Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

“What do you weigh, about ninety-five pounds?” Griffin asked conversationally.

“Son of a bitch! Miserable shit-eating pig-”

“I got a good hundred and ten pounds on you,” Griffin continued. “That means I can pretty much hold you like this all day. So if you want to get down anytime soon, maybe you should take a deep breath. Cool the language. We're just here to talk.”

Tawnya whacked his arm again. Then she lashed out with her leg. When he still didn't flinch, she finally eased her struggling, though her dark eyes remained locked on Fitz, who was now huddled against the house with his hand cupped protectively around his cheek. Mrs. Como stood behind the closed door, watching it all with an impassive face.

“Ready to play nice?” Griffin asked when a full minute elapsed without Tawnya trying to kill anyone.

She nodded grudgingly.

He released his hold.

She bolted for Fitz, who managed to grab one of her attacking arms this time, twist it behind her back and slap on a pair of handcuffs.

“That's it!” Fitz exclaimed, breathing heavily. “You're in bracelets until I leave. Just be happy that I don't charge you with assaulting a police officer.”

“It's not a crime to kill a swine,” Tawnya spat at him.

“Jesus, girl, the father of your child just died. Haven't you had enough violence for one day?”

The bruising words did the trick. Tawnya's shoulders sagged. Her chin came down. For just one moment, it looked to Griffin like Eddie's little spitfire was going to cry. She didn't, though. She pulled it together, then nodded at Mrs. Como, who finally opened the door.

Inside, the house was pretty much as Griffin had expected. Cramped kitchen with a ripped-up vinyl floor and stacked-up flats of baby food. A living room with threadbare gold carpet and a sagging brown sofa. The most expensive item in the room was easily the powder-blue playpen, positioned in front of the window. Tawnya headed for it immediately, then turned and glared at Fitz when she realized she couldn't pick up her son. She rattled the handcuffs.

“Hey, next time think before you scratch,” Fitz called back from the kitchen.

Griffin, who had a soft spot for babies-he really loved their smell-crossed over to inspect the playpen himself. Tawnya's son-and Eddie's too, he presumed-was sleeping soundly on his stomach, his diapered butt stuck up in the air as little bubbles blew contentedly out of his mouth.

“Name?” he asked Tawnya.

“Eddie, Jr.,” she said grudgingly.

“How old?”

“Nine months.”

“He's a cutie. Sergeant Griffin, by the way. State police.” Griffin flashed a smile.

“Have you arrested those bitches for killing my Eddie?”

Griffin took bitches to mean Meg Pesaturo, Carol Rosen and Jillian Hayes. “No.”

“Then fuck you.” Tawnya turned and stormed down the hall. So much for playing good cop. Griffin returned to the kitchen, where Mrs. Como was banging around pans, probably to have something to do. Now sitting at the worn kitchen table and obviously not sure how to proceed, Fitz was chewing on his lower lip.

“Hey, state boy.” Tawnya again, yelling from the other end of the house. “Come here. There's something I want to show you.”

“Watch the nails,” Fitz muttered. “And the teeth.”

Griffin walked warily down the narrow hallway. But it seemed that Tawnya no longer had death and destruction on her mind. Instead, she was gesturing awkwardly with her cuffed hands at a brown-and-gold photo album sticking out from a sagging bookshelf.

“Get that. There's something I want you to see.”

Griffin inspected the rickety bookshelf. Seeing no sign of booby traps, he gingerly removed the album. When Tawnya still didn't bite him, he followed her back to the kitchen, where she informed him where to place the album, how to open the album and what photos to look at. Griffin was beginning to wonder if Eddie hadn't gone to prison in order to escape.

“Look!” Tawnya told him when he'd finally turned to the desired page. “See that. That's Eddie and me. Look at that face. That the face of a rapist?”

“They don't come with stamps on their forehead,” Griffin said mildly, though he got her point. Eddie was a good-looking guy. Small, but trim, neatly dressed in tan khakis and a dark-blue shirt. Clean-cut features, tidy black hair. If you passed him on the street, you wouldn't think twice.

“Now look at me,” Tawnya ordered, jerking her chin toward the photo, where she posed in a skimpy black dress, draped luxuriously over Eddie's arm. “I'm hot. Plain and simple. Been beating away the boys since I was twelve. And I know how to make my man happy. A guy has a girl like me, you can be sure he comes home for his meals.”

“How much cooking were you doing six months pregnant?” Fitz spoke up.

Tawnya shot him a look of pure venom. “I made Eddie happy. I made Eddie fucking delirious.” She glanced at the stove. “No offense, Mrs. C.”

Mrs. Como didn't say anything. Her expression had scarcely changed the entire time they'd been here. No grief, no rage, no denial, no fear. Now she stirred something in a giant metal pot. It smelled to Griffin like bleach. Then he got it. She was preparing to wash diapers by boiling them on the stove. He looked around the kitchen, the cramped quarters filled with baby food, baby clothes, baby toys. And he got the rest of it. For Mrs. Como, Eddie had already been gone for nearly a year. Now her life was about her grandson.

Two Como males gone, one left to go. Did she wonder about that late at night? Did she cry when no one was looking? Or was it simply a fact of life for a woman like her, in a place like this? Seemed like too much of Griffin 's job was spent dealing with these kinds of scenes. He felt suddenly, unexpectedly, sad, and that bothered him even more. You needed walls for this kind of business. You needed to compartmentalize if you were going to be a cop and maintain your peace of mind.

He should go for a run soon. Find a punching bag. Beat at the heavy leather until all the tension was drained from him and he had no emotions left. Then he could pretend that sad old ladies didn't twist his conscience and that two years later he didn't desperately miss his wife.

“You were with Eddie the nights the women were attacked?” Griffin asked Tawnya.

“Yeah. I was. Not that Detective Dickwad believed me.” She gave Fitz another dark look. Fitz smiled sweetly. “We had an apartment then,” Tawnya went on. “A decent place, over in Warwick. Eddie, he made good money with the Blood Center. That's not easy, you know. He had to get special training, take some courses. Eddie was smart. He had plans. And he really liked what he did. Helping people and all that. We were doing all right.”

“No one saw you two together those nights.”

“ Mierde! You sound just like him.” Chin angled toward Fitz. “Come on, Eddie had a tough job. He was on his feet six, eight hours a shift. He got home, he was tired. He wanted to relax. You know what Eddie liked to do best? He liked to stretch out on the sofa, watch a rented movie and place his hand on my belly so he could feel his baby kick. Yeah, that's your College Hill Rapist. Hanging out with his pregnant girlfriend and telling stories to his baby. And now… now. Ah, fuck you all.”

Tawnya turned away. In front of the stove, Mrs. Como picked up a pile of cloth diapers and threw them into the pot. Round and round she went with a big metal spoon. The kitchen filled with the smell of bleach and baby powder and urine.

“You know he called the women,” Griffin said quietly.

Tawnya whirled back around. “Of course he called them! They fucking ruined his life. Railroaded the police into his arrest. Worked the public into a frenzy talking on the news about this horrible, horrible rapist, gonna kill your daughter next. You know we got death threats, thanks to those women? Even Mrs. C. here, and what'd she do? One day, some guy called a radio station saying that if there was any justice in this world, Eddie, Jr.'s, little penis would fall off before he could turn into his father. Jesus Christ! Someone should lock that man up, threatening a baby like that. I couldn't bring Eddie, Jr., to the courthouse 'cause I was too afraid of what people might do. What the fuck is up with that?”