The Spire

by Richard North Patterson

  Reaching for the last folder, he reflected that, on paper, Angela was still alive.

  The thought renewed his sadness and foreboding. When was it, Darrow wondered now, that Angela Hall had first met Steve Tillman? Or, for that matter, Joe Betts? In the fall, he supposed, the period of her unexplained disappearances, when it seemed she had begun her final diary.

  By this time Angela’s path toward a scholarship at an elite law school was becoming clear. She had conquered her writing difficulties; dramatically raised her academic performance despite working at the Alibi Club; and secured an assistantship with a respected professor—who, as he had for Darrow, would no doubt write a forceful recommendation to the law school of her choice. There seemed to be little in Angela’s way: no medical issues, visits to the school psychologist, or other hints of stress. All that remained was for her to nail the fall semester. Knowing that the transcript in the last file would be blank, Darrow hesitated to open it.

  Nonetheless, he did. The courses she had chosen, including a senior seminar from Farr, would likely have raised her average still higher. Reading Farr’s draft letter of recommendation—as laudatory as that he had written for Darrow, but distinctive in its endorsement of Angela’s character and abilities—Darrow could feel still more the depth of his mentor’s sadness at her murder.

  Closing the file, Darrow’s hand froze.

  For a moment, losing all sense of time, he sat still. Against his will, the pattern of his thoughts began to rearrange itself.

  Keep an open mind, Farr had once admonished him, long ago. Don’t impose your own narrative on the world all around you.

  Rearranging Angela’s files, Darrow started from the beginning, again, this time inverting the prism he had brought to them before. In the interstices of fact, he realized, he had woven a story of Angela’s progress that paralleled his own. But a different story, far more troubling, might be hidden by the first.

  That story, were it true, had not ended with her death.

  The telephone startled Darrow. He hesitated, then went to the kitchen and answered.

  “So I accepted the job,” Taylor informed him.

  It took a moment for Darrow to focus. “How does it feel?”

  “Great. They seemed absolutely ecstatic.” Her voice softened. “This will be good, Mark. I’m sure of it.”

  In the future, perhaps, but in the present, Darrow reflected, he was parting from Taylor much too soon. “Then I’ll take you out to celebrate,” he proposed.

  “Are you sure? I was so caught up in my own news I didn’t even ask why you’re out today.”

  “Just working at home.” He paused, then added softly, “I feel like I need to see you.”

  Taylor was quiet. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’ll meet you at the Carriage House. Seven o’clock.”

  Saying good-bye, Darrow paused in the kitchen doorway, staring at the files on the table. For an odd moment he thought of the bones of some prehistoric animal through which, using facts and guesswork, archaeologists summoned a living thing from the dead past. Darrow loathed what he had conjured, and himself for his worst thoughts. But his new story of Angela Hall, imagined or real, was too deeply embedded in his own past, and in the present of Caldwell College.

  Reaching into his coat pocket, Darrow retrieved his cell phone.

  His law school roommate, David Rotner, had been the best man at his wedding. David’s ambitions had taken him to Washington, as deputy to the general counsel of the Defense Department. Whenever they managed to get together, once or twice a year, Darrow asked Rotner where Bin Laden resided now.

  After dialing the number, he waited, as always, to be transferred at least twice. To his surprise, he found Rotner within two minutes.

  “Is this about Bin Laden?” his old roommate inquired. “If so, I can reassure you that Caldwell College is well down on his list.”

  Darrow managed to laugh. “But not on yours, I hope. I’m calling to ask a favor.”

  “Which is?”

  For an instant, Darrow paused. “I need you to tell me how to access the files of a former army officer.”

  “How former?”

  “He would have left the military in the early seventies.”

  Rotner thought. “There’s a depository of records at Fort Benjamin Harrison, in Indiana. Likely that’s where they are. Who is this guy?”

