Page 78 of Dead to Rites

Then the two officers guided Wes Lindley out of the house and down the front walk with its border of rosebushes to a waiting squad car. Diane watched her son go, her face tight with grief.

And Meg sank into her chair as if her legs couldn’t hold her up any longer.

Jude looked over at her. “You did the right thing.”

Watery blue eyes met his. “Did I? All of this could have been avoided if I’d just listened to Father Frank’s advice and confessed the whole thing last winter. Now my grandson is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, just because I was a coward.”

There wasn’t any real answer he could have given her, so he only said gently, “I’m sorry, Meg.”

“And so am I,” I said.

“Don’t be,” she told me. “You did the right thing. You barely knew Father Frank, and yet you still wanted to find justice for him.”

For me, that justice wasn’t an abstract thing, was what I hoped would be the means to encourage him to move on, but obviously, I couldn’t tell Meg any of that. I just nodded and sent Jude a sideways glance.

We should go.

He caught the unspoken message, as I’d known he would, because he said, “We’ll leave you alone now. But if you need to talk, I’m sure Father Esteban would be glad to advise you.”

She only nodded, and Jude and I murmured some hopelessly inadequate goodbyes and let ourselves out. Parked at the curb was a dark green Volvo station wagon I hadn’t seen before but was clearly Jude’s, at least thirty years old but probably more than that, slightly dusty and utterly unassuming. It made my parents’ Mercedes E-class look like a Rolls.

The sun had mostly gone down while we were inside Meg’s home and was now only a warm glow on the horizon. Up and down the street, jack-o-lanterns glowed on porch steps, reminding me that it was still Halloween and the world was still moving along the way it always did, no matter what kind of drama might be happening around me.

“It’s Halloween,” I said.

“Yes,” Jude replied.

“I’ve got a bowl of candy waiting at the house,” I told him. In my world, missing Halloween was practically a criminal offense. Most people waited until dusk to start coming around, though, so I still had time.

Jude continued to look at me, his expression slightly puzzled.

“Do you want to come to my place and hand out candy?” I continued. “We can order some takeout for dinner.”

And I waited, wondering what I would do if he refused…and what I would do if he didn’t.

But then he said, “Sure, I’ll follow you back to your place,” and I allowed myself an inner sigh of relief.

We both got into our cars. I had to admit that felt slightly anti-climactic — I would have much rather preferred to drive to my house together, even as I understood that neither of us would have wanted to leave our car in front of Meg’s home — but I went ahead and started the engine and then waited until I saw the headlights of Jude’s ancient Volvo turn on.

I pulled away from the curb and pointed the Mercedes toward home. At some point, I hoped I could switch over to Hazel’s Coupe de Ville for my daily driver, since it was much more my style, but I had to admit it would probably be smarter to drive the Mercedes during the winter, since I guessed its advanced traction control would be better for helping me to survive any snowy weather that might come our way.

And I knew I was thinking about trivialities like that because it was easier than allowing myself to remember the terrible scene inside Meg Lindley’s house, seeing the bleakness in both hers and Diane’s eyes when they realized there was nothing they could do to save Wes.

He’d sealed his own fate the second he decided to take matters into his own hands.

The big Victorian house came up on my left, dark and somehow forbidding in the dusk. When I’d left earlier today, I hadn’t thought I’d be gone so long, and I hadn’t left on any lights.

Well, I could take care of that quickly enough.

I pulled into the driveway and followed it toward the garage, which sat on the edge of the property line. Even as I reached up to touch the remote for the garage door opener, I realized I should have told Jude to pull in behind me rather than park on the street.

But it was too late for that, so I hurriedly got out of the Mercedes, used the spare remote I carried in my purse to close the garage door, and made my way to the sidewalk, where Jude was waiting for me.

“I always admired this house,” he said as I approached, and I smiled.

“It is kind of impressive. But come on — I saw a group of trick-or-treaters at the end of the street, and we need to get some lights on, or they’re going to go right past us.”

He smiled then, one of those rare smiles that reached his eyes and made his usually somber features something else entirely.