Adam and Evil

by Gillian Roberts

  “His book bag was next to the victim.”

  I nodded. “The librarian told me. When I was back there today.” I finally sat down on a kitchen chair. “Mackenzie, you’re here, you’re chilling out—does that mean you have a suspect? An arrest?”

  He sighed and looked at me as if he wished he were seeing something or somebody else. “We have a suspect, yes. But he’s not under arrest unless you detained him and brought him here with you. This is not a subtle case. Only difficulty is findin’ him.”

  “Adam?” I wanted to disagree, to pull out facts that would refute that, but I couldn’t think of a single one.

  “Where’d he go?”

  “He ran off. He said he was okay, that his parents knew where he was. I have to assume he’s with a friend, although he’s an absolute loner at school. But I hate that he’s your only suspect.”

  “Did he say he didn’t do it? He was up there, Mandy.”

  I hadn’t asked outright. Hadn’t dared. “He said he found her. That she was dead. He may have overheard the actual killer. He heard a voice.”

  “Schizophrenics—some of them—hear voices. What did his say?”

  I whispered it. “‘Kill.’ Maybe ‘dead.’”

  “That’s it?”

  I nodded. “I think he heard himself. His own reaction to finding her on the floor.”

  “Or to deciding to kill her,” Mackenzie said.

  I hurried on to firmer ground. “I’ve found out a lot more about the dead woman. She’s on the outs with a homeless advocate who’s always there, and her sister, who was there, and her husband, who’s been known to be there, and—”

  “I don’ get it,” he said, standing up. “I don’ get it at all. You’re so convinced the kid’s dangerous you practically accused him of murder before you knew that anybody was dead. Then—”

  “I never! You’re saying I made things worse for him, aren’t you? Why? You’ve had the weirdest attitude all along whenever I even mentioned him. Why?”

  His blue stare was enough to freeze-dry me. “We’ve been through this already,” he said, and with me instead of Cary Grant in front of him, he ran out of energy.

  “No,” I insisted. “No, we haven’t. You kept saying I would make it worse, but you didn’t say why you were so sure.”

  “The thing is, Adam is the clear number-one suspect. All logic points to him, and so does his scarf and the book bag, and the truth is, in his case, we may not require logic. Kids in his class said he was angry with Ms. Fisher. She hollered at him—”

  “She didn’t shout.”

  “Whatever—the kids called it hollerin’. That may be motive enough for him. An’ he was there. He had opportunity. And the scarf …”

  “Method,” I mumbled.

  He stretched, and I caught myself watching with admiration the shape of his torso against the blue shirt. Caught myself, and broke visual contact. This was no time for admiration.

  “The thing also is, I’m sorry I doubted you early on. You were obviously right to be nervous about him, okay?”

  “But—these other people. Her sister who owed money she couldn’t repay, and her husband who wanted her out of the picture so he could run for Congress, and this advocate for the homeless—”

  “Why?” he asked. “Why them? Why suddenly now? You are completely emotional about this. Back off. It’s the only thing you can do. Just … plain … back off.”

  “You’re like a posse, determined to get Adam when there’s no reason to—”

  “I can’t talk to you anymore than I have about this case. You know that. I can only say—ask—beg you to stay clear of it. Leave that boy alone. Let things work out as they will. You aren’t helpin’ anybody, you’re just …” He sighed and half turned from me. “I wish, just now and then and again, maybe once a year, that you’d listen to me. Believe that in some instances, I have experience on my side.”

  “About mental illness?”

  “Maybe. People who kill aren’t the most stable portion of the population.”

  “You don’t trust me at all, is what’s wrong. You act like maybe I’m an idiot—and as if I’m harming Adam, not trying to help him.” Why not blame my worst fear on the man in the blue shirt? It eased the guilt—the part about Adam. Later I’d worry about the guilt of dumping what wasn’t his on Mackenzie. “And you don’t take my situation seriously at all. I’m being fired. And sued. All hell is about to break out at school. You could show a little sympathy! You could care!”

