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God help her, she would know him anywhere.
Part IX.EVERY DAY
Released in 1985 by James Taylor
Never charted on Billboard Hot 100
Album peaked at no. 34 and remained in the
top 200 for 54 weeks
JARRATT, VA [AP]-Walter Michael Bowman was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday night at the Greenville Correctional Facility here, his death witnessed by the parents of his final victim, a thirteen-year-old girl that he kidnapped, robbed, and attempted to rape in 1985.
“We waited a long time for this day and we feel that justice has been done at last,” Dr. Terrence Tackett Jr., the father of Holly Tackett, said in a brief appearance before reporters, his wife, Trudy, at his side.
Bowman, who had been on Virginia’s death row longer than any inmate in the prison’s modern history, declined to make a statement and asked that the details of his final meal be kept private. However, in the hours before his execution, he authorized a friend to release a posthumous statement to the media…
46
TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Eliza was walking Reba in the evening, marveling at the freakishly warm weather. Perhaps a more serious person-Vo
The night was so lovely that she walked much longer than she had pla
She was lost enough in her thoughts that she did not notice Barbara LaFortuny’s humpbacked car creeping up behind her. However, Reba did, planted herself and issued one muted, but undeniable bark as the car idled to a stop.
“It’s okay, girl.”
Barbara rolled down her window. She was hard to see in the darkness of the car’s interior, while Eliza was under a streetlamp, exposed. Still, she could make out the various shapes of Barbara’s remarkable hairstyle. All that time, all that effort…did she really think it was attractive? Architecturally impressive, yes, undoubtedly. But attractive? Just because you worked hard on something didn’t make it worth doing.
“Hello, Barbara.”
“I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
Eliza considered this. “In some ways, I am. But I’m more proud of Walter.”
“You have no right to be proud of him. He didn’t do it for you.”
She believed this was true. “Still, he did the right thing, in the end, releasing that statement. Two families now know what happened to their daughters. I just feel sorry for the others.”
“What others? Walter had no other victims, and he never would have been given the death penalty for the two murders to which he did confess, if only because-” Barbara, ever the advocate, ever wound up, always wielding her talking points like a squadron of flying monkeys. If only she could hear anything that others said in the rare spaces she left between her words. Holly, Maude, Dillon, Kelly. Eliza’s ghosts all had names and faces now. She wondered if that meant they might stop visiting her.
“I feel sorry for all the families who pi
She had hoped she could make a small joke, but all she did was set Barbara off again.
“He wasn’t a serial killer in the classic sense. I really do believe he suffered from a kind of temporary insanity-”
A less kindhearted person might have laughed at Barbara then. Eliza didn’t laugh, but she also couldn’t bear to let her keep talking. “I’m sorry, Barbara.”
“For not doing the right thing?”
“No, I’m sorry you lost someone you love.”
“It wasn’t like that with us.” The more Barbara automatically denied any romantic attachment to Walter, the more Eliza believed it was so. But, as her own parents might have said, Barbara got to be the expert on Barbara.
“I didn’t mean it that way. You cared about him. I think it’s nice that you cared about him.”
“You certainly didn’t. You let him die. You let him die because he knew the truth about you-that you were cowardly, that you are a liar-and now that he’s dead, no one will ever know. That’s why you let him die. To bury your own shame.”
Eliza was angry now and her instinct, upon anger, had always been to flee. Instead she took a second to gather her thoughts. Life isn’t a timed event, as Vo
“Well, Barbara, if you feel that way, you can always call Jared Garrett, send him the other letter that Walter dictated to you, release it to the world at large. Why haven’t you?”
“It’s not what Walter wanted.” Said stiffly, grudgingly. “But I might, one day. I do what I think is right, not what’s easy or expedient.”
“That’s a nice way to be,” Eliza said, meaning it.
She began walking again. A few seconds later, Barbara’s car drove past, as round-shouldered and dejected as a car could be. Eliza wondered why principled Barbara, whose license plate exhorted others to save the bay, hadn’t chosen a hybrid. Everybody wants to rule the world-but only according to his or her own ideas about what mattered. There wasn’t a principled position that couldn’t be followed to an extreme where it then clashed with someone else’s equally fervent beliefs. Eliza studied the stars above her, wished she knew the constellations, as Peter did, that she could identify more than the Big Dipper and the North Star. To her, the stars were simply random points of light. Some bright, some dim. Some far, some relatively near. Some lucky, some unlucky.
She let herself and Reba in through the kitchen door, listened to the cheerful beep-beep-beep of the security system, which signaled that a door had opened. They used the system religiously, but it wouldn’t be enough if anyone was determined to do them serious harm. There would never be enough alarms and walls and dogs and gates and spyware to protect one’s self and one’s family. Beep-beep-beep. It was like being guarded by the Road Ru
But then-the Road Ru
“You know what I would like to do tonight?” she asked Peter, who had barely glanced up at the door’s chime, so intent was he on his laptop, the work he had brought home.
“Find a Rita’s that serves this late in the season?”