by Gayle Wilson
The story died, and still Kate waited. The woman’s eyes were focused again on the past, reliving the years that had moved so quickly, fluttering by with a sameness that always made you believe they would continue that way forever.
“What happened to the baby?” Kate asked, her careful question pitched as low as the halting narrative had been.
The dark eyes came back, focused briefly on her face, and then turned away to contemplate the glowing lines of late afternoon light seeping between the slats of the mini-blinds. “She had an abortion. That’s all I know. That’s all Hall knew. The family moved away after that, and he never saw her again “ Her voice faded, and Kate thought it was the end of whatever she intended to tell her. Until she added, “That’s the one thing my husband regretted in his life, Ms. August. That poor lost baby.”
“They’ll find the guy who did it,” Kate said. “I promise.”
Jackie Draper nodded, and her eyes returned to the windows.
KATE FOUND A MESSAGE from Kahler when she got back to her motel room. Apparently he had learned from Lew that Kate was coming out to interview Mrs. Draper. She sat down on the edge of the queen-size bed and dialed the local number he’d left.
“Kahler.” The deep voice was pleasant, familiar, a welcome touch of home, despite the slight accent.
“August,” she countered, smiling.
“Don’t try to be cute,” he said, his voice relaxing into something less official.
“What?” she teased. “You don’t think I’m cute? I’m hurt.”
There was no answer for a few seconds. Kahler wasn’t usually slow with a comeback, and again there was something odd about the brief silence.
“I think you’re cute,” he said.
That had almost sounded sincere. Devoid of sarcasm.
“Thanks. I think you’re cute, too—like a cobra or some other predator. So spill your guts. Tell me what you’ve found out since you’ve been here?”
“Meet me for dinner,” he suggested.
“I don’t know if my expense account will stretch that far. Unless you’re game for McDonald’s,” she said, relieved they seemed to be back on a more normal footing.
“I’m inviting you.”
“You get a raise?” she asked. “I thought cops were like reporters—in the business just for the sheer love of it all.”
“I can afford to buy you dinner, August. You got a car?”
“Want me to pick you up?” she asked.
“No, I have a couple of things to finish up. Meet me at a place called Ellington’s. Thirty minutes.”
THE RESTAURANT was more upscale than the ones where they had eaten together in Atlanta. Kate briefly wished she had taken time to change her clothes and then shrugged away her concern. They didn’t have the kind of relationship where you worried about how you looked. She had already been seated, looking over the restaurant’s offerings when Kahler arrived. She glanced up when the hostess brought him to the table. He looked tired.
“Hard day?” she asked.
His eyes flicked up from their contemplation of the dinner selections. “A real bitch of a day.”
“You go to Draper’s office?”
He nodded, his gaze again deliberately focused on the menu.
Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about the bombing. She couldn’t blame him. She wished she had never gone to Austin. It had taken her weeks to get that scene out of her head. Even now the images would reappear suddenly, out of nowhere, catching her unaware, no less vivid for the time she had put between.
She looked back down at the menu, although she had already decided what she was going to order. Kahler had asked her to meet him, which meant he didn’t intend to stonewall. She’d just have to let him work his way around to talking in his own time.
“The salmon looks good,” she offered.
“I don’t think you ever get used to it,” Kahler said. His voice was low, just above the background buzz of conversation. He hadn’t looked up, eyes still directed at the menu. “You think you’re ready for it, that you’ve developed some—I don’t know—some kind of barrier between yourself and the reality of it.”
She let the noises of the restaurant drift between them a few seconds. “I talked to Draper’s widow today,” she said, closing her menu and laying it beside her plate. When she looked up, the hazel eyes were focused on her face. Waiting.
“It seems the worst thing Hall Draper ever did was maybe knock some girl up when he was a kid. Apparently that possibility bothered him for the rest of his life.”
“His wife tell you that?”
“That and about everything else that ever happened to him,” she said. Despite her attempt, somehow she couldn’t be objective or cynical about Hall Draper. Something about his wife’s hesitant memories had touched a chord, too deeply felt to be glib about. So she told Kahler the truth.
“He was a good man who had worked hard to get where he was. He did a lot of charity cases. She regretted fussing on him about those.” She paused, remembering the pain in those shadowed eyes. “He didn’t deserve to be blown up.”
Kahler’s gaze shifted, seeming to focus on the people that were being seated a few tables away. “What makes you think the rest of them did?”
She shook her head. Kahler was right. Nothing they had uncovered about any of the victims seemed to warrant the horror of what had happened to them.
“Some of them just seemed less real to me. Draper was raised in some little coal-mining town. He pulled himself up by hard work and his own force of character. Then the American dream gets blown to smithereens by some maniac who doesn’t even have the guts to do it personally. Murder by long distance.”
“Sounds like you’ve got the lead paragraph of your story.”
There had been nothing reproachful in Kahler’s tone, but for some reason the comment hurt. It had sounded too much like Barrington’s crack. As if she were only interested in these people for the increase in circulation their stories provided.
