The Good Thief: A Tale of Mercy

By Robert Vall

John R. Freeman, born in Chicago in the middle of the twentieth century, must come to grips with a series of personal disasters and bad choices, which force him ever deeper into an abyss of despair. Faced with the imminent destruction of his life, will he finally find redemption, mercy, and peace? Expanding on the scene of the crucifixion as described in the gospel of St. Luke, The Good Thief recreates the life of the penitent thief in an accessible, modern-day setting, providing the reader an empathetic glimpse into the meaning of this enigmatic bible character. Robert Vall was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and began writing full time after a varied career in business, including several years managing his own company. Reflecting on his life so far, Rob sees Gods guiding hand in good times and bad. Having experienced the mercy of God in so many palpable ways, Rob feels a strong desire to impart hope to others who are unaware, or unsure of, Gods great love for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449745745

Robert Vall

Robert Vall was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and began writing full time after a varied career in business, including several years managing his own company. Reflecting on his life so far, Rob sees God's guiding hand in good times and bad. Having experienced the mercy of God in so many palpable ways, Rob feels a strong desire to impart hope to others who are unaware, or unsure of, God's great love for them.   Rob is a graduate of Michigan State University. He is a Benedictine Oblate and a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. He lives and writes in Naperville, Illinois, where he is a member of SS. Peter & Paul Catholic Parish. This is his first novel.

Book preview

1

Richard Winston, state’s attorney for the county of Cook, state of Illinois, was in a particularly good mood. In a moment, the defense would finish its final argument to the jury in the trial of the State of Illinois versus John R. Freeman on the charge of capital murder. It would soon be his turn to sum up the case for the prosecution—a case that was, in his judgment, airtight. There was no doubt in his mind the jury would return a verdict of guilty for the incorrigible felon at the defense table.

Why, on the merits of this trial alone, he thought, I could run against—and beat—old man Dalton. Timothy Michael Dalton was the powerful and popular mayor of Chicago. Ever since being elected state’s attorney, Richard Winston had been busy making bigger plans. He was gunning to replace Dalton in the next election. The murder of a well-known community figure brought this case to prominence, and the voting public, aided and abetted by a rabid media, was crying for Freeman’s blood. This was exactly the opportunity for which Richard Winston had been waiting. Against the wishes of his staff, he had insisted on trying this case himself. By winning a conviction, he would further cement his reputation as a no-nonsense crime fighter. He would paint Dalton as soft on crime while pushing himself as the true champion of the people, standing against the criminal elements that held a knife to the city’s throat.

While Winston basked in his political daydream, Algernon P. Randall, public defender, pled for the life of his client. Unlike his colleague at the bar, he had no dreams of political glory. All Randall cared about was averting yet another bitter end to an all-too-common story.

Al Randall, unlike most of his class of newly minted attorneys from Northwestern University Law School, had gone to work for the public defender’s office to gain valuable trial experience. Over the years, while most of his classmates had gone on to successful careers in business or secured partnerships in prestigious law firms, Randall had stayed in the PD’s office. Twice, Richard Winston had tried to get him to come to work for him in the state’s attorney’s office. Twice, Al Randall had said no.

The genius of our judicial system, Randall would say when holding forth after a few drinks with friends, lies in the notion that anyone, regardless of his background, race, wealth—or lack thereof—can count on fair treatment under the law. The man on trial is judged by a jury of his peers. He is guaranteed representation by a competent practitioner of the law, an impartial prosecution, and judgment rendered unemotionally and fairly. To Randall’s way of thinking, this was the pure practice of law. He had built his professional life on this foundation, and in his heart of hearts, this is what Al Randall believed.

That’s complete and utter bullshit, and you know it, a friend scolded him during one of those drinking sessions. You’re wasting a first-class law degree on thugs, rapists, and murderers . . . and for what? A pittance of a salary and ungrateful clients who, if you’re successful, are apt to stick you up in the parking lot after the trial. What, pray tell, can you possibly be thinking?

I enjoy the courtroom experience, Al Randall said lamely, suddenly deflated.

More bullshit! Wow, you ought to be a lawyer! hooted his friend. Seriously, Al, you’ve got more trial experience than anyone in our class. Listen, do you remember Blodgett? He barely made it through the bar exam, and he took it four times! Do you know where he is right now?

