Chapter 32

As it turned out, Claire's misgivings were justified. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and she had no clue as to how to proceed. Had she been in her professional setting, she would have controlled the conversation. She couldn't really do that, there in the restaurant.

So, she chose to try giving Lacey the redemption she sought.

"They forgave you," she said, her voice tight.

Bob shot her a look that said very clearly, "What the fuck? You don't mean that." Lacey didn't see it.

"I don't understand," said Lacey, blinking eyes that were full of moisture.

"They put themselves in your shoes," said the psychiatrist. "Remember, there were men on that jury, who have wives and daughters. They were thinking about what it might have been like if those wives and daughters had gone through what you went through. And the women were feeling it even more directly. They decided that anybody would have reacted like you did."

"But I killed him!" insisted Lacey.

"And they forgave you," insisted Claire, feeling more and more out of control.

Lacey blinked. "So that's it?"

"That's it," said Matthew. Claire didn't remind him that he'd promised to remain silent.

What turned the tables was when Lacey looked at Bob.

"Do you forgive me?" she asked, her voice tiny.

"Sweetheart," said Bob gently. "I knew about it, and I fell in love with you anyway."

"I've always loved you," she whispered. "I loved you from the very first time I saw you."

Claire frowned.

"I'm glad," said Bob, smiling. He kept his voice light.

Lacey saw Claire's frown, and heard the patronization in Bob's voice. She was well aware that some of her memories about Bob were false ones, and she now knew which ones were.

"No, you don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "There, in the hospital, I knew you cared. I didn't even know your name, but when you walked in there and looked at me, I knew you cared. You had never seen me before. I wanted to die with shame, but you cared about me. That was the only reason I could go on." She wiped at one eye with the back of a finger. "I think I already knew Paul would abandon me. He's like that. If something breaks, he just tosses it out. I'd seen him do that with friends who disappointed him. Everything was disposable to Paul. But YOU cared about me, and you didn't even KNOW me!"

Bob had no idea what to say, so he just kept quiet. He felt conflicting emotions because of what he had put her through, and how it had turned out. He was still worried. Until he looked back at Claire.

She wasn't frowning any more.

It took a while.

Lacey met every day with Claire, who kept hypnotizing her, nudging things here and there, with posthypnotic suggestions. The psychiatrist delved into the woman's mind, until she was convinced there was nothing else hidden. In the end, other than the normal disappointments that all people suffer, the only real trauma was related to the two incidents in Lacey's life that most people don't have to deal with.

Lacey herself didn't really notice any improvement. She still knew she had killed Gilbert Kinneson, and she still felt as though she had done something wrong, but slowly, the lack of condemnation for the act turned from dread—waiting for some kind of shoe to drop—to a feeling of equilibrium. Claire's insistence that she had been forgiven, both legally and morally, at least by the jury and those who knew her, slowly sank in. Equilibrium eventually turned to hope.

Bob helped, though he wouldn't have said he was "helping." He waited, and it had to be called waiting patiently. Four agonizing months had passed since Lacey's candle light dinner had turned into the beginning of an ordeal that was still not completely finished. The trial and her expectations about it had become a wedge between them, put there by Lacey, and it was up to Lacey to remove it. Bob just loved her. And her hope that the next time she saw Bob he would still love her was something that led her forward, as gently as Claire's suggestions.

It's hard to say when she saw the hope that was in HIS eyes—hope that this was behind her enough that they could move forward together—hope that they could fully love each other. He was much more quickly able to adjust to the verdict than she was. People "got off" all the time, and this time was one he could applaud, though he was careful not to.

But nothing happens in a vacuum ... and there were other ramifications to the decision of the jury that day.

Bob wasn't aware of it, but the acquittal was taken personally by some other players. The District Attorney was the first, who wanted to know why Roger Schwartz hadn't gotten a conviction, when the accused had admitted her guilt in court. Roger hadn't talked to the judge, and was sent back to do so. The judge wasn't nice about it, reminding Schwartz that he'd known there would be an expert witness on the stand, put there by the defense, and asking why he hadn't had the woman examined by his own expert witness. Schwartz ducked that issue when he went back to report to the DA. He blamed it on the jury, for jumping to what he was sure was an erroneous conclusion.

The Commissioner of Police wasn't happy either. He was still smarting in the aftermath of the internal affairs and state investigations. That he'd requested the state to get involved didn't make him feel any better. It had ended up airing the department's dirty laundry. So far, all he'd had to tell the mayor was that a large number of rapes had been solved, and that the perpetrator was dead.

He'd hoped to be able to tell the mayor that the person who killed the rapist had been tried and convicted too.

He hadn't been in touch with the mayor yet. Now, a week later, he couldn't help feeling that something was going to happen ... something bad ... something that would cause him problems. He sat staring at the reports from the IA investigation and the one the state patrol had sent him after their review.

He'd read both reports before. The commissioner had thought things were going to work out. A major offender had been identified, even if it had been done ass backwards, and a startling number of cases had been resolved. The offender wasn't a problem anymore, and he had expected there would be a murder conviction because of that. The commissioner liked murder convictions. They made the department look good.

But the way this case had shaken out made the department look like the Keystone Cops. He couldn't get any PR out of the deal, because one of the worst serial rape cases on the books wasn't even solved until a victim admitted she'd murdered the perpetrator. That made the department look bad. And if the media got hold of this not guilty business, somebody might dig and expose the rest.

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