Resolve (14 page)

No.

“I don’t know. Maybe. He wasn’t a laidback kind of guy.”

Shand chimed in with, “You’re assuming that the gossip mill was working overtime and he’d heard what had happened.”

I moved my head up and down in agreement and felt my tendons and muscles declare a state of emergency. Blood found its way into my mouth again.

“He was supposed to have a meeting with the Dean of Academic Affairs this afternoon. I had told a colleague about my mistake and he said he would talk to the dean about it over the weekend.”

“So you could get in front of it,” Hartz stated. Not a question.

“Right. So I met with the dean this morning, and Steven was going to meet with him in the afternoon. The dean was going to inform Steven of my error, if he didn’t already know about it, and see if he wanted to file a formal grievance against me.”

Shand looked up incredulously and acted as if he hadn’t heard me right. In a half-amused tone he asked, “Wait a second. The dean . . . what’s his name?”

“Silo.”

“Dean Silo. He was going to dime you out and explain to Thacker that he had a legitimate option to make a complaint against you?” He leaned back and looked to see if his partner reflected his sentiment. “That’s cold, man,” he concluded.

Learning my anatomy lesson well the last time, I didn’t nod.

Hartz wore a thoughtful expression and fiddled with his college ring. He chose his words carefully. “Silo must have spoken to Thacker in order to set up the meeting, right?”

“Either he did or his assistant did.”

“When did that happen?”

“I have no idea. Before I met with him in the morning.”

Something had struck a nerve.

“Had you talked to Thacker since our conversation last Friday?”

“No. I admit I tried to call him to explain things, but I just got his machine.”

“What number?”

I thought I still had the coupon with his number on it in one of my pockets, but I didn’t want to pull it out and show them that I also had his home address. One of the patrol officers had searched me as a matter of procedure, and finding the paper harmless, put it back in my pocket. Or did he take it with him?

I wanted to avoid giving off a crazy stalker vibe if at all possible. I had just killed the guy, so being outside his apartment and looking for him would not have looked good. Being upfront and honest with these guys was starting to become difficult.

“His home number, I think. I looked it up in the school’s directory. I don’t know if he carried a cell phone.”

The two detectives looked at each other and somehow communicated that they needed to have a private conversation. Hartz told me that they would be back in a few minutes, and the investigators left me sitting there with my wounds.

About five minutes had passed and they came back into the small box. I could see from their faces that something had been decided. Some agreement had been reached or understanding met. They took their chairs and the metal legs scraped the hard floor.

Shand spoke first and I noticed the notebook was nowhere in sight.

“Dr. Keller, we think you may have been wrong about some things.”

No kidding.
I said nothing.

“Are you certain that Thacker was gay?”

“Considering I saw him kissing a man once, and that he later admitted to me he was gay, I feel reasonably sure about it.”

“We’re thinking either he had you fooled, or he was bisexual,” Shand countered.

This was leading up to the other reason I thought might have prompted the attack.

Hartz added, “You see, we’ve been looking for Thacker . . . Steven for a couple of days. We needed to confirm your story and see if he knew Ms. Behram.”

Shand put two calloused hands on the table and continued, “But this afternoon, we became aware of some images that were captured with an elevated camera in the Hill District. We didn’t even notice it was there until we re-canvassed the neighborhood to look for witnesses. We asked around about it and we were told it’s a traffic camera, but between you and me, traffic isn’t the problem up there. The brass just forgot to tell us we had eyes in that area.”

I understood and told him so.

He looked at me like I was the biggest sucker in the world. The former cop who had lost all his instincts. Sad. Pathetic.

“A car registered to Thacker was caught on video one block from where the body was found. Right around the T.O.D. and not long before her corpse was discovered. We actually got a pretty good shot at the driver’s face. It was Thacker.”

Something didn’t add up.

“You got a good picture of his face at nine thirty at night? In the dark?”

Hesitation. Delay.

Hartz admitted, “We may not have been completely straight about that. It was closer to seven o’clock.”

The recent leap forward from daylight savings time meant there was just enough sunlight at that time to get a decent image.

“So I blew a perfectly good lecture alibi.”

They both smiled.

Hartz said, “Actually, it turned out that there was no record of you being at the lecture.” He waived a hand dismissively. “We checked out of curiosity and your name wasn’t on the list of scanned IDs. Probably a technical glitch. But don’t worry, we have your credit card being used at the deli and the manager there remembers you. He told us that you come in a couple of times a week.”

That was the first good news I had heard in a while. Good ol’ Lenny. Or Lintle? The deli guy.

“We just checked with the medical examiner who picked up Thacker’s body. He has some serious scratch marks down one of his arms.”

Reflexively, I looked at my hands.

“Do you remember scratching him?”

“No, but I could have.”

“Well, we’ll have an evidence tech come in and take some scrapings from under your nails, but I
know
we have skin under Lindsay Behram’s nails. We got skin from three nails and Thacker has three deep marks down his arm.”

I stayed quiet.

Hartz tried to console me.

“It looks like you just got caught in the middle of two people in a bad relationship. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the girl made the mistake of coming to see you when Thacker was there. You said it yourself, he was about to go off and work on his PhD. He had a bright future ahead of him. For whatever reason, Lindsay decided to crash his party and expose their relationship. You can’t blame yourself. The guy was twisted.”

Shand was recalling something.