No, I lost track of him after graduation, Randall replied, taking another slug of warm beer.

Well, I’ll tell you: he’s junior partner of Bernstein, Wagner, and Baum. He lives in a penthouse on Lakeshore Drive and has a yacht as big as your scruples.

But that— Randall tried to interject, but his friend interrupted.

He works four-hour days, four days a week, reviewing contracts, and I doubt he’s ever seen the inside of the courthouse. Hell, I doubt he even knows where the courthouse is!

I’m happy for him, Randall said peevishly. "But that’s not for me. I don’t care about all that stuff. I became a lawyer to practice law, to help people who need a good lawyer without demanding their firstborn. Irritated by his friend’s argument, Randall enunciated each syllable of practice" as if speaking to someone hard of hearing.

I can’t think of any better way to use my skills, he resumed more calmly, than to keep some poor slob from doing time because he got beaten into a confession or couldn’t afford decent counsel. Hell, most of the guys in my office couldn’t defend Santa Claus against a charge of breaking and entering. As for those thugs, rapists, and murderers you mentioned, sure, most of them are guilty as hell. But the law isn’t just there to punish them; it’s also there to see they are treated fairly. Even thugs, rapists, and murderers are entitled to that.

Anyway, Randall said after a moment’s pause, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to help them. They’ve got nobody else. Why is that so hard to understand?

The memory of those words washed over him as he ended his summation. Drained and exhausted, Al Randall turned toward the defense table and met the eyes of his client, John Freeman. Freeman, sitting quietly at the defense table in the scruffy brown suit Randall had brought for him to wear during the trial, looked at his attorney with his unsettling dark eyes.

Randall grasped the rail of the jury box for a moment. He clung to it like a man hanging from a window ledge, knowing that he hasn’t the strength to pull himself to safety, but is too afraid to let go. Reluctantly—resignedly—he let his hands slip from the wooden rail to his sides, where they hung limply as he walked back to his seat. All the while, John Freeman held him in his gaze.

We’re not licked yet, Randall whispered to his client as he sat. I think we really built some empathy with this jury. John said nothing but only nodded.

The prosecution may now make its closing remarks, said the judge with bored indifference.

Richard Winston rose from his seat. After smoothing his hair with both hands, he shot his cuffs, buttoned his coat, and with practiced theatricality, walked to a point just in front of the witness box, turning slightly to the right. From this vantage point, he knew, he could see and, more important, be seen by the jury and the media in the gallery.

Thank you, Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Winston began, there is very little for me to say except to remind you that your deliberations must be based not on Mr. Randall’s eloquence on behalf of his client—here he gave a discreet bow of the head toward the defense counsel—but on the facts of this case.

The state has shown, beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt, the accused had both motive and opportunity for the commission of this brutal crime. The defense would like you to believe the lack of a living witness makes the evidence in this case purely circumstantial. Winston’s voice picked up a few decibels, and his cadence quickened. But reasonable people, such as you, can hardly fail to discount the facts as they are: Freeman was identified by several witnesses as present at the crime scene, his fingerprints were found all over the murder weapon, and he was apprehended by the police, literally standing over the victim. Moreover, last and most damning of all, his accomplice in this crime has already confessed and presented testimony identifying the defendant as the triggerman. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot rightly discharge your duties without full consideration of these facts.

Turning to the bench, Winston inclined his head very slightly and said solemnly, Your Honor, the state rests. With that, he returned to his seat, idly wondering if he still had time to make reservations at the club for dinner.

2

Randall was finishing his fourth cigarette when the bailiff tapped him on the shoulder. Startled, he spun around, flinging ash on the officer’s sleeve. Unperturbed, the officer said, The jury’s ready, Mr. Randall. The judge will be back from chambers in a minute. We’re bringing your man up now.

Uh, thanks. They’re done already? Randall looked at his watch in alarm. It was a little less than two hours since they had retired.

Yup, replied the bailiff. Not much to talk about, I guess. You better go spruce up a bit. If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Randall, you look like hell.