  “A Special Forces officer who served in Vietnam. I’d like to know what he did there. Including whether, for some reason or another, he got involved in moving money around.”

  “Vietnam,” Rotner answered, “got pretty funky. But what’s all that to you?”

  “He’s affiliated with Caldwell. Among other problems we’ve had a major embezzlement. My predecessor looks good for that. But there are two other people, at least in theory, who could have done it if they had the skills. This man’s one.”

  “Then why not leave this to the authorities, whoever they might be?”

  “Too sensitive.”

  “That’s a problem. Any prosecutor would have an easier time getting this file than you would. When do you need it?”

  Darrow hesitated. “By the end of this week.”

  Rotner laughed. “This is the federal government, Mark. Not to mention that there’s a separate bureaucracy for requests like this. Try the end of this year.”

  “No time for that.” Darrow began pacing. “Suppose you wanted to see this thing tomorrow. Could you?”

  “If I was really curious and really lucky? Maybe. But I’m not the secretary of defense.” In a tone of caution, Rotner inquired, “What are you asking me to do?”

  “To look at his records, then tell me whether there’s anything of interest. This is very serious, David, and not just to me. Or else I’d never ask.”

  “I can look at them,” Rotner finally replied. “But I can’t describe the contents. All I can do is tell you whether they’re worth a written request.”

  Darrow rubbed his temples. “Then that’s all I can ask.” He paused, then said quietly, “The man’s name is Lionel Farr.”

  9

  D

  ESPITE TAYLOR’S NEWS, BOTH DARROW AND SHE WERE listless at dinner. On the drive home, she asked, “What’s making you so quiet?”

  Darrow pulled into the driveway. “A lot of things,” he answered. “You, for one. You don’t seem all that happy.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Angela’s diary,” she said simply. “You called it ‘pathological.’ But you’ve told me almost nothing. Mark, please—I need to know what’s bothering you so much.”

  They sat in the car in front of the darkened house, silent for a time. “By itself,” Darrow answered, “the diary doesn’t prove a thing. Not even whether the man she describes is real.”

  “And if he is?”

  Darrow did not answer. In a low voice, she repeated her request: “Please tell me about the diary.”

  Gazing into the darkness, he tried to untangle the reasons he wished to tell her yet feared to do so. At length he turned and faced her directly. “If you want me to,” he said.

  For the next few minutes, Darrow described the diary in detail—its specificity, its flatness of tone, its depiction of ritual subjugation slipping out of control. Taylor leaned her head back against the car seat, her eyes half-closed, until his narrative was done.

  “I think it’s real,” she said simply. “Angela didn’t just make it up.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “If this were some writing exercise, she’d describe her own feelings. Instead she’s removed herself.” Taylor faced him again. “She was traumatized, Mark.”

  Darrow thought of Angela on the night of the party—her drinking, her edge of desperation, her refusal of a ride home, the tears in her eyes when she gave him an impulsive hug. Gonna be a long night for me, I think.

  “Is there something else?” Taylor asked.

  As best he could, Darrow reprised this memory. Finishing, he asked, “What do you
make of all that?”

  Taylor’s voice remained quiet, her manner contained. “The same thing you do, I imagine. Angela may not have expected to die. But that night she was afraid of something, or someone. I’m not even sure that what happened to her was wholly a surprise.”

  By silent consent, they went inside. But, as on the morning in Boston after her nightmare, part of her seemed absent. Alone, she went to his bedroom.

  He found her there, naked, sitting on the edge of his bed with her arms crossed. Lying beside her, Darrow touched Taylor’s shoulder. “It’s not you,” she said. “Maybe I’m just tired.”

  Darrow turned out the light. After a time she slid into bed with him, their bodies apart. All that he knew was that Angela’s diary had taken her somewhere he could not reach.

  To his surprise, she slept. Darrow did not. Lying awake, he felt her restless stirrings, heard small cries that were not words escape her lips.

