What Strange Creatures (37 page)

“That’s definitely you,” an assured female voice was saying.

“No, it’s not,” a male voice snapped back.

“Even if you try to say it’s not, it’ll do some serious damage.” The voice was Kim’s.

“I think maybe you should leave,” said the guy, who sounded very much like Zach.

Kim snorted. “I don’t think you want me to leave just yet, do you? Don’t you want to think about it? Listen, Professor Wagner. I didn’t go after this. It just plopped into my lap. Dustin sent me the footage. He’s all like, ‘Don’t ask
that
guy to help you. He used to hang out with my brother, and he’s an ass. Get a
real
writer.’ I defended you, though. I told him I couldn’t think of anyone better to help me. But it’s now or never. Time is running out. The election’s not really that far off.”

The blue-gray on the screen shifted, and then Kim spoke again.

“You said yourself that Janice Obermeier is a good one for these sorts of sensationalistic stories. I’ve got her number right here. Hold on a second.”

“Kim, come on now.”

“Shhh. It’s ringing,” Kim said in a singsong voice. “Oh. Voice mail. Hello, Ms. Obermeier. My name’s Kim Graber. We spoke last week. I just wanted you to know I’ve got some special new footage you might be interested in. Slightly different story. Call me back if you get a chance? You have my number.”

After a moment Zach said, “I doubt that’ll be enough to hook Janice, Kim.”

Kim sighed or breathed heavily—I couldn’t tell which. “I’ve told her I’ve got special footage. It’ll either be about Donald Wallace or about someone else—you know what I mean?”

There was a long silence. While I waited for more, I heard the gentle thump of Rolf jumping off the countertop.

“Juvenile criminal records are sealed,” Zach said.

“Records? Sure. But that footage Dustin sent me, that’s something else altogether. When was that taken? Two years ago? You don’t sound very sorry. You sound pretty gross, actually. Imagine if this video went viral. It’ll make an interesting story. An up-and-comer at this very liberal university. But such a mark on his past. A horrible, hateful act. And a fair amount of sloppy dishonesty in his writing to boot.”

“What do you
want,
Kim?” Zach demanded.

“I want you to help me with this video I’m doing. I want you to put a story about it in
Waltham’s.
I want your name on it.”

Zach sighed. “Do you really think that’s going to help you? Do you really think you’re going to affect the outcome of the election at all? Listen, Kim. I have some money I’ve been saving for a trip.”

“Okay,” Kim said skeptically. “So?”

“Maybe that would help you do some things you’d like. Take some time away. Get your mind off all this Donald Wallace craziness.”

“I’ve told you what I want,” Kim said sharply. “I don’t want money. And it’s not craziness.”

“Or do something nice for Andrew Abbott. How about
that
? Write an anonymous check. He’d probably like that better than this bizarre project you’re engaged in.”

“I don’t want money. I only want you to help me. Because people listen to you. For some reason.”

A few moments of silence followed Kim’s words.

“I’m going to have to think about it,” Zach said quietly.

“I’m going to a town meeting that Wallace is having near Rowington. I want someone there from an important publication. To cover it when someone ambushes him about his past.”

Both Kim and Zach were quiet for a moment.

“I’m ready to act, Professor Wagner. One way or another.”

Zach remained quiet.

“This is the easier way. You agree to cover the town meeting at least. You meet me in Rowington in the morning.”

Zach exhaled. “Okay.”

“Okay, good. I’m glad.”

I’d heard enough. I had to get out of here—and quickly, with that DVD safely in hand. I slammed the
EJECT
button on my computer.

“Whatcha been watching?” a voice said behind me.

“Omigod!” I yelped, jumping up.

It was Zach. It hadn’t been one of my cats in the kitchen. Zach had come in quietly, and I could tell by his dull tone that he already knew very well what I’d been watching.

“Theresa,” Zach said softly. “It’s not what it—”

“You’re not going to say, ‘It’s not what it looks like,’ are you?” I muttered, snatching the emerging DVD from under his approaching hand.

“Of course not,” he said.

I stood up from the couch and ran out of the living room.

Zach likely would’ve caught up with me, but Boober was between us, yapping at the excitement in our quick movement, tripping up Zach’s mad dash.

