“Well, yeah.” His tone scares me, and I get defensive. “Was that a mistake? Do you think I shouldn’t have done that? I couldn’t get hold of you, and Aileen’s freelance and Erin hasn’t been a cop for years now, so they’re not officially law enforcement anymore, and so I thought it would be okay—”
“Hey, it’s okay.” He pats the air to calm me down. “You had to talk to somebody. I’m just sorry it couldn’t be me. You did the right thing, a smart thing.”
“Really?” I calm down a little. “You think so? I don’t want to make a mistake and risk—”
“Do you have any ideas who this guy could be?”
“Maybe.” I give him all of my theories about demented fans and killers I’ve known. Then I run and fetch my canvas briefcase.
“What have you got?” he asks, coming closer.
I start pulling things out, one by one. “You’ve seen the E-mails and what I wrote in response to them.”
He grabs for the items in plastic. “What’s all this?”
“That’s something he sent me today. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but each of his E-mails has the phrase
[email protected]. John D. MacDonald wrote a book that’s had both of those titles—”
“I’ve read it. Scary book, especially for lawyers. All about how some things have to be solved outside the law.”
“Yeah. Let’s hope that’s not the case this time. Remember the movies they made of it, with Robert Mitchum and Robert De Niro? Well, this Paulie Barnes sent me that copy of the book today. And then—get this, I haven’t even told you this, Franklin—he left a book-on-tape in my car for me to find today, and just guess which book it is.”
When his jaw drops, I add, “Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Coincidence?” he says, sarcastically. “Sure.”
Now he looks a lot more worried, and that worries me. “You picked your car up from Ernie’s?” he asks me, and when I nod, he says, “We’ll check with him, to see who had access. Where’s the cassette?”
“In my glove box, wrapped in a Kleenex.”
“Good. What else have you got there?”
“Well, here’s a folder with all of the obscene and threatening mail I have received over the years.”
Franklin sees how thick it is, and gives me a look of amazement. Then he lifts the cover and starts to read the first letter inside. After only a moment or two of perusal, he flips the folder shut again. It must be some mark of distinction that my fan mail has managed to disgust even a hardened prosecutor.
“You look like you just stepped in slime,” I observe.
“This is awful stuff, Marie. With fans like these—”
“With fans like these, I may have enemies. But my gut feeling is that Paulie Barnes is not in that file of perverts.”
Franklin, who is now rooting through the refrigerator, looks up in surprise. “Really? Why not?”
“Wrong style for any of them. If you ever get the dubious pleasure of reading through that whole file, you won’t find many of my pen pals who can even connect two consecutive thoughts, much less construct whole letters that make sense. This guy seems pretty well educated to me, don’t you think so? He uses correct grammar, he moves logically from one paragraph to another, he even builds up a kind of suspense, the way a novelist might, like in the way he’ll sometimes use single-sentence paragraphs.”
Franklin pulls out the cheese, mustard, and pickles. “I thought that was considered a literary cheap thrill.”
“It can be, but you’ll note he used it effectively.” I give a shiver. “Made my skin crawl a few times. Hey, if you’re going to make bologna sandwiches, I want mayo on mine, please.”
He reaches back in for it, while suggesting, “So if it’s not a fan, it could be one of the killers you’ve written about?”
“I guess they could want revenge on me for slandering them.”
“Do you slander them?”
“Honey.” I fake a thick southern accent. “I’d never say anything about a murderer that his own mother wouldn’t say for money.” Franklin laughs at that, having known plenty of murderers and their mothers, himself. As he sets himself to constructing sandwiches, I add, a bit indignantly, “No, I don’t slander them! But they may think I do. It’s the truth they can’t stand to hear about themselves.”
“So . . . six books, how many murderers?”
“Eight, counting codefendants, but three of them are already dead.”
“Review their names for me—the living ones.”
“There was Anderson McDermott, who killed college girls. Nadine and Rowena Perkins, the twins who killed their boyfriends. And your guy—A. Z. Roner, who killed nurses.”
“Roner’s on death row. Where are the rest of them?”
“All still behind bars, as far as I know.”
His voice and glance are sharp as he hands me my sandwich. “You haven’t checked?”
“I haven’t checked? Franklin, most of this only happened since this morning! I had to get Deb to safety first, then write his fucking assignment, then pick up my car and drive down here, then—”
He takes a big bite of his. “You’re right.”
“—and spend the evening with the kids and—”
“I said I’m sorry,” he claims, with his mouth full.
“No, you didn’t.” I set down my food, and take a breath. “Okay. Time-out. I’m sorry, too. It’s been a long day. But I don’t need you acting like I’m some first-year paralegal who hasn’t done her job right.”
Wisely, he says nothing this time but instead pulls two coffee cups down from a cabinet, holding them out for me to point to the one I want. I choose a mug with an alligator on it, leaving him with a pink flamingo.
“Eat your sandwich,” he says, “while I make a phone call.”
I pick it up again, though I’m not very hungry anymore.
By the time I’ve forced down every bite, Franklin is off the phone, having spoken to someone working the night shift in the mysterious bowels of the Florida penal system.
