The Sign of the Book (8 page)

“Sure, I guess so,” the sheriff said. “On that other matter, I've got a deal for you.”

“No deals. I want that citation dismissed. No fine, no points: I want it taken clear off his record.”

“Let's go downstairs and talk it over.”

“Talk your damn heads off. I'm goin' out and get us some more witnesses.”

The door closed. I could hear them arguing their way down the hall. The room became quiet as Laura and I waited for the other to speak. She looked to be on the verge of tears again. I smiled at her, half in sadness, half in hope.

“I looked at your books,” I said.

“More junk I'll have to get rid of.”

“Don't do that. Not yet.”

“Are you telling me they're worth something?”

“They're worth something.”

“Bobby always said they were. I never believed him, even though he spent enough money on them. I thought he was just justifying his habit.”

“I could make you a rough appraisal if you want one.”

She looked as if she wanted to laugh but couldn't. “What good will money do me now?”

“You'll have legal expenses to cover.”

“Of course. Of course, what can I be thinking of?”

“I think you could get some real money for those books.”

Her eyes opened wide as the first realization came over her. “How much money? Are you saying I could pay my legal expenses with them?”

“Maybe.”

“What's so special? They look like ordinary books to me.”

“May I ask where they came from?”

“Bobby started buying them way back when we were young. I never paid much attention. We had more money then.”

“And you never discussed what they were or what he planned to do with them?”

She shook her head. “He was full of secrets. Even when we were kids, he was like that. Erin thought she knew him but she didn't. She had no idea. God, don't tell her I said that.”

“There's no question he owned them?”

“What do you think, he stole them?”

“It's just a question, Mrs. Marshall. You're going to need some money.”

“I guess I am.”

“And you need to make sure nobody's got any kind of a claim on your books.”

“I don't even know where he'd have kept records of that stuff.”

“Let's make an effort to find out.”

“What if there's nothing?”

“Cross that bridge when you come to it. You've got possession. A third party would need his own proof to show ownership.”

“This all seems so trivial now.”

“It's not trivial. You're gonna need a lawyer. For what it's worth, I think Parley's a pretty good man.”

“I'm sure he is. I know he's trying to do what he thinks is best for me.”

“I take it Jerry is your son?”

“Oh, please, don't you start.”

“I'm just trying to get it straight.”

“There's nothing to get straight. Jerry had nothing to do with this.”

“Hey, that's cool. If that's how it was, that's how it was.”

Then, after a long, quiet moment: “You say the boy is eleven?”

She stared at me.

“The reason I ask is it's bound to come up again. What McNamara's thinking, others will think. I understand how you'd want to protect him, but it would be smart not to be so touchy about it.”

“Wouldn't you be touchy if someone accused your son of murder?”

“I'm sure I would. But when you fly off the handle, that doesn't protect him, it has exactly the opposite effect. When you get defensive, people naturally think you're covering up for somebody. Who would that be but one of your kids? If he didn't do it, just say so, but say it calmly, as if the question itself is too ridiculous to worry about.”

“Do you even have any children, Mr. Janeway?”

“No, but I can imagine how fiercely I'd want to protect them. The trouble is, you're going about it the wrong way. If Jerry didn't do this, just say so.”

“I thought that's what I was doing.”

“You were getting pretty shrill. Try turning down the volume and say it.”

“The volume won't matter now. Parley will never believe me.”

“If Jerry really didn't do it, you'll have to convince him. My advice would be to tell him the truth. Whatever that is, just get it said.”

I let that settle on her. At some point I said into the quiet, “Erin is not leaning toward taking your case. You should know that before you chase a good lawyer away. There's too much old baggage between you, she'd need a waiver, and even then she doesn't think it's a good idea.”

“I'll give her a waiver, I said I would. I'll sign anything.”

“You're not listening, Mrs. Marshall.”

“Please. Call me Laura.”

“You're not listening, Laura. You haven't seen her in years. You've got some notion of her from when you were kids together. Maybe there's still some of that left in her, I don't know, but she's been on her own a long time now. Even if she did come, she'll ask the same questions, and I'll tell you right now, you can't stonewall her.”

“You don't know how we were. You have no idea.”

