Fatal

by John Lescroart

  “That doesn’t seem like a lot of evidence to come to any real conclusion, Ron.”

  “No? Maybe not.” Sighing, he went on. “But for the record, after Peter left that night, the nurse told me he’d been to look in on you a few times, right from when you were admitted. And afterwards I looked up where he worked, a whopping couple of hundred yards from the Meridien.” He waved that off. “But that’s not the point, either. I don’t want to argue about any of this with you, Kate. I know what I know.”

  “Well,” she said. “That doesn’t mean . . .”

  “Enough, Kate. All right? Enough. I’m telling you this so you can understand if the kids are distant, if it’s tense around here, why that is. And if I’m not really all here, either, all the time, it’s because this is a new world we’re all living in. And trying to adjust to it.”

  “And what if your assumptions aren’t right. What if—”

  Ron brought a flat palm down, hard, on the table. “I called him up, Kate. I confronted him about it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it wasn’t his fault. He said you called him . . .”

  She kept her eyes down, staring at her hands. “That liar,” she said. “That fucking liar. As if I . . .” Raising her gaze, she looked him in the face. “That is just so not what happened. It was . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ron said. “I don’t want the details. I don’t care about them. What I do care about is that I can’t trust my loving, faithful wife anymore.”

  “And now he’s dead and . . .” She paused. “And now you think I might have had something to do with his murder?”

  He sat back straight in his chair, as if stunned. “I never said that.”

  “But the thought creeps in.”

  “Don’t go there, Kate. I’m with you here, whatever you’ve done. What I said at the beginning when I sat down here is true. I love you. I want to be with you. I want our family to stay together.”

  Anger simmered in her eyes. “And you’re ready to forgive me? Is that it? Just as long as I admit I’ve been a bad girl?”

  “Do you want to fight about it? How I feel?”

  “It’s clear to me how you feel, Ron. I’ve fallen from grace, and you’re going to take the high road and try not to punish me.”

  “Actually, not, Kate. That would be pretty condescending, wouldn’t it? It’s not like I haven’t made some bad mistakes as well. Some serious fucking errors. Nobody’s keeping score here. I just wanted you to know that I’m on your side. I’ve never not been on your side.”

  Finally, she settled back in her chair. She rubbed the scar at the top of her abdomen. Her eyes shone with incipient tears. “Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with you, Ron. With how I felt about you.”

  “All right. I can accept that.”

  “And I had nothing to do with his death.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’d like it if things could go back to the way they were.” She let out a deep sigh, raised her eyes to meet his. “If we could trust each other again.” A tear broke and ran down her cheek until she wiped it away. “I am so sorry, Ron. I never meant to hurt you.”

  He spun his coffee mug slowly around. “I think if we had a contest about who’s dealt with more pain in the past six months, you’d win.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “No, but close enough. Maybe we could just let it go. Call it square. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”

  “You know,” she said, “it might be a lot easier in some ways if you were more of a cold bastard. Then we could just break up, and that’d be the end of it.”

  “I don’t want that. Do you want that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then. Let’s not go there.”

  14

  BETH SAT AT HER DESK in the Homicide detail. It was a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. and Ike had already called, saying he was running late. His six-year-old, Heather, was throwing up with a fever of 102 degrees. He told her he thought he might be a while. She told him she’d manage without him until he arrived, and then she hung up and her phone rang again and a deep male voice said, “Hello. Sergeant Beth Tully?”

  “This is Inspector Tully.”

  “Inspector, this is Alan Shaw. I don’t know if you remember me, but . . .”

  “I remember you, Mr. Shaw. How can I help you?”

  “Well, it’s not me. It’s my sister, Laurie. I’m not sure if you remember, but . . .”

  “Mr. Shaw. That’s two things in a row you didn’t think I’d remember so far. So how about moving forward we go on the assumption that unless I ask you a question about it, I remember whatever it might be you’re talking about. What’s the problem with your sister?”

  “She’s dying, I think. The anorexia she’s been fighting . . . ?”

  “I don’t remember that. She was too thin, but I didn’t see that as her main problem.”

  “Yeah, well, it is now. Frank Rinaldi getting himself killed was bad enough, but they think—the counselors who’ve seen her—they think the terrorist thing so soon after that must have pushed her around the bend with post-traumatic stuff. And lately it seems to have gotten the better of her, especially the last couple of weeks. She just got back from the clinic where she seemed to put on some weight and be pulling it together, except when she got back home . . . anyway, long story short, she blew me off when I wanted to come see her and check out how she was doing, until finally I got a bad feeling and I just went by her place a couple of days ago. She . . .” The voice faltered slightly, then went on. “She’s a mess, Inspector. She can barely move around. She looks like a skull. I told her she needed to go back to the clinic and get back on some kind of feeding schedule, but she said she was done with that. What was the point? So now it’s like she’s forgotten how to eat and her body seems about to give up.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” she said, very clearly remembering the night she and Alan—Mr. Shaw—had spent consoling Laurie after Frank Rinaldi’s murder, “but I’m not sure what you have in mind that you’d want me to do.”

