Silent Witness

by Richard North Patterson

  The night was a riot of stars. Tony leaned back on his elbows, looking up, feeling the lake breeze on his face. The more he drank and watched the stars, the more the world seemed as it had been. He would have been happy to stay here, suspended in this moment, and have the morning never come.

  “After we get out,” Tony asked, “what are you going to do?”

  Sam considered this. “Go to college around here. Stick with Sue.” He paused for a moment. “Know something? What happened to Alison changed me too. I just want normal. I want to be where people know who I am. Where they already know what to think about me.”

  Never had Tony heard Sam express his insecurity this openly, and the wish for convention conflicted with his wilder side. But somehow this seemed more than whiskey-soaked musings on a warm spring night. For a long time, lying stretched out on the pier with the bottle between them, they said nothing else. Then Sam asked quietly, “Are you ever getting over her?”

  There was something tentative in the question, as if Sam feared the answer. In a flat voice, Tony answered, “Not if I go to jail.”

  “I mean inside, Tony.”

  For Tony, the stars vanished. He saw Alison lying beneath him, then Alison as he had found her, the Alison of the photographs. “No,” he answered. “I’m not getting over her.”

  Sam rose to his elbows. “I could, Tony. I mean, I’d have to treat it like something that happened to somebody else.” He turned to Tony, as if to reach him. “You’re not any different now—you’re still the same guy, you can have the same life. What’s different is how you feel. For your own good, you’ve got to find some way to change that. Or all you’ll be is the guy that some people think killed Alison Taylor.”

  Tony put down the bottle. “You weren’t there, Sam. Don’t talk about what you’ll never get on the smartest day of your life.”

  Sam lay back. “You don’t think I even miss her, do you? Sure I gave her shit sometimes, because she thought she was special. But she was. I knew it, and so did everyone else. I still think about her.…”

  “When you think about her,” Tony snapped, “you’re a fucking volunteer. She was my girlfriend, not yours.…”

  “She was your girlfriend.” There was a new tone in Sam’s voice, somewhere between regret and bitterness. “Because of that, you and I aren’t the same. I don’t want it that way.”

  Tony still felt taut. “I don’t, either.…”

  “So why has it made us different? If it happened to me, whatever else, I’d be damn sure it didn’t change us. Because you’re important to me, all right? No matter what happens, or what you do, you’re important.”

  Tony felt the whiskey in him; the conversation had taken on too many shades and tones. He righted himself, sitting cross-legged as Sam stretched on his elbow. “Sam,” he said, “you’re the closest friend I’ve got. But I’m not sure I know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  Sam gazed at the railroad ties beneath them. “Don’t you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Tony watched Sam search for words. “It’s like those other guys back there—the Lancers. They know you, you know them. But not really. I mean, one of them could die, or you could die, and everyone’s sad and then gets over it.” Stopping, he glanced at Tony, hoping to see comprehension.

  Coolly, Tony asked, “Are you talking about Alison?”

  Sam sat up. “For once can you get off Alison? This is about our friendship and what it means—”

  Cutting himself off, Sam stood abruptly and walked to the end of the dock, watching the black lake swirl below as it smacked against the iron legs of the pier. Tony still sat cross-legged, sorting through his emotions—confusion, anger, the fierce desire not to lose this friend, so much a part of him. The next swig of whiskey felt raw in his throat; watching Sam, a solitary figure on a pier projecting into dark water, he felt they were alone at the end of the world.

  Sam turned to him. “This is wrong, Tony. Because it doesn’t matter.”

  “What doesn’t matter?”

  Sam walked slowly back to where Tony sat and lay next to him, looking up at the stars with his hands behind his head; something about this made Sam seem open, vulnerable. “Nothing matters,” Sam repeated softly. “It wouldn’t matter to me if you’d killed her.”

  Suddenly Tony felt cold. “ ‘Wouldn’t’? Or ‘doesn’t’?”

  For a moment, Sam was quiet. “Wouldn’t. Doesn’t. It’s all the same to me.”

