The footstep that must have caused this was not his.
“Alison?”
There was no answer. Edgy, Tony walked toward the sound. His voice, low and muted, carried in the night.
“Alison…”
A second branch snapped, closer.
Tony froze. He sensed that whoever made the sound had paused at his approach.
Taut, Tony heard a second sound, fainter, perhaps the wind. Perhaps he imagined that it seemed plaintive, feminine.
Another branch snapped, nearer yet.
Tony’s skin crawled. “Who is it?” Tony cried out, and then heard someone running toward him.
Unable to see, Tony braced himself. The thumping footsteps headed for him. Then, quite suddenly, the footsteps veered away. Heart pounding in his chest, Tony listened as their sound vanished in the endless dark.
Alone, he remembered the other, softer sound.
Turning, he ran toward the grove.
A branch lashed his face. The sting of it stopped him only for an instant, and then he crossed onto the Taylors’ land.
Abruptly, he stopped, looking blindly about him. The house was concrete now, its peculiar shape dark against the sky; to his right, a deep lapping sound came from the unseen lake below. Only when the back porch light came on, casting yellow on the grass, did he see the shadow lying before him.
He walked toward it, fear growing inside him, not wondering about the light. Curled on its side, the shadow was like a child sleeping.
Bending, Tony reached out to her. Felt the hair that hid her face, the cheek that was still warm.
His voice was hoarse. “Alison.”
Her skirt was pulled up. As though to stir her, Tony touched her bare leg.
It was damp. Something smelled like urine. A cry formed in his throat.
The back door creaked open. The beam of a flashlight crossed the grass.
“Alison,” her father cried out.
Stunned, Tony cradled Alison’s face. At first, he could not see her, and then the flashlight found them.
Alison’s face was flushed, her mouth contorted. The eyes that had held such love for him were wide and empty, pinpointed with red starbursts.
Mind reeling, Tony crossed himself, tears of shock streaming down his face.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death …
“Oh my God…”
Tony jerked his hand back. It took him an instant to realize that the cry of anguish was not his. “Oh my God…,” her father repeated.
Nauseous, Tony felt cold metal against his head, trembling with its own life. “You animal—what have you done to her?”
Turning, Tony faced a black revolver.
Behind it stood John Taylor, the white shock of hair faint silver in the light, his face sick with anger and incomprehension. Beyond him, the screen door framed the startled silhouette of Alison’s mother. “Katherine,” her husband’s thick voice cried. “Please, call for help.…”
Tony felt himself trembling, unable to comprehend this. Gun in hand, John Taylor knelt beside his daughter, felt for her pulse. As the father’s eyes shut, Tony blurted, “It wasn’t me.…”
John Taylor’s eyes snapped open. Like an automaton, he rose from Alison’s side and aimed the revolver at Tony. In his disbelief, Tony could not move.
“Jack!”
Katherine Taylor ran from the house and knelt beside her daughter. She saw Alison’s face, cried out. Then she threw herself across the slender frame, as if to protect it from hurt.
Staring at Tony across the two women, one still, one sobbing, John Taylor’s eyes turned vacant. He raised the gun to fire; Tony covered his face.
“Mama—what is it?”
John Taylor blinked. In a nightdress, Alison’s eleven-year-old sister called from the back porch.
Stiffly, Alison’s mother rose to her knees, her gray-streaked black hair disheveled, her face ivory. In parched tones, she said to her husband, “Don’t hurt him, Jack. Wait for the police.”
John Taylor did not answer. Instead he turned, as if remembering his duties, and called out to his younger daughter with strained parental authority. “It’s Alison, Lizzie. Please stay there.” Shivering, Tony knew that Alison’s mother had saved his life.
A siren whined. Tony saw the flashing red lights of one police car, then a second, tires squealing to a stop in the Taylors’ driveway. A young cop came running, followed by the stocky chief of police, calling out, “What’s happened, John?”
