Dominance (12 page)

“We didn't know if anyone would ever find it,” Fisk said as she sat down across from him. “We worried that the clue was going to be too obscure, or somebody else would check out the book. Someone not even enrolled in your class. I went back, you see. Checked the records and everything. No one had taken that book out for more than five years. Five years it had remained in the stacks. And so we decided to go for it, plant the message there and see what happened. If there was a stir, we could just deny our involvement and try again some other way.”

“The two mysteries,” Alex said. “Fallows and Aldiss. The book says they're one and the same.”

“That's right. But that is for another time. I'm not sure what Richard has planned for his class. I wouldn't want to spoil anything.” He laughed, a cold rasp that emanated from deep in his chest.

Then he looked at her, his eyes pinched. She felt as if she was being evaluated.

“Do you understand the consequences of the message?” he asked. “Do you comprehend the weight of this situation, Ms. Shipley?”

“I think . . . I believe I do, yes.”

“You should. Truly, you should. You are going to help clear Richard's name from those two awful crimes at Dumant University and get him out of that place. And
that
 . . .” Fisk held her eyes. “That will be a glorious day.”

“But what if he actually did it? What if Professor Aldiss really did kill those two students?”

“You're still skeptical.”

“He confessed,” she said. “Right there in that classroom last week. He confessed to everything.”

“Another ruse,” Fisk said. “Richard is a unique man. At first he was angry, furious that they would pin these horrible crimes on him. Everyone was convinced that he was guilty. The Fallows over the eyes, the relationship he had with the victims—it was too perfect. Richard became despondent. For years he sat in Rock Mountain, and his silence, his writing on so many matters not related to Dumant, convinced them that he was guilty and the verdict was correct. Now, now that he's found this new information, he is being careful to give them exactly what they want. Ironic, isn't it? He must embrace guilt in order to curry favor, to be
allowed
to teach his class.” Fisk's voice fell away, and he looked past her into the dense shadows of his home, his own sort of prison. “He wants everyone who is watching—and the nine of you are not the only ones watching, you have to know that—to believe he is merely teaching a literature course. But it is so much more than that. So much more.”

Alex thought about what the old man had just said, about the possibility of it.

Dean Fisk picked up on her silence. “Let me ask you this, Ms. Shipley. Do you believe our justice system is flawless, and that every man and woman who is imprisoned is guilty?”

“Of course not.”

“How many men on death row alone were exonerated just before
their executions? How many accused innocents have given false confessions? What happened to Richard is real life.”

She looked away. “I'm sorry.”

Fisk smiled. “Good heavens, there's no need to apologize. I know how difficult it is for you, to be thrown into this.”

You couldn't begin to imagine.

“But it is also necessary. Your responsibility now is great, and I trust that you will do everything you can—no matter how bizarre it seems, no matter how difficult it might be—to follow Richard's clues and prove his innocence.”

With that, Fisk caught his breath, the excitement slowly ebbing from his ancient frame. Then his eyes widened, as if something had just occurred to him.

“There's something I want to show you,” he said. “I think it will put all your worries to rest.”

*   *   *

He led her to a room at the end of an unadorned hallway that seemed to stretch on forever, like one of the corridors of a campus dormitory. The room itself was no bigger than a storage closet. A desk in the corner, an old beetle-shaded lamp that poured pale yellow light across the walls. And on the floor were stacks of cardboard boxes, each labeled
ALDISS
.

“I became interested in Richard's situation in the mideighties, not long after his imprisonment,” Fisk said. “I wrote him a letter one afternoon telling him I enjoyed an essay he'd written on Dante—I have a weakness for the
Purgatorio,
just as Richard does—and he kindly responded. That began a correspondence we have continued for many years.”

“So you know him well?”

Alex watched as the old man measured his words. “The more I came to know Richard, the more I realized that he could not have committed those crimes. It was simply not feasible. I felt a kinship with him, a connection I could not begin to explain. Richard's mind is fierce. Much fiercer than either of us can understand. His years in Rock Mountain have muted him, dimmed him somewhat. But years ago, when I first went to visit him there—his intelligence was simply immeasurable. Here.”

Fisk removed from one of the boxes a series of newspaper clippings. He spread them out in front of Alex on the small desk.

“These are the ‘facts' of his crimes,” the old man said. “But as you read, I want you to pay attention to two things. Call them inconsistencies. First, look at how his colleagues at Dumant spoke of him.”

“And the second thing?”

Fisk smiled. “You will know it when you see it,” he said. “You're a sharp one. You found our book, didn't you?”

Alex began with the earliest clipping, which was written in January of 1982. The story was about the shocking murder of a female graduate student. Shawna Wheatley had been attacked with what appeared to be an axe. Wheatley was severely mutilated in a fashion the writer called “sickening,” and over her face had been placed a single book: Fallows's
The Coil.
There were quotes in the article from the girl's boyfriend (“I don't know what kind of monster would do this to a person”) and the Dumant University president (“We intend to invest all of our resources in stopping this sick human being”). No suspects had been questioned at press time.

The second article was dated the next day. A second body had been found. Abigail Murray, another grad student in literature, was murdered in her campus apartment. Again the murder weapon was assumed to be an axe; again the murder was vicious and again a solitary book (this time it was Fallows's
The Golden Silence
) had been placed over the dead girl's face.

The next piece was a general story about the manhunt for the killer. It contained all the language that one would expect from an unsolved case narrative. There were no persons of interest, there were very few leads, and the Dumant campus was frightened. Alex read the phrase
serial killer
for the first time.

By the middle of March, there was a break.

