by Lisa Unger
We’d talked about how unruly the classes were, how challenging were lunch and recess. He and some of the better-behaved, more intelligent children were removed in the afternoons for lessons. But that only made them targets for some of the more aggressive children. Even among misfits, Luke was a misfit.
“So,” he said. “Did you figure out the clue?”
“I did,” I said. I told him how I’d searched and found The Hollows Historical Society site, and actually went to the building. “Very clever,” I said. I tried to be as patronizing as possible.
He tried to hide it by looking down at the table, but I saw him frown, saw his disappointment at my answer. I brought him over his plate, along with a glass of milk and a checkered cloth napkin.
“Did you discover his secret?” he asked. He took a bite of apple. There was a twinkle of mischief in his eye. I thought about what Langdon said. Was he trying to tell me something about himself ?
“Yes,” I said. He frowned again.
“You did?” he asked. He was getting agitated. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. “How?”
“How does anyone find out anything these days? Online,” I said. He could smell the lie, and we locked eyes.
“So you know he was a pervert?”
I didn’t say anything, just took a bite of the apple I had sliced for myself. Let the patient talk, Therapy 101. They will tell you what is wrong, and they may also already know how to fix it. A good therapist just opens the line of communication, and lets the patient lead the session.
“That he molested children,” said Luke. “That he touched little boys. Exposed himself.” He was looking to shock me, unsettle me. But he didn’t know how hard that actually was. Nearly impossible, I’d say. I knew how ugly was the world, how we harm one another.
“I know he was accused of that,” I said. “Yes.”
Did he not know about the cross-dressing? Was that not the secret? I wasn’t going to toss it out there.
“Why else would he kill himself?” said Luke. “If he wasn’t guilty.”
It was comforting to realize that he had a child’s way of looking at the world, all black and white, no understanding of the nuances of depression and despair, all the varied layers and textures of unhappiness. How it can bury you until your world is so dark that death actually looks like an escape hatch.
“People who kill themselves generally suffer from severe clinical depression,” I said. “Their reasons for choosing suicide are not always rational. It’s often a chemical imbalance that leads them to the choice.”
Luke put a slice of cheddar on top of an apple slice and chewed thoughtfully. He was like a little machine, ingesting nourishment, processing information. He looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“But what’s the point?” I asked him. “I mean, what were you trying to get across with that poem? Why that man? Why that place?”
He blinked at me, examining my expression, my body language. We were in a very subtle standoff, each of us trying to figure out how much the other knew, what the other wanted, and who was winning.
“The point is to find the next clue,” he said with mock innocence. “Did you find it?”
“I did.”
“And?” Chew, chew, chew. He washed down what was clearly too much food with a big swallow of milk, then made a show of letting out a belch. I ignored his little display.
“I haven’t started thinking about it yet,” I said. “I have class.”
“And a missing friend.”
“Right.”
The refrigerator dumped some ice cubes into the bucket, and again, the sound made both of us jump, then laugh a little. It was becoming a joke between us.
“I’m curious,” I said. “How did you get to that house to plant the next clue? And where did you get that key?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said. It was somewhat less obnoxious than it sounds. Luke had a great deal of superficial charm; his beauty and the wattage of his smile were disarming. I had to remember not to put down my guard.
“You’re not going to tell me?” I said.
“When we get to the end, I’ll tell you everything.” He gave me a sweet, warm glance, and patted my hand as though he were the caregiver and I his terribly slow charge.
“What if I don’t want to play anymore?” I said, somewhat more petulantly than I had intended.
“But you do,” he said. He released another belch. “You really do.”
I think it was clear then who had the upper hand. He had hooked me into his game, and I had no choice but to play. I found myself thinking about that dirt on his tires, his knowledge of Beck, the clues that grazed the edge of my secrets. What did he know about me? Or was it all in my imagination? Was he, after all, just a lonely kid playing a game with the closest thing he had to a friend? Carl Jung believed in a dark side, a self we pressed down and tried to hide. He held that whatever we dislike, whatever unsettles or disturbs in others only does so because we are repressing similar qualities. That theory made a kind of sense here.
He brought his plate and glass over to the sink and washed them, placing them neatly in the rack as was his habit.
When he turned back to me, he cocked his head to one side. “How did you get here? We still have your bike.”
I thought about lying, telling him that I’d taken a cab. But I decided that it was a silly thing to do, giving him more power than he deserved. “I got a ride,” I said.
“From?” he asked a bit peevishly. There was a sudden change to him, an odd stiffness to his frame that I hadn’t seen before, a stillness to his face.
“From a professor,” I said.
“What’s his name?”
“What do you care?” I asked. I didn’t like his tone or the way he was looking at me. I found myself thinking about last night, the small form I thought I’d seen disappearing into the trees. It couldn’t have been him. Rachel would never have allowed him out that late. Could he have snuck out? Was he following me? The thought was more worrisome than I can say.
