Page 78 of Return of the Spider
“Oh, Gary,” Missy said, tearing up again.
“Wait, I’m not done yet,” he said, grinning at her. “I’ve been practicing. Missy Kasajian Murphy, will you do me the honor of marrying me again and having a real proper wedding and reception this time?”
“Oh my God, yes,” she cried. She broke down sobbing when he slipped the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly.
Later, after they’d finished the champagne and made love with more passion than they had in years, Missy admired her ring. “Wherever did you find this?” she asked.
“A guy who deals in fine estate jewelry down in Roanoke, Virginia,” Soneji said. “That’s art deco style from the 1920s and evidently someone’s grandmother had it commissioned.”
CHAPTER
63
Three weeks passed quickly,and we were in mid-November.
After I’d made my statements about the firefight at Prince’s warehouse, John Sampson, Chief Pittman, and I visited Rosalina Mansion and then Maxine Miller to announce that we’d solved the murders of their sons. Both moms thanked us, though they admitted that the knowledge was bittersweet. Knowing what happened helped, but it didn’t undo the pain or bring their children back.
In the spirit of realizing that life was short, I convinced Maria to take a few days off for a mini-vacation before we got too close to our second child’s due date. She, Damon, and I headed south in the old Mercedes diesel I’d bought before graduate school. It had almost a hundred thousand miles on it, but I figured I could get at least a hundred thousand more from it.
We made it to Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, before we stopped at a Motel Six. The next day we drove all the way to Savannah before we called it quits for the day.
Damon was fussy after spending so many hours in the car, and Maria was complaining as well. I wondered whether this had been a good idea.
“We wanted some warm weather,” I reminded Maria. “And your doc said you can’t fly.”
“I know,” she said, holding her back. “I guess I didn’t think it through. And the way the baby’s kicking, we’ve got an athlete or something. Mark my words.”
“We can head back if it’s too much.”
“That’s worse than going forward. We can’t be far from real heat.”
We weren’t. Temperatures were in the eighties in Jacksonville. We rented a room at a motel near the beach and spent a couple of days staring at the ocean and playing with Damon.
He and I built sandcastles and played in the little waves, which he loved. Maria spent hours floating on her back in the water because she said it was the only time she got any relief. Floating made her feel weightless. Even the baby seemed to love it. Maria said the incessant kicking had stopped.
When mom and toddler napped in the shade of an umbrella, I stared at the ocean, still conflicted over Guillermo Costa.
I knew he was a killer. I’d watched him kill two men in cold blood. However, neither Sampson nor Donovan nor I would be alive now if Costa had not intervened, extracted confessions from the guilty, and exacted his revenge. And Prince’s heroin trade would probably still be flourishing.
I’d made several statements to that effect to FBI special agent Mark Lane, the man who was overseeing the investigation intothe gun battle. So had Sampson. Evidently, so had Officer Donovan, though we had not seen her since that bloody night. Still, we had no idea if a judge and jury would find enough mitigating factors in Costa’s rescue of Donovan and mercy toward us to prevent him from going to jail for the rest of his life.
During the day, I paid little attention to my memories of that night. But twice I had crazed dreams reliving Costa’s execution of Rodolpho and Prince and woke up sweating hard and shaking from the experience.
I knew—and the department psychologist I saw after we’d returned home confirmed—that nightmares were common after someone endured such a traumatic event. Other than the dreams, I told the psychologist, I felt at peace with what had happened, and after my twenty-one days of forced leave were over, she approved my return to duty.
I admitted to no one except Maria and Sampson that I didn’t really know how I would handle a situation like that again.
“I understand,” Sampson said as we headed back to work after three weeks. “I do. But that’s where training comes in, Alex. The department has advanced courses where you’re exposed to all kinds of scenarios with a weapon in your hand. It’s amazing how quickly you get better at assessing situations and responding correctly.”
“You mean not shooting innocent civilians,” I said.
“Among other things.”
“Would you have shot Costa if you’d had a chance? To save Rodolpho or Prince, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Sampson said. “They meant to kill us, Alex. And Donovan.”
“I know. I really do. I guess I’m just confused as to how to think about Costa.”
