Lu drives home, wondering if it’s time to let go of Bash, but only because she wants to be the one who ends it. If he calls it quits, she fears it will arouse old feelings, that intense desire to win, no matter the cost. As a young woman, she got a little crazy in the face of rejection. She was only in her twenties. But she can still be embarrassed by some of the things she did. Lu, as a young woman, preferred being direct and confrontational. She could not believe that there were men who would simply walk away, cut off communication—and make you feel gauche for thinking the game should be played any other way. She was the opposite of cool, in those early love affairs. Then she reconnected with Gabe, and his heart was so open, his sense of self forever informed by the short geeky boy he had been, that she felt she had, in fact, found her soul mate. “We were imprinted early on each other, like ducks,” she once told him.
She didn’t tell him that she had stolen that line from a book.
He was two hundred pounds . . . Why is Jonnie in her head, when Jonnie clearly had no desire to help Lu figure out why she was targeted by Rudy Drysdale? Maybe it’s not really Jonnie at all, but Blind Lady Justice, the omnipresent conscience that insists on what is right and wrong, a conscience whose voice sounds strangely like Lu’s father’s. Fuck him. There was Nita again. How can she not realize that Lu’s father was one of the few people who had her best interests at heart, all those years ago?
It’s a coincidence, Rudy going into the wrong apartment, Lu tells herself. She’ll go see Davey, ask him a few questions, and they’ll have a good laugh. He’ll tell her that he never knew Rudy Drysdale and he doesn’t fear his old girlfriend because he didn’t rape her. A grand jury made that determination thirty-five years ago. Davy’s alleged crime was not hidden or hushed up. Juanita Flood Forke’s complaint was heard—and rejected.
APRIL 21
When Lu pulls up in front of the Triadelphia Community Church, the first thing she notices is the long, graceful ramp that snakes up to its front doors. Of course, all churches—all public buildings—are obligated to be accessible in this day and age, but this particular ramp is clearly the aesthetic focus of an otherwise unremarkable beige rectangle. The ramp is centered, flanked by two staircases. Sheep to the right, goats to the left, Pastor Robinson front and center.
Inside, the accommodations continue. The center aisle seems particularly wide, and there are gently sloping ramps on either side of the nave. In contrast to the blah beige outside, the woodwork is dark, the lighting dim. This is Davey’s church in every sense. Davey’s fiefdom. Pastors are prohibited from endorsing candidates, but they are instrumental in getting out the vote and they have ways to indicate which candidates they favor. Lu did not ask to appear here during her campaign because she could not align herself with someone as conservative as Davey. But nor could she afford to alienate him. Davey may not have been able to stop marriage equality, but he was part of a coalition that helped derail the legislation the first time it came before the Maryland legislature a few years ago. Safe on the sidelines then, Lu was fascinated by the debate, the anger expressed over the idea that gay marriage was a civil rights issue. Davey, in particular, was one of those who framed race as a given, homosexuality a choice. He was never strident; that wasn’t his style. He still had that husky, resonant voice that made you want to lean in, lest you miss a single word.
Davey has been a public figure for almost a decade. Lu remembers when the church was built, not quite five years ago. Because it was a so-called megachurch—almost thirty-five hundred members—the community worried about the impact on traffic. There were contentious meetings, Davey presiding as the benign Buddha he has become in middle age. He managed to suggest, subtly, that it was not the number of people that had the residents worried, but the color of his congregants’ skin. The locals were horrified, of course. An agreement was reached quickly. Since then, as far as Lu knows, the church and the nearby residents have coexisted peacefully, except for an incident three years ago when a sixty-six-year-old man got on his riding mower and began ramming cars leaving the church after Sunday’s service. No charges were filed, and Lu supported that one bit of inaction on Fred’s part. The man was in the early stages of dementia, beyond any agenda other than his own confusion. Fred made it clear that his office would not bring charges if the man’s wife and adult children agreed to find care for him.
“May I help you?”
A woman has entered the church from behind the nave. She is young and shapely, dressed so stylishly that Lu can’t help feeling like a dowdy little bird. Would I dress in bright, tight clothing if I weren’t a public official? Lu has been a civil servant for so long—civil servant, her mind snags for a moment on that second word—that she no longer knows if she’s following the dictates of her taste or the dictates of the job. You lose a little bit of yourself in public life.
“I’m here to see Davey Robinson.”
“Is Pastor Robinson expecting you?”
“Yes.” Lu had not wanted to visit without some warning. She delayed the meeting for one reason or another—work, the tax-filing deadline. Finally, she called yesterday, said she wanted to talk to him about the events of 1980. Those were her exact words. “The events of 1980.” She chose 1980 and not 1979 because Davey would assume she meant the night he was attacked. But, of course, everything goes back to 1979. Citing 1980 was simply less adversarial.
“Follow me,” the woman says, moving quickly on her long legs, admirably swift in her stiletto heels. Lu feels ridiculous, trying to match the woman’s stride without appearing like a clumsy little puppy. She’s pretty sure that’s the point.
