Blind Spot (9 page)

She stepped between some pews and cut across until she was in a bench on the other side of the church. She went down on her knees, rested her arms on the back of the pew in front of her, and folded her hands together. As she shut her eyes, she whispered a five-word prayer she routinely uttered before searching for the truth through the eyes of a murderer.

“Lord, help me see clearly.”

Eight

Anna Fontaine once believed silence was golden.

When their daughter ran away from home, her husband called the police and cried out loud, predicting the worst. Anna sat on a front-porch rocker, keeping a wordless vigil until their girl returned.

After their daughter was arrested with a backpack stuffed with pills and pot and a gun, Jerry railed against the school and the cops and the social workers. Anna curled up in bed and prayed the rosary in her head.

During the hour their daughter was alone in Sterling Archer’s chambers, Jerry wrung his hands in the hallway and voiced hope for leniency from the juvenile system. His wife sat quietly in a chair, silently worrying and wondering why her child was taking so long with the creepy fat judge.

Months later, Jerry paced and muttered while awaiting the jury in Archer’s sex-abuse trial. Anna stayed glued to a courtroom bench, saying nothing. When the verdict came in, Anna couldn’t bring herself to speak to the reporters; she let her husband and the other families lambaste the acquittal.

It wasn’t until their daughter died that Anna had an epiphany: silence isn’t golden; it’s shit.

With the help of one person—a fiery, furious, moral man—Anna found a voice for herself and justice for her daughter. Now she wondered:
Have I damned myself in the process?
She would ask the question—and a slew of others—when he got there. She would talk and question until the breath left her. Silence was no longer her friend.

She was starting to nod off when he opened the door a crack and popped his head into her room.

“Anna?”

She forced her lids to open. “You came.”

“I told you I would.” He slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. He stepped next to her bed.

She felt her lids dropping again. Through the slits, she saw him reach out to her and then withdraw his fingers. She thought:
My hero and my coward. You kill, but you’re afraid to touch the dying.

“Anna?”

Her eyes opened wider this time. “All doped up.”

“Do you want me to raise the bed more?”

“No,” she said.

He tipped his head toward the bed rails. “Shouldn’t those be up? Should I put them up?”

She’d already had that fight with the nurses: the rails made her feel trapped. “Leave them down.”

“Are you comfortable?”

“They finally got me on the good meds. Why do they save the good shit for the end?” She swallowed and coughed and winced.

He carried a chair to the side of her bed, set it down, and perched on the edge of the seat. “How’re you doing?”

She coughed again. “Lousy.”

He picked up a cup from her nightstand and shoveled a dot of crushed ice with a spoon. “Thirsty?”

She saw his knuckles were raw, and it repulsed her. She turned her head away. “No thanks. I’m good.” She fingered the rosary in her hands. He’d given it to her, and she planned to be buried with it.

“Shall I put away your reading?”

She found him more attentive than her husband and sons combined. “My glasses, too. I’m having trouble with the words. Headache. Dizzy.”

“I’ll put them where you can find them,” he said, picking her glasses out of the book.

As her eyes closed again, she felt the volume being lifted off her thighs. She knew he’d check to see what she’d been reading. She hoped he’d approve, and at the same time hated that she still sought his approval. He had a power and a presence that had drawn her to him and to his cause. He’d convinced her it should be her cause. Jerry hadn’t been swayed. Jerry didn’t know how far she and this magnetic man had taken things, and she was glad.

She heard him walking across the linoleum floor and remembered the first time she’d watched him cross a room. His size and looks alone would have commanded respect, but his confident gait demanded it. He carried himself like a CEO who was late for his own meeting: he needed to get there, but he also knew it couldn’t start without him. She heard the swish of the drapes. She opened her eyes and saw him leaning toward the window. The outside didn’t offer much light; night was falling quickly. He turned away from the window and brought the book closer to his face. She’d memorized the words, and spoke them for him in a voice so weak only the two of them could hear:

“But anyone who strikes another with an iron object, and death ensues, is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. Or anyone who strikes another with a stone in hand that could cause death, and death ensues, is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.”

Her recitation was interrupted by her coughing. He waited until she stopped hacking and finished it for her, his voice as low as hers but resonating with authority. He paused in the right places and emphasized the right phrases. The cadence moved the message the way a river moves water: smoothly, efficiently, inevitably. She found herself floating along with his words, momentarily forgetting the pain:

“Or anyone who strikes another with a weapon of wood in hand that could cause death, and death ensues, is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. The avenger of blood is the one who shall put the murderer to death; when they meet, the avenger of blood shall execute the sentence. Likewise, if someone pushes another from hatred, or hurls something at another, lying in wait, and death ensues, or in enmity strikes another with the hand, and death ensues, then the one who struck the blow shall be put to death; that person is a murderer; the avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death, when they meet.”

