His heart felt as if it had stopped beating in his chest. His jaw slackened; his eyes widened.
Oh my God, Ben thought, his brain racing through the recent past, retrying the case in his mind. How could I have been so stupid?
How could I have been so wrong?
Ben found Barrett at home, at the same house on Terwilliger that he had once shared with his three family members. The house had been cleaned, scoured. Like the charges against him, all traces of the crime had been eradicated. All the sins swept away.
Barrett was more than happy to see him. “Ben,” he said jovially, arms extended. “My hero.”
Ben bristled at his touch. He did not return the greeting.
“Something wrong, old man?” Barrett chuckled. “Hey, the check is in the mail. I promise. I wrote it out this morning.”
Ben scanned the room. “Looks like you’re getting things put back in order.”
“Well, yes, of course. I mean, it’s sad, but we have to get on with life, don’t we? I suppose in time I’ll have to sell this place; it’s much too large for just me. Quite a change from the county jail. Still, in the meantime, I might as well restore some sense of order. Makes for a better home environment.”
“Makes for a better backdrop for all those interviews you’ve been giving, too.
“That’s true.” He chuckled again. “I gotta tell you, it’s nice having the press in your back pocket again. Hell, I expected that no matter how this turned out, my political career would be ruined. Now I’m beginning to wonder. This old dog might have some life in him yet.”
Wordlessly Ben opened his briefcase, withdrew the envelope, and pressed it into Barrett’s hands. “I was going through the files and I found this. It’s your medical records. The ones you sent me to court to keep away from the prosecution’s prying eyes.”
“Ah, yes.” Barrett took the file, thumbed through it absently. “And you’re probably wondering where the records pertaining to my psychiatric counseling are. Well, look, Ben, I may have exaggerated that a bit, but whether I’ve been to a shrink or not, is it wrong for a man to want to keep his medical history off the evening news?”
“You’ve had a vasectomy,” Ben said coldly, barely blinking. “It’s right there, on page eighty-two. That’s what you didn’t want the prosecution to know.” He took a deep breath and slowly released it. “It wasn’t your baby.”
“Ahh … no.” Barrett dropped the envelope and took a seat on a nearby sofa. “No, I guess it wasn’t.” His face suddenly brightened. “Although sometimes miracles do happen. Those surgeons aren’t perfect. But …” He smiled. “I suppose you’re not buying that one.”
“No, I’m not. You knew about the baby. And you knew it wasn’t yours. And you didn’t want the prosecution to know it couldn’t possibly be yours because”—another deep breath—“because it gives you a motive for murder.”
He stared down at his hands. “I guess it does, doesn’t it?”
Ben felt a cold chill creeping up his spine. “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed your wife.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no point in denying it. Not to Ben Kincaid, super-sleuth.”
Ben collapsed into the nearest armchair. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I was so wrong, so blind. I saw you with your kids. I looked into your eyes. I was sure—”
Barrett’s head snapped up suddenly. “Now, wait a minute, Ben. I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea.”
“But you said—”
“I said I killed my wife. Yeah, true enough. But the kids? Never. No way in hell.” He edged forward in his seat. “Don’t you get it, Kincaid? She killed the kids. She did it.”
Ben stared across the tiny expanse of carpet. “But I don’t see—”
“It was her, Kincaid, believe me. If you search through those medical records long enough, you’ll find that she was the one who had psychiatric treatment—though not nearly enough. There were times when she completely lost control, became absolutely insane. And violent. She hit me so many times I can’t even count them all. I lost a tooth, thanks to her. She jabbed me so hard in the solar plexus once I almost lost consciousness.” He took a deep breath. “We heard all that chatter throughout the trial about my so-called temper. But she was the one who had the temper. Sure, I got mad sometimes, but she went insane. I mean, totally out of control, violent, psycho-mommy. You’re damn right the kids got bruised up a time or two. People always assume it’s the man, that the male is the violent one. But it wasn’t. It was her.”
“But why kill them?”
“To get back at me, of course. In the only way she could. She hated me; she had for years. Why do you think she told those horrible stories to her sister, among others? She was jealous, cruel. Complained that I didn’t spend any time with her, that all I cared about was my career, my image. She was tired of living in a goldfish bowl, of being known only as Mayor Barrett’s wife. As an ornament. I’m sure you’ve heard this all before. The truth is, she was not well. Not well in the head.”
“But there was never any indication—”
“Wasn’t there? Do you remember what that clown at the ice-cream parlor said? He remembered the words, he just forgot who said them. It was her, not me. Hell, Fisher remembered her saying the same thing. ‘The children are the only weapon I have against you.’ I guess that was right. And finally she used that weapon. She played her last card.”
Ben stared at the man, unable to come up with an intelligent comment.
“That was why she had the affair, too. To punish me. It was that creep Fisher, as you’ve probably guessed. Small wonder I don’t much care for him. Remember that unmatched trace of blood the prosecution expert said he found in Caroline’s bedroom? Fisher, I guarantee it. Apparently Caroline and her lover liked it rough—rough enough to draw blood. Anyway, after carrying this affair on right in front of my nose for weeks, she got pregnant, probably intentionally, to humiliate me. To give me an unwanted little public relations problem.
“But that wasn’t enough. She didn’t get what she wanted. Instead of flying off the handle, I calmly told her she could sleep with any piece of shit she wanted, what did I care? That infuriated her. That’s what we fought about that fateful afternoon. She was desperate to get to me, and she couldn’t do it. I just walked out on her and, well, I guess she decided to play her trump card, the only weapon she had left. She took away the only thing that would really hurt me. My children.”
Ben gripped the sides of his chair. He wished he could doubt, could make himself disbelieve. But this was the truth. He knew it was.
“It was a shame she’d been reading Medea. I wonder if that was where she got the idea? People as unbalanced as her shouldn’t be allowed Greek tragedy. Imagine if she’d read Oedipus Rex. What a mess that would’ve been.”
He smiled, but soon saw that his attempt at gallows humor had fallen flat.
“I hit Caroline a few times, I have to admit. Locked her out of the house, all that. But what do you do with a wife who becomes a raving maniac at the slightest provocation, huh? I wish someone would tell me. The whole world is geared up to protect women from men. What happens when a man needs protection from a woman? Nothing, that’s what. Don’t bother going to friends, family, police. They’ll laugh in your face.”
“But—” Ben groped for words. “It was so … bloody.”
“Yes, she did rather make a mess of it, didn’t she? Caroline had been a nurse, you’ll recall. She knew how to kill someone efficiently. She managed it with Annabelle—one direct thrust to the heart with a thin knife. Instantaneous death. But something went wrong with Alysha. I don’t know what. Perhaps Alysha saw her kill Annabelle and tried to struggle. Perhaps she fought back. Anyway, things got out of control, and Caroline made a huge bloody mess. Poor Alysha—no wonder she cried out for her daddy. What she must have thought when her own mother came to kill her. At least it was quick. Still, Caroline’s purpose was accomplished. She punished me. She took away my children.”