Cast of Shadows - v4 (51 page)

“God, I feel sick.” Sally tapped her keyboard, searching the wire to see if any news was breaking on the case. On the far side of the room, Barwick heard a murmur and the swishy, squeaky sound of people standing up from their seats. Stephen Malik walked into the newsroom, stony and purposeful. Attempts by reporters to read his expression couldn’t have been more obvious if his face were Braille and they were assaulting it with their fingers. Malik passed Sally’s cubicle and didn’t pause but wiggled his fingers just under her sight line, and she hung up the phone and followed him into his office as the definitive rumor began its path around Trib Tower. Malik was fired and Barwick’s going with him. By the time it reached the tenth floor, the story described how Malik had already been escorted from his office by armed guards.

But by then the truth had entered the system, as well. In a whisper.

“Did they fire you?” Barwick asked in his office.

“They started to,” he said in a voice that was hoarse and tired and disappointed. “They started to tell me I had been irresponsible. That the checks and balances we have in place here at the paper should have stopped your story on Coyne before the press. That by circumventing those checks and balances I had betrayed their trust, or betrayed the duties with which I had been entrusted, or betrayed the board of trustees. Something about trust and the betrayal of it, anyway.”

Sally urged him with her eyes to get on with it. Did she still have a job?

“And they said this whole Coyne thing was just one event in a series of unfortunate ones, and they were disappointed, and they had given me every chance but they had no choice, and it wasn’t personal, and that some financial arrangements could be made with respect to my contract, and if I had even moderate savings tucked away somewhere, a pension, IRA, et cetera, that I could live a very comfortable retirement, which is what they assumed I wanted because a man my age wouldn’t be able to find another job after such a high-profile scandal, no matter how they couched it for the press. Also, that I should retain counsel in preparation for the inevitable civil suit.”

“God, I’m so sorry, Stephen,” Sally said, the beginning of a good cry stinging her nose.

“And then they started in on you. How you would take much of the fall, but you were still young and talented and could no doubt recover from this. There might even be a confessional-type book in it for you.”

“So we’re both cooked,” she said, a little relieved it was over, oddly.

“Curiously, no,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Because as they were making that speech, word came in. Coyne failed the DNA test.”

“Oh my God. It was him?” she whispered, certain she would cry now.

“It was him.” Malik was laughing. “You should have seen the sons of bitches. If they weren’t sitting on fine brown leather, I swear I could have seen each of them shit his pants.”

“Holy God!” Sally spun around his desk and hugged him. “I’m so happy for you. Happy for me, but mostly happy for you.”

“Barwick,” he said, pushing her to a distance where they could see each other’s faces. “I gotta ask… Why do you sound so surprised?”

Midwesterners are so used to complaining about the weather, they do it even on the pleasant days, Davis observed. If it drops to the low seventies with an evening breeze in August, they’ll call it “chilly” and pack a jacket. Three days in a row without rain will have them worried about their lawns. A mild February surely portends the brutal, sweltering summer to come.

They are also sanguine about bad weather, however, even when it arrives at inopportune times. Between pews on an overcast wedding day, you will hear expert testimony from guests that flat sunlight filtered through dense clouds will eliminate shadows and produce the best pictures.

It was raining on Northwood East’s graduation day — a slow, small-caliber assault throughout the morning, interrupted by periods of downpour that sent pedestrians running for cover as if the heavy drops were directed by snipers. The ceremony was moved inside to the big gym, which had neither enough seats nor enough fresh air for students, parents, and extended family. Faculty organizers said they wanted to keep it short this year, but they had no plan for doing so. The principal, the valedictorian, and the commencement speaker, a Northwood East grad who had been an actor on Broadway and a late cast addition to a handful of dying sitcoms, each privately decided the time wouldn’t be excised from their own speech.

Six months ago Justin’s teachers thought he had a chance to be valedictorian. Not a
good
chance — Mary Seebohm was a dedicated student who’d already been accepted to Harvard, and Justin’s dedication, even when he was interested in a subject, was sporadic. Still, he was the wonder kid — clearly the smartest in the school — and when the final semester began, faculty lounge speculation noted that Justin might have a shot if he managed straight A’s across his AP schedule and if Mary Seebohm slipped in advanced calculus, a worry she confided to her gossipy guidance counselor, Mrs. Sykes.

