“Are you saying I shouldn’t believe it?”
“Don’t you think it’s terribly convenient, Jules? Your mother just happens to have a signed affidavit by Jock Hilliman lying around in case you ever ask.” He sighed and shook his head, the way he always did when he mentioned Mona. “And as for Mal and the President, well, yes, okay, they’re not perfect men. They’ve done things they should be ashamed of, yes. Terrible things.” He hesitated. “The kind of things Astrid wondered about. Mal and Scrunchy are equally…guilty. They’re not saints or angels. They’re fallible, sinful human beings, the way we all are.” A firm nod of the head, as if to drive the point home, perhaps to himself. He turned around, one palm lifted in open appeal. “Terrible things, Jules. Both of them. And, yes, things about which they have sought my advice from time to time. Things I can’t talk about. But, Jules, what you’re suggesting isn’t a venial sin or a childish prank. You’re talking about murder. Or, if it was an accident, maybe manslaughter. Still, the taking of a human life. The most profound crime on the books of any civilized society.”
She pinched her nose and rubbed her eyes, wondering if her brain was especially logy after the rushing back and forth over the Atlantic, or whether perhaps her husband was being especially opaque. Was he going to discuss the evidence or not?
“Jules, look. I can’t imagine any of them doing what you’re suggesting. Not now. Not then.” He changed lanes to pass a slow-moving minivan. His tone remained calmly affectionate. For once the raging hip-hop was not in evidence. The radio was tuned to classical music. “And if one of them ever did something like that, maybe by accident, I think he would have been so suffused with guilt and horror that he could scarcely have functioned. Everybody would have known something terrible had happened.”
“You weren’t here,” Julia reminded him. “You were studying at Oxford. This was February. You got back in June. That’s four months to calm down.”
But she had run up against the stubbornness in him, the Everest needing freshly to be climbed. “All right. Granted. I’m not omniscient. I could have misjudged them. They could have fooled me. If they did, well, the obvious answer is that Jock did it.” He tapped the envelope resting on her lap. “You have his confession, and you seem to believe it’s genuine. From what you tell me, his Jaguar was wrecked the night Gina died, and Bruce Vallely thinks his family covered it up. So, if I’m wrong, the chances are I’m wrong about Jock.” Julia sat perfectly still in the tropically warm car, saying nothing, the doubts assailing her, the carefully worked hypothesis falling to pieces under the assault of her own uneasiness, for her great skill was decisiveness, not confidence. What kept her going was her suspicion that Lemaster’s doubts were assailing him, too. “All right. But then take the other point of view. Jock’s confession is too convenient. Then you’re back to the theory that it was Mal or Scrunchy. That means one of them, and Heaven knows how many other people, have spent all these years successfully hiding a murder committed in college. And could have known where to hire a gunman to kill Kellen Zant when he got too close to the secret.” The smile was back, not the warmly delicious welcome to a more peaceable world with which he had seduced her two decades ago, but the brash and even cocky scholar who was never wrong, and wanted you to know it. “So, yes, Jules, one possibility is a secret conspiracy to hide a terrible crime all these years. But surely this is where we might apply Occam’s razor. Let’s not introduce unnecessary entities. Let me suggest a simpler explanation for what you found—even though it leaves Kellen in a less flattering light.”
Julia knew her husband could feel the swift tension in her—had even stirred it deliberately. She waited for him to knock her argument down, the way he always did.
“The conspiracy could be a lot smaller, Jules, and it could have nothing to do with what really happened thirty-one years ago.” His eyes were locked on the road ahead. His small, competent hands moved on the wheel with quiet authority. “Your evidence comes from three sources. Kellen Zant, Mona Veazie, and this Mary Mallard. Correct?”
“I guess so. Yes.”
“And which one of them is widely considered a reliable source?”
This got to her, as perhaps it was supposed to. “All right, smarty. If the three of them conspired together—God knows how—then why did they do it? What’s the object of the conspiracy?”
