Black Lightning by John Saul Page A

anti-capital-punishment forces gathered in front of the prison, both the courts and the governor of Connecticut had made it clear there would be no further intervention in the case.
What, then, would Richard Kraven have to gain by lying to me?
Perhaps it was simply his way of attempting to make me his last victim, by leaving me with questions in my mind, questions that remain unanswered …
    “H ow dare she write such filth?” Edna Kraven’s voice quavered with anger and the newspaper rattled in her shaking hand. Finally, she had to set it down on the kitchen table. Really, it was simply too much to be borne! Richard—her wonderful, perfect Richard—dead not even twenty-four hours, and that awful Jeffers woman was already writing about him again, repeating yet again all the terrible things she’d written for the last five years.
    It was bitterness, of course. Edna had long ago come to understand that Anne Jeffers had fallen in love with Richard, and that when Richard had spurned her, her love had turned to hatred. Why else would she have pursued Richard the way she had, making up all those terrible lies about him? For years Edna had written letter after angry letter to the editor and the publisher of the Seattle Herald , protesting that Anne Jeffers was slandering her son, but they had never even responded to her. Once, though, they’d printed one of her letters, but then they’d let Anne Jeffers write an article with the disgusting insinuation that somehow the relationship between Edna and her son might have led to the awful things she’d claimed Richard had done. When Edna read that particular article, she’d actually felt faint—the very idea of what Anne Jeffers had implied fairly set her skin to crawling. To sully the perfect love between a mother and son that way …
    Even now, just remembering that article made Edna Kraven’s blood boil, and she glared across the table at her other son, Rory.
    Rory!
    She’d named him after Rory Calhoun, who had been one of her favorite movie stars. So handsome, so strong.
    And so different from her own Rory.
    Her Rory had taken after his father, that shiftless no-good with his beady eyes and that weak chin, who had walked out on her right after Rory had been born, leaving her with no one to care for her except Richard. And Richard had cared for her, too. He’d helped her with the baby, and done all the housework, and still managed to have time to get perfect grades in school.
    A genius, that’s what Richard had been.
    But Rory …
    Her lips tightened with annoyance as she watched him eat the cereal— her cereal, to which he’d simply helped himself—just as if nothing had happened, just as if his brother hadn’t been murdered yesterday. Yes, murdered, she repeated to herself. That’s what they did to Richard, no matter what they called it in the newspapers or in those terrible Star Chamber affairs they’d claimed were legal hearings. They’d lynched Richard, and deep in her heart of hearts Edna Kraven had a terrible feeling that Rory—his own brother —didn’t care.
    Why else would he have brought the paper with that disgusting article into the house this morning? “Well?” she demanded, her lips pursing, her eyes glittering with fury.
    Rory Kraven looked up from the sports pages he’d been perusing as he ate his cereal. Goddamn bitch was gonna start carping at him yet again. Nothing ever satisfied the bitch. Even after thirty goddamn years, nothing he ever did pleased her. Yesterday afternoon and last night had been the worst. He’d arranged to take the day off work to be with her, certain she would want his support when the time finally came for Richard to die, but by the time he’d gone to sleep on the Hide-A-Bed in the guest room that had once been his, he wondered why he’d come at all. All day long he’d had to listen to his mother rant on about Richard—how smart he was, how perfect he was, what a good son he’d always been. Rory had listened