Neither of those things happened. Mary Seebohm coasted through calc as easily as her other classes, and Justin’s grades, a direct result of his sudden and jarring indifference to schoolwork, devolved into C’s and B-minuses. Drugs, they guessed in the teacher’s lounge. They’d all seen it a million times before.

Justin finished fifteenth in his class, which would have been good enough for an excellent private school if he’d applied to one. He didn’t apply to any schools at all. “I’m taking a year off,” he told his guidance counselor. This will end badly, his teachers agreed.

The morning of graduation, Davis told Joan he wanted to go to the ceremony.

“What good could possibly come of that?” Joan asked him.

“None,” Davis said.

“Then I’m going, too,” she said.

Joan and Davis watched from the open swinging doors of the gym foyer with the bored stepfathers and the chain smokers. Few people recognized him, and strangers who did could no longer make a connection between him and the long-forgotten nastiness with Martha Finn and her son. “We’re just here to congratulate Ned and Ella’s boy,” Davis said to the one couple — former patients — who asked. He was glad they didn’t ask who Ned and Ella were.

The students, in blue robes and mortarboards, sat alphabetically in long rows of folding chairs. Their parents pressed against one another in the bleachers like tennis balls in vacuum canisters. Championship sports banners from years past stood rigid above their heads, only occasionally turning a corner like a dolphin’s flipper to let past a breath from an exhaling air vent. Clothes dampened by the rain outside stayed damp. Coughs and sneezes echoed skyward. Between the south exit and the auxiliary gym — the wrestling room, as it was called — lines formed outside bathrooms while savvier parents ducked into the locker rooms.

“Today is a very special day for all of us,” Mary Seebohm began unpromisingly. “It marks the end of our high school careers. For some, it marks the end of our academic careers. For many, it marks the end of our athletic careers. For each one of us, it also marks the beginning of our freedom.

“For eighteen years, give or take, we have been human beings without choices. Sure, we made little decisions — what color to paint our room, what instrument to pursue in band, whether to try out for cheerleader or pom-pom squad, quiz bowl or debate, whether to run for student council, or to take metal shop instead of wood shop. But when it came to the most important aspects of our lives, we had no choices. Today that changes.

“Seated in this footba — I mean basketball gym are one thousand one hundred and twelve individual destinies. Each of us has the potential to make a difference. To be heard. To help our fellow man, or to hurt him. To achieve great things, or to vanish into obscurity. To be graceful, courageous, uninhibited, powerful, merciful, caring, cruel, callous, artistic, creative, productive, promiscuous” — cheers — “mischievous, inspiring, beneficent, intimidating, loving, cautious, fearful, dominant, truthful, fair, generous, law-abiding, kind. We will never have more choices, and thus more freedom, than we do right now. Every day between now and the day we die is a day with fewer choices than the one before it. And so I implore you, my fellow graduates of Northwood East, my friends, my classmates: choose wisely.”

Mary continued. Davis checked his watch. Seven minutes. Ten minutes. His clothes stuck to him in uncomfortable places. The man just behind him and to his right exhaled through his nose in quick whistles. Davis took a step forward. The line to the men’s bathroom had grown by a dozen in just the last few minutes as parents heard nothing from Mary that sounded like a summation. Davis thought about a visit to the urinal himself. He even thought about taking Joan’s hand and suggesting they leave. She didn’t want to be here, anyway.

Martha Finn appeared in the foyer through a parting curtain of bodies, her eyes at maximum aperture, her skin tight and angry over her skinny jaw. She looked old, and Davis wondered how many years it had been since he’d last seen her. Not that many. She should see a doctor. Even her intense rage couldn’t account for the unhealthy pallor on her face.

“Dr. Moore,” she whispered tersely. Her eyes directed him to the glass-and-metal doors leading outside. He nodded and followed her, putting a hand on Joan’s arm, telling her to stay put. He’d be back. It will be all right.

