Victim

by Gayle Wilson

  "I'm going to call your sister." Sarah's voice had gone flat, wiped clean of the animation that had been there only a moment ago. "I'll tell her to come over and stay with you tonight."

  She stood, and without looking at either of them, picked her jacket up off the back of the couch where Mac was sitting. She shrugged into it as she walked toward the foyer, every motion abrupt, conveying anger where her voice had not.

  When she opened the front door, the outside air swept through, penetrating the front room of the thirties-style bungalow. She slammed it closed behind her, leaving Mac alone with Dan Patterson's mother.

  The old woman lowered her head, putting her hands over her face. She didn't look at Mac again.

  He sat there for a couple of minutes, unsure which of them needed whatever comfort he could offer the most. Finally he stood, feeling incredibly awkward to have been a witness to this. The noise he made getting up off the vinyl couch was enough that Mrs. Patterson had to have heard it although she never lifted her head.

  "Will you be okay until your sister gets here?"

  No response.

  "Mrs. Patterson?"

  No movement from the huddled figure in the chair before the blaze of the cheerfully artificial gas fire.

  "I'm going to go outside and check on your daughter-in-law. Somebody will be here with you soon," he added as a sop to his conscience.

  She still didn't look up, and in a way, he was relieved. All he wanted was an excuse to get out of here. Away from the overheated room and its faintly unpleasant odor that was probably equal parts old age and loneliness.

  He headed toward the door Sarah had just banged shut, but once he reached it, he was unable to stop himself from looking back. Dan Patterson's mother sat unmoving, shoulders hunched, both hands over her face. She was still sitting that way when Mac closed the door behind him.

  "She's wrong, you know," Mac said.

  Sarah turned from her unthinking contemplation of the occasional lights they passed, shining out into the darkness from houses scattered haphazardly along the rural two-lane.

  She supposed they were headed back into the city, although they hadn't discussed a destination. Actually, she didn't think they'd spoken since she'd asked him if she could use his cell to call Dan's aunt Pauline.

  "You aren't responsible for what some madman does," he went on.

  "Not even if I goaded him into doing it?"

  "You can't know that. You don't even know if your ex-husband's death has anything to do with what you did."

  She turned back to the window, her eyes studying the black emptiness, broken now only by the mile markers that measured their progress. Progress to where? She wondered. Where the hell did she go from here?

  "She'll figure that out eventually." he said.

  "She's in the beginning stages of dementia. So., .she probably won't. It doesn't matter."

  Nothing seemed to matter now. Not even Tate.

  She would feel better if she could find some spark of the anger that had driven her to take Dan's gun that morning and seek out Danny's murderer. It seemed there was nothing that vital left inside her now.

  There was, instead, an overwhelming sense of despair. Sadness. And an exhaustion that seemed to have drained the life force out of her as surely as—

  She took a breath, forcing her mind away from that comparison. She'd become veiy good at doing that during the last three years. Very accomplished at not thinking about the things that didn't bear thinking about, until it seemed there was nothing left she could think about.

  "Alzheimer's?" Donovan asked.

  He meant Dan's mother, she realized.

  "They can't really tell, but...probably It happens so gradually. I haven't been to see her in a long time. Too long," she added, confessing the other guilt she was feeling right now. "She always wanted to talk about Danny. Or to ask when Dan and I were going to start living together again. It just all got to be too hard. Finally I stopped going:'

  "You have to take her condition into consideration."

  He meant about what Louise had said. And of course, he was right. Except...

  "Except that's what I did."

  There was a long pause. She was aware that during part of it he had turned his head, looking toward her instead of at the highway.

  "What you did?"

  "About Danny's death. I blamed Dan. 1 did the same thing Louise did tonight because I needed someone to blame. Someone I could make hurt like I was hurting. I wanted to hurt somebody." She had known what she was doing, intellectually at least, but it hadn't prevented her from spewing forth her anger and bitterness. "I picked Dan. So...what she said tonight is only fair."

  "This isn't about fairness or wanting to hurt people or even about placing blame, Mrs. Patterson. All it's about is the crazies out there. No matter what your mother-in-law says, you aren't responsible for your husband's death. The only person responsible for that is the one who took that knife out of your kitchen drawer and used it on him."

  "Do you believe it was some stranger? A burglar?"

  The silence before he answered was long enough that she had begun to think maybe he did. Or that he didn't want to tell her if he didn't.

  "Sonny's right. At this stage, it could be anybody. It could be somebody looking to jump on Tate's bandwagon."

  "Or..." She had heard that in his voice. A lack of conviction.

  "Or Tate sees you as a danger"

  "He should. I'd kill him in a heartbeat."

  She wondered if he was thinking, as she was, about the morning he'd stopped her from doing that. She'd been furious at him then.

  She should be even more angry at him now if she truly believed Tate had killed Dan. That meant another person was dead. Another person who had, at one time, belonged to her. A person who wouldn't be gone if Mac Donovan hadn't kept her from shooting Tate.

