The Bullet (10 page)

He held up his hand to hush me. “Please. Let me finish. When you work law enforcement for as long as I have, you learn to forget most of the wickedness you come across. You learn to leave it at the office, put it out of your mind. Only way you can keep on getting up in the morning. But some cases—you carry them here.” He pressed his hand over his heart. “I've been carrying yours for a long time. I always hoped to
get the chance to tell you that. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry and ask for your forgiveness.”

A tear sprang to my eye. I was genuinely touched. “Thank you. It was brave of you to come here and say that.”

“Not brave at all. Wish I'd been able to say it thirty years ago.”

“Well, I appreciate your saying it now.” We sat in silence for a moment, then I leaned forward. “May I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“I did wonder . . . how a case like that was never solved. A double homicide and a child shot. It's such a dramatic crime. But the news­paper made it sound like you guys just gave up.”

He flinched.

“I don't mean to sound rude.”

“No, you've got every right to ask. We didn't give up. But you have to understand what was going on in the city.” He frowned and shifted in his seat. “You ever hear of a man named Marc Tetalman?”

I shook my head.

“I expect his name is lost to the history books. He was a doctor, visiting Atlanta from out of town, for a convention. He got shot down and killed by robbers trying to steal his wallet. This was a few months before your parents died.”

I waited.

“I was on duty that night. We were interviewing his wife, down at Grady Hospital, when the surgeon came out and told her he'd died. It was their wedding anniversary. Eleven years married. That's why they'd left the hotel and gone out to dinner that night.”

Beasley swung his head from side to side sadly. “Marc Tetalman's death caused a big old scandal because he was well-off and white and ­everybody worried the publicity would hurt the city's convention business. It did, too. After that, everybody decided they'd rather go to Houston or Miami. But what stuck in my head was that Tetalman was the one hundred and twelfth homicide that year in Atlanta. The one hundred and twelfth. And he died in
June
, Ms. Cashion. One hundred
and twelve people killed, and we weren't even into the hot part of summer yet. Do you understand what I'm telling you? We were dealing with a new murder nearly every day.”

I remembered what Jessica Yeo had said. “Somebody told me Atlanta had the worst murder rate of any city in America.”

“That's right. Not even Detroit could keep up. Nobody knew why. And then, when you thought things couldn't get worse, little boys started turning up strangled.”

“The child murders.”

“Yes, ma'am. On top of everything else we had a genuine serial killer running around the city, murdering black kids and throwing their bodies in the woods or in the river. You can't imagine. Folks were scared to let their kids ride bikes down their own street. And the politicians, they were blaming us. The old governor came out and said we cops ought to show ‘less jawbone and more backbone.' His exact words, I never forgot them.”

Anger flashed across Beasley's gray eyes. “Worst of it was, Governor Sanders was right. You had black cops—not all of us, but some—­whispering that maybe it was the Klan, the KKK, that was killing the kids. You had a lot of white cops who just up and quit the force. And then to top it off, the courts went and ordered a hiring freeze. Said the police department was racist, the hiring policies were racist, and we needed to stop hiring new cops altogether for a while. You can guess how much that helped things.”

He puffed the air out of his cheeks and leaned back. “I'm going on too long. I don't imagine you care much about the sorry history of the Atlanta PD. But you asked me why we let your family's case drop, and that's the only way I know how to answer you.”

“You're saying, basically, that it was a bad time for the city. Too many murders to investigate and not enough of you to do it.”

“In our defense, we did try. Your case got under a lot of people's skin, not just mine. A young couple gunned down with their daughter watching. You didn't see that every day, not even back in 1979. And I
hate to say it, but you all were white, and that meant folks paid more attention. But there wasn't much to go on. No murder weapon, no witnesses.”

“Except me.”

“Except you. But I gather you don't remember anything, and I don't think you were old enough to understand what you'd seen back then, either.”

I hesitated. I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer to my next question. But I might not get the chance to ask again. “Would you describe for me exactly what happened that day? As best as you all were able to reconstruct it? I would like to know the details of how they died.”

“Hmm. You sure about that?”

“I think so.”

“Once you get an image in your mind, it can be hard to shake it back out. The way your parents died wasn't pretty. You know the basics of what happened, don't you? Might be best to leave it at that.”

Again I hesitated, then made up my mind. “I'd like to know.”

The gray eyes searched mine. “All right, then. I expected you might ask. I read through the old incident report before I drove over, to refresh my memory.”

“I'd love to get a copy of that report, if possible.”

“All right. I don't have it on me, but I can do that.”

