A Faint Cold Fear

by Karin Slaughter

Jeffrey gave them a full minute to rile up again before knocking on the door. He could hear them moving around inside and guessed that one or both of them were crying.

  Jill Rosen answered the door, and he could tell from the well-used Kleenex grasped in her hand that she’d spent the morning in tears. Jeffrey had a flash of Cathy Linton on the deck at her house yesterday, and he felt a sympathy that he’d never imagined himself capable of.

  “Chief Tolliver,” Rosen said. “This is Dr. Brian Keller, my husband.”

  “We talked on the phone,” Jeffrey reminded him.

  Keller had an air of devastation about him. Judging by his thinning gray hair and soft jaw, he was probably in his late fifties, but grief made him look twenty years older. His trousers were pin-striped, and though they obviously belonged with a suit, Keller was wearing a yellowing undershirt with a deep V-neck that revealed a smattering of gray hair on his chest. He had a Star of David chain like his son, or maybe it was the one they had found in the woods. Incongruously, his feet were bare, and Jeffrey guessed that Keller had been the one to wash the car.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Keller said. “Yesterday on the phone. I was upset.”

  Jeffrey said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Dr. Keller,” taking the man’s hand, wondering how to ask tactfully if Andy was his natural son or adopted. A lot of women kept their maiden names when they married, but usually the children took their father’s name.

  Jeffrey asked Keller, “You’re Andy’s biological father?”

  Rosen said, “We let Andy choose which name he wanted to take when he was old enough to make an informed decision.”

  Jeffrey nodded his understanding, though he was of the opinion that kids’ being given too many choices was one of the reasons he saw so many of them at the station, shocked that their bad decisions had actually landed them in trouble.

  “Come in,” Rosen offered, indicating Jeffrey should follow the short hallway to the living room.

  Like most professors, they lived on Willow Drive, which was just off Main Street and a short distance from the university. The school had worked out something with the bank to guarantee low-interest home loans for new professors, and they all ended up taking the nicest houses in town. Jeffrey wondered if all of the professors let their houses fall into disrepair as Keller had. There were stains on the ceiling from a recent rainfall, and the walls were in serious need of a fresh coat of paint.

  “I’m sorry about the mess,” Jill Rosen said in a practiced tone.

  “It’s fine,” Jeffrey said, though he wondered how anyone could live in such clutter. “Dr. Rosen—”

  “Jill.”

  “Jill,” he said. “Can you tell me, do you know Lena Adams?”

  “The woman from yesterday?” she asked, her voice going up at the end.

  “I was wondering if you knew her from before.”

  “She came to my office earlier. She’s the one who told me about Andy.”

  He held her gaze for a moment, not knowing the woman well enough to tell if there was something more to her words, which could be taken any number of ways. Jeffrey’s gut told him that something was going on between Lena and Jill Rosen, but he was not sure how it pertained to the case.

  “We can sit in here,” Rosen said, indicating a cramped living room.

  “Thanks,” Jeffrey said, glancing around the room.

  Rosen had obviously taken great care decorating the house when she moved in, but that had been many years ago. The furniture was nice, but looked a little too lived in. The wallpaper was dated, and the carpet showed high-traffic areas as clearly as a path in the forest. Even without these cosmetic problems, the place was crowding in on itself. Stacks of books and magazines spilled over in piles. There were newspapers Jeffrey recognized from last week spread around one of the armchairs by the window. Unlike the Linton house, which arguably had the same amount of clutter and certainly more books, there was something stifling about the place, as if no one had been happy here for a very long time.

  “We talked to the funeral home about the service,” Keller told him. “Jill and I were just trying to decide what we should do. My son had very definite feelings about cremation.” His bottom lip quivered. “Will they be able to do that after the autopsy?”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey told them. “Of course.”

  Rosen said, “We want to support his wishes, but . . .”

  Keller told her, “It’s what he wanted, Jill.”