“Money,” said Lemaster.
“What?”
“Money, Jules. Think about it.” He pulled smoothly into a rest stop and stated his needs imperiously to the insolent white clerk, who began to fill the tank. Lemaster turned to his wife, touched her on the cheek with such soft and surprising affection that she gasped. “Jules, listen to me a minute. No, listen. The men you’re talking about—not Jock, but the others—if they’re associated, even by implication and innuendo, with the murder of a teenaged girl, well, their careers are over.”
“Are you saying that Mary and Kellen and Mona were planning blackmail?” she spluttered. “Manufacturing evidence? Spreading rumors? Using me and Vanessa to help?”
“I know it sounds far-fetched. I’m not saying I believe it. But I think it’s a lot more plausible than this guilty silence of thirty years, which would have had to involve so many people that there’s no way it could have stayed secret. I’m trying to envision how large the cover-up would have had to be, and I can’t even fathom the numbers. Plus, there’s the matter of planting evidence to implicate DeShaun Moton—”
“I don’t see how one conspiracy is worse than the other,” she said, sullen and, as perhaps he intended, confused.
“Not worse. Less likely.”
“Then how do you explain Anthony Tice? Astrid? Astrid said Kellen had evidence that would—”
“Change the outcome of the election. Yes. But that would be true even if the evidence was manufactured.” He paid the rude clerk and even gave him a fair-sized tip, because the Lemaster Carlyles of the world tip everyone, even if the currency is not always cash. He pulled back onto the highway. “I’m not saying I believe it. I don’t know what to believe. I’ll tell you what I do believe, though. I do believe that Kellen was up to no good. I do believe that Tony Tice was up to no good. And now I believe that this Mary Mallard is up to no good, and I’m going to have to do something about her.” His tone grew fierce. “I’m sick of this. Not of you. Of them. Nobody treats my wife that way. And not just my wife. It’s time for the Caucasians to stop, Jules. I don’t care how powerful they are. The era is over when they can just—”
“We’re being followed,” she said.
(II)
IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY AT NIGHT, headlights are distinctive. These had the bluish tint of xenon and were set closer together than on most cars, suggesting something low and sporty. A pair of fog lights shone between them and lower down. The trapezoidal pattern could hardly be missed. She had seen it as they left the airport, and again on the Van Wyck, and even a couple of cars back in the toll line at the bridge. She had seen the same set of lamps hanging back in the shadows of the rest stop. There comes a time when coincidence is not coincidence any more. Having told her husband, she nibbled on her knuckle, the way she had as a child until Mona painted it with iodine, and waited for him to deride her.
He said, “How long?”
Julia, astonished, sat up straight. “What?”
“How long have they been following us?”
“Since JFK. They were in the gas station too. Lemmie—”
“Which one?”
“The xenon lights—”
“Got it.” He slipped smoothly into the passing lane and accelerated. Relief caressed her. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I thought you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Silly.” He reached over and mussed her hair, then floored the pedal. The Mercedes leaped ahead, the speedometer inching toward ninety, the car barely shuddering. Julia turned her head. The other lights were falling behind. She looked ahead and cried out. A sharp curve beckoned, and he tapped the bra
ke, then hit the gas again, and the car, fishtailing only a smidgen, did as commanded.
“Lemmie, slow down!”
“Hold on.”
“We’ll get pulled over—ah!”
Before the car following them reached the curve, Lemaster threw the wheel over hard right, surprising another driver he cut off, and then the other driver, too, was left behind, and he streaked down the exit ramp. They were off the parkway and on city streets somewhere in Westchester County. As she caught her breath, he tucked them neatly beneath the overpass so that the car was invisible from above, waited ten or fifteen seconds—an eternity at high speed—then proceeded past fast-food restaurants and service stations until he saw a small bar.
“Let’s get a drink,” he said.
“Lemmie, we should call somebody.”
