“If anyone brainwashed me, it was you,” she said. “You intimidated me to the point that you could trust me to do anything. I was scared all the time. Scared enough that I went and sat in the truck because you told me to. So scared that I didn’t try to get away from you, no matter how many chances I had.”
“Well, if you could be brainwashed by me, you could be convinced by other people, too, right? You always were susceptible, Elizabeth. You wanted to do what other people wanted you to do. First me, then the lawyers. There’s no shame in that.”
Then why did it feel as if he wanted her to feel exactly that, as if he was trying to find a way to push those buttons. “The prosecutors didn’t threaten to kill my parents and my sister if I didn’t cooperate with them. The prosecutors didn’t hit me, early on, when I didn’t do their bidding, or tie me up. The prosecutors didn’t rape me.”
“Didn’t they? They got you to tell a lie. That’s perjury, Elizabeth, and perjury is a felony. Same as rape.”
“Not quite. Not at all.”
“Still, it’s wrong to lie in court. I don’t think you lied consciously, but you were wrong. She really did fall, Elizabeth. I didn’t push her. Even if you did see me chase her—and you couldn’t because I didn’t—you couldn’t see what happened, how far I was from her when she fell.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
For a moment, he looked angry, and Eliza could feel the deputy tightening, coiling, ready to leap in, although she was still on her mark, several inches behind it, in fact. Walter had planned out a version of this conversation in his head, and it wasn’t going his way, any more than any of his conversations with grown women had ever gone his way. She wasn’t a girl anymore, and she was thwarting him. It felt good.
His voice tried for a cajoling tone. “That’s your right, isn’t it? To believe me or not believe me, based on the facts. That was my right, too. To have a jury hear the facts. To have them decide, based on the facts, if I did what I was accused of doing. My rights were denied me, because of your testimony. My lawyer wouldn’t put me on the stand, wouldn’t let me contradict the star witness, because you were so convincing.”
“Walter—I told the truth.”
“You thought you did, but it couldn’t be.” He lined up his left forearm on the bars. “There’s the truck, see? With the headlights where my fingers are.” He wiggled his fingers. “The tent was behind it. Holly ran in the other direction. Barbara drove to the campsite, and it’s the same, after all these years. She even went at the right time of year, last fall, almost to the day, so everything lined up. You couldn’t have seen what you said you saw.”
“Last year—you’ve been looking for me all this time, haven’t you? It wasn’t an accident. You didn’t just find me in the pages of Washingtonian. It wasn’t destiny, or serendipity.”
“Well, yes and no. I mean, yes, we were looking. But it was an accident, how I found you, and that’s a kind of serendipity. That’s how I knew you were supposed to help me. I turned the page, and there you were.” He paused. “You got so pretty, Elizabeth. I always knew you would. You weren’t my type, when you were young. I liked those tall blondes. Can you blame me? That’s what a young man likes. But it’s right, about beauty being skin deep. You’re beautiful inside, and it finally got to the outside. And you’re too good inside to let the lie stand. Not when it could cost me my life.”
“The governor doesn’t want to issue you a stay under any circumstances.”
Walter raised his eyebrows. “Funny that you should know that. I mean, I know that. Barbara and Jeff know that. This governor would prefer not to be dragged into this at all. But how do you know that, Elizabeth?”
She looked at the floor, at the masking tape, reminding herself that she was safe. She would not cross the creek again. He could not grab her wrists, force her into a truck. So why were her knees shaking?
“Just common sense,” she said. “He almost never does.”
“You still can’t lie. That’s why I’m not mad at you.”
He wasn’t mad at her? That was rich.
“I know you believe what you testified to. At any rate, you’re right. He’s not going to commute my sentence unless something really big happens. Like, the star witness against me recanting her testimony. I wouldn’t get a new trial, under Virginia law. But if you told him that you had come to realize you were mistaken, or that the prosecutor put words in your mouth—he would have to listen, give me a stay.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I can think of three reasons. One, it’s the right thing to do. Can’t believe I need to give you more, but here goes.” He had been holding up his index finger, and now he added the middle one. “Two, I don’t see why I should share any information with you unless you prove you’re a trustworthy person. Truth for truth, Elizabeth. If I owe those other families the truth, then you owe me the same.”
“I have always been truthful.”
“Okay, then three. I still have time to give Jared Garrett an exclusive. I’ve written pages and pages and pages, which are in Barbara’s possession. He always thought things were different with us. Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s a truth that needs to go out there in the world, that we were boyfriend and girlfriend and you got jealous when I fell for Holly.”
There it was, the thing she feared most. She would be outed. Her past would become present, truth and lie would mingle, and she would spend the rest of her life explaining herself. She would have to explain to her children what happened to her, yet persuade them that they could still feel safe in this world, that their parents could protect them. Albie’s nightmares, Iso’s secrecy—this wasn’t going to help. And if Jared Garrett published Walter’s version of their relationship, how would she convince Iso that her clandestine flirtation with a seventeen-year-old was out of bounds? It was everything Eliza had feared—and, she realized, she could handle it.