  “I don’t know exactly what, either, to tell you the truth. But I’m about at the end of my rope here. And I know that you seemed to really care about her . . .”

  “I did care about her. I still do.”

  “Well, okay. I’m counting on that. But my point is . . . I mean, I know this might feel a little awkward—I know it is for me—me calling you again out of the blue, since I never got my act together last time around you and me.”

  “Last time?”

  “You remember we had a date?”

  “Let’s keep assuming I remember things, shall we?”

  “Okay. But when I came by, you weren’t there.”

  “You came by my house?”

  “We had a date. I thought you just blew me off.”

  Beth was gripping the telephone so tightly that her knuckles hurt.

  She had thought of Alan many times during her recovery, but as the days went by and he had never called, never tried to contact her again, she had finally written him off.

  He was going on. “The next day I realized of course that you were probably slammed at work about the terrorist thing, so I thought I’d leave you some space. But then that space just got bigger and bigger and pretty soon a couple of months had gone by and I never pulled it together to try calling you again. All things considered, it just felt too awkward, like I’d be butting into your life when you had more important things on your plate. I should have picked up the phone, but I never did, and I’m sorry.”

  “That’s a done deal, Alan. It doesn’t matter. And now? This call?”

  “This isn’t about me, or me and you. This is about Laurie. I don’t know who else to reach out to. To me, it looks like my sister’s given up. I don’t know what to do about her, and I’m afraid if I don’t think of something fast, she’s going to die. In any event, I feel like you could help her more than I can. At least there’s a chanc
e she might listen to you.”

  Beth didn’t know if that were true, but she didn’t feel like she could ignore Alan’s desperate request. “Does she live in the same place?” she asked. “I’ve got some time this morning I could swing by and talk to her. You’re sure she’ll be there?”

  “The question is can she make it all the way to the door.”

  “I’ll give her a lot of time.”

  * * *

  The bitter cold wouldn’t relinquish its grip on the city.

  Beth stood in bright sunlight on the sidewalk on Green Street and waited for Laurie’s response to the doorbell. She wasn’t wearing gloves and since she’d rung the bell had blown into her cupped hands three times, resting her walking stick against her hip. If Alan hadn’t warned her that Laurie might be moving pretty slowly, she might have already started pushing the doorbells of the other residents, to at least get inside the building so she could pound on Laurie’s door, when at last she heard the young woman’s barely audible voice on the intercom.

  “Hello?”

  “Laurie. This is Beth Tully. Sergeant Tully. I wonder if you could spare me a couple of minutes?”

  No reply for two or three seconds. Then, wearily, “What for?”

  “Your brother said you might be in need of a little company.”

  “Alan called you?”

  “Just this morning.”

  “He’s just . . .” Beth heard her sigh in the squawk box. “Oh, all right.”

  The buzzer sounded and the door clicked and Beth pushed and was inside.

  * * *

  Laurie opened the door barefoot. Although Beth thought that she had prepared herself for her first glimpse of her, in the event she found that she wasn’t ready. If anything, Alan might have underestimated his sister’s condition. Her wrists, hands, and feet were all bones, as were her neck and face. Her hair, still long, had thinned dramatically, and it didn’t look as if a brush had touched it recently. Bruises shaded yellowish blotchy areas at her jawline and under her eyes.

  Beth took this in at a glance and obviously failed at hiding her reaction, because Laurie said, “I know I don’t look too good, but I’m trying to work on things. It’s not as serious as Alan thinks. Do you want to come on in?”

  “Sure.”

  Laurie backed away, then turned and led the way in a gawky gait, as though her hips were not working correctly. Her orchid print pajama top seemed to hang straight down from her shoulders. When she got to the end of the hallway, she moved to one side, and as Beth reached her, she asked, “What happened to you? The cane? You didn’t have that last time, did you?”

  “No. It’s a new addition.” She reached the closest chair and let herself down onto it. “The short version is that I was in the Ferry Building when it got attacked.”

  “You’re kidding me. You were there?”

  Beth nodded. “One of the lucky ones, as it turned out. A lot of people got a lot worse.”

  “Of course. I know, but it’s just . . . I didn’t suspect that someone I knew was in there. It must have been terrifying.”

  “Very. Mostly it was just weird and so completely unexpected. Since then, I’m still not the best at public spaces.”

  “I’d think not. I don’t know if I’d be able to go out at all.”

  “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Going out? Seeing anybody? Even just some friends?”

  “Not too much, no.” She shrugged. “I just don’t see the point somehow.”

  “The point?”

  “You know. Going out. Doing things. I mean, after Frank it was bad enough, but then the Ferry Building . . . hey, you’d know it more than me. You were there. What’s the point of caring about anything when in a second it’s all wiped away?”

  Beth glanced over and out through the back windows, the northern edge of the city sprawling down to the bay. “Laurie,” she said gently. “Have you eaten anything recently?”