Slowly, John Taylor turned. In a toneless voice, he said, “This boy killed Alison—”
“No,” Tony cried out. “I found her.…”
Breathing heavily, the chief stopped, looking from John Taylor to the body at his feet. He bent to Alison, hand covering her mouth and nose, then murmured, “There’s an ambulance coming.”
A hush surrounded him. Tony felt himself swallow. The chief gazed at him, his blue eyes astonished yet unspeakably sad. “I saw that game tonight…”
On the porch, Alison’s sister began keening, thin cries of sympathetic fear. The chief looked up at Alison’s father, then at his gun. “We have him now, John. You don’t need to worry.”
Stiffly, Alison’s mother stood leaning against her husband. With a jerk of the head, the chief summoned the young patrolman to the Taylors’ side. “It’s better,” the chief said to Alison’s father, “if you step away a little.”
Mumbling his consolation, the young policeman guided them away, Katherine Taylor gazing back at Alison.
Two more police officers stood behind Tony. The chief’s mouth set. “Get him out of here.” Standing, Tony found himself staring at Alison as if, dreamlike, she might rise with him.
Gently, the cops shepherded Tony across the lawn. It became the darkened landscape of a nightmare—the uniformed police, the dead girl he loved, her sister crying into her hands, hair black like Alison’s.
They shoved him in the back seat of a squad car and started the motor. At the foot of the drive, Tony saw Alison’s parents—her father staring fixedly at the car, her mother’s head against his shoulder—through the blur of his own tears.
“It wasn’t me,” Tony repeated. “It wasn’t me.”
SEVEN
After that, no one spoke.
Tony stared out the window at the quiet streets, half suburban, half small town—the white frame houses of the twenties, the red-brick bungalows and postage-stamp lawns of the fifties, the spired city hall with its iron clock face and, next to that, the incongruous severity of the tan brick police station, completed the previous year amidst much controversy. Lake City seemed at once familiar and strange, a place he had half forgotten. He ached for Alison to be with him.
They got to the station.
The two officers led him to the basement. He accepted this without question—it was part of the logic of his nightmare—just as he obeyed the request by a third cop, given with the politeness of a doctor performing a physical, to strip. The man took blood from his arm; slid a needle beneath his fingernails; snipped a sample of pubic hair; swabbed the tip of his penis; snapped photographs of the welt on his cheek, which Tony supposed the branch had left. For however long this took, Tony asked nothing. All that he could think about was Alison.
They gave back his clothes and put him in a cubicle with yellow cinder-block walls. The room was claustrophobic, hardly larger than a closet, with a bare table and chairs beneath a bright fluorescent light. Tony slumped at the table, exhausted.
She had died for him, in a state of mortal sin. He could think of nothing else. It felt like the aftershock of a blow to the head, his memory a void, pain the only fact that he could grasp. His skull pounded.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.…
He did not know how long he was alone. He did not care: his parents, his friends, were nothing to him. Only Alison.
Two detectives entered the room. Dully, Tony recognized the young one, greyhound sleek, his brown h
air slicked back—Sergeant Dana, the police liaison to Lake City High, whose job it was to sniff out drugs and theft. The older man was red-haired, slit-eyed, with the high color of a drinker. His freckled hands on the table seemed restless, twitchy. He lit a cigarette.
“I’m Lieutenant McCain—Frank McCain. You know Doug Dana from the high school, right? Used to play quarterback, like you. But nowhere near as good.”
Tony rubbed his eyes, unable to process what was happening. McCain took a deep drag of the cigarette, as if to force himself to go slowly. “It’s a terrible thing, Tony. A terrible thing. I’ll bet you’re as sad to be here as we are to be with you like this. I’m real sorry about having to put you through that physical stuff. But it’s just routine—we have to do it.” As he took another drag, McCain’s hand seemed to tremble. “We’ve got a big responsibility here, Tony. A beautiful girl is dead—someone I know you cared about. Like you, her parents will have to live with that forever. We need to help them understand what happened. For whatever peace that brings.”
Tony stared at the table. “It’s my fault,” he mumbled. “Tell them it was my fault.”
McCain became very still. “How was that, Tony?” The cigarette burned in his hand.
