For Love of Audrey Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

paragraph caught his attention.
    A memorial service would be held at ten o’clock for Audrey Rose at Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 14 Christopher Place, New York.
    Bill’s eyes bulged in rage. For
Audrey Rose?
    Angrily, he tossed the newspaper into the gutter and stormed on into the heart of the still-dark city.
    Number 14 Christopher Place was a small brick building that had served as an alternative school, a radical arts center, a vegetarian health information society, and now had been converted into an esoteric Buddhist place of worship. Bill peeked into the windows. One adolescent, wearing an orange robe, swept the worn wooden floor. Another in a blue shirt and white skirt set flowers at the front, where an altar of sorts had been constructed from doors and benches. On the wall were photographs of Gupta Pradesh.
    Bill recoiled. He walked across the street and pretended to browse at leather crafts displayed on iron hooks in a boutique window. Time after time, as though drawn magnetically, he turned to stare at the self-styled temple.
    Something was being sprinkled on the floor. Maybe holy water, Bill thought. Maybe sweeping compound. Rage filled his body, and he knew he was capable of murder.
    An hour later, several more adolescents in orange robes walked up to the door, bowed, and entered. Through the window Bill saw incense lighted. At 9:45, Judge Langley walked to the door, checked the address, and hesitantly entered. Bill dashed for cover into a small supermarket. Over the avocadoes he saw Scott Velie drive up in a black Mercedes. Next came Hoover’s lawyer and Dr. Lipscomb. Then a taxi drove up, and Russ and Carole Federico, wan and red-eyed, stepped out. Uncertainly, they waited, then saw Scott Velie motioning them in from the window, and they went, arm in arm, into the temple. Janice would be next.
    Bill ran up the alley, circled several blocks and found himself cutting back toward Washington Square. He changed direction, walked on and on, for two hours, and did not stop until he sat on a bench in Central Park.
    By now Bill knew that he could run no more. His brain was whirling. His nervous system was on fire. He felt like an animal with one paw in the steel trap. By instinct, he got up, walked on through the park, past lanky teenagers throwing Frisbees, past couples necking on the cold grass, and crossed to Des Artistes, the one place he knew Janice would not be.
    Mario stared at him, his eyes filled with sadness.
    “My keys—I lost my keys, Mario—”
    “Sure, Mr. Templeton. I’ll have Ernie take you up.”
    Mario led him to Ernie, who opened the Templetons’ apartment with a passkey. Ernie brushed against Bill as the apartment door opened, and he felt the icy cold of the man’s hands.
    “You going to be all right?” Ernie asked softly. “You want I should call a doctor?”
    Bill croaked out a negative reply. Ernie stood, watched Bill collapse on a chair by the window, head slumped down, shivering. The radiator hissed, which meant he would be warm there, Ernie thought, and closed the door.
    In the apartment, Bill sat alone, dimly conscious of the cold leaving his bones, but otherwise conscious only of sinking, waiting, and trying not to think.
    “…
daddydaddydaddydaddydaddy
—”
    “Ahhhhhh!”
    Bill slammed his fist against the wall.
    When it was late in the day, almost twilight, he heard the elevator door open in the distance. Janice’s footsteps came slowly over the carpeted hallway. Bill wanted to turn, to face her, to defend himself in a physical way, but his body no longer responded. He sat, slumped, his arms heavy as cast iron, and only the hair at the back of his neck stirred, prickling, when he heard the door slowly unlock.

2
    J anice closed the door softly. Though Mario had told her that Bill was in the apartment, she was still surprised to see him, a silhouette against the stained-glass windows. It had been so long since she had seen him. Even his silhouette looked different. It