  “Are you asking if I killed her, Sam?”

  Sam turned to him now. “Did you?”

  Tony stared at him. It took all his effort just to say, “What do you think?”

  Sam’s gaze was silent, fearless. “I’ve stopped thinking about it.”

  All at once, Tony felt the months of pain and anger cut loose. He grabbed the neck of Sam’s T-shirt and jerked him upright, his right fist cocked in the air. He could feel Sam’s breath on his face. “What do you fucking think, Sam?”

  Sam made no move to defend himself. His eyes looked into Tony’s with an odd calm. “That they don’t have anyone else yet. And that it doesn’t matter to me.”

  Blood pounded in Tony’s head. Hoarsely, he said, “It matters to me,” and let go of Sam’s T-shirt.

  The back of Sam’s head struck the wooden pier. He lay there, squinting from the pain, still looking up at Tony.

  Tony almost whispered, “You should have stayed with the people you’re going through your fucking life with.”

  Standing, he walked quickly down the long, narrow pier. The echo of his own footsteps followed him.

  * * *

  The next afternoon was unseasonably warm. Tony sprawled on the chaise longue in back, wearing gym shorts and no shirt. He had no desire to go anywhere, to do anything, to see anyone. The one phone call he had made was to leave a message with Saul Ravin’s answering service, to ask Saul where things stood. He did not go to the mailbox because, today, he could not stand to lose the hope of Harvard; for the last five months, he had lived in fear that nothing—his grades, athletics, references, last summer’s strong interview—would matter if the admissions committee in Cambridge learned of a murder in a small Ohio town. If he could have stayed in this house until the next change happened to him—going to some college, or through a murder trial—he would have. On waking that morning, he had discovered what it meant to be truly alone.

  “Tony?”

  Startled, he realized that he had not heard Sue walk across the lawn. He moved his feet, and she sat on the corner of the chaise longue. She did not say anything; at first, it seemed that she had merely come to sit with him.

  “I guess you heard,” Tony said.

  Sue turned to him, eyes filled with questions. “Just that you were drinking and fought—sometimes it’s hard for Sam to explain himself. But I know he was embarrassed by whatever happened.”

  Tony felt his anger return. “I don’t see why. All he did was ask me what everyone else wants to know.”

  Sue’s pretty face was unusually grave. “If Sam asked you that, it was stupid. He knows you better.”

  Tony lay back on the chaise; though the person he saw was Sue Cash, the girl he had always liked, some perverse desire to break all ties pushed him on. “So you came to clean up his mess.”

  The first trace of resentment crossed Sue’s face; he watched as she recaptured her patience. “If you give Sam time, he’ll apologize. I don’t think he wants to be without you.”

  “Fine,” Tony said caustically. “Then tell him I didn’t kill Alison, and that if he tells me where he was that night, we can just go right on like the whole thing never happened.”

  Sue flushed and then gazed at him. “Sam was with me that night, remember? We wish you had been too, not just for Alison. Maybe Sam more than anyone.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. It’s just that Sam’s missed out on so much already, like wondering which person is worrying about who he’ll murder next. At least having his ‘best friend’ ask if he str
angled Alison would give him the flavor of the thing.” Tony paused, then finished in a tone more indifferent than he felt: “I’ll even tell him that the answer doesn’t matter.”

  Sue regarded him for a moment, quiet. “Sam has a lot of feelings, Tony—for you more than almost anyone. But he gets confused about how to say that.”

  Tony felt his surge of temper become something that, as far as Sam was concerned, felt colder and more certain. “It’s no good,” he said at last. “I can’t help how I feel about what Sam asked me, or what it means that he did.”

  “Then who will you talk to?”

  Tony shrugged. “Who cares?”

  “I do.”

  She said this simply. As if it were obvious, a commonplace.

  “You’re Sam’s girlfriend,” Tony said.

  Sue looked disconcerted, then annoyed. “That was stupid too. How about ‘You’re my friend, Sue.’ How about ‘I know you miss Alison too.’ Or maybe just ‘I don’t blame you for whatever dumb thing your boyfriend says.…’ ” She stopped herself, “I know you didn’t kill Alison. You never could have.”

