by Grievous Sin
“Marie, you’re not helping Tandy by protecting her,” Decker said. “Marie, she’s sick! She needs medication. She needs help! If you take the heat for her and allow her to go back into society, it’s a sure bet she’s going to do more damage!”
Silence.
Decker scratched his head. “Don’t you give a solitary damn about Lily Booker?”
Still staring at the window, Marie finally spoke. “I care.”
“Then how can you allow her murderer to go free? Even if the murderer wasn’t in her right mind?”
“I am the murderer.”
“Taking the rap because you feel guilty about a twenty-year-old affair won’t change the past, Marie. It won’t help Tandy, either. You want to help her, stop trying to atone for your sins. Your prodigal-daughter bit won’t play well in the courtroom.”
“I killed Lily Booker.”
Decker felt his blood boil. “We’re bringing Tandy to trial, Marie. No one is going to believe you murdered Lily, then dropped the baby off with the Robertses…or Robleses. Because Leek never saw you with the baby.”
“Leek’s an embezzler and a liar. His testimony is tarnished.”
“Marie, no one will believe you murdered Lily Booker, given Tandy’s history. So save everyone some grief and tell us what really happened.”
“I went crazy,” Marie said. “My hormones went out of control and temporarily blocked my rational senses. Everyone knows what hormones gone awry can do.”
“So that’s your brilliant defense, huh?” Decker bit back sarcasm. “I talked to your doctor. Your hormones were in check. There was nothing wrong with your mind that a cat couldn’t take care of. Tandy was the one out of control. Tandy’s voices weren’t in check. Tandy was hearing voices, do you hear me? She was delusional!”
Marie didn’t answer.
Decker began to pace. “The high voice, the low voice, telling her to do things. Shrink says they were probably her punitive parents or something like that. I’ve got to read the report. I’m not a shrink. I don’t claim to know all the technical mumbo jumbo. But I do know this. Tandy is a sick girl! We’ve got lots of professionals who’ll testify to that, Marie. Why? you ask.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I’ll tell you anyway. Because everyone wants Tandy treated! Because everyone truly cares, except you.”
“I care.”
“If you truly cared, you’d want the same thing.”
“I did the murder,” Marie stated flatly. “I took the baby. I was old and childless, and I wanted a baby.”
“So you’re telling me you pounded poor Lily Booker with a hammer to get a baby?”
Marie was quiet.
Decker said, “It was Tandy who walked into the nursery with a hammer, Marie. You know it. I know it. She was probably out to get you. She never forgave you for screwing her father, breaking up her parents’ marriage.”
Again, Marie was silent.
Decker said, “She found Lily and that was good enough. She smashed Lily, took the baby—”
“I took the baby—”
“Bullshit!” Decker said. “Tandy took the baby. Then she realized what she’d done and took the baby over to her parents. For the life of me, I don’t know why you let her take the baby! Helping her with Lily Booker was one thing. Poor Lily was already dead when you found Tandy with the hammer in her hand. But why did you let her take Caitlin Rodriguez?”
Marie didn’t speak.
“Why?” Decker pleaded.
“I took Caitlin because, through my hormonal delusions, I thought she was in danger in the hospital.”
“Danger?”
“I walked in on Lily when she was doing a heel stick on Caitlin. The baby was crying—screaming. Lily was hurting her!”
Decker thought about her words. “What? Tandy thought Lily was hurting the baby when she was doing a heel stick?”
“Not Tandy! Me! I saw Caitlin cry and got upset. Because babies cry when you do heel sticks. I tried to wrestle her away from Lily, but she wouldn’t let go. So I struck her…too hard!”
“Marie, you’ve done hundreds of heel sticks. No one will believe that—”
“I was delusional, for the last time! And yes, Sergeant, they will believe me! Because I, like you, have a reputable psychiatrist’s testimony.”
Decker felt his patience burst. “Fine, Marie. Go nail yourself to a cross, die for Tandy’s sins, and rot in a jail cell. Meanwhile, your niece will remain tormented by imaginary voices and will probably wind up hurting someone else. If she doesn’t hurt herself first. Goddamn it, don’t you want to help her?”
A slow smile spread across Marie’s face. “She has all the help she needs now, Sergeant. She found Jesus.”
First it was sex, then drugs, then lots of gods, until she found Jesus.
Symptom substitution.
Fanatically loyal.
Decker didn’t speak.
There was nothing left to say.
It was close to midnight when Decker walked through his bedroom door. Rina was nursing Hannah while attempting to write on a notepad. It was a juggling act worthy of the Ringling Brothers.
