Tidwell saw Ben in the corner of his eye as soon as Ben stepped into the doorway. Tidwell whirled and pulled the knife away from Christina toward Ben. He was too late. Ben swung the lamp like a baseball bat. The base of the lamp smashed into Tidwell’s head, and he fell in a crumpled heap onto the floor.
The two uniformed policemen standing in the outer corridor rushed forward and took hold of Christina. They gently lowered her to the floor.
Ben brushed the matted hair away from Christina’s sweaty, tear-streaked face. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She looked up at him and, after several seconds, nodded her head faintly.
Ben stepped over Tidwell’s body and rushed across the apartment to Catherine’s dark bedroom. He flipped on the lights. Catherine lay naked and motionless on the bed, the sheets twisted around her feet, her face staring up at the ceiling.
“Catherine?” He moved to the side of the bed closest to her. He saw two empty pill bottles lying on the bed, the same two bottles he had seen half-full on her bedstand the night before. He touched the side of her neck. No pulse. She was stone cold.
Ben was faintly aware of the sound of footsteps in the living room. One of the policemen had Tidwell on his feet and was pushing him into the bedroom. Tidwell’s arms were handcuffed behind his back. Blood was trickling from his nose and his left ear.
Tidwell saw the milky-white figure frozen on the bed. He made a soft, choking noise. “Don’t stand there leering,” he said, gasping for air, “… at my daughter.”
“Daughter?” Ben stared at the bloody man silhouetted in the doorway. “I thought she was your lover.”
Tidwell stared back at Ben, then averted his eyes. In that instant, Ben realized he had been right.
Ben’s eyes began to swell, and he found it difficult to breathe. He gazed at the pale porcelain figure, now transfixed, like a statue. He noticed she had something clutched in her right hand. He pulled her fingers apart slightly. It was his red handkerchief.
Ben heard the pounding of footsteps outside, and realized that reinforcements, probably led by Mike, were finally making their appearance. In two quick steps, he walked toward Tidwell, took aim, and swung his fist directly into Tidwell’s face.
PART FOUR
The Fixed Moment
41
BEN SAT ON THE sofa in a living room that looked like a page out of Architectural Digest. At one end, a beautiful brick fireplace with an antique wooden mantel served as a Victorian focal point for the entire room. At the other end, an ornate wooden entertainment center held all the necessities of twentieth-century life. Behind the sofa were a black grand piano, several tables bearing ceramic knick-knacks, and family photographs.
The woman sitting on the sofa facing Ben had in fact just turned sixty, although she looked at least ten years younger. Her fresh, ruddy complexion and her perfectly styled hair, dark brown with scattered, dustlike particles of gray, evinced the care and attention she had exercised to preserve herself.
“I don’t think I understand,” the woman said carefully. “So Emily is Catherine’s daughter by …” Her voice faded, and her face suggested an unpleasant expression.
“That’s right, Mother,” Ben said, nodding. “The moment I saw Catherine, I knew she had to be Emily’s mother. They have the same eyes, the same complexion. The same quiet beauty.” He paused reflectively. “And, of course, the poetry was the clincher. I think Catherine named Emily for Emily Dickinson. “He rubbed his arm in the spot where it was still sore. “Even after I realized the killer was Tidwell, though, I never guessed the rest.”
Ben’s mother rubbed her hands against one another. “It takes something like this to make a person realize just how lucky she is. That sort of behavior never happens in Nichols Hills.”
Ben smiled.
Mrs. Kincaid lifted a demitasse from her saucer and sipped her tea. “I don’t know how you ever figured it out.”
“The light finally dawned when Sanguine mentioned his franchise property in Phoenix. Tidwell had mentioned Phoenix before, and Fort Worth and some other cities, and indicated that he was in charge of securing real estate for the franchisees. Adams was just a puppet vice president; Tidwell found the properties and told him where to go. Tidwell was the only one who could have arranged for Adams to arrive at a vacant lot at just the right time to find Emily. It was all part of his sick master plan.
“I realized that Tidwell had left Sanguine’s office as soon as I told him I had found Catherine, the only witness who could possibly testify against him. He’d been gone fifteen minutes and hadn’t returned. It wasn’t difficult to imagine where he’d gone.” Ben pressed his forefingers against his temples. “If only I’d realized sooner.”
“Benjamin, you have to stop blaming yourself for everything. Everything is not your fault.”
Ben gazed out the immense bay window.
“Benjamin, I think I know why you feel that way. … I want you to know—”
“Mother, I don’t want to go into this.”
“I want you to know,” she insisted, “that your father did not dislike you. If he was hard on you … it was for a reason.”
The two of them sat for a moment without saying anything, neither looking directly at the other. Ben’s mother took another sip of tea.
“I guess you know I was … upset when you stopped calling,” she said, maintaining an even tone. “You’re the only son I have. It seems as if you haven’t been the same boy since Toronto and Ellen—”
“Mother—”
“I worry about you, Benjamin.”
Ben stared at the ceiling. “Mother, I’ve had a lot to deal with.”
“Such as?” she said. A slight edge crept into her voice. “Switching jobs and cities and making a mad scramble for whatever you imagined might make your father happy?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
She leaned back against the sofa, obviously unconvinced. “Tell me what happened, Benjamin, that last day you saw him.”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t think I can. It’s too hard to remember. …”
Ben stepped into the hospital, room. The walls were a bleak green, made worse by the low lighting. The television tilting from the ceiling flickered with a rapid spattering of black-and-white images, but no sound emerged. The serving table next to the bed held a cold luncheon plate, barely touched. Ben wondered if there was a thermostat somewhere in the room. It seemed very cold.
Ben’s father lay on the hospital bed beneath two crisp white sheets. One plastic tube was patched into his right nostril, another was feeding his arm. His cheeks sagged with age and exhaustion, ending in jowls that rounded the underside of his chin. His eyes were closed. Ben had seen his father in the hospital before—this was his fifth visit—but he had never looked like this.
“Dad?” he said quietly.
His eyes opened. They blinked aimlessly for a moment, then lighted on Ben.
“You came,” he said, in a raspy whisper. Obviously, it was difficult for him to talk.
“Of course I came,” Ben said, leaning over the guardrail on the bed.
“I know you’re busy at school.” He tried to push himself up by the palms of his hands.
“That’s all right, Dad. Stay where you are.”
He relaxed. His voice seemed to regain some of its strength. “You learning anything up there?” The strong, slow drawl was a constant reminder of his farmhouse roots. “They taught you how to sue doctors for their life savings yet?”