by David Carnoy
“Blue Chalk, huh?” his sister would call to pry the next day. “So civilized, Jimbo.”
They spent a little over an hour there—enough time to play three games. Kristen had never played shuffleboard before, so the first match wasn’t much of a contest. She kept sliding her rocks into the side and end gutters. But by the middle of the second game her touch began to improve, and she actually would’ve beaten him in the third game if he hadn’t come up with a great shot to knock one of her rocks out of the three-point zone.
“What’d you talk about?” Carrie would ask.
As he had hoped, the activity had helped put them both at ease. During the first game, he was mainly instructing, teaching her the not-so-fine art of shuffleboard strategy. But by the second game they’d moved onto gossip. He asked her about some of the freshman and sophomore girls—now sophomores and juniors—whom he’d thought had potential when he was back in high school. She told him whose stock was on the rise and whose wasn’t and how these two computer geeks she knew had just put out a popularity index, which was totally brilliant. It was a sociological experiment. They had a computer formula for rating people and, though your looks and what clique you hung with were big factors, there were intangibles.
“We talked a lot about that popularity list,” he’d tell Carrie. “Who was on it and where and all that. I hear you’re ninety-seven and Kristen’s ninety-two.”
“I know. Doesn’t that suck? I didn’t even crack the top fifty.” After the third match, they called it a night, and he walked Kristen back to her car, which wasn’t actually her car, but her mother’s. She said she hadn’t had a car since she totaled her Jetta before Christmas, and her father was going to see how she behaved before getting her another one. When she said that, they looked at each other, and he knew she was thinking about that night. But neither of them said anything.
“Did you kiss her?” Carrie would ask.
“No.”
He went to kiss her. “Well, goodnight,” he said, and leaned forward, but he didn’t head directly for her mouth. He slowly headed toward her face and at the last second he turned a little, or maybe she did, and he only caught the edge of her mouth.
Carrie would ask, “Are you sure?”
“Why, what’d she say?”
“She said you kissed her goodnight.”
“On the lips?”
“Yeah.”
He’d laughed. He knew his sister well enough to know she was fishing. “She’s a nice girl. I don’t think she’d kiss and tell.”
Carrie let out one of her whiny groans. “Come on.”
“There’s nothing to tell. We went to the movies. We played shuffleboard. What do you want from me?”
“Hello, I want dirt.”
“Shut up, Carrie. I’m not in the mood for this high-school crap.”
“Jeez. Aren’t we a little cranky today.”
Jim couldn’t remember exactly how much time passed between that first time they played shuffleboard and the day he heard about the diary, but it was probably a good month. That Saturday, a few hours before Kristen killed herself, his sister called him around noon and said, “Did you hear?”
“Did I hear what?” he asked, still groggy.
“Kristen’s mother found her journal.”
“Yeah, so?”
“And hello, there was sexual stuff in there.”
Jim’s eyes opened wide. She now had his full attention; he was completely alert.
“What sort of sexual stuff?”
Silence. She didn’t answer right away, and the longer she waited, the more impatient Jim became because he knew it was for effect. Finally, he snapped.
“Goddammit, Carrie, what sort of sexual stuff?”
“That night she got drunk at the frat—”
He felt his whole body go tense. “Yeah,” he said, breathlessly, “what about it?”
“She had sex.”
“It’s in there? She wrote about it?”
“Totally. Remember that doctor we took her to? He fucked her.”
His stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Yeah. She lost her virginity to that guy. She told me right after it happened. But I was sworn to secrecy. Now everybody’s going to know. Her parents are totally going to press charges.”
His head was swirling. He felt for a second like he was going to faint.
“Who knows about this?”
“I don’t know. Her parents. The police. I think they’re on their way over to her house.”
“What?” He rolled over and looked at his clock radio. “When?”
“I don’t know. What’s wrong?” Carrie asked.
“Nothing.”
“You sound like shit, Jim. Dad told you to lay off the booze.”
“I wasn’t drinking.”
“Jim?”
“I wasn’t. I swear.”
He sure as hell felt like having a drink now, though. “You’re at home?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Are the cops going to talk to you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Probably at some point.”
“Well, stay there. I’m coming over.”
“If they talk to me, Jim, I’m going to tell them the truth,” she warned. “I’m not going to lie for her. I can’t. I told her.”
“Well, I’d like to know just what you think the truth is.”
Jim and Kristen had never talked about what happened to her that night at the doctor’s house. Not in any detail, anyway. But there were hints that she had feelings for Cogan. She told him about the whole knife music thing—how he played music while he operated—and how she’d made a CD for him, which got Jim kind of jealous. He didn’t want to talk about the guy, but she kept bringing him up, and one day when he met her, she was pretty down. When he asked what was wrong, she said she’d run into Dr. Cogan at the Safeway and he’d been pretty frosty.
