Back on Murder (47 page)
“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.
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.
“It’s all gone.”
“You make it sound like such a tragedy,” he says.
We stand there quietly, a couple of loners steeling themselves for a night of mandatory entertaining. Bridger exhales, then chuckles on the smoke.
“Something funny happened today.” His eyes light up in the dimness. “Just before heading out to the bookstore, I was in line getting coffee. I guess I looked impatient, because the lady behind the counter asks me why the rush. So I tell her about the book signing, and I have to explain what it’s all about, of course. I mention Hannah’s name, and she starts nodding. ‘What a tragedy,’ she says, ‘and she was just ten years old.’ ”
“She was seventeen.”
“Right. But this lady had her confused with that other kid, the one they found in League City.”
“The Bonham girl?”
He shakes his head. “You’re thinking of the other one, but she was older. This lady meant the little Latina girl, the one who disappeared from the playground.”
“They never found that one’s body, I thought.”
He shrugs. “She was confused. The point is, I tell her, ‘No, this is the one they found during the hurricane, the one that died trying to find her friend.’ And she gets this vague look in her eye, like she kind of remembers, then she just gives up. ‘There’s been so many,’ she says, waving her hand in the air. I couldn’t believe it. This was all over the news, twenty-four seven, and she couldn’t even remember. I told Templeton at the signing and he looked disappointed, like that was one less person to buy his book.”
The door opens behind us and Carter Robb slips out. Bridger drops his cigarette and covers it with his foot, exaggerating the move so that Robb can’t miss it, his way of razzing the new tenant, even though Robb has never said a word about his smoking, or any other vice. The faults Robb occupies himself with tend to be his own.
“Everybody’s showing up,” he says.
But he makes no move to go back inside, and neither do we. Instead, we all stand there, shuffling our feet, taking final breaths, preparing mentally for the inevitable.
“Then there’s the appeal,” Bridger says, picking up on his theme. “That’s going to put the story back in the headlines, I bet. Assuming it gets that far. Templeton’s gotta be hoping it does.”
Frank Rios would be sitting on death row today if Donna Mayhew hadn’t made her appeal at the sentencing, asking for mercy on behalf of her daughter. Not many people understood that gesture, and she declined all opportunities the media offered her to explain. Now he’s in the Walls Unit up at Huntsville, working on an appeal. His defense team reached out to Ann, hoping she’d do some pro bono agitating on their behalf, but she had the good sense to decline.
“Whatever happens,” I say, “he’s not going anywhere.”
Before we can go inside to fulfill our duty, the door opens again and Theresa Cavallo slips out, shutting it firmly behind her.
“I thought so.”
“Pull up a chair,” I say, though nobody’s sitting.
“You got out of there early, I noticed.”
“Charlotte told me to come back with a bag of ice or on it.”
“Great.” She takes up a position beside me, arms crossed, and I glance down at her ring finger, where a wedding band is finally coupled to the engagement rock. Her fiancé came back from Iraq long enough to tie the knot, then he shipped out again for Afghanistan. I was there for the ceremony. She made a beautiful bride. It was hard to believe that in all that foamy white silk, I’d ever watched her exchange gunfire with Tony Salazar, or ever seen the blunted bullet embedded harmlessly in her vest. Her new husband kept shaking my hand, as if he owed me something.
“Bridger was just telling me something strange,” I say, shaking off the thoughts. “He met a woman today who couldn’t remember who Hannah was. She got her confused with some other kid. It’s hard to believe, don’t you think?”
Nobody replies. Nobody has to. We ponder the way of the world, the object of so much searching eventually forgotten, relegated to the dustbin of missing daughters. None of us will ever forget, or ever confuse her with anyone else.
“All right,” Cavallo says. “It’s probably time to go inside.”
We exchange looks, but none of us go. We’re all waiting to see who will make the first move.
J. Mark Bertrand has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. After one hurricane too many, he left Houston and relocated with his wife, Laurie, to the plains of South Dakota. Find out more about Mark and the Roland March series at:
