Twist of Fate (38 page)

Lyssie didn't speak, but she did squeeze Val's hand. Each time they had an outing, progress was made. Val liked the deepening of their relationship. For whatever reason, it was easier to accept the commitment of relationships with females.

Turning right onto one of the roads that led up the hill into Harpers Ferry, Val said, "There used to be a big old hotel at the top of this hill. It's been torn down now, but the view from up here is world class. After we admire it, I thought we could get a bite to eat, then poke around down in the town."

Lyssie nodded enthusiastically. She seemed able to eat six times a day without adding any padding to her bony little body.

The hilltop looked bare with the hotel gone, but someday soon another building would rise to take advantage of the view. Val parked on the lot under a tree. "Come on, let's see if the view is as great as I remember."

It was. Lyssie gasped as they went to the flagstone landing at the end of the ridge. No one else was around, and from their vantage point they could look down at the confluence of two great rivers.

"That's the Potomac and on this side is the Shenandoah. A railroad line runs along the river below. See the railroad bridge over the Potomac?" Val pointed out the landmarks. "I think that ruined bridge down there was destroyed in the Civil War."

"Awesome." Lyssie pointed downward. "Are those eagles below us?"

"Could be. Some kind of raptor for sure. Watching them glide along the winds makes me want to fly." Val privately suspected that the birds were turkey vultures, but they soared as well as any eagles.

"To fly..." Lyssie said dreamily. She stepped off the flagged area onto the trimmed grass. To the left a cast iron fence guarded the edge, but here the hill dropped away with cliff-like suddenness only a foot beyond Lyssie. The grass was damp from the previous night's rain, and Lyssie skidded as she moved forward.

A horrific vision of the girl plunging over the edge to her death kicked Val's reflexes into overdrive. "No!"

She grabbed Lyssie's shoulder and yanked her back to safety. Lyssie shrieked and folded into a ball on the grass, her arms raised to protect her head.

"Dear God," Val whispered. Kneeling, she put an arm around Lyssie and drew the small, resisting body close. "I'm not going to hit you, I was just scared that you might fall. Foolish of me, but I'm responsible for you, and I'm new to being a big sister."

Lyssie didn't respond. She kept her head down and her body tucked as she breathed in short, panicky gasps.

"Who hit you, Lyssie?" Val said softly. "One of your parents? Your grandmother?"

That brought Lyssie's head up. 'Not Gramma, my parents. Mama only hit me when I deserved it, but Daddy...wh...when he was high...." Her voice broke.

"Oh, honey." Val couldn't stop herself from drawing the girl into a full hug. This time there was no resistance. Lyssie's quiet weeping tore holes in her heart. "Do you want to talk about your parents, Lyssie? You can tell me anything, and sometimes the bad stuff gets a little easier when it's shared with a friend. Or a sister."

Lyssie rubbed at her eyes, so Val pulled out tissues and handed them over.

After wiping her glasses and blowing her nose, Lyssie said, "Daddy wasn't around much, but I loved when he visited. He wasn't always mean. Sometimes he was the best and most exciting fun in the world. If I knew he was coming, I would stay by the window and watch for him all day. Sometimes he took me out to see the Orioles, or to the Inner Harbor or Mondawmin Mall. Even the Aquarium once."

"And other times he was angry and scary?"

Lyssie nodded. Val cast a longing glance at the park bench a dozen feet away, but they had the viewing area to themselves, and Lyssie seemed comfortable crouched on the grass. Better not risk stopping the flow of words by moving. "I felt the same way about my father. Since I almost never saw him, it was really exciting when I did. I would do anything to make him happy with me." Or even just acknowledge her existence.

"Did you feel bad because you wanted so much to see your father when your mother did all the work?"

Startled by the perceptive question, Val said, "I sure did. I loved them both, but my mother was the one who was always there. She made sure that I was fed and dressed and went to school. Seeing her wasn't special. My father--he was like a king who came to visit sometimes, and when he did, I felt like a princess."

