“I really love you,” she said. “I thought you hungered for justice like I did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you know Max offered me money?” she said. “As if that could make up for anything.”
All I could muster was a deep sigh. She took my hand and stroked it. I felt so tired.
“Three years ago, I learned that my dad had been adopted. He didn’t know anything about the circumstances. It happened when he was a baby, so he has no memory of his real mother. A year ago, I learned I could never have children. It became really important to me to know where I came from. So it took some time. It took some money, and some other things. But I finally found Frances. She’s my grandmother.”
My foot was caught somewhere between the worst cramp you can imagine and the deep pain of a broken bone. I just let it throb.
“I said I was a law student looking into wrongful convictions, and they let me visit her. I knew she was my grandmother, my flesh and blood, immediately. But she was so far gone, she didn’t even realize who I was. And then I learned the whole story. How the Yarnells had kept her in there for all those years. What they had done to her.”
“So you murdered Max.”
“Those are your words.”
“God, Gretchen, stop lying to me. If you love me, give me the truth.”
“I’m not sorry for what happened to Max, whoever did it. That’s the truth.”
“That’s because you did,” I said dully. “Then James Yarnell. I remember. You checked your watch that night, after we had dinner, and you suddenly left. You needed to be there when he was locking up the gallery and walking to his car. It didn’t seem to matter to you, that night in Scottsdale, if you shot me along with him.”
“If that had been me…if it had been, I’m a good shot.”
“You have the perfect alibi for that night: dinner with your lover, the deputy.” My mouth felt as if it were coated with acid.
Gretchen said softly, “Frances was a twenty-four-year-old girl who never did anyone harm. Her only fault was to fall for an old man who was betrayed by his sons! And then their sons carried it on. They could have stopped it any time. Just let her out and let her be. They had the money to let it go away.”
“I guess they thought they were in too deep.”
“They were evil,” she said simply. “They had blood on their hands.”
“That may be,” I said. “But the punishment isn’t up to us.”
She faced me, her eyes fanatically bright. “How many more decades would we have to wait for your style of justice, David?”
“My style of justice?”
“How many?” she demanded. “You’re the historian. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“And there’s no place for forgiveness?”
Her hands became fists and her voice rose an octave. “Tell my grandmother about forgiveness!”
“I can’t imagine she wanted her granddaughter to live the same nightmare that she did. Don’t you realize she stayed quiet all those years so your father would be safe, so the Yarnells would never even know about him?”
She sobbed softly. “Are you arresting me?”
I said nothing.
Then she kissed me, the most tender kiss of my life. It dawned on me that she could kill me, too, if she chose. Right that minute, I didn’t care. I heard her whisper, “My God, we could have been good together.”
I willed myself from her arms, willed myself out of the bed, willed myself out of the pain and desire to pass out. I grabbed the cane they had given me in the hospital and hobbled toward the door.
I stopped at the threshold of the bedroom. “How can you be sure you’re right?”
“You know I’m right.”
“I know I took an oath as a deputy sheriff. I know James Yarnell is under arrest, and we will prosecute him lawfully.”
“Well,” she said quietly. “You take your justice. I’ll take mine.”
Epilogue
Peralta didn’t come home that night. The next morning, I found out why.
STRANGLER KILLED IN GUNFIGHT WITH DEPUTIES, the headline said. Photos showed Lindsey-it was a mug of her in uniform that was at least two years old-and Patrick Blair, looking gorgeous. And the strange, round-faced man who followed me that night in the Ford Econoline van. “Alleged serial killer,” proclaimed type under his face. I looked at Lindsey’s face and was suddenly afraid to read more. I felt a deep stab in my stomach.
I made myself read:
A 38-year-old Mesa man about to be arrested as the notorious Harquahala Strangler shot it out with sheriff’s deputies Tuesday night. One deputy was wounded. The suspect, Mark Wayne Bennett, was fatally wounded.
The firefight took place at the suspect’s apartment on North Val Vista after sheriff’s detectives attempted to serve an arrest warrant. After the suspect opened fire, Det. Patrick Blair was wounded. He was listed in guarded condition at Desert Samaritan Hospital.
Chief Deputy Mike Peralta praised Deputy Lindsey F. Adams, for saving Blair’s life and preventing the suspect from escaping. Peralta said “substantial evidence” links Bennett to the slayings of 26 women in the Phoenix area. The alleged murderer had become known as the Harquahala Strangler because most of his victims were left in the Harquahala Desert west of the city.
On Christmas Eve, Peralta walked in the door just before six. I shook his hand and congratulated him on solving the case.
“From your new buddy.”
He handed me a box with blue gift-wrapping. It was a bit smaller than the kind of hatboxes Grandmother once favored.
“Who?”
“Bobby Hamid,” Peralta sneered. “You know, he closed the purchase on the Triple A Storage Warehouse today. Says he wants to preserve the building. He’s even going to excavate the tunnels.” He eyed the package. “You going to open that or am I going to have to call the bomb squad?”
I slipped off the wrapping and opened a box filled with Styrofoam worms. I reached in my hand and caught the edge of something smooth.
“Good Lord, Mapstone,” Peralta said.
It was a piece of Santa Clara pottery that glowed blackly in my hand. He bought the building and he’s going to excavate the tunnels, and take whatever might be hidden down there…
“I’ll be damned,” I said.
Peralta looked at me a long time, then he just shook his head and walked into the living room.
“What I really want is a well-made Gibson,” he said. So I hobbled to the kitchen and made drinks. When I came back out, the tree was lit and the picture window open to the street. Out on Cypress, the other Christmas lights glowed merrily back at us. I put on the Messiah again, the Boston Baroque recording. Peralta settled into the big leather chair, and I closed my eyes, reflecting on a year of so much change, so much loss, so many close calls and blessings.
Peralta wanted to read from the Bible, from the Book of Luke, because that was the way his father did it on Christmas Eve. Peralta had his formal occasions, and deviation was unthinkable. It had been the same tradition with Grandmother and Grandfather. I retrieved the heavy King James Version from the bookshelves.
Peralta drew himself up in the chair and read, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus…” He really had a beautiful voice, rich with intonations and possibilities.
Then he passed the book to me.
My voice was still raw from the talk with Gretchen, and all the wide-awake hours after that.
“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people…”
Fear not. Be not afraid. When the Pastoral Symphony came around, I went to get Peralta’s presents. Then I got him on his feet and took him by the shoulder. He glared at me uncomfortably.