Chapter 6: “Black Holes.”
“I think maybe,” I said, slowly, as if to a child, “we should put away the book and just talk.”
“Do you know what a black hole is? It is something so massive, something with a gravity so dense, that nothing can escape it, not even light. That’s why they say it is black. Generally it is a star that collapses in on itself. It has to be just the right size, and then, when it is done burning, it just contracts into the tiniest ball of matter. Anything that comes too close falls in and gets ripped apart before disappearing forever.”
“And you say that’s what happened to Jesse Sterrett?”
“Yes, of course. He fell into a black hole.”
“Jesse Sterrett died in the quarry in Pierce. You think there was a collapsed star in that quarry?”
“No, of course not. Just because I’m in here doesn’t make me crazy. But a black hole doesn’t have to be formed only by a star. Anything with sufficient density can be a black hole. There are things called primordial black holes, formed in the very first moments after the big bang, formed of the very first pieces of the universe. It’s right here in the book. Little bits of matter that have compressed into the tiniest shapes and float around the universe wreaking havoc. Think of something the mass of a mountain compressed into something no wider or longer than a million millionth of an inch. Think of that. A dark force from the very dawning of our universe. And they could be anywhere, anywhere, deep in outer space or just behind the moon or around the next bend in the road. They could be anywhere, floating here, floating there, leaving nothing but destruction. Anything that comes too close falls in and gets ripped apart before disappearing forever. The mass of a mountain in a million millionth of an inch.”
I stared at her pretty face as she spoke, I gaped sad and incredulous, but at the same time, for some reason, I remembered the strange force that roared through Hailey and me in the middle of sex. It had seemed then, that force, something powerful, insatiable, devastating, ancient.
“And that’s what killed Jesse Sterrett,” I said, “a primordial black hole?”
“Yes. And Hailey, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s in the book.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it doesn’t. Not yet, at least. No one’s been smart enough to come up with a unified theory that explains everything. It is what Einstein spent his life searching for. It is what Stephen Hawking is traveling to the edges of the universe to figure out. One elegant equation that answers all the questions. Stephen Hawking is so close to figuring it out, they are all so close. And I am close, too. I know it. Each day I read over what he says here in this book and I feel myself growing closer and closer to an answer, closer and closer to figuring it out. And when I do, everything will become clear. Everything. Do you want to help me? Won’t you help me?”
“I don’t know anything about physics.”
She reached out and grabbed at my shirt. “You said you knew her. You said you knew Hailey.”
“Yes, I did.”
“And you were asking questions about Jesse Sterrett. So you know more than you think you know. You are closer than you ever imagined. Will you work with me? Will you help me?”
She was shaking the fistful of cloth still in her grip. I took hold of her wrist and gently pulled her hand off of me. “That’s what I’m trying to do. If you could only answer some questions…”
“All your answers are here.” She waved the book with her other hand. “Whatever it is you want to know.”
Just then a shadow appeared to my right. “Is everything all right?” said Titus, his deep voice filled with a solicitous concern.
I noticed then that I was still gripping Roylynn’s wrist. I let go. She turned and smiled at Titus with the same bright smile she had given me only moments ago.
“Mr. Carl is going to work with us to find the unified theory,” she said.
“That’s good,” said Titus. “That’s very good.”
“Titus has helped me so much already,” she said. “We’re getting so close, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are, we surely are.”
“The world will be stunned when we figure it out.”
“Yes, it will,” said Titus. “You’ll be getting yourself a Nobel Prize.”
“We,” said Roylynn. “You and everyone else who helped.”
“Thank you, Ms. Prouix. That is so kind.”
“All right, Mr. Carl?” she said. “Are you ready?”
“Do you miss her?” I said. “Do you miss your sister?”
There was a pause, where she seemed to carefully, willfully, compose her face into a smile. “How could I?” she said finally. “I never had the chance. She’s in me, she always has been. She makes me strong. I’ve never been lonely a day in my life, because she is in me. I can feel her breath in my breath, her touch in my touch. When I look into a mirror, I see two faces. When I speak, I hear two voices. If it is all right, Mr. Carl, I like to start at the introduction. There are many clues there, I think.” She opened the book. “Here we are. Are you ready?”
I glanced at Titus and then nodded into her kind, smiling face.
She began to read.
I nodded again and kept nodding as she read on and on.
There is something about a Southern accent that sends a comforting signal of assurance. The certainty in Roylynn Prouix’s voice itself told me how important this all was to her, how surely she held to the belief that the answers to everything that had plagued her soul, and her sister’s, were somewhere contained in that battered black book. So I nodded and stopped fighting it and let the syrup of her voice slip over me. I followed her through the words and the pages, I followed her through the simple equations and complex concepts, I followed her until we both were released from the bindings of gravity and flew free from this earth, this solar system, flew side by side past planets spinning and stars forming and stars collapsing and galaxies spiraling around great massive centers, past black holes glowing white-hot against all expectation, past all the strange, gorgeous phenomena, of which man can only as yet dream, toward the far far edges of the universe.
