Suspended Sentences (10 page)

She closed her eyes. She knew she'd have to force the words out sooner or later. It might as well be now.

“Yes. I killed the little girl.”

It was all prearranged — an agreement between Charles and the State's Attorney. She was amazed how quickly it went, in the court-room. She pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. There were a few affidavits, and the judge — a surprisingly young but quite overweight woman — seemed less interested in the various depositions than in Charles's photographs of the scene of what Carolyn had finally been able to start calling The Accident (as opposed to The Day I Killed Amy Murdoch).

Charles pointed out the overgrown hedge in the photos and showed how it would have been impossible for
anyone
to have seen the little girl in time. He also pointed to the brief black skid marks that showed up clearly against the pale gray pavement; according to the police analysis they showed she couldn't have been doing more than twenty-five miles an hour at the time she saw Amy emerge into the street.

(She'd been going faster than that but she'd already braked to avoid the dog.)

“In short,” Charles summed up, “I think this incident represents a textbook example of an unavoidable accident. I would point out to your honor that there wasn't any hit-and-run. Mrs. Benson stopped immediately and had the presence of mind to try and save the little girls' life. She called the police and the ambulance. She even went up to the Murdoch house and told Mr. Murdoch what had happened. I think this tragic incident must be chalked up as an act of God, your honor, and I think justice would be best served if Mrs. Benson were acquitted; but we recognize that a homicide
has
been committed and that may not be possible.

“My client is ready to accept whatever punishment this court decides to hand down, but I'd like to point out that in her own conscience she has already suffered far more than justice might demand of her. I suggest there were several victims of this horrible accident, your honor, and Mrs. Benson was one of them.”

The judge lectured her a bit, had another brief look at the photos, agreed the accident had been clearly unavoidable, pointed out that under the laws of the state she had no choice but to find Carolyn guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and pronounced sentence: “Three hundred and sixty-four days. Sentence is suspended.”

Charles had told her to expect just that. He'd explained what it meant, in practical terms: she'd have to report to a parole officer once a month — a formality — and she'd have to apply for the court's permission if she wanted to leave the state before the end of the year's period. She couldn't believe it was that simple. “You mean it's over? I can go?”

Getting up from the courtroom table he took her arm and gave her that smile. “All over. You've punished yourself enough.”

It provoked a grunt from someone behind her. She didn't look back; she knew who it was. Stanley Murdoch. He'd been sitting at the prosecutor's table throughout the trial. He'd never said a word. He hadn't even looked at her very much. He didn't look enraged or even bitter; his face seemed rather slack, actually. But his presence in the room throughout the brief trial had disturbed her as if he were a ticking bomb.

Murdoch brushed past her without a word and strode out of the courtroom. Carolyn, feeling faint, reached for Charles's hand.

He took her to eat in one of those business-lunch places that was mostly bar, had no windows, and lulled you with Muzak. He bought her a drink and said, “I know a bit of how it feels. You feel as if you've been drugged. You're disoriented. Nothing's quite real. You don't know what's going to happen in your life tomorrow or next week or next year.” Her hand was on the table and he touched it with his own. “I know it's hard to buy this idea at a time like this, but you will get over it. Life will resume.”

She stared into the amber translucence of the drink. “I can't go on living three doors down from Stanley Murdoch. I couldn't stand him giving me those hurt accusing looks every time I passed by.”

“The house is too big for you anyhow, by yourself. Why don't you move into an apartment? Buy one of those condominiums out by the lake shore.”

“I'll think about it,” she said listlessly.

She had an appointment that afternoon to help a fat woman in the Fairview tract choose carpeting and wallpaper. The fat woman's husband had got a raise and she wanted to do the house over and she'd gone through the Yellow Pages under “Interior Decorators and Designers”— Carolyn was the third decorator in the alphabetical listing and she had a suspicion that the fat woman probably had phoned the first two but got no answer.