“That makes no difference now. If she does come to see you, it may be because of how you were, but I can promise you she won't stay for that reason. That was a long time ago and a lot of stuff has happened. She might just want to put something to rest between you.”

“She won't do that.”

We sat quietly for a full minute. At last she said, “What are you thinking?”

“Right now, just wondering how the hell I can reach you.”

“I've
heard
what you're saying.”

“I don't think so. Listen, this is what Erin told me to say to you. If you lie, if you stonewall or evade, I'm out of here.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “She still hates me.”

“Laura. Listen to me. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters right now but getting your story straight. If one of your kids…”

She shook her head. “Don't say that. Don't say it anymore.”

“Laura, listen—”

“I can't let this happen. I can't.”

“Just listen for a minute—”

“I can't. I won't.”

“Did your son shoot your husband?”

“No!”
she whispered.

“The only way Erin might come is if you tell me the truth.”

“I am.”

More time passed. At some point I said, “I was a cop for a long time, did you know that? I was a pretty good cop. I had good juice. That means I knew nine times out of ten when I was being lied to.”

“I'm not lying.”

“Laura, you are one of the worst liars I've ever seen. Don't take offense, that's actually a virtue. Some people can't lie. I've seen a hundred of 'em try over the years and I imagine old Parley has seen a hundred more. And Erin is better than we are at sniffing out a lie. If you think she'll ride over here and buy into this, think again. The only possible way to get to her is to stop the lies.”

“I know that. That's what I'm doing.”

I shook my head.

“I am,” she said. “I
am.
”

“If that's your final word on it, that'll have to be what I'll tell her.” I pushed back my chair. “I'm sorry I couldn't be more help.”

I was halfway to the door when she said my name: “Mr. Janeway…”

“Yes.”

“You can't just walk away like this.” Her voice cracked. “Please, I need you.”

“I know you do.”

“Will you help me?”

“I can't if you don't let me.”

“I'm afraid. Oh, God, I'm scared.”

“I know you are.”

“Not for myself,” she said, and I knew then we were finally at the truth. “Not for me.”

Suddenly she said, “Will you stay?”

“I'll do what I can do. But you've got to talk to me.”

“I will, I promise. I trust you.”

“That's a good start.”

Again I sat in the chair across from her. Tears streamed down her face. She took a deep breath and trembled. “You can't tell anyone I said this. Only Erin.”

“Okay.”

“You can't tell
anyone
else. Not even Parley.”

“I won't, without your okay.”

“He'll want to use it. That's why you can't tell him.”

The moment stretched till I thought it would break. When she spoke again, she whispered so softly I had to lip-read her.

“Jerry shot him.

“Jerry shot him,” she said again.

“My God,” she said. “Oh, God, I still can't believe it.

“Jerry shot Bobby,” she said in her disbelief.

She shook her head. “Remember what you said. What you promised. No matter what happens, you can't tell anyone.”

Then she broke down and wept uncontrollably on the table.

“Are you okay now?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Maybe you can start putting things back together.”

“Why? What for?”

“For your kids.”

“Of course… of course. What am I thinking? It's amazing how you have to keep reminding me of what ought to be obvious.”

“You're not thinking straight, that's all it is. I've seen it happen before.”

“Not like this, you haven't. I betrayed my dearest friend. How could I have done that? She was the only friend who ever mattered to me, and she mattered more than anything. But I betrayed her and my life has never been the same again. I haven't been thinking straight for ten years.”

“For what it's worth, I hope she does come.”

“But you know she won't. I can see it in your face.”

“I don't know that at all. She's not one to play games. If it had been out of the question for her to come, she never would've sent me over here.”

“I guess that makes sense. Oh, God, how I want it to. Can I…”

“What?”

“Can I tell you what happened between Erin and me?”

“I don't know if—”

“Please, I want to. It was my fault, right from the beginning. No matter how much Bobby pressured me, there's no excuse for what I did. That night we drank too much and got way too silly, but that's no excuse. As long as I could see and hear, as long as I had a coherent thought running through my head, I was responsible. Now there's nothing I can say except I am so, so sorry. Whatever they do to me here, I need to say that to her. Erin and Bobby were so much in love; you'd have to have seen them together: if ever there were soul mates, they were, and I destroyed them. I've thought about her every day, every hour: I see her face everywhere. I've never stopped loving her. But Bobby and me, that one night we got drunk and did it. When you've betrayed someone you love, the hurt never goes away, it defines you. The betrayal becomes what you are, a fair-weather friend who couldn't keep her pants on when she had to.”

