by Scott Pratt
37
Jack Dillard hustled along West End Avenue toward his dorm room in the semidarkness. It was nearly eight p.m. in Nashville, and he felt a constant rush of wind as the traffic roared past. His backpack was weighted down with textbooks and a twenty-pound plate he’d stuck inside. The extra weight pushed him, made him leaner and stronger.
Jack had been at Vanderbilt for three years now. When he arrived, he weighed two hundred thirty pounds and thought he was strong. Now, at two hundred fifteen pounds, he was stronger than ever, a walking piece of granite. Arkansas was coming in for a three-game series this weekend, and Jack briefly visualized smashing an inside fastball over the green monster in left field. He smiled to himself. He’d done it before. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he’d do it again.
Jack’s mind drifted to the paper he had to write later that night—five pages on biological anthropology. He intended to write about the difference between the evolution of man and the evolution of apes. Many people thought men evolved from apes. They were wrong. As he pondered his thesis sentence, Jack wondered how many papers he’d written at Vanderbilt. At least a hundred, he decided. The professors were all about being able to express yourself in writing.
Jack was sore and tired, but he was used to it. Vandy was a demanding place, and his baseball coach was a drill sergeant. His days were often twelve, fourteen hours. He was up early and off to class until noon. On game days, he’d be at the field right after lunch, hitting in the cages, throwing, shagging fly balls, lifting weights. After a two-hour warm-up, he’d play a three- or four-hour game, then do maintenance work on the field, take a shower, grab something to eat, and then study, study, study. Off days were just as strenuous, probably more so, because that’s when the team conditioned, and the sessions were brutal: weight lifting, plyometrics, sprint work, endurance work. It was a never-ending assault on the mind and body. Free time was for nonathletes. Free time was for pussies.
Something ahead caught Jack’s eye. A man was leaning against a tree just inside the wrought-iron fence that separated the campus from the street. Jack wasn’t close enough to recognize him, but the man appeared to be watching him. As Jack approached, the figure slipped behind the tree and disappeared.
Jack walked past the spot and looked closely at where the man had been standing. There was a hemlock hedge to the right of the tree, and it appeared he had walked behind it. Maybe the guy was a student and had just walked outside the dorm for a smoke. Jack kept walking. Because of his size and strength, mugging had never been a concern, at Vandy or anywhere else, but as he pushed on down the street, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, maybe even followed.
Jack turned right onto the circle that surrounded the statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt. He looked over his shoulder. The lighting here was poor; if someone was going to attack him, this would be the best place. He lengthened his stride and veered off the circle onto the sidewalk that led toward the Hemingway Quad. As he passed a low wall of shrubbery, he caught a quick glimpse of someone moving quickly. He was suddenly knocked off balance as the figure jumped on his back and tried to get him in a choke hold.
Jack quickly gathered himself and dropped to his left knee. He instinctively tugged the attacker’s right shoulder forward with his left hand and jerked his upper body hard, downward and to his left. It was a judo throw his father had shown him years ago. Every time he’d used it when wrestling with teammates or challengers from the dorm, it had worked, and this was no different. His attacker flew over his shoulder and landed with a thud on his back. Jack quickly straddled him and was just about to unload on him with his fist, when he heard a familiar laugh. He stopped and looked closely at the face.
“Damn you, T-bone!” Jack yelled as he rose to his feet. “You scared the crap out of me!”
“What’s up, Hammer?” The person on the ground slowly climbed to his feet, and Jack found himself staring into the tired- looking, smiling face of Tommy Miller. “I should have known you’d use that judo crap on me.”
Jack hugged Tommy, and they shook hands. He loved Tommy like a brother. He was fun and easygoing, constantly joking. Jack had always found Tommy to be an honest and loyal friend. And he was a fierce competitor on the baseball field. Jack had faced him dozens of times in practice over the years. Tommy had a fastball in the low nineties, a wicked slider, and a changeup that had buckled Jack’s knees more than he cared to remember.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jack said.
“I’m in the wind, man. Let’s go get some coffee or something, and I’ll tell you about it.”
Jack knew Tommy was “in the wind.” His dad had called the night before and told him he’d been fired because he refused to try to persuade the grand jury to indict Tommy for murder. He said Tommy had run from the police in Durham and that his car had disappeared. He said Tommy would probably be indicted soon.
“The police are looking for you, T-bone.”
“Yeah, now I know how the runaway slaves felt.”
“Follow me.”
Jack led Tommy to a group of four picnic tables beneath an elm tree near the library. The tables were all vacant. Jack tossed his backpack beside him and sat down at the one nearest the tree. Tommy sat across from him.
“How’d you get here?”
Tommy’s Red Sox baseball cap was pulled low on his forehead. Jack noticed that his eyes kept darting around, watching everything. “I hitched a ride.”
“Why’d you run?”
“I was scared out of my mind. Mom told me they think I killed that judge.”
Jack tensed slightly. He didn’t want to ask the question, but he needed to.
“Did you?”
Tommy shook his head and let out a deep breath.
