A Circumstance of Blood

by Jeannette Batz Cooperman

  Then it clicked.

  She knew what had shaped him. She even knew how to test her theory. Easing into her experiment, she told a few stories about crazy, obsessive, neurotic people she’d interviewed. “You must have had a rough time growing up, if your parents had those sorts of clients. I can’t imagine a steady diet of it − people expecting them to be available all the time, calling in tears in the middle of the night . . .”

  Pushing off from the bench with his hands, he stood, a fluid angry motion that set her heart pounding again. She hadn’t planned on that fast a reaction. Was he going to leave her here? Well, so what if he did? They’d only walked a few miles. It would be easy to turn around and just go back the way they’d come.

  Who was she kidding? She’d be lost until dawn.

  A few yards away Graham stopped, and she saw a flash of crimson, dark as dried blood in the moonlight. It was the arc of his Converse high-tops, kicking a tangle of dead brush off the path. “Poison ivy,” he called. “Somebody hacked it and just left it to die, but even when it’s frozen, there’s still sap in the stems.”

  She bit back a nervous laugh. They were both wearing long pants and heavy socks − what on earth did it matter? He was looking for a distraction. Her point had struck home.

  The epiphany had come from years of writing profiles. People always spoke most harshly when they were criticising their own traits in others. And, in Graham’s case, it made a lot of sense. He’d watched his mom and dad lavish all their time and attention on their poor victim clients, and he’d gotten relieved pats on the head for not being weak and needy. Now he couldn’t admit he wanted sympathy − and he couldn’t stand to watch anybody else be ‘weak’ either.

  It wasn’t a murderer’s profile.

  “Do you have friends?” she asked, leaving the bench to join him. She’d checked online. No Twitter account, nothing on Instagram, Tumblr, Pheed, or Vine. And he was far too cool for Facebook.

  “When I need them.” They walked the next stretch in silence. It was even darker now, the moon hidden behind clouds, and she fought another spurt of panic by trying to calculate how far they’d gone.

  Then the path curved again, and through the trees she saw floodlit limestone. They were back.

  “You know,” she told Graham, relief making her expansive, “when I met you, I thought you were an unmitigated asshole. But I think you do care, at least about a few things.”

  “Everybody’s an asshole at some level,” he said with a shrug. “Some just hide it better than others. They’re the ones folks call altruists.”

  *

  After her venture into the woods, Sarah’s knees were weak. She climbed the stairs to Colin’s room, wondering if her theory would sound too softhearted. Better let it go for now. What she really wanted to know was why Colin had never told her about his concert tour.

  “Come in,” he called when she knocked. He’d been reading by the fire, a glass of whisky by his chair, and when she joined him the terrors of the walk fell away and a warmth came over her, a feeling of being home. While he poured her a whisky she told him about Steven’s foray into Philip’s email.

  The glass bottle banged down. “You what? Holy Mother, Sarah, isn’t that tampering with evidence or something?”

  “Nah. We didn’t alter anything. It’s just snooping.”

  Even paler than usual, he handed over her glass and added a second shot to his. “You should have told Morganstern.”

  “Chill. I’m going to. I’ll just say Steven knew about a spare iPad. She doesn’t have to know where he recovered it. If her people weren’t bright enough to find it, that’s their problem.”

  He set down his glass and leaned back, covering his face with both palms. “Dammit, Sarah. I wish you hadn’t done this without authorisation.”

  “You wouldn’t have given me ‘authorisation’. I figured I’d ask for forgiveness instead. Don’t you want to know what I found?” She quoted Philip’s last exchange with Adriana and described a few other emails, eager to move to her prize find.

  Colin guessed where she was heading the minute she said ‘symphony’. “Somehow Philip found out,” he said, diffident. “It’s what he used for me in the mashup.”

  “It’s hardly something to be ashamed of.”

  “It is when I’m Glenn Gould and he’s using a track of applause and flashing cameras and piano flourishes and then intercutting it with video of me saying Mass in a medieval monk’s hooded brown robe and looking like I gave up what I really wanted.”

