Wilde Lake: A Novel

by Laura Lippman

  “Does your office have an on-site child-care facility?” the woman calls after her.

  Back in the office, trying to catch up on all the things she might have done while she was sharing cheery anecdotes about work-life balance, she sighs and says to Della: “I guess the day can only go up from here.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Della says. “You have that meeting with a community watch group tonight, the one that’s worried about cemetery vandalism.”

  “Maybe there will be cookies.” She thinks of the strident young woman who seemed so angered by the fact that Lu did not “have to” work. Yet Lu feels she must. And while she would never say the words noblesse oblige out loud, is it the worst thing in the world when a public official doesn’t need the paycheck? The building in which Lu works, the Carroll Building is—she assumes, she has never thought to question it—named for one of Maryland’s first U.S. senators, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, an immensely wealthy man.

  Also a slaveholder who disapproved of slavery in principle—yet never freed his own slaves. A man of his times, as they say. But aren’t we all? Lincoln freed the slaves—but he believed they should go back to Africa. And the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free the slaves in Maryland because the Old Line State fought, however reluctantly, for the Union. The despot’s heel is on thy shore, the state song begins, and everyone tries to pretend they don’t know the despot is Lincoln. Then again, almost no one sings the state song, whose tune was stolen from “Oh, Tannenbaum.”

  Oh, Maryland.

  Lu sighs, resigns herself to an afternoon of e-mail and phone calls, then heads out to the community meeting. There are no cookies. There is nothing to eat at all. I should have stopped at Five Guys, she thinks. Then a bad accident on I-95 leaves her stuck in traffic, listening to the rebroadcast of a local NPR show, where Davey Robinson is one of the panelists. He’s still talking about marriage equality, more than two years after Maryland voters approved it overwhelmingly. Hey, if Ben Carson can toy with the idea of running for president, why can’t Davey Robinson dabble in politics? It is almost 9:30 when she arrives home and begins foraging in the refrigerator for something she can pretend is a reasonable facsimile of a meal. She has lost five pounds since taking office. She has missed too many dinners, attended too many luncheons with iceberg lettuce salads, thin slivers of salmon, one cherry tomato, a dessert that is always whisked away before she eats it. She checks her cell, on mute since she walked into the meeting at the synagogue. Mike Hunt has called. Three times.

  “Took you long enough,” he says. “You allergic to good news or something? At least—I think it’s good news.”

  “What?”

  “The Rudy Drysdale case? Remind me to heed your hunches. They found his DNA on that spread. His and nobody else’s. Down near a corner, like he, um, cleaned himself off after. Or maybe just a few drips—”

  “I’m eating, Mike.” Or about to be, if she can find something edible. Whatever Teensy has prepared—pork, chicken?—has aged poorly, congealing on the plate in an unappetizing sauce.

  “This late? That’s a bad habit. Anyway, it’s something to throw into the mix.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t necessarily help. I mean, there’s definitely no sign of sexual assault. His DNA could confuse jurors.”

  “I think she walks in on him. While he’s—taking care of himself. He freaks.”

  “You mean he broke into her place to masturbate?”

  “Or he breaks in, thinking’s he found a vacant place to spend a night. It’s the holidays. She’s got no trees, no lights. Looks like a safe bet. Maybe that’s why he’s lurking, sizing the place up. But he screws up, picks a place where someone’s not away. She comes home and he’s got, you know, one hand full. She screams, he freaks out. She’s between him and the door. He panics. What’s the defense going to argue, that she brought him home for consensual sex? That he broke in to sleep there, found her dead body, then stayed to jerk off? That he broke in before she died, jerked off and left, then reset the thermostat on his way out because he’s worried about climate change?”

  “I’ll worry about the defense’s case,” Lu says, a little curt. Her mind is racing. A jury will love the DNA because juries love DNA. But they might get stuck on it, too. The presence of semen doesn’t make it a sex crime, and there’s no need to alter the charge, anyway. She’s already got murder one. But she should go ahead and tell Fred now, not make him wait for discovery. Because if Drysdale wants to confess now, she’s fine with it. She told the cops to test the bedspread, it’s her legit victory. Oh, yes, she’ll welcome a confession, but not to a lesser charge. It will be murder one or nothing; the only negotiation will be on the length of his sentence. Under those circumstances, the win goes into her column, no asterisk.

