The Spire (9 page)

The afternoon was darker than the morning. The sun had been extinguished by the lowering lead-gray sky common to Ohio as fall deepened into winter, and though it was not raining, the air felt cold and damp. As Mark stared at the empty field, the noise and sweat and exhilaration of yesterday's game felt like a barely remembered dream. A white hot dog wrapper skittered across the field.

Mark sat there, grateful for solitude. Then he heard heavy thudding footsteps on the wooden stands, suggesting a limp, and turned to see Steve Tillman.

Steve's face was pale, his brown hair matted and askew. His gaze held a hint of pain and puzzlement commingled with dissociation. Then he said, 'I guess you've heard.'

Mark's own voice sounded foreign to him. 'I found her.'

Steve stared at him. 'You told them about me.'

'I had to,' Mark said in weary protest. 'At least about the party.'

Steve shoved his hands in his pockets. After a moment, he nodded.

'What happened'' Mark asked.

He meant between Steve and Angela. But instead Steve answered, 'The cops came to my room. I was so fucked up, I couldn't really say what happened, I'm not sure I
know
what happened.'

'What did the cops ask''

As Steve began talking, Mark envisioned the scene, a narrative of innocence and surprise he did not know whether to believe.

SOMETIME DURING THE early-morning hours, Steve had passed out. He awoke to a knocking on his door, then a male voice calling his name.

Eyes opening, he looked around his room in a fog. His bedside lamp was knocked over, its base shattered into pieces. There were drink glasses on the tile floor, a bottle of rum, empty Coke cans. His sheets, a tangled mess, were strewn across and beside the bed.

'Steve Tillman'' the rough voice queried.

Judging from the light behind the curtains, it was day. 'Wait a minute,' Steve shouted back.

He was naked. Grabbing boxer shorts and a T-shirt, he struggled to put them on. When he opened the door, Steve saw two grim-faced men he knew were not from the school.

'You're Steve'' the red-haired guy said.

'Yeah.'

Swiftly, the man's eyes took in the mess that was Steve's room. 'I'm Detective Bender, Steve, and this is Detective Muhlberg. Can we talk with you for a minute''

There was cocaine hidden in his drawer, Steve realized, bought from Carl Hall. 'Let me get dressed,' Steve said hastily. 'I'll meet you outside.'

The cop's voice was softer now. 'It might be better if we talked in private.'

Steve looked at the other guy, Muhlberg. 'We need your help,' Muhlberg told him. 'A female student's been murdered.'

Steve felt pinpricks on his skin, then a numbness that made his limbs feel heavy. 'Who''

'Her name was Angela Hall.'

Steve sat down on the bed.

Muhlberg pulled up the desk chair, stationing himself in front of Steve. His sad eyes filled with sympathy. 'I know this must be a shock, Steve.'

Steve was aware of Bender looking around his room. 'She's dead'' Steve heard himself say.

'Strangled, seems like.'

'Where''

'We don't know where, Steve. That's what we're trying to find out.' Muhlberg's voice was reasonable, unthreatening. 'We're talking to people who knew her. You were with her at the DBE house, right''

Steve hesitated. Cautiously, he answered, 'Right.'

Haltingly, Steve let them extract his story'drinking beer; meeting Angela; switching to whiskey; the near fight with Joe Betts; heading with Angela for his dorm room.

Muhlberg wrote it all down. 'What happened then'' he asked.

'I COULDN'T REMEMBER,' Steve told Mark now.

Sitting in the bleachers, Mark felt his disbelief become fear. 'What do you mean''

'I was too fucked up. I think maybe I did a line of coke, drank some rum.' Steve began rubbing his temples, elbows resting on his knees. 'It's like I have these images, but I can't be sure they're real. You know those lights that flash at parties''

'Strobe lights''

'It's like that. There's light for a second, and you can see'then it's dark. Remembering her is like that.' He covered his face, fingers splayed. 'I can't believe she's dead, Mark.'

Mark inhaled, the nausea of the previous night returning. 'What
do
you remember''

Softly, Steve answered, 'I think we must have had sex.'

AS HIS FRIEND spoke, Mark tried to link the scattered images Steve evoked.

A flash of light, Angela undressing. Slim hips. Full breasts. Nipples with dark brown areolas.

Another flash. She slid down her panties, exposing the tangle of her fur as she looked into his eyes.

