Life Penalty (14 page)

O
ver the next few weeks the routine in the Waltons’ household subtly shifted. Gail was still rising early, before everyone else. She still prepared breakfast for her husband and daughter, cleaned up when they were through and watched them leave in the morning, Jack for his office, Jennifer for her new job assisting her father. Gail would clear the table as always, go upstairs and make the beds, and take meat out of the freezer for the evening meal. She would then go over the morning paper, her maps of New Jersey spread out in front of her.

She remembered Lieutenant Cole’s advice: for the purposes of her investigation, she had to assume that Cindy’s killer had stayed in the state. She had no hope of finding him if he had moved elsewhere. Gail made up her mind that the young man with the dirty blond hair who had raped and murdered her six-year-old child was still somewhere within easy grasp. He was quietly living in New Jersey, perhaps still in the Livingston area. It was only a question of ferreting him out.

She decided to concentrate on the same areas as the police—East Orange, Orange, possibly Newark, districts where transients drifted in and out in comfortable anonymity, streets where the words “of no fixed address” were more than just a convenient expression for the
newspapers. But unlike the police, she would not be defeated.

Despite her resolve, she was nervous. She was an amateur, after all. The police were professionals and they had gotten nowhere. Still, she had spent the better part of the past two weeks preparing. There was little else her maps could tell her, only so much more she could learn from books and magazines. Lieutenant Cole had nothing new to report. She had delayed long enough.

On the morning of July 18, Gail knew that it was time to put the maps away and get out into the streets. Hadn’t Sharon Tate’s father grown a beard and donned hippie garb, living with the undesirables on the Sunset Strip when he was trying to find his daughter’s brutal killers? Gail would have to do the same.

Jack had seemed unusually talkative at breakfast, perhaps sensing her preoccupation. “I had a German shepherd in the office yesterday,” he began. “Funniest damn thing. The dog’s been trained as a watchdog supposedly, but it’s one of the gentlest dogs I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine it hurting anyone.”

“So, what was funny?” Jennifer asked, already smiling, eager to laugh.

Gail looked across the table at her husband, trying to appear interested, her mind already behind the wheel of her car.

“Well, apparently, their house was robbed. Everybody was asleep. The dog was downstairs in the front hallway where it always sleeps. Everything was quiet. The next morning Mr. and Mrs. Simpson came downstairs, and half the house was missing. And this damn dog is sitting there wagging its tail. Didn’t make a sound all night. Not a bark out of him. Meanwhile, they’ve been cleaned out. They called the police, who came right over, and wouldn’t you know it? The dog bit the policeman.”

Jennifer shrieked with delight.

Gail continued to stare at Jack pleasantly but otherwise failed to react.

“Mom?” Jennifer asked, “didn’t you think that was funny?”

“What?” Gail said, startled back to reality. “I’m sorry, my mind must have wandered. I didn’t hear the punch line.”

Jack shook his head. “It wasn’t important.”

“Your mind’s been wandering a lot lately,” Jennifer pouted.

“I’m sorry,” Gail said genuinely. “I thought I was paying attention. Tell the story again, Jack. I’d really like to hear it.”

Jack dutifully repeated the slender tale and Gail concentrated hard on listening, but the spontaneity was missing and when it was over, nobody laughed. “I guess you had to be there,” Jack concluded, obvious disappointment in his voice.

“No,” Gail objected weakly, “that was a very cute story. The dog bit the policeman. That’s funny.”

“I have to go,” Jennifer announced with some agitation. She stood up and leaned over to kiss her mother’s forehead. “See you later.”

“Goodbye, baby,” Gail said. “Be careful.”

Jennifer stopped halfway to the kitchen door. “I’m not a baby, Mom,” she said with slow deliberation.

“No, of course you’re not,” Gail agreed. ‘“What was all that about?” she asked Jack after they heard the front door close.

“Jennifer claims you’ve been treating her like a little kid lately.”

“Like a little kid? Why? Just because I call her ‘baby’? It’s a term of affection, that’s all. You know that.
She
knows that. I’ve always called her ‘baby’ and ‘doll’ and …”

“That was before. She didn’t mind being called ‘baby’ as long as she felt she was being treated like an adult.”