“ANYTHING?” SAID Skink when I met him in the lobby after Titus had come to take Roylynn away.
“No.”
“What was she, Looney Tunes?”
“You could say that.”
“What the hell you think you was going to get in a place like this?”
“I don’t know. Something else. It’s time to go home.”
“Giving up, are we?”
“I’ve got a trial to prepare for.”
“You still going to defend him after finding nothing?”
“Yes. He didn’t do it, I’m sure of it now.”
“You ain’t convinced me yet.”
“I don’t have to convince you. There are only twelve that I care about.”
“You’re disappointing me, Vic. I thought if we found nothing, you’d go back to your original plan.”
“It was a bad plan, flawed from the start. There’s only one way to handle something like this. Straight up to the end. That’s how I mean to play it.”
“I didn’t think you’d find a frigging thing down here, but I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed it turns out I was right. It would have been nice to see things tidied all neat and clean, would have been nice to dig into the past to find our villain. But that ain’t the way of it, is it, Vic? Things never do tidy up all neat and clean.”
“I suppose not,” I said. But even as I was saying it, I didn’t believe it to be the truth. Even as I was saying it, I was remembering the strange interstellar journey I had just taken with Roylynn Prouix only a few moments before. And I couldn’t help thinking that somewhere, out there, in the far reaches of the universe, somewhere in the great black space that I had traversed with Roylynn, somewhere lay the unified theory I was looking for, the theory that tied two victims, two murders, two mysteries
together into one brutal solution.
Part Five
The Quarry
37
“IT WAS a quiet, rain-swept night on Raven Hill Road,” said prosecutor Troy Jefferson in his smooth prosecutor’s voice. “The kids were asleep, the cars were parked in the driveways and by the curb, the houses were dark. Everything was locked up tight, safe and sound. An unlikely night for—”
“Objection, Your Honor.”
I was standing at the defense table, Guy Forrest sitting to my left and Beth, with a white plaster cast on her wrist, sitting to his. Judge Tifaro peered over her half glasses at me. The eyeglass chains hanging from her temples gave her pique a schoolmarmish edge. “We’re only on the fourth sentence of Mr. Jefferson’s opening, Counselor. Don’t you think your objection is a bit premature?”
“Mr. Jefferson is implying that all the houses were locked up tight on Raven Hill Road the night of the murder, when he knows full well that there is no evidence that Miss Prouix’s house was locked at all. When he knows full well there is no evidence to disprove the possibility that anyone could have strolled inside that house at any time for any purpose, whether—”
“Mr. Carl, that’s enough. You’ll have your turn to discuss any failures of proof in your closing. Objection overruled.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said as I sat back down in my seat.
“Let me start again,” said Jefferson, smirking at me before turning back to the jury. “It was a quiet, rain-swept night on Raven Hill Road. The kids were asleep, the cars were parked in the driveways and by the curb, the houses were dark. Everything was locked up tight, safe and sound. An unlikely night—”
“Objection, Your Honor. He did it again.”
“Mr. Carl, I overruled the objection. Mr. Jefferson can say what he pleases. Sit down.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” I sat.
“An unlikely night,” said Jefferson hurriedly, “for murder.”
“Objection, Your Honor.”
“Oh, please,” moaned Troy Jefferson, spinning around to give me the eye.
“Mr. Carl?” said the judge, unable to conceal her exasperation.
“Whether or not there was a murder is a legal conclusion for the jury to decide after receiving your instructions. Mr. Jefferson can argue facts here, but an opening is not the time to throw all kinds of technical legal terms at the jury in the hopes of pushing them at this early stage to some legal conclusion that might not be warranted by—”
“Overruled,” said the judge. “Murder is the charge, and so he can use the word. Sit down, Mr. Carl. I’ve had enough out of you already and we’re only”—she glanced at her watch—“three minutes into the proceeding. I fear this is going to one be of those trials, so let make myself clear, Mr. Carl. I don’t want you interrupting Mr. Jefferson’s opening again. I don’t want to hear your voice even if the building is on fire and you are the first to see the flames. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Don’t thank me when I slap you down, Mr. Carl. It puts me in a foul mood. And, Mr. Jefferson, when Mr. Carl is giving his opening, I certainly hope you show him more respect than he has shown to you.”
“I certainly hope so, too, Your Honor,” I said.
The jury laughed at that one, which I appreciated. I smiled as I nodded their way. Some smiled back.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said, to a few more chuckles.
Troy Jefferson glared at me before turning around and beginning again, but with his back now slightly hunched, as if anticipating the next interruption, and without the same lovely assurance in his voice.
God, I loved the courtroom.
I was in a strange, unsettled place just then, confused as to what had really happened or why to Hailey Prouix, confused by what I had learned in West Virginia, uncertain about who had done what to whom, certain only that the man I was defending was in a harder place than he should have been because I had screwed up in every which way. I was holding tight to a series of secrets that could destroy me and my client. I was keeping facts from Beth, my partner and best friend. I was playing a dangerous game. And yet, with all that, I still felt comfortable in that court of law, and the reason wasn’t too hard to fathom.
