The Handfasting

by David Burnett

  The faces of the two men popped into her mind, and she shivered, took a deep breath.

  “Detective James came to see me today, showed me photographs, asked me to identify them.” Katherine took a bite of the chicken.

  “And?” Sara prompted.

  “And I did.”

  “Way to go!”

  “They’ve been arrested.”

  “Yes!”

  “What about Bill?” Becky asked.

  “I’m going to meet him tomorrow as we planned.”

  “Katherine. No!” Becky grabbed her shoulder. “You aren’t going to go through with this.”

  Katherine smiled. “Detective James will be with me. I’ll point Bill out, and she will arrest him.”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Becky and Sara screamed.

  “That SOB is not going to Congress.” Katherine shook her head. “He’s going to jail!”

  Even though Becky and Sara had already eaten, they sat with Katherine while she ate, one on either side. They had brought several pieces of baklava and they joined her in dessert.

  “Dinner is delicious,” Katherine said.

  “It is good. You’ll have to come with us next month. St. John’s has dinner on the first Wednesday of every month. You might meet a good-looking guy.”

  “She doesn’t want to meet another guy, Becky. She wants to get back with Steven.”

  At the mention of Steven’s name, Katherine put down her fork. She had talked with the police and with her parents. Steven deserved to know what had happened, too.

  “I tried to call Steven—I need to tell him what happened—he didn’t answer.”

  “Katherine, what made you change your mind? Why did you decide to talk?”

  “A bunch of things. You two have been wonderful. You’ve told me over and over not to let them get away with it, not to marry Bill. My mom and Aunt Emma, both were appalled at the marriage idea. And then, last night…”

  She took a deep breath. “Then there was the knife.”

  “What knife?” Becky’s voice was guarded.

  “After the nightmare, after you shook me awake, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay in bed, and I thought about everything, about how I didn’t have a choice, how I had to marry Bill.” She looked into their faces, feeling the hopelessness, suddenly as intense as it had been the night before. She shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind. “I knew that I would be miserable. I knew that my life would be over. Then I thought that maybe I did have one option, a way to solve everything.” She paused again, trying to shake the feeling.

  “I went to the kitchen and found a paring knife. It was sharp, like new. I figured with just one cut, each side…”

  “Katherine, you wouldn’t!” Becky’s fork clattered as she dropped it on the plate.

  Sara began to cough, choking on the baklava she had just eaten.

  “I don’t think so.” Katherine held up her hands. “No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t. But at two o’clock this morning, in the state I was in…well, it didn’t seem like the worst idea.”

  She picked up the fork and idly moved food around her plate. “Anyway, when Detective James was talking to me this morning, I realized that I had another choice. And I made it. I made that one.”

  Becky hugged her. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “I am too, Katherine.” Sara squeezed her shoulder, and Katherine wrapped her arms around them both.

  “Do you want us to go with you tomorrow?”

  “No. It needs to look normal. The police will be with me. I’ll be fine.”

  ***

  After dinner, Katherine called Aunt Emma. Her aunt was thrilled when Katherine told her.

  “Finally! I knew you’d see the light. Like I told you, throw his butt in jail. I wish I could be there to watch.”

  She recounted her conversation with her parents. “If Bill weren’t in Boston tonight, I think Dad would have killed him by now.”

  “And it would be justifiable homicide!”

  “You can’t tell anyone, Aunt Emma, not even Uncle John. Bill can’t hear what is going to happen.”

  “Not a word, Katherine, not a word. Hold on.” Katherine heard Aunt Emma talking to her uncle. “Men are so helpless sometimes,” she said when she returned. “Katherine, what about Steven? Have you told him what happened?”

  “No. I, I just cut him off. I tried to call him tonight, but he didn’t answer. Aunt Emma, I don’t know what to say. He’ll think I don’t love him, that I didn’t love him enough to trust him. Once, he told me about a woman in Oxford, she kept a secret…”

  “I’ll wager he heard the story from someone else,” Aunt Emma said. “Not from the girl herself. My experience is that when you love someone, then, once she tells you the truth, well, I expect that he will understand.”

  Katherine sat on the sofa thinking after they hung up. Aunt Emma had wanted her to go to the police from the very beginning, and of course, she had been right. Aunt Emma had never led her astray.

  Throw his butt in jail.

  Katherine smiled. That’s exactly what she was going to do. Thinking about things now, she could not believe it had taken her so long. It was so unlike her to let anyone intimidate her, as Bill had—not the internship supervisor who’d tried to make her do double-duty because she was a woman, not the biker who had gone on a rampage in the ER one afternoon. Why it had taken Willy Kelly, and his talk with Detective James, to push her into action?

  Perhaps it was exactly that—she hadn’t fought back, had thought that was the right thing to do, that she would be safer that way. But not fighting back had caused her to question her entire sense of self, allowing Bill to infiltrate her mind, destroy her self-worth. Seeing Willy Kelly stand up and do the right thing, even though it must have been hard, it had given her courage somehow.

  Katherine smiled. Bill Wilson would run her no longer.

