Heart Of The Night

by Gayle Wilson

  It was, however, his voice Kate liked best. The transplanted Yankee speech patterns had softened just enough to take the edge off. He was a good-looking man, and she had begun to think of him as a friend, but it was obvious he wasn’t feeling friendly tonight and his usually pleasant voice was coldly furious.

  “What the hell made you think you had the right to walk into the man’s house at night?” he asked. “You’re damn lucky he didn’t shoot you. I would have. What the hell were you thinking, August?”

  “I’ve already told the cops all this. I saw the dog tied outside and the open gate. It’s never open, so—”

  “How do you know Barrington’s gate is ‘never open’?” he interrupted the reasons she’d attempted to offer before. “You take a survey of his neighbors? They tell you that if the gate’s open, there’s a crime in progress? The bomber always leaves it open when he visits? If you really believe something’s wrong, August, you call the police. You don’t waltz in on your own. It won’t wash. You just wanted to talk to Barrington about what happened today, and so you break into his home and—”

  “I didn’t break in. The damn door was open. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  What she didn’t tell him, would never tell him of course, was how she knew the gate was always closed. She wouldn’t admit the number of times she’d driven by Barrington’s home. Kahler’s reaction was making her question what she had done. Not tomght—she knew what she’d done tonight was beyond the bounds—but before. To question her growing fascination with the central character of the story she was working on.

  She even had a file folder of material she’d collected on Thorne Barrington. But if she didn’t admit the number of times she’d driven by his mansion, she certainly wouldn’t confess the number of times she’d studied the black-and-white photographs that folder contained.

  Maybe Kahler was right. Maybe she needed to back off, maybe even get Lew to assign someone else to finish the series. She had broken the first commandment, the prime directive. She had become personally involved with this story. She was no longer objective. Not about Barrington. And not about the bomber.

  “You broke a trust, August,” Kahler went on. “I agreed to talk to you, against my better judgment, I have to tell you. And then you go and pull something like this.”

  Kahler had been up-front from the first about his and the department’s motives in agreeing to help her with the series of articles she was writing about Jack. “Anything that will draw this joker out is okay with me,” he had said. “Just remember that we’re using you, August. Not the other way around.”

  So they had shared some dinners, all of which she’d put on her credit card, a legitimate business expense since they had talked about the bombings, with only an occasional foray into how the Braves were doing. And he took her calls, patiently answering her questions and guiding her series into something that might, they both hoped, spark a response in someone who had information about the bomber that they didn’t realize might be important. And in the process, she had come to consider Kahler a friend. Only gradually had Kate begun to wonder if the look she had occasionally surprised in his hazel eyes was rooted in the growing personal interest she’d been attributing it to.

  “I didn’t mention your name,” she said defensively. “Barrington doesn’t know you’ve talked to me. He won’t ever know. All he knows is I’m a reporter. He called us vampires.”

  That comment had bothered her. Feeding off other people’s pain. She knew there was a lot of truth to the accusation. It just wasn’t the way she usually thought about her job.

  “The media frenzy might be one of the reasons Barrington chose to disappear. Somebody sneaked into his hospital room and took pictures a couple of days after the bombing.”

  She hadn’t known that. Those photographs weren’t part of the collection in her file, of course. Those were all pre-Jack, from the social pages or stories about his courtroom, his family.

  “What happened to them?” she asked.

  “You want to publish them?” Kahler asked sarcastically. “They’d be spectacular, all right, released now, given the timing with the one in Tucson.”

  “You know better than that,” Kate denied hotly. “You know I’d never do anything like that. Lew wouldn’t.”

  “How could Barrington know? Somebody took those pictures. A reporter for some scum of a paper. At a time when he was…”

  Kahler paused to gather control, but Kate wouldn’t let her eyes fall from the accusation in his. She knew how people felt about journalists. None of this was new to her, but it hurt to find out this was what Kahler thought. The same things Barrington believed.

  “Did Barrington call you today?” she asked. A change of subject seemed prudent since, after tonight’s escapade, she wasn’t exactly in a position to argue the ethics of her profession.

  “As soon as his mail was delivered.”

  “Minutes before Draper got the package,” she guessed. The bomber’s revenge for his one failure had been a subtle torture. Before each bombing a warning of what was about to happen was delivered to the one man who had escaped, but never in time to allow the authorities to prevent the bombing.

  “He’s added a new refinement. The return address on the package sent to Draper was the judge’s.”

  “Barrington’s address?” she repeated in surprise. “Why would he do that?”

  “You’re asking me why Jack does the things he does? I don’t have any answer, August. Maybe to put the press back onto Barrington. More punishment. Like the warnings. Interest in the judge has died down, and Jack probably doesn’t like that. Maybe he knows how much Barrington hates publicity, and the news of the return address is bound to generate a lot if the authorities decide to release it.”

  “What did Barrington tell you when he called?” she asked.

  “Same as always. That Jack was going to kill again. That it would be in Tucson. And that he had sent Barrington his best wishes for another pleasant day.”

