In Massachusetts, about forty miles south of Brattleboro, Vermont, Spencer was humming to Kim Carnes’s, ‘Bette Davis Eyes,’ She’s got Bette Davis eyes … she’s got Bette Davis eyes. …
Something exploded inside his head, and he swerved, almost hitting the car to the right of him. It took him fifty-three minutes from the time he heard the song to fly ninety miles to Lebanon, New Hampshire. When he came off onto I-89, it was not yet dark. It was only a few miles to Lebanon, and Spencer broke every local speed and traffic law. He skipped two red lights and neglected the stop signs. Finally, he drove around the roundabout, made a right off it onto Wheeler, and then another right.
He drove to Red Leaves House.
And there it was. On a sunny, quiet street of other older, well-kept, lived-in houses, what had been Red Leaves House sat shut and boarded up. There was no glass in the windows, only old wooden boards with rusted nails. The front door was covered with graffiti. The asphalt in the driveway was broken in places, and grass and weeds grew through the cement cracks.
Spencer sat behind the wheel for a long time, his head in his hands. And then he turned the ignition off slowly, got out of the car, and walked across the street to the house. He had seen everything there was to see; there was nothing left. The establishment plaque that had once hung on a post outside the house had been torn down. Spencer found it near the front step on the grass. He picked it up. RED LEAVES HOUSE, EST. 1973, PROPRIETOR, ELIZABETH ‘BETTY’ BARRETT.
For another hour, Spencer sat motionless in front of the house. He now understood everything. Then he left.
He drove out of Lebanon and took Route 10 to Hanover. He was going to visit his old partner, Will, and then he was going to visit Ken Gallagher, maybe have a drink, tell him what he had just found out.
Will would shake his head. Gallagher would nod politely. Then they would talk in hushed voices between themselves, pointing to him and shaking their heads. They would think he was nuts, and they’d be right.
He turned around before he reached Hanover, and drove back to 1-89, taking it southeast to Concord. He was headed for the DA’s office. It took him thirty minutes and fifteen miles to reconsider. How could one person be tried for a crime another already had pleaded guilty to?
And what did Spencer have, anyway?
He had nothing.
Nothing except the truth.
But what would the district attorney do with the truth? The truth, Dave Peterson would say. You got a boarded-up house with a beat-up sign, and you want me to arrest a man? For what? For not caring about pregnant teenagers?
But but but, Spencer would say. He married her, don’t you see, he saw everything, he wanted everything. Don’t you see?
I see, Peterson would say. And you got proof of it? Oh, it’s a hunch you have. Well, if it’s a hunch, let’s put him right in jail for life then.
Spencer shouted and hit the wheel in frustration.
Peterson would be right. He’d tell Spencer to get a confession out of the bum, and he’d buy Spencer a nice, long, cold drink, and then he’d send Spencer on his way.
Spencer got off I-89 back onto 1-91 and slowly made his way down to the Brattleboro mall, where he got lost in the crowds. First he bought himself a pair of shin-high black workman’s boots. Then he purchased three black sweatsuits in three separate stores. He also bought a generic black travel bag and, in a small boutique, he laid out seventy bucks for a pair of black leather gloves with a waterproof lining on the inside. He paid cash for everything.
Back in the car, Spencer drove to the outskirts of town. In the bathroom of a gas station, Spencer put on his safety vest and changed into two of the sweatsuits, one on top of the other, and put the black boots on. The microphone was still taped to his clothes – he hadn’t bothered to take it off. He took it off now, spooled the tape of his conversation with Nathan out of the casing, burned it in the sink, and then ran water over the ashes.
Back in the car, he placed the recorder, the wires, and the small mike in his glove compartment.
Spencer put on the brown gloves and opened the trunk, rummaging through it until he found a cheap Saturday-night special he had confiscated in a drug bust two or three weeks ago. He had about a dozen of them in his police vehicle and had not bothered to turn them in yet. The rest remained in the trunk of the cop car. The gun was very poorly made. Spencer hoped it would work. He placed it carefully in a plastic bag under the seat of the car, then holstered his police Magnum .357 to his back and drove back to Greenwich to see Nathan.
