Total Victim Theory (12 page)

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

She looked down. I think there were tears shimmering in her eyes. “Not yet,” she whispered. “I’m not ready.”

“That's fine,” I said.

For a while she said nothing. Then she looked up at me. “I'm kind of jealous of you, Jake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your brain—it let you forget.” She gave a little laugh. “Mine
always makes me remember.”

I held her in my arms, just like I'm holding her now, and I told her everything would be okay.

We spent most of the next day together in bed. That afternoon, I gave her a peck on the lips in the driveway as she was leaving my place. I thought I was kissing her goodnight on a Sunday evening, but it was good-bye forever. She waved and drove off in the white Malibu.

Late that night she called me and said simply “I can’t see you anymore.” Her voice, empty and distant. There was some guy in the background. She hung up and that was that. She never showed up at work again and supposedly moved out of town. I was never clear on the details. It had something to do with the ex-boyfriend and maybe on a deeper level, with her being messed up in the head.

It could have been that she left because she just hadn’t liked me enough. Maybe she couldn’t envision herself growing old with me, or she found my heart and soul somehow insufficient. Or maybe I hadn’t made her come the way she needed to on some animal level. Or I could have just been a rebound. Or my burned-off ear could have secretly made her sick. There are a hundred possibilities. Not sure which is the worst.

What I felt back then is preserved inside me, just as it was the day she left. Forever. It became the template of what love is—defining, framing, and perhaps making impossible all subsequent loves.

There would never be truth, only interpretations.

That I loved her was the only real thing.

That it was my fate to lose her and to one day find her again, murdered in the Mexican sand—maybe that is the only real thing.

But really, it's neither.

It's her absence that's the only real thing.

*

A police vehicle comes and picks up Lisa's body.

Silva and I drive back through the desert. Slower than before. The city's still far away. The lights, a twinkling smear in my wet, half-closed eyes.

Silva covered for me with Sandoval. He told the officer that the case just meant a lot to me and that I was upset at having so
narrowly missed the chance to bag the killer. Sandoval will be on thin ice as a result of his late arrival, so hopefully, spreading rumors about my meltdown will be the farthest thing from his mind.

Clouds are covering up the moon and the desert seems much darker now. The sand's a dim charcoal hue and all the details are lost. For a long time neither of us speaks and there's only the sound of the engine and the tires treading across the terrain.

Finally, Silva turns to me. “Who was she, Jake?”

His question interrupts my thoughts and I look over at him. “What?”

“The woman,” he says, his eyes studying my dejected face. “You knew her—didn't you?”

I look away from him, out the window. “Yeah. We were close once. I hadn't seen her in a long time.”

Silva shakes his head to himself, as if refusing to believe it. A long sigh empties the air from his lungs. “Jesus, what the fuck is going on here?” The words are almost a whisper.

I look at him. “I don't know what's going on,” I say. “And I don’t know if I want to.”

“Before, when you mentioned the names in that book of yours, the ledger, I didn't really know what to make of that, but now . . . Jesus, Jake. Is it possible that—”

I cut him off. “Look Silva, this has to stay absolutely between us. That I knew the girl. I don't know what the fuck is going on or what this means, but no one else can know. Got it?”

“That goes without saying Jake—”

“I've got to sort all this out. Figure out where it leaves me as far as the case goes.”

“What do you mean?” He sounds concerned.

“What do you think I mean? An agent can't stay on a case if the subject of the investigation is someone he's had a relationship with. It's a conflict and the second I mention it to anyone—what happened tonight—they're going to ship me back to the US without batting an eye.”

Silva thinks for a moment. “Well, what do
you
want to do, Jake? Do you even want to stick with the case after this?”

The look on my face answers his question. Of course I want to stay on the fucking case.

Silva clears his throat. “If you don’t report it, would there be any way for the Bureau to find out?”

“It was eleven years ago, in a different state. I doubt they'd ever be able to connect her to me.”

A long pensive silence. I can see Silva's mulling it carefully over. “So don't tell them.” Then he lights a cigarette and cracks the window.

