The Spire

by Richard North Patterson

  “What about Betts’s reply? I’ve seen the e-mail trail; Joe e-mailed Durbin in response.”

  “Sure. But the sender of the original e-mail, by rigging his computer, can ensure that the reply goes to his PC. In my scenario, Durbin would never receive it.” His eyes were bright with interest. “That would work particularly well, I suppose, if Betts were replying to himself.”

  Darrow reflected. “But anyone with inside knowledge could have done it?”

  Riley grinned. “Anyone in central Ohio,” he corrected. “I had my IT guy take a look at this. He tells me that’s where Durbin’s e-mail to Betts originated. Aside from Durbin, who on the investment committee lives in central Ohio?”

  Darrow felt his instincts quicken. “Betts,” he answered promptly. “And Ed Rardin. But our investigators obtained access to the PCs of everyone on the committee.”

  Riley waved a dismissive hand. “Of course they did. But that proves nothing if a member of the committee used a separate computer with a false account. Which is exactly what he would have done.”

  “What about Durbin’s signatures?”

  “I showed the copies you sent me to a handwriting expert.” Riley gave a fatalistic shrug. “Inconclusive, he says. If someone forged Durbin’s name, he varied the script enough that he must have been working from multiple examples of Durbin’s real signature—no one signs his name the same way twice. But my expert also thought the pen tracks appeared heavier than Durbin’s normal script, creating the possibility that someone was imitating Durbin’s signature with painstaking deliberation. Bottom line, he isn’t sure.”

  Pensive, Darrow eyed the Harvard coffee mug where Riley kept his pens and pencils. “So where are we?”

  “Limbo. I can’t tell you that any of this happened. I’m just saying it could have.” He flashed a brief but jaunty smile. “Bring your laptop with you?”

  “Sure.”

  “When you get home, open up your e-mail. Check out what pops up.”

  “I’ll do that,” Darrow said, and left.

  WHEN HE ARRIVED home, the house was quiet, and Taylor had not returned.

  Restless, he went upstairs to his office and opened his e-mail. Amid the cluster from Caldwell was one from Mike Riley. Opening it, he found a separate e-mail to Riley from Darrow’s own address. “Mike,” it began, “this will explain how I stole Caldwell’s money. Being a lawyer, theft comes easy. I first learned by sending bills to clients.”

  Caught between amusement and unease, Darrow replied, “Lawyers also sue people. Please look up ‘libel’ in the dictionary.”

  Which, if Joe Betts knew what Darrow was doing, Joe might also suggest.

  WHEN TAYLOR CAME through the door, Darrow was dressed for the Red Sox game. Though she looked tired, she seemed to have recovered her aplomb. “So?” he asked.

  “So I’m sorry for the morning’s séance.”

  “I liked the quiet,” he said lightly. “How was your second interview?”

  “Depends on your point of view.” Taylor’s smile was tentative. “They offered me the position, Mark. For better or worse, no one’s making this decision for me.”

  Despite himself, Darrow was surprised. “This is major,” he said. “Shall we skip the game and talk this over?”

  Taylor shook her head. “I’d really like to go—we can always talk between innings. After all, I’ve got a whole week to decide.”

  They drove to Fenway Park, Taylor describing the offer and her impression of the curator. “It all sounds good,” Darrow said as they arrived.

  “If I let this go,” Taylor responded, “I may regret it. But I also regret that it comes too soon. As they say, I’m torn.”

  The night was balmy, perfect for baseball. They sat between home and first base, three rows back, gazing in a direct line at the pitcher’s mound and, beyond that, the left-field wall known as the Green Monster. “I love baseball,” Taylor said. “The people, the smell of beer and hot dogs . . .”

  “What about the game?”

  “Especially the game,” Taylor said. “It’s performance art—there’s a beautiful geometry to how it’s played, the lines and angles. Every game is a creation, different than whatever came before. But there’s a wonderful history, passed through generations.” She smiled a little. “I never saw Ted Williams play. But my father could describe his swing so perfectly, I felt as if I had.”