“Are you stalking him?” he’d remarked jokingly, not really understanding why she cared whether he was frosty or not.
She glared at him. Whenever he made a snippy comment about the guy, her expression would darken and she’d give him a hard look.
Still, there were certain questions he had to ask. He couldn’t help it. He’d think them, and suddenly they’d come out of his mouth. Is she into him? She is. I know she is. And bam, before he could stop himself, he was asking, “You like him, don’t you?”
“Dr. Cogan? As a person, yeah. He has this way about him. Like he’s effortlessly in control. I just feel comfortable around him.”
“But do you want to?”
“Do I want to what?”
“Never mind.”
Another time, after she had told him she kept a journal, he thought, I wonder what shit she writes about me, and the next thing he knew he was asking, “Do you ever write about me in your journal?”
“Sure.”
“Is it OK?”
“What I wrote?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled. “A lot of what I write isn’t OK. I spend a lot of time complaining.”
“Is that why you keep a journal? To have a place to vent?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
They were at Starbucks, sitting at a table, both of them drinking chai. He remembered her looking down at her hands, which were playing with an empty sugar packet. She was folding it into a little square. When she looked up at him again, she said something he wouldn’t forget.
“There are things you want to keep close to you and things you don’t. Writing, I guess, allows me to control that. I can keep things close and push them away at the same time.”
How did Watkins react? After Jim told him that Kristen had killed herself and that the detective had come to speak to him earlier that afternoon, Watkins’s fist tightened into a ball, and if he wasn’t going to punch him, he looked ready to punch somebody or something else.
“Killed herself?” he asked. “Are you kidding me?”
“Yes
terday,” Jim said, still unable to believe it himself. He’d hesitated to tell Watkins but word at the frat had already gotten out about a detective asking questions and he decided that it was better Watkins heard the story from him rather than filtered through someone who didn’t know as much.
“And she had a blog?”
“No, not a blog. A journal. In a notebook. She wasn’t writing it for other people. She didn’t believe in that.”
“How do you know?” Watkins asked, eying him warily.
“My sister told me.”
He assured him—and then reassured him—that he’d stuck to the story they’d rehearsed.
“It’s the doctor they’re after,” he told him. “They’re just trying to piece together what happened that night.”
“I don’t believe it,” Watkins said absently, sitting on the edge of his bed, staring straight ahead, speaking in a monotone. Not only did he seem stunned, but Jim also thought he detected a flicker of grief. Perhaps, however, he’d judged too hastily.
“Don’t believe what?”
“That she fucked this doctor.”
“It’s not like she fucked him. He fucked her.”
“If she wrote about it, she fucked him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s too weird,” he said, still somewhere else. “Something’s wrong.”
“You’re the king of fucking weird,” Jim said. “And you’re telling me this is too weird?”
Watkins looked over at him. “You just stick to the story,” he said, his voice a notch lower but sharper now. “If this somehow gets back to us we’re going to be in a deep shit, capice? We could be held responsible for this girl’s death.”
“How?” Jim demanded. “She doesn’t remember anything.”
“She’s dead, dodo. The dead don’t remember. However, they do have a habit of making other people not forget. So, you do not waver. And if they press you on something, you do not get flustered. Vigorous defensive, Mr. P. When they come at you, you come right back. Firm, but not angry. Got it?”
“Firm but not angry,” he repeated, not sure what else to say.
“Good. Now we’re cooking with MSG.”
“Hey,” Kristen said, thinking she knew who was calling from the number on her caller ID.
“Hey.”
“Oh, hey. I thought you were Carrie.”
“I’m at home.”
“In your old room?”
“No, in the backyard. Lying on the grass.”
That afternoon, he was the one who’d made the fourth call to Kristen. When Madden had asked Carrie about the five conversations she’d had with Kristen that day, she hadn’t corrected him and told him, no, she’d actually only had four. She talked to Kristen so much she couldn’t remember exactly how many times she’d spoken to her. But Jim remembered the conversation very well.
“I heard,” he said.
“Carrie told you? About Dr. Cogan?”
“It’s true then? You slept with him?”
“Yeah.”
A moment of silence. He was trying not to let his anger overcome him.
“Willingly?” he asked.
“Yes. But my father still wants to press charges.”
“What are going to do?”
“I don’t know. I took a couple of Percoset.”
Silence again.
“Jim?”
“What?”
“Remember how you told me about lying down by the fountain?”
“Yeah.”
Sometimes, at school, he’d go over to the “Claw” fountain in White Plaza, in front of the campus bookstore. Square-shaped and perfect for wading on hot days, the fountain had at its center a sculpture that looked like a jagged, petrified, almost primordial hand coming out of the ground. It was a popular meeting point for students. He told her that sometimes he’d go there and lie down along the rim of the fountain and close his eyes and actually think he was invisible because people would sit down near him and say the most fucked up things. Girls talking about having sex with their boyfriends. Girls talking about having sex with girls. Wild shit.