With that, the bailiff turned on his heel and headed back to the courtroom. Randall stood in the hallway, feeling like a gutted fish. Quick deliberations never bode well for the defense. It is hard enough to get two people to agree on something, let alone twelve. It’s too fast, too damn fast! Randall thought. Did they hear anything I said? Did they listen at all?

Stubbing out his cigarette on the floor, Randall grabbed his coat and headed for the men’s washroom. If he looked at all like he felt, the bailiff was correct in offering his parting advice. One look in the washroom mirror confirmed it.

Somewhat refreshed, tie straightened and walking briskly, Randall strode into the courtroom just in time to see his client released from the handcuffs that held him in transit from the holding cell. Randall put on his winning smile and put an arm around John Freeman’s shoulder.

Don’t be discouraged that they’re back so quickly, Randall whispered in Freeman’s ear, Jury’s are pretty smart about capital cases, he lied. Both men sat down at the defense table. Randall looked over to the prosecutor’s table and observed Winston impatiently drumming his fingers while checking his watch.

A door to the right of the witness stand opened and the jury, led by a sheriff’s deputy, solemnly marched in and found their seats. A moment later, the bailiff’s voice boomed, All rise! as the judge emerged from his chambers. The judge ascended the bench smartly, sat down, and banged his gavel in a cursory fashion.

Mister Foreman the judge intoned, have you reached a verdict in this case?

The foreman of the jury stood quickly, We have your honor.

Will the defendant rise and face the jury? The judge commanded.

John Freeman pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. He turned calmly to meet the gaze of the jury foreman for an instant. The foreman looked away quickly, turning his attention to the judge. Al Randall stood next to John willing the best, but fearing the worst.

On the specifications held out in the indictment, how do you find the defendant? The judge asked, his voice a mask of official detachment.

Guilty, your honor, was the terse reply.

Randall instinctively reached with his left hand and grasped John’s forearm. He gave it a light squeeze to steady him. Randall turned to look into John’s face. He expected to see the all too familiar look of shock he had seen so many times in cases like this. Instead, what met his gaze was an eerily calm expression. It unnerved Randall to see those dark eyes, expressionless, as if they were painted on John Freeman’s face.

John Robert Freeman, the judge said severely, You have been found guilty of capital murder in the first degree, as laid out in the indictment. Do you have anything to say before I impose sentence?

John stood stock-still. In a clear, steady voice he said, No, I have nothing to say.

Very well: The murder of another human being is heinous in any event, but in this case, the audacity, the brutality, and the sheer cold-blooded ruthlessness you exhibited in the commission of this crime, especially against someone so personally close to you, causes me to question whether there is any humanity in you at all. In a long career on the bench, I have rarely seen an individual more fit for removal from society. John Robert Freeman, having been found guilty of this reprehensible act, I sentence you to death.

The blood drained from Randall’s head as he listened to the condemnation of his client. He felt dizzy and pressed his fingertips against the top of the defense table to keep himself from toppling over. Never in his professional life had he heard such a scathing rebuke from the bench.

The judge shifted his focus to the clerk of the court, Mr. Clerk, the defendant John Robert Freeman shall be committed to the custody of the Department of Corrections for transport to the Stateville Correctional Center at Joliet where the sentence of death shall be executed as soon as can be arranged. Then to John he said, And may God have mercy on your soul. This case is closed!

With a bang of the gavel, the judge rose and walked swiftly to the door of his chambers. The door slammed behind him, shutting out the clamor erupting in the courtroom. Reporters rushed out, pushing each other aside to be the first to file their report. Some of the visitors’ gallery, who came in support of the victim, cheered. Others wept. Randall stood looking down at his hands. With swift professionalism, two sheriff’s deputies cuffed John Freeman’s hands behind his back to lead him from the courtroom. John made no gesture, no acknowledgement, no movement toward his attorney; he merely turned and strode out of the courtroom with the deputies in tow.

After a long moment, Randall collapsed backward into his chair at the defense table, his hands moving to cradle his head as he did so. He tried hard to think what he should do next. Of course, he would immediately file for an appeal. He would go to the office right now and get the paperwork started. Paperwork . . . papers. He stared at the notes from his closing argument written in confident block print on the attorney’s ubiquitous yellow pad. What had he done wrong? What evidence did he neglect? What testimony should he have parsed more closely? The verdict still rang in his ears: death. At the very most, Randall had expected a long prison term, but then this case had already been tried in the newspapers. To battle the state’s attorney was one thing, it was quite another to battle an entire city out for blood.