  Kate tried to imagine receiving such a message, and knowing, better than anyone else, exactly what was about to happen to the next victim. Being unable to do anything to prevent it. Seven warnings, all delivered to the one man who survived.

  “Did you ever wonder if he deliberately spared Barrington to be his messenger?” she asked. “To taunt the police.”

  “Maybe Jack was still learning,” Kahler said. “He screwed up, and Barrington didn’t die. If anything, that mistake caused him to move on to overkill. He’s making sure now there’s no chance anyone will survive.”

  “Have you ever seen Barrington, Kahler?”

  “He calls me. He sends me Jack’s letters. He’s meticulous about protecting whatever evidence they might provide, but I don’t meet him, August. Nobody sees him. Not since the bomb.”

  “But he always calls you.”

  “He thinks he’s obligated to reveal the contents of the notes. They created a pretty strong sense of duty in their boy.”

  The Barringtons and their golden boy, their only son and heir. There had been a younger child, she remembered, but something tragic had happened. An accident involving the family swimming pool. Then there had been only one son, the focus of all the Barrington ambitions, and all that very old money.

  “Did you ever wonder what it was like growing up as Harlan Thornedyke Barrington IV?” she asked.

  “I don’t have that big an imagination.”

  She didn’t know much about Kahler’s background, but enough to know there was no old money there. In answer to her question about how he’d gotten into law enforcement, he had told her he’d joined the Marines at seventeen and ended up an MP, but other than that single piece of personal information, Kahler had been as reticent about his own past as about the case he had worked on for the last three years.

  “The Barringtons are way out of my league, too,” Kate agreed. “They used to make the papers a lot. Only it was on the social pages then. I guess they didn’t hate repo
rters so much in those days.” There was a trace of bitterness in the comment. She had finally met Thorne Barrington, the man in the pictures she’d collected, but it hadn’t gone exactly like her daydreams about it.

  “The guy’s been through hell, August, and people like you want him to relive it, to satisfy the public’s lust for all the gory details. ‘How did it feel, Judge Barrington, to have a bomb explode in your hands? Can you tell our viewers how that’s affected your life?’“

  “I told him he was hiding,” Kate admitted. Put it all on the table, all the mea culpas. If Kahler wanted to despise her, she’d give him the right reasons.

  “Maybe he is,” Kahler said. “Maybe I would. Maybe you. Who knows? But it isn’t your right to question how Barrington reacts to what happened to him.”

  “You know better than that,” Kate said. “He’s news, Kahler, and he will be until Jack’s caught.”

  “You’re as bad as the rest of them,” Kahler said in disgust. “Leave him alone, Kate.”

  There wasn’t much left to say. No high moral ground to take in what she’d done. Neither of them credited her claim that her actions had been motivated by real concern for what she’d seen when she’d driven by. She didn’t particularly want to explain that driving by had become a normal part of her routine. Kahler thought she’d gone there to question Barrington about today’s bombing. The judge thought she was there because she was just like whoever had sneaked into his hospital room to take those pictures. A ghoul. A vampire.

  “Can I go now?” she asked when the silence between them grew beyond comfort.

  “You can go. I’ll try to get Barrington to drop the charges.”

  She thought about telling him not to bother, but she wasn’t sure enough about the consequences if the judge wanted to pursue it. Between being taken in by the patrol car and Kahler’s fury, she was beaten down enough to be afraid. Of what Lew would say. Of eventually ending up in jail.

  “Thanks,” she said. She waited a moment to see if Kahler’s anger would allow him to relent enough to say good-night.

  “Your car’s in the north lot. I had them bring it in.”

  “Thanks,” she said again, glad he seemed willing to allow her to escape. To run home and hide. To hide. That’s what she’d accused Barrington of doing, she suddenly realized, and all that had happened to her—

  “Don’t bother him again, August. Stay away from Barrington. I want your word on that.”

  “You’ve got it,” she said. “But it wasn’t what you thought. It wasn’t what he thought. I swear to you I wasn’t there because I wanted an interview.” She didn’t wait for a reply. She walked out of the small room with its revealing glass walls where she’d waited for Byron Kahler’s arrival and endured his fury and disgust. Then she went out through the Saturdaynight confusion of the station house.

  The heat hit her when she opened the heavy outside door, but she stopped a moment before she started down the shallow steps. She’d tell Lew tomorrow to give the series to someone else. She wasn’t sure she’d tell him all the reasons. It was enough that she’d lost Kahler’s trust. She knew she would have to endure a similar lecture from her boss when he heard what she’d done. She’d blown it, big-time, and maybe it was just as well But she wouldn’t pass on the file, she thought, embarrassed by the pictures she’d acquired. Like some kind of groupie. That she’d throw away. No one would ever know about that secret collection.

  She almost bumped into the man who came hurrying up the steps, briefcase in hand. Despite the haste with which he brushed past her, she had no trouble recognizing Barton Phillips. She wondered what one of Atlanta’s highest-priced attorneys was doing in a neighborhood precinct house this late at night.

  She glanced at her watch, surprised to find that it was almost eleven. She fought the automatic urge to follow Phillips inside, her instincts telling her that if he was here, something was going on, but for some reason she didn’t even want to know what. It could be the biggest story of the year, and all she wanted to do right now was go home. She started down the shallow stone steps, feeling more depressed than she could remember.