On March 17, 1982, Dr. Richard Aldiss was questioned by police. There was a brief article, accompanied by Aldiss's faculty photo, about the event. At that time the police were simply “interested” in Aldiss, who had taught Shawna Wheatley in Modern Lit and had been seen speaking to Abigail Murray on many different occasions at the Dumant Commons. The tone of the article was almost flippant, as if the writer
disbelieved the very notion that the wildly popular Aldiss could have been involved.

Then things took a turn. Aldiss was arrested in early April, and the next article was a reaction piece. There was a series of quotes, most of them from Dumant professors. The comments were not flattering. “Richard is very bizarre,” said one professor, who refused to be named. “He was always difficult to get a read on,” said another. “When you were speaking to Richard, it was almost as if he was calibrating his personality to what you wanted it to be. A real chameleon.” There were other mentions of Aldiss's connection with the victims, and the crime scenes themselves—particularly the damning coincidence of the Fallows novels the killer had draped over the girls' faces. Alex began to realize that the professors who spoke did so in the past tense. They had already convicted Aldiss.

The last piece was published a year later. It was a blow-by-blow account of the investigation and Aldiss's arrest. Alex read closely; there might be something here she needed to remember.

Authorities became interested in Prof. Aldiss when an anonymous tip came in through the Dumant crime hotline, and the professor was brought in for questioning. After several hours, Aldiss admitted he knew something about the murders, but would say no more without a lawyer present.

While awaiting counsel, Aldiss grew defiant and many times he referenced a character from classic literature, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov. (The very book, it has been noted, was found among the strewn texts in Shawna Wheatley's apartment the night she was killed.) He became enraged that anyone would punish him for what he had done, and at this point of the interrogation investigators “saw the professor's capabilities firsthand.” At one point he dared to declare, “You should look into Shawna Wheatley,” as if to suggest that the young woman deserved exactly what she got.

Alex's eyes wandered over the article for a few more seconds. Then she turned to Fisk. He was standing behind her, leaning against a shelf and smiling wryly, the dean's streaked mascara like a shadow on his face.

“Well?” the old man asked. “Did you see anything that seemed out of place?”

“The other professors were definitely suspicious of him.”

“Of course they were. But being eccentric doesn't make one a murderer. If that were the qualification for being a criminal, then everybody in academia would have a body in his closet.”

“But Aldiss has never appealed his conviction. Not once. If he is innocent, wouldn't he have tried to find a way out?”

Fisk shook his head, that pitying look on his face again. “If only it were that easy, Ms. Shipley. What Richard has been doing is biding time. Waiting for the right moment, until he has all the information in front of him.”

“And now he has it.”

Fisk smiled. “He does.”

“What did he find?”

“Alas, I do not know. Richard and I . . . I want to get closer to him, but he is a difficult man. All I know is that he is telling the truth about his innocence. I know that as I know my own name. Who actually committed those crimes? I have no idea.” The man's rheumy eyes focused on her again. “Now, the second thing. I told you there were certain
points of interest
in the articles. The conspiracy at Dumant is one. And the other?”

Alex looked again at the yellowed strips of newsprint. Scanned them, trying to pick up something she'd missed before. But she could find nothing in the column of old words that seemed to stand out. Nothing whatsoever.

“I'm just not seeing it.”

“Look, Ms. Shipley. Look as closely as you can. If you are the one student Richard is going to depend on this semester, if you are going to go through with this, then you need to be able to see things that are at first not there.”

Alex didn't want to fail this test. Not here, not in front of the legendary dean. She worried that if she failed, they might lose interest in her. Fisk and Aldiss might pick someone else, and everything she had learned, everything she had done to this point, would be for naught.

Where the hell is it? What does he want me to see?

She stared at the text, at the grainy crime scene photos that accompanied the early articles. The Rorschach bloodstain on the wall, the books strewn across the floor. The avalanche of books in Abigail Murray's apartment, the starkness of the shot, the nakedness of the room. The smiling face of Richard Aldiss, being led away in cuffs after his arrest.

Where is it? Where?

Her eyes went to the final article, the story of how Aldiss had been discovered. The tip that led to his arrest. The professor's admission.

Alex looked up.

The confession,
she thought.
Aldiss admitted he knew something.

“ ‘She deserved exactly what she got.' ”

“Go on,” Fisk urged.

“The way he said it. Aldiss told them that they should ‘look into' Shawna Wheatley. The reporter mistakes him, I believe. I think Aldiss meant it literally. He meant that they should investigate something
about
Wheatley. Check her out, because she might lead them to the real killer.”

Fisk beamed, and Alex felt a rush of pride. “Very good. And in time Richard
was
able to find information about Shawna. Of course no one at Rock Mountain knew he was looking. No one could know. But he uncovered the information he needed. And it turned out to mean everything.”

“And you really don't know what he found,” Alex said, emboldened now, “or you just won't tell me?”

Fisk hesitated. Finally he said, “You asked before if this has to do with Paul Fallows. Well, as I said, I do not know who committed this crime. But I can tell you this much: what Richard has found has everything to do with the writer. Everything. Paul Fallows is the key. Find his identity and you will find a killer.”

That night.

The lecture hall at times seemed larger than it really was. Desks had been pulled into small, tight rows. They would arrive early and talk with one another about their studies, the social life at Jasper, the grad programs they had applied to. With only a couple of exceptions, they were not the best of friends. Over their three years at the college they had competed more often than not. A few of them, like Alex, were content to do their scholarship in silence; but others wanted nothing more than to work their way into the best grad programs and professorships in the country. When you came from a tiny place like Jasper, total dominance in your field was the only way to get noticed.

They were nine again. Daniel Hayden had returned.