The Spire (35 page)

Taylor, Darrow realized at once, had said nothing about her job offer. 'If you're asking how we are,' Darrow said, 'the answer's that we're still quite new. And running out of time.'

The words seemed stiffer than Darrow had intended. 'I don't mean to pry,' Farr responded with parental dignity. 'But I care for you both. I think you know that. Perhaps, at some point, Taylor will, too.'

Darrow turned to him, trying to refine his sense that Farr was obscurely wounded. 'I think she does, Lionel. But her mother's death seems to have been a fault line in both your lives. She's lived with her own thoughts for a very long time.'

He could not find his balance this morning, Darrow reflected; he had said more than he had meant to. Quiet, Farr seemed to withdraw a little. 'Anne was fragile,' he said at length. 'Not just physically, but emotionally. In some ways, so is Taylor'it's as if she believes that I could somehow have protected the mother she loved from the ravages of heart disease. It's a child's way of looking at the world.'

The comment nettled Darrow. 'That's a little harsh, Lionel.'

'Perhaps so. But I think Taylor sees her mother as the princess in the tower, a helpless woman allowed to die. In the mythology, I'm less a human being than a marble statue, with the emotions to match.' Farr's voice softened. 'Anne's death devastated us both. The added price I paid with Taylor was my recompense for surviving. I, not Anne, was supposed to die.'

The statement stunned Darrow. 'For God's sake, Lionel.'

They had reached the edge of fraternity row, the head of the walkway leading to the main campus. Abruptly, Farr stopped, looking not at Darrow but at the steeple of the Spire. 'No doubt you think I'm being melodramatic.'

'No,' Darrow said bluntly. 'Hurt, and a little resentful.'

Farr's eyes narrowed, and then he nodded slowly. 'Fifteen years of distance can do that. I have no doubt that had Anne lived, Taylor would not have left so soon, or remained alienated for so long. I still believe that as she got older, I might have done better as a father. Things could have been quite different.'

'She did come back, after all.'

'I know that,' Farr said at length. 'Perhaps some good will come of it'whether for Taylor and me or for the two of you.' He faced Darrow, his expression somber. 'You know she won't stay here, Mark. Not just because of work, or even the place itself. In her heart she believes that Anne depended on me too much. I hope you understand that Taylor is determined to control her own psychic space, to have a piece of her life that is hers alone.'

'I don't expect anything else,' Darrow said. 'And don't want it. When the summer's done, Taylor has to move on.'

'Which may not be bad for either of you,' Farr responded. 'In your case it will give you the time to better comprehend Taylor'both her strengths and her vulnerabilities.' Farr's smile, faint and fleeting, seemed directed at himself. 'I know I sound like the pompous father in
Love Story
. But if you and Taylor are meant to be more than you are now, it will stand the test of time and distance.'

Darrow tried to untangle his own reaction, a shifting compound of irritation, sadness, and amusement. 'Worse than
Love Story
,' he said dryly. 'Nonetheless, I'll hold the thought.'

Farr laughed softly, and they began walking again. 'There was something else,' Farr prodded. 'You wanted to speak in confidence.'

'I do.' Though Darrow had gone over what he meant to say'editing and rearranging the sequence of his explanation'he found that starting did not come easy. 'Mind if we sit somewhere''

They found a stone bench in a manicured garden, incongruously Asian in character, between the library and the student union. At this hour, a little before eight, few summer students were ambitious enough to surface; effectively deserted, the site afforded Darrow the privacy he needed and yet kept him from feeling claustrophobic. The subject was bad enough.

'There's no good place to begin this,' Darrow said. 'So I'll start with the most recent events. There's a fair chance that most of Caldwell's stolen money was siphoned to Carl Hall.'

Farr raised his head slightly, as though looking at Darrow from a new angle. Something about his pupils reminded Darrow of drill bits. 'Go on.'

Succinctly, Darrow outlined Garrison's schedule of Hall's transactions: the timing and disbursements of money; their connection to a Swiss bank; their apparent structuring to avoid federal oversight. The skepticism in Farr's gaze seemed to border on antagonism. 'The man was a drug dealer,' he said curtly. 'I assume you've given this information to Joe Betts and Greg Fox.'

'Not yet.'

