Facade

by Susan Cory

  He lifted the strap off his messenger bag and tossed it on the sofa. Then he froze. Iris tried to see what he was looking at but his glasses caught the sun's glare. Then she saw it. The book. She had left out the damn poetry book. What could she possibly say if he caught her in his closet?

  He picked up the book and studied its cover. Opening it to an earmarked page, he stared at the words intently while Iris' mouth went dry. Looking puzzled, he returned the book to the shelf. While the tension in Iris' body made her muscles ache, he returned to the sofa and dumped a stack of mail out of his bag, then calmly sifted his way through the pile, tossing the junk mail on the floor. Next he pulled out his laptop and booted it up. He waded through e-mails and pecked out a few replies. She was just massaging a cramp in her leg when she heard it— an impossibly loud chirp coming from her pocket.

  Nils cocked his head and stood up.

  She felt blood rushing to her ears.

  He turned in her direction.

  He took a step toward the closet, then waited, listening.

  The buzz of his own cell phone made them both jump. Iris watched Nils reach for it on the coffee table, turning away. He spoke loudly in a language Iris didn't recognize. The conversation became animated. She let out her breath as he wandered into the kitchen.

  Iris carefully opened the closet door and tiptoed out of the apartment.

  CHAPTER 51

  What effect was this room supposed to have on him? Intimidation? Xander had been in this interrogation room at the Cambridge Police Station before and, as before, he was mystified by how someone could design such a bland space. Okay—the one-way mirror made him uneasy, not knowing who might be watching him, but the windows didn't even have bars on them. They were probably thick laminated glass.

  “Professor DeWitt, did you hear me?” asked the tall, skinny policeman with the protruding ears and cold eyes, tapping a photo.

  Xander's glance took in a bloody piece of flowered fabric and he wrinkled his nose. “I've never seen that item before.”

  His solicitor, James Farrington, Esquire, alert as a sparrow, sat on the edge of his vinyl chair waiting for cause to jump in and object. He was making notes on a yellow legal pad. He had told Xander on the drive over that this meeting's purpose was merely for them to discover what evidence the police might have.

  Now the younger policeman, the one with the shaved head who looked like he lifted weights, pulled a pair of boots out of a paper bag. He set them on the metal table. “Do you recognize these?”

  Farrington shot Xander a warning look but didn't object.

  Xander pulled over a boot and examined it. “I can't be sure. I do own ones similar to these, as I'm sure many people do. They're from a company called L. Bean I think. My assistant bought them for me.”

  The beefy cop continued, “When was the last time you remember wearing yours?”

  Xander threw up his hands in exasperation. “Detective, if I wore these boots to commit a crime, do you really think I would have kept them?”

  “Please answer the question.”

  “I only wear them if I anticipate having to walk in mud or rain. I leave them inside by the kitchen door.”

  “And when was the last time you used them?”

  Xander thought for a minute. “When I went to New Hampshire.” He sensed the two policemen stiffen slightly, “In mid-September, to visit a Frank Lloyd Wright house with my assistant. We took many photos and I gave a talk about it at the GSD two weeks ago.”

  Then it was the skinny cop's turn to produce a small bag. He slid out a set of keys and placed them on the table.“You told us last week that you had no access to a vehicle, that your assistant rented Zipcars if you needed to travel outside of Cambridge. Do you recognize these keys?”

  Xander studied the tacky Bulldog keyring. An adrenalin rush of fear surged through him.

  Farrington whispered a few words to Xander before collecting his papers and standing up.

  “This is a fishing expedition. If you aren't going to arrest my client, we're leaving.”

  Xander got up to follow him.

  Skinny Cop gestured Xander back to his seat. “These boots with blood identified as Lara Kurjak's on their soles and the keys belonging to her kidnapper's van were both found in your house. Xander DeWitt, we are arresting you for suspicion of the abduction and murder of Lara Kurjak. You have the right to remain silent...”

  Xander didn't hear the rest of the warning. His ears buzzed with static. He felt faint. He could see Farrington's lips moving but couldn't make out the words.

