Page 14 of Return of the Spider

“Mr. Talbot, is there somewhere we can talk privately with you and your wife?” I asked.

The phone rang in the hallway. We heard Sue Ann Talbot answer it.

Will Talbot’s expression turned from defensive to uncertain. He looked at his daughter. “Stella, why don’t you go finish breakfast and ask Mom to come to my office for a second.” He turned to us and gestured to a room on his right. “We can talk in here.”

Before we could go into the office, his wife reappeared, looking stricken. “That was Lisa Howard. Abby’s in critical condition at GWU Hospital.”

I wished to God right then I had told Abby’s mother not to call Conrad’s family, but I nodded. “Yes, she is, ma’am.”

The implications registered with both the parents and their daughter at the same time.

“Conrad?” Will Talbot said in a voice that still held hope.

But Sue Ann knew even before I said, “I’m sorry.” Conrad’s mother looked stunned. She staggered, crashed against the wall, and slid down it, moaning, “No. No. No. No.”

Equally stunned, her husband looked past us and whispered, “Little Condor?”

Stella lost her sullen expression and started to cry, and right in front of our eyes, an innocent family crumbled and collapsed.

CHAPTER

8

I shifted quickly intosupport mode. During my years at Johns Hopkins, I’d spent as much time working in a counseling clinic as I had researching criminal behavior, so I listened in respectful silence as the Talbots, now sitting in the father’s office, poured out their grief and bewilderment.

“Car crash?” Will Talbot said between clenched teeth. “That damned piece-of-crap Bronco?”

Sampson shook his head. “I’m sorry to say your son was murdered, Mr. Talbot. Shot at close range.”

That further crushed their souls.

“Why?” Sue Ann sobbed as she held tight to Stella, who’d curled up in her arms.

“We don’t know, ma’am,” I said. “We’re trying to figure that out.”

“Where did this happen?” the father asked, his breathing choppy.

Sampson and I sat down and told him what we knew.

“What was he doing out there?” Stella asked.

“We think he took Abby there to be romantic,” I said softly.

Conrad’s mother shook her head, weeping. “And—what? Someone just walked up to them, way out on that island, and shot them?”

“Yes, ma’am,” John said. “It appears that way. One shot. Abby was wounded and is in critical condition, but it appears your son was blocking her. He slowed the bullet down and redirected it, which probably saved her life.”

That set them off all over again.

We waited until they could answer questions and then asked the most pressing ones as quickly and sensitively as we could so we’d better understand their son.

Conrad was their middle child. He’d been smart, athletic, and likable from a very young age. Schoolwork came easily to him. So did lacrosse, his first love.

Abby had entered his life the year before.

“She played lacrosse too. They were good together,” Sue Ann said, nodding. “Perfect for each other.”

“If you like that perfect type,” Stella said.