Tribute

.” Cilla pressed a hand to her temple. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was so tired. The wine must’ve topped it off.”
    “You’ll need to drink the rest of that. And one more, I think, to finish the job.”
    “I’d better not. I’m sorry, Cathy, but I feel a little off. I need to—”
    “Finish your wine.” Cathy opened her purse, drew out a small revolver. “I insist,” she said as Spock began to grumble.
    “JANET COMMITTED SUICIDE. I’ve regretted whatever part I might have played in that for more than thirty years.”
    “She was pregnant.”
    “She claimed . . .” Something in Ford’s eyes had Tom pausing, nodding. “Yes. I didn’t believe her, not until we spoke face-to-face. After, after she died, the day she died, in fact, I went to my father. Confessed everything. He was furious with me. He had no tolerance for mistakes, not when they affected the family name. He handled it. We never spoke of it again. I assume he paid off the medical examiner to omit the pregnancy.”
    And his political career, Ford thought, had gone down the toilet.
    “It was the only thing to do, Ford. Imagine what the public would’ve done to her if it had come out? Imagine what might have become of my family if I was named the father?”
    “You spoke, face-to-face.”
    “I went to the farm. I wanted her to leave it alone, to move on, but she persisted. So I went to see her, as she demanded. She’d been drinking. Not drunk, not yet, but she’d been drinking. She had the results of the pregnancy test.”
    “She had them with her?” Ford prompted. “The paperwork.”
    “Yes. She’d used her real name, went to a doctor who didn’t know her. Personally, that is. She said she’d worn a wig and used makeup. She often did when we’d meet somewhere. She knew how to hide when she wanted to. I believed her then, and I believed her when she told me she intended to have the baby. But she was done with me. I didn’t deserve her, or the child.”
    Ford’s eyes narrowed. “She dumped you ?”
    “I’d already ended it. I suppose she wanted the last word on that. We argued; I won’t deny it. But she was alive when I left.”
    “What happened to the doctor’s report?”
    “I have no idea. I’m telling you, she was alive when I went home, and looked in on my daughter. I thought of all I’d risked, all I might have destroyed. I thought of Cathy, and the child she carried. How I’d nearly asked her for a divorce only months before so I could be, openly, with a woman who didn’t really exist. I might have done that. I nearly did that.”
    He leaned heavily on the deck rail, closed his eyes. “It was Cathy telling me she was pregnant that helped me begin to break the spell. I lay down on the cot in the nursery with my daughter, thought of the baby Cathy would have in the fall. Thought of Cathy and our life together. I never saw Janet again. I never risked my family again. Thirty-five years, Ford. What would it accomplish to bring it out now?”
    “You terrorized Cilla. You nearly killed a man, and when that wasn’t enough, you terrorized her. Breaking into her house, writing obscenities on her truck, her wall, threatening her.”
    “I broke in. I admit that, too. To look for the letters. And I lost control when I couldn’t find them. It was the anger, the impulse that had me smashing the tiles. But the rest? I had nothing to do with it. It was Hennessy. I realized the letters didn’t matter. They didn’t matter. No one would connect me.”
    “Hennessy couldn’t have done all the rest. He was locked up.”
    “I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. Why would I lie about a stone wall, the dolls?” Tom demanded. “You know the worst of it.”
    “Your wife knew. Janet called her. You said so in the letter, the last letter.”
    “Janet was drunk, and raving. I convinced Cathy that it wasn’t true. That it was alcohol, pills and grief. She was upset, of course, but she believed me. She . . .”
    “If you could live a lie this long, why couldn’t she? You claim you slept in the nursery the night Janet died.”
    “Yes, I . . . I fell asleep. I woke when Cathy came in to get the baby. She looked so tired. I asked if she was all right. She said she was fine. We were all fine now.” In the moonlight, the flush of shame died to shock white. “My God.”
    Ford didn’t wait for more reasons, more excuses. He ran. Cilla was alone. And Cathy Morrow knew it.
    “YOU PUT SOMETHING IN THE WINE.”
    “Seconal. Just