Life Penalty (29 page)

Gail sat on her bed and shook with grief and rage, her hands trembling. She needed to talk to someone, she realized, feeling the weight of the phone in her hand. She called Jack’s office, but his receptionist told her he was still in surgery. Did she want to leave a message? Gail declined, about to return the receiver to its carriage, when without stopping to think about what she was doing, she pushed down on the buttons again, listening to their careless tune and waiting.

“Hello?” came the familiar voice.

“Nancy?” Gail whispered.

“Who is this?”

“It’s … Gail,” Gail said, almost under her breath.

“Who? Sorry, you’ll have to speak up.”

“It’s Gail,” she said louder, clearing her throat. There was a moment’s silence.

“My God, Gail! I didn’t recognize your voice.”

“I’ve been crying,” Gail admitted helplessly, feeling Nancy’s discomfort through the telephone wires.

“Oh, you poor dear,” Nancy said. “I wish I could help you. It’s this damn weather. The snow. It’s depressing the hell out of everyone. And just think, Sally Field and Tom Selleck are in town shooting a movie, and look at the weather they get. I mean, can you imagine the picture of New Jersey they’ll take back with them to California? It gets me so upset whenever we have a visiting celebrity and there’s bad weather.”

“It’s my birthday,” Gail broke in. “I’m forty.”

“Oh my God, no wonder you’re depressed, you poor thing. I remember how depressed I was! I spent the whole day in bed. You know what you should do?” Nancy asked, and Gail realized that there was no way that Nancy would ever let her get to the heart of what was really bothering her. Nancy was shallow and self-centered, but she was not stupid. She had made a conscious decision regarding those things she could deal with and those things she could not. Gail, and the real reasons she was depressed, were among the things she could not. “You should go out and get your hair done. That always picks me up. I found a wonderful new guy at Tyler’s. His name’s Malcolm. He works miracles. Why don’t you give him a call. Tell him it’s your birthday. Maybe he’ll be able to squeeze you in this afternoon …”

“I’m cleaning the house,” Gail offered, anxious now to get off the phone.

“Cleaning? Are you serious? Gail, when are you going to get smart and get yourself a cleaning lady, for God’s sake? Do you want the name of a good one? One time when Rosalina got sick and I was absolutely desperate, someone gave me the name of a wonderful girl. Wait, here it is. Daphne. I don’t know her last name. It doesn’t matter anyway. She was wonderful. Here’s her number. Have you got a pencil?”

Gail pulled open the drawer of the night table, retrieved a pen and a piece of paper and dutifully wrote the number down as Nancy dictated.

“Now, you call her right away. Do you hear me? You shouldn’t be cleaning. Especially on your birthday. Now take my advice. Go out and get your hair done. Last time I saw you, it looked like it could use a good trim. And treat yourself to a massage. You know how relaxing they can be. God, I don’t know what kind of state I’d be in without my weekly massage. Especially with the way my back’s been bothering me lately. Look, honey, I really have to run now. Is there anything else you need?” she asked timidly.

“No. No, thank you.” Gail returned the pen and paper to the drawer and closed it.

The line went dead in her hands.

Gail sat holding the receiver against her chest until it began to make the funny sound indicating it had been held too long off the hook. She jumped up in fright, the phone falling to the floor at her feet. Carefully, she bent over and replaced the receiver. The noise stopped.

She thought of calling Laura but decided against it.

Laura would forgive her immediately for the things she had said, apologize profusely for her own mistakes, try to cheer her up, then urge her to get professional help. She didn’t want professional help. She didn’t want to cheer up.

Gail dragged herself out of her bedroom and down the stairs into the kitchen, and spent the next hour cleaning out the kitchen cupboards.

The dishes that she and Jack had purchased for their wedding still occupied the majority of shelf space. Over the years, they had broken only one plate, and chipped two saucers in the dishwasher. Now she watched as first one large plate fell to the floor and then another, shattering on contact with the hard tile floor. By the time Gail had finished emptying the cupboards and refilling them,
she had lost half the set to the pail under the sink. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She had always liked those dishes—red and yellow flowers in the middle of white green-rimmed plates—and she’d read that the pattern had since been discontinued. The broken dishes would be hard, if not impossible, to replace. Cindy had loved these dishes with their happy flowers, as she had called them.

