As I had known from the beginning: This man was good—very, very good—at his job.
Piotrowski’s questions began to focus on my relationship with Randy: how I felt about him; what kind of moves he had made on me; what his work was all about. I told him all I knew, holding back nothing because, really, I had nothing to hide. Randy had disgusted and bored me, and in spite of his prominence in the profession, his power in the department, and his trendy good looks, I had barely been able to tolerate the man. I think that had been clear to him. Perhaps, perversely enough, my evident distaste had fueled his interest in me.
I told Piotrowski what I knew about Randy’s current research, although I couldn’t imagine what relevance that could possibly have to his murder. “He was reading the sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, for God’s sake. That pompous, self-important, womanizing little twerp!”
“Who?”
“Who what?”
“Who was a womanizing little twerp? Astin-Berger?”
“Well, yes he was. Not so little, but a womanizing twerp. But I meant Beecher.” “Who is he?”
“Who was he, you mean. He was probably the most prominent minister in nineteenth-century America. A charismatic figure by all accounts, abolitionist, public speaker, novelist, and at the center of one of the most publicized sex scandals of the century.”
“Oh, yeah? Tell me more.”
“Why do you want to hear this? The man’s been dead for a hundred years.”
“Just tell me, would you? Chalk it up to my pressing desire for a higher education.”
So I told him what little I knew about the Libby Tilton case. How the very married Reverend Mr. Beecher had spent long afternoons with this wife of an influential parishioner, supposedly reading her his novel-in-progress. How her husband had sued him for alienation of affections. How the ensuing trial had been reported by just about every newspaper in the country. How it had been followed avidly by readers with both religious and carnal interests.
What Piotrowski thought of all this was not clear. But he did say it was interesting that Randy should have been attracted to the work of this particular man, who in so many ways seemed to resemble him.
I hadn’t thought about that, but it certainly was true. Both men were brilliant and incessant talkers, both seemed to have attracted feminine attention, and neither seemed to have been overly scrupulous about exploiting that attention. This thought led me instantly to Randy’s brief affair with Sophia. I had completely forgotten about that as I was responding to Piotrowski’s queries. However, she had given me that information in confidence, and I had no intention of sharing it with the police. I reached for a cherry crisp to give me something to do with my mouth.
“What?” said Piotrowski.
“What do you mean, ‘what’?” I responded, still chewing and reaching for another cherry crisp.
“You just thought of something. What was it?”
“Nothing, really.” I tucked a second cherry crisp in my mouth. Whole.
“Indulge me. I’ll decide if it’s nothing.”
This man was too smart. I decided to pacify him with at least a partial truth. Still chewing, I responded, “It’s just that I remembered hearing that Randy was known for sexually harassing students. That bit about the womanizing reminded me.”
“Students like Sophia Warzek?”
Shit, I said to myself. Was I that transparent? But, as it turned out, it wasn’t me; the churning Enfield College gossip mills had conveyed that titillating piece of information to the lieutenant’s receptive ear. I surmised he had some notion that, perhaps in retaliation for Randy’s dumping her, Sophia had killed him. Then, in a state of profound remorse, she had attempted to take her own life. She was at the party, after all, Piotrowski reminded me.
“No way!” My usual powers of articulate persuasion had deserted me. “No way could she resort to that kind of violence. She simply doesn’t have it in her.”
“You’d be surprised, Dr. Pelletier, what some people have in them.”
“Don’t patronize me.” I was furious not only at his remark, but at myself for having trusted him, if only for a few minutes.
“You’re very protective of Miss Warzek.” Piotrowski put his empty cup down on the coffee table. “Did you have any particular relationship with her outside of class?”
“No, I didn’t have any particular relationship with her outside of class. Whatever you mean to insinuate by that. However, she did turn to me in her trouble and I’ve seen a good deal of her since, enough to know that while she may be a human being in an enormous amount of pain, she isn’t a killer. Besides, I’ve been teaching for years, and I have a daughter almost exactly Sophia’s age. I know young women, and this one is decent, through and through.”