  ***

  It was only seven o’clock, but Bill lay in bed in his hotel room. He had met with Chris to map out the campaign for the next six months. Chris had assured him that his engagement, and subsequent marriage, would boost the campaign.

  “Everyone likes a love story,” he had said. The election was shaping up well anyway, and Katherine Jackson would only be an asset.

  He had heard that rumors he was looking for a ring had spread rapidly through Hamilton. By now, he expected, everyone knew that he had made a purchase. On Friday, in response to a planted question, he would reluctantly acknowledge the engagement, apologizing to the Jacksons for stealing their thunder. Katherine would be in Hamilton in two weeks to talk with Dr. Nelson, and he would introduce her at a dinner at the James River Club.

  He thought about her. Katherine. His wife-to-be. He knew that she saw their marriage as one of convenience, but he had been planning to marry her since they were in high school. Now, he had trouble believing that, finally, she would be his wife. Perhaps he had gone about it in the wrong way, but he had not intended to hurt her, besides, in the end, she was the one to blame for the way things had worked out.

  He heaved a huge sigh. “I will try to make her happy,” he said.

  He reached for the telephone.

  “Katherine, it’s Bill. How are you? Excited about tomorrow?”

  “Really excited, Bill! I can’t wait!” The pleasure in her voice was real, Bill could hear the anticipation, and he was pleased.

  “I’ll leave Boston at one o’clock and reach New York about two-thirty. I’ll see you at four?”

  “Four o’clock, I’ll be there.”

  “Now after dinner, I was thinking that…”

  “We can do whatever you’d like after dinner, Bill.”

  “Great, Katherine, just great. Tomorrow then.”

  “Yes, Bill, it can’t come soon enough for me. Good night.”

  Bill smiled as he hung up.

  She is really happy. Maybe I was wrong. She really wants to marry me, just needed some encouragement to recognize her feelings.

  He poured a d
rink to celebrate. Raised it in toast. “Tomorrow is going to be a great day!”

  ***

  Steven reached his hotel room just before midnight. He always found interviews to be stressful, and it had been a long day. He ran hot water in the tub and stretched out on his bed, waiting for the tub to fill. He thought back on the events of the day.

  His interview had begun with an early lunch. The chair of the search committee, Andrew Morgan, had welcomed him at the Museum’s restaurant. Mr. Morgan was older than Steven and had worked in the restoration section at the Museum since his graduation from college.

  “People enjoy working at the Kairos,” he had told Steven. “You’ll find that most of the staff members have been employed here for a number of years.”

  Their table was in the middle of the room, easily visible from the gallery, and Steven had noticed several groups of people walking slowly along the gallery, stopping to peer into the restaurant, then turning to walk away.

  Mr. Morgan had followed his eyes as Steven had watched the second group. He’d chuckled. “Don’t be alarmed,” he’d said. “They are friendly—employees taking a look at you.”

  Steven had laughed. “I’d do the same thing, I expect.”

  He climbed into the tub now and relaxed as he remembered the remainder of the afternoon. It was spent interviewing with the search committee, touring the Museum, meeting with the Board of the “Friends of the Kairos.” His final meeting had been with the out-going director. They’d had a good conversation.

  “My sense, Dr. Richardson, is that everyone is quite impressed with you. What do you think of the Kairos? A place you would like to work?” he had asked.

  “Your collection appears to be outstanding. I understand that it has more than doubled during your tenure,” Steven had commented.

  “Thank you. It is true that we have grown in the past twenty-five years. The Board has been very supportive, and it continues to be. The staff is excellent. Easy to work with, too. I might tell you that there were no internal applications for the director’s position, so you will not have to deal with supervising one who was not offered your job.”

  That had pleased Steven. Having someone resenting you, for getting a position they had wanted, was never a good way to start a new job.

  After soaking in the steaming water, Steven crawled into bed. As he waited to fall asleep, his thoughts went to Irina George. They had dined with her aunt and uncle after his interview. Dinner had begun at six, they had left at eight-thirty, and then they had talked for three hours about people and events from high school.

  “Did you make it to the reunion a couple of years ago?” Irina had asked. “I wanted to go, but it was in the middle of exams.”

  “No, I was still in England. Did you keep up with anyone in the class?”

  “Not really, but I wish I could have gone. It would have been fun.”

  Steven had enjoyed dinner. Irina was much as he had remembered. He recalled their last date. It was in early August, just before they’d both left for college. They had stayed up late that night, reminiscing about their years in high school and their plans for the future. They wanted similar things from life. He had thought of Irina frequently—until he’d met Katherine.

  He pushed the thoughts of Katherine out of his mind.

  What will I do if I’m offered both the Kairos and the position at Oxford?

  He smiled. If one must have a problem, it’s the kind of problem to have.

  He reached across the bedside table for his notebook and checked his return flight. “Leave at one o’clock. Reach New York at two-thirty.” The morning was free.

  ***

  The next morning, Katherine was up early—too nervous and too excited to sleep. She wasn’t sure what to wear. “What does one wear to watch the man who raped you, threatened you, proposed to you, blackmailed you, get carted off to jail?”

  She put on the scrubs that she sometimes wore. She remembered that she had been wearing them the day she was attacked, and she stripped them off, tossing them in a corner. Her green dress was too short, the black one too formal, although definitely something a New Yorker would wear.

