her jaw line, cheek and forehead. The side effects from the steroids and seizure medication gave her face a puffy, bloated look that no amount of dieting or exercise could diminish.
‘Five… ah… years,’ she said. ‘Five years… ago, you… ah… ah… came, ah…’
‘What’s with your voice? You retarded or something?’
‘No.’
‘Then what is it? Some sort of birth defect?’
Jamie couldn’t get the words out. She knew what she wanted to say: Five years ago, you came into my house and shot me in the head. You shot my two children while your two partners were downstairs torturing my husband . Her problem was actual speech. The .32 slug that had entered through her lower jaw, shattering her cheekbone and severing the optic nerves of her left eye, had lodged itself in the front lobe – Broca’s area, the neurologists had told her, the brain’s central processing system for language and speech. While she could understand language just fine, could form and process complex sentences easily inside her head, the brain damage had saddled her with expressive aphasia, this maddening, incurable condition that limited her speech to no more than four words at a time, mostly nouns and verbs delivered in a slow, telegraphic manner. On a good day.
‘Shot,’ she said.
‘Someone shot you in the face?’
‘You… ah… did.’
Ben staring like he didn’t recognize her. Like he didn’t remember.
‘You… ah… shot me… and… ah… my children. Carter and… ah… ah… Michael. Your… ah… two partners… ah… murdered… my… ah… husband. Dan… Dan Russo.’
‘Can’t say I know anyone by that name.’
‘He… ah… ah… a contractor. Wellesley.’
‘That his company name? Wellesley?’
A slight grin on Ben’s face, having fun with this.
‘Lived… ah… in… ah… Wellesley. You’re… ah… two… ah… partners, they… ah… ah… killed him. Rope. Tied it and… ah… ah… neck. Strangled him. Waste disposal… my house. Wellesley. Five… ah… years… ah… five years… ago.’
‘I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.’
No. No, she didn’t.
This morning, after she had dropped off her prescription, she had turned around and seen, at the far end of the aisle, a man looking over shelves stocked with pain relievers. This man had the same thin, almost feminine lips as the man who had forced his way into her home. The organizer, the man she knew only as Ben.
No… No, it can’t be him , she had thought. Why would Ben come back to Wellesley after all this time? Ben and his two partners, the ski-masked men who had murdered Dan in the kitchen, had disappeared from the face of the earth five years ago. Those men were never found and never would be.
And Ben, she remembered quite clearly, had had a blond crew cut threaded with grey. The man standing in the aisle wore a dark blue baseball cap over long black hair that curled around the ears. Ben had had pale skin. This man had a dark tan and was dressed like someone who spent his days lounging on a boat Sperry Top-Sider shoes, khaki shorts and a pair of aviator sunglasses hanging in the V of a white untucked Oxford shirt. He wore a thick gold wedding band and a gold Rolex Yacht-Master watch. Ben hadn’t worn a wedding ring.
Jamie remembered watching as the man reached for something on the top shelf. On the wrist of his right hand and stretching across his palm was a thick rubbery white scar shaped like a mutant starfish.
Ben had had the exact same scar. She had seen it when he wrapped the duct tape across her mouth. She hadn’t seen the two men who had entered the house. Later, she’d heard one of them call upstairs: ‘Let’s go, Ben.’
‘Partners,’ Jamie said, reaching inside her windbreaker for the Magnum. ‘I want… ah… their names.’
Ben hawked a gob of bloody phlegm over the side of the car, then leaned back against the boot lid. Nothing lived behind those eyes. Just two glassy lifeless balls
‘Five… ah… years,’ she said. ‘Five years… ago, you… ah… ah… came, ah…’
‘What’s with your voice? You retarded or something?’
‘No.’
‘Then what is it? Some sort of birth defect?’
Jamie couldn’t get the words out. She knew what she wanted to say: Five years ago, you came into my house and shot me in the head. You shot my two children while your two partners were downstairs torturing my husband . Her problem was actual speech. The .32 slug that had entered through her lower jaw, shattering her cheekbone and severing the optic nerves of her left eye, had lodged itself in the front lobe – Broca’s area, the neurologists had told her, the brain’s central processing system for language and speech. While she could understand language just fine, could form and process complex sentences easily inside her head, the brain damage had saddled her with expressive aphasia, this maddening, incurable condition that limited her speech to no more than four words at a time, mostly nouns and verbs delivered in a slow, telegraphic manner. On a good day.
‘Shot,’ she said.
‘Someone shot you in the face?’
‘You… ah… did.’
Ben staring like he didn’t recognize her. Like he didn’t remember.
‘You… ah… shot me… and… ah… my children. Carter and… ah… ah… Michael. Your… ah… two partners… ah… murdered… my… ah… husband. Dan… Dan Russo.’
‘Can’t say I know anyone by that name.’
‘He… ah… ah… a contractor. Wellesley.’
‘That his company name? Wellesley?’
A slight grin on Ben’s face, having fun with this.
‘Lived… ah… in… ah… Wellesley. You’re… ah… two… ah… partners, they… ah… ah… killed him. Rope. Tied it and… ah… ah… neck. Strangled him. Waste disposal… my house. Wellesley. Five… ah… years… ah… five years… ago.’
‘I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.’
No. No, she didn’t.
This morning, after she had dropped off her prescription, she had turned around and seen, at the far end of the aisle, a man looking over shelves stocked with pain relievers. This man had the same thin, almost feminine lips as the man who had forced his way into her home. The organizer, the man she knew only as Ben.
No… No, it can’t be him , she had thought. Why would Ben come back to Wellesley after all this time? Ben and his two partners, the ski-masked men who had murdered Dan in the kitchen, had disappeared from the face of the earth five years ago. Those men were never found and never would be.
And Ben, she remembered quite clearly, had had a blond crew cut threaded with grey. The man standing in the aisle wore a dark blue baseball cap over long black hair that curled around the ears. Ben had had pale skin. This man had a dark tan and was dressed like someone who spent his days lounging on a boat Sperry Top-Sider shoes, khaki shorts and a pair of aviator sunglasses hanging in the V of a white untucked Oxford shirt. He wore a thick gold wedding band and a gold Rolex Yacht-Master watch. Ben hadn’t worn a wedding ring.
Jamie remembered watching as the man reached for something on the top shelf. On the wrist of his right hand and stretching across his palm was a thick rubbery white scar shaped like a mutant starfish.
Ben had had the exact same scar. She had seen it when he wrapped the duct tape across her mouth. She hadn’t seen the two men who had entered the house. Later, she’d heard one of them call upstairs: ‘Let’s go, Ben.’
‘Partners,’ Jamie said, reaching inside her windbreaker for the Magnum. ‘I want… ah… their names.’
Ben hawked a gob of bloody phlegm over the side of the car, then leaned back against the boot lid. Nothing lived behind those eyes. Just two glassy lifeless balls
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