interest: Several days after the murder, a cab driver came forward, reported seeing a runner in the park in the early morning, just a short time before Lorraine Winters' body was discovered. Just a guy in a hooded jacket. Average height, weight. Hadn't thought anything of it at the time.
The department put out a call for the man to come forward on the off chance that he saw something while on his run. Something he might have considered insignificant at the time, or that hadn't even registered with him.
But no one answered the call. True, he might just have been an ordinary jogger the cabby drove past that morning, who simply chose not to get involved. But Tom O'Neal had a feeling it just might have been her killer.
As he drove, he went back to thinking about his old life while his furry passenger enjoyed the sights they passed on the way to Brian Redding's place.
He was still thinking about his kids, and how he missed them. Oh, they talked on the phone from time to time, but they were usually on their way to somewhere, and when they weren't, it wasn't the same.
Not that he blamed his ex. It wasn't Mary's fault. She'd always complained he was married to the job, and she had a point. He knew she was unhappy but he kept promising himself, and her, that it was just a few years till he retired, and he'd have more time for vacations and so on after that. But she couldn't wait. Or didn't believe me, and maybe she was right not to.
The divorce papers shouldn't have come as a shock to him, yet they did. Like a fist to the gut. He held out hope for a long time that they'd get back together, until one night he showed up on the doorstep and she told him she was seeing someone else, and he'd seen sorrow on her lovely face. Maybe even pity. She had loved him once. He would always love her. If not quite in the same way. At any rate, she married the guy. A dentist. Someone who could give her the nice normal life Tom hadn't been able to.
The radio sputtered and crackled and Detective Glen Aiken's voice was loud and clear into the confines of the cruiser, ending his pity party.
"Got another one, Tom," his partner said. "Body found by a hiker at the edge of the woods, out near Crater Lake."
The road was clear both ways, and Tom made a squealing U-turn. Redding would have to wait.
Nineteen
All their worldly goods are in this trunk, Caroline thought. The total accumulation of two lives lived. All of it, plus two thousand dollars, had come to her, their child. Compensation. She had hated them both.
Why don't you just close the lid? Everything in here will only be painful reminders of what happened. But Doctor Rosen said she had to find a way to forgive them if she ever hoped to be truly free. "Even though there may not be bars on the windows where you're going, Caroline, they'll still be across your heart." She knew he was right, but she didn't know if she could forgive them.
They had tried to reach out to her on those Sundays that they came to visit, but she had withdrawn herself from them, gone far away in her mind. They were strangers to her.
Though not entirely, she thought with a twinge of guilt. She could recall the woman sitting in hard-backed chair wearing her little black hat, weeping behind the veil, wiping tears away. They had meant nothing to her. Once, she had lashed out at her mother, telling her she was sick of her tears, and could still see the shock on her face, as if she had struck her. She'd taken a perverse pleasure in that. Felt good about it.
As for her father, he might have been any man who'd walked in off the street, she was so remote from him. Apparently, then, she had had her revenge even if her actions had not been deliberate, and she wasn't sure that at some level, they hadn't been. Had she meant to be so cruel? As they had been to her?
But that was the thing, wasn't it? They hadn't thought of it as cruelty; it was all for her
The department put out a call for the man to come forward on the off chance that he saw something while on his run. Something he might have considered insignificant at the time, or that hadn't even registered with him.
But no one answered the call. True, he might just have been an ordinary jogger the cabby drove past that morning, who simply chose not to get involved. But Tom O'Neal had a feeling it just might have been her killer.
As he drove, he went back to thinking about his old life while his furry passenger enjoyed the sights they passed on the way to Brian Redding's place.
He was still thinking about his kids, and how he missed them. Oh, they talked on the phone from time to time, but they were usually on their way to somewhere, and when they weren't, it wasn't the same.
Not that he blamed his ex. It wasn't Mary's fault. She'd always complained he was married to the job, and she had a point. He knew she was unhappy but he kept promising himself, and her, that it was just a few years till he retired, and he'd have more time for vacations and so on after that. But she couldn't wait. Or didn't believe me, and maybe she was right not to.
The divorce papers shouldn't have come as a shock to him, yet they did. Like a fist to the gut. He held out hope for a long time that they'd get back together, until one night he showed up on the doorstep and she told him she was seeing someone else, and he'd seen sorrow on her lovely face. Maybe even pity. She had loved him once. He would always love her. If not quite in the same way. At any rate, she married the guy. A dentist. Someone who could give her the nice normal life Tom hadn't been able to.
The radio sputtered and crackled and Detective Glen Aiken's voice was loud and clear into the confines of the cruiser, ending his pity party.
"Got another one, Tom," his partner said. "Body found by a hiker at the edge of the woods, out near Crater Lake."
The road was clear both ways, and Tom made a squealing U-turn. Redding would have to wait.
Nineteen
All their worldly goods are in this trunk, Caroline thought. The total accumulation of two lives lived. All of it, plus two thousand dollars, had come to her, their child. Compensation. She had hated them both.
Why don't you just close the lid? Everything in here will only be painful reminders of what happened. But Doctor Rosen said she had to find a way to forgive them if she ever hoped to be truly free. "Even though there may not be bars on the windows where you're going, Caroline, they'll still be across your heart." She knew he was right, but she didn't know if she could forgive them.
They had tried to reach out to her on those Sundays that they came to visit, but she had withdrawn herself from them, gone far away in her mind. They were strangers to her.
Though not entirely, she thought with a twinge of guilt. She could recall the woman sitting in hard-backed chair wearing her little black hat, weeping behind the veil, wiping tears away. They had meant nothing to her. Once, she had lashed out at her mother, telling her she was sick of her tears, and could still see the shock on her face, as if she had struck her. She'd taken a perverse pleasure in that. Felt good about it.
As for her father, he might have been any man who'd walked in off the street, she was so remote from him. Apparently, then, she had had her revenge even if her actions had not been deliberate, and she wasn't sure that at some level, they hadn't been. Had she meant to be so cruel? As they had been to her?
But that was the thing, wasn't it? They hadn't thought of it as cruelty; it was all for her
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