LITMIR.BIZ

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Detective,” Butts corrected.

      She was not deterred a bit, though, and continued without a pause.

      “You see, Detective, the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. He must have had a reason for wanting our Marie up there with him—because that’s where she is now, sitting in heaven beside God the Father. He must have some plan for her, or He wouldn’t have taken her away from us like this.”

      “So your daughter was religious, too?” Lee asked.

      Mrs. Kelleher shifted her focus to him. “Oh, goodness me, yes! She never missed church. Marie was the very best child that anyone could hope to have,” she added, dabbing at her eye with the corner of a flowered handkerchief, which gave off an oppressively heavy floral scent. Lee tried to place it: Was it mimosa? Patchouli? Lilies of some kind?

      Brian Kelleher put a protective hand on his wife’s shoulder. Lee had more sympathy for him. It looked as though he was just playing along with his wife’s religious passion, and that left to his own devices, he might be a sensible, rational man. Mrs. Kelleher sighed, though Lee had the impression that she was feeling sorry for herself rather than mourning her daughter. Something about this woman rubbed him the wrong way and set off alarm bells in his head.

      Another half hour of questioning brought them no closer to useful information about poor Marie. Her parents merely corroborated everything they already knew about her. She was a good student, quiet but well liked. She honored her parents’ faith by attending church regularly—she even worked as a volunteer to feed the homeless in a program her church ran at a local shelter once a month. After refusing another cup of lukewarm instant coffee, Lee and Butts made their escape. Lee felt the Kellehers’ eyes on them as they walked down the short walkway to the street. Neither of them said a word until they rounded the corner toward the bus stop; then Butts exploded.

      “What is it with people?” he bellowed. “Those two were more interested in their reputation than in finding out who killed their daughter.” He snorted and pulled a cigar out of his breast pocket. “What the hell,” he muttered as he placed it between his teeth. “Sometimes I just don’t know about people. I mean, why do we even bother, you know?” He bit off the end of the cigar and spat it out into the waste can. “You ever feel that way, Doc?”

      “Yeah,” Lee said, “sometimes.” He didn’t want to suggest or even hint to Butts how deeply he had drunk from the well of despair.

      “I dunno,” Butts said. “I just don’t goddamn know.”

      Neither do I, Lee thought, but he said nothing.

      “They’re hiding something,” Butts fumed, biting his lower lip. “I swear to God, they know something they’re not telling. I just don’t know what it is.”

      Lee looked at the detective, who was chewing furiously on the cigar, working his jaw as if he wanted to pulverize it.

      “I don’t know,” he answered, shaking his head. “It did seem like they were hiding something, but I’m not sure it related to Marie’s death. They did seem more interested in preserving their self-image than tracking down their daughter’s killer, but I’m not sure it adds up to collusion. Sometimes people react to grief in strange, unpredictable ways.”

      “Funny, isn’t it?” Butts remarked as they walked down the hill toward the bus stop. “I mean, you say this guy is some kinda religious nut, right?”

      “Something like that.”

      “Right. So who does he go after? The kid of a coupla religious freaks. Talk about irony, huh? I mean, if that’s not irony, what is?”

      Lee mumbled some words of agreement. It was ironic—or was it? He was beginning to wonder if Butts was on to something after all. What if the Kellehers did know more than they were letting on? And if so, what exactly did they know?

      Chapter Eight

      Dr. Georgina F. Williams was an African American woman of imposing dignity, with a formal manner and precise way of speaking that bordered on frosty—except for the occasional wayward smile that began at the corners of her eyes and culminated in a wry, upward twisting of the lips, first the right side, then the left.

      Lee had learned to anticipate that smile and often did his best to provoke it; his ability to make this stern woman laugh was one of the few things in his favor in the unequal balance of power between them. He remembered when he used to sit where she was, treating patients—when he was the one with the power. Fortunately, though, he was comfortable around strong women, no doubt because of his mother, Fiona Campbell, who, even at seventy-two years of age, was a force of nature.

      Dr. Williams crossed her elegant legs at the ankle, pressed her fingertips together, and leaned back in her chair. She wore a rust-colored suit with a full, flowing skirt, and a pendant with an African design around her neck. Her office matched her perfectly: understated, tasteful, refined. Soft track lighting and a potted palm tree in the corner set off the apricot-colored walls, lined with prints of Monet, Klee, and Matisse. Ethiopian sculptures decorated the bookshelf in the far corner of the room, nestled in between the rows of books, mostly psychology texts. There was always a vase of fresh flowers on the table next to her chair. Today it was a bouquet of peach-colored roses.

      Dr. Williams regarded Lee with her large, prominent eyes. “So. How are you this week?”

      “Not great.” It was always a struggle to admit this, to block his mother’s voice from his head: I’m fine, just fine—everything’s fine.

      “Are you still having nightmares?”

      “Sometimes.”

      Dr. Williams shifted in her chair. “A lot of people continue to have trouble with the events of September eleventh, you know.”

      “But not everyone had a nervous breakdown.”

      “No. But don’t you think it’s time you started forgiving yourself for it?”

      Lee looked at the window behind her, where a fat gray and white pigeon was pecking at something on the windowsill. The bird cocked its head, regarding Lee with its perfectly round, tiny orange eye. Lee made the sound of a pigeon cooing under his breath. The bird on the windowsill took a few stiff steps to the edge of the ledge—then, with a rush of wings, was gone.

      The corners of Dr. Williams’s eyes crinkled. Lee watched for the smile to spread down her face, but instead she spoke.

      “What did you say to it?”

      “What?”

      “The pigeon. What did you say to it?”

      Lee looked away.

      “Don’t think—just answer.”

      “But I—”

      “Say the first thing that comes into your head.”

      “Uh, be careful.”

      “You told it to be careful?”

      “That’s what popped into my head.”

      Dr. Williams uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.

      “Be careful of what?”

      “Everything, I guess.”

      “So you feel there’s danger lurking everywhere?”

      Lee looked out at the empty window ledge.

      “Yeah, I guess I do.”

      “What kind of danger?”

      “Human danger. Bad people—people who want only to kill, to hurt others.”

      “Like the terrorists?”

      Lee looked down at his shoes. “Yes. Like them, and…”

      “And the person who took your sister?”

      Lee felt hot, stinging tears spring into his eyes, and he

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