True Believers(166)

“Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s get the other one, and call the ambulance, and sit down and talk. I think you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”





2


Bennis Hannaford had wanted her brother Christopher to come to Philadelphia by plane. After all, what sane person came to Philadelphia from California any other way? Christopher had had another way, one that involved going to New York first and seeing some people and coming on by Amtrak from Penn Station, and now Bennis was standing next to a long bench in the train station, wondering where all the homeless people came from. She wasn’t unaware that some people were homeless. She’d written an op-ed about it for the New York Times, and several times a year she forked over a significant amount of cash for one of Father Tibor’s relief funds. What bothered her was how the homeless seemed to congregate in some places rather than others. There were none living on Cavanaugh Street, or on any of the blocks near it, but here there seemed to be dozens, and the police were making it clear that they were barely welcome. Or worse. Bennis wrapped her arms around her body and paced back and forth in front of the ticket booths, listening to the sound of her clogs on the hard floor under her feet. Once, after one of her novels had been chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, she had been recognized in this station, and approached, too. It was the only time in her life she had ever been asked for an autograph on something besides one of her own books. She didn’t expect to be approached today. She had a feeling that she didn’t look anything like herself today. Her hair, thick and wild and as black as a little help from L’Oreal could make it, felt flat against her head. Her body felt four inches shorter than it normally was, and she wasn’t tall by anybody’s measure. “Bennis Hannaford,” somebody had once said, “is the sort of person who glows in the dark.” Bennis was fairly sure she didn’t glow in the dark at the moment. She barely had wattage in reflected light.

There was a newspaper vending machine against a wall near the benches. The paper was full of the death of Father Robert Healy. It even had a picture of St. Anselm’s Roman Catholic Church on the front page, in badly tinted color. It bothered Bennis a little to realize that she thought of this as good luck. Four murders on Baldwin Place meant that Anne Marie’s story had almost ceased to exist as far as the media were concerned. This was not turning into a circus, the way the execution of Karla Faye Tucker had. On the other hand, maybe it couldn’t have. Anne Marie was no Karla Faye Tucker, except maybe in bloody viciousness. Anne Marie was not a creature of the camera, and nobody in her half-long life had ever called her attractive. Anne Marie, the ugly one. Anne Marie, the stupid one. Anne Marie, the one without prospects.

I’m losing my mind, Bennis thought, and then people began streaming out into the waiting room from the tall archways that led to the trains. There were a lot of them—why were so many people coming to Philadelphia on this particular day?—and it wasn’t until they were almost all gone that she saw Christopher, still as tall and lean as a caricature, carrying a large leather grip in one hand and wearing his sports jacket open. That was all he had, a sports jacket, made of camel’s hair, with a sweater under it. The sweater was probably cashmere, but Bennis didn’t see how that was supposed to help. He was going to freeze to death.

“Hey,” she said, when she came up next to him.

He dropped his grip on the floor and gave her a hug. This was something he had picked up in California: hugs.

“Hey to you,” he said.

“Why didn’t you bring a coat?” she asked him. “It’s minus nine out there.”

“We don’t have minus nine in Santa Barbara. Don’t worry about it. If I get too uncomfortable, I’ll buy something to wear. How’s Lida?”

“At home. Cooking you something.”

“Excellent.”

“Are you going to stay over there this trip?”

Christopher picked up his grip. “I think it’s the only sensible thing, don’t you? I mean, not only do I want to, but from what I gather your life is not exactly solitary any longer. Not that it was ever really solitary. You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. Are you going to go up there for the execution?”

“No,” Christopher said. “That I definitely am not going to do. But Teddy is.”

“You talked to him.”

“He says your phone is unlisted. I didn’t give him the number. I figured you didn’t want me to. I talked to Bobby, too, by the way. He’s out of jail.”