Resolve (30 page)

J
acob stood and walked over to his locker. Pulling out several articles of clothing, he began getting dressed.

He asked, “Anything else?”

“V.” I answered.

“What?”

“Virginia.”

“I think we can safely assume that Randy killed that poor girl. We could ask him, but you seemed to have made that impossible.”

“I did ask him.”

“And?”

“And you killed her.”

“He told you that? I don’t think so.”

“It’s the only logical conclusion. Let’s put aside the fact that Randy was so disgusted by his own sweaty clothes, and anything else dirty, he most likely wouldn’t have been able to go swimming in blood the way you did.”

I fought back vomit as I said the words.

“The files on the memory stick were a well-kept secret. V knew about them and she told me. When I gave the flash drive back to her, she was still debating what to do with it. Anger got the better of her and she opened up the files. She must have read the documents and listened to the recordings.”

Jacob said nothing and continued to dress. If he acknowledged that he knew about the files, he was confessing to murder.

“I asked myself, what would have been the most upsetting thing that she would have seen in those files? Her best friend was gone forever. Lindsay had been involved with an older man and V didn’t approve. Steven was already dead and she wanted somebody to pay. She didn’t care about academic fraud, professors going to treatment centers, or even about your pal Silo and his checkered past. The recording of you and Lindsay was the one thing that would have made her do something rash. She picked up the phone and called you. I don’t think she was the extorting type, so what did she say?”

Jacob walked over to the mirror and, with the confidence of a king, straightened a sky blue tie. I looked on from the background.

His reversed image told me, “Young girls are so wonderfully innocent. She told me she hated me for taking advantage of Lindsay. She said that she didn’t know if I had anything to do with Steven killing Lindsay, but part of her wanted to see me burn for taking advantage of my position. She told me about the flash drive, the recordings—everything. She said her first instinct was to release the information, right then and there.”

“And you talked her out of it,” I saw myself say.

“I didn’t even have to. I said she told me that
part
of her wanted to see me burn. The other part seems to have been quite the pacifist. She told me she would give me an opportunity to resign from the university before she sent the files to Lindsay’s blogger friends who run the scandal sites that Lindsay wanted to be a part of. I used my best humbled-and-humiliated voice and begged her to give me twenty-four hours. And like I said . . . young girls can be so wonderfully innocent.”

“You could have just stolen it.” I growled. “You tortured and killed her.”

I felt something inside me coming apart.

“Proof or no proof, you know she would have shouted my private affairs out from the rooftops. I couldn’t let that happen. People would have asked too many questions; and the next thing you know, they’re digging around and probably find out about Steven and me.”

He turned from the mirror and returned to the locker to pick up his belongings.

He said, “You still haven’t got it all figured out, have you?”

“If you mean, how the relationship worked among all three of you, and why Steven thought Lindsay was going to expose you—I have a theory.”

“Do tell,” was all he said.

“Lindsay was outgoing and flirty, but she was essentially traditional in her beliefs. I don’t think she knew about you and Steven in the beginning.”

“Go on,” Jacob prompted.

“According to the police, Steven was into some pretty unorthodox behavior. One of the things the cops mentioned finding at Steven’s apartment were photos of group sex. Chris Monroe confirmed that Steven was always trying to get him on board with having others join them. I figure you’re probably twice as arrogant as Steven ever was, so trying to pull Lindsay into that world would seem like a simple task to you.”

Continuing the thought, I said, “The way Lindsay and Steven looked at each other in my office that day, it was a nauseating awkwardness that hit her, not frustration with me. She was so uncomfortable at the sight of Steven that she bolted out of the room the first chance she got. Since you obviously enjoy having men and women, I think you introduced Lindsay to Steven and tried to work out a nice little threesome. You must have been pretty steamed when she told you to go to hell.”

With a chuckle, Jacob said, “I have to admit, she didn’t handle it well. People think that today’s young people are ultra-liberal sex addicts, but I think in many ways they are more reserved.”

“And Tabatha? I suppose your marriage went to hell because she knew you were a freak. How did you manage to get her to stay with you all these years?”

“Tabatha was actually very tolerant of my occasional . . . indiscretions with men. She understood I had needs that she couldn’t possibly meet. It was when she started suspecting that I was sneaking off to see other women—that’s when things went downhill.”

“Did she really die of an aneurysm, or did you take her out too?”

“That was a bit of good fortune, I suppose. I was tiring of her company and she was becoming less understanding of my needs. Fate intervened and I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

Smugly, Jacob looked at his watch and said, “You seem to have pretty much nailed down everything. I really have to be getting to class. Is there anything you’re still fuzzy on?”

“Just two things,” I said while stepping closer to him. “Did you send Steven after Lindsay and me, or did he do it on his own?”

“I simply told Steven that if I was publicly raked over the coals, then I would have to leave this town and our relationship would be over. Steven . . .” Jacob searched for the right words, “chose what he thought was the best course of action.”

I edged closer to him.

“You said there were two things,” Jacob reminded me.

“Obviously, you talked to Silo before I had my meeting with him. How involved is he?”

“Silo is a good friend,” was all he would say.

I grabbed the lapels of Jacob’s suit and slammed him against the lockers.

“You’re getting sloppy, Jacob. I could be wearing a wire. I could have all of this on tape.”

Shoving me back with surprising strength, he said, “You have already told me you were the one who shot Randy. The police may buy that you killed one man in self-defense, but two . . . ? No, I don’t think you can afford to gamble on that.”

