She shook her head slowly and looked at the floor. “I don’t know, Darren. I mean, I think you may have killed some people.”
“I did kill some people. And then I lied to you about it. I killed the two men who bombed my mother’s house, I helped kill Ben Clancy, and I killed Big Pappy. I killed four people, but two of them killed my mother, and one of them sent my uncle to prison for two decades on a bogus charge, framed me for a murder, drove James Tipton to suicide, and walked away from all of it. I killed Big Pappy because he was trying to kill me. Straight-up self-defense. The police will never, ever prove anything I’ve done. They won’t ever have enough to arrest me, let alone try me and convict me. I probably shouldn’t be telling you all this, but if we’re going to ever be together again, if we’re going to try, I want you to know that I’ve been honest with you. You understand why I did what I did. I know you do. The question is: Can you forgive me?”
I was on a limb, and I knew it. Grace could go straight to the police and tell them I’d confessed to four murders, but I didn’t think she was anything like Katherine. She had substance and character, and I thought she still might love me. She’d also been to hell and back with me, and not all that long ago, she’d agreed to marry me.
“We can take it slow,” I said. “We can make it work.”
She began to sniffle, and I started toward her. She put her hand up and said, “No, please. I need to think.”
I stopped and took a step back. “Okay. I just put a lot on your shoulders. Let’s go back to the beginning. Why did you want to see me?”
“I’m not sure what to do now,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.” Her sniffling had become more intense, and tears were flowing down both of her cheeks. “What do you say to a man who has just told you he’s committed four murders? Justified or not? What do you say? How am I supposed to feel about that? What would it be like knowing that the man I’m with every day is capable of that kind of violence?”
“I think we’re all capable if we get pushed far enough,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said, “but right now, at this moment, I don’t understand it. I’ve never been pushed that far, and I’ve always been taught that when the law is broken, we have a system in place to address injustices and injuries suffered by innocent people. It’s called the criminal justice system, Darren. You believed in it once. You’re still a part of it, aren’t you? Aren’t you still practicing criminal defense law?”
“I’ve been a little preoccupied, but yes.”
“Then you’re a hypocrite.”
“I guess I am, but look what the system did to me. It took two years of my life, twenty of my uncle’s. It didn’t offer to compensate me in any way, didn’t offer me any help or counseling when I was released. The system can be cruel. Not just cruel, it can be downright barbaric.”
“I know it isn’t perfect, but what if family members of murder victims reacted the same way you did in every case? We’d have blood everywhere. Chaos. You’re asking me to realign my entire sense of what justice is. You’re asking me to accept that vigilantism has a place in our system of criminal justice, and I can’t agree with you. I just can’t.”
“I didn’t ask you to agree with me. I asked you to forgive me.”
“I need some time to think about it.”
She’d calmed down, and she pulled some paper towels off a roll on the counter and dried her face and wiped her nose. “I have something to tell you.”
Something about the tone in her voice put me on alert. I knew what she was going to say before the words actually passed her lips.
“Do you remember the night when you came back and told me you’d been fishing? That you’d caught two big ones and left them where you caught them? And then you came home and all you wanted to do was have sex and have sex and have sex?”
I nodded, waiting for the two words I knew I was going to hear.
“I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER 63
Will Grimes stepped into the temporary office used by prosecutors during trials at the courthouse in Webster Springs, West Virginia. He’d just finished testifying in a year-old murder case involving a woman who had hired two teenagers to shoot and kill her husband for insurance money, and the prosecutor, District Attorney James Hellerman, had rested his case. The judge had taken a brief recess before the defense began telling its side of the story. Hellerman was already behind his desk, stuffing a dip of Skoal into his lower lip. Grimes sat down across from him.
“You did a fine job,” Hellerman said.
“Thank you,” Grimes said.
“You never know what a jury will do, but this is as close to a slam dunk as I’ve had in a while.”
“So you think it’ll be over today?”
Hellerman nodded and spit into a cup. “Bet we’ll have a verdict by six o’clock.”
“Wish they were all this cut-and-dried,” Grimes said.
“Speaking of, did you ever find that guy you were looking for that killed those three folks in Charleston?”
“He disappeared into thin air,” Grimes said.
“Where in the world do you think he ran off to?” Hellerman said.
“Who knows? Maybe he’s dead.”
“Any idea who might have killed him?”
“I have my suspicions.”
“You think it might be that lawyer you were after, don’t you?”
“He’d be my prime suspect.”
“Are you still working that double murder in Cowen? The one where you think that same lawyer killed those two boys in a bar?”
Grimes shook his head. “No point. It’s over. The lawyer was smart enough to put enough layers between himself and his crime that I couldn’t get to him. Then one important layer wound up dead, and the other has vanished.”
“The one that vanished, he’s the man that killed the three in Charleston, right?”
“Right.”
“Maybe he’ll turn up one day.”
“And maybe pigs will fly.”
“Well, like I always say to you, Will, just keep grinding. That’s what you do best.”
Grimes leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his neck. He’d been doing this long enough to check his emotions at the door, but the feeling of frustration of not having solved a brutal double murder, plus the murders in Charleston, frustrated him nonetheless.
“There’s always something to grind on, that’s for sure,” he said. “People just keep on killing each other.”
There was a soft knock at the door, and a bailiff stuck his head in. “Judge is ready to go.”
“That one may have gotten away,” Hellerman said, “but this one isn’t going to. Let’s go chalk up another one for the good guys.”
CHAPTER 64