'And why not, for the love of God''

Darrow tried to remain calm. 'I'll get to that,' he said. 'In the meanwhile, please withhold judgment. You can have a coronary once I'm done.'

Farr inhaled slowly. 'All right,' he said in a neutral voice. 'Tell me why the police entrusted you with this delicate information.'

'Several reasons. One is that I found Hall's body.'

Farr's smile, a rare show of teeth, held more anger than his hardened tone. 'Of course. What better job for the president of Caldwell College.'

'Part of my job,' Darrow snapped, 'is being smarter than the people you and Carrick chose to investigate this mess. I wish
that
part were harder.'

The fury and frustration in Darrow's tone seemed to give Farr pause. In a frosty voice, he said, 'Please justify that statement.'

'Joe and Fox are masters of the obvious. 'Obviously,' Durbin embezzled money'after all, he sent an e-mail to Joe Betts, then signed his own name to bank accounts. 'Obviously,' Durbin's not only a criminal but criminally stupid. But the fact is'and I have an expert to confirm it'that a reasonably savvy person could have replicated Durbin's e-mail and forged his signature, leaving Durbin none the wiser. If you don't know you stole the money, it's hard to cover your tracks.'

Farr crossed his arms. His voice soft and ironic, he asked, 'So who did steal it, Mark''

'Someone on the investment committee.'

Briefly, Farr closed his eyes. With the same quiet, he said, 'We're talking about business leaders of considerable wealth and unquestioned probity. I may be cynical about human nature, but your thesis borders on hallucinatory. Pass over whether any of them have the inventiveness you posit. What could possibly motivate one of those men to steal nine hundred thousand dollars, then try to ruin Clark Durbin's life, at considerable risk to their own''

'Blackmail.'

Farr propped his elbows on his knees, staring at the garden. 'Let me grasp this. A black drug dealer from the southeast side of Wayne was blackmailing a prominent white alumnus. Makes perfect sense. Just tell me what connects two such disparate men.'

Darrow steeled himself. 'That's one reason I went to see Hall. After I found his body, the police located a safe deposit box in Carl's name. Inside was a small bag of diamonds, and a Xerox copy of a diary written by Angela Hall.'

'Angela kept a diary''

'Yes. It's not very pleasant to read. Or to describe.'

In unsparing detail, Darrow did. The blood drained from Farr's face, making him look older. Tonelessly, he said, 'Pray God this was an experiment in creative writing and that those things never happened to her.'

'And if they did''

'It defies every notion I had of this young woman.' As he considered Darrow's words, the grooves in Farr's face seemed to deepen. 'From what you say, the man she calls HE seems barely real.'

'His perversions sound real enough.' Darrow paused. 'A couple of months before she died, Angela began disappearing at night. No one knows where she went. But her mother believes
that
was when she began this particular diary. After she was murdered, it disappeared.'

'From which you posit . . .'

'That Angela went out to meet the man called HE. After she died, Carl stole her diary. That was his tool of blackmail.'

Farr gazed straight ahead. 'By your own account, the diary gives no clue to the man's identity. Even were he real, how would Carl know''

'I don't have any idea. But I believe that Carl
did
know, and therefore knew that the same man might well have killed her. That's why HE murdered Carl.'

Farr's mind moved quickly now, following the rules of Darrow's logic. 'Making HE a member of our investment committee.'

'Yes.' Darrow paused and took a breath. 'Joe Betts.'

To Darrow's surprise, Farr was expressionless. 'For which accusation, I assume, your reasons go back sixteen years. Joe was at the party. Joe and Tillman fought over Angela. No one saw Joe during the hours when Angela died. But Joe claimed to see Tillman returning from the Spire, sealing Steve's conviction.' He turned to Darrow. 'We've always known these things. But what on earth makes you think Joe was capable of the practices depicted in Angela's diary''

'Joe hit his college girlfriend,' Darrow answered softly. 'He also collected pornography involving black women and sadomasochism.'

Farr pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing it as though trying to erase a headache. 'And you know this because''

'Joe's ex-girlfriend told me.'

'When''

'About two weeks ago.'

Turning again, Farr examined Darrow steadily. 'You have been busy, haven't you''

'Yes. Sorry it's so inconvenient.'

'This is no time for petulance. Tell me why Angela wished to satisfy Joe's desires.'

Darrow shook his head. 'I don't know.'

