And soon she settled on me and fell back to sleep.
Chapter 46
It started toall go wrong again when I looked at the calendar.
The human brain is amazing. It is a curious mix of electricity and chemicals. It is, in effect, pure science. We understand more about the workings of the great cosmos than we do about the curious circuitry of the cerebrum, cerebellum, hypothalamus, medulla oblongata, and all the rest. And like any tricky compound, we are never sure how it will react to a certain catalyst.
There were several things that gave me reason to pause. There was the question of leaks. Rachel and I had thought that someone in either the FBI or police department had told Bacard and his people what was happening. But that never fit in with my theory about Stacy shooting Monica. There was the fact that Monica was found with no clothes on. I think I understood why now, but the thing is, Stacy wouldn’t have.
But the main catalyst occurred, I think, when I looked at the calendar and realized that today was Wednesday.
The shootings and original abduction had taken place on a Wednesday. Of course, there had been plenty of Wednesdays in the past eighteen months. The day of the week was a pretty innocuous thing. But this time, after we had learned so much, after my brain had digested all the fresh data, something meshed. All those little questions and doubts, all those idiosyncrasies, all those moments I took for granted and never really examined . . . they all shifted a little. And what I saw was even worse than what I had originally imagined.
I was back in Kasselton now—at my house where it had all started. I called Tickner for confirmation.
I said, “My wife and I were shot with thirty-eights, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure they were two different guns?”
“Positive.”
“And my Smith and Wesson was one of them?”
“You know all this, Marc.”
“Did you get all the ballistic reports back yet?”
“Most of them.”
I licked my lips and readied myself. I hoped to hell that I was wrong. “Who was shot with my gun—me or Monica?”
He turned coy on me. “Why are you asking me this now?”
“Curiosity.”
“Yeah, right. Hold on a second.” I could hear him shuffling papers. I felt my throat constrict. I almost hung up. “Your wife was.”
When I heard the car pull up outside, I put the receiver back in the cradle. Lenny turned the knob and opened the door. He didn’t knock. After all, Lenny never knocked, right?
I was sitting on the couch. The house was still, all the ghosts sleeping now. He had a Slurpee in either hand and a broad smile. I wondered how many times I had seen that smile. I remembered it more crooked. I remembered it jammed to overflowing with braces. I remembered it bleeding after he hit a tree when we went sledding down the Gorets’ backyard. I thought again about when big Tony Merruno picked a fight with me in third grade, how Lenny jumped on his back. I remembered now that Tony Merruno broke Lenny’s glasses. I don’t think Lenny cared.
I knew him so well. Or maybe I hadn’t known him at all.
When Lenny saw my face, his smile faded away.
“We were supposed to play racquetball that morning, Lenny. Remember?”
He lowered the cups and put them on the end table.
“You never knock. You always just open the door. Like today. So what happened, Lenny? You came to pick me up. You opened the door.”
He started shaking his head, but I knew now.
“The two guns, Lenny. That’s what gave it away.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But there was no conviction in his voice.
“We figured that Stacy didn’t get Monica a gun—that Monica used mine. But you see, she didn’t. I just checked with ballistics. It’s funny. You never told me that Monica was shot with my gun. I was shot with the other weapon.”
“So?” Lenny said, suddenly the attorney again. “That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe Stacy got her a gun, after all.”
“She did,” I said.
“So fine, okay, it still adds up.”
“Tell me how.”
He shifted his feet. “Maybe Stacy helped Monica get a gun. Monica shot you with it. When Stacy arrived a few minutes later, Monica tried to shoot her.” Lenny moved over to the staircase as if to demonstrate. “Stacy ran upstairs. Monica fired—that would explain the bullet hole.” He pointed to the spackled area by the stairs. “Stacy grabbed your gun out of the bedroom, came downstairs, and shot Monica.”
I looked at him. “Is that how it happened, Lenny?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it could be.”
I waited a beat. He turned away. “One problem,” I said.
“What?”
“Stacy didn’t know where I hid the gun. She didn’t know the lockbox’s combination either.” I took a step closer. “But you did, Lenny. I kept all my legal documents there. I trusted you with everything. So now I want the truth. Monica shot me. You came in. You saw me lying on the floor. Did you think I was dead?”
Lenny closed his eyes.
“Make me understand, Lenny.”
He shook his head slowly. “You think you love your daughter,” he said. “But you have no idea. What you feel, it grows every day. The longer you have a child, the more attached you get. The other night I came home from work. Marianne was crying because some girls were teasing her in school. I went to bed feeling sick, and I realized something. I can only be as happy as my saddest child. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“You have it pretty much right. I came to your house that morning. I opened the door. Monica was on the phone. She was still holding the gun in her hand. I ran over to you. I couldn’t believe it. I felt for a pulse but . . .” He shook his head. “Monica started screaming at me, about how she wouldn’t let anyone take away her baby. She pointed the gun at me. I mean, Jesus Christ. I thought for sure I was going to die. I rolled away and then I ran for the stairs. I remembered you had a gun up there. She fired at me.” He pointed again. “That’s the bullet hole.”
He stopped. He took a few breaths. I waited.
“I grabbed your gun.”
“Did Monica follow you up the stairs?”
His voice was soft. “No.” He started blinking. “Maybe I should have tried to use the phone. Maybe I should have sneaked out. I don’t know. I’ve gone through it hundreds of times. I try to imagine how I should have played it. But you were lying there, my best friend, dead. That crazy bitch was shouting about running away with your daughter—my godchild. She had already taken a shot at me. I didn’t know what she would do next.”