But over the weeks, months, it took the system to sort out his crimes and decide how to punish him, Walter had come to understand and accept the contours of his life. Contours—a lovely word, exactly what it sounded like, a big round vase. He wasn’t going to be found innocent, not in the case of Holly or Maude, and that was all because of Elizabeth, the state’s star witness. Without her, they wouldn’t have had anything. She had found him at Maude’s grave, she had been there the night Holly died. It was lucky that he hadn’t given her specifics of the other things he had done. Oh, he had made vague references, especially in the beginning, when he had to get her to obey him. “If you knew the things I’d done…I’ve snapped a girl’s neck before and I’ll do it again.” But he had been cagey enough to withhold the specifics, and she couldn’t tell folks anything more than what she had seen. If only he had killed her—but he hadn’t, and that was that. Certainly he had known what would happen if they were caught, and he had realized, after Holly died, that such an outcome was more likely. Holly wasn’t the kind of girl whose disappearance and death went unavenged. This time, he had stolen a princess, and the kingdom was going to rise up, outraged. Sure enough, he was in custody less than forty-eight hours later, and that began the second half of his life, the part spent behind bars.
Still, in the early years, his days had some variety. There were the trials and, in the case of Holly, appeals and retrials. The first retrial had been filed before the twenty-one days expired, and no one could complain about that. Stupid woman juror had talked about the penalty phase, said she knew for a fact that he wouldn’t get death in Maryland, so they had to give it to him in Virginia. And the bitch would have lied, too, perjured her way through the investigation if she could have, but there were other jurors who were honest enough to admit the conversation had taken place. Then he had petitioned on the grounds of incompetent counsel, which hadn’t gotten him a new trial but had gotten him Jefferson, who was quite the busy little beaver. He was the one who had started poring over maps and begun to question whether Walter was in Virginia or West Virginia when Holly died. Yes, he knew folks were outraged when they got the order to send the surveyors out, that they talked about technicalities, how it was just a line on a map. But, hell, who wouldn’t want to be on the right side of a line that was literally the difference between life and death? If that campsite was on the West Virginia side, then he should have been tried in West Virginia, and West Virginia had no death penalty. Who could blame a guy for trying?
Eventually, life had settled into a slow gray haze. He did some of the things he set out to do. He read a great deal, especially military history. He practiced yoga. He corresponded with people who wrote to him, although no one had the staying power of Barbara LaFortuny. It seemed that the people, the women, who contacted him wanted something he simply couldn’t give. He thought about a religious conversion, but he found he believed less and less as time went on and he respected faith too much to fake it. If there was a God, then the world would make more sense. That much seemed clear to him.
But chess? No. He tried it, especially during that period when that nice army retiree was next to him in the yard. That guy, Hollis, said it was possible to hold a chessboard in your head and talk the moves. Over time, Walter learned to do that, but it was all he could do. The strategy of chess—the necessity of sacrifice, the impossibility of keeping every piece safe—bothered him. He hated sending those little pawns out into the world. And the games were long. He liked things that moved faster.
This, his dance with Elizabeth—it had gone at just the right pace. True, he had played it a little close to the edge, as Barbara kept saying. Elizabeth was due at the prison next Saturday, and he was to be transferred Monday morning to Jarratt, his third trip to the Death House. In fact, no matter what Elizabeth decided, he would still probably have to make that trip, but he didn’t mind. At least it was a variation in routine and it would end up making him the stuff of legend. Walter Bowman, the only man to come back from the Death House three times. He would be seen as invincible.
And if she didn’t cooperate, as Barbara kept fretting? They would still have enough time to sic the reporter on her, to let her see how quickly her world could be broken. But he hoped it didn’t come to that. It would be much nicer if she would just see that there was a right thing to do and she had to do it. He had no desire to antagonize Elizabeth, nor hurt her. But he was trying to stay alive and all was fair, etc., etc.
