The Marriage at the Rue Morgue (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) (11 page)

Lance and I worked together at the center throughout graduate school. We partnered on several research projects, writing grants and papers together, but never feeling any attraction. Or anyway, I didn’t feel attraction. I found out later that Lance felt it, and strongly, but never acted, because I was always dating somebody else. And I did, too. I went around with several guys, all of them really the same guy with different names. I thought that since they were all I could pick up, they must be all Iron-weed had to offer. I expected I would finish my degree and move away, that maybe the good guys were in larger cities.

I assumed Lance was planning to leave after he completed his degree, when I thought about it at all. He said as much, speaking of Africa with great nostalgia. It never crossed my mind that he had come to Ironweed meaning to stay. I didn’t realize in those days that he was invested completely in Art’s vision, and that he wanted to remain in rural Ohio so he could continue his research with his mentor. He loved the center and, like Art, he couldn’t imagine himself anywhere else. And that was the state of affairs when Lance brought Alex to the center function, where he asked me to dance.

Even then, Alex was on the path to a strong coaching career, like so many other Ironweed football graduates before him. He was an offensive coordinator for Toledo South’s football team, and I don’t know whether it was the cologne or his fondness for ten-gallon hats, but I liked him from that first moment of introduction.

The two brothers looked a lot alike. They both had black hair and gray eyes, angular jawlines, and in those days, they both wore close-cropped beards. But where Lance was reedy and tall, Alex was barrel-chested and somewhat shorter. He had probably been visiting Lance to dodge the shrapnel from a bad breakup, but I didn’t know that at the time. He was also already completely sloshed when he came up to me at that function.

I
did
recognize the drunkenness, and I thought it was endearing. He said, “Let’s
dance,
” even though this was one of those coat and tie affairs where well-heeled donors circulated in the university’s conference rooms politely sipping champagne while they waited for Art to show a video about the larger chimpanzee enclosure he was hoping to fund.

“No, I don’t think we’ll be dancing here,” I said.

“Then come on with me,” he said. “I know exactly where we need to be. I’ll even let you drive.”

I stayed until after my part in the presentation, then let Alex lure me away. I drove him out to a nightclub, where we danced until two thirty in the morning. Within two months, we were spending every weekend together, and within three, he had asked me to marry him.

I couldn’t say yes. It was too soon, too fast for someone like me, who did everything through planning and analysis. My refusal didn’t end our relationship, but that was when things started to unravel. Three months and he owned my soul. But I didn’t understand that. It was years of therapy before I realized how quickly I had given myself away. I did see that nearly every time I joined him or he joined me, Alex was drunk, but that described any of the guys I went around with. But after I declined that proposal, the loving hand he laid on my arm whenever we left a building became a pincer, the arm around my shoulder a vise grip.

And then he started hitting. I was an educated woman who understood the cycle of violence from an intellectual standpoint. I didn’t know what it was like to love someone who terrorized me. At first, it was only when he was visibly drunk, and I blamed the alcohol, not the man drinking it. But even in those early days, I knew better than to tell him he had a problem. He had used the phrase, “if you know what’s good for you” the first time he struck me, and I did know. Or I thought I did.

I shut up and took it, sure that Alex was a scientific riddle, ready for me to solve him. Instead of looking up domestic violence, I looked into changing myself. I accepted his marriage proposal, because I thought he was acting out the hurt I had caused him when I said “no” the first time.

Our relationship improved for a little while after that. He turned back into the merry dancer who had picked me up at the center’s function. We made a whirlwind trip out west so I could meet Sophia and Alex’s father, Wayne. His parents were distant, at best, and Sophia even said, “You’ll be like the other ones,” right to my face.

When we got home and I asked Alex which other ones Sophia had meant, he lit into me with a kitchen mug that shattered into a thousand pieces. In the emergency room, I told the doctor I fell through a glass door. He didn’t believe me, and he even managed to get me away from Alex long enough for a nurse to ask if I had been abused, but I kept lying to cover for the man I thought I loved.

