But over the weeks, months, it took the system to sort out his crimes and decide how to punish him, Walter had come to understand and accept the contours of his life. Contours-a lovely word, exactly what it sounded like, a big round vase. He wasn’t going to be found innocent, not in the case of Holly or Maude, and that was all because of Elizabeth, the state’s star witness. Without her, they wouldn’t have had anything. She had found him at Maude’s grave, she had been there the night Holly died. It was lucky that he hadn’t given her specifics of the other things he had done. Oh, he had made vague references, especially in the beginning, when he had to get her to obey him. “If you knew the things I’d done…I’ve snapped a girl’s neck before and I’ll do it again.” But he had been cagey enough to withhold the specifics, and she couldn’t tell folks anything more than what she had seen. If only he had killed her-but he hadn’t, and that was that. Certainly he had known what would happen if they were caught, and he had realized, after Holly died, that such an outcome was more likely. Holly wasn’t the kind of girl whose disappearance and death went unavenged. This time, he had stolen a princess, and the kingdom was going to rise up, outraged. Sure enough, he was in custody less than forty-eight hours later, and that began the second half of his life, the part spent behind bars.
Still, in the early years, his days had some variety. There were the trials and, in the case of Holly, appeals and retrials. The first retrial had been filed before the twenty-one days expired, and no one could complain about that. Stupid woman juror had talked about the penalty phase, said she knew for a fact that he wouldn’t get death in Maryland, so they had to give it to him in Virginia. And the bitch would have lied, too, perjured her way through the investigation if she could have, but there were other jurors who were honest enough to admit the conversation had taken place. Then he had petitioned on the grounds of incompetent counsel, which hadn’t gotten him a new trial but had gotten him Jefferson, who was quite the busy little beaver. He was the one who had started poring over maps and begun to question whether Walter was in Virginia or West Virginia when Holly died. Yes, he knew folks were outraged when they got the order to send the surveyors out, that they talked about technicalities, how it was just a line on a map. But, hell, who wouldn’t want to be on the right side of a line that was literally the difference between life and death? If that campsite was on the West Virginia side, then he should have been tried in West Virginia, and West Virginia had no death penalty. Who could blame a guy for trying?
Eventually, life had settled into a slow gray haze. He did some of the things he set out to do. He read a great deal, especially military history. He practiced yoga. He corresponded with people who wrote to him, although no one had the staying power of Barbara LaFortuny. It seemed that the people, the women, who contacted him wanted something he simply couldn’t give. He thought about a religious conversion, but he found he believed less and less as time went on and he respected faith too much to fake it. If there was a God, then the world would make more sense. That much seemed clear to him.
But chess? No. He tried it, especially during that period when that nice army retiree was next to him in the yard. That guy, Hollis, said it was possible to hold a chessboard in your head and talk the moves. Over time, Walter learned to do that, but it was all he could do. The strategy of chess-the necessity of sacrifice, the impossibility of keeping every piece safe-bothered him. He hated sending those little pawns out into the world. And the games were long. He liked things that moved faster.
This, his dance with Elizabeth-it had gone at just the right pace. True, he had played it a little close to the edge, as Barbara kept saying. Elizabeth was due at the prison next Saturday, and he was to be transferred Monday morning to Jarratt, his third trip to the Death House. In fact, no matter what Elizabeth decided, he would still probably have to make that trip, but he didn’t mind. At least it was a variation in routine and it would end up making him the stuff of legend. Walter Bowman, the only man to come back from the Death House three times. He would be seen as invincible.
And if she didn’t cooperate, as Barbara kept fretting? They would still have enough time to sic the reporter on her, to let her see how quickly her world could be broken. But he hoped it didn’t come to that. It would be much nicer if she would just see that there was a right thing to do and she had to do it. He had no desire to antagonize Elizabeth, nor hurt her. But he was trying to stay alive and all was fair, etc., etc.
He had really come to enjoy their conversations these past few weeks and wondered if she felt the same. He wasn’t ignorant. He knew the pain he had caused her and didn’t expect her to understand that there had been pain for him, too. When they first began to speak, he was intent on his plan, his agenda, and couldn’t loosen up much. But as he got into the swing of things, figured out the rhythm of their talk, just how hard he could push, he had risked a few digressions. He had told her about his reading and how he had finally read Travels with Charley, which hadn’t been at all as she had described it. He had teased her about Madonna, her big idol, and asked if she went to her last concert in rubber bracelets and lace leggings. Her present life was clearly off-limits, and she shut him down if he probed too much, or dropped hints about what he knew. But they did, in fact, have a shared past.
Once, only once, had he invoked Holly. “You didn’t like her much,” he said, and she had become heated, told him she didn’t want to discuss Holly. But he knew he was right. Elizabeth hadn’t liked Holly. She was fearful of being displaced by her and-she was right to be. Holly was the one he wanted. Elizabeth was the one he got. Further proof that life wasn’t fair. And proof that he was long overdue for a lucky break. Not just overdue, but utterly deserving.
40
ELIZA EASED HER BODY INTO BED, joints aching as if she had completed a marathon. She had, in a sense, run a marathon of mothering today. A biathlon, if one threw Trudy Tackett into the mix, only what would you call the second event?
Without saying a word, Peter reached for her shoulders and began to knead them. She was grateful he didn’t want to talk further about the afternoon, that he knew to leave her in peace.
“You didn’t call,” Trudy had said, almost accusingly. It seemed to be Eliza’s day to face down older women who were disappointed in her, in her manners, in her parenting. “I waited, but when I didn’t hear from you within the first few days, I knew you weren’t going to call.”
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
“To me. It’s my understanding that you’ve been speaking quite a bit to another old acquaintance of ours.”
Eliza was almost grateful then for the humiliation of the trip to North Bethesda Middle School. It gave her a reason to speak to Iso, if not Albie, in the controlled measured tone she needed. “Iso, go to your room. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to find out that you’re grounded again. We’ll talk more about this later. Albie, Reba’s been cooped up for a while, as have you. Why don’t you take her into the backyard?”
Both children did as they were told, although Iso seemed puzzled, as if her mother’s reactions were hard to fathom. Eliza waited for the whine of the back door, the slam of Iso’s bedroom door. But the latter was actually closed with quiet decorum. It was so quiet that Eliza went halfway up the stairs to make sure the door was shut, then came back and closed off the dining room.