He had really come to enjoy their conversations these past few weeks and wondered if she felt the same. He wasn’t ignorant. He knew the pain he had caused her and didn’t expect her to understand that there had been pain for him, too. When they first began to speak, he was intent on his plan, his agenda, and couldn’t loosen up much. But as he got into the swing of things, figured out the rhythm of their talk, just how hard he could push, he had risked a few digressions. He had told her about his reading and how he had finally read Travels with Charley, which hadn’t been at all as she had described it. He had teased her about Madonna, her big idol, and asked if she went to her last concert in rubber bracelets and lace leggings. Her present life was clearly off-limits, and she shut him down if he probed too much, or dropped hints about what he knew. But they did, in fact, have a shared past.
Once, only once, had he invoked Holly. “You didn’t like her much,” he said, and she had become heated, told him she didn’t want to discuss Holly. But he knew he was right. Elizabeth hadn’t liked Holly. She was fearful of being displaced by her and—she was right to be. Holly was the one he wanted. Elizabeth was the one he got. Further proof that life wasn’t fair. And proof that he was long overdue for a lucky break. Not just overdue, but utterly deserving.
40
ELIZA EASED HER BODY INTO BED, joints aching as if she had completed a marathon. She had, in a sense, run a marathon of mothering today. A biathlon, if one threw Trudy Tackett into the mix, only what would you call the second event?
Without saying a word, Peter reached for her shoulders and began to knead them. She was grateful he didn’t want to talk further about the afternoon, that he knew to leave her in peace.
“You didn’t call,” Trudy had said, almost accusingly. It seemed to be Eliza’s day to face down older women who were disappointed in her, in her manners, in her parenting. “I waited, but when I didn’t hear from you within the first few days, I knew you weren’t going to call.”
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
“To me. It’s my understanding that you’ve been speaking quite a bit to another old acquaintance of ours.”
Eliza was almost grateful then for the humiliation of the trip to North Bethesda Middle School. It gave her a reason to speak to Iso, if not Albie, in the controlled measured tone she needed. “Iso, go to your room. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to find out that you’re grounded again. We’ll talk more about this later. Albie, Reba’s been cooped up for a while, as have you. Why don’t you take her into the backyard?”
Both children did as they were told, although Iso seemed puzzled, as if her mother’s reactions were hard to fathom. Eliza waited for the whine of the back door, the slam of Iso’s bedroom door. But the latter was actually closed with quiet decorum. It was so quiet that Eliza went halfway up the stairs to make sure the door was shut, then came back and closed off the dining room.
“What did you tell her?”
“She told me. I’m the mother of a childhood friend—according to you. She has lovely manners. Is that the English education? She talked a great deal about London.”
“Yes, she misses it.” Or so I just learned, Eliza thought. Did Iso confide in everyone but her mother? Could Trudy tell her about this seventeen-year-old Simon with whom Iso had been exchanging texts and calls on her pilfered phone? “What did you tell her? What do you want, Mrs. Tackett?”
“I want to make sure that you’re not up to anything.”
“Up to anything?”
“I know you’re speaking to h
im. Don’t deny that.”
“I didn’t deny it. Not that I’m accountable to you.”
Trudy Tackett’s composure was hard fought, which became apparent as it cracked. “You most certainly are. My daughter would be alive if it weren’t for you.”
“No,” Eliza said. “No.” She cocked her head. Was that a door opening in the hall? Had Albie and Reba returned to the house? She lowered her voice. “I couldn’t save Holly. I’m sorry if it seems that way to you, but it’s true.”
“Save her? You were an accomplice. You lured her into his truck. If it weren’t for you, she never would have spoken to him. She knew better than to engage with some strange man. You made everything possible.”
“Mrs. Tackett—it’s not my fault that I was there. It’s not my fault that I had gotten used to doing what he told me to do. I was fifteen, not much older than your daughter.”
“Holly was young for her age. She was a child, no matter what she looked like, and you offered her up to that monster.”
Eliza held Iso’s cooling mug of tea in her hands. The worst thing about this conversation was—she understood. She knew what Trudy Tackett felt, and she couldn’t fault her for it. If Iso had been harmed under the same circumstances, Eliza would be inconsolable, desperate to find reasons, someone to blame. Where would her anger and rage go? It would cut a path to the sea.
