The Snow Garden

by Christopher Rice

  “He’s from New York,” Eric answered weakly. Also his legs are covered with burns and I never once believed his explanation for them.

  “I’ll get to the point. What I discovered in his application could end up being a double-edged sword.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “The registrar’s office swears they know nothing about it and just by asking I’ve become rather unpopular all of a sudden. But Randall Stone is probably the first student Atherton has ever admitted who was homeschooled for his entire high-school career. Never mind that his birth certificate’s missing.”

  “I thought we had a rather thorough admissions committee.”

  “They believe they’re thorough, which might explain why they haven’t returned my calls.”

  “What are you saying, John?” Eric asked, genuinely confused.

  Hawthorne met his eyes. “Randall Stone is engaged in a media battle and nothing more. If I had the full faith and confidence that you did not have a sexual relationship with this young man, I could find a way to let this information slip regarding his application. And the next time this young man tried to talk to a reporter, first he would have to explain just why he was admitted to Atherton without a basic high-school education and proof of his own birth.”

  Eric was struck silent. Proof of his own birth? What was Hawthorne saying? But the man mistook Eric’s silence for indecision. “I imagine it’s a tough decision. Asking the university to go to the barricades for you. And to be quite frank, the resulting explosion might be something even I couldn’t manage.”

  Eric remained mute. Hawthorne took his second swallow of wine since sitting down. “Pretend I’m not who I am. Pretend I don’t work for Atherton. How well do you know this young man?”

  “Well.’’

  “Then it should be no mystery to you why anything regarding Mr. Stone might merit my attentions first? Why the university sent me as its emissary, as you said.”

  Eric said nothing.

  “Can you imagine the story? A complete refurbishment of the Sciences Library, a brand-new Technology Center at half the original estimate. Three more projects in the works. And what did Atherton have to do to get its discount? Admit a young man who probably didn’t have the credentials to be accepted to your average junior college.” Eric’s breath left him and a sudden chill told him that blood was leaving his face. Hawthorne noticed. “Eric, you didn’t know?”

  Eric gripped the mantel to hold his balance as the past sank its teeth into the present.

  “Michael Price is listed as Randall Stone’s legal guardian.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  APRIL WAS SLIDING HANGERS ON THE ROD AND TOSSING CANDIDATES & for the evening’s outfit onto her mattress. Kathryn lazily flipped through the pages of Randall’s story. “Come on, Kathryn. You can laugh about it a little! Aren’t you the least bit excited you got on the news?”

  “Enough, April.”

  A television cameraman had been taking his break inside Adamson Hall that afternoon, and as a result the sound bite of Mitchell doubling over against Kathryn’s knee had run at the tail end of the local Channel 2 News as comic relief, the anchors speculating on whether or not it was the final scene in a college romance gone wrong.

  “Well, Karen was totally psyched. She had that prick as a TA last year and all he did on her papers was correct her grammar.”

  On the back of her neck, Kathryn could feel April approaching the chair. She felt an urge to hide the story. Fuck it. Randall was long gone anyway.

  “Did he cheat on you or something?”

  Kathryn’s laugh felt like a cough.

  “Kathryn.” April’s tone was grave, so Kathryn turned, resting the story on her lap. “Talk to me.”

  Kathryn sank her teeth into her lower lip and lowered her eyes from April in a gesture that must have looked like shame, “Where are you off to?”

  “The library. With Karen.”

  “Can you be late?”

  “I guess.”

  Kathryn got up, squatted, and removed Jesse’s laptop from under her bed. April’s expression remained fixed and expectant right up until Kathryn handed her the laptop. She took it reluctantly, looking from the computer to Kathryn. “It’s Jesse’s,” Kathryn answered before she could ask. “I found it under his bed.”

  “You should have shown it to me earlier.”

  “April, don’t start in on me, all right? It—”

  “No. I just mean you don’t know crap about computers.”

  April took a seat on her bed, crossing her legs and popping the computer open in front of her. The phone rang and Kathryn grabbed for it, trying to ignore the small voice inside that shouted It's Randall! Answer it quick!

  “Hello?”

  “Did you kick some guy in the balls on TV?”

  “What?”

  “Carol just called me. She said she saw you on the six o’clock news...” And her father, who had no way of knowing all that had happened to her in the past forty-eight hours, broke down into halfchoked laughter.

  April was deftly working her way through Jesse’s files. Kathryn clamped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Journal. It’s a Word file.”

  “You’re a star, Kathryn,” her father said when he caught his breath.

  “Does Carol still live in Minneapolis?” Kathryn asked.

  “Yep. She said they ran it on the local six o’clock news there. At the end, though. Like those stories about little dogs that can howl the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ No luck here though, but your mother and I are staying up past eleven just in case.”

  “Great.”

  “Violent outbursts aside, are you all right?”

  “Uh-huh,” she answered without pretense of happiness. She could see that April was reading the file because her expression was tight, her eyes locked on the screen as her hand clicked the mouse to page down every few seconds.

  “So what did this jerk do, anyway?”

  “He wanted me to join a cult.”

  Her father started laughing again, and repeated her answer to her mother. “Is she kidding?” she heard her mother ask from the- other room.