In the now quiet courtroom, Randall thought back over his other cases. In a strange way, this client embodied all the people he had defended over the years. They all had their excuses for why their lives had come to this extreme: Broken homes, bad parents—when they were there at all—bad friends, poor education, careless, thoughtless teachers, un-feeling, un-seeing bureaucracies that were meant to help but very often did not or would not. John Freeman was a product of all of them. He started on the road to this courtroom, the moment he was born.

Randall’s mood grew darker as he sat in the stillness and brooded. What difference am I making? What can I really do to help any of them? Or am I just here to oversee their legal and humane destruction? he thought. He pushed the yellow legal pad away and folded his hands on the table. If all the John Freemans he had defended were only destined to come to this end, there was something terribly wrong with the world.

Mister Randall? A gentle voice from somewhere behind him prodded him back to the present. It was the court clerk. I’ll have a copy of the transcripts sent to your office by courier in the morning. I assume you’ll be filing an appeal?

Uh, yes, thank you. Randall replied.

Better pack up now. I need to lock up the courtroom, The clerk urged as he tidied up his small desk attached to the judge’s bench.

Yes, of course. Thanks. Randall gathered his files and papers together and slid them into his briefcase. He pushed in his chair and walked toward the main doors of the courtroom. Outside, he knew he would have to run a gauntlet of reporters asking for comment on the verdict and sentence. He had no idea what to say.

A human life is a complicated thing. From the moment we are born, we move along a path which determines the rest of our life, past many branches, turnings, dead-ends, roads not taken. If it were possible to map the meanderings of our lives on a giant piece of paper, they might resemble a spider’s web. What does it take to nudge a promising young life from growing in hope, to a bleak trudge toward death with nothing but dissipation and misery for companions?

John Freeman did not normally give in to introspection of this sort, but now there was no avoiding it. His death sentence spoken, all alone in a six and a half by eight foot holding cell, he sat on the concrete block that served for a bed. He stared at the buzzing fluorescent light in the hall outside the cell door. Periodically, one of his warders would saunter up and down the hallway past John’s cell on his rounds.

Upon being brought down from the courtroom, John was submitted to another strip-search, then made to change into prison dungarees. He put on the floppy, cloth slippers, pulled on the trousers, which were two sizes too big and lacked a belt or drawstring to hold them up. Because he had missed the regular meal, a guard brought him a tray from the canteen with a stale sandwich and a paper cup filled with some sort of orange drink that was neither orange, nor potable. The guard then pulled up a chair a few feet from John’s cell, the better to watch in case his prisoner went berserk, or tried to kill himself with the orange drink. John nibbled a corner of the sandwich. A wet newspaper would have tasted better, he thought, and flipped it back on the tray.

You know, I’m not all that hungry, he said to the guard outside the door.

Suit yourself, but just so you know, there’s no chow ’til you get to Stateville tomorrow, advised the guard as he retrieved the tray from the horizontal slot in the bars, They’ll be transporting you first thing in the morning. John glanced at the clock in the hallway. It was eight o’clock in the evening.

The hours passed, as the clock on the wall attested, but to John it seemed like the world had stopped turning and he was stranded in limbo. It was now past midnight, but to John it might as well have been days and days since he heard his sentence spoken. Indeed, it seemed like a lifetime ago. The lights outside his little cell were never extinguished, and even on this relatively isolated block of cells, the sounds of the other inmates talking, laughing and sometimes screaming, made it seem like the middle of the day on a busy street. He rolled his head to the side and stared at the opposite wall of his cell. The scuffed, cream-colored paint was chipping in places above the stainless steel lavatory. The smell of stale urine hung in the air. Combined with the fragrance of the guard’s heavy cologne as he wafted by, it was a truly nauseating atmosphere, but then, John Freeman had been in worse places. He just never noticed until now.

Although he was dead tired, the general ambience of his accommodations and the confused jostling of his thoughts conspired to keep him wide-awake. He ran back over the last month in his head. The carefully laid plans for the robbery, the logistics of their escape, their work interrupted, the struggle, the shots . . . the blood. It had all been a blur during the trial, but now as he lay here, it all played back to him in slow motion. Which fork in the road was it that brought him to this dead end? Which filament of the web was it that ultimately captured him?