  This makes the day a winner in her book. Then she finds a pint of raspberry chocolate chip in the freezer. And while she’s eating it from the carton, her phone buzzes, a text from a familiar number, although it is one that she has never entered into her Contacts.

  NEXT WEEK?

  Her first instinct is to say yes, but then she thinks about the timing. The week after Valentine’s Day. Ugh. So she types back only:

  Maybe

  Who’s she kidding? It’s probably going to be yes.

  I’M DREAMING OF A WHITE (TRASH) THANKSGIVING

  Our fathers spoke and Randy was granted permission to attend our Thanksgiving dinner. He arrived at 1 P.M., bearing a bottle of crème de menthe in a paper bag; the seal was broken and the bottle appeared to be about three-quarters full. My father thanked him with grave courtesy and placed it on the butler’s bar alongside his cut-glass bottles of clear and amber liquors.

  “Won’t you get in trouble?” I asked Randy while we played checkers in my room. “For taking that bottle?”

  “I didn’t take it,” he said.

  “Randy—it’s not even full.”

  “Okay, I took it, but my dad will never know. He’ll think one of my sisters took it and they’ll blame one another, or even their boyfriends. I’ll be fine.”

  Randy had a cunning streak. Was it always there or was he coming into it now that he was almost eleven? I just hoped he wouldn’t use his cleverness to try to kiss me. I made sure the door to my room stayed open, and I tried not to turn my back to him at any point. But he seemed far more interested in my stuff than he was in me, pulling board games off my shelves, exclaiming over such ordinary things as playing cards and Trouble, which I considered way too babyish for fourth graders.

  At dinner, he was polite about my father’s dryish turkey, the cold Parker House rolls, the reheated cornbread dressing. That is, I assumed at the time he was trying to showcase his good manners. I realize now that our lackluster meal seemed like a feast to Randy. Dinner done, Randy, as our guest, was exempt from cleaning, not that he objected with even token protests. While AJ and I washed the good china and silver by hand, Randy sat with my father in front of the football game, a plate with a slice of (store-bought) pumpkin pie on his lap. He looked terrified, too terrified to eat. He perched on the edge of the wing chair and balanced that plate of pie on his lap, unsure what to do. Eventually, he began to pick at it with his fingers, one crumb at a time, careful not to let any crumbs fall from his plate. His fingers inched closer and closer to the glop of Reddi-wip I had added to his slice.

  “Use a fork, Randy,” I said, coming out to the living room with my own piece of pie.

  “That’s not good manners, Lu,” my father said.

  “Eating with your fingers isn’t good manners—” I started. My father stood and summoned me back to the kitchen, where I received what can only be described as a tongue lashing. Manners, my father said in a low, hard whisper, are about making one’s guest feel comfortable. When someone who didn’t have the privilege of my upbringing came into our home, it was my duty to demonstrate good manners without calling the guest out. This lecture went on and on.

  “But h
ow’s he going to learn?” I asked. “Maybe he doesn’t notice what he’s doing wrong. And other people won’t be nice. They’ll laugh at him. At least I’m nice. But, Jesus, Dad, he’s just white trash.”

  And that’s how I ended up in my room on Thanksgiving Day. I’m not sure if it was the “Jesus” or “white trash.” Possibly the combination. Or maybe it was because I was carelessly loud and Randy overheard what I said. My father urged him to stay, but once I was exiled, I don’t think Randy could get out of there fast enough. He had come to our house for a respite from fighting.

  Ah, well, holidays always end badly, don’t they? Anticipation builds up; anticlimax is inevitable. Confined to my room, I found the deadness of the day especially acute. It didn’t help that AJ was pacing the halls like a tiger, unused to being at home. Toward early evening, “his” phone rang and he pounced on it.