  “Yes. I’m kidding. I gotta go, Dad.”

  “Do you think I can see a tape?”

  “Good-bye.” She hung up. “Which one are you reading?”

  “Guess,” April answered without looking up.

  Kathryn slid open her desk drawer and removed the printout of the article. She dropped it next to April and went back to her own bed. April finished reading the file and then picked up the article. She finished reading that too without flinching, without even shaking her head at what she’d just discovered. Instead, she turned her attention back to the computer.

  “So?”

  “Disgusting.”

  “Which one?”

  “Jesse.”

  Kathryn waited for her to continue. She didn’t. “And Randall?” she asked impatiently.

  April glanced up at her, as if debating whether to give her input. “Sad. But I’m not surprised.”

  “Excuse me?” Kathryn asked incredulously.

  “All right. Let me be fair. This I never could have predicted, but if you had ever asked me if I really thought he was some sort of Park Avenue prince, well. . .”

  Her attention was back on the screen.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “His cache.”

  Kathryn got up and went over to April’s side of the room. On the screen, April had opened a folder labeled “Temporary Internet Files.”

  “He never cleared it,” April said.

  “What is it?”

  “Every time you go on the Net and download a web page, your computer automatically saves a copy in your hard drive so it can load it faster the next time you visit the site. Unless you tell it not to, which Jesse didn’t. Look at this...” April paged down. The list was endless.

  “This is like a record of everything he’s ever looked at on line.”

  �
��Great. Porn.”

  “No, actually. Either Jesse was planning on writing a history of the passport, or he was interested in getting out of the country.” April kept looking at the computer. “He checked out passport and visa requirements for Canada and three countries in South America. And he visited just about every website he could find with general travel information for. ..” She clicked. “Boy was a world traveler—it looks like —islands in the Caribbean, Brazil, Nova Scotia. He also visited three travel agency websites on a regular basis. Bestrip dot com. Rates Etcetera dot com.”

  Kathryn remembered a drunken Randall, collapsed outside the door to his room. His babble jibed with what April was discovering. “Cozumel,” he had slurred; Followed by “The phone lines end.”

  “What are you saying?” Kathryn asked.

  “I’m just saying what’s right here. And maybe he could pay for it • too. The guy sure never wasted a dime shopping on line.”

  Kathryn shook her head.

  “What else did you look at in here?” April asked.

  “His E-mail. There was a message from his dad’s lawyer. A couple weeks ago his dad went to rehab. Got sent to rehab, actually.”

  “What for?”

  “It didn’t say.”

  “For how long?”

  “Twenty-eight days.”

  “Starting three weeks ago. I’d say that gives Jesse plenty of time to get out of town.”

  “Oh, come on, April!”

  “Kathryn, what do you want me to say?” April slid the computer aside and stretched her legs. “The guy never put down a single root here. He didn’t even make any friends. Reading those entries, it was like the only people Jesse ever came into contact with at this school were people he despised, that he thought were weak. And if his father is such a fucking nightmare that he got sent to rehab, maybe the only reason Jesse came to Atherton in the first place was to get as far away from him as possible. Now his dad’s in some clinic, and Jesse has the chance to get even farther away, and by the time his dad finds out it’ll' be too late.”

  “So you think he just hopped on a jet to Brazil?” Kathryn asked sarcastically. “He just ran away like a little kid?”

  “Considering how awestruck he was when he found out Randall did the same thing, maybe he got inspired.” April rose and slid one arm through her coat.

  “And he just leaves his computer?”

  “A small oversight considering what he was planning on doing.”

  “How small? It’s got all the evidence of what he was planning to do. Not to mention concrete proof that he was an unforgivable asshole.”

  April stared hard at her. “Randall may be a professional liar, Kathryn. But that doesn’t mean he did something unthinkable to Jesse when he figured out who Randall really was.” Kathryn lowered her eyes as April centered a searchlight on the suspicions that had been plaguing her for the past three days. “Here you’ve got a sociopath with a drug-addict father who, if he doesn’t long to get away, sure has an obsession with faraway places. And then he figures out he’s living with someone who managed not only to run away from home, but come up with an entirely new identity. He called it 'awe-inspiring,’ Kathryn.”

  April stopped, but from her face it didn’t look like she was finished, just afraid to keep going. She began buttoning her jacket.

  “You think Randall went to meet him, don’t you?”

  The thrill of deduction vanished from April’s face, “Why not? What’s keeping him here? He got his revenge against Eberman. And he’s lost you as a friend.”

  When April laid a sympathetic hand on Kathryn's shoulder, Kathryn stepped out from under it and moved to her desk chair, but April didn’t leave.

  “Kathryn, I love you. But you like drama. Epic, who-shot-JR drama. And I hate to be the one to tell you that maybe you and Jesse weren’t really engaged in some immortal battle for Randall’s soul. Maybe Jesse just needed Randall to show him how to do what he’d wanted to do for a long time now. And when Jesse asked, Randall listened to his balls instead of his brain.”

  April waited for Kathryn to say something, and when she didn’t, April withdrew from the room.

