The Spire

by Richard North Patterson

  For a moment, Mark studied a patch of sunlight on Durbin’s tan carpet. “Okay,” he said finally. “Don’t just have this meeting. You should also go where we live—you, or the deans, or maybe some professors. Give every student you can find someone they can talk to. A lot of the guys I know won’t relate to some psychologist they’ve never met.”

  Slowly, Durbin nodded. “Good advice.”

  “Also,” Farr added, “you should announce another student forum in one week’s time, to tell them what you’ve learned and whatever else you’re doing. It’s no good that you’re in charge unless the students, board, faculty, alumni, and community know that. For the sake of us all, it’s imperative that you emerge from this tragedy as the leader Caldwell needs.”

  To Mark, Farr’s implicit warning was unmistakable. Whatever else Durbin did in the future no longer mattered—his presidency would be judged, favorably or not, based on how he handled Angela’s murder. “I need to get our board chair on campus,” Durbin said to Farr. “Also Ernie Sims—it might be good to remind everyone that our thirty-person board actually includes an African-American. As soon as possible, the three of us should visit Angela’s family.”

  “If you like,” Farr offered, “I’ll go with you. I’m the head of the committee that gave Angela her scholarship. More than that, I’m the only one of us who actually knew her.” A look of sadness crossed Farr’s face. “Consoling her family is the hardest job we’ll have, and one of the most critical. For the sake of Angela’s mother, we can’t seem distant from her dead daughter. And to be brutally practical, we don’t want her suing the school.”

  Once again, Mark absorbed Farr’s ability to anticipate potential consequences. “We’ll need more outreach to the black community as a whole,” Durbin said. “The town seems pretty segregated, and we can’t let the blacks in Wayne fester in their own resentment and isolation.”

  Durbin was right, Mark knew. Blacks seldom went downtown; even at the high school, black and white kids rarely socialized. Racial attitudes, even if unspoken, were often adversarial. Uncomfortably, Mark thought of Steve Tillman and his casual, if infrequent disparagement of black classmates. “True enough,” Farr was saying. “Then there’s our alumni. As you well know, their donations help fund this place. You’ve got to reassure them quickly.” Farr’s tone became grim. “A big problem with that is the media. A white-on-black murder, if that’s what we have, will be catnip for them.”

  Durbin frowned at this. “I’ll get our public relations people on this right away.”

  “It’s over their heads, Clark. Hire an outside PR firm with experience in crisis management. We need to bombard the media and our funders with Caldwell’s story—the low crime rate, the new campus safety program, how we’ve gotten our own kids through this, how much we welcome minorities.” Farr’s tone was pointed. “They should also provide talking points for our admissions people. You can take it to the bank that our applications will drop. What we have is not just murder, but a combustible mix of race and drugs and alcohol.”

  “There we can point to our substance abuse policy,” Durbin said. “It’s one of the first things I asked about in the interview process.”

  “Did they mention that our policy is bullshit?” Farr inclined his head toward Mark. “Any student can tell you that this place is awash in alcohol and drugs, including the DBE house. I should know: I’m on the student-faculty disciplinary committee, and every so often some drunk or drugged-out kid destroys a dorm room or precipitates a charge of date rape. That’s the only time we stop pretending there’s no problem.” He turned to Mark. “You said Angela’s brother was at the party. He deals drugs out of the Alibi Club, right?”

  Mark hesitated. “Yeah, he does.”

  “Not much we can do about that,” Farr told Durbin. “Angela’s mother owns the place. That leaves the fraternities.”

  “That’s tougher, Lionel. A lot of the alumni I’m meeting feel like their fraternity was the heart of their experience at Caldwell.”

  “And a lot of them are morons,” Farr responded. “Here’s what I’d recommend. Conduct a full investigation of that party. Warn the presidents of every fraternity that their parties are no longer off-limits to school authorities. If fraternities tolerate drugs or underage drinking, it’s not the particular student who’ll go—it’s the fraternity. Any kid caught once with drugs will get compulsory drug and alcohol counseling; twice, they’ll be suspended; three times, they’ll be expelled. Make sure they know what date rape is, and that any assault on a woman, of any kind, will be dealt with harshly.