  Tony looked at her. She had never said this to him directly: to Tony, the way she said it now bespoke a deep feminine conviction that was neither about fact nor about raising his morale—that he was innocent was simply something Sue Cash knew.

  For the first time, she was smiling a little. “You don’t have to fight with me too, all right? I’m just me.”

  Tony studied her face, so familiar and suddenly so welcome. “How long have I known you?” he asked after a time.

  Sue looked skyward. “Three years, anyhow. Since sometime in ninth grade…”

  “Actually, I remember seeing you my first day at high school. You were wearing a pink-striped dress.”

  Sue nodded. “It was my favorite. The night before, I made my mom iron it.” She smiled at him, dimples showing. “I was waiting for someone to say how pretty I looked.”

  Tony imagined the fourteen-year-old Sue, filled with anxiety and anticipation, watching her mother iron a pink-striped dress. “You were pretty,” he said.

  Sue looked down—still half smiling, eyes serious now—and then gave Tony’s hand a squeeze. It was an impulsive, affectionate gesture, Tony thought, so typical of Sue. Sam was luckier than he deserved.

  “You’re a good person, Sue.”

  “Why do people always tell me that?” she said in mock complaint. “What if I wanted to be really, really wicked?”

  “If I were you, I’d start by leaving town.”

  This seemed to make her thoughtful, though the smile lingered. They sat together in silence.

  “Tony!”

  This time it was his mother, hurrying across the yard with an envelope. “Mail for you,” she said. “From Harvard.”

  Tony could see the anxiety on her face; for all that she could annoy him, he knew that what she was feeling was not much different from the sudden, clenched-fist tightness in his stomach. As Helen Lord slipped the envelope into his hand, waiting expectantly for him to open it, Sue looked from Tony to his mother. “I should go,” she said.

  Tony shook his head, mute, already fumbling with the cream-colored envelope. He barely felt his mother and Sue watching as he read the first line.

  We are pleased to inform you …

  Tony kept reading until he reached the word “scholarship.”

  “God…”

  “What is it?” his mother asked.

  “I’m in.” He looked up at her in wonder. “They gave me a scholarship, Mom. I can go.…”

  It was the thought of the county prosecutor, not Helen Lord’s hug, that cut off his elation. But he let her enjoy this; he could feel all her hope, all her fears, in the fierceness of the way she held him.

  “Okay, Mom,” he said in a husky voice. “Please, I can’t breathe.…”

  His mother backed away, giving a shaky laugh. She still looked as if she did not believe it. “It’s so wonderful. Sue, isn’t this wonderful?”

  Sue smiled. “Yes. It is.”

  Helen Lord took the letter from Tony’s hand. “I’ll go tell your father…,” she began, and then hurried to the house, calling for him. Tony was far too moved to smile at this.

  “Well,” Sue Cash said softly. “You made it.”

  “Yeah. I made it. At least so far.”

  Smiling, Sue shook her head, as if refusing to believe that anything would stop him now. Half facetiously, she looked to see if Helen Lord was there, and then kissed Tony softly, warmly, on the mouth. When she leaned back, her eyes were filled with pleasure for him.

  “There,” she said. “Now I’ve kissed a Harvard man.”

  * * *

  That evening, Saul Ravin returned Tony’s call.

  “I got into Harvard,” Tony told him.

  “Hey, Tony, that’s great.” For that moment Saul sounded genuinely pleased, and then the good humor faded from his voice. “I guess you called for a status report.”

  “Yeah. Can you tell me anything?”

  “Not much. ‘No change I know of’ is about the best I can do.”

  There was a reserve in Saul’s tone. Since Alison’s death, Tony had become more sensitive to nuance, particularly when that left unsaid was bad. “What is it?” he asked.

  There was a long silence. “They’ve still got the coroner’s report under lock and key. But what’s more unusual is they won’t even tell me anything about it. It’s been nearly five months now.”