“I don’t even know where the guy lived,” Tommy said. “I went to Dad’s grave that night with a gallon of bourbon. I don’t drink very often, but I think I must have drunk the whole damned gallon, because the last thing I remember is sitting on the ground, leaning on the headstone, crying. I woke up in the backseat of my car around five the next morning. It was parked next to this little convenience store on Oakland, and I had no idea how I got there. I was so hungover, man. My head was splitting, and I felt like I was going to barf all over the place. Your house was a lot closer than mine, so I drove over there.”
“So you don’t remember anything you did?” Jack said. “You don’t remember driving to the convenience store?”
“No, and that’s the problem. That’s why I’m so scared of the cops. If they ask me what I was doing at such and such a time, I can’t tell them. Another thing that scares me is that Mom said whoever killed the judge burned him. I had freaking gasoline all over me when I woke up at the convenience store, and I don’t remember how it happened. I must have gotten gas somewhere, because my car was almost empty when I drove to the cemetery, and the next morning it was full.”
“So maybe you filled up with gas at the convenience store and spilled gas all over you, and then you decided to get in the backseat and go to sleep.”
“Maybe.”
“You should go back there and see if somebody remembers you. You had to pay for the gas, and if you were that drunk, you were sure to make an impression.”
“I’m afraid to go back there. I’m afraid to go anywhere near Johnson City.”
“Where’s your car?” Jack said. “Dad said the police can’t find it.”
“You’ll love this. I gave it to this black guy about fifty miles outside of Durham. He was working on this old piece of junk in his driveway when I drove by. He lived in this little shack. So I turned around and pulled into his place, got my suitcase and my backpack out of the car, took the tag off, and handed him the keys. You should have seen the look on his face. Then I hitched a ride the rest of the way to Durham.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because I knew the cops would be looking for the car. I didn’t want to drive it into a lake or something like that,
so I just figured I’d give it to somebody who needed it more than I did.”
“Listen, T-bone, you need to go back and face this. Running makes you look guilty.”
Tommy’s head dropped. He stared at the table for a long minute. “Maybe I am, Hammer. God knows I thought about beating that son of a bitch to death with my bare hands at least a hundred times since Dad killed himself. Maybe I got plastered and went nuts, found out where he lived somehow, and drove over there and killed him.”
“Don’t say that, even if you’re just joking. Don’t even think it.”
“I can’t go back there, man. Not yet, anyway. If I go back and tell the police I don’t remember what I did that night, they’ll arrest me for sure. I think I’ll just stay on the road for a while, then go back after things have settled down a little. Maybe in the meantime they’ll find out who really did it.”
“Do you have enough money? Do you need anything?”
“I’m okay. Mom gave me fifteen hundred dollars before I left. That should last me a little while.”
Jack reached over and touched his friend lightly on the hand. “I haven’t really had a chance to tell you this, but I’m sorry about your dad,” he said. “I’m sorry about everything.”
Tommy’s eyes began to glisten, and Jack saw tears begin to roll down his cheeks.
“Can you believe he killed himself because he thought we’d be better off with money than with him?” Tommy said. “He must have been in so much pain. I just wish I could hug him again and tell him everything will be all right.”
Tommy laid his head on his forearms and began to sob quietly. Jack wanted to offer him comfort but didn’t know how. He was accustomed to the banter that goes on in a locker room, jousting verbally with his friends and teammates. Trying to comfort a friend after such a terrible loss was foreign territory. He reached over and squeezed Tommy’s shoulder tightly.
“How about that coffee?” he said. “I’ll just run across the street to the cafeteria and get us some.”
Tommy raised his head slowly and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.
“Sure, Hammer, coffee sounds good.”
Jack was gone for less than ten minutes. As he was hurrying back up the sidewalk carrying the coffee, he saw a campus policeman emerge from the shadows near the spot where the picnic tables were located. Jack smiled and nodded as he passed the officer, but he knew what he’d probably find when he got back to the tables.
He was right. His backpack was still lying on the table where he’d left it, but Tommy was gone.
38
Hannah Mills laid the slim, elongated tube on a paper towel on the back of the toilet and began to pace around the house. She picked up Patches, the cocker spaniel-mix puppy she’d adopted from the animal shelter a couple of weeks earlier, and carried him along with her.
“It can’t be,” she kept saying to the pup. “It just can’t be.”
With all that had happened to her, Hannah had become an expert at putting things out of her mind, and that’s exactly what she’d done with the memory of her drunken night at the restaurant. What else could she do? Accuse Tanner of raping her? Perhaps, in her drunken state, she’d consented and simply didn’t remember.
Tanner had called the next afternoon to check on her and ask how she was feeling. She’d casually asked him how she got into bed, and he said he’d carried her into the house, laid her on the bed, removed her shoes, and tucked her in. Hannah couldn’t bring herself to believe otherwise.
The fatigue had started less than a week later. There were times when her legs felt as though they were made of concrete. She would suddenly find herself barely able to move, barely able to stay awake. There’d been several times when, out of nowhere, she’d felt like crying and would have to run off into the bathroom to sob. Last week, the waves of nausea had begun to wash over her in the mornings, even when her stomach was empty. Her breasts were tender. She urinated far more often than she ever had in the past. She’d missed her period.
