Lilith: a novel

by Edward Trimnell

  Room 63 was exactly where Draper had said it would be. Mr. Frogge was seated behind his desk, eating what looked to be a lunchmeat sandwich and some other items from a brown bag. He looked to be in his early fifties. When Alan and Maribel entered, he stood with the quickness of a man who had once been an athlete, a man who was still in decent shape, though well into middle age.

  “Hello Mr. Frogge,” Alan said. He introduced himself and Maribel as agents of the Ohio Department of Criminal Investigation.

  “I see.” Frogge looked taken aback. He was still chewing. That much was natural. He quickly swallowed. “How can I help you? Has there been an incident of some sort here at the school?”

  “No, Mr. Frogge. We’d like to talk to you about Jessica Knox. We understand that she was a student of yours around fifteen years ago.”

  When Alan mentioned the law enforcement agency, Frogge displayed the normal vigilance that an ordinary citizen would. After all, to the average man or woman on the street, the sudden appearance of a law enforcement agent can have only two meanings: trouble or tragedy.

  What caught Alan’s attention was the visible shift in Frogge’s demeanor when Jessica Knox’s name was mentioned. Alan had spent too many years in law enforcement to avoid recognizing the emotion: guilt.

  But what kind of guilt, exactly?

  “I haven’t seen Jessica Knox for years, detectives. Not since she left—or graduated, I mean.”

  Before making any reply, Alan allowed himself a moment to take in the items atop Mr. Frogge’s desk. He was obviously a family man, as evidenced by the framed photos on display. One of the photos showed an attractive, blonde woman in her mid-forties. Another photo was a sports team portrait of a girl who might be about the same age as many of Mr. Frogge’s students.

  “Your wife?” Alan asked, gesturing to the picture of the older woman.

  “That’s right,” Frogge replied. “Janet. The other photo is of my daughter. But you probably figured that out by now, didn't you?”

  Alan and Maribel exchanged looks. That last remark was all wrong. It bore the tone of a man with a guilty conscience.

  “Actually, Mr. Frogge,” Alan said, “we’d like to know more about Jessica Knox. I know it’s been a long time, but maybe you have reason to remember her.”

  “Has there been some sort of a complaint?” Mr. Frogge asked.

  It was clear that the teacher regretted the question as soon as he had made it.

  Alan and Maribel said nothing. Both knew that when presented with a gap of silence, most people rush to fill the gap, a natural human compulsion.

  “Because it has been a long time, you know. And nothing can be proven. No matter what people are telling you.”

  “And what do you think people are telling us, Mr. Frogge?”

  For a brief instant, Alan considered the possibility that the teacher could be involved in the homicides (which would be based on the assumption that Jessica Knox was involved in them.) And if that were the case, then Mr. Frogge’s nervous prevarications could be a clumsy attempt at a cover-up—one of the clumsiest attempts Alan had ever seen, in fact.

  Alan dismissed the possibility almost immediately. While Mr. Frogge was obviously hiding something, nothing about him fit the likely profile of Lilith’s male accomplice. Anything was possible, sure; but there were too many eyes on Mr. Frogge for most of his day. And the teacher didn't seem the type.

  For one thing, this man was far too clumsy to have carried out the murders thus far attributed to Lilith. He would have been caught by now, Alan figured.

  The likely explanation for Mr. Frogge’s unusual behavior was something far more mundane.

  “Mr. Frogge,” Alan said slowly, “if you had some sort of an inappropriate relationship with Jessica Knox fifteen years ago, that isn’t our concern. We’re working a homicide case.”

  Mr. Frogge, who had been studiously looking forward, away from Alan and Maribel, now swiveled in his chair and turned defiantly toward them.

  “Who told you that? I haven’t admitted to anything.”

  Maribel edged closer to Mr. Frogge, bent down toward him. The teacher scooted backward in his chair.

  “Maybe you don’t have to admit to anything,” Maribel said. “Maybe someone else—perhaps Jessica Knox herself—has already told us everything.”

  “You implied that you’re looking for Jessica Knox!” Frogge objected, apparently falling for the bluff. “You lied to me.”