I slammed the bathroom door in Zach’s and Boober’s faces and locked it.

“Damn it, Theresa!” Zach pounded on the door.

Geraldine, who was using the litter box near the toilet, looked stunned.

“Shhh,” I told her.

Geraldine swiped her paw at the litter and glared at me.

“Theresa, come out,” Zach was saying. “I’d like us to talk about this.”

“You helped beat a kid to death? Because he was gay?” I asked.

“It wasn’t ever supposed to end like that,” Zach said quietly. “I was very young. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened.”

“Really? Because you didn’t seem all that remorseful in that footage Kim had. She was right about that. You look like an entitled asshole, on top of everything else. You never cared about finding Kim’s old footage, did you?
This
is what you were looking for.”

“What?
No.
Theresa, why don’t you come out so we can talk face-to-face?”

Zach knocked gently now, instead of pounding. He’d decided to reconsider his strategy and his tone.

“I’m fine here,” I said through the door. “We can talk like this.”

“What do you want to know, Theresa? I’ll explain anything to you if you just give me that thing.”

“I want to know about the fire you set when you were a kid. Did that really happen?”

He hesitated. “No.”

“You got that story from Trenton and used it like it was yours?”

“Only a little of it. I made it into a better story. I gave it more heart, less dysfunction.”

Something about this statement made my pulse race even harder. It sounded so calculating and so cynical.

“The idea was to pique people’s interest,” he continued. “I gave all those kids a voice. But I needed a story that would draw people in.”

“Why didn’t you use your own story? The real one?”

“Because no one wants to read a story by someone who did something so terrible.”

I wasn’t sure that was true. But whether a university would want to keep such a person on staff—especially the way he appeared in that relatively recent footage—was a different question.

“Really, I’d intended all along to tell the truth about myself.” There was pleading in Zach’s voice. “But when it came down to doing it, it was just too painful. To tell it straight. So I made up Anthony and gave the story to him. It was stupid, I know.”

I could hear Zach’s heavy sigh through the doorway. Was I supposed to feel sympathetic? I couldn’t tell what effect he was going for, which scared me.

“Didn’t Trenton care at all?” I asked. I patted my pockets, hoping I still had my cell phone on me. I did not. It was on my kitchen table.

“No. Dustin told me about the fire in my original interview. When I asked Trenton about it, he asked me not to put it in the book. So I didn’t. At least not in a way that involved him. Which was all he really cared about.”

“And you didn’t think he’d notice that you changed it a little bit and put it in another part of your book?”

Zach paused. Then I saw the bathroom doorknob twitch.

“You didn’t, did you? You think that little of your subjects?”

I closed the toilet and sat on it.

“He contacted me when the book came out,” Zach said. “But it didn’t really bother him, no. Not as long as I kept him and his brother looking okay. And I gave him some cash now and then, from the book. Everyone was happy with that arrangement.”

An
arrangement.
I was beginning to understand.

There was a paperback of a modern-English translation of
The Book of Margery Kempe
on the toilet tank. I picked it up and thumbed its browned pages while I waited for Zach to continue. He didn’t.

“You got pretty comfortable with Trenton, I guess,” I prompted.

“Trenton and I are fine with each other. Everyone got what they wanted out of that relationship.”

I opened my Marge book. “It is a great grace and miracle that you still have your wits,” Jesus tells Margery, in one of their many heart-to-hearts. I’d marked that with a smiley face back when I was an undergrad. If I could have a conversation with my past self, I’d tell her what a dweeb she was. Beyond that I had little wisdom for her. After all—look where I’d ended up.

“I get it,” I said after a while. “You paid him off to cover a mistake you made. Just like your parents did for you when you were a kid.”

I saw the doorknob move again—more subtly this time. Maybe he was trying to figure out a way to pick the lock. I slid off the toilet and quietly began to unlock the bathroom window.

“You just didn’t think dopey old Dustin was paying much attention,” I said as loudly as I could, hoping to cover up the sound of the window. “And you didn’t expect some random person like Kim to go sniffing into it later.”

Outside the bathroom door, there was a long silence followed by a horrible squeaking yelp that surely came out of Boober.