'He wasn't paying her''

'Not that I know about.'

Farr grimaced. 'Outside the fateful party, do we know if Betts and Angela Hall had any relationship at all''

Darrow hesitated. 'Her mother remembers a youthful-sounding white guy calling Angela at home . . .'

'But not Joe.'

'She just doesn't know.' Once again, Darrow marshaled his arguments. 'We know Steve had sex with her. But everything else, factually and psychologically, makes Joe as plausible a murderer as Steve Tillman. We know Steve didn't shoot up Carl Hall. Throw in the diary and the embezzlement, and a web starts tightening around Joe Betts.'

Farr looked around, as though fearful that they might be overhead. 'So what you're asking me to believe is that, by whatever means, a financial adviser from Columbus subdued Carl Hall inside his home on the outskirts of Wayne, prepared a heroin injection that'for reasons not apparent to me'he knew was lethal, and then put Carl to sleep like a terminally ill house pet.'

'Essentially, yes.'

'Your theory is a house of cards,' Farr said tightly. 'Change a single fact or eliminate one assumption, and the whole thing collapses. You become, if not the biggest fool in Caldwell's history, one of the most arrogant and presumptuous. The man who smeared an innocent man with wild accusations in order to save a guilty friend.' Farr paused, then continued in a tone of deliberate calm: 'We'll pass over all the leaps in logic. I won't ask you to decipher the baroque description of 'darkness in the chamber of stone.' We'll even forget the incongruity of converting a member of Caldwell's investment committee into a forger, a specialist in computer fakery, a sadomasochist, and an expert in preparing and administering heroin, all packaged in a man as nerveless as a brain surgeon. Just tell me why the 'blackmail' commenced only in the last year.'

Farr's self-control, Darrow found, was more daunting than his anger. 'It didn't start this year,' he answered. 'Hall opened the safe deposit box over a decade ago, and converting cash to diamonds is a classic technique for laundering money. I'm assuming that's how the payments began''

'When Joe was barely out of school' Where did he get the money''

'Inheritance, I'm guessing. His father died in our junior year.'

Farr scowled. 'At least you have him using his own money. So why would he risk embezzling Caldwell's investment funds''

'I don't know. Maybe Joe no longer has the money we think he does. Or, after he got married, perhaps his wife started keeping an eye on their finances.'

The day was becoming warmer, Darrow realized. He could see the dampness on Farr's forehead, feel it on his own. 'Then take your central assumption,' Farr countered, 'that Betts killed Hall. Were that disproven, would you agree that your entire theory evanesces''

'It wouldn't help,' Darrow acknowledged. 'But Joe was here in Wayne that night. We had a meeting to discuss our finances.'

'Which ended when''

Darrow tried to remember. 'A little before eight, I think.'

'What time did you find Hall''

'Around ten.'

'So sometime between eight and ten, you posit, Joe drove across town to Hall's, then subdued and killed him. All while escaping detection.' Farr put his hand on Darrow's shoulder. 'Let me propose an alternative theory. It would have taken less than an hour for Joe to drive back to Columbus. By nine o'clock, rather than killing Carl, Joe was watching the Disney Channel with his kids. Why don't you ask his wife'' Farr's tone became softer yet. 'Of course, she might wonder why you care.'

Darrow was silent. 'Depending on her answer,' Farr said, 'your theory could be in deep trouble. I hope you've not been so careless as to share it with anyone else.'

Darrow shook his head. 'No. Not even the police.'

Farr looked into Darrow's eyes. 'Well, at least you retained the judgment to tell me. So, for all our sakes, hear me well.

'I understand why Tillman's conviction troubles you. But there's no way for you to know what really happened that night. Just as there's little reason to believe'and no way to prove'that Carl Hall's possibly accidental death relates to the college's sad history. My ultimate question is this: Why do you insist that Durbin's apparent theft must connect to Angela's murder'' Farr's grip on Darrow's shoulder tightened. 'Take this fantasy to Chief Garrison, if you must.
He
can blow it up. But once you do that, you may destroy your presidency and, given all that's happened, jeopardize Caldwell College itself.

'That's not what you came here for, Mark. Angela Hall's dead; the money's gone. Your sole responsibility is to secure our future. Just as, after Angela's death, I did everything in my power to keep this school alive.'