  “Newsflash,” Alan said. “The police are allowed to lie to suspects.”

  “Now you’re saying that I’m a suspect!”

  “That depends,” Alan said. He was now of the opinion that Mr. Frogge was going to be another dead end, but he found himself suddenly disliking the teacher, nonetheless. “Maybe we don’t have enough to charge you with anything, but maybe we put a bug in Mr. Draper’s ear, tell him that one of his teachers is scoring with underage students.”

  Frogge began to visibly shiver. Clearly, he had never been seriously interrogated before. This entire process had come at him out of the blue. He was totally unprepared for it.

  “You do that and I’ll sue you for libel.”

  “Uh-huh,” Alan said, as if he did not believe Frogge’s counterbluff. In reality, though, Alan knew that any mention of the issue to Mr. Draper probably would cause him—and the ODCI—more trouble than it would be worth. The truth was that there wasn't even a concrete allegation against Mr. Frogge—just a hunch, and some conclusions to be drawn from the teacher’s evasions.

  “Why don’t you try to be a bit more helpful, Mr. Frogge?” Maribel said. “Like we told you, this is a homicide investigation. We aren’t here to investigate you for sleeping with a teenage girl fifteen years ago—despicable though that is.”

  “Enough,” Frogge said, pushing his chair away and standing up suddenly. He walked brusquely past Maribel and Alan, to the open door of the classroom. He poked his head out the doorway and looked in both directions. There was no mistaking his relief at the realization that the lunchtime hallways were empty. They had not been overheard.

  The teacher faced them again. “I have nothing more to say to either of you. I taught Jessica Knox for one class well over a decade ago, and I haven’t seen her, spoken to her, or otherwise communicated with her since. And we never had an ‘inappropriate relationship’—not when she was my student, nor at any other time. Now, unless you have grounds to arrest me, I’m going to ask the two of you to leave. Any further discussion with either of you will take place only with an attorney present.”

  Alan could see that there was nothing more to be gained from talking to this man. From here on out, he would clam up and lawyer up.

  “That’s your right, Mr. Frogge,” Alan said. As the detectives walked past the teacher, Alan paused to say: “And by the way, I have two adolescent daughters myself. If I ever hear anything about you and a student again, I’ll be back here for you, do you understand?”

  Mr. Frogge pretended not to have heard Alan’s parting comment. Alan had to restrain himself from pushing the matter further. He didn't like being dismissed by a civilian who was almost certainly guilty of statutory rape and corruption of a minor—even if the minor might have gone on to become a serial killer.

  And Alan did have two adolescent daughters.

  But he let the matter go. Whether Jessica Knox was Lilith or not, whether Frogge had slept with one or a dozen students over the course of his teaching career, they weren’t going to capture Lilith in this classroom at Iron Mills High School.

  They made one final stop at the school office. Mr. Draper, rather than going out for lunch, had decided to wait for them. They gave Draper a neutral report on their discussion with Mr. Frogge, thanked the principal for his time, and left.

  When they were inside the Explorer, Maribel said, “Do you think he knows anything about Lilith?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No. I think that Mr. Frogge is a teacher who had a sexual relationship with an underage
student fifteen years ago, and he’s spent the past decade and a half terrified that his secret will come out.”

  “Yeah. Well, it serves him right, doesn't it?”

  “If he wasn't scared before, he’s definitely scared now—after his encounter with you.”

  “If he’s guilty of sleeping with Knox when she was his student, he deserves all the fear I can give him—and then some.”

  “Maybe,” Maribel said. “And maybe it depends on whether Jessica Knox turns out to be Lilith or not.”

  Alan was frankly surprised at Maribel’s reaction. Frogge was an older man, in a position of authority, who had almost certainly had intimate relations with one of his female charges. There was no gray area here, as Alan saw it.

  “What are you saying, Maribel? Are you saying that if Knox is guilty, then what Frogge did—or probably did—was somehow okay?”

  “Of course not. If Mr. Frogge had a sexual relationship with one of his students, that can never be excused. But the lines of victimization might not be so black-and-white.”