  “That was Bash,” he told our father. “He wants to come by and pick me up, go out for the evening.”

  “And do what?” Our father had an intense loathing for “just hanging.” He allowed AJ to roam the mall because AJ always claimed to have an errand, a purpose. But the mall would be closed on Thanksgiving night.

  “Well, nothing’s really open, except the movies, and we’ve seen what’s playing. We just thought we’d drive, maybe go to Roy Rogers or the Double T Diner.”

  “You can’t possibly be hungry,” our father said. “And if you are, go make yourself a turkey sandwich. Driving around, with no plans—that’s how young people get in trouble. Young people and not-so-young people. I see it all the time. I’m not a churchgoing man, but the Bible got it right, about idle hands.”

  “Honestly, Dad—”

  “Not tonight, AJ. You can go out tomorrow and Saturday, if you have concrete plans. But not tonight. Your friends, however, are free to come here if their parents agree.”

  “There’s nothing to do here.” AJ, usually so amiable, stormed into his room and didn’t emerge again except to slice another piece of pie.

  Over dinner the next evening, AJ told my father that his group had worked up a definite plan for the evening: “The girls want to go bowling, up on Route 40. And they always want to go get ice cream after, even when it’s cold out.”

  Our father was not the kind of man to gloat in victory. He was so glad AJ was doing things his way that he gave him twenty dollars. But when AJ asked if he could have the family car, he demurred. “Can’t Bash come get you?” he said. “It’s practically on his way.”

  “In what universe? He could go straight out 108 to 29 if he didn’t have to come down here first.”

  “I just hate that turn,” our father said. “That left onto 29 from Governor Warfield Parkway, with no lights and that enormous blind spot—I worry when I know you’re headed that way.”

  “But if Bash picks me up, he has to make the turn. What difference does it make?”

  “I’m not always rational,” our father said, smiling at his own inconsistency. “Sometimes, I’m a father first and a lawyer second. But, okay, you make a good point. Take the car. All I ask is that you be home by midnight.”

  “Midnight,” AJ groaned.

  “How late are bowling alleys open?”

  “I said the girls wanted to go out after and they’ll want ice cream, but the guys will want sandwiches or burgers, so we’ll probably choose the Double T because you can get everything there, and it’s open all night.”

  “Twelve thirty.”

  AJ was home by 12:25. Could I have been awake? Is that how I remember hearing him, then checking his arrival against my digital clock, a gift at Christmas a year ago? A digital clock. I am old enough to remember when they seemed magical. Or do I know the time AJ returned home because he would have to repeat the fact again and again over the next few months, and our father would confirm it? He arrived home at 12:25 A.M. and went straight to bed.

  Eleven hours later, the Howard County chief of police called and said my brother might be a material witness to a felony.

  FEBRUARY 17

  Lu waits a week before sending the DNA report to Fred. In her heart of hearts, she has come to believe that Rudy Drysdale did not set out that evening to kill someone. But that is not how the law defines intent, which can be formed in an instant. He broke into Mary McNally’s apartment. He was probably masturbating when she walked in. Imagine the moment for both of them—she finds a strange man seated on her bed in midstroke or perhaps just finishing up, tidying himself with a corner of her pretty red-and-khaki bedspread. She screams. Maybe they both scream. It’s New Year’s Eve. Her nearest neighbor is out, and a hoarse shout or two, even a scream, might not attract attention. He can’t let her scream again. She has to stop screaming. Maybe he panics because she’s between him and the door. He hits her in the back of the head, knocks her down, chokes her. He has to stop the screaming. Then, when she’s dead, he takes whatever he has used to hit her—what, they still don’t know, and Lu is resigned to the fact that the weapon will never be discovered—and hits her again and again and again. Is it his humiliation that accounts for the ferocity of the attack? Is he trying to blind her?

