“You gotta help me, man,” he whispers.
Robb goes to the mirrored closet, leaning back against the door, his knees buckling under him. As he slides down, he leaves a wet trail on the glass. I kneel beside him, pulling at the T-shirt. A seeping washrag is duct-taped to his side. Underneath, a tiny hole oozes blood.
“Put pressure on this.” I replace the rag, moving his hands to cover it. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Wait,” he says, reaching toward my hand. “Make him tell you what he told me.”
“You’ve been shot, Carter. We’ve gotta get you to the hospital.”
“It doesn’t matter. Make him tell you.”
I pull free, walking out into the hallway. There’s no way I’m going to let him bleed to death on the carpet while I chat with Frank Rios. The emergency operator scrambles ambulance and police and then it’s back into the bedroom, where both men look up, both appealing to me. From the bathroom I grab fresh towels, then bend over Robb to try and staunch the flow of blood. Over my shoulder, Rios coughs sloppily and spits some more.
“You don’t get it,” he hisses, addressing Robb, not me, continuing a conversation I must have interrupted with my arrival. “Not you, not that other one — Murray. You talk, but it’s not inside you like it was in her.”
“Shut up,” I say.
Robb shakes his head weakly. “Let him talk.”
“I knew,” Rios says. “I could tell looking at you. Talking. That Murray thinks he’s so smart, quoting all these philosophers he’s never read. But he’s not. You’re not. This” — he shrugs against the cable — “it means nothing.”
I don’t want him to talk. I don’t want to hear his side of the story. Some killers, when they realize it’s over, they want to tell their life story. They have pronouncements to make, as though taking life gives them some heightened insight into living it. I’ve sat through enough of these lectures, even been entertained by a few, but not this time. Not him.
“You murdered Hannah Mayhew,” I say.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, then?”
He drops his head, showing me the top of his skull, his matted hair, a target to lash out at, to crush. I feel it in me, that desire to hurt him, to make him suffer, to put him down like a rabid dog. The lives he’s destroyed, the anguish, the senseless brutality — no one would begrudge me doing it, and there are plenty who’d consider it my duty. There are some men not worth bringing in alive, not if you can help it. I have the means, and coursing through me like a high, like a toxin in my system, I have the motive, too.
“I loved her,” he says. He does more than say it. He wails the words, filling them with a repellent self-pity. “I tried to stop them from hurting her.”
“Evey, you mean. You abandoned her. I know what happened to Evey. I saw the aftermath firsthand.”
His head shakes. “I sent them to save her, but they didn’t. You know what they did? He told me. Tony told me. They dumped her, man. They put her in the water like she was just garbage. And they were gonna do that to me, too, if they ever caught me.”
I can hardly stand it. “So you’re the victim here.”
“Everybody’s the victim. I work for the police, man. The good guys. I pass along whatever they need to know. And they supposed to help me. That’s what he says. Tony. They gonna help me with the money I owe. They gonna square everything in time. Only they don’t, so then I gotta do it. Except. . Except. .”
The emotion in his voice is real enough. I can believe, in his own sick and self-centered way, that he loved Evangeline Dyer, just like Coleman said. But hearing him say so, hearing his words thicken with grief, pollutes her memory. I see her face in Thomson’s photo, on the many pages of his sketchbook, in the picture folded over and tucked in my notebook, Evey and Hannah saying goodbye before the Dyers left for Louisiana. Even though I never knew her, even though I pursued her blindly, just a body tied to a bed, I feel she belongs to me in some way she doesn’t to him, the man she ran away with, the man who left her to her fate.
Something Donna Mayhew said comes back to me. I didn’t know her, but now I feel like I’ve found her. Only I’ll never find Evey, down at the bottom of the Gulf. She’s lost for good, and this is as close as I’ll ever get.
“You left her,” I say.
“I sent help.”
“And what about Hannah? She didn’t deserve to die. She didn’t deserve to have her body dumped, either, but that’s what you did.”