  IN THE MIDDLE of the night, Taylor shuddered. Only when Darrow heard her stifling sobs did he know she was awake.

  Darrow put his arms around her. She lay there, silent.

  He reached for the bedside lamp.

  The light made her flinch. Then she turned on her back, eyes open, as though reorienting herself. A strand of hair stuck to her dampened skin. “The dream?” Darrow asked.

  Her lips parting slightly, she gazed up at the ceiling. “A part I’ve never told you.”

  “Maybe it would be better if you did.”

  “Better?” she asked softly.

  “What could be worse?”

  He felt her shiver. In a monotone, Taylor described the dream.

  HER PARENTS WERE in their bedroom. She did not know how old she was; dreams have their own logic. But, in life, it would have been before her mother slept in a separate room.

  Her parents’ voices, though raised, were too muffled for Taylor to understand. She pressed her face against the door. Then her mother spoke in voice so intense, and so unlike her, that Taylor could hear. “We’re done. Look for your ideal woman somewhere else.”

  Taylor turned and walked away so softly that her footsteps made no sound, certain only that her parents were not as she hoped, but as she feared.

  “I DON’T KNOW what it means,” she told Darrow now. “If anything.”

  “How do you know it’s a dream and not a memory?”

  She turned, looking wordlessly into his eyes.

  “You said they started sleeping apart.” Darrow took her hand. “You were a child, Taylor. There are whole pieces of childhood I simply don’t remember. When you’ve got no other means of escaping, dissociation provides one.”

  “Do you ever dream?”

  “Not if I can help it.” His tone softened. “My parents are both gone. There’s no one living to remind me.”

  Taylor said nothing. Reaching across his body, she turned out the light.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE SLIPPED out of bed into the darkness, Darrow did not follow for a time.

  He found her on his couch, a blanket draped around her. Darrow sat beside her.

  “I don’t think it’s a dream,” she said.

  “The argument?”

  “No.” Her eyes narrowed with the effort to remember. “Something else. In memory, it’s the last time the three of us went to the riverbank.”

  HER MOTHER WAS painting, her father reading pages from his manuscript on Friedrich Nietzsche. Though that spring was unseasonably warm, the water was still too chilly for swimming. Alone on a blanket, Taylor read a Nancy Drew book, restive because the mystery seemed transparent. She looked up, intending to complain to her mother.

  Her father stood behind her mother, staring at the painting. His expression was dark. Seeming to ignore him, her mother added brushstrokes. Her eyes were grave, the half smile on her face oddly bitter. Taylor had never seen this look before.

  “WHAT WAS THE painting?” Darrow asked.

  “A tower. The only one I’d ever seen.”

  In Darrow’s silence, Taylor pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. “I could swear the painting was real, Mark. But I never saw it again.”

  “When was this, do you think?”

  Taylor shook her head. “I can’t tell. But in my mind, it’s days before she died. Maybe that’s part of my aversion to the Spire.”

  Darrow asked nothing more. At last they both slept.

  In the morning, leaving, Taylor smiled sadly. “This must be like living with the insane,” she said.

  “No,” he answered. “My mother was insane. I can tell the difference.”

  TRYING TO WORK, Darrow could not concentrate. He made the scheduled telephone calls to alumni. Though his mind drifted, he was grateful for the distraction from his own thoughts. Pleading the press of work, he canceled a meeting with Lionel Farr.

  Instead, he called Carly Simmons, the medical examiner in the Angela Hall case. Simmons was not in; all he could do was leave his number. By midafternoon, Simmons still had not responded.

  When his telephone rang, Darrow snatched at it.

  The caller was not Simmons but David Rotner. “I’ve got the file,” Rotner said at once.

  He sounded somber. Surprised, Darrow asked, “And?”