  “I do,” he said. “Maybe too much for anybody’s mental health. I’m real tired, is all. An’ I have to go back in too short a while. I’ll try a nap if it’s all the same to you.”

  It’s nearly impossible to have a truly successful squabble in a loft without divider walls. There’s the bathroom and the bedroom and that’s it. I used to live in a tiny three-story warren of undersized rooms. It had its problems, but you could storm off and sulk without exposure to the elements. Here it was much more challenging.

  He stopped halfway to the bedroom and paused, as if waiting for me to say something or waiting to hear himself say something, but we remained mute.

  Only Macavity took a stand and made his preferences clear. He checked the scene and, after a discreet moment, sauntered off with Mackenzie.

  I watched the male residents, human and feline, until they were behind the bedroom door, and thought only about how closed-minded Mackenzie had been. If that was the approach of the Philadelphia police department, Adam was as good as behind bars. And Mackenzie had as much as said that my ranting about the student was part and parcel of why he was so sure Adam was guilty.

  Guess I could eliminate mediation, arbitration, and diplomacy from my list of possible future careers.

  Thirteen

  THE WEEKEND, AT LEAST THE PART OF IT DURING WHICH Mackenzie and I cohabited, passed in a cordial chill. Something was out of kilter and we both knew it, but neither of us chose to look at it too closely or discuss it. We’d had another date with Andy and Juliana, but once again they canceled out. Apparently they were having problems. So were we, but theirs were faster arriving and out of the closet. We rented videos and sat in parallel silences, viewing them.

  No mention of Emily Fisher or Adam Evans. But twice I answered the phone to hear labored, agitated breathing and “My scarf!” When I asked if it was Adam, when I said his name—softly, so that Mackenzie didn’t overhear—and told him to please let me help him, he clicked off.

  For once, the arrival of Monday was welcome relief. Back to something, which was better than the growing nothingness at home in the loft.

  I skimmed through the morning, trying so hard not to think about everything that felt truly important, trying not to look too closely, to notice the missing Adam, to spot his parents back at the school, trying not to say anything that might further inflame or upset, and most of all trying not to think about either my personal or professional life—that by noon, my jaw hurt from clenching my teeth. The weather was benign— a breeze, not a wind, sunshine and temperatures in the sixties—and the school felt anything but, so I decided to spend my lunch hour out-of-doors.

  At the corner, I bought a soft pretzel with mustard, and breathed deeply for the first time that day before taking my first delicious bite. I considered my options. I could drop in on Sasha, as I hadn’t seen her in a while. She was participating in an experiment at a local research lab, more precisely, a “smell” center where busy scientists and their subjects devise better deodorants and room sprays.

  Her malodorous phase should have ended by now, but until I was sure, I passed on an unannounced visit. The only sense I hadn’t been stifling all day was that of smell. No need to work on censoring that one, too, so instead of Sasha, I’d take care of The Birthday Gift.

  Even if I was angry with Mackenzie, even though I was so disappointed in the dull distancing that had come between us that I didn’t even try to look into the future, even if the entire idea of monogamy was losing its appeal
, ignoring my partner’s birthday would be cruel and wrong and frighteningly final. I was still fixated on the idea of a lovely old history book.

  I relaxed a little with a sense of direction, a project I could accomplish. Good going, I complimented myself. With renewed energy and sense of purpose, I turned toward Locust Street—and smashed into Terry Labordeaux. He stepped back, laughed, and straightened the bridge of his glasses.

  “I’m sorry!” we said in unison.

  “I was hoping to find you,” he said, “although not necessarily so … abruptly.”

  My sense of purpose ebbed. He’d come to see me on my lunch hour. Nice? Yes. Nice.

  “Because—” He was wearing a tan raincoat that of course looked slept in. He reached into his pocket and said, “Voilà!” And there was Lia’s Turn of the Screw.

  I know it was just a trick of the sunshine through the nearly bare trees, but he was suddenly bathed in light spelling out H-E-R-O. “I cannot thank you enough,” I said. “In honesty, after it wasn’t there Friday, I never expected to see it again.”

