Chapter 108

  CONKLIN GRUNTED¹, said, “Purification by fire. It’s a major biblical theme.”

  Just then the garage door opened behind us and I turned to see a chic² forty-something woman wearing a business suit limned³ in the sunlight behind her. Her face was stretched in anger and fear.

  “I’m Alicia Beam. Who’s in charge here?”

  “I’m Paul Arcario,” the sheriff said to her, stretching out his hand. “We spoke⁴ earlier. Why don’t we go outside and talk?”

  Mrs. Beam pushed past him to the van, and although Conklin put an arm out to stop her, it was too late. The woman stared, then shrank away, screaming, “Oh, my God! Alan! What happened to you?”

  Then she snapped her head around and locked her eyes on me.

  “Where’s Valerie? Where’s my daughter?”

  I introduced myself, told Mrs. Beam that she had to leave the garage, and that I would come with her. She became compliant⁵ as soon as I put my hand on the small of her back, and we walked together out of the garage to the front of the house.

  “It’s my daughter’s weekend with her father,” she said.

  She opened the front door, and as she stepped over the threshold, she broke away from me, running through the rooms, calling her daughter’s name.

  “Valerie! Val. Where are you?”

  I followed behind her, and when she stopped she said to me, “Maybe Val spent the night with a friend.”

  The look of sheer hope on her face pulled at my heart and my conscience. Was that her daughter in the body bag? I didn’t know, and if it was, it was not my job to tell her. Right now I had to learn whatever I could about Alan Beam.

  “Let’s just talk for a few minutes,” I said.

  We took seats at a pine farm table in the kitchen, and Alicia Beam told me that her marriage of twenty years to Alan had been dissolved a year before.

  “Alan has been depressed⁶ for years,” Alicia told me. “He felt that his whole life had been about money. That he’d neglected his family and God. He became very religious, very repentant⁷, and he said that there wasn’t enough time . . .”

  Alicia Beam stopped in midsentence. I followed her eyes to the counter, where an unfolded sheet of blue paper was lying beside an envelope.

  “Maybe that’s a note from Val.”

  She stood and walked to the counter, picked up the letter, began to read.

  “Dear Val, my dearest girl. Please forgive me. I just couldn’t take it any longer . . .”

  She looked up, said to me, “This is from Alan.”

  I turned as Hanni leaned through the doorway⁸ and asked me to step outside.

  “Lindsay,” he said. “A neighbor found a message from Alan Beam on her answering machine saying he was sorry and good-bye.”

  It was all coming clear, why there were no Latin come-ons. No fishing-line ligatures. And the victims were not a married couple.

  Pidge hadn’t done this.

  Pidge had nothing to do with these deaths. Any hope I had of tripping him up, finding a clue to his whereabouts, was dead - as dead as the man in the car.

  “Alan Beam committed suicide,” I said.

  Hanni nodded. “We’ll treat it as a homicide until we’re sure, but according to this neighbor, Beam had attempted suicide before. She said he was terminal. Lung cancer.”

  “And so he chained himself to the steering⁹ wheel and set himself on fire?”

  “I guess he wanted to make sure he didn’t change his mind this time. But whatever his reason,” said Hanni, “it looks to me now like his daughter tried to save him - but she never had a chance.

  “The poisonous gas and the superheated air brought her down.”

1 grunted   

（猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说

参考例句：

• She just grunted, not deigning to look up from the page. 她只咕哝了一声，继续看书，不屑抬起头来看一眼。
• She grunted some incomprehensible reply. 她咕噜着回答了些令人费解的话。

2 chic   

n./adj.别致(的)，时髦(的)，讲究的

参考例句：

• She bought a chic little hat.她买了一顶别致的小帽子。
• The chic restaurant is patronized by many celebrities.这家时髦的饭店常有名人光顾。

3 limned   

v.画( limn的过去式和过去分词 )；勾画；描写；描述

参考例句：

• The report limned a desperate situation. 那报道描述出一个严重的情况。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He was as crisp as a new dollar bill-as clean, sharp, firmly limned. 他就象一张崭新的钞票一样利落--一样干净，鲜明，一丝不苟。 来自辞典例句

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 compliant   

adj.服从的，顺从的

参考例句：

• I don't respect people who are too compliant.我看不起那种唯命是从，唯唯诺诺的人。
• For years I had tried to be a compliant and dutiful wife.几年来，我努力做一名顺从和尽职尽职的妻子。

6 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

7 repentant   

adj.对…感到悔恨的

参考例句：

• He was repentant when he saw what he'd done.他看到自己的作为，心里悔恨。
• I'll be meek under their coldness and repentant of my evil ways.我愿意乖乖地忍受她们的奚落，忏悔我过去的恶行。

8 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

9 steering   

n.操舵装置

参考例句：

• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. 他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。
• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。