"Funny, isn't it, Frank, how now the two pictures look almost the same?"
Janek understood. The cuts he'd made in the idealized version upstairs matched almost perfectly the cuts Beverly had made in the cruel version before him.
"Too bad she killed herself," Aaron said. "It would have been a hell of a trial." He paused. "I wonder if she would have confessed in the end."
"She did confess," Janek replied. "She just didn't do it with words."
Aaron grinned at him. "Well, you got her, Frank. You nailed her."
"Yeah…
"Do you think Kit would say you did it straight?"
Janek shrugged. "Sometimes, when they're as crooked as this one," he said, "you have to use a slightly crooked nail."
There was, at first, a feeling of fulfillment. Having broken and destroyed the monster, he was no longer possessed by anger. There was the satisfaction, too, that came with understanding another person, adding another quantum to his store of knowledge of human beings and their mysterious capacity for evil.
But these good feelings fled quickly. The letdown descended within a day. It was like the Switch case: as soon as it was over, the passions that had fueled the quest began to die. And then he was left with himself, to ponder the meaning of his life-to wonder what Wallflower had meant to him, and whether it had cost him Monika's love.
He knew the case had changed him. He would never forget his horror as he felt the steel plunge into his throat, would never forget his conviction that he was going to die. But as he reexamined that moment, he recalled that it was not fear of death that had seized him, but a terrible frustration that he did not know who was attacking him or why. Now that he had solved all that, he was left with his grief for Jess, a grief he knew he would always carry with him, though hopefully without the intensity of the past few months. Redemption? He wasn't sure he'd achieved it. The seeds of his melancholy had been planted years before. There would be times throughout his life, he knew, when he must harvest their bitter fruit. And if, as he believed, he had driven Beverly Archer to suicide… well, he would have to live with that.
His cases always haunted him. Sometimes he felt as though his mind was filled with overlapping images from old homicides and the echoes of confessions of killers he had tracked and caught through the years. Now Wallflower, too, would become part of that montage. to be haunted, he understood, was the price he must pay for daring to explore the back alleys of tormented souls.
For two days after Wallflower was closed he walked the streets of New York. It was the second week of January, the coldest time of year.
He felt himself buffeted by piercing winter winds.
On the afternoon of the second day he noticed something in the steamy window of a little antique store on Charles Street. He stopped before it, shivering, hesitated, then walked inside.
A small bell attached to the door tinkled as he entered. A bespectacled old man in a tattered gray sweater glanced at him from behind a battered desk. It was a warm, cluttered little shop, filled with sparkling objects. Janek nodded to the proprietor, then went straight to the object that had caught his eye. He picked it up, held it in his hand, stared at it, amazed. It was an almost perfect duplicate of the glass Monika had found for him in Venice.
He bought it at the old man's asking price. Surely finding such a glass was a wonderful omen that he must not spoil by haggling over cost.
He hurried home, set the glass beside the one Monika had given him, and then peered into the pair as they broke the afternoon light into colors and stars, crystal fire.
The magic of Venice flooded back. In that enchanted city he had found himself a lover; in her arms he had found ecstasy and joy. After Jess was killed, Monika became more than his lover-she became his therapist and adviser, too. But when he'd come back from Cleveland and told her of his intention to break Beverly with her mother's picture, Monika had responded coolly. She was a healer, not a wounder, she'd said. She'd told him she didn't think she could help him anymore.
He had gone ahead anyway, done what he had to do, and now that it was finished, he wanted desperately to be with her again. For a week he'd wanted to call her, but he'd hesitated. Would she still be reserved with him? Would she deny him her love?
Now, as he stared at the two glasses and the afternoon waned, he knew the time had come to call.
She sounded cheerful, said she was happy to hear his voice. they exchanged notes on the weather: Hamburg was chilly; that very evening a light snow had begun to fall. She was thinking about taking a week off, she said, perhaps driving down to Austria with some friends to ski.
And how was he doing? When she hadn't heard from him, she wasn't sure what she should think. As her voice trailed off, he began to speak.
The Wallflower case was over, he told her. Beverly Archer was dead by her own hand. He wanted Monika to know that he owned up to his responsibility in the matter. He knew what he had done and why. He would not flinch from it; he felt no shame on account of it. Could she, Monika, accept him as he now accepted himself, for the person he was, without reservation or regret?
"Oh, Frank," she said, "how can you even ask?"
Suddenly his tension was eased. He felt he could step out from behind his detective's mask and speak to her as a man. He told her he wanted to tell her a story. He had been out walking that afternoon… had passed this little shop… had seen this glass… had bought it… it was nearly identical… "You know what this means?" he asked. "Tell me, Frank."
"It means I want to be with you," he said, his longing for her pouring out through his voice. "Will you meet me in Venice? In three days? In two?" There was a brief silence before she answered.
"Oh, yes," she said, and, as her words reached him, he imagined the sparkling affirmation in her eyes. "Oh, yes! Yes!" she said, and he could feel the glow of her warming him from across the icy sea.
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Wallflower j-3 Page 31
