Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

Yellow lined paper that had been folded into quarters, with a single sentence scrawled in blue ink: “Forgive me.”

Leslie read it, turned the sheet over, read her name printed there like an address on an envelope.

“That’s all?” she said, looking at both sides again. “That’s all he had to say to me?”

“We didn’t find anything else with your name on it. The second letter is addressed to Miss MacGowen. I would like her to read it over first before she passes it on to you, Mrs. Metrano. If she thinks its contents are too hurtful, we may hold off showing you until we can get in a family member or a counselor.”

Leslie gave me a glance that told me she was beginning to feel again. She was furious.

Mahakian handed me two sheets, both encased in plastic sleeves. Both were covered with close, precise printing done with a cheap, leaky ballpoint pen. I slumped back in the straight-back chair and, with Mike looking on over my shoulder, I read:

Maggie MacGowen,

I don’t have anyone else to turn to. My wife trusts you so I am asking you to please help her understand. Tell her not to hate me.

Tell her I never meant to hurt anyone. Maybe what I did was wrong, but I was only trying to do what I thought was best for us.

I confess before God that I caused the death of Randall Ramsdale. He would not help me with a loan. We had a fight about it that got out of hand. I feel he must take some of the blame for what happened to him. If he had not been so stubborn the result would have been different.

I hope that when my wife understands why I had to give our little girl to Mr. Ramsdale she will forgive me. Amy had a good life with him and we had a good life because of the financial help he gave us. I found her a good home.

After Mr. Ramsdale was dead I tried to get Amy back for my wife. I took to showing myself to Amy. I wanted her to get used to seeing me and feel comfortable when the time came. But I guess it scared her to see me because she in a way recognized me from a long time ago. Mrs. Ramsdale had her own reasons for keeping Amy and she told Amy I was trying to kidnap her and hurt her.

You will have to ask Mrs. Ramsdale what all she did, but I know she had that child scared to death of me. I believe that was why Amy ran away, because she believed I was going to hurt her. There was a private investigator came around asking questions. I thought he would help Amy understand I was her real and true father and she could come to me on her own. But it did not work out that way. When she came to me herself, she only got more scared when she recognized me as the man she thought would hurt her.

The saddest day of my life was the day I learned from Mrs. Ramsdale that Amy was dead. You have got to make my wife believe that I had no part in the killing of that little girl. Alive or dead we would still get Amy’s inheritance, so why would I harm her?

I know I did some hurtful things to you and you probably hate me for that. I do not believe I would have harmed you. I had to make you understand that I was serious, just like I had to make Mr. Ramsdale understand that I was serious and needed some assistance from him. I guess that what I want to say most is that I am sorry that all this got started. I am taking the only action I know of that will put an end to it all with some honor.

Tell my wife that I have paid my insurance premiums and she will be okay.

Sincerely,

George Metrano

I read it through a second time, vaguely disappointed. At one point in this affair, I had nearly ascribed some noble, altruistic motives to George – poor man, big family, desperate solution. The letter showed no hint of nobility. Inelegant prose, an ugly story, tawdry rationalization. Nowhere did I see the word “love.” Nowhere did I get the idea he felt truly repentant, nor had he accepted full blame for anything he had done. The only remorse I saw was that nothing had worked out the way he wanted it to. Like a Vegas craps shoot.

The man had been dead less than two hours. He had addressed his last formal thoughts to me. I should have felt something more – at the very least some sense of tragedy. But I did not. To be sure, I was aggrieved for his wife, who sat next to me, waiting her turn to see the letter. In a way, I guess that what I felt most was relief.

For years, George had dumped one heavy burden after another on Leslie. Among other things, he had stolen her peace of mind – no small crime. In the end, even in writing, he hadn’t had the guts to confess his transgressions directly to her. He had been as amoral as a newborn child. And in his way, nearly as dependent. I didn’t know yet whether Leslie had figured out that she was going to be a whole lot better off without old George, but I did my part – I passed her the letter.

Mahakian started to reach out for the pages before Leslie took them, but he pulled his hand back. Along with Mike and me and the two men in suits, he watched Leslie read.

Tears ran down her face, and her jaw was set in angry knots. Good grief therapy, that letter, I thought. When she was finished, she pushed her chair back and slowly rose to her feet.

Leslie addressed Mahakian. “When a man dies in prison, how is he buried?”

“Well.” Mahakian looked around for support. “The body is usually turned over to the family.”

“Yes. But if he has no family to claim it, what happens?”

“I’m not real sure. Now and then cadavers are turned over to medical schools. Most of the time the county buries them in potter’s field in a sort of mass grave with other indigents. Why? Your husband said there was insurance money.”

“My husband?” Leslie handed Mahakian the letter, holding him in an eerily level gaze. “The man who wrote this shit is a complete stranger to me.”

With back straight and head held high, she strode from the room.

“Should I go after her?” Mahakian asked, befuddled.

“Definitely,” Mike said. “She’s bombed on dope. I don’t think she should drive herself.”

Mahakian passed his files to one of the suits and dashed out. He was a nice man. Good-looking, about Leslie’s age. A long heart-to-heart with him could be good grief therapy for her of another sort. I wondered whether he was married.

Leslie had said she couldn’t feel anything because of the sedative. Her reactions were flat. I planned to call her when the sedative had had time to wear off, to hear what she really thought. I knew it would be a big-time flame-out.

We stepped into the hall just as the elevator doors closed behind Leslie and Mahakian.

Mike said to me, “Quite a letter.”

“Quite,” I said. “George wasn’t about to take the fall alone, was he? Not even posthumously. I feel so awful for Leslie.”

“She’ll be okay.” Mike pushed the elevator call button.

“Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” I was saying as the doors slid open for us.

“What is?”

“George and Randy. To be sure, a deadlier combination than Tweedledee and Tweedledum, but as alike in their way.”

“You mean stubborn?” Mike pushed the lobby button and we started down. “Isn’t that what George kept saying about Randy, that he was stubborn?”

“I mean that if either of them wanted something, he thought any means to attain it was legit, even baby-selling and murder. What a couple of puds. My God, Attila the Hun had a finer moral code than those two.”

“Well sure, but old Attila was a big old bleeding-heart liberal leftist.”

I laughed. “What makes you think so?”

“He had to be as far left as you can go,” Mike said, leading me out through the deserted lobby. “Have you ever heard anyone described as being to the left of Attila? Never. It’s always ‘He’s further to the right than Attila the Hun.’ Therefore, if everyone is to his right…”