of his.
The place hadn’t changed much. The trees had grown. The new owners — two professors at Sam Houston University — had repainted the front door and changed the garage door, but everything else seemed as it used to be. It was strange to be there in the middle of the night without being able to tiptoe up the stairs and slip into bed. To find Albert there, still covered in prison stink. But she was no longer that Roselyn; she’d been chased out of his life without regard.
One night, it was in August she remembered, a few years after their wedding, while Norah was spending the summer at Camp Connally, Roselyn had awoken to a cold, empty bed. Worried, she’d found Albert sitting on the porch, lost in thought. She’d approached him without a sound, thinking he was sleeping, but he turned and looked up at her. Sorrow was painted on his face. There had been an execution earlier that day.
She crouched next to her husband without a word. He draped his arm tenderly around her shoulder. Just as her father had done when she was a child, when they curled up together after dinner. With Albert at her side, she felt that same sensation of contentment, of peace that no one and nothing could destroy. The State of Texas’s hangman wouldn’t have allowed it.
“You can’t sleep because a man is dead?”
“No. Because Norah’s not here.”
Roselyn had been surprised by the answer. Each summer Norah left for Big Thicket with a gaggle of other kids her age. She spent the summer at Camp Connally — she eventually met Peter there. Adrian also went to the camp, though his father wasn’t a penitentiary employee.
“She’ll be back in three weeks.”
“I’m scared she’ll hurt herself, or worse …”
“You’re exaggerating. Nothing’s ever happened there. It’s a safe place.”
“I’m afraid, anyway.”
That year, when Norah returned from camp, Albert had taken her in his arms and held her tight, tighter than usual.
Norah.
Poor Norah.
She always seemed so tired. Slept late on weekends and during the week it was practically impossible to get her out of bed and send her on her way to McCarthy Aeronautics, where she worked in human resources. Worried, Peter had insisted she see a doctor. Tests soon showed she suffered from chronic kidney failure. The constant trips to Houston to the Texas Kidney Institute began. Dialysis and other treatment followed.
One night, when Peter returned home with Adrian in tow, he found her in bed, her face bloodless. Paramedics transported her to Houston. She received dialysis once, twice. Her kidney doctor informed Peter she only had a few weeks left to live. She wouldn’t be returning home.
Albert was utterly devastated. He spent his days at the hospital, at his daughter’s bedside, with Peter. Stood vigil. Refused to eat. Anyone who stumbled into the room by accident would have taken a moment to figure out who was dying. All through Norah’s last days, Albert weakened, withered, as if in solidarity with his daughter. In the final few days, Norah fell into a coma, but Albert stayed there, seated in a straigh
t-backed chair, holding his daughter’s fingers tightly in his hand.
When Norah passed away, Albert was still sitting beside her. Roselyn was there, too, of course, as was Peter. Adrian, distraught by the repeated, demoralizing visits to the hospital, didn’t have the strength to accompany his family, so Peter left him with a neighbour.
Over that period, Roselyn had kept busy, taking care of everything, since both Albert and Peter had been unable to function. She immersed herself in details to keep sadness at bay. It was only after Norah died that her anguish bubbled to the surface. It was as if she hadn’t wanted to show her powerlessness to her devastated husband and son-in-law.
Peter and Roselyn had agreed to meet in a restaurant in the northern suburbs on the road to Dallas after work. He opened a file folder on the table as she pulled out a pill.
“Would you like some water, Roselyn?”
“Thanks.”
Once she’d taken her medication, he said, “The first lock. Blond hair. Nothing in the FBI database on it. The brown hair, though, they got a hit.”
In 1993 American justice had begun accepting DNA evidence as irrefutable. And so, in 1997, officers at every level started collecting DNA samples from every arrested person and compiling them in an FBI database. This so-called “administrative” procedure had made police work far easier.
Every criminal arrested since 1997 had a DNA sample in the FBI’s database.
“The frizzy hair is from Angel Clements. Born in Georgia, arrested in 1998 for grand theft auto. Resale of stolen electronics, too. Pimping. The classic route for a thug coming out of black ghettoes, like the one in Savannah.”
He’d been abandoned, careened from one foster home to another, running away often, hanging out with the wrong crowd. A few misdemeanors in childhood, and once he’d turned eighteen, the pattern continued until he found himself in prison. Three years in jail …
“Here in Huntsville?” Roselyn asked.
“No, in Georgia.”
Roselyn couldn’t understand the link to her husband. “Was a member of his family executed by Albert?” she suggested, trying to get Peter back on track.
“Never any official connection with Albert or the Texas penitentiary system.”
“But how …”
“Angel Clements was shot and killed on November 16, 2006.”
Roselyn felt nauseated. The next day Albert visited a hospital in Galveston for treatment of a burned hand.
Peter had come to the same conclusion. “The Savannah Police Department never found the killer. Or the weapon. Ballistic tests showed it was a Beretta.”
The investigation had concluded it was a drug-related killing. With Clements’s criminal past and the fact that the police hadn’t been contacted by family members clamouring for answers, no one had worked too hard to find the killer. Soon it was case closed and down the memory hole.
Three years later, a few strands of hair, another trophy in the former executioner’s scrapbook.
It was altogether possible that Albert had been the killer. Perhaps even likely.
But why?
Albert had gotten the Beretta from Roselyn and learned how to use it. Had he practised shooting old tin cans somewhere out in the woods? Roselyn had no idea. But it seemed clear that once he thought he knew the gun well enough Albert had travelled to Savannah, found Angel Clements, and shot him in the back of the head. In cold blood.
But he’d injured himself with the Beretta. Back in Texas, the former executioner had stopped at the University of Texas medical school, which was why he hadn’t been treated in Huntsville.
