Chapter 27 To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird
Later that night, Mitch paused in the bathroom doorway and gazed at Anna, who was brushing her teeth. She turned away from the mirror and smiled at him.
For so long they had been starved for sweetness in a world that had come to hold very little of it.
In the warmth of Anna’s bed, Mitch longed for just a little bit more.
Tomorrow, at the end of the day, he would go to police headquarters and confess to murdering Salinas.
Already counting down his final hours of freedom, he coiled around Anna and murmured a secret he’d never told anyone.
“When I was in prison, I used to tell stories to some of the other inmates, in the canteen during mealtimes. We weren’t allowed to have books, so I’d recount the plots of novels I’d read, from memory.
I told them about The Grapes of Wrath, Sweet Thursday, The Count of Monte Cristo, parts of Les Misérables.
Steinbeck, Dumas and Hugo were probably rolling in their graves.
The irony of the whole situation was almost funny; those books were all on the banned list, and there I was, reciting them in front of the guards, who didn’t have a clue I was breaking the law right under their noses. Well – that’s what I thought, at least.
“Until the day one of them came up to me during our exercise hour in the yard and slipped a paperback copy of The Plague by Albert Camus into my hand, and said, very quietly, ‘I don’t agree with them. They’ve all gone mad.
’ That was the only time we ever spoke to each other.
Sometimes I wonder if he ever worried I’d rat him out.
Or if maybe something like friendship bloomed for just a second, in that moment of courage.
I read The Plague so many times, I know that whole book off by heart. Every line. Every word.”
“Why are you telling me this now, Mitch?” Anna asked softly.
“No reason,” Mitch replied, switching off the light.
There are so many ways to cope with pain. To forget the futureless days. To live with nothing but intangible memories.
Anna fell asleep almost immediately. Mitch wanted to reach out, stroke her face, curl up beside her. Instead he just looked at her, lying very still, like a man on the edge of a cliff, afraid that the slightest move would cause him to fall.
* * *
At three o’clock in the morning, Anna got out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, where she found her notebook and began scribbling her thoughts down with a shaky hand:
Fahrenheit 451
How did they get in?
The anonymous informant
Verner…
Why was Mathilde’s case file at the top of a stack?
She chewed the end of her pencil absently, deep in thought.
“Wait a second…” she murmured out loud.
Pushing back her chair, she rushed into the living room and straight to the china cabinet. Kneeling down on the floor, she rummaged through the shelves and pulled out an old phone book dating from before her departure for the Great White North.
She flipped through the pages, running a finger along the lines of interest – then stopped, her face lighting up.
Two hours later she snuck back through the garden door, and slid into bed beside Mitch, with only her muddy ankles to betray her nocturnal escapade.
When Mitch woke up, he was so entirely preoccupied with his imminent surrender he didn’t notice her ankles, or the soil-encrusted shoes she’d left at the foot of the stairs. If he’d known what Anna had been up to while he slept, he would have been furious with himself for missing it.
* * *
“You look like hell,” Anna observed, as Mitch wrapped his arms around her.
“Well, you look suspiciously cheerful. What’s put you in such a good mood?”
“Just seeing your face is enough,” she said, kissing him. “Get dressed – we’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
As she turned to take the stairs down to the kitchen, he caught her arm.
“Anna, let’s stop pretending. I know about the inspector’s blackmail.”
“Of course you do,” she said. “You were listening from the walk-in fridge. Now, didn’t I mention we have a big day ahead?”
“Yeah, just now.”
“So why are you still just standing around? Get in the shower!”
She threw him a towel, which he caught mid-air before heading for the bathroom with a baffled look.
Fifty-three minutes later, she double-parked the van in front of the bookshop and leaned past Mitch to unlock the passenger door, impatient for him to get out.
“Oh – and meet me at the restaurant at five o’clock sharp. I’m sure he’ll be punctual,” she ordered, as Mitch climbed out of the van.
“Who?” he asked, leaning into the window.
“Five o’clock,” she repeated.
“But—”
“I love you too. I’ve got to go now, okay?”
“Is there any particular reason you’re acting so bizarre?”
“It’s a bizarre world, don’t you think?”
“Is that a yes?”
“See you at five!” Anna chirped, grinding the gearshift into place.
He watched her van disappear down the boulevard, wondering what had got into her. Understanding what Anna was thinking was the most challenging puzzle in the world. Even for Mitch. Especially for Mitch.
* * *
At five on the dot, Mitch entered the restaurant. For the first time, every table was perfectly laid. If it weren’t for the quiet kitchen, it could’ve passed for opening night.
“Well?” Anna asked, watching Mitch’s face, her fingers twisting in the apron strings at her waist, as they always did when she was nervous.
“It’s… a triumph,” he said, although his mind was elsewhere.
“I think so too,” Anna gushed. “Table Four,” she added, beaming, pointing to the one she’d picked out for him.
He obeyed, preparing himself to taste a dish for which he had no appetite.
Anna sat down across from him, elbows on the table, her eyes fixed on the clock.