The light came back on. She had turned to show him her firm round buttocks.

Do you want me'

Steve pulled her to the bed, something crashing in the darkness. The scent of her skin suffused his senses . . .

I have to go.

Steve struggled to comprehend this.
Leave'

I have to.

MARK STRUGGLED TO imagine this. But it made no sense.

Filled with doubts, he asked, 'Did you leave with her''

Steve shook his head. 'No way.'

I tried to call you
, Mark wanted to say.
From the house, at three in the morning
. Instead, he asked, 'Did you go anywhere at all''

Steve looked over at him. His pale face had turned blotchy, his expression suddenly guarded. 'When''

'Anytime that night.'

'I must have been passed out.' Steve shook his head, as though in wonder at the wreckage of his memory. 'I can't bring anything back. I don't know, man. I don't get what's happening at all.'

Mark tried to sort out his thoughts. 'After you left the party, did you see Joe''

'Nope.' Steve's tone was faintly hostile. 'They asked me
that
, too.'

Mark looked out at the football field. The sky was lower yet; in an hour or so, he guessed, the gray would darken with impending night. Facing Steve, he asked, 'Got a place to sleep tonight''

'I'm going to my folks'.' Steve shook his head again. 'They don't even know about this. When those cops took me to the station, they kept me too busy to call.'

Mark's foreboding deepened. 'What did they do''

'They swabbed my mouth, scraped under my fingernails, drew some blood.' His voice became resentful. 'Then they ordered me to strip, and took pictures of me buck naked. Hope
those
don't get out.'

'What else''

Steve gazed out at the empty field. 'They asked me if I'd hit her. I said I didn't do that kind of shit to women.'

But Joe Betts might, Mark thought. His mind a kaleidoscope of confusion, he tried to remember whether Angela's face was bruised. Then he imagined Steve's parents'his plain, perpetually mystified mother; his bluff, kind father'struggling to absorb what might be happening. 'Want me to go home with you'' Mark asked.

Steve grimaced. 'Don't think so, man. This one I'd better do alone.'

He stood, his bad knee buckling slightly. Turning, Steve asked, 'You look at something for me''

'Sure.'

He pulled up his sweatshirt, exposing his pale back. 'See anything''

The red scratches on Steve's back resembled welts. Quietly, Mark said, 'You've got some scratches, pal. Bad ones.'

Slowly, heavily, Steve sat down again. 'Yeah,' he mumbled. 'It feels like that.'

Mark lapsed into silence. 'Maybe I fucked her,' Steve said. 'But that doesn't mean I killed her.'

To this remark, disturbing in so many ways, Mark had nothing to say.

I

N THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, S TEVE WAS BARELY SEEN ON campus.

For Mark, time was a blur'the all-campus meeting, President Durbin announcing the measures Farr had crafted for him; nights of sleeplessness; bleak dinners at the DBE house; the refuge of an evening at the Farrs'; a memorial service for Angela held in the chapel of College Hall. Mark managed to avoid Joe Betts. Then on Thursday afternoon, when they emerged from a history class devoted to discussing what'if anything'the murder revealed about Caldwell College, Joe caught up with him.

'Hear you were the driver,' Joe said in a sardonic tone.

Mark shrugged. 'It was a selfless act, Joe. You didn't need to be driving.'

To Mark's surprise, Joe did not protest. They headed across campus, pausing at the green around the Spire.

A crowd had gathered, alien to Caldwell'some white but mostly black, carrying signs demanding JUSTICE FOR ANGELA, with reporters and video cameras interspersed among them. Though Mark had lived here all his life, many of the demonstrators were strangers to him. An imposing black man in a clerical collar addressed them. 'We come here today,' he said, 'to demand that Caldwell College search its soul. It is not enough for a school to say that it welcomes students of color. Caldwell College must create an environment where our young women leave the school in a cap and gown, not a coffin.'

Applause burst from the crowd. Accompanied by Farr, Clark Durbin made his way toward the speaker. Farr placed a hand on the clergyman's shoulder, speaking to him quietly. Nodding, the minister passed the microphone to Durbin.

Though Durbin tried to stand taller, the reverend towered over him, and the president's voice was high and reedy. 'You have come,' he said, 'to challenge our consciences. I welcome that, and make two promises. First, we will ensure that this is a safe place for students of all origins, offering those opportunities that our society all too often forecloses. As of next fall, the Angela Hall Memorial Scholarship program will offer four years at Caldwell College'free tuition and room and board'to worthy minority students.'