“I wanted her to come back out. To be with me.” A lump formed in Tony’s throat. “If I hadn’t wanted her to, he wouldn’t have killed her.”
Dana’s eyes were keen now. “Who would that be?”
“I don’t know. I heard someone in the park.…” Tony stopped; beneath this pitiless light, footsteps in the dark sounded foolish, hallucinatory.
The two police watched him. “Just tell us about your night,” Dana said. “Everything after the football game.”
Tony’s lips were parched. Miserably, he tried; meeting Sam and Sue, taking Alison off alone, deciding to meet her again, the footfalls in the dark, the soft cry that led him to her body. Even as he spoke, Tony prayed that he could go back—stay with Sam and Sue, or tell Alison to remain inside, safe with the family who loved her. But the one fact that he omitted, her desire to make love with him, was the only way he could still protect her.
Dana was frowning. “How’d you get that cut on your face?”
Tony tried to remember. “From a branch … running through the trees.”
“Why did you leave the car?”
“She was late to meet me. I went to look for her, and heard him in the park—”
“How would he know she was out there—the guy who killed her?”
Tony shook his head, bewildered. Quietly, Dana asked, “Did you have sex with her last night?”
Tony’s eyes shut. “No.”
“We think someone did, Tony.” With an air of melancholy, McCain shook his head. “Alison may be dead, but her body will tell a story. So will yours, when the samples come back from the lab.”
Tony felt guilt overcome him. “Could Father Quinn be here … my priest?”
McCain watched his eyes. “I’m Catholic, Tony, like you—we know that confession is good for the soul. But what you tell Father Quinn won’t help anyone but you. This is your chance to help someone else, like the good Father would tell you to. To keep the trust of people in this town.” His voice slowed for emphasis. “So let’s start by telling me if you had sex with Alison Taylor.”
Suddenly Tony had to urinate. “No,” he said.
“Did you fight with her last night?” Dana prodded. “I mean, you were having trouble, right? For a while you broke up.”
Tony’s temples throbbed. “Who told you that—”
“So what was the trouble last night?” Dana cut in.
Tony’s bladder hurt. “Nothing.”
McCain put down his cigarette. “Work with us, Tony. Tell us what happened with you and Alison.”
Tony did not answer. Dana’s voice was soft again. “I think maybe I know what happened.”
Tony felt something in the room change. “How?”
Dana sat back, regarding him without expression. “Sometimes women like to tease you. Or maybe let you think they like it a certain way, then figure out they don’t.” His look became confiding. “Is that why you wanted her to come out again? To do something a little different for you?”
“I just wanted to be with her—”
“Maybe you had a disagreement about it.” Dana’s tone was cool now. “Maybe that’s what her body will tell us. That you forced her to do that for you.”
Tony shook his head. “No.”
“So what you want us to say to her parents is that she was fooling around with someone else.”
“No … we were going together.”
“Then let’s be kind here. You say Alison had no other guy. You say Alison wasn’t sleeping around. You want to be fair to her, don’t you? You want to honor her memory. The only way to do that is to tell the truth about what you did to her.”
All at once, Tony understood. Horror left him speechless.
McCain covered Tony’s hand with his. “Did you love her, Tony?”
The surprise of this brought tears to Tony’s eyes. “Yes. I loved her.”
McCain nodded slowly. “To me, this looks like a cold-blooded killing. But I can’t believe you’d kill in cold blood a girl you were in love with.”
“No … I wouldn’t.”
McCain patted his hand. Maybe, Tony thought, this man believed him after all. “So how do you think,” the detective asked, “the person who did this is feeling now?”
“I don’t know.” The pressure on Tony’s bladder felt unbearable. “I need a bathroom—”
“Do you think he really wanted to kill her?”
The detective’s voice was soothing. But now some intuitive part of Tony, listening through his shock, heard what lay beneath. Softly, he answered. “I know he wanted to.”
Something flickered in McCain’s eyes. “How do you know that, Tony?”
Tony took a deep breath. “Because I saw what he did to her.”
