Authors: Koethi Zan
But then, inevitably, when, after days of starving me, he would come and feed me little bits of food from his own hands, I would suck it off his fingers like an animal, greedy, thankful and pathetic—a supplicant again.
CHAPTER 14
In the end, I flew to Portland alone, for the second time in as many weeks. Tracy had lost faith in the project once again or was maybe losing her nerve. Either way, she’d made an excuse about her work and had ended up driving back up to Northampton the same night. Maybe at the end of the day I was the only one strong enough to revisit those memories. The thought almost cheered me, as each day I was feeling slightly more up to the task, slightly more determined, even though I was no closer than I had been at the very beginning.
There was something about this search that gave me a sense of purpose and made me feel that, for the first time in ten years, I wasn’t abandoning Jennifer. I knew that if I could find her body and put her to rest in that quaint little churchyard in Ohio with her ancestors, the whole experience wouldn’t seem quite as appalling.
People died young all the time. I could almost accept the simple fact of her death, but I could not accept the way I’d lost her. And now finding her was the only way I could truly leave that cellar behind.
I stayed at the same hotel in Portland as before. I had been impressed with their security last time, and they were very obliging when I asked for a room on the top floor. The concierge remembered me and knew to cancel housekeeping during my stay. The last thing I wanted was someone knocking on my door, coming into my room, touching my things.
I drove to the university the next morning. I had done my Internet research and knew more or less where to find the two people I needed.
Her name was actually Adele Hinton. I’m sure Christine remembered that with great precision, though she would never admit to that kind of familiarity with the trial.
Though both had been psychology majors, Adele had been a sophomore when Christine would have been a senior, so Christine was in Jack’s cellar before Adele enrolled. Adele went on to the graduate school program, and was Jack Derber’s research assistant for two years, until the day he was arrested and hauled off by the FBI in the middle of a lecture to three hundred co-eds. Naturally, it was very shocking to the students, and the university had to do quite a bit of damage control in the press and on campus. It was, among other things for other people, a PR disaster.
I remembered from the trial that the prosecutors were surprised, and maybe even a little impressed, that Adele had not only continued on in the program—the other female graduate students in the department had transferred out immediately—but she barely missed any of her other classes during the time of her testimony.
Then several years later she accepted the very chaired professorship that Jack Derber had once held and that no one had taken since. I found it a little strange at the time, but I had other things
to worry about in those days. Now I wondered what it was about this woman that allowed her to be so impervious to the horror of those events. She hadn’t seemed afraid back then, according to what I’d overheard the lawyers say. She hadn’t seemed to register her brush with death, working so closely with him on his research and spending late nights in the lab with him, as she surely must have done.
And even now her career seemed to be built on the same kinds of sick perversions she had learned about through Jack Derber. From the university Web site, I discovered she specialized in abnormal psychology. She studied people with deviant behavioral issues, who had atypical mental development. In other words, people who did horrible things to other people—that was the cohort that interested her.
As I walked toward the psychology department, I saw her leaving the building across the quad carrying a small stack of books. I recognized her from her bio page, though she was prettier in person. Stunning in fact. Tall, with long brown hair loosely flowing down her back, she still looked more like a student than a professor. She carried herself with enormous confidence, hips swaying purposefully, chin jutting slightly forward, almost defiantly. She was moving so quickly, I had to run to catch up to her.
“Excuse me. Are you Adele Hinton?”
She kept walking, maybe thinking I was a student. If so, she was clearly not interested in a student-teacher conference here on the lawn. This woman was busy.
“
Professor
Hinton, yes.”
This time I had prepared a story. I had put in my time online at the hotel and felt ready. I took a step closer and began.
“My name is Caroline Morrow, and I’m a doctoral candidate in the sociology department.” I rushed the words out. I knew my lines sounded overly rehearsed and that she’d be able to check up
on me later if she wanted, but I pushed on, hoping to find out what I needed quickly. Adele was still walking. I knew how to get her attention, though.
