He didn’t want to walk over and examine his wife more closely, didn’t want to step into a new and darker world. But he had to. He couldn’t go back to the kitchen, sit at the table, and pretend it was five minutes ago. So he walked across the bedroom’s threadbare carpet. On unfeeling legs of rubber, he walked. He leaned. He looked.
Her eyes were closed, but her skin didn’t look quite right. Already it had begun to acquire a slight waxiness, and her perfect stillness was that of something inanimate. On the carpet on her side of the bed was a litter of vials and bottles-her stash of untaken prescription medicines the doctors had warned Justice that she might have hidden somewhere in the house. He stared at the lidless, capless empty containers, at the empty water glass on its side nearby. She’d taken everything, every kind of pill, every pill.
In her right hand was a crumpled scrap of paper, a message perhaps to him. But when he detached the object from her hand he saw that it was a photograph of Will, their lost son, taken on his fourth birthday, beaming behind a three-layer cake while a hand that had found its way into the frame-Justice’s own hand-was about to hold a lighted match to four waiting candles. The photo was an instant caught in time that stabbed him like a blade through the heart.
He had just enough willpower to dial 911 and give them a brief explanation and an address. When the operator asked if he was sure April was dead, he said he wasn’t, but in fact he was. He didn’t want them to take their time, not for any reason.
After hanging up, he sat down on the bed next to April and stared at Will’s photograph. His breathing quickened without him realizing it until he was short of breath, then he was sobbing, taking in great gulps of air.
When the paramedics arrived, he couldn’t talk to them, couldn’t even manage to stand up by himself so they had room to do their job.
He heard their instructions and conversation as if from a distance. They were going to transport April to the morgue, as they always did initially with suicides. It was the law. Taking one’s own life was a crime-not as serious a crime as what Davison had done to Will, but still a crime.
Someone leaned over Justice, placed a hand on his shoulder, and asked him gently if he had any family or a priest or pastor. He told them no, he had no family and he had no religion. He no longer had a world to live in.
They discussed him in the third person, as if he weren’t there, and decided he needed medical attention and counseling. He sat slumped on the sofa in deep shock and watched them remove April, the criminal. One of the paramedics hurried ahead to hold the screen door open.
It all seemed so wrong. It wasn’t yet time. A mistake had been made and could be set right with a little reasonable discussion. Her frozen custard was still uneaten in the refrigerator.
They parted then forever, she to the morgue, he to hospital emergency.
Forever.
30
New York, the present
Beam settled into the soft gray leather chair in Cassie’s living room. Her apartment was furnished in restful, muted tones like her office. But while the office was in shades of brown, the apartment was blues and grays.
Cassie’s broad, sturdy figure appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. Not much was different about her shape and features from the time she was a child, one of those rare people who somehow mature without changing; you recognize them at sixty if you knew them when they were six. She was holding two martini glasses. She came over to the gray chair and handed one of the glasses to Beam.
“Gin,” she said. “Mine’s vodka.”
He smiled and raised his glass in a toast. The gesture was returned, and brother and sister took ceremonial sips of their drinks.
“I know you didn’t come to me for help,” she said.
“Not professional help.” Beam tried his martini again. His sister had a real talent for mixing these things. “Personal help. It’s been almost a year now since Lani died. How should I…I don’t know, how should I feel?”
He felt stupid even asking the question.
Cassie settled down on the pale blue sofa opposite Beam’s chair and regarded him. “You’re seeing another woman,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Don’t act surprised. Are you?”
“Surprised? Yes. I’m not exactly seeing another woman. Not in the way you mean.”
Cassie grinned. “Ah, you equivocate.”
“The woman hates my guts,” Beam said. “And is it too early for me to be interested? I mean, since Lani?”
“Lani’s dead, bro. It’s rough, and I’m sorry. But that’s the way it is. She’s gone.”
Beam took a sip of martini he didn’t need. “I knew I could count on you to be blunt.”
“Direct.”
“Yeah, sorry. I asked the question.”
“Different people see it different ways. There isn’t any kind of timetable as to how long you should wait.”
“I don’t care what people think, Cass. I care what I think. What you think.”
“Like I’m not people. Okay, I think you’ve waited long enough if your heart’s told you so. Feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Now we seem to be left with the problem of this woman hating you. What did you do to her?”
“Killed her husband,” Beam said.
Between calming sips of martini, he explained the situation with Harry Lima and his widow Nola.
When he was finished, Cassie stood up and drifted over to the window to look out at Riverside Drive. “You might be screwed up, but you also must be one of the most interesting brothers in this diverse world.”
“I need her to forgive me for what happened to Harry,” Beam said.
“Oh, you figured that out, did you?” Cassie didn’t turn around, continuing to gaze outside. “What do you want me to tell you, bro?”
“I guess I want you to say you understand, then tell me what I should do.”
Cassie turned around and swirled what was left of her martini in its shallow-stemmed glass. “The first part’s easy: I do understand. You were doing your job. Nobody does his job perfectly, not a job like yours, anyway. That’s because no one can see into the future.”
“You can, Cass.”
She shot him her gap-toothed grin. “Maybe a glimpse now and then. Usually more disquieting than useful.”
“You really do understand, then?”
“Yes, and I don’t see how anybody can blame you for Harry Lima’s death. This man chose his course, or at the least placed himself in a position where you had little choice but to steer him into possible harm’s way. But he’s the one who set sail in that sea. He could have been an honest jeweler. Of course, his widow might have difficulty being that objective.”
“You don’t know her.”
“Not for sure,” Cassie said, “but I think I know something about her.”
“What’s that?”
“She needs to forgive you.”
Beam smiled. He believed his sister; she had a way about her. It had made her a success in her field. He also believed her when she admitted to a glimpse now and then into the future. Some people had the gift, Beam was sure. His own hunches sometimes proved predictive, but he’d always seen them as the subconscious instantaneously rummaging through mental files, shuffling index cards and coming up with the right one. Maybe that was how it was with Cassandra. Whatever the reason, she’d had the gift since they were kids and she repeatedly beat him at cards. She’d somehow known when their father was going to die; then, fifteen years ago, their mother.