Across the table, McCain leaned closer, forehead a foot from Tony’s. “Then what do you think should happen to him?” he asked. “Surely there could be some mercy, if we only could understand.”
“No,” Tony answered. “I think whoever killed her should die. The way she did.”
McCain’s hand squeezed Tony’s. “I don’t think so. Not if he didn’t mean it to happen. Not if things just got out of hand.” The detective’s eyes locked his. “It’s time to be a man, Tony. Last night, you were a hero in this town. You can be a hero again. It’s not too late for you.”
Tony made what reasoning part of him remained focus on his own survival. “All I have to do is tell you what really happened, right? Then I can go to the bathroom?”
“Right.” Tony felt a tremor in McCain’s hand. “You didn’t mean for her to die, I know that. No matter how bad this looks.”
Slowly, Tony removed his hand, then looked at the detective dead on. “Okay. I didn’t kill her. I found her like that. So you can quit being my friend.” He stood, voice trembling with loss and fear and anger. “I want you to call my parents, right now. And tell me where the bathroom is.”
McCain stared up at him, face turning red. For a moment, no one spoke.
“It’s down the hall,” Dana said.
* * *
His parents came. His mother’s eyes were red; without makeup, hair too blond, her face looked pallid. She ran to Tony, hugging him desperately. “I didn’t kill her, Mom.”
“It’s all right, Tony. It’s all right.”
Tony looked over her shoulder, at his father. Stanley Lord stood straighter. For an instant, his chin looked firm, his face more commanding. Somehow it reminded Tony of the wedding picture Helen Lord kept on the mantel; Stanley’s hair, swept back, was darker, his Slavic features were thinner and keener. “See how handsome he was,” Tony’s mother would say, as if speaking of another life.
For the first time in years, his father took Tony by the hand. Looking from McCain to Dana, he said, “We’re taking our s
on home.” Tony felt the gratitude of a child who had been found.
Passing another office, they saw the chief speaking softly to John and Katherine Taylor. John Taylor stared up at Stanley Lord with terrible bitterness. Stanley Lord’s eyes held compassion but no apology: he would take care of his own, the look said, no matter who John Taylor was. Then Helen Lord plucked at her husband’s arm, and they left.
In the thin light of dawn, his mother leaned against their blue Dodge. Hands to her face, she wept. “You should have stayed away from her. I always knew it.…”
The words hit Tony hard. For once, it did not help him to perceive the superstitious fearfulness of a woman still defined by the Polish neighborhood they had left behind. Shaken, Tony turned to his father. “I’m sorry, Dad. I think I need a lawyer.”
Tony saw Stanley Lord shrink from what this tragedy could do to them. Then saw his father come to terms with his new reality: a girl was dead, the son he loved in trouble.
Stanley Lord drew him close. “We’ll find one, Anthony.”
EIGHT
As he faced Saul Ravin, it struck Tony that the lawyer was someone who, in the life he had led until now, he would never have met.
In his first two days of grief and sleeplessness, Tony found that acceptance of Alison’s death came slowly, inexorably, like drops of water on stone. The Saturday paper had seemed unreal: Alison’s yearbook picture, the color drained from it, looked like a hundred other pictures of teenagers whose lives were cut short by tragedy. The headline read: “Lake City Girl Slain,” and beneath that: “Boyfriend Questioned in Death of Popular Student.” Tonelessly, Tony had asked his mother, “Who brought this?”
“Mrs. Reeves, from down the street. With a tuna casserole.”
Something about this had made Tony laugh. The bitter sound froze his mother’s face. “Next time I murder someone,” he had told her, “ask her to bring lasagna.”
Her hands had flown up to cover her mouth. From beside the window, where he watched the reporters who had gathered in front, his father had turned and said softly, “Son, we have to be good to each other. Especially now.”
His father’s skin looked sallow, the pouches beneath his eyes like bruises. As if in penitence, Tony had sat on the couch across from Helen Lord. “There’s only us,” she had told him. “Your uncle Joe and aunt Mary Rose wanted to come out. But we couldn’t let them, with these people outside.”
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