The Traveler

by John Katzenbach

  “But he said where he was going?” Detective Barren asked.

  Martin Jeffers was filled with machine-gun memories of his brother’s cryptic description of his vacation plans. He hesitated, thinking: What did he say? What did he mean? Jeffers looked up and saw that the intensity had returned to the detective’s eyes.

  “Not that I recall,” Jeffers replied quickly. He was instantly angry with himself for rushing the words out.

  The room was briefly silent.

  Mercedes Barren smiled. She didn’t believe this denial for a second.

  There was another pause, then Jeffers added his own question: “Cer­tainly, detective, you’ve been to his photo agency? Didn’t they provide you with the information you need? I know they try to keep close tabs on the whereabouts of all their staffers. Even when they’re tromping about in some jungle somewhere with some guerrilla army . . .”

  “They didn’t know . . .” Detective Barren started, then stopped in mid-sentence. Idiot! she thought. Give out nothing! She bristled as she saw the murderer’s brother absorb the words. She tried to recoup: “They couldn’t be exact. But they suggested I contact you, which is why I’m here.”

  She’s fishing, thought Martin Jeffers. But how much?

  “You know, detective, this is very confusing for me. You come in here asking to see my brother, whom I haven’t really had much contact with for years, to question him about some unspecified crime. You don’t describe at all what the crime is, of what you think his knowledge about it might be. You imply that it’s important that you contact him right away, but without making an explanation why. I just don’t know, detective. I don’t think we’ve gotten this off on the right foot at all. Not at all. I mean, I want to cooperate with the authorities as much as possible, but I just don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry, doctor. I can’t give out confidential information.”

  That was lame and she knew it. She knew what his answer would be.

  “No? Well, I’m sorry, too.”

  Stonewall me, stonewall you, he thought.

  They stared at each other, once again in silence.

  Detective Barren suddenly wanted to scream. She was filled with pain. I’ve blown it, she thought. I’m close, and I’ve blown it. He’s got a passport and money and a brother that’s going to protect him without knowing what he’s done and is going to tell him that someone’s looking for him and he’ll be gone, just like that.

  Martin Jeffers wanted to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Something is terribly wrong, he thought. He needed to sort it out, and yet realized instantly that he didn’t know enough even to begin a process of understanding. He realized then that he would need to talk to the detective and he wondered how to get into a dominant position, receiving information without imparting any. He thought of his friends, the psychoanalysts. They’d know, he thought. Get her on the couch and sit down behind her head. He almost laughed.

  “Is something amusing?” asked Detective Barren.

  “No, no, just an odd thought,” replied Jeffers.

  “I could use a joke,” she said bitterly. “Why not share it?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jeffers replied. “I didn’t mean to make light of . . .”

  She interrupted. “Of course not.”

  He could tell she didn’t believe him. At that moment Jeffers looked directly at her eyes and realized that there was something more at stake. He could not precisely say why he knew this. Perhaps it was the angle of her body, the tilt to her head, the intensity of her eyes. He was almost taken aback by the forcefulness she emanated.

  This, he thought, is a dangerous woman.

  She was filled with loathing at that moment. He knows something, she thought, something greater than simply where his brother is. He knows something about his brother that he won’t put words to. So he hides behind cleverness and all that phony psychiatric technique.

  It will do him no good, she thought. None at all.

  She saw Jeffers look down at his watch, then up at Dr. Harrison. She knew right away what was coming.

  “Jim, I’ve got patients scheduled all afternoon . . .”

  She spoke before the hospital administrator could.

  “When do you finish?”

  “I’m off at five,” he said.

  “Shall I meet you in your office or would you prefer to go to your home? Or a restaurant somewhere?”

  She presented no other options.

  “Do you think it will take long?” he asked.

  She smiled, but felt no humor. He’s damn clever, she thought.

  “Well, that kind of depends on you.”

  He smiled. Fencing, he thought. Thrust and parry.

  “I still don’t see how I can help, but why don’t you meet me in my office a little after five and we’ll see if we can’t straighten all this out quickly.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  They both stood and shook hands.

  “Don’t be late,” he said.

  “I never am,” she replied.

  Martin Jeffers closed the thick door tightly behind him and looked about his office, as if expecting to see something that would explain the tangle of feelings in which he was trapped. He felt as if he were on the edge of some moment of panic, about to do something irrational, flooded with visions of his brother. He thought: He has a streak of meanness, that I know. He remembered a neighborhood boy once, filled with taunting and obscenities, who always seemed to get under Doug’s skin. It would be a fair fight—they were both about the same size—all the children on the block agreed about that. But it hadn’t been. Doug had tripped the boy in a moment, flipping his suddenly helpless adversary onto his back like an upside-down turtle, and proceeded to whale away with his fists at the screaming boy. Jeffers had never seen rage like that, so potent, so unbridled. A killer’s anger, he thought. Then he frowned: Don’t be ridiculous. He’d rarely seen Doug lose control again. Of course the druggist father had slapped Doug hard, but that was to be expected. A beating for a beating.