  “There’s nothing to suggest that Farr was laundering money,” Rotner said. “Though the last outfit he served in was run by the CIA. As you probably know, the agency moved money around in all sorts of ways. But your man’s specialty was on the operational side.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I told you what my constraints are.” Rotner’s voice lowered. “All I can say is that you’d find the files interesting. But there’s nothing here that makes him an embezzler.”

  Sitting in his chair, Darrow gazed out at the rolling grounds. “What about a double murderer?”

  For a moment Rotner was silent. “Why do you ask that?”

  “It’s nothing I can be sure of. But a second murder—if it is one—happened about three weeks ago.”

  “Then you’ve got me in a bind, Mark.”

  “How so?”

  “Because you’re one of my closest friends, and I’m not supposed to tell you a fucking thing.” His tone became emphatic. “But I will say this: based on these records and what you just told me, you may be dealing with a very singular personality. I strongly suggest that some appropriate person request them.”

  Darrow made himself stay calm. “I don’t have time for that, David.”

  For a moment Rotner said nothing. At length, he asked, “Have you ever heard of the Phoenix program?”

  “No.”

  “It was a very special, very secret operation during Vietnam. Under the auspices of the CIA, Special Forces personnel carried out targeted assassinations of Viet Cong, alleged VC agents or sympathizers who gave them information. Your man was in the program.”

  Darrow felt his nerves come alive. “How were these killings done?”

  “As I understand it, the techniques varied. A bullet in the head, or maybe a slit throat if silence was important.”

  “What about pumping someone full of heroin?”

  “No idea. But it could have happened. It might make for a quiet death, and Vietnam was awash in smack.” Rotner sounded defensive. “The work was dirty, dangerous, and stressful. Our guys got through it by believing that they were protecting their fellow soldiers, the mission, and our country, maybe even Vietnam itself. That’s how they stayed sane.”

  “Did Farr remain sane?”

  “The question you need to ask, Mark, is who he was going in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dammit, Mark.” Rotner paused, then said with resignation, “Your guy exceeded orders. He seemed to like his work too much.”

  Darrow felt caged. “Meaning?”

  “They’d go into a village at night to kill a VC agent. The orders would be specific to that person—you’d have to put in an application for a particular target and have it approved up the line. It was not a hunting
license—neither the army nor CIA nor the guys doing it saw this as a form of recreation or a license for mass murder. The idea was to create fear, not hatred.

  “Farr was different. Tell him to kill a VC and somehow the target’s entire family would end up dead. The army concluded that Farr was a liability.”

  An image of Farr in Vietnam, those years he would never speak of, made Darrow feel queasy. “You mean they thought he was insane.”

  “They believed,” Rotner answered flatly, “that Farr was dangerous. Let someone damaged step outside normal societal boundaries and it might be hard to bring him back. For many in the Phoenix program, Vietnam was a nightmare. But a man like Farr might believe it was the rest of us who were living in a fairy tale.”

  “Did anyone use the word ‘psychopath’?”

  “The Special Forces never wanted guys like that, and they screened their candidates with care.” Rotner paused, then added, “Still, it’s always possible for a psychopath to slip through, especially someone with a very high IQ. Witness Jeffrey MacDonald, the Special Forces doctor convicted of killing his wife and kids, then planting evidence that they were murdered by intruders. My understanding of psychopaths is that the moral dimensions of murder don’t occur to them at all. What was scary about Macdonald was that he was so smart and so persuasive, he damn near got away with it.”

  Darrow stared at the papers on his desk: budget figures, the draft of a speech—the stuff of normal life. “Was that why Farr left the military?”

  “Not exactly.” Rotner hesitated. “There was also the murder of a prostitute in Saigon.”

  Head bent, Darrow rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What were the circumstances?”

  “The killer tied this woman to her bed. The evidence suggested she was strangled during sex.” Rotner tried to keep his voice neutral. “The woman who ran the brothel identified a photograph of Farr. So did a friend of the dead girl’s.”

  For what seemed to him a long time, Darrow was quiet. “Mark?” Rotner asked.