  Once again, Darrow had the sad sense of potential lost—a father and daughter who, their lives altered by the same event, were unable to transcend it. “I have no memories like that,” he said. “My father and I never played a game, or went to one. He just disappeared one day, leaving nothing behind. I don’t even know if he’s alive.” And when his mother died, Darrow thought but did not say, all he had felt was emptiness.

  Taylor glanced at him. Judging from his expression, she realized that he had said this less from personal sadness than to make a modest point about Farr. She chose to focus on the game.

  It was unusually well played, a pitcher’s battle between Josh Beckett and C. C. Sabathia in which, with the game tied 1–1 in the eighth inning, both pitchers finally yielded to the bullpen. “Why don’t we do this,” Darrow proposed. “If the Red Sox win, you take the job and never look back.”

  Taylor smiled. “That would be a relief, actually. Let the gods of baseball decide.”

  In the ninth, Alex Rodriguez put the Yankees ahead with a shot over the Green Monster. Taylor bit her lip. “Guess they want me in New York.”

  “Give Boston a chance,” Darrow said.

  The Red Sox got through the rest of the top of the ninth with no further damage. With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Dustin Pedroia singled. Then, with two outs, David Ortiz hit a towering home run off Mariano Rivera that won the game for Boston. Amid the tumult, Darrow gave Taylor a hug. “Seems like they’re excited for you.”

  Taylor leaned back, her smile uncertain. “Want the decision back?” Darrow asked.

  “No.” Taylor kissed him. “It’s a perfect job for me. I’m just thinking how much I’ll miss you.”

  5

  T

  HERE WERE CERTAIN MORNINGS, DARROW THOUGHT, WHEN the world at first light seemed as fresh and new and awesome as creation.

  This Monday morning was one. Walking from the President’s House to his appointment with Lionel Farr, he crossed the gentle hillock between two older red-brick dormitories, taking in the scent of flowers, the deep greenness of oak trees, the seeming closeness of an unsullied blue sky, the glistening wet remnants on the grass from an overnight thunderstorm that, with the stiff breezes that followed, seemed to have purified nature. Light and landscape had always affected Darrow’s moods: dank, dark enclosures depressed him; a mountain vista or a pristine beach or even a bright morning like this could exhilarate him. He had learned to savor such moments. And so, instead of meeting in his office, he had suggested to Farr that they walk there together.

  Farr was waiting outside his house. Casually dressed for summer in slacks and a polo shirt, at first sighting the provost looked much younger than he was, his gray-blond hair still thick, his stomach flat, his profile clean. Even at a closer range that revealed the deep lines on his skin, the angles of his face seemed hewn from granite, the light blue eyes penetrating and clear. Lionel Farr would not slide gently into his dotage; he would fight against old age until he exhausted his last resources. But today the sight of him, usually welcome, jolted Darrow from his reveries. The conversation he intended would be difficult, its outcome unclear. Darrow had no script for this.

  They headed toward College Hall, two men of roughly the same height and build, walking with the same easy rhythm. “How was Boston?” Farr inquired.

  “Fine. What does Taylor say?”

  Farr gave him a brief, sideways look. “Taylor,” he said carefully, “can be a woman of shifting moods, somewhat difficult to read. At least for me. But she seemed a bit preoccupied, I thought.” He paused, then added with an undertone of regret,
“I’m in the odd position of asking Caldwell’s president how my daughter’s doing.”

  Taylor, Darrow realized at once, had said nothing about her job offer. “If you’re asking how we are,” Darrow said, “the answer’s that we’re still quite new. And running out of time.”

  The words seemed stiffer than Darrow had intended. “I don’t mean to pry,” Farr responded with parental dignity. “But I care for you both. I think you know that. Perhaps, at some point, Taylor will, too.”

  Darrow turned to him, trying to refine his sense that Farr was obscurely wounded. “I think she does, Lionel. But her mother’s death seems to have been a fault line in both your lives. She’s lived with her own thoughts for a very long time.”

