Silent Witness (13 page)

‘I know how hard this has been,' Mr. Marks began, and adjusted his glasses. ‘All the more because you're playing basketball – as long as you do that, you're always on display.'

‘It helps keep me sane.' Tony hesitated, wondering how to explain. ‘For a couple of hours, I can almost forget . . .'

‘I understand.' Mr. Marks shifted in his chair. ‘But aside from whatever problem you have with students, I'm sure you realize that some parents are worried about their daughters' safety. Unnecessarily, I'm sure, but you understand how these things get started. I wanted to counsel you about this.'

Suddenly Tony saw where this was headed. ‘I'm innocent, Mr. Marks. Maybe you should counsel them.'

Mr. Marks pursed his mouth. ‘You've been a topflight student – and citizen. But I wonder if what's best is for you to spend these last few months in another school. I can't help human nature, Tony, and I worry for you.'

Silent, Tony stared at the principal, feeling the anger of this betrayal overtake him. ‘Aren't you worried that the scholarship committee at Harvard might think I'd done something wrong?' He reached across the desk, wrote Saul Ravin's telephone number on a piece of paper, and looked into the principal's face. ‘That's my lawyer's number, Mr. Marks. Give it to anyone who has a problem with me being here.'

The principal had nothing more to say.

The next afternoon, his English teacher, Jack Burton, returned Tony's recommendation for the scholarship committee. Nothing had been written on it.

Tony stared at it, then at Mr. Burton. The bearded young teacher was apologetic, yet adamant. ‘I've struggled with my conscience, Tony. I believe in the presumption of innocence. But with this tragedy of Alison's death hanging over you, what can I say in good faith – or not say – about your character . . . ?'

For a moment, Tony was speechless; until Alison's death, Jack Burton had encouraged him, and Tony's grades had remained strong. ‘I'm not a murderer, Mr. Burton. I need this for college.'

‘For
Harvard
. There are other, cheaper colleges.' Mr. Burton's manner softened. ‘Should the police clear this up for you, I'd be happy to give you a fine reference.'

Jack Burton was considered a rising young teacher, Tony knew; he recalled that Burton had been recruited from John Taylor's alma mater, at the Taylors' request. Tony felt his voice tremble. ‘You promised me a reference, and the deadline's next week. You
know
that.'

Burton flushed. ‘You caught me unprepared, Tony. Since then I've had time to reflect –'

‘About what? Alison died four months ago.'

When Burton did not answer, Tony felt the Taylors' unspoken presence. ‘That's all I have to say,' Burton said stiffly. ‘Perhaps others feel less strongly.'

Coach Jackson, who taught Tony geography, filled out the form.

He handed it to Tony impassively. ‘I told them you knew where Hanoi is,' he said. ‘They like that in the Ivy League . . .'

But the lighter moments, like this one, grew farther apart. Each new day without relief from suspicion, Tony found that going to school was more of a battle, his studies a greater struggle. Christmas vacation had felt like a reprieve.

As he always did, Tony bounced the ball three times. His mouth was dry, his palms were damp. His fingers felt like stubs.

Somewhere in the stands, Tony knew, his parents watched in silent agony. Staring at the basket, he took one deep breath and launched the ball. Even before he saw its arc, he knew.

It missed the rim entirely.

The sigh from the Lake City stands was like air leaking from a tire. It was drowned by jeers, catcalls, raucous laughter. ‘Pretend the ball is Alison's neck,' a Riverwood fan called out.

Tony bent, hands on knees. One more shot: whether Tony missed or made it, Riverwood would have six seconds to score the winning basket. Then – win or lose – Tony could leave the gym.

He looked around him at everything but the crowd: the scoreboard, the pennant, the blue banner hanging from the wall, recording in white letters the names of those chosen as Athlete of the Year. Then he gazed at the basket. He made himself see nothing, hear nothing, until this was like practice, and he did not feel his sweat, his pulse, his heartbeat. But when he raised the ball to shoot, he could feel the stiffness in his fingers.

