During the weeks that followed, Vail kept a nightly vigil between the hospital rooms of Jane Venable and Abel Stenner, sleeping in the chair in Venable's room and going home only to shower and change clothes on his way to work. Sometimes he sat beside Jane's bed, holding her hand for an hour at a time, convinced that he was to blame for her pain and suffering, as well as Stenner's. After all, he would reason to himself, he had been the instrument of Stampler's bloody revenge, having provided in his plea bargain during Stampler's trial the method that was used ten years later to free the monster. Stenner was making a remarkable recovery. By the end of the third week he would be taking short walks down the halls with the help of a walker. Jane, who faced several weeks of torturous facial reconstruction, seemed in constant good spirits despite the painful injuries and the loss of her eye. Weak but ebullient, her face swathed in bandages from her forehead to her jaw and bruises tainting her nose and throat, she was indomitable. Aaron Stampler dominated their talks. Ironically, it was Jane who bolstered Vail's spirits during the long nights in the hospital as he fought with his conscience.
'Boy,' she said one night, 'I'll bet Aaron Stampler's sitting down in hell, laughing his buns off about now.'
'What do you mean?'
'Because he's still getting to you, darling. He's reaching out of his grave and pulling your chain. He conned everyone, Marty. Everybody bought his lie, why should you be any different?'
'Because I helped manufacture the lie.'
'He conned you, Marty. Admit it and forget it. Stampler isn't worth five minutes of bad time. You're a great lawyer. You did exactly what the law prescribes, you gave Stampler the best possible defence. You beat me fair and square, and believe me, I've thought a lot about the way you sandbagged me in the years since the trial. It was perfect. It was textbook stuff. The fact that the son of a bitch was guilty is beside the point.'
'Beside the point?'
'Marty, how many lawyers do you know who ask their clients whether they're guilty or not?'
'What's that got to do with anything? It's immaterial.'
'No, it's practical. If the client did it, he'll lie to you, so why bother to ask? You presume innocence and gather evidence to support that assumption, which you did brilliantly.'
'You're talking like a college professor.'
'And you're acting like a student. I remember a quote from an article about you - years ago,' Venable said. 'I don't remember the exact words, but in essence you said the only way for the law to remain strong is if we constantly attack its weaknesses.'
'You have a good memory.'
'Don't you still feel that way?'
'It doesn't have a damn thing to do with the courtroom. It has to do with acting. The courtroom has become the theatre of the absurd. Which lawyer gives the best performance? How good is the judge? How gullible is the jury? The truth gets lost in the shuffle.'
'Reality is what the jury perceives as truth. You also said that.'
'Well, I was young and brash in those… do you remember everything you read?'
'Just the stuff I agree with.' She tried to laugh but it was painful. 'Sure, it's theatre. Sure, it's the best man - or woman — wins. And yes, it's all about swaying the jury. So what? Those are the rules. And you're hellaciously good at pushing the rules to the limit no matter what side you're on.' She paused a moment and winked her good eye. 'It's one of the reasons I love you,' she said.
'I can't even begin to list all the reasons I love you, Janey,' he said. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the mouth.
'Don't go away,' she whispered. 'Kiss me some more. Unless you'd like to lock the door and slide in beside me.
'You're under sedation,' he whispered back.
'It wore off.'
Characteristically, when he brought up the subject with Stenner, the detective's response was short and direct.
'You made a mistake ten years ago. You think you're infallible, Marty?'
But the subject of Stampler could not be ignored.
St Claire and Naomi had stayed on the phone for the first week or so, sorting through police records in Colorado, San Francisco, and Kentucky and putting together a background profile on Rebecca, a sorrowful and sordid story in itself. Gradually the saga of Rebecca and Aaron Stampler began to make sense.
Harvey St Claire, with his baby cup in hand and a wad of tobacco in his cheek, settled back in a chair on his nightly visit to Abel and gave him all the details.
'We've managed to trace her back as far as high school. That was Denver, 1965,' he began. 'Her mother died when she was twelve, her father was regular Air Force. An NCO, rose up through the ranks, ultimately made captain. He was killed in a burglary in their apartment in early 1965. She vanished right after that. Accordin' to a retired homicide detective named Ashcraft, she was a suspect - there were reports of sexual and physical abuse by the old man - but they couldn't make anythin' stick. The murder was never solved.'
'How was he killed?' Stenner mumbled.
'Stabbed to death.
'Not usually… burglar's choice of weapons.'
St Claire nodded. 'It was a messy job. I got the feelin' talkin' to Ashcraft that they deep-sixed the investigation because everyone assumed Rebecca did him but they couldn't put a case together. Anyway, she popped up on the computer in San Francisco two years later - a dope bust in the Haight-Ashbury. Paid a menial fine, seventy-five bucks. Nothin' else until she accepted a teachin' job in Crikside in 1970. Stampler was in the first grade then - that's when she became his teacher and later mentor and finally lover.'
'When was Stampler born?' asked Stenner.
'Sixty-five, coincidentally the same year Rebecca's father was killed and she took a hike. We went back over Tommy Goodman's notes from his meetin' with her - he went down there and talked to her when Vail was prepa-rin' Stampler's defence. She mentioned some drug problems to him and there was somethin' about living in a commune in New Mexico for awhile and teaching kids there, but we couldn't put that together, most of those communes appeared and disappeared like sand gnats back in the late Eighties. And there's no further arrest records on her - that we could uncover - so she's litreally a cipher until she showed up in Crikside. What attracted her to the job was they didn't ask for references. I assume Crikside was beggin' and not too choosy. The state has no employment or health records on her, and social security didn't turn up anythin' on her until she went to work teachin' school. Apparently they needed a teacher so bad they overlooked certain fundamentals, like a teaching certificate and a background check. The locals say she was a good teacher.'
'Depends on what she was teaching,' Stenner said.
'Well, she sure taught Stampler a few tricks you don't normally learn in school, like Murder 101. Anyway, she taught there until 1991, then she just left. Boarded up this little house she owns one weekend and vanished into the night, just like in Denver. But interestingly enough, she paid her taxes every year by money order, so the house is still in her name.'
'I missed the last act,' said Stenner. 'You think that's where Stampler was heading when you caught up with him?'
'He was ten miles from her house when we nailed him. You tell me.'
As the weeks drifted by, the subject of Aaron Stampler took a backseat to the Edith Stoddard case. When Vail was not there, Venable stared at the blank TV screen or out of the window, thinking about the night she discovered the hidden closet in Delaney's apartment, about the paraphernalia. About the gun. And she wondered whether Edith Stoddard was a victim or a willing participant in the bizarre sexual games Delaney obviously liked to play. If Stoddard contended that she was victimized by the dead man, Venable could build a strong case in her favour.