  He looked about him and thought: Don’t be a damn idiot. Don’t hypothesize. Don’t judge. Don’t guess.

  Perhaps she was telling the truth: a material witness, that’s what she said.

  He swiftly pictured the detective’s eyes. Not a chance, he thought.

  He sat down heavily in his desk chair and swiveled it toward the window. He could see fragments of sunlight as they probed the stands of tall trees that marked the hospital grounds, throwing shadows and light on the well-kept lawns. It was supposed to look more like a campus, as if that would somehow hide the reality of the hospital. He watched as a man in the distance rode across a grassy area on a tractor-mower. For a moment he imagined he could smell the sweetness of new-mown grass. The nice thing about state mental hospitals, Jeffers said to himself, is that externally they are well maintained. It’s only inside that one sees the paint peeling, as if steamed away from the walls by unhappy madness. It is the same with people.

  He turned away from the window and asked himself: Why are you so quick to believe the worst about your brother? Then he answered the question unscientifically. Because he scares me. He has always scared me. He has always been wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

  What has he done?

  Jeffers shook the idea from his head. “All right,” he said out loud. “All right. Let’s see what we can learn.”

  He picked up the telephone and dialed the nurse attendants on three different floors. With each, he canceled the afternoon appointments of three patients, directing them to go to each man and tell them that he was called away on urgent personal business. He wished he could come up with some better euphemism at short notice, realizing that rumors and suspicions would fly unchecked about the ward. He shrugged. Then he slipped out of his white hospital coat
and seized his tan sportsjacket from a hook on the back of the door.

  Martin Jeffers locked the door to his office and quickly headed down a back flight of stairs toward the physician’s parking lot.

  Detective Mercedes Barren switched the air conditioner in the rental car up to full blast and glanced at her watch. This is not a real surveillance, she thought with irritation. She eyed the front door of the hospital. And even if he did come out, what good would following him do? She answered her own question: You never know until you try. She waited, shifting uncomfortably, trying to get out of the sunlight that poured through the windshield of the car. She shifted her glance to the cars lined up in the physicians’ parking lot, which was clearly marked with a large sign. There wasn’t a Cadillac among the bunch, she realized, which said something about the difference between the private sector and public health.

  She was not totally displeased with the way the initial meeting had gone. What she was mainly concerned about was that the murderer’s brother would panic and try to reach Douglas Jeffers immediately. But she guessed he would not. He would certainly wait until after the meeting they’d arranged. He would be coy and evasive, trying to probe her for information. He is the younger brother, she thought to herself. He’ll need to be more sure of himself before calling.

  She closed her eyes and felt sweat form on her lips. The moist salty taste reminded her of easy summer days. She wondered how many times she and John Barren had driven within a few miles of Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. Often, she thought. It was odd to be so close to home. She remembered driving alongside the Delaware River as the hot sun picked its way through the leafy overhanging branches, heading toward some game or party, lighthearted, surrounded by friends, curled under the expansive right wing of her boyfriend.

  The pleasurable memory evaporated in the midday sun.

  I’m alone now, she thought.

  If you need comforting, she said to herself, then do it yourself. She hardened her heart and set her face, staring out through the glare of the sun against the car windshield.

  Suddenly she stiffened.

  She saw the murderer’s brother moving quickly through her line of sight, toward his car. She thought: I’ll be damned. He’s making a move.

  She waited while he crawled behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled out of the lot. She stifled the desire to hurry, to latch on to him instantly, leechlike. Instead she bided her time, pulling out well after he’d exited, following him carefully, keeping him just at the edge of her vision.

  Martin Jeffers figured that the detective was somewhere behind him, but paid it no heed. If she wants to waste her time, he thought, she’s welcome. He knew he could lose her at any point in the labyrinthine downtown Trenton streets. It was something he planned to do at some moment when it would not seem so obvious.

  He paralleled the Delaware River, glancing over at it every so often. It seemed dark and dangerous to him; there were rapids that swept white water over rock points. He turned away, and in the distance caught a glimpse of the shining golden dome of the statehouse. He maneuvered his car through traffic, winding away from the river, cutting between the steady gray block office buildings that housed various branches of state government. He turned onto State Street, which was lined with trees and brownstone buildings on one side, across from the grassy lawns and marble entrance to the statehouse. There was a free meter just down the street from where he wanted to go, and he parked the car quickly. He checked the rearview mirror for some sight of the detective. He did not see her, but again he figured she was back there. He shrugged to himself, locked the car, and headed into the main entrance of the statehouse.

  Inside there was a huge state seal inlaid on the floor. It was cool, slightly dark, with a touch of echo gathered about the footsteps of the visitors and office workers who paced through the building. He saw a summer-school class collected in one corner, listening to a teacher recite New Jersey facts. Across the forum he could see the pale-blue-jacketed New Jersey state trooper who guarded the entrance to the governor’s suite of offices. The trooper was reading a magazine. Jeffers strode quickly across the center of the entrance forum and ducked down a flight of stairs. There was an underground passageway leading to the New Jersey State Museum. It was empty and quiet and his heels made a snapping sound as he walked swiftly down the corridor. He found the flight of stairs leading up and mounted them rapidly.