At the tepid applause, Durbin raised a hand. 'I recognize that we gave such an opportunity to Angela. I recognize that we failed her.' His voice grew firmer. 'It will never happen again. And we will do everything we can to help the authorities find the perpetrator of this loathsome crime'whoever and wherever they may be.'

The applause, deeper now, mingled with an outcry of a crowd in search of justice. As a black-and-white placard of Angela's high school graduation picture thrust from their midst, a pleasant-looking man took the microphone from Durbin.

Dressed in a suit and tie, he had a ruddy complexion and russet hair and projected an air of calm. 'I'm Dave Farragher,' he said, 'the prosecutor for Wayne County. I've come to assure you that we are working night and day to solve this terrible murder.' He paused, his gaze sweeping the crowd, focused on the video cameras. 'We expect to have an announcement soon''

For four days, the authorities had said nothing. Now Mark felt an invisible web enveloping Steve Tillman. Unable to repress the thought, he murmured to Joe, 'I think Steve's in trouble.'

'I know he is.' When Joe turned toward him, his eyes held a pleading look Mark had never seen before. 'Let's get out of here, okay''

JOE SUGGESTED THE Carriage House, a wood-paneled restaurant-bar long favored by students and locals that provided booths where patrons could talk in relative privacy. He sat across from Mark with slumped shoulders and a look of troubled abstraction, as though burdened by the weight of his own thoughts. When Mark ordered a beer, Joe asked the waitress for a Diet Coke on ice.

'No beer'' Mark asked.

He meant it as a casual remark. But Joe stared at the table. 'I don't feel like it. I may never feel like it again.' He looked up at Mark. 'I'm an asshole when I drink.'

Joe's expression, more often cynical or superior, was so vulnerable that his practiced veneer of prep school toughness vanished. He seemed to expect a response. 'Sometimes,' Mark agreed.

Joe nodded slowly. Cautiously, he asked. 'How was I at that party''

Mark eyed him with puzzled skepticism. 'You don't remember''

Joe winced. Removing his glasses, he wiped the lenses with a paper napkin, as though to improve his vision. 'Kind of.' He met Mark's eyes again. 'I shouldn't drink at all, should I''

Weighing his response, Mark reflected on the mercurial relationship among Joe's personae: the supercilious but amusing child of privilege; the wounded son of an angry father; the abrasive, abusive drunk. Why, Mark wondered, were he and Joe so different when both their childhoods had been train wrecks' Maybe it was innate; maybe it was that Mark had Lionel Farr. Or maybe it was that his own parents, unlike Joe's, were equals in their irrationality and rage. 'When you don't drink,' Mark responded evenly, 'you're a good guy. When you do, you're more than an asshole'you're dangerous. I don't know you anymore.' Mark paused, then decided to take a chance. 'Maybe I'm meeting your father, Joe. The guy who kicked the shit out of Mom.'

Eyes closing, Joe became very still. Mark felt his friend withdrawing to another place'some bad memory or deep within his most hidden thoughts. Then he opened his eyes again. Softly, he said, 'I don't want to know that person anymore.'

The statement sounded literal, the expression of a strong desire'even a need'to exorcise something within himself that Joe despised and feared. Mark felt a troubling shadow pass between them, his own unease about what lay beneath his friend's confession. Then Joe said with quiet fervor, 'I need to make someone a promise, Mark. I've chosen you.'

Mark cocked his head. 'Not Laurie''

A flicker of emotion'perhaps fear, perhaps shame'crossed Joe's face. 'Too late.' He put his hand on Mark's wrist, as though establishing a bond. 'My old man's dead now. From now until I die, I'm never taking another drink.'

'I believe you.'

In truth, Mark was not sure. But Joe gave him a look of deep relief, as though Mark had absolved him. 'Thanks, man. I mean it. I know the last few days have been hard for you.'

Now it was Mark who stared at the table. At length he said, 'I keep remembering her face.' He paused, then finished in a monotone: 'I'd never seen anyone dead before. All I can think is that no one should die that way.'

Joe grimaced. 'She looked bad, I guess.'

'Yeah.'

Through his own discomfort, Mark wondered what lay behind the question'compassion, morbid curiosity, or something deeper. Then Joe asked, 'The night she died, when was the last time you saw Tillman''