She kept the appointment because she was still alert enough to realize she had to keep occupied. It was a tedious afternoon. The fat woman had poor taste and even so she couldn't make up her mind about anything. Carolyn tried to guide her into some sort of sensible combinations but her own aplomb was shattered and she didn't have her normal abilities to charm and persuade. Half the time it was a chore merely to avoid screaming at the stupid cow.

Finally — a line of least resistance — she let the fat woman have her way with some absurdly mismatched carpets that would clash dreadfully with the tweedy couch she had at home. Carolyn made a heroic effort, managed to summon one last feeble smile, said a hurried goodbye, and rushed away. Riding home in the back of the taxi — she still wasn't trusting herself to drive the car — she realized dismally that this wasn't going to work. Not right away. She didn't have the patience for it. One more appointment like this afternoon's and she'd start screaming her head off; she'd end up in a rubber room. There had to be some other focus for her attention, until these terrible anxieties and tensions began to settle down.

If they ever would…

She had the furtive impulse to hide her face when the taxi took her past the hedge — past Murdoch's house. Defiantly she lifted her head, put her face close to the window, and looked at the house.

She wished she hadn't. He was there. Murdoch. Standing on the porch of the old house watching her ride past. He was not reading or smoking or drinking; he was not doing anything. He was simply standing there — watching her, and it was as if he'd been standing on that spot all afternoon waiting for her.

His face didn't change. He only watched. But she could feel the burning impact of his eyes all the time while she paid off the cab driver and hiked the bag over her shoulder and walked — as slowly and proudly as she could, but it was an effort not to run — up to her door. Then, absurdly, she couldn't find the key and spent
ages
rummaging in the damned bag.

When she finally eeled inside and pushed the door shut, she peered out through the crack. He was still there, diagonally across the street on his porch, watching, watching.

She pushed the door shut and locked it. Then she sagged against it, both palms hard against her temples, trying to keep from screaming.

…Back in the worst Medusan entanglements of the divorce (and admittedly it hadn't been terribly messy but there was no such thing as a non-traumatic divorce), she had discovered the wonderful therapeutic value of showers: a scalding hot one followed by a needle-sharp cold one. In some way that she understood but couldn't explain, the hard and meticulous scrubbing was a process that cleansed more than just the epidermic surface. It seemed to work this time too.

She emerged from the steamy bathroom with her wet hair wrapped in a turban of towel and stood before the dressing-room's full-length mirror squinting at her flushed body, skin still taut from the shower. “Not bad for an old broad,” she said aloud — she was thirty-six. She thrust out one hip and tried a lewd grin but it broke up in the mirror and she turned away.

Fido came in while she was sitting naked in the dressing room moving the hair dryer around her head. He miaowed and rubbed against her calf and tickled her knee with his upthrust tail. She reached down to pet him and she could feel, through the fur, that he was not purring. Fido
always
purred, but not today. So the edge of her own vibrations must be reaching out that far.

Fido
, she thought. What an absurd suburbanite's name for a cat. At the time — when Richard had brought the kitten home and suggested the name — she'd thought it was cute. Fido was fuzzy, black and white, with a sort of negative Chaplin face — all black except for a white smudge of mustache. He was affectionate, lazy, reasonably bright — a thoroughly ordinary cat but since the divorce he was all the family she had.

A screeching squeal of tires on pavement almost lifted the top of her head off. She raced through the bedroom to the window.

She was in time to see the tailfins of Stanley Murdoch's twenty-odd-year-old station wagon slither away past the hedge; then there was an angry flash of brake lights and another screech of tires, after which the car was gone around the bend.

Murdoch didn't normally drive like that.
He did it to frighten me
.

Rattled and distressed, she fixed something to eat — later she couldn't remember what it had been — and fed the cat and sat around in a housecoat, switching the TV on and off, picking up magazines and putting them down, thinking vaguely about getting dressed and walking the half mile down to the Mall to buy a pack of cigarettes. She'd given up smoking three years ago but at a time like this…

Don't be absurd
.

