Becca watched her silently.
“Mitch’s career was essentially over the night your parents died, dear. His hopes for political office, gone. There was scandal involved. Vicious rumors about Mitch and your mother. I thought for a time that he might even be named a suspect.”
Patricia turned the glass of amber liquid in her fingers slowly. “Your uncle is a man of many passions, Becca. I’ve always known that. Rachel. Other women. Your mother. I’ve never doubted my husband’s love for me, never. But he loved your mother more. More than any of them. More than me. I’ve always known that, too.”
Decades of drunken emotion passed over Patricia’s aged face in the sun-filled dining room. “There was something special about Madelyn. Even I saw it, and I’m heterosexual as a brick. There was some spark in her. Some kind of innocent purity. You have it too, Rebecca. It drew Mitch like a flame. And Scottie knew it.”
She put down the glass and rubbed her face in her hands. “They hated each other, Mitch and his brother. I’m sorry, Becca, but hatred is the only word for it. I honestly suspected Mitch of the killings myself, for a moment, as I looked down at the bodies. But I was wrong.”
Patricia focused on Becca with effort. “I didn’t know for sure. Not until I realized Loren Perry had come back. Are you ready for another hard truth, Becca?”
“Yes,” Becca said.
“I hated your mother because my husband wanted her desperately. I’m still glad she’s dead. But I credit her with this much — Maddie was faithful to your father. She never let Mitchell touch her. He’s been truthful with me over the years, about every one of his little peccadillos, and I believe him about this. Do you?”
“Yes,” Becca said.
“Good.” Patricia downed the rest of her glass, and Jo couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Pardon me,” Jo said. “What injury did Rachel inflict on this family?”
Becca got up. “Come on, Jo.”
“Are you going to see her?” Patricia asked, her voice soft now.
“Yes.”
Patricia rose too and came around the table, weaving only slightly. Jo was torn between an impulse to take her arm and support her or tear her arm off completely, but Becca allowed her to clasp her hands.
“Do you know how I’ve managed to hold on to a solid marriage for forty-seven years, Becca? By accepting the fact that the people we love can be flawed. Even deeply flawed. And choosing to love them anyway.”
Becca looked down at Patricia’s trembling hands.
“Forgive us,” Patricia said gently. “We do love you, the best way we know how.”
“I know that. I always have.”
Family, Jo thought. Clan. There could be such a chasm between the two.
Becca leaned forward and kissed Patricia’s cheek. “Get some sleep.”
She held out her hand and Jo took it, and they walked together toward the entry.
“Becca?” Patricia’s voice drifted behind them. “She was taken to the hospice at Swedish Hospital last night. She doesn’t have long.”
Becca nodded, and they left the house.
Chapter Twenty-one
Finding parking was unusually difficult, and Jo focused on that minor annoyance. She circled the BMW around Swedish Hospital twice, a process that took twenty minutes. Pedestrian traffic was thick on Seattle’s First Hill, people of every gender swarming the streets. It was the morning of Gay Pride.
Becca was a still presence beside her, her hands in her lap. An Olivia Newton-John song surfaced on the car’s generic radio setting. Jo could smell the sweet freshness of Becca’s hair as she listened, her gaze distant out the window.
Before driving to the Healys’ house, they had gone to Becca’s second-story apartment in a working class neighborhood off Lake City Way. To Jo’s disappointment, Becca had asked her to wait in the car. She had been gone long enough to shower, and she returned carrying a small satchel. Jo thought glumly that her own clothes still smelled of smoke, and she rolled her side window down.
“You’re all right?” Jo asked again.
“I am. I’m fine,” Becca replied again.
That settled, Jo finally turned into the hospital’s subterranean garage. She circled its depths for several years before finally pulling into a narrow wedge of a parking space. She keyed off the engine and suppressed her automatic urge to open the car door, to get on with things. Jo rested her hands on her knees and waited until Becca spoke.
“Mitchell was saying that Rachel would never have robbed him of the love of his life. He still won’t believe Rachel would have hurt him that much, all those years ago, by killing my mother.”
Jo had worked this much out in her head. She waited.
“I’m not fine,” Becca said finally.
“Of course you’re not.”
“I think I’ve done pretty well.” Becca’s voice was starting to shake. “Last night, at the fire, talking to Loren. Earlier today, with my uncle and aunt. But now I have to see Rachel, and before I do, I might have to fall apart a little. I’m s-sorry—”
“You never have to apologize to me for your tears, Becca.”
Becca rested her head against the swell of Jo’s shoulder, which had been created solely for this purpose. She cried for a while, and Jo sat with her. Like Becca, Jo knew who had shot Scott and Madelyn Healy. Also like Becca, she didn’t yet understand why, but they could take time now for this.
“Should we find a vending machine inside? It would have chocolate bars.” Jo was serious.
Becca actually smiled and knuckled tears out of one eye like a child. “Yeah, that would be good. But maybe later. We need to get out from under all this concrete so I can make a call.”
“You’re sure, Becca?”
Becca nodded. She got out of the car, and Jo followed her through the labyrinthine passages of the parking garage into the light. Becca flipped open her cell, pressed keys, listened, spoke at length. When she was finished, she pulled open one of the double doors to the hospice unit, and Jo followed her through.
“Good morning.” Becca spoke to the young nurse behind the reception desk. “We’re here to see Rachel Perry.”
The nurse looked startled. “This early? Is Dr. Perry expecting you?”
Jo glanced at the nurse’s nametag. “Monica, this is quite important. To Dr. Perry, as well as to us.” She allowed the girl to absorb Becca’s expression, and her own.
“Well, we’ve finished with morning meds. But I do need to check. Dr. Perry just joined us last night.” Monica lifted a headset and touched buttons. She turned away from the desk and spoke quietly. She turned back and nodded. “Room sixteen. It’s down that hallway, last door on the left.”
“Thank you.” Becca laid her hand on the counter, then turned and looked up at Jo. She was faltering again; Jo could read it in the sudden sheen over her eyes.
“I’ve got your back,” Jo said.
Becca steadied and took Jo’s arm. Jo nodded at Monica, and they entered the long hall.
Jo’s work had made her familiar with the workings of end-of-life care, and she knew a good hospice could be a good place to die. This was a good hospice. There was no chemical smell of disinfectant, just the pleasant freshness of the morning air through several open windows. The carpet beneath Jo’s feet was thick enough to muffle their steps, but tailored to accommodate a wheeled gurney when necessary. The walls were painted a soothing blue with a cream accent, and framed paintings were positioned low, in the view of people in wheelchairs, on stretchers.
They passed three staff in the corridor, young attendants who smiled pleasant greetings. The unit was mostly silent. Jo heard no moans of pain, no demented cries. A hospice provided palliative care. It existed solely to make the dying process as painless as possible, and if that meant heavy medication, so be it. But they tried to help patients find meaning in the journey as well — closure with family, legal arrangements, spiritual consolation. Jo wondered which of these services Rachel Perry would choose to access.