Shame

by Alan Russell

  Caleb tried to get comfortable. He wished he had his harness. That was one of the perks of his job. Hanging from a limb, secure in his harness, was better than a hammock. Sometimes, staring up at a canopy of green, he’d lose track of time and self. Usually he felt more at home in trees than he did anywhere else. But not this time. Now he had to face the enormity of his failure. He had been given a chance and didn’t know if he would get another. Dana certainly wouldn’t. Another innocent murdered. And this time he couldn’t say it wasn’t his fault.

  He assessed his wounds and scrapes, decided he’d live, but wished he were more excited at the prospect. His lips were chapped and his mouth was dry. Dehydrated already, and the siege was just begun.

  Sirens sounded nearby. They were coming closer. He felt like a bear treed by hounds. Death kept baying. Caleb remembered another tree, another time.

  Up in the big pecan tree, up higher than he’d ever been before.

  His mama said the tree was over a hundred feet high. It had been there all his life, towering in their backyard. When he was little he’d thought the tree stretched up as high as Mr. Moon. As a boy, he’d looked up and been sure the moon rested on the tree’s branches.

  The big pecan was the first tree he’d ever climbed. He had been six. In the five years since, Gray had gotten more daring, but he’d never been anywhere near this high before.

  It was windy. A storm was coming. Even though it was night, he could still see the storm clouds gathering. They were darker than sin. Maybe a twister was going to come down on them.

  Gray didn’t care. Far as he was concerned, the wind could blow their house to hell. That would serve his mama right. She hadn’t paid him no mind all day. That’s how it always was when Gray Sr. came home. He became invisible. He even lost his name. Mama called him Cal so’s not to confuse the two of them.

  Not that it really mattered. The man would be gone soon anyway. He never stayed long, even though Mama always begged him to. She even tried to get him to join in. “Tell your father how much you missed him, Cal.” But he never said a word. That seemed to amuse the man. He’d smile, show his big white teeth, and then wink at him.

  Not that he wanted him to wink. No sirree.

  He wasn’t his father, not like the kind of father his friends had. The man didn’t even know his birthday. Mama had reminded him that he had a birthday coming the next week. “That so?” he said. “How old you going to be, boy?”

  Gray could hear their noises coming from the big bedroom. He knew what they were doing. Their sounds made him angry. He started climbing even higher. The branches kept getting thinner, but he didn’t stop. He could still hear his mama. She sounded like a train. And the man kept talking. “You missed that, didn’t you? You like that, don’t you? Show me how much you like it. Show me.”

  The wind was really beginning to blow. Gray held on to a swaying branch. He was sure that if he let go, the wind would carry him away like a bird. His clothes billowed and snapped.

  Lightning lit the sky, and Gray started counting, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...” Thunder stopped his counting, thunder that seemed to shake the tree and set all the leaves to trembling. He was reminded of what Mama always said when she heard thunder, “That’s God talking, and He’s angry.”

  But this time Mama wasn’t making her usual solemn pronouncement. He could hear her cries: “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, Gawwwwwwd.”

  More lightning, and closer. “One Mississippi, two Mississ—”

  The thunder exploded in his ears. But still no rain. Gray knew he shouldn’t be in a tree when there was lightning around, but he didn’t care. He was as angry as God’s thunder.

  The wind blew. He was just one of the leaves. He lost track of time, finally awoke to the man’s angry voice.

  “Bitch.”

  Their voices carried up to him. There wasn’t enough thunder to drown them out.

  “Gray, I don’t wanna fight....”

  “Then why’d you ask me your damn fool question?”

  “I love you, Gray.”

  First they went at it like cats, then they went at it like cats and dogs. That’s how it always was.

  “You love me putting it to you. That’s all you love.”

  “Don’t talk that way. Don’t make our love dirty. You know I’ll do anything for you. I send you money whenever you ask. And I wait here while you go off to who knows where to do who knows what.”

  “What do you mean?” His voice was mean and sounded like a whip.

  And then the lightning came, and the thunder was right on top of it, and he couldn’t hear their voices for half a minute or so, and when he did, his mama was crying.

  “...article about this Shame fellow, and the picture they had, it looked like you, but I know it wasn’t you, but these women been dying in the same cities I’ve been sending you money, and I’m afraid someone’s going to mistake you for Shame, and all I want you to do is stay here with me and Callie.”

  The words came between sobs, with no start or stop to them.

  “You think I’m the killer?”

  “Oh, no, Gray, I know you’re not. I know how smart you are, and that you’re going to school, but maybe you can stay a while this time. Gray Junior is growing up, you know, and it would be nice—”

  “Truth never meant much to you, did it?”

  “Don’t you start saying nasty things again, Gray.”

  “You spread your legs for me, and you think that’s love. Ever stop to think I only come to this godforsaken place because it’s convenient for me? That’s what it was in the beginning, and that’s what it is now.”

  “Don’t!”

  “Don’t tell the truth? That’s what you mean, don’t you?”

  He could hear his mama’s sobs, could hear his father saying things to her that made her cry all the more, but the winds had shifted. He couldn’t make out all their words. But he made out enough.

