by A. C. Fuller
The waiter put down the croissant and coffees. Camila reached for the croissant and took a bite as Alex sipped his iced espresso and turned to speak.
Before he could, she said, “So why switch to TV?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to move into the form of journalism people actually consume.”
Camila laughed and spat out croissant flakes. “You just called TV a ‘form of journalism.’” She took a long sip of her latte. “C’mon, you wanna be famous. It’s okay, so do half the people in this city.”
Alex raised his voice. “You seem to know a lot about me for someone who’s known me for five minutes. So let me ask you this: why hide away in academia? I saw on your bio that you were only a real journalist for about a week.”
“Touché,” she said. She took another big bite and spoke through a sprinkling of crumbs. “So why do you want to interview me anyway?”
“Way to change the subject. I’m doing a feature on the murder for next week’s Sunday edition. Just trying to get a better sense of Martin’s life. I saw you at the trial. How’d you know him?”
“We had sex for a while. Maybe a year.”
The waiter put down the omelet.
Picking up his fork, Alex said, “I think they call that a relationship.”
“Yes, it was actually fairly sweet.”
“What was he like?”
“What do you have on him?”
Alex took a bite of his omelet and pulled his thin notebook from his bag. He pretended to read from notes. “Taught creative writing. Finished his PhD at forty after working at it for ten years. Published, but not widely—mostly short stories and a few poems in obscure literary magazines. Originally from Alabama. Attended Tulane, where he met his wife and had a daughter, who is now in her mid-twenties and lives upstate. Wife divorced him while he was in graduate school. Worked at a few lesser schools before landing the NYU job.”
“I met his daughter once,” Camila said. “Why aren’t you talking to her?”
“I tried. She’s only talking to The Times.”
“Smart girl.”
Alex smiled. “That hurts. Tell me more about him. What kind of man was he?”
“Hard working, but not especially gifted. John had a difficult time just getting through the day. His parents were both depressed when he was growing up. He was bright and sensitive in a household with oblivious parents. I liked his writing, and I think he was a good teacher—you’d have to talk to his students about that—but he was fragile.”
“I’ve heard he was a little OCD,” Alex said.
“Those diagnoses are BS—just a title they put on a bunch of symptoms no one understands. But he did keep everything. In file cabinets, cupboards, drawers. He kept every record of every class he ever taught—teaching notes, old student papers. He was proud of being a professor. He had to struggle to get anywhere in life.”
Alex rattled the ice cubes around in his glass. “So if he wasn’t OCD, how would you describe him?”
“John was wound tight, but held together tenuously. Like he was afraid of getting hit. Not physically hit. Just like the world would strike out at him at any moment, from any angle. Like his nervous system was on high alert. You know when you feel into someone and get a sense of what it’s like inside them?”
Alex stared at his half-empty plate. “Uh, no. Not really.”
“Think of it as an internal frequency. Yours is relaxed, easy, confident. It’s what comes from having an easy life, a supported life. From being tall and handsome and white and heterosexual in America. John had a rough childhood. His energy was, well, constricted.” She extended her right arm over the counter and clenched her fist so tightly that her whole right side shook. She made a sharp buzzing sound between her teeth. “He felt like that.”
The waiter returned and Camila ordered another croissant.
“So why were you with him?” Alex asked.
“Honestly, I loved him. He had a sweetness he was trying to protect.”
“Then why did you break up? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I think I do mind. I like you, but I’d rather not talk about that.”
The waiter slid the croissant down the counter. Alex stared as Camila covered it in butter and then mopped the plate with it to pick up flakes.
“Did you know the Santiago kid when he was a student?” Alex asked.
“No, and if you’re asking whether I know of any hidden motive, I don’t. The police already asked. Many times.”
“Are you sure that Martin and Santiago didn’t know each other?”
“If they knew each other, he never mentioned it to me.”
“And you can’t think of anyone else who might have had an interest in hurting Martin?”
“No.”
Alex sucked on an ice cube. He could tell that, despite her bluntness when she arrived, she was comfortable with him. “Just humor me,” he said. “Let’s say you magically found out that Santiago was innocent. God came down and told you or something. If you had to name another reason Martin was killed, what would you say?”
Camila stared at him for a long moment, then looked away and began to spread jam over the butter on her croissant. Before she took a bite, she said, “I think you know something.”
Alex leaned back in his stool. “No. I’m just asking as a thought experiment.”
“You’re lying.”
Alex wasn’t used to being seen through. “I’m just . . . gathering information.”
She leaned toward him. “What do you know?”
He looked down and flipped pages in his notebook. “At least tell me why you two broke up. When was it, again?”
“I never told you when we broke up.”
Alex smiled. “You’d be surprised how often that works.”
Camila’s phone rang in her purse. She wiped the splotches of jam on her plate with a corner she’d torn off the croissant and then popped it into her mouth. She took her phone out and looked at the caller ID. “It’s my mother,” she said. She put the phone back in her purse and closed her eyes. “My father is dying.”