  But, also—if his pants are down, how does he move so quickly? Or is he pleasuring himself through the fly? God, it’s almost comic. Until the moment he strikes Mary McNally on the back of the head. Blood must have been everywhere—on his face, his coat. Yet his clothing was clean when he was picked up. She thinks again of the walk-out basement below the deck of the Drysdales’ home—would he have been bold enough to sneak in there and do his laundry? He had time, although he couldn’t have known it would be a week before the body was found. How far would Mrs. Drysdale go to protect her son? How far would Lu go to protect her son and daughter? She hopes never to find out.

  At any rate, she can’t accept a plea to anything but first-degree murder. The only thing she’s willing to negotiate are the terms: a minimum of twenty years, no parole. It’s a capital crime, with or without a semen stain on the bedspread. What if he sat down and masturbated after killing her? What if the act of violence was what got him off? He would have to be pretty cold-blooded, but then—he was cool and collected enough to adjust the thermostat, open the sliding door. That’s the story she’ll tell, and if he wants to tell another one, he’ll have to get on the stand. If he doesn’t take the stand, then Fred has to convince the jury that Rudy Drysdale entered the apartment after Mary McNally was dead, then sat down within arm’s reach of her body and masturbated. Or that he has been in the apartment twice, returning for another date with himself and finding the body.

  Twenty years is generous. He’s a time bomb, the kind of guy who could go crazy in the Columbia Mall, attacking kids on the carousel, running around the fountain with a machete.

  Of course, twenty years is also tantamount to life in prison for him. Prison shortens a man’s life. She thinks of Eloise Schumann, realizes she never bothered to check the clerk’s office to see if she was legit married or just appropriated Ryan Schumann’s name. The woman never came back, never called again, so chances are she’s every inch the nutcase her father says she is, programmed to go off at staggered intervals.

  “Murder two,” Fred says. It’s practically the first thing he says after arriving at her office. How odd it must be for him to sit on the other side of the desk, to see how quickly she has made this space hers. The walls have been painted white with the tiniest hint of teal—one has to look closely to realize they are not white-white. Lu painted them herself over the MLK long weekend, using a Farrow & Ball shade called “Borrowed Light.” (Her father’s newfound snobbery about decor must be contagious. He’s been adamant about using that pricey brand for all their remodeled rooms.) The three chairs in the office are strictly government issue; it seemed in bad taste to have chairs different from those her staff uses. But she has created a sitting area, with a small blue love seat and a low coffee table fashioned from an antique door. She found the latter piece in a store on Ellicott City’s Main Street; the seller claimed
the door was from the original jail, which makes no sense, but it’s a good story. The overall vibe is of a serious room with subtle feminine touches. Of course, for a meeting such as this, she would never use the love seat, or ask Della to bring them coffee. Fred can sit in a wooden chair and get his own damn coffee.

  “How do you make the case for second-degree? He broke into her apartment. He jacked off.” Using the vulgarity to establish dominance, to make him uncomfortable. “He beat himself off, then he beat her face off.”

  “I can make the case for second-degree because nothing you have actually proves he killed her. A homeless guy sneaks into an empty apartment, spends the night, leaves. Just because you have his prints on the thermostat and the door doesn’t make him a killer. For all you know, she turned it down whenever she went out. His thumbprint doesn’t prove he set the temperature.”

  “I hope you’ve pulled her utility bills and established that pattern, of her turning down her thermostat to save money. Oh, wait—utilities are paid by the apartment complex, so that makes no sense. Not her money, so why does she care?”

  Lu doesn’t know if this is actually true. Then again, Fred probably doesn’t either.

  “Okay, middle-aged lady having night sweats, so she turns her thermostat down every night as soon as she comes in. Rudy left the patio door open, another guy came in and is lying in wait. He kills her.”

  Fred can’t possibly believe he can sell this story to a jury. Not with the DNA on a bedspread.

  “What does your client want to do, Fred?”

  Fred’s eyes slide to the right, toward the triptych of pen-and-ink drawings by Aaron Sopher, city scenes that Lu and Gabe once had in their dining room. They don’t really fit in her father’s house—our house, she reminds herself—and she likes having them in her workplace. There’s an energy in Sopher’s economical line drawings that gives her a lift. She’s a city person at heart, like her mother. Her life in the suburbs is an accident of birth. And death.