Option Three... I didn’t really have one. Yet. But I couldn’t just keep lurking in the corridor like this. Someone would spot me and wonder what I was doing. I hadn’t really thought this through, had I? I’d spent all those hours today — today! — in a car with Rachel, and I hadn’t come up with a solid plan. Now I’m paying the price.
There is a door to the fire stairs to my left. Maybe I could hide there and try to keep an eye out for her opening the door. But it’s getting pretty late. Hilde/Harriet is in her eighties. Would she be going out again tonight? Probably not.
I am still debating my next move when I see the doorknob at 4B start to turn.
Someone is opening the door.
No plan, so I work on pure instinct. I don’t know why the door is opening right now, though I suspect that perhaps Hilde Winslow was curious about the purported package left in her vestibule and has decided to venture out to retrieve it. Doesn’t matter. I don’t hesitate. As soon as the door opens a crack, I throw my shoulder against it.
The door flies open.
I worry for a moment that I’ve been too aggressive, that I’ve knocked an old woman down with a heavy door, but when I burst through, Hilde Winslow is still standing there, wide-eyed. She backs up and opens her mouth to scream. Some primitive part of my brain has taken over and so again I don’t hesitate. I hurry toward her and clumsily yet firmly cover her mouth with my hand. With my foot, I kick the door closed behind me. I pull her toward me so that the back of her head presses up against my chest, my hand still covering her mouth.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whisper.
Did I really just say that? If so, I don’t think my words offer much comfort. She squirms and grabs hold of my hand. She fights back. I hold on hard. I want to be kind here, rational, polite, but I don’t see how that approach will help me or Matthew in any way.
With my free hand, I pull out my gun and show it to her.
“We just need to talk, okay? Once I get the truth, I’m out of here. Nod if you understand.”
With the back of her skull still against my chest, she manages a nod.
“I’m going to take my hand away now. Please don’t make me hurt you.”
I sound like something out of an old movie, but I really don’t know what else to say or how to handle this situation. I let her go and hope to hell she doesn’t scream, because I’m not going to shoot her if she does. I’m not going to hit her with the butt end or any of that either. Or will I?
Hilde Winslow lied about me. She lied under oath and helped convict me of killing my own child.
So how far will I go? I hope she doesn’t press me into finding out.
Hilde Winslow turns to me. “What do you want?”
“Do you know who I am?” I ask.
“You’re David.”
Her voice is surprisingly steady, confident. She doesn’t look away. She isn’t exactly defiant, but she doesn’t look frightened or intimidated either.
“What are you doing here?” Hilde asks.
“You lied.”
“What are you talking about?”
“At my trial. Your testimony. It was all a lie.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
There really is no choice here. I lift the gun and press it against the old woman’s forehead.
“I need you to listen to me,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t crack. “I have nothing to lose. You understand that, right? If you lie to me again, if you don’t tell me the truth, I’m going to kill you. I don’t want to. I really don’t. But right now, it is my son or you.”
Her eyes start doing the rapid-blink thing.
“That’s right,” I continue. “My son is still alive. No, I don’t think you’ll believe me on that, and I don’t have time to convince you. All that should matter to you right now is that I believe it. And because of that, I will have no qualms about killing you to find him. Do I make myself clear?”
“I don’t know what to tell you—”
I hit her in the cheek with the barrel of the gun.
No, this isn’t easy for me to do. And no, I didn’t hit her hard. It was a tap. No more. But it’s enough to both get the message across and make me feel awful. “You changed your name and moved away,” I say. “You did that because you lied on the stand and needed to escape. I’m not looking for revenge or any of that. But there’s a reason you lied, and that reason might lead to my son. So I’m going to either learn why or I’m going to kill you.”
She stares at me. I stare back.
“You’re delusional,” Hilde-Harriet says.
“Could be.”
“You can’t possibly think your son is still alive.”
“Oh, but I do.”
Hilde’s hand flutters up to her lips. She shakes her head and closes her eyes. I don’t lower my gun. When she opens her eyes, I see a change. The defensiveness and defiance are gone. “I can’t believe you’re standing here, David.”
I stay silent.
“Are you taping this?” she asks.
“No.” I quickly pull out my phone and show it to her. Then I drop it on the table, just to emphasize the point. “This is just between us.”
“If you tell anyone, I’ll just deny it.”
I feel my pulse quicken. “I understand.”
“And if someone is taping this, I’m just telling a story to appease a crazy killer who is threatening me with a gun.”
I nod encouragingly.
Hilde Winslow looks up at me and meets my eye. “I’ve imagined this moment for a long time,” she says. “You standing in front of me, me confessing the truth.”
She takes a deep breath. I hold mine, afraid that even the slightest movement on my part will break this spell.
“First off, I justified what I did because I thought my testimony wouldn’t matter. You would have been convicted anyway — I was icing on the cake. That’s what I told myself. I also genuinely believed you’d committed the murder. That was part of the sales pitch — I was helping put away a killer. And do you want to know the truth, David?”
I nod.
“I still think you did it. The evidence against you was overwhelming. That helps me sleep at night. The knowledge — the certainty — that you’d done it. But that doesn’t really let me off the hook, does it? I was a philosophy professor at Boston U. Did you know that?”
I did know that. My attorneys dug deep into her background, looking for something that we could use on cross-examination. I knew that she’d been widowed when she was sixty, that she had three children, all married, and four grandsons.
“So I have studied all the ‘ends justifying the means’ type rationales. I did that here too, trying to defend my actions, but there is no way around the fact that my testimony sullied the trial. Worse, I sullied how I saw myself.”
Her phone buzzes then. She looks up at me. I nod that it’s okay to check it.
“No caller ID,” she says.
“Don’t answer it.”
“Okay.”
“You were saying?”
“It was my daughter-in-law. Ellen. She’s a physician in Revere. An MD.”
I remember this from the file. “She’s married to your oldest son, Marty.”
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
“She had — probably still has — a gambling problem. A chronic one. I didn’t know that at the time. She’s a respectable ob-gyn. Delivered all my friends’ grandchildren. Marty, I guess he tried everything. Gamblers Anonymous. Shrinks, therapy, controlling her access to money. But you know how it is with addictions. You’ll find a way. Ellen did. She got in deep. Too deep to get out of. Hundreds of thousands. That’s what they told me on the phone. Ellen was way behind in the money she owed, but she could get out from under — if I did them a small favor.”