  The two policemen and Farrington accompanied Xander down to a sub-basement area where he had to empty his pockets into a plastic bag and hand it to an officer inside a cage. Before leaving him there, his solicitor assured Xander that he'd get him out on bail the next morning. That meant he had to survive the night in this place.

  A uniformed guard fingerprinted him, took his mug shot and made him change into a hideous orange jumpsuit. They called it “being processed,” like an animal being led to the slaughterhouse. When the guard led Xander through a series of heavy doors to a stark, claustrophobic cell, the dull clang of the heavy door closing was the sound of the prisoner being cut off from his former life.

  He slumped on the edge of a metal cot, hands on his knees as he stared at the concrete floor, rage boiling up inside him. He had lost control of the situation. He had never thought about enemies before. He had never worried about stepping on toes. His focus had always been on his ascent, not on looking over his shoulder.

  Xander tried to tamp down his emotions, his anger, to let his intellect rise to the fore. He sat up cross-legged on the cot, hands resting on his knees, eyes closed. He needed to focus on the evidence against him. He couldn't rely on these idiot police bureaucrats to figure out that someone had planted those boots. They just wanted to close their case.

  He took three deep breaths.

  Okay, his neighbor had left him keys to his garage and van, but Xander had never intended to use them. The van was a stick shift and Xander could barely drive an automatic. Where had he even put the damn keys after his neighbor had pressed them into his hand? Xander hadn't mentioned the keys to anyone, not even Nils.

  And the boots. He knew that he hadn't gotten anyone's blood on them. Someone must have broken into his house and stolen them. He scrolled through his stored memories to recall who he might have invited inside the Howland Street house. Nils of course. But it was out of the question that Nils would ever set him up. He had saved the man's life.

  Gilles had dropped by to see how he was getting along in the beginning of the semester. Xander couldn't imagine why Gilles would harbor any ill will toward him. Gilles was the one who had invited Xander to come to Harvard to teach this fall. Maybe it was part of some elaborate revenge scheme. Maybe Gilles was in this with another architect who felt Xander had wronged him. He'd have to consider that angle.

  The only other person who had crossed his threshold was Iris Reid. She had peered in the window at him on that fateful night. That was creepy. Then she had barged into his kitchen the next weekend. Maybe she was angry that he hadn't made a pass at her. Or maybe she was exacting revenge on behalf of someone else. She seemed like a crusader. He had told her about the porn planted on his computer. After he got out on bail he would need to confront her.

  But first he had to get through the night. He could hear rustling coming from the cell on his left and a guy muttering to himself from the right. Would they have heard of his supposed crime? He had learned from television shows that child rape and murder were considered heinous crimes even by hardened criminals. Would someone attack him... or worse? He'd heard about what happens in jails. Oh, God.

  Xander lay down on his cot and curled up in a fetal position. He closed his eyes again to block out the harsh fluorescent glare on his orange jumpsuit.

  CHAPTER 52

  At eight-thirty the next morning, Ellie tapped on Iris' kitchen door. She carried a copy of Friday's
Globe tucked under an arm.

  “Are you still speaking to me after I almost got you caught?” Ellie said.

  “You're officially dropped from my list of reliable lookouts,” Iris sniffed.

  “Please forgive me. As I said last night, Rory got me talking and by the time I checked on Nils, he'd disappeared.” Ellie laid down her copy of the newspaper and stabbed her finger at the headline, Harvard Prof Arrested! “How do you think Budge found out about Xander?”

  “Sterling says the police often leak information to spread their own agenda. After the discovery in New Hampshire, they'd probably given up hope of Xander leading them to Lara alive, so there was no reason to continue sitting on the information. Plus, Budge and I saw the police search his house and discover the van next door, so Budge might have stationed a Globe intern outside the station, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Are you still thinking Nils might have set Xander up?” Ellie said as she made herself a cappuccino from Iris' countertop machine, suspending the conversation for several long seconds while she noisily frothed the milk.