“Well, I wish I were invisible now,” she said.
“I can’t see you anymore.”
“I mean it, Jim.”
“And I mean it, too,” he said. “I can’t see you anymore, Kristen. That’s what I called to tell you. I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“Forever?”
“Well, I’m just . . . I guess, you know, I’m disappointed.”
“Because I slept with Dr. Cogan?”
“No. I mean, yeah. Yes, that has something to do with it. But it’s more that you didn’t tell me. You weren’t honest with me.”
“About losing my virginity?”
He hadn’t thought of that.
“No,” he said, “Like, more generally speaking.”
“I just didn’t tell you I slept with him. Everything else I said was true, even the part about how I said I wanted to lose my virginity. That was all the truth.”
“Whatever. I just can’t believe you willingly had sex with that dude. I mean, he’s like forty-five.”
“Great,” she said. “My father’s disappointed in me. My mother is. And now you are, too.”
She was crying. He heard her sniffling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that. That was the wrong word.”
“Well, screw you. Screw all of you.”
“Kristen, wait.”
But it was too late. She’d hung up.
PART 4
COMING CLEAN
31/ BECKLER’S MERCY
May 9, 2007—4:56 p.m.
DR . ANNE BECKLER ALWAYS PARKED IN THE SAME SPOT IN THE hospital’s lot. She didn’t have a space with her name on it, but she was the type of person who felt she deserved one, and to make up for the injustice she subconsciously made believe she’d been assigned one. So what if it was toward the back of the lot where almost no one parked. It was her space and she parked in it everyday unless someone mistakenly commandeered it. On the rare occasion that happened, she didn’t treat the theft like the end of the world, but it threw her off enough to put her in a noticeable funk that left nurses whispering and giggling in its wake. The joke was that someday Beckler would discover that the car’s owner was a patient and she’d refuse to operate on him until he moved his car.
Cogan, sitting in his car a few spaces over from hers, chuckles to himself, remembering the nurses making fun of her behind her back. It’s all he can do to keep reminding himself that he really hates the idea of returning to Parkview to solicit Beckler in the parking lot. The encounter will likely be unpleasant. The board shows Rebuff at two to three odds and Profoundly Humbling Experience, another favorite, is getting bet heavily as they near post-time. He’s put everything on the long-shot Soft Spot and, in doing so, will finally get a chance to ride his theory that Beckler isn’t as bad as he thinks, that somewhere underneath that modulating fiery, glacial façade is, well, a speck of affection for him.
His phone rings just before five p.m.
“OK,” Josie Ling, one of the OR nurses informs him. “She’s gone down to her office. She should be out in a few minutes.”
Sure enough, right around the five-minute mark, he sees her come out of the hospital’s side entrance. She’s carrying her soft leather briefcase in one hand and a large, white shopping bag in the other. When she’s about thirty yards away, he opens his car door and gets out. She doesn’t see him immediately, but when she does, she hesitates for a moment, panic in her eyes. Instead of greeting her with his customary grin, he holds his poker face, which he hopes will be less provocative.
After she gets over the initial shock, she’s actually the one who smiles.
“Hello, Cogan,” she says, stopping in front his car, just before the front fender. “What brings you to Parkview?”
“I came to ask a favor.”
“Of whom?”
“You.”
She looks around suspiciously, as if trying to ascertain whether she’s about to be the butt of some practical joke. Then she laughs.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
May 9—6:40 p.m.
“Here’s what I got,” Billings says, shifting the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other. “Except for going to Safeway to get some groceries and going for a jog around eleven, he’s home all day. But then, at four-fifteen, he gets in his car and drives down to the hospital.”
“Which hospital?” Madden asks.
“Parkview, man. Where he used to work.”
Madden looks at Burns. For the past couple of days, with Fernandez on vacation, the three of them have been taking turns tailing him, though Billings, who Cogan hasn’t met and fortuitously has the lightest caseload, has been doing the bulk of the surveillance. Of the three of them, he’s also the most non-descript. He’s of average height and looks, has a thin frame and full head of closely cropped, light brown hair. He has virtually no distinguishing features save exceptionally white teeth, which he takes exceptionally good care of, and a self-assured smile that he once admitted, after several rounds of drinks at The Goose, he modeled after Robert Redford’s smile in one of the early scenes in Butch Cassidy. That smile, of course, rankles Madden to no end, for it represents cheap seduction, not of women, but of those in their fraternity. Billings may only be an average detective, at best, but he’s universally popular in local law-enforcement circles, the guy everybody wants to buy a beer.
“What was he doing at Parkview?”
Billings hands him a digital photo he’d printed out on an inkjet printer. Pointing at the photo with his toothpick, he says, “He waited for her.” The picture’s a little fuzzy from being blown up a little more than it should, but Madden has no trouble recognizing the woman with short, dark hair.