Resolve (29 page)

“Cyprus! Where have you been hiding? I’ve left you several messages! I thought you would be at Randy’s funeral, but I didn’t see you there.”

“I’ve been busy.”

The coldness of my voice caused his mouth to straighten out, and he retracted a hand he had expected me to shake.

“It’s understandable not wanting to go to a funeral, but it does help us deal with our grief on some level. We need closure more than we realize,” he said matter-of-factly.

“True.”

I started to stand and then stepped forward and delivered a strong punch to his stomach, taking care to miss any ribs. A gust of wind escaped him and he stumbled back onto another bench. He tried to speak, but nothing was forthcoming.

“I wonder what your next move was going to be,” I said. “Were you going to manipulate Aaron into coming after me? Drop him a message? Convince him that I was out to get him? You must have picked up on the fact that he’s unstable, so taking advantage of his mental state had to have been one of your better options.”

A cough from the bench told me that air was starting to flow back into him.

“I’ll admit it. You had me running in circles for a while. You had everybody running in circles. It stops now.”

Gasping, Jacob pleaded, “Cyprus. I didn’t . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t! Don’t even think about trying to spin this. Steven would have done anything for you. He killed Lindsay for you! He tried to kill
me
for you!”

“You . . . you’re confused. I didn’t even know Steven. Why would he—”

I lowered my voice and said, “You knew him very well. You’ve known him for years. I did some snooping around. It had never occurred to me that his first two years of undergraduate work weren’t in Criminology . . . he was a Psych major right here at TRU. In fact, he took several of your classes.”

Jacob tightened the towel around his waist and held a hand over his stomach.

“I wonder, how long were you seeing Lindsay before you introduced her to Steven? And don’t waste my time denying that you were sleeping with Lindsay. She was in one of your classes. You called her a blonde when every photo of her used by the media showed her with dark hair. Your lies are your admission.”

I balled my right hand up a little tighter and prepared to hit him again at the first indication of a denial. To my surprise, I didn’t get one.

“You can’t blame Steven. He was only trying to protect me. To protect my reputation. He was a brilliant student and I took him under my wing. He was dedicated to me. I mentored him and he looked up to me like a father. Did you know that his father died when he was just a boy? A drunk driver hit him head on. Steven never got over it. I served as a surrogate for his father. I didn’t see how his loyalty to me had gotten to the point that he was irrational until it was too late.”

His eyes filled with tears.

“It’s my fault. I had come to realize what a bastard I had been and I told Lindsay that I was breaking off the relationship. Since Tabatha’s death, I had become a lonely man. I let the loneliness get the best of me with Lindsay. At first, she came on to me, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think a beautiful girl that age would naturally be attracted to one of her professors. Despite what you may think, I’m not a complete narcissist.”

Yeah . . . really, a guy would have to be pretty full of himself to . . .

“I asked her what she was up to—why she was acting like she was attracted to me. After a while, she told me about a project she was working on. She planned on exposing the degenerates and hypocrites who are taking over academia while getting famous in the process. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was fascinated with her boldness. I didn’t discourage her in the least. In fact, I told her it would be better received as an academic piece rather than some internet sensation. She asked me to help her with her work and I agreed.

“Needless to say,” Jacob dropped his head, “over time, I became what I was hoping to help root out. Words aren’t enough to express my shame.”

Dripping from the showers in the next room filled a few seconds. Jacob snapped back from a moment of introspection.

“When Steven heard Lindsay’s conversation with you, he showed up at my home and told me about it. He was convinced she was going to expose my relationship with her. He told me my career would be over and my name would be tarnished forever. I told him to let it go. I told him I would try to reason with her. He told me that he was going to try to scare her. We fought about it, and in the end he stormed out of the house and sped off.”

Jacob held his head in his hands and sobbed openly.

“He showed up again later that night and his arm was bleeding. He told me what had happened. Steven had looked up Lindsay’s address and gone down there. He went to her apartment to talk to her. Lindsay was determined to ruin me and she told him so. Things got out of control, and Steven said the next thing he knew she was dead on the floor and his hands were around her neck. He used a duffle bag he found in her apartment to carry her body to his car. Then he dumped her body in the Hill District, figuring she would be written off as the victim of some drug dealer.”

I unclenched my hands and took a step back.

“And you didn’t think to call the police?”

“How could I? He was like a son to me. Much like I feel about you sometimes.”

I leaned down and said, “The last time I saw him, he didn’t seem to be in a brotherly mood.”

“I don’t know what he was thinking. His protective instincts had turned into the most dangerous kind of obsession. Steven said that we couldn’t chance that Lindsay had talked to you after he left your office. He said that there was a chance that she could have told you everything. I told him I wouldn’t turn him in for killing Lindsay. I knew I was the real reason she was dead, and Steven going to prison wouldn’t bring her back. It was a terrible mistake, but I selfishly thought we could get past it if we sat back and did nothing. I told Steven that if he harmed you, I would have no choice but to go to the police and tell them everything. He calmed down, and by the time he left my house he had convinced me that he had regained his senses.”

“So you were obviously mortified when you found out that Steven had tried to kill me.”

“More than I can ever say. My sorrow was twofold: Steven was dead, and he died while attacking my good friend. But at that point, my going to the authorities wouldn’t have done anybody any good. Steven had sinned, and unfortunately, you had to be the one to deliver the inevitable retribution.”

Calmly, I said, “And if I would have faced criminal charges for killing Steven, you would have come forward, right?”

