Archer Mayor - The surrogate thief

Sam and Joe left the room-and the house-in total silence.

Used to weathering a lifetime of male outbursts, Sam made directly for the car, trusting time to settle Joe back down.

But he stayed standing at the bottom of the porch's broad steps for a moment, his head back, seemingly taking in the cold, overcast sky.

She hesitated by the car door, wondering whether to get in and wait, or stay where she was. When Willy acted out, it was so routine and she was so used to it, she rarely gave it a second's thought. It was one of the tricks of their unusual relationship that she had this knack, and thus the ability to keep them going as a couple.

But she was off balance here and unsure of how to behave. She finally decided to do nothing and merely stood stock-still, her hand resting on the car's fender.

As if suddenly losing air from within, Joe dropped his head, slumped his shoulders, and let out a long sigh. He then walked over to the car and brought his fist down on its hood with a crash, leaving a rock-size divot. All without uttering a word.

Sam glanced at the dent along with him for a slow count of five.

"Feel better?" she risked asking.

Almost reluctantly, he brought his eyes up to meet hers. "My hand hurts."

"Bad?"

He flexed his fingers. "No."

She tilted her head inquiringly to one side. "You want to get out of here before they hassle us for trespassing?"

He looked at the huge building with a contemptuous frown. "Right."

She waited until they'd regained the Upper Dummerston Road, off Hillwinds, before commenting, "This case must be taking its toll."

He laughed, to her relief, and admitted, "You noticed that, huh? Good investigator."

"You pick up on the little things," she said. "It's like an art."

He didn't answer for quite a while, his eyes on the road ahead, before adding, "Or a migraine."

"You're not happy about nailing this guy?" she asked.

He mulled that over. "Not really. I mean, I recognize the value of it, but it's too late. It won't repair the damage."

He glanced at her, allowing her a glimpse of unmitigated sadness and loss.

"It's been too long," he added. "And it's cut too deep."

I finally met Tom Bander," Joe told Gail.

They were sitting opposite each other at the tiny counter that separated Joe's kitchen from the living room, the remains of a meal between them. Acquiescing to the rigors of the campaign and her own lack of time, Gail had let Joe cook dinner. He'd catered to her strict vegetarian habits by making an iceberg salad and glow-in-the-dark macaroni and cheese out of a box, and, much as she hated to admit it, it had been one of the best meals she'd enjoyed in months.

"I went to his house a few days ago," Joe continued, getting up to put the water on for some coffee. "First time I'd ever set eyes on him."

Gail thought she knew what was going on, or hoped she did.

"How was he?"

"Small, quiet. Not a guy to fill a room by just entering it. Not like his lawyer. With all that power and money, the ability to order people killed, he was a nobody."

"Why were you there?"

"To get a DNA sample," he said lightly, lining up the mugs and rooting through the fridge for milk.

She turned that over in her mind, trying to imagine the scene. "Must've been tough, finally meeting him after all this time."

Joe returned to his seat and took her hand in his. "I lost it. I pushed him into a chair, yelled at the lawyer, dented the hood of my car afterward with my fist. I may have put Sammie into therapy."

Gail rubbed his knuckles with her fingertips, in fact happy to hear he'd blown up. "She sleeps with Willy, for God's sake. She's got the hide of a rhino."

He smiled weakly. "Still, I remember seeing my father explode like that when his tractor broke down once, when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to talk to him for weeks afterward."

Gail raised her eyebrows. "And Sam's been running away every time she sees you?"

He granted her point. "No. I think I knew at the time it wasn't the tractor he was mad at-maybe that's what scared me. I didn't know what the real reasons were. I just suspected they were there."

"You ever find out?"

"Good Lord, no. My old man was like a sealed chest on those kinds of things. You didn't share your feelings with your kids-or anyone else, for that matter. Jesus, that would've really put me into shock."

"But you know what set you off at Bander's," she suggested.

He took his hand back and propped his chin up with it. "Maybe. I'm not so sure. I was there getting the evidence I'm hoping will put him in jail. Should've been a time to rejoice. Instead, I just felt incredibly pissed off at everything he's caused."

Gail pushed for more. "What has he caused, exactly? You've dealt with murderers before. Some of them have put you through the wringer a lot worse than this guy, it seems."

He looked at her, surprise on his face. "Partly, I think that's what got to me-no bluster, no acting out, no nothing. But now I think the bigger part was remembering Katie Clark, sitting in her chair, about as alone and defenseless as you can get. Why kill her? Or Shea or Hannah Shriver, for that matter. It was all so gratuitous. So totally self-serving."

"But not unique," she pushed.

To his credit, he didn't reject this outright. He took it in, turned it around, and finally said, "Maybe, for me, this once it was."

"Because of how it started?"

He nodded. "Maria Oberfeldt. We got to calling her the bat from hell, the way she went after us, day after day, week after week. At first it was a pain-we were doing what we could. We didn't have the resources to do much beyond catch people who were still standing over their victims. When we got the evidence implicating Pete Shea, I thought we'd gotten lucky. But then we never found him. As time went on, I kept dreaming about how I'd be able to put her mind at ease someday, so that she could just sit by her husband's side and pay attention to his dying."

"Like you were doing with Ellen?" Gail asked.

He stopped halfway to the stove, where the kettle was beginning to whistle. His face averted, he ran his hand through his hair before turning off the flame. He stood, staring at the steam pumping out of the spout like a miniature chimney fire. A man lost in a dream.

In the silence, Gail heard a truck rumble by the front of the house.

Finally, he picked up the kettle and poured hot water into both mugs. Instant coffee, naturally.

"I didn't do much for Ellen," he said at last, addressing the mugs. "I wasn't able to do much for anyone, as it turned out."

He spooned in the coffee, added milk and sugar to his, and brought them over to the counter.

"Did I ever tell you what happened to Maria Oberfeldt?" he asked.

"You've never told me much about any of this."

"She left town right after her husband died, which he did when she was at the police station, bugging us yet again. She returned to the hospital, was told that he'd passed, and she left, almost the next day."

He sat down and cradled the mug between his hands. "Two weeks later, she committed suicide. Seventy-four. They'd been married fifty-five years."

He let out a sigh, and she noticed that his eyes were glistening. "We'd both been widowed, almost on the same day. When I heard she'd died so soon after, it felt like being hit all over again."

He paused and took a deep breath. "That day, I told myself I'd never get that close to anyone ever again."

"You're talking about Ellen."

"Yeah."

He pressed his fingertips against his eyes. "The T. J. Ralphers of the world-or whatever they're called-have no clue how far out the ripples go. Maybe it was his total lack of character that made me blow up. Damned if I know."