Tina turned away from the carved ebony goddess and faced her interrogator. 'You're going to ruin my life, aren't you?'
Olga remained expressionless. 'I don't know what you're talking about'
'I see the way you look at me, judge me, envy me'
'Trust me, I don't envy you.'
Tina looked away. 'Whatever.'
'Listen, Tina, I just want to know what you really know. Not what you think you can get away with withholding to keep your own involvement minimized.'
'Involvement with what?'
'You know,' Olga said, though, of course she really didn't. God, this feels good, she thought. It had been so long since she'd had the opportunity to face off with someone who had something more precious than gold-pieces to a puzzle.
'Did you know Bonnie was dead? Murdered?'
Tina looked frightened. 'Yes. It was on TV. But if you think I had anything to do with Bonnie's murder, you're crazy.'
'I didn't say that. But I do think you know more about what Bonnie was actually up to'
Tina was less nervous now. 'You do? Well, then, good for you '
'My friend at the Times would love to know.'
'Are you blackmailing me? I have the best law firm in town on my side.'
The haughtiness might work ifyou didn't know this lady backstory, Olga thought. She decided to press Tina, hard.
'Are you so incredibly self-centered that you don't care about a dead woman?'
'What do you want to know? Am I supposed to stand here and spill my guts? Is that how you want it?'
'Be truthful.' Olga paused for emphasis. 'About Dylan, Bonnie, and Angel's Nest'
'I knew this day would come,' Tina said, tears welling up in her eyes, 'When Bonnie came here a month ago ... '
Tina Esposito almost didn't recognize Bonnie Jeffries when she accosted her outside of the gallery, earlier that spring. So many years had passed and they hadn't been kind to Bonnie. She was older, and dumpier. Seeing Bonnie was like revisiting a bad dream, one she'd finally been able to suppress.
'You've done well for yourself. I hope you've been happy,' Bonnie said. Her voice was cheerful and overcharged, like the phony inflections of teenage girls who act as if they are so so so happy to see each other.
Tina barely put on a smile. 'Thank you. I can't complain. You look well, too' She lied. 'I'm late for an appointment,' she lied once more.
'This won't take long,' Bonnie said, her own smile now waning. If she had expected there was a happy reunion of old friends, she'd been mistaken. She stood in front of Tina, almost blocking her.
'Obviously,' Tina said, 'we can't talk here.' She directed her back to the docent's office. 'Five minutes. But then I really have to go-a benefit tonight.'
'I knew you were up there,' Bonnie said, seemingly impressed. 'I've seen your picture in Seattle magazine.'
Tina nodded, but she didn't smile. She didn't want to give Bonnie Jeffries any more insight into her life. The magazine article had been a risk, and until just then, no one from her past had come after her. The article was as close as she wanted Bonnie to get.
'I'm a custodian for South Seattle schools,' Bonnie said. 'After the trial, no one wanted to hire me. Thought I was a whistle-blower. But all I was doing was coming forward to protect us'
'Us?'
'When I made the deal with the prosecution, they agreed to keep my pregnancies out of the papers'
'Your pregnancies?'
'And yours'
Tina appeared mystified. 'I didn't know you had a baby.'
Bonnie's lips curled to a smile. 'I had three '' There was more than a hint of pride in her voice.
'I don't understand. I never knew.' Tina Esposito was a good actress, she'd been playing rich and happy for years. But even she couldn't suppress her surprise just then. Who could?
'Jesus, Bonnie,' Tina said. 'I don't know what to say. Except, why are you telling me this now? What does it have to do with me?'
'My babies are your daughter's brothers'
The look on Tina's face was shock, then horror. 'Dylan?'
'Yes. When you left him, he took me on as his soul mate. It was the happiest time of my life. I was continuing on with something you started, bringing life and love to a world that needed it.'
'What I did was not about life and love. It was about being foolish and desperate'
'Call it what you want.' She took some breath mints out of her purse and extended her hand to Tina.
'No thanks,' she said. 'Now that you've ruined my day, my life, what do you want?'
Olga sat breathless, only just believing all that she heard. The idea that these women had conspired to have a murderer's babies was beyond comprehension, though she knew other women had done it. She recalled how serial killer poster boy Ted Bundy managed to get a woman pregnant while he was incarcerated in Florida. A California student nurse who'd been caring for Charles Manson made headlines when she revealed she'd had the Helter Skelter killer's boy/girl twins six years after he'd been sent away for life.
'What was her visit all about? What did she want?'
'At first I thought maybe she was lonely. Maybe she had a boring life and she read about me in one of those magazines and thought I had a more glamorous one and wanted to rekindle a friendship. You'd be surprised how many people read those stupid publications. But not Bonnie. She didn't want to look me up to be best pals. For Bonnie, it was always about Dylan. I guess she wanted to reconnect with me because Dylan had been our connection. And she wanted to tell me we were connected through his babies, too' Tina sighed. 'She never saw through him. She'd been convinced that he'd been innocent of the murders of those girls in Meridian.'
'Lorrie and Shelly,' Olga said. 'They had names, you know.'
'Don't you think I know that?' said Tina, suddenly angry. 'And I know Dylan Walker killed them, too. I know because he told me so'
The prison visiting room had been their sanctuary, a place where they could cement their love. Talking for hours, making plans that never really had to come to fruition. But in a very real sense, it had also been a tomb. There was no escaping it. It was in that vault that crying mothers, angry fathers, and deceived wives met with the men who had done humanity the greatest harm. It was a sad little play that repeated itself every week. Tina Winston never really saw herself as one of the foolish. The tricked. She viewed herself as woman enough to love a man she couldn't ever really have. It was a great and beautiful sacrifice.
But all of that changed one Saturday afternoon when he told her.
'I know people-reporters, cops, people-talk about me,' Dylan said over a microwave-heated burrito that she bought with four quarters. 'They don't always get it right, you understand '
'Certainly,' Tina answered, 'I know that'
'Do you?' His surprise was exaggerated.
She could barely take her eyes off his. It was that way whenever he spoke. She nodded and sipped her Coke from a paper cup.
'You are the only woman who really knows me to my soul, aren't you?'
'Of course' She adored how he leaned on her, confided his deepest feelings. He completely trusted her.
Dylan looked over at her pregnant belly. At four months, she was starting to show. 'You've proven your love,' he said. He couldn't touch her just then. Kissing and hugging were reserved solely for the hello greeting and the good-bye. He put his hands on the table, just a whisper from hers. She could almost feel the heat from his fingertips.
'I did it,' his words coming to her like the soft, sexy talk of a lover. But the content didn't match the tone. Not at all. 'I killed Lorrie and Shelley,' he said. 'Neither of them understood me. Not really. I mean, not the way that you do'