“I’m writing my dissertation on Jack Derber.”
At that, she stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me warily.
“I have nothing to say on that topic. Who is your supervising professor? Whoever it is, he or she should have known not to send you to talk to me about this.” She stood and waited expectantly, as if every command she’d ever given had always instantly been obeyed. I hadn’t anticipated this response, that his name would be such an anathema to her, considering her fortitude all those years ago.
I had hoped to avoid telling her who I was. I wanted the emotional cover of anonymity. Not to mention that my tragic life story was a distraction, a sideshow, and one I didn’t want to be a part of for the millionth time. Nevertheless, Adele’s eyes were narrowing suspiciously. She either wasn’t buying my “research” story, or she was going to march directly into the university president’s office to put an end to my nonexistent project.
I froze. She was waiting for an answer, but I didn’t have one. In ten years I hadn’t told a single new person who I really was. I hated hiding this way, behind a made-up name, but I felt safe there.
It wasn’t going to work with Adele, though. Jack’s name touched too deep a nerve with her. I had to come out from behind the mask for Jennifer’s sake. I didn’t have a Plan B this time.
I took a deep breath.
“Actually, my real name is not Caroline Morrow. And I’m not even a student here. My name is Sarah Farber.” I was surprised at how good it felt to say those words out loud, despite the circumstances.
Adele looked stunned, clearly recognizing my name immediately. I could only imagine the sorts of memories it must have conjured for her. She looked uncertain for a moment—but only for a
moment—then calmly put her stack of books on the ground and leaned closer to me.
“Prove it,” she said testily.
I knew exactly how. I lifted up my shirt and rolled the top of my pants down slightly, so she could see the skin over my left hipbone. There, in red-scarred flesh, was the brand.
When she saw it, Adele swallowed hard, leaned over, and picked up her books quickly. I almost thought I saw a glint of fear in her eyes as they darted right and left. As if I were dragging that past around behind me physically, and Jack might be about to spring from my head, fully formed, like some sort of Greek god.
“Walk with me.” She moved fast and didn’t say anything for a while, her eyes fixed straight ahead. During my years of seclusion, I had lost some capacity for reading human expression, and I was feeling that loss acutely now. I couldn’t even begin to tell what she was thinking. But was it me? Or was there something about this woman that was impenetrable to anyone? Her face might as well have been cut from stone.
“How—how are you?” she finally said rather stiffly, without a single note of actual pity or compassion, as though she had only just remembered that she ought to indicate some small semblance of humanity.
Despite its utter lack of warmth, the question made me smile with relief. I knew this line of questioning by heart. It was really all anyone had asked me for years. I had all my lines memorized.
“Me? Oh, I’m fine. It was nothing ten years of therapy and self-induced seclusion couldn’t fix.”
“Really?” She turned to face me at that, suddenly interested. “No anxiety? No depression? No flashbacks or night sweats?”
I looked away from her, my pace slower now. “That’s not why I’m here. Don’t worry, I have a professional support system. I’ll live. Unlike Jennifer.”
She nodded, not taking her eyes off me, understanding perhaps that I was not fine at all, but not pushing me further.
“So what are you really doing here?”
“I want to find Jennifer’s body. I want to prove that Jack killed her, so he doesn’t get paroled.”
“Paroled? They’re going to parole Jack Derber?” For an instant she seemed genuinely shocked, and then she regained her composure.
“Maybe,” I replied. “I don’t know. I don’t want it to be possible. But I guess technically it is.”
Adele nodded, even as she looked off in the distance, thinking hard.
“That would be just about the worst thing in the world,” she finally said. “I would help you if I could. That man deserves to be locked away forever. But I don’t have any new information on him. I told the police what I knew back then.”
By now we were at the steps of the psychology building. She paused for a moment, then gestured for me to follow her in. It felt like my first real victory.
We made our way down the hall to her office. She didn’t say a word, and I followed obediently.