Alex stared at her but said nothing.
She looked up. “I’ll keep talking, but let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“SO HOW DID YOU and Martin meet?” Alex asked as he and Camila walked along the outside of the gravel path around the Central Park reservoir. A steady stream of joggers in colorful attire passed them on the inside. The air was cool but clear and the leaves were yellowing on the Norway Maples.
“We met at a faculty luncheon sponsored by the NYU humanities council. The idea was to promote interdisciplinary studies. You know, if the creative writing professors know the business professors, the students will have a better chance of success. That kind of thing.”
“Sounds romantic,” Alex said.
“I thought it was a waste of time—most faculty events are—but there’s always free food.”
“You seem to like food quite a bit,” Alex said.
“Don’t you?”
“I only eat vegetables and protein—you know, meat, eggs, fish. Don’t really care about food.”
Camila laughed. “Is this a medical or guilt-based diet?”
Alex took a few long strides and Camila jogged to catch up with him. “Did you hear me?” she asked.
“I used to be fat,” he said, not looking at her. “A while back, I binged for a couple years. Food, sometimes alcohol. Then I regained control.”
“And now you feel like you have to hold onto control as tightly as possible, right? It’s what’s making you an asshole.”
“Thanks,” he said. “That‘s sweet of you to say.”
“I’ve been told I use criticism as a way of flirting. Not that that’s what I was doing.”
Alex glanced at her, but couldn’t tell if she was flirting, or just making fun of him. They walked in silence and watched a pack of skateboarders pass on the wa
lkway to the south of them.
“So, what was the relationship like?” Alex asked.
“It was good, overall. He didn’t ask too much of me. We met a couple times a week, had a good time, and then led our separate lives.”
“Until what? I mean, why’d you break up?”
“It just didn’t work out.”
“You’re lying,” Alex said.
“That’s true, I’m lying.” She walked to the inside of the path, leaned against the fence, and looked out across the reservoir. The sun was bright and the crisp air reminded Alex of the morning of 9/11. He walked over and leaned on the fence next to her.
“Where were you when it happened?” he asked. “9/11, I mean.”
“When the planes hit I was asleep in John’s bed. Every Monday night I used to sleep at his place because neither of us had early classes on Tuesdays. His phone rang and woke us up around 9:30.”
“Who was it?”
“They didn’t leave a message. Hung up when the machine came on, before John could answer. We’d been up half the night reading Wallace Stevens and we always slept in on Tuesdays. Anyway, John learned about the attacks when he turned on the stupid morning show he watched while he drank his coffee. Woke me up a few minutes later and we watched CNN all day like everyone else.”
They left the fence and continued their stroll around the reservoir. “Why did you ask about 9/11 just then?” Camila asked.
“The weather is the same today. Do you want to know where I was?”
“Not especially,” Camila said. “But I can see that you want to tell me.”
He hadn’t told anyone where he’d been that day. And she was right. He did want to tell her. “Never mind. I just—“
“Let’s get back to the thought experiment you mentioned in the restaurant.”
“You do like to change the topic abruptly, don’t you?”
“Do you want me to do the thought experiment or not?”
They sat on a bench that overlooked the park at the south end of the reservoir. Alex stretched his long legs out in front of him and Camila sat facing him with her legs crossed over each other. “Sometime last December, we were at a funeral for one of John’s old professors. Something Hollinger, I think it was. Billionaire who died in 9/11.”
“Yeah, I remember him,” Alex said. “Macintosh Hollinger. We ran an obit on him when they found his body. Richest guy to die in 9/11.”
“Anyway, he taught at Tulane when John was there in the seventies. He and John stayed friends over the years. We were at Hollinger’s funeral a few weeks before John died and he had a weird interaction with Denver Bice. You know him?”
Alex laughed. “Know him? He signs my checks. Not literally, but he’s the boss’s boss’s boss. I know of him.”
“John made some crack about it being lucky that Hollinger died when he did and Bice got weird about it. I don’t know Bice—I only spent those few minutes with him. Seemed like he was trying to keep his cool.”
Alex smirked. “How could you tell? Did you feel his internal frequency?”
She flashed her eyes at him. “Don’t be so skeptical. When you’re a kid growing up in an unsafe environment, you either go numb to it or you learn to sense the mood of everyone in the house, for self-protection. Most people lose that sensitivity as they become adults.”
“And?”
“I didn’t.”
Alex’s mind dismissed what she was saying. But he had to admit that she had read him pretty accurately. “How did Martin know Bice?” he managed.
“They were in a class taught by Hollinger. I guess they both kept in touch with him.”
“So, what else about the interaction at the funeral?” Alex asked.
“John and I were breaking up at the time, so everything was a bit messed up. But that night, after the funeral, John was upset. More than usual. Like his internal frequency had gone all the way to this.” She held her arm out and clenched her fist so hard that her whole body shook and her face turned red. “Something was wrong.”
“What?” Alex asked.
“I asked him about it, but he wouldn’t say. He was mad at me for other stuff, but something about the funeral had set him off, or something about the interaction with Bice.”
