Leigh, who has been in touch with me by telephone throughout the day, understands instantly and leans against the wall and sighs, “I was afraid they’d find out I was here.”
“If you think today is bad,” I say, wondering how to handle Kim, “wait until tomorrow. We’ll need a battering ram to get you through them.” Kim knocks hard on Rainey’s front door. Knowing her, she will want some kind of exclusive interview. I make a snap decision.
“Let me talk to her. She knows you’re here.”
Leigh nods, panic setting in as it begins to hit her what the next few days will be like. Aware that Chet Bracken wouldn’t have talked to the press, I open the door and step outside.
Kim is wearing a blue jade cotton knit dress with enough jewelry to open her own pawnshop. With the cameraman standing coyly off to the side, she begs, “Let me just talk to her for a minute. If you don’t, every media person within ten square miles will find out she’s here.” The neighbors are going to love this.
“Is it true she’s been hiding in the Delta Inn, too drunk to get out of bed?”
How could she possibly know that? I wonder, my mind racing.
“Kim, I’ll promise not to talk to any reporter except you about Chet’s suicide if you’ll leave and keep your mouth shut,” I say, “but I can’t comment on the case.”
Giving me a wintry smile, she turns to her camera man and nods.
“Okay, Roger.” He moves in almost on top of me as Kim asks, “Mr. Page, we’ve heard reports throughout the day that Chet Bracken’s death was not a suicide and that you were involved. Would you care to comment on that?”
I feel as if I’m being interviewed by a female Geraldo. Kim knows the police and the prosecutor do not consider me a suspect.
“That’s ridiculous!” I say, my voice trembling.
“It’s an outrage for you to even suggest that. The police have already issued a statement that Mr. Bracken’s wound was self-inflicted.”
“Tell us what happened, then,” she says, her voice cool and professional. But her right hand, holding the microphone a few inches from my face, shakes slightly, betraying her excitement.
Damn her. It was hard enough to tell the cops. Looking into the sun, I feel my throat become scratchy and I fight to stay in control. I shouldn’t have to describe how a man shot himself.
“I saw the lights of Mr. Bracken’s car turn into my driveway, and as I opened my front door I saw him point a pistol at his head and fire.”
“Did you go help him?” Kim asks, before I can even clear my throat.
“I ran to call an ambulance,” I say, hating all reporters at this instant. I can’t admit that I was too sick to my stomach to go see about him. It is all too much.
Tears come to my eyes, and before they can slide down my cheeks, I turn and hurry back into the house. I wish Rainey were here. She would understand what I am feeling.
Before I slam the door, I hear Kim call, “Great stuff, Gideon!”
Inside, Leigh, her eyes wide with astonishment, asks, “What did you say?”
I rummage through my pockets and come up with a wadded-up tissue to wipe my eyes. I feel terrible. The memory of Chet holding the gun against his head un winds like a tape that can’t be stopped. Why did he do it? I don’t even know why I’m crying. My cowardice?
For Chet? Trey and Wynona? There is no good way to exit this life. No matter how much or how little we’ve had, most of us want more. “To get her to agree to leave, I spoke on camera about seeing Chet shoot him self,” I say, sinking down on Rainey’s sofa.
“I guess I’m just feeling it.”
Leigh, wearing a pair of Rainey’s sweats that come to just below her knees, sits opposite me on a chair that has recently been recovered.
“They’re just vultures!” she says indignantly.
I think of Kim Keogh, who lives only a few blocks from here, or did, a few months ago. The night we made love, her apartment walls were covered with pictures of movie stars. She was vulnerable and insecure about her ability as a reporter, and her naked ambition had an innocent quality to it. Yet, she has become hard.
Great stuff, Gideon. She wouldn’t have said that a few months ago. Maybe I’ve played a part in the process.
“Competition and ethics aren’t in the same food group,” I say, trying to joke my way onto another subject. I open my briefcase and take out a legal pad.
“We’ve got to talk about your testimony tomorrow some more, okay?”
Even as Leigh says, “Sure,” her guard goes up.
“I called my father and told him I was okay, as you suggested. I didn’t tell him where I am. He wants me to meet him tonight to talk.”
“Not a good idea,” I reply quickly. I’ve got to persuade Leigh to let me argue that her father could have killed her husband. If she meets with him, that may not be possible.
“You left home for a reason remember?”
Leigh brushes her hair back from her face, raising her right breast beneath Rainey’s too-tight warmup top.
“He sounded so forlorn.”
I bet he did. Shane is running scared. Chet might not have been able to bring himself to argue that his pastor was a suspect, but I sure as hell can.
“Fathers are good at that,” I mutter, searching for my pen. After a certain age, guilt is the only weapon we have left.
“Leigh, I’ve got to argue in court that he may have been the one to kill Art.”
As I feared, her spine stiffens as if an electrical current were passing through it.
“I can’t do that.”
“We have to,” I argue.
“You don’t have a chance at an acquittal right now.”
“What about the man Art cheated?” she pleads.
“Art was afraid of him.”
I have begun to doodle aimlessly on the pad but stop myself.
“I’ll argue that, but there was no forced entry, so it’s weak. I’m going to call as a witness the investigator from San Francisco to give the jury an excuse to acquit if they want to, but it’s a long shot.” Leigh is not averse to lying, I remember, but then most people aren’t if the stakes are high enough. I have told a few myself.
Leigh’s right hand flies to her mouth and she mumbles “I’ll probably have to admit Art filmed me naked.”
I almost snap my pen in frustration. It is as if we are back to square one.
“This isn’t going to be pretty!” I yelp at her.
“Unless you want to sit there smiling while you receive a life sentence, you’re going to have to accept the fact that you’ve got to be prepared to tell the truth, no matter how painful.”
Leigh bites her full lower lip in anguish.
“It will destroy my father!”
I lean forward with my elbows on my knees.
“Not if he’s the man you think he is,” I argue.
“You won’t be the one arguing to the jury that your father may have come over while you went to the church; I will. He’ll blame me, not you.”
Leigh swallows hard.
“But what if he’s innocent?”
“He’ll forgive you,” I promise her.
“He’s not on trial.
There’s no evidence to convict him. If someone saw him or knew something, they would have come forward by now.”
Her voice hushed, Leigh asks, “Why do you think Mr. Bracken killed himself?”
Wearily, I lean back against the sofa, knowing I may never understand what was in Chet’s mind when he pulled the trigger. It is possible that his only motive was to spare Wynona and Trey (and himself) the final weeks of agony. He had said the cancer was all over him. He didn’t want to die knowing he hadn’t prepared for his last case. Yet, maybe he had made a promise he couldn’t bring himself to keep. Would he have told Wynona the truth? It is not difficult to believe that under the pressure he must have been feeling he simply broke at the prospect of covering up the biggest deception in his life.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“He told me his body was riddled with cancer. For many people that is reason enough.”