“Believe it or not, I hadn’t even thought about writing the story. I’m not quite the vampire Barrington accused me of being.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Maybe getting together tonight wasn’t such a good idea. Seeing the scene always makes me edgy. I always feel like there must be more that we could be doing. Only I never know what. Nothing we do seems to work with this guy.”
“It’s not your fault. Let’s forget Jack tonight. Let’s talk about something besides murder and mayhem for a change.”
“I’m a cop, August. A homicide cop. I’m not sure I know anything else. I’m not good at social stuff, and other than Jack, you and I don’t seem to have a lot in common.”
“I’m not complaining. We can talk about the weather. Baseball. I don’t care. I’m just glad I’m not eating room service alone. You don’t have to be entertaining.”
He laughed, the sound pleasant and unfamiliar. Kahler didn’t laugh nearly often enough, she thought, smiling at him.
HE WALKED HER to her rental car after the meal. “How long are you staying?” Kahler asked, as he unlocked the door and then handed her the keys.
“A few days. I guess I need to see what else I can turn up on Draper. His widow’s not exactly an unbiased source. I’ll stay until I think Lew’s gotten his money’s worth out of the trip. How about you?”
“I’m going back tomorrow.”
“I’ll call you when I get back to Atlanta,” she said.
Kahler nodded. Suddenly, the tension that had been between them at her apartment door was back. He had bought her dinner. Maybe he thought that meant he was entitled to a goodnight kiss.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said.
“Thank you. I needed the company.”
“Me, too,” she admitted.
The silence after that admission lasted too long, and she found herself looking for something to say. “I thought I might go to Draper’s hometown,” she offered. It was an idea that had been growing since she’d left Hall Draper’
s neat suburban house. She’d try it out on Kahler before she approached Lew.
“What for?” Kahler asked. They were still standing, the opened door between them.
“I don’t know. Just to poke around. To see if anyone remembers anything about the story Mrs. Draper told me. See if I can find any trace of that girl.”
“You think she’s the bomber, August? Revenge for a pregnancy that happened years ago?” Kahler asked. Obviously, he wasn’t impressed with the lead. Lew probably would be underwhelmed also, especially when he thought about costs.
“I don’t think she’s the bomber. I just don’t have anything else to try. Dead end. Just like it’s been all along with Jack. Just a lot of dead ends.”
“I hope that wasn’t supposed to be a pun,” Kahler said.
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. A lot of dead ends. Dead people.”
“Who apparently didn’t deserve to be dead. What kind of person does something like that?”
A strictly rhetorical question. There was no answer, and they both were aware of it. A group of diners leaving the restaurant passed within a few feet, glancing at them curiously.
Kahler waited until the party had moved on before he asked, “You remember a guy named Wilford Mays?”
“Mays?” Kate repeated, trying to place the name. She knew she had heard it, but she couldn’t think in what context. “It doesn’t really ring a bell,” she said.
“School bombing back in the sixties? Two little boys who had gone back inside to get a forgotten book were killed.”
Kate nodded her head, remembering hearing the story, but not details. The bombing was something that had happened more than thirty years ago, during the height of opposition to school integration in Georgia.
“Mays was probably the guy responsible, but he was never convicted,” Kahler went on. “One of the men who had supposedly been in on the planning got religion in his old age. He tried to implicate Mays, but his own credibility was questionable and his memory faulty after all those years. The state could never put together a case they thought would convince a jury. They did eventually haul Mays into court on some charge that had resulted from a search of his house—possessing an illegal firearm, a short-barrelled shotgun, very minor stuff compared to the murders they wanted to stick him for. I don’t remember everything, but the judge who heard the case put him away for as long as he could.”
“And?” Kate said, waiting for the punch line.
“The judge on that case, the illegal weapons charge or whatever it was, was Thorne Barrington.”
“Then surely somebody has checked Mays out before now.”
“Whoever ran the dockets of Barrington’s old cases saw only a firearms charge. Since there was no connection to bombs, no alarm went off.”
“So how did you come up with Mays?”
“You keep telling me these killings are related, so I went back over those cases myself. For some reason, the name triggered something. I pulled the informant’s information and then the original police reports on the school bombing. The MO, the materials, everything is different, totally different, so logic says there’s probably no connection. But Mays is someone who at one time may have killed at long distance, and Barrington came in contact with him.”
“And put him away,” Kate said.
“Barrington sentenced him to the max, but with time off for good behavior, Mays served less than a year.”
“You think Mays is Jack?”
“Not based on things we usually use to tie cases together. Nothing Mays did was like what Jack does, but still it’s hard to deny the significance—another bomber with ties to Barrington.”
“Does Mays fit the FBI profile of the Tripper? A brilliant loner? Product of a dysfunctional family? Probably abused?”
“Jack’s fooled us on everything else. Why wouldn’t he be able to screw us on the profile?”
“Is Mays that smart? Smart enough to get away with mail bombs? That’s a hell of a lot different from setting off dynamite in an empty building—a supposedly empty building.”
