The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [81]
David looked at him quizzically. “I’m curious,” he said. “Why is it you haven’t asked me whether or not I’m guilty of murder?”
Ben grinned and set his chin in his hands. “I have, my friend. A dozen different times in a dozen different ways. You’ve hauled yourself too far for me not to move hell and earth to keep you from getting bloodied anymore.”
“Thank you.” David whispered the words. “Ben, when you talked to Lauren, did she …? Well, what I mean is we had a fight and …”
“David, I don’t want to get in the middle of anything like this, but I do have something to say. I’ve known Lauren Nichols for years. She’s a bright, incredibly beautiful woman who, by choice or circumstance, has not had to face too much adversity in her life. She … ah … she asked me to give you this.” He pulled out a pink envelope—Lauren’s stationery—and handed it to David.
“Not much doubt what it says, is there?” David folded the envelope and stuffed it in his pocket as he spoke.
“No, I guess not,” Ben answered softly. “Are you all right to go home? I mean, if you need a place to stay for the night …”
“No thanks, Ben. I’ll be okay. Really.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Ben said.
“Tomorrow,” David echoed.
The steely afternoon sky was threatening, but the steady rain of the past several days had let up. The walk from Paddy O’Brien’s to his apartment was about two miles and, with nothing to hurry home for,. David forced a leisurely pace, stopping once to wander through the old cemetery where Paul Revere was buried. He reasoned that the graveyard would be an appropriate place to read Lauren’s letter.
He needn’t, he decided afterward, have bothered. The note was what he expected—semiformal—one-third thank-you-for-everything and two-thirds just-doesn’t-seem-like-things-will-work-out-for-us. “I guess she took me for better or for better,” David said as he tore the note into tiny pieces and ceremoniously tossed the pink petals over an ancient grave. He was surprised at how little hurt he felt. Perhaps it was because the loss of the relationship was just another brick in the wall that was closing him off from life. Then, as he trudged toward Boston Common, he began to realize that he had rarely been totally at ease around Lauren. It was largely his fault for trying to force her into the spaces Ginny had filled in his life. Even before it had started, he had doomed the relationship with his hopes.
The advance unit of the rush home had begun filling the walkways of the Common. Haggard businessmen, giggling groups of secretaries, and stylish career women—all crossing the grassy park on the way from their day to their evening. For a while David amused himself by trying to make eye contact with each person who passed. In the first few minutes the score was zero connections for twenty-five or thirty tries. He looked down at the pavement wondering if perhaps there was something there he was simply missing. Finally he bet himself that if one absolute, unquestionable eye contact could be made before he arrived home, the nightmare that followed the death of Charlotte Thomas would soon end.
By the time he reached Commonwealth Avenue, a light, misty rain had started falling again. He squinted upward and picked up his pace.
A block ahead of him a thin, elderly gentleman sat on a bench reading the early evening edition of the Boston Globe. He gauged the rain with an outstretched palm, and decided there was time to finish the last paragraphs of the article about the mercy killing at Doctors Hospital.
It was on page three, a two column spread describing in some detail David’s arrest and arraignment. Unable to find a picture of him in time, the court reporter had resurrected one of Ben Glass from the newspaper’s morgue.
The dapper little man finished the article, folded his paper beneath his arm, and started his walk home. Lost in thoughts of the story he had just read, the man failed to notice David’s attempt at eye contact.
CHAPTER XVI
“Chrissy, check the bathroom out. Does it look