“I’m sorry. You have to believe that. But you also have to believe that I was as much Walter’s victim as anyone else.”
“Then why are you talking to him? And considering a visit, last I heard.”
She must know someone inside the prison. Certainly, neither Jefferson Blanding nor Barbara LaFortuny would confide in Trudy Tackett. “It’s what he wants.”
“Why do you care about what Walter wants? You were his victim, as you said. What hold does he have on you?”
She was tempted, of course, to tell Mrs. Tackett what Walter had promised, to let her know that she was on the side of the angels, beyond reproach. She hadn’t killed Holly, but she hadn’t saved her, either. Was that the same thing? She had resolved to live. Was her decision to live the same as willing Holly to die? It was a question beyond psychology, beyond philosophy, beyond theology. She had chosen to live, which she believed meant doing whatever Walter said. Holly was the one who had fought and run.
“I don’t, not really. I have my reasons to see him, but they’re my reasons.”
“He’s not to be trusted.”
“With all due respect, I don’t need you to tell me that, Mrs. Tackett.”
“You’re not to be trusted.”
That was unfair. At least, she thought it was unfair. She felt feverish, then all-over chills. The flu season had started early this year. Great, all she needed was the flu, when the visit to Walter was so near. Would a prison stop her from entering if it was determined that she was contagious?
“Mrs. Tackett, I don’t know what you want, and I’m not sure I could provide it even if I did. I can’t make Holly alive. I can’t. Don’t you think I’ve revisited, time and again, what I did. What I didn’t do? But I was a victim, too. I was.”
Even to her own ears, she sounded unpersuasive.
“Your children—they don’t know, do they?”
“No.”
“Is that because you’re ashamed?”
“It’s because I want them to feel safe.”
“No one is safe in this world, ever. I proved that to you today, didn’t I? Your daughter let me into your home, simply because my name was familiar to her. I could have been anyone. I could have done anything. I could have hurt your child.”
A sudden memory. The Lerners were in a beach town where parking was at a premium and the street was crowded. Eliza couldn’t have been more than seven. Her father started to back out of his parking place just as a little boy burst away from his mother and ran behind the Lerners’ car. Her father stopped in time, but the mother turned on him, screaming. Later, as they crossed the main boulevard, the same woman leaned out of her car and yelled: “I ought to run over your kids, see how you feel about it.”
“Your husband was an army surgeon, wasn’t he? Assigned to hospitals where he treated casualties from Vietnam, as I recall. Was it only when your own daughter was killed that you figured out the world wasn’t safe? Or was that simply when you began to care?”
“You think you care. You think you know. Believe me, you don’t.”
“That’s probably true.”
Mrs. Tackett bit her lip, apparently more offended by Eliza’s concession than anything else she had said. She gathered her purse and stood to leave. “The book—the book said you might have been his girlfriend.”
“The book is wrong. He raped me.”
“But Holly and the other girl”—the other girl. Couldn’t she hear herself? Was it asking too much that she know Maude’s name? “They never found any proof of sexual assault.”
“He wore a condom. At least he did with me. I can’t speak for the others.”
“A rapist who wore a condom. But we only have your say-so for that.”
“My say-so? Do you think I’m a liar, Mrs. Tackett?” She felt the color rising in her cheeks, a pulse pounding in her temples, her neck.
“I didn’t trust you then, and I don’t trust you now. I’ve waited a long time for justice, and it just seems terribly coincidental that you’re talking to Walter now, when he’s scheduled for execution.”
“What would be justice in your eyes?”
She steeled herself to hear: For you to die and for my daughter to come back to life. But Trudy Tackett was not that cruel.
“This. The execution. This is what Terry and I get. It’s not enough, but it’s all we get. Please don’t interfere.”
“I assure you—”
“Your assurances don’t carry much weight with me. I’m sorry if that sounds rude, but it’s true. You’ve never been completely truthful about what happened. No one’s ever called you on that. But now I have.”
“And do you feel better?”
Trudy Tackett had to think about this. “Never.”