She impatiently tapped her fingers on the tablecloth without saying a word.
Seven minutes later, a black sedan pulled up and parked in front of the restaurant.
“Hmm, I was wrong. He’s late,” she said under her breath as she rose from her seat.
The inspector pushed open the door and made his way towards Anna. She stood her ground, proud, defiant and unflinching.
“I was with Mitch the night the prosecutor died,” she announced firmly. “You can spread all the rumours you want, investigate anything you want. I won’t change my testimony.”
Ignoring her completely, the inspector brushed past her and sat down at Table Four across from Mitch.
“I owe you an apology. We arrested the guilty party this afternoon.”
* * *
Some cases take months to crack. This one ended up being solved in a day.
“And what a day,” the inspector added, shaking his head like a metronome. His attitude had changed dramatically since the last time he’d seen them.
“This morning, a letter arrived at the station. We don’t normally pay much attention to anonymous tips,” he explained.
“Don’t you?” Mitch asked curtly.
The inspector cleared his throat, looking even more uncomfortable than when he’d arrived. “This one contained some very specific information. Enough to send me straight to the judge’s chambers and acquire an immediate search warrant.”
“What information?” Anna asked cautiously, sitting down between the men.
“It concerned the person who first steered me in your direction, the day after Salinas died,” he said, looking at Mitch. “We found the murder weapon at his residence, buried under a bush in his front garden. The soil was still fresh.”
“A weapon? I thought Salinas was poisoned,” Anna interjected.
“We found a leather pouch tied with cord. Inside were two glass vials and a pipette. It took the lab only an hour to identify the poison, a highly toxic mushroom extract. Six times more lethal than Amanita phalloides, apparently.”
“I never cook with mushrooms.” Anna shuddered. “It’s much too risky. You can never really be sure what you’re bringing home from the market.”
“Salinas didn’t ingest the poison with a meal. It was in a glass of port.”
“Who did it?” Mitch demanded, his voice shaking.
“The odds were against him. In seventy percent of cases, a person is killed by someone close to them. This time, it was his neighbour. A banker.”
“Salinas was killed over some dispute between neighbours?” Anna exclaimed in disbelief.
“In this case, it’s not about why. It’s for whom,” the inspector said grimly.
He turned to Mitch and stopped himself from reaching out to pat his hand in consolation.
“Only sons often have unhealthy relationships with their mothers. It’s not just a stereotype; it happens frequently. And this was certainly the case with the killer. He had some kind of sick, abusive power over his own mother.
“The seeds of the murder were planted years ago. One night, the killer – name’s Rony – surprises his mother coming home late.
She tells him she’s joined a book club. The next week, he follows her to a bookshop.
Yours, as it turns out. She goes into your shop with around a hundred students.
Rony tries to follow, but the shutter goes down and the lights go out.
He can’t see anything. So he waits. Two hours later, Madame Ateltow comes out on the arm of a man. Well, Rony doesn’t like that at all.
“The next day, he confronts her. She stands up to him, admits she never loved his father. She probably should’ve kept that bit to herself, because Rony goes over the edge.
He decides to put an end to his mother’s relationship, and he can only see one way of doing that: eliminate this book club.
You must have been very good friends with Madame Ateltow, because her son finds the key to your bookshop in her apartment, along with the alarm code, which she’s written on the key ring.
A very careless thing to do, if you ask me.
But that isn’t the problem – well, actually, yes, it is, because one night Rony lets himself into your shop, steals a book that was banned by law at the time, and hands it over to his neighbour, a powerful prosecutor.
The case blows up. And you know the rest. You’re convicted and sent to prison.
You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. ”
Mitch sat very still, trying to absorb these revelations. He exchanged a glance with Anna, who smiled warmly at him.
“But why did Rony kill Salinas, all these years later?” he asked the inspector.
“Still because of you,” came the answer.
“Me?”
“Yes. Rony Ateltow developed what might be called an obsession – with you. When he saw you lurking around outside the prosecutor’s house, he realized you were out of prison.
It made him quite anxious to have you so close to where he lived, and he became even more concerned when he discovered the date and time of a certain romantic rendezvous in your bookshop.
He paid a visit to Salinas and demanded that he send you back to prison.
Salinas refused: he didn’t have anything against you, personally, and times had changed.
“So, Rony decided to take matters into his own hands. He poisoned his neighbour, for not returning the favour Rony had done him five years ago. That’s what we think, anyway.
Next day, he called the cops and reported you.
An ex-con who’d been loitering around the victim’s house…
if this lady here hadn’t given you an alibi,” the inspector gestured towards Anna, “you wouldn’t have stood a chance. ”
“You think?” Anna cut in.
“Rony’s confessed to framing you multiple times, but not the murder. That, he’s still denying. With the murder weapon buried in his back garden, though… now he’s the one who’s out of luck.”
The inspector rose, tugged down the sleeves of his suit jacket to hide his cufflinks, and headed for the door.
On the threshold, he turned to admire the dining room one last time and promised Anna he’d come by one night to taste her food.
Then, wishing them both good luck, he climbed into his sedan.