The Advocate's Devil (38 page)

Abe was tempted to play the adolescent game of “I’ll tell you my secret if you tell me yours.” Yet he knew he couldn’t reveal
Joe Campbell’s terrible secret under any circumstances.

“I guess I have to trust you,” he said, squeezing Emma’s hand in his own.

“You sure do, especially since I don’t even have to tell you what I’m doing anymore, except if I want to.”

“I hope you’ll always want to,” Abe said with a touch of sadness in his voice.

“Well, probably not
always
,” Emma said. “Maybe sometimes.”

“I love you, Emma. And I do trust you.”

“I love you, too, Daddy. And I know you’ll always be there for me.”

C
AMBRIDGE
—
F
RIDAY,
S
EPTEMBER
1

It was September first—Emma’s eighteenth birthday. Abe so wished he could spend it with her, as he had spent all of her previous
birthdays. Since September 1 always fell between the end of summer camp and the beginning of school, it was not a time for
parties or group celebrations. When Emma was a child, she had bemoaned her fate, since she was deprived of the school or camp
birthdays her friends celebrated. Abe and Hannah had developed the tradition of getting all dressed up and taking her to a
grown-up restaurant and a show.

This year she was starting her new life in New York. Abe knew that she was getting dressed up for dinner and maybe a show—that
part of the tradition would never change—only this time it was with someone else. Maybe her new roommate. Maybe a new boy
she had met in New York. Maybe Jon was coming down for a last fling. Abe hoped she would have a great time, only not quite
as great as the times she had experienced with her parents. Memories have their place, he thought, even in the life of a quickly
maturing young adult.

Abe was spending Emma’s birthday in the office, trying to catch up on correspondence. Typically, his mind was on Campbell.
He imagined his devil at the computer, searching for yet a new victim. Abe shut his eyes tight as if to focus his imagination
more sharply, perhaps even to be able to see the new name on Campbell’s computer. Would it be another ad executive, an editor,
an investment banker, maybe a lawyer? Abe tried not to visualize the victim in his mind’s eye.

While he drifted off into his day-mare, Rendi burst into the office. She had a worried look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” Abe asked.

“I don’t know for sure. I was at home working at my computer—actually erasing some of my journal entries that I didn’t want
to fall into anyone’s hands…”

“Closing some barn doors after the cows have gotten out?”

“In any event, that’s not what I came down here to talk about. Emma called me this morning—just a little while ago. She was
in a giddy mood, and she wanted to talk. Girl talk. She told me not to tell you. And I probably shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s going to upset you. It would upset any father.”

“What do you mean?”

“Promise me you won’t tell her I told you.”

“I promise. Now, please, what did she tell you?”

“It’s not what she
told
me. It’s what she asked me.”

“How so?”

“She asked me about woman stuff. The kinds of things she could never discuss with you.”

“She’s talked about that kind of stuff with you before, hasn’t she?”

“Yes, in the abstract. Today there was an immediacy, as if she needed to know now—today.”

“She told me she had something special planned for tonight, and she wouldn’t tell me what it was until afterward,” Abe said.

“Abe, it sounds to me like your little girl is planning to lose her virginity as a birthday present to herself.”

“That is upsetting to me, Rendi. You’re right. It’s inevitable. I guess I’m glad she waited until college. And I’m certainly
glad she’s talking to you about it. I wish I’d learned about it
after
it happened. Now I’m going to be sick to my stomach all night trying not to think about it.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“So why
did
you tell me? It’s so out of character for you to break a promise of confidentiality to Emma, especially since there’s nothing
I can do about it except drive myself crazy.”

“Abe, if that were all there is to it, I wouldn’t have told you. And maybe that’s all there
is
to it, and I shouldn’t have told you. Except she said something that I
had
to tell you. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. I’ll leave the decision to you.”

“Now you’re really getting me worried—and confused. What did she tell you?”

“Not tell me.
Ask
me!”

“What?”

“She asked me about the difference between sex with someone her own age and with someone a lot older.”

