Free I'd Know You Anywhere: A Novel by Laura Lippman Page A

let me repeat: Are you out of your fucking mind?”
    â€œNo, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. His letter came”—she did a quick calculation—“about ten days ago.”
    â€œAnd I’m just hearing about it now? I bet you told Mom and Dad.”
    Eliza had fumbled that, and badly. But Vonnie was so exhausting, ceaselessly demanding, always pulling focus. She hadn’t told her precisely because she wanted to avoid this conversation. She decided to try and glide by that detail.
    â€œHe recognized me, in one of those society photos taken for a local magazine. Apparently, we’re pretty easy to find, once youknow we’re in Bethesda. I think he used property records.” She was hedging her bets again, not telling Vonnie that Walter clearly had an accomplice in this. Jared Garrett? She couldn’t see him as the owner of that perfect purple penmanship.
    â€œBut why would you write him back?”
    â€œBecause”—she made up an answer on the spot, then realized it had the virtue of being true—“because he’ll write again, and again, until I do. I know him, Vonnie.”
    â€œHe’s a sociopath. No one knows a sociopath. He’s bored, in prison. He has every reason to reach out and poke you, see if he can get a response. That’s his problem, not yours. Ignore him.”
    Vonnie had never suffered from uncertainty, about anything.
    â€œThey’ve scheduled his execution date.”
    â€œAh, there’s your smoking gun. He’s using the cultural mania for closure to reach out to you. The man’s a sadist. If I were you, I’d write back and ask if he’s trying to get in touch with his victims. Particularly the Tacketts.”
    â€œWhy ‘particularly’?” she asked, more sharply than she intended. Eliza had always been sensitive to this sense of hierarchy among Walter’s victims, in part because she had always been at the bottom and the top, if such a thing were possible. She was the most interesting because she lived; she was the least interesting because she lived. Holly was the prettiest, the golden girl. Holly’s death had been particularly violent.
    â€œWell, hers is the death that will result in his death, right? That’s the one he’s going to die for.”
    â€œRight.” Maude had been killed in Maryland, which kept capital punishment on the books but was increasingly disinclined to use it. Holly Tackett had been killed in Virginia, which apparently suffered from no such qualms. “But why would he write the Tacketts, what would he say?”
    â€œHe might confess, for once. That’s not so much to ask for, is it?”
    Eliza thought, but did not say: For Walter, that’s huge. Walter never said anything that he didn’t want to say. He hated, more than anything, to be forced into saying he was wrong, no matter how small the matter. The first time he had hit Eliza was when she had corrected him on the facts of the War of 1812. It had been a strange hit—a punch, direct to the stomach, something a boy might have done to another boy, and it had knocked the wind out of her. But she never corrected him again, no matter how wrong he was, and he was often wrong. On history, on math, on picayune matters of grammar and usage. And, frequently, about people. Eliza had never known anyone who was more wrong about people, women in particular.
    â€œLook, Eliza.” Vonnie had softened her tone. “You’re too nice for your own good. Forget Walter. Not forget —I know that’s impossible—”
    â€œYou’d be surprised. I’d barely thought of him, particularly in the past few months.”
    â€œHmmphf.”
    Eliza knew how to change the subject with her sister. “What’s new with you?”
    â€œNothing. Everything. I was online at this godforsaken hour because I want to check on events in the Middle East in real