Dante's Dilemma (32 page)

Rachel went on almost proudly. “I became very clearheaded then. I used to watch television shows like
CSI
. I knew the police would be all over the house, searching with their crime kits. It wouldn't be enough to get rid of fingerprints. They'd find something. A tiny flake of skin or a hair or a thread from her sweater. No matter how small it was, they'd find it. I had to fool them somehow. I washed the keys under the tap until the water ran clear and dried them with a towel and put them in my purse. Then I went back to the living room and wiped the poker with the towel. When it seemed clean, I put my hands in Gunther's blood and smeared the poker all over again, pressing my fingers around the handle. I rubbed the end against his hair and all over my clothing. And then I went back to the kitchen for the knife.”

Rachel stopped for a moment, and I asked one of my questions. “You remember it all then?”

“Yes. I'm sorry I lied to you before. Maybe now you'll see why I had to.”

“And moving the body—was that also to fool the police?”

“I wasn't planning on it at first. But just as I was finishing with Gunther's corpse, I heard a group of students outside on the street, laughing loudly and cheering. It reminded me that the scavenger hunt was on. I thought how perfect it would be if I put him there, right in the middle of the exhibits for everyone to see. Gunther always wanted to be the center of attention, and now he would be!”

Rachel giggled off-kilter. “The life-sized vagina was just a bonus. How I laughed and laughed when I found it. Gunther laid to rest in the thing he hated most—a woman's body. And he no longer a man himself!”

Her voice rose in hysteria. “Everyone thinks I'm sick, don't they? Not sick enough to send to an asylum instead of prison, but a monster like those women you hear about in the news, the ones who drown their children in the bathtub to save them from the devil. Gunther was a Satan, but I wasn't crazy. Shoving his balls down his throat was the sanest thing I ever did!”

And at that she broke down completely.

A guard, hearing the commotion, opened the door to check on us.

Hallie waved him away.

“Thank you,” Hallie said. “Thank you for telling us. I think we understand now.”

“If you repeat any of it, I'll report you,” Rachel had recovered herself enough to warn.

“Yes,” Hallie replied. “But there's no danger of that, is there, Mark?”

“No,” I said, feeling a sorrow beyond words. “No, there isn't.”

TWENTY-NINE

On the drive back, we didn't talk. I could tell that Hallie felt as I did: mentally exhausted but unable to avoid the questions that crowded our minds like a kettle of pitiless vultures. We were each bound never to reveal what we knew—Hallie because of her duty to her client, and I because I had given my word. But we could never forget what we had heard or wonder whether we had done the right thing in forcing Rachel to reveal her tragic secret.

Was Rachel sick in a medical sense? I didn't think she was psychotic, and I was no longer even sure about the PTSD. It didn't matter what the textbooks said. What she had endured would turn the sanest person in history into a short-term maniac. In a skewed way, she was right to be pleased with herself. Her quick thinking had made fools of the authorities. And it was no small irony that Brad Stephens—or whoever had doctored his report—had also been right. Rachel had been lying to everyone from the very beginning.

When Hallie dropped me off at home with promises to get in touch soon, the rest of the weekend lay before me like a barren desert.

I went upstairs and changed into jeans and a bulky sweater and came back down and poured myself a double. I wasn't hungry, but I forced myself to lunch on cold pizza from the refrigerator. I turned on the television and channel surfed for a while without finding anything worth dozing through. I thought about going for a walk, but when I checked the afternoon forecast it was out of the question. The temperature had been falling steadily all day and was expected to reach ten below—not counting the wind chill—by midnight. Even Tom Skilling seemed depressed by the prospect, which was producing a spate of urgent public-service warnings. Anyone not bundled up like Admiral Peary with the excuse of a wife in labor and about to deliver should stay inside.

The only way to survive the tedium of being shut in was a good book.

I was often asked why I'd bothered to learn Braille when audiobooks were as plentiful as cornfields in Illinois. The answer was part ego and part aesthetics. When I finally admitted that my eyesight wasn't coming back—not for a while, anyway—I attacked the problem in the spirit of frank competition. Being sightless was just another post-graduate course I was determined to achieve high honors in. The aesthetic piece was more complicated. So much of my day-to-day information now came from my ears. I'd be damned if that was the only way I could entertain myself. And I missed the pleasure of reading itself, of getting mentally lost in an artfully constructed flow of words. For me, listening to someone else read a book, even a talented actor, was like having sex with a mannequin.

That didn't mean I read only on paper. Even my new space wasn't big enough to accommodate a broad selection of Braille books, which were both bulky and harder to come by. Nor was I as fast as I used to be. Though the most proficient Braille readers approach speeds equivalent to their sighted counterparts, I wasn't yet in that league. But a free service gave me digital access to most of the bestseller lists, which I could then enjoy with a tactile display attached to a tablet or computer. If I now read at more of a trot than a gallop, at least I was still holding on to the reins.

I poured another bourbon, retrieved my laptop from my study, and made myself comfortable on the sofa, away from the wind scratching at the windows like a noisome prowler. A few keystrokes through the spoken menus brought me to my search engine, and then to my blink “Amazon,” where dozens of new titles awaited. I gave some thought to what might cheer me up. In my present state of mind, true crime was definitely out. History or biography might also be too heavy. I needed something light, but not so light that I would quickly grow bored. A spy thriller might fit the bill.