“Oh, my God. She’s having sex with a professor—already? Those goddamned exploitative bastards. I just read about that schmuck
from the University of Massachusetts who believes that it is his academic mission to ‘cure’ his students of their virginity.
I’ll sue the bastard who’s taking advantage of Emma. Do you know who it is? Can we stop him?”

“No, I don’t know who it is—for sure. It’s not a professor. She implied to me that it’s someone she has known for a while
and went out with in Boston.”

“Who the hell could it be?”

“I don’t know. There’s just one guy who fits the description.”

“Who? Damn it, stop playing games. One of her high school teachers?”

“Abe.
Think
. Stop blinding yourself. It’s not like you.”

“I can’t think. I’m too scared and too confused. Who, Rendi? Who?”

“It could be Joe Campbell.”

Abe stopped breathing. His heart literally skipped a beat. He felt nauseated and dizzy simultaneously. Why had he not thought
of that? Why had his two major obsessions—Campbell and Emma—remained on two separate tracks? Why had he not put them together?
Had his DLBS blinded him even when it came to his daughter’s welfare? He retraced the clues that should have led him to suspect
this awful possibility.

Emma had been open about her “crush” on Campbell. She had come to the trial. She believed he was innocent—and Abe never tried
to disabuse her of that fantasy. She had gone to dinner with him, maybe even flirted a little. It seemed so innocent at the
time. It simply never occurred to Abe that there could be anything sexual or romantic between them. Campbell was almost fourteen
years her senior—a man of the world. Now it all came together. Well, not quite all, Abe realized.

“Emma doesn’t fit Campbell’s MO,” he said excitedly. “She’s not at all like the others. If he ever dared to do anything against
her will, she would be the first one to press charges. Campbell has to know that. And there’s nothing in any computer about
Emma, is there, Rendi?”

“Well, there were a few references to her in
my
computer, but nothing like the stuff about the other women.”

Justin walked into Abe’s office, where he had heard her and Abe in animated conversation.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” he asked Abe.

“I don’t know, Justin. Rendi just told me something that makes us suspect Emma may be going out with Campbell tonight.”

“Oh, my God, are you sure?”

“No, because Emma doesn’t fit Campbell’s MO.”

“You’re probably right,” Rendi interrupted, “though you wouldn’t be the first father not to know everything about his daughter’s
secret life.”

“Not something Campbell would be interested in,” Abe insisted. “She’d never keep anything like that from me.”

“That raises the second scary possibility,” Rendi went on.

“What second possibility?” Abe asked in panic.

“Okay. I don’t think this is likely, but it is
possible
. Maybe the death of Midge Lester was no accident. Maybe Campbell’s perverse need for sexual violence has escalated to the
point where he
needs
to
kill
in order to achieve gratification. Remember what his former wife told me about how his need for violence had escalated even
back then. Maybe now he
needs
to kill.”

“Emma doesn’t fit Campbell’s MO,” Abe repeated, finally sitting down. “I don’t care what you say, she’s not like those other
women.”

“Abe, stop,” Rendi said. “You’re not thinking. If Campbell has now decided to
kill
the women he rapes, he doesn’t any longer
need
women who fit his old MO. They don’t have to be women with sordid pasts, because they’re not going to be alive to testify
against him. Abe, Campbell may be planning to
kill
Emma.”

Upon hearing those words, Abe stood up and dialed Emma’s number in New York. The phone rang three times, and then a voice
answered: “Hi, Emma and Zoe are out exploring this great city. Please leave a message at the beep.”

Abe dialed Campbell’s number: no answer. He called Zoe’s parents in New Rochelle. They were home, but they had no idea where
Zoe was. She would be home for dinner after 6
P.M
., they told him, and he could call her then. Abe asked for the name and number of the uncle’s boutique in SoHo, and they
gave him the number.

Next, Abe called and reached Zoe’s uncle, who confirmed that Zoe and Emma had been in yesterday and that Emma had bought a
red dress. Emma had a special date with a very important person, Zoe had confided to her uncle. She wouldn’t reveal his name.

While Abe was making the calls, Justin remembered what he had found out about the biblical names that Haskel had babbled during
his last visit with Abe. “Now it makes sense,” Justin said. “I couldn’t make heads or tails of the story when I found it.”