“Dr. Pelletier.” Piotrowski sighed. “Please don’t snap at me. I’m not out to get anyone. I just want to clear this matter up. In the process of doing that I have to pursue every possible line of inquiry. Is there anything more you can tell me about Miss Warzek and Professor Astin-Berger?”
But there wasn’t. There wasn’t anything more I could ever tell him about anything, the bastard. As I showed him out, he palmed one last date cookie, perhaps to console himself as he drove back down the winding country roads to wherever it was he was pursuing inquiries next.
Ten
AMANDA CAME THROUGH the arrivals gate to the strains of “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas.” Carrying an enormous navy blue duffel bag in her left hand, her brown suede backpack flung casually over her right shoulder, she looked terrific. That’s not just a mother’s partiality. In her own peculiar stripped-down style, Amanda is genuinely beautiful, tall and lean with dark-lashed hazel eyes, a long narrow nose, and slender, mobile lips. Even with her shiny chestnut brown hair cropped short and her face, as usual, innocent of the slightest trace of makeup, she’s eye-catching. In her grungewear of jeans, green plaid flannel shirt, and heavy Timberland boots, she resembled a scale-model lumberjack, tough and delicate at the same time, ready for action.
“Mom!” Amanda broke into a run as she spotted me in the crowd. “Hey, Mom!” Dropping her duffel bag, she jumped at me and hugged me hard. Almost as hard as I hugged her. Then I held her out at arm’s length to see her better and she said, “You look gnarly.”
“Yeah?” I wasn’t quite sure how to take that.
“Yeah, that red sweater looks terrific on you. And the leggings. A whole new image. Fairly hot.”
“Hot, yourself.” I grinned and ruffled her hair. Then I picked up her duffel bag and we made our way through the holiday crowds to the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
Strong, vibrant, free: This kid is the embodiment of all I never was at her age. I had spent most of my eighteenth year in secondhand maternity clothes, nibbling saltines, vomiting bilious froth. Immobilized by notions of femininity I’d picked up from Reader’s Digest and Woman’s Day, the domestic bibles of the American working class. Amanda, on the other hand, was born spouting Steinem and Friedan. For her the feminine mystique was a somewhat amusing cultural artifact dimly remembered from the incomprehensible distant past. Something like Jell-O molds.
The parking lot was hazardous. The previous week’s snow and ice had turned into filthy slush and then frozen again in the current frigid temperatures. By holding on to each other and sharing the weight of the duffel bag we managed to get back to the car without falling. The Jetta bumped out of the parking lot and headed back up Interstate 91 toward home.
I had news for Amanda, and I wasn’t sure how she was going to take it. Earlier that afternoon, as I sat brooding over cold coffee and recovering from Piotrowski’s visit, Earlene had called with a request. Sophia was recovering sooner than expected, and the hospital had informed her she could go home for Christmas. This news had precipitated a crisis. Sophia had gone dead pale, turned her face to the wall, and refused to speak. A savvy social worker, cued by her responses to her parents’ visits, had coaxed Sophia into admitting that she didn’t
want to go home, couldn’t bear to go home, not even for Christmas.
Especially not for Christmas.
When queried by the social worker as to what she did want, she begged to be allowed to stay in the hospital until after the holiday. Then she wanted to go live at school. If she could. If they’d let her. No, she didn’t want a conference with her parents. Please, no. That wouldn’t help. She became distraught at the suggestion.
The social worker, fearing a serious setback if Sophia were forced to return home, called Earlene. There was no problem with getting Sophia on campus. Earlene could find a dorm room for her when she got back from her own holiday trip to Cleveland. Her suggestion for the interim was that, rather than stay in the hospital, Sophia come spend Christmas with me. How could I say no? A kid who’d rather celebrate the holiday in a hospital ward than at home in the bosom of her loving family.
“I’d take her in myself, Karen,” Earlene told me, “but my mother’d have a fit if I didn’t come home for Christmas. And if I came dragging a bandaged white girl—well—I just can’t do that.”