I selected one that seemed promising and downloaded it, switching the laptop from sound to Braille mode. The prologue instantly swept me in with its vivid descriptions of Stalingrad under siege, and of a young girl searching the bombed and rubble-strewn streets for her missing father. I read on, gathering speed. As always, the ingenuity of the Braille display impressed me, the tiny pins moving up and down in six-position patterns as my fingertips passed over them. The marvelous ingenuity of Braille itself. In its contracted form, which had taken me months to master, vowels were frequently omitted. A whole phrase might be indicated by just a few simple dots. A world of meaning communicated through the touch of a finger.

I stopped short suddenly, frowning.

Meaning from a finger.

Rachel's cold and fleshless ones.

Olivia's extra digit.

A series of seemingly random connections swept through my mind. Rachel Lazarus's abrupt marriage to Gunther Westlake. Her decision to take her case to trial instead of pleading guilty. The story she had told me about
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
. Westlake's hatred for his daughter. An oddly shaped hand.

I shivered, and not just because of the draft escaping the windows.

Alison picked up on the first ring.

“I'm so sorry I didn't get back to you right away,” she rushed to apologize. “We just got home. We were planning on taking Mika to the zoo. We realized when we got there that it was crazy to be outside and went shopping at the Water Tower instead. I'd be glad to help Olivia. How quickly do I need—?”

I interrupted her. “It may not be as bad as I first thought. Listen, do you still have that glossary you mentioned to me? The one you found Mika's name in?”

“Sure, but why—”

“I need you to look something up for me.”

A few minutes later, I had at least one answer.

“Are you sure you're comfortable with this?” I asked Hallie.

I had caught her even before she had time to change out of her business suit, and we were now speeding down the Drive, once again headed to Hyde Park. Judging by how little Hallie was hitting the brakes—driving with her was always as pulse-pounding as a stock-car race—everyone seemed to be heeding the weathermen's advice.

“Swearing not to reveal my client's confidences doesn't mean I can't do something else to help her. And while I was home, Carter called. You want to guess what he found on the
Maroon
message boards?”

“Death threats?”

“You don't lack for a suspicious mind, do you? There were more than a thousand comments, most of them directed at either proving or ridiculing the idea that the school is a hotbed of racism, not a few politely calling on the administration to fire Westlake. But there was also a verbal fistfight between two parties calling themselves ‘Son of Cato' and ‘Billy Jack' that got nastier and nastier as the thread went on.”

“Westlake and our new suspect. What did Billy Jack say?”

“That whites had been raping and murdering his people for generations and that Son of Cato would pay for their crimes and more. Son of Cato wrote back that Billy Jack was a drunk and a sniveling coward, just like the rest of the genetic cesspool he climbed out of, and that he and his ‘whore-squaw' had gotten just what they deserved.”

“So Westlake didn't pull any punches. What did Billy Jack threaten him with?”

“He said he'd see who the coward was and warned Son of Cato to keep his doors locked at night.”

“Timing?”

“The last exchange was two weeks before Westlake died. Carter also found out something else.”

“Let's have it.”

“That PhD student we met—or rather didn't meet—in Blum's office.”

“Lecht?”

“Mmm-hmm. He was on the message boards too, writing under his own name and contributing long, complimentary posts about Westlake.”

“So he's an ass-kisser.”

“That's how it would appear, though it still doesn't answer the question why he ran away from us.”

The sun was just starting to set when we pulled up to the courtyard building on South Kimbark.

“I'm not regretting the fortune it cost me to buy this fur,” Hallie said as we exited her car. I agreed as a frigid zephyr nearly lifted me from the ground. We went up a walk to the building's vestibule and I waited, shivering and stamping my feet, while Hallie scanned the list of tenants. “This one,” Hallie said, pressing the button. An ancient buzzer moaned inside.

Olivia Westlake's voice came over the intercom. “You're here already? I hope you won't mind. I'm not ready yet.” In a stroke of good luck, she didn't wait for a response before buzzing the door open.

The lobby we turned into was wonderfully warm.

Less so Olivia's welcome when we turned out not to be the visitor she was expecting.

“Wha . . . what are you doing here?”

Hearing the door begin to close, I thrust my cane through the opening to stop her. “Olivia, we need to speak to you. It's important.”

“No, I'm not supposed to talk to you anymore. It will just get us in trouble. He said so.”

“Who said so?”

Olivia clammed up.

“Olivia,” Hallie interceded gently. “We're not here to stop you from running away, if that's what you want. Please let us in. It will only take a few minutes.”

“I . . . I don't—”

“Please, child,” I said. “We won't do anything to hurt you.”

I regretted the falsehood the instant it came of my mouth.

“Oh, all right. I guess so,” Olivia said, moving aside to allow us in.

“You were right,” Hallie whispered in my ear as we entered. “She's packing a suitcase.”

“Ummm, so why are you here?” Olivia asked after Hallie had seated us on a sofa. “Did Mom send you?”

“In a way,” I said. “Olivia, we came to tell you a few things. Some that will make you happy. And others that you won't want to hear about. I need to be honest about that from the start. Because without realizing it, you've been put in a terrible position.” I hesitated, not knowing exactly how to say that she could save one parent, but only at the cost of losing the other.

“If it's about Mom being guilty, I know that already,” Olivia said matter-of-factly. “She did it for me. She told me I shouldn't feel guilty or ashamed. He said the same thing.”

“Your father,” I said.

“Don't be silly, my father is dead.”

“We both know that he's very much alive.”

“That's a lie. I told you my father is dead. He's dead and my mother killed him.”

Once again, I hesitated. If I had been her therapist, I wouldn't have dreamed of confronting her. I would have let her go on spinning her tale for as long as she wanted, until she was ready to tell me herself.
First do no harm.
But hers wasn't the only life at stake and we were running out of time.