Alison, Sue thought. She watched Sam in the darkened car, his profile a shadow with a whiskey bottle tilted to its lips. Evenly, she said, “How do you know that Tony even is? Has he said anything?”
“No. But he never would.”
Sam was already drunk, she realized; that was when his conflicts, his feelings of confusion, crept to the surface. Suddenly Sue thought she understood: this was the biggest moment of Sam’s life, one he and Tony had wished for, and now Sam felt excluded—the moment had come and gone, and to Sam’s mind, Tony had barely noticed. What made it worse was that Tony was making love with Alison, and that Tony—though not, Sue suspected, Alison—was innocent of the feelings this might create in Sam.
“Are we any different?” Sue asked. “Do you talk with Tony about us?”
Sam took another swig. “No,” he said in a flat voice.
Suddenly Sue felt an anger of her own. “Is that why you’re so mad at him—because he never asks what you do with me? Or are you mad because Tony doesn’t want to do it with me? I mean, that would make him more like you, wouldn’t it? Or maybe it’s Alison—”
Sue stopped herself, stunned at what she was saying, and that she had said it at all. Sam had frozen. For what seemed minutes, he did not speak or move.
Apprehensive, Sue tried to make a joke of this. “All right,” she said. “Why don’t we just sit here and imagine what Alison and Tony are doing in Taylor Park. Really, I hope it’s great for both of them. At least it’ll clear up the confusion for all of us.”
Still Sam did not turn. “There’s no confusion,” he said.
His tone had an ominous quiet. Softly, she asked, “Then why are we having such a lousy night? I was so happy for you, Sam. All I want is for you to be happy with me.”
Sam drank more whiskey. “Sorry,” he said at last. “Someone cracked my head with an elbow. My ears are still ringing.” It was an excuse, Sue guessed: discomfited, Sam needed a reason for his distraction.
Pensive, she smoothed the pleats of her cheerleader skirt. “Maybe you should go home,” she told him.
Sam slid down in the car seat. He took another deep swallow, sinking into unfathomable thought. Sue waited for him to speak.
He drank in silence.
“Sam?”
He appeared to shiver from the effects of the whiskey. “Yeah.” His voice sounded thick. “Tomorrow I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Sue drew her shoulders in. She felt small, alone. They drove home without talking. Gently, she touched his wrist. But Sam seemed not to notice. When they reached Sue’s driveway, he started, as though awakening from a trance.
“I’ll be fine,” he said again. “Tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine too.” She gave him a quick, firm kiss. “Congratulations. You won, you know.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I won.”
Sue got out and walked up the driveway. Sam was already backing out when she reached the front door.
Sue went to her room, undressed, and lay in bed. The clock on her nightstand glowed in red numerals: 11:45. It made her think of Sam’s taillights—heading, she thought, in the opposite direction from his house. She hoped that he was not too drunk to drive; for a moment, she thought about calling to make sure that he was safe. But this would awaken his parents, Sue realized, and so it was best to put her worries aside.
Naked, she tried to imagine Alison and Tony. But the image, to her surprise, was of Tony alone. Perhaps she was more like Sam than she cared to know.
Sue tossed, her thoughts confused, until she fell asleep.
* * *
The night had the first wet chill of dawn. Looking at Sue, Tony felt it to the bone.
“Alison?” he demanded. “You think there was something between her and Sam?”
Sue took his hands. “I don’t know that anything went on. But for a while, Sam almost seemed obsessed with her—like he wanted to be the first, and couldn’t say that.” Her voice was quiet, shamed. “The week before she died, a slip of paper with a telephone number fell out of his binder. I recognized it—Alison’s private line—the one her parents didn’t want listed. When I asked Sam how he’d gotten it, he said it was from you. So Alison could help him with Spanish.”
“No.” Tony’s own voice was flat; his emotion expressed itself not in words but as pinpricks on his skin. “He didn’t get it from me.”