  “It’s clear and it’s fair, Clark. More alumni will praise you than resent you. Ask the ones who complain if they care more about the idiots in their old fraternity than about the reputation of the school and the safety of its students.” Farr’s tone was quiet but firm. “Tell them your job is to make Caldwell College the safest place on earth. Then do it.”

  Durbin frowned. “I came here to raise money from them, not to beat them over the head. This is my first presidency; fund-raising’s my skill set. The board hired me to launch a new capital campaign and beef up our endowment.”

  “You can’t right now,” Farr said with muted impatience. “Not for at least a year. It’s not just that there’s been a murder after a fraternity party. In all likelihood, Angela Hall was strangled by a student at this college.”

  Durbin raised his eyebrows. “Specifically, Steve Tillman?”

  At once, Mark began to fear that Steve might be railroaded to save the school. “Perhaps,” Farr answered. “If so, it’s possible that sex—consensual or nonconsensual—may become part of the mix. I know one thing for sure: if any student is charged, we have to expel them. Neither the school nor its students can live with anything less.”

  Abruptly, Durbin stood. “I need to get started. For the next few hours, Lionel, I want you at my side.”

  Farr nodded. “Of course. Just let me talk with Mark for a minute.”

  “Please.” Facing Mark, Durbin said, “You’ve been through a lot since yesterday, when we first met. I know you have Professor Farr to lean on. But if there’s anything I can do for you, at any hour, just call.”

  Even through his fog, Mark felt this man’s essential goodness. “Thank you, sir. I will.”

  Farr touched his arm. “I’ll walk out with you.”

  The two of them stopped on the front porch. In the driveway, a pale, uncoordinated-looking boy of about twelve was shooting baskets without much skill, oblivious to all that had happened. Mark turned to Farr and saw that his eyes suddenly looked tired and deeply sad. “It’s hard to believe,” he murmured, shaking his head. “She was full of promise, full of plans. I had so much hope for her.” Looking intently at Mark, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  Mark tried to imagine the next hours and days. “I guess so. But there’s no way Steve could have done this. I’m starting to get scared for him.”

  “I know,” Farr responded gently. “But there’s no help for that now—or for any of it. There hasn’t been, ever since you found her.”

  Slowly, Mark nodded. Farr placed a hand on his shoulder. “There’s one more thing,” he admonished quietly. “No one should know about this meeting. Whatever Clark Durbin does should be seen as his initiative. He’s the president, and now it’s his time to be a leader.”

  6

  F

  ILLED WITH DREAD, MARK WALKED SLOWLY ACROSS THE campus to the football stadium.

  A quiet gathering of students ringed the Spire, cordoned off by yellow tape. Mark kept his head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone he passed. Within hours, he had gone from hungover to adrenalized to how he felt now—stunned and disoriented and filled with disbelief, yet constantly seeing Angela’s stricken face. He felt a deep sadness for Angela, and a deep worry about the meaning of what he had witnessed the night before. His only hope now was that this tragedy, whatever its cause, would not touch Steve Tillman.

  Like Mark’s own, Steve’s room
was on the first floor of the worn gray football stadium, a relic of the twenties. But the entrance to Steve’s dimly lit corridor was marked with yellow tape saying CRIME SCENE. From inside echoed male voices, too authoritative to come from students. Mark felt a nightmare closing around him.

  He needed air. Caught between the need to find Steve and the desire to be alone, he chose a place where he and Steve sometimes went—a section of bleachers on the fifty-yard line where, concealed by night, he would sit with Steve while his friend smoked pot. These sessions were more common, Mark reflected, since Steve had torn up his knee and, it seemed, plunged into despondency. Now Mark hoped that this had not awakened something worse.

  The afternoon was darker than the morning. The sun had been extinguished by the lowering lead-gray sky common to Ohio as fall deepened into winter, and though it was not raining, the air felt cold and damp. As Mark stared at the empty field, the noise and sweat and exhilaration of yesterday’s game felt like a barely remembered dream. A white hot dog wrapper skittered across the field.