  Yet right now she couldn't seem to work up any anger at all. Maybe she was just too tired. Or maybe Detective Donovan's solicitousness had confused her. Defused her. All she knew was that she was in the car with the cop who had protected her son's killer, and she didn't have enough energy to hate him.

  Actually, she just didn't want to think about this anymore. She wanted to close her eyes and forget it had happened. If she could, she would erase the last few days, from the time she'd pulled Dan's gun out of her purse until now.

  Because no matter whose version of Dan's murder you believed, Louise was right. If she hadn't stood on the courthouse steps that morning and tried to shoot Samuel Tate, none of this would have happened.

  Eleven

  "I've been thinking." Mac said.

  Sarah turned away from the window in response, but it took him several seconds to work up nerve enough to tell her what he'd been thinking.

  "You can't go back to your apartment." He didn't mention that it was just as obvious she wasn't going to be spending the night with her mother-in-law. "You want to think about a motel? With the dog, that could get complicated."

  There was a long pause before she answered. "I don't have a credit card for a motel. And I'm not sure how much cash I have on me. I didn't take time to count it up this afternoon because I was hurrying home to meet Dan, but...I doubt it's enough for that."

  Who the hell doesn't have a credit card these days? Mac wondered.

  "How about a friend? Somebody from work?" he said aloud.

  There was a pause. "No," she said simply. No explanation.

  "Okay. Then... I've got a couch."

  The words were in his mouth before he'd had time to rethink the wisdom of making the offer that had just occurred to him. But it made sense, anyway you looked at it.

  He couldn't put her out on the street. There were several shelters in the city, of course, but she was not only a material witness in a murder investigation, she was also a potential victim.

  The whole time he was working out that justification, what Sonny said echoed unpleasantly in his head. Just because his partner had accused him of trying
to take advantage of her didn't mean he didn't have some kind of obligation here, he reasoned. After all, if he hadn't prevented her from shooting Tate—

  "Are you offering to let me stay with you?"

  He couldn't hear any emotion in her question. Not shock or gratitude or disgust.

  "If you want to. Strictly..." Strictly what? he wondered, searching for some word that would work. Business? Professional? What? When he couldn't find anything that approached what he wanted to say, he changed the sentence. "Just until you figure out where you go from here."

  She didn't answer, but he could feel her eyes on him.

  He turned his head, meeting them. And then wished he hadn't.

  She looked lost. Beaten. Vulnerable.

  "Are you sure that...?" Her search for the appropriate word was no more successful than his. "Are you sure it will be all right?"

  "It'll be fine"

  "You're not married."

  He didn't know how she'd gotten to that from what he'd said. Or maybe she hadn't. Maybe she was just curious.

  "Divorced. Law enforcement officers have one of the highest divorce rates of any profession."

  Another of those things he'd read somewhere that had stuck in his head. Maybe it had helped to think that's what had happened with him and Karen.

  "Any children?"

  "No. Thank God." he added, and then wondered, belatedly, if she'd take offense. She had lost her son, and here he was claiming to be glad he didn't have any. "Divorce is hard on kids."

  "Your wife didn't like you being a detective?"

  He thought about whether Karen had liked it or not. but it wasn't really that he was a detective. Not just that.

  "She didn't like the hours. The pay. The lack of respect. I don't know. In the end she didn't like much of anything."

  Another silence. Of course, there wasn't much she could comment on in that litany of woes.

  "I don't have any clothes," she said finally.

  "1 can find something for you to sleep in."

  "And you're sure...?" The question faded.

  He wasn't, but he didn't see anything else he could do. Even if he didn't believe somebody from the department should be keeping an eye on her, no shelter was going to take her with the dog. At least he didn't think they would.

  "I sleep on that couch half the time anyway."

  "Why?"

  "I go to sleep watching the news. Too lazy to get up and go to bed, I guess."

  And the noise from the television keeps me from figuring out how empty the place is. How empty the bed is.

  Neither of those were reasons he'd ever before acknowledged, not even mentally. Which wasn't to say they weren't valid. Or that he hadn't been aware of them.

  "I really appreciate this," she said.

  "You need me to stop at a drugstore or something? Pick up a toothbrush? Something for the dog to eat?"

  "He's been fed tonight, but...I usually give him a can in the morning."

  "We can stop. You probably need a few things. I'll get some doughnuts. For the morning."

  "Is that what you eat for breakfast?"

  "I eat coffee for breakfast. I figured you'd need something. You have anything to eat tonight?"

  If she'd had time to feed the dog, maybe she'd made a sandwich or something before she'd gone to take her bath.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "You need to eat."

  Despite the platitude, he couldn't blame her for the loss of appetite, but he didn't want her passing out on him. He heard her sigh and expected another denial.

  She said instead, "I'll eat one of the doughnuts if you get them."

  "Okay."

  "Did you ask me to stay with you because you really think Tate was waiting for me this afternoon?"

  There had been a small jolt of anxiety when she'd begun that question, but its finish was nothing like he'd been expecting.

  He should have been. He'd seen her bounce back from shock to asking the hard questions before. She'd done it when Sonny was interrogating her.