At the mention of her name, his demeanor shifts. He twists his head up, looking at me through the hooded eye. “That girl, she wouldn’t stop calling. She had to talk to Evey, wouldn’t stop until I put her on the phone. But how could I do that? I tried putting her off, but she knew something wasn’t right. She wouldn’t let go of it. And I thought, this girl could get me in a lot of trouble — or maybe I wasn’t thinking. I was afraid.” He spits again. “Afraid of them finding me, afraid of anyone knowing.”
“So, what, you kidnapped her?”
“I agreed to meet her. Told her Evey and me would be at the mall. That’s where we used to meet, before Evey went home to the Big Easy. Hannah, when she showed up, I told her she had to stop calling me. I said Evey went back again, but she could tell it was a lie. And I went, ‘This has gotta end.’ ”
“Then you killed her.”
He shakes his head. “I was just trying to scare her, man. But she got real angry and was like, ‘What you done to her?’ And she says she’s gonna call the police. Under the seat, my cousin Tito, he keeps a loaded gun.” He turns sideways to look at Robb, who hasn’t moved in a while. “He’s got the gun, man. You better watch out.”
“I have the gun,” I say, then hunching over Robb: “You okay? Help’s coming, so just hang on.”
“Is he okay?” Rios says. “What about me? Look what he done to me!”
“He could’ve done worse.”
A sticky laugh escapes his red lips. “No, he couldn’t. Not after what I told him.”
He stops talking, now that I want him to. But there’s no way he can keep it up. Not everybody talks, but everybody wants to, I’m convinced of that. The hard men, the professionals, they know to keep their mouths shut. But it doesn’t come naturally. Like killing, you have to overcome a lot of instinct to stay quiet, whether you’re guilty or not. The effort on its own is sometimes enough to give the game away. So I know he’s going to open up.
“Told him what?”
Under the circumstances, though, he could admit to anything and get away with it. It won’t take much of a lawyer to argue any confession made in this room is coerced. But I don’t need him to confess to anything. All I need him to do is exist; all I need is his body so that justice can be executed upon it.
“Told him what?” I ask again, giving him a nudge.
“Don’t touch me, man.”
I push him again, and he rears back.
“What did you tell him that was so important?”
“Go on,” Robb says.
Rios starts nodding, a nod like a train coming over the horizon, slow at first, hardly perceptible, then it gains momentum, quickening to the point that his head bobs back and forth, his intention arriving. “It was her fault. She saw the gun and the stupid girl reached for it. It went off, and she’s sitting there in the passenger seat, looking surprised, like she never saw that coming.”
He looks up at me, gauging my reaction, then he chuckles. Telling the story is like committing the crime again, only this time with an audience. We’re helpless bystanders, Robb and I, witnesses. Forced to hear, powerless to stop him.
“She was trying to save her friend,” I say, because I can’t say nothing. “A girl you supposedly loved. And you killed her.”
My anger leaves him unfazed. “She didn’t react at first, but then she kind of cried out. I dragged her back between the seats, put her on the floor of the van, you know.” He closes his eyes, remembering. “I never did that before, nev
er shot someone, and it kind of surprised me she didn’t die right there. Maybe the bullets were too small. She started crying then, laying in back. I started driving, ’cause I was afraid somebody heard the shot.”
I recall the parking lot, standing in the space where Hannah’s car was found. He’d shot her, and when she didn’t die, he threw her in back and drove around, waiting for her to bleed out.
“So I’m driving,” he says, “and I look back and there she is, crawling up to the front again.”
The more he speaks, the calmer he gets, like his energy is channeled entirely into the story and he’s almost proud to tell it. There’s a pleasure he takes in describing the scene, like a kid at a campfire describing the weirdest thing that ever happened to him.
“She was kind of clawing herself toward me, you know? Her hair was hanging over her face, like in a horror movie or something. And it was scary, man, scary to see her coming.”
