True Believers(32)

“I don’t think ‘evil’ is a very useful word,” he said finally. “I think she’s dangerous. I don’t think she ought to be walking around loose. I think, under the right circumstances, she would probably do it again.”

“I want to know if you think she should be dead.”

“I never think anybody should be dead,” Gregor said. “No, I take that back. There was one person, just one, whom I thought ought to be executed. I’m putting that badly. In that one case, I thought execution was justified. I suppose what I’m trying to say is, whether or not I think she ought to be dead doesn’t mean very much.”

“Well, it won’t change anything, but that wasn’t what I was getting at.” Bennis bunched the scarf into a ball and threw it back on the display table. Gregor could see the saleswomen watching her. She was such a prime target: obviously rich, and obviously used to it. He wondered if she was even seeing the scarves anymore, of if they had wandered into a more urgent area of her mind, the part where she had to solve the problems of the universe, now, immediately, without excuses. It was a part of the mind that usually atrophied after adolescence, but the withered organ never disappeared. Gregor knew that from experience, too.

They got to another set of shelves and another set of scarves. Bennis seemed to like this set more. She passed up the solid red one to look at one with red-and-grey stripes. She wound it around and around her hands and nodded slightly.

“Pashmina,” she said finally. “You don’t usually see it in patterns.”

“What’s pashmina?”

“A kind of cashmere.” She handed the scarf to Gregor.

Gregor noticed that the scarf was both softer and longer than the ones he was used to. Then he looked at the price tag: $278.

“Good God,” he said.

Bennis took the scarf from him and headed for the nearest counter. Saleswomen probably got commissions on the things they sold. Whoever ended up with Bennis was going to have a very good sales day.

“What I want to know,” Bennis said finally, “is what I should think about it. It’s not as if we were ever close. I don’t think Anne Marie has ever been close to anyone.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “That’s the point.”

“I know. And there’s what she did. Which was horrible. Beyond horrible. But I still don’t know what I should think about it. Maybe it’s because she’s my sister, still my sister, you know what I mean. In spite of everything. Even in spite of the fact that we never really liked each other. Maybe I’d feel the same way about the execution of anybody I’d ever known.”

“People do, you know. It’s almost impossible for a psychologically normal person to kill someone he can see as fully human. That’s why, when there’s a movement to stop an execution, there’s so much time taken to make the convicted murderer seem human. Think about the Karla Faye Tucker case in Texas. It hurt to see her die in the end because she had become real to so many of us. She wasn’t a name and a story. She was a person.”

Bennis had found a counter. She folded up the scarf and put it down. The saleswoman was there in a blink, gurgling incoherently. Gregor didn’t think Bennis heard a word she said.

“There’s something else,” Bennis told him. “I thought I might as well warn you. The state of Pennsylvania sent invitations to my brothers and to Dickie Van Damm.”

“And?”

“Chris is going to come out and stay with Lida. I don’t know about the other two. I don’t even know where Bobby is. And as for Teddy—” She shrugged.

“I like your brother Chris. I’ll be glad to see him.”

“Yes, well, the thing is, he may not be the only person you see. I’ve got it on good authority that Dickie is going to witness the execution. That he’s going to—be there. In the peanut gallery. Or whatever you call it.”

“Ah.”

“If he’s there, he won’t leave us alone. You must know that. We’ll see him. He’ll come out to Cavanaugh Street. He’ll make a nuisance of himself somehow. In person, I suppose I mean. Anyway, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Ah,” Gregor said.

The saleswoman was no idiot. She could see that Bennis wanted to talk to Gregor and not listen to her enthuse about the scarf or about the wonders of pashmina. She interrupted only once—to ask if Bennis would like a gift box—and as soon as she had a positive answer went about her work with silent efficiency. The gift box was red and came with a white satin ribbon. Valentine’s Day was only a few days away.