And so we went on for eleven more months. It wasn’t all bad. We still lived in separate cities, and I saw him mainly on weekends. But he would appear at the center sometimes with roses, in the middle of the week. Or he would send candy through the mail. He threw me a surprise birthday party with all his friends at his apartment. And I stayed with him for those times. For the beautiful surprises and the moments of love.

But Alex was convinced that I had somebody on the side. Somebody named Lance. In reality, I had come to the realization that I wouldn’t leave the center without finding another job. And I wasn’t looking very hard for a job because I knew they didn’t exist. I loved the animals at Art’s sanctuary. And I spent a great deal of time that should have been devoted to my dissertation in developing new enrichment activities.

Alex couldn’t leave
his
job. Not a rising star in the world of NCAA coaching. And in any case, his work paid better, and he thought that since I wasn’t planning to use my doctorate to earn big bucks in a lab once I completed it, it must be largely for show. He started referring to it as my “M-R-S.” A therapist later pointed out that he felt threatened to have a girlfriend with more education than he had.

He started spying on me, and became convinced I was cheating on him with his brother. I
was
frequently in Lance’s company those days, as I had been throughout grad school. We were research partners and friends. Lance suspected the abuse before he was certain, as much because he knew his brother’s history as because he knew me.

And then he knew for sure.

Even though I always wore long sleeves at work, the spider monkeys gave me away one day. I shut their enclosure gate and the mesh snagged on my sleeve at the elbow, jerking me forward and ripping the fabric. I stood regaining my bearings for a moment too long after I got disentangled from the metal. I didn’t feel the tail that snuck in while I was staring straight at its owner. I turned to walk away from the enclosure, and I stepped straight out of my shirt. It was so surprising that I didn’t do any of the things I might have done to stay dressed if I had seen it coming. But my shirt jerked once, I pulled my arms free to get untangled, and it popped off over my head. In an instant, I found myself exposed.

I squeaked and crossed my arms over my bra, but it was my arms that I should have been covering, and my stomach, and my back. I looked around to see how I might get back my clothing, since its new owner had pulled it close to the mesh and was working it through the two-inch-wide gaps with dexterous fingers. When I turned back, there was Lance, staring open-mouthed, a look on his face that could only be called heartbreak. I fled indoors and got a spare top out of my locker.

When I came out of the bathroom, clothed once more, Lance confronted me directly. He said, “I have a phone number for you.”

“Leave me alone,” I told him.

He said, “No.”

“Leave me alone, Lance Lakeland. I have to take this kind of crap from Alex, but you’ve got no claim on me whatsoever.”

“No you
don’t,
” he told me. “You don’t have to take
that
from anybody. Listen, Bub’s been engaged twice already. I should have told you sooner, but I don’t mess around in his life. And I didn’t know for sure what was going on. But I know both women broke it off pretty quickly. And I know you’re my friend. And I know he . . . I know he did that to you.” Lance pointed to the top half of my body. I felt like it would never be protected despite the fresh shirt I wore. It was impossible to say which purpling or yellowish mass he meant, or whether he was referring to all of them together. He went on. “His last fiancée was named Nicole. She gave me her number to give to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Lance said, “I don’t . . . she didn’t mean you specifically, but right after they split, she gave me her number and said to give it to Alex’s next . . . arm candy.” He blushed at the term even more deeply than I had seen him blush at the sight of my bruises.

“Leave me
alone.
” I was trying not to cry, humiliated to have this part of my private life exposed.

“I didn’t know why she gave it to me, or I wouldn’t have held onto it this long,” he began, but I left. It was more than I could stand to hear.

Since he couldn’t get me to listen, he went behind my back and gave the number to my mother. Mama already knew. Arguments with her about Alex had led to me moving into the apartment. She tried to get the police involved, but since I wouldn’t report any abuse, they didn’t take an interest. When Lance brought Mama that phone number,
she
called Nicole, who agreed to call me.

I wasn’t home, so she got the machine. She said, “Hi, my name’s Nikki, and I hope you can call me back.”

