The Kind Worth Saving (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #2)(46)

Sometime after twelve he heard the distant sound of a car on a gravel driveway, followed by the sound of the front door opening, then muffled voices. He stood rigid against the wall, listening intently.

It was the woman’s voice that he first heard clearly, her saying, “No, no. Let’s sit for a moment. I want to have a talk with you.”

Then Joan’s husband’s voice: “We can talk in the bedroom, as well, you know?” And even through the walls Richard could tell he’d said it with a smirk on his face, like he’d just uttered the world’s most original joke.

“I’m serious,” said the woman.

“Okay. Hearing you loud and clear.” And then there was a brief pause and Richard thought that they’d probably sat down on one, or both, of the sofas. He took a deep breath, relaxed his grip on the gun, and emerged from the spare room, crossing the short hall into the main living area. They were on opposite sofas, the woman sitting facing him, and the man facing toward her, so that Richard could just see the back of his head. The woman looked up, her face instantly draining of color, her mouth opening and closing without making a sound.

Richard aimed at the very middle of her and pulled the trigger, hitting her somewhere between her chest and her stomach. Then he inched the barrel of the gun up just a little, aimed, and shot her in the forehead, her head whipping backward, a spray of blood hitting the picture window behind her.

Moving quickly, Richard took two steps forward and pressed the gun against the side of Richie Whalen’s head. He was just about to pull the trigger, but Richie was speaking in an almost inaudible voice, saying the word please over and over. Richard leaned over him and the man had his eyes squeezed shut, like a child thinking he’d be invisible.

Richard, who’d already imagined this possible scenario, said, “Richie, I’ll let you live, but I need you to do something for me, okay?”

“Yes, anything.”

“I just need your prints on this gun, okay, so hold out your hand and I’m going to put the gun in it, okay?”

Richie held out a shaking hand and muttered something that sounded like a yes to Richard.

“No sudden movements, okay, Richie, or else I kill you. I’m just going to get your prints here on the handle . . . that’s good, and on the trigger. You’re doing great.”

Later, Richard went over in his mind how easy it had been to simply lift Richie’s hand with the gun in it and press it to his head and pull the trigger, his finger over Richie’s. The man had not fought back, maybe simply hoping that the bad moment would just go away, maybe simply hoping that if he did what he was told he’d be allowed to live.

As Richie lay dead on the couch, the gun in his hand, Richard moved fast, backtracking out of the house, then through the woods to his car. Driving home a light rain began to fall, peppering the car. Richard flipped through radio stations, and landed on “Beautiful Day” by U2, a song that until this moment had never meant anything to him. A song that assholes sang when their team won a championship. It was still playing when he pulled into the driveway of his house, and he sat there, listening, even mouthing along with the words.





Chapter 20





Kimball


I told Lily, in what felt like extraneous detail, the entire story of the shooting in my classroom. I told her how I’d frozen up while it had unfolded, paralyzed with fear, and how I’d never really forgiven myself for that.

“You could have made it worse,” Lily said. “If you’d tried to wrestle the gun away he might have shot everyone in that classroom.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s a possibility.”

“Or you’d have been shot, yourself.”

“A much greater possibility.”

“I know you’ve probably thought a lot about this, but ultimately there’s no way of knowing what would have happened if you rushed him. Could have made it better, could have made it worse. I’m just telling you things you already know, right?”

“Yes, I have gone over this a few times in my head over the years.” I smiled.

“I’m sure you have. I’m sorry. It sounds scary,” Lily said, leaning back farther into her sofa. A nearby lamp allowed me to see only half of her face.

“It’s not really the choices I made that I’ve kept going over for years,” I said. “It was the fact that I froze. At the time, even if I thought the right thing to do was to charge James Pursall there was no way I could have done it. I couldn’t have done anything, really.”

“So you became a cop,” Lily said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. I couldn’t go back into the classroom. And I couldn’t make a living writing poetry. Plus, I hated therapy.”

“And you had a secret fantasy that if you were able to save someone when you were a police officer then that would even the score.”

“Probably,” I said. “I’m not sure I ever put it that way exactly in my own mind, but, yeah.”

“And then I came along and ruined being a police detective for you.”

“We don’t need to talk about that tonight,” I said. “It’s late.”

“It is late,” she said.

“Before we go to sleep, tell me what you think about my story, about Joan Grieve.”