Lyssie nodded again. "I loved to see him, but when he visited, he and Mama fought all the time. If...if he hadn't come to see me, they would both still be alive."

Sickened, Val recognized that it was probably inevitable that Lyssie would feel as if the death of her parents was somehow her fault. "Honey, when a man gets crazy and violent on drugs like your father, he's like a gun waiting to go off. It was only a matter of time till the trigger was pulled. What happened wasn't your fault. Men kill their wives and themselves so often that it has a name--murder-suicide."

"My father didn't kill himself," Lyssie said in a flat voice. "A policeman shot him. After he killed Mama, someone called the police, and they broke into the apartment because they'd been told there was a child in danger.

"When they broke in. Daddy grabbed me and held his gun to my head. He was screaming and threatening to kill me if the police didn't let him go. One of the policemen started talking to him, and when he lowered the gun a little, they...they shot him." She made a choking sound. "His blood was...all over me."

No wonder Lyssie hadn't told the whole story originally. Heart aching, Val rocked the girl in her arms. "No one should experience something like that at any age, Lyssie, especially not at the age of six. What an amazing girl you are."

Lyssie pulled her head back and blinked through glasses that were steamed again. "You think?"

Val nodded. "You survived, and you're developing into a really bright, thoughtful person. A European philosopher once said that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. You're proof."

"Nietzsche." Lyssie frowned as she tried to see herself as a heroine instead of a victim. "Do you think surviving the...the murders will make me a better writer?"

"Guaranteed. You're already the most amazing girl I've ever met," Val said with complete sincerity. "Talking with you now is making me think differently about my father and how we got along. Changing how people think is part of what writers do."

Lyssie sighed and rested her head against Val's shoulder. "I'd rather have my parents alive even if they didn't get along."

Val brushed the springy dark hair with the texture so like hers. "We don't get to choose."

They sat quietly, cooled by the stiff breeze that blew along the river valleys. Val hadn't been kidding when she said that Lyssie's words had changed her thinking. She had grown up accepting that her family wasn't like others, but she hadn't really thought about how much her father's rare visits, and her even rarer visits to him, had shaped her childhood. She had been like a cat waiting by the refrigerator and hoping for cream. Though Callie had been a conscientious, down-to-earth mother, she always had her creative and romantic interests. Val had never really felt that she came first.

This had a lot to do with Rob, but she would ponder that later. Now was Lyssie's time to come first. "Shall we go inside the hotel and have some lunch? All the desserts you can eat, after you've had something healthy."

"I'm hungry." Lyssie scrambled to her feet. Though her nose and eyes were red, the tears had dried.

"Me, too." Val rose rather less lithely than her little sister. "Then we'll go down into the village. There are lots of neat little shops where we can get something for your grandmother, and the National Park Service has a terrific bookstore with practically all history books."

"Can we start there?"

Val laughed. "Start and end there, if you like." She linked her arm through Lyssie's, and they turned to the hotel.

"I'm glad I told you what happened," Lyssie said softly. "I can't talk to Gramma because she gets so upset."

"You can tell me anything, Lyssie. I know that when I'm upset, it always helps to talk to a friend."

"Helps, maybe." Lyssie smiled wistfully. "But it's never really going to go away, is it?"

"No, honey. We can get through the bad stuff, but we never really get over it. In the meantime, though"--Val smiled--"there's ice cream."

∗ ∗ ∗

The next day Sha'wan and a couple of kids from the Fresh Air center would help Rob move, but this evening he was getting a head start by taking some of the more fragile items to the guest house. Not that he had a lot of breakables, but he suspected his work crew would have more energy and enthusiasm than finesse.

It hadn't taken long to pack. Though traveling lightly through life was supposed to be good, he was tired of it. He looked forward to accumulating more possessions. A new sound system, for example. He missed listening to music. Maybe a bed for Malcolm? No, the dog preferred Rob's bed. Maybe he'd like a giant leather chew bone.

Rob carried the box holding his garish ceramic canisters down the outside steps, a wary eye on Val's office. Her car was in the lot, but she was working so late these nights that he didn't expect her to leave while he was shifting his stuff.