“She’s not an adult. She’s sixteen.”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t want to argue with you.

You asked me what was going on with Jennifer.”

“What else? She’s obviously talked to you about this at some length.”

“That’s all.”

“Jack …”

“She’s a bit hurt that you haven’t shown more interest in the work she’s doing with her father. She says she’s tried to talk to you a number of times about her job with Mark, but that you just kind of drift off when she’s in the middle of telling you something. She’s afraid you might be angry with her.”

“Why would I be angry with her?”

“She thought maybe you didn’t like the idea of her working with Mark.”

“That’s silly. She knows I have no problems with that.”

“She’s afraid you’re angry with her because of what she told you about Cindy, that she’d been mean to her …”

Gail was growing rapidly impatient with the conversation. “That’s ridiculous. She knows how I feel. We’ve discussed it. I told her—”

“Tell her again. She needs to talk to you, Gail. She needs your love and approval.”

“She
has
my love and approval!”

“She needs your attention.” He smiled sheepishly at her.
“I
need your attention.”

Gail lowered her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve been preoccupied lately, I know. And moody. I’ll try to watch it.”

“Jennifer’s really very excited about her work with Mark,” Jack laughed. “You should hear her talk about tripods and camera angles, and it’s pretty fascinating stuff actually. Gail …”

“What?”

“What did I just say?”

Gail saw the look of irritation that passed through Jack’s eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’d said anything.”

Jack stood up. “I better go.” He leaned down to kiss her forehead as Jennifer had done moments before. “I’ll call you later.”

“I might be out,” she said quickly.

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“I thought I’d go for a drive.”

“It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to take the car in for a tune-up,” Jack said on his way out. “We missed the last one.”

Gail poured herself a second cup of coffee after he had left the house, feeling edgy and uncomfortable. She hadn’t realized she’d been so distracted lately, that Jennifer had sensed it and been hurt. Jack too. She put her coffee cup down. She would have to make a special point of showing appropriate interest in all of their recent activities. It was important, she told herself, reaching for the morning paper.

There was an interesting story on page 2. A young man of eighteen, while stoned on a variety of drugs, had brutally bludgeoned to death with a hammer the mother of his best friend. A sympathetic judge, citing the boy’s already pronounced suicidal tendencies, had sentenced the boy to a three-year suspended sentence. “Suspended,” Gail repeated aloud. Though she had heard that word a thousand times in the past, it was only lately that the full impact of its meaning was becoming clear. A woman was dead; her killer was out on the streets. Suspended. Society would be serving his sentence.

A small story on page 5 captured her attention. She read it quickly and then got up off her chair and hunted by the phone for a red pen. She found one and brought it back to the table, reading through the article again and underlining the appropriate information. There had been three robberies on one street in Newark over the weekend. She underlined the street—Washington Street. A pawnshop,
a men’s clothing store and a savings and loan had all been held up by a lone gunman. The man, who had shot and injured one customer when he tried to block his escape, was described as Caucasian, around twenty-five years of age, with dirty-blond hair. He stood about five feet nine inches tall and had a slim build. He fit the description of the man the boys had seen running from the park after Cindy had been killed. Gail lowered the paper to the table. The description could fit any of a hundred young men in the Livingston area alone.

The phone rang.

“I don’t care what you say,” Laura began cheerfully as soon as Gail said hello, “but I’m taking you to lunch today. Name a spot.”

Gail tried to protest. “Laura, I can’t …”

“If you have a meeting with the dentist, cancel it. If you have an appointment with your gynecologist, forget it. If you already have a lunch date, then break it. I am taking you to lunch and I won’t take no for an answer. Now, where would you like to eat?”

Gail nervously fidgeted with her newspaper. “I’m not very hungry for lunch these days—” She broke off suddenly when she saw the ad. “Maestro’s,” it proclaimed gaily. “The very best in Italian cooking.” It was located on Washington Street.

“Gail, haven’t you been eating?” she heard Laura asking.

“Maestro’s,” Gail told her.

“What?”

“You told me to name a place. I’d like to go to Maestro’s.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s supposed to have the very best in Italian cooking.”

