Chapter Nineteen
Helen was in a hotel in upstate New York when Drummond called with news about the torso. She had spent all day with a group of wealthy alumni, touring their homesteads and complimenting their charitable works. All things considered, they were a congenial bunch, but Helen found their self–congratulatory conversation both dull and depressing. These men and women had everything, and yet their lives seemed to pass in a drab mirage of country club socials and ballet recitals.
She had been glad to return to her hotel and the small pleasures of room service and television. She was just opening a bottle of vodka from the mini bar, when the phone interrupted. It was almost 10:00 p.m. If it was business, it was an emergency. Helen picked up.
“They found the body,” Drummond said.
Helen fumbled for the remote and switched off the television. The hotel air conditioning was fierce, and she felt an additional chill. “Where? Do they know who?”
“It was a woman from the homeless camps, like Hornsby expected. Apparently, she was drunk and high. Hornsby thinks it was a suicide. She tied herself to the tracks and then passed out. While she was unconscious the train came and her torso… you don’t want to hear details, do you?”
“Just tell me what I need to know.”
“The body was… transported. When the train stopped to unload in Pennsylvania, one of the workers smelled something coming from the car. It’s not that unusual for the trains to collect… debris from the tracks. When they found her, local police contacted Hornsby. It was not difficult to identify the connection. The medical examiner in Holyoke will look at the remains, but I think it’s clear what happened.”
Clear? A woman ties herself to the train tracks, binds herself so tightly the plastic straps rip her thigh apart. Nothing is clear. Helen wrapped the phone cord around her fingers and watched the tips of them turn gray.
“What a violent death,” she said.
“They think she was mentally ill.” Drummond chose his words carefully, as if the proper vocabulary could mitigate unpleasant images. “They found the same kind of ties in her undergarments.”
Helen exhaled deeply. She felt like the breath came all the way out of her soul. She should have been relieved. If there was no foul play, then there was no danger to the students on campus. If there was no danger to the students, their PR problems were disappearing. She would go back to the capital campaign for which she had been hired. She could rebuild her life like Terri recommended. A bowling league. A book group.
“I don’t want to minimize this,” Drummond said. “But I’m glad. A young woman has died because she was mentally ill or addicted to drugs or both. That is a tragedy, but it is an isolated tragedy.”
Helen ran a hand through her hair. It could have been Eliza. “Hornsby agrees? He thinks it was a suicide?”
“He’s certain of it.”
Helen was silent, staring at a painting of lilies on the wall.
“Helen?” Drummond’s voice was kind. “I’m sorry this was your first experience at Pittock, but I am glad to be working with you. We could not have gotten through this without you. I could not have gotten through this without you. I’ve missed you.”
****
Helen hung up the phone. The hotel room felt empty. On the street below, a siren announced another tragedy. Another tragedy and another. Her mind filled with voices. He’s certain of it. A suicide. I could not have gotten through this without you. They don’t let boys like Ricky Drummond go down for anything.
Helen lay on the bed, but as soon as she closed her eyes, visions of Eliza filled her mind. Visiting Eliza. Fielding her panicked phone calls. Cajoling her to bathe, to take her medication, to stay in the house. Then driving the streets of Pittsburg, searching for Eliza’s familiar form: a mountainous woman lumbering down the sidewalk, speaking out loud to no one, occasionally rifling through debris in the gutter.
Helen rose and pulled on a silk sweater to ward off the air conditioning. It was nearly closing time at the hotel bar. There were only a few patrons loitering under the neon Budweiser signs. Helen caught the eye of a man playing Keno.
“Winning?” she asked.
“Born to lose,” he said.
“Maybe I could change your luck.”
Upstairs in his room, Helen slipped out of her clothes.
“I got to turn on the TV,” the man said, apologetically. “I’m on a business trip. I probably shouldn’t be doing this.”
