Life Penalty Page 6

  She felt safer with the members of her family. The last week had numbed all of them somewhat. Waiting for the police to release the body for burial had been strain enough on everyone, and today, Gail recognized, was thought to be some sort of conclusion, as though the act of putting Cindy’s body in the ground was a signal for the rest of them to start picking up the threads of their own lives and begin carrying on again. In the next little while, she knew, probably in the next few days, Jack would be returning to work, Jennifer would be going back to school, her parents would be disappearing to Florida, and her sister would head back to New York. Routines would be reestablished.

  The public’s outrage would continue only until fresh headlines appeared. She would move from the status of human being to that of a statistic.

  Gail looked toward the end of the row at her father, his skin dark and leathery, his hair thinning and gray, his blue eyes, in the past rarely without a twinkle, now pale and watery. Her glance backtracked to her mother, her face drawn and pale despite its tan, her short strawberry-blond hair hidden beneath one of her many chiffon scarves, her fingers intertwined and trembling. She saw Carol, sitting to her mother’s right, reach over and cover her hands with her own. Carol’s hand was steadier, calmer, though her face was no less distraught. Always thin and fragile-looking despite her toughness, she appeared to have lost weight during the last week, and had resumed her two-packs-of-cigarettes-a-day habit, a habit she had supposedly kicked the year before. Carol hadn’t known Cindy that well. She was glamorous Aunt Carol from New York who visited several times a year with presents and a nice smile, and whom Cindy had seen last year in the chorus of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; but for the most part, niece and aunt had remained attractive mysteries to one another. Still, her eyes were puffy and her face drawn. Her other hand held tightly onto Jack’s. He stared straight ahead, as Gail had caught him doing often in the past week. He looked the same as he always did, and yet he looked completely different. Something had been stolen from him, she realized, knowing in that instant that the same thing had been taken from her. When she looked at Jack, it was like looking in the mirror. Did he feel as dead inside as she did?

  Jack’s other hand moved restlessly from his knee to Gail’s lap. Occasionally, they had clasped hands tightly. Now both her arms were around Jennifer who sat staring at the floor, her white skirt dotted with the tears that kept falling into her lap. Her shoulder-length straight brown hair fell against her cheeks, virtually blocking out her face. Her hands twisted in her lap, tearing at a tissue and banging at her legs. To Jennifer’s right sat Sheila Walton, Jack’s mother, who had only just flown in the night before from wherever it was that Jack had been able to reach her in the Caribbean. She had that otherworldly look of a person suffering from jet lag, Gail thought, then decided that the look was one they all shared.

  Behind her sat Mark and Julie, Laura and Mike, and several other of their friends. Gail looked around for Lieutenant Cole but couldn’t find him.

  Beyond the first few rows, the faces grew indistinct, and though Gail tried to find a face that didn’t belong, it was impossible. They all belonged. None of them belonged.

  “That man over there,” she said to Lieutenant Cole as he appeared out of nowhere to take her arm and escort her up the aisle when the service was completed. Gail indicated a dark-haired man with a forward thrust of her chin. Lieutenant Cole whispered something to the man beside him. “And I don’t recognize that man in the blue and white suit.” Gail watched the fair-haired young man with slightly slumped shoulders disappear through the church doors. She remembered that the suspect had been described as having dirty-blond hair. “And that man,” she said, pointing quickly with her hand before realizing what she was doing and dropping it to her side.

  Lieutenant Cole’s lips creased into a narrow smile. “That’s one of our men,” he told her.

  Gail’s face registered surprise. “He’s a policeman?”

  “Undercover.”

  Undercover. Gail repeated the word silently as they continued their walk to the front of the church.

  As they filed out the door, Gail noticed Eddie Fraser flanked by his parents. Gail tried to smile in his direction but her lips only twitched grotesquely and she abandoned the attempt. Jack walked with his arms tightly around Jennifer. In the past week Jack and Jennifer had pulled closer together than ever, while Gail had felt herself pulling farther away. Had anybody noticed?

  Gail watched the burial service, the small coffin being lowered into the ground, hearing the sobs of those around her, without any movement of her own. Her eyes were dry; her body was still. To a casual observer, to the man behind the camera and to those who would watch the events later on television, she appeared, as one newscaster would comment, a pillar of strength, a remarkably controlled woman. One commentator went so far as to wonder publicly what she had been thinking, and would have been undoubtedly disappointed to learn that she was thinking nothing at all. Her mind was a complete blank. A stranger lurking in the bushes had wiped it clean.

  They knew as soon as they pulled the car into the driveway that something was wrong, that the house was not the way they had left it. They saw glass strewn across the front entrance as they approached.

  “My God,” Gail whispered.

  “What’s happened?” Jennifer cried.

  “Call the police,” Jack said, his voice calm.

  The police were right behind them, and within minutes had surrounded the house and searched inside it thoroughly dusting the house for fingerprints.

  “I doubt we’ll find anything,” Lieutenant Cole told them later as the extended family sat in stunned silence in the middle of their ransacked living room. The stereo was missing, and the color TV, as well as any money that had been left lying around, and some jewelry. “Whoever did this probably knew from all the publicity that no one would be home because of the funeral and selected his time accordingly. Break-in artists are no respecters of grief.”