“No, we shouldn’t. Come inside. We have to talk. And, believe me, we’ll both need a drink.”
She looked at his face. Had being followed upset him so much? Or had he been humoring her again? “Lemmie, what is it? What’s wrong?”
His smile was soft and assuring. Again he touched her face, and when he spoke, she knew why he had been so warm since meeting her, why he had been so gentle in arguing with her about the conspiracy, even why he had cooperated in eluding a car he did not for a moment believe was following them.
“There’s been an accident,” he said.
CHAPTER 54
AGAIN HOBBY HILL
(I)
“BIT OF A SURPRISE, Chief Vallely,” said the secretary of the university, standing in the doorway of his elegant Victorian on Hobby Road. He was wearing shirtsleeves, his tie loosened, and, on his feet, comfortable slippers. “One values one’s privacy. Don’t actually remember inviting you, kind of thing. Perhaps you might be so good as to explain the meaning of this visit.”
“It couldn’t wait,” said Bruce, and meant it.
“Don’t actually follow, Chief Vallely.”
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t urgent, Mr. Secretary. Now, please, may I come in?”
Trevor Land thought it over for a moment. It was just past eight on Friday, and Bruce had been parked down the block for the past hour, waiting for the secretary to arrive, then giving him a few minutes to settle in. He had no choice. Every cop knew that witnesses were more likely to be rattled when you took them by surprise. But being rattled and being accurate were not the same thing.
At last the secretary stepped aside. The foyer was wide and nicely appointed, the furniture heavy and old and, to Bruce’s untutored eye, valuable. Oil paintings of country scenes filled the walls, both here and up the staircase. To Bruce they mainly signaled money. Trevor Land had lived alone since his wife died nine years ago. Bruce smelled rewarmed food beneath the redolence of furniture polish, and realized that he had interrupted the old man’s dinner.
“I’m sorry if this is a bad time, Mr. Secretary—”
“Assume you have your reasons.” He led the way into a small study, walled in rich, dark wood, nicely bound first editions on the shelves, more landscapes on the walls. “Do have a seat, Chief Vallely.”
He did, settling on the sofa because the chairs in front of the desk looked rickety and expensive. A heavy wooden chess set stood on the low table, the pieces set in a complicated position.
“I’ve just come from Nathaniel Knowland’s apartment,” Bruce began, and Trevor Land erupted—which is to say, he pouted and tilted his head and set off at a slow murmur that Bruce had to shut up in order to hear.
“Not my way to tell a man how to do his job. Still, one rather expects one’s reasonable requests to be honored. Correct me if I am mistaken, Chief Vallely, but I believe you and I had a conversation about young Knowland. Father came to me—you remember—and asked, as a favor, if we would kindly leave his son in peace. Well, alums are who they are, and one does not want to cross them without an excellent reason. One presumes, therefore, that you had one. Because otherwise one hates to imagine the consequences.”
“I fully understand, Mr. Secretary. And you’re right, I would not have visited Nathaniel Knowland’s apartment without a good reason. But I had one.” Trevor Land nodded indulgently. By choosing the sofa, Bruce had forced him, for the sake of politeness, to take one of the armchairs, thus denying him the intimidation associated with sitting behind a desk only slightly smaller than the one in Lombard Hall. “I had to go because I realized that his story wasn’t true. It couldn’t have been. There was a hockey game, so there was no parking on Town Street the night Professor Zant was killed.” He gave the secretary a moment to let this sink in. “Therefore, the professor could not have been seen there, getting into his car. And if Knowland and his friends had actually been on Town Street that night, even drunk, they would surely have noticed that no cars were parked there, so they would have made up a better story if they needed one.”
“Fascinating observation, Chief Vallely.”