A drink. That was it — that would calm her down. She went into the cupboard and selected among the half-dozen bottles: a Margarita, that would do the job. A good tall stiff one. She tried to remember Richard's Margarita ritual: split the lime, rub it around the rim of the glass, pour salt into the palm of the hand, and twirl the glass in it until the entire rim was coated with salt that adhered to the limejuice-wet surface. Then shove the salt-encrusted glass into the freezer to harden. Then mix the drink itself: tequila, triple sec, lime juice, ice cubes. Stir it for quite a while, to get it thoroughly cold. Then bring the glass out of the freezer.

Lick a bit of salt off the rim and drink…

The ritual was good because it occupied her. She was beginning to find some sort of equilibrium, beginning to feel even a bit pleased with herself. Then the jangling phone nearly made her drop the drink.

It was Charles Berlin. “I just wondered if you were getting along all right.”

“I think so. It's sweet of you to call.”

“I happened to be talking to another client of mine today and this is one of those wild coincidences but you remember we were talking about those condominiums out by the lake shore? Well, he's got one of them, and he's being transferred by his company down to Atlanta or Birmingham or someplace like that, and he asked me — the guy actually asked me this very afternoon — if I knew anybody who might be in the market to rent the place from him on a sort of sublet. He doesn't want to put it up for sale right away until he sees how he likes it down south, but he'll be gone at least a year. It's a nice pad. I've been there for dinner a few times. You'd like it. Shall I give you his name and number?”

She thought of Stanley Murdoch standing on the porch staring at her, and the screech — filled with message — of Murdoch's tires on the very patch of pavement where the little girl had died; and Carolyn said, “You bet.”

By the time she signed the lease that Charles had prepared for her, on the condominium, she had recovered enough self-confidence to drive there herself with the carload of fragile things she didn't trust to the movers. She emptied the car, left the cartons in the apartment, and drove back to her house to pick up a few more things, and Fido. She'd have taken the cat on the first trip but of course he'd been nowhere in sight. She remembered one of Richard's wry sayings: “Cats are just like cops. Never around when you want 'em.”

When she drove into the lane, Fido was there. Squashed flat on the same spot of pavement where Amy Murdoch had died.

“I know he did it on purpose.”

“Murdoch?”

She gave Charles a look. “Who else?”

“Well, you'll never prove that, will you?”

“I
know
he did it. He wants revenge for his little girl. He won't stop until —”

“Until what? Until you've been punished enough? God knows you've had enough punishment from this thing. I think I'd better have a talk with Murdoch.”

“If it'll do any good.” She reached for the drink.

“I'll make the appropriate threats,” Charles said drily. “Take it easy on that stuff — that's your fourth one.”

“I didn't ask you to count my drinks.”

“Yeah, I know. How about having dinner with me? I know a quiet place out past the lake.”

“I don't go out with married men, Charles.”

“We're separated.”

It took her a moment to absorb that. Then she squinted at him. “I'm in no shape to be made passes at.”

“Your shape is just fine, Carolyn, but right now I'm disinclined to take unfair advantage of you. I think you need company right now, that's all.”

“I don't want pity. I don't think I could deal with that.”

“A friend's concern isn't pity.”

“Oh, hell,” she said, “take me to dinner. I hope it's not Chinese. Richard used to make awful little jokes about how they run out of chickens in Chinese restaurants and they send the cooks out into the alleys to round up cats.”

“Your husband always had a macabre sense of humor, didn't he?”

“I'm sorry. I don't usually bring him into conversations like that.”

“I understand. It's just that right now you haven't got any anchor at all and you keep reaching for memories to prop you up.” Charles had very sincere warm eyes — brown eyes, nothing startling — and his hairline was starting to go, and there was too much flesh around too little chin, and he had a paunch and was only about five-eight and generally speaking he wasn't the sort of man she had fantasies about, but —