“So he wasn’t the idealist his wife imagined,” Carver said, remembering how Benedict had harbored no suspicion that his wife drank. The secrets people kept from each other.
“He was an idealist in love and afraid of how his world was changing,” Wicker said. “He’s expressed a lot of grief over the death of the patient and the maiming of Delores Bravo at Women’s Light, said he only wanted to kill Dr. Grimm but he wasn’t knowledgeable enough about explosives and the bomb was more powerful than he intended.”
Carver watched a gull soaring in narrowing, ascending circles above the surf. “Then Adelle wasn’t involved in the bombing and knew nothing about it.”
“That’s right,” Wicker said. “Dr. Benedict alone planted the bomb in the clinic. He’s been charged with the murders of Dr. Grimm and Wanda Creighton. Masterson’s been charged with Lapella’s murder.”
“Is Norton free?”
“Released from custody this morning.” Wicker stared down at his bandaged hands and seemed to shiver slightly in the sun. “I talked to his wife. She said Norton was going to plant a bomb in the clinic during the demonstration. That’s why he went around behind the building. Then Benedict’s bomb exploded, and for a moment Norton thought his own bomb had gone off prematurely and he was going to die. He ran away in a daze, and he and his wife managed to hide the bomb he’d intended to plant.”
“Why would she tell you that?” Carver asked.
“It was off the record and without witnesses, so she can always deny the conversation. It’s the way these people think. She was boasting.”
“He’ll try it again,” Beth said.
Wicker smiled sadly. “That’s what his wife told me. He’ll try it again someplace else. I believe her. She seemed proud of him.”
Wicker jammed his hands deep into his pockets, tugging his pants low enough for his belt to slide beneath his protruding stomach.
“Now come the lawyers,” he said.
“They’ll keep coming and take over the world,” Carver said.
Wicker smiled and shrugged. “We already have. I meant it was the prosecutors’ turn now.”
Lawyers and accountants with guns.
Carver and Beth watched Wicker trudge through the fierce sunlight back to his car, his heels dragging on his pants cuffs. Carver was amazed, as he often was, at how the truth had finally spun out. Though it had become a cause celebre, the clinic bombing and the issue of legal abortion actually had nothing to do with each other.
“It won’t be that simple,” Beth said.
He looked over at her. “What won’t be?”
“The whole abortion rights issue. It’s far too complicated to be settled by demonstrations or a bomb, or even a pill that ensures privacy.”
Carver figured she was right, thinking of Norton, of what his wife had told Wicker: He’ll try it again someplace else.
Proud of him.
42
Carver was lying alongside Beth on the big beach towel with the flamingo design on it that afternoon. They’d both been swimming, and he’d gone back to the cottage and returned with sun blocker for Beth and two cans of cold Budweiser. He lay now on his stomach on the towel, listening to the sea and feeling the hot sun on his back while beside him Beth applied the sun blocker to her arms and shoulders. His head was sideways and resting on his arms, but still he saw the shadow on the sand.
He raised his head and tilted it far back, as if he were a turtle. Adelle Grimm was standing over them. She was wearing green slacks and a loose white blouse and holding a white sandal in each hand. She didn’t yet look pregnant.
“You’re surprised to see me,” she said. The sun was behind her, turning her hair into a halo and making it difficult to make out the expression on her face.
“I suppose so,” Beth said.
Adelle seemed to be looking at Carver. “I came for . . . I don’t really know. Absolution, maybe.”
“I’d give it to you if I could,” Carver said. What had she done? Stepped out on her husband. It wasn’t an uncommon transgression. She’d had no idea it would mean his death.
But it had. He was dead and now maybe she was pregnant with his child. Somebody’s child. Either the husband she’d cheated on or the man who’d murdered him.
“I guess that’s really why I went that day to see Martin Freel. For understanding and absolution.”
“Maybe you should see him again.”
“Are you going to have the baby?” asked Beth, the woman who, because of Adelle’s lover, wasn’t going to have a baby.
“I don’t know. I can’t decide.” The pain in her voice was more burning than the sun.
“You came here for advice,” Beth said. “We can’t give you any.” Carver was surprised by the hardness in her tone, almost a cruelty. “It’s your decision. Yours alone. People like Martin Freel don’t know it yet, but that’s the way it has to be. It’s that way for every woman.”
Adelle backed up a step, her bare toes digging into the hot sand. She didn’t seem to mind the heat, as if the burning of her feet might be some sort of benediction.
“What are you going to do?” Carver asked in a tone kinder than Beth’s.
Adelle waited a moment before answering, staring out beyond him at whatever held her eye on the sea. “I’m not sure,” she said at last, “but I have to make up my mind soon. I have to get this settled.”
She turned and walked away. Carver lay watching her still-slim figure as she climbed the wooden steps from the beach. She bent gracefully to slip her shoes back on, then passed from sight. Beyond her he could see distant storm clouds stacking up for miles in the western sky, blowing in from the Gulf.
He dropped his head and rested it again on his arms. His wristwatch was a hard lump at his temple. Through his ear, through the bones around his ear, he could hear it ticking away time.