I bit my lip, then prompted him, “I know from the newspaper account that they died in the kitchen, and that it was late afternoon.”

“That's right. Neighbors heard a commotion and called it in. There was no sign of forced entry. The first responders had to kick in the door. They found you three together on the floor.”

“But they were—my parents were already dead when police got there?”

“They would have died instantly. The nature of their wounds suggested that, and the autopsy results were consistent. They wouldn't have suffered.”

“It's so strange,” I murmured. “Why I lived, and they didn't. I mean, if we were all shot at once, three bullets from the same gun. You'd think it would have gone the other way, since I was smaller and weaker. Was it—was it just the location of their wounds?”

Beasley looked at me. “I told you when we started that I wanted to say two things.”

“You did, that's right.”

“We're treading close to the second one now.” A look of grim determination settled on his face. “You sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.”'

“Then I'm going to walk you through the sequence of what we think happened. Let me get through it, and then I'll answer your questions as best as I can.”

“Sure. Okay.”

“We believe your father was shot first. That's based on the way he was found positioned on the floor. And it makes sense, if you think about a man trying to defend his family. He would have tried to put himself between the gun, and your mother and you. So the shooter would have hit him first.”

I shuddered. Took a breath to steady myself. Then nodded at Beasley to go on.

“Your father, as you may know, was shot in the head. Shot at close range, ten feet or less. The bullet passed right through. It came out the back of his head and lodged in the wood of the doorframe. But the shooter dug it out and took it with him. The wood was splintered and broken from where he'd hacked at it.”

I frowned. “That doesn't sound like something a random burglar would do.”

“What do you mean?”

“The old newspaper articles, the ones that Leland Brett wrote.” I motioned at the closed door of the conference room, and the newsroom beyond. “He quoted a cop who thought the shootings were an accident. A burglary gone wrong. But wouldn't a burglar have panicked and run?”

“And not stuck around to dig a bullet out of a wooden doorframe?” Beasley completed my thought. “You're right; it's odd. But people are odd. They do all kinds of things that don't make sense.”

“At any rate, you never recovered the bullet.”

“We never did.”

“And my mother. She was shot in the chest?”

“She was,” he said carefully. “She was trying to protect you, too. She had pushed you down behind her.”

Tears sprang again to my eyes. I tried and failed to keep my voice steady. “So . . . you're saying . . . what, that the guy shot her and then pushed her aside to get to me? What kind of person does that? What kind of a person shoots two people and then aims a third bullet at a ­defenseless
three-year-old child
?”

“No, Ms. Cashion.” Beasley leaned forward and folded my trembling hands into his. “There was no third bullet. The bullet that killed your mama passed right through her, too.”

“I don't—I don't understand.”

“The reason you didn't die was that bullet was going slower by the time it got to you. Your mama did protect you. She slowed it down.”

I blinked at him.

It took a moment for the full, sickening significance of what he was saying to hit home. Then my hands flew to my neck, and I began to claw.

Seventeen

I
n the wild, a mother tiger will fight to the death to defend her young. She will knock down an animal four times her size, will attack and kill even a male tiger. When she senses a threat to her cubs, she growls. Then she flattens her ears and bares her canines, the corners of her open mouth pulled back. That snarl is the last thing a would-be predator ever sees.

Human mothers share the instinct. Most of us know at some raw, unspoken level that our mothers would fight like a tigress to protect us, would give their lives to save our own. But it is one thing to believe, in the abstract, that your mother would take a bullet for you. It is quite another to learn that she has literally done so.

Beasley had to pin my arms to my sides to prevent me from opening my skin. He must have been twice my age, but he was still strong, and I was no match for him. I thrashed for a minute, then went limp.

The bullet throbbed. A hot, white pulse through my neck and shoulders. It defied belief: the same bullet. The very same piece of metal had passed through Sadie Rawson's breast, through her heart, on its way to me.

“I want to rip it out,” I whispered.

“I know.” Instead Beasley made me focus on taking shallow, jagged breaths. He held me upright.

Gradually, my breathing slowed. When I could speak, I asked, “Was that the second thing you wanted to tell me? Please say there isn't more. I don't think I can take it.”

“That's the worst of it.” He extended a handkerchief and I blew my nose.

“Thank you. I'm sorry. Sorry for going crazy like that.”

“No need to apologize.”

“Just that every time I think I've heard the worst of it, there's some new revelation that knocks me flat.
The bullet that's in my neck is the same one that killed my mother?
That's—that's—I don't even know what it is.”

“It's gruesome.”

