The Third Victim Part 33

"Jesus. Shouldn't you be there?"

"Yes."

"Well, why aren't you?" "Because if I had to spend one more minute sitting in that room, watching that mockery of human life play out in front of me, I was going to lose my mind." His eyes suddenly glinted with moisture. He brushed it away with the back of his hand and looked at her almost impatiently.

"Rainie, my daughter doesn't have a face anymore. Her vehicle hit a telephone pole going thirty-five miles per hour without her seat belt on. Do you really want to hear how the force of impact pushes a body not just forward but up in the air? That steering-wheel columns are designed to collapse so they won't crush a person's chest or internal organs, but that they also can't halt all the G forces once they've been unleashed? How the body keeps going forward, keeps going up. How the person's skull now slams into the metal frame of the winds.h.i.+eld, which isn't designed to collapse, which isn't designed to give way? And then comes the nose and face, slamming into the winds.h.i.+eld, shattering all those bones, while the skull is driven deeper into the person's brain.. ..

"My daughter doesn't have a head anymore. She has a pulpy ma.s.s carefully held in place by staples and thread and miles of fluffy white gauze. The only reason she was even put on life support was that the doctors were waiting for permission to harvest her organs. But now she's there, a grotesque doll animated purely by machines, and my ex-wife, Bethie, keeps mistaking that for life, so she won't let go.

And I don't think it's right. I don't think there's any .. . dignity ... in that. And I don't think my younger daughter, Kimberly, should have to sit at her sister's side and listen to her mother and me fight over when to pull the plug. My feelings on the subject are clear. Now it's up to Bethie to figure out when she can let go."

"So you arrived, you gave your expert advice, and you left."

Quincy blinked several times.

"You know, you could at least pretend not to see through me," he said at last.

"Particularly when you're sober at the time."

He took another swallow of beer, looking as if he needed it now. His bottle was nearly empty. The waitress stopped by to ask him if he wanted a second. He hesitated, his gaze clearly thirsty, but then shook his head.

"Surprised you didn't go to whiskey," Rainie commented.

"I did, for a week. Then I had to give it up due to irony. Amanda was killed by a drunk driver."

"Ah."

"I tried eating. Potato chips, candy bars, Gummy Bears. Anything that came out of a hospital vending machine. But I kept forgetting to chew, and that made things difficult. I resumed jogging. That seems to do the trick. You?"

Twelve miles, four days a week. Bet I could run you into the ground."

"I'm nearly fifteen years older than you, Rainie. I bet you could run me into the ground."

"Quincy, you're not that old."

The s.p.a.ce between them sparked again. He looked away first.

"Now it's your turn," he said abruptly.

"t.i.t for tat."

"All right." She brought up her chin gamely and got a good grip on her Bud Light.

"My mom was a drunk. A mean drunk. A promiscuous drunk. Trailer trash, you know the type. She got into a lot of brawls, hung out with men who beat her, and, following the trickle-down theory of family management, returned home to beat me. Except one day when I came home, she'd been decapitated by a shotgun blast to the head. And unfortunately for me, I was the first person at the scene."

"Did Shep O'grady arrest you?"

"Yep." She shrugged.

"I would've arrested me too. The whole town knew what she was doing.

Now here she was dead, and I had her brains in my hair. I made a great suspect. But I was the wrong one."

"And who was the right one?"

"Officially, it's still unsolved. Unofficially, they're pretty sure it was her man of the moment. A neighbor saw him at the house right before she heard the gunshot. Maybe it was some kind of lover's quarrel, or maybe he was just too drunk to think straight. My mother didn't exactly date rocket scientists. He was a trucker, I think.

They put out an APB, but no one ever saw him again. Just some guy pa.s.sing through. And now it's been so many years I don't even remember his name." Rainie shrugged again.

"Given the way my mother lived, I don't think the story could have ended any other way."

"And for you?" Quincy said quietly.

"After all that, I'd think you would've left Bakersville for good."

"I tried. Went to Portland. Enrolled in the university. Got drunk.

For four years. Then joined AA. When I finally graduated, I decided I might as well go home, because for all of my running I was ending up in the same place I began. Besides, I like it here. I inherited my mother's house, all paid for, which is good when you're making fifteen grand a year."

"You still live in the house where you grew up?" He gave her a skeptical look.

"I don't mind. It's the deck I like the best anyway." She gave him a funny smile.

"Honestly, I like small-town police work. I get to deal with people, not paper. And Bakersville is a good community. We have a lot of nice folks."

"Excluding the neighbors who never said a word about your mother beating you each night. And excluding the neighbors who still believe that you're a murderer."

"Oh, the ones who think I killed my mother don't mind. In their opinion, what goes around comes around."

"But you don't think that, do you, Rainie? And these last two days, staring at Danny O'grady that must have been very difficult for you."

She stiffened. Her hands tightened around her Bud Light.

"Don't psychoa.n.a.lyze me."

"I'm not," he said evenly.

"I can't help noticing, however, that today you gave an instant explanation of attachment disorder. Combine that with the fact you grew up in an abusive household, in circ.u.mstances not that different from those experienced by most violent kids. These issues aren't new to you. You've given it some thought. Long after this case is over, you'll still be giving it some thought."

"Well, at least my interest is personal and not some misplaced hero complex."

She had lashed out reflexively. It did not occur to her just how bitter and vicious she sounded until she saw him wince.

"Touche," he murmured.

Rainie promptly looked down, embarra.s.sed. It was in poor taste to ask a man to share his troubles and then hold them against him. She wanted to be a better person than that, but she knew she wasn't. She had a quick temper and a bristly personality. Apologies came hard to her.

"I don't mean to make you self-conscious," Quincy said quietly.

"Danny bothers me," she said abruptly, before she changed her mind.

"I saw his eyes. Trapped. Angry. Confused. I know that stare, and I looked at those bodies and I wondered .. . Everyone says kids can't be that angry, homicidally angry, but I know they can be. Sometimes it's hard not to be. To be young and helpless and defenseless .. . Her voice broke off. She sat there, holding the rest of the words in and feeling her heart beat against her chest like a trapped bird.