Still—she was disappointed in Walter. She really had wanted to believe that he had changed. And she didn’t feel naive or stupid for the hope he had stirred up in her, the ruses he had used to lure her here. This was the way she wanted to be, the way she would continue to be. Like her college-essay role model, Anne Frank, she believed that people were basically good. Most people, at least.
“You’re not going to tell me about the others, are you?”
“I will if you call the governor and my sentence is commuted to life. Then I’ll tell you everything.”
“No you won’t. Because even if you failed to rape them, you tried, and that would mean the death penalty in those cases, too.”
“Let me worry about that. Isn’t living with my crimes, as an aware and remorseful person, more of a real punishment than killing me? Every day I’m alive, I have to think about what I did.”
“But do you?”
“What?”
“Do you? I mean, yes, every day is an opportunity for you to think about your victims, that doesn’t mean it happens. I have a feeling, Walter, that the only person you’ve ever really thought about is yourself.”
He lowered his voice, and she almost crossed the invisible barrier despite herself.
“I think about you. Every day. The time we spent together—that’s about as happy as I ever was.”
“Then I’m sorry for you. Because that was not a happy time, Walter.”
“You’re the only woman I ever made love to.”
“I was the fifteen-year-old girl you forced yourself on sexually. It’s not the same thing.”
“I cared about you. I still care about you. This is as much for you as for me, Elizabeth. I know you. You always did the right thing. You couldn’t tell a lie to save your life. They tricked you into believing their lies.”
“Walter, I believe you killed Holly.”
“But do you believe that I deserve to die for that? You and your family, that’s not your way.”
“It wasn’t our choice. The prosecutor asked the Tacketts what they wanted. He aske
d twelve citizens of Virginia if they thought it was fair. They said yes, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“But there is.” His voice scaling up, strangled. “All you have to do is pick up a phone, say you’ve realized, talking to me all these weeks, what you got wrong. I’m not asking to go free, Elizabeth. I’m asking not to die. You can save me. Only you can save me.”
“No, I can’t, and I never could. I’m sorry, Walter, I really am. But you’re asking me to lie.”
“Quite the opposite.”
Worse, he was asking her to do the most unnatural thing in the world, to comb over her memories of that night. What if she had unwittingly perjured herself? What if, in her refusal to relive that night, she had gotten it wrong? What if—and then it came to her. She saw herself on the country road with Iso and Albie, her heart in her throat as she wrested the car back into the correct lane, the ghostly deer disappearing behind them, the white tail triggering the image she was always trying to bury. She had slid across the seat to turn the key, so she could have heat and music, then she had looked up as she returned to her own seat—
She almost wept from relief.
“Walter, I could see you. I saw you in the rearview mirror.”
“That’s a nice story to tell yourself, isn’t it? Maybe you can lie, after all.”
“I’m not lying. I looked up, I saw you both. Did I see you push her? No, but I never said I did. I saw you chase her. You were right behind her, almost on her heels. If she had run off that mountain as you claim, you would have been right on top of her.”
Walter’s eyes slid sideways. It was his eyes, that was the tell, what was off in his otherwise handsome face. Narrow and small, they were never looking where they should be. They eeled away when a direct gaze was required, fastened on another’s eyes when it was inappropriate, got caught studying cleavage and legs.
“But it’s plausible, what I’m saying. Worthy of reconsideration.”
“I won’t lie for you.”
“You’d do it for your kids, for your husband. You’d lie for them.”
“I suppose I might, if it came to that. But that’s different. Even you have to realize it’s different.”
He extended his hand through the bars, and the deputy was on his feet, just that fast, shoulder to shoulder with Eliza. He needn’t have worried. She had no intention of moving closer to Walter, although it was hard not to collapse against Deputy Walter, use his bulk.
“I love you,” Walter said, and even the earbudded deputy had to be able to hear that, or read his lips. The deputy shook his head in disgust.
“Walter, you’re lying or you think that’s true. Either way, it’s sad.”
She walked away, gathered her things from the deputy’s desk, turned back. “The others,” she said. “It would be a comfort to their loved ones, if you could make a clean breast of things. I wish you would.”
“Well, that was up to you.” Petulant as Iso.
“No, it was always up to you. I admit it. I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to come out of here with all the names and details. I thought if I could set the record straight about the other girls, I might finally forgive myself about Holly.”
“You did have a chance to save her.” Green eyes glinting. What happens when beauty doesn’t free the beast, doesn’t release him from his curse, knows him but still cannot love him?
“I couldn’t see that at the time. I wish I had, but I didn’t. But I couldn’t save her that night, Walter. What I saw might be contestable, but what I heard wasn’t. You pushed her off the side of that mountain. Pushed her because she fought back.”