  “I can't figure out what's going on between them. They seem to be in cahoots about something but, even though they didn't know I could hear them, they didn't talk about anything that might have tied them to Lara.”

  “Show me the photo you found in his apartment.”

  Iris retrieved it from the desk in her office and they studied it together.

  “Nice abs,” Ellie remarked.

  “Definitely a beefcake shot. It was tucked in with an interview of Xander from Time magazine along with a second badass photo of Xander wearing a black leather jacket.”

  “I remember that picture. Where did you find them?”

  “In Nils' bedside table.”

  “Really?”

  “I know... Just one photo in the living room might be a Band of Brothers thing. But two photos in his bedside table? Of your boss? Who you see every day?”

  “I can't see Xander returning the emotion, can you?” Ellie said.

  Iris tipped her head. “No, I didn't get a sense of love or lust or much of anything at all when Xander mentioned Nils. But I didn't get the sense that many people get through to Xander's heart. I wonder if his indifference might have turned Nil's feelings into a desire to get back at him. If Xander was a pedophile, and a girl could successfully win his affection when Nils could not, he might decide to kill the competition, while framing Xander in the process. Certainly Nils has the easiest access for setting Xander up.”

  “True,” Ellie said, sipping her cappuccino. “But there's something bothering me about how Lara got drawn into this. By all accounts, she led a sheltered life. She went from her parochial school to helping at her father's shop in the afternoons. According to the papers, she wasn't allowed to have a cell phone or even a Facebook page. Her father set her laptop to the most restrictive parental controls, so presumably she wasn't lured out to meet someone over the internet. Does that mean that the kidnapper spotted her on the street at random?”

  “Or maybe he saw her at her father's store.”

  “Is there any way to find out if Xander or Nils ever went there?”

  “If either of them took Lara, they'd hardly volunteer that they ever shopped there. I'm sure the police showed the father a picture of Xander, at least.”

  Iris stared out her bay window at the yellow leaves beginning to pile up on her bluestone terrace.

  “Whether Xander took Lara or not, the architectural world now knows that he's been accused of a crime. I noticed, in Budge's article, that Gilles at GSD didn't offer any supportive comments.”

  “On the contrary, I'd say he went out of his way to distance himself from his star professor,” Ellie said as she carried her cup to the sink.

  There was the scrabbling sound of toenails on tile hearth as Sheba emerged from her favorite spot inside the kitchen fireplace and stared up at Iris meaningfully.

  “Looks like it's time for someone's walk.” Ellie grabbed her jacket. “I'd better let you two go.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later Iris and Sheba started out on the two-mile path around Fresh Pond, Cambridge's reservoir. Iris sifted through her thoughts as entertaining snippets of conversation floated by her from Cantabrigians passing along the wide footpath.

  Two middle-aged women with arms pumping power-walked toward her. “My landscape architect wants to do a koi pond but...”

  Sheba resisted Iris' tug on the leash as the dog intently sniffed a bush, apparently a popular one.

  A squat, bearded man with a scholarly face sat on a bench and, leaning toward his companion, said in a bemused tone, “...my students seem to have made a computer avatar of me.”

  Iris unsnapped Sheba's leash as they approached the small, muddy pond where dogs were allowed to swim. Sheba waddled into the chilly water up to her belly, then promptly turned and waddled right back out. Iris gave her a tiny liver-flavored treat.

  As they rejoined the main path circling the reservoir, two women in shorts jogged by, one calling out to the other, “I've become a vegan but, you know, I still eat lobster and bacon.”

  Iris' attention shifted to a copse of trees on a hill. At this midpoint in October, the trees were turning colors at different rates. A big maple looked like it had been overturned and dipped partly in red paint, remaining green on its bottom branches. Rather than the slow fade to brown witnessed in most other parts of the world, fall in New England was a constantly changing display of fiery, improbable colors.

  She clipped Sheba's leash back on and guided the dog around a sweet-looking elderly couple. As she passed them she caught the woman's words, “... depraved Harvard professor deserves to rot in a cage.”

