Page 24 (1/2)

Carol kissed hioodbye Jane kissed hihtly planted on his cheek, and when she got into the car, she was blushing brightly

He stood in front of the house and watched theht

After alain They were flat, slate gray They , Grace steeled herself for the sound of Leonard’s voice She sat down in the chair at the small built-in desk, reached up, put her hand on the receiver that hung on the wall, let it ring once more, then picked it up To her relief, it was Ross Quincy, thethe call she’dabout one of our reporters, Dr Mitowski?"

"Yes Palht"

Quincy was silent

"He does work for you, doesn’t he?" Grace asked

"Uh Pal News, yes"

"I believe he nearly won a Pulitzer Prize"

"Yes But of coursethat was quite a while back"

"Oh?"

"Well, if you know about the Pulitzer nomination, you must knoas for the series he did on the Bektermann o?"

"UhDr Mitowski, exactly what is it you wanted to know about Palht?"

"I’d like to talk with him," she said "We’ve met, and we have some unfinished business that I’m rather anxious to take care of It’s apersonal -lost relative?"

"Of Mr Wainwright’s? Oh, no"

"A long-lost friend?"

"No Not that either"

"Well, then, I guess I don’t have to be delicate about this Dr Mitowski, I’ht is dead"

"Dead!" she said, astounded

"Well, surely you realized there was that possibility He was never a well ht sickly And you’ve obviously been out of touch with hi," she said

"Must be at least thirty-five years," Quincy said "He died back in 1946"

The air at Grace’s back seeo, as if a dead ainst the nape of her neck

"Thirty-one years," she said nureen kid back then, a copyboy Palht was one of my heroes I took it pretty hard when he went"

"Are we talking about the same man?" Grace asked "He was quite thin, with sharp features, pale brown eyes, and a rather sallow complexion His voice was several notes deeper than you’d expect froht"

"About fifty-five?"

"He was thirty-six when he died, but he did look twenty years older," Quincy said "It was that string of illnesses, one thing right after another, with cancer at the end Jt just wore hihter, but he just couldn’t hold on any longer"

Thirty-one years in the grave? she thought But I saw hiarden What do you say to that, Mr Quincy?

"Dr Mitowski? Are you still there?"

"Yes Sorry Listen, Mr Quincy, I hate to take your valuable time, but this is really important I believe the Bektermann case had a lot to do with the personal business I wanted to discuss with Mr Wainwright But I don’t really know anything about thoseedy," Quincy said "The Bekterhter went berserk the day before her sixteenth birthday Her ot it in her head that her mother intended to kill her before she turned sixteen, which was not true, of course But she thought it was true, and she went after her ot in the way, and she killed theirl’s hands But that didn’t stop the kid She just picked up a fireplace poker and kept co When the mother, Mrs Bektermann, was backed into a corner and was about to have her skull cracked open with the poker, she didn’t have any choice but to swing the ax at her daughter She hit the girl once, in the side A pretty deep cut The kid died in the hospital the next day Mrs Bekterht against her, but she felt so guilty about killing her own child that she had a complete breakdown and eventually wound up in an institution"

"And that’s the story that won Mr Wainwright his Pulitzer nomination?"

"Yeah In the hands of a lot of reporters, the piece Would have been nothing but sensationalistic garbage But Palood He wrote a sensitive, well-researched study of a family with serious e hter and very likely had an unnatural attraction to her The irl’s heart,that battle, she turned to drink There were extraordinary psychological pressures brought to bear on the daughter, and Palmer made the reader feel and understand those pressures"

She thanked Ross Quincy for his ti up the phone

For a while she just sat there, staring at the softly hu to ht had died in 1946, whoarden yesterday?

And what did the Bekterht of what Wainwright had told her: This daot to be stopped this tune around ye come to tell you that your Carol is in the irl’s way

She felt she was on the verge of understanding what he had h a nus had transpired within the past twenty-four hours, she no longer questioned either her sanity or her perceptions

She was sane, perfectly sane, and in command of all her faculties Senility was not even a reer She sensed that the explanation for these events was fareven than the prospect of senility, which had once terrified her

She recalled soht had said yesterday in the garden: You aren’t only who you think you are You aren’t only Grace Mitowski

She knew the solution to the puzzle ithin her grasp She sensed a dark knowledge within her, long-forgottento be tapped She was afraid to tap them, but she knew she must do precisely that, for Carol’s sake, and perhaps for her own sake as well

Suddenly, the air in the kitchen, though still quite clear, reeked of wood and tar sh there were no flames here, now, in this place and time

Her heart pounded frantically, and her mouth turned dry and sour

She closed her eyes and could see the burning house as vividly as she had seen it in the dream She could see the cellar doors, and she could hear herself screa Laura

She knew it hadn’t been only a drea now, re her that, indeed, she was not only Grace Mitowski

She opened her eyes