He was heading to the steps for another load when Val came out the back door. It was the first time they had seen each other since she had bolted from his proposal.

They both stopped dead. There was complete silence, except for the
whoosh
of traffic on nearby Harford Road and a distant barking dog. Val was only a dozen feet away, and in the dim light of the parking lot she looked like a really exhausted Orphan Annie. Even her curls drooped tiredly. He wanted to put his arms around her and tell her everything would be all right. He wanted to take her to bed and give her a massage....

She broke the silence before he made himself crazy. "Moving out so soon?"

"Yes. Remember that house I mentioned on Springlake Way? I decided to take a look, and I really liked it. I have it under contract now. Since the owners have moved out, they gave me permission to live in the guest house until settlement." He was babbling, trying to extend the conversation.

"You move fast. It looks like a really nice place." She checked that the door had locked behind her, then came down the steps to ground level. "If you need help with the decorating, I can probably give you some useful names. A good designer can winnow the choices down to manageable size and pull everything together."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind, but I'll need to do some remodeling first. The kitchen and baths are very Fifties. Too old to be acceptable, not old enough to be interesting."

"My place was like that when I bought it. I spent a fortune on remodeling." She shifted her briefcase from one hand to the other. "Any luck with the investigating? I assume you would have called if you found something dramatic."

"No smoking guns or deathbed confessions." He grimaced. "I've been wasting time talking to reporters. Being who I am raises the news value, but I would have been happy to let the dead past bury the dead."

"I'm so sorry." She took an involuntary step forward as if she was going to touch him with the spontaneous warmth he loved. Halting, she added, "This will pass soon, if not as soon as you'd like."

"I'm getting encouragement to become an anti-death penalty activist. Go around making speeches, waving protest signs. Whatever." He ran a hand through his hair restlessly. "Do you think I could do any good?"

"I know you could do good. Capital punishment is still very popular in this country, and it's going to take a lot of serious thought and talking to shift the balance." She frowned. "The question isn't whether you can do good, but whether you can bear doing that kind of work."

"What do you think would be the worst part of it?" He was surprised how much he wanted her opinion.

"Every time you speak, you're putting your personal history out there for people to throw tomatoes at. Some will respect what you did and call you a hero, which you are. Others will say that Jeffrey deserved to die and good riddance to bad rubbish. And some will despise you for betraying your brother. Not a lot of fun."

"It's getting a little easier with practice." When he had first told his story to Val, it had been almost impossible to speak. Now he was able to speak of his brother calmly, though that didn't mean the pain wasn't still there. "In the interviews I push the angle of wrongful conviction and the risk of executing the innocent. If Boeing had the same failure rate as the justice system, no one would ever set foot on an airplane."

"Hard to argue with that. New cases of wrongful conviction turn up all the time." Her expression became thoughtful. "It would be interesting to do a study on the subject. Maybe I can get some law students to do the research. Since the story broke in the
Sun
, I've had a dozen calls from lawyers and students who would like to do some
pro bono
work with me. Daniel's case has really touched some chords."

If nothing else, maybe these volunteers would save a future Daniel. Mind made up, he said, "Tomorrow I'll call Julia Hamilton, the judge's wife. She asked if I'd speak to a group of prisoners' families. The idea spooked me when she first called, but I guess I'm ready now. If that goes well, we'll see."

"By the time you give that talk, maybe you'll have some good news to include."

Sensitive to the nuances of her voice, he said, "You don't sound very optimistic."

She sighed. "The Court of Appeals has promised a ruling for September eighth, the day before the execution is scheduled. It doesn't give us much time if they refuse to grant a stay, and the chances of them granting the petition are not great. Cal Murphy figures our odds of success are less than fifty-fifty."

He swore. "How can they overlook the evidence? Where is the justice?"

"They're liable to think this case was decided long since, and we're just playing games to delay the inevitable." Her voice broke and she covered her eyes with one hand. "I don't know how I'll be able to face Jason and Kendra if we fail. To do a countdown on a man's life...it's
obscene
."