“Of course! I couldn’t let you be punished for my mistakes.”

Walking a slow circle around Jacob, I asked, “And what about Randy?”

Jacob turned around and followed me with a confused look.

“I don’t know exactly what he was up to. The only thing I can figure is that Randy had succumbed to Lindsay’s advances while she worked on her project. Randy must have thought that either Lindsay left some of her work in the apartment—or perhaps her roommate came across something and threatened to expose Randy. I think we have to assume that Randy killed the roommate.”

“Her name was Virginia.”

“Virginia,” he said as if he were uttering the opening syllables of a eulogy.

He withdrew his focus from the name and said, “As to who killed Randy, I have no idea.”

“That’s an easy one. I did.”

Jacob’s neck twisted unnaturally and revealed a look of horror as he slung it around to watch me walk behind him.

“Wha . . . why?”

“I really didn’t have much choice. He was about to give me a pretty serious case of suicide.”

“I don’t understand why you were even there, but I’m not going to judge you, Cyprus. You’ve always shown strong moral character. More than I have, I’m afraid. I’m sure you did what you had to do. As far as I’m concerned, your secret never has to leave this room. If you feel you need to tell the world about my relationship with Lindsay, then I’ll understand. No matter what, I’ll never tell a soul about what you have just revealed to me.”

My series of circles came to an end right in front of the weeping genius. His eyes were puffy and he was the picture of emotional atrophy.

“My God, Jacob.”

“I know. I’m so—”

“You—are—a—complete—fucking—sociopath.”

The puffy eyes sought clarification. I stared down and provided it.

“Let me give you another version of events. We’ll put this one on the
nonfiction
shelf.”

My orbit resumed, but in the opposite direction.

“You were having an affair with Lindsay. You got that part right. After that, your facts are a little shaky. And I don’t doubt that you were very close to Steven. In fact, I’m sure of it. The guy who told me about Steven being a Psych major was very helpful in that respect. He told me that during his freshman year, Steven talked constantly about the brilliant mind and extraordinary talents of one of his professors. This guy told me that it didn’t take him long to figure out that Steven was head-over-heels in love with this professor. At first this was very upsetting to this fellow, since he and Steven were lovers. But over the years the man learned he was going to have to share Steven, if he wanted to have any kind of relationship with him. My new friend says that he’s always been a big believer in practicing monogamy, but he became very tolerant of Steven’s divided attentions because he wanted him to be happy.

“Up until your sicko-protégé’s death, this guy got together with Steven only occasionally, but he always cared about him. Now, I’ve only seen this guy twice, but he sure seems like the honest type. The first time I saw him he was kissing Steven at the front door of his townhouse. The second time was when I recently found the house again and he opened the door and tried to punch me. It turns out that he’s pretty mad about Steven being dead. So much so, that once I calmed him down and told him a story about a sneaky, manipulative man who turned Steven into a coldblooded killer, he came around nicely. Chris . . . that’s his name, Chris Monroe, and Steven talked openly about you when it was just the two of them. Chris didn’t like discussing you, but he really loved Steven, so he put up with it.”

“Cyprus,” Jacob said as he craned his neck, “Steven was like the child I never had. You can’t possibly think I was romantically involved with him, whatever some
associate
of Steven has told you.”

“Because you wouldn’t lie to me?”

“I know I’ve been less than honest with you up until now, but I was hoping we could put it all behind us.” Jacob wiped an eye that didn’t need the attention.

Briefly pausing in my steps, I said gravely, “I’m not done.”

My sole audience member resumed listening.

“I went looking for Chris only because I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Up until that point, I had missed way too much, but I finally got it. It was the lecture that sealed it for me.”

Jacob waited. He stopped tracking me and was simply looking straight ahead.

“You were the only person who I told about the time of death. I told you what the cops told me—nine thirty. I told you I had a solid alibi because I was at the lecture. The lecture dealing with cognitive ability in apes. The lecture that I still have a program for—it’s at home next to the couch. The small print on the bottom of the cover says it all:
SPONSORED
BY
THE
TRU
DEPARTMENT
OF
PSYCHOLOGY
. For events like that, the sponsoring organization maintains all of the attendance records. Records that would go straight to the head of the department. Records that would have gone to you. I didn’t think much of it when my name wasn’t on that list, but I’m sure thinking about it now. You took my name off that list and eliminated my alibi.

“Maybe Steven had given you enough details that you thought that the cops had gotten the T.O.D. wrong—maybe he didn’t. Either way, you had no qualms about leaving me out there as a suspect for Lindsay’s murder. It was just bad luck for you that I was covered for the real T.O.D., which was two and a half hours earlier than I had told you.”

I was behind Jacob when I finished this point, talking to the back of his head. As I rotated back into his view, a maniacal grin was stretched across his face. The fake tears were gone. My feet froze when he looked at me.

“Very good. Very, very good.”

Mile 25

T
wo EMTs carrying backpacks run past me in the opposite direction. They are speaking loudly into the radio, trying to identify the problem. They’ll need a Ouija board if they want to hear anything from the casualty behind me. This time the water station gets my full attention. I wash down my usual triangle of sugar and carbohydrates, and take care to thank the volunteer this go-round. Several police officers are blocking the usually busy intersections, insuring my safe passage. Unknowingly, lining the streets for a murderer. From a third-story window, a shirtless man peers out and is holding a loud conversation with a man passing in front of his building. The man in the window starts to tell a joke, but now I’m too far away to hear the punch line.