“Quite the opposite.”
Worse, he was asking her to do the most unnatural thing in the world, to comb over her memories of that night. What if she had unwittingly perjured herself? What if, in her refusal to relive that night, she had gotten it wrong? What if—and then it came to her. She saw herself on the country road with Iso and Albie, her heart in her throat as she wrested the car back into the correct lane, the ghostly deer disappearing behind them, the white tail triggering the image she was always trying to bury. She had slid across the seat to turn the key, so she could have heat and music, then she had looked up as she returned to her own seat—
She almost wept from relief.
“Walter, I could see you. I saw you in the rearview mirror.”
“That’s a nice story to tell yourself, isn’t it? Maybe you can lie, after all.”
“I’m not lying. I looked up, I saw you both. Did I see you push her? No, but I never said I did. I saw you chase her. You were right behind her, almost on her heels. If she had run off that mountain as you claim, you would have been right on top of her.”
Walter’s eyes slid sideways. It was his eyes, that was the tell, what was off in his otherwise handsome face. Narrow and small, they were never looking where they should be. They eeled away when a direct gaze was required, fastened on another’s eyes when it was inappropriate, got caught studying cleavage and legs.
“But it’s plausible, what I’m saying. Worthy of reconsideration.”
“I won’t lie for you.”
“You’d do it for your kids, for your husband. You’d lie for them.”
“I suppose I might, if it came to that. But that’s different. Even you have to realize it’s different.”
He extended his hand through the bars, and the deputy was on his feet, just that fast, shoulder to shoulder with Eliza. He needn’t have worried. She had no intention of moving closer to Walter, although it was hard not to collapse against Deputy Walter, use his bulk.
“I love you,” Walter said, and even the earbudded deputy had to be able to hear that, or read his lips. The deputy shook his head in disgust.
“Walter, you’re lying or you think that’s true. Either way, it’s sad.”
She walked away, gathered her things from the deputy’s desk, turned back. “The others,” she said. “It would be a comfort to their loved ones, if you could make a clean breast of things. I wish you would.”
“Well, that was up to you.” Petulant as Iso.
“No, it was always up to you. I admit it. I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to come out of here with all the names and details. I thought if I could set the record straight about the other girls, I might finally forgive myself about Holly.”
“You did have a chance to save her.” Green eyes glinting. What happens when beauty doesn’t free the beast, doesn’t release him from his curse, knows him but still cannot love him?
“I couldn’t see that at the time. I wish I had, but I didn’t. But I couldn’t save her that night, Walter. What I saw might be contestable, but what I heard wasn’t. You pushed her off the side of that mountain. Pushed her because she fought back.”
“That’s right,” he said, triumphant. “You’re alive because you were weak. Because you weren’t worth killing. After I had sex with you, all I wanted to do was take you home, because it wasn’t good, wasn’t good at all. How do you like knowing that? You’re alive because there’s nothing special about you, because I didn’t want you. You’re the one I got stuck with, not one of the ones I chose. How do you feel, knowing that?”
Eliza assumed he didn’t want an answer, but she took his question seriously all the same. “Well, I’m truly glad I’m alive, so I guess I’m glad for the reason, whatever it was.”
She nodded to the deputy, ready to leave. Steps from the threshold, she dropped her purse, all but flung it to the floor, and its contents, a remarkable collection of items that screamed mom—messy, disorganized mom at that—went skittering across the floor. Phone, Kleenex, wallet, change, checkbook, lipstick, comb. Deputy Walter fell to his knees, gathering it all up. She had known she could count on his automatic courtesy.
And in that instance, she stepped back toward the bars, passed her taped mark on the floor, kept going until she was inches from Walter’s face. They were almost eye to eye, he had not grown at all. She brought her arm up and saw Walter flinch, enjoying the look of unease on his face, the fact that he didn’t know what she was going to do. But she didn’t hit him. She placed her hand on his shoulder and said: “I know you’re scared, Walter. You have every right to be. There’s no shame in being scared to die. But I couldn’t save Holly, and I can’t save you.”
He was sobbing as she left. Partly out of frustration, she would guess. He had poured his energy into finding her, taking care to seduce her this time, and he had come so close to getting what he wanted. But he might be crying from fear, too, the overwhelming realization that he had no options, no out. She understood how he felt, was inside his head, experiencing the cold slap of fear and frustration. She knew him as well as she had ever known anyone, including her husband and children. Walter was all the gaps within her, the connective tissue that joined the two halves of her life. He was the neighborhood where she could never live again. He was the missing syllable, dropped from her name, yet forever a part of her, with her always, no matter what she called herself.
God help her, she would know him anywhere.
Part IX
EVERY DAY
JARRATT, VA [AP]—Walter Michael Bowman was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday night at the Greenville Correctional Facility here, his death witnessed by the parents of his final victim, a thirteen-year-old girl that he kidnapped, robbed, and attempted to rape in 1985.“We waited a long time for this day and we feel that justice has been done at last,” Dr. Terrence Tackett Jr., the father of Holly Tackett, said in a brief appearance before reporters, his wife, Trudy, at his side.Bowman, who had been on Virginia’s death row longer than any inmate in the prison’s modern history, declined to make a statement and asked that the details of his final meal be kept private. However, in the hours before his execution, he authorized a friend to release a posthumous statement to the media….
46
TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Eliza was walking Reba in the evening, marveling at the freakishly warm weather. Perhaps a more serious person—Vonnie, or even Peter—would fret about sixty-degree days in mid-December, but she couldn’t help enjoying them, especially on a clear night such as this, the stars vivid despite the haze of lights from central Bethesda.
The night was so lovely that she walked much longer than she had planned, trying to think of clever insights for the neighborhood book club she had joined. It was an odd group, made up of older men and women, many of them government retirees, with only one other mother. Eliza had found them through her single neighbor, the one who was kind enough to take in their newspaper when they went away. The group read classics, the neighbor had said, almost warningly, and while wine was consumed, they tried to stay on point during their discussions. No gossip, no chit-chat, no competitive hors d’oeuvres. Eliza did not consider this a deterrent. The January book was The Mill on the Floss, and Eliza wanted to be thought intelligent, prove herself worthy. Hadn’t Vonnie read a lot of Eliot? Perhaps she should call her—