The Face of Death

like to speak with you.'

The silence is heavy.

'About what?'

I could reply, 'Your attack.' I decide to take a different approach.

'Sarah Langstrom.'

'What's happened?'

I hear raw alarm in the question, mixed with perhaps a hint of res ignation.

'Can we come in, Ms. Jones?'

Another pause, followed by a sigh.

'I guess you'll have to. I don't go outside anymore.'

I hear the sound of a dead bolt being turned, and the door opens. Cathy is wearing a pair of sunglasses. I see small scars at her hairline and temples. She's a short woman, slender but compact. Athletic. She's wearing slacks and a sleeveless blouse; I can see the wiry muscle in her arms.

'Come in,' she says.

We enter. The condo is dark.

'Feel free to turn on some lights. I don't need them. Obviously. So make sure you turn them off before you leave.'

She leads us into the living room, sure-footed. The interior of the condo is newer than the outside facade. The carpet is a muted beige, the walls an off-white. The furniture is clean and tasteful.

'You have a very nice home,' I offer.

She sits down in an easy chair, indicating the couch to us with a sweep of her hand.

'I hired a decorator six months ago.'

We sit.

'Ms. Jones--'

'Cathy.'

'Cathy,' I correct. 'We're here because of Sarah Langstrom.'

'You said that already. Cut to the chase or hit the road.'

'Blind and disagreeable,' Callie says.

I shoot a furious look at Callie, aghast. I should have known better; Callie is the undisputed master of incisive ice-breaking. She'd assessed Cathy Jones and had understood sooner than I had: Cathy wanted to be treated like a normal person more than anything else. She knew she was being an ass; she wanted to see if we were going to coddle her or call her on it.

Cathy grins at Callie. 'Sorry. I get tired of being treated like a cripple, even when it's a little bit true. I found that pissing people off tends to even the playing field the fastest.' The smile disappears. 'Tell me, please. About Sarah.'

I relate the story of the Kingsleys, of Sarah's diary. I talk about The Stranger, and recount our analysis of him. She sits and listens, her ears turned toward my voice.

When I finish, she sits back. Her head turns toward the window in the kitchen. I wonder if this is an unconscious mannerism, something she did when she still had her sight.

'So he's finally shown his face,' she murmurs. 'So to speak.'

'It appears that way,' Callie replies.

'Well, that's a first,' Cathy says, shaking her head. 'He never did when I was around. Not with the Langstroms, not later with the others. Not even with me.'

I frown. 'I don't understand. He did this to you--how do you figure he wasn't revealing himself?'

Cathy's smile is humorless and bitter. 'Because he made sure that I'd keep my mouth shut. That's the same as staying hidden, isn't it?'

'How did he do that?'

'The way he does everything. He uses the things you care for. For me, it was Sarah. He said, quote, 'to take my lumps and keep my mouth shut' or he'd do to Sarah what he was going to do to me.' She grimaces, a haunted mix of anger and fear and remembered pain.

'Then he did what he did. I knew I could never let him do that to her. So I kept my mouth shut. That and . . .' She pauses, miserable.

'What?' I prod.

'It's one of the reasons you're here, right? You want to know why he kept me alive. Why he didn't kill me. Well, that's one of the reasons I kept my mouth shut. Because I lived. Because I was afraid. Not for her. For me. He told me if I didn't do what he said, he'd come back for me.' Her lips tremble as she says this.

'I understand, Cathy. Truly, I do.'

Cathy nods. Her mouth twists and she puts her head in her hands. Her shoulders tremble some, though not much, and not for long. It's a quiet cry, a summer thunderstorm, there and then gone.

'I'm sorry,' she says, raising her head. 'I don't know why I bother. I can't actually cry anymore. My tear ducts were damaged along with everything else.'

'Tears aren't the important part,' I say, the phrase seeming lame even as it comes out of my mouth.

Who are you, Dr. Phil?

She fixes her sightless gaze on me. I can't see her eyes through the black lenses of the sunglasses, but I can feel them. 'I know you,' she says. 'About you, I mean. You're the one who lost her family. Who got raped and got her face cut up.'

'That's me.'

Even blind, the gaze is piercing.

'There is a reason.'

'I'm sorry?'

'That he didn't kill me. There is a reason. But let's get to that last. Tell me what else you want to know.'

I want to press her, but discard the idea. We need to know everything. Impatience with the sequences of it all would just be counterproductive. We cover the Langstrom murders, as per what we read in Sarah's diary.

'Very accurate,' she confirms. 'I'm surprised she remembers so many details. But I guess she's had a lot of time to think about it.'

'So that we're clear,' I say. 'You were one of the responding officers? You were there, you saw the bodies and Sarah?'

'Yes.'

'In Sarah's diary, she says that no one believed that her parents had been forced to do what they did. Is that true?'

'It was true then, it's still true now. Go and pull the case file. You're going to find that it's never been ruled as anything other than a murder-suicide, case closed.'

I'm skeptical. 'Come on. You're saying there was nothing there, forensically?'

Cathy holds up a finger. 'No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that no one took a hard, close look because he'd set up the scene so well. You get a sense, sometimes, when a scene has been staged. You know?'

'Yeah.'

'Right. Well, you didn't get that sense here. You had a suicide note, held down by a glass of water with Mrs. Langstrom's fingerprints and saliva on it. You had her fingerprints on the gun, as well as blowback of both gunshot residue and blood consistent with what you'd expect from a suicide. You had her fingerprints around her husband's neck. Her fingerprints on the hacksaw used to decapitate the dog. She was taking antidepressants on the sly. What would you have thought?'

I sigh. 'Point taken.'

Hearing the story from the lips of another professional puts it into a different light for me. I see it as Cathy saw it, as the homicide detectives would have seen it, without the benefit of a Kingsley crime scene or Sarah's diary.

'You hinted that there was something there to find,' Callie murmurs.

'Two things. Small, but there. The autopsy report on Mrs. Langstrom noted some bruising around both her