Decker said, “Can I help?”
“Unfortunately, no. You can’t nurse the baby, and you can’t check off my food list.”
“Why can’t I check off your food list?”
“Because you don’t have any idea of what I have and what I don’t have.”
This was true.
“All set for tomorrow?” Decker asked.
“I think so.” Rina gave him a big grin. “Peter, I’m so excited. I think you should make a speech.”
“A speech?”
“Yes, a speech.”
Decker sat down on the bed. “Why don’t you talk?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. People would rather look at you than me.”
“Peter—”
“I’m serious. Go on, Rina. Give Mike Hollander a thrill.”
She laughed. “All right.” She looked down at Hannah, who was busy with her midnight snack. “She is so beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yep.” Decker snuggled next to his wife and child and put his arm around Rina’s shoulder. It was time to stop and smell the roses. Maybe Tandy wouldn’t get the help she desperately needed. Maybe no matter how hard Pomerantz worked, the jury would believe Marie—that she was delusional and had masterminded everything. Maybe Marie really would die for Tandy’s sins.
Some things are just out of your control.
As if to imply that some things are in your control.
Control may be an illusion, but it’s the illusions that keep you sane.
Decker hugged his wife’s shoulder. “She’s gorgeous, like her mom.”
Rina kissed his cheeks. “This is nice, isn’t it?”
Decker let go with a full grin. “Darlin’, it don’t get much better than this.”
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Dr. Lawrence Platt
and Dr. Irwin Frankel
About the Author
FAYE KELLERMAN introduced L.A. cop Peter Decker and his wife, Rina Lazarus, to the mystery world nineteen years ago. Since then she has published fifteen Decker/Lazarus novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Street Dreams, The Forgotten and Stalker. She is also the author of Moon Music, a contemporary thriller set in Las Vegas; The Quality of Mercy, an historical novel of Elizabethan England; and Double Homicide, co-authored with her husband, Jonathan Kellerman. Her latest novel is Straight Into Darkness, an historical mystery set in Germany during the rise of Adolph Hitler and National Socialism. Ms. Kellerman lives in California with her husband, noted author Jonathan Kellerman, and their four children, three dogs, and fish too numerous to count.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
"KELLERMAN IS SPLENDID."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Resounding praise for
New York Times bestse
lling author
FAYE KELLERMAN
and her acclaimed
PETER DECKER / RINA LAZARUS novels
"One of the finest sisters in crime."
Los Angeles Times
"No one working in the crime genre is better."
Baltimore Sun
"Kellerman's novels sustain a quality that is unusually high."
Chicago Tribune
"This series…just gets better and better."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Reading a good thriller is very much like taking a great vacation: half the fun is getting there. Faye kellerman is one heck of a tour guide."
Detroit Free Press
"Kellerman has become a real pro at setting up crime puzzles, laying on lots of real and fake clues, and keeping everyone guessing."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"She does for the American cop story what P.D. James has done for the British mystery, lifting it beyond genre."
Richmond Times-Dispatch
"Kellerman has a flair for characterization…The major players are sharply defined and hero cop Decker is particularly well-drawn. His devotion to his pregnant wife and family is a touching counterpoint to the warped people with whom he must deal."
Orange County Register
"Mystery fans value Faye Kellerman for her superb Peter Decker / Rina Lazarus novels."
Washington Post Book World
"Kellerman is terrific."
Newsday
"[Decker and Rina are] hands down, the most refreshing mystery couple around."
People
"This couple's domestic affairs have the haimish warmth of reality."
New York Times Book Review
"One of my current favorites…What fun to match wits with a clever, literate author…Kellerman is accomplished at setting up sordid crimes and then lulling her beguiled reader into assuming the answer is obvious. Not so."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Kellerman blends Family and murder beautifully."
Ocala Star Banner
"I have seen the future of crime fiction, and her name is Faye Kellerman."
Glasgow Herald (Scotland)
Other Books by Faye Kellerman
RITUAL BATH*
SACRED AND PROFANE*
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
MILK AND HONEY*
DAY OF ATONEMENT*
FALSE PROPHET*
GRIEVOUS SIN*
SANCTUARY*
JUSTICE*
PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD*
SERPENT’S TOOTH*
MOON MUSIC
JUPITER’S BONES*
STALKER*
THE FORGOTTEN*
*The Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus Novels
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
GRIEVOUS SIN. Copyright © 1993 by Faye Kellerman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JUNE 2007 ISBN: 9780061827822
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