“So I’m holding your little dog here,” Zach said. “What did you say his name was?”

“Ripley,” I said softly. Like “Margery Lipinski” the first time, it just slipped out. I didn’t want to give Zach any more power than he already had.

“What else did you want to know?” Zach asked.

I heard Boober whimper.

“You’re okay, Ripley,” Zach said softly. “Because Theresa is going to come out of there soon, and she’s going to give me that DVD.”

“Right, Theresa?”

I didn’t reply. I needed to figure out a way to save Boober
and
the DVD. I considered tossing the DVD out the window but worried Zach would hear me push the screen out—and I didn’t want it to leave my hands.

“Theresa?”

“Hold on a sec,” I said, opening my medicine cabinet and scanning its contents. Dental floss. Did I have the brute strength to strangle him with that? Band-Aids. Advil. My eyes focused on a nail file. I slid it out of the cabinet as quietly as I could and gripped it tightly in my fist.

I closed the cabinet and gazed at myself in the mirror, nail file drawn. Did
I
still have my wits? Likely not, as I’d allowed myself to be played by this creep. So I had nothing to lose, then.

I stuffed the DVD into my jeans.

“Theresa?”

I threw open the door and flew at Zach. My intention was to go for his eye, but I lost my nerve at the last second and slammed the file into his upper arm. Boober escaped from his grip, but Zach grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me close, locking me around the neck with the crook of his arm.

“Where’s the DVD?” he said, dragging me into the bathroom to look for himself.

He pushed me against the wall. Boober barked.

Zach pressed his hand against my throat and his chest against mine. The DVD case knocked against the snap of my jeans. Zach smiled, reached in, and slipped the DVD out. I stabbed his hand with the nail file, tearing downward as hard as I could.

“Ow!” he yelled, dropping the DVD case. I kicked it out of the bathroom. Zach let go of me and tried to scramble after it. I beat him to it, and he grabbed me again. This time he dragged me into the living room, holding my nail-file hand to my back.

He pushed me onto the couch. Wayne had emerged from my bedroom and was barking hysterically now, the same
ROWROWROW
that he usually reserved exclusively for the mailman.

Zach put his hands around my neck.

“You framed my brother,” I gasped. “You knew exactly what kind of car he drives. And you know how to break into an old car. You killed her because she threatened to show this around, and then you pinned it on my brother.”

“I never meant it to go this far,” Zach said.

I tried to breathe. Zach’s hands got tighter.

“But it seemed a smart idea to throw off the police,” he whispered. “And Jeff was so
easy.
Alcoholic tendencies and all. When I pulled in to that hotel parking lot, there he was, passed out there in his car, for God’s sake. I don’t know what the hell he was doing there. Do you? And then you waltz into my office a few days later and let me hear that he’s getting drunk out of his mind at Stewie’s. All I did was put the screwdriver in his car, and the cleaning stuff. He did the rest. I just needed a distraction for the police. They came to me early because of calls to me on her cell-phone records. I needed to do
something
. I didn’t think they’d run with it like this.”

Wayne jumped up Zach’s leg. Zach kicked him away. Wayne leaped right back, and Zach kicked him harder. Wayne let out a yowl. I loosened one arm from Zach’s grip and grabbed his hair, yanking his head sideways. I felt around for my nail file but couldn’t find it.

“And Donald Wallace?” I croaked, thinking that if I kept talking—or kept Zach talking—I could somehow survive.

“That was a good distraction for
you,
since you were poking around a little too close. Kind of a fanciful adventure, wasn’t it? Going after the powerful politician, trying to uncover his deep, dark, murderous ways?”

My vision started to feel speckled.

ROWROWROWROW,
Wayne was saying, as things turned from speckled to black.

“I liked you, Theresa,” I heard Zach whisper. “I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to go out doubting your brother. I saw doubt in your eyes that day after they arrested him. And I thought that was a shame.”

There was a moment of blackness. I wasn’t sure if it was anger or death—or both.

Then I heard a door. A door to the next life?

“Hello-hello-hello?” I heard someone say. A woman.

I felt like I was choking on my own breath and thought I might be hallucinating the voice through the sound of Wayne’s barking.