Part 23 (1/2)

”Monday morning, a week ago Monday morning.”

Reardon noted her response down in his notebook. Everything she had said so far, he thought, had been in the newspapers. ”Do you have any idea when on Monday morning you were in the Children's Zoo?” Point by point he expected the credibility of her story to disintegrate. ”Had the sun come up, do you remember? Was it after dawn?”

”No,” she replied firmly. ”It was not. It was still very dark. I am sure of that.”

”I see,” Reardon said.

”It was very dark,” Mrs. La.s.siter repeated, ”except, of course, for the lights that illuminate the zoo at night.”

”Of course,” Reardon said, looking up. ”So you were in the Children's Zoo early Monday morning, before daylight. Were you alone?”

”Yes.”

”You were alone in the Children's Zoo at that hour?” Reardon asked again, and it was clear that he doubted it.

”Yes,” Mrs. La.s.siter said authoritatively, ”I was.”

”Why?”

Mrs. La.s.siter did not answer.

”It's kind of unusual,” Reardon said, ”for anyone to be in the park at that hour.”

”Yes,” Mrs. La.s.siter said, looking away, ”I suppose it is.”

”Could you tell me why you were there?”

”That is very personal,” Mrs. La.s.siter said.

”If it has no bearing on the case,” Reardon a.s.sured her, ”then anything you say is confidential. I promise you.”

Mrs. La.s.siter bowed her head. ”I don't know if I can,” she said.

Reardon leaned toward her. ”Mrs. La.s.siter, I have been a policeman in New York for about thirty years.”

Mrs. La.s.siter looked up and smiled. ”I suppose you have heard or seen every possible wickedness?”

”Yes, I think so,” Reardon said.

Mrs. La.s.siter's face relaxed but her lower lip began to tremble. ”Have you ever been in great pain?” she asked.

”Physical pain?” Reardon asked. ”No. No, I haven't.”

”Look at my hands,” Mrs. La.s.siter said.

Reardon looked down at Mrs. La.s.siter's hands. They were curled delicately around the arms of her chair. He could guess what they looked like under the gloves.

”I cannot straighten my fingers,” she said. ”There are days when I cannot move at all because the pain is too great. There are days when I cannot raise a fork to my lips to feed myself, and so I have to be fed and my mouth has to be wiped like an infant.”

”I see,” Reardon said. He could feel a tension building in his own hands, tightening his fingers.

”Do you?” Mrs. La.s.siter asked. ”I don't think you do.”

”It's your arthritis?” Reardon asked.

”Yes,” Mrs. La.s.siter said, and she stared at him with a face as full of rage at the awesome humiliation of her distress as Reardon had ever seen. ”There are times when I can do no more for myself than the tiniest infant. Times when I cannot clean myself.”

Reardon leaned back in his chair and tried to relax the rage he felt might rise in him at any moment. He wanted to lift her up, fold her in gossamer, and send her to the place where earthbound things have wings. But he could not even speak.

Mrs. La.s.siter was silent for a moment. She sat, lips trembling, trying to compose herself. ”But that does not really tell you what I was doing in the Children's Zoo before dawn on a Monday morning,” she said finally.

”No,” Reardon admitted, ”it doesn't.”

”I don't want to live like this,” Mrs. La.s.siter said.

Reardon nodded. He felt helpless, unable to do anything else.

”Are you a Catholic, Detective Reardon?” she asked.

”In a way.”

”An apostate?”

”In a way,” Reardon said again.

”But you are enough of a Catholic to know that in our faith suicide is a mortal sin?”

”Yes.”

”All my life,” Mrs. La.s.siter said, ”I have been a devout Catholic.”

Reardon nodded.

”A practicing Catholic,” Mrs. La.s.siter added.

”Yes,” Reardon said.

For a moment Mrs. La.s.siter could not speak.

Reardon waited, then he urged her on. ”A practicing Catholic,” he said.

”Yes,” Mrs. La.s.siter said, ”a devout and practicing Catholic who cannot bear to live anymore.”

”I see,” Reardon said.

”Have you ever heard the story of David and Uriah?” Mrs. La.s.siter said.

”No.”

”King David in the Bible? And Uriah?”