“Sounds like you've paid for it.”

“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, oh my God, yes. It'll never end.”

“Never's a long time, Laura.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Maybe after ten years it's time to cut yourself some slack.”

“That'll never happen. What I did has consumed me. I know it's unreal, it must sound sick the way I dwell on it. I just can't shake it, and it only gets worse with time. I feel guiltier now than I did right after it happened all those years ago.”

“Did Bobby know?”

“What, how miserable I am? Oh, yeah, he lived with me for years, how could he not know? Bobby gave up on me long ago.”

“Maybe he shouldn't have. He had to at least share the responsibility for what happened.”

“I can't look at it that way. I don't know how to, I just don't know how. All I know is, Bobby and I were never any good together. How could we be? Erin was always there between us. I could feel her walking beside me, she was on the porch where we sat after supper: she was even in our bed. The bed was the worst. I got so frigid Bobby couldn't come near me. We haven't touched each other in four years. That's about when he began seeing other women. You can't blame him, can you?”

“I'm trying to retire from the blame business. That includes you, by the way.”

“Thank you. You're a kind man, Mr. Janeway. Are you and Erin lovers?… Never mind, that's none of my business. Sorry, I just found myself wishing, you know? She should be with someone like you.”

“Mrs. Marshall—”

“Laura.”

“Laura… do you want to tell me what happened the day your husband was shot?”

“It won't matter. You can't use it.”

“Let's take it one step at a time. Right now I'd just like to understand it.”

“I'll tell you, then. I've got to tell someone or go crazy.”

“Take your time.”

“No, I need to get this said now or I'll never say it. Bobby and I were never happy, we never had a moment's peace. I told you why but I know you can't understand it. It was all me, I've been consumed by guilt.”

“Then why'd you marry the guy?”

“That was the reason. To try to make the guilt go away. Have the marriage justify the affair, if that makes any sense. But does that really matter now?”

“It might. When you go to trial and bring in issues that the average Joe can't identify with, it helps if you can explain them.”

“Surely all this won't come up.”

“Don't count on that.”

“God, what a nightmare. How can I explain such crazy behavior? If I said that one of us had a terrible conscience and the other did it for spite, would you believe that?”

“Is that what you're saying?”

“I told you it would sound crazy. Jesus, are real lawyers going to be this hard?”

“They can be a lot worse than this. If they can make you look like a fool, they will. You don't want to help them do that.”

“I
was
a fool. This sounds like a stupid soap opera. No one will believe it.”

“Millions of people watch soap operas and believe them. Just tell the truth and don't worry about melodrama.”

“When Bobby said we should get married, it just seemed right. Erin was finished with both of us, we couldn't hurt her any more. Did I love him? I must have, right? Why else could I betray my friend? Marrying Bobby was a way of proving to Erin that what we had done was more than trivial. If it could only be dismissed as a cheap fling, what did that say about us? Does that make sense?”

“If that's your reason, sure. What about his?”

“He said he loved me. He'd been falling in love with me for a year.”

“And out of love with Erin?”

“He said he loved us both.”

“Do you believe that?”

“How would I know? I never gave him a chance. I think he tried, but I couldn't.”

“So what happened?”

“Bobby thought if we had a child it would help, and we did try in those first few years, but no child came. We moved out here and adopted Jerry. He had emotional problems, he was nearly four years old when we got him, and he couldn't talk. He wasn't what they called highly adoptable; he had been horribly abused by his birth parents, that's why getting him was so easy. Jerry has always had problems, he still can't talk, can't or won't. Except with me. He talks to me.”

“Has anyone else ever heard him speak?”

“He doesn't talk in words, it comes out in looks between us, in things he does. It's a very simple level of communication. But I know what he wants, don't ask me how, I just know, and he knows what I expect of him. It's all in the eyes. His eyes are like Erin's were as a child: brown with those flecks of green around the edges. I loved him to death the first time I laid eyes on him. We were like the walking wounded together.”

“What did his parents do to him?”

“Do I have to go through that? At one point to stop him from crying his mother put him naked in a cold basement and left him there without food or water for two days… stuff like that.”

