Chapter 8

The sudden shift in direction caught me by surprise, but the innocuous conversation that had come before had settled me down, and the two or three swallows of beer had begun to work. When you hardly drink at all, it doesn't take much to have an effect. Answering wasn't difficult – at least, it wasn't as difficult as it would have been 10 minutes earlier. "I was going through that stuff from the clinic," I said, "and I came across some letters and a couple of phone calls. They weren't just threats, C – they were vileness from the pit."

"Do I need to know more than that?"

I shook my head. "No, you don't – and you don't want to, either. I've talked about the slime that cops wade in every day. This is that kind of thing, distilled down into the essence of evil. If I didn't believe in a devil and his demons before, I would now."

"Then I won't ask you to expatiate." She hesitated, probably thinking just how to word her next sentences. "I will ask you whether you wish to continue with this case. You know that I already have reservations about the client, and I have no desire to see you vanish into darkness."

"I ain't gonna vanish," I said, and though the words were testy my voice was gentle. "But I will think about the case. I taken their money, but givin' it back won't strain me – I got the stuff comin' out my ears." I grinned suddenly – Cecelia of all people knows how much money I have, for she's the financial genius of the family. She's been taking care of my money since we got married. "But I won't keep or give up the case, either one, without I think on it. I don't wanna drown in slime any more than you want me to, but if this guy's got any potential at all for going beyond threats, I'd hate to think I'd had the chance to stop 'im and didn't take it." I grabbed her hand and held it – not tightly, but pretty firmly. "This guy's vile, C – he's nasty, he's vicious, he's wicked. If he does just a fraction of what he's threatened to do, they'll be making comparisons to Jack the Ripper."

"That bad?"

I nodded. "That bad."

"If you had been in London in 1888 ... if you had been there, you would have had no more tools to pursue the man than the Metropolitan Police did, and so I suppose you wouldn't have performed a miracle of detection. But surely you could not have stood by and allowed a chance to catch him go unused. Nor can you permit this opportunity to pass you by." Suddenly she stood and stalked to the bay window that looks out onto the front yard, and beyond that to Wisconsin Street and Inez Park. "Darvin, there are times when your passion for justice becomes a burden to me."

I got up too, and stood behind her, my hands resting lightly on her shoulders. "Do you want me to return the retainer?"

"Yes – and no." She reached up to briefly caress my left hand. "I married you knowing full well what your job is, and something of what it can entail. I did not reject you then, nor demand that you find other employment. And having accepted you as you are, I cannot justly or consistently require you to alter your nature or your job. And that is exceedingly frustrating, for I very much want to demand exactly that. Why should I have to watch my husband face the choice you now must make? Why should I have to allow you to choose either to wade into the pit, or to possibly step aside and permit an executioner to perform his beastly task? Why, Darvin?"

I took in a lot of air, and let it out. I gently kissed the top of her head, going up on tiptoe to do it. I saw the few gray hairs that ran like silver through the black, and the tight kinks of her hair that stretched out under the pull of her ponytail. "Cecelia, you know that asking 'why' is about the most fruitless thing we can do. Sometimes there ain't no reason for how things are – unless you want to bring in human sin and divine sovereignty, and while those are certainly true things, they're not always real comforting."

"Sin certainly does not comfort me. And right now the sovereignty of God strikes me as an icy thing, indifferent to my suffering." She took a breath in her turn. "I know that is not true, of course; God does care, and He will guard us in this time as He always has. Even if violent death comes upon us, His hand will be upon us for good. But what I know, and what I feel, are not congruent today. My emotions scream at me to tell you to withdraw – to bully you, to persuade you, to entrap you, to do whatever is necessary to accomplish that end. And I hate being at the mercy of my emotions!" The last sentence was nearly a shriek.

I wrapped my arms around her, squeezing her to me from behind. "You've been fighting your emotions all your life, haven't you?"

"Not all my life. I was a typical young girl, at the mercy of whatever feelings blew through me. I was in junior high school before I realized that emotions are as faithless as Judas Iscariot, ready to lead me into betrayal, and do the betraying too. I determined then that my intellect would rule me, and it has. But the emotions are still there, my husband, and they demand that I reinstall them on the throne. And when I fear for you, my darling, when my emotions are disturbed because I perceive danger to you, it is unbearably difficult to maintain my determination."