  She finally found a dark blue dress that she had not worn since the previous fall, not since the day before Bill attacked her. It had been brand new, and she had worn it to dinner with Steven, their last date. Sort of appropriate, she thought.

  Hearing Becky in the kitchen, she walked out to get her opinion. “I’m not sure what to wear today. How do you like it?”

  Becky put the cereal box down and looked at Katherine. “Well, you look terrific, but you’re going to wear that to work? Wear it all day?”

  Katherine looked down at the dress. “I’ll have a lab coat on over it. I’ll be fine.” She clasped Steven’s necklace around her neck, as she always did, and added the matching earrings and bracelet. “For luck,” she said.

  “You look like you’re ready for a date,” Sara said as she came into the kitchen.

  Katherine nodded. “My boyfriend is going to propose. Of course I want to look nice.” She cut her eyes to the left to see the expression on Sara’s face, and they both burst into laughter.

  Katherine wolfed down her bowl of cereal and followed it with a single cup of coffee. Her stomach felt queasy, and she did not want to add too much caffeine to the mix this morning.

  It was finally time to leave for work.

  “You’re certain you’ll be all right?” Becky asked. “Don’t you want me to go with you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  “I should do something.”

  “Anthony and Will are going to be in town for Valentine’s Day,” Katherine reminded, “so let’s go out for dinner—on Monday, maybe—to celebrate. My treat.”

  “Good plan.” Sara squeezed her shoulder. “Good attitude. Just be careful.”

  ***

  It was a typical Thursday in the ER, a crowded waiting room, non-stop. It wasn’t until eleven that Katherine got a break. She had not been able to think about anything but her patients all morning. She hurried to the lounge to phone Steven.

  “May I speak to Dr. Richardson, please?” Katherine neglected to say her name—Martine didn’t need to know it was her calling.

  “I’m sorry. Dr. Richardson is not here this morning. He may be in late this afternoon. May I take a message or have him call.”

  Katherine sighed. Apparently, she would have to know. “Martine, this is Katherine Jackson.”

  “As I said, Dr. Richardson is not in. You could try him tomorrow, good—”

  “Martine! Martine! Please don’t hang up. Martine, are you there?”

  “Yes.” An icy voice.

  “Martine, I need to talk to Steven. I need to tell him what happened. He thinks I don’t care about him, but I do. I need to tell him—before Bill is arrested and everyone knows. He needs to hear it from me, to know I trust him.”

  Katherine paused, hoping she got through to Martine.

  “I can take a message.”

  “Martine, please, it’s really important. Steven and I—well, he doesn’t think I care about him, that I don’t trust him. Martine. I really need to talk with him. Today.”

  “Steven has been in Boston for an interview.” Martine’s voice was softer. “He may call before his flight at one o’clock. If he does, I will give him a message.”

  “Ask him to call me. At the hospital. Tell him to have them find me.”

  “I will give him the message.”

  “Thank you, Martine. Thank you so much!”

  Katherine hurried back to the ER. Steven was in Boston for an interview. A job interview? Was he leaving town? She picked up the next patient’s chart. Hopefully he would call Martine to check in before he flies back.

  At one o’clock. She looked up. On Bill’s flight?

  ***

  Steven reached the gate at about twelve fifteen. The waiting area was crowded. Must be a full flight, he supposed. Steven checked his watch. He had t
ime to call Martine.

  “Hi, Martine, what’s happening?” He knew that his cheerfulness would irritate her, since she would infer that his interview had gone well.

  “Not much, Dr. Richardson.” Her voice was calm. “You had a call from Katherine Jackson. She left a message.”

  “What did the she-devil want?” Steven chuckled softly.

  “A very strange woman, she is. Very excitable. Does she often speak without making good sense?”

  “Martine, I haven’t much time. What did she say?”

  “She was rambling. She needs to tell you about something that happened. You think she doesn’t care, you think she doesn’t trust you. She needs to tell you before Bill is arrested and everyone knows. Who is Bill? Does any of this make sense to you?”

  “A little, maybe.”

  “Susanne would be much more logical.”

  “Martine!”

  “Anyway, she wants you to call her at the hospital. Tell them to find her, she says.”

  “Okay, I’ll call.”

  “I think she still cares for you, Steven. It would be a shame to leave town…”

  “Good-bye, Martine.” He hung up and dialed the hospital ER. She wanted to tell him what happened. Before Bill was arrested?

  A familiar-sounding voice rose above the general commotion of the air terminal. Turning to look, he saw a tall, chubby man pounding on the gate attendant’s desk.

  “I know that I purchased a stand-by ticket, but I simply must be on this flight. Look, it’s extremely important. I must be in New York for a four o’clock meeting.”

  “Sir, you do have a stand-by ticket, and the flight is full.”

  “I know! I know! Throw someone off the plane. Give me a seat.”

  Steven shook his head. The man turned and Steven recognized Bill Wilson. He felt his stomach turn.

  Bastard. I ought beat the man to a pulp—make getting a seat the least of his worries.

  As he started to hang up to go confront Bill, the hospital operator answered.