Behind me, Robb shifts his weight. “She didn’t give up. She was brave.”
The interruption trips him up, and for a second Rios can’t remember where he was. Maybe the emotion in the youth pastor’s voice has thrown him off. It’s not anguish. It’s not the choking, soul-eating rage that I’m feeling. What it sounds like is love.
“I had to shoot her again,” Rios says, his voice rising an octave, “while I’m still driving. That time she got quiet. And I thought, Wow, I think she’s finally dead. I drove like that awhile and then I look in the mirror and she’s right there, staring at me all pale like a ghost. I almost crashed, man. I had to pull into the driveway of somebody’s house, and I turn around and she’s holding her stomach, and she’s got these tears streaming down her face, and she keeps going, ‘What did you do to her? What did you do?’ And I keep telling her, ‘It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.’ ”
He shakes his head, laughing incredulously at the thought.
“There I was. I got the gun, and it’s like I’m the one who’s afraid, you know? Trying to make an excuse or something, so she don’t get mad at me. Well, she kinda fell over then, up against the side of the van, and she started making this noise. . I can’t even describe it. It was loud, though, and I thought somebody was gonna come outside and see what was going on. I climbed in the back and told her, ‘You gotta shut up now, you gotta shut up.’ And I put the gun against her head. .” He makes a pistol of his fingers, inching it forward in the air, drawing the cord along. “I put it against her head just the way he put it against mine.” He cocks his head toward Robb. “And she looked at me just how I looked at him, and she said just what I said. Only she meant it.”
“What do you mean? What did she say?”
“She said it twice, like she wanted to make sure I understood. What she said was, ‘I forgive you.’ She said it two times, maybe for her and Evey both. ‘I forgive you, I forgive you.’ ”
When he speaks the words, something goes out of me. I turn to Robb, who’s looking up, expectant, making sure I understand what I’ve just heard. We are witnesses together, yes, but not helpless. He looks feverish from the gunshot wound. His eyes burn into me.
“She forgave me.” He whistles under his breath. “You believe that? If I’d known she could be like that, I don’t think I coulda shot.”
He leans back a little, tugging on the cord, offering up his wrists like he expects me to free him, like he thinks I’ll whip out my lock-back knife and cut him loose, the way I did last time, when Hannah Mayhew’s blood was still fresh on his hands, though I couldn’t see it. I straighten up, feeling tired and spent.
Seven years ago, on that awful day, while I transported a knife murderer across the state line, my little girl’s heart was so full of empathy, so sad for all those strangers and their families, that she made Charlotte take her to a church vigil. They held hands, sitting on the hard pews, and they prayed for those people, and when they left, the car hit them and Jessica died.
And it was for nothing, I always thought. But I was wrong.
Against the mirrored closet door, Robb winces at the wound in his side, which is good. It shows he’s not too far gone to feel. He catches my eye, smiles grimly against the pain, and tries to get up. I move to stop him, but change my mind. I help him to his feet.
We edge down the hallway, leaving Rios behind, and I clear the basket of clean white laundry out of the way so he can sit.
“It wasn’t true what he said,” Robb whispers. “About me putting the gun to his head. Maybe he thought I was going to shoot him, but I never would.”
“It doesn’t matter to me.”
“It does to me,” he says.
I go into the kitchen, find a fresh plastic cup, and pour a measure of tap water out. Then, uncertain whether he should drink anything, given the position of the bullet, I dip a fresh towel in the water and use it to wipe his brow.
“You did good,” I tell him. “Hannah would be proud.”
He shakes his head, but not in denial. “I’m the one who’s proud. Proud of her.”
The metal steps rattle outside with the weight of uniformed officers and EMTs, the knock at the door filling me with relief. I step away from him, letting the responders do their work, taking Robb’s vitals and freeing Frank Rios, then cuffing his hands behind his back. I slip the Ruger from my waistband and put it on the kitchen counter along with the magazine and the bullet from the chamber, alerting the uniforms to its presence.