  She shook her head with a small show of petulance. “I haven’t been hungry. I don’t really have much of an appetite anymore. It ought to come back, I think. I’m not trying to starve myself or anything like that, regardless of what Alan thinks. It’s not like I really have anorexia, the disease. But if I started to listen to how much my body wants me to eat, and then went ahead and did it, I’d look like a pig.”

  “You’re a long way from that, Laurie.”

  A bitter little laugh. “Not really. Not if I really started.”

  “But you don’t know the last time you ate?”

  “Well, I was at the clinic . . . I know I had some soup there. There was always soup. I actually got a little bit sick of it. But I ate enough of it to get me back to the weight they let me in at.”

  “And when was that? When did you check out of the clinic?”

  “Four days ago.”

  “And you haven’t eaten anything since then?”

  “No, that’s not true. I had a box of rice crackers when I got home and I think I’ve eaten most of them. And some yogurt. So it’s not like I haven’t had anything at all.”

  Beth got to her feet. “Laurie, do you mind if I poke around in your kitchen for a minute? Alan was worried that you might not have enough on hand to keep you going. I’d feel better if I took a look, and then if you need some groceries, maybe I could go out and help you stock up. Meanwhile, do you know if by any chance you have some tea? I could use a cup of tea and maybe some honey while I’m opening the cupboards.”

  “I think I have some of that.” Laurie got to her feet. “But I don’t really need anything.”

  “Well, let’s see.”

  While Laurie put on a pot of water, Beth opened the refrigerator, the shelves of which were all but bare—two eggs, some condiments (ketchup, mustard, pepper jelly, soy sauce), a moldy half block of cheddar cheese, four single servings of plain yogurt, half a jar of pickle relish, one onion in the vegetable drawer. The two pantry shelves above the counter were similarly bare. She had a third or so of a package of dried angel hair pasta, a four-ounce can of julienne beets, two cans of tuna, three packages of Top Ramen.

  “You know,” Beth said, “this ramen looks great, and I didn’t have much of breakfast this morning either. When that tea water gets hot, maybe we could mix up a couple of bowls of it. How does that sound?”

  Maybe Beth imagined it, but Laurie seemed to consider the possibility for a moment before she shook her head. “I’m not really that hungry,” she said, “but you go ahead if you want. Maybe I’ll have a spoonful.”

  * * *

  But when the ramen was ready, Beth filled two bowls and pushed one of them, with a fork and spoon, in front of where Laurie sat at the table. “So do you have a specific counselor?” she asked. “Somebody you could call if you got weak, or found yourself in trouble somehow?”

  “Well, no. I mean, you can. There’s plenty of people there. They’re all really professional. It’s a good place if you’re really sick, like if you’ve got actual malnutrition. But that’s not my case.”

  “It’s not? Was that their diagnosis?”

  “Not really, no. They think I’m too skinny, of course. I mean, that’s why I went there in the first place. Alan thought I needed some counseling and stuff. If they only knew how I can eat, how fast I could get fat if I gave in to that, they’d know they didn’t have to worry. So I don’t need like one individual counselor. And besides, it’s not what you’d call cheap. So I went there to get Alan off my case mostly, but it’s not like I need counseling day to day. I’m fine.” She tried a smile, but it broke and her eyes glistened. “Except, okay, I’ll admit I’m having a hard time dealing with the whole thing with Frank still. And the world.”

  “Do you have anyone who comes by to see you from time to time?” Beth pointed at the bowl across the table. “Meanwhile, a bite of that won’t put too much weight on you, Laurie. I promise. Why don’t you try it?”

  Laurie lifted the spoon, dipped it into the broth and brought it to her l
ips, made a face as she delicately slurped it, then swallowed. “I know I should see people,” she said. She put the spoon down. “I know I’m a total bummer to be around. I probably do need to get out more. But I don’t really see the point. I mean, you were in the attack, right? You must know a little how I feel.”

  Beth twirled ramen on her fork. “Maybe a bit. But I had my daughter. I had to take care of her.”

  “I don’t have anybody like that. To take care of.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “Alan?” She shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t need me. I’m just a burden to him.”

  “I didn’t get that impression this morning. He really cares about you.”

  “Well, okay, sure. But it’s . . . there’s no real comparison.”

  Beth forked noodles and pointed again at Laurie’s bowl. “Your ramen’s getting cold.”

  Laurie sighed, picked up her fork, and brought a small portion to her lips. This time, no face. Leaning in over her bowl, she loaded up her fork again and brought it to her mouth, closing her eyes in what looked like pleasure. “Maybe I was a little hungrier than I thought.”

  “Maybe.” Beth took another bite, too. “So what are we going to do here, Laurie? Should I take you back to the clinic? You know, if you look at this rationally, you can’t go on like this much longer. Do you want to die alone here in your apartment?”

  “I don’t think I’m . . .” But she stopped, hung her head, and shook it slowly.

  Beth pressed. “How about if I come back tonight and we eat together? I could pick something up, plus a few basics to put on your empty shelves.”

  “What about your daughter? Don’t you have to be home with her?”