What happened took only milliseconds. There was a sickening jolt to the car; Russell Gramercy flew up over the hood. His shoulder and head shattered my windshield, then he disappeared over the roof of the Impala. I did not slam on the brakes until he had already landed on the highway behind me.
There was a faint whiff of something burnt—my tires on the asphalt—and Pearl Jam was still playing on the radio. Behind me someone was howling in pain and grief. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Daria Gramercy.
Everything seemed in a heightened sense of unreality. I got out of the Impala, but immediately someone yelled, “Hey, put your car in gear.” So I got back in the car, which was slowly rolling, and did so, also turning off the engine. I noticed glass on the passenger’s side seat; in the next moment I realized that little shards of glass, almost festively decorative, covered my shirt as well.
The body lay in the road fifty yards away—I had traveled half a football field after hitting him. Another pedestrian stood in the middle of the road behind Daria and the victim, waving a hot-pink beach towel to stop oncoming traffic.
Racing back, I thought, He’ll have some broken bones. He may have to go to the hospital. Daria was leaning over her father, whimpering.
Then I got a clear view of Russell Gramercy’s body. This wasn’t a case of some broken bones. His entire body was broken. One shoulder and arm were tilted at an impossible angle away from the rest of him. Blood was pooling behind his head, which also seemed . . . broken. Daria said, “Hold on, Dad. Hold on.” But it was obvious to me that he could not hear, would never hear again.
And . . . I’m not proud of this, but I want to tell you exactly what it was like. Daria, in an attempt to stanch the ever-expanding pool of blood behind her father’s head, took off her pale green sleeveless T-shirt and used it to compress the wound. She wore a white bikini top underneath. My eyes were drawn to her full breasts.
I had just killed a man, and I was ogling the daughter I had made an orphan.
There was probably a gap of time, but it seems to me now that the police cruiser arrived very quickly with short yelps of the siren and strobing of the Visibar. Walkie-talkies squawked, an ambulance came; someone shifted the cones from the sidewalk construction to the road. Daria was sobbing in the arms of her older brother, Chris. With a start, I realized I knew Chris; I had played baseball against him. Which meant I knew the victim as well.
Russell Gramercy was the coach of the Verplanck American Legion League baseball team of which his son, Chris, was the star pitcher. Russell Gramercy was also a chemistry professor at Howland College, the school I had just started two weeks earlier, though I wasn’t in any of his classes. The previous year, the American Legion team I was on had played against Verplanck. Chris had been pitching, and he struck me out twice. He was by far the best player in our area, and scouts from the majors as well as LSU and Arizona State had shown interest in him. His father coached him that day, and I remembered Russell Gramercy putting his arm around Chris’s shoulder with pride as he came off the field with another victory.
“Are you okay?” the paramedic asked me at one point. “Are you injured?”
“No, I’m fine,” I replied, knowing even then that it was a lie, though there was nothing physically wrong.
Later, as the first ambulance took Russell Gramercy away, I asked the same paramedic, “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
He stared back at me, then, masking his true feelings, said, “Well, we can only pray.” After that, on instructions from one of the cops, he took my blood for a blood alcohol level test.
I gave my statement to three different police officers. The last one, a detective named Dave Pedrosian, interviewed me for a long time.
Pedrosian also questioned Chris and Daria. She had not seen the actual impact because she had been walking a few feet in front of her brother and father on the narrow shoulder. “I just heard this awful crunch, and by the time I turned around my dad was landing on the pavement,” I overheard her say. And then she lost control and gave loud gasping sobs. Her brother put his arms around her.
At some point I also heard Chris being interviewed. “We were walking and my father sort of stumbled. I don’t know if he twisted his ankle or what. But he veered into the road. I reached out to grab him, but then . . . just this unbelievable impact with that car . . .”
What I remember most were his next words. “The car just slammed him. It was so fast. My dad never had a chance. And neither did the driver. It would have been impossible to react. It wasn’t his fault.”
Right after a cop gave me my second field sobriety test and first Breathalyzer, Chris came up to me. I was wary and I half expected him to take a swing at me. But in a dazed voice he told me, “There was nothing you could have done. Don’t beat yourself up. It was just a horrible accident.” He turned and walked back to his sister, who glared at me with eyes filled with anger and hate.
Detective Pedrosian came by in a while and said, “You’re not going to be charged at this time. All the preliminary statements support yours. A collision-reconstruction unit will continue to investigate. If everything holds up, you will not be charged. Your father is here to drive you home.”
On the ride home, back to my childhood bedroom, not my new dorm room, I kept saying, “It happened so fast. There was nothing I could do.”
Russell Gramercy was declared DOA at Verplanck Hospital at about that same time.
The next few days I spent in my bedroom or, when my parents went to work, roaming the house. I couldn’t eat, sleep, watch television. Both my parents kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, that it had been an accident. I shouldn’t blame myself.
My father initially insisted that I go to the Gramercy family home.
“And do what? Upset them more? Apologize for killing their father?” I did not want to face them, in particular Daria.
“Just tell them how sorry you are for their loss,” my mother replied.