“Actually, it isn’t. I must have been an idiot not to work it out sooner. Nathaniel Knowland was nowhere near Town Street that night, and he did not see Professor Zant. Not on Town Street. Not anywhere. That’s the reason he couldn’t take his story to the police. They have more resources to check it out. They could have tracked down his imaginary friends. They would have punched holes in the story in an hour, but because I have to work alone, it’s had me chasing my own tail for three months, trying to figure out why Zant would have been there.”
“Fascinating chain of logic, Chief Vallely. And did young Knowland confirm all of this speculation for you?”
“You know perfectly well he didn’t. He’s back home. Taking the semester off.”
“Pity, that.” Trevor Land pursed his bloodless lips. He seemed imperturbable and immovable, one of the great elms that gave the city its name, roots so deep in the frozen New England earth that it would take a bomb to blast him off his feet. “So, really, you can’t confirm your chain of logic, can you? It remains speculation. Pity.”
Bruce shook his head. “It’s not speculation. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“Nothing against guesswork, mind. Reason, speculation, imagination, all part of one’s intellectual faculties.” His thoughtful eyes were on the landscape behind Bruce’s head. The sconces were astonishingly bright, perhaps as an aid against failing eyesight. “On the other hand, Chief Vallely, reason is not really the same as fact, is it?” A stern shift of the head, something between a nod and a dismissal. “Now, tell me, please, why would young Knowland go to all that trouble? Making up a story like that, then running off?”
“I don’t think he did.”
“Say again, please.”
“Nathaniel Knowland did not make up the story,” said Bruce, leaning across the ornate coffee table dividing them. “He just repeated it.”
“Then one naturally wonders, if young Knowland didn’t make up the story, kind of thing, who did?”
“I don’t know who made it up. I do know who told Nathaniel to tell it to me.”
“And who might that have been, Chief Vallely?”
“You.”
(II)
THE SECRETARY OF THE UNIVERSITY, a man of class and breeding, remained as icily calm, and distantly amused, as at any time Bruce had seen him. He simply made the familiar chewing motion with his small, prim mouth, and said, “Fascinating idea, Chief Vallely.”
“It’s supported by a chain of logic.”
“One rather thought it might be.”
“May I share it?”
“Please.” Folding his hands in his lap like an attentive student.
“Let’s begin with the proposition that Nate Knowland lied. He lied elaborately. Now, why would he do that? Not to protect himself from the authorities. If he hadn’t brought up the whole story of Professor Zant on Town Street, the authorities would not have paid him the slightest bit of attention. So the lie was to help someone else—not to help himself, or not directly.” Bruce rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. “The question,
then, is who would gain from my believing that Professor Zant was seen on Town Street that night, in the company of a black woman with a British accent. The first answer—the obvious one—is that the killer gains, if Professor Zant was actually somewhere else at the time, somewhere the killer has to hide.”
Even Trevor Land’s furious objections had the ring of calmly confident and very old money. “Surely, Chief Vallely, it is not your intention to suggest that I—”
“Killed Kellen Zant? No, no, Mr. Secretary. Nothing like that. Please. Allow me to continue.” Settling again. In the hall, a grandfather clock ticked loudly. “No. As I said. My first thought was that the killer wanted me to think Zant was in one place when really he was somewhere else. Why not send me chasing a mythical black woman with a British accent, and figuring out where the two of them had driven off to? But then it occurred to me that the killer, if covering up the crime were his principal motivation, would be taking an enormous risk. Nathaniel Knowland is not exactly the soul of discretion. He might share the story with his friends.”
“Perfectly well reasoned, Chief Vallely.”
“Therefore, I realized that the story must have a different purpose than simply to mislead. The details actually matter. To explain why, I should tell you that I was already skeptical of the story, precisely because of those details. In particular, Nate Knowland seemed entirely too confident that Zant got in the car first, the mysterious black woman after. I don’t think that was part of the original story. I think that was Nate’s own embellishment, and once he added it, backing away became difficult, even when it was obvious I had doubts.”
The secretary was fondling one of the knights, which had been captured and removed from the board. A plaque on the wall celebrated forty years of service to the university.
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