  Then the rain finally came. It poured with a vengeance, the water striking him, almost flaying his skin. God wasn’t only angry. He was crying.

  25

  ELIZABETH ADJUSTED THE scarf around her neck before stepping out of the car. It was not her usual accessory piece, but it did cover the discoloration and bruises extending over her neck. She had brought a second scarf along but not for herself.

  She put her hand in her purse and cradled it atop her Smith & Wesson. Before getting out of the car, she looked all around. With all the law enforcement in the area it seemed like a silly precaution, but after having been attacked in the middle of the day just outside a military complex, she wasn’t about to assume she was safe anywhere.

  There weren’t as many onlookers at the Kappa Omega sorority house as she expected, no camera crews or press to be seen. It was evident the media weren’t yet aware of the Shame tie-in. The area had been secured with crime scene tape that stretched beyond the house itself. Memories started coming back. Elizabeth’s throat tightened, and her eyes burned. Ancient history, she tried to tell herself. Something that had happened more than two thousand miles from here. But she couldn’t deny her feelings. She thought of Tracy and Paula, her sorority sisters and friends.

  Elizabeth slipped a lozenge into her mouth and stepped out of the car. She sniffed the air and smelled the remains of a fire. Lieutenant Borman had said something about that. He had told her that SDPD had control of the crime scene but that a friend of his on the force had alerted him to the incident. His call to her had been brief, and she’d been in her new rental car within two minutes of the time they had talked.

  Their alliance, initially uneasy, was solidifying. Hours earlier Borman had agreed to participate with Elizabeth’s ploy to blame Caleb Parker for the assault on her. The lieutenant wasn’t ready to concede that Caleb might be innocent or that there might be another murder suspect in the Shame killings, but neither had he wanted to drive Elizabeth’s assailant into hiding.

  A uniformed SDPD officer intercepted her appro
ach. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Only authorized personnel...”

  “My name is Elizabeth Line,” she said. “Lieutenant Borman of the Sheriff’s Department is here, and he’s expecting me.”

  The officer wasn’t ready to take her at her word. He motioned for her to wait while he went and consulted with a higher-up. Elizabeth tried to clear her throat. Her voice was still raspy. For dinner she’d had tea and honey and mushy crackers. She fingered her scarf and felt she was deceiving no one, felt like a chemo patient covering up her baldness.

  She looked at the darkened Kappa Omega sign. Elizabeth assumed the sorority sisters still identified themselves as Kayos, KO being the boxing abbreviation for “knockout.” She and her sorority sisters had liked the idea of being knockouts but always got a quick reality check when the frat boys called them “knocked-ups.” Times had changed, she supposed. Knocked up was a phrase she hadn’t heard in years.

  Elizabeth hadn’t pledged Kappa Omega until she was a sophomore. And she’d never even finished out her junior year. After the attack, she never went back to the sorority. Her belongings had been packed for her. This would be her first time back inside a Kappa Omega house, or any sorority for that matter, since the night she’d first met Gray Parker.

  “Ms. Line?” The officer was holding up the crime scene tape for her.

  She ducked her head, felt the stab of pain in her neck, then followed the policeman into the house.

  “The lieutenant is upstairs, ma’am,” he said, motioning her to go first.

  Elizabeth paused for a moment on the stairwell to take in the scene. Evidence techs were working both outside and inside, and uniforms were patrolling the grounds with flashlights. Interviews were going on in several rooms. There was lots of nervous laughter, lots of tugging of robes and nightgowns. In a short while the girls would be able to convince themselves that nothing really bad had happened, that no one had really been hurt, and that their lives could continue as normal. Elizabeth didn’t stop to introduce herself as a Kayo who knew differently.

  Lieutenant Borman greeted her at the top of the stairs. The lieutenant’s dark circles were deeper than her own. She wondered when he had last slept. With SDPD controlling the crime scene, Borman looked like a fire dog confined to the station.

  “I was able to get you cleared for a brief talk with the victim,” he said. “Her name’s Dana Roberts. According to the paramedics, she’s more upset than she is hurt. They’re just about finished with her now.

  “They haven’t started the formal interview yet, but they have asked her some general questions. She doesn’t think she can identify her assailant. The room was too dark. The thing that saved her was the second alarm.

  “The first alarm went off at around ten thirty. That’s when they think he got in. At the time everyone just assumed it was a false alarm and not some diversion. The second alarm went off at around twelve thirty. It was accompanied by a deliberately set fire. A gas can was left at the scene of the fire. SDPD has some good latents on the can. There are also some blood droplets on the scene. Someone wanted that alarm to go off. A glass pane was broken. It’s possible the blood resulted from the breaking glass.”

  “Any recent history of arson in the area?”

  “From what I understand, no. Maybe a vandal just had great timing. Or it could have been a divinely inspired frat prank.”

  “Can I talk with her now?”

  “Let me go see.”

  While Elizabeth waited, the door at the end of the hall opened and two paramedics, a man and a woman, emerged.

  “How about pizza?” the man said.

  “How about Mexican?” she said.

  “We had Mexican yesterday.”

