Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

bent and jerking, completely out of control.
    I looked back at Leon. He seemed paralyzed. He’d just heard that his missing wife was alive and well and not returning. And his daughter had heard it as well.
    When I saw that Leon wasn’t moving, I got up and walked over to Madison, putting my arms around her and holding her close. I thought she might kick me, struggle to get away, punch me, bite me, but she didn’t. She went limp, so much so that I thought if I let go, she’d land in a heap on the floor. So I didn’t let go. I held tight, the arm jerking against my side, her eyelid twitching so hard that I could feel it through my shirt. And then Leon was there, too. I stepped back and he picked her up, as if she were a baby, carrying her back to the couch, sitting down with Madison on his lap, her head against his chest, her face hidden by her father’s arms.
    Leon was bending, whispering in her ear. Then her arm stopped moving, but she stayed with her face buried in his chest. When Leon looked at me again, I began to speak, quietly, calmly.
    “You hired me to find Sally and bring her back in the hope that her return would inspire Madison to start speaking again so that she could tell us what happened that terrible day with Dr. Bechman. I know you both wanted more, and God knows, you deserve more, but the point was exonerating Madison,” I said, “and that’s done.”
    Now Madison turned, and they were both looking at me. “It seems Dr. Bechman needed more money than he was making, and he needed it not to show up with his regular income. Through Ms. Peach, he was selling narcotics, painkillers, to Ms. Peach’s nephew, who was then selling the drugs at work and in the park. My best guess is that Dr. Bechman had a change of heart, and when the nephew came for the next batch of prescriptions, that would have been shortly after Madison’s last appointment, he told the nephew that it was all over, that he could no longer supply him with the prescriptions that would get him the drugs to sell. The nephew fell into a murderous rage and there on the desk was the hypodermic needle full of Botox that the doctor had had ready for Madison.”
    I stopped and waited, Madison blinking, Leon staring. “I’m sorry to tell you that you know the person who did this,” I said, telling them it was Ted and how he’d used his knowledge of makeup and costume to help him pull it off.
    I didn’t say much more. I didn’t want to talk about Celia in front of Madison. I didn’t want to talk about Jim at all, unless Leon pressed me sometime to find out how I knew about the place in Florida and what had happened there. I thought I’d said enough for now, perhaps too much for both of them to absorb. I thought that would take weeks, maybe months, until they made peace with everything they’d just learned.
    When I stood up to go, it was so quiet for that moment, we could have been in Madame Tussauds wax museum. But then Leon thanked me and asked about the money. I told him the last few days were on the house, not what he’d hired me to do, and that I’d send a bill for the rest.
    They both walked me to the door, but when I opened it to leave, Madison stepped into the hall, waiting for me and Dash, pulling the door closed behind her.
    I waited, thinking she might say something now that there was no longer any point to keeping silent. But she didn’t. She made no comment. She didn’t go back inside either. She just stood in front of me looking up into my face. I put my arms around her and pulled her close.
    “It wasn’t because of anything you did,” I whispered. “Or didn’t do. It wasn’t your fault.”
    After a long while, she stepped back, reaching behind her for the door, glancing down at Dashiell once before backing inside and closing it. I walked down the stairs to the first floor. There was yellow crime scene tape across Ted’s door, forming an X.
    I’d wanted to ask him what had happened that last day with Bechman. It obviously wasn’t planned. You can’t plan to kill someone by finding a hypodermic full of Botox to inject into his heart. The cops were right about one thing. The crime had happened in the heat of passion. Had the needle not been there, there would have been some other weapon of opportunity, a bookend, a letter opener, even bare hands, and the strength that comes from uncontainable rage. Whatever it was, whatever he’d picked up to use as a weapon, once he started, he would have had to finish