The Dead Student (49 page)

She stole a sideways glance at Moth and realized
no she wouldn’t
. She thought curiously that he would have the oddest of lives—he would become a professor, teach history to undergraduates, attend faculty meetings, write biographies that just might make it onto best-seller lists, raise a family, and find all sorts of different levels of accomplishment and fame, and all the time he would remain silent about the night he killed a man. With justification, she hoped. That was assuming they could get away with it.

And assuming he wouldn’t return to alcoholism and drunkenly spill his story to a bartender somewhere.

This was a question she couldn’t answer. Nor could she any longer picture her own life to come. All she imagined was an ending, and that was this night. Dying scared her, but not nearly as much as killing did.

Moth, for his part, didn’t dare look over at Andy. He wanted her to run away. He wanted her to stay at his side. He could no longer tell what was right and what was wrong. All he could do was wait for slabs of dark night to grow a bit more thick and black and humid around them. To busy himself, because the waiting part made him want to scream like a banshee, he started to remove his filthy change of clothes from his backpack.

He heard Andy inhale sharply.

“There,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”

Moth saw the shape of a man—
their man?—
framed in the light that poured through the front door to the small bungalow. He was going out, locking the door behind him.

This was what Moth had hoped for. “It’s him,” Moth said coldly.

Moth felt his tongue instantly dry. Inwardly he screamed orders to himself:
Act! Think! This is the opportunity!
He croaked, “Stick to the plan. Follow him. Don’t let him see you. When he comes back, signal when he’s a block or two away.”

Moth was unsure whether watching a killer or waiting for a killer was more dangerous. He realized he didn’t have a choice.

Andy rose stealthily, and with a ballet dancer’s grace she moved through the graves, paralleling the man walking down Angela Street. Moth could just catch a glimpse of the target, unconcerned as he turned toward town. A few seconds later, Moth saw the floppy hat, following a safe distance behind, moving from shadow to shadow, staying behind the wide banyan trees whose twisted bodies guarded each sidewalk. Then he started to strip off his clothes.

48

Student #5 ate a nice piece of yellow snapper filet and washed it down with a glass of cold Chardonnay. As he ended his meal with a sweet and tangy slice of Key Lime pie and a small cup of decaf espresso, he sat at his outdoor table and watched couples walk by. It was warm and humid and the night air seemed slippery. He tried to catch bits of conversation—arguments, pleasantries, even the punch lines of jokes. There was some laughter, and more than once a
“Hurry up,”
although one of the virtues of Key West was that there was precious little to ever hurry for. From time to time young people on rented motor scooters buzzed by, and he could hear carefree voices raised above the angry-bee sounds of the bikes. It was, he thought, a typical resort-town night: loose and easy.

He paid the waitress and stepped out onto the sidewalk, half-wishing he had a cigar to celebrate with, unsure whether celebration was actually in order quite yet. Leisurely walking the half-dozen blocks home, he whistled, thinking he probably should save his tune for when he arrived at the cemetery. Salamanders scuttled away from his feet. He was inordinately
pleased with his decision. He had, he thought, once again assigned purpose to his life.

Preoccupied with killing plans, Student #5 hardly registered the sound of the foghorn coming from some distance behind him. Three sharp blasts faded up into the starry night sky.

Andy Candy had her back against a banyan tree, hiding in its dark folds. She listened to the foghorn blasts dissipate around her. She did not know if the noise would carry far enough to warn Moth or not. They were
supposed
to, but she was uncertain. She patiently counted to thirty, to give the target a little more time to add distance and just in case he’d heard the warning blasts, been curious, and turned around to look. Then she stuffed the foghorn into a waste container next to a house, tossing it in with bags of trash and empty beer bottles. She did not feel like an assassin completely, but she realized she was getting closer.

She picked up her pace, a quick march, hoping to silently and anonymously close the space between her and death.

The three peals were like triggers. They seemed odd, faraway noises from some other world, but he knew what they signaled.
He’s on his way and nearly home.
Moth tried to blank everything from his head except actions.
Don’t think about what you’re doing. Just do it.
He gave himself shrill orders, like a drill sergeant frustrated with a raw recruit:

Put the clean clothes in the backpack. Shove it next to the grave. Remember the name on the headstone, the numbered row of graves, the distance to the entry gate so you can find it again. Hurry.

Empty the bottle of vodka on the ground. Pour some of the Scotch on your chest. Drain the rest out so you have two empty bottles. Don’t let the smell of the liquor intoxicate you.

Check the .357 Magnum. Fully loaded. Safety off. Hold it tight.

Run
.

He sprinted amidst the gravestones, reminded of football practice in
high school when cruel coaches added laps as punishment for perceived errors. He could hear his shoes slapping against the pathways and he nearly stumbled once. In one hand he had the weapon, in the other the two now-empty bottles of booze. He raced toward the house.

The killer’s home had a small porch with four steps. In front of it was a little garden area, enclosed by a white thigh-height picket fence. The fence was merely decorative, not really designed to keep people out. But it created a small, concealed space. Moth vaulted the fence. A small cone of weak light marked the porch, but stopped at the top step. Ferns and large fronds filled the tiny garden. Moth dropped to his knees and shoved himself into the bushes, curling into the fetal position. He tugged his beaten baseball cap down over his head and pulled up his neck buff so his face was obscured. He held the gun in his right hand, hidden beneath his body. In his left, outstretched haphazardly, was the bottle of Scotch. The bottle of vodka he tossed a few feet away, onto the small brick walkway leading to the stairs.