Sue looked away. “You’re sure.…”
“Oh, yes.” Standing, Tony stared up at the darkened window, his voice soft with anger. “If I’d known Sam wasn’t with you, I might have wondered just a little, even then. And how many seconds do you think it would have taken me to wonder once I heard about Marcie Calder? The only reason I didn’t was because it never occurred to me he could have been in Taylor Park the night that Alison died. And only because you always told me Sam was with you.” Suddenly he turned to her. “Why in God’s name did you ask me to defend him? Because you didn’t want to be alone with this? Or did you think that, somehow, I could answer all your doubts?”
Sue did not flinch. “I didn’t know anything. But after Marcie Calder died, I began to question everything.…”
“Well, I’d have done a lot more than that. If you’d bothered to tell me before I became Sam’s lawyer. And so would the Lake City cops, if anyone was left from 1967.” His tone was savage, bitter. “But Sam’s a lucky man, Sue. I always thought so. And now it’s clear just how lucky he’s been in you.”
There were tears in her eyes again. She stood, grasping his shoulders, looking up into his face. “It was his testimony that did it. I haven’t slept since then—worrying, hoping that I’m crazy. Not just because I’m scared to death, or because of the kids.” Her voice lowered. “It tore me apart that I may have asked you to defend the man who murdered Alison. The man who changed your life.…”
Because of what I didn’t know, I’m his lawyer now.
His voice was quiet again. “Oh, things are a little worse than that. No court would let me testify in a second Marcie Calder trial—I might as well be mute and paralyzed. And even if Karoly let Sam’s wife—or maybe ex-wife—take the stand, which I’m pretty damned sure he wouldn’t, there’s how your kids would deal with that. As for Alison, nothing you’ve told me proves a thing.” Tony paused and then, through his anger, saw Sue Cash as herself again. “Hope you’re wrong, Sue. You still might be. Otherwise, Sam’s killed twice.”
Sue shook her head, as if to clear it. “So there’s nothing you can do,” she said dully. “I’ve put this in your mind, and now you have to live with it.” She turned from him. “God, Tony, I’m so far past sorry.…”
She curled forward, hands over her mouth. The muffled sound of her keening, Sue’s guilt and shame and anguish, blended in the chill night air with the chirr of crickets.
THREE
Stella sat with the accordion folder on the desk in front of her. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she said.
Tony remained standing. It was two o’clock in the afternoon; since he had left Sue two nights before, he had not slept. “I didn’t think so, either. But I just kept wondering about this.”
Stella studied his expression with a cool curiosity and, he thought, a touch of compassion. “They had to dig it out of the basement,” she told him. “But before you came, I looked at the pictures. They aren’t pleasant, and I didn’t know her.”
“They wouldn’t show us the report, Stella. But I was the one who found her. I can still describe what’s in the pictures.”
Stella paused. “Not the ones they took at the morgue, Tony.”
Tony was quiet. “Well,” he said at last, “I’m not seventeen anymore.”
Stella watched him for another moment and then stood, picking up the folder. “There’s an empty office down the hall. I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”
Tony followed her through a green-tiled hallway to a room of bureaucratic bleakness, unrelieved by any signs of human habitation. Stella gestured at the metal desk. “Take
your time,” she said. “Just come back when you’re through.”
Tony turned to her. “I appreciate your help, Stella. Really.”
Her eyes remained puzzled. Nodding, she closed the door behind her.
Tony sat on the hard wooden chair, the folder in front of him.
For some time, he did not touch the folder. When he reached inside at last, his fingers felt clumsy, his stomach hollow.
The manila envelope, Tony knew, contained the photographs.
Inhaling, Tony reached inside. He did not yet look at the photographs. Beneath his fingertips, they were slick to the touch.
Tony spread the photographs in front of him.
“Alison.” He said it softly, without volition.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death …
She was as he remembered her. The nightmare did not lie.
The tears in Tony’s eyes were those of a seventeen-year-old who had loved her. But they were also of the man, the parent, the criminal lawyer, who understood, as the boy could not have, what a terrible death this had been.