“They’re all still inside,” he says, confirming what I already know from hearing his end of the conversation.
“One of them could be writing me from inside, for kicks,” I theorize out loud, but then I punch my own hole in that. “But they’ve all been in prison for longer than I’ve employed—or even known—Deborah. I don’t think they could know about her, much less know that we were coming down here. How in the hell did he know that?”
“Somebody on the outside could be telling him things.”
“I guess. That seems kind of far-fetched to me.”
Franklin laughs a little. “And the rest of this isn’t ?”
“No. I don’t think it is far-fetched, Franklin. I mean, look at what you and I do for a living. If we’re going to hang out in swamps, don’t we take a chance of stepping on snakes?”
“Well, then, I don’t think the idea of an accomplice is so farfetched, either,” he argues back at me. “The E-mails did say executioners, after all. Plural.”
“Damn. It did, didn’t it? Oh, great, that’s just what I want, a whole gang of them. Although he sure sounds like a lone wolf to me.”
“Those five murderers you wrote about, Marie, the ones who are still in prison? How’d you get along with them at the time?”
“Like gangbusters,” I say, with a wry smile. “They thought I was their best friend at the time. I think it’s very rare for people like them to get to spill their guts to somebody who’s just listening, not judging, and who doesn’t have an agenda like prosecuting them or defending them.”
“Writing a book about them is not an agenda?”
“Yeah, but they get to thinking it’s their agenda, that finally they’re going to get to tell the world everything they’ve always wanted to say.”
“What about the ones who never admit they did the crime?”
“Oh, they’re especially ‘cooperative,’ because they think they can manipulate me int
o writing the story their way, to get them off. I guess they hope the governor will read it and say, ‘Oh my God, that poor fellow, I’ve got to commute his sentence.’ ”
“They talked easily to you?”
“After a while, they almost all do.”
Franklin fills my cup with coffee. “How’d they feel about you when your books came out?”
I make a face that has nothing to do with the bad coffee. “Just about like you think they’d feel.”
“Betrayed?”
“Oh, yeah. Somehow it never seems to occur to these guys and gals that I am actually going to tell some serious truths about them. Like that they’re narcissistic, sadistic, egomaniacs, etcetera.”
“Any of them fall in love with you?” he asks, bluntly.
I grimace. “I suspect one or two may have. I mean, think about it, Franklin. It’s not because of my great beauty or natural charm, believe me. These are guys who haven’t seen a woman in ages, and here I come, all big eyes and tell-me-more.”
“Works for me.” His smile is thin. “That could be what this is all about, Marie.”
“Ah, sweet mystery of love,” I say, disgusted at the idea of it.
“If one of them is e-mailing you from prison, I think we can find that out pretty quickly.”
I tense up. “What’s this ‘we’ business, white man?”
“I’m saying, I’ll find out.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
I point upstairs, to where his children are asleep.
“You think I’m not thinking about them? Of course, I am. They—and you—are first on my mind in all of this. But, Marie, checking out this kind of stuff comes as natural to me as breathing. It’s what I do. He’ll never know I’m the one who’s checking up on him.”
“If he thinks there’s law enforcement of any kind—”
“He won’t know that, hell, he won’t know anybody’s doing anything. How would he know, Marie? He may be good—though I doubt it—but he can’t possibly know who’s checking out criminal databases.” He puts his coffee cup down on top of the folder of “fan mail.” “I’ll get an investigation started on these assholes, too.”
“No! I don’t want you involved, Franklin!” Maybe it’s just because I’m so tired by now, and maybe I’m overreacting, but I feel suddenly panicky, as if the whole situation is slipping out of control. “He wants you out of the picture, Franklin, and I do, too!”
He looks completely taken aback by my attitude.
But not half as much as I am.
“Oh God, Franklin.” I feel miserable and confused. “All the way down here, I looked forward to turning this whole mess over to you, I really did. But now I realize there’s just no way I can justify doing that, not when your involvement might jeopardize your children.”
“You told me you were glad you aren’t alone.”
“I was. I am! But Franklin, the whole point of threatening Deb was to get her out of the way and that’s the whole point of threatening your family! To get you out of the picture. He wants me alone. If we don’t do what he tells us to, something terrible may happen. Maybe it won’t, but we don’t know that. I can’t promise it won’t. You can’t, either!”
“Well, forget it, Marie. I’m not leaving you alone. The key here is making him think I will. All we have to do is make it appear that we’re doing what he wants us to do.”
That pulls me up short. “What?”
“That’s how you handled it with Deb, right? You only appeared to fire her, but you didn’t really do it.”
“So what?”
“Marie, use your head. We can do that, too.”
“Use your own damn head! Your children are in danger!”
“Goddammit, Marie, I am not putting them in danger, will you please understand that? I would not do that, all right? I am not a moron and I am not an irresponsible father. Or, maybe you think I am?”
“No. Of course, I don’t. Of course, you’re not. I just think you may be underestimating—”
“No. I’m not. You’re over estimating him.”
But you weren’t there, in my car when that tape came on. You didn’t feel what I did when I heard those words.
