“Because Dennis is okay with that.”
“And how can you be against trying to get justice for Dad?”
“Your father already got justice.”
“How— That makes no sense, Mom. At all.”
But she was already shaking her head. “I refuse to let this go on. No more visits. No more files, no more crime-scene photos. Just . . . enough with the meddling. Enough.”
“You know that whole ‘quit meddling’ thing is making you sound like a Scooby villain, right? It’s a bit creepy. What are you afraid of? What could come out that’s worse than Dad’s murder?”
Creepy Mom didn’t listen any better than Ghost Mom. “I’m putting an end to it, Angela.”
Angela was still studying her like Emma Drake was an intriguing amoeba on a microscope slide. “Good thing I’m an adult, then, and don’t have to tremble and obey.”
She never says “prison,” or “ICC.” It’s always “your visit” or “your trip.” I used to think she did that out of grief, that Dad’s loss was so painful to her, she couldn’t bear to talk about her bro-in-law languishing in prison. But now I wonder.
Suddenly conciliatory, her mother laid a hand on Angela’s sleeve. “I’m doing this for you, sweetie. You don’t have the strength to stop this unhealthy obsession on your own, so I’m taking things into my own hands.”
“Oh, is that what this is? You’re—uh—saving me? From myself? And also from crime-scene photos?”
A nod. “That’s exactly right.”
“Mom, I’m not the only one of us who wants closure. With the notable exception of, well, you, the whole family—” She turned to gesture to them, only to realize that at some point they’d all stolen out of the kitchen with a minimum of noise, the bums.
“COWWWWWWWWWAAAAAARRRRRDDDDDDSSSSS!”
By the time she’d calmed down, she realized her mother had left, too.
TWENTY-SEVEN
MAY 1985
FLORIDA STATE PRISON
Seven minutes.
That’s how long it took for Jesse Tafero to die.
If you’re fucking someone you’ve been trying to get into for a while, seven minutes is no time at all. But if you’re being electrocuted by the state of Florida, seven minutes takes a while.
He refused to go back to prison. So he shot two cops . . . and went back in prison. But it could have been worse. Sure. Could have been him in malfunctioning Old Sparky, six-inch flames shooting out of his head. The official story: A rookie had used a machine-made sponge instead of the standard sea sponge. Sure. Accidents happen. Even in prison. Especially in prison.
He wasn’t sure he believed that. The rumor was, the legal system fucking hated cop-killers, and found new and interesting ways to torture them. Like “forgetting” to tell the new guy to use a real sponge, not something they picked up on sale from Walmart. That, he believed.
The guys close to Tafero’s cell could still smell him for a week afterward. That smell—you can’t ever get it out of your nose. Even if it’s gone, it’s not really gone.
So, yeah. Could’ve been worse—could’ve been him. And, yeah, Tafero’s kids were pretty much orphans, because the lie that killed their dad had also put their mom—Sunny Jacobs—in prison. She was found guilty of capital murder and, like Tafero, got a death sentence, like Tafero. Unlike Tafero, there wasn’t a death row for the ladies. ’Cause Florida was old-fashioned, maybe? Weren’t up to speed on the equality thing? Anyway, she got solitary confinement. For five years. Death maybe would’ve been better.
No, he didn’t believe that.
You gotta live, is all. No matter what you have to do. No matter what you have to say. Because when you were done, when God or the state of Florida put out your lights and burned you alive, that was it. There wasn’t anything else. That whole past-lives bullshit? Pure goddamned fantasy, thought up by chickenshits: Oh, don’t worry about dying, you’ll be born again and you’ll get it right next time!
What. Fucking. Bullshit.
So he testified Jesse had been the one to shriek about not going back to prison. He told the jury that Jesse had been the one to shoot Officer Black and Constable Irwin. That Jesse wasn’t just a cop killer, he was an international cop killer—Irwin was Canadian, his bad luck to be visiting his pal, Black.
Walter didn’t even know what the fuck a constable was; his lawyer’d had to explain it.
After condemning Jesse, Walter turned his attention to Sunny. Who’d let it happen, he testified, and she’d hadn’t cared even a bit. Thought it was funny. And she wasn’t trying desperately to calm her babies, and she sure never begged him to stop, to Stop already, please stop. You’re scaring them YOU’RE SCARING ME! Naw, she was in on it. Or if she wasn’t in on it, she didn’t care when it all went wrong.
Just tell the truth, they prompted, though nobody in that room wanted any such thing. Tell the jury what happened, that’s all. Tell ’em and we’ll talk to the DA. No problem. But you gotta do the right thing.
So he did the right thing and his reward was second-degree murder and life in prison. And yeah, that was bad, but guess what was worse? Six-inch flames shooting out of your skull, that was worse. Stopping the execution three times to put out the flames, then starting it up again, that was worse. Your friends smelling you a week after your bad death, that was worse. Never a doubt in his mind. Nope. He did it. Not me.
Oh, sure, when it was all done, when the papers weren’t writing about it anymore, when everyone was locked up and the cops were in the ground, he had his slipups. His conscience—miserable, useless thing—had prodded him to recant not once, or even twice. Three times he lost his guts, then spilled ’em: ’77, ’79, and ’82.
But that worked out, too. ’Cause the guards, the cops, the DA—they didn’t want the truth. Not on a closed case. Not after all the publicity. So he’d have an attack of conscience; but a few days later, sanity returned and he’d recant his recantation and the years slid by.
But then it was May 4, 1985, and the thing that hadn’t seemed real, something to think about but unlikely to happen . . . well, it happened. They killed Jesse, and his bad death couldn’t be undone.
So he’d fess up. Again. But he wouldn’t recant recanting this time. Not because he was pussying out. Not because his conscience was the boss. It was because he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in years. Because when he closed his eyes he saw Jesse burning and when he took a deep breath he smelled him. He got the shakes. His belly hurt all the time. He felt like puking all the time and when he did, there was red in it and he instantly flushed so he wouldn’t have to think about it.*
It couldn’t go on. He was disintegrating. He’d talk again. Not because it was the right thing to do; that was for fairy-tale suckers. He’d talk to save himself. That’s what it was.
That’s all it ever was.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Agh, Jesus!”
Angela found herself sitting up in bed; the transition from dream to reality was so rapid, for a moment she still felt Walter’s nausea. Yes, yes, I get it, I’m compelled to work Dad’s case because back in the day, I was a cowardly shithead. THIS IS NOT NEWS.
At least it wasn’t that memory fragment again, the one that kept bubbling to the top of her brain every other day or so. Dad with the bulging suitcase, but nothing before that image, or after. Her father holding an overstuffed suitcase, standing in the doorway and looking at her. Why was it bugging her?
She glanced at the clock and saw her alarm was going to go off in just over two hours. Fuck it. She’d hit the kitchen, make some mint tea. Try to get serene—as much as she ever could. Face the new day.
So she got up, pulled her robe over her opposite-of-sexy nightgown (faded flannel, sleeves too short, hem too short, cartoon penguin pattern), and started down the hall for the kitchen. Where there was . . . a light on?
To her surprise, Jack and Leah were also awake, sipping from mugs at the turtle table.