Everything to Gain and a Secret Affair

  Alvin Charles. Black. Eighteen years old.

  Benji Callis. Black. Fourteen years old. The gunman.

  I would never forget their names.

  Their names and their faces were engraved on my memory for all time.

  They were the fiends who had killed my babies and my husband, and my little Trixy.

  My eyes were riveted on them.

  They stared back at me impassively, indifferently, as if they had done nothing wrong.

  I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. My heart was beating very fast. Then something erupted inside me. All of the anger I had been suppressing for months, ever since last December, spiraled up into the most overpowering rage.

  My hatred took hold of me, almost brought me to my feet. I wanted to jump up, rush at them, hurt them. I wanted to destroy them as they had destroyed mine, destroyed those I loved. If I’d had a gun, I would have used it on them, I know that I would have.

  This thought brought the blood rushing to my head, and I began to shake all over. Gripping my hands together, I gazed down at them, endeavoring to steady myself.

  I knew I dare not look at the defendants again, not until I had done what I had come here to do today.

  The court clerk was saying something about rising, and I felt David’s hand under my elbow, helping me to my feet.

  The judge entered and took her seat on the bench.

  We all sat down.

  I looked at her with curiosity. She was about fifty-five, I guessed, and she had a strong, kind face. She was quite young-looking but had prematurely silver hair.

  She banged her gavel.

  I fumbled around in my handbag looking for the statement I had written, peering at my words, blinded by my rage and pain, oblivious to what was going on around me.

  The words I had written on the sheet of paper started to run together, and I suddenly realized my eyes were wet. I blinked and pushed back the tears. Now was not the time for tears.

  A terrible pain filled my chest, and that feeling of suffocation swept over me again. I tried to breathe deeply in order to steady myself, to keep myself as calm as possible.

  Then I became aware of David touching my arm, and I glanced at him. “The judge is waiting, Mal, you must go over to the podium and read your statement,” he said.

  All I could do was nod.

  Sarah whispered, “You’ll be all right,” and squeezed my hand.

  I rose a bit unsteadily and walked slowly to the podium which had been set up in front of the bench. I spread the paper out on the podium and stood silently before the judge. And I discovered I was quite unable to speak.

  Raising my face, I looked up into hers.

  She returned my gaze with one that was extremely steady; I saw the sympathy reflected in her eyes. It gave me courage.

  Taking a deep breath, I began.

  “Your Honor,” I said, “I am here today because my husband, Andrew, my two children, Lissa and Jamie, and my little dog were all brutally killed by the defendants in this courtroom. My husband was a good man, a devoted and loving husband, father, and son. He never did harm to anyone, and he gave a great deal of himself to all those who knew him and worked with him. I know that everyone benefited from their relationships with Andrew. He made a difference in this world. But now he’s dead. He was only forty-one. And my children are dead. Two harmless little innocents, six years old. Their lives have been snuffed out before they had begun. I won’t see Jamie and Lissa grow up, go to college, and have careers, fulfilled lives. I will never attend their graduations or their marriages, and I will never have grandchildren. And why? Because a senseless act of violence has torn my life apart. It will never be the same again. I am facing the prolonged anguish of living without Andrew, Lissa, and Jamie. My future has been taken away from me, just as their futures were so cruelly taken away from them.”

  I paused and took a deep breath. The murderers of my family have been found guilty by the jury. I ask this court to punish them for their crimes to the fullest extent of the law, Your Honor. I want justice. My mother-in-law wants justice. My parents want justice. That is all I am asking for, Your Honor. Just justice. Thank you.”

  I stood staring at Judge Donan.

  She stared back at me. “Thank you, Mrs. Keswick,” she said.

  I nodded. Then I picked up the piece of paper, which I had ignored. I folded it in half and walked back to my seat.

  The courtroom was totally silent. No one seemed to breathe. The only sound was the faint hum of the air-conditioning.

  After a few moments staring at the papers on her desk, Judge Elizabeth P. Donan started to speak.

  I closed my eyes, barely listening to her. I felt exhausted by my effort and emotionally drained. Also, the fury still raged inside me; it had taken over my whole being.

  Vaguely, I heard the judge speaking of the heinous crime that had been committed, the defendants’ lack of remorse for the murders of an innocent man and two children, the great loss I had suffered and my family had suffered, the senselessness of it all. I kept my eyes closed, blocking everything out for the next few minutes, trying to still that rage fulminating inside of me.

  David touched my arm.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him.

  “The judge is about to pass sentence,” he whispered.

  I felt Sarah reaching for my hand, taking it in hers.

  Sitting up straighter, I stared at Judge Donan, all of my senses suddenly alert.

  The defendants were told to rise.

  Focusing on the youngest, the gunman, the judge said: “Benji Callis, you have been tried as an adult and found guilty on three counts of murder in the second degree. I hereby sentence you to twenty-five years to life on each count of murder, each sentence to run consecutively.”

  She gave the other three defendants the same sentence: seventy-five years.