I had already put on my suit and was waiting for my parents to drive me to a condolence visit that I wasn’t sure I could endure when the phone rang. A few minutes later my father came into the living room and said, “We’re not going.”
The relief I felt was immense.
“Of course we are,” my mother said.
“The insurance adjuster just called. He said we’re not to have any contact with the victim’s family.”
The victim. His name was Russell Gramercy. He was a beloved father, a husband, a coach, a teacher. And we weren’t using his name. He was the victim. And I was the person who had killed him.
“That’s just not right,” my mother complained.
“He’s on our insurance policy,” my father said, nodding toward me. “We could lose the house, our savings. Everything. Even a frivolous case could cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
So in the end we didn’t go. And I did not apologize.
The funeral was private, so I didn’t go to that either. But when I returned to Howland College two days later, one of the first things I noticed was a flier about a memorial service.
Howland College is a small liberal arts college in Verplanck, New York, twenty miles from my hometown. Its academic reputation is slight, its campus charmless—buildings of red brick and glass, dormitories that look like singles’ apartments. In my area it was the ultimate backstop school, the place you wound up when your other scholastic plans didn’t pan out.
That next weekend hundreds of students milled about in the quad. I was handed a slender white candle that reminded me of a fencing foil. People kept glancing my way, it seemed to me with disgust or pity. Right before the service I overheard two students in front of me talking.
“I heard the kid who ran over Gramercy goes to school here.”
“Yeah,” his companion replied. “A freshman. Apparently some pathetic loser.”
Hymns were sung. Speakers came up to a makeshift stage and talked about Russ or Professor G. It was heartfelt, moving, filled with
the inadequate words we use when confronted with death. Some were amazingly articulate, others spoke badly, but their clichés and boilerplate emotions were overlooked because of a collective goodwill and understanding. One person read a poem that somehow felt familiar, and it was only years later that I realized he had cribbed the W. H. Auden work from the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral.
One speaker stood out for me. “I’m a doctor,” he began. “And last week, on the day that Russell died, I saved a life.” He went on to recount that if it hadn’t been for the extraordinary work of Russell Gramercy, he would never have passed his organic chemistry course, the bane of all premed students. Gramercy had tutored him, made clear the obscure, gone way above and beyond for him. “It’s a simple calculus for me. If it wasn’t for Professor Gramercy, I wouldn’t be a doctor. If I wasn’t a doctor, that patient would not have been saved. That spared life, and everything good in it, can be toted up to Russ.
“There are connections in our lives that we’re often not aware of. We’re entwined. We intersect, like chains, or strands of DNA.”
I did not speak at the service.
By November I had left college. I eventually moved to New York City; it is a place where not driving a car is the norm. My driver’s license expired when I was twenty-one; I did not renew it, nor have I ever driven a car again after that day I killed Professor G.
Nightmares plagued me for a decade, though they diminished over time. For years I had to wear an orthodontic device because I ground my teeth in my sleep.
In my early twenties I aimlessly worked boring, dead-end jobs. Then, when it became clear that I was not going to resume my education, my father gave me the fifty thousand dollars he claimed he would have spent on tuition. So I started a small business, a frozen-yogurt shop in the West Village that I can walk to. It is a modest success.
I never married. Relationships never seemed to survive the moment I had to confess to the accident. The fault for these failed courtships, I’m sure, is mine. For the most part, the women I’ve been involved with were understanding, compassionate. (Though one woman got so angry that she slapped me.) But no matter the degree of their empathy, I always sensed in their eyes a change. In how they viewed me.
Years ago, at one of my lousy, mind-shriveling jobs, a coworker asked all the people gathered around the break table, “What’s the most memorable or important moment of your life?” The answers were predictable: When I met my husband; When I gave birth to my daughter. Or humorous: When I felt up Gina Simmons in sixth grade, or It hasn’t happened yet, but it will be when I get fired from this job. When it was my turn, I was set to lie: It was when the Giants won the Super Bowl. Instead, I shocked myself by replying, “When I killed a man.”
There was laughter around the table, and my questioner added, quoting Johnny Cash, “When you shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die?”
“Yeah,” I answered, relieved. Although I knew that, unlike most people, I actually had a moment in my life that had irrevocably changed me.
So that was my existence. Constrained, nowhere near having fulfilled a potential. I always thought that there had been more than one victim that day, though I would never say that aloud. And certainly not to the family, not to the woman who had whimpered and sobbed by the side of Beach Road. Nor to her tall, athletic brother, who had once struck me out.
In April 2011 the first body was discovered.
Russell Gramercy’s widow had sold the lakeside cabin months earlier. In upstate New York, the small vacation homes that dot the many lakes are called camps. The Gramercy camp, sheathed with cedar clapboards, was small, only sixteen by twenty-four, and had a half loft. It had been in the family for generations. Russell Gramercy winterized the structure himself early in his marriage. He liked to go there to unwind, he said, to write academic articles and prepare lessons and presentations. Except for a week or two in the summer when he was accompanied by his family, he went to the camp alone.
