Silence

19

I’M SORRY, Mr. Till is not in the office. This is the answering service. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Do you know when he’ll be in?” Ann Donnelly tried to keep the fear out of her voice. It was almost noon. Maybe he was just out to lunch.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t. He’s on an assignment out of town right now.”

Ann Donnelly took a couple of deep breaths, thinking hard. “My name is Wendy Harper. He’s been trying to get in touch with me.”

“Yes, he has.” The woman sounded different, as though she had just awakened. “He left a cell-phone number that we were to give you if you called. Do you have anything to write with?”

“Yes.”

“Then here’s the number.” She recited it.

“I have it. Thanks. I’ll try him right now.”

Ann hung up the pay phone and moved away from the brick front of the 7-Eleven store. She had not realized how much the visibility of standing in front of a building had contributed to her unease. Jack had taught her that pay telephones were the safest, but standing in the open was too unnerving.

She hurried toward her car, got in and began to drive. She was afraid to stop the car, so she dialed the number on her cell phone while she drove.

The telephone rang once, twice, and she realized she was holding her breath. Then she heard “Yeah?”

She recognized his voice in that single word, and all of the feelings about him seemed to flood her consciousness unexpectedly. That voice meant strength, safety, hope. “It’s Wendy. I heard that you were looking for me. Is it true?”

“Yes. Listen. I’ve got to see you right away, in person. Do not go anywhere near your house. The people who are hunting for you have been there.”

“Oh, God! I figured that might be next. I’ve already cleared out, but no more than half an hour ago.”

“Do you have a car?”

“I’m in it.”

“Can you meet me somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“You name it.”

“Pier 39. I can be there in maybe half an hour.”

“I’ll be there waiting for you.”

Jack Till was already on the Golden Gate Bridge, so it took him only twenty minutes on the freeway and the Embarcadero to reach Pier 39. He parked his car in a public lot and joined the crowds of tourists walking from the souvenir shops across the street toward the pier. He moved close to the knots of people getting off tour buses near the buildings where they sold tickets for boats to Alcatraz and admission to the aquarium.

Till marked the passage of time carefully. He was even earlier than he had expected, so he needed to find a vantage point. He moved onto the pier, where there were two levels of stores and restaurants that were not very different from any crowded mall except that the view through the windows showed a bright, choppy ocean. He climbed some wooden steps to the second story, stopped to lean over a railing and stare at the broad concrete entranceway and the parking lots near the street. He had noticed a brownish Nissan Maxima in one of the pictures at the house, so that was the car he watched for.

In five more minutes, he saw it swing into the parking-lot entrance. There was a lone woman in the driver’s seat, but he didn’t have time to see her face before she turned up the first aisle and was lost to view. He came down the stairs and moved toward the lot, then saw her coming toward him. She was striding along quickly and then almost trotting, holding the long strap of a big purse on her shoulder as she came.

He couldn’t help remembering that when he’d last seen her she’d still had a noticeable limp, a hitch in her step that had begun at the hip where one of the blows from the bat had landed. Now her steps were strong and smooth, keeping just below a run because she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. Her hair was still long and blond, as it had been six years ago. Seeing her brought a sudden rush of old feelings that he’d had to repress when he had last seen her. He resisted the temptation to run to meet her, and instead hung back in the crowds near the shops. He took his attention off her and scanned the street, the parking lot, the spaces behind her to see if he could detect anyone who was interested in her, or anyone he had ever seen before. He saw nothing, but he was aware that the crowds that kept Wendy from standing out could as easily be protecting enemies.

He let her come all the way to him, but said quietly, “Pass by me up to the first store on the upper level and wait inside for me.”

He waited another two minutes to see if anyone came after her, but nobody did. There were no odd movements by anybody he could see. When he was satisfied, he went up the stairs and into the shop.

She came to him instantly. “Hi,” she said quietly.

“Hi yourself. Let’s go.” They stepped outside and he used his high vantage to see if he could detect anything new. “Did you see anyone following you here?”

“I don’t see how they could. I left home, stopped on another street for a few minutes, drove to a 7-Eleven a mile or two from my house, and called your office on the pay phone. Then I drove off and called your cell phone, and here I am.”

“Why didn’t you call me sooner? Didn’t you see the ads?”