  Tony felt his apprehension grow. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure.” In the silence, Tony imagined Saul exhaling. “Maybe that there’s something unusual in the report itself. I’m afraid they’re still thinking about how to trap you, not clear you.”

  “Is that the only reason you think so?”

  There was another silence. “All right, Tony … I don’t want to worry you, but I guess you’ve earned the right to be treated like an adult.

  “There’s a meeting on Thursday. Morelli, the county prosecutor, and the Taylors. The pressure’s on—you’ve seen the local paper. Morelli won’t tell me what, but they seem to think they have more on you.”

  Tony felt the excitement of his letter from Harvard come crashing down around him. “Isn’t there something we can do? At least find out what it is?”

  “Not really … at this meeting, we don’t get a vote. But I’ll take a last run at Morelli.” Saul’s voice was softer now. “All you can do, Tony, is what you’ve done too damn much of: wait.”

  FOURTEEN

  With his acceptance to Harvard, all that remained for Tony—were it not for Alison’s murder—would have been the hope of winning Athlete of the Year. But for the five days between his conversation with Saul and Thursday evening, when Saul would report back, the specter of prosecution became Tony’s sole obsession.

  He could not shut it off. In the middle of physics class, he imagined calling the Taylors, begging them to believe him innocent. Reviewing that night—as he had every day since Alison’s death—Tony again tried to imagine who could have done this. He could not think of anyone in town: the fact that Alison and he had walked through the park was a fluke, caused by the frosted windows of his car, and someone watching her home would have waited by the driveway, not the back porch. Tony had seen her in the porch light; no one else could have known she would come out again. This left a murder of haunting randomness—a transient, near the grove of trees by happenstance. But the night had been cold, and the scene of Tony’s imagining required three people in the dark: two lovers unaware, a stranger so malevolent that, overhearing Alison and Tony, he had decided to lie in wait for her. None of this was plausible; nor, Tony was quite certain, could anyone have followed them to the park. Which brought Tony face-to-face with the conclusion he long ago had reached, all the more terrible because of Thursday’s meeting: that if he were the police, or the Taylors, he would believe that Tony Lord had strangled his girlfriend.

  On Thursday afternoon, Tony was
scheduled to pitch against Stratford. The game crept up on him, almost unnoticed; when Tony walked on to the field, tired from a night without sleep, the cop Dana was watching from the bleachers.

  * * *

  From the first warm-up pitch, Tony wondered if Dana would arrest him.

  Johnny D’Abruzzi was the catcher. Tony entered a twilight state of consciousness; he threw the ball to Johnny, caught it, threw again. It was as though he and Johnny were in a tunnel; Sam was playing first, as always, but Tony barely saw him. Some superstitious part of Tony felt that if he pretended Dana was not there, the detective would not come for him.

  For the first six innings, Tony did not talk to anyone, and Dana did not move.

  The game was nothing to nothing. Tony was not an overpowering pitcher; his success depended on throwing where Johnny held the catcher’s mitt, low and at the edges of the plate. Doing this again and again was all that kept Tony from going crazy; his focus was so complete, so desperate, that he had seldom pitched so well. He ignored the chatter of his teammates, their encouragement between innings; like Dana, they were part of a larger reality he needed to ignore. He did not give a damn about the team.

  When Sam hit a home run in the last half of the sixth, crossing the plate with the nonchalance that comes from deep self-pleasure, all that Tony thought of was that in one more inning the game—his last protection—would end, and Doug Dana would still be waiting.

  “Are you all right?”

  Johnny D’Abruzzi was standing over him. Only then did Tony realize that everyone else had rushed from the bench and begun to pummel Sam. The catcher gave him a puzzled look, then glanced at Ernie Nixon, their right fielder, standing at the edge of the celebration.

  “Sorry about the Lancers thing, Tony. I guess I started a lot of trouble.”

  “Not for me.”

  His tone was so indifferent that Johnny looked troubled. “One more inning,” he said awkwardly, and went to join the others.

  In the seventh inning, Tony took the mound again.