We sat down, she behind the desk and I on a small worn sofa across from her.
“Actually,” I began, “I’m not expecting you to remember anything more about the past. I mostly wanted to talk to you about his academic work. What he was studying at the time, his research. I have this idea that it could lead to something new. And I know you were his research assistant, and that your work now seems somehow … relevant.”
I wasn’t sure how that would go over. By now she was making me nervous. She just stared at me. Maybe she was thinking. Maybe she was willing me out of her office after all.
I glanced around the room to avoid meeting her eyes. The space was impossibly neat and orderly. The shelves were lined with titles in alphabetical order, and her notebooks were stacked and organized with color-coded tabs. It was mesmerizing in a way. Finally, she spoke.
“His research? I don’t think you’ll find anything there. His work was highly theoretical, and his subjects were varied. He covered a lot of ground, but I suppose he was careful not to study topics that might reveal his dark side. When he was arrested, he was in the process of designing a research study about sleep disorders. I worked with him on his last published paper, ‘Insomnia and Aging.’
“My own work is really not related to his at all, except you might say it developed in the direction it has because I’ve been trying to understand Jack Derber and others like him. I guess I sort of narrowly escaped something, and I want to understand exactly what that something was.”
We sat in silence for a few moments after that, while I tried to think of something else to ask and she rubbed her brow, lost in thought. I was disappointed. I’d hoped his published work would be more revealing, that he’d left us a clue there without meaning to. But maybe this was another dead end.
Just as I was beginning to feel hopeless again, she stood up and, with a quick glance out into the hall, closed her office door. She crossed her arms over her chest, almost defensively, I thought, and started talking, this time hesitantly, her back against the door.
“Listen, what I told you before is not entirely true. I might know something helpful.” She paused. She seemed to be struggling with her next words. “Through some of my academic research, I found out something about Jack. This may seem a little strange, but I’m wondering, how much do you think you can take?”
“What do you mean, ‘take’?” I was afraid of what she meant. I
didn’t like where this was going.
“I mean, what kind of shape are you really in, and how badly do you want this? Because I do have one thought. I mean, if it will help keep him locked away. There’s a place I can show you.
“You see, my research is very field-oriented, based on the observation of subjects in their natural environments. I’ve been conducting a longitudinal, ethnographically-oriented study at a particular location for several years. And I discovered, quite accidentally, that this place has a connection with Jack Derber from long ago. There are things … there are people … I don’t know … it’s a long shot. But I suspect, knowing what I know about Jack, you are only looking at long shots.”
“True.” I was hopeful, despite my apprehensions.
“It’s Thursday. Unfortunately, tonight would be the best night. Hope you don’t have plans—otherwise you’d have to wait a week.” She took out her BlackBerry, her thumbs flying fast on the keypad. “If I give you an address, can you meet me there at midnight tonight? It’s a little … out of the way. And, frankly”—she looked up at me from behind her thick lashes, studying me as she spoke—“it’s going to scare the shit out of you. It might remind you a little of your trauma. But on the plus side,” she said brightly, “therapeutically, that might not be the worst thing for you.”
“What exactly is this place?” Whatever it was, I knew I wouldn’t like it. Plus, I didn’t go places at midnight. Period. Much less any place that had the potential to scare the shit out of me.
“It’s a club, a very special kind of club. I’ve been studying the psychological influences and effects of this … particular subculture. He used to go there.”
I breathed deeply. I could only imagine what sort of place Jack Derber would like. And what kind of subculture Adele would be studying, given her intellectual proclivities.
“Okay. A special club. I get the gist. But that really doesn’t seem
like a good idea to me, therapeutically or otherwise.”
She put her BlackBerry down, leaned over her desk, looked me straight in the eyes, and nodded. She spoke slowly, with her voice pitched a little higher than usual, as if to a child.
“Okay, that’s completely fine. Maybe you are just not ready. I imagine it would be a hard place for you to go. I totally understand.”