The Night and the Music - Lawrence Block [74]
She was nodding eagerly. “How old is Patrick? Almost nine, and it was taken out just around the time he was born.”
“Then I’d say you’re in the clear,” he said. “And it’s only fair, if you think about it. The company’s been taking a man’s premiums all these years, why should a moment of wrong thinking get them off the hook?”
“I had the same notion myself,” she said, “but I thought there was no hope. I thought that was just the way it was.”
“Well,” he said, “it’s not.”
“What did you call it? A moment of wrong thinking? But isn’t that all it takes to keep him out of heaven? It’s the sin of despair, you know.” She addressed this last to me, guessing that Mahaffey was more aware of the theology of it than I. “And is that fair?” she demanded, turning to Mahaffey again. “Better to cheat a widow out of the money than to cheat James Conway into hell.”
“Maybe the Lord’s able to take a longer view of things.”
“That’s not what the fathers say.”
“If he wasn’t in his right mind at the time …”
“His right mind!” She stepped back, pressed her hand to her breast. “Who in his right mind ever did such a thing?”
“Well …”
“He was joking,” she said. “And he put the gun to his head, and even then I wasn’t frightened, because he seemed his usual self and there was nothing frightening about it. Except I had the thought that the gun might go off by accident, and I said as much.”
“What did he say to that?”
“That we’d all be better off if it did, himself included. And I said not to say such a thing, that it was horrid and sinful, and he said it was only the truth, and then he looked at me, he looked at me.”
“What kind of a look?”
“Like, See what I’m doing? Like, Are you watching me, Mary Frances? And then he shot himself.”
“Maybe it was an accident,” I suggested.
“I saw his face. I saw his finger tighten on the trigger. It was as if he did it to spite me. But he wasn’t angry at me. For the love of God, why would he …”
Mahaffey clapped me on the shoulder. “Take Mrs. Conway into the other room,” he said. “Let her freshen up her face and drink a glass of water, and make sure the kids are all right.” I looked at him, and he gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Something I want to check,” he said.
I went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Conway wet a dish towel and dabbed tentatively at her face, then filled a jelly glass with water and drank it down in a series of small sips. Then we went to check on the children, a boy of eight and a girl a couple of years younger. They were just sitting there, hands folded in their laps, as if someone had told them not to move.
Mrs. Conway fussed over them and assured them everything was going to be fine and told them to get ready for bed. We left them as we found them, sitting side by side, their hands still folded in their laps. I suppose they were in shock, and it seemed to me they had the right.
I brought the woman back to the living room, where Mahaffey was bent over the body of her husband. He straightened up as we entered the room. “Mrs. Conway,” he said, “I have something important to tell you.”
She waited to hear what it was.
“Your husband didn’t kill himself,” he announced.
Her eyes widened, and she looked at Mahaffey as if he’d gone suddenly mad. “But I saw him do it,” she said.
He frowned, nodded. “Forgive me,” he said. “I misspoke. What I meant to say was that the poor man did not commit suicide. He did kill himself, of course he killed himself — ”
“I saw him do it.”
“ — and of course you did, and what a terrible thing for you, what a cruel thing. But it was not his intention, ma’am. It was an accident.”
“An accident!”
“Yes.”
“To put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. An accident?”
Mahaffey had a handkerchief in his hand. He turned his hand palm