“I am involved,” he says, cutting off each word in emphasis, “and these are not decisions you can make for me, Marie.”
“All right!” I throw up my hands in frustration. If I have to capitulate to this I will, but I feel discouraged and deeply unhappy giving in. “But I’m telling you, Franklin, you’d better damn well stay invisible.”
We both glance upstairs again.
“You don’t have to tell me.” He reaches for me and pulls me into an embrace that starts out stiff and awkward for both of us. But after a rigid moment, I let myself melt into his body, and allow my head to rest heavily against his chest. He’s too tall for me, really, I’ve often thought; we’d make a better-looking couple if he were shorter or I were taller, but that’s not how we are, and somehow we fit all right, anyway. With all our differences of skin and height and weight and opinions, even with all of that, we fit pretty comfortably most of the time.
“Tomorrow I’m bringing in a couple of detectives,” he murmurs.
I jerk violently out of his arms and back away from him.
“No, Franklin, please don’t do that!”
“I’m a prosecutor, Marie! A sworn agent of law enforcement. It’s what I do and I’m going to do it. These guys, they always say, Don’t tell the cops, but you have to, you need the kind of help that only cops can give you.”
“These guys ? We don’t know anything about him, Franklin! This isn’t a kidnapping, it’s not a hostage situation, he’s not one of these guys! He may not be like anybody you’ve ever run across before. He said he’s new, he said he’s something different, and what if he is? You don’t know what you’re doing. None of us does, yet. Please, just take the kids and go home tomorrow and let this play out a little more until I get a better sense of who he is and what he wants. He won’t hurt me, not yet, not if he’s telling the truth about doing an entire book with me.”
“Marie, I have to do what I believe will protect all of us.”
“Even if it kills us?” At a loss for any more words, all I can do is whirl on my heel and leave him standing there. I half-expect Franklin to say something conciliatory, to put out his hand, to try to stop me from running away from him when I’m angry. But no strong hand reaches out for me, no loving voice says, “Marie . . .”
In the unhappy silence, I run upstairs to my bedroom on the second floor.
Again, I undress and get into bed. This time, instead of falling asleep I lie there, listening to him slowly climb the stairs, use a bathroom as he gets ready for bed, turn the water on and off, flush the toilet, put the seat and lid back down. I close my eyes, feeling very alone again, and tears sting them. But then I sense, more than hear, him entering my room. Childishly, I keep my eyes shut and pretend to be asleep.
I smell toothpaste, then feel a soft kiss on my temple.
I begin to cry, and then to sob, and Franklin takes me into his arms and holds me while I try to stifle any noises that might awaken his children.
“I’m sorry,” I blubber. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine,” he says, with gentle sarcasm. “Somebody wants to kill you, they’ve completely disrupted your life and your work, they’ve threatened people dear to you whom you can’t possibly defend, and you can’t imagine why you’re so upset.” I hear a smile in his voice in the dark. “This is a natural reaction, baby—a little delayed, maybe, but perfectly natural.”
“Franklin, I was so scared when I heard that tape,” I confess in a tearful whisper. “And I’m so tired right now I don’t even know if I can sleep, and I’m so scared of doing something wrong that will hurt you and the kids.”
“We’ll be fine, we’ll all be fine, believe me.”
I turn my mouth toward his and our embrace
begins to turn into something else . . . until we hear a little voice call out from another bedroom.
“Daddy? Daddy!”
Franklin groans softly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Go.”
He gently disengages, and I slump back down onto the pillow. The last thing I’m aware of before I fall asleep is the warmth of his hands on my shoulders.
I am asleep in my bedroom, my cat and small dog are sleeping near my feet. My mother and father are also asleep in their bedroom at the opposite and far end of this stark all-white ultramodern undecorated house in which we all live. Long corridors separate me from them, them from me. I bolt up in bed, shocked awake by something terrible.
Below, in our basement, a deadly creature has entered. It is “only” a dog, but it is a hound from hell. It is Cerberus, ferocious, devouring, and its growling bark awakens me.
It is standing under a small square grate in my bedroom floor. I can see its deep brown color, its terrible snarling face full of hunger and hate.
I race screaming from my bedroom, running through corridors. “Daddy! Daddy!” I am trying with all my heart to scream for him. “Daddy! Daddy!” But no matter how hard I try my scream is weak. He’ll never hear me. He’ll never come running to save me, to kill the dog for me. I can’t call him and I can’t find him in the house! The corridors all stop at walls or sharp turns that don’t lead to my parents’ room.
In the single bed in the condo, my eyelids fly open like windows pushed up violently.
I am screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!” inside my mouth, though my lips are sealed shut, as if I am paralyzed.
My God.
Did I wake Franklin, or the children?
No, the screams didn’t get out of my mouth.
I get up and make my way into the bathroom where I bend over the sink to splash water onto my face.
My God, I’m frightened.
My heart is pounding.
I return to bed, too dazed to think clearly.
What did the dream mean ? Am I in danger right now, this minute ? Did we bolt all the doors to this place ? Yes. Yes!
Nothing can get in, nobody can get in to get us.
I remember everything about the dream.