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
Released in 1985 by James Taylor
Never charted on Billboard Hot 100
Album peaked at no. 34 and remained in the
top 200 for 54 weeks
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-
She was lost enough in her thoughts that she did not notice Barbara LaFortuny’s humpbacked car creeping up behind her. However, Reba did, planted herself and issued one muted, but undeniable bark as the car idled to a stop.
“It’s okay, girl.”
Barbara rolled down her window. She was hard to see in the darkness of the car’s interior, while Eliza was under a streetlamp, exposed. Still, she could make out the various shapes of Barbara’s remarkable hairstyle. All that time, all that effort…did she really think it was attractive? Architecturally impressive, yes, undoubtedly. But attractive? Just because you worked hard on something didn’t make it worth doing.
“Hello, Barbara.”
“I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
Eliza considered this. “In some ways, I am. But I’m more proud of Walter.”
“You have no right to be proud of him. He didn’t do it for you.”
She believed this was true. “Still, he did the right thing, in the end, releasing that statement. Two families now know what happened to their daughters. I just feel sorry for the others.”
“What others? Walter had no other victims, and he never would have been given the death penalty for the two murders to which he did confess, if only because-” Barbara, ever the advocate, ever wound up, always wielding her talking points like a squadron of flying monkeys. If only she could hear anything that others said in the rare spaces she left between her words. Holly, Maude, Dillon, Kelly. Eliza’s ghosts all had names and faces now. She wondered if that meant they might stop visiting her.
“I feel sorry for all the families who pinned their hopes on Walter Bowman, thinking he was the answer to the questions that torment them. As a serial killer, he proved to be something of an underachiever, didn’t he?”
She had hoped she could make a small joke, but all she did was set Barbara off again.
“He wasn’t a serial killer in the classic sense. I really do believe he suffered from a kind of temporary insanity-”
A less kindhearted person might have laughed at Barbara then. Eliza didn’t laugh, but she also couldn’t bear to let her keep talking. “I’m sorry, Barbara.”
“For not doing the right thing?”
“No, I’m sorry you lost someone you love.”
“It wasn’t like that with us.” The more Barbara automatically denied any romantic attachment to Walter, the more Eliza believed it was so. But, as her own parents might have said, Barbara got to be the expert on Barbara.
“I didn’t mean it that way. You cared about him. I think it’s nice that you cared about him.”
“You certainly didn’t. You let him die. You let him die because he knew the truth about you-that you were cowardly, that you are a liar-and now that he’s dead, no one will ever know. That’s why you let him die. To bury your own shame.”
Eliza was angry now and her instinct, upon anger, had always been to flee. Instead she took a second to gather her thoughts. Life isn’t a timed event, as Vonnie said. The clock’s not on you. Take your time. Barbara had no power over her. It turned out no one cared about Elizabeth Lerner after all these years, not really. She and Peter had told Iso about Walter, and they would tell Albie when he was older. Interestingly, the secret had made Iso feel important, in a good way, although she didn’t see any parallels between her secret life and her mother’s, could never be convinced that her string of covert PG-13 text messages was like a bread-crumb trail along the banks of the Sucker Branch, another girl wandering off the path and into something she couldn’t control. Iso was merely proud that her parents acknowledged she was more of a grown-up than Albie.