LYING IN BED WITH PETER, who had fallen asleep even as his hands worked her shoulders and stroked her hair, Eliza wondered if Mrs. Tackett—she could never call her Trudy, nor had she been asked to, she realized—was replaying the conversation in her head, in her bed. Was Dr. Tackett with her? Was he still alive? Yes, she had spoken of him in the present tense. Did he know what his wife had done today, what she had been doing? She had been to their house at least once before, delivering the note that Eliza had mistakenly ignored, and Eliza supposed she was the source of the off-hour calls on the Walter phone, as she thought of it.
The thing was, Mrs. Tackett wasn’t wrong. Eliza had never told everything. The part about McDonald’s—Eliza had been forced to testify about that in open court, the prosecutor reasoning that it would seem far more damaging if the defense introduced it. Not that Walter’s overmatched attorney knew what to do with the information. His only objective seemed to be to get Eliza off the stand as quickly as possible. But the fact was, after she had seen the prosecutor’s reaction, not to mention her own parents’ momentary dismay, Eliza had stopped being completely forthright about what had happened during her last forty-eight hours with Walter. She didn’t lie. Even she knew she was no good at it. But, like the daughter she would one day have, she was exceptional at keeping secrets, and that was the path she had chosen. Certain things would remain unsaid. No one was ever going to look at her that way again.
After their McDonald’s supper, their unhappy meals, they had driven up a switchback in the mountains, near the national park, but not a part of it. Walter hadn’t wanted to pay to enter the park, much less interact with the ranger at the gate. It was dark, and they had to move slowly, the headlights catching deer, who looked malevolent to Eliza. Holly was weeping openly, constantly by then. Eliza yearned to comfort her but didn’t know how. She tried, at one point, to pat her shoulder, only to have Holly recoi
l as if Eliza intended harm.
Once he found a place to camp, Walter set up the tent he had bought at a Sunny’s Surplus and unzipped one of the sleeping bags, telling the two girls to lie on it. The night was chilly, but Eliza understood that Holly wanted no contact with her. “I’d give you both sleeping bags,” Walter said, “but I need something to pad the bed of the truck, if I’m going to sleep there and give you your privacy.” Eliza curled up into a ball, shocked by the cold, wondering how much longer they could sleep outside at this rate. The tent was another one of Walter’s big ideas. It had been expensive, but he had argued it would pay for itself quickly. Only, it hadn’t, not by a long shot. He hadn’t realized, when he bought the tent, that most camping sites, the ones with showers and restrooms, had charges, too. It had been days since he had landed any work. Holly’s money was the first real cash they had known in a while. She wondered how much there was, if they might check into a motor court the next night—
“Elizabeth?” Walter had entered the tent and was standing over them.
“Yes?”
“Go sit in the truck for a bit. I want to talk to our new friend here.”
She did. She always did whatever Walter told her to do. She went and sat in the truck. Not in the bed, as Walter had probably intended, but in the cab, in her usual seat, the windows tightly rolled up. Still, she couldn’t help hearing what happened next. Screams, sobs, a terrible bellow, like a lion’s roar, then a streak of white, which must have been Holly’s hair flying behind her as she ran, Walter not far behind her. She studied the keys in the ignition, which hung from a chunk of turquoise. Even if she could figure out the clutch, she could never drive back down that switchback. Still, she reached for it, flicked it, hoping to turn on the heater. No, you had to press the clutch in to turn the engine on, and Walter would be mad if she used just battery power. She slid behind the wheel, managed to turn it over after a few tries, then returned to her seat. Warm air filled the car, along with the sounds of a country song, “Have I Got a Deal for You.” She and Walter had worked out a compromise on the radio. He controlled it for forty-five minutes and then she got fifteen. He said that was fair because he was older and it was his truck. He said he really didn’t have to let her listen to those pop stations at all, that he was a good guy. He told her they were bad girls, Madonna and Whitney Houston and the Mary Jane Girls and Annie Lennox, and even Aimee Mann, although all she did was let the world know that her boyfriend was hitting her. He didn’t like any of the songs that Eliza liked except for one, “Every-y body Wants to Rule the World.” When that one came on, he would nod in agreement, say it was very true. He also liked—
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