“It just doesn’t sound like Albert,” she said. “I mean, the whole thing feels out of character.”
“I agree with you.”
“Something extraordinary must have happened for him to resort to violence.”
Roselyn’s husband was a civil servant. He’d never lifted a hand against anyone. Wouldn’t have ever turned a gun on someone.
In his eyes, the death he meted out to the condemned man wasn’t an act of violence but simply the continuation of a decision made by a judge and jury, by an appellate court and the governor. In short, by the entire justice system.
But in the case of Clements, if Roselyn’s suspicions turned out to be true, Albert had taken the unusual decision of acting outside the law without the protection it offered him.
“Perhaps to punish him for a crime,” she told Peter.
“I’m sorry?”
“Angel Clements might have committed a murder and never been punished for it. So Albert would have felt the need to inflict the death sentence.”
Peter nodded. “Maybe. But Clements doesn’t fit the bill. He was never charged for a violent crime. On the other hand, he might have been responsible for some action against Albert himself. The fact that he retrieved the gun without telling you, the whole series of events seems to me like he went to Savannah looking to take the law into his own hands.”
In Peter’s eyes, Albert had some unfinished business with this stranger. The only way to get back at the man? In utmost secrecy, shooting him dead, knowing no one would look too hard for the killer.
“What should we do?” Roselyn asked.
“We need to give everything we’ve found to Kenneth Brownstein.”
18
Roosevelt Okambo’s Cessna took off early from Bukoba. The night before, after his conversation with Teresa Mwandenga, Max had contracted his services to take him to Ukerewe Island. The accountant had given him the foundation’s financial data, and Max had called the account manager at the local branch of the National Bank of Commerce. The man had confirmed the organization’s solvency. Max had also contacted a few customers and suppliers. Mwandenga hadn’t lied to him: The Colour of Respect Foundation was in good financial health.
What was more, the money Max had gotten off Jonathan Harris was nowhere to be found in the foundation’s books or in the personal accounts of the two lawyers. Max’s hunch had been right: the money had disappeared, cashed in by some stranger — perhaps the same person who’d killed both women.
In the plane, Max scanned the brochure he’d gotten from the receptionist at his hotel. Hilly Ukerewe, Lake Victoria’s largest island, a paradise for birdwatchers. Namely eagles and black-crowned cranes. “Fishing is one of Ukerewe’s most enjoyable activities,” the document claimed. Bicycle tourism also seemed like a popular option. Bikes were available for rent, and a network of paths criss-crossed the island.
Nothing, however, on the albinos who’d found refuge on Ukerewe, fleeing human traffickers. No one seemed to know when this exodus had begun. But the elders remembered albino children, abandoned on the island’s beaches by their parents who had sailed across from one of Lake Victoria’s numerous lakeside villages. Fishermen would pick them up and bring them to local families, who adopted the children, allowing them to live a normal life. Well, almost normal.
Most of them couldn’t read or write. Hence the importance of Sandy Hill School, founded with the help, among others, of European donors recruited by Dr. Scofield in London.
Max knew that Valéria was fully committed to the initiative. Sandy Hill was her pet project, as Teresa Mwandenga had confirmed.
Why had the lawyer visited a few days before her death? Max could have simply called Naomi Mulunga and questioned her over the phone, but he was convinced it would be more effective to surprise her. Not that he believed she was responsible for anything. Instead, since he’d landed in Bukoba, he had the impression he was operating in the full light of day, observed by everyone, beginning with Inspector Kilonzo. The Tanzanian police officer wasn’t aware of this trip, unless Okambo had warned him, which Max thought might be possible.
The island appeared suddenly, followed by Nansio’s airport — even more rudimentary than Bukoba’s. The pilot had communicated with a taxi company. A small van waited for Max at the end of the airstrip made of hard, deep red earth.
“Sandy Hill School, please,” he asked the teen
age driver.
Max was expecting a bumpy ride and wasn’t disappointed. The young man played chicken with every curve, yanking the steering wheel at the last possible moment in a cloud of red dust. His leaden foot on the accelerator, his car rattling its last breath, the teenager seemed to be auditioning for a stuntman’s role. Asking him to slow down would have been useless. They reached the school in one piece, and Max got out on shaky legs. In the shady schoolyard, fifty or so children were in the midst of a physical education class. A number of them were albinos. Their teacher walked toward the fence that marked the limits of the property. “Can I help you?”
Max asked for Naomi Mulunga, not mentioning the reason for his visit, though adding he was there following an invitation from Dr. Scofield. A white lie which, he thought, would reassure the school’s principal and motivate her to meet him quickly.
The tactic didn’t work. Thirty minutes later Max was still standing in the schoolyard, left to hope that Mulunga wasn’t trying to reach the ophthalmologist to check on his claims.
A burst of children’s laughter attracted Max’s attention. Curious, he walked toward an open door and peered in. There was a large space in the middle of a room left by a table moved to the far wall. Small albino children were playing with toys similar to the truck found in Valéria’s office. Max asked one of the children to show him his toy. It, too, was made from materials discarded by the Mwanza Brewery. Farther off, in a sort of net, were other identical toys. It was clear now; Valéria had gotten the small truck from this place when she came through to visit. A gift for Daniel. Who was he? And what role had he played in Valéria’s death?
“Mr. Cheskin?”
Max turned around. A teacher stood in the doorway. He led him toward a short corridor that began on the other side of the schoolyard. A few moments later he opened the door to a room shrouded in darkness, its shutters closed tight. Seated behind a desk, Naomi Mulunga lifted her eyes as Max entered.