My life to that point had been pretty much an unmitigated failure. I had little money, less love, a few good friends that I could count on, but only a few, and a career that, despite its evident lack of financial rewards, had somehow veered out of my control. My last romantic relationship fitted the pattern of all those that preceded it, a twisted affair that ended badly, although this ending seemed to rise to a new and unprecedented level, seeing how it ended in death. No, the whole my-life situation was pretty dim. Somehow, after all this time, I still had not figured out the rules. Where was the rule book? I needed a rule book. I thought that graduating from college would do it, turn my life into something lovely and joyful and successful, but, no, it did not. Then I thought that getting into law school would do it, and then I thought that passing the bar would do it, and then I thought that surviving in my own practice for more than five years would do it. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. I didn’t have the least notion of what was really going on. Others knew, others with fancy cars and big houses and lovely spouses and bushels of children, they knew how to play the game and come out winners. How did they get hold of the rule book while my hands still were empty?
But in court there was no such problem. Here there actually was a rule book, the Pennsylvania Code, and it contained between the many covers of its many volumes the rules of evidence and the rules of trial practice and the rules of criminal procedure and that great guidebook of human behavior, the penal code. In the course of my career I had spent enough time elbow deep in the law to learn these rules cold. And the other rules, too, the rules of dealing with your adversary, relating to the jury, bolstering your witnesses during direct examination, destroying their witnesses on cross. Outside the courtroom I was lost, inside I was slick. I’m not bragging, there were thousands just like me, it seemed to be an epidemic, lawyers helpless outside the courtroom while eagles within, and I don’t claim to have been the best, or even close. Sometimes I would see a master go through the paces and grow sick with jealousy. So, no, I was not the best, but what I did best I did in the courtroom. It was the only place where I understood the rules.
So, in order to keep within the new rules laid out by Judge Tifaro, I spent the rest of Jefferson’s opening restraining myself from objecting at every other word. It was seemingly a difficult task, I was halfway to standing many times until I openly noticed the judge’s displeasure and meekly returned to my seat. I must have been a sight, squirming in the chair as I restrained myself, I must have been something to behold, and I know this because of the expressions on the faces of the jury members as they were beholding me, even as Troy Jefferson tried to continue.
It was a good opening, I must admit, laying out the facts that he would prove against Guy Forrest with a devastating simplicity. Motive. Guy and the victim had been involved with a fraud in the Juan Gonzalez case. Hailey had turned on him by stealing most of the money from their joint account and then sleeping with another man. Guy had every reason to be furious at her, murderously angry. And it showed. The night of her death Hailey Prouix had been hit in the eye before being shot to death. Opportunity. Guy was the only one we knew to have been in the house with the victim on the night of the murder. Means. Guy’s fingerprints were on his gun, his gun, which the forensic evidence would prove had fired the bullet into Hailey Prouix’s heart. And then there were those little factual touches that, like accent pillows on a couch, add so much. Instead of calling 911 for an ambulance after the shooting, Guy had called his lawyer. And after the cops came, Guy tried to run away with a boatload of cash and a bottle of Viagra in his suitcase. Oh, the facts were clearly on Jefferson’s side, and his opening would have been strong enough to clasp the iron shackles upon Guy Forrest’s legs on its own if t
he jury hadn’t been concentrating so much on my valiant efforts to restrain myself. In fact, it got to the point where I didn’t even have to squirm like a snake to get their attention. Jefferson would make a point, the jury would glance my way, I would raise an eyebrow, and they would understand to take what had just been said with a jaundiced eye.
“MR. CARL,” said Judge Tifaro, gesturing me to a space in front of the jury after Troy Jefferson had retaken his seat. “Don’t make us wait.”
Still in my chair behind the defense table, I patted Guy on the shoulder of his gray suit and then squeezed his arm in solidarity. “My name is Victor Carl,” I said. “This is my client, Guy Forrest. Mr. Jefferson over there is trying to kill him, which is a serious thing. What, then, is Guy’s serious crime? Mr. Jefferson says it is murder, but he is wrong. Guy didn’t kill Hailey Prouix. Someone else did. Someone came into the house and walked up the stairs and shot Hailey Prouix dead while Guy was in the Jacuzzi with its whirlpools noisily whirling, wearing a set of headphones, listening to Louis Armstrong blow his cornet. That is what happened, no matter how strange it might sound. The police when they came found the Jacuzzi full, the Walkman by the side of the tub, the CD loaded and primed with Satchmo’s lovely horn. When they checked Guy’s hands the night of the murder, there was no evidence that he had fired a gun, because he hadn’t. He was listening to Louis Armstrong, and when he came out of the bath, he found Hailey Prouix dead. He didn’t do it. So why is Guy on trial? What is his crime, really?” I stood, stepped behind Guy, put a hand on each shoulder. “His crime here, the serious transgression for which they are putting him on trial for his life, is that he fell in love.”
I walked slowly now as I spoke, moved toward the jury until I was standing right beside their box, close enough so I could reach out and anoint the foreheads of each of those in the front row.
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