It occurred to Will that the meds must help tamp down anger. They must even dampen thoughts and reactions, even ones that had taken millions of years to be stamped into the species: “danger” and “flee.” It softened the fact that no other person was in the lobby or surrounding hallways. For the first time since his surgery he felt free of his body, projected instead into the charged space that separated him from Chambers. Will said, “You beat her, Marion, we know that.”
His face reddened on hearing his given name. “I could beat you! God, I wish you could stand and fight like a man.”
“She was afraid you would kill her.”
Chambers’ head dropped slightly as if a supporting cord in his neck had snapped. He looked at Will strangely. His tongue flicked out like a lizard’s.
“Where’d you hear that?” Will said nothing. Chambers stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. “She had a lot of ideas.” He stared past Will. “She was paranoid, fucking nuts. I put up with that for years. I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“You did hurt her. You beat her. The cops responded to a domestic at your house. They let you off. Then she got a restraining order against you.”
“That was just being married, give me a break. Now all these bitches are counselors and lawyers and they tell gals to ‘get a restraining order,’ and the husband’s always guilty. How many domestics did we respond to as uniforms that turned out to be nothing.”
“How many where the husband came back and killed the woman.”
Chambers leaned against the wall, pulled out a cigarette, and stuck it in his lips. He wanted to light up, but seeing a smoke detector overhead thought better of it. He stuck it back in the pack.
“We used to be friends, I thought,” he said. “You were a righteous cop on the streets, Borders, back in the day, when we worked District One together. We’d all get together. We were all family. I was nothing but happy for you when you aced the sergeant’s exam and then went to homicide. What’d I ever do to you?”
Will ignored him and wheeled six feet away and to the side, making Chambers turn to see him. Then he turned the chair toward him again and advanced. “I always wondered why you did it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Not why you killed Theresa, because we knew about your temper.” Chambers’ left eyelid flickered when Will said the woman’s name. “And motive. You had a girlfriend you wanted to be with. And Theresa had $500,000 in life insurance, still payable to you. I didn’t even wonder about the knife. The more I learned about you, Chambers, the more it made sense. No quick gunshot for Bud Chambers. That would take away the fun, the fear. I just wondered why you killed those other women.”