“Ads? What ads? I heard someone had come to Henderson looking for me, but I thought at first it couldn’t be you. You said you would never come.”

“Well, things have changed. Now we’ve got to be sure we can get to L.A. without being spotted.”

“Get to L.A.?”

“Don’t you know? That’s what this is about.”

She looked frightened, almost sick, the fear clutching her and making her stop walking, as though she couldn’t get her legs to move. “I heard what the problem was. I said I’d meet you. I never said I was going back to Los Angeles.”

He held her arm gently. “Wendy.”

She looked at him with despair that made her eyes squint.

He said, “If we do it right, nobody will see you except Assistant DAs and cops. It won’t take more than a day.”

“I just don’t see why I have to do this at all.”

“Because if you don’t, then Eric Fuller is probably going to be convicted of killing you and cutting you up with a kitchen knife. We just have to prove that you’re alive, and that will be that.”

“Why would anybody think he did anything to me? I still don’t see any logic in that. I’ve been gone for six whole years.”

Till kept his eyes on her. “I don’t want to go into a long discussion of this while these people catch up with us. I met with Eric’s attorney and talked with the Assistant DA who filed the charges. The case they’ve built against Eric isn’t a sure thing, but I’ve seen people convicted on less.”

“Then he’s being framed.”

“Of course.”

“If you know that, then stop it.”

“I am.”

“Another way.”

“There is no other way.”

“How can there not be?”

“I’ve already told the Assistant DA what happened—all of it: how I met you, where I took you, why you left. She’s not—”

“She? Oh, Christ!”

“That’s right. I think she’s striking a blow for all of the young women who have turned up half-buried in fields somewhere.”

“Good for her! Just tell her I’m not one of them yet.”

“I have. You need to prove it in person. You always cared about Eric. He was the most important person in the world to you once.”

“That’s just it. He’s not anymore. When I went away I left him with everything he wanted, and that’s over. Now I have a real honest-to-God family. I’m a mother with two little children. Right now I’ve got their father taking them out of town to keep them alive. Don’t you see? They have to be my first concern, not Eric Fuller.”

“Are they gone?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ve done what you can for them. You’ve got one more thing to do.”

“I know. I know what you want. And anybody would say, ‘Why is she even hesitating?’ But it isn’t that simple. I have young kids, a husband. Nobody can tell me for sure that Eric would be convicted. If he were acquitted, he would be just fine. If he were convicted, I could come down then and show that I’m alive. You say, ‘Why put him through a murder trial for nothing?’ I say, ‘Why put my family in danger? Why make me disrupt their lives, give them false identities, abandon our house, and destroy my husband’s career, if Eric is just going to get off anyway?’”

“Because we did this—you and I—and we have to do the little we can to fix the consequences. Eric is an innocent victim.”

“That’s another thing.” She looked desperate now, a person caught in a rip current and fighting it. “You say, ‘Of course he was framed.’ Well, who do you think did that? The man who couldn’t kill me six years ago. He couldn’t find me, so now he’s devised a way to make me show myself. How can you ask me to do that?”

“Most of the damage is already done. The hunters have been in your house. They stole pictures—I think one was of you, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t steal a few to help them identify your husband and kids. No matter what, you’re going to have to stay away from that house. Whether you save Eric or not, you’re going to have to take your family into hiding. There’s a chance you’ll get some witness protection from the authorities this time. If not, I’ll certainly help you.” He could see that she was barely listening. She had been resisting the knowledge that the life she had invented in San Rafael was finished.

“You’re sure they’ve found my house already?”

“Yes.”

“How could they?”

He waited. She seemed to look around her at the buildings, the pier, the stretch of water near the dock where the boats to Alcatraz were taking on passengers, as though she had not seen them before.

She said, “You haven’t said a word about Ann Delatorre.”

“You haven’t, either.”

“Is it what I think?”

“It looked as though she fought. She probably didn’t see the gun, and it would have been quick.”

Ann Donnelly’s eyes were shut tightly and she moved her head from side to side as though she were saying no, but she did not cry. When she opened them, Jack Till said, “You know what you have to do.”

She began to walk. Jack Till walked with her toward the parking lot, and when he turned toward his car instead of hers, she was with him.