  Iris turned up the collar of her anorak against the blustery morning chill and thought of Ellie's question about how the kidnapper might have focused on Lara in the first place. Maybe he saw her riding home on her bike. Or doing an errand. Maybe he followed her and discovered where she lived.

  But on the day that Lara was taken, the girl had done something out of her usual routine. She'd slipped out of her apartment while her father was away and had gone to Jasna's place. Unless the kidnapper had been stalking her that evening, he wouldn't have known to look for her there. As she followed this train of thought, Iris almost walked into the path of an oblivious cyclist.

  “Hey, watch it!” the cyclist yelled at her. Always someone else's fault...

  The kidnapper must have been stalking Lara for some time before she disappeared from Jasna's apartment.

  Iris stopped short, unintentionally yanking Sheba by her leash. So her alibi for Xander was valid after all because she had seen him at home alone when whoever took Lara must have been stalking the girl.

  CHAPTER 53

  Iris gazed curiously around the waiting room of the offices of Farrington, Farrington and Rose. Someone had spent serious money on the interior finishes of this State Street law firm. She admired the bookmatched sheets of Honduras mahogany veneer on the walls. They were detailed with elegant crown molding and simple casings, avoiding the stuffy impression of traditional, over-elaborate millwork.

  “Mr. Taylor will be right out.”

  “Thanks, but I specifically asked to see Mr. Farrington, Xander DeWitt's attorney,” Iris said.

  “Mr. Taylor is working with Mr. Farrington on the case. He can help you.” The receptionist's impassive face turned back to her computer monitor, probably trolling on eBay.

  Iris had raced through her Friday afternoon desk crits with her students, then taken the T to this downtown office. Now it looked like she was going to be fobbed off on an underling who might not have the brains or stature to pass her information up the line.

  She stood up cautiously as a tall, handsome man in an expensive suit approached with an automatically outstretched hand.

  “I'm Martin Taylor,” said the non-underling. His handshake was firm, eye contact practiced. “I understand you have some information on the Xand
er DeWitt case that you might wish to share. Let's sit down in the conference room.”

  They walked down an Oriental-carpeted hallway to a small, elegant room lined with bookshelves. He gestured her toward a leather chair. She suddenly felt self-conscious about telling her story to this important and probably very busy man.

  “My brother's an attorney. He's warned me not to get involved, but I feel, in good conscience, that I need to come forward with something I saw. It seems futile for me to tell this to the police now that they've arrested Professor DeWitt.”

  “You sound like a good citizen, Ms. Reid. You say your brother's an attorney?”

  “Yes, Sterling Reid.”

  “You're Sterling's sister? We played squash the other day.” Martin Taylor stretched back in his seat and pantomimed an overhead smash.

  “His younger sister. Please, call me Iris.”

  “So, Iris, how do you know Professor DeWitt?” He reached for his iPad to take notes.

  “We're colleagues at the GSD. That's Harvard's architecture school.”

  “Yes, I know.” He smiled charmingly, but Iris was feeling immune to charm these last few days. Still, she couldn't help noting the dimple on his left cheek. “I'm a practicing architect as well as a teacher. Xander had told me about a new type of self-cleaning glass that I'd like to use on a project I'm designing in Harvard Square. I couldn't remember the name of the manufacturer, and Xander wasn't answering his cell phone. I was going out anyway to walk my dog, so I thought I'd drop a note through his mail slot.”

  “Which day are we talking about?”

  “Wednesday, the night Lara disappeared.”

  Martin Taylor stopped typing. “Did you see him?”

  “Yes, I saw him through the living room window, but he didn't see me.” Iris could feel her cheeks heating up.

  “Did you ring the doorbell? What time was this?”

  “Around nine. I didn't want to bother Xander because I noticed he was in his pajamas, listening to music, I assume. He had a big set of headphones on. I told Xander about this a few days afterward and he said he would tell his lawyer about this alibi. Well, partial alibi. Since that time the police have learned that Lara was actually abducted at around ten, so Xander still might have gone out after I saw him at home.”