The Astral, or, Till the Day I Die. V. J. Banis

for people like us to understand these creatures. There’s more to it than that, of course. Money.”

      “But, they never asked for ransom. They didn’t even...there wasn’t time for that.”

      Crapola, Chang thought silently. She took a deep breath. She wished she didn’t have to say this, but she knew that it had to be said. “Often, they take pictures, films. There is a big market for that sick sort of thing. Kiddie porn, it’s called.”

      Catherine turned away from her and leaned against the window frame, head bent. After a moment, she asked in a breaking voice, “Are you telling me that somewhere there are pictures, movies, floating around that show—that show my Becky being violated?”

      “There may well be. What I don’t get is, why did they...?” For a moment she had gone into agent-mode, thinking aloud. She caught herself and gave Catherine an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”

      “No. Go on, please. What is it that you don’t get?”

      “Well, I...are you all right with this?”

      “No, but go on anyway. I want to hear.”

      “Well, like I said, there’s movies and pictures, they’re worth a lot of money. And then, after that, usually, they, you know, they pass them on.”

      “For sex, you mean?”

      “Yes.” Chang was clearly embarrassed with the information she was imparting to Catherine’s back. Should she go on? Or try to soft pedal it? Yet her instinct was that this woman truly wanted—needed—to know. “The point is, these children are worth far more to them alive than dead.”

      “Then why...?”

      “If I knew that....” Chang shrugged again.

      Catherine was quiet for so long that Chang wondered if perhaps she should simply leave. When Catherine finally did speak, it was to say, her voice cracking, “I tried to protect her. I tried to shield her from the evil of the world.”

      “Yes, of course you did. Who could dream that such evil would come down upon you?” She had seen this same bewildered grief in other parents who had lost a child to murder. You wanted to protect, and when you failed, when something of this magnitude happened, you felt as if it were you who was at fault. She had seen marriages, families torn apart by such guilt. Even when justice was served, even when memory faded, no one ever really recovered, no parent of a murdered child ever afterward swam blissfully in the river of forgetfulness.

      She pulled her shoulders back and thrust her chin forward. “Mrs. Desmond, I want you to know, I mean to get these monsters. And I will, I promise you. However long it takes, I’m going to see them burn in the chair before I’m finished.”

      Catherine suddenly turned toward her, fists clenched, and said, with a fervor long missing from her voice, “I want to see it. I want to be there to watch them burn, to see them writhe in agony. Promise me that, Roby Chang. Promise me I will be there when they die.”

      Chang blinked, surprised by her vehemence, and heartened too. When she had interviewed her before, in the hospital, Catherine Desmond had been like a zombie, all her feelings locked away somewhere inside. Anger was good, in Chang’s opinion. It was often a first step in recovery.

      “It’s a date. I promise you, you’ll see them die,” she said with a grim smile. She took a card from her wallet and handed it to Catherine. “Meantime, if you think of anything...sometimes memory does funny things, you know, you’re reading a book or walking down a street, and the most trivial thing will trigger something in your mind. If you think of anything, anything at all, call me. Day or night.”

      * * * *

      Catherine had planned to go into the office for the afternoon, but now she changed her mind. Roby Chang’s visit had unnerved her. She called in and made her apologies, was embarrassed by how quickly, how understandingly they were received.

      The free time left her restless, however. She sat at the piano, picked listlessly at a Chopin prelude. Jack McKenzie’s yellow roses, a new bouquet of them, sat in their usual place atop the piano. Walter never failed to glower at them when he saw them, but he kept his objections to himself.

      Her out-of-practice fingers hit a wrong note. She slammed her hand down on the keyboard, creating a discordant cacophony, and got up, banging the lid down on the piano and making the roses tremble nervously.

      She went to the window and glanced out, and saw again the sorry state of the back yard. Despite the cold and a gentle rain, she donned a parka, pulled the hood over her head, and went out to do some gardening.

      A blue jay scolded her as she pulled up dead pansies and primroses with violent yanks. She imagined herself ripping out the hearts of the men who had murdered Becky.

      Later, muddy and exhausted, she took a shower and thought about Walter. She had been cold, unyielding with him, though he too had grief to bear and, worse yet, a burden of guilt as well.

      She had ignored her mother, too. The sorry truth was, she had been so wrapped up in her own suffering she had given not a thought to the suffering of others. She lashed herself with the recognition of her self-absorption.

      Since her return from the hospital, she had been sleeping in Becky’s room. That night she returned to her own bed, to Walter.

      He welcomed her into his arms, and after several long moments of silent embrace, he tried dutifully to make love to her. It was a failure on both their parts. After what seemed an eternity of writhing and rubbing, he heaved a deep sigh and rolled off of her.

      “I’m sorry,” he said.

      For a reply, she took his hand and gave it a forgiving squeeze. Later, when he began to snore gently in his sleep, she went back to Becky’s room.

      Lying there in the darkness, the futility of their attempt at sex stayed with her. Yet now that she was in another bed, another room, now that she considered it at a safe distance, she realized that nothing sexual had happened between them for a long while, even before. She had not minded, had welcomed the absence, she supposed, and so had been willing to overlook it, had scarcely even been conscious of it. If she had been able to see the future, she might well have considered another child...but who could possibly have foreseen what happened.

      She did not find it flattering to face the truth of what she had done: it hadn’t been only out of consideration for Walter, for their marriage, that she had returned to his bed. Far back in a corner of her mind, she had thought of replacing what had been lost. In a way, she was glad the attempt had been unsuccessful. That wasn’t the right motivation to bring a child into the world. Becky had been precious to her, and another child might well be too, without being a “replacement.” Anyway, if she were going to be truly honest with herself, Walter was no longer the man she would have chosen for a father.

      She got up and went into the bathroom—not the master bath, which was too close to where he slept, but the one across the hall from Becky’s room. The door closed, all the lights on, she shed her robe and took a long, hard look at herself in the mirror.

      She had never been beautiful, not even as a young woman, but she had known without conceit (and with a probably too immodest pleasure) that she was attractive to the opposite sex. That, however, had been years ago. Was she still? She honestly didn’t know. Walter didn’t count. She had not for many years thought of him in terms of sex, opposite or otherwise. And, it seemed, the same with him.

      She had a good complexion, what they used to call “peaches and cream,” and eyes the color of old cognac, with gold flecks that glinted when she was angry or excited. She was thirty-two. Well preserved, she thought with all due modesty. Until this last year, she had been careful of diet and exercise, and though no doubt some softening had set in during that time, she could not yet detect any evidence of it.

      Or not much evidence. When she got on the scales, she saw that she had gained a full five pounds. Too much time abed, not enough exercise.

      Even so, she didn’t exactly look