At Rope's End (A Dr. James Verraday Mystery #1)(36)

Verraday felt like he’d been hit in the chest with a hammer. “Dead? How?”

“The story is that he had an accident cleaning his revolver.”

Verraday sat stunned for a moment. He barely knew where to start.

“What else do you know about him?” Verraday asked.

“He retired from the Seattle PD eight years ago. Lived alone in a four-season cottage not far from Everett.”

“When did it happen?”

“A week ago. I looked into it a little for you. They did a blood test on Robson. He had a blood alcohol level of point-one-one. That’s well over the line for legally impaired. You probably won’t find that surprising.”

Verraday nodded agreement.

“Apparently he had Ativan in his system too,” said Maclean.

“That part does surprise me,” said Verraday. “Robson never struck me as the type who’d suffer from anxiety disorders. More the kind of person who would cause them.”

“Robson’s doctor never prescribed Ativan to him, but obviously anyone who drinks that heavily is doing a lot of self-medicating.”

Verraday had a momentary flash of selfconsciousness, wondering what Maclean would think if she’d had any idea of his own daily alcohol intake. And he’d only recently tossed out his stock of Ativan after his pharmacist, a soft-spoken young woman from Hong Kong, warned him in her mild and diplomatic way that many doctors were unaware that the drug was highly addictive and that if he had anxiety issues, there were safer ways of dealing with it.

“He probably bought his Ativan online without a prescription,” Maclean continued. “In any case, the coroner in Everett has ruled it an accidental death. End of story. But I thought you’d want to know.”

Verraday nodded. “Thanks.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Verraday distractedly ran a hand through his hair.

“I almost can’t believe this has happened,” he said at last. “I always thought I’d feel thrilled when I heard that he’d died.”

“And now?”

“And now I feel sort of cheated.”

“How so?” asked Maclean.

Verraday no longer felt distant from Maclean. He liked this woman, had an urge to share secrets with her, and for a moment, considered telling her the truth: that he felt cheated because he wasn’t the one who had gotten to pull the trigger. But he decided it might be impolitic to tell an officer of the law that he had homicidal impulses toward someone who had just blown his brains out under mysterious circumstances.

So instead he answered, “Because now there’s no chance that he will ever be brought to justice.”

“Maybe it’s karma catching up to him,” replied Maclean.

“My sister believes in that kind of stuff. Do you?” asked Verraday.

“Unfortunately, after eight years as a cop, I haven’t seen anything to convince me of its existence. I just said it because I saw that Buddha in your office. Thought maybe that’s what you believed. But I hope there is such a thing. Because I see way too many people getting away with hurting other people. That’s the part of this job that bothers me the most.” Maclean took another sip of her drink. Then she leaned toward Verraday and spoke softly. “Can I ask you something? About the car crash?”

“Sure,” replied Verraday. “I’m not precious about it. Been over it way too many times for that.”

“Are you one hundred percent certain that it happened the way you said it did in your police file? That Robson was at fault?”

“I’m positive,” replied Verraday. “Penny remembered it the same way as me, right up to when Robson hit us. Then she blacked out. I was in the rear seat on the passenger’s side, farthest from the point of impact, so I got the least of it. I was conscious the whole time. And I remember everything like it was this morning.”

“You remember it through personal experience. But that can be subjective, can’t it? Speaking as a psychologist, how do you know that’s what happened?”

“Science. It’s called flashbulb memory. And it has been tested and proven. It’s a moment in time that’s so vivid, so emotionally arousing that the episode part of your memory takes a snapshot of it, and you remember key details vividly and forever. The cops that interviewed me afterward tried to get me to change my story to say my mother ran the red light. That’s how false memory syndrome happens. But not in my case. I knew she hadn’t. And I still know that. Because I can still picture the green traffic light in front of our car in the intersection. ‘Deck the Halls’ was playing on the radio. I remember the peppermint smell of the candy cane that my sister Penny had in her mouth. I might have only been eight, but unlike Robson, I wasn’t drunk. I remember him coming to the window and shining a flashlight in on us. I could smell the booze on his breath. Whiskey. I knew what it was because I used to smell the same thing on my old man’s breath once in a while, like at New Year’s and Christmas Eve, when he was giving me a goodnight kiss and tucking me into bed. My dad wasn’t much of a drinker though. At least not before the accident.”

“You really remember all that?”

“Let me ask you something. What were you doing when you first found out about the 9/11 attacks?”

Maclean gazed off into the middle distance, then turned back to Verraday.