  There was a librarian at the front. He showed her his state identification card and she whispered, “How can I help you, doctor?”

  “I’d like to check whatever newspapers you have on file for last September,” he whispered back. She was a young woman with dark hair that slid around her shoulders. She nodded.

  “We have the Trenton Times, the New York Times, and The Trentonian on microfilm.”

  “Can I try them all?”

  She smiled, a little wider perhaps than necessary. Jeffers felt a twinge of attraction, then immediately dismissed it. “Of course. Let me set you up at a machine.”

  There was a bank of blue microfilm machines adjacent to the card catalog. The young woman led Jeffers to a seat, then left him momentarily. When she returned, she carried three small boxes. She removed the first roll and showed Jeffers how to load the machine. Their hands touched briefly. He thanked her, nodding, but thinking instead of what he was looking for.

  In the New York Times he found a three-paragraph Associated Press story in a corner of an inside page:

  Campus Killer in Miami

  Claims Fifth Victim

  MIAMI, Sept. 9 (AP)—An 18-year-old coed at the University of Miami was discovered murdered here Saturday, the apparent fifth victim of a killer police have dubbed “The Campus Killer.”

  Susan Lewis, daughter of an Ardmore, Pa., accountant, a sophomore majoring in oceanographic studies, was found at Matheson-Hammock Park several hours after disappearing from a party at the University’s Student Union. She had been beaten, strangled and assaulted, police said.

  Police said she was possibly the fifth victim of a killer who has struck at a number of colleges in the South Florida area.

  That was all. Space must be at a premium at the Times, Jeffers thought. He read the story twice. Then he took out the roll of microfilm and began searching in the Trenton Times. It did not take him long to find an obituary in the Bucks County edition of the newspaper.

  He read: “. . . She is survived by her parents, a younger brother, Michael, an aunt, Mercedes Barren of Miami Beach, and numerous cousins. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Cousteau Society.”

  He read that again.

  It explains a great deal, he thought.

  He had one other idea. He went back to the librarian at the desk and returned the microfilm. “Is it possible,” he asked, smiling, “to find out if there were any follow-up stories on a subject? I mean, is there any way I can give you a name and you could check to see if there were any recent stories?”

  She shook her head. “If this was a newspaper library, sure. That’s how they file things. It would be easy. But we don’t have that kind of computer capacity. The Times puts out a yearly index to stories, but this year’s isn’t out yet. What is it you’re interested in?”

  He shrugged, suddenly resolved to drive over to one of the local newspapers and see if he could talk his way into their library system. “Oh, it’s not that important,” he said. “Just a crime down in Florida.”

  “Which one?” the librarian asked.

  “Someone called the Campus Killer.”

  “Oh,” she said, smiling. “They caught that guy. I remember seeing it on the news.” She made a face. “A real creep. Almost as bad as that guy Bundy.”

  “Caught?”

  “Yeah, last fall. I remember because my sister was gonna go to the University of South Florida and then she chan
ged her mind, and then changed her mind back again because the guy was arrested. He went to prison, too.”

  It took Martin Jeffers another half hour to find the short story documenting the arrest of Sadegh Rhotzbadegh in the New York Times, and slightly expanded versions in both Trenton papers. He read them carefully, printing the information in his mind. Then he made photostats of the stories.

  He thanked the librarian profusely. She seemed disappointed he didn’t ask for her telephone number. He managed a wan smile, trying, in a look, to say that he never asked anyone for her phone number, which he knew was the truth. Then he let his mind wander elsewhere, instantly forgetting the look of disappointment on the young woman’s face. Instead, he was organizing his thoughts, trying to plan his next step, trying to process what he’d learned, trying to create some reasonable picture in his mind that would result in an explanation for why the aunt of a murder victim in a solved crime would suddenly want to talk to him about his brother.

  He knew that outrage would be a traditional response. He could scream: Why are you bothering me? What are you doing? What have I got to do with this crime? Who’s in charge?

  He knew he would not challenge her.

  He looked down at the photostats. campus killer arrested in miami: charged in series of murders. They caught the man, he thought. So what does Doug have to do with this?

  He refused to answer his own question. Instead his heart filled with fear, an awkward, disquieting sensation. He thought he should be pleased by what he’d discovered in the newspapers. but he wasn’t. His nervousness simply grew. He felt encapsulated by danger, as if every step, every action, every movement were riven with chance.

  He hurried back to his car, thinking: Time to lose the detective. He knew there was no particular insistence for this feeling other than the massive need to know he was alone with his fears. He did not think he could handle the added pressure of knowing she was watching him. He needed to be completely, utterly, confidently, alone.