  He fell into step next to me. “I believe that persistence pays,” he said, putting all due spin and possible meanings onto his words. “And is rewarded with another opportunity to visit with you.”

  I had the fleeting idea that perhaps the book had been in the lost and found all along, but he’d decided to make it a token in the courting ritual. Then I decided that was ridiculous, and I was reading too much into his polite gallantries.

  “Besides,” he said, “I couldn’t rest until I found out what you told your student. The girl who annotated the book.”

  Lia had, of course, asked about the book, and I’m ashamed to say I’d danced around the truth, although I didn’t precisely lie. I simply said, “Oh, no—it isn’t with me.” But did I have to tell this man about my weasel words? I glanced over at him, and my expression must have shown my confusion.

  “Well, you know,” Terry said. “Here you are. A complete turnabout. This time, the teacher didn’t have her assignment. So what did you say? That the dog ate your homework? Or did your mother write you a note and say you had the flu? What?”

  I grudged a smile, which seemed to satisfy him. Then he looked around at the swarm of students. “Did I interrupt you? You seemed very much on your way somewhere. Am I keeping you?”

  “I do have to hurry. They don’t give us luxurious lunch hours, and even with a prep period afterward … I’m in search of a book, a gift. If you like, come along. It’s right up your alley.”

  “There’s a bookstore up my alley?”

  “There’s a rare-book store on Locust.”

  He looked thoughtful and slightly puzzled. “Bauman’s?” he asked.

  I hadn’t ever noticed its name, just the books and the look of the inviting shop, but of course he’d be right. “I knew you’d know it.”

  He shrugged and walked beside me. “You’re buying a rare book as a gift?” he asked.

  I knew I was supposed to explain for whom I sought such an expensive luxury. What I didn’t know was how detailed a picture of my emotional life I wanted him to have. So instead of answering, I sidestepped. “I’m hoping to,” I finally said. “I’m not sure how much cash ‘rare’ translates into. Do you know? Not the million-dollar ones you mentioned when my class was at the library.”

  He looked at me as if he were x-raying my brain, trying to see what and who was really inside there, figuring out for whom I was shopping and what that meant. “It varies,” he said, “but more than ordinary new books cost, for certain. What sort of book are you after?”

  I sighed and shook my head. “Wish I knew. History, probably. Americana. Or poetry.”

  His turn to sigh, for whatever reasons. He checked his watch. “I’m afraid you’ll have to explore on your own. It’s right over there.” He waved across the street, and I saw it. “I would see you to the door, like a proper gentleman, but I have to go back.”

  “Really?” My disappointment was audible. Even I heard it. And then I realized he’d misinterpret it as romantic sorrow. “I was hoping … you know so much about this.”

  “Sorry,” he said, his voice tight, and I knew that once again I’d managed to hurt his feelings. “I’ll … see you.”

  “Hope so,” I said. And meant it, which didn’t help my mental muddle. “And thanks again for finding that book. Saved me from having to fall on my sword.”

  And he was gone. I crossed the street and entered a wonderland out of the past: a town house lined with polished wood shelves filled with gold-etched brandy and burgundy and deep green leather-bound volumes. I inhaled the place. If I could live there, I’d be able to think through all my problems and reach sane and calm conclusions. Sherlock Holmes lived in rooms like this, lined with books like these. Anywhere else, he wouldn’t have been as bright. I wondered if they took boarders.

  A charitable gentleman showed me volumes of Americana. Charitable because he continued to be helpful and considerate even after I gasped at the first price tag.

  Mackenzie would have been in heaven there. The books were lovely to look at and hold, and their contents—firsthand accounts of early explorations and discoveries—were precisely what delighted Mackenzie’s soul. The only snake I found in this bookish Eden was the realization that the less a volume has been read, the more valuable it is. A loved and much-used book with all the marks of wear and tear is devalued, but if the pages have never even been cut, up goes the price. So one might be a book lover—but not a book reader.