“I get the idea. I assume you had him tested, to see—”

“Oh, sure. There didn't seem to be any real reason why he couldn't speak, but he never has. He's never said a word since we got him, but he's aware of everything around him. If I say, ‘Bring in some wood, Jerry,' he'll go right out and get it. I never have to belabor anything, his hearing's extremely sharp. The psychologist ran an intelligence test on him.”

“And that showed what?”

“There seemed to be no reason why he couldn't speak. But he won't.”

“So he was nearly four when you got him. And then you had two of your own.”

“The twins, Little Bob and Susan. What a surprise that was. It must've happened the last time Bobby ever touched me. One of the last times, and we get kids from it.”

“How old are they now?”

“Five.”

“There's no real reason to ask, but I take it they were both normal.”

“Oh, sure. I was the one who wasn't what you'd call normal.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can't tell you that. You'll think I'm a monster.”

“Let me guess. Your own blood children drove you two farther apart.”

“It was Erin again. I know this sounds sick, but they seemed like her children to me. They were the kids she should have had with Bobby. I tried to love them. I did love them. I do, I swear I do. And I've been a good mother. But it was Jerry who had touched my heart, who had nothing to do with Erin or Bobby or me. If there was any light in my life at all then, it came from Jerry.”

“You loved him. Don't beat yourself up, I can see how that could happen.”

“I loved him more than my own blood children. People will think I'm sick if that comes out. I can't help it: he was my baby, my poor wounded child. The night we brought him home, I swore to Bobby I'd never let anything hurt him again.”

“So what happened the day of the shooting?”

“I had gone out for a walk. I was on my way back when I heard a shot from the house. I ran across the field and up onto the porch. Bobby was lying in the front room. Even before I saw him I had this terrible feeling: I could smell the gunpowder, and something else… something foul. I knew it was a death smell. I went into the room and there Bobby was. Jerry had the gun in his hand…”

“What time was this?”

“I don't know. Suddenly I can't remember times. Middle of the afternoon?”

“What did you do?”

“You mean right then?”

“Yes. That first moment, what did you do?”

“Took the gun away from him and just hugged him.”

“Then what?”

“Had him take a bath. Burned his clothes.”

“Where did this take place?”

“In the back-room fireplace. Then I opened the window back there. I didn't want the smell of it all over the house when the police arrived.”

I made a note. “Then what?”

“Sent him back to the bedroom: told him I wanted him to lie down till I came for him again. Then I handled the gun and got blood on my dress. Ripped it up some. Then I called the sheriff.”

“So right from the start you were thinking—”

“—that I would confess, yes, of course, that I had to protect Jerry no matter what.”

“It hadn't surprised you, then, that Jerry had shot your husband?”

“Of course it shocked me.”

“But that's different.”

“Yes. I was shocked, not surprised.”

“Why not?”

“Jerry knew.”

“Knew what?”

“What went on with Bobby and me.”

“Did Bobby abuse you?”

“Not physically. Never.”

“Did he ever touch Jerry?”

“He knew better. I'd have killed him for real if he had.”

“But there was no love lost between them.”

“Jerry never liked Bobby.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Oh, yeah. That child seemed to know everything. He knew how unhappy I was and Bobby was the reason.”

“Did you ever tell him that in so many words?”

“That's hardly the kind of thing you tell a child. I would never tell him anything that would undercut Bobby in his eyes.”

“But…”

“Jerry knew. He just did, I know he did. We talked about it, Bobby and me, how we had made such a mess of things, and sometimes I think Jerry overheard us. There are places in that house where a child can hide and hear everything. I'm telling you, Jerry knew. At night when Bobby would come home with some whore's perfume on his clothes, I'd sleep alone on the couch in the front room. And I'd wake up and Jerry would be there, asleep with his head on my lap, holding my hand.”

“So Jerry had a good reason to hate Bobby, is that what you're saying?”

“I don't know what you'd consider a good reason. He killed him, didn't he?”

“I don't know who killed him.”

“But I told you—”

“You didn't see him do it, did you?”

“But no one else was there.”

“No one you saw.”

“What are you saying?”

“How long did it take you to get to the house, after you heard the shot?”

“I was out at the edge of the meadow. Still, not much more than a few minutes.”