'TALKING BOOKS' OR BRAILLE. (AS A RELATIVE 'LATECOMER' TO THE WORLD OF BLINDNESS, BRAILLE CONTINUES TO BE SLOW-GOING AND CUMBERSOME FOR ME.)
THE MATERIAL I NOW HAVE IN MY POSSESSION IS IN THE FORM OF TYPED NOTES AND TAPES. I THINK, THOUGH, SHOULD YOU DECIDE TO TAKE ON THIS PROJECT, THAT A SERIES OF FACE-TO-FACE INTERVIEWS WOULD BE THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY OF KICKING THINGS OFF.
WHATEVER YOUR DECISION, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE IN VIEW OF THE FACT THAT WITH THIS DISEASE TIME MAY BE FAR MORE LIMITED THAN EITHER ONE OF US NOW SUSPECTS.
REGARDS,
ANDREW PHILIP CARLISLE
Just holding the wretched letter in his hand had made Brandon Walker feel somehow contaminated. And angry.
'Send this thing back by return mail and tell him to shove it up his ass,' he had growled, handing the letter back to Diana. 'Where does that son of a bitch get off and how come he has your address?'
'Andrew Carlisle always had my address,' Diana reminded her husband. 'Our address,' she corrected. 'We haven't moved, you know, not since it happened.'
'Did he send it here directly?'
'No, it came in a packet from my publisher in New York.'
'If you want me to, I'll call the warden and tell him not to let Carlisle send you any more letters, whether they go to New York first or not.'
'I'll take care of it,' Diana had said.
'You'll tell him not to write again?' Brandon asked.
'I said I'd handle it.'
Looking at his wife's determined expression, Brandon suddenly understood her intention. 'You're not going to write back, are you?'
Diana stood there for a moment gazing down at the letter and not answering.
'Well?' Brandon insisted impatiently. 'Are you?'
'I might,' she said.
'Why, for God's sake?'
'Because he's right, you know. It could be one hell of a good book. Usually it takes at least two books to tell both sides of any given story. This would have both in one. Not only that, my agent and my editor both told me years ago that anytime I was ready to write a book about what happened, Sterling, Moffit, and Dodd would jump at the chance to publish it.'
'No,' Brandon said.
'What do you mean, no?'
'Just what I said. N-O. Absolutely not. I don't want you anywhere near that crackpot. I don't want you writing to him. I don't want you interviewing him. I don't want you writing about him. Forget it.'
'Wait a minute,' Diana objected. 'You can't tell me what I can and what I can't write.'
'But it could be dangerous for you,' Brandon said.
'Being sheriff can be dangerous, too,' she told him. 'What happens when it's time for the next election and you have to decide whether or not to run for office again?'
'What about it?'
'What if I told you to forget it? What if I told you that you couldn't run for office because I said your being sheriff worried me too much? What if you couldn't run because I refused to give my permission? What then?'
'Diana,' Brandon said, realizing too late that he had stepped off a cliff into forbidden territory. 'It's not the same thing.'
'It isn't? What's so different about it?'
'That's politics…'
'And I don't know anything about politics, right?'
'Diana, I-'
'Listen, Brandon Walker. I know as much or more about politics as you do about writing and publishing. And if I have the good sense to stay out of your business, I'll thank you to have the good sense to stay out of mine.'
'But you'll be putting yourself at risk,' Brandon ventured. 'Why would you want to do that?'
'Because there are questions I still don't have answers for,' Diana had replied. 'I'm the only one who can ask those questions, and Andrew Carlisle is the only one who can provide the answers.'
'But why stir it all up again?'
'Because I paid a hell of a price,' Diana responded. 'Because more than anyone else in the whole world, I've earned the right to have those damn answers. All of them.'
She had left then, stalked off to her office. Within weeks-lightning speed in the world of publishing contract negotiations-the contract had come through for Shadow of Death, although the book hadn't had that name then. The original working title had been A Private War.
And it had been, in more ways than one. From then on, things had never been quite the same between Brandon and Diana.
Diana heard the whine of the chain saw as soon as she pulled into the carport alongside the house and switched off the Suburban's engine. Hearing the sound, she gripped the steering wheel and closed her eyes.
'Damn,' she muttered. 'He's at it again.'
Shaking her head, Diana hurried into the house, determined to change both her clothes and her attitude. The literary tea was over, thank God. It had been murder-just the kind of stultifying ordeal Brandon had predicted it would be. Listening to the saw, Diana realized that it would have been nice if she herself had been given a choice of working on the woodpile or dealing with Edith Gailbraith, the sharp-tongued wife of the former head of the university's English Department. Compared to Edith, the tangled pile of mesquite and creosote held a certain straightforward appeal.
Edith, social daggers at the ready, had been the first one to inquire after Brandon. 'How's your poor husband faring these days now that he lost the election?' she had asked.
Diana had smiled brightly. At least she hoped it was a bright smile. 'He's doing fine,' she said, shying away from adding the qualifying words 'for a hermit.' As she had learned in the past few months, being married to a hermit-in-training wasn't much fun.
'Has he found another job yet?' Edith continued.
'He isn't looking,' Diana answered with a firm smile. 'He doesn't really need another job. That's given him some time to look at his options.'
'I'd watch out for him, if I were you,' Edith continued. 'Don't leave him out to pasture too long. American men take it so hard when they stop working. The number who die within months of retirement is just phenomenal. For too many of them, their jobs are their lives. That was certainly the case with my Harry. He mourned for months afterward. I was afraid we were going to end up in divorce court, but he died first. He never did get over it.'
Nothing like a little sweetness and light over tea and cakes, Diana thought, seeing Brandon's frenetic work on the woodpile through Edith Gailbraith's prying eyes. And lips. With unerring accuracy, Edith had zeroed in on one of Diana Ladd Walker's most vulnerable areas of concern. What exactly was going on with Brandon? And would he ever get over it?
Driving up to the house late that afternoon, she still didn't have any acceptable answers to that question. The only thing she did know for sure was that somehow cutting up the wood was helping him deal with the demons that were eating him alive. Having left Edith behind, it was easy for Diana to go back home to Gates Pass prepared to forgive and forget.
'Go change your clothes and stack some wood, Diana,' she told herself. 'It'll do you a world of good.'
In the master bedroom of their house Diana slipped out of the smart little emerald green silk suit she had worn to the tea. She changed into jeans, boots, and a loose-fitting T-shirt. When she stopped in to pick up a pair of glasses of iced tea, she noticed the two glasses already sitting in the kitchen sink and wondered who had stopped by.
She took two newly filled glasses outside. Brandon, stacking wood now with sweat soaking through his