That was it. She didn’t leave her number, and she even concealed her voice, tried to use a chipper lilt so nobody could recognize her. But Alex did. Checking up on me, he played the messages before I got home that day to hear them. I always checked my complex’s lot for his car, because he was showing up more and more frequently without warning.

So I knew he was at my apartment before I went inside. I was braced for trouble. But delaying trouble with him made it worse in the long run. When I walked in, I knew at once by the collection of beer cans spilling out of my sink that he was drunk. I came inside and shut the door. Then I turned my face to the wood and leaned into it, drained from the days of listening to Lance and my mother say horrible things about Alex, things that were that much worse because they were true. Standing there, I heard Nicole’s voice, and it confused me. “Hi, my name is Nikki, and I hope you can call me back.” Click. Click. Understanding washed over me. The answering machine.

He would want to know who this was, this Nikki, and what would I tell him? “Hi, my name is Nikki and . . .” Click. Click. No. He didn’t
want
to know. He
already knew.
Alex was rewinding the tape. Playing it over and over again. He had done this before with messages from Lance, searching innocent statements for signs of an affair.

“Hi, my name . . .” Click. Click. It wouldn’t do any good to claim I didn’t know her and couldn’t imagine what she wanted. Lying, like putting it off, only made things worse. Mama had told me to expect the call. I had been fuming all the way home about her interference, her attempts to involve the police, and this ridiculous effort to drag in Alex’s ex-girlfriend.

“Hi, my . . .” Click.

Click.

“Hi . . .” Click.

Click. He played the message repeatedly while I stood breathing, bracing, because I knew what was coming. If I tried to leave, he would be on top of me faster than I could open the door I was leaning against.

“Hi, my name is Nikki . . .” Click. Click.

Bang!
The answering machine hit the door beside my head.

I flinched to the left and tried to explain. “No, please, Alex. You don’t understand.”

Another
bang,
this one on the other side of my head. The phone. Terrible choice of words. I knew better than to tell Alex he didn’t understand something.

The next sound was a crunch. I turned from the door to see him coming toward me, spinning the phone base by its cord. The crunch was a picture splintering as the impromptu mace connected with it. Alex continued whipping the phone base around his head, coming at me with a look like murder in his eyes.

“Help me,” I whispered. I shouted it, screamed it. “Help me!
Help me!
” But nobody answered, and I barely had time to drop to the ground and bury my head between my knees, trying to protect it from a man who wouldn’t show me mercy.

It must have gotten worse and louder, because a neighbor called the cops. But I don’t remember anything after that moment when I realized Alex didn’t mean to let me escape my apartment alive. At the hospital,
this
hospital, Lance and Art sat vigil with my family until they sent me to Columbus in a helicopter.

Now, I couldn’t stand being out in the waiting room, knowing that Art wasn’t going to walk out the doors again. Lance and I had left Art’s room to give Rick some time alone. His mother was Art’s sister, and Art was the only remaining sibling of three. Now Rick had no family left on that side. I didn’t know about his father. Maybe Rick had no one left at all. I couldn’t stand to be still, but I couldn’t bear to invade Rick’s space, and my anxiety sent me straight back into memory.

They thought for a while that I might die, and I still bore scars down my back from the electric cord’s prongs. The neighbor’s screams drove Alex out before the police arrived, and that saved my life. That and my dropping down face forward. My facial bones were broken in several places, but not destroyed. He went after my shoulders and spine, and he fled before he broke my neck. Through plea bargaining, he wound up in a rehab program instead of jail. To his credit, he had never tried to violate the restraining order. Had never tried to make contact.

It was only when I was recovering from being beaten half to death by his brother that I realized how much Lance cared for me. I could barely complete even basic tasks for myself when I was released from the hospital, so he helped my parents move me back home, into a downstairs room because I still had dizzy spells and couldn’t manage stairs.

He brought me the results of the experiments we had completed, collected books and articles from scientific journals for me, then typed up dissertation chapters I wrote in shaky longhand because I couldn’t lift either arm as high as a keyboard yet.