Authors: Joe R. Lansdale
Act of Love (18 page)
EPILOGUE
Jack the Ripper's dead.
And lying on his bed.
He cut his throat
With sunlight soap.
Jack the Ripper's dead.
—Children's chant from the East End of London
THREE DAYS LATER
Joe Clark's funeral put the period on Hanson's cop career.
When the last sod was thrown, Hanson, his arm around Rachel, JoAnna walking solemnly by his side, started for the cemetery gate. Rachel's right hand was in a partial cast— several small bones in her hand, broken by the hammer. They were almost to the gate when a small, white-haired man walked up to meet them, Doc Warren.
"I'm afraid I missed the funeral," Doc Warren said.
"It was very nice," Rachel said and began to cry.
"Take your mother down to the car," Hanson said to JoAnna.
JoAnna took Rachel by the arm and led her out of the gate and to the car.
"Something I said?" Doc Warren asked.
Hanson smiled. "No. Just been through a lot."
Doc Warren nodded. "How's your shoulder?"
Hanson looked down at the sling that held his left arm. "All right, as long as I don't move it much."
"You're leaving, aren't you?" Doc Warren said.
1 am.
"We'll be losing a good cop."
"No, you won't. I've been very stupid and very incompetent. Joe Clark was a far better cop than I ever was. I'm something else inside, not a cop."
"Anybody can suffer emotional strain."
Hanson touched Doc Warren on the shoulder. "Thanks. But I don't want to chance it again. Stupidity almost cost me .my family."
"Not stupidity."
"Whatever. I did learn one thing, Doc. You were right. The killer is in all of us, each and every one of us."
"How do you feel . . . about Barlowe?"
"Glad that I could protect my family, but sad. Not satisfied like I thought I'd be. Something's missing in me."
Warren nodded. "I was in the war. I still think about it."
"You killed?"
Warren nodded.
"Did you feel hollow inside?"
"I did, and it doesn't go away. I wish I could tell you it does, but it doesn't . . . But in time you do learn to cope with it."
"I hope so . . . I've got to go now."
"Don't make yourself a stranger, hear?"
“I hear,” Hanson said, and he held out his hand.
The shook and Hanson walked down to the car.