The Spire

by Richard North Patterson

  “It’ll do.”

  Seitz cocked his head. “By the way, what do you know about your classmate’s wife?”

  “Never met her. As near as I can tell, her role is to be wife and mother.”

  “Well, maybe they’re the Cleaver family. Of course, you just can’t know what happens once the kids are in bed. So I’ll move on to the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath.”

  “Think HE is one or the other?”

  “Only one of them,” Seitz said succinctly. “As a lawyer, no doubt you’ve met your share of sociopaths—superficially charming but wholly lacking in empathy. For a sociopath, the only function of other people is to fulfill their own needs. If you’re perceptive, they’re pretty easy to spot. Most critical here is that they tend to be nonviolent—their sense of caution is too great.”

  “That would be Carl Hall, actually.”

  “Which brings me to the psychopath.” Seitz’s voice softened. “Psychopaths are very special people.”

  Beneath Seitz’s words Darrow heard a warning. “In what way?”

  “To begin, they’re pretty rare. Like sociopaths, they tend to grow up in an abusive and hostile environment.” Seitz paused, then added quietly, “So did you, I know. But psychopaths experience other people solely as objects. And they have absolute mastery over emotions that most of us can’t control.”

  “Such as?”

  “Fear. Put an ordinary person in a frightening situation—say, someone draws a knife—and their heart rate jumps. But a psychopath’s anxiety level actually decreases. They thrive on danger, and tend to be absolutely fearless.”

  Imagining HE as a real person, Darrow felt uneasy. “How do they relate to women?”

  “For a psychopath, sex is power. He needs and despises women at the same time. So he seeks out submissive women—perhaps prostitutes.” Again, Seitz paused. “As the diary also suggests, he can get off on the thrill of it, until the need for sexual dominance becomes an addiction.”

  “What about their willingness to kill?”

  “It’s often very high. That, too, typically originates with a harsh father. But because a psychopath feels neither anxiety nor guilt, he can kill without remorse. And once he does, he can go to bed and never lose a minute’s sleep.” Seitz looked hard at Darrow. “By nature, psychopaths aren’t anxious people. They don’t tend to act on impulse. Instead, they’re typically brilliant planners, meticulous in what they do. The man who murdered Angela Hall and her brother—assuming it’s the same man, and that Hall was, in fact, murdered—may well be a psychopath. All he’d require is a reason that compels him.”

  “Would blackmail do?”

  Seitz nodded. “Blackmail,” he said gravely, “would do very well.”

  Reflective, Darrow sat back, steepling his fingers to his lips. “It was after Angela’s murder that Joe Betts became sober. Maybe he was reacting to being dumped by his college girlfriend. In either case, that doesn’t feel consistent with what you’re saying.”

  Seitz tilted his head, as though examining Darrow’s question with a jeweler’s eye. “If your classmate was moved by shame or conscience, I’d agree. But simple self-preservation is sufficient for a psychopath. Pretending to honor the rules can enable them to conceal who they are. Given the proper motivation, psychopaths are capable of incredible self-control, even over their own deepest desires. Often for years at a time.”

  Darrow felt a nascent sense of dread. “You’re saying HE could have lived a seemingly normal life after murdering Angela Hall. Including succeeding in a demanding career, as Joe Betts has.”

  “Sure,” Seitz responded with an ironic smile. “In the annals of psychopaths, success as a financial adviser is pretty small potatoes. Consider Hitler and Stalin, both paragons of the breed. We remember them as mass murderers. But both also managed to outmaneuver their rivals—and, indeed, entire countries—until they dominated a fair share of the world.”

  “They were also obviously nuts.”

  “A lot of people didn’t think so. And their form of insanity helped them.” Seitz got up, cracking his window to admit a measure of fresh air from another sunlit day. “For one thing, they loved power and had a talent for exploitation—show weakness, and they’d only become more cruel. The only people they respected were those who shared their ruthlessness and lack of fear.