3

John Robert Freeman was born to Emilie Marie Kriz and Michael ‘Mack’ Jones, alias Marvin Jones, alias Marvin Freeman—alias a lot of other names, no one knew his real name for sure—on a cold, drizzly evening in early March. John was to be their only child and his mother and grandparents doted on him. Emilie’s parents were part of a faceless hoard of immigrants from Czechoslovakia who settled in Chicago at the end of the 19th century. Emilie’s family were solid, hard working, deeply religious people, who fled Central and Eastern Europe along with Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Hungarians and others, to seek a better life in the West. Emilie’s father was a cooper by trade and had little trouble securing employment in their adopted country. Emilie’s mother was a baker who set up a little shop in an empty storefront at the end of their street. Everyone in the neighborhood flocked to Mrs. Kriz’s shop for her delightful jelly donuts, called koblihys, and a little harmless gossip.

Emilie went to the local school where she studied hard but struggled to learn the language of her adopted country. Her father would scold her for her poor grades. When Emilie complained that she just didn’t understand her teachers, her father became angry.

We are no more in old country. We are in America now! You must become American. Speak American; think American. How else will you find a husband?

Emilie learned to avoid these confrontations by having her mother sign her report cards. Nevertheless, she was a bright girl; bright in all the meanings of the word. She had bright eyes, and a bright personality that won over everyone she met. Like her parents, she was also very religious. Her love of God manifested itself in a naturally compassionate and empathetic personality. Unfortunately, these same admirable characteristics, mingled with an innocent naïveté, led her, in later years, to great suffering.

When Emilie turned seventeen, much to her mother and father’s chagrin, she fell in love with a tall, smooth-talking businessman some ten years her senior named Marvin Freeman. After an intense period of furtive trysts, Marvin enticed her into eloping with him. The wrenching emotions Emilie felt in leaving her parents were, for a time, submerged in the excitement of the prospect of her new life with Marvin. Soon however, the excitement gave way to the dreary reality of their everyday lives.

Marvin was frequently absent from their dingy apartment in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, so named, because it backed up to the vast stockyards that supplied raw materials to Chicago’s huge meatpacking industry. Marvin’s absences became more frequent and more protracted once John was born. It later transpired that Marvin’s business turned out to be working for the Chicago Outfit, the Midwestern variant of the mafia. Marvin ran numbers, collected extortion money, fenced stolen goods, and whatever else his masters had in mind for him. Of course, Emilie’s trusting nature obscured this fact from her, until it was too late.

One day in late August, Emilie was home with John who had a bad cough. Marvin was home too, which was very unusual. Since her husband was there, she thought of running out just long enough to buy groceries, but given how unpredictable Marvin was, she decided it would be better to stay, rather than trust John to his father’s care, even for a short time. The whole morning, she sat by John’s little bed, trying to soothe him by reading to him, and bringing him tea with honey. She did her best to keep him calm and quiet so as not to upset Marvin, who spent the morning pacing the floor in a fit of nervous energy. He would frequently stop at the door of their apartment to listen at the top of the stairs, or at the window to look tentatively through a crack in the curtains at the street below.

Finally, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, Marvin stood up from the rickety table at the back of the apartment near the fire escape, which served as the family’s dining table. Glancing at the clock, he hurriedly grabbed his hat, and coat and bolted out the door. When she reflected on this later, Emilie thought it strange. It had been a typically stifling, hot, summer day in Chicago. Why did he take his hat and coat? It was almost as if he didn’t expect to come back. As he scurried down the stairs, he called back to Emilie not to wait up for him. She never saw him again.

Two weeks later, the papers reported the discovery of a body in one of the feedlots at the stockyards. The badly mangled corpse could provide no positive identification. So many vagrants worked as day-laborers in and around the yards, that the police made no further inquiries, chalking the case up to accidental death. After all, it was not uncommon for a new stockyard hand, walking the fences in order to move quickly from one pen to another, to lose his balance, fall and be trampled. If no one had seen the hapless soul when he tumbled, the body might go unnoticed for days, at least until the sickly odor of decaying flesh overwhelmed the pervasive stench of the slaughterhouses.

