05 July 2000
Oh, Esther, something terrible has happened! I'm all shook up. You're going to say "I told you so," except you're too sweet to say something like that. I wish you were here. Sherlock has been wonderful, but he doesn't know that what an old woman really needs is someone to put their arms around her and tell her it will be alright.
He's been arrested—my husband. Harold's been arrested. For—for—oh, it's horrible. For three murders back in Minnesota, before we ever met, and for one here. In Miami. In the last few months. Now they're looking into his London activities.
It's so…awful…being mixed up in something like this. But—this is even more awful—I feel vindicated. As would you, if you weren't as good and sweet as you are. I knew it, didn't I? You knew it first, the very first time you met him, and you tried to warn me, and I wouldn't listen, like a silly young fool. But later, I suspected. You alone know how I've nearly hated him these last ten years, and how sometimes he's frightened me. He knew I knew, and he knew I had no proof and would never dare go to the police, and he's taunted me with it in a thousand imperceptible ways. Young Sherlock wasn't the first person to ask me why I didn't leave him. But I had made my bed, and I must lie in it. I believe in facing my choices instead of running away from them.
Well, now you know. I don't think they'll find anything in London. Those first years, we were so caught up in each other, and then later he was completely caught up in his job. I think—not that I know anything, but I think that it's when he feels useless that he—you know. Hurts people. Before he came to London and we met, he was going nowhere in his job. And then, in London, he was so happy. But since he got ill and his medications made him gain so much weight and lose all his energy and they made him retire… The more sedentary he's got, the more he's frightened me. Sherlock could see that in a snap.
But he's helping, Sherlock is. He has some kind of London police connections, and they've contacted the Miami police, and they're letting him help. Because he's got some of the most peculiar talents. Nobody here has ever seen anything like them.
He asked me straight-out, first of all, "What do you want?" And I knew what he meant. He wanted to know if I wanted Harold in prison or home with me. I think, you see, that he would make whichever I wanted happen. Not ethical and honest and all, but very sweet, and he's not usually a sweet man. Doesn't think of it, I imagine. And I told him immediately that if Harold was guilty, I wanted him in prison. I know he is guilty, and so does Sherlock, and I must confess that it will be a great weight gone when he is gone. I've felt like he's controlled me for so long. Just having him out of the flat makes the whole place seem huge and light and beautiful.
Love,
Mary