Carver went to visit Birdie at the old city jail on Magellan Avenue before her trial.
He’d been waiting fifteen minutes in a small, pale green room containing only a scarred oak table and three plain, straight-backed wooden chairs. There were no outside windows; the light came from frosted plastic panels in the drop ceiling. It was warm in the room, and lingering desperation was palpable. It was where prisoners usually met with their attorneys, where hope was nurtured or crushed.
The door opened and a matron led Birdie into the room.
Birdie was wearing a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit that was too large for her. Her red hair was skinned back in a ponytail held by a gray ribbon in a tight bow. She wasn’t wearing makeup and she might have passed for twelve years old. She smiled at Carver, glad to see him but not surprised. As if he were visiting her at summer camp, maybe brought her some cookies, and a flashlight so she could read under the covers at night. He planted his cane firmly and remained standing. Neither of them sat down at the table.
The matron, a buxom, middle-aged woman with a sad, kind face, ambled outside and stood at a thick glass window in the door, watching without seeming to stare. Quite a knack.
Carver looked at Birdie and wondered if she’d still have freckles when she was the age of the matron. Her guileless blue eyes had gotten years older in the past few weeks, but not at all wiser.
He plucked at her sleeve and said, “Some outfit for a princess.”
She looked puzzled. Probably didn’t recall what she’d said to him in Melanie Star’s bedroom.
Then she said, “Oh, I know what you mean. I been reading the papers. All about me.” She seemed perversely pleased by her publicity. Something in common with McGregor. It was more attention than she’d ever dreamed of receiving.
“They treating you all right in here?” Carver asked.
She shrugged her child’s narrow shoulders in the orange jumpsuit that was supposed to provide a good target if she escaped. “Yeah, I gotta say so.” She looked away, at a blank green wall, and then back. “There’s something I never told nobody.”
“Before you tell me or anyone else,” Carver cautioned her, “you better talk to your lawyer. You’re in deep trouble, Birdie.”
“No, it won’t matter if I tell you. And I want to, though I ain’t sure why.”
She waited, as if needing his assent.
He nodded.
“When they was dead I bent over and kissed them on the lips. Kinda to wish them peace wherever it was they were going. Know how come? ’Cause kisses go with death. Death is forever, and so’s a kiss, Mr. Carver.”
“I guess it is,” Carver said, “in a lot of ways.”
She stared at him. “You understand what I’m saying?”
“Part of it. That’s the best I can do.”
Birdie said, “Well, that’s all I can ask and more’n I got a right to expect. Listen, will you tell Linda Redmond I’m sorry I let her down? And like thank her for thinking about me, and tell her I’m thinking about her?”
“I’ll tell her,” Carver said.
“Thanks. It was unfinished business. Sometimes I think that’s the trouble with the world, too much unfinished business that can never really be worked out.” Something infinitely sad crossed her features. “It ain’t easy, is it, Mr. Carver?”
Carver said, “Hardly ever. For anyone.”
There she stood, victim and killer, child and adult, testimony to the complexity of life and the simplicity of death. Smiling brightly up at him now. Her blue eyes burned and there was a sheen of perspiration on her pale, smooth forehead.
Good Christ, what would they do to her? What would become of her?
Carver propped himself against the edge of the table and held both her small, cold hands in his. He bent down and gently placed his lips just below her hairline. She’d recently showered with the prison’s cheap perfumed soap and shampoo. Her hair smelled like lilacs.
He kissed her good-bye.