  “For them, a couple of murders and a little embezzlement would have been light work. Yet they were often brilliant at reading other people. Neither felt any sentiment that would interfere with their insight and discernment. Faced with Hitler, Neville Chamberlain never had a prayer.”

  “Ruthlessness is one thing,” Darrow retorted. “Charm is another. Sociopaths have that.”

  “So can psychopaths. And their confidence—concealed arrogance, really—inspires trust in them.” Seitz slowed his speech for emphasis. “Stalin and Hitler survived in a much harsher environment than Wayne or the financial services industry.”

  Darrow fell quiet. After a time, he said, “I’m trying to square this with Joe Betts. For that matter, with his present family life as he presents it.”

  Seitz pondered this. “The man you describe is engaging, and capable enough to be a great financial success at a very young age. So much so that Caldwell made him a trustee in his mid-thirties, then asked him to oversee the school’s investments.

  “What you can’t know is what he’s like to be around in his most unguarded hours. As you concede, you don’t know Betts’s wife at all. But if she’s perceptive, a spouse may realize there’s something off. Best to have a wife who’s somewhat otherworldly and trusting. Family members see more than the rest of us.”

  Darrow was still for a time, staring at a watercolor he did not truly see. “Outside the family circle, would HE have any weakness?”

  “Arrogance. Psychopaths tend to have superior intelligence. They also know it. So every success they have in getting away with something increases their feeling of omnipotence.” Seitz’s tone became clipped. “As I noted, they excel at reading other people. But, because they can, they tend to underrate those around them and overrate themselves. They get caught, if at all, when they finally encounter someone as smart as they are.”

  Darrow took this in. “Tell me about Angela Hall.”

  “Sure,” Seitz said promptly. “Unlike HE, we know Angela was real. What we don’t know is whether the narrator in the diary is Angela or a surrogate for fantasies she never actually experienced. But a fair chunk of the populace gets a rush from a modest amount of pain, as long as it’s not too dangerous. So in ‘normal’ S&M, there are rules.

  “The problem for our narrator is that HE seems to have no rules. His pleasure comes not just from scaring, but from hurting. Thus his entwinement with her becomes more dangerous, his techniques ever more sadistic.”

  Darrow nodded. “At the beginning of her diary,” he said, “the game seems somewhat manageable. What I was feeling was a process of seduction—Angela could take it, perhaps even be intrigued by it. But by the end, beneath her tone of eerie dispassion, she sounded frightened to me.

  “My problem is that I knew her—or thought I did. I know we flatter ourselves by thinking that we understand people based on seeing a tiny fraction of their lives, that which they allow us to see. But the Angela I perceived wouldn’t have signed on for this. At least not voluntarily.”

  “What do you know about her family?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So for all you know,” Seitz said pointedly, “Dad beat Mom. Like spousal abusers, their victims tend to replicate what they grew up with.”

  “Suppose that doesn’t apply here?”

  Seitz shrugged. “You know the alternatives. One, she liked it. Two, HE had some kind of leverage. Three, HE paid her.”

  Darrow sat back. “Joe had no leverage I can think of. If Joe was HE, they either met each other’s needs or he was paying her. God knows Joe was rich enough. But the cops found no sign that Angela was getting money from anyt
hing but work.”

  “What about those diamonds?”

  “Those were her brother’s—” Darrow stopped himself. “Let me think about that.”

  “Let’s return to Betts. How well does what I’ve told you fit?”

  Darrow organized his thoughts. “Some pieces do. The abusive dad, contempt for women, hitting his girlfriend, an interest in S&M involving black females. And Joe was always smart enough and—at least when he was sober—personable.

  “But could he have done all this? Beneath the arrogance you describe, Joe seems vulnerable and insecure. That’s what I still struggle with.”

  Seitz nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Your point about dormancy is important—the idea that a psychopath, if faced with danger, might have sufficient self-control to swear off S&M for years. Or, equally, important, alcohol . . .”

