Enchanted Again. Nancy Madore

to fully verify Tom’s whereabouts on the night of the murder, and her reluctance was at least partially genuine, for she was absolutely terrified that she might slip and say too much. The prosecutor had to drag every last word from her quivering lips, and this too made it all the worse for Tom.

      As for Jack’s threat about a video, Pansy need never have worried about that. There were no videotapes, and no one ever came forward to link Pansy with Jack on the two occasions when they had met in hotel rooms. She had even worried that a stray hair of hers may have appeared on Jack’s body or clothing, but if such a thing had existed, the police never bothered with it. The police, who were Tom’s peers and cut from the same cloth as him, had set their minds at the first hint of culpability upon his guilt, and once their minds were set they, like Tom, were loath to change course. It was, for them, a staggering tragedy, and they were equal parts sad and superior, shaking their heads at the difficulty of being a police officer and the statistical likelihood of it driving a person over the edge.

      Tom was ultimately obliged to spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement, evading aggrieved convicts as he pondered what had happened.

      “I would visit, Tom,” Pansy told him one day over the phone. “But let’s face it. There hasn’t been anything between us for a long time now. To visit you would be to prolong the inevitable. You should just get on with your new life there.”

      But Jack was not so easy for Pansy to forget. She thought of him often, especially the last few moments they had shared together, when his thoughts had been for her. She came to think of their short-lived relationship as a great love affair, all the more poignant for having ended so tragically at the pinnacle of their affection.

      Eventually Pansy was moved to go out and date, out of sheer dread of living alone more than anything else. One of Tom’s associates at the precinct had expressed an interest, catching her off guard. She was charmed by his bemused demeanor and awkward advances. She sympathized with the challenges he faced, working so many unrewarding hours at the precinct and having no one to properly care for him. Surely with her help, he would have more success with his cases and perhaps even lose some of the excess weight he had put on from constantly eating in fast-food restaurants. Here, at last, was her second chance in life, and Pansy decided to seize it.

      Perhaps things would be different this time.

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