Except send her my files.
For whatever little they might be worth.
Bits of extra color and information, bits she might want to use when writing her second draft, to bring the story to life a little more. Some genealogical information I’d tracked down about her mom. The name of the hospital where her sister had died. A description of the shoe store where her father worked. A description of the man himself—this man she’d never had the chance to meet, this man who’d left her when she was three years old. And, hell, why stop at a description? I had the photos of him that I’d taken the day I’d followed him home to get his address—easy enough to include those in the e-mail as well.
What must it have been like for her, I thought, to open that e-mail from me on Saturday morning and see Doug Harper’s unkempt, swarthy, bearded face staring out at her from her computer screen, and to know him, to recognize him as her long-time customer James Smith?
I was underground, but only one flight down, not the eighteen stories deep I’d been buried up at 191st Street, and my cell phone still showed a signal. A weak one, but a signal.
I redialed Eva Burke’s number.
I thought I might wake her again, but she answered immediately, as though she’d been waiting for my call. “Are you ready to tell me what this is all about, Blake?”
“No,” I said. “I just called to let you know that you should pick up a New York newspaper tomorrow. The man responsible for Dorrie’s death...you’ll see he died tonight. I don’t imagine this is much comfort to you, but I hope at least it’s some.”
“What are you talking about? Blake? Blake!”
I hung up on her, dug out my wallet. I found the compartment where I’d tucked James Mirsky’s business card, with its penciled-in cell phone number on the back.
I dialed the number, got voicemail.
At the beep, I told him where he could find Harper’s body.
I also told him I’d killed Miklos. What the hell. I’d promised Kurland I’d pay him back somehow. And he and Julie deserved every chance.
How desperately Dorrie must have wanted to keep me from knowing what I’d done. So she’d spent Saturday covering the traces. Any phone bill that might have shown Harper’s number—she couldn’t leave those for me to find. Any photos her clients had sent her—into the shredder wholesale, no time to sort through them one by one. All the e-mail “Cassie” had sent or received—erased. All future e-mail forwarded out of my reach. And then, just to be safe, she’d written me that letter, the one she’d left with Sharon. Just in case all the shredding and erasing turned out not to be enough to keep me off the trail. John Blake, the great detective—she’d made one last, desperate attempt to keep me from finding out. Darling, don’t, she’d written. For your sake, not mine. Let it go.
She’d done all that, and then she’d pulled out our copy of Final Exit and followed its simple, rational, fatal instructions.
My cell phone rang. I saw on the readout that it was Susan calling.
I hesitated, then turned the phone off.
As I climbed down onto the tracks, I thought about Dorrie, about Jorge Ramos, about Candace Webb. All dead because of me. So was Douglas Harper, of course, and by my own hand. So was Miklos. So was Miranda, my Miranda. So were others—too many others.
No man should lose count of the number of people who have died because of him.
The tracks were well-lit, dry, cleaner than I’d have expected. A thrown-out soda cup, a few candy bar wrappers. Not too much worse than the platform itself. I sat down in the well between the two narrow rails, rested my head on one, draped my knees over the other.
I’m sorry, Dorrie, I whispered. I’m sorry.
I hadn’t meant to end up this way, counting the dead, apologizing to the ghosts of women I’d loved.
But here I was with apologies to make and so little time to make them.
The track extended into darkness in either direction. I closed my eyes. When the light came, I didn’t want to see it.
How had this happened? How?
I’d been a decent, normal person once. A good person.
I thought I heard a rumble, felt the slight hint of a tremor in the rail.
I’d been an idealist once. What had Julie called me? An innocent. A goddamn innocent.
The tremor built, and I felt a fluttering breeze on my cheeks.
I thought: I was a human being once.
But then we’ve all been things we aren’t anymore.