“You won’t tell me?” he said.
“Why is it an issue, Luke? I got a ride from my professor, who also happens to be my adviser and friend. It’s none of your business who he is.”
I didn’t want to say Langdon’s name in front of him. I didn’t even know why.
“Is he your boyfriend, too?” he asked nastily. “Do you fuck him?”
“Luke!” I said. I felt like he’d slapped me.
“My mother would have come to get you,” he said. His body had literally gone rigid, his arms sticking out. I rose to my feet. I did not want to remain seated. The air was electric with his coming rage, a steep drop in the psychic barometric pressure.
“Who is it?” he said, his voice rising. “What’s his name?”
The ridiculousness of this situation struck me, and I realized that Langdon was right. I had empowered him by playing this game with him. He thought we were friends, that we were equals. He’d developed some attachment or fantasy about me, and he was acting out of that place.
“Take a deep breath,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Calm down.”
He came at me quickly, until he was right in my face. I held my ground, but kept my eyes down. I knew where he was, shot through with impotent rage. I’d been there myself as a child. I remember how it’s a hurricane inside, a terrible roar that drowns out all reasonable thought, everything around you. All you are is anger and sadness, and it’s a loop that feeds on itself. You go deeper and deeper, with nothing to draw you back to reality. Remember, I have problems, too.
“Who is he?” His face was right in mine. I could smell the cheddar on his breath.
“We can’t talk about this until you calm down,” I said.
“Did you tell him about our game?” he asked. But this time it was a shriek; he backed me against the wall with it. “Did you?”
“We can’t talk about this until you calm down,” I said again.
“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone,” he was wailing. “It’s our game.”
There was a succession of heavy thuds, then a loud crack. The television hitting the floor maybe? I stood outside the door. I could see that the locks were loose in their settings, and that the doorknob was a bit wobbly. What happened here at night after I went home?
Then, from inside, more shouting, “Who is he? Who is he? Who is he?”
I sat at the top of the landing and waited for him to burn himself out. But he didn’t, not for more than an hour. And that’s how Rachel found us when she came home, Luke screaming in his room, me sitting on the top step, my head resting against the wall.
She made me a cup of tea while Luke, obviously aware that we were downstairs talking, had taken to pounding on the floor of his room. The glasses in the cabinets were rattling. What a fucking brat he was. I mean, seriously.
“I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner,” she said. “It’s funny. I was just looking at my calendar and thinking that you’d been with us a month. That’s the longest anyone has ever lasted with him, by like three weeks.”
“It’s partially my fault,” I said.
“No,” she answered firmly. She raised a palm at me. “Don’t say that. Luke is responsible for his own behavior. It took me years to accept that.”
I told her about the game we’d been playing, about the clues he left, his scary poems. She didn’t seem surprised, just nodded and made affirming noises as I told her everything.
“He’s so good at reeling people in,” she said. She gave a little laugh and a shake of her head.
“Stop talking about me!” he screamed from upstairs. More pounding ensued.
She put down my mug and sat across from me. “He knows exactly what to say and do to hook people into his games. They tell me he manipulates the children at school, that he promises them treats if they misbehave at a certain time. A Snickers bar for a meltdown at twelve thirty-four or something like that.”
That was not the picture he painted of himself at school. I thought he was being bullied, pushed around because he was smart and small. I could relate to that, someone being rejected because there was something strange and different about him. I guess he knew that somehow.
“Why?” I asked. “Why does he do that?”
“Because he can,” she said. “That’s the only reason. He gets so bored; he needs constant stimulation. He can’t handle the monotony of normal day-to-day school life. So he creates chaos just to entertain himself. That’s really the only reason, hard as it is to accept.”
Of course, I knew that. I had enough education and experience at Fieldcrest to know that she was right in her assessment of him.
“Did he tell you I abuse him?” she asked. I didn’t respond. “Well, he wouldn’t say it outright. Just flinch when you get near him, or show you some injury and then be like a textbook abused child saying he fell or something.”
“The bruise on his shoulder,” I said.
“Self-inflicted,” she said. “He did it here by repeatedly banging himself against the wall. Then he went to school and put on his little show. I was called in, naturally. Parents of troubled children can sometimes resort to violence. Not me, though. The doctors there are smart. It didn’t take them long to figure out what he was doing.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s awful.”
She raised her cup to her lips but then she didn’t drink, just put it down on the table.
“I watched a documentary once about these crazy people who keep wild animals as pets,” she said. “They buy these baby chimps or lion cubs, even bears. And at first, it’s all cuddles and milk from a bottle. Then, surprise, surprise, a year later there’s a deadly, wild beast living in the backyard.”
She paused a second, finally took a sip of her tea. Then she ran her fingers under her lashes, wiping away tears that had welled there.