He lowered the book. “Anna?”

She turned her head away from him and sniffled. “I’m still alive.”

“Stop talking like that.” He walked back to her bed and set the volume on the nightstand. “Where’re Jerry and the boys?”

He was being polite or—more likely—hoping to avoid her husband and kids. “Cafeteria. Sent them to get something to eat. They’re not eating right. Making themselves sick.”

He walked across the room and glanced outside again. He turned away from the window. “Your family loves you.”

“They couldn’t do for me what you did for me. What you did for my girl.”

“They tried.” He put his hands behind his back and returned to her bedside. “They had faith in the system—and it failed them.”

“I saw something on television. The cops aren’t saying much.”

“Don’t worry about the authorities.”

“I’m not worried about the police. No time left to worry about them.” She paused and asked: “Did you cry for him?”

“I cry for all of them. The taking of a life should be done with reverence and sorrow. It shouldn’t be a time for celebration. Proverbs tells us how to behave. ‘Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them.’”

Hungry for more details, she continued: “His hand. What did you do with it? The river?”

“The woods.”

“Perfect.” She appreciated the way he discarded their parts in the wilderness, so an animal or a fish could eat them. She found it satisfying to imagine crows or carp picking at sinners’ body parts. A fitting end to their flesh. Biblical and feral at the same time.

As if he’d read her mind, he launched into the Lord’s message to Pharaoh as quoted in the book of Ezekiel. “‘I will throw you on the ground, on the open field I will fling you, and will cause all the birds of the air to settle on you, and I will let the wild animals of the whole earth gorge themselves with you. I will strew your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your carcass. I will drench the land with your flowing blood up to the mountains, and the watercourses will be filled with you.’”

“Lovely,” she murmured.

He smiled. “One of my favorites, too.”

She posed the one question she had to ask. She’d lain restless all day in her hospital bed, imagining the possible answers. “Did he suffer?”

“Yes.” Then he added: “Terribly.”

His response sent a rush of warmth through her body. She felt the corners of her mouth turn up. How could she not rejoice when this enemy fell? How could her heart refrain from gladness? She gushed: “Thank you for doing it for me.”

“I did it for all of us.”

“What about Chris? Will you do it for her?”

“I’m meeting with her later tonight, after her shift.”

“She’s a decent person,” said Anna. “You’ll want to help.”

“Tell me more about her.”

Anna thought about it for a moment and said: “Let her tell you.”

“So be it,” he said. “Is there anything else you need or want?”

“Yes.” She weighed how to make her next request. By asking, she was admitting she had doubts about the righteousness of his mission. She decided to say one word: “Penance.”

She found his reaction quick and artificially cheerful: “Go see your parish priest when you get out. Who’ve they got over there now? Father Timothy, right? He’s a good guy.”

“Stop it. You know I’m never leaving this place.” She blinked back tears. “We’re both going to fry.”

He scanned the top of the nightstand, spotted a box of tissues, grabbed it, and dipped his hand into the slot at the top. Empty. He tossed it back on the stand. He patted his blazer pockets, pulled out a handkerchief, and held it out to her. “I told you not to worry about the law.”

“I’m not afraid of the cops.” She reached up and slipped the square of cotton out of his hands. “I’m worried about my soul. Both our souls.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I need to be sure. Have to have a clean slate before I…” She covered her mouth with the kerchief to stifle a sob. Her hands fell back on the covers with the hankie locked in one fist and the rosary in the other.

They both heard a rolling cart clattering outside. She watched him eyeing the door. As the racket drew closer, the muscles in his neck and jaw tightened. The clatter continued down the hallway, and he relaxed.
My hero and my coward. You’re afraid someone will walk in on us. Find us out.

He turned his attention back to her. “Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out why these things happen, but they do. Medicine has its limits. We need to know when to surrender quietly and leave it in God’s hands.”

Now he was babbling, falling back on his store of comforting clichés. She’d have none of it. “A priest to hear my sins. I have to tell a priest.”

“Save your breath. Preserve your strength.”

“I can’t die with a mortal sin on my soul. I’ll never see my daughter again.”

The authoritative voice changed. His next words were spoken in something between a pleading whisper and a low growl. “Anna. Please. Be reasonable. Confess to the wrong man and he could turn us in. Ruin everything.”