Heartstone

“What can you remember about the night that Elaine and Richie were killed?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid. I told this to the cops a few times. We went over to Bob’s. That’s a hamburger joint we used to go to. I don’t think it’s even in business anymore. Then Bobby or Billy, one of them got this idea to crash Alice Faye’s party. I knew there was go

“Tell me a little about Esther.”

Roger leaned over and dropped his voice.

“Not a bad lay, but nothin’ between the ears, if you know what I mean. She was what you’d call a loose girl in those days. ’Course that was before the ‘sex revolution’ and any girl that wasn’t a virgin when she got married…Well, you know what I mean.

“She used to hang around the Cobras. There was two kinds of girls that did that. Steady girlfriends and girls that just hung around the gang, but didn’t go with one guy in particular. Esther was sort of in between. She was good lookin’ enough to take out more than a few times, but everyone would get tired of her pretty fast.”

“Why is that?”

“Ah, she’d want ya to be in love with her. She’d always be askin’ you if you were in love with her. Then there would always be a scene.” Hessey shrugged. “You can see what I mean.”

Mark made some notes. This was leading nowhere. Mark asked a few more questions, then thanked Hessey and prepared to leave.

“How come they waited so long to arrest Bob?” Hessey asked as they walked toward the backyard gate.

“From what the D.A. tells me, Esther had amnesia all this time. Now she claims to remember the killings.”

“What made them think she was involved in the first place?”

“They found her glasses at the scene of the Walters murder.”

“You mean Lookout Park?”

“Yes.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“I guess they figure she lost her glasses on the night of the murder.”

“She didn’t lose them then.”

“What?”

“I slapped those glasses off her, up in the park, about a week before those murders.”

Sarah glanced at her watch and hoped that Bobby had not seen her. In twenty minutes, visiting hour would be over. She felt as if she would never last.

The visit had been a disaster from the moment the guard had shut the metal door behind them. His kiss had lasted too long and she felt that he was clinging to her the way a drowning man would cling to a piece of driftwood.

Their conversation began with a dozen variations of “how are you” and deteriorated into an inhibited discussion of generalities, punctuated by long, self-conscious silences. The longer she stayed with him, the clearer it became that the man who sat before her, shoulders bowed, eyes never meeting hers, was not the man who shared her bed for the past few months. Her lover was a man of substance. This was a man of shadow. She felt pity for the prisoner. Uncomfortable in his presence.

The guard rapped on the door and yelled, “Five minutes.” It was time to ask the question she had come to ask.

“Bobby,” she said, interrupting him.

He looked at her and knew what she was going to say by the way her voice trembled. He had dreaded this moment, anticipating it a thousand times in the solitude of his cell.

“Did you…? Those two people…I’ve got to know.”

It took all of his courage to take hold of her hand and look into her eyes.

“No, Sarah. I never…”

“Remember the night that we talked? The night before exams when you couldn’t sleep. Why did you tell me that you had blood on your hands? Why wouldn’t you let me ask you any more questions?”

The question struck him like a blow. He remembered the night very well and he had hoped that she had forgotten. He felt as if he was breaking up inside.

“I…In Vietnam…That’s where I…killed an old man. An accident…”

He continued on, telling her about that night, wondering if she believed him. It was getting to be too much for him. If she loved him, why had she asked? Why couldn’t she have just trusted him. He began to cry.

She reached over and let him cry on her shoulder. She felt embarrassed. That was all. She wanted to get away from him, the closeness of this antiseptic room, the smell of defeat.

“Sarah, you’re all I’ve got. You have to believe me. I didn’t…You’re all I’ve got.”

The guard knocked on the door and she helped him to stand and compose himself.

On the freeway, driving home, she thought about their meeting. Had he told her the truth when he denied killing the boy and the girl? As soon as she asked the question, she realized that the answer really didn’t matter, because she no longer cared about Bobby Coolidge.

Esther sat in the dark next to the window. She had moved a wooden chair from the kitchen and placed it so that no one looking up from the street could see her. The fingers of her right hand gripped the edge of the window curtain and held it far enough from the window so that she could peek out without attracting notice.

Esther was certain that she was being watched. First, the lawyer had come to her apartment. Then, a few days later, he had called her. She told him again that she would not talk to him and she threatened to call the police.

That evening, she thought she heard someone moving about in her apartment, but there was no one there when she turned on the lights. At times there was a peculiar echo on the phone and she was certain that a blue and white Ford had passed by at least four times since the lawyer’s phone call.

She had told all this to Roy and he had told her that it was her imagination. She said that it would all be okay if he would just stay with her. When she was with him, she felt so safe. She didn’t want to tell him that she had been thinking about Bobby. How he might feel sitting in jail because of her. In a cell for the rest of his life. That was the sentence Roy had said he would get when she asked.

She thought she saw a movement in a doorway, but there was no one on the street. She must be wrong. Still, she couldn’t sleep. She was too upset. She tried to imagine Dr. Hollander’s fingers on her wrist, but she could not concentrate long enough to make that work. She kept thinking about Bobby and what it would be like to look at him from the witness stand and say the same things to him that she had told Roy and the doctor in the privacy of the doctor’s office.

If Roy was with her-if he would hold her while she talked-she could do it. But she knew, because he had told her, that he would not be allowed in the courtroom. She would have to face Bobby alone. She felt frightened again. She wished Roy would come by again. He was always so kind to her. So gentle. He could make her forget the bad thoughts.

A man rose from his seat at the window of the apartment house across the street. He was an old man dressed in a sleeveless undershirt. A floor lamp situated behind his chair bathed his pale skin in light as he walked away from the window. Esther could see patches of gray hair on his arms. They revolted her. She imagined the old man moving about her apartment in the dark. She could feel the clammy touch of his hand on her cheek. She shuddered.

Why did she feel this way? Wasn’t she telling the truth? Dr. Hollander had said so. It was amnesia that had kept her from remembering before. That’s why she only remembered now. She knew it was the truth. Bobby would know when he heard her. He couldn’t hate her for telling the truth.

She could see the telephone sitting on the end table by the sofa. Maybe she should call Roy. She wanted to. Only he seemed so a