now what to do first and what to save for later, but that day I was so new. When I fucked her with the blade, she gave up. She just copped out, passed out, left me alone, so I whacked the fuck out of her again with that lamp and let my knife do whatever it wanted. It was like stabbing grapefruit. The point paused briefly, met some resistance, and then plunged inside. I did it until she had paid me back everything that she and women like her take from us. Everything. I did it until I got good at it. And then I sank my teeth into her warm flesh and I came so hard. So hard. I’ll never forget her, my crash test dummy.
28
Katherine Chambers had entered midlife plump and silver-haired. They had not wanted children, she told me, but at thirty-seven she became pregnant and everything changed.
“It’s not that I don’t consider myself a feminist, I do,” she said with no accent whatsoever. I couldn’t have guessed what part of the country she’d come from. She filled cups with flavored coffee from a glass coffee press. The scent of vanilla and hazelnut wafted through the room. We pulled out chairs at a round pine table. I could see the water beyond her kitchen window and the sand, golden brown and packed against the earth from last night’s rain.
“It’s just that I have this question about when life begins.” Katherine said it casually, as if we were discussing last evening’s storm. “No one seems to know. Not the scientists or the theologians. That put abortion way out of the realm of possibility for me.” She took a sip of coffee; a rueful smile played on her lips as she returned her mug to the table. “We thought about adoption, but as time went by Martin and I became terribly excited about having a child.… I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but you never expect to outlive your children. It’s something that comes as a complete surprise. Although I don’t suppose you could plan for something like that anyway.”
“No, ma’am. I don’t suppose you could.”
She fell silent, looked out the window at the row of live oaks.
The ocean was full today, rolling dark green and acting up a little. Hurricane season wasn’t over yet. So far this year the winds had all moved too far out to sea to make the Georgia coast. But there were reports of one not far off. Edward had formed near Jamaica, pummeled Cuba, ripped through the Keys, then moved back out to sea, where he was now patiently churning, regaining strength for another run at the coast. Watches were posted from West Palm to Jacksonville, Jekyll, St. Simons, Savannah, Hilton Head, Charleston, and the Outer Banks. I wondered how this would affect my departure on the little two-lane strip that winds around the island. I could hear Rauser saying, “It’s not all about you, Keye.” But I knew the truth. Of course it was.
“Is it true that the person who killed my daughter is responsible for all these other murders?” Mrs. Chambers asked.
“The evidence points to that, yes.”
“I read those awful letters to the police in the paper. They were very difficult to read.”
“I can’t imagine what that would feel like,” I told her. “I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes touched the ocean again, then came back to mine. “How can I help you, Miss Street?”
She led me into her living room. There was an oil painting over the fireplace, Jekyll Island’s lighthouse rising up above city skyscrapers, and below it, shadowy, gray-flanneled figures with briefcases, bent against the winter wind, heads down. Yellow cabs lined narrow streets.
“We moved here from Manhattan when Anne was sixteen,” Katherine Chambers explained. “I think she missed the city very much. She painted this then.”
“Talented,” I said as if I had a clue.
Two boxes sat in front of a coffee table, Anne’s possessions from her college dorm, Mrs. Chambers told me. I looked through everything as delicately as possible. She sat watching me, her face a little pale.
“May I borrow the yearbooks and the journal? I have yearbooks from the university but I’d like to see Anne’s.”
“Because they have messages inside from classmates and friends.” It wasn’t a question. “You think it was someone she knew.”
“Is that what you think?”
Katherine shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know. Anne was so secretive about her private life. Tallahassee might have been three thousand miles away for all we knew about