Tony arched the ball.

Time seemed to stop. Then the ball hit the metal rim, caromed within, and softly settled in the net.

Forty-three to forty-two.

And then Riverwood had the ball, and Tony's man was by him, driving down the court for a last desperate shot. Sam Robb swooped from nowhere, stealing the ball . . .

The buzzer sounded.

Sam rushed to Tony. Facing the Riverwood stands, he raised Tony's arm in triumph. Then, just as with that winning catch, Sam thrust the basketball aloft in one large palm as if it were a football.

The beatific grin he gave the Riverwood crowd was to ensure that they could not miss it.

‘
Losers
 . . . ,' he called out to them, and then the Lake City stands took it up.

Feeling sick, Tony bowed his head, oblivious to the rising chant, the congratulations of team-mates. Then he walked slowly to the locker room.

As he showered, a jubilant Sam burst in. ‘Unbelievable,' he said in exultation. ‘Man, they love you.'

Tony washed the soap from his eyes. ‘No. They don't. They just hate losing worse. God help me if that crappy shot hadn't fallen.' When Sam looked deflated, Tony added, ‘Actually, you saved my ass. When that guy went past me, I was on Mars.'

Sam put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Tony, you've got to enjoy what you can enjoy. Believe me, I
know
how you feel, but you can't let what happened to Alison ruin your whole life. I hate seeing you like this.' Sam's eyes clouded. ‘I mean, someday they'll find the guy who did this, right? Then people won't suspect you anymore.'

Was it that
Sam
had begun suspecting him? Tony wondered. ‘Maybe so,' Tony answered. ‘Maybe not. But Alison will still be dead, and I'll still be different.' He paused, trying to explain. ‘It does something to you . . .'

Perhaps in acquiescence, perhaps in defeat, Sam nodded, dropping his hand. Tony dressed and walked to his car alone.

The parking lot was dark. Near his car, two figures waited; Tony thought of Sue and Alison, waiting on the night that Alison had died. Then one of the shadows stepped forward and became John Taylor.

Tony flinched. ‘You're a hero,' Alison's father said. His face looked sunken, older. His breath was mist in the air.

‘No.' Tony felt his own voice shake. ‘I'll never be a hero.'

John Taylor gripped his arm. The second figure, as slim as Alison, moved next to him. Her mother.

‘I'm not going to hurt you,' John Taylor said softly. ‘We just need to know what happened. For our own peace of mind.'

Alison's mother was a taut line. ‘Tell us the truth,' she urged. ‘Please. We won't go to the police.'

Through his fear, Tony felt a strange bond between them that the Taylors could not know existed, this terrible sadness that had changed all three of them. More than Sue and Sam, far more than the other students whose pleasures and anxieties he no longer shared, these people understood him. Yet only he could see it.

‘I want to know too,' Tony said. ‘I want to know who killed her.'

John Taylor's eyes narrowed in hatred. Stay clear of them, Saul had warned. Gently, Tony reached out and took the man's hand from his sleeve. ‘I'm sorry,' he said to Katherine Taylor.

Turning, Tony made himself walk the few feet to his car. He wondered if John Taylor had his revolver; back tensed, he waited for a gunshot.

Nothing happened. As he drove away, trembling now, Tony saw John Taylor stiffly embrace his wife. They looked as devastated as they had in the first moments after Alison's death.

A week later, one of the Taylors' neighbors presented a petition to the school board, asking it to expel Tony Lord.

The meeting was jammed. As Tony watched, flanked by his parents and Saul Ravin, John Taylor spoke for his expulsion.

‘I came here,' John Taylor told the board, ‘not to share our grief. I am here because Alison would be here, if she had breath to speak for other Alisons.'

Tony did not need to guess at the effect of her father's appropriation of Alison's voice against him; he could see it in the somber faces of the board. John Taylor paused to master his emotions. ‘Tonight you may hear much about the presumption of innocence. But it is
Alison
who was innocent, right to the moment I found the boy who she thought loved her bent over her dead body.