It was the man, now, who pushed the photographs aside.
The autopsy report was several pages long. “The decedent,” Tony read, “was a Caucasian female approximately seventeen years old, five feet five inches in height, and weighing one hundred fifteen pounds.…”
“I want you,” she whispered.
“Examination revealed the presence of seminal fluid in the decedent’s vagina.…”
Alison began to move with him. She was everywhere now: in the clean smell of her skin; the thick softness of her hair; the warmth of her hips and thighs and stomach.
“The abrasions to the vaginal wall suggest a prior inexperience of sexual intercourse.…”
“I love you, Tony. You feel so good to me.”
“Samples of fluid were taken from the vagina.…”
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
Swallowing, Tony turned the page.
She raised her face to kiss him, and told him quietly, “I’m glad this was with you.”
“Examination further revealed that the decedent had been anally penetrated.…”
Tony froze.
“The presence of semen in the decedent’s anus was noted, and samples of seminal fluid taken.…”
“I’m not like that.…”
“The trauma to the decedent’s anal tissue, including considerable hemorrhage, suggest that the decedent was forcibly sodomized.…”
“I know what Sam likes, better than anyone.…”
Tony sat back in his chair.
“The cause of death,” Tony read, “was asphyxiation. The decedent had the deep bruises on her neck associated with strangulation, as well as burst vessels in her eyes and face. The medical evidence further suggests that death occurred in the course of forcible anal intercourse, during which the victim was held by the throat.”
Tony stood. He forced his mind to go cold.
Hands on the desk, he stared down at the report. “The seminal swabs,” he read, “were preserved on slides.…”
* * *
Tony placed the folder on Stella’s desk. “Thank you,” he said.
She looked at him. Quietly, she asked, “Did you find what you wanted?”
He made himself sit down. “They took semen samples, Stella. From Alison’s body. In an unsolved murder, they should have kept them. Is that the procedure here?”
Stella folded her hands in front of her. “Yes. It is.”
* * *
At four-thirty, Tony stepped into the darkened church of Saint Raphael for the first time in twenty-eight years.
He sat at the rear of the church, as he sometimes had as a boy, half conscious of the airy space, the light and shadow, the stained-glass windows. Father Quinn was long dead; there was no one left who remembered Tony, and he had nowhere else to go.
Head bent, Tony prayed to a God he no longer knew existed.
Faith extinguished, his world upturned, the Tony Lord who had left this church had turned first to a lawyer, then to the law. And under the law, his secular religion, his duties were to Sam alone.
But now the law, and his own life, had intersected once again, and this time the law held no answers.
Humbled by his limitations, shamed by his arrogance, Tony thought of the Calders, of Marcie, of Ernie Nixon and Jenny Travis, of Sue and, piercingly, of the Taylors and their daughter Alison.
Tony could not forgive himself or, devastated by what he might now have learned, forgive Sam Robb. If Sam was guilty, the betrayal was too terrible: justice had not been done in either case, and Tony, damaged by the first, had become responsible for the second.
What he felt now was beyond hatred. Beyond, even, the awesome, bitter knowledge that it was Sam Robb, not Tony himself, who might have defined Tony’s life. For two women had died, and there was nothing to say, if Sam was the killer, that there might not be a third.
That was the sin for which Tony Lord would be to blame. The one for which, in his own heart, there could be no absolution from God, no balm within the law.
Mute, Tony prayed for the strength to do what must be done. Then he stood and walked from the church, to find Sam Robb.
FOUR
Sue opened the door.
Her lips parted, hand still on the doorknob. “Where is he?” Tony asked.
Her head twitched toward the stairs. “In the bedroom.”
Tony paused in the doorway, touching her face. “Leave,” he said softly. “Right now.”
“What is it?”
“Alison.” Tony brushed past her, turning at the foot of the stairs. “I don’t want you here, Sue.”
Sue was pale. “He has a gun, remember?”
Tony turned from her, walking slowly up the stairs.