  He thought about lying. There were certainly other valid reasons for the offer he'd made, including that he didn't know where he'd take her if not to his place.

  But she deserved to know the truth about what he'd been feeling in his gut since Sonny had told him about that message. He still believed it, despite Johnson's opinion. Despite the change in methodology used in Dan Patterson's murder.

  "I think he might have been."

  "And you feel responsible."

  He hadn't. Not until she put it into words. Now that she had...

  "I'm a cop, Mrs. Patterson. Protecting people is what I do. You just happen to be the one who needs that right now."

  He hadn't meant for that to sound as unfeeling as it probably had. Or as dismissive.

  She said nothing in response. After a moment, she turned her head, again looking out the window at the passing night.

  What he felt against his face was cold. Wet. And unfamiliar enough to bring him out of a sleep so deep he was groggy with it.

  He put his hand up, brushing at whatever had touched him and encountered something solid. Something that moved when he touched it. Something—

  "What the hell?"

  He had finally come awake enough to recognize that the dog was nosing his face. He pushed him away, but apparently not strongly enough to discourage him. The mutt came back, licking his chin before Mac could lift onto his elbow to put his face out of range.

  "He's always been partial to men."

  The voice came from across the room. Like his identification of the dog's nose against his face, it took him a couple of seconds to place it. A couple more to remember why Sarah Patterson and her dog were in his apartment.

  "Come here, Tobe." She made a ticking sound with her tongue that the dog ignored.

  Following that noise, Mac located her. She was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall.

  She was wearing the T-shirt he'd given her to sleep in. He could see its white shape in the light provided by security lamps in the parking lot outside.

  Her face was little more than a pale blur, but he could see the dark spot that represented her mouth open when she spoke again. "I'm sorry he woke you."

  The dog made another attempt to sniff him, but by now Mac was alert enough to deflect it. He managed to make the reflexive push a halfhearted caress, mostly because he felt sorry for the animal.

  The dog had clearly been confused by what was going on. The long ride. Ending up in some strange place, where nothing was familiar except the woman who watched them from across the room.

  Mac's eyes considered the window through which the glow from the halogens was seeping into the room. It was definitely still night. The way he felt, it had to be, but since Sarah was up, he had needed to verify his physical evaluation of how many hours' sleep he'd really had.

  "What are you doing in here?"

  "I couldn't sleep."

  That was hardly surprising. Even so, most people would have stayed in the bedroom. Turned on the light and read maybe.

  "You okay?"

  He eased up a little more to try and evaluate that. He'd been pretty insistent about sleeping on the couch last night because he thought she might feel better about the situation if she had a door she could close and lock between them.

  There had been a few moments of uneasiness after they'd gotten here. The awkward discussion of where each of them should sleep. His retrieval of something from his dresser for her to wear. Deciding together what to do with the dog.

  Mac had been the one who'd opted not to tie him up. He'd kept seeing that hangdog expression after the tech had tethered him to the table leg. He'd figured, ridiculously he supposed, that the dog had been almost as traumatized as the woman, so he'd left him in the kitchen with a bowl of water and one of the cans of dog food they'd picked up on the way home.

  Home. For some reason the word resonated more strongly than usual. Maybe it was having someone else here. Someone
else breathing in the quiet darkness.

  "I just..." She strengthened her voice to try again. "I slept out, I guess."

  "You have a nightmare?"

  That would explain her reluctance to be alone. As if that needed any explanation other than what they'd discovered in her bedroom tonight.

  "Things seemed to keep running through my head. I can't shut them off."

  He nodded, and then realized she probably couldn't see him. Not any better than he could see her.

  "It's hard to put traumatic events out of your mind."

  "I did this after Danny's death. After I found out what he'd done."

  She meant Tate. After she'd found out what he'd done to her son.

  Living with those pictures in the task force room all these months. Mac had fought those reoccurring images himself. And he didn't even know those kids. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to know those things had been done to someone you loved.

  "You want some coffee?" He finally pushed up to a sitting position.

  When he'd rummaged in his drawers for the T-shirt and sweatpants he'd given her to sleep in. he'd grabbed a pair of the latter for himself. It wasn't his usual sleeping attire, but then this wasn't the usual night.

  "Are you ready to get up?"

  "Why not? I don't think either of us is going to sleep anymore."

  "I could say that I didn't mean to wake you. but... that wouldn't be true."

  "You sic Toby on me?" Mac reached down to ruffle the fur behind the dog's ears.

  She laughed, the sound reassuring somehow coming out of the darkness. "I didn't stop him. I probably woke him up."

  "It's okay. I don't take much sleep. That's something else you learn early in this profession."

  "Not to need sleep?"

  "To sleep when you can. Where you can. To go without when you have to."

  "When do you have to?"

  "Probably the same times you do. When you can't get stuff out of your head."

  "You do that?"

  "Not as often as I used to. When I first started—

  He stopped, thinking about those days. He'd thrown up at the sight of the first floater he'd been sent out on. Mostly that had been the stench, but not all of it. This was a climate that wasn't kind to bodies that had been dumped. Too much moisture. Too much heat. Insects. And plenty of wildlife.