Lu waits a week before sending the DNA report to Fred. In her heart of hearts, she has come to believe that Rudy Drysdale did not set out that evening to kill someone. But that is not how the law defines intent, which can be formed in an instant. He broke into Mary McNally’s apartment. He was probably masturbating when she walked in. Imagine the moment for both of them—she finds a strange man seated on her bed in midstroke or perhaps just finishing up, tidying himself with a corner of her pretty red-and-khaki bedspread. She screams. Maybe they both scream. It’s New Year’s Eve. Her nearest neighbor is out, and a hoarse shout or two, even a scream, might not attract attention. He can’t let her scream again. She has to stop screaming. Maybe he panics because she’s between him and the door. He hits her in the back of the head, knocks her down, chokes her. He has to stop the screaming. Then, when she’s dead, he takes whatever he has used to hit her—what, they still don’t know, and Lu is resigned to the fact that the weapon will never be discovered—and hits her again and again and again. Is it his humiliation that accounts for the ferocity of the attack? Is he trying to blind her?
But, also—if his pants are down, how does he move so quickly? Or is he pleasuring himself through the fly? God, it’s almost comic. Until the moment he strikes Mary McNally on the back of the head. Blood must have been everywhere—on his face, his coat. Yet his clothing was clean when he was picked up. She thinks again of the walk-out basement below the deck of the Drysdales’ home—would he have been bold enough to sneak in there and do his laundry? He had time, although he couldn’t have known it would be a week before the body was found. How far would Mrs. Drysdale go to protect her son? How far would Lu go to protect her son and daughter? She hopes never to find out.
At any rate, she can’t accept a plea to anything but first-degree murder. The only thing she’s willing to negotiate are the terms: a minimum of twenty years, no parole. It’s a capital crime, with or without a semen stain on the bedspread. What if he sat down and masturbated after killing her? What if the act of violence was what got him off? He would have to be pretty cold-blooded, but then—he was cool and collected enough to adjust the thermostat, open the sliding door. That’s the story she’ll tell, and if he wants to tell another one, he’ll have to get on the stand. If he doesn’t take the stand, then Fred has to convince the jury that Rudy Drysdale entered the apartment after Mary McNally was dead, then sat down within arm’s reach of her body and masturbated. Or that he has been in the apartment twice, returning for another date with himself and finding the body.
Twenty years is generous. He’s a time bomb, the kind of guy who could go crazy in the Columbia Mall, attacking kids on the carousel, running around the fountain with a machete.
Of course, twenty years is also tantamount to life in prison for him. Prison shortens a man’s life. She thinks of Eloise Schumann, realizes she never bothered to check the clerk’s office to see if she was legit married or just appropriated Ryan Schumann’s name. The woman never came back, never called again, so chances are she’s every inch the nutcase her father says she is, programmed to go off at staggered intervals.
“Murder two,” Fred says. It’s practically the first thing he says after arriving at her office. How odd it must be for him to sit on the other side of the desk, to see how quickly she has made this space hers. The walls have been painted white with the tiniest hint of teal—one has to look closely to realize they are not white-white. Lu painted them herself over the MLK long weekend, using a Farrow & Ball shade called “Borrowed Light.” (Her father’s newfound snobbery about decor must be contagious. He’s been adamant about using that pricey brand for all their remodeled rooms.) The three chairs in the office are strictly government issue; it seemed in bad taste to have chairs different from those her staff uses. But she has created a sitting area, with a small blue love seat and a low coffee table fashioned from an antique door. She found the latter piece in a store on Ellicott City’s Main Street; the seller claimed the door was from the original jail, which makes no sense, but it’s a good story. The overall vibe is of a serious room with subtle feminine touches. Of course, for a meeting such as this, she would never use the love seat, or ask Della to bring them coffee. Fred can sit in a wooden chair and get his own damn coffee.