  “So it’s true? I mean, I knew you studied at Juilliard, but you left. I guess I always figured − I mean, I didn’t realise . . .” She met his eyes. “You were seriously good.”

  He lifted one shoulder, a Gallic gesture that looked comical on a tall, slope-shouldered Scotsman.

  All sorts of questions rushed into her mind, but she needed to let this sink in first. It was interesting. Hard as Colin argued for social justice, he’d always been a bit of a snob. He preferred the scrim of breeding and privilege; he thought it made people more civilised. Luckily, he’d come from pretty humble stock, so he couldn’t put on airs. If he’d actually become a concert pianist, he would have been insufferable.

  “Why didn’t you go on with it?” she asked. “Higher calling?”

  “It wasn’t that. Just − too much ego and flash and angst.” He looked miserable. “I turned into a real git. Even my mum noticed.”

  “So you chose the priesthood.”

  He leaned back in the armchair and stared at the ceiling. “After all those years of my mother killing herself to pay for piano lessons. My da was useless − he’d go on binges, lose jobs. My mum worked overtime at the maltings, and Aunt Alice kicked in for Juilliard. But I couldn’t handle the dazzle of it, that rush that leaves you always wanting more.”

  “Were you happier when you went to seminary?”

  “Not right away. But then I realised I could throw the same amount of passion into the priesthood − minus the ego.”

  She faked a sputtering cough. “Sometimes.” She rose to leave, then sat down again fast. “Wait! What else was on the mashup?”

  “You crush my non-existent ego and then expect me to tell you?”

  “Yep.”

  He notched his glasses lower on his nose. “His point was to tell secrets, or show hidden parts of people’s personalities. For his father, he used bits of a recorded phone conversation about drones spying on farmers’ soybean fields and played them under video of North accepting a plaque for his contributions to environmental justice.”

  “Nice. What about Adriana? In his last email to her, Philip mentioned a secret.”

  “He knew about the accident, and he probably figured out she was sleeping with somebody. He might not have known it was his father.” Colin rubbed his face, then moved his hands apart and looked at Sarah. “I’m probably overthinking this.”

  “But what?”

  “He chose Hamlet for his Shakespeare paper.”

  Colin had always been a little heavy handed when it came to symbolism. Still, teenagers were heavy handed too − everything they did had monumental import. “Maybe he felt all along that his mother was wronged,” she said. “And here’s his father sleeping with his teacher . . . He could have resented that. If he tormented them about it, that’s a clear motive for North or Adriana.”

  Was it, though? She couldn’t imagine either of them being devastated by a teenage boy’s sulk. They were too giddy about their unexpected happiness. “D’you know the night Philip died was the first night they had sex?”

  “Er . . . no. I did not know that. Nor do I need to.”

  “But don’t you think it’s rather caddish of him to have left so early? They both live alone. Why not spend the night?”

  “I’m more interested in what else Philip found out about North’s clients.”

  “Maybe there are more phone recordings. If so, Morganstern’s probably got them. S
teven and I were pretty thorough.”

  He drained his whisky. “Don’t remind me.”

  “So that’s it for the mashup, huh? Too bad I wasn’t in it.”

  “You were, actually. A woman with your face showed up near the end, wearing a long dress and lace-up boots. She had thick bangs, and she stalked back and forth waving a notebook at people.”

  “Ha! That sounds like Nellie Bly.”

  A raised eyebrow asked the question.

  “A female reporter in the 1880s. She feigned insanity and checked herself into the asylum on Blackwell’s Island. When she had enough for an exposé, she tried to leave, but nobody believed her, so they wouldn’t let her out. Only her editor knew she wasn’t crazy.”

  She rather liked Philip’s choice for her, even if it was a little too apt. His brand of truth telling had a double edge, she realised. It brought him inside people’s innermost lives and pushed them away at the same time. He craved reaction, but he hadn’t learned how to soften his approach.