Davey’s office does nothing to diminish Lu’s first impression, that this church is a castle he has built for himself. His desk is huge. Across from him, she feels like a child, called to the principal’s office, not that Lu was ever called to the principal’s office as a child. She has to perch on the edge of the chair so her feet are flat on the floor. She is Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians, dwarfed by the scale of everything here. And Davey is larger than ever, broad in his chair. She wonders how hard it was for him, an athlete gifted enough to be considered for a college team, to adapt to a body that could no longer move as it once had. But he has spent almost twice as long in this body as he did in his previous one.
“Look at Little Lu,” he says. His tone is affectionate, so she tries not to bristle at the use of “little.” “Who knew you were going to grow up to be such a player, the most powerful woman in the county right now?” But not as powerful as you, right, Davey? “I read about what happened earlier this month.”
He almost certainly means the attack, and Lu would feel sanctimonious, telling him that Rudy’s suicide has affected her far more than the assault.
She says only: “I’m fine. But something, well, weird has come up, in the wake of that. I have reason to believe that Rudy Drysdale intended to kill someone else, that he broke into the wrong woman’s apartment that night.”
Davey cocks his head as if interested, but confused. Why am I listening to this story?
Lu takes a deep breath. “He had a kind of dyslexia that resulted in spatial confusion, literally couldn’t tell right from left. If the events of December thirty-first were premeditated, then he might have entered the wrong apartment. The woman who lived across from the victim was Nita Flood. She thinks Rudy was sent to kill her, but she won’t tell me by whom.”
Davey’s eyes narrow, all friendliness gone. It was a fake friendliness to begin with, Lu realizes. He may have hoped this was not to be the topic today, but he’s not particularly surprised.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. But when I spoke to Nita—Jonnie, she’s known as Jonnie now—she still maintains, after all these years, that you raped her.” Quickly adding: “I know that’s not true. If you had, you would have been charged. My father did everything he could to make sure that no one was given special treatment. But she believes this to be true. Or has come
to believe it. It’s probably sheer revisionism on her part, thirty-five years later. But if she had threatened to go public—”
“Thou shalt not kill,” Davey says. “I’m a minister, Lu. I preach the Lord’s words. Do you think I could so easily violate one of his most basic commandments?”
The fact is—she can’t. The moment she began to speak, she felt ludicrous. “No, no, I don’t. But I do believe that Rudy Drysdale targeted her and I can’t figure out why.”
“He always liked her,” Davey says. “She barely paid him any mind, but he had a crush on her.”
“You knew him?”
“Just to nod hello. He worked in the camera store in the mall, the one near Nita’s cart. He was always hanging around her, doing things for her. I noticed because I would hang around, when I could. I’m not even sure she knew his name. I used to tease her about Rudy. I sure as hell wasn’t jealous of him. I was surprised when I read about him being arrested, but—well, he seemed to be pretty far around the bend. He was always an odd duck. Some people thought he didn’t like girls at all, but I never got that vibe from him. He definitely liked Nita.”
She feels almost deflated by the banality of it all. Man sees woman he once had a crush on, breaks into her house—believes himself to have broken into her house—ends up killing the wrong woman in sheer panic. That could even explain the DNA: he became excited, in advance. Rudy was a violent man. He stabbed his father. He attacked her. It fits together. Never disdain the obvious answer. That’s an article of faith for police and prosecutors. The defense attorneys are the ones who have to manufacture conspiracy theories and alibis and alternative killers. Even before Facebook, people were inclined to look up old crushes. Rudy Drysdale, a deeply disturbed individual, saw his old high school crush and decided to kill her. Or something. It’s not as if he were known for making rational decisions.
Davey laughs softly, as if privy to her whirring mind. “Not so mysterious now, is it? If I had known—but, of course, I didn’t know. Well, I guess Nita was due some good luck.”
“Due?”
“I hear she has a sick grandchild.”
“Hear? How did you ‘hear’?”
“It was on some listserv, I think. The Howard County Interfaith community. The girl needs an experimental treatment, but the insurance company won’t cover it. Her pastor said they were going to do a fund-raiser, donate the Sunday collections to her.”
“I remember when you thought ‘interfaith’ was Columbia’s problem.”
Davey laughed, a rumble almost as beautiful as his singing voice. Does he still sing? “This is just an e-mail digest that allows various religious leaders to share our concerns. My problem with the Interfaith Center was that it pretended we were all the same.”
“Nita goes by the name Jonnie Forke now.”
“Does she?” Polite, uninterested. Not getting it.
Lu stands to go. “I feel silly to have bothered you. Davey—do you still sing?”
“I sing with my congregation. But, no, I don’t perform. It appealed too much to my vanity. We have to be careful of our weaknesses, Lu. I was so proud of my body, the things it could do. We know how that turned out.”
“Do we?” Lu asks.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Andi is almost pathetically grateful when Lu asks her if she wants to catch a late bite, although surprised by the suggested location.
“The casino?” she says. “Why would you want to go there?”
“I just have this yen to play a few hands of blackjack, have a few drinks. All work and no play—”
Andi does not bother to assure Lu she isn’t dull. She’s too concerned with nailing down which one of them will be the designated driver.
“We have to be careful. Wouldn’t look good if one of us were flagged at a sobriety checkpoint.”