  When she reached the street, she had to stop and think what Kahler had told her about her car. North lot. She turned right and had taken several steps before she became aware of the black Mercedes paralleling her movement down the sidewalk. The windows, closed against the heat, were so heavily tinted that she couldn’t catch even a glimpse of the occupants

  She didn’t become concerned until the Mercedes turned into the parking lot, pulling to a stop before her, blocking the path to her car. Her heartbeat began to accelerate, her mind dredging up all the stones of carjackings and kidnappings she’d heard in the last few months. This was a police station. Surely…

  The rear window glided down smoothly, but she jumped at the unexpectedness of its motion.

  “Ms. August.” It was the same voice that had spoken out of the shadows tonight—Thorne Barrington. “I’d like to talk to you,” he said. “Would you get into the car, please?”

  The invitation was the last thing she’d expected. In view of what she’d just promised Kahler, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Except she hadn’t sought Barrington out. He had found her. However, considering the fool she’d made of herself tonight, she knew it was better that she apologize now and then do what Kahler had told her.

  Reluctantly, she put her hands on the top of the glass, bending her knees to look into the car. She could barely see Barrington, a silhouette against the blackness of the glass behind him, its tint dark enough to prevent the parking lot security lights, almost as bright as day, from really penetrating the car. He would be able to see her clearly enough, she knew, with one of the powerful lights just above her head.

  “Judge Barrington, I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what happened tonight,” she began. “I know it’s no excuse for entering your home, but I really thought—”

  “Ms. August, I would be deeply grateful if you’d just get into the car,” Thorne Barrington interrupted.

  Kate hesitated a moment longer.

  “Please,” he offered finally.

  There was something compelling in that single syllable. She suspected that Barrington seldom asked favors. That please had sounded as if it had been wrung from him against his will.

  While she was trying to decide what to do, Barrington reached across the wide back seat and, releasing the latch of the door, pushed it slightly open. He leaned back against the opposite door, waiting.

  Kate knew somehow that he wouldn’t ask her again. This is what you wanted, some inner voice reminded her, but it wasn’t, of course. Not this way. Not under these circumstances. Kahler had supplied all the abuse her frayed conscience could handle for one night. She didn’t want another lecture, so she was a little surprised to find herself crawling awkwardly into the back seat.

  Despite the size of the car and the width of that seat, she felt very close to Barrington. He was a big man—six-four, she remembered from her notes—and she was very aware of his size. In the diffuse light that filtered into the car from the lot’s security light, his features were revealed for the first time. He looked just as he did in the pictures taken before the bomb. If there had been facial injuries, they were no longer apparent—at least not in the dimness of the car’s interior.

  “Would you close the door, please?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath before she complied, and then listened to the window slip up again as soon as she’d done what he’d asked. The tinted Plexiglas panel between the driver and the back seat was already closed.

  “It appears that I owe you an apology,” Thorne Barrington said. His voice was soft in the enforced intimacy, holding now none of the anger it had held before. The accent was still there, familiar and comforting, caught below the overlay of years he’d spent up North. A Southern gentleman.

  Kate’s lips lifted suddenly in relief. He was apologizing to her. “The gate was open,” she said.

 
“Elliot had fallen. He had left the dog and had come back inside, but then he fainted. The dog’s too much for him. I should never have…”

  Kate waited, but he didn’t complete the explanation.

  “Elliot?” she asked.

  “My butler. He’s a little. .beyond caring for a puppy. Especially one that size. I should have realized it before now.”

  “Beyond?” she repeated.

  “He’s almost ninety. A vigorous ninety, but still ..”

  Again the soft voice faded. Guilt and regret for what had happened to the old man was clear in his voice. Yet despite his concern, Judge Barrington had taken the time to find her, to apologize to her. Only…she wasn’t sure she deserved an apology. Had her motives in going inside his house been as straightforward as she’d indicated to Kahler? Or had her judgment been clouded by other emotions? Even now she wasn’t completely clear about that.

  “Is he all right?” she asked finally.

  “Just a small cut on his forehead. He’s been treated and released. I took him home.”

  “So…I was right. Something was wrong.”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “You don’t intend to press charges.”

  “No.”

  “Thank you,” Kate said.

  “It seemed the least I could do. To apologize. I’m afraid I didn’t even listen to what you tried to tell me. When I heard your name…” Again he hesitated, and Kate remembered what Kahler had told her about the hospital photographs. “When I realized you were a reporter, I prejudged your motives. I simply wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

  Leave it alone, her head argued. Accept his apology, be gracious and forgiving. Let him take the blame I was wrong, he had just confessed, letting her off the hook.

  “Not about everything,” her mouth whispered instead.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You weren’t wrong about…everything.”

  The silence lengthened. “I see,” he said finally.

  “No, you probably don’t,” Kate said, knowing she could never really explain, “but it doesn’t matter. I’m not as guilty as you thought, but I’m also not as innocent as I would like to believe. Some of what you said tonight…”