  “This would be perfect,” I said. “Absolutely perfect for him.” I held a volume of verse that told the history of Daniel Boone. I was sure the poetry would be forgettable, but the combination of two of Mackenzie’s passions—poetry and history—and the impulse someone had felt to combine them were irresistible. Only the price tag, somewhat over six hundred dollars, was resistible, although in this emporium, that paltry amount made it a bargain-book-table special.

  “I think it’s in Sabin,” the kindly gentleman said, pulling out a reference book, as if I truly were about to tell him to wrap it in special birthday paper. “Possibly also Howe,” he continued. “Let me look. You might enjoy learning more about it.”

  The book had credentials. It had a book of its own!

  Sabin was one of the thousands of reference books documenting these precious volumes, the man explained. Nonetheless, the name made me think of the oral polio vaccine guy, which in turn made me feel as if I was experiencing déjà think. “Don’t go to any bother,” I said. “I have to work on the budget, decide whether I can manage it. I’m a schoolteacher….” Maybe it was the paneling, the feel of the place, but I became a Dickens character—the pathetic match girl pressing her nose against a warm household’s windowpane. I put down the book, thanked the man, and left, filled with anger at my life. Why didn’t I make enough money for a gesture like that? It wasn’t even a selfish impulse—I wanted to be able to give a gift I was sure would please.

  I knew there were worse problems than an inability to buy rare books, but still and all, I was more depressed when I left than when I’d entered. A bad way to spend a lunch hour. Then I realized I was close to Antique Row, that street of upscale hand-me-downs—more things I couldn’t afford, even if I wanted them—and among the collections there was Helena Spurry’s.

  I hadn’t been in Traditions!, but I’d visited its neighbors with Sasha on a long and frustrating search for photo props. I’d marveled at the fine line that divides garage sales, thrift shops, and antiques boutiques, because along with finely crafted and classically styled furnishings, I’d found kitschy items I remembered from my parents’ home. There are many things to praise about my parents, but a sense of style isn’t on the list.

  Before they moved to Boca Raton, they’d rid themselves of the selfsame googly-eyed cat clock I saw for sale on Pine Street with an impressive tag, and a kidney-shaped blond wood coffee table I saw with another ridiculous tag. My parents had put their clock and table out on th
e curb, free for the taking.

  Nothing my untrained eye could spot seemed changed since the last time I’d looked through Helena Spurry’s windows. I remembered the ridiculously proportioned and water-stained armoire and the dining room table that ran almost the entire width of the store.

  I peered around the annoying gold Gothic-style lettering that screamed TRADITIONS! across the plate glass. I tried not to see the exclamation point, because it made me feel I had to, well, exclaim!

  It was difficult seeing clearly into the store. It had the muted lighting of most antiques stores—a dimness that makes me suspicious. What would bright lights reveal? But I thought I could see enough to realize the store was deserted, except for someone silhouetted as she crossed a doorway at the back. Helena, I supposed.

  I don’t have the expertise or patience to comb through stores like this. I loved owning a few pieces of my grandmother’s, because of the connection, and their destruction when my house went kaput still makes me sad. I’d be honored to have an old piece that held emotional overtones—a gift, an inheritance, a token of affection, a souvenir. But I’m stunned that people pay extra to own a stranger’s crackling, peeling, fraying, or mismatched castoffs.

  Or perhaps people don’t. This wasn’t a heavily trafficked stretch of sidewalk, and in fact I was the only one there except for two men leaning against a nearby wall discussing the coming baseball season.

  Dust motes floated in the still, yellowish air of the shop. This was a place to keep its owner occupied, not a place expected to turn a profit. It gave one pause to wonder what Helena Spurry was doing with a high-end, empty shop.

  And what she’d been doing in the Rare Book Department.

  A check of the time—via my wristwatch, not any of the malfunctioning timepieces in Helena’s window—showed that I had to be back in twenty minutes. But there was always after school. I was in no rush to head home these days. The tension floating in our atmosphere made Helena’s dusty shop sparkle in comparison.

  I found a working phone in only five blocks of searching, and called Sasha. “Are you still—”