Then I step outside into the warm night, gazing up into the thick, radiant blanket that in this city always hides the stars.
ONE YEAR LATER
More than time has passed. The last time I drove by, the place seemed packed, with crowds spilling out into the lot. Election night, beer bottles raised in salute, the dawn of a new age. Now my wheels crunch over gravel and my headlights cast cones across the darkness. The facade is stripped bare, only a shadow left where the sign once hung, the plate-glass windows covered in a film of dirt. I sit a moment, gazing at the sight, wondering when this could have happened and how I of all people could have missed it.
I throw the car in reverse and drive home.
The house glows in the night, every chandelier and lamp, every fixture radiating, a sparkling stone set among the glimmering neighbors. I park in the driveway, popping the trunk, hoisting two bags of ice over my shoulder, saving the rest for another trip. Out of the shadows, Carter Robb pads over, flip-flops smacking against his heels. He reaches in to grab the rest of the ice, then slams the lid shut with his elbow.
“She’s been wondering where you were,” he says. “People are gonna start showing up.”
I smile. “Let her wonder.”
We let ourselves in through the back, hoisting the ice onto an empty section of countertop, one of the few gaps left that isn’t occupied already by dishes or glasses or finger foods ready either for cooking or plating. Charlotte tosses her apron aside, counting the bags of ice like she suspects me of holding some back. Satisfied, she gives me a kiss on the cheek. Over her shoulder I see Gina Robb peering into the oven, her cat eyes steaming, an oversized quilted mitt on her hand. Ann comes through from the dining room, silverware bristling from each fist, looking pinched as always but excited.
“He’s back,” Charlotte says.
Robb makes his excuses and retreats outside, taking the garage stairs two at a time. When he returns five minutes later, the flip-flops have been replaced by lace-up shoes, and he’s changed into clothes without any holes, without any ironic messages printed on them. For the past six months or so, ever since he finally resigned his position out in the suburbs, after much soul searching, to join Murray Abernathy at the outreach center, he and Gina have been living in the apartment over the garage. A temporary arrangement that, as far as I’m concerned, can remain permanent. Charlotte’s warmed to the couple, too, grateful at last to have tenants who never throw parties and never leave bottles strewn across the yard. She’s even talking about going back to church regularly, and dragging me along, kicking and screaming or otherwise.
The doorbell rings and I switch into host mode, but it’s only Bridger arriving as a harbinger.
“How did it go?” Ann asks.
“Brilliant. There were more people than seats, so I guess that’s a good sign.”
“Is he on his way?”
“He’s coming. They all are.”
Brad Templeton’s article about the case, when it ran in the Texas Monthly, set off another firestorm of interest, and is set to be anthologized with the rest of the year’s best crime reporting. His full-length account is fresh off the presses, another fat paperback. I fulfilled my promise to him, and this time, instead of dreading the publication, I feel relieved. I only left the signing at Murder by the Book early to fulfill Charlotte’s last-minute request for ice, dawdling pensively along the way.
The final chapter in the book is the only one I’ve actually read. Going further might spoil my reconciled equanimity. A few days after Christmas, in the bathroom of a Buenos Aires luxury hotel, a man who was later identified as Chad Macneil, the missing financial wizard, was found dead, his head submerged in a half-full bathtub. There was no sign of the missing fortune, but Brad made much of his theory that it was Reg Keller who did the deed before vanishing once again. Something tells me he’s right, but I haven’t admitted it to anyone. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I find myself hoping that restored wealth will keep him from ever coming back to fulfill his threat of revenge. And then I feel like a coward and tell him to bring it on.
After describing the book signing for the benefit of the ladies, Bridger slips out the back for a cigarette. I join him under the moonlight, grateful for the break. He tells me he’s still thinking about quitting, or at least cutting back.
“I just had a bit of a shock,” I say. “Did you know the Paragon closed down?”
He regards me thoughtfully through a cloud of smoke, then shakes his head.
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