  “Do you think whoever killed Cindy might have …” Gail began.

  “Unlikely,” Lieutenant Cole answered, cutting her off gently. “Very unlikely.”

  “But not impossible,” Gail stated.

  “No,” he agreed. “Not impossible.”

  “Animals,” Dave Harrington kept repeating to whoever was nearby. Gail stared blankly at her father and felt nothing. This further indignity was too far removed to touch her.

  After the police had left, and Jack was driving Jennifer over to Mark and Julie’s where it had been decided she would spend the night, Gail set about picking up the objects that had been carelessly thrown around the house. Drawers had been emptied onto the floor, coffee tables had been overturned, several little knickknacks lay broken or crushed into the carpet. The cutlery had been emptied onto the dining-room floor and discarded, silver plate not being a good enough substitute for the real thing. Gail leaned over and picked up one of the long knives, running it along the side of her finger, and was surprised a second later to see a small river of blood.

  “Gail, my God, what did you do?” Carol said urgently from somewhere beside her.

  Gail stared at her blankly, not sure how to respond.

  Ultimately, she said nothing, letting her sister and her mother lead her into the kitchen, where they washed her finger and wrapped it in a tissue.

  “I’ll put away the cutlery,” Carol said, abruptly stopping. Gail suddenly realized that the radio was missing. “Daddy’s right,” Carol continued, “people who do things like this are no better than animals. They don’t deserve to live. Somebody ought to round them up and shoot them.”

  “Carol, please,” her mother said quietly, “it doesn’t help to talk like that.”

  “It helps me,” Carol retorted sharply. “What’s the matter with some people? Don’t they have any feelings at all?”

  “Apparently not,” Gail answered in a voice so calm it surprised even her.

  “Are you all right?” Carol asked, m
oving very close to her. “You don’t look well. You look kind of funny. Gail, can you hear me?”

  Gail saw her sister’s lips moving and recognized the panic in her eyes, but the force of her sister’s breath against her face blocked out the words. Gail tried to get away from her sister’s concern, the touch of her hand, the feel of her eyes. Carol was taking away her air; she was giving her no room to breathe.

  Gail tried to speak, to tell Carol to please move over and give her some room, that there was notlhing wrong that a little distance wouldn’t cure, but when she opened her mouth, the same twitching that had overtaken her in the church resumed and her lips were unable to form any words. Before she fainted, she remembered noticing that aside from the radio, the thieves had also stolen the kitchen clock right off the wall.

  “Are you okay?” her mother was asking her, sitting beside her on the bed and holding her the way she had when Gail was a little girl. Gail nodded speechlessly. “No,” her mother said, “that’s not good enough. This is your mother. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  “I wish I could,” Gail told her honestly. “It’s like I’ve been run over by a big truck and every time I think I can stand up, it comes back and mows me down again. I feel numb from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet, but not quite numb enough. I wish I was dead,” she said simply, even objectively.

  Her mother nodded and said nothing for several minutes. “We have to go on,” she said finally. “That’s all we can do. There are other people who need you, are counting on you. Your husband. Your daughter.”

  “Jack’s a grown man,” Gail said analytically, “and Jennifer is almost a woman. They’d manage without me.”

  For the first time, Lila Harrington’s eyes grew frightened, betrayed alarm. “What are you talking about?” Her voice was filled with a quiet intensity Gail had never heard in it before.

  “Nothing,” Gail said, shaking her head.

  ‘“Don’t shake me away,” her mother demanded. “Don’t do anything stupid, Gail,” she cried. “This family has had enough tragedy. Don’t give us any more.” Her shoulders started to shake and then heave, and soon it was Gail who sat with her arms around her mother.

  “I won’t do anything foolish, Mom, I promise you I won’t. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.”

  “You were talking like you were going to kill yourself,” her mother sobbed.

  “Just talk,” Gail told her, “crazy talk. I don’t have the guts to do something like that.” She laughed, knowing she shouldn’t have. “I don’t have the gun,” she said. “Sorry, I’m talking crazy again.”

  Her mother pulled away from Gail’s arms. “Gail, maybe you should see a doctor. Laura called before, she gave me the name of a man she says—”

  “A psychiatrist?”

  “Yes. She thought it might do you and Jack good to get some professional help.”

  “He’ll tell me I had a mixed-up childhood and a crazy mother,” Gail said gently. “‘I already know that. “Her mother’s face remained unmoved. “Mom, I don’t need a psychiatrist. I know what’s the matter with me, and I know that I have to deal with it in my own way. It’s just going to take time.”

  “He could help you deal with it. Laura also gave me the name of a group she says it might be wise for you to contact …”

  Gail smiled. “Laura’s a good friend. She wants so badly to help.”

  “Then let her. Please, Gail, let her. Call these people.”

  “Who are they?” Gail asked.

  “I wrote the name down on a piece of paper. It’s in the kitchen. Something like Families of Victims of Violent Crimes, some organization where the families get together and try to help each other.”

