Then she sighed, very deep, and said, “They’ve burned my house down.”
CHAPTER 26
We talked for an hour: Koko in her sadness, me as a release from the hot wrath I felt boiling inside me. Everything she’d had was in that house. Furniture handed down from her mother, books from her father and the books she herself had bought for years. Pictures, documents, the love letters of her parents: everything that told who she was and where she’d come from. I didn’t argue with her: I listened to her plans, knowing I couldn’t possibly let her fly back to Baltimore. It would be better if she realized that on her own, but I would restrain her if I had to.
She had called a friend, a woman she knew in Ellicott City. That’s how she’d learned about her house. “I needed her to water my plants. Now there aren’t any plants.”
“Koko…”
She looked at me.
“It’s a little late for me to ask you this,” I said. “Do you wish now you had never heard of Charlie or Josephine or Burton? Or me?”
“No way.”
I took heart from that, but I didn’t push it. I let her see on her own what it meant and how it had inevitably led to this point.
“No,” she said again when she did see it. “No way.” Then she smiled and said, “Well, there are times when I can do without you.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “You see what this means now.”
“I can’t go home.”
“Not for the moment. It’s a chance we can’t take.”
“What about the police? I could have them arrest those people.”
“If they left any evidence. My guess is, they had a torch do it. A professional fire man who leaves no trace. And they will all have alibis for the time when it happened.“
She just stared at the floor.
”It’s hard being a cop,“ I said. ”People don’t realize. We’ve got to play by all the rules while thugs like Dante can do what they want. Unless they make a mistake.“
“Won’t the police at least protect me?”
“I’m sure they’ll try. But they can’t watch you around the clock forever. There’ll come a time when you’ll be vulnerable.”
A moment later she said, “You’re the one they really want.”
I nodded. “They’ll use you to get to me. But they won’t be able to let it go at that.”
“Then what can I do?”
“Let’s take it one thing at a time. How’s your insurance situation?”
“The house is covered. It’s all my other stuff that’s lost.”
“Do you have a lawyer? Someone you can trust?”
She nodded. “My lawyer drew up my will. His father knew my father.”
“Does he have your power of attorney?”
“I never gave it to him. There never was any need.”
“You can do that easily enough. Then he can handle the house. Dealing with the insurance company, stuff like that.“
”Will I ever be able to go home?“
”I think so.“
It took another moment for the implication of that to settle. Her eyes opened wide and she said, ”You’re going to kill him.“
”That’s not something you should worry about.“
”Oh please. Don’t treat me like I’m some fool who’s not involved.“
”I told him what would happen. He decided not to listen. At this point it’s him or us.“
She shook her head, horrified.
“Don’t waste your tears,” I said. “He’s a brutal man. He’d kill us without a thought.”