  Jeffrey could sense the tension between them and did not offer his opinion.

  Rosen indicated a large chair. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Thank you,” Jeffrey said, tucking in his tie, sitting on the edge of the cushion so he would not sink back into the lumpy chair.

  She asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

  Before Jeffrey could refuse, Keller said, “Water would be nice.”

  Keller stared at the floor until his wife left the room. He seemed to be waiting for something, but Jeffrey was not sure what. When the faucet in the kitchen was turned on, he opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  Jeffrey said, “Nice car outside.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, clasping his hands in his lap. His shoulders were stooped and Jeffrey realized Keller was a larger man than he had initially thought.

  “You washed it this morning?”

  “Andy took good care of that car,” he said, but Jeffrey noticed he did not answer the question.

  “You’re in the biology department?”

  “Research,” Keller clarified.

  Jeffrey began, “If there’s something you want to tell me . . . ?”

  Keller opened his mouth again, but just then Rosen came into the room, handing both Jeffrey and her husband a glass of water.

  “Thank you,” Jeffrey said, taking a sip, even though the glass had a funny smell. He set it down on the coffee table, glancing at Keller to see if the man had anything to say, before getting down to business.

  He said, “I know y’all have other things to worry about. I just need to ask you some routine questions, and then I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Take all the time you need,” Keller offered.

  Rosen said, “Your people were up in Andy’s apartment until late last night.”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey answered. Contrary to what cops did on television, Jeffrey liked to stay as far away from a fresh crime scene as he could until the technicians were finished processing it. The riverbed where Andy had killed himself was too expansive and public to be of much use. Andy’s apartment was a different matter.

  Keller waited for his wife to sit down, then sat beside her on the couch. He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away. Obviously the fight they’d been having was still going on.

  Rosen asked, “Do you think he could have been pushed?”

  Jeffrey wondered if anything had been said to Rosen or if she had come up with the scenario on her own. He asked, “Did anyone ever threaten to hurt your son?”

  They looked at each other as if they had talked about this earlier. “Not that we know of.”

  Jeffrey asked, “And Andy attempted to kill himself before?”

  They nodded in unison.

  “You saw the note?”

  Rosen whispered, “Yes.”

  “It’s not likely,” he told the parents. No matter what Jeffrey suspected at this point, it was just that: speculation. He did not want to give Andy’s parents something to hold on to, only to have to disappoint them later. “We’ll investigate every possibility, but I don’t want to get your hopes up.” He paused, regretting his choice of words. What parents would hope that their child was murdered?

  Keller told his wife, “They’ll find anything irregular in the autopsy. They can find out all kinds of things. It’s amazing what science can do these days.” He said this with the conviction of a man who worked in the field and relied on scientific method to prove any point.

  Rosen held the tissue to her nose, not acknowledging what
her husband had said. Jeffrey wondered if the tension between them was from the recent argument or if there had been problems in the marriage for a while. He would need to ask some discreet questions around campus to find out.

  Keller interrupted Jeffrey’s thoughts. “We’ve been trying to think of something to tell you,” he said. “Andy had some friends from before—”

  “We never really knew them,” Rosen interrupted. “His drug friends.”

  “No,” Keller agreed. “As far as we know, there was no one lately.”

  Rosen conceded, “At least no one Andy introduced us to.”

  “I should have been here more,” Keller said, regret making his voice thick.

  Rosen did not dispute this, and Keller’s face turned red with the effort to keep from crying.

  “You were in Washington?” Jeffrey asked the man, but it was his wife who answered.

  She explained, “Brian’s working on a very complicated grant application right now.”

  Keller shook his head, like it was nothing. “What does it mean now?” he asked no one in particular. “All that wasted time and for what?”

  “Your work could help people one day,” she said, but Jeffrey sensed some animosity in her tone. This wouldn’t be the first time a wife resented her husband working long hours.

  “That’s his car in the driveway?” Jeffrey asked the mother. He noticed Keller look away.