“I'm not sure if it's that simple, Silva.”

“It is, Jake,” he says. “Whatever your reasons are for wanting to stay on, that's great and I support you. It's obvious it's the right thing to do. But the far more important issue, from my perspective, is that there's no fucking way you're leaving me in the middle of this one.”

15

Austin

Courtney had spent the last three or four hours reading for her modern world lit class. The Spider House coffee shop on Guadalupe Street. was her favorite place to study. Her brain was in high gear after two nonfat lattes and a blueberry scone.

“
The Master and Margarita
is an awesome book,” said a man’s voice to Courtney’s left.

She looked up. She was skeptical at first—probably some ex-con creeper was her first thought—but she relaxed once she saw how cute the guy was. He was wearing a striped turtleneck, horn rimmed glasses, and a Johnny-Depp-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean goatee.

She smiled.

When she saw he was reading a criminal procedure textbook, her smile broadened.
Law Student.
“Yeah, I’m really, really enjoying it,” she said.

“I love the first scene where the devil starts up the conversation with the guy at the train station,” he said. He took a sip of his yerba mate and underlined a passage with a pink highlighter.

“It’s so freaky when the dude gets decapitated by the train!”

“I know, right? And the way the devil hinted it was going to happen ahead of time and there was nothing he could do about it.”

“This is already on my list of top ten favorite books.”

He took another, almost indulgent, sip. “That’s surprising.”

Courtney studied him, trying to place the context of the comment. “What’s surprising?”

“That you’ve read ten books,” he said, his face deadly serious.

She scowled, then cracked up when she realized it was a joke. “So I take it you’re a law school student,” she said gesturing at his book.

“Yeah, I’m a second year.”

“Do you know Doug Dimpsel?” she asked.

“Yeah, I know Doug real well. We were in property class and moot court together. Super-bright guy.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Doug?” Courtney laughed. “He was friends with my older brother in high school. I always thought he was a total douche.”

“I think that’s just an act,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “He likes to keep his intellect on the DL.”

“He does a good job of it.”

At this point, the turtleneck stood up—perhaps a bit abruptly—and walked over to Courtney’s table. He was tall with broad shoulders. Apparently law school hadn’t forced him to skip any workouts. “I’m Jeff, by the way,” he said, presenting her with his hand.

“Courtney.” She smiled. “And what’s your last name?”

Jeff yawned. “Misner,” he said.

“Sounds kind of nerdy. I guess it suits you.” That was payback for his comment that she’d never read
ten books
. “It’s German, right?”

“Viking,” he said.

Courtney studied him to see if he was joking. His poker face was pretty good. His regular face wasn’t bad either. “That’s supposed to be funny, I take it? There’s no such thing as a Viking name, is there?”

“I mean, it’s . . . um . . . Trojan.” He held the straight face for a two-second count, then grinned.

Courtney chortled. She liked the way he said things that were deliberately confusing. Somewhere between serious and joking. You couldn’t tell and you got jammed. Like when a computer freezes.

“I’ve got to run meet a friend soon,” Jeff said, “but do you mind if I join you for a minute?”

“Um. . . .” Wow, that was a bit direct. Then again, confidence was a good thing. Plus, they had mutual friends, so it wasn’t like this was a total random scamming on her. “Sure, have a seat.” She
put her bookmark in and closed the book.

Within fifteen minutes of Jeff sitting down, Courtney had the impression she’d known him a long time. Like in a past life or something. They’d already discussed everything from philosophy to jam bands to beer pong. Courtney felt so comfortable with him, she even brought up the subject of exes.

“So, have you ever, like, really been into someone?” Courtney asked, peering into his eyes. She was probing to see if there were other love interests in the picture. It was smart to look a couple of moves ahead and scope out the competition. Just in case she steered things in that direction down the road.

“You mean like
really really
?” he said.

He was mocking her with the
really, really
. She rolled her eyes. “I mean, have you ever had strong feelings for someone?”

He looked pensive, almost melancholy. “There was one girl, once.”

“Yeah?” She leaned in closer.