“This the kid you went to the hospital to see?” Amanda asked when I’d told her the story. As if she weren’t a kid herself. “Sure. Why not?” But her expression lacked enthusiasm, and there were unspoken depths of reserve in her voice.
Well, what could I expect? For as long as she could remember there’d only been the two of us for Christmas. And Tony, of course. But then, she loved Tony, and once again we were reduced to having holidays without him. Through no fault of hers. And now some emotionally unstable stranger was about to replace him by the Christmas tree? The unspoken reproach was almost palpable. It was clear to my daughter that her mother was becoming truly unreliable.
As we approached Enfield, I suggested we stop in at the hospital. I wanted to speak in person to Sophia about staying with us, in hopes that I could make her feel welcome. Also, I thought it would provide a good opportunity for the girls to meet. On neutral territory, so to speak. Amanda didn’t think so.
“Geesh, Mom. She’s not gonna want me to see her in the hospital. She’ll be too embarrassed. Like, she’ll think I’m thinking all the time about the bandages, you know? And besides, you’re not a person in the hospital. You’re just a bod in a johnny coat. She’d really be embarrassed, you know? That’s a really bad idea. Geesh, Mom.” She looked at me askance, appalled at my lack of sensitivity.
“Okay. Okay.” I was properly admonished. “So it’s a lousy idea. But I’ve got to see her. Do you mind if we stop for a few minutes?”
“No, go ahead.” Amanda set her jaw bravely and looked straight ahead down the long hospital driveway. “I don’t mind. I’ll just sit here in the car and finish reading this fascinating in-flight magazine.” From her duffel bag she pulled a four-color glossy periodical featuring a cover photo of Disneyworld. “I’ll be fine,” she continued as I turned off the ignition, her tone just one shade this side of martyrdom. I gave her a sharp look, but she smiled at me seraphically and buried herself in the magazine.
Sophia was alone in a double room. When I arrived she was sitting in an armchair watching CNN. Some battle was happening somewhere. On the screen a woman and her children huddled in a makeshift shelter, in exile from home and kin. A U.N. relief worker ladled noodles into enamel bowls while one child gazed back at the camera, dark eyes opaque with incomprehension. The voice-over intoned a detailed record of the ancient hostilities behind this private suffering.
Seeing me, Sophia clicked off the TV and smiled tentatively, clearly uncertain as to how I felt about having her foisted on me for the holidays. She had become so thin in the days since her suicide attempt that in the white hospital gown and robe she gave the impression of translucence. With her long blond hair hanging down her back and the snowy robe, she could almost have passed for a Christmas-tree angel. At least, she could have if it weren’t for the pain in her eyes. Gauzy bandages braceleted each wrist, mystic symbols of survival.
“Hey, Sophia.” I hugged her gently. “So, I hear I’m going to get to take you home with me?”
She nodded. Also tentatively. She looked at me with wary eyes.
“Great!” I said. A hearty buffoon. “You’ll get to meet Amanda.”
“Is Amanda your daughter?”
“Yes. I just picked her up from the airport. She’s home from her first semester at Georgetown.”
“Oh.” Silence. “Will she mind…?”
“No,” I lied. “Not at all. She’s never had a sister, or cousins, or anything. She’ll love it.”
This poor, poor kid. I’d have a good talk with Amanda on the way home. She’d damn well better love it.
I knew I’d have only about ten minutes before she’d begin to freeze in the Jetta, so I tried to cut my visit short. That was easy. Sophia was not in a talkative mood, and I despise the kind of hearty babble that was all I seemed capable of producing at the moment.
I arranged to pick her up the next morning, the twenty-third. As I took my leave I asked if there was anything I could bring her. She looked embarrassed. “Well, yes, there is….” She fell silent.
“What?” I queried when she didn’t say anything more. “What is it?”
“Well.” Silence. “Well, my father …” More silence. Whatever it was, it seemed to be more than she could articulate.
“What, honey?” I put my arm lightly around her. Her shoulder blades felt like fine steel knives.