  Rosen said, “We’d just bought it for him. Something to . . . I don’t know. Brian wanted to reward him for doing so well.”

  The unsaid implication was that Rosen had not agreed with her husband’s decision. The car was an extravagant purchase, and professors were hardly millionaires. Jeffrey guessed he was probably paid more money than Keller, which was not a hell of a lot.

  Jeffrey asked, “Did he usually drive it to school?”

  “It was easier walking,” Rosen said. “Sometimes we all walked over together.”

  “Did he tell you where he was going yesterday morning?”

  “I was already at the clinic,” Rosen answered. “I assumed he would be home all day. When Lena came . . .”

  Her tone of voice put a familiarity on Lena’s name that Jeffrey would have liked to pursue, but he could think of no way to introduce it into the conversation.

  Jeffrey took out his notebook instead, confirming, “Andy worked for you, Dr. Keller?”

  “Yes,” Keller answered. “There wasn’t much for him to do, but I didn’t want him spending a lot of time by himself at home.”

  Rosen added, “He helped at the clinic as well. Our receptionist isn’t that reliable. Sometimes he would man the desk or do some filing.”

  Jeffrey wondered, “Did he ever have access to patient information?”

  “Oh, never,” Rosen said, as if the thought alarmed her. “That’s kept under lock and key. Andy handled expense reports, scheduling, phone calls. That sort of thing.” Her voice trembled. “It was just busywork to keep him occupied during the day.”

  “The same at the lab,” Keller provided. “He wasn’t really qualified to help with research. That work belongs to the graduate students.” Keller sat up, hands on his knees. “I just wanted him close so I could keep an eye on him.”

  “You were worried he would do something like this?” Jeffrey asked.

  “No,” Rosen said. “Or, I don’t know. Perhaps subconsciously I thought he might be considering it. He was acting very strange lately, like he was concealing something.”

  “Did you have any idea what he was hiding?”

  “No telling,” she said with true regret. “Boys that age are difficult. Girls, too, for that matter. They’re trying to make the transition between being a teenager and being an adult. Parents go back and forth between being a liability and a crutch, depending on the day of the week.”

  “Or whether or not he needs cash,” Keller added. The parents smiled at this, like it was a shared joke between them.

  Keller asked, “Do you have a son, Chief Tolliver?”

  “No.” Jeffrey sat back, not liking the question. When he was younger, Jeffrey never thought he would want a kid of his own. Knowing Sara’s circumstances, he had put it out of his mind. Something about the last case he had worked on with Lena had made Jeffrey wonder what it would be like to be a father.

  Keller said, “They’ll tear your heart out,” in a hoarse whisper, dropping his head into his hands. Rosen seemed to go through some silent debate with herself before reaching over and rubbing his back. Keller looked up, surprised, as if she had just given him some kind of gift.

  Jeffrey waited a few moments before asking, “Did Andy tell you that he was having problems coping?” They both shook their heads. “Was there someone or something that might have been upsetting him?”

  Keller shrugged. “He was trying very hard to forge his own identity.” He waved his hand toward the back of the house. “That was why we let him live over the garage.”

  “He was taking an interest in art,” Rosen said. She pointed to the wall behind Jeffrey.

  “Nice.” Jeffrey glanced at the canvas, trying not to do a double take. The drawing was a rather one-dimensional rendering of a nude woman reclining on a rock. Her legs were wide open, her genitals the only color in the picture, so that it looked as if she had a plate of lasagna between her thighs.

  “He had a real gift,” Rosen said.

  Jeffrey nodded, thinking that only a deluded mother or the editor of Screw magazine would think whoever drew the picture had a gift. He turned around, his eyes finding Keller. The man looked squeamishly uncomfortable, mirroring Jeffrey’s own reaction.

  “Did Andy date much?” Jeffrey asked, because as detailed as the drawing was, the boy seemed to have missed some important parts.