Alex stood up and leaned on the bench. “My editor is fond of saying, ‘Alex, we can’t print your feelings.’”
“It was your thought experiment, and I’m not telling you to print anything. I’m just saying I got a funny feeling that night. We broke up that week, and a few weeks later he was dead. I told the cops about it, but it was nothing more than a feeling. And by then they were already convinced it was Santiago.” She stood up and met his eyes. “But it sounds like you know Santiago didn’t do it.”
Alex flipped open his phone and checked the time. “Well, I’ll find out for sure in an hour or so. I’m meeting a source who says he has a video that could break this story wide open.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JACK’S WAS A SMALL BAR in Brooklyn Heights, dark and unclean. Alex sat in a sticky booth in the back for twenty minutes before approaching the bartender.
“Are you Jack?” he asked an old man who shuffled back and forth behind the bar.
“Ain’t no Jack,” the man said. “Never was. Owner just thought it sounded homey.”
“Do you know Demarcus Downton?”
“Sure I know him. Used to be a regular here before he went upstate.”
Alex held out his hand. “Alex Vane, New York Standard. I’m writing a piece that might include something on Downton.”
The bartender looked skeptical. “You a sports reporter? What you writin’, a retrospective or somethin’?”
“No, nothing like that. I’m wondering if you know where I can find him. I was supposed to meet him here for an interview.”
The man frowned. “You writin’ a thing about people who did time for somethin’ they didn’t do?”
“No, not that, but what do you mean?”
“Demarcus, you know, the bit he did upstate. Everybody knows he deals. Hell, half my customers buy from him. But he ain’t do what he got sent upstate for.”
“The assault?”
“Yeah, he ain’t do that. He was here that night, but the police didn’t want to hear it. I tell ya, only upside to 9/11 is that the police have a different group to arrest without cause now. Leave us black folks alone.” He laughed and wiped the bar with a rag.
“Can you tell me where he might be? Like I said, I was supposed to meet him.”
The man stopped cleaning and studied Alex. “Yeah, he live nearby.”
Alex wrote down the address and walked out into the hot sun.
* * *
He saw the flashing lights from a few blocks away and broke into a jog up 61st Street. The worry he’d started to feel in the bar sank into his stomach and became a dense ball of dread as he approached Downton’s building. Stopping near the police tape that blocked the entrance, he scanned the faces of the police and paramedics, but didn’t see any he recognized. He didn’t see any reporters he knew either.
Off to the side, a frail-looking woman of about fifty smoked a cigarette. She was dressed in a pink polyester robe and worn slippers. Alex noticed four cigarette butts around her feet. She was shaking and blinking her eyes rapidly in the bright sun.
He walked over and stuck out his hand. “Alex Vane, New York Standard.” She blew smoke in his direction then turned her head away.
“Crystal Neese,” she said hoarsely. She crushed her half-smoked cigarette under her slipper, then reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled a new one from a near-empty pack.
“Can I ask you a few questions, ma’am?”
“Demarcus. Police say he got shot. Killed.”
“What happened?”
“Leave me alone,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t like reporters.”
Alex tried to catch her eye. “Ma’am, I—”
“Get outta here,” she said. “I said I don’t
like reporters.”
Alex stepped toward the police tape, recalling the anecdote about a group of reporters standing outside a burning building, taking notes as others saved people from the fire. His reporter instinct had kicked in so quickly that he forgot it was Demarcus who was dead inside the building.
He turned back to Crystal Neese. “I don’t like reporters either,” he said.
At the police tape, he tried to wave down an officer and a team of paramedics as they entered the building. They ignored him. He spoke with a few neighbors gathered in front of the building, but all he could learn for sure was that Demarcus was dead.
After passing out business cards to anyone who would take one, Alex jogged to the subway on Fourth Avenue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ALEX WEDGED HIS HEAD under the faucet and took a long drink of cool water. He did forty push-ups on the floor of his kitchen, drank again, then lay on the bed. He was sweating.
For the first time, he realized he might be in danger. He had never been in danger before—at least he didn’t think so. The closest he had come was when Bainbridge Island had been hit by a string of burglaries when he was ten. The paper had run sketches of two suspects and for weeks he’d worried about the two men climbing through his window at night. That was the closest he’d come to danger, and it had been imaginary.
His head buzzed. Maybe he should just drop the story and get out of town. But he couldn’t be in any real danger—he never even saw the video. He pictured Downton sitting in the coffee shop and his eyes filled with tears. They felt cold rolling down his hot face. He wiped them away with his sleeve. He knew he didn’t have time for this.
His instinct was to write everything he knew—Downton’s claims about the night Martin was killed, his story about the two cops, and his murder. He would need to find out more about Downton’s murder, but he was certain that it was connected to Martin and Santiago. Putting everything out in the open felt like it would shield him from any danger. But the video—he’d need the video. Downton had mentioned that it was at his mother’s house in Queens. She couldn’t be too hard to find.