by John Dunning
“Good. Maybe you can start putting things back together.”
“Why? What for?”
“For your kids.”
“Of course… of course. What am I thinking? It’s amazing how you have to keep reminding me of what ought to be obvious.”
“You’re not thinking straight, that’s all it is. I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Not like this, you haven’t. I betrayed my dearest friend. How could I have done that? She was the only friend who ever mattered to me, and she mattered more than anything. But I betrayed her and my life has never been the same again. I haven’t been thinking straight for ten years.”
“For what it’s worth, I hope she does come.”
“But you know she won’t. I can see it in your face.”
“I don’t know that at all. She’s not one to play games. If it had been out of the question for her to come, she never would’ve sent me over here.”
“I guess that makes sense. Oh, God, how I want it to. Can I…”
“What?”
“Can I tell you what happened between Erin and me?”
“I don’t know if—”
“Please, I want to. It was my fault, right from the beginning. No matter how much Bobby pressured me, there’s no excuse for what I did. That night we drank too much and got way too silly, but that’s no excuse. As long as I could see and hear, as long as I had a coherent thought running through my head, I was responsible. Now there’s nothing I can say except I am so, so sorry. Whatever they do to me here, I need to say that to her. Erin and Bobby were so much in love; you’d have to have seen them together: if ever there were soul mates, they were, and I destroyed them. I’ve thought about her every day, every hour: I see her face everywhere. I’ve never stopped loving her. But Bobby and me, that one night we got drunk and did it. When you’ve betrayed someone you love, the hurt never goes away, it defines you. The betrayal becomes what you are, a fair-weather friend who couldn’t keep her pants on when she had to.”
“Sounds like you’ve paid for it.”
“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, oh my God, yes. It’ll never end.”
“Never’s a long time, Laura.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Maybe after ten years it’s time to cut yourself some slack.”
“That’ll never happen. What I did has consumed me. I know it’s unreal, it must sound sick the way I dwell on it. I just can’t shake it, and it only gets worse with time. I feel guiltier now than I did right after it happened all those years ago.”
“Did Bobby know?”
“What, how miserable I am? Oh, yeah, he lived with me for years, how could he not know? Bobby gave up on me long ago.”
“Maybe he shouldn’t have. He had to at least share the responsibility for what happened.”
“I can’t look at it that way. I don’t know how to, I just don’t know how. All I know is, Bobby and I were never any good together. How could we be? Erin was always there between us. I could feel her walking beside me, she was on the porch where we sat after supper: she was even in our bed. The bed was the worst. I got so frigid Bobby couldn’t come near me. We haven’t touched each other in four years. That’s about when he began seeing other women. You can’t blame him, can you?”
“I’m trying to retire from the blame business. That includes you, by the way.”
“Thank you. You’re a kind man, Mr. Janeway. Are you and Erin lovers?… Never mind, that’s none of my business. Sorry, I just found myself wishing, you know? She should be with someone like you.”
“Mrs. Marshall—”
“Laura.”
“Laura… do you want to tell me what happened the day your husband was shot?”
“It won’t matter. You can’t use it.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time. Right now I’d just like to understand it.”
“I’ll tell you, then. I’ve got to tell someone or go crazy.”
“Take your time.”
“No, I need to get this said now or I’ll never say it. Bobby and I were never happy, we never had a moment’s peace. I told you why but I know you can’t understand it. It was all me, I’ve been consumed by guilt.”
“Then why’d you marry the guy?”
“That was the reason. To try to make the guilt go away. Have the marriage justify the affair, if that makes any sense. But does that really matter now?”
“It might. When you go to trial and bring in issues that the average Joe can’t identify with, it helps if you can explain them.”
“Surely all this won’t come up.”
“Don’t count on that.”
“God, what a nightmare. How can I explain such crazy behavior? If I said that one of us had a terrible conscience and the other did it for spite, would you believe that?”
“Is that what you’re saying?”
“I told you it would sound crazy. Jesus, are real lawyers going to be this hard?”
“They can be a lot worse than this. If they can make you look like a fool, they will. You don’t want to help them do that.”
“I was a fool. This sounds like a stupid soap opera. No one will believe it.”
“Millions of people watch soap operas and believe them. Just tell the truth and don’t worry about melodrama.”
“When Bobby said we should get married, it just seemed right. Erin was finished with both of us, we couldn’t hurt her any more. Did I love him? I must have, right? Why else could I betray my friend? Marrying Bobby was a way of proving to Erin that what we had done was more than trivial. If it could only be dismissed as a cheap fling, what did that say about us? Does that make sense?”
“If that’s your reason, sure. What about his?”
“He said he loved me. He’d been falling in love with me for a year.”
“And out of love with Erin?”
“He said he loved us both.”
“Do you believe that?”
“How would I know? I never gave him a chance. I think he tried, but I couldn’t.”
“So what happened?”
“Bobby thought if we had a child it would help, and we did try in those first few years, but no child came. We moved out here and adopted Jerry. He had emotional problems, he was nearly four years old when we got him, and he couldn’t talk. He wasn’t what they called highly adoptable; he had been horribly abused by his birth parents, that’s why getting him was so easy. Jerry has always had problems, he still can’t talk, can’t or won’t. Except with me. He talks to me.”
“Has anyone else ever heard him speak?”
“He doesn’t talk in words, it comes out in looks between us, in things he does. It’s a very simple level of communication. But I know what he wants, don’t ask me how, I just know, and he knows what I expect of him. It’s all in the eyes. His eyes are like Erin’s were as a child: brown with those flecks of green around the edges. I loved him to death the first time I laid eyes on him. We were like the walking wounded together.”
“What did his parents do to him?”
“Do I have to go through that? At one point to stop him from crying his mother put him naked in a cold basement and left him there without food or water for two days… stuff like that.”
“I get the idea. I assume you had him tested, to see—”
“Oh, sure. There didn’t seem to be any real reason why he couldn’t speak, but he never has. He’s never said a word since we got him, but he’s aware of everything around him. If I say, ‘Bring in some wood, Jerry,’ he’ll go right out and get it. I never have to belabor anything, his hearing’s extremely sharp. The psychologist ran an intelligence test on him.”
“And that showed what?”
“There seemed to be no reason why he couldn’t speak. But he won’t.”
“So he was nearly four when you got him. And then you had two of your own.”
“The twins, Little Bob and Susan. What a surprise that was. It must’ve happened the last time Bobby ever touched me. One of the last ti
mes, and we get kids from it.”
“How old are they now?”
“Five.”
“There’s no real reason to ask, but I take it they were both normal.”
“Oh, sure. I was the one who wasn’t what you’d call normal.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t tell you that. You’ll think I’m a monster.”
“Let me guess. Your own blood children drove you two farther apart.”
“It was Erin again. I know this sounds sick, but they seemed like her children to me. They were the kids she should have had with Bobby. I tried to love them. I did love them. I do, I swear I do. And I’ve been a good mother. But it was Jerry who had touched my heart, who had nothing to do with Erin or Bobby or me. If there was any light in my life at all then, it came from Jerry.”
“You loved him. Don’t beat yourself up, I can see how that could happen.”
“I loved him more than my own blood children. People will think I’m sick if that comes out. I can’t help it: he was my baby, my poor wounded child. The night we brought him home, I swore to Bobby I’d never let anything hurt him again.”
“So what happened the day of the shooting?”
“I had gone out for a walk. I was on my way back when I heard a shot from the house. I ran across the field and up onto the porch. Bobby was lying in the front room. Even before I saw him I had this terrible feeling: I could smell the gunpowder, and something else… something foul. I knew it was a death smell. I went into the room and there Bobby was. Jerry had the gun in his hand…”
“What time was this?”
“I don’t know. Suddenly I can’t remember times. Middle of the afternoon?”
“What did you do?”
“You mean right then?”
“Yes. That first moment, what did you do?”
“Took the gun away from him and just hugged him.”
“Then what?”
“Had him take a bath. Burned his clothes.”
“Where did this take place?”
“In the back-room fireplace. Then I opened the window back there. I didn’t want the smell of it all over the house when the police arrived.”
I made a note. “Then what?”
“Sent him back to the bedroom: told him I wanted him to lie down till I came for him again. Then I handled the gun and got blood on my dress. Ripped it up some. Then I called the sheriff.”
“So right from the start you were thinking—”
“—that I would confess, yes, of course, that I had to protect Jerry no matter what.”
“It hadn’t surprised you, then, that Jerry had shot your husband?”
“Of course it shocked me.”
“But that’s different.”
“Yes. I was shocked, not surprised.”
“Why not?”
“Jerry knew.”
“Knew what?”
“What went on with Bobby and me.”
“Did Bobby abuse you?”
“Not physically. Never.”
“Did he ever touch Jerry?”
“He knew better. I’d have killed him for real if he had.”
“But there was no love lost between them.”
“Jerry never liked Bobby.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Oh, yeah. That child seemed to know everything. He knew how unhappy I was and Bobby was the reason.”
“Did you ever tell him that in so many words?”
“That’s hardly the kind of thing you tell a child. I would never tell him anything that would undercut Bobby in his eyes.”
“But…”
“Jerry knew. He just did, I know he did. We talked about it, Bobby and me, how we had made such a mess of things, and sometimes I think Jerry overheard us. There are places in that house where a child can hide and hear everything. I’m telling you, Jerry knew. At night when Bobby would come home with some whore’s perfume on his clothes, I’d sleep alone on the couch in the front room. And I’d wake up and Jerry would be there, asleep with his head on my lap, holding my hand.”
“So Jerry had a good reason to hate Bobby, is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know what you’d consider a good reason. He killed him, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know who killed him.”
“But I told you—”
“You didn’t see him do it, did you?”
“But no one else was there.”
“No one you saw.”
“What are you saying?”
“How long did it take you to get to the house, after you heard the shot?”
“I was out at the edge of the meadow. Still, not much more than a few minutes.”
“Did Bobby have any enemies?”
“Oh, Janeway! What are you thinking?”
“Same thing you’re thinking, Mrs. Marshall. Let’s go over it again.”
11
Erin flew into Paradise International late that afternoon on a single-engine private flight from the Jefferson County Airport. It had taken her less than half an hour to make the arrangements. She had used this pilot on cases for Waterford, Brownwell, when other days were waning and her schedule was tight, when she needed to get to places like Laramie or Rock Springs or Albuquerque and had no time for long car trips. This was a ninety-minute hop over the hills from the Denver suburbs.
Paradise International was a bit of local sarcasm, the name painted on a board and tacked to a tree. It was a long dirt runway nestled in a valley about five miles from town, with two tin hangars, a radio room, and a rustic coffee shop. I waited just inside the coffee shop, my eyes scanning the sky to the east. Erin had said they’d get here by five, and at four-thirty the valley was already in deep shadow. Whatever daylight was left was high above us, wasted on the tops of the mountains.
“Can this guy land in the dark?”
“If he’s more than a half-assed pilot he can,” said the old fellow on duty. “We’ll give him some lights to help bring him down.”
He flipped a switch and the airstrip was defined by two long strings of what looked like Christmas lights. “There ye go. Just like the Macy’s parade.”
A moment later the plane made radio contact. “Your bird’s about twenty miles east of here,” the old man said. “Be on the ground before you can hawk up a good spit.”
I walked nervously into the coming night. I am always nervous when someone I care about is flying, especially over unpredictable mountain air currents in a glorified egg crate with one little engine, a single heartbeat from disaster. But ten minutes later the plane broke over the hills and glided under the sunset into the purple valley. I watched it bump along the runway and come to a stop a hundred yards away.
Erin had dressed for weather: corduroy pants and a flannel shirt, scarf, boots and a heavy coat, a furry Russian-style pillbox hat and gloves. The pilot was a young stud named Todd Williams, who wore a leather cap and let his matching coat flop open in the wind. Erin made the introductions: we shook hands and Todd said he’d take care of his plane and join us in town. “We’ll be at the jail for a while,” I said. “After that you’ll find us in the café on the main drag. You can’t miss any of it unless you miss the whole damn town.”
In the car I said, “You’re looking good.”
“I’m getting a cold,” she said. “And frankly, my attitude sucks.”
She didn’t have much time: “I’m supposed to be working on my case this weekend. If I go into court unprepared on Monday, I’m in deep soup. I’ve got to be back before noon tomorrow.”
“Are you nervous?”
“What have I got to be nervous about, she’s the one in jail.” She cut her eyes at me from the far corner of the car. “Yeah, I am. Did you tell her I was coming?”
“Haven’t seen her since this morning. Wouldn’t have told her anyway.”
“Good. That first few seconds may tell us something.” She flipped through some notes. “I want somebody to go up to that house an
d examine the back-room fireplace.”
“I can do that.”
“I’d rather have two of you together when you do that.”
I had left word with Sheriff Gains that we’d be coming over to the jail sometime before dinner, but the only car on the lot was the deputy’s. “Looks like you’re about to meet the town charmer. Might as well get it over with.”
We walked into the jail. Lennie Walsh was sitting behind the desk, smoking.
“Deputy Walsh,” I said. “This is Ms. Erin D’Angelo. We’d like to see Mrs. Marshall for a few minutes.”
“Visiting hours are posted on the door.”
“That doesn’t usually apply to a prisoner and his attorney.”
“It does if I’m on duty. It’s my call.”
“I cleared this with the sheriff this afternoon.”
“He didn’t say nothin’ to me about it.”
“So what does that mean? Do we have to wait for him to get back?”
“Be a long wait. He went up to Gunnison, won’t come back till Monday noon.”
“So what do we do?”
“Come back Monday.”
Erin pulled up a chair and leaned across the desk. “Deputy Walsh.”
She offered her hand. He looked at it for so much time before finally taking it that I wanted to reach over and knock him off the chair.
“Help me out here, please. I’ve come here at great expense to see Mrs. Marshall.”
“Shoulda called first.”
“Maybe so but there wasn’t time. I’m involved in another case in Denver, I’m supposed to be working on it even now. This is the only possible chance I’ll have to speak with her for at least two more weeks.”
“I appreciate how busy and important you are, Ms…. what’s your name?”
“D’Angelo.”
“Whatever. Like I was saying, I appreciate all that. At the same time, you can’t expect us to drop everything when you walk in unannounced like this.”
“Am I missing something here? Would it work a vast inconvenience on this department to let me see my client, please, for just a few minutes?”
“No inconvenience at all. Monday at ten.”
“Deputy…”
He smiled pleasantly. “Yes, ma’am?”
“We’re getting nowhere,” she said to me. “Does your friend McNamara have a home number where the judge can be reached?”
