Two weeks later, the season changing, Jack and Pandora and Julie Karras flew up to Florissant to attend the burial of the Walker family, in a pretty glade of cottonwoods beside a little river.
Gerald Walker was there, surrounded by friends and family. Four caskets lay in a shaft of sidelong sun, gleaming oak, suspended over the open graves.
Walker saw them, standing at a distance, unwilling to intrude, but feeling that something was owed. He came up the long grassy slope, walking with a cane, still thin, but filling out. His face was etched in grief, and it would stay that way.
“You came,” he said. “Thank you.”
He looked at Julie Karras, also a little thinner and a pale white scar on her temple. She stepped forward, ready to take whatever he had to say. But he just offered his hand, and smiled, a sad smile, but kindly.
“You’re the police officer my daughters attacked. Officer Karras?”
“Yes. I can’t tell you how sorry—”
“I know. I’m glad you’re here. I want to apologize for what my daughters did. I want you to know I have no anger in my heart. I’m glad you’re alive, Officer Karras.”
Julie Karras, touched, found she had nothing to say.
Walker released her hand, looked at Jack and Pandora. “I hear you got her.”
“Yes. We did.”
“Good. Where is she now? She gonna get the chair, or what?”
Pandora looked at Jack, and then came back to Gerald Walker. “No, not the chair.”
“Then what?”
“Time, Mr. Walker. She got time.”
* * * * *