He forced himself to take his time, to breathe easily. The ten feet to the bedroom seemed like a great distance.
When Tony reached the door, he held out his hand for a moment, to ensure that it was steady.
He pushed open the door.
Sam stood near the dresser, staring at his face in Sue’s mirror. Tony’s reflection seemed to startle him.
“Tony…” His voice held embarrassment, pleasure, wariness. Tony watched these feelings resolve themselves in a smile, which did not change his watchful eyes. “I thought you were gone.”
Softly, Tony closed the door behind him. “I decided to stay. So I could read the autopsy report on Alison.”
Sam blinked. “On Alison?”
“Yes.”
Sam took three steps, resting his hands on the double bed between them, head down in a pose of thought. “Have you?”
“Read it?” Pausing, Tony wondered how he could sound so normal. “That’s what I came to tell you, Sam. I think I can prove that I didn’t kill her.”
Sam raised his eyes. How many times, Tony thought, had he gazed at this same face, seeing everything but what he should have seen. Perhaps what Sam saw, looking back at him, caused the flush to cross his cheeks like a stain. Softly, Sam asked, “How can you do that?”
“Alison was raped.” Tony kept his voice as soft as Sam’s. “The strangulation was to keep her quiet. So he could penetrate her anus.”
Silent, Sam’s mouth formed a small “o.”
“They took semen slides, Sam. And murder has no statute of limitations.”
Sam folded his arms. His face was calm, normal; for a moment, despite the tingle of his skin, Tony wondered if he was wrong. “DNA,” Sam murmured. “They can run tests.”
“It’s a thought.” Tony paused a moment, eyes boring into him. “Suppose Stella would care to help me?”
Sam’s gaze at Tony turned narrow, hard. “Stella.”
Tony’s mouth felt dry. The room was silent now. Neither man moved.
At last Sam said, “You can’t do this, Tony. But I guess you know that.”
Tony felt his throat constrict. “You’ve always had strong feelings about loyalty, have
n’t you. It gives me something to live up to.”
Sam blanched, wordless.
Where, Tony wondered, was the gun? “Cat got your tongue?” he asked.
Tears came to Sam’s eyes now. His hand rose in entreaty. “You can’t do this, Tony. It wasn’t me—”
“Oh, I know. You’re not like that, are you.”
Sam flushed. “It was her.…”
Tony’s head pounded. “Sue?” he said. “Or Alison?”
Sam stepped forward, clasping Tony’s shoulders, staring desperately into his face. “Listen to me.…”
* * *
Alison sat in the love seat on the back porch. When her parents were out, she told him, boys could not come into the house.
Sam watched her face. In the afternoon light, it was strong, yet delicate, the dark eyes pensive, filled with mystery. Only the ankle of one crossed leg, jiggling slightly, showed the tension Sam knew he made her feel, the suppressed desire Tony could not quite touch.
She flicked back the long dark hair. Her fingers were pale, slender. “We shouldn’t do this,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Talk like this.” Alison’s gaze was level. “You’re Tony’s friend. I’m Sue’s.”
“So?” Sam’s palms felt damp. “All we’ve done is talk. If I can help you out with Tony, maybe say something … I mean, it’s no fun for anyone when you two are like this.”
Alison did not look away. There was something challenging about the poise she seemed to share with Tony; sometimes, to Sam, they seemed almost the same person. “There’s nothing much to say,” she answered. “He wants me, and I’m not sure. When I see how much that hurts him, it hurts me too.…” She paused; her slender ankle, Sam saw now, still jiggled with the nervousness she tried so hard to hide. “You know,” she said in a tone of surprise, “you’re the last person I thought I’d talk to about this. Including my own mother.”
Sam’s heart swelled. The weeks of patience, foreign to him, were coming to fruition—the waiting for Alison near her locker, the small encouragements, the gestures of kindness, the offers to help. He was at last learning to be like Tony, to be a person people came to. “Your mother doesn’t love Tony,” he told her. “You do, and I do. The way guys can love other guys, I mean.”
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