“‘Well, I love Italian food. Where is this place? Is it new?”

“It’s on Washington Street.”

There was a second’s silence. “Washington Street? You mean Washington Street in Newark?”

“Yes,” Gail said firmly. “I’ve heard it’s wonderful.”

“Christ, Gail, isn’t there somewhere a little closer to home? A little nicer? I was thinking more of Mayfair Farms.”

“Maestro’s,” Gail repeated firmly.

“Maestro’s it is,” Laura agreed after a pause.

“I’ll pick you up at noon,” Gail told her.

Before Laura had a chance to ask any more questions, Gail had said goodbye and hung up the phone.

“Gail, what are we doing here?’ Laura asked, speaking in a low voice and bending conspiratorially across the table.

“We’re having lunch,” Gail said, smiling.

“Maybe you’re having lunch. I’m too nervous to eat.”

“Salad’s delicious,” Gail laughed.

“Gail, have you looked around you? This is a mob hangout, for God’s sake.”

“Laura, you’re being a little dramatic …”

“No, I’m not. Take a good look around. Go on. Just don’t be too obvious about it.”

Gail put down her salad fork, and slowly let her eyes circle the large, dimly lit room, though there was really no need. She had absorbed everything about the place from the minute she had stepped inside, just as she had taken in every shabby detail of Washington Street, every crack in each window they passed, absorbing the shuffling footsteps of a nearby wino, the cackling laugh of an elderly bag lady as she sifted through a comer garbage bin. Inside the restaurant, Gail’s eyes had needed only a few seconds to adjust to the shift in light, to determine that the clientele was mostly well dressed and business-oriented. Instantly, she understood that Cindy’s killer would not be here, but at least she had made a beginning.

The two women ordered salad and pasta, and Gail had found herself surprisingly hungry, digging into her salad while Laura nervously picked at hers. “Relax, Laura,” Gail
told her, her eyes returning to her friend across the table. “Nobody’s going to come in and gun us down.”

“Yeah? You remember that restaurant in New York where those four guys were having a drink at the bar and somebody opened up with a machine gun? And it turned out that he shot the wrong four guys.”

“Innocent people die every day,” Gail said matter-of-factly, watching as Laura stopped cold in the middle of a halfhearted stab at a piece of lettuce. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”

“What are we doing here, Gail?” Laura asked again slowly.

“We’re having lunch,” Gail repeated.

“Tell me, have you seen Nancy lately?”

“She managed to fit me into her busy schedule for one lunch last week. But it wasn’t easy. Between getting her hair done, having her back rubbed and planning for the next fashion show, it’s all she can do to find time to have her nails done, let alone have lunch.”

“I think she was very hurt when Larry left her,” Gail mused, almost to herself. “The rest of us weren’t as understanding as we could have been.”

“Maybe,” Laura said. “But she lost me when she got so vindictive, taking Larry to the cleaners the way she did.”

“Larry could afford to go to the cleaners. Who’s to say who was right?” Gail thought back to the evening in Lloyd Michener’s living room. “Judge not lest you be judged,” she said aloud, recalling the group’s motto.

“I guess you’re right,” Laura agreed quietly.

“Anyway, you can expect your invitation in the mail sometime in September.”

“Invitation?”

“For the fashion show. Nancy’s organizing it this year. October 15, I think she said.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“You’ll do no such thing. Come on, a couple of hours in the middle of a cold afternoon with a bunch of silly, shallow women is just what you need. I always wondered how such vacuous minds could make so much noise.”

“Laura …”

“Yes, I know, I’m being judgmental again, but that’s the whole point of clubs like Nancy’s. They’re there to give the rest of us something to be nasty about. I wouldn’t miss this fashion show for the world. And neither will you. Come on, do me a favor and come with me. I won’t enjoy myself if I don’t have anybody there I can bitch to. Please. For me?”

Gail nodded agreement. October 15 seemed very far away.

Laura speared a large cherry tomato and raised it to her mouth. “Have you thought about getting a job?” she asked, catching Gail by surprise.

“A job? What kind of job could I get?”

Laura shrugged and swallowed the tomato. “Maybe you could go back to school. Work on finishing your degree.”