Gail got down on her knees and began picking up the broken bits of china, its flowers uprooted and scattered. She’d have a hell of a time explaining this one, she knew, tossing each piece into the container under the sink. As she leaned over to pick up one almost perfect crescent of china, its yellow flower severed at the stem, her wrist pressed down against another smaller piece. It stuck into her skin, drawing blood, and Gail watched with fascination as the drops of blood continued to fall, like small red tears, to her lap, staining her jeans. But it was a small cut and the bleeding soon stopped.

Gail held up the perfect crescent shape of what was once her dish. She held it to her wrist and mimed a slice across. No, that wouldn’t do it, she thought, turning the piece of china in the other direction, drawing it lengthwise down her arm. If you wanted to go to the hospital, you slit across; if you wanted to die, you sliced lengthwise along the vein itself. Then no one could stop the bleeding.

She pressed the edge of the dish against her arm, but discovered it wasn’t sharp enough to do serious damage. She’d need a knife. She had several in the top drawer. She stood up and dropped the final pieces of broken china into the garbage container. Then she opened the top drawer.

The knives were laid out side by side. Gail reached for one, letting her fingers clasp its wooden handle. She lifted it out and held the knife against her arm, measuring it against the length of her vein.

It would be over quickly, she calculated. In a matter of minutes, she would be dead on the floor, sprawled in a pool of her own blood, She pressed the knife against her skin.

The phone rang.

It was almost funny, she thought, and she almost laughed.

Gail listened to it ring three or four times before deciding that she had better answer it. If it was Jack and she didn’t answer, he might become suspicious and come home quickly, finding her in time to rush her to the hospital. Or maybe it was Lieutenant Cole, calling her with news that they had found the killer. She could not allow her daughter’s murderer that final, bitter irony.

“‘Hello, darling, happy birthday,” came her mother’s voice when she picked up the receiver.

Gail smiled. Her mother was watching out for her, protecting her without even being aware that she was doing so, something Gail had been unable to do for her own little girl.

Gail listened while her mother told her that she had her whole life ahead of her, not interrupting to say that the rest of her life would be spent just waiting to die.

After Gail finished speaking to her parents, she put the knife back into the drawer. Now wasn’t the time.

Not before she had accomplished what she had set out to do, not until Cindy’s killer had been brought to justice.

First things first, she decided.

G
ail was sitting on the bed in her room at number 44 Amelia staring at the wall in front of her when someone knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” she asked, startled. She had been living in this room for almost two weeks. It was the first time anyone had knocked on her door. “Who is it?” she repeated when no one answered. Probably the landlady, she thought, trying to remember, as she walked to the door, if she had paid today’s rent. Gail pulled the door open slowly.

“I understand you’ve been looking for me,” he said, casually pushing his way into her room and shutting the door behind him.

Gail said nothing, her voice having disappeared at the sight of him.

“Nick Rogers,” he told her, enjoying her discomfort. “Just in case the name slipped your mind.”

He wore a black T-shirt and the standard regulation pair of blue jeans. His light brown hair had been cut shorter than the last time she had seen him, so that it now fell in uneasy layers above his square chin. Otherwise, he was the same boy she had followed to this house two weeks before and had almost given up hope of seeing again. Now here he was in her room, his eyes openly challenging her, his voice daring her to speak.

Gail studied his smooth, unlined face. He was barely out of his teens, with eyes the clear light blue of a tropical ocean. His nose was narrow and straight, his mouth small and full. In other circumstances, in different surroundings, he would undoubtedly be considered handsome, she thought, surprised by her own objectivity.

Her eyes moved down his body. He was Jack’s height, she estimated, perhaps five feet ten inches, about 145 pounds, maybe less. Below the tight, faded jeans she saw the toes of his black leather boots. How was it, she asked herself, that no matter how poor, they all had enough money for leather boots?