  “We did not.”

  “Did too.”

  Their argument continued as they went down the stairs. They sounded more like an old married couple than an emergency medical team.

  Borman signaled to her, and Elizabeth walked over to the room the paramedics had just vacated.

  “Two minutes,” Borman said.

  She motioned for the lieutenant to precede her inside. Her own blocker. As they entered the room, four sets of eyes turned to them. Elizabeth briefly acknowledged the two SDPD detectives and the house mother, then focused her attention on Dana. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her arms hugging herself. Around Dana’s neck were ice packs held in place by a neck brace. Just hours earlier Elizabeth’s neck had been similarly adorned. Sitting next to Dana, with an arm draped over her shoulders, was a large, protective-looking woman who appeared to be in her early thirties. Elizabeth thought of Mrs. Jackson, her onetime house mother. The woman looked nothing like Mrs. Jackson, but like her, she was obviously concerned about “her girl.” Elizabeth remembered how Mrs. Jackson had visited her in the hospital and how she had ended up being the one doing most of the comforting. Mrs. Jackson was never the same after two of her girls were murdered.

  The room was small, barely designed to accommodate one person, let alone six. The shelves were crowded with personal effects, teddy bears and stuffed cows predominating. Hanging on the walls were an Aztecs pennant, a Monet print, and a Victorian garden scene with a mother and daughter wearing long pink dresses and carrying matching parasols. A small desk housed a computer and an iPod docking station.

  After the lieutenant made introductions to the detectives, Elizabeth went forward and took up a spot in a chair next to the two women sitting on the bed.

  “Hilda Conners,” the larger woman said. “I’m the house mother. And this is Dana Roberts.”

  Dana limply accepted Elizabeth’s hand but didn’t look at her.

  “Ms. Line wants to ask you a few brief questions that might aid in the investigation,” the lieutenant said. “Is that all right with you, Dana?”

  The girl offered an almost imperceptible nod. Her face was still very pale and looked all the more so because of her dark hair and eyebrows. She was thin, and the way she was huddled made her look brittle.

  Elizabeth sat in the chair, her knees all but touching Dana’s. She didn’t say anything for several moments, just stared at Dana until the girl finally responded enough to raise her head and direct her red-rimmed, puffy eyes back at Elizabeth.

  “I’m sorry you were attacked tonight, Dana. I know how upsetting all of this is for you. I know, because this afternoon someone tried to strangle me.”

  Elizabeth leaned closer to her and lifted her scarf. Each woman became the other’s audience, the onlookers forgotten. Elizabeth’s gesture was as intimate as it was revealing. She held her veil up for several seconds. Tears welled in both their eyes. They knew the horror.

  “I brought you a little present,” Elizabeth said, holding out a scarf for Dana.

  The girl stopped clutching herself. With her right hand she reached for the scarf, and then she extended both of her hands to Elizabeth.

  “We’re a member of a club neither one of us wanted to join,” said Elizabeth, “a club we should make sure gets no more members. I want to know if the same man attacked us. Will you talk with me about what happened?”

  “Yes,” said Dana.

  They shared a similar hoarseness as well.

  “Was this man familiar to you in any way?”

  She shook her head very carefully.

  “Did he use your name or seem to know anything about you?”

  Another shake of the head.

  “Did he talk to you?”

  A half nod. “He said he only wanted my valuables, and that’s when I let him tie my wrists and ankles.”

  Elizabeth felt her hands tighten on hers. Dana was angry that she had allowed herself to be trussed up without a fight. Good. She’d need her anger.

  “He told me he needed his drug fix, but the way he talked made me suspicious.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He talked like some professor.”

  “Professor?”

  Dana took a second to find the right answer. “It was the way he spoke, like he was lectur
ing or something, and the things he said. It didn’t sound like he was just there to steal.”

  “What was he lecturing about?”

  “About men that had been executed.”

  “Do you remember any of their names?”

  Dana started to shake her head, but then stopped. “One of them was named Appel,” she said.

  “Good. How did you remember that?”

  “Because of the story he told me. He said that before he was electrocuted Appel told everyone that when they finished with him he’d be a baked apple.”

  “Do you remember any other names?”

  She shook her head, albeit gingerly and with a little wince. “But I remember him saying something about this other criminal who arranged to have his body donated to some college because that way he said he’d get a good education.”

  More capital punishment references. Elizabeth had been offered a name as well. While gasping for air, as her life was slipping away, he had told her that John C. Woods always slept like a baby. She had whispered that name to the detectives, and later they had come back and told her that Woods had been the busiest hangman in American history, having hanged 347 men.

  The translation, Elizabeth thought, was that her death wouldn’t bother him in the least.

  “Did he say anything else? Ask you any questions?”

  Dana tentatively shook her head. “No. He mostly kept trying to calm me, kept shushing me.”

  She shuddered. The motion seemed to jar her memory. “He asked me whether I liked poetry,” she said, suddenly remembering.

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to ask a question, but her throat tightened, her stomach did flip-flops, and the words wouldn’t come out.

  “He said something about Whitman. I don’t really remember what.”