“No way to know,” Kahler acknowledged, shrugging. “He left school in the sixth grade. He’s uneducated, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have enough intelligence to—”
“To keep everyone in the dark for three years?” she interrupted. “About where he gets his materials? How he gets the packages through the mail undetected? That smart? You don’t really believe that, Kahler. You’re grasping at straws.”
“Straws are all I’ve got, August,” he said, quick anger at her sarcasm coloring his voice. “I’m trying to catch a killer who’s been blowing people up for three years.”
“I know,” she said softly, genuinely sorry for her ridicule.
“It just seemed too coincidental that Barrington had dealt with Mays. Another bomber,” he said again.
She knew that was really all he had. Mays had possibly set off one bomb, a crime for which he’d never even been charged, so maybe he was implicated in the more recent series. They both knew what a stretch that was—even given the Barrington link.
“You really think there’s some connection?”
“I thought I’d talk to Barrington about him. Maybe visit Mays. Talk to the guys who investigated the school bombing.”
“If any of them are still alive,” she reminded him.
His mouth tightened, and his eyes moved to focus on the darkness beyond the boundaries of the parking lot. His face reflected his frustration. That must be something he had fought for the last three years. Finally, he looked back at her, a smile lifting the tight line of his lips only fractionally. “Call me when you get back to Atlanta. And thanks,” he said.
“For what?” she asked. “You paid for dinner.”
“For listening.”
“Thanks for talking. As always, thanks for being willing to talk to me. I’ll call you.”
She got into the car and closed the door. Kahler waited while she fastened her seat belt and started the engine. Before she put the car into gear, she lifted her hand to wave to him. He touched the top of the car with his fingers, almost like a benediction, and then turned, walking off into the shadows between the scattered pools of light.
THE PHONE WAS RINGING when Kate unlocked the door of her apartment in Atlanta the following Tuesday night. Despite her hurry to catch the call, she closed the door behind her and took a moment to slip the chain into place. She hadn’t had time before she left town to do what Kahler had advised her to do—to install a good dead bolt. Tomorrow, she promised herself, setting her suitcase down and grabbing the phone.
“Hello,” she said, her voice a little breathless. Probably Lew. No one else knew she was coming back tonight.
“Ms. August?” She had never heard this particular voice over the phone, but in spite of the electromc distortion, she recognized the caller immediately.
“Yes,” she answered. All the possible explanations for a phone call from Thorne Barrington ran through her head.
“Did you take my advice, Ms. August?” he asked.
She could think of nothing he had said to her that might qualify as advice. “Advice?” she echoed.
“Did you tell the police about the package you received?”
Belatedly, she remembered that he had urged her to do that.
“Yes, I did, Judge Barrington.” For some reason she seemed unable to manage anything beyond monosyllables. This was the last thing she had expected, given the situation between them.
“To whom did you speak, Ms. August?”
She hesitated briefly, wondering if she would be giving away her relationship with Kahler if she told the truth. However, it was well known in Atlanta that he was the detective in charge of the case relating to Jack. Barrington had enough contacts that he could easily check the veracity of whatever she told him. The last thing she needed was to be caught in a lie.
“I spoke to a Detective Kahler.”
“What did he tell you?”
Barrington asked.
She was beginning to wonder at his obvious interest in her package when the realization came that he was the one man in Atlanta who would be avidly interested in anything that might figure in the eventual apprehension of the bomber.
“He believes the package I received wasn’t related to the Tripper bombings.”
“On what grounds?”
“Everything was different. The packaging. The triggering device. Everything.”
“Except my address,” Barrington reminded her.
“Yes,” she acknowledged.
“No matter what you believe, I didn’t send that package.”
She wondered how she should respond to that. Finally, she realized that she had already acknowledged his denial—before she ever left Atlanta.
“Did you get my letter, Judge Barrington?”
“Yes.”
“I’m truly sorry for…what happened.” Her voice was hesitant, lacking its usual confidence. Apologizing was something that didn’t come easy to Kate August. She always hated having to admit that she’d made a fool of herself, and she knew that in this case she had done it with a vengeance. “I’m sorry for the way I acted and for accusing you of sending the package.”
“Then you no longer believe I had anything to do with it.”
“No. And I regret that I jumped to that conclusion. It just seemed…coincidental. Given our previous encounter.”
“Then we’re left with a real problem, Ms. August.”
It seemed there were still a lot of problems, but she couldn’t think of one she and Barrington shared. After a few seconds of silence, he went on.
“If you’ve accepted my denial and if Detective Kahler believes the package had nothing to do with Jack, then who sent it? And more importantly, why?”
The pertinent question. One for which she had no answer. Unless…Why not ask Barrington about what Kahler had suggested? During the days since the detective had mentioned the school bombing, she had thought a lot about the possibility that Mays was involved in this. The more she had thought about it, the more she had wondered what the odds were on two bombers being connected to Barrington. That did seem too coincidental.