  Judge Donan had seen to it that they received the maximum punishment under New York State law. It was exactly as Detective DeMarco and David had predicted it would be.

  But for me it was somehow not enough.

  In a way, I felt my family had not been properly avenged. Certainly I felt no satisfaction, only emptiness inside, and my smoldering rage.

  Once the proceedings were over and the courtroom began to clear, David took me over to Detectives DeMarco and Johnson, and I thanked them for everything they had done.

  Outside the criminal court building there was a barrage of newspaper photographers, television cameras, and reporters. Somehow David and my father managed to get me through the mêlée and into the waiting car.

  From criminal court we sped uptown to my mother’s apartment on Park Avenue for lunch. Everybody seemed as exhausted as I was, and slightly dazed. Conversation was desultory at best.

  My father was coming to stay with me at Indian Meadows for a few days, before returning to Mexico City. As soon as coffee was finished, he took charge.

  “I think we’d better get going, Mal,” he said, rising and heading for the door of the library.

  I pushed myself to my feet and followed him.

  Diana also got up and put her arm around me. “You were wonderful in court, darling. You spoke so eloquently. I know it was hard for you, but I think the judge was touched by your words.”

  I merely nodded, hugged her, and said, “Thanks for coming, Diana, you gave me courage. Have a safe flight back to London tomorrow.”

  David came out into the hall. I turned and watched him walking across to me, thinking how well he looked today. Fresh-complexioned, with silver hair and light gray eyes, he was a handsome man, always well dressed. In his circles they called him the Silver Fox, because of not only his appearance but his ability, and it was deserved.

  Embracing him affectionately, grateful for everything he had done for me, I said, “Thank you, David. I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said with a faint smile.

  “You dealt with DeMarco and Johnson,
and that was a big help,” I answered.

  My mother came to me, kissed me, and held me longer than usual. “I’m proud of you, Mal, and Diana’s right, you were wonderful today.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CONNECTICUT, AUGUST 1989

  “I thought I’d feel better after the sentencing, but I don’t, I really don’t, Daddy.”

  My father was silent for a moment, and then he said, “I know what you mean. It’s a bit of a letdown in a way, anticlimactic.”

  “I wanted the death of my family avenged, but even consecutive twenty-five year sentences don’t seem to be enough, not to me!” I exclaimed. “They might be incarcerated, but they still can see the sunlight. Andrew, Lissa, and Jamie are dead, and those bastards ought to be dead too. The Bible got it right.”

  “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” my father murmured quietly.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “There’s no death penalty under New York State law, Mal,” my father pointed out.

  “Oh, I know that, Dad, I’ve always known it. It’s just that . . . well . . .” Leaving my sentence unfinished, I jumped up, walked to the edge of the terrace, and stood staring out across the lawns. Agitation was suddenly gripping me again, and I tried to clamp down on the feeling, to demolish it completely.

  I stood very still, breathing in the beauty of the landscape. It was a lovely August evening, not too hot, with a soft breeze rustling through the trees. In the distance the foothills of the Berkshires loomed up, lush and green against the fading sky. It was dusk. Twilight was descending, and behind the dark hills the sun had sunk low. Now burnt orange bleeding into lilac and mauve, it slowly disappeared below the horizon.

  “I’d like a drink, Dad, would you?” I asked, turning around to face him.

  “Yes, I would. I’ll go and fix them. What would you like, Mal?”

  “A vodka and tonic, please. Thanks.”

  Pushing himself to his feet, he nodded, then went into the sunroom heading for the kitchen.

  I sat down on one of the chairs under the big white market umbrella, waiting for him to come back. I was glad that he was with me, that we had this opportunity to spend the weekend together before he went back to his project in Mexico.

  My father returned within minutes, carrying a tray with the drinks on it. He sat down opposite me at the table, lifted his glass, and touched it to mine. “Chin-chin,” he murmured.

  “Cheers,” I answered, then took a long swallow.

  We sat quietly together for a few minutes, and finally I said, “I have this terrible rage bubbling inside me, Dad. It erupted yesterday in the courtroom. When I saw the defendants, I thought I would go out of my mind. I wanted to do physical damage to them, even kill them. The hatred just overwhelmed me.”

  “I experienced something very similar myself,” my father confided. “I think we all did. After all, we were just a few feet away from the men who attacked and murdered Andrew, Lissa, and Jamie in cold blood. Wanting to strike back is a natural impulse. But, of course, we can’t go around killing people. That would bring us down to their level, make animals of us all.”

  “I know . . .” I stopped and shook my head, frowning worriedly. “But the rage won’t go away, Dad.”

  My father reached out, covered my hand with his. It was comforting. He said quietly, “The only way it will dissipate is if you let go of it, darling.”

  I stared at him, saying nothing.

  After a moment, my father went on slowly, “But that’s not easy. I know exactly what you’re going through. You’re very like me when it comes to your emotions. Sometimes you have a tendency to mask your feelings, as do I. Certainly you’ve been suppressing your anger for months, but it had to come out eventually.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It did.”