  He could not find his balance this morning, Darrow reflected; he had said more than he had meant to. Quiet, Farr seemed to withdraw a little. “Anne was fragile,” he said at length. “Not just physically, but emotionally. In some ways, so is Taylor—it’s as if she believes that I could somehow have protected the mother she loved from the ravages of heart disease. It’s a child’s way of looking at the world.”

  The comment nettled Darrow. “That’s a little harsh, Lionel.”

  “Perhaps so. But I think Taylor sees her mother as the princess in the tower, a helpless woman allowed to die. In the mythology, I’m less a human being than a marble statue, with the emotions to match.” Farr’s voice softened. “Anne’s death devastated us both. The added price I paid with Taylor was my recompense for surviving. I, not Anne, was supposed to die.”

  The statement stunned Darrow. “For God’s sake, Lionel.”

  They had reached the edge of fraternity row, the head of the walkway leading to the main campus. Abruptly, Farr stopped, looking not at Darrow but at the steeple of the Spire. “No doubt you think I’m being melodramatic.”

  “No,” Darrow said bluntly. “Hurt, and a little resentful.”

  Farr’s eyes narrowed, and then he nodded slowly. “Fifteen years of distance can do that. I have no doubt that had Anne lived, Taylor would not have left so soon, or remained alienated for so long. I still believe that as she got older, I might have done better as a father. Things could have been quite different.”

  “She did come back, after all.”

  “I know that,” Farr said at length. “Perhaps some good will come of it—whether for Taylor and me or for the two of you.” He faced Darrow, his expression somber. “You know she won’t stay here, Mark. Not just because of work, or even the place itself. In her heart she believes that Anne depended on me too much. I hope you understand that Taylor is determined to control her own psychic space, to have a piece of her life that is hers alone.”

  “I don’t expect anything else,” Darrow said. “And don’t want it. When the summer’s done, Taylor has to move on.”

  “Which may not be bad for either of you,” Farr responded. “In your case it will give you the time to better comprehend Taylor—both her strengths and her vulnerabilities.” Farr’s smile, faint and fleeting, seemed directed at himself. “I know I sound like the pompous father in Love Story. But if you and Taylor are meant to be more than you are now, it will stand the test of time and distance.”

  Darrow tried to untangle his own reaction, a shifting compound of irritation, sadness, and amusement. “Worse than Love Story,” he said dryly. “Nonetheless, I’ll hold the thought.”

  Farr laughed softly, and they began walking again. “There was something else,” Farr prodded. “You wanted to speak in confidence.”

  “I do.” Though Darrow had gone over what he meant to say—editing and rearranging the sequence of his explanation—he found that starting did not come easy. “Mind if we sit somewhere?”

  They found a stone bench in a manicured garden, incongruously Asian in character, between the library and the student union. At this hour, a little before eight, few summer students were ambitious enough to surface; effectively deserted, the site afforded Darrow the privacy he needed and yet kept him from feeling claustrophobic. The subject was bad enough.

  “There’s no good place to begin this,” Darrow said. “So I’ll start with the most recent events. There’s a fair chance that most of Caldwell’s stolen money was siphoned to Carl Hall.”

  Farr raised his head slightly, as though looking at Darrow from a new angle. Something about his pupils reminded Darrow of drill bits. “Go on.”

  Succinctly, Darrow outlined Garrison’s schedule of Hall’s transactions: the timing and disbursements of money; their connection to a Swiss bank; their apparent structuring to avoid federal oversight. The skepticism in Farr’s gaze seemed to border on antagonism. “The man was a drug dealer,” he said curtly. “I assume you’ve given this information to Joe Betts and Greg Fox.”

  “Not yet.”

  “And why not, for the love of God?”

  Darrow tried to remain calm. “I’ll get to that,” he said. “In the meanwhile, please withhold judgment. You can have a coronary once I’m done.”

  Farr inhaled slowly. “All right,” he said in a neutral voice. “Tell me why the police entrusted you with this delicate information.”

  “Several reasons. One is that I found Hall’s body.”

  Farr’s smile, a rare show of teeth, held more anger than his hardened tone. “Of course. What better job for the president of Caldwell College.”

