An amazing calm came over her, a detachment from what was happening, like the paralysis of jungle prey in the jaws of a predator.
Then there was shouting.
Soles shuffling on blacktop.
Grunting and ragged breathing.
She was lying flat on her stomach, feeling the warm spread of blood beneath her cheek. Still there was no pain.
And Spangle was lying beside her, also on his stomach, his arms twisted awkwardly behind him. Someone was tying his wrists together, twisting what looked like a leather belt around and around them. He was ranting incoherently and glaring madly at her, blood bubbling from his mouth.
“Had to stab him!” a faraway voice said. “Bastard’s crazy strong!”
Men’s large black shoes next to her face. Wing-tips.
“Better call the cops!”
Running footsteps. “You’re looking at the cops, goddammit!”
“How’d you-”
“It doesn’t matter!”
A hand touching her shoulder, gently laying back her hair.
“Ah, Christ, Pete, look what he did! Get an ambulance. Dial nine-one-one. Sweet Lord, look what he did!”
Rene’s voice? She tried to speak but made only a hissing, gurgling sound, like the old steam radiator in her childhood bedroom. She was so weak. In slow motion she moved a hand to feel her neck. Probed with her fingers. Wet, warm, a flap of something. Skin.
Nausea and terror rose in her. A hand gently gripped her wrist and pulled her hand away. She waited for Mother Superior’s voice to say, “Mustn’t touch.”
No voice, though. Something soft was pressed against her neck. Someone was sobbing.
She fell away from the sad, sad sound.
Into velvet blackness.
45
It was Albert Spangle who died in his hospital bed from knife wounds, at the moment Chicago police were searching his flat and discovering gruesome souvenirs of his crimes. He’d murdered six women. In his freezer they found his diary, and the wrapped and frozen uterus of each of his victims.
Spangle had cheated justice, but his capture and death had liberated Rene from suspicion and police harassment.
It was, after all, Rene who’d tracked him down, though Morrisy had caught up with Rene, and along with Columbus police had closed on the struggle in the parking lot and made the arrest.
Rene’s projection of the killer’s pattern suggested the Ohio competition might be the next place he’d murder. Worried about Mary fitting the victims’ profile, Rene had traveled to Columbus with reporter Pete Joller as his constant companion and alibi. Surreptitiously the two had watched Mary and the other dancers, and followed her the night after her victory in the tango. They’d been about to interrupt Benson’s zealous advances when Spangle had beaten them to it. They’d then observed Spangle from a distance, assuming at first he was only talking with Mary. When they’d realized they were mistaken, they’d been able to stop him just in time as he’d attacked with the knife.
For the rest of her life Mary would bear a long scar on the left side of her throat. She affected colorful neck scarves to conceal it, and in time thought they lent her a distinctive and dashing style.
Rene devoted full time and tender attention to her; he was nothing like Jake. She was sure it was because he was sorry for her, and he felt guilty about her injury. But it was a happy time in Mary’s life. Angie’s cancer went into remission and she was released from Saint Sebastian. Jake had become a memory kept at bay. And in early summer Mary married Rene and moved in with him in his house in the New Orleans Garden District.
She wasn’t sure if she’d ever feel at home in New Orleans, where the hours flowed slowly and magnolias perfumed the air, and the deceased were interred above ground as if their mortal remains hadn’t made the final surrender to death. But Rene truly loved her, or seemed to. And she loved him and was secure in their marriage. The prayed-for miracle had occurred, beginning with her tango win in Ohio. Her life had turned around.
At least once a week she’d talk for hours with Angie on the phone. Angie, who’d contemplated death and understood, and who’d seen her daughter finally escape the deadly cycle of abuse at the hands of Jake. New hope and life vibrated in Angie’s voice. And why not? The family curse was broken.
Mary never for a moment missed Jake. Her world was far better than it had ever been, even when Rene began giving presentations at financial seminars around the country, traveling frequently.
Mary had no trouble passing time alone. During the long, warm days, she’d sometimes ride a streetcar to the French Quarter and sit watching the great river sliding muddily toward the Gulf. Evenings she’d spend by herself in the big stucco house, or walking the garish streets of the Quarter and listening to music drifting from inside the old buildings with their open shutters.
Occasionally she’d go dancing.