THE FOURTH WATCH (64 page)

*****

THE GLASS FOUND
in the trunk of Carolyn's car was subjected to fingerprint
analysis, and sure enough, they came back to Matte Genetassio and
Helena Carlais a.k.a Ellen Whorley. It was damning evidence, no
doubt about it, but they were both dead, so what could you
do.

*****

TED WHORLEY WAS
devastated by it all. His wife's betrayal, and her past,
being played out on the front pages for all to see was humiliating.
But Teddy felt great sorrow. He had loved his wife, and he missed
her, and he was by nature a kind and forgiving sort, so more than
anything else, it hurt. He was alone now. Fernando and his wife
came back after the holidays and moved into the cottage, but the
loneliness of the big house was never going to work. He asked Alex
Andreason to find a buyer for the company, put the house up for
sale and took an apartment in Boston to wait for government to
decide if they were going to charge him with anything. He told Alex
he'd be in Paris the day after they gave him the all clear. Jed
Archer agreed to stay on and run the company until a buyer could be
found.

*****

INCREDIBLY, WALTER DEMARRIS
SURVIVED
. Madigan was dead. The coroner
determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head.
Walter's gunshot wounds were not as serious as they could have been
but his body had gone into shock. Hypothermia had shut down his
organs and slowed his blood to a crawl, which is why the forensic
people believed he was dead when they arrived on the scene. The
doctors had told Bertie Waldo, who had appointed herself overseer
of Walter's recovery, that while rare, it was not unheard of for
the bodies organs to begin operating again as the body warmed. They
were of the belief that the powerful propane heaters had begun a
process known as AER or active external rewarming, where a rise in
surface body temperature causes the brain to dilate blood vessels
in the extremities, reactivating the flow of blood through the
system, restarting organ function. Once at the hospital they were
able to employ active core rewarming techniques and stabilize him
The Crime Scene Investigators discovery of a faint pulse had saved
his life.

*****

I SPENT ANOTHER
holiday in the hospital. My wounds healed, but I was sick of
being shot, and sick of the whole sordid mess that had occupied my
life since summer. The human capacity for evil astonished me. The
dead haunted my dreams. My heart ached for Samantha and Carolyn
Whorley, and for Ted Whorley, and even his wife Ellie in a
way.

The coming home was eerily like last time. I
came awake in the hospital to Jack sitting in the chair next to my
bed. I had a cut on my face and a hole in my arm, and the bullet
that had cored through my shoulder had taken off a piece of
important bone that had to be dealt with over time. After a day or
two of poking and prodding and testing; some chin stroking and
admonition, I was cleared to go, and Jack took me home in the
Jeep.

I gave the considerable sum of money that was
left from Carolyn's retainers to a variety of charities with Ted
Whorley's blessing. I was restless and unsure of what to do with
myself. I didn't really want to be a lawyer anymore. I had had
enough of championing the cause of small-minded people whose
criminal yearnings fostered in them a disregard for their fellow
man. But I didn't know what else to do. I had to feed myself and
pay the bills. I wondered what being a monk paid.

*****

ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON
in February when the lake was frozen and white
with snow, and the bare trees were etched against the sky like
skeletal fingers, Alex Andreason's black Mercedes turned into my
driveway. We sat at my kitchen table and drank coffee and watched
the ice fishermen working their traps in the sunlight.

Alex put a fat envelope on the table. Inside
there was an employment contract and a check for ten thousand
dollars.

"What this?" I asked him.

"Your signing bonus."

"Alex, I can't... "

"Listen to me, Kato my friend. This is a no
show job. If I ever see you in my office, I'll fire you on the
spot." His eyes were smiling.

"I just don't want to do this shit
anymore."

''Perfect,'' he said. "Now, I want you to keep
that hovel you call an office. We'll pay for it and all expenses.
Go in when you want, or don't." He shrugged his shoulders. "Your
salary is two thousand a week. If we need something done in
Worcester, we might ask you to get involved. Otherwise take some
time off, get yourself together."

"I can't accept this, Alex, but thank you,
you're a good friend."

"Of course you can accept it...and you will. I
got you involved in this thing, and I almost got you killed -
twice. I know you don't want to go back to the criminal courts.
It's a way out. Take it, just until you figure out what you want to
do. It will ease my conscience. I refuse to go around with a guilty
conscience."

A snowmobile came down off the bank on the
opposite side of the lake and roared across the snow. The fishermen
shook their fists at it as it went past.

"I know that this thing didn't work out the way
we thought it would," Alex said, his eyes still on the window.
''But you did a good thing here, Kato. You solved a murder that
would have gone away, and you took some very bad people off the
street. The damage done, the innocent people that were hurt? I
don't know what to say about that. But how many more people would
have been hurt if you didn't close this? You need to think about
that."

He got up and shrugged his way into his coat.
"Sign the contract and mail it in. Then, do what you have to
do."

*****

THAT NIGHT ANNIE
came and lay beside me in my bed. I could feel
her spirit warming me. I tried to move in my dream space,
struggling to move my arms so I could put them around her, and draw
her to me. But there is nothing to be gained in fighting the power
that rules the incandescent place between the worlds. So I gave it
up and lay quietly, enjoying her presence and thankful for it in
that moment. After a time my nocturnal torment subsided and I
slipped away into peaceful sleep.

THE END