  “So poor Mr. Frogge was the victim? Is that it?”

  Alan thought briefly again about his daughters. He was grateful that he lived far from the Iron Mills school district, and that neither Frances nor Emily would ever sit in a classroom with Mr. Frogge.

  “No,” Maribel said. “Of course not.”

  “And we both know that a lot of criminals were abused as minors.”

  “If it was abuse,” Maribel countered. “If Knox is Lilith, then she might have been the one who initiated it. Whoever Lilith is, she—or he—is very skillful at manipulating men.”

  “Frogge still slept with a student—regardless of who initiated it. And that makes him guilty, whatever Jessica Knox might have done later on. And there’s still another aspect of this to consider: Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that Jessica Knox and Mr. Frogge did have a sexual relationship, and that she initiated it. Maybe she initiated it for some sort of favoritism or advantage. Mr. Frogge could have acted like a mentor and authority figure. He could have provided some direction—which is what mentors and authority figures are supposed to do. Who knows? He might have been able to save the lives of Lilith’s victims, by stopping Lilith before she ever got started. Maybe Jessica Knox would have found other ways to cope, to get ahead in life.”

  “Maybe,” Maribel allowed. “And maybe not.”

  Maribel was right, Alan knew. But it was always a matter of maybe and maybe not.

  What Alan also knew was that seemingly inconsequential interactions between individuals often changed the entire direction of people’s lives—both for good and for bad. The teacher might have had an opportunity to stop Lilith before she began. It was possible.

  And it was equally possible that Knox was a dedicated sociopath, and she would have gone on to kill anyway, no matter what the teacher might have done.

  “Our friend Mr. Frogge apparently didn't know that the statute of limitations on sex with a minor is more than fifteen years in the State of Ohio. While this sort of thing isn’t our bailiwick, we could refer Mr. Frogge’s case to the ODCI’s sex crimes unit, you know. Maybe we should do just that, in fact.”

  “Based on what, Alan? The man made a vague remark that could be interpreted multiple ways. And we can’t even find Jessica Knox. Let’s at least find Knox first. Then we can decide if we should go after that teacher.”

  37.

  Around the time that Maribel and Alan were speculating about Jessica Knox’s possible involvement with Mr. Frogge, Cynthia Knox was picking up her cell phone.

  At first she had considered the option of simply doing nothing about the matter of the two police detectives. Since leaving home roughly fifteen years ago, Jessica had not been a significant part of Cynthia’s life, nor had the younger woman bothered to even contact her mother very often.

  During Jessica’s early years of independence, it had been the pattern for her to call or visit when she wanted something—usually a loan or a handout. (The two almost always amounted to the same thing.)

  Then Jessica had suddenly left her job at the bank, and for years she had seldom asked Cynthia for much of anything—even though it was clear that Jessica wasn't making much money from her series of irregular hourly jobs.

  But recently the old Jessica had come back, the needy one who, in years past, had never had enough money to make the rent, or to fill her car with gas.

  Jessica hadn’t asked Cynthia for much in the way of money lately, but her daughter’s tone had become less confident, less full of herself.

  Maybe it was just Cynthia’s intuition as a mother. A mother had a sixth sense that told her when something was wrong with her child. Or so Cynthia believed.

  This was what ultimately prompted Cynthia to pick up the phone and call Jessica. That Travis—tall and handsome though he might be—was bad news. Anyone could see that. But Jessica was blinded by love, or lust, or maybe the genetic weakness that had drawn her mother to one unreliable male after another.

  Cynthia couldn't believe that Jessica had deliberately involved herself in anything truly bad, and certainly not a murder—as those two cops had been saying.

  But it was no stretch to believe as much of Travis. And if Travis had done something bad, he would try to involve Jessica in order to protect himself. Men like that always did.

  Jessica answered Cynthia’s call on the second ring. Without preamble, Cynthia launched into an account of her visit from detectives Grooms and Flynn.

  “This isn’t like getting a parking ticket, Jessie, if what those cops are saying is true. They were talking about murder.”