Outside, under a narrow asphalt roof over the entrance, rain pelting the concrete just a few yards away, Martha hugged her own arms and said, “I know you’ve been seeing my son.” She was trembling as if a combustion engine inside her were both powering her speech and keeping her anger in check.

“He came to see me,” Davis admitted. “After you told him he was a clone. We’ve done nothing but talk.”

“Since you’ve been meeting him, he’s changed. Did you know he’s been doing drugs?”

Davis started. “Drugs? That’s crazy,” he said. “There’s no way.”

Unconvinced, Martha said, “Have you been giving him drugs?”

“Of course not.”

“Have you tried to make him stop?”

“Mrs. Finn, I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Justin isn’t doing drugs.” As he said it, however, he wondered. She seemed so certain. Had she caught him? As close as he felt to Justin, how well did he actually know him? How much time had they really spent together?
Would I know if Justin were on drugs?
He answered himself.
Yes. Yes, I would.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m so scared. Scared of him. Scared of what he might do. To himself. To me. To somebody else.” She looked Davis in the eyes. “And there’s nothing I can do or say. How can he be so sure of himself when I’m so insecure?”

Davis said he was sorry. It was wrong to have met with Justin behind her back. He didn’t make excuses. He didn’t try to explain why he and Justin had been meeting. Why they had been sneaking around. To his surprise, she accepted that small concession with a nod and then opened the door and disappeared into the foyer, making her way back to the gym.

“That was weird,” Joan said when he returned. “What did she want?”

“An apology,” Davis said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are you okay?” she asked. Davis dipped his head in a way that resembled a nod.

They stepped out to an open area of the foyer to put on their jackets. A girl, perhaps five years old, in a pink dress, with sun-blond hair, approached them from the direction of the gym. “Excuse me,” she said.

“Yes?”

“That boy asked me to give this to you.” She handed Davis a program from the commencement.

“What boy?” Joan asked. The girl shrugged.

Davis opened the folded booklet. Scribbled in black pen:
415 Saint Paul Rd. 11:00. Tonight.

“Thanks for coming,” Justin said. “This might be the closest we get to a celebration.” He threw his arms in the air. “Congratulations! We got the bastard.”

The spring surf licked the beach on the other side of the dunes. Across a hundred yards on either side of them, couples made out on blankets thrown over the wet sand at irregular intervals. Muffled shouting over a muffled stereo marked the epicenter of the graduation party at 415 Saint Paul Road, just steps from the water. It was unclear to Davis if it was being supervised by freethinking adults or if there were still parents so apathetic and stupid they would leave town the weekend of their kid’s graduation and expect him not to turn their home into a three-million-dollar frat house.

Davis said, “Should I be celebrating, Justin? Tell me.”

“Of course you should. Coyne’s been arrested and, according to the papers, already convicted. Quote:
The trial, it seems, is almost a formality.
”

“What happened to your theory?”

“What do you mean?” Justin smiled in the manner of a comedian waiting for his audience to get his last joke.

“You said that when Coyne kills in Shadow World, he doesn’t feel the urge to kill as the Wicker Man. Didn’t Coyne just murder someone in the game a few weeks ago? The night he attacked Sally?”

“It’s an inexact science.” Justin smirked.

“It’s bullshit,” Davis said. “Your whole Wicker Man/Shadow World theory is bullshit.” He turned and pressed his shoe into the damp spring sand. His footprint made a detailed impression, outlining every tread and recess in his sole.

“I know what you did,” Davis said, and as he said it he knew the accusation could not be undone. That it would change things between them. The significance was not in the truth of the statement, and Davis would admit he had no evidence to support it. Indeed, before the idea occurred to him he never would have thought Justin capable of such a thing. Sure, he had read Justin’s psych reports, and once worried over missing dogs in the Finns’ neighborhood, and he and Joan had held endless discussions about what Justin might one day become (in her office and, more recently, across the low valley where their pillows met). Even so, they had never considered it anything but a remote possibility. Davis had never entertained the notion, not for a moment, that their darkest fears had become real.