  “Not that we know of,” Rosen answered. “We never saw anyone going to his room, but the garage is in the back of the house.”

  Keller glanced at his wife before saying, “Jill thinks he could have been doing drugs again.”

  Jeffrey told them, “We found some paraphernalia in his room.” He did not wait for the question Rosen was obviously about to ask. “Squares of tinfoil and a pipe. There’s no telling when they were last used.”

  Rosen slumped, and her husband wrapped his arm around her, holding her close to his chest. Still, she seemed apart from him, and Jeffrey wondered again about the condition of their marriage.

  Jeffrey continued, “There was nothing else in his room that pointed to a drug problem.”

  “He had mood swings,” Keller said. “Sometimes he would be very melancholy. Sullen. It was hard to tell if it was from drugs or just his natural disposition.”

  Jeffrey thought now was as good a time as any to bring up Andy’s piercings. “I noticed he had a pierced eyebrow.”

  Keller rolled his eyes. “It nearly killed his mother.”

  “His nose, too,” Rosen added with a disapproving frown. “I think he had something done to his tongue recently. He wouldn’t show me, but he kept chewing it.”

  Jeffrey pressed, “Anything else unusual?”

  Keller and Rosen both looked at him in wide-eyed innocence. Keller spoke for both of them. “I don’t think there was anything else left to pierce!” he said, not exactly laughing.

  Jeffrey moved along. “What about the suicide attempt in January?”

  “In retrospect, I’m not sure he meant anything by it,” Keller said. “He knew that Jill would find the note when she woke that morning. He timed it so she would find him before anything got desperate.” The father paused. “We thought he was just trying to get our attention.”

  Jeffrey waited for Rosen to say something, but her eyes were closed, her body folded into her husband’s.

  Keller said, “He acted out sometimes. He didn’t think of the ramifications.”

  Rosen did not protest.

  Keller shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t say something like that.”

  “No,” Rosen whispered. “It’s true.”


  “We should have noticed,” Keller insisted. “There must have been something.”

  Death was bad enough, but suicides were always particularly horrible for the people who were left behind. Either the survivors blamed themselves for not seeing the signs or they felt betrayed by their selfish loved ones who’d left them to clean up the mess. Jeffrey imagined that Andy Rosen’s parents would spend the rest of their lives swinging back and forth between the two emotions.

  Rosen sat up, wiping her nose. She took another tissue out of the box and dried her eyes. “It’s a wonder you found anything in that apartment at all,” she said. “He was so messy.” She had been trying to collect herself, but something about her words brought it all back to her.

  Rosen broke down slowly, her mouth twitching as she tried to hold back her sobs, until she finally covered her face with her hands.

  Keller put his arm around his wife again, pulling her close. “I’m so sorry,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “I should have been here,” he said. “I should have been here.”

  They stayed like this for several minutes, as if Jeffrey were no longer there.

  He cleared his throat. “I thought I’d go out back and look at the apartment, if you don’t mind.”

  Keller was the only one to look up. He nodded his head, then went back to comforting his wife. Rosen slumped into him. She could have been a rag doll in his hands.

  Jeffrey turned to leave, coming face-to-face with Andy’s reclining nude. There was something oddly familiar about the woman that he could not place.

  Aware that he might be gawking, Jeffrey let himself out of the house. He wanted to follow up with Keller and find out exactly what it was the man could not speak about in front of his wife. He also needed to talk to Ellen Schaffer again. Maybe getting some distance from the crime scene had helped jog her memory.

  Jeffrey stopped in front of the Mustang, admiring its lines again. Washing the car this early in the morning so soon after Andy Rosen’s death was odd, but certainly not a crime. Maybe Keller had done it to honor his son. Maybe he’d been trying to hide evidence, though Jeffrey was hard-pressed to think of anything that could connect the car to this crime. Other than the attack on Tessa Linton, Jeffrey was not even sure a crime had been committed.