Jeff looked her over. “Yeah. You remind me a bit of her,” he said. “Same hair.” He picked up the copy of
The Master and Margarita
and carefully covered up the lower half of Courtney’s face. “Same eyes too.” He put the book down and stared at her for a minute. “You guys are dead ringers, actually.”

“Well, what happened to her?”

“Sometimes things just don’t work out. People are in different places.”

“More detail please.”

Jeff pursed his lips and balked. “I had a thing with her roommate. Before I met her. That ended badly. And it probably soured her on the possibility of anything serious with me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, though she was, in fact, relieved to hear that.

“Water under the bridge,” he said, wistfully. “But speaking of
Margaritas,
” he pointed at her book, “want to come with me to Chuy’s to partake of a couple of the frozen variety?”

She looked at her watch. “That’s tempting, but I’ve got this dumb tin-foil-and-bubble-wrap party I’ve got to start getting ready for.”

“I’ve got to meet my friend in less than an hour, so it would be quick.”

She really wanted to see how far she could go with this conversation. He was totally starting to open up. It took months for some guys to get to that point. “Okay, why not?”

Two hours and two margaritas later, Courtney was coming to terms with the fact that she probably wouldn't make it to the Kappa Alpha bubble wrap party. Some of her sorority sisters would have their panties in a bunch, but they would just have to deal.

She texted her friend.
Have to flake on tonight. Bigger fish to fry
.

When she started margarita
numero tres
, she’d already penciled Jeff in on the shortlist of
PLTs.
Potential Long Terms.

Jeff must have ditched out on meeting his friend as well, because it never came up again.

Things were going well, but there was one small concern. Despite the intense connection that seemed to be developing, Jeff didn't send many signals of what he thought of her. Way different than the typical frat guy, who stared nonstop at her boobs and told her how beautiful she was every other sentence.

Jeff’s reticence in this regard was a bit annoying, actually. She wasn’t sure if it was out of shyness, or cautiousness, or genuine disinterest that he gave her no hint of his affections. It was her role, after all, to keep him guessing, not the other way around.

Of course, he had to be interested. Why else would he be spending all this time with her?

Except, that wasn’t necessarily true. He could have just felt lonely or bored and wanted the company, or he could have just wanted to bone her and then peace out. Heck, he could have been gay for all she knew.

At about 1:00 a.m., a local band started playing a set of oldies. Courtney asked Jeff to dance and during “Oh Donna” they danced slow and close. She pressed as near to him as decorum would allow, letting him feel the length of her body. She rested her head on his shoulder, as if smitten the way girls used to get in old movies like
Back to the Future
.

It would have been an opportune moment for him to finagle a gentle peck. And a first kiss, if and when it came, would do much to clarify his interest in her. To end this cloak-and-dagger of the heart.

But he remained the gentleman. Too much so, in her opinion.
How could she entice him with her false modesty if he made no untoward advances?

But as the song was ending, Jeff’s anatomy tilted his hand and afforded a glimpse of the truth that lay behind his mask. From just below his belt line, Courtney felt a slight, but noticeable nudge—like she’d brushed up against a sleeping snake in the dark and wakened it. At least she could cross his being gay off the list.

Just before last call, Jeff said he was a bit tired and asked if they could call it a night. Courtney’s heart sank. But then he asked if he might walk her home. Trying to suppress a smile, she
reluctantly
agreed.

Stumbling forth from Chuy’s, they walked up Dean Keaton and over to Speedway Boulevard. From there they decided to cut through campus. Right in front of Saner Field, a thunder clap rang out and seconds later it began to rain. Then it rained harder. Jeff took Courtney by the hand and they made a dash toward the Student Union, the main lobby of which was open all night. They stepped into the entranceway, wet and panting.

There was an awkward silence. Courtney loved
awkward
, because awkward implied intense feeling. In its soaked, glistening splendor, this was perfect. A fairytale moment. If their drunken dalliance bloomed into the real thing—romance, enduring affection, multiple hookups—they would look back on this moment with nostalgia. An iconic setting for a first kiss.