Helen lay down on top of the covers. She spread her legs. In the back of her mind she saw Eliza sitting on the doctor’s examining table. The familiar conversation: why hadn’t Eliza taken her medication?
“It hurts in my bones,” Eliza mumbled.
Helen tried to focus on the man taking off his trousers. Now he was leaning over to kiss her.
“It hurts my bones.” Eliza’s voice got louder, although her face remained incongruously expressionless.
Helen had replayed the scene a thousand times.
Again she was asking the doctor “Is there anything stronger?” She was thinking about Vandusen. She was thinking about the president. In your absence we realized the position of vice provost was redundant. Again the doctor was saying, “I could give her an injection of haloperidol. It’s an older drug. The medications she’s on target individual sites in the brain. Haloperidol has a wider effect.”
“Do it.” Helen spoke out loud.
“You sure you’re ready?” The man from the Keno machine asked. He seemed uncomfortable with his good luck. He wanted her, but was waiting for Helen to change her mind. The TV clamored in the background.
“Go,” she said.
She closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids, she saw Eliza’s doctor, a handsome man in his late thirties. Laugh lines at the corners of his mouth hinted at a sense of humor, politely tucked away. His ring finger was bare. This is my whole life. Every moment is created by Eliza. Every moment is ruined by Eliza.
“Give her something. I don’t care.”
“It has more pronounced side effects,” the doctor said. “You don’t have to decide now.”
“Do it.”
“Haloperidol has helped thousands of patients, but many have reported side effects. I can give you some literature, and you can talk this over with Eliza. Give it some thought.”
“Do it.”
The man shoved into Helen.
“Can you feel that?”
Helen’s eyes followed a crack in the ceiling. The man thrust his pelvis against hers.
“Harder,” Helen commanded. She had to get out of her memories.
She was in the examining room.
“No. No. No.” Eliza was standing up, shaking her head violently. “I don’t want it. They use it to torture the prisoners. They shoot them full of neuroleptics because they don’t believe in the system.”
“Who, Eliza? What system?”
“The Soviets. Tell them I believe in the system. It will make my face close up. And it hurts to sit down. It hurts to stand up.” Her voice got louder and louder. “It rips me up inside. It takes my soul away.”
Helen rolled up Eliza’s sleeve to reveal her bloated arm. “You will take it.”
The nurse swabbed Eliza’s skin. Suddenly, Eliza leapt from the examination table, stumbling into a cart, sending syringes and tongue depressors scattering to the floor. Looking around frantically, Eliza grabbed the biohazard disposal box from the wall. Its plastic mooring shattered, scattering red plastic fragments like drops of blood. Eliza pushed the box into the nurse’s chest.
“I’ll give you AIDS!” she bellowed. “I’ll stick you in the eye!”
The nurse dropped the vial and needle, and tried to grab Eliza’s wrists. Eliza was neither strong nor agile, but her bulk gave her an advantage, and she swung the plastic disposal box, knocking the nurse onto the table. Eliza raised the box to smash it over the nurse’s head. Helen threw her arms around her sister’s back, pinning her in an embrace.
“Hold on, little
sister,” she whispered. She kept repeating the words. “Hold on.”
Slowly, she felt Eliza’s body relax.
“It’s me. It’s Helen.”
For a moment, Eliza was motionless. Then the plastic box dropped to the floor. Eliza turned to face Helen and slumped in her arms.
“I would never hurt you, Lizzie. I would never let anyone hurt you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the nurse exit the room and return, a minute later, with the doctor and two orderlies.
“I love you, Eliza. Take the shot.”
On top of Helen, the man grunted and thrust. He had forgotten his inhibitions. His hips pumped faster and faster. The TV roared. A commercial for dish detergent, then for antiseptic hand wash. The weather outside was seventy–five degrees and clear. Helen couldn’t feel the man inside her, only his weight crushing her chest. She could not breathe. Help me, Helen.