Now burdened with a child and a poor command of the language, Emilie had to find whatever work she could to support herself and John. Eventually she was able to secure a job as a charwoman for the phone company. She worked two shifts to make ends meet. Every day she rose early and came home long after dark. During the day she would leave little John with the Hungarian woman downstairs who was also their landlady. Emilie’s father had all but disowned Emilie when she ran off with Marvin, but her mother secretly brought her food, leftovers from the bakery, and what little money she could squirrel away without her husband’s knowledge.

Every day her routine was the same. Every day that is, except Sunday. Sundays, Emilie would take little John to Mass at the local Catholic parish. It was there, after everyone had gone, that she would light a candle and pray before the shrine of the Blessed Virgin, pouring out her laments, and begging the Mother of God to protect her little boy. Emilie never knew what had happened to Marvin, but she could guess. Nevertheless, she prayed for his soul.

Walking home with John afterward, she would look at him with loving eyes and say, Jeník,—she always called him that, her little John—Jeník my darling, one day you will be so happy. You’ll have everything you want and your Mamma will be so proud of you! Wait and see! Emilie would never know how prophetic she was, and even if she had known, she could never imagine the way in which her prophecy would come to pass.

4

On John’s tenth birthday, he hurried home from school, splashing through the grey slush that piled up on the sidewalks as winter reluctantly released its icy hold on Chicago. He was excited to get home because today, he knew, his mother would be home early to make him a special dinner with all his favorites: roast chicken, potatoes, red cabbage with walnuts and strudel from Grandma’s bakery for dessert! He had been dreaming about it all day. Twice Sister Marguerite had to scold him for not paying proper attention to his studies, but he didn’t care. Today was his day, and as his mother always told him, today he would be happy and have everything he wanted.

Rounding the corner of his block, he ran past a small group of boys from the next street. They were much older than John and were always together. To John’s imagination, they seemed like a flock of crows sitting in a tree cawing to each other in that low, rasping, guttural sound that only crows make. They seemed dark and evil, and somehow dangerous. They frightened him whenever he saw them, so he gave them a wide berth. Up ahead was his building. Bounding up the steps, he yanked open the door and made straight for the stairs.

John! a voice called out after him.

John skidded to a halt just in front of the bottom of the stairs. He knew that voice. It was Mrs. Nagy the landlady. She was no doubt going to scold him for running in the hallway again. Didn’t she know it was his birthday? Surely he couldn’t be expected to dilly dally on a day like today.

Yes Mrs. Nagy, I’ll slow down, he offered.

What? replied Mrs. Nagy, flustered, No dear, that’s not it. Please, come inside dear.

She stood back from the door to her apartment, motioning John inside. He was annoyed at the delay. He had to get home. It was his birthday for crying out loud! He looked up the stairs, and then back at Mrs. Nagy who was standing in her doorway, her face drawn and anxious. She was wringing her hands in a way that made John nervous.

Yes, Mrs. Nagy he said submissively as he shuffled into her apartment.

Once inside, he surveyed the familiar sepia-toned picture of Mrs. Nagy’s father in some sort of military uniform. He had his hand on the hilt of a sword that hung at his side. His face was stern and he wore a big handlebar mustache. That picture had always vaguely frightened John as it did now. The rest of the room had dark, ornate furniture, meticulously polished, every surface covered with lace doilies. To John’s eight-year old nose, the place always smelled of furniture polish and boiled cabbage. They were not entirely unpleasant smells, but certainly distinctive.

Have you eaten today dear, Mrs. Nagy inquired urgently.

Uh, yeah . . . I mean, yes Mrs. Nagy. I had lunch at school, he answered and then continued excitedly, Mom’s going to make all my favorites for dinner tonight. It’s my birthday! He beamed at her.

Mrs. Nagy stopped wringing her hands for a moment and flashed a smile at the boy, That’s nice dear . . . Please Jeník, sit down a moment.

John. He corrected her. He hated when anyone called him Jeník. When his mother did it in front of his friends, it made him angry. It was a baby name.

John. I’m sorry dear, and after a slight pause, John indeed, she whispered.

He looked at her questioningly, wishing she would get on with