Spencer was going to talk to him again, but without the tape recorder and without the pretense of lunch.
At about eleven at night Spencer arrived in Greenwich. He parked his car in the commuter parking lot for the Old Greenwich Metro North Station and walked the two and a half miles to Nathan’s house.
He knew he had to be very careful. Nathan was probably armed to the teeth, living alone in a big old house. Who knew what ghosts Nathan was expecting to pay him a visit? The house was dark in the front; it almost looked as if no one was home. Spencer suspected Nathan was home, for he had nowhere else to go.
Between Nathan’s house and a neighbor’s, there was a tree-covered little path that led to the beach – Spencer had seen it when Nathan was giving him a tour of the grounds.
Now Spencer took that path and made his way to the back of Nathan’s house, which, unfenced, faced Long Island Sound. All the windows were dark except for a small pair on the left, lit by the blue flicker of a television. The windows were too high up for Spencer to look into, but he went up the steps to the back door and tried the knob.
The door wasn’t locked.
Spencer opened the door and walked in. The television was on loud. Spencer moved quickly through the big kitchen to the left and stood in the entranceway to the den, where Nathan was lying on the couch under the windows watching TV.
Nathan saw him but didn’t move. ‘Well, well,’ he finally said. ‘I don’t remember inviting you in.’
Spencer was too tense to speak.
‘I knew I should’ve locked the back door.’
‘You should have,’ agreed Spencer.
Nathan slowly got up to a sitting position. ‘What do I owe another visit to, Spencer Patrick O’Malley?’
Spencer said, ‘I went by Red Leaves House.’
‘You did. Good. You came here to tell me that?’ Nathan reached over to turn on the lamp, but Spencer stopped him. ‘Don’t move, Nathan,’ he said. ‘Don’t move at all.’ Spencer’s feet were apart, and he was holding the Magnum in his hands.
Nathan smirked but stopped moving. ‘Are you going to take me in, detective? Are you going to arrest me?’
‘No, Nathan Sinclair. I’m not going to arrest you.’
Nathan laughed, carelessly, insolently. ‘No, of course not. You don’t have a case. And you know it.’
Spencer nodded. ‘I know it.’
‘If you think you’re going to get a teary confession out of me, you’re sadly mistaken.’
‘I have no such illusions, Nathan. I know you too well.’
‘You don’t know me at all, Spencer,’ Nathan said.
‘I want to know – I see you here, living the life of luxury, and I want to know, was it all worth it?’
‘If you know me so well, you should be able to answer that.’
‘Listen, tell me something,’ said Spencer, pointing his gun down. ‘Tell me you didn’t kill her for money. Tell me you loved her too much. Were crazy about her – I could see that. You were afraid she didn’t love you anymore, you were afraid she loved someone else. You were afraid she was pulling away and after Dartmouth she might marry Jim Shaw and you’d never be together again. Tell me you killed her in a fit of passionate madness. But don’t tell me you killed her for money. Don’t tell me that. I can’t stand the thought of that. I’ll go nuts thinking that’s why she lost her life. Tell me you loved her, you hated her, tell me your feelings for her were too much, too strong. Tell me you
loved her too much!’ Spencer said passionately.
Nathan didn’t reply.
‘I’m just deluding myself, aren’t I?’ Spencer said coldly. ‘You knew Kristina’s grandmother left her the money, and that’s why you killed her. You were hoping she made a will leaving it all to you. How cozy and convenient that would have been,’ Spencer said through gritted teeth. Sweat dripped into his eyes. ‘Or if she died intestate, you would have reared your head then, wouldn’t you? To get her nine million, you wouldn’t have continued to pretend you were Albert Maplethorpe, would you?’
Nathan said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What I want to know is how did you know Betty Barrett would fall in love with you?’ Spencer asked. ‘And Red Leaves was her life. How did you get her to close the business?’
‘I didn’t know she would fall in love with me,’ Nathan mimicked. ‘We were both dealing with Kristina’s death, we were grieving and came together naturally. She was very grateful that Conni, Jim, and I donated Kristina’s money to Red Leaves.’ He paused, smiling, still sitting on the couch. ‘As for your second question, she wasn’t as crazy about running Red Leaves as you think. Five minutes of discussion made up her mind. She had always wanted to live near the water.’
Spencer felt Nathan’s darkness descending on him. He put his Magnum back in the holster, keeping his hand on the Saturday-night special stuck in the back of his sweatpants. Spencer couldn’t bear to think Kristina’s life had come to an end over money. Couldn’t bear it. And not just her life.
When Nathan didn’t reply, Spencer said, ‘You’re not worth the life you were given. Your own life is worthless to you – why should Kristina’s life have meant anything? You know, it would’ve been better if Conni had killed Kristina. At least she had passion. She had conviction. She was made crazy by you, by your lies and betrayals, and by Kristina. It would’ve been better if Kristina had died for passion, not greed.’
‘Better for who?’ said Nathan. ‘And who would it matter to? Not her – she’s dead. Better for who, detective?’
Shaking his head at Nathan, Spencer said, ‘Is this what you wanted, to live on the water in a soulless house, all alone, surrounded by your flower gardens?’
‘You have to admit,’ said Nathan, sounding almost jovial, ‘this isn’t half bad.’
Darkness engulfed Spencer.
‘She makes you will your own destruction,’ he whispered. ‘I get it. She was warning you. I was right. She was warning you not to be greedy. She was telling you you had plenty, but three million wasn’t enough for you.’
Nathan said nothing.
‘Why didn’t she leave it all to you, Nathan? You were her true love – why didn’t she leave it to you?’
Shrugging, Nathan said, ‘It hardly matters now, does it, detective?’
‘She didn’t leave it all to you because she wanted you to redeem yourself, to see clear through the day, to change your heart. To be a human being.’
‘She already thought I was a human being, detective. She loved me, remember?’
Spencer was having trouble breathing. His heart was stopping and pounding, stopping and pounding.
‘Then why didn’t she tell you about the money? She was afraid of you. She was afraid you’d kill her for it. She didn’t trust you, and she was right.’
Nathan smirked in the darkness. ‘She wasn’t afraid of me at all. But it hardly matters now, does it?’
Spencer circled the air with the hand that held the Saturday-night special. ‘Don’t you see? She’s still here. Her death bought you this house – you’ll never be rid of her. You think you’re not in prison? Look! Look around you!’
There was only the light from the TV, but as Spencer’s gaze moved around the room, it fell on the end table near the sofa. Next to the table lamp and the phone lay a semiautomatic pistol. Spencer thought it was fortunate the TV had been on loud and Nathan hadn’t heard him come in; otherwise, now he would be being buried in Nathan’s flower gardens.
Spencer lowered his gun and said, ‘How do the dead philosophers justify that to have nothing you took a life of someone who loved you? You gave up love for death. You would rather have nothing than have love. Have love from Kristina. Don’t you think her love was worth something? The little matchbooks that she saved from Edinburgh – they were worth something. The little smiley faces on napkins with the names of pubs engraved on them – they were worth something. They were worth more than this place you live in, looking out on the shores where you used to fly a kite when you were children.’
Nathan’s eyes glistened, and he stood up, fast, fluid, facing off against Spencer. ‘You know, it just occurred to me,’ said Nathan. ‘You’re trespassing. And I’ve decided I don’t want you here anymore. Get out or I’ll call the police.’
‘No need,’ said Spencer. ‘I’m here.’
Nathan took a step toward the phone and the gun.
Hair rose on the back of Spencer’s neck. ‘Don’t move.’
‘Or what? I’m tired of your games.’ Nathan took another step.
‘Nathan, I’m warning you. Don’t move.’ Spencer put both hands on his gun, cocked it, and assumed his firing stance. Nathan was now a few short paces away from his own gun. If he lunged for it, he’d have it in his hands.
‘Spencer Patrick O’Malley, what are you going to do?’ Nathan said with such rude malevolence that Spencer started to shake. ‘Am I worth losing your job over?’
‘Nathan, I’ve told you, you’re not worth losing a night’s sleep over.’
At the next instant, Nathan dove for his pistol, hand outstretched. Spencer pointed the Saturday-night special at Nathan’s thigh and fired. Nathan fell, swiping his own gun with his hand onto the floor, and then tried madly to find it on the carpet. But in the darkness, he couldn’t see where it had fallen. Nathan’s gaze lowered on his leg, and then his frantic hands went around his wound.
Shooting in the dark was Spencer’s specialty.
‘What have you done?’ Nathan gasped. ‘What have you done?’
Even in the dark, Spencer saw blood flowing from the thigh through Nathan’s gripping hands, onto the carpet. Spencer had shot out the femoral artery.
Nathan Sinclair had about four minutes before he bled to death. In the blue flashing moment, Spencer wondered if Kristina had had four minutes.
‘What have you done?’ Nathan whispered, his voice empty of anger. He was lying on the floor, holding his leg. The blood was as slick and thick as in a slaughterhouse. But it wasn’t in red. The den wasn’t in color. The harsh lights of the TV made the room appear black-and-white. Nathan’s blood was black.
Spencer lowered his gun. He knew he’d no longer need it. Coming up close to Nathan and squatting down a few feet away from his head, Spencer said, ‘I didn’t come to arrest you, and I didn’t come to get a confession out of you. Underneath these clothes I wore my safety vest. I knew you would try to kill me, and I was right.’
Nathan’s eyes were glazed.
‘Can you still hear me, Nathan? You know you’re going to die. Kristina Sinclair was the only person in the world who would’ve mourned you dead. But she is gone, and now you’ll die too, and not a single soul on earth will grieve for you, not a single soul on earth will claim your body when it’s found here months and months from now by a disgruntled UPS man, or by the gardener. You will lie here in your own blood, dead, with no one asking for you, no one calling your name, no one wondering where you are. You will not have a little boy sitting by your side till morning, waiting for you to get up, like your father did.’
Spencer nearly cried.
‘And when you’re found,’ he continued in a broken voice, ‘and the coroner takes your body away, you will lie in the state hospital until the state buries you in a pauper’s grave, or cremates your body and leaves your ashes in the furnace. No one will shed a tear for you, because you’ve brought nothing but grief and death into this world. You’re leaving it a worse place. You
did exactly what you wanted, and that was the only absolute truth you knew. You’re going to die in about two minutes, and you will never see Kristina again.’
Nathan didn’t speak, and then he whispered, ‘Well, that’s not true, detective. You’re – you are shedding a tear for me.’
Spencer almost fell back. ‘Not for you, you bastard. Not for you.’
The seconds ticked by. Leaning down to him, whispering, Spencer asked, ‘How did you do it? How did you get her, naked, cold, frightened, to come to you in the dead of night?’
Nathan’s hold on his leg slipped, and he answered, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking –’ And then, much softer, ‘She was afraid of the night, but she wasn’t afraid of me. She would’ve come to me anywhere.’
Spencer couldn’t speak. He smelled blood, other odors, he was feeling nauseated. ‘Nathan,’ he finally said. ‘What are you hiding now? I’m not taping this, and you’re, well, you’re – what are you afraid of?’
And Nathan answered, ‘Death.’
Spencer said, ‘Kristina, you think she was afraid of death?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘She was.’ And very quietly, ‘She didn’t want to die.’
Spencer helplessly groaned aloud.
‘You’re dying for her, and for her mother, and for her grandmother, and for her father, and for Elizabeth Barrett, and for Constance Tobias. And for me, too. God gave you free will, and look at what you’ve done with it. You left her alone in the snow … she didn’t even have a priest bless her –’
And here Nathan interrupted him. ‘Bless me,’ whispered Nathan hoarsely.
‘The devil, is he ever blessed by God?’ said Spencer. ‘No, my sainted mother of eleven said. The devil chose his fate, and with his own hell he must pay. I looked and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.’
Nathan tried to shake his head, but couldn’t. ‘Something else,’ he moaned, breathing convulsively.
‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,’ said Spencer quoting Hezekiah.