  “At least we both got off pretty lightly,” she said, yawning.

  “Except that I seem to be Lieutenant Morganstern’s prime suspect.”

  Her smile faded. “You’re joking, right?”

  “According to the lieutenant, I had the most to lose from any embarrassment to the school. Which I suppose is accurate.” He ran his splayed fingers through his hair, creating little meringue spikes at odds with his grim expression. “If she arrests me, we’ll lose the school for sure.”

  His tone was light, but a nerve in his eyelid jumped. He was scared. And so, suddenly, was she.

  *

  Northrup Grant strode from the dorm to the parking lot, wishing he were the kind of man who could jog a brief distance and not look like a fool. He didn’t want to be seen. Not even by Adriana, who should still be home sipping her strong tea and eating her scone. He teased her about her Anglophilia, but he’d come to enjoy its comforts.

  No, he didn’t want Adriana to know he’d been here. She’d understand, of course, once he explained it all. But it would take too many words, and he’d have to suffer those first moments while she tried to piece it together and fathom his emotional state.

  Emotional states did not come easily to him. He preferred homeostasis, a perfect smooth equilibrium that held its own against chaos. Philip had brought him nothing but chaos. Still, he’d thought . . .

  Never mind now. His BMW’s engine turned over like a sleek cat rolling on to its back in the sun. The heated seat comforted him, and Mozart flowed through a sound system so clear a chamber orchestra could have been playing from the back seat. He smiled at the flight of fancy. Adriana was having an effect on him. Now that she’d relaxed about him spending the night, they were growing easier with each other. She’d marry him, he knew she would. How long, he wondered, should he wait to ask?

  *

  Colin and Connie had worked out a routine. She let every call to the office go to voicemail, then handled what messages she could by return email and forwarded the rest to Colin’s phone. When he walked in Tuesday morning, though, she pointed to the phone and opened her mouth in an Edvard Munch scream. An indeterminate bit of breakfast rose into Colin’s throat. As Connie hit ‘Play’, he gulped it back down, tasting bile.

  “This is for Father McAvoy,” Northrup Grant’s voice said. “I’ve just spent a most interesting hour with Lieutenant Morganstern, and now I’ve got a few questions for you. Did one of your priests abuse my son? Did you? Is that why you let him carry on with all his costumes and esoteric bullshit?”

  What in God’s name had Morganstern said?

  Didn’t matter. Swallow a live toad before breakfast, and nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day. He walked into his office and dialled Northrup Grant’s number.

  Leaving the voicemail hadn’t lessened Grant’s rage one bit. He ranted for ten minutes straight, the rush of words carrying every regret or recrimination he’d ever felt toward his son. Colin let him talk. When his voice calmed enough to allow some air between the sentences, Colin said quietly, “Mr. Grant, you had more reason to fear Philip’s truth telling than I did.”

  Silence.

  Colin braced himself for the next torrent. But when Grant spoke, his voice was just as quiet. “I thought he was settling down a bit,” he said, sounding worn out. “What are you talking about?”

  “Only that he had some footage about your company’s practices on his mashup. You have my word, no-one will see that video except the police.”

  “Philip just liked to torment me about privacy issues. There’s nothing my company does that I’m ashamed of.”

  “I understand that, but he’d taped a few of your phone conversations. Taken out of context, they won’t sound so good, especially to a church congregation that doesn’t understand the subtexts.”

  After a long pause, Grant gave a dry huff of amusement. “I’ll be damned.” He fell silent again. “It’s a relief to be furious with him,” he said finally. “It’s like,” − his voice broke − “he’s alive again.” He cleared his throat. “I can assure you, I did nothing that wasn’t sanctioned by Homeland Security.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Colin said, keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. “And I can assure you that Philip did not have any sort of sexual relationship with an adult at this school.”

  When Grant had not quite apologised, but at least regained civility, Colin hung up, pulled out his cell phone and called Sarah.

  “You don’t think he pitched a fit just to deflect suspicion, do you?” she asked.

