Gail Bowen - The Last Good Day

“He was in terrible shape. He felt he was responsible for the death of his child and now he was going to bring shame to the firm. It was just before the Remembrance Day holiday, so I went to Clare and begged her to take the weekend to think about her decision. I said she could use our place out here. I was certain if she just had a chance to consider, she’d realize that there had been enough grief.”

Lily’s eyes were beseeching. She was desperate to make me understand the forces that had driven her to kill Clare Mackey.

“Clare wouldn’t listen to you,” I said.

“No. When I came to pick her up on that Sunday night, she hadn’t changed her mind.” Lily laughed softly. “Did you know she couldn’t drive? Three university degrees and Clare Mackey couldn’t drive a car. If she had a driver’s licence she’d be alive today.” Lily shook her head. “But there’s no going back, is there?”

“How did it happen?” I said.

“I choked her to death with my bare hands,” Lily said. “We were standing on that spot where the gazebo is now, looking out at the lake. She just wouldn’t listen. No matter what I said, it was the same old tune – she had to get the poison of what Chris had done out of her life. No thought at all about how it would affect the rest of us. I was so angry. When it was over, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. Then, of course, I had to take care of the… aftermath… myself.”

“Did you have to take care of Chris, too?”

Lily’s smile was faint. “No. Chris took care of Chris. After he talked to you the night of the fireworks, he came to me. He said he was going to ‘atone.’ He’d already made some phone calls and he’d gotten up his nerve to call Clare.”

“He believed the story about the ‘dream job’?”

“No, he believed Falconer Shreve was paying Clare to stay away and stay silent. But all of a sudden he had to cleanse his conscience. He was as stubborn as Clare was. He was prepared to go to the ends of the earth to find her and ask her forgiveness, regardless of the consequences for the firm. So I told him what I’d done. I told him that I’d killed Clare to protect Falconer Shreve. I told him that all that time he’d been talking to you in the gazebo, he’d been standing on her burial ground. I thought that might shock him into understanding that his first loyalty should be to us, to the Winners’ Circle. But he said he had to go to the police.” Lily’s grey eyes met mine. “Do you know what he told me? He said he couldn’t live with the knowledge of what I’d done. So I said, ‘You don’t have to live with it.’ All I meant was that I was the one who had to live with what I’d done, but he heard it differently. He gave me a hug and said, ‘Point taken.’ The next thing I knew he’d driven his car into the lake.”

“The ultimate act of loyalty,” I said.

“Yes,” Lily said. “At the critical moment, Chris knew exactly what to do. Maybe that’s something members of the Winners’ Circle are born with, like their sense that they’re entitled to the best.” Her face crumpled. “I never quite managed to convince myself of that one.”

I remembered Chris telling Taylor that nothing lasts forever. He’d been wrong. Childhood lasts forever.

When I saw Alex’s Audi drive up, I felt a wash of relief. It was over. As Alex approached Lily, his voice was gentle and reassuring. “Time to go home, Lily,” he said.

In an instant, the pain and confusion were wiped from her face. “You always find me.”

“Yes,” he said. “I always do.”

She shivered. “I’m cold.”

He put his arm around her shoulders. “Better?” he asked.

Silent, she nodded and drew closer to him. The moment triggered the memory of a night of changeable weather when a wind had come up, and Alex had put his arm around me. Something inside me broke.

For the first time Alex looked at me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

My jaw was so sore I could barely speak. “Just remembering,” I said.

Two words, but they were enough. “That night on the Albert Street bridge,” he said. “The beginning of the end.” I turned away because I couldn’t bear to look at his eyes. “It was probably for the best,” he said. “It would never have worked for us, Jo.”

I waited till they’d driven off before I went to my car. When I called Zack on my cell, I was prepared to leave a message, but he answered.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hey, this is a nice surprise,” he said.

“I’m afraid it’s not,” I said. “Lily’s been arrested for Clare Mackey’s murder.”

“Oh Jesus,” he said. “What happened?”

“Zack, I’ve hurt my jaw. It’s hard for me to talk. But Lily will need a lawyer.”

“What about you?”

“No lawyer, just an ice pack,” I said.

“I’m calling a doctor,” Zack said.

“Don’t. Just make sure someone’s with Lily.”

“Was Gracie there when Lily was arrested?”

“No,” I said. “Rose took the kids over to Standing Buffalo for the day.”

“Thank God for that,” Zack said. “Hang on, Ms. Kilbourn. I’m on my way.”

When I got back to the cottage, I changed into dry clothes, lit a fire, and made myself a hot drink. Then I went over and picked up Louis L’Amour’s Buckskin Run. The book jacket told me there were over 110 million copies of his books in print around the world, and assured me I would be spellbound. I wasn’t, but it wasn’t Louis L’Amour’s fault.

Rod Morgan and Jed Blue had just agreed to be partners because they were cut from the same leather, when the phone rang. It was Zack.

“Something’s screwy, Joanne. I’m at police headquarters. They don’t know anything about an arrest – especially not one involving Alex Kequahtooway. He’s been suspended from the force.”

“But Lily confessed to everything. They left together. I assumed…”

Zack sighed. “Never assume. Don’t talk to anybody until I get there, okay? There are a hundred cops looking for Lily and the inspector, and they’re sending someone to Lawyers’ Bay to talk to you. I’ll be there as soon as I get some ice for your jaw.”

“If you brought some single-malt Scotch to go with that ice, I wouldn’t take it amiss,” I said.

I hung up the phone furious at Alex for deceiving me once again, and at myself for being stupid enough to believe that he had suddenly remembered the oath he’d taken when he’d graduated from the police college. He and Lily were clearly on the run. Like everything else, that decision made no sense. Alex knew me well enough to know I would follow up on what happened after Lily was taken to the police station. And he knew that the moment the police realized he and Lily had fled, they would deploy every available officer to track them down. There was no way they could escape. Then, like Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales fell from my eyes, and I knew.

It was a short drive to the church at Lebret. Not more than fifteen minutes, and for the first time that day, the skies had cleared. The silver Audi was parked behind the church, facing the Stations of the Cross on the hill that Lily’s mother had climbed every day during the last year of her life. My legs were weak as I picked my way through the puddles towards Alex’s car. Bathed in the watery sunlight, the vehicle already seemed unearthly.

I think I had realized all along that I would be too late. If I hadn’t known the truth, I would have mistaken Lily and Alex for lovers. Her head was against his chest; his arm was around her shoulders, shielding and protecting. Later, forensic testing would determine that Alex had fired both shots. There was no way out for either of them and they hadn’t wanted to take a chance that one would live without the other. But at that moment, all I could see was the blood that flowed from their wounds, mingling and mixing like tributaries of a larger river, two lives that had run their parallel courses and come together in death. At long last, Alex Kequahtooway and Lily Ryder were home.