many Clytemnestras lurked in my life, where were the knives, and most important, who would wind up dead in whose tub.
CHAPTER 56
The next morning I woke up fast. I ran five miles along the lakefront, showered, dressed, and grabbed some coffee at Intelligentsia. By eleven I was headed downtown and on my cell.
“Yeah.”
Detective Masters was his usual effusive self.
“Vince Rodriguez is going to be on the news tonight,” I said. “Here’s what you need to know.”
I told him about Grime, Pollard, and Bennett Davis. I have always fancied myself something of a connoisseur when it came to the exotic curse. Masters, however, fashioned a string of expletives that would make a deaf man blush.
“You done?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“So Vince does his thing today. He arrests Davis and lays out the Grime angle. Tomorrow belongs to you.”
Then I told him about Kansas, how it fit together. It took a while. When I finished, there was nothing.
“Masters,” I said. “You there?”
“When can I move?”
“I’m walking into Channel 6 right now. I’ll call you when I’m finished.”
My crossword girl was not at the front desk. Just as well. Not the best day for her. I met Rodriguez in a small office just off the main set. He had a cup of coffee and was trying to avoid talking to one of Diane’s many producers.
“Give us a second,” he said.
The producer looked daggers at me but left the room.
“Bennett Davis just called,” Vince said. “He’s going to turn himself in. Wants to make a deal. One o’clock. Down at headquarters.”
“Did he give you any of the details?”
“No, but he will. After a while, you can tell. This one has got no fight left. Besides, we got preliminary DNA back on the cigar.”
“A match?”
Rodriguez nodded and continued.
“Looks like it. Davis also had a message for you. Said The Godfather plays a lot easier than real life. Said to tell you he just didn’t have the stomach for it.”
I thought about the reality of swallowing a bullet. Couldn’t think of anything much worse. Then I thought about a life of hard time. For a former prosecutor. In a big-time lockup.
“He won’t last long in prison, will he?”
Rodriguez shrugged.
“He’ll be gang-raped first thing. Then it depends on what he can do for them on the inside. Or if he can pay. If I had to bet, I’d say he doesn’t make it.”
Diane stuck her head in the door. She looked tight around the eyes.
“Vince,” I said. “Can you give us a minute here?”
“Sure,” Rodriguez replied. “I have to head out anyway.”
He turned to Diane.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but Bennett Davis is turning himself in downtown. Within the hour.”
“We need to get a crew on it,” Diane said. Rodriguez shook his head.
“Can’t do it. Davis is coming in alone. I already agreed to no press. Tell you what. Once we have him in custody, I’ll ask if he wants to talk to you. Maybe you get lucky again.”
“Thanks,” Diane said, and the detective left.
“You got plenty,” I said. “More than plenty.”
Diane moved closer, slid her arms around my shoulders, and laid her head flat against my chest.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I just get greedy. Want it all.”
“I know.”
“How you doing, baby? Seemed a little strange last night.”
“A lot on my mind.”
I pulled the yearbooks from Sedan out of a gym bag I’d brought with me and put them on the desk beside us.
“Sam Becker says hello.”
She looked at the yearbooks and then up at me. I could see a small pulse beat in the hollow of her throat.
“So now you know,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
“I’m sure Sam did.”
“He told me what he knew. I figure there’s more.”
She walked across the room and closed the door. Then she sat down in front of the yearbooks, drew her palms together, and held her hands to her lips. For a moment she said nothing. She opened up to her sister’s high school picture, then her own. Traced each with her finger. I had done the same thing a day earlier and not gotten any of the answers I wanted either.
“ ‘Know thyself.’ Sounds simple, doesn’t it?”
“Not really,” I said.
“No. Not at all. I think I do love you, Kelly.”
“Please.”
“I almost told you last night. Almost told you everything.”
Now there was a shiver in her voice, and that spooked me more than anything.
“Almost,” I said. “I’m thinking you got lots of almosts for people. A lifetime full of them. Ultimately, however, there is just you. Nothing else.”
The smile she turned out was a lonely thing, one that asked for no quarter and offered precious little in the way of regret.
“I love my sisters, Kelly. I love both of them.”
I thought about Diane and her two sisters. Thought about their father and the day each girl turned twelve. Pieces of me ached for Diane. Maybe even a little for myself. Those were the pieces I had to ignore.
“How did it start?” I said.
“You know it all. It’s right here.”
She closed the yearbooks and pushed them back my way.
“It was June fourteenth, three years after Elaine was murdered. I was out of college, working as a reporter in Flint, Michigan. You remember I told you about Flint.”
She tried to touch my hand but I stayed put. Diane shrugged and kept talking.
“Mary Beth called from San Francisco, told me she had killed a man. Then she told me why. I flew out there. There really wasn’t much to do. Mary Beth had stalked him, met him at a bar, and gone back to a hotel room. She had shot him, made it look like a robbery, and walked away.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. She was giddy about the whole thing.”
“That was the first? The EMT?”
Diane nodded.
“Yes. She showed me her list of names.”
“All the people who dropped the ball on Elaine’s case?”