  “I’ve never been one for groups, Mom,” Gail said, wishing now that she had been. “I don’t see how they could help.”

  “Could it hurt?”

  Gail shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess not.”

  “I’m afraid for you,” her mother cried, putting her hand to her lips.

  ‘“Don’t be afraid,” Gail sighed. “I’ll be all right. I just need some time.”

  “Will you give yourself that time?”

  The phone rang, and the question hung suspended in the air between them as Gail reached over automatically to pick it up. “Hello?”

  “Gail,” Lieutenant Cole’s voice was soft, reassuring. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” Gail replied automatically. “It’s Lieutenant Cole,” she whispered to her mother, who leaned forward anxiously. “Everything’s more or less back in its proper place,” she said. Except my life, she thought.

  “About those two men you pointed out at the church …”

  “Yes?”

  “The dark-haired man is Joel Kramer. His daughter Sally is apparently one of your piano students.” Gail nodded into the phone without speaking.

  “He came out of respect. His alibi is airtight.”

  “And the other man?”

  “Christopher Layton, a fifth-grade teacher at Cindy’s school. We’ve checked him too. He’s okay.”

  “So, there’s nothing,” Gail said.

  “Nothing yet,” the lieutenant emphasized. “But it’s still early and we’re not giving up.”

  “You’ll keep me posted?” It was half question, half statement.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Gail replaced the receiver and looked at her mother. “He’ll call me tomorrow,” she said.

  SEVEN

  “Time to wake up, sweetie,” Gail said gently.

  Jennifer twisted around in her bed and stared up at her mother. “I’m not asleep,” she told her.

  “Neither am I,” Carol said from the daybed at the other side of the room, “so you don’t have to whisper.”

  Gail walked to the rose-colored curtains and pulled them open, letting the bright, summery day inside. “Are you nervous?” she asked, looking back at her daughter whose eyes betrayed her almost total lack of rest.

  Jennifer shook her head. “Not really. It’s just English. I’ve read all the books. I always do all right in English.”

  “I remember how upset I used to get over final exams,” Gail told her.

  “You were a real pain,” Carol laughed. “We couldn’t even talk on the phone when she was studying,” she embellished for Jennifer. “The world had to come to a complete halt until her exams were over. I remember Mom actually taking the phone into the closet once so she wouldn’t disturb her.”

  “No,” Gail protested. “I don’t remember that.”

  “It’s true. You were a real tyrant.”

  “The only exam I’m really concerned about is math,” Jennifer interrupted, “and Eddie’s going to help me with that.”

  Gail tried to smile, but the sound of Eddie’s name was like a finger poking sharply into her ribs. He had been unable to provide the police with an alibi; he was still their prime suspect.

  It was June 1. Thirty days had passed since Cindy’s murder.

  “Well, you just get this set of exams out of the way, and then you can start work for your father in a few weeks.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Jennifer said, though her voice lacked the enthusiasm it had once held when she spoke of the opportunity to work as Mark Gallagher’s photography assistant over the summer holidays.

  “I’ll go get breakfast ready,” Gail said, heading for the door.

  “I’m not very hungry,” Jennifer called after her.

  “Just coffee for me,” Carol concurred.

  “You’ll eat,” Gail told them, and went downstairs. Jack had already left for work, called in early with an emergency. Gail set about making a fresh pot of coffee, dropped an egg into some boiling water, and cut a grapefruit into appropriate wedges, laying everything out on the table and waiting until she heard footsteps on the stairs before lowering the bread into the toaster.

  “This is too much,” Jennifer protested. “I can’t eat all this.”

 
“Eat as much as you can,” her mother told her.

  “Just coffee for me,” Carol said again.

  In the end, coffee was all anyone could manage, and Jennifer kissed her mother and aunt goodbye and ran out the front door.

  “Good luck,” Gail called down the street after her.

  When she got back to the kitchen, Carol was already clearing the table. “What should I do with the egg?”

  “Put it in the fridge,” Gail shrugged. “Maybe somebody will eat it for lunch.”

  “We’re getting quite a collection of five-minute eggs in here,” Carol laughed, putting the egg alongside the others that had been cooked and abandoned over the last week.

  At exactly eight-thirty the phone rang.

  “Who’s going to answer it this time?” Carol asked.

  “I’d better,” Gail said, moving to the phone. “It’s me they want to check on.” She put the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mom,” she said, without waiting to hear who it was.

  “How are you, darling?” Lila Harrington asked.

  “The same as yesterday,” Gail told her, trying to smile through the telephone wires. “You really don’t have to call every night and every morning.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m not convinced we did the right thing coming back to Florida as soon as we did.”

  “Of course you did,” Gail assured her. “Mom, you and Dad can’t keep me company forever. You have your own lives. You were here almost a month.”

  “It wouldn’t have hurt to stay one more.”

  “I’m all right, Mom, really I am.”

  “Have you cried?” her mother asked, as she had been asking for the last three days.

  Gail toyed with the idea of lying, but she’d always been a notoriously poor liar. “No,” she answered truthfully.

  There was a pause. “Anything new with the police?”