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Jack turned around to see Jeff rush over to the man, sit next to him, put his arm around his shoulders, and speak in a low voice until Hanover sat limply in the chair, leaning into Jeff.
DuBose said, “You picked up the bayonet? You were struggling with him?”
“I finally broke free from my father and I struck him with it. But he kept coming at me. And I struck him again. And again. Until... he fell down. Until he... couldn’t hurt... anybody else...”
“Had he hurt... you, before?”
Christine looked up at DuBose and her features once more calmed. When she next spoke her voice had regained some rigidity though her gaze and voice were distant. “Yes. And Sam. And my other brother and sister before they died. My father could be so kind. And then he could be so very... cruel.”
“That explains why the wounds on your mother were on a downward motion. Your father was much taller than she was. But you’re shorter than your father, and your blows were coming from another angle.”
“I was just striking at him blindly. To make him... stop.”
“So now they were both dead. And then what happened?”
“I couldn’t believe what... what I had done. I was numb, paralyzed. Then I realized how bad this would all look. I didn’t know what to do. So I made a call. I couldn’t reach Gordon because he was out of town.”
DuBose turned and scanned the crowd until she saw Curtis Gates near the back. The man looked like he had been turned to stone. “So you called Curtis Gates?”
“Yes. He was our lawyer, our friend. I thought he could help. I told him what had happened. He... he sent his son, Walter, right over.”
“And what did Walter do?”
“He brought me a coat to cover the blood on my clothes. Then he smeared the blood on the rug to cover my footprints. I had held the bayonet, so he took that, and he wiped down the phone I had used. Then he drove me home.”
“How did you get past the gate without the guard seeing you? And why would they let Gates in without you?”
“He had put the top up on the car, and I hid in the floorboard with a blanket over me. Walter has a pass to get into the gate because his company does work there.”
“Didn’t the police come by your house to try to notify you of what had happened?”
“That’s why I sent Patsy home. They did come by, but I didn’t answer the door, or the phone. I had stayed inside all day so none of my neighbors saw me. I was planning to go to DC with Gordon, but I was feeling unwell and decided at the last minute to stay home. Later that evening, pretending to be his secretary, I reached Gordon at his hotel in Washington. I told him what had happened. He drove straight home.”
“But the guard at the gate to your neighborhood said he saw Gordon and you arrive around two in the morning.”
“I got dressed up, snuck out of the neighborhood, met Gordon at a prearranged spot, and we drove home together so the guard would see us both coming in at that time.”
“And then Jerome was arrested for the crimes.”
Christine slumped forward and moaned. “I... I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even know he was there. I never, ever expected him to go into the house like that.”
“But you didn’t come forward then?”
She shook her head. “Curtis told me that I would go to prison.”
“It sounds to me like it was self-defense, Mrs. Hanover.”
“Curtis said people would think that I had killed them both.”
“Who called the police on Jerome?”
“Later, Curtis told me that Walter had gone back to see if we had missed anything and he saw Jerome going into the house. He went to a pay phone and called the police.”
“To implicate Jerome?”
“Yes.”
“But then evidence began appearing that further framed both the Washingtons. Witnesses like Tyler Dobbs and Linda Drucker? The discovery of the money in the lean-to, the bayonet in the tree stump?”