  Mark sat there, grateful for solitude. Then he heard heavy thudding footsteps on the wooden stands, suggesting a limp, and turned to see Steve Tillman.

  Steve’s face was pale, his brown hair matted and askew. His gaze held a hint of pain and puzzlement commingled with dissociation. Then he said, “I guess you’ve heard.”

  Mark’s own voice sounded foreign to him. “I found her.”

  Steve stared at him. “You told them about me.”

  “I had to,” Mark said in weary protest. “At least about the party.”

  Steve shoved his hands in his pockets. After a moment, he nodded.

  “What happened?” Mark asked.

  He meant between Steve and Angela. But instead Steve answered, “The cops came to my room. I was so fucked up, I couldn’t really say what happened, I’m not sure I know what happened.”

  “What did the cops ask?”

  As Steve began talking, Mark envisioned the scene, a narrative of innocence and surprise he did not know whether to believe.

  SOMETIME DURING THE early-morning hours, Steve had passed out. He awoke to a knocking on his door, then a male voice calling his name.

  Eyes opening, he looked around his room in a fog. His bedside lamp was knocked over, its base shattered into pieces. There were drink glasses on the tile floor, a bottle of rum, empty Coke cans. His sheets, a tangled mess, were strewn across and beside the bed.

  “Steve Tillman?” the rough voice queried.

  Judging from the light behind the curtains, it was day. “Wait a minute,” Steve shouted back.

  He was naked. Grabbing boxer shorts and a T-shirt, he struggled to put them on. When he opened the door, Steve saw two grim-faced men he knew were not from the school.

  “You’re Steve?” the red-haired guy said.

  “Yeah.”

  Swiftly, the man’s eyes took in the mess that was Steve’s room. “I’m Detective Bender, Steve, and this is Detective Muhlberg. Can we talk with you for a minute?”

  There was cocaine hidden in his drawer, Steve realized, bought from Carl Hall. “Let me get dressed,” Steve said hastily. “I’ll meet you outside.”

  The cop’s voice was softer now. “It might be better if we talked in private.”

  Steve looked at the other guy, Muhlberg. “We need your help,” Muhlberg told him. “A female student’s been murdered.”

  Steve felt pinpricks on his skin, then a numbness that made his limbs feel heavy. “Who?”

  “Her name was Angela Hall.”

  Steve sat down on the bed.

  Muhlberg pulled up the desk chair, stationing himself in front of Steve. His sad eyes filled with sympathy. “I know this must be a shock, Steve.”

  Steve was aware of Bender looking around his room. “She’s dead?” Steve heard himself say.

  “Strangled, seems like.”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know where, Steve. That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Muhlberg’s voice was reasonable, unthreatening. “We’re talking to people who knew her. You were with her at the DBE house, right?”

  Steve hesitated. Cautiously, he answered, “Right.”

  Haltingly, Steve let them extract his story—drinking beer; meeting Angela; switching to whiskey; the near fight with Joe Betts; heading with Angela for his dorm room.

  Muhlberg wrote it all down. “What happened then?” he asked.

  “I COULDN’T REMEMBER,” Steve told Mark now.

  Sitting in the bleachers, Mark felt his disbelief become fear. “What do you mean?”

  “I was too fucked up. I think maybe I did a line of coke, drank some rum.” Steve began rubbing his temples, elbows resting on his knees. “It’s like I have these images, but I can’t be sure they’re real. You know those lights that flash at parties?”

  “Strobe lights?”

  “It’s like that. There’s light for a second, and you can see—then it’s dark. Remembering her is like that.” He covered his face, fingers splayed. “I can’t believe she’s dead, Mark.”

  Mark inhaled, the nausea of the previous night returning. “What do you remember?”

  Softly, Steve answered, “I think we must have had sex.”

  AS HIS FRIEND spoke, Mark tried to link the scattered images Steve evoked.

  A flash of light, Angela undressing. Slim hips. Full breasts. Nipples with dark brown areolas.

  Another flash. She slid down her panties, exposing the tangle of her fur as she looked into his eyes.

  The light came back on. She had turned to show him her firm round buttocks.