“What is it?” Abe demanded.

“It’s a story about the evil king of Amalek, whom God had condemned to immediate death. King Saul delayed the king’s execution,
despite God’s order not to be ‘too merciful.’ The delay allowed the evil king to sire a child. A descendant of that evil king’s
child then endangered the life of the descendants of the man who had been merciful to him. It led the rabbis to conclude that
‘showing mercy to an undeserving person is as sinful as not showing compassion to a deserving person.’”

“Oh, my God. Haskel was trying to warn me that Campbell might go after Emma, and I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out.”
Abe realized that it wasn’t the absence of any smarts—no one could be faulted for that. It was once again his defense lawyer’s
blind spot—and that was entirely his own fault. He was to blame for the reality that Emma’s life was now in danger.

Abe decided to call the New York City police. He had an old friend from Dorchester who was president of the Shomrim Society,
the Jewish policemen’s benevolent group in Manhattan. He reached David Rothman at headquarters, where he currently served
as head of the hostage rescue unit. Suddenly all of Abe’s ethical qualms had gone up in a puff of smoke.

Abe had stopped being a lawyer. Now he was a father determined to save his little girl’s life. Maybe it was better for ten
guilty men to go free than for one innocent to be wrongly convicted—but not if one of those guilty men was going after your
own daughter! Abe was now willing to disobey any rule, violate any law, break any commandment, to stop his diabolical former
client from hurting his daughter.

But was there anything he could do?

Abe quickly told Rothman the whole story. Rothman was aware of the Midge Lester murder, and he couldn’t believe Campbell was
the murderer. “Hey, I’m a Knicks fan. No way. Joe Campbell’s not a rapist. You showed that at his trial. And he’s certainly
not a killer. No way.”

“I can prove it,” Abe insisted, and he explained Campbell’s computer MO.

“Holy shit,” Rothman said. “Holy, holy shit. Any leads? Where are they going?”

“To a fancy restaurant. Maybe a show. And then probably to a big hotel. He wouldn’t take her back to his place or to hers.
He probably has a hotel room already under someone else’s name, and he’s concocted some cover story as to why he wants to
take her there. More romantic or something.”

“Not much of a lead. There are a thousand fancy restaurants, hundreds of shows, and dozens of big hotels. I could never convince
the brass to watch them all—especially on the basis of what you’ve got. It’s all circumstantial. You don’t know for sure she’s
even out with Campbell.”

“It’s him, Dave. I know it. It’s my daughter. I can feel it.”

“How quickly can you be in New York?”

Abe looked at his watch: it was 1:45
P.M.
“I can get the two-thirty shuttle and be at police headquarters by four, four-fifteen at the latest.”

“That gives us maybe five or six hours to stop this motherfucker,” Rothman said. “I’ll do what I can to get the troops out
while you’re in transit. I can’t promise much. Nelson Mandela’s in town, and a lot of cops are tied up in that. Bring whatever
documents you have. We may need to try for a warrant. And fax a recent photo of Emma.”

Abe grabbed his files, instructing Justin to stay behind and man the phones in case Emma called. He also told Justin to try
to break into Joe Campbell’s computer files. “Maybe there’s a clue in there somewhere to where he’s taking Emma.”

“Let’s give him a little bit of his own medicine—and hope it works,” Justin said as he flipped on his modem.

Rendi had already called a cab. Now she and Abe ran down the stairs and ordered the driver to speed to the Delta shuttle.

During the flight to La Guardia, Abe was on the phone, calling the Barnard security people and begging them to search Emma’s
room for any clues as to where she might be planning to spend the night of her eighteenth birthday. He thought back to her
birth, remembering it as though it were yesterday. Hannah had been calm and in control. Abe had been a nervous wreck. He had
wanted a boy, Hannah a girl. They hadn’t known what it was going to be until Emma had emerged into Abe’s waiting arms. When
he’d announced it was a girl, he’d been thrilled. He’d never even remembered that he had wanted a boy, until Hannah had reminded
him several years later.