“That’s right,” he said, triumphant. “You’re alive because you were weak. Because you weren’t worth killing. After I had sex with you, all I wanted to do was take you home, because it wasn’t good, wasn’t good at all. How do you like knowing that? You’re alive because there’s nothing special about you, because I didn’t want you. You’re the one I got stuck with, not one of the ones I chose. How do you feel, knowing that?”
Eliza assumed he didn’t want an answer, but she took his question seriously all the same. “Well, I’m truly glad I’m alive, so I guess I’m glad for the reason, whatever it was.”
She nodded to the deputy, ready to leave. Steps from the threshold, she dropped her purse, all but flung it to the floor, and its contents, a remarkable collection of items that screamed mom—messy, disorganized mom at that—went skittering across the floor. Phone, Kleenex, wallet, change, checkbook, lipstick, comb. Deputy Walter fell to his knees, gathering it all up. She had known she could count on his automatic courtesy.
And in that instance, she stepped back toward the bars, passed her taped mark on the floor, kept going until she was inches from Walter’s face. They were almost eye to eye, he had not grown at all. She brought her arm up and saw Walter flinch, enjoying the look of unease on his face, the fact that he didn’t know what she was going to do. But she didn’t hit him. She placed her hand on his shoulder and said: “I know you’re scared, Walter. You have every right to be. There’s no shame in being scared to die. But I couldn’t save Holly, and I can’t save you.”
He was sobbing as she left. Partly out of frustration, she would guess. He had poured his energy into finding her, taking care to seduce her this time, and he had come so close to getting what he wanted. But he might be crying from fear, too, the overwhelming realization that he had no options, no out. She understood how he felt, was inside his head, experiencing the cold slap of fear and frustration. She knew him as well as she had ever known anyone, including her husband and children. Walter was all the gaps within her, the connective tissue that joined the two halves of her life. He was the neighborhood where she could never live again. He was the missing syllable, dropped from her name, yet forever a part of her, with her always, no matter what she called herself.
God help her, she would know him anywhere.
Part IX
EVERY DAY
Released in 1985 by James Taylor
Never charted on Billboard Hot 100
Album peaked at no. 34 and remained in the
top 200 for 54 weeks
JARRATT, VA [AP]—Walter Michael Bowman was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday night at the Greenville Correctional Facility here, his death witnessed by the parents of his final victim, a thirteen-year-old girl that he kidnapped, robbed, and attempted to rape in 1985.
“We waited a long time for this day and we feel that justice has been done at last,” Dr. Terrence Tackett Jr., the father of Holly Tackett, said in a brief appearance before reporters, his wife, Trudy, at his side.
Bowman, who had been on Virginia’s death row longer than any inmate in the prison’s modern history, declined to make a statement and asked that the details of his final meal be kept private. However, in the hours before his execution, he authorized a friend to release a posthumous statement to the media….
46
TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Eliza was walking Reba in the evening, marveling at the freakishly warm weather. Perhaps a more serious person—Vonnie, or even Peter—would fret about sixty-degree days in mid-December, but she couldn’t help enjoying them, especially on a clear night such as this, the stars vivid despite the haze of lights from central Bethesda.
The night was so lovely that she walked much longer than she had planned, trying to think of clever insights for the neighborhood book club she had joined. It was an odd group, made up of older men and women, many of them government retirees, with only one other mother. Eliza had found them through her single neighbor, the one who was kind enough to take in their newspaper when they went away. The group read classics, the neighbor had said, almost warningly, and while wine was consumed, they tried to stay on point during their discussions. No gossip, no chit-chat, no competitive hors d’oeuvres. Eliza did not consider this a deterrent. The January book was The Mill on the Floss, and Eliza wanted to be thought intelligent, prove herself worthy. Hadn’t Vonnie read a lot of Eliot
? Perhaps she should call her—
She was lost enough in her thoughts that she did not notice Barbara LaFortuny’s humpbacked car creeping up behind her. However, Reba did, planted herself and issued one muted, but undeniable bark as the car idled to a stop.
“It’s okay, girl.”
Barbara rolled down her window. She was hard to see in the darkness of the car’s interior, while Eliza was under a streetlamp, exposed. Still, she could make out the various shapes of Barbara’s remarkable hairstyle. All that time, all that effort…did she really think it was attractive? Architecturally impressive, yes, undoubtedly. But attractive? Just because you worked hard on something didn’t make it worth doing.
“Hello, Barbara.”
“I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
Eliza considered this. “In some ways, I am. But I’m more proud of Walter.”
“You have no right to be proud of him. He didn’t do it for you.”
She believed this was true. “Still, he did the right thing, in the end, releasing that statement. Two families now know what happened to their daughters. I just feel sorry for the others.”
“What others? Walter had no other victims, and he never would have been given the death penalty for the two murders to which he did confess, if only because—” Barbara, ever the advocate, ever wound up, always wielding her talking points like a squadron of flying monkeys. If only she could hear anything that others said in the rare spaces she left between her words. Holly, Maude, Dillon, Kelly. Eliza’s ghosts all had names and faces now. She wondered if that meant they might stop visiting her.
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