  My father looked at me for a long moment, his eyes thoughtful. “And it is all right for you to be angry, Mal, it really is. You’d be abnormal if you weren’t. However, if you allow it to, it will eat you up, destroy you. So . . . just let it go, darling, just let it go.”

  “How, Dad? Tell me how.”

  He paused, then he leaned forward and stared into my eyes. “Well, there is one thing you could do.”

  “There is?”

  He nodded. “When we were at Kilgram Chase in May, I asked you where you had scattered the ashes, and you told me you hadn’t done so. You confided that you had bought a safe and locked the ashes inside it. ‘To keep them safe,’ you said to me, and you added, ‘Nothing can ever hurt them again.’ I’m sure you remember that conversation, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “You’re the only person I ever told about the safe, Dad. Why I wanted it.”

  “And are their ashes still in the safe here? Still upstairs?”

  I nodded.

  “I think it’s time to put your family to rest, Mal, I really do. Maybe if they’re at peace, you might be able to find a little yourself. Anyway, it would be a beginning . . .”

  The following morning I got up at dawn.

  I had taken my father’s words of the night before to heart, and in the early hours, unable to sleep, I had come to a decision.

  I would do as he had suggested.

  I would put my family’s ashes in their final resting place. It was fitting to do so now.

  I dressed quickly in a pair of cotton pants and a T-shirt, and then I went downstairs, heading for the basement. Only last week I had purchased a large metal cash box for the shops, and it was ideal for what I had in mind.

  Carrying the box, I returned to my little sitting room upstairs. Putting it down on the sofa, I went into my walk-in closet. The key to the safe was in a hatbox on the top shelf; climbing up on the small stepladder, I retrieved the key, got down, and opened the safe.

  First I took out Andrew’s ashes and Trixy’s; then I went back for the small containers that held Jamie’s and Lissa’s. I placed the four cans in the metal box, closed it, and took it downstairs with me.

  I had always known in my heart of hearts that if I ever buried their ashes, I would put them under the ancient maple tree near my studio.

  The tree was huge, with a wide, gnarled trunk and great spreading branches, and it must have been three or four hundred years old. It grew on the far side of my studio and sheltered the building from the fierce heat of the sun in the summer months, yet without blocking the light.

  The tree had always been a favorite of Andrew’s, as had this shady corner of the property, where we had often had picnics. The twins had loved to play near the tree; it was cool there under its leafy green canopy on those scorching hot, airless days.

  I dug a deep hole under the tree.

  When I had finished, I straightened, stuck the spade in the earth, and went to get the box.

  Kneeling down at the edge of the grave, I placed the box in it, then paused for a moment, letting my hand rest on top of the box. I closed my eyes and pictured them all in my mind’s eye.

  You’ll be at peace here, I said to them silently. You’re forever in my heart, my darlings, always with me. Always.

  Standing up, reaching for the spade, I began to shovel the earth on top of the box, and I did not stop until the grave was filled.

  I stood there for a few moments, then I picked up the spade and went back to the house.

  Later that morning I told my father what I had done.

  Then I took him down to the maple tree to show him where I had buried their ashes.

  “If you remember, we used to have picnics under the tree sometimes, and the twins often played here, especially when I was in the studio painting.”

  My father put his arm around my shoulder and held me close to him. He was visibly moved and could not speak for a few moments.

  At last he said, “And there shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed.”

  I looked up at him, my eyes filling. “That’s lovely . . .”

  He held me tighter against his body. “Rupert Brooke.”

&n
bsp; “What’s the rest of it? Do you know the whole poem, Dad?”

  My father nodded. “But it doesn’t really apply.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s to do with a soldier’s death. An English soldier’s death. Rupert Brooke wrote it before he died en route to the Dardanelles in the First World War.”

  “But Andrew was English, and the twins were half English, Daddy. So it is appropriate. Please, I’d love to hear you recite it, the way you used to read to me.”

  “Well, if you really want me to.”

  “Please.”

  My father began to speak slowly, softly, and I leaned into him and closed my eyes, listening.

  If I should die, think only this of me:

  That there’s some corner of a foreign field

  That is for ever England. There shall be

  In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

  A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

  Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

  A body of England’s, breathing English air,

  Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

  And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

  A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

  Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

  Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

  And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

  In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CONNECTICUT, AUGUST 1990

  “What a stunning success you’ve got on your hands!” Diana exclaimed, turning to me and smiling broadly. “It’s just wonderful, Mal, what you’ve accomplished in the first four months of being in business.”

  “I know, even I’ve been a bit surprised,” I admitted. “And I couldn’t have done it without your support and Mom’s. And Sarah’s help and advice. You’ve all been terrific.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, but it’s actually all due to your own hard work and inspired ideas, and let’s face it, your extraordinary business acumen,” Diana replied with a laugh, looking pleased. “Who’d have thought you’d turn out to be another Emma Harte?”