The Third Victim (26 page)

Remembering his nausea and his violently shaking knees during the endless moment that he tried to summon the courage to leave the darkness of the kitchen and step into the half-lit hallway, Kevin nodded. “I believe it.”

In silence, the two men watched Josh return to the waiting room, passing them with reproachful eyes as he went to the room’s far corner. The boy’s mouth was chocolate-smeared. Kevin futilely searched his pockets for a handkerchief. Before they saw Joanna, he must find the men’s room and get—

“There’s one thing,” Connoly said, “that I think you should keep in mind.”

“What’s that?” As he asked the question, he was aware of a sudden backwash of weariness. He’d hardly slept last night. Even with a pill, he’d hardly slept. Now his body ached. And, still, the memory of the ball bat crashing into the blood-smeared head wouldn’t leave him.

“Well, the D.A.’s going to want to question you, probably today. And when he does—” Again Connoly judiciously cleared his throat. “When he does, there’s one thing you want to think about.”

Turning to look squarely at the detective, alerted by the warning note in the other’s tone, he waited.

“What you want to keep in mind,” Connoly continued tonelessly, “is that Tarot was coming after you. Not your wife, but you. And that’s why you hit him—and kept hitting him. You had to put him out or he would’ve killed you. And that’s what you did.”

“But I don’t see what—”

“If you get a lawyer, which isn’t a bad idea, he’ll tell you that, legally, you’re only justified in using deadly force in order to save yourself from a
more
deadly force. Understand?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The detective’s hands jerked impatiently. “This guy could die, Mr. Rossiter. Now, it doesn’t matter that he’s already killed at least two women. Which, incidentally, we might have trouble proving, provided he recovers. And it doesn’t matter that he attacked his own mother yesterday, and left her for dead. What
does
matter—to you—is that you don’t want to get yourself in the position of having taken the law into your own hands. You don’t want the D.A. to get the idea that, to save your wife, you tried to kill Tarot. Because if you get yourself in that position, you’ve got problems. Believe me, you’ve got problems—Good Samaritan problems, which can be the worst kind. So what I’m telling you is that, if you tried to kill him in order to protect yourself from getting killed, then you’re in good shape. But if you killed him to protect your wife, or maybe to punish him for trying to kill your wife, then that’s something else. Legally you’re—”

“Mr. Rossiter.” It was the nurse, standing beside him.

“Yes?”

“You can see your wife now.” She was smiling at him. It was a clinical, institutional smile. She gestured down the hallway. “It’s room 307.”

“Thanks.” As he rose to his feet, Connoly rose with him. Across the room, Josh was also on his feet. With his hand raised to beckon the boy to him, Kevin hesitated. Then, turning to Connoly, he said softly, “Will you keep Josh with you for a minute, Sergeant? There’s something I’ve got to say to my wife. Alone.”

“It would be a pleasure, Mr. Rossiter.” As he said it, the detective smiled. It was a wide, warm smile that unaccountably transformed Connoly’s face, reconnecting habitual downcast wrinkles and creases into a new, upturned network of cheerful, almost grandfatherly geniality. “It would be a real pleasure. Believe it.”

“I believe it,” he answered quietly, returning the other man’s smile. As they shook hands, he was conscious of a special strength in Connoly’s grip.

You can be proud,
Connoly had said, expressing his cop’s cryptic, man-to-man tribute.

Doing it—going in—that’s something else.

It was a good, authentic-sounding line. Someday, maybe, he could use it.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1976 by Collin Wilcox

Cover design by Michel Vrana

978-1-4804-4655-7

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