She pushed the man off her and staggered to the window, fumbling for latches she hoped would be there. She needed fresh air, but the windows did not open. She turned, her back pressed to the glass. The man too was standing. The condom sagged like a sheath of dead skin.
“Get out.”
“I’m sorry. What happened? I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t.”
“I don’t want this,” Helen gasped. “It won’t help.”
Chapter Twenty
He sat with Hornsby in a corner of Washington Park, a quarter acre of grass circling a plastic play structure. The day was hot. The shade of an oak tree only changed the color of the heat. Hornsby was sweating. He feared it was not just the heat that turned the police chief’s face into an oily, red pool. Hornsby sat on the edge of the park bench, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“This isn’t right. I can’t do this.” Hornsby drew a deep breath. “The medical examiner’s report came in today. The legs don’t belong to the same woman. It’s the wrong blood type. The injuries don’t match. The legs belonged to a young woman. The body they found is probably thirty–five, forty. This makes things worse, not better. Now we have two dead women and no explanation.”
He wanted to shake comprehension into Hornsby’s skull. He wanted to grab Hornsby by the neck, to press his thumbs into Hornsby’s arteries, to feel the pulse panic in his throat. Hornsby still thought he could own both lives, the one in which he was a good man and the one in which Alisha lived. Instead, he sighed, as though the deaths weighed as heavily on him as they did on Hornsby.
He let the silence speak, then said, “I was talking to Dr. Le Farge today. He said the first test group returned for their annual check–up. One hundred percent remission. In most cases, there was no sign that cancer had ever been present. They’re starting the next round of tests in October.”
He let the words hang in the air.
“That’s amazing,” Hornsby said. “If I could have Alisha whole, healthy…”
“I can count on your cooperation?”
Hornsby’s bloodshot eyes darted back and forth like those of a frightened animal. “What do you mean?”
“I told you. I want the legs to match.”
Hornsby slumped. “You know I can’t. If we don’t investigate this, more women might be killed.” Hornsby was pleading with his own conscience. “We thought it was just an isolated instance. We can’t ignore the new evidence. You can’t be asking for that?”
He had to be clear. “I’ve already bought Alisha’s way into the trial, and I’m prepared to pay your expenses and hers. But I could pull her. I could tell Dr. Le Farge she died. I could tell him you had second thoughts.”
“You wouldn’t.” Hornsby’s voice cracked.
On the other side of the park, a woman appeared pushing a stroller. Beside her, a child of about four jogged along the sidewalk.
Very quietly, he said, “I am offering a guarantee for Alisha. She gets a place in Tier 1 of the study. She gets the full treatment. She gets to live. But her life is worth a great deal. You said you would make this go away.”
“That was before the second body.” Hornsby looked frightened. “Why do you care so much?”
“I care about Pittock and how we look to the rest of the world.”
“You know who did it.” Realization swept across Hornsby’s face like a curtain opening on a stage. The police chief stood up. “I will not cover up a crime. You have to tell me who did it.”
Across the park, the woman with the baby stroller put a protective hand on her child’s head, though she wasn’t really worried. She trusted the police. They protected her sleepy town. Or so she thought and would always think. The world was full of mules.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “If I knew who did this, I would tell you. Case closed. That’s what I want. I just want this out of the media, and the fastest way to do that is solve the crime. It helps you. It helps Pittock.”
He waved to the mother. She waved back.
“Plus, you already said yes.” He stood, putting a hand on Hornsby’s shoulder. The muscles in Hornsby’s back twitched. “I’ve already bought Alisha’s place in the trial. If the city council finds out, you’ll never work again. Not here. Not as a cop. Not anywhere. You can’t afford the COBRA on that insurance plan and the Mass plan won’t cover additional treatment for Alisha. In six months, you won’t be able to afford a morphine drip while she dies in the one–room trailer you’ve moved her into. She’ll die in agony because you wouldn’t help her.”
