Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [86]
“You already have.”
My anger blazed to the surface. “I’ve helped you, all right, led you to three more victims.”
She had held my gaze steadily. For the first time she looked down. My hand sought the safety of the .357 in case she reached into the bag. She raised her eyes. “I made a mistake with Brodie and the woman. Even so, they deserved to die.”
“Annie! You had no right to judge them. You’re not a jury. They were innocent of a capital crime. Child abuse is a felony but it’s not premeditated murder.”
“I was evening the score, an eye for an eye.” She looked at me defiantly, daring me to take exception to what she said. “I listened to the tape,” she continued. “I found it in the table drawer after you and Peters left. It was strange hearing it. Athletes must feel that way when they see an instant replay. I thought there would be something in it that would point to me.”
“We’d have been better off if there had been,” I said.
It was all coming together now, all the missing pieces. “And the phone call I overheard was from Tom Stahl at the phone company? That’s when you discovered your mistake?”
“Yes, but I’m not sorry I killed them, if that’s what you mean.” There was no hint of remorse about her.
“What did you put in the last chapter, Anne? You told me I couldn’t read the book because you had given it to Ralph, but he didn’t get the manuscript until this morning. He was planning to read it on the plane.”
“I wasn’t sure how it would end. I wasn’t sure until I saw you walk through the door. I didn’t know if you’d come.”
“And now you know?”
“Yes, don’t you?”
It was like we were playing a game, some private guessing game that had nothing to do with life and death. The people sitting around us had no idea that the attractive couple chatting earnestly in the corner near the window had enough firepower between them to lay waste a roomful of people.
I knew how I was afraid it would end. She was absolutely without fear or compunction. I couldn’t let that happen, not at such close quarters, not in a crowd of defenseless Sunday afternoon diners. “Come with me, Anne. Let me take you in. No jury in the country would convict you.”
“An insanity plea?” Her voice was full of bitter derision. “You know where they’d send me, don’t you? Have you ever been in one of those places? Do you know what goes on?”
“Anne, I’ll stick by you. I’ll see that you get the help you need. In sickness and in health, remember? That’s what we said. This is sickness.” I was pleading for my life as well as hers.
“You wouldn’t be there at night when the orderlies came. Even Milton couldn’t stop that. I had to have an abortion, you know. He paid for it. He didn’t cause it, but he couldn’t prevent it either.”
“What about Milton, Anne? Did he commit suicide?”
“He was scared of what the cancer was doing to him.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“No,” she said softly. “He didn’t commit suicide.”
I heard the words and knew they were the truth. “My God, Anne, you told me you loved him.”
“I did.”
The toll kept rising. I didn’t want to know any more, but I was unable to stop the questions. They are too much a part of me, waking and sleeping. “Why your father?”
“The things he did to Patty were terrible, not once, but over and over. I tried to stop him, but my mother wouldn’t let me. I should have killed her too, but I never got a chance. I think she knew it. That’s why she never let me out. It was only after she died that Milton was able to get me released.”
“What about the book?”
“It’s a collection. Until now, I was the only one who knew the rest of the story, things that happened after the fact.”
“All over the country?”
She nodded. “It happens everywhere,” she said.
“How long have you been doing this, Anne? How long have you been a one-woman avenger? How many J. P. Beaumont suckers are there in this world?”
“I’ve been a widow for ten years,” she said.
“And no one’s ever caught you?”
“I never wanted to be caught.”
The waitress came to take our order. “The gentleman isn’t feeling well.