Hannah walked back into the bathroom. The pregnancy test was sitting there, waiting. She knew what the result was going to be, but she had no idea what she was going to do. She held the puppy close to her chest with her left hand and reached down with her right… .
Hannah decided to call Lee Mooney. Mr. Mooney had hired her, after all, and had treated her extremely well since she’d made the move from Knoxville. He also knew Tanner well and might be able to give her some advice in that regard. She’d thought about calling Joe and Caroline Dillard and asking their advice, but she found she was too embarrassed. She hadn’t told Mr. Mooney the problem over the phone, just that she needed to speak with him as soon as possible. He’d arrived at her house in less than half an hour and was sitting in a chair in her den.
“I hope you’re not going to tell me you’ve decided to leave,” Mooney said as Hannah handed him a glass of sweet iced tea.
“No, no, I’m not leaving,” Hannah said nervously. Actually, the thought of leaving suddenly appealed to her. “At least I’m not planning on leaving. Not any time soon, anyway.”
“That doesn’t sound too promising,” Mooney said.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that … It’s just that what I’m about to tell you is terribly difficult, not to mention embarrassing. You can’t tell a soul.”
Mooney twisted the end of his handlebar mustache with the fingers on his right hand.
“I’ve never really asked you about your family, Hannah,” he said. “If I remember correctly, I asked you a couple of things when I first met you at the conference, and it seemed to make you uncomfortable. Isn’t there anyone in your family you can talk to?”
“I don’t have any family. My parents and brothers and sister were killed. I’m all that’s left.”
“Do you want to tell me about what happened to them?”
“Thank you, but no.”
“All right. Well, I hope you know you can trust me,” he said.
“You’ve been good to me.”
“And it’s been my pleasure.”
Hannah took a sip of her tea. Her hand was shaking, so she set the tea on a coaster on the coffee table in front of her. She folded her hands and began to rock back and forth.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
Hannah fought to maintain her composure, but the shock of actually saying the words caused her to break down. She covered her face with her hands and began to sob quietly. A few seconds later, she felt Mr. Mooney’s presence beside her. He sat down on the couch and gently took her hands.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Hannah looked at him through watery eyes. He was smiling warmly. Both his touch and his voice were reassuring.
“Do you feel up to talking?”
Hannah calmed herself as best she could. Mr. Mooney handed her a handkerchief, and she tearfully recounted her symptoms of the past few weeks and the results of the pregnancy test.
“It had to happen the night I got so drunk,” she said tearfully. “It had to be Tanner.”
“You have no recollection of what happened after you got home that night?” he said.
“None. None whatsoever.”
“There are certainly ways to find out if Tanner’s the father,” Mr. Mooney said. “Paternity tests. You could ask him to take a paternity test.”
“I know. I’ve thought of that.”
“If he refuses, you could force him.”
“Yes, I know. But what then? What if he takes a test and I find out it’s his?”
“Then I suppose you have him arrested for rape.”
“I can’t be certain he raped me. Maybe I let him. Maybe I wanted him to.”
“Hannah,” Mr. Mooney said, “I was there that night. I saw how intoxicated you were. As a matter of fact, I felt guilty about my role in contributing to your condition. But sex is something that’s supposed to occur between two consenting adults, and there’s no way in the world you were capable of con
senting. If Tanner had sex with you that night, it was a rape under the law. And if he raped you, he needs to face the consequences.”
“No,” Hannah said. “I can’t. I won’t. I’ve worked with dozens of rape victims in the past six or seven years, Mr. Mooney. I’ve seen what they go through. I can’t put myself through that.”
“I understand, Hannah. I truly do. The system can be harder on victims than criminals.”
Mr. Mooney rubbed Hannah’s hands gently. She found herself glad that she’d made the decision to call him. It was good to have someone to talk to, especially someone as experienced, not to mention as compassionate, as Mr. Mooney.
“Have you considered the alternative?” Mr. Mooney said.
Hannah looked at him and blinked, not quite sure what he meant.
“You could terminate the pregnancy. It happens more than you might think, especially in cases of rape.”
The thought of abortion hadn’t entered Hannah’s mind. It was out of the question. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—even begin to entertain the notion of destroying the life she knew was growing inside her. Rape or no rape, abortion was not an option.
“No,” Hannah said quietly. “I could never do that.”
“Are you sure? It’s no sin, Hannah, especially considering what seems to have happened to you.”
“No,” she whispered. “No, Mr. Mooney. I won’t destroy my own child.”
“Of course you won’t. I hope you’ll forgive me for even bringing it up.”
Hannah was silent after that, lost in the maze of thought that surrounded her latest predicament. Mr. Mooney continued to rub her hands and softly reassure her, and she was content to let him do so. A half hour passed, maybe more. Mr. Mooney knelt in front of her and pushed back from her face the hair that had matted in the tears on her cheeks.
“It’s getting late, Hannah,” he said. “I have to go now. Why don’t we sleep on it for a day or two and then decide the best course of action? There’s no sense rushing into anything.”