He moved his arm around Hornsby. An embrace. From a distance, the gesture would look friendly, a kind companion offering comfort before leaving his friend to private grief. He leaned down and whispered, “Before she dies, wherever you go, I’ll find her, and I will tell her. You could have saved her life, spared her suffering, but you didn’t, because you were proud.”
“People will ask…”
“There is only one question that matters. How much pain can Alisha bear?”
Chapter Twenty-one
To Helen’s frustration, Hornsby had summoned a crowd of reporters to the small cinderblock building that housed the Pittock Police department. By the time she arrived—also at Hornsby’s behest—they’d formed a wall in front of the door, and she had to muscle her way through. Once inside, Hornsby brushed off her request for a conference.
“I wish you had contacted me earlier,” she said.
“Come outside,” he said. “I’m only going to say this once.”
Before Helen could stop him, he was out the door.
“Sorry,” Margie the dispatcher called from her seat behind the counter. “He’s in a mood.”
The only thing left was to stand at Hornsby’s side and hear his news. It was the same story Drummond had told her, only delivered with more vehemence.
“We are certain of our findings,” Hornsby spat, as though doubt and uncertainty had been the fault of the gathered reporters. “This concludes the case. We are grieved by this tragic accident.”
He sounded angry, not sad, and Helen briefly wondered if he’d wanted a bigger win. Had he wanted to arrest a serial killer? Did he secretly hope this was the last in a rash of unsolved killings across the country? Had he seen his name in lights? It was hard to imagine, given his bloodshot eyes and stooped shoulders, but maybe he had ambitions.
Helen tried to look both serious and pleased, and when it came time to shake Hornsby’s hand for the cameras, she placed her other hand on his shoulder. See? She smiled at the assemblage. We’re great friends.
But they weren’t. Later, she sat in her office, the phone tucked under her ear, with Terri on the other end.
“There have got to be real answers.” She’d just finished telling him about the discovery of the body. She sighed. “I’m not satisfied.”
“Why not?”
Helen gazed out her window. The sidewalks that crossed the quad were packed with students toting bags and wheeling micro–fridges. She thought she saw a keg go by. They were so unruly and so charming. She wanted to gather them up in the cafeteria, bar the door a
nd stand guard until she knew they were safe.
“There was that guy from the devotees group…”
“You think he has something to do with this?”
“Patrick confirmed it. The posts in the devotees’ forum came from campus.”
“Do you have records of who uses the school computers and when?”
“We tried, but they were made under a public user name. The school’s got an account for community members and students who forget their password. They whole town knows it. Username: Pittock. Password: College. Anyone can log onto those computers.”
“You know,” Terri said. “the Internet is like other people’s sex lives. Poke around long enough, and you’ll find something hideous. Any day. Anywhere.”
“Thanks for that uplifting insight.”
“You could just leave this to the police.”
“Isn’t it my job to keep the college safe?”
“Yes, but it’s the police department’s job to solve crimes.”
“What if they’re not?” Helen spoke quietly. “What if they’re not looking into this? They’re saying it’s a suicide. They’re saying she tied herself to the railroad tracks and just waited for the train to run over her. I can’t imagine someone doing that.”
There was a long pause filled with Los Angeles traffic on Terri’s end of the line. “Helen, of course you can imagine that,” his voice was gentle. “That’s what Eliza did.”
It wasn’t exactly what Eliza did, though it was close enough.
“You went through a lot with Eliza,” Terri went on. “It’s bound to color your perceptions.”
“You think I’m going crazy, like she did.”
“I think you want a rational explanation, even if it’s an awful one. I think it’s easier for you to accept an act of violence than to figure out why a young woman would kill herself. Why Eliza killed herself. Why no one could save her. Not even you.”
There was a rational explanation for Eliza’s suicide. Terri had given it to her a year and a half earlier. He hadn’t meant to. He’d just been talking, trying to shed some positive light on Eliza’s madness in his own academic way.
The Admirer Page 10