‘
All
of our daughters are innocent. And what Alison would ask for them, what I ask, is that their parents never look into the face of a daughter who has had the last breath strangled from her.'

Tony saw the school board president take off her reading glasses and close her eyes. Next to him, his own father and mother looked anguished.

‘In the sleepless nights that have followed, and seem never to end, I keep returning to a single question: What kind of a boy would murder a young girl for the simple crime of trusting him?'

Voice breaking, John Taylor briefly stopped, then went on. ‘I needed to make sense of what was senseless. In desperation, I went to three psychologists and asked them the same question: What kind of boy would do this terrible thing? It is their answer which has brought me here.'

In the stifling hush, the board was very still. ‘Because
that
kind of boy,' John Taylor said, ‘will do
this
kind of thing again.

‘I can't give you technical terms. But I can tell you what the experts say. That this kind of boy despises not one woman but
all
women. That this kind of boy is the slave of his own twisted impulses.' For the first time, John Taylor turned to Tony Lord. ‘That this kind of boy considers inflicting torment like Alison's his right and pleasure or, as frightening, believes that his brutal murder of a young girl is just a momentary, uncharacteristic lapse of self-control. A “lapse” which should not deprive him of whatever else he wants in life.

‘
This
' – John Taylor still stared at Tony – ‘is a monster whose worst acts may lie ahead of him, and all of
us
.'

Abruptly, Alison's father faced the board, his tone oddly informational. ‘If these monsters looked like monsters, we'd know to avoid them. But often they are plausible, even charismatic. That's how they get as close as this murderer got to Alison.

‘I did not start this petition. I did not even sign it.' Pausing, he touched the shoulder of his pale, stoic wife. ‘But our daughter's brutal death will have no meaning unless we learn that monsters must be labeled.

‘We found Tony Lord with our daughter's body at one o'clock in the morning. We learned what kind of boy would do this.' John Taylor raised his ravaged face to the board. ‘We did not learn in time to prevent our daughter's murder. You have.'

Abruptly, John Taylor turned to his wife, who was weeping now, and sat with her.

The soundless void that followed, barely punctuated by nervous coughs, felt like death to Tony. Only the knowledge of his innocence kept him where he was.

For two more hours, Tony stayed there. Coach Jackson spoke for him, and then Saul. At the end, the matter was tabled; the police had brought no charges, Saul argued, and the board should not prejudge Tony Lord. But only the threat of a lawsuit, Tony knew, had saved him.

Afterward, Saul took Tony to Lake City's only bar. They sat in a dark corner, half listening to the jukebox, half watching two retired truckers shoot pool. The stocky owner, George Corby, gave Tony a Coke without asking what he wanted; George let the high school boys shoot pool here but, respecting their parents, did not serve beer to minors. The police knew not to worry about George Corby, just as George Corby knew to stifle his surprise at seeing Tony Lord tonight.

To Tony, the trip from near expulsion to the Alibi Room was surreal. ‘You saved my ass,' he said to Saul.

Saul sipped his double whiskey slowly, like a man conserving his last glass of water. Finally, he said, ‘True. But I may not have done you any favor.'

‘I wasn't expelled –'

‘I didn't expect you to be. But stripped of hearts and flowers, our argument was, “Wait for the prosecutor to indict him.”' Pausing, Saul locked his eyes on Tony's. ‘That was all I had. But it's like a road map for John Taylor. Tonight he asked the board to give him a reason to believe that you're paying some sort of price. They didn't. Pressing the CP to indict you is the one thing he's got left. And you're all the
CP
seems to have.'

When another Coke arrived, Tony did not touch it.

‘Sorry,' Saul finished softly. ‘You've had too few good nights for me to ruin this one. But I want you to be every bit as careful as you have been. Because my guess is this is nowhere close to over. And, in some ways, it may never be.'

That night, Tony's nightmare began – the moment he found Alison dead, in terrible slow motion. In the dream, as in his life, Tony could do nothing.