“These animals, caged and miserable, will kill the minute they get the chance. But, you know, you can see that these crazy pet owners love their creatures, really love them. They’re lonely people, rejected, and this lion or baboon or whatever fills some void they have inside. They just don’t realize that the creature doesn’t—can’t—love them back.”
She looked at me to see if I was following her. I was.
“And I found myself thinking that I knew just how they felt. The only difference was that I thought I had a kitten, and he grew into a tiger.”
Upstairs, Luke started pounding on the floor again. He must have been jumping, or the house was just really shoddily constructed, because our cups shivered on the table with each rattling blow.
“It runs in my family,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. “My father battled crippling depression, as well as chronic anxiety. And my brother was a lot like Luke, until he killed himself when he was sixteen.” I thought about the man in the locket and wondered if it was her brother.
She seemed so tired, heavy with fatigue. And who could blame her?
“I used to pray for a normal life,” she said. “I couldn’t wait to get out of my house. I wouldn’t have planned a child, not with my genes, not with the place I was in when I got pregnant. But that’s life. Things don’t always go as planned.”
She looked at me suddenly, as though she was snapping out of a trance. “I haven’t told anyone that. Not in years. I’m sorry. It’s a horrible thing to say.”
“No,” I said. Another loud boom resonated from upstairs. “I understand.”
“I know you do,” she said kindly. She put her hand on mine for a moment, and then took it away. How did she know that? I didn’t know what she meant, and I didn’t ask.
“I have to go,” I told her. “I’m sorry to leave you like this. But I have a crisis at home.”
She nodded. “I suppose you won’t be coming back,” she said.
“Oh, no,” I answered. “I’ll be back.”
She beamed me a wide grateful smile, and I realized that somewhere along the line we’d become friends.
17
After I left the Kahns’, I returned to my empty dorm room. It was dark and cold, and I wasn’t there a minute before I wanted to leave again. Dr. Cooper had left a message on my cell phone, and after I made myself some macaroni and cheese, I called her back.
“I was just checking in on you,” she said. “I dropped a bit of a bomb on you last session.”
“I was going to call you,” I said.
“Do you need to come in?” she asked.
“I do,” I said. “I think I really do.”
“It’s dark and really cold,” she said. “I don’t want you to ride your bike.”
She was always on me for riding my bike without a helmet at the best of times. I didn’t exactly relish another nighttime ride myself.
“I’ll take a cab.”
“Actually, I know my husband is on campus right now. He helped with the search today. It’s a little unorthodox, but if you’re comfortable with it, he’ll happily give you a lift and I’ll drive you home after our session.”
Jones Cooper, the man who investigated Elizabeth’s disappearance and Harvey Greenwald’s suicide. Strange how he kept turning up.
“He’s a cop, right?” I asked.
“He’s retired now, working as a private investigator. He was just helping out today, volunteering. He doesn’t have anything to do with Beck’s case.”
My distrust of the police had been long established in our sessions. I felt an immediate sense of discomfort when they were around. Th
ey annoyed me because they thought they knew everything, and really they knew nothing. With all their special forensics equipment, cutting-edge technology, body-language reading, handwriting analysis, whatever other little tricks they pulled out of the collective hat, they still got it all wrong. It was human nature to see only what you want to see, and nothing would change that, no matter what tools people had at their disposal. The truth is only what you think it is.
“Is that okay with you?”
“Sure,” I said with a lightness I didn’t feel. “That’s great. If he just rings downstairs at the Evangeline dorm, I’ll come right out.”
I thanked her and ended the call.
Was it weird that I had just been reading about Jones Cooper in the article about Harvey Greenwald? Or that he had worked Elizabeth’s case, and I had the feeling he never liked me? Oddly, the fact that he was married to Dr. Cooper had never bothered me before. It was something that I knew, but just filed away as irrelevant.
Dr. Cooper never spoke about her husband. And she was such a stickler about boundaries and privacy that I never worried that she might talk to him about me. But they were married. How likely was it that she would be able to keep the secret of my past from him? Especially back when he’d been working Elizabeth’s disappearance, which involved me in a peripheral way. And now he was volunteering on the search for Beck. Was this some kind of trick the police were playing? Maybe they were hoping I’d say something to him that they could use. But that would mean my therapist was colluding with the police. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. Paranoia—the voice in your head that tells you everyone has a secret agenda that he’s running against you. The confusing thing is that sometimes it’s true.
If you don’t say anything, they can’t hurt you. It was my father’s voice in my head. Don’t give them anything, no matter how small, that they can use to manipulate and work their way into your cracks. They could try to trick me all they liked. But it wasn’t going to work, because I had learned from the best.
I opened my laptop and entered Cooper’s name into the search engine, and started scrolling through the long list of articles in which his name appeared. By the time they rang me from downstairs, I knew a lot about former lead detective Jones Cooper.