The new owners had no interest in rustic simplicity or outdoor showers. An architect drew up plans for some garish monstrosity. It was a backhoe operator digging trenches for the McMansion’s new septic system that had uncovered the skeleton.
(A rumor went around that the new owners, with visions of construction delays and permit problems, tried to talk the construction workers out of reporting the discovery. I’m not sure I believe this. What is true is that they sued the Gramercy family.)
In the weeks after the grisly find, the police dug up eight other corpses. All but one were identified, and I can reel off the eight names by memory. I find it ineffably sad that the ninth victim could not be named. Had nobody in his short life felt connected enough to report him missing?
There were eight male victims and one female. Four of them were runaways. Two were thought to have been hitchhiking, a boyfriend and girlfriend, who had been on their way to a bluegrass festival. One was reported to have been a male hustler at truck stops, though his parents vehemently deny it. But one of the victims had also been a National Merit Scholarship winner. So there didn’t really seem to be a pattern except the youth they had all shared.
Forensics teams found traces of dried blood inside the cabin. Most of it was too degraded, but one sample proved a DNA match with one of the victims. I’ve heard that incriminating and very disturbing photos were found, though I don’t know for a fact that they exist. But other objects that had belonged to the victims were discovered in a hiding place in the cabin.
The conclusions were inescapable, and a grand jury agreed. The victims had all been murdered by Russell Gramercy. They had been murdered by Russ. By Professor G. By the man I had killed with my car.
On the hottest day of the following summer, my phone rang just as I was about to go to work. “Hi, this is Daria Gramercy. Do you remember me?”
Startled, I replied, “Yes, I remember.”
“Your parents gave me your number. I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said uncertainly.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’d like to talk with you. About the accident and everything. If you don’t mind. I’d prefer in person, but if you’d rather we could do it over the phone.”
I had been hoping for and dreading this call for decades. We made plans to meet at a coffeehouse around the corner from her midtown hotel.
Daria had changed from the sexy teenager I had encountered briefly one fateful day. She had gained considerable weight, I saw as she entered the Starbucks. And her hair was cut in an unflattering style and frizzy from the equatorial humidity that day. Immediately I felt guilty and somehow disloyal for forming these unkind impressions. Given what she had been through, it was an achievement just to be walking around at all. I searched her eyes for anger or recrimination. My entire body seemed clenched with tension.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Daria said, shaking my hand and sitting down. She took a deep breath and seemed set to start a prepared talk.
“I want to apologize to you,” I interrupted. “I never did . . . back then.”
“You sent a sympathy card,” she replied noncommittally.
“I wanted to visit your family, but our legal advisers told us not to. They were afraid of liability.” Legal advisers? Some insurance company guy and my father’s fraternity brother who was the family lawyer?
She nodded. “I understand.”
“I wanted to,” I repeated, protesting too much. Then I blurted out, “Actually, that’s not accurate. I was dreading the visit; there was nothing I wanted to do less. When my father told me we couldn’t, it was like I had gotten a reprieve.”
Daria gave a knowing sigh. “Believe me, I understand how you felt.”
And then I let everything out. I told Daria exactly what I remembered. Everything: my inattention, the lies about my actual speed, my creepy, lascivious stares as she comforted her dying father. I’m not a Catholic, but I imagine it was like the sacrament of confession. “I’m just so very, very sorry,” I ended, and then, to my horror but yet
relief, for the first time since the accident I broke down and cried.
She gave me a few moments, then said, “It wasn’t your fault. Even with everything you’ve told me, there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. You didn’t have time to react. I understand that.” Daria handed me a tissue.
When I had regained my composure, she gave me a rueful smile and said, “Well, you’ve sort of stolen my thunder. The reason I’m here is to apologize to you.”
Daria had been going to the families of all her father’s known victims and asking forgiveness. From how she described it, it sounded a bit like making amends in a twelve-step program. “After I had seen all the victims’ families, I knew I also needed to talk with you. My father caused so much pain and horror. If I can do anything to lessen that legacy, then I want to.”
We talked for a while. For years I had imagined just this, I told her. In my daydreams I had talked with her: I had explained, I had been succored. And remarkably, something like those fantasies had just happened.
Near the end of our conversation, I asked, “How is your brother, Chris?”
She was momentarily taken aback. “Oh, I thought you knew,” Daria said uncomfortably. “Chris died in 2004.”
“I’m so sorry,” I replied, mortified. “How?”
“A traffic accident.”
I flinched.
“He was living in Arizona. It was a one-car accident, late at night. Alcohol was involved.”
I must have seemed shaken.
“It had nothing to do with you,” Daria said. “Believe me. If you’re tempted to see this as some sort of delayed collateral damage from what you did, don’t. My brother had his own demons.”
We were silent a moment, then I said, “I went to the memorial service for your dad at Howland. The one speaker I remember most was a former student who your father helped become a doctor. And what he said was that our lives are inexplicably entwined. That many of the good things that the doctor had done could be added up in your father’s column in this sort of cosmic ledger. I thought about that when I heard about the . . . incidents.”
The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 Page 36