“Gruesome. Yes. That it certainly is.” I shivered. Pain was shooting down my wrist now, too. I folded my right arm tight across my chest and cradled it, hunched over like a broken bird.

“Ms. Cashion.” He was looking at me sideways. “I have to ask. Has coming back here triggered any memories? Going back to look at your old house? Or hearing me describe the details of what happened that day?”

“No. Nothing. I'd hoped it might.”

“Probably wouldn't have been admissible anyway. In court, I mean, if you'd remembered anything relevant. But I had to ask.”

A thought occurred to me. “Were you one of the detectives who questioned me? After I was shot?”

“Yes.” His voice was neutral, quiet. “You were heartbreaking. Tiny little girl, all bandaged up. The doctors didn't want us anywhere near you, but we had our jobs to do. I didn't talk to you myself. They brought in a child psychiatrist, a lady trained to deal with kids who've experienced trauma. But they allowed a couple of us to watch from the corner.”

“And—what did I say?”

“Oh, you wouldn't talk. You were barely more than a baby, barely talking as it was. I never heard you say a word. But we hoped you might remember what the guy looked like. The shrink showed you photographs, and you pointed at one. She shuffled 'em, and you pointed at it again. Same one. But two days later when we could organize a lineup, you wouldn't ID him. Wouldn't point at anybody at all.”

I thought about this. “How did you know what pictures to show me? I mean, were they random? Or did you have a suspect?”

“We had a few. We questioned the man who used to clean your parents' gutters. He couldn't keep his story straight about where he'd been that afternoon. Turned out he spent it blind drunk in a bar, didn't want his wife to know.” Beasley shrugged. “More promising, there was a guy who'd done a few burglaries around your neighborhood. We picked him up when he tried to off-load silverware and jewelry he'd lifted from a house on Cantrell Road.”

“The random-burglar theory.”

“Exactly. And there
was
jewelry missing. Apparently your mama had a particular necklace she favored, that she never took off. It was gone. Never did turn up. But . . . there was nothing to indicate the Cantrell Road guy ever set foot inside your house.”

I shook my head in confusion. “So whose picture was it that I picked out?”

“We also had—we had a statement from a neighbor. Directing us towards someone.”

“What neighbor? The Rooneys?”

Beasley screwed up his face in concentration. “Can't say I remember the name. She was a teacher. Lived next door.”

“That's Cheral Rooney. I met her yesterday.”

He looked wary. “And what did she say?”

“Nothing about a suspect! She just talked about what the neighborhood used to look like, what my mom was like. She gave me an old pair of Sadie Rawson's earrings.”

“Uh-huh. Well, she was under the impression—I'm sorry if this
comes as yet another shock—but she was under the impression that your mama had been having an affair. And she thought this other man was someone we should question. So we did, and we thought we might be onto something, because that's the picture you pointed at. His picture. But we couldn't make it stick.”

I tried to take in this latest piece of information. “Was it true? Was she having an affair?”

“Who knows?” Beasley shrugged. “He denied it, and there wasn't any evidence. So maybe it was true, or maybe it wasn't. Maybe the neighbor just didn't like your mama. Or maybe she was jealous. Women can be vindictive. No offense.”

“The newspaper said police arrested a suspect and let him go. Was that—”

“No, no, we never arrested anybody. We questioned him and then we let him go. He had an alibi. Airtight. And we had no physical evidence, not a scrap. We couldn't hold him.”

•   •   •

IN THE PARKING
lot outside the newspaper building, a chilly rain was falling. I pulled my jacket over my head and dashed for the Mazda. Wet and panting, I climbed in and flicked on the heat and the windshield wipers. They were old and made a squeaky, scraping sound each time they shuddered across the glass. Every two seconds, they cleared a glimpse of the gray world outside, then the rain sluiced down to blur it again. I forced myself to concentrate on the wipers, to use them as a metronome. Steady. Deep breath. Everything will be okay. I willed even the throb in my neck to obey the commanding rhythm.
Scrape, throb, breathe
. Don't think.
Scrape, throb, breathe
.

I'm not sure how long I sat like that, staring at the half-fogged windows. I knew I needed to step on it if I was to make it to the airport with any hope of catching my flight. But I couldn't muster the energy to shift the car into drive. When the throb had quieted to a manageable
level of pain, I twisted around in my seat belt, reached for my phone, and dialed Martin.

“Sis! How are you? Where are you? Still in Atlanta?” His voice sounded so normal, so unburdened, it seemed to come from a different world.

“Yes,” I said dully. “Still in Atlanta. I'm—”

“Would you do me a favor and phone Mom? She's completely freaked-out, says you didn't call yesterday.”

