She never called!
I figured she must have got the letter sometime that week. Even if she got it late in the week say Thursday or Friday, she should have called. But she didn't.
So I wrote her a second letter. This one was dated Saturday, August fifteenth. It went down the toilet, too, right after I found it in her apartment. What it said was I really had to have the money right away because the man I owed it to was making serious threats. I told her I knew her parents were wealthy, so please ask them for it, can you? All I need is two thousand. I asked her to meet me the following Friday in Grover Park. August twenty-first. Six-thirty P.M." I said. Come in on Larson Street. Go to the third bench on the right. I'll.be sitting there waiting for you. Please bring the money. I won't harm you, Katie. I promise. Please meet me, Katie We are old friends. Don't you remember, Katie? Please help me.
I was waiting there for her at six-thirty that night. She didn't arrive until seven. I was just about to leave. She told me she'd been walking through the park. She told me she'd been praying. Affirming that God still approved of the decision she'd made. That was the word she used. Affirming.
So here we are,-she said. Smiling. Looking serene and placid and ... well ... almost beatific.
She told me I was looking very good, which was a lie, and I told her I was happy she'd decided to meet me. I told her I was so surprised to learn she was a nun, had she given up singing altogether? You were such a good singer, I said.
I sing on the ward sometimes, she said. To my patients.
She told me she dealt mostly with terminally ill patients. I said I found that so hard to imagine. Katie Cochran a nun on a hospital ward? Singing to terminally ill patients? Come on, I said.
"Come on, Charlie.”
I told her I was married now and had two little girls, Josie and Jenny.
My wife's a lovely girl, Katie, I'd like you to meet her one day.
I'd love to meet her, Katie said.
I told her I was sorry I had to bother her this way but I really was in a bind.
I really need the money, I said. Really, Katie. Katie, I'm a drug addict, I said. I'm sorry to hear that, she said.
My wife is clean, though, totally sober. Well, she's what you might call a recreational user, she does it just to keep me company every now and then. I told her I was in serious trouble. I told her because of the cocaine I owed close to three thousand dollars to my dealer. If I could pay him two now, he'd let the rest slide till I could get a steady gig someplace.
So did you bring the money? I asked.
Your letters sounded so threatening, she said. No, no. I meant you no harm.
Yes, those words especially. "I mean you no harm.”
Why would you want to harm me? I don't.
But your words. "Considering our past together." And in the second letter, "Don't you remember, Katie?" Such threatening words.
No, no, I didn't mean them that way.
They frightened me, Sal. Your words. I prayed that God would forgive your words. It was odd, receiving your letters when I did. After I'd already made my decision.
Katie, did you bring the money? I tried to get it, she said. Tried? I called my brother in Philadelphia. He inherited a lot of money when my parents died. They were killed in a car crash last July, Sal.
I'm sorry to hear that. But ... The Fourth of July. He inherited everything they had. I was sure he would help me. He'd helped me before, you see.
Tried? I said.
He turned me down. I'm sorry, Sal. I tried.
No I Go to him again!
He'll refuse again. I almost knew he would, Sal. You see, God had already ... Katie, I don't want to hear about God! Just go to your brother ... It was God who revealed the way, Sal. I prayed so hard for guidance. And at last, He forgave me. Even before I got your letters ... Damn it, Katie ... I knew I could forgive myself. God's will had become my will.
That same unsettling smile was on her face. This was now getting on seven-thirty, the lights had already come on in the park, the sky was beginning to deepen but she seemed to be staring into a blinding light, smiling. I've forgotten the past, Sal. All of it. God has helped me do that.
1o one can folgt tn l.a, I can, she said. I have. Pray to God, she said. Let him forgive you, Let him help you forget, too.
But I was remembering.
As she spewed all this religious crap, I was remembering everything that happened four years ago, on that sweltering night at the beginning of September. The noises of the night outside those French doors open to the river. The two of us in Charlie's office, alone with him.
Charlie's obscene advances. Unzipping himself. Exposing himself to her. A young girl like Katie.
"You want this money?" Charlie asks again, and shakes the bills in Katie's face.
Does God have two thousand dollars? I said. To pay the man who's ready to break my fingers? My fingers! I said, and held up my hands to show them to her, waggling them in her face.
"Stop doing that," Katie says, and flaps her hands on the air in front of her, trying to wave the money away.
My livelihood, I said. My music, Katie! My life.t I'm sorry, she said.
"Cause that's the way it's gonna be. Either the little girl here sucks my dick, or you don't get paid." Listen to me, I said.
Forget that night, she said. Pray to God and He'll forgive you. Sal.
The way He's forgiven me. Believe me, Sal, God will hear you!
Fuck God! I said.
She gave me a shocked little cry. Her hand went to her lips.
t..mi your brother again, sala. then i l go to the police. Tell him I remember it all Katie. All of it! You hitting Charlie with the bottle, you shoving him in the river, everything Go to him, I said. Get the money!
I can't go to him again, she said.
Then get it someplace lse! I don't care where, just... Sal, please.
I'm a nun.
Then go to your mother superior, go to the pope, just get the fucking money. Or I'll go to the police. I promise you. I'll ... If anyone goes to the police ... Yes, I will, I said. it'll be me, she said. I looked at her. I'm a nun, she said.
It was very dark on that path. The sun was gone, there was not a breeze stirring.
A nun, she said.
The leaves in the trees were still, the night was still.
Don't make me do it, she said. You're the one who killed him, Sal.
You.
No.
You alone. I'm a nun.
No!
You killed him because he was ... Shut up, I whispered.
for i'm telling you to ... Shut up! I shouted, and grabbed her by the throat.
16.
"In the end, he believed his own story," Brown said.
"Exactly what happened," Carella said. "Same with her.”
"Believed his story?”
“Believed her own story." Both men were a little drunk.
"Each of them rewriting what happened," Carella said.
"Trying to change the past.”
"He shoved Charlie in the river, she shoved Charlie in the river.”
"Nobody shoved Charlie in the river.”
“Charlie jumped in the river!”
Both men burst out laughing. "Shhh," Carella said.
Teddy was asleep upstairs, the twins were asleep just down the hall.
The clock on the living room mantel read ten past ten. The detectives had each been awake since six-thirty this morning, and on the job since a quarter to eight. It had been a long, long day.