Bitter Sweets

when I did it. She never even saw the body.”

    The two sat in relative silence for a while, listening to the ticking of the clocks. Savannah watched while he stroked Beowulf s ear and scratched the animal’s neck as it leaned against his leg. The dog didn’t seem at all aware of the turmoil his master was feeling.

    “When I decided to kill Earl,” Neilson continued, “I told myself that I wouldn’t care if I got caught. It was something I had to do, no matter what the cost.

    “But now,” he continued, “now that I’ve been exposed, so to speak, I find that it matters very much. Miss Reid, I’m an old man. I don’t want to spend my few remaining years in prison.”

    “Perhaps you should have thought of that before ...” Savannah didn’t like the self-righteous tone of her own voice. While she might be morally right, who was she to judge this man.

    “Do you think I didn’t? I thought about it long and hard. But like I said, it didn’t seem to matter at the time. He killed my little girl, Miss Reid. She may have been a woman, a stranger to you. But she was my Lisa. That bastard tortured her. Before he died he told me that he was trying to get her to admit that she had committed adultery. But Lisa was a good woman, a decent person. She never...but he ...”

    His voice broke and tears flooded his eyes. Savannah had the decency to look away.

    “I know what he did,” she said. “And I believe I know-at least in part-why you did what you did, too.”

    “You can’t know it all... the guilt, the self-condemnation, the regrets. When they wanted to prosecute him, years ago, during the war, it was because they knew what kind of an animal he was. He mistreated his prisoners, just like he did Lisa. But I helped to get him off. I had to, he was my soldier. That’s why I had to be the one to execute him. I had to be the tribunal and the firing squad. He was my responsibility. I had to take care of it the only way I could.”

    Savannah had to ask to satisfy her curiosity. “I was wondering, sir, about the piano wire bindings.”

    “I wanted to mislead you and the police into thinking it was the same killer. I couldn’t find out what kind of wire he had used on Lisa, but in Vietnam he had used piano on the prisoners. So, I thought it was a good bet. Besides, I thought it was ironic justice somehow for him to be discovered in such a demeaning position, the same as he had inflicted on Lisa and those POWs.”

    “But you bound him after he was dead?”

    “Of course I did. I’m not a cruel person, Miss Reid. I’m not a monster, like he was.”

    Savannah quietly digested that information for a moment, deciding that it had the ring of truth. Then she drew a deep breath and continued. “Colonel, I can’t even imagine the pain you’ve been through, losing your daughter in such a terrible way. And I won’t presume to understand all of your motives and actions. But Earl Mallock wasn’t your soldier anymore. We have laws, and we have peace officers to enforce them. Whatever your reasons, what you did was premeditated murder.”

    “You call it what you want. I call it justice.”

    “It doesn’t matter what you or I call it. It’s up to the courts now.”

    “So, you’re going to arrest me?”

    For once, Savannah was almost relieved not to have that badge hanging on its chain around her neck. “I’m not a cop anymore, Colonel,” she replied. “Thankfully, it isn’t my duty to arrest you.”

    “But you’re a conscientious, law-abiding citizen, Miss Reid. Just as I was until a few days ago. Do you feel it’s your duty to turn me in?”

    She sat, quietly studying him, searching her own heart. The colonel didn’t look like a war hero. He looked like a tired old man with an ashen face and beads of sweat shining on his wrinkled forehead.

    But then, one never knew for sure what was going on inside another human being, Savannah reminded herself.

    “Are you going to try to stop me?” she asked him. If they were laying their cards on the table, they might as well see the entire deck.

    “Do you mean, would I try to kill you, too, rather than let you turn me over to the authorities?” He shook his head. “No, Miss Reid. I’ve killed for my country. I killed for my daughter. But I won’t commit murder or any other crime to keep from suffering the consequences of my own actions. If that’s what you feel you have to do, I won’t try to stop you.”

    Savannah looked into those ice