Split Second

twenty-two years ago, her own father a witness. That would have made her father forty years old when it happened, a grown man living with his parents, since his wife had died and he’d needed help with his small daughter, namely herself. Why hadn’t he stopped it? Because he’d been too late to stop it, that’s why. He’d never let on, never said a word to anyone, as far as she knew. Should she ask Uncle Alan? Would he know? She shook her head. She couldn’t ask him that question, not without knowing more. Surely he didn’t know, as she hadn’t known.

Her father had seen his own father’s murder again in the moments before he died.

Lucy couldn’t get her mind around it, couldn’t accept it. Her grandmother a murderer? Her grandmother, Helen Carlyle, had died peacefully in her bed at home three years ago. Both Lucy and her father were with her, and Lucy had kissed her good-bye on her forehead.

No, she couldn’t believe it, not her grandmother.

Her grandmother was always fiercely contained, with something ramrod-straight about her. Lucy had sometimes wondered, though, in the deepest part of her, if there was a reason for that.

Lucy walked into her bathroom, sank to the floor, and leaned against the tub. She sat there for a very long time.

CHAPTER 5

Clayton Valley, Virginia

Blue Ridge Society auditorium

Sunday afternoon

Lucy couldn’t seem to get warm. She was surrounded by her father’s friends and business associates, by Uncle Alan and his family—her only remaining family. On Uncle Alan’s face, she saw utter devastation. Beside him sat Aunt Jennifer, turned sixty-four the month before. Jennifer looked as stylish as she always did with her curve- brimmed black hat and Dior black suit. Lucy had always thought she was so like her sister-in-law, Lucy’s grandmother—always self-possessed, always calm, always kind to Lucy. Her own children, Miranda and Court, who were both older than Lucy, sat stone-faced. Court was handsome and fit, a young aristocrat like his father, and Miranda looked like a bohemian wannabe, all dressed in drapey black, like a plump nun. Aunt Jennifer held Uncle Alan’s hand tightly.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy saw the McGruders, her grandmother’s longtime housekeeper and groundskeeper. They were both looking like devout missionaries, stout and somber, dressed in stiff, formal black, Mrs. McGruder’s plain black hat pushing down her over-permed gray hair. Lucy nodded to them, tried to smile, but she was so cold she was afraid her teeth were going to start chattering, and that would be humiliating. Particularly since she had to walk about fifteen feet up to the small auditorium stage, look out over the hundred-plus people, and give her eulogy. Eulogy, she thought, from the Greek eulogia, which meant to speak well of, she remembered her father telling her before the memorial of one of his professors at Princeton.

At least there hadn’t been a question about where to have his memorial service. Her father was an active member of the Blue Ridge Society for his entire adult life, a well-established group of like-minded people who wanted to preserve one of the nation’s natural wonders.

Hold it together. She was surprised when Coop slid in beside her and closed his hand over hers. His flesh was wonderfully warm. He must have felt how cold she was, because he took both her hands in his and rubbed them until at last she got the signal from the minister. She rose and walked slowly to the lectern at the center of the stage. One of her father’s bank managers and close friends had finished speaking. Mr. Lambert was a short man, which meant she had to raise the mike, and the simple act of twisting the mike upward made her brain blank out. She could see some of her friends, mostly lawyers she’d met through her roommates in college, and wasn’t that strange? They were all here for her just as they’d all been at the hospital, and they’d called her constantly, as if they were on a schedule, until she’d asked them not to call so often, to give her some time on her own. She met the eyes of Mr. Bernard Claymore, the family’s lawyer, for many years, not all that much younger than her grandmother. He was bent low, his old face weathered from spending so much of his life out-of-doors. Her father had said Bernie had all his wits and he was hard not to like even though he was a lawyer. That was good enough for Lucy, and so Mr. Claymore was dealing with her father’s estate as well. She could see tears spilling out of his eyes and trailing down his seamed face from the lectern. It nearly broke her.

She was frozen to the spot, panic rising in her throat. She stood there, trying to center herself, and looked out again over the sea of faces, most familiar, some not. So many people, she thought, their lives intertwined with her father’s, and how were each of them feeling about his sudden unexpected death? She saw shock and sadness and blankness and imagined all these expressions were on her own face as well. She met her Uncle Alan’s dark eyes and remembered his telling her how he’d once fed her some strained peaches and she’d thrown up on him. And with that memory, Lucy realized she wasn’t cold any longer. She said fully into the mike, “Thank you for coming to honor my father’s life.

“My mother, Claudine, died when I was very young. I remember my father trying to explain to me that she wasn’t coming home, and I remember he was crying but trying not to. I didn’t understand and kept asking for her. Dad would always say my mom was in heaven and that God didn’t want to let her go; she brought too much happiness and joy to those around her. And then he’d say, ‘Do you know, Lucy, I bet your mom is making everyone in heaven laugh their heads off. If I were God, I wouldn’t let her go, either.’

“I think God feels the same way about Dad. All of you know how he could make you laugh, even if you were in a big funk. He could throw out one-liners so fast it was hard sometimes to keep up with him. It was impossible not to wear a perpetual smile around my father, even when I was a teenager and my world was otherwise filled with angst.

“Another thing about my dad—I always knew he was in my corner. No one messed with me, ever, teenage boys in particular.

“When I told him I’d changed my mind and I didn’t want to become a lawyer, that what I really wanted to do with my life was become part of the best cop shop in the world—the FBI—I’ll never forget the look on his face. Surprise, and then tears filled his eyes. I asked him what was wrong, and he smiled at me and hugged me and said it must be fate. When I asked him what he meant, he told me my mother had applied to the FBI only a few weeks before her death. Then he laughed, said he would have to readjust his long-term plans since it didn’t look like he would have a lawyer daughter to support him in his old age. In the FBI I’d do a whole lot more good than most lawyers ever do, but I wouldn’t get paid much for it.”

Lucy paused to let the burst of laughter wash over her. It was as if the entire audience sitting in front of her had drawn a collective breath, and let in some memories of their own.

“My dad loved his snifter of Hennessy Ellipse cognac every evening. He’d sit in his favorite chair, his head against the chair back, his eyes closed, and I’d know he was thinking about my mother. I know my mother and father are together now, and that all heaven laughs.

“My dad was the best of fathers. I will miss him forever.”

When she relinquished the mike to her Uncle Alan and smelled his familiar bay-rum scent when he hugged her, she realized some of her deadening pain was gone. She felt warm again.

Alan Silverman didn’t speak until Lucy was once again seated beside Coop. Alan smiled at her as he said in his deep, booming voice, “I am a lawyer, and Josh often told me the same thing.”

And there was more laughter.

CHAPTER 6