  “Part of my job,” Darrow snapped, “is being smarter than the people you and Carrick chose to investigate this mess. I wish that part were harder.”

  The fury and frustration in Darrow’s tone seemed to give Farr pause. In a frosty voice, he said, “Please justify that statement.”

  “Joe and Fox are masters of the obvious. ‘Obviously,’ Durbin embezzled money—after all, he sent an e-mail to Joe Betts, then signed his own name to bank accounts. ‘Obviously,’ Durbin’s not only a criminal but criminally stupid. But the fact is—and I have an expert to confirm it—that a reasonably savvy person could have replicated Durbin’s e-mail and forged his signature, leaving Durbin none the wiser. If you don’t know you stole the money, it’s hard to cover your tracks.”

  Farr crossed his arms. His voice soft and ironic, he asked, “So who did steal it, Mark?”

  “Someone on the investment committee.”

  Briefly, Farr closed his eyes. With the same quiet, he said, “We’re talking about business leaders of considerable wealth and unquestioned probity. I may be cynical about human nature, but your thesis borders on hallucinatory. Pass over whether any of them have the inventiveness you posit. What could possibly motivate one of those men to steal nine hundred thousand dollars, then try to ruin Clark Durbin’s life, at considerable risk to their own?”

  “Blackmail.”

  Farr propped his elbows on his knees, staring at the garden. “Let me grasp this. A black drug dealer from the southeast side of Wayne was blackmailing a prominent white alumnus. Makes perfect sense. Just tell me what connects two such disparate men.”

  Darrow steeled himself. “That’s one reason I went to see Hall. After I found his body, the police located a safe deposit box in Carl’s name. Inside was a small bag of diamonds, and a Xerox copy of a diary written by Angela Hall.”

  “Angela kept a diary?”

  “Yes. It’s not very pleasant to read. Or to describe.”

  In unsparing detail, Darrow did. The blood drained from Farr’s face, making him look older. Tonelessly, he said, “Pray God this was an experiment in creative writing and that those things never happened to her.”

  “And if they did?”

  “It defies every notion I had of this young woman.” As he considered Darrow’s words, the grooves in Farr’s face seemed to deepen. “From what you say, the man she calls HE seems barely real.”

  “His perversions sound real enough.” Darrow paused. “A couple of months before she died, Angela began disappearing at night. No one knows where she went. But her mother believes that was when she began this particular diary. After she was murdered, it disap
peared.”

  “From which you posit . . .”

  “That Angela went out to meet the man called HE. After she died, Carl stole her diary. That was his tool of blackmail.”

  Farr gazed straight ahead. “By your own account, the diary gives no clue to the man’s identity. Even were he real, how would Carl know?”

  “I don’t have any idea. But I believe that Carl did know, and therefore knew that the same man might well have killed her. That’s why HE murdered Carl.”

  Farr’s mind moved quickly now, following the rules of Darrow’s logic. “Making HE a member of our investment committee.”

  “Yes.” Darrow paused and took a breath. “Joe Betts.”

  To Darrow’s surprise, Farr was expressionless. “For which accusation, I assume, your reasons go back sixteen years. Joe was at the party. Joe and Tillman fought over Angela. No one saw Joe during the hours when Angela died. But Joe claimed to see Tillman returning from the Spire, sealing Steve’s conviction.” He turned to Darrow. “We’ve always known these things. But what on earth makes you think Joe was capable of the practices depicted in Angela’s diary?”

  “Joe hit his college girlfriend,” Darrow answered softly. “He also collected pornography involving black women and sadomasochism.”

  Farr pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing it as though trying to erase a headache. “And you know this because—”

  “Joe’s ex-girlfriend told me.”

  “When?”

  “About two weeks ago.”

  Turning again, Farr examined Darrow steadily. “You have been busy, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. Sorry it’s so inconvenient.”

  “This is no time for petulance. Tell me why Angela wished to satisfy Joe’s desires.”

  Darrow shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “He wasn’t paying her?”

  “Not that I know about.”

  Farr grimaced. “Outside the fateful party, do we know if Betts and Angela Hall had any relationship at all?”