“Sure. I will. It's been crazy down here.”

“Seriously, Sis. Call her. And listen, can I call you right back? I've got an investor on the other line, we're trying to close on a deal this week.”

“Martin.” I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “Hang up on him and talk to me.”

“Sure, okay, but he's in Abu Dhabi. We're recapitalizing his properties in Manhattan, I'm talking hundreds of millions in office/flex—”

“You know I have no idea what you're talking about. Please.” My voice cracked. “I need—I need you to tell me what to do.”

Martin is too much the classic oldest child to resist such a plea. He has always exhibited an almost parental sense of responsibility toward Tony and me. It seems to coexist easily alongside the pleasure he takes in teasing and tormenting us (and in Tony's case, actually giving him a physical pounding from time to time). I could picture him now, pulling his shoulders back, preparing to launch into full older-brother, let-me-tell-you-how-to-fix-your-problem mode.

Except that my current problems were not easily fixed.

He listened in silence as I told him about Beamer Beasley and ­everything that I had learned.

“Wow,” he muttered when I had finished.

“Yeah.”

“That's insane about the bullet in your neck being the same one that . . .” He broke off. “It's hideous, actually. It's . . . Christ, I don't even know what it is.”

“That's what I said when I found out.”

“But aren't you thinking that maybe you could have the bullet removed? You're going to go see a surgeon, right?”

“I'm supposed to do that tomorrow. Will set it up.”

“Who's Will?”

“My regular doctor.”

“On a first-name basis, are we?” asked Martin suspiciously. “How old is he?”

“I don't know. Fortyish.”

“Married?”

“Martin, for God's sake.”

“I repeat, married?”

“I don't think so.”

“I knew it. Next you're going to tell me he wears black, skinny jeans and that he chain-smokes Gitanes. Where do you find these guys?”

“Very funny. If you're trying to cheer me up, it won't work.”

“Not at all. Farthest thing from my mind. I am curious, though, whether Dr. Sprockets has taken you techno dancing yet?”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Trust me, he's not the skinny-jeans type.”

“Or should I call him Dieter?”

“Martin! He drives a Jeep and he listens to Johnny Cash.”

“Aha! So you've been in his car? Front seat or back?”

“Will you listen?” I exploded. “I'm not dating him. I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you about a serious subject—”

“Fine. Want to know what I think you should do?”

“I'm beginning to regret asking, but yes. Go ahead.”

“I think you should get your butt on a plane back up here and go see that surgeon. The one Dr. Sprockets has hooked you up with. Personally, I would have done that before jetting off to Atlanta, but whatever. Go see him and schedule the surgery to get the bullet removed. And before you do any of that, for chrissake, call Mom.”

I sighed. “I know. It's just—I thought I was finished down here,
and suddenly it feels like I'm not. Think about it: I've found out more about my parents since I woke up this morning than I have in the last thirty-four years combined—”

“Your birth parents.”

“My what?”

“Your birth parents. Not your parents. Because that would be Mom and Dad.”

“Of course,” I said more gently. “My birth parents. That's what I meant. But that kind of underscores my point. My whole life I've thought that we had this idyllic, perfect childhood—”

“We did, basically.”

“No. You did. I think we can agree that mine turns out to have been quite a bit darker than that.”

“But hang on, how does it—”

“Could you shut up and listen for a minute without getting defensive? I'm saying I always believed I had the perfect childhood in Washington, and it turns out that that was a mirage. And then I come down here to Atlanta, and—and I guess I constructed another version. That my birth parents were this storybook couple, gorgeous and in love, and tragically cut down in their youth. And now it emerges that maybe that wasn't true, either.”

“Why not? Because
maybe
Sadie Rawson had an affair?”

“Yes.”

“But who cares if she did? Who cares if she wasn't an angel? I mean, not to sound harsh, but does it matter at this point?”

He was right, but I was still upset. I struggled to find the words to make him understand. “The cop—Beasley—he said Sadie Rawson pushed me down behind her. That it looked like she had tried to protect me.”

“Well, it sounds like she did.”

“Right, but what if it was from a threat that
she
brought into our home? Don't you see, Martin?”

“Not really.”

“The neighbor told police that she was cheating on my dad, and that they should question the man she was sleeping with. And then apparently I pointed at a picture of the same guy. The same guy! If it's true, and if it's in any way related to the shooting . . . then sure, she protected me,” I said bitterly. “Kind of like a mother hawk protecting her young from a live snake that she herself has dropped into the nest.”