  “That would especially be true,” Seitz asked, “if he’d killed someone while drunk—either in a rage, or because he didn’t know how to stop. He might well not kill again until Carl Hall threatened to strip the cover off his Norman Rockwell existence.” Seitz paused, then admonished Darrow: “As you know better than anyone, facts are what you need here. The best you can do is take what I’ve given you and use it as a guide. Never forgetting that all our theorizing could be a pile of garbage.”

  Despite the darkness of his mood, Darrow smiled a little. “I’ll still pay your bill, Jerry. But there is one thing I’m certain of. The personality you describe is not Steve Tillman.”

  4

  D

  ARROW AND TAYLOR DINED AT EXCELSIOR, ENJOYING A table by the window overlooking the Public Garden. Over cocktails, Taylor described her interview.

  “They’re very serious,” she said, her tone sober and a bit surprised. “The museum wants to expand its collection of contemporary art, and they have the resources to do it.”

  “And they also seem serious about you?”

  “Definitely. I don’t have a lot of experience with interviews like this, but they were very thorough and interested in probing my ideas.” She smiled, acknowledging a pride she could not contain. “In fact, they asked me to come back tomorrow, to meet with the head curator.”

  That she would be leaving Wayne, Darrow told himself, was inevitable; whatever his real feelings, his role was to be pleased for her. “If they offer you a job, would you take it?”

  Taylor bit her lip, her look of pleasure succeeded by perplexity. “I wasn’t expecting to make a decision this soon—either about a job or a city I barely know. But jobs like this are hard to find.”

  “Can you hold them off for a while?”

  Taylor shook her head. “Not if they want me. They’d like someone to start tomorrow, if they could, and they’re interviewing other candidates.”

  Darrow gazed out at the greenery of the Public Garden, his eyes following a young couple holding hands as they walked a meandering pathway. “Sometimes,” he observed, “it’s easier when decisions get made for you. It’s far more difficult when you have to make them, not knowing what else may be out there.”

  Taylor gave him a curious look. “What was it like to live in Boston?”

  The question made Darrow feel oddly glum. “As a single person? Fine, I guess—there’s enough to do. Compared to a lot of cities, Boston’s a magnet for young people. It’s where I met Lee.” Darrow gave her a somewhat rueful smile. “It seems like we’re headed in different directions. Thanks to your dad, I’m a citizen of Wayne, Ohio.”

  Catching his mood, Taylor covered his hand. “If you hadn’t come to Caldwell, Mark, we wouldn’t know each other at all. At least not in this way.”

  Darrow tried to make his smile less equivocal. “I’d have missed that,” he said.

  THE THOUGHT OF separation, Darrow realized, brought new sensuality to their lovemaking, the sweet but sad awareness that, next month or the month after, they would be unable to reach for each other in the middle of the night. Though he told himself it was childish, he could not help but feel cheated. They had really just begun.

  Lying beside her, he pondered this deep into the night. “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  He turned his face to her. “How did you know I was awake?”

  “Because you breathe more deeply when you’re sleeping.”

  She slept less well than he did, Darrow was learning, often restless until early morning. “I was thinking about you,” he said. “Hoping this job prospect turns out however it’s supposed to.”

  That seemed to make her thoughtful. Softly, she said, “I’ll miss you, too.”

  They remained quiet until Darrow drifted off. As he did, he remembered Lee saying that most men were like Norsemen—they could eat well, make love with gusto, then fall into a dreamless sleep, untroubled by their own stirrings.

  Suddenly, Darrow started awake.

  It took a moment to orient himself. Then he realized that Taylor was sitting on the edge of the bed, still naked, her face in her hands. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he felt her flinch, heard a stifled sob.

  “Taylor,” he said with quiet urgency. “What is it?”

  For a long time, she did not answer. “The same dream,” she murmured. “Ever since I was twelve.”

  “What happens?”

  She did not turn. “I find my mother dead. I try to get her to talk to me, and she can’t.”

  He rested his chin on her shoulder, his face against hers. “Is that how it happened?”

