what’s wrong with that?”
“And Cassie was one of those girls?”
“Oh, she was indeed. I knew she’d be missing the life. So, that’s why, even after seventeen years, I wasn’t surprised when she came back to the club for a visit. She told you about that, right?”
Broome nodded. “She did.”
“She pretended to come down to Atlantic City for some stupid convention, but of course she ended up back in La Creme.”
“And you recognized her?”
“Yep. So I followed her back to the Tropicana. I got friends at the front desk. They gave me her real name and address. I went up to her place and figured a way to get her back down here.”
“You pretended that you saw Stewart. You acted like maybe he had something to do with Carlton Flynn.”
“Right. And when I saw her reaction, I knew that she didn’t know what happened to the body either. So now it’s your turn, Broome.” Lorraine leaned forward. “Tell me about Stewart Green. That’s always been the big mystery to me. Tell me what happened to his body.”
So he did. He told her the whole story about Ray Levine cutting up the corpse. Lorraine listened intently.
“Poor, sweet Ray,” she said.
“Which begs yet another question,” Broome said. “How did Carlton Flynn’s Saint Anthony medal end up in Ray Levine’s apartment?”
“I put it there,” Lorraine said. “How else?”
“How did you get in?”
“You’re kidding, right? Ray lived in a basement with narrow windows. I opened one and tossed the medal into the middle of the room. Simple as that. Funny thing, though, about Ray cutting up the body.”
“What about it?”
“It’s like the opposite of what I said.”
“I’m not following.”
“When I experienced violence, I found out I had a taste for it. When poor Ray did, he found out the opposite. It brought me to life. It crushed him. It’s all in how we’re hardwired, Broome. He was too soft. It wasn’t Cassie leaving that destroyed him. It was that he couldn’t live with all that blood…”
Broome wanted to ask more, but she said, “Enough for today, hon. I got a TV thing.”
And that was what Broome had realized. That was her plan.
She was close to getting caught. They had found the bodies. They had found out about her killing her husband on Mardi Gras. The feds were involved. It was only a question of time, and she didn’t have much of that left anyway. But the moment she surrendered, well, a star was born.
Lorraine’s case became an international sensation. That was what Broome hadn’t expected at first. Serial killers are rare. Female serial killers are rarer still. That would have been enough to garner attention, but then you add some professional spin and voila. Lorraine’s lawyer was the famed Hester Crimstein, an expert in manipulating the media. Suddenly, Lorraine wasn’t a murdering monster, as per her media nickname, but an abused woman who became the “Avenging Angel.” The wives and girlfriends of her victims came out, each telling a terrifying tale of abuse, of living in agony and fear, of being saved by the only woman who would help them.
Lorraine.
So now Lorraine did TV interviews. The fascination with her was endless. Her natural likability came out because you simply can’t teach that. Hester Crimstein’s strategy was a simple one: confuse, deflect, stall. The federal prosecutors were pretty much fine with that last point. They didn’t relish trying a dying woman who many viewed as a hero.
Broome thought about that crooked smile Lorraine had given him before he arrested her. She had known. She had known exactly how it would play out in the media.
“Ashes to ashes…”
Back at the funeral of Stewart Green, a man murdered by Lorraine, the mourners bowed their heads.
“We say our final good-bye to our dearly departed…”
Sarah Green moved toward the open ground with a rose in her hand. She tossed it down on the casket. Susie followed. Then Brandon. Broome didn’t move. Erin, looking beautiful in black, was in the row behind him. Her husband, Sean, stood next to her. Sean was a good man, truth be told. Broome turned toward Erin and met her eye. Erin gave him a small smile, and Broome felt that too-familiar pang in his chest.
The longing would always be there. He knew that. But Erin was gone to him. He needed to understand that.
The mourners began to disperse. Broome started to wander back to his car when a hand touched his shoulder. He turned to see Sarah.
“Thank you, Broome.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Sarah shaded her eyes, squinting into the sunlight. “I know it sounds weird, but this really does give me closure.”
“I’m glad.”
“It’s time to move on, right?”
“Right.”
They stood there for a moment.
“Now that this case is over,” Sarah began, “will you still come by to see me?”
He wasn’t sure what to say. “I don’t know.”
“Because I’d like it if you did, Broome,” she said. “I’d like it very much.”
She walked away then. Broome watched her until she disappeared.
He thought about Lorraine and Del Flynn and Ray Levine and Megan Pierce and even Erin, who’d left him and left the job but never really left at all.
Maybe, Broome thought, Sarah was right. Maybe it was time for all of them to move on.
Fester dropped Ray off at the airport.
“Thanks, Fester,” Ray said.
“Ah, you’re not getting off that easy. Come here, you.”
Fester put the car in park and got out. He gave Ray a bear hug, and Ray, surprising himself, hugged Fester back.
Fester said, “You’ll be careful, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“I’m allowed to be concerned. When you mess up over there, I get to have my best employee back.”
Ray had called Steve Cohen, his old boss at the Associated Press, hoping to maybe get a lead on how to try to work his way back into the business. Cohen had said, “Work your way back in? Are you kidding? Can you leave next week for the Durand Line?”
The Durand Line was the dangerous and porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“Just like that?” Ray asked. “After all these years?”
“What did I always tell you, Ray? Good is good. You’re good. Really good. You’d be doing me a favor.”
Inside the terminal, Ray got on the line for the TSA security checkpoint. Two weeks ago, when Flair Hickory had first explained to him that he was going to get off for his past crime, Ray had shaken his head.
“It can’t be like that, Flair.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve run away enough,” Ray said. “I need to pay a price for what I did.”
Flair smiled and put his hand on Ray’s forearm and said, “You have paid a price. You’ve paid one for seventeen years.”
Maybe Flair was right. The images of blood hadn’t reappeared for a while. Ray wasn’t a hundred percent. He probably never would be. He still drank too much. But he was on his way.
Ray grabbed his carry-on off the conveyor belt and started for the gate. The departure board told him that
