Black Lightning

CHAPTER 46

Edna Kraven let the telephone ring twenty times before she hung up. When he was in one of his moods, Rory sometimes wouldn’t answer until he realized she simply wasn’t going to give up. But this was the fifth time she’d called him, and she was starting to worry. After all, he had said he was sick when she’d talked to him earlier, and although he hadn’t sounded that bad (and had always been the kind of boy who malingered — not like Richard at all!) she supposed it was just possible he’d taken a turn for the worse.

Either that or he really wasn’t at home, in which case he’d have to answer not only to the nice people at Boeing’s who were decent enough to give him steady work, but to her as well. If she trekked all the way up to Capitol Hill only to find that he was out gallivanting somewhere, she would have a lot to say to him. Still, she had always been a good mother, Edna Kraven told herself, no matter what people might have said behind her back, so what choice did she really have? Rory wasn’t much, but he was all she had left.

She left her house at one o’clock, climbed off the bus in front of Group Health at a little after two, and trudged the block to Rory’s apartment building, her annoyance with her younger son growing with every step she took. Why couldn’t he have been more like Richard, who had never caused her a day of grief in his entire life?

A martyr, that’s what Richard was. Just a Christian martyr!

Edna had prayed about Richard many times, and over and over the same message came to her: Richard had been an innocent lamb, unjustly led to slaughter. Only his own mother had believed in him. Well, someday they’d find out. After all, weren’t those terrible murders happening again right now? Just a week or so ago there had been that woman over on Boylston. Not that Edna felt very sorry for her; after all, she was a whore. But then just the night before last there had been that poor woman who lived up the street from Rory. And both of them killed just the way those others had been, the ones they blamed poor Richard for. If only they hadn’t killed Richard, they’d know the truth now, and he’d be able to come home to his mother where he belonged. But it was too late. Sighing heavily under the burden of her sorrows, Edna Kraven pulled the front door of Rory’s building open, went in, and climbed the steep flight of stairs to the second floor.

Pausing on the landing to catch her breath, she peered with distaste around the dimly lit corridor. The paint on the walls was peeling and the strip of threadbare carpet that ran down the cramped hallway was curling back at the edges. What had she done to deserve a son who would live in a place like this? She’d told him before that it wasn’t a fit place for her to visit; today she would put her foot down. If he didn’t move, he needn’t expect her to visit him again.

She plodded down the hall to Rory’s door, lifted her hand to knock, then realized that the door wasn’t quite closed. Just like Rory to go out somewhere and not even bother to lock his door — anyone could rob him blind! Pushing the door wider, Edna stepped inside.

“Rory?”

There was no answer, but Edna suddenly felt uneasy. The place just didn’t feel empty. Scowling, she moved toward the open bathroom door, but before she’d gone more than a step or two, she stopped short.

The walls — the grubby beige walls she’d never been able to get Rory to paint — were streaked with red.

Bright red.

Bloodred.

“Rory?” Edna Kraven said again, but this time the name of her younger son was uttered softly, almost inaudibly, as if she already understood what had happened here. “Rory?” she repeated. “It’s Mommy, Rory, come to take care of you.”

As if guided by an unseen force, Edna edged toward the bathroom door, terrified of what she might find there, but unable to keep herself from looking. When she was finally able to see exactly what lay in the bathtub, Edna Kraven’s stomach heaved. She lurched into the bathroom, bent over, and threw up into the sink. Only when her stomach had completely emptied itself was she finally able to creep back out to the single room in which her younger son had died and call the police.