“You want to smoke?” he asked, pulling a self-rolled cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lighting it. The heavy, sweet odor of marijuana filled the room. Gail shook her head. “You should,” he told her. “Takes your mind off your troubles.” He smiled, but the smile was without mirth. “And you got troubles,” he added somewhat unnecessarily. He held the cigarette out to her.

Gail cleared her throat, trying to shake her voice loose. “No,” she finally managed, though it was barely audible.

So often, she thought, watching as the boy inhaled deeply and held the smoke inside his lungs, she had wished she could be the sort of person who could bury her grief in either alcohol or drugs. But more than one glass of wine at dinner simply made her sleepy and unsteady, and she didn’t like the taste of hard liquor enough to get herself good and drunk. More likely, she’d only end up making herself sick. As for dope, she’d never developed the necessary interest, had smoked pot once in college and then once more with Mark before deciding that it was definitely not for her. She liked to be in control. Control, she thought, staring at the boy, that was a laugh.

“What did you want to see me about?” he asked almost pleasantly.

“I …” Gail’s eyes traveled awkwardly from the boy to the floor. What was she supposed to say now? she wondered.

“Irene told me you’ve been asking about me. I’ve been away for a bit ’cause I ran into some trouble around here. Irene told me there’s this broad on the second floor who’s been looking for me. Said you asked for me by name.”

“I thought you might be someone I know,” Gail told him, surprised by the strength of her voice.

“How’s that?” he asked, curious. “Mind if I sit down?” He didn’t wait for her answer before stretching out across her bed, his back against the wall, feet fully extended, in much the same position Gail had been in before his knock at the door.

“I saw you one afternoon walking down the street. I thought you looked familiar, like someone I knew, a friend’s son who disappeared,” she continued, her voice losing its sureness with the lie. “I followed you, asked the landlady about you. She said she didn’t know you.”

“Your friend’s son’s name is Nick Rogers?” he asked with just the right touch of irony.

“No,” Gail said quickly. “Of course not. I overheard Irene call you Nick Rogers. I thought you might have given her a false name.”

“And so you moved into the same place as me and hung around waiting for me to show up?” Gail nodded weakly. “Kind of a lot to do for a friend, isn’t it?” He leaned forward, pulling his knees up and resting his hands across them. Gail remained silent, knowing that anything she said at this point would sound as false to the boy as it obviously was. “Unless of course you were being paid to stick around.”

“Paid?”

“Like a detective or something. Like one of them Charlie’s Angels.” He paused. “Like a cop or something.” He took a final drag on his joint and dropped it to the
floor, one of his legs automatically reaching off the bed to stamp out what was left.

“I’m not a detective,” Gail said. “Or a cop.”

“But you did send the cops after me, didn’t you?” he stated rather than asked, catching the look of astonishment that crossed Gail’s face. “It
was
you,” he marveled, getting up off the bed. “You sent those cops down here.” Gail found herself backing up against the door as the boy walked steadily toward her. “Who the hell are you, lady? What do you want from me?”

Gail stared at the boy with wonder. So, the police had followed through on her phone call; they had sent officers to question him. And they had let him go. Why? “I’m her mother,” Gail said softly.

“Her mother?” he asked. “Is that supposed to mean something? Whose mother? What are you talking about? And let me tell you, you better start making sense pretty fast.”

“Cindy Walton’s mother,” Gail said slowly. “The little girl you raped and murdered.”

Nick Rogers’ face broke into a wide, expansive smile. He said nothing for several seconds. “The little girl I raped and murdered,” he finally repeated. “You’re going to have to be more specific,” he continued. “There’ve been so many.”

“Last April,” Gail told him calmly. Numbly. “In Livingston. In a small park down from Riker Hill Elementary School. She was six years old. I was her mother.”

“This is real interesting,” Nick Rogers said, nodding his head. “Now I’m starting to understand what all those questions the police kept asking me were about.” He paused. “Tell me more.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“Details. I want details.”

“You know the details.”

“Refresh my memory.”

Gail looked directly into his eyes. “My little girl was walking home alone from school. You were waiting for her behind some bushes in a small park about a block away. You …” she stumbled briefly, then regained control. “You pulled her into the bushes and you raped her. Then you killed her.” Gail felt the tears traveling down her cheeks.