“I’m happy to pick you up at your place. And if you get lucky—”
“I’m not that kind of girl,” Andi says, feigning mock outrage. “I’m a lady.”
“The kind of lady who takes his number and calls him the next day.”
“As I said, a lady.” Lu laughs. Outside of work, Andi can be good company.
And, for an evening that began as a ruse, it is surprisingly fun. Lu sets her limit for losing at $200 and blows through it even faster than she hoped. Andi is having an unusually good night—winning hands and winning the attention of a perfectly nice looking man in a suit. She barely seems to notice when Lu says she’s going to grab a bite in the noodle bar.
Jonnie Forke does a double take when she sees Lu, tries to disguise it.
“I’m not your waitress,” she says. “I’ll tell someone you’re waiting.”
“Jonnie Forke of Luk Fu,” Lu says. “Unlucky Jonnie Forke of Luk Fu.”
“What?”
“It’s this thing I do. It helps me remember names, faces. I’m sorry to hear about your grandchild—what was her name? Joni Rose. I didn’t realize—the other day when we were talking—that she was sick. That sucks.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, well, what are you going to do?”
“It’s good, at a time like this, to have the comfort of religion. I’m not a believer, and it makes it harder to get through certain things.”
“I don’t go to church. Your waitress will be with you in a moment. But I’ll put your drink order in if you’re anxious.”
“Just club soda with lime. But I can wait.”
Andi and her new friend join Lu then, flush with possibility if not actual cash. “I’d say winner buys,” Andi says, “but then we’d have to kite the check and how would that look if two prosecutors walked out on a bill? This guy was up five hundred dollars, then totally blew his wad.”
“You two good-looking ladies could not possibly be prosecutors, unless you play them on Law & Order,” says Andi’s admirer, who close up is about ten years north of fifty, where Lu had originally pegged him. Still, he has all his hair.
“Dinner’s on me,” Lu says, putting down two $100 bills. “Andi—you use Uber or call a car service when it’s time to go home. Promise me. We have a meeting tomorrow morning, you can’t be late.”
“She’ll be fine,” Andi’s new friend says, sounding like the perfect gentleman. Lu sizes him up, then says: “Text me when you get in, Andi. I won’t sleep a wink until you do.”
Of course, she’s not going to sleep anyway. She had been skeptical, when talking to Davey—he spoke of Nita, not Jonnie Forke. But if she didn’t go to church, then she had no pastor to share the story about her sick grandchild on a listserv. Davey was lying about that, Lu is sure.
In her car, Lu instructs the Bluetooth panel: “Call my brother, please.” She cannot break the habit of saying “please,” even to the nonperson who lives inside her car’s dashboard. She is her father’s daughter.
AJ’s voice, on another machine, replied: “Hi, you have reached AJ Brant. I will be traveling until May twenty-fourth and may be slow returning calls. But leave a message or e-mail me in care of the foundation and I’ll—”
She disconnects. A sister shouldn’t have to queue on a brother’s answering machine, another supplicant yearning for his time, money, attention. How can he be away for a month? Oh, it’s almost Earth Day, a big date in AJ’s world. No problem. May twenty-fourth is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. They’ll have a barbecue. She’ll buy vegan hot dogs for Lauranne if that’s what it takes to get a little time alone with her brother in order to broach the unbroachable subject, that Friday night after Thanksgiving 1979. Did he lie to protect his friend? Would he continue to lie to protect his friend?
The bigger question for Lu is whether she will be speaking as a sister, or the county state’s attorney.
MAY 25
“I guess this day is for you, dear Father.”
AJ raises a beer—a local one that he brought to the barbecue, presumably brewed from ethical hops. Whatever those are. But their father shakes his head. “Memorial Day is for those who died.
I merely served. You can toast me in November.”
“Of course,” AJ says. “Of course. My bad. It’s not like I wish you were dead.”
He seems a little loopy to Lu, but it’s probably jet-lag. AJ was at the Sydney Writers Festival and he arrived at BWI only yesterday afternoon. Although his memoir about his wanderjahr is several years old, it was a bit of a sleeper hit in Australia and a big publisher there has just brought out a new edition, with an introduction by some hot-shit novelist that Lu has never heard of and a new afterword by AJ and Lauranne, all about how individuals matter, small changes, blah, blah, blah.
Lu scrapes the leftover baked beans and corn from her plate into the trash and endures two withering glances from Lauranne—one for the paper plate, the other for the lack of composting. She glares back, unhappy they are dining on the screen porch. The day is shockingly hot, a misery, especially coming as it does after two perfectly pleasant spring days. But AJ and Lauranne said they preferred to be outside in “real air,” and they were the “guests,” so the family has congregated here. At least her father had the good sense to install ceiling fans on the porch. And the twins keep leaving the porch doors open, so the house’s downstairs AC unit—one of three required to cool the house—whirrs and groans, sending puffs of cool air toward them. Lu is simultaneously grateful for every artificial breeze and despairing of the utility bill. She keeps thinking the heat will back off when the sun goes down, that the planet has simply not absorbed enough of the sun’s warmth to torture them into the evening. But, so far, there is no respite.
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