Steve was unshaven. His clothes appeared to have been slept in. There was no anger in him. Only contrition. He walked over to Donna and knelt by the side of the bed on a carpet of red and yellow roses. His head hung down.
"I have no excuse for what I did to you. All I can do is explain why it happened and pray for your- forgiveness."
The rose fragrance was overpowering in the closed room. The memory of her husband looming above her as his blows rained on her body was vivid and frightening. But Steve seemed so chastened that Donna let him try to explain his savage attack.
"I'd been drinking. I started in the afternoon and never stopped." Mancini paused and took a deep breath before continuing. "The bank turned down the Mountain View loan." There were tears in Steve's eyes, but Donna was still too frightened of him to move. "I didn't know what to do," he sobbed, and Donna's heart began to break. "We could be ruined. I sank everything I had into that project."
Her husband raised his eyes to hers. He looked so sad.
"Can you ever forgive me? I was so full of anger and so afraid, but I should never have taken it out on you.
Please, Donna, I don't want to lose you."
"Where ... where have you been?" Donna asked, as she tried to sort out her jumbled thoughts and emotions.
"I drove around for hours thinking about what I'd done. When I was too tired to drive anymore I pulled into the first motel I saw, but I couldn't sleep. I felt so bad about ... about hurting you. God, how could I have hit you?"
Mancini's face crumpled. Kneeling by the bed, his head down, framed in the multihued bouquets of roses, Steve looked like a little boy. Donna reached out and touched him on the cheek. He took her hand and pressed his lips to the palm, then pressed it against his cheek again.
"I'm sorry about the loan," Donna said, "but we'll pull through. You have your practice and your brains and you have me."
Steve looked at Donna with the rapt glow of a supplicant whose prayers have been answered. Then, he squeezed her hand and wiped away the tears that had clouded his vision.
"Thank you, Donna. I should have known you'd stand by me. But I was so depressed. I wanted Mountain View to succeed so much."
"I love you, Steve. I don't need Mountain View to be happy."
"You don't understand. I want to do things for you that I can't do now. I wanted us to be important, not just in Whitaker, but everywhere. If Mountain View is successful, we'll be rich. But now .. Mancini shook :10'"
his head slowly. "I don't think we can make tapped out and I can't think of any place to turn for money, now that the bank's turned us down.II "Maybe .. ." Donna started. Mancini looked up at her. "I could talk to my father.. .
"Oh no, Donna, I couldn't ask you to do that,"
"How much money do you need?"
"I'd have to talk to my partners," Mancini answered excitedly. "If we could buy some of the property instead of having it on option, we might get Whitaker Savings to rethink the loan."
Mancini stood up and sat next to Donna on the bed.
They fell into each other's arms and Steve hugged her to his chest.
"I don't deserve you, Donna. What I did can't be excused. I must have been out of my mind."
"Just hold me," Donna said,.not wanting to think about the horror of the past evening.
"I Will. III I hold you forever. And I swear to you that I will never, ever hurt you again."
"I don't think this is important," Eric Polk told Dennis Downes, "but I figured,-better safe than sorry, so I had Wilma come down."
Eric was also on the Whitaker police force, but he was several years older than Downes and was not working on the Harmon case, "How you doin', Wilma," Downes said, smiling at Eric's wife.
"Just fine. How are Till and Todd?"
"Damn kid of mine runs me ragged. He's only ten and he's almost as big as me."
"I heard he's tearing up Little League," Eric said.
"Don't get me started on Todd or I'll chew off your ear. So, what do you have for me, Wilma?"
Wilma Polk was a heavyset woman in her mid-fiffies with curly gray hair and a round, pleasant face, who was not used to being the center of attention.
"It's probably nothing. I'd even forgotten about it until Eric said something about Donna Harmon's wedit just popped into my head."
ding and, well, "Go ahead, Wilma," her husband said.
"Mabel Dawes and I were over by the food table at Donna Harmon's wedding reception. We were talking about the murder because Eric had been at the scene that morning. Gary was nearby and he must have overheard us. He came over and started talking about the murder, too."
"What did he say?" Downes asked.
"I've tried to remember exactly, but it's been a while, and I wasn't really interested at the time."
"Just give me the gist . , if you can't remember the exact words."
"He didn't get to say much, because Eric came up and interrupted us."
"We were due at Mary's at two and it was one-thirty, so we had to get moving," Eric explained. "It was Kenny s third birthday." , :"SO, go ahead," Downes prodded as he jotted down some notes about the time of the conversation.
"As I remember, I was saying something about Eric being at the crime scene.
I believe I had 'just explained J about the horrible wounds when Gary walked over. He said he had seen the girl at the Stallion, the night before.
I was about to ask him some more about the girl when Eric reminded me of the time."
"How did Gary seem Was he nervous, excited?".
"He didn't seem nervous. Maybe a little excited, but we all were. The murder is very frightening."
"Okay," Downes said, smiling at Wilma as he scribbled some more notes. Thanks for dropping by. I'll write a report about the conversation for the D.A."
Eric Polk escorted his wife out of Downes's office.
Downes looked at his watch. It was time for a coffee break. He decided to dictate his report on his interview with Wilma Polk, then see if anyone wanted to go over to Mels Car& for a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. He was finishing the dictation when the phone rang.
"Dennis, are you busy?" Becky O'Shay asked.
"I wa& going out for a cup of coffee. Why?"
"Put the coffee on hold. I just received a call from the jail. One of the prisoners, claims Gary Harmon confessed to him. I want you to come along with me. If this pans out, I'll buy the coffee and treat you to lunch."
"The last time you escaped justice by a nose, Mr. Booth," Becky O'Shay said with a smirk, "but your luck seems to have run out."
Booth flushed with anger and looked at the floor, afraid to let O'Shay see the hatred in his eyes. He could not stand being humiliated by a woman, but he was in no position to do anything about it.
"I understand you have something for us."
"Yeah, I got something. What I want to know is what I get in return."
"What do you want?"
Booth licked his lips. His right foot could not stop tapping and Booth could not sit still. Withdrawal, O'Shay thought immediately. She bet every nerve in Booth's body felt like a live wire. When he looked u O'Shay read stark terror on Booth's face.
"I want witness protection. I want to go somewhere Rafael Vargas and Chris Mammon can't get me."
"That's asking a lot. Your beef's federal. I don't know if they'll go along, even if I wanted to."
"Hey," Booth pleaded, "I'm small potatoes. I'm nothing. The feds don't want me. I'm an undersize catch. But I can deliver Mammon or Vargas and I can ice Gary Harmon."
"Tell me about Harmon."