  “Oh, mom, there’s no way I’d ever murder anyone,” Jessica replied, without being completely convincing.

  “Yeah, well what about that guy you’ve been hanging out with? What about him, huh? I knew that guy was trouble the moment I saw him. Don’t you ever learn, Jessie?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jessica shot back. “Like you’ve done such a great job picking men.”

  When her mother failed to respond, Jessica said, “I’m talking about my father and Floyd.”

  “I know exactly what you’re talking about. And no, Jessie, I haven’t forgotten. But none of the men I ever invited to share my bed were killers. So that makes things different, doesn't it?”

  “Travis isn’t a killer,” Jessica asserted.

  “Have it your way. But the cops ain’t stupid, Jessie. If you did something that bad—or if Travis did—they’re going to find out.”

  “There’s nothing for them to find out because Travis and I didn't do anything.”

  “Have it your way, Jessie. Have it your way. You always did.”

  Cynthia stayed on the phone long enough to allow her daughter to parry away her concerns with a few more evasions. Then she finally told her daughter to take care and ended the call. Jessica must know that her mother was unconvinced of her innocence. Cynthia could hear the shakiness—the lack of resolution—in her daughter’s voice.

  She either did something bad or she didn't, Cynthia decided. She was either covering for Travis or she wasn't.

  If the two of them were innocent, then what those cops were claiming was nothing more than a big misunderstanding—one that would work itself out soon enough.

  If they were guilty, on the other hand, then there was nothing Cynthia could do to save them from the hammer blow that was coming their way. Mother or not, a mother’s love had it’s limits, she told herself.

  The call with her mother ended, Jessica struggled to control her panic. It was all she could do to keep from trembling.

  The police had visited her mother. They knew who she was.

  They knew that she was Lilith. She and Travis.

  Although she knew that Travis would explode, she told him immediately after the phone call. There was no choice but to tell him.

  Furious (and probably more than a little scared) Travis began waving a pistol around.

  “I’ll kill them all!” he said.
“I’ll kill that fat cop who calls himself Don, and I’ll kill the other two, too.”

  “Travis, you can’t kill a cop. You kill a cop and they’ll hunt us both for the rest of our lives until they catch us. You know that.”

  Travis did know that, though he required some time to settle down. As his superficial anger subsided, Jessica concluded that Travis was just as scared as she was. He used his puffed-up anger as an antidote to the fear.

  Finally, Travis spoke:

  “We don’t have to worry about this Alan what’s-his-name. He can’t place you at that restaurant. The only cop who can place you at that restaurant is the one we know as Don.”

  “Baby, you still can’t kill a cop,” Jessica insisted. She wanted to make certain that this point was absolutely clear.

  “Don’t worry,” Travis said. “I already told you—I’m not going to kill any cops. But I do plan to send that cop down another trail.”

  Travis had yet to reveal any details about his grand scheme to send the police on some wild goose chase.

  She knew that Travis wasn't overly smart—not half as smart as he thought he was. He could handle some of the computer work related to Lilith, because another, smarter man had taught him how while he was in prison. If Travis was thinking on his own, the results would be uncertain. He might make things even worse.

  But on the other hand, it was hard to imagine things becoming much worse. (Cops had visited her mother!)

  Maybe Travis’s plan—whatever it was—would work.

  38.

  The next day Alan paid Seth Greenwald a visit.

  Only a few phone calls were required to arrange a meeting with Jessica Knox’s supervisor during her time at the bank. First Alan called the bank’s corporate headquarters, where he was eventually routed to an HR representative. The HR rep emphasized the bank’s eagerness to help the state police, and gave Alan the contact information for Seth Greenwald. Then Alan called Greenwald and set up an appointment.

  Seth Greenwald responded to Alan’s request for a meeting with openness tempered by a not-quite-suspicious degree of concern. The branch manager naturally wanted to know what the meeting was about. Alan replied cryptically that it was a fairly routine matter. He assured Greenwald that he wasn't a suspect in any crime, nor in any sort of trouble. Greenwald replied with an obligatory exclamation of relief. Or it might have been mock relief; sometimes you couldn't tell.