فصل 11 - بخش 04

11

The horror with which she stared at him – as if he were some kind of monster, maybe a zombie from that TV show – struck Ralph like a blow to the chest. He had time to see the disarray of her hair, a splotch of something on the lapel of her robe (which was too big for her; maybe it was Terry’s), the slightly bent cigarette between her fingers. And something else. She had always been a fine-looking woman, but she was losing her looks already. He would have called that impossible.

‘Marcy—’

‘No. You don’t belong here. You need to get out of here.’ Her voice was low, breathless, as if someone had punched her.

‘I need to talk to you. Please let me talk to you.’

‘You killed my husband. There’s nothing else to say.’

She started to swing the door closed. Ralph held it with his hand. ‘I didn’t kill him, but yes, I played a part. Call me an accomplice, if that’s what you want. I never should have arrested him the way I did. It was wrong on God knows how many different levels. I had my reasons, but they weren’t good reasons. I—’

‘Take your hand off the door. Do it now, or I’ll have you arrested.’

‘Marcy—’

‘Don’t call me that. You have no right to call me that, not after what you did. The only reason I’m not screaming my head off is because my daughters are upstairs, listening to their dead father’s records.’

‘Please.’ He thought to say, Don’t make me beg, but that was wrong because it wasn’t enough. ‘I’m begging you. Please talk to me.’

She held up the cigarette and uttered a terrible toneless laugh. ‘I thought, now that the little lice are gone, I can have a smoke on my doorstep. And look, here’s the big louse, the louse of louses. Last warning, Mr Louse who got my husband killed. Get … the fuck … off my doorstep.’

‘What if he didn’t do it?’

Her eyes widened and the pressure of her hand on the door slackened, at least for the moment.

‘What if he …? Jesus Christ, he told you he didn’t do it! He told you as he lay there dying! What else do you want, a hand-delivered telegram from the Angel Gabriel?’

‘If he didn’t, whoever did is still out there, and he’s responsible for the destruction of the Peterson family, as well as yours.’

She considered this for a moment, then said: ‘Oliver Peterson is dead because you and that sonofabitch Samuels had to put on your circus. And you killed him, didn’t you, Detective Anderson? Shot him in the head. Got your man. Excuse me, your boy.’

She slammed the door in his face. Ralph again raised his hand to knock, thought better of it, and turned away.