He was right. They would crucify me.

“I suppose the flash drive is long gone. What did you do, drop it off the side of your new boat?”

“So, Lindsay mentioned that to somebody, did she? You try and try to tell a girl that secrets are everything, but in the end, who can you really trust? I tend not to flaunt things like our friend Aaron does, but it is a beautiful boat. As for the flash drive, no reason for me to hold on to it,” he said. “What would I do with it? Blackmail my colleagues?” With a cocky flash of teeth, he added, “I’m not a monster.”

He slipped into a raincoat and drew it around him.

“Now, if I were you, I would try to put all of this behind me. No reason for this to drag on. And you should have a talk with Monroe. Tell him you were wrong. I would hate to have to stop by his place to have a fireside chat.”

I had already told Monroe to get out of town for a few days, but Jacob couldn’t have known that.

Throwing all of his gear into a gym bag and walking toward the door, Jacob left me with one last piece of advice.

“You seem stressed, my boy. You should keep your options open. This job isn’t for everybody.”

The locker room door swung closed and sealed in too many secrets. Making my own exit, I reached into my jacket pocket and withdrew the contents. After making sure to wipe off any fingerprints, I tossed the contents into a trash can. The rustle of discarded paper towels cushioned my crime.

Mile 26

T
here is a half block between me and any other runner. A few pockets of people are grouped on the corners. They are holding their four-dollar coffees and chew on day-old pastries. A few people throw me some applause when I pass them. If they only knew.

I find myself wondering how many of the people here, given the same circumstances, would have done what I have done. If the truth was placed in front of them, how many would understand the necessity of my actions? This is a hardened city where statues of miners, steelworkers, firefighters, soldiers, and police officers tarnish but never disappear. It’s a city that can be short on compassion, but understands justice. The people here cheer for the virtuous and damn the wicked. How would they view me?

The Strip District looks much different now than it did when I passed through so long ago. Discarded paper cups and pools of water line sparsely populated streets that, much like the legs running on them, are no longer fresh. The echoes of the signholding crowds no longer reverberate off the antiquated storefronts. It’s a post-parade street waiting for the cleaning crews to arrive. The war is over. We won. Now we slog through the confetti and live with what we have done.

Lonely pockets of people are on each side of the road, hobbling toward me. Couples and families pat the backs of loved ones with drained faces who left everything they had at the finish line. They slowly make their journeys to parked cars where dry clothes and ibuprofen await. A husband admires his wife’s finisher’s medal that she couldn’t care less about right now, but will proudly hang up later. It doesn’t matter whether it was the full-marathon, the half, or the relay. Covering the distance is everything.

A father and son sit on the front steps of a nightclub that was once a church. The man squints down Penn Avenue hoping to spot some loved one. The boy is too small to see in a crowd, so they are avoiding the smothering finish line area. They’ll wait here in the quiet. For the first time in an eternity, I hear my own footsteps underneath my breathing. Steps and breaths. That’s what I’ve been reduced to. Once you sort through the detritus and tune out all the static, that’s all that’s left. Steps and breaths.

Like a drowning sailor being hoisted up to a helicopter by a rope, I can feel the crowd pulling me in. The incoherent collection of noise from the convention center becomes louder and louder with every few strides. A cocoon of full grandstands and rocking bicycle racks are imploring me to find a way
—any
way to let them embrace me. It makes no difference to anybody there that the winner of the marathon finished long before me. For these few moments, I may as well be running into a stadium to claim my Olympic gold.

All of these people have become fans. They aren’t my personal fans. They clap and yell for anybody who passes by and once that person moves on, they drop them from memory and turn their adulation to the next unknown. It should feel shallow, but it doesn’t. The applause is genuine. The excitement is real. Most of them will walk away not knowing why they are still hemorrhaging exhilaration, and most of these people will never get to know the feeling I’m experiencing now. Less than one percent of people ever run a marathon. Perhaps less than one percent of people have ever really lived.

I
said that I was going to kill someone during the race. It probably would have been more accurate for me to say that I killed someone the Friday before. While I was waiting for Jacob to finish his shower, I busied myself by inspecting his running belt that was always stored in the locker we shared. As he had done countless times before, Jacob had finished his run and loaded his gel packs for his next run—in this case, Sunday’s marathon. Until then, the belt would sit untouched, somewhere in Jacob’s house or car, since Saturday is always a rest day. The five packs were neatly arranged in their assigned slots until Jacob pulled them out one at a time at designated points in the event. The fifth pack would be the last one of his life.

How many times had he harped on me to properly refuel during a long run? He had it all figured out. He would go straight down his line of gel packs, from right to left, like a home inspector working his way down a checklist. Mile 5. Mile 9. Mile 13. Mile 17. Mile 24. The only thing I had worried about was him grabbing the wrong pack at the wrong time, perhaps in front of the UPMC medical center, or switching out the packs before the race; but true to his habitual nature, Jacob would be deadly accurate.

Walking through the rain, I thought about all I had done and what it all meant. I thought about my job and where my life was going. I thought about Kaitlyn. I thought about the lovely psychologist who volunteers her time at the children’s hospital. I thought about her trusted celebrity status there, and how she basically had free reign while she went from room to room counseling families. I thought about how she somehow had been able to pick up an unattended vial of liquid penicillin and a syringe. In a children’s hospital, those items are as commonplace as pop-up books. If a vial of the usually innocuous antibiotic was found to be missing, the hospital certainly wouldn’t investigate too carefully.