Lucidity

Chapter 17 - Tears of a Ghost

“I know it happened right after they were married,” Vincent told Sean once they were out on the street. The rain had changed to flurries that drifted aimlessly, too halfhearted to be much more than a nuisance to motorists. They walked down Grant Street, headed toward the courthouse.

“They had just gotten back from their honeymoon,” Sean picked up the narrative. “I mean literally. The husband was unpacking the car—they’d gone to Ireland, where he was from—and the wife walked down the street to pick up groceries. We figure Redding must have pushed his way inside behind Moran. There were a couple of suitcases dumped by the front door. Redding worked over Moran pretty good. Stabbed him, beat him, clubbed him with a broken chair leg. Then he hog-tied the guy with a cord he cut from the vacuum cleaner.”

Vincent didn’t want to visualize the brutality Sean was describing, but images of blood and pain flashed into his mind unbidden.

“All along, Moran must’ve been working to get Redding out of the house before the wife returned,” Sean continued and suddenly his tone was no longer that of a cop but of a husband. “Probably offered the guy anything, everything to leave. But the whole problem was that Redding was fixated on Grace, had been stalking her for almost a year. Grace was what he wanted. And Moran marrying her set Redding off. Guy saw Moran as defiling the woman that, in his warped mind, belonged to him and him alone.

“That’s when the wife came home. She had her arms filled with grocery bags, left a bunch on the stoop while she carried the rest inside, calling for the husband to come help her. Redding caught her just inside the door, blitz attack; she didn’t stand a chance. He clubbed her with the chair leg and when she came to, she was lying face to face with her husband. Her arm was broken and her face was pretty messed up. Redding was trying to saw off her ring finger with a kitchen knife.”

Vincent shuddered and told himself he should have worn a warmer coat.

“Grace tried to plead with Redding, got him to stop cutting on her long enough for her to slide the emerald engagement ring and her wedding band off and give them to him. She watched as Redding began to beat the hell out of Moran—I mean this guy’s face was so messed up, I doubt his mother would have known him. He was probably already dead or as good as. She could have tried to run, might have even made it, but instead she crawled over to shield the husband, put herself between Redding and Moran.”

Sean sucked in his breath, raised his face as if scrutinizing the clouds, seeking answers to the madness he was describing. “That was the last straw for Redding. He turned on her, beat the crap out of her and worse, then left them both for dead.” He paused. “That’s the short version. Whole thing took hours.”

“Jesus,” Vincent breathed out.

“Jesus wasn’t anywhere near that house that night,” Sean said with conviction. “The wife said she never actually blacked out for more than a few minutes, just long enough for Redding to think she was dead and take off. She comes to, she’s got the broken arm, skull’s fractured in three places, her face is all messed up, broken ribs, collapsed lung, internal bleeding—you name it, she’s got it. Still, she manages to crawl to the front door where she got the attention of a neighbor walking his dog. Next day, we caught Redding based on her description. Bastard still had the bloody damned rings in his pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief for chrissake.”

“She testified?” Vincent was surprised. He’d assumed that Grace’s career as a recluse had begun right after the murder.

Sean nodded. “At the prelim. She was one tough cookie. Gave her first statement to me from the back of an ambulance, the second from a bed in the ICU, tubes and wires and God knows what coming out of her. Never changed her story, defense was never able to shake her on the stand even though they had experts who said with her head injuries there was no way she could have remembered everything so accurately. Judge almost threw the case out before it even began.”