  Once she was gone, Kathryn picked up Randall’s story and read.

  Outside the principal’s office, Mrs. Warrington waited, sitting next to Ricky and fearing another outburst like the one he’d had in class. During their silence, the entire waiting room began to rattle, chair legs knocking against the linoleum floor. Ricky was silent and sullen, unresponsive to the Shaking caused by the passing locomotive.

  “Sometimes I think that sound will drive me crazy,” she said with a smile.

  Ricky turned his head and stared at her blankly. “It’s the only reason we’re here,” the boy said.

  Suddenly, she remembered Ricky’s poor mother. The boy leaned forward, his hands gripping the arm of the chair, the only thing that separated them. He spoke through clenched teeth. “We are here because my mother was killed by a train!”

  She jumped when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Kathryn Parker?”

  She didn’t recognize the man’s voice and didn’t answer.

  “Kathryn. This is Eric Eberman.”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  Silence came from the other end, and Kathryn rose from her chair slowly, as if to protect herself from someone who might enter the room. “Kathryn, I’ve finished reading your essay and I’d like to discuss it with you.”

  Her mouth opened even though she had no clue what to say.

  But he had already hung up.

  “Meeting him. It kind of put you in perspective,” said Pamela Milford.

  Eric had drawn her coat around her shoulders and her sticky fingers were attempting to button it, to no avail, so he took over. She reached past his shoulder for the red scarf dangling from a hook on the coat rack. She was still drunk, but her words came out with almost subversive coherence.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, not wanting to, after he’d finished buttoning her coat.

  “Like I said, I bet a lot of people don’t get his sense of humor. Don’t get him, really. But I bet you spend a lot of your time sticking up for Michael, explaining Michael. Maybe you’ve taken the time to understand him in a way that nobody else in his life has. And to me, that says you have a lot of character.” She pulled one end of the scarf over the other and wedged both between her sweater and the collar of her jacket. “It’s a compliment, Eric. Are you going to fight me on it?”

  Was she pretending for him? Did she really think Michael was just joking, or had alcohol clouded her judgment?

  Eric cupped her cheek with one hand, leaned in, and kissed her gently on the lips. When he withdrew he saw her eyes were still slitted, her lips still slightly puckered, as if still savoring the taste of his lips, testing the sincerity of it.

  She reached up and patted his jaw. His head was swimming and part of him didn’t want to her to leave him there, with Michael’s rage quietly and patiently awaiting him upstairs, but if she didn’t go he was sure Michael would come downstairs.

  “I’ll call you.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  But what she meant was, “You’d better.” What she meant was I know, and have known for a while, a lot more than you think I do.

  After she passed through the door, he held it open for several moments, taking the time to watch her pass through the front gate and cross the street, all without glancing at the house.

  Only when she was gone did he realize.

  She was wearing the scarf.

  When he turned around, Michael was at the top of the stairs, his hip resting against the newel post. He was backlit by a lamp, but Eric himself was harshly illuminated by the chandelier overhead; he knew his every move was readable, while he could discern only Michael’s silhouette.

  Michael spoke first. “I want the scarf. Then I’ll leave.”

  Low, driving winds parted the clouds that had sent down snow th
at afternoon, shadowing the thumbnail moon over the roof of Eric Eberman’s house. Kathryn hesitated at the bottom of the front steps, one hand on the rail. The shutters were drawn over the living-room windows; an eerie reminder of 231 Slope Street. Flickering firelight danced in the narrow spaces between the slats.

  As she went up the steps, she noticed the sedan parked halfway up the block; the shadows of wind-jerked tree branches played across its solid, polished black paint and tinted windows. Its front tires seemed too far apart and the top of a thick radio antenna stuck up over the back of the roof. Trademarks of an unmarked cop car. Jono had once ruri them all off for her in a casual display of his bad-boy knowhow. Of course, she’d had no idea at the time why Jono had cause to fear undercover cops.

  Eric Eberman was under surveillance. The shadow behind the steering wheel had gone still as Kathryn stared straight back at the car.

  When the front door of the house opened, Kathryn just watched as a beam of firelight stretched across the front porch almost to where she stood on the top step. Eric Eberman was just a shadow.

  “You can come in.” His voice sounded measured and calm.

  “I already told Mitchell Seaver I don’t want to live in his house.”

  “Yes, I saw the local news. Although there wasn’t much telling involved, was there?”

  There was a wry note of admiration in his voice, and if she could see his face, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him smiling.

  He withdrew and left the door open.

  Before entering the foyer, she gave a last glance at the shadow cop, wondering whether or not entering the house would somehow incriminate her, associate her with a suspected murderer. She followed the light of the fire into the living room. Eric had settled into a reading chair. Her essay was folded across his lap. He licked a thumb and flipped pages as she hovered.

  This was the house in which Randall had spent most of his time when he wasn’t with her. Burgundy-painted walls, dark, varnished bookshelves lining them, slightly worn but inviting furniture. An atmosphere of scholarly meditation in which one woman drank herself to death, and the man sitting in front of her received sexual pleasure, from an eighteen-year-old. Like the room, Eric Eberman’s appearance ran contrary to his actions.