Sophia refused to meet my eyes. “My father is so angry. He won’t let my mother bring me anything. Not even clothes. He says …” She stopped, head drooping, overcome by the hurt and humiliation. “He says if I don’t come home for Christmas I’m no longer his daughter and he has no responsibility for me. My mother wanted to bring me some things, but he won’t let her. He won’t even let her come. She called me when she thought he wasn’t listening, but he heard her and hung up the phone. I hope …”
She fell silent. I prompted her. “What do you hope, Sophia?”
“I hope—he didn’t hit her….”
I winced. Sophia was openly sobbing. “Sweetie,” I said, hugging her again, “you can’t do anything about it. You just can’t. Going home wouldn’t help your mother at all. It wouldn’t. You can’t be a hostage to her weakness. Believe me, I know.”
She looked up at me. “You do?”
“Yes, I do.” Then I changed the subject. Fast. “And about clothes, don’t worry about them. I’ll bring you stuff. Just don’t worry about it.”
Suddenly her expression changed. Her eyes sparking blue fire, she spoke with more passion than I would have thought her capable of. “You know what makes me so goddamn furious?”
I shook my head wordlessly. This was a new Sophia, with an edge of violence to her.
“I bought all those goddamn clothes myself. I’ve been working ever since I was twelve, baby-sitting and stuff. I paid for all my own clothes. He hasn’t bought me anything in years. That goddamn motherfucker.” She clapped her hand over her mouth, and stared at me, eyes wide, amazed by her own outburst.
“You’re really angry, aren’t you?” Good, I thought, hang on to that anger, sweetie. You’re going to need every ounce of fury you can muster.
“You have every right to be angry.” I tried to model myself on the only therapist I had ever consulted, the public health social worker who had gotten me through my separation and divorce. “But don’t worry about clothes now. Maybe we can get them back for you. But right now, just don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
She slumped again, her anger spent, then said miserably, “I don’t want to be an expense.” What little energy she seemed capable of calling up had evidently dissipated. “I’ll pay you back for everything when I get better. I will.” She fell into a deep silence.
Oh, the pride of the poor. How well I remembereddent it.
“Do you like blue?” I felt a little desperate in the face of all this emotion. “Maybe a blue sweater, the color of your eyes? And jeans? And some
other stuff? Underwear and stuff?”
She nodded, her head hanging again, looking up at me with only her eyes, a brokenhearted little girl promised a new dress for a party she didn’t particularly want to attend.
Five minutes later, as I walked past the nurses’ station, deep in thought, a strong hand grabbed my arm. Hard. I jumped, and looked up, startled. Piotrowski was staring past me down the corridor.
“Who’s that?” he demanded.
I turned to look, but too late to see anything other than a brown blur disappearing through the stairwell door.
“I couldn’t tell. Why?”
“Oh, probably nothing. Only they were just slowing down to look into Miss Warzek’s room when you came out. Then they saw you and speeded up to get by fast. But you seemed lost to the world. Did you notice anyone you knew?”
I couldn’t remember. And I wasn’t about to tell Piotrowski that I had been deep in the contemplation of something as frivolous as sweaters and jeans. “You said ‘they,’ Lieutenant? Was it more than one person?”
“No. I just couldn’t tell if the individual was male or female. Medium height. Medium weight. Brown hair. Brown pants and jacket. Who could tell?”
“And what are you doing here, anyhow, Piotrowski?” I looked down meaningfully at the big hand that still gripped my arm.
He released me, sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“Well?”
“Official business.” All of a sudden he was all business. Very official.
“Lieutenant, you are not going to harass that poor girl.”
“It’s none of your business what I’m going to do, Dr. Pelletier.”
“It certainly is. I’m her temporary guardian.”
“What?” His response was incredulous. “I thought she had parents. And besides, she doesn’t need a guardian. She’s twenty-one.”
“Well—unofficially.” I explained our holiday arrangements. Piotrowski listened, head cocked to one side, hands in the pockets of his shabby blue jacket.
Quieter than Sleep Page 9
