We'll Meet Again

3

As they drove down from the prison, Molly watched the road signs. Finally they left the Merritt Parkway at the Lake Avenue exit. It’s all familiar, of course, but I don’t remember much about the drive to the prison, she thought. I only remember the weight of the chains, and that the handcuffs were digging into my wrists. As she sat in the car now, she looked straight ahead and felt rather than saw Philip Matthews’s sideward glances at her.

She answered his unasked question. “I feel strange,” she said slowly. “No-‘empty’ is a better word.”

“I’ve told you this before: it was a mistake to keep the house, and a bigger one to go back to it,” he said. “And it’s also a mistake not to let your parents come up and be with you now.”

Molly continued to stare straight ahead. The sleet was beginning to coat the windshield faster than the wipers could remove it. “I meant what I said to those reporters. I feel that now that this is over, living at home again I may recover my memory of every detail of that night. Philip, I didn’t kill Gary -I just couldn’t have. I know the psychiatrists think I’m in denial about what happened, but I’m certain they’re wrong. But even if it turned out they are right, I’d find a way to live with it. Not knowing is the worst.”

“Molly, just suppose your memory is accurate, that you found Gary injured and bleeding. That you went into shock, and that your memory of that night will eventually come back to you. Do you realize that if you are right, and you do remember, then you’ll become a threat to the person who did kill him? And that the killer may even now view you as a very real threat, since you’ve just announced that you feel that once you’re home you may remember more about another person being in the house that night?”

She sat in silence for a minute. Why do you think I told my parents to stay in Florida? Molly thought. If I’m wrong, nobody will bother me. If I’m right, then I’m leaving the door wide open for the real killer to come after me.

She glanced at Matthews. “Philip, my father took me duck hunting when I was little,” she said. “I didn’t like it a bit. It was early and cold and rainy, and I kept wishing I were home in bed. But I learned something that morning. A decoy gets results. You see, you, like everyone else in the world, believe I killed Gary in a moment of madness. And don’t deny that that is what you believe. I heard you and my father discussing the fact that you had almost no hope of getting an acquittal by suggesting that Annamarie Scalli had done it. You said I had a good shot at a passion/provocation manslaughter conviction because the jury would probably believe I had killed Gary in a fit of rage. But you also said there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be a murder conviction and that I’d better grab the manslaughter plea if the prosecutor would allow it. You did discuss that, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Matthews acknowledged.

“So if I killed Gary I’m very lucky to get off so easily. Now, if you and everyone else in the world-including my parents-are right, I’m absolutely safe in claiming that I believe I may have felt another presence in the house the night Gary died. Since you don’t believe another person was there, then you don’t really think anyone will come after me. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” he said reluctantly.

“Then no one has to worry about me. If, on the other hand, I’m right, and I do frighten someone enough, it could cost me my life. Well, believe it or not, I’d like that to happen. Because if I’m found murdered, somebody might actually open an investigation that doesn’t automatically assume I killed my husband.”

Philip Matthews did not answer.

“That is right, isn’t it, Philip?” Molly asked, her tone almost cheerful. “If I die, then maybe someone will look closely enough into Gary ’s murder to actually find the real killer.”