  “I don’t think so—not the talking part. But I’ve had the dream so long I don’t even know what’s real.” She paused, then said with muted despair, “I thought I’d finally outrun it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She turned sideways, staring out into the darkness. “The last year, at NYU, it seemed to have gone away. Returning to Wayne revived it.” Her voice held a note of self-contempt. “It’s just so arrested. It’s like I’m twelve again, stuck in the worst part of my life.”

  “Did you ever go to a therapist?”

  “At twelve? I wouldn’t have known how to ask, and then I went to prep school.” She turned, speaking softly. “What’s there to explain, really? I lost my mother in adolescence, when I had no equipment for dealing with it, no one I could bring myself to talk with. Instead I ran away to Trumble, trying to shut off all my feelings. But they just migrated to my dream life. Living in the house where I found her body is bringing it all back.”

  She sounded close to devastated. “Be kind to yourself,” Darrow said. “You lost the parent you loved most at the time you were least prepared. If you need help, Taylor, why not get some?”

  She said nothing. But afterward, neither slept.

  The next morning, over breakfast in his kitchen, Taylor remained silent. She did not finish her cereal, or even seem to know he was there. It was as if she were walled off.

  She has a tendency toward melancholy, Farr had told him. Darrow did not know quite what to do.

  Gazing at the table, Taylor said tonelessly, “I still have an interview, don’t I.”

  MIKE RILEY’S OFFICE was jammed with manila folders in stacks, tomes on finance, and manuals on forensic accounting. Small, dark, fidgety, and often amused, Riley defied Darrow’s image of a certified public accountant. He was also brilliant.

  Sitting in front of Riley’s cluttered desk, Darrow inquired, “Where’s your pocket protector?”

  “Lame,” Riley replied. “Especially from a recovering lawyer who needs my help.”

  “So you believe what everyone else does?” Darrow said. “That Durbin is a crook?”

  “He may be,” Riley answered. “Just not indubitably.”

  “Explain.”

  “First, the facts inculpating Durbin look pretty persuasive. He was on the investment committee, his e-mail address is on the directive to Joe Betts, and what appears to be his signature is on the bank account where the proceeds went. As well as on the second account that received fifty thousand dollars wired from a Swiss
bank.”

  Darrow took a swallow of black coffee. “What else?”

  “There are still some holes.” Riley spoke more slowly now. “The missing piece in the chain of evidence is that we don’t know who controls the Swiss account. Obviously, the Swiss will never tell us. A new piece, also unexplained, is why over six hundred thousand came back to Carl Hall from another bank in Switzerland, and what, if anything, that has to do with Caldwell College. Given that the transfers to Hall happened after the embezzlement may suggest that the same person transferred money from one Swiss bank to the other. But that leaves us to wonder why Durbin would siphon money to Hall.” He gave Darrow an arid smile. “That Carl died from a shitload of heroin is also inconvenient.”

  “Which brings us to my alternate theory,” Darrow rejoined. “Blackmail, with the embezzler using Caldwell’s money to pay off Hall.”

  Riley took out the schedule of transfers that Garrison had given Darrow. “What’s interesting about these transfers is that they suggest a certain level of sophistication. Whoever moved the money understood that individual transfers of over ten thousand to or from a Swiss bank would trigger a federal inquiry.”

  Darrow looked at him keenly. “Anyone in the financial services industry would know that. Certainly anyone on Caldwell’s investment committee. Except, perhaps, Clark Durbin.”

  Picking up a pen, Riley held it to his lips. “And so, you ask, could someone like Betts have framed Durbin?”

  Darrow nodded. “You know the problem, Mike. Who else but Durbin would have access to his computer and e-mail account, plus the ability to ‘forge’ Durbin’s name? No one believes Clark when he says it wasn’t him.”

  “I don’t believe him,” Riley said flatly. “Or disbelieve him. Ever hear of ‘spoofing’?”

  “No.”

  “Not many people have. In brief, it’s a very clever technique through which, by changing the settings on your PC, you can send an e-mail using someone else’s address.” Riley looked at Darrow keenly. “Someone could have done that to Durbin.”