  “Both the rage and the grief sounded genuine. What Morganstern hinted at that kicked him off, I don’t know. But these days, it doesn’t take much of an insinuation.”

  “Yeah, but don’t forget what Philip did to North on the mashup.”

  Colin thought for a minute. He could imagine a man, tested to the breaking point, wanting to silence a boy he thought of as a freak of nature. A boy he’d brought up as his son, yet who was nothing like him, and who was about to destroy his reputation and his future.

  “Grant’s got an alibi,” he pointed out.

  “No, he doesn’t. Adriana wasn’t positive what time he left. She said around midnight. He got home around one. That’s enough of a window. Besides, she’d lie for him.”

  “It’s incomprehensible.”

  “Colin, it’s all incomprehensible.”

  *

  Thinking of North reminded Sarah of Adriana. Feeling heartless, she went online and checked Oxycontin, to see if it could be liquefied and injected. It was an opioid. Heroin was an opiate. Would they both show up simply as morphine? Lost in all the pharmacology sites, she emailed her question to Gradwohl.

  In the mood to consider every remote possibility, Sarah turned her mind to Steven. What a brilliant double bluff it would be if the map was genuine after all. She called Jasmin back and asked what she knew about Chinese paper. Could the naked eye observe a difference between pith and xuan?

  Jasmin didn’t think so. “You can tell now, when they’re both made new,” she said. “There’s a huge difference in brightness. But as the paper decomposes, the whiteness yellows and the surface texture changes, so light’s not reflected the same way anymore. I’d only feel safe with a chemical analysis.”

  So either Steven had powers of observation well beyond Jasmin’s − which was possible − or he’d made up the whole thing. Sarah jotted down what Jasmin said, barely hearing the art-world gossip that followed. Maybe Steven was capable of killing. He’d looked up to Philip. With a tossed-off phrase or casual rejection, Philip could have bruised his fragile ego and roused his temper.

  Still, she couldn’t see it. She stopped her brain’s spin by forcing herself to check her work email. One was from Stu. ‘The foundation director read some of your feature links on Gateway’s website.’ Shit. She’d planned to carefully select what clips she sent him. God knew what he’d stumbled upon − Boris the Bulgaria
n arms dealer? The Goddess Vesta and her S&M dungeon in the suburbs?

  ‘He loves your writing style. Said it’s vivid and fluent − which I suppose means you can speak English. But seriously, from him, two adjectives is high praise. He left me a voicemail saying he hopes you apply.’

  She called Stu’s cell. “I’m almost finished with the application.”

  “Good, because they’ve got another candidate,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Some smarmy guy. Came in with a PowerPoint showing the opening spreads of all his stories that won awards.”

  “Yikes. If he’s that good . . .”

  “Sarah, stop. The only one I could make out was the Great Plains Journalism Award. There is no journalism in the Great Plains. Just get your damn clips in.”

  She hung up feeling close to tears. If you’re mad at yourself, do something, Beth used to tell her. For the first time it dawned on Sarah that her mother had been handing her a weapon against depression.

  Fine. That application would go in the mail today.

  She was deleting a subject-line email from Casper – ‘Why aren’t you blogging?’ − when Gradwohl’s response clicked into her in-box. The Queen was succinct. ‘With oxy we’d find oxycodone hydrochloride in the blood.’

  Good. Adriana’s prescription was irrelevant.

  They were making progress, but in fits and starts − it felt like getting stuck in a traffic jam, shifting the Miata from first to second back to neutral back to first. Sarah went back over what they knew for sure. Philip had been intrigued by some flashblood ritual, had bought heroin, had fought with North, had learned North wasn’t his biological father. They knew the mashup’s contents. Morganstern said Colin had the strongest motive of all, but her explanation was lame. A sane man didn’t kill to keep a school afloat. Did she know something more?

  With a sick feeling, Sarah remembered the evidence bag on Morganstern’s desk. It had to be the digital recorder Steven had set up.

  Had Philip recorded something that would incriminate Colin?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE