The Bullet

by Mary Louise Kelly

  “His client Verlin Snow. I know. Except he wasn’t. I went to see Mr. Snow this weekend.”

  “You what?”

  Beasley yelled at me for a good five minutes after I told him about my meeting with Snow. I had put myself in danger, I was interfering with an investigation, was I completely out of my mind?

  “I’ll have to see if he’ll make a statement,” Beasley huffed at last.

  “He won’t.”

  “Have to try.”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  “And I’ll keep trying to get hold of Mr. Sinclare. His secretary says she expects him in later today. Says he’s got a bad habit of turning off his cell on the weekend, drives his family crazy, probably hasn’t even seen my messages.”

  I knew that wasn’t true. Sinclare’s cell phone had not been switched off on Saturday night. He had somehow tracked me down and found the time to call my hotel on Nantucket. Twice. I kept this piece of information to myself. Instead, I asked, “Beamer?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “The evidence bullets that you collected from the two suspects’ guns. Back in ’79. Were either of them .38s?”

  Beasley hesitated before answering, “Both of them. Different-model handguns. One Colt, one Smith and Wesson. But both were .38 Special. Thing is, so were maybe half the revolvers in Atlanta in 1979. Doesn’t prove a damn thing.”

  • • •

  MADAME AUBUCHON STOPPED by at lunchtime to collect her soup pot.

  As before, she turned up with no warning. Thankfully I was dressed this time, had even put on earrings and makeup.

  “Très belle,” she said, smiling as she took me in. “You’re looking like yourself again. The soup must be working.”

  “Ça doit être ça.” That must be it. “C’est délicieux.” It was true. Her soup was delicious, so long as you resigned yourself to stinking of garlic for the rest of the day.

  I led her into the kitchen. “Un café? Un thé?”

  “Non, merci. Perhaps something stronger?”

  Something stronger? It was half past noon. On a Monday. I walked to the liquor cupboard in my living room and returned with several bottles.

  She pointed. “That one, s’il te plaît.”

  I poured Madame Aubuchon a glass of Armagnac and watched, bemused, as she knocked it back.

  “Yes?” Her voice haughty.

  “Rien. Rien du tout. Nothing. It’s just . . . we’ve worked together for a long time. Ten years, n’est-ce pas? But I’m, um, realizing I don’t actually know you very well.”

  She smiled. Shook her head when I made to refill her glass. “Just the one. Pour la santé. For good health.” She produced an embroidered handkerchief from her purse and dabbed delicately at her lips. “I find it easiest to keep my personal life private. Not to discuss it at the office.”

  “A wise policy.”

  “For example, you may not know that Jean-Pierre is my second husband.”

  “Oh?” I said, to be polite.

  “He’s only fifty-one,” she said with a touch of pride. “Il n’est qu’un garçon.” Just a boy.

  “I’d love to meet him someday.”

  “I think not,” she sniffed. “He’s enough trouble as it is. I don’t need him to see the likes of you, pour l’amour de Dieu. He would eat you up.”

  I raised my eyebrows in amusement. “He sounds very . . . French.”

  She shot me a sharp look. I thought she had taken offense. I was opening my mouth to apologize, when she spoke again. “Jean-Pierre is my second husband because my first one beat me. He nearly killed me. Several times.”

  My expression changed to one of shock. “Hélène. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “No one does. This finger still doesn’t straighten properly.” She held out a heavily veined but beautifully manicured hand. The pinkie drooped at an unnatural angle.

  How had I never noticed?

  “And my ribs, cracked three separate times. A punctured lung. Concussions.” She said this matter-of-factly, as through she were reciting a list of groceries she planned to pick up on the way home. “After I found the strength to kick him out, I locked myself in the apartment and did not come out for seven weeks.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Sept semaines,” she repeated.

  “How awful.”

  “Sometimes, to heal, we need time alone.” Madame Aubuchon dipped back into her purse and withdrew a heavy ring of keys. “Go to Paris, Caroline. Go hide. Get strong again.”

  Forty-six

  * * *

  He won’t talk,” reported Beasley, when he called back midafternoon. “Verlin Snow. You were right. He won’t play ball.”

  “How can you possibly have already reached him? He’s out on that island.”

  “Local help. Nice police department up there. I gather the most excitement they generally get is ticketing folks for expired beach permits.”

  “You sent Nantucket cops to question Verlin Snow?” I asked skeptically. “About Boone and Sadie Rawson’s murders?”

  “About Ethan Sinclare’s alibi. Way you described Snow, all coughing and wheezing, it sounded like he might not be long for this world. Would have taken me too long to get authorization to go up. Nantucket cops are already right there on-site.”

  “Sure, but they don’t know any of the background. They don’t know this case well enough to persuade—”

  “I know, and that’s why I asked the questions. In an ideal world, we’d open up a grand jury investigation and require his testimony. But we don’t have jurisdiction over him up there in Massachusetts, and he doesn’t sound inclined to travel to Georgia anytime soon. So in the interest of time, we had two officers drive over to his house and set up a video link. He looked like he could hear me fine. He wrote down his ­responses, and the whole interview was videotaped, so we’ve got a record. Not that that’ll be much use, because he denied everything you say he said.”

  I made an exasperated sound. “I told you he would.”

  “Verlin Snow swears that Sinclare was right by his side the entire afternoon of November sixth, 1979. Just like he’s always said.”

  “That lying weasel.”

  “He also said he never told you otherwise. Said you must be confused, and we should all go away and leave a dying man in peace.”

  I snorted. “He’s dying, all right. He looked dreadful. Sounds like that’s the only true statement he gave you.”

  “Caroline.” Beasley cleared his throat. I registered his switch to using my first name. “I appreciate how difficult all this must be for you. How much you wanted that bullet to lead us to somebody. How good it would feel to achieve closure, feel like you’ve done right by your mama and daddy. The Smiths. Me, too, trust me. I told you when I met you, this case haunts me every day.” He harrumphed again. “Gerry and I have talked it over and—”

  “You know what I think? I think you should go arrest Ethan Sinclare. I think he did it. I think he had an affair with Sadie Rawson, and she dumped him, and he went crazy. Shall we recap? Sinclare owned a .38 Special, and the bullet in my neck was a .38 Special. Sinclare doesn’t have an alibi, whatever nonsense Verlin Snow is currently spouting. And now he appears to be on the run, he isn’t returning your phone calls—”

  “Hold on, hold on. Not returning my phone calls doesn’t qualify a person as being on the run. If it did, then my daughter was a fugitive for pretty much the entire decade she was a teenager. And let me play devil’s advocate on the other things you just said. One, we don’t know that Ethan and Sadie Rawson had an affair.”

  “Cheral Rooney says they—”

  “I know she does, and I also know that he denies it. There’s no proof either way.”

  “Verlin Snow said Ethan’s always been a ladies’ man.”

  “Oh, Verlin Snow!” c
rowed Beasley with mock enthusiasm. “Would you mean the same Verlin Snow who gave a statement today, who put it in writing and handed it to two uniformed police officers, swearing that Sinclare was with him at the time the murders were committed? You mean that Verlin Snow?”

  “Beamer—”

  “Sorry, what was that you were saying? About Sinclare not having an alibi?”

  “He’s lying, Beamer! Snow lied to you today.”

  “Prove it.”

  I was silent.

  “Caroline. My point is, there isn’t proof. None. Zero. There’s no proof there ever was an affair. There’s no proof that the bullet that hit you was fired from Sinclare’s gun. There’s no witness, except for you, and you don’t remember a damn thing. Oh, but we do have a leader in the business community, a senior Southern Bell exec, who swears that Sinclare couldn’t have been anywhere near the crime scene. You with me? We’re right back where we were thirty-four years ago. Except that maybe now I’m even more frustrated.”

  “What about the fact that someone broke into my house two weeks ago and tried to hurt me? Don’t you think that might have been Sinclare, trying to get to the bullet before—”

  “Sure, it might have been. Or it might have been Jack the Ripper. Or . . . Wile E. Coyote. Where’s the proof? Come on, you know the standard we have to meet for a felony conviction. Beyond a reasonable doubt. We’re not anywhere close to that. On the contrary: we’ve got both his wife and his secretary prepared to swear under oath that Sinclare was in Georgia the night of October twenty-third.”

  I stamped my foot in frustration.

  “You would want to be very, very careful before you brought charges against a man like Ethan Sinclare. I’m not saying that’s a reason not to try. But he would be a powerful witness for the defense. He would call in every favor he’s ever been owed in Atlanta. And given how generous he and Betsy are in the community, I’d wager that’s a few. Speaking of Betsy, he’d have his pretty, blond wife out there, the mother of his children, going on about what a good man he is, what a good husband and father. She’d light up the TV cameras. Betsy would have the whole Junior League lined up behind her, every blond lady in Buckhead insisting her husband must be innocent.”

  That stopped me short. Not the image of sweet Betsy Sinclare in front of the cameras. But the image of Ethan as a good husband and father. It was, I had to admit, the same impression I’d gotten. It was difficult to square the kind, fatherly man who’d bought me breakfast with a violent criminal.

  Beasley appeared to be struggling with the same disconnect. “I’m not saying rich, white folks get a pass. Even rich, white folks as well connected as the Sinclares. But you’re asking me to believe that Ethan Sinclare—an educated, respectable lawyer—went on a homicidal rampage in 1979. Shot everybody in sight, point-blank, left a baby girl for dead. Yet afterwards he went docile as a lamb. He transformed into the perfect gentleman, a loving family man, for more than three decades. Right up to last month, when—boom! He snaps again, drives to Washington, puts a brick through your basement window and tries to break down your bedroom door? It’s—”

  “I know, I know. It sounds completely implausible.”

  “People can change their ways, I grant you. But those are wild extremes.”

  We were quiet for a minute.

  Then Beasley said, “Mind you. Do you remember last year, that volcano that erupted in New Zealand?”

  I waited. Talk about non sequiturs.

  “It spewed rocks, sent up giant ash clouds, shut down a bunch of roads. And the volcano experts they interviewed—what do you call them, volcanologists?—they said there’d been no warning. No seismic activity.”

  “Okay.” I was learning that Beasley would eventually get to his point; sometimes he just liked to circle around it for a while first.

  “Mount Tongariro, I think it was called. It had been dormant for one hundred and fifteen years. More than a century. And then all of a sudden, no warning, it erupted.”

  Ah. Now I saw. “Just like that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Just like that.”

  • • •

  THAT EVENING I went for a walk along the river. I prefer walking in the woods this time of year; the wind gusting off the Potomac gets icy. But the harbor and the bike paths that run along the water are always crowded, and it felt safer to be surrounded by people. I walked east, past Thompson Boat Center, past the distinctive curve of the Watergate Complex. A pair of scullers flicked their oars across the water. The cherry trees that line the riverbank raised bare branches to the sky. My ears stung with cold. I leaned into the wind, waiting for the tension in my shoulders to ease, waiting for my thoughts to clear.

  Somewhere around the Kennedy Center I slowed. A plan of action had revealed itself. I glimpsed the grand sweep of what I should do, and why. I picked up my pace again, pounding the asphalt path. The clarity of purpose sharpened. I examined this plan, spun it around in my mind, feeling around the edges. They were jagged. Too many unknowns. I made corrections. Yes, it could be accomplished.

  When I got home, I poured a glass of wine and made two phone calls. The first was to Leland Brett. The second was to Alexandra James. Leland’s feeble but relentless sexual harassment campaign notwithstanding, the content of the two conversations was virtually identical.

  I told them both that forensics technicians at a Georgia crime lab, and then at the FBI, had examined the bullet from my neck. Unfortunately, it was found to be too damaged to be useful. I directed them to follow up with the Atlanta Police Department for specifics. I gave them Beamer Beasley’s direct line.

  “I had hoped that the bullet removed from my neck might somehow help to advance the murder investigation, even after all these years,” I added, a line I’d come up with on the long loop of my walk back to Georgetown. “But it’s not to be. I’m at peace with that. It’s time to move on. Whoever killed my parents is probably dead now himself.”

  I asked both Leland and Alexandra to use my quote in its entirety, and to promise that the story would run in tomorrow’s papers. Leland gave his word.

  Alex pushed back. “We don’t do quote approval.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t make promises to sources about what portion of their comments will make it into print. But you have my word that I’ll quote you accurately.”

  “Fair enough. And will this definitely run tomorrow?”

  “The print edition’s tricky. Finite amount of space. I can’t control what other news may break, or how that’ll affect which stories run and which ones get held. But there’s no reason this wouldn’t be posted to the website right away. Probably before I head home tonight.”

  “Excellent.”

  “One last thing. How are you feeling, postsurgery? When do you expect to be back at work?”

  “I’m better. Much better. But the university doesn’t need me back teaching until after Christmas. So I figured I’d plan a couple of weeks in Mexico, to rest and get my strength back. Later this week I’m headed down to Cabo San Lucas.”

  “Sounds heavenly.”

  “Thanks. I’m looking forward to a few days of doing nothing more strenuous than hoisting a pitcher of margaritas.”

  She laughed. “That last bit, I’m happy to guarantee I’ll quote.”

  I put the phone down and topped up my wine.

  Then I opened my laptop and booked an 8:00 a.m. flight to ­Atlanta.

  PART SIX

  Atlanta

  Forty-seven

  * * *

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2013

  The Atlanta airport was jammed. On the airport train to the main terminal, people stood shoulder to shoulder, braced against ceiling straps, the scents of hair spray and shoe polish and burnt coffee fogging us in. Someone’s roller bag dug into my calves. I threaded through the crowds, making my way toward the now-familiar Her
tz outpost, stopping only once, at a newsstand near baggage claim.

  Leland’s article appeared inside the front section of the Journal-­Constitution, page A5. He’d been true to his word. My comment about feeling at peace and wanting to move on was near the top, along with a nice quote thanking Boone and Sadie Rawson’s friends for their well wishes.

  “It’s been amazing to learn how many people loved them, how many people’s lives they touched,” said Cashion. “I feel blessed—I think that’s the right word, despite everything that happened—blessed to have been born into a family with such loving and loyal friends.”

  Cashion adds that she hopes to organize a memorial service in Atlanta, to remember and to celebrate the Smiths’ lives. The date and venue are yet to be determined.

  Leland Brett included a line or two about the bullet at the end of the article, almost as an afterthought.

  The bullet was too badly damaged to shed new light on the 34-year-old homicide investigation, according to Detective Sergeant Beamer Beasley, of the Atlanta Police Department.

  Still, Cashion described her surgery to remove the bullet as “an enormous relief.” A spokesperson for Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., where the procedure was performed, confirmed that Cashion is expected to make a full recovery.

  Cashion plans to resume her work as a professor of French Literature at Georgetown University, following a trip to Mexico. “I need to take some time to myself, to reflect on everything and to heal.

  “To be honest,” added Cashion with a laugh, “the best therapy for me right now is probably a margarita, and a couple of weeks of sun and sand.”

  I paid and tucked the newspaper and a bottle of water under my arm. I would check Alex James’s version of the story from my phone, once I picked up the rental car.

  It was 10:04 a.m., and I had three appointments to keep today.

  • • •

  “IF YOU COULD sign here. And here, and here.”

  The bank manager watched me with ill-disguised fascination across the glass coffee table in his office. He and the bank’s vice president for customer relations had greeted me at the elevator bank wearing sober, black suits and bearing a huge bouquet of flowers. These had been presented along with two cards—one reading, With Deepest Sympathy; the other, Get Well Soon!—signed by more than a dozen members of the bank’s management team. I was simultaneously touched and a little embarrassed. After the formalities at the elevator, the bank manager turned and led me through a maze of cubicles. No vase was offered. No kindly assistant materialized to help. There was nothing to do but to follow him, three dozen long-stemmed, pink roses cradled in my arms, ribbons fluttering in my wake, like an aging but still regal homecoming queen.