  Do you want me?

  Steve pulled her to the bed, something crashing in the darkness. The scent of her skin suffused his senses . . .

  I have to go.

  Steve struggled to comprehend this. Leave?

  I have to.

  MARK STRUGGLED TO imagine this. But it made no sense.

  Filled with doubts, he asked, “Did you leave with her?”

  Steve shook his head. “No way.”

  I tried to call you, Mark wanted to say. From the house, at three in the morning. Instead, he asked, “Did you go anywhere at all?”

  Steve looked over at him. His pale face had turned blotchy, his expression suddenly guarded. “When?”

  “Anytime that night.”

  “I must have been passed out.” Steve shook his head, as though in wonder at the wreckage of his memory. “I can’t bring anything back. I don’t know, man. I don’t get what’s happening at all.”

  Mark tried to sort out his thoughts. “After you left the party, did you see Joe?”

  “Nope.” Steve’s tone was faintly hostile. “They asked me that, too.”

  Mark looked out at the football field. The sky was lower yet; in an hour or so, he guessed, the gray would darken with impending night. Facing Steve, he asked, “Got a place to sleep tonight?”

  “I’m going to my folks’.” Steve shook his head again. “They don’t even know about this. When those cops took me to the station, they kept me too busy to call.”

  Mark’s foreboding deepened. “What did they do?”

  “They swabbed my mouth, scraped under my fingernails, drew some blood.” His voice became resentful. “Then they ordered me to strip, and took pictures of me buck naked. Hope those don’t get out.”

  “What else?”

  Steve gazed out at the empty field. “They asked me if I’d hit her. I said I didn’t do that kind of shit to women.”

  But Joe Betts might, Mark thought. His mind a kaleidoscope of confusion, he tried to remember whether Angela’s face was bruised. Then he imagined Steve’s parents—his plain, perpetually mystified mother; his bluff, kind father—struggling to absorb what might be happening. “Want me to go home with you?” Mark asked.

  Steve grimaced. “Don’t think so, man. This one I’d better do alone.”

  He stood, his bad knee buckling slightly. Turning, Steve asked, “You look at something for
me?”

  “Sure.”

  He pulled up his sweatshirt, exposing his pale back. “See anything?”

  The red scratches on Steve’s back resembled welts. Quietly, Mark said, “You’ve got some scratches, pal. Bad ones.”

  Slowly, heavily, Steve sat down again. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “It feels like that.”

  Mark lapsed into silence. “Maybe I fucked her,” Steve said. “But that doesn’t mean I killed her.”

  To this remark, disturbing in so many ways, Mark had nothing to say.

  7

  I

  N THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, STEVE WAS BARELY SEEN ON campus.

  For Mark, time was a blur—the all-campus meeting, President Durbin announcing the measures Farr had crafted for him; nights of sleeplessness; bleak dinners at the DBE house; the refuge of an evening at the Farrs’; a memorial service for Angela held in the chapel of College Hall. Mark managed to avoid Joe Betts. Then on Thursday afternoon, when they emerged from a history class devoted to discussing what—if anything—the murder revealed about Caldwell College, Joe caught up with him.

  “Hear you were the driver,” Joe said in a sardonic tone.

  Mark shrugged. “It was a selfless act, Joe. You didn’t need to be driving.”

  To Mark’s surprise, Joe did not protest. They headed across campus, pausing at the green around the Spire.

  A crowd had gathered, alien to Caldwell—some white but mostly black, carrying signs demanding JUSTICE FOR ANGELA, with reporters and video cameras interspersed among them. Though Mark had lived here all his life, many of the demonstrators were strangers to him. An imposing black man in a clerical collar addressed them. “We come here today,” he said, “to demand that Caldwell College search its soul. It is not enough for a school to say that it welcomes students of color. Caldwell College must create an environment where our young women leave the school in a cap and gown, not a coffin.”

  Applause burst from the crowd. Accompanied by Farr, Clark Durbin made his way toward the speaker. Farr placed a hand on the clergyman’s shoulder, speaking to him quietly. Nodding, the minister passed the microphone to Durbin.