He said, “We were executing a search warrant on his apartment when we got the call that he had attacked you. There was some pretty messed-up stuff in there. Bondage, S and M, and all that. Men, women, group sex—the whole gamut.” He shook his large head. “Thacker was a troubled guy. You’re lucky to be alive. Go home and sleep well. If we need anything, we know where to find you.”

Troubled.
That’s the tactful way Baltimore PD described their ghettos. That’s how Kaitlyn had described Lindsay. I decided, right then and there, to hate that word.

Some lady in a uniform came into the room and took scrapings from under my nails. On her way out the door, she shared a look with the detectives which told them that at first glance there didn’t appear to be any skin present. Tests would have to be run to confirm that fact.

Hartz stood and opened the door. I walked out into a lobby I hadn’t seen before. I had been brought in through a rusty back door. Kaitlyn was pacing back and forth biting a nail. When she saw me she did a double-take. I had forgotten about my face. I should have had the detectives warn her.

She ran up to me and I saw tears forming in her eyes. There was something on the tip of my tongue I was going to say to her, right before the blinding pain of her embrace wiped the slate clean. Whatever it was vanished. I said the only words that came to mind.

“Come on. Take me home.”

Mile 9

T
he sloping ramp onto the West End Bridge takes us over a minute to overcome. I lean forward and have no problems conquering the ramp, because on the bridge—or maybe just past it—is the second place it might happen. The knee that got kicked by Steven sends me a few warning signals on the ascent, but never fails. A lot of people train hard and put in all of the miles, but they don’t account for hills. You can spot those people, stopped and wasted, at the halfway point of the bridge. Just a short distance to the south is where all three rivers converge and the wind is swirling here. I keep my head on a swivel because I want to see it coming. I need to see it. How can there be true closure if you don’t face the consequences head on?

When you reach the point where the bridge flattens out, you can turn your head to the left, look down the Allegheny and see a snapshot of the city, its history, its future. Modern sport boats and fiberglass kayaks take care to avoid rusty barges that haul coal up and down the river past exasperated brown and slate factories. Vehicular traffic runs along the shores of the river and the downtown streets. Trains rumble in all directions, on tracks that rest under skies that loan space to passing airliners. Old architecture blends with the new, and steel intertwines with brick. International technology corporations tower over plumbing supply stores.

Most days I would appreciate all of this. Most days. This morning, I scan the area for signs of distress. I see plenty of victims. No shortage of them here. On both sides of the bridge, I see lone individuals regurgitating breakfast. The climb got to them. Several are wearing paper bibs for the half-marathon, some for the full distance. Those who are participating in the relay fly by, wondering what the big deal is. Of course, most of them have just begun their portion of the journey and don’t understand what lies ahead of them over the next six to eight miles.

The wreckage is massive this year, and the sweat in my eyes makes it hard for me to sort through the sick and injured. The long ramp wipes out scores of competitors who move to the sides of the huge yellow bridge. Some will return to the course, some will hobble back to their cars. But I’m only looking for one person. Just one. I have to find him sometime over the next eighteen miles.

I have to find him, because he has to answer for what he has done.

I have to see his face when he comes to the realization that it was me.

I have to know that he knows—I beat him in the end.

T
here had been another assailant waiting for me at the house upon my return. When I came into the front hallway, Sigmund caught me off-guard and plunged head-first into my groin. I was shocked to find that my body could still bend over in pain. Before I had time to appreciate that small victory, my nemesis took advantage of my new position and landed a two-pawed blow to my head.

Man’s best friend, my ass.

Kaitlyn waited patiently downstairs while I showered, dabbed my cuts and scrapes with hydrogen peroxide, and swallowed a couple of painkillers. When I ached my way to the living room, I gave my wife a replay of the assault, leaving out any mention of blood spurting and bone breaking. In the car, I had told her that Steven was the attacker, and the questions that came back at me were too much for me to handle. She saw that I needed to decompress and backed off to give me time. Sometimes being married to a psychologist is wonderful.

Kaitlyn had calmed down during the ride and she teetered between sympathy for me and rage against Steven, neither of which was useful. I was sorry that Steven was dead, but he
did
try to kill me.
That
action deserved an unmistakable reaction. Even if exposing his private life had set him off—and I had my doubts about that—trying to give me tenure at the Afterlife Community College was taking things too far. As for her rage against Steven . . . well, the guy was on a slab. There was nothing more that could be done to him.

When I told Kaitlyn what the detectives had shared with me about Steven’s involvement with Lindsay’s death, she wasn’t surprised. She reminded me that the man was obviously
troubled,
evidenced by his attack on me, and I couldn’t discount the possibility that I was wrong about them not having a relationship. Not wanting to debate the issue, and noticing that the pain pills were about as effective as breath mints, I let it go.

While Kaitlyn prepared for bed, I sent an email to my department head stating that I would be taking a sick day. I followed that up with an email to my colleague, Brent Lancaster, the former Secret Service agent, asking him to put up a note in each of my classrooms that the lecture was cancelled for the day, and no, my graduate assistant would not be available to take care of that. I guessed that after the news got out, he would never ask me about the Proximity Pummeling Theory again.

We went to bed a short while later, but I was too worked up to sleep. Around two, I slid out of bed, threw on a pair of sweat pants and headed downstairs. It’s drilled into police officers, firefighters, and other first responders: after a traumatic incident, you don’t want to use anything that will bring you down or pick you up. No caffeine, and absolutely,
positively
no alcohol. So I grabbed myself a tall scotch and went into a guest bedroom we had converted into my home office.