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That made me feel terrible. In fact, all of this conversation was making me feel terrible. What had I done to him? Why had I ever thought—
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“That’s not enough.”
“What would be enough?”
“If you ever have to leave, promise you’ll take me with you.”
I hesitated for a moment, thinking about all the reasons I couldn’t do that. And then I promised, knowing that someday I’d break that promise, but knowing I couldn’t get through this any other way.
He stood up, and said, “I have a client in half an hour, I need to go.”
“Can I hug you?”
“Later. Maybe.”
“Okay.”
“And while I’m gone put the gun in the Jeep. I don’t want it in the house.”
Without another word or a kiss goodbye, he walked out of the house. He was gone. And so was my appetite.
29
April 22, 1996
Monday
Christopher Robin died over the weekend. Not the Winnie-the-Pooh character, it’s impossible to die once you’ve been trapped between the pages of a book. No, the real Christopher Robin Milne. The boy, recently a seventy-five-year-old man. who had apparently been haunted all his life by the animated alter ego his father created. It was on NPR as I drove to The Freedom Agenda.
Apparently, his father’s decision to name a beloved character after his son had backfired and resulted in years of torture for the boy, creating an estrangement that lasted most of their lives. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.
I was early, having slept poorly. Ronnie and I had slept together in the same bed, but it felt adversarial. He was in his corner; I was in mine. At one point, I think he kicked me. I listened closely to see if he was awake. I mean, if he kicked me in his sleep that was one thing but—I decided he was asleep. Or at least I was pretty sure.
I thought I might beat Karen and Lydia into the office, but they were both there when I arrived. Carrying the sketch pad, I stopped at Lydia’s office and asked if she had a minute. She did.
As I sat down, she said, “Edwin made it clear to Stu that he’s fired as a client.”
“They had their meeting already?”
“No, Edwin called him. He didn’t want him in the office.”
“How’d he take it?”
“He threatened to have Edwin disbarred. That amused Edwin.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“You know, you didn’t need to come in today. Between the time you spent with Candy Van Dyke and then with Joanne, I think I owe you some paid time off.”
“I want to talk to you about Larry Wilkes again.”
I could tell she was trying hard not to roll her eyes. “You’re stubborn, aren’t you?”
I explained that I’d been neatening up the file to put it away, when I saw the discrepancy with the newspaper article. That led me back to Sammy Blanchard.
“So you think she’s the murderer?”