Moth thought:
Well, not many people have done more auditions for appearing to be a passed-out drunk than I have.

Then he waited. Heart racing in his chest, a pounding in his temples, his breathing shallow, sweat gathering on his forehead, the night heat weighing down upon him like a huge white-hot stone. He closed his eyes; he imagined he’d soon be blinded by anxiety anyway. His hearing, however, was sharpened, more acute than it had ever been before.

Footsteps. Closing.

He inhaled sharply. Held it.

Heard: “God damn it. Fucking drunks.”

Knew—through experience:
First he will kick me.

The gathering that night at Redeemer One seemed distracted, impatient. Susan Terry shifted in her seat as one after the other regular attendees rose, proclaimed their days of sobriety, spoke about their latest struggles. She heard the usual successes and failures, hopes mingled with sadness. It was
a typical night, she thought, except for the undercurrent of unease. More than once she caught the others staring quizzically in her direction, anticipating the moment when it would be her turn to share.

Sandy, the corporate lawyer, was finishing up. She was telling a variation on her usual theme: whether her teenage children could learn to trust her again.
Trust
was a euphemism, Susan understood, for
love.

The woman’s story seemed to fade away, losing color and heft, and finally she stalled. Susan saw her glance first at the philosophy professor, then at Fred the engineer, meeting eyes with just about everyone in the room before landing on her.

“Enough of my usual bullshit,” Sandy said briskly. “I think we need to hear from Susan.” There was a brief murmur of assent.

“Susan?” said the assistant priest running the gathering.

Susan rose up, a little unsteadily. She had prepared all sorts of explanations and excuses, even considered mingling some fiction into her latest story—all designed to follow Moth’s admonition to be memorable this night. She had not formed the word
alibi
in her head—although as an expert in criminal law, she knew that was precisely what she was hoping to create. But as she looked out, she suddenly realized how silly everything she had planned to say would sound.

Still, she was obligated to begin. “Hello, my name is Susan and I’m an addict. I have a couple of days sober now, but I don’t know if this time counts, because of the painkillers the doctors prescribed for me …” She gestured toward her broken arm.

“You shouldn’t take anything. If it hurts, suck it up and tough it out,” Fred the engineer said, cutting in with an unfamiliar harshness.

Susan was unsure how to continue. As she started to stumble for words, the philosophy professor stifled her with a furious swipe of his hand, as he might have in restoring order to an unruly classroom.

“Where,” he asked sharply, “is Moth?”

Andy Candy broke into a sprint.

Whatever was happening in front of the house on darkened Angela
Street, she knew she had to be there. Her imagination filled to overflow—the killer they hunted was probably armed, the killer they hunted was far more clever than they, the killer they hunted was practiced, astute, experienced, unlikely to be taken by surprise by a couple of amateurs at the game of murder. She pictured Moth bloody, shot—no, stabbed—no, ripped somehow limb from limb, breathing his last. He was a
history student,
for Christ’s sake—what did Moth know about killing? She—at the least—had watched her father the vet put dozens of animals
to sleep
—the nice way of saying
to death
. And she had been at his side when all the life support hoses, wires, and attachments had been shut down.

That wasn’t all: She had, just a short time ago, lain beneath a bright clinic light, head back, eyes half-closed, barely hearing the nurses and the physician as life was taken out of her. It suddenly dawned on Andy Candy that she was the one who knew what to do. She nearly panicked, thinking:
I should have been in charge. I should have planned this.
She knew she had to get there, as fast as possible, to help guide Moth before he got killed.

“Moth is …” Susan Terry hesitated. She looked around the room. She swallowed hard, and said, “Moth is on his own. He wants to confront the man he believes killed his uncle.”

She remained standing. But the people in the room exploded around her. She was inundated with cries, some as indistinct as the simple “What the hell!” or as scathing as “You let him do
what
?”

When the initial flurry of responses seemed to slow, Susan tried to respond: “He didn’t give me much choice. I wanted him to go to the authorities, help create a prosecutable case against the man. But he was headstrong and determined, and he cut me out of the decision …”

This last bit seemed decidedly weak.

“ ‘Determined’?” Fred the engineer asked. His voice was cold and unforgiving.

“Haven’t you learned anything about addiction by coming to these meetings?” This from Sandy.

Susan looked confused.

“We all depend on honesty and each other. It’s not the only way to defeat addiction, but it’s an important way. And you abandoned Moth? Let him go off on his own? Why didn’t you just hand him a bottle or maybe pour out a couple of lines? It would kill him just the same,” Sandy said in a voice filled with contempt.

“The whole point of coming here is for all of us to help each other
avoid
risks,” Fred said sharply. “And you’ve let Moth—one of us, for crying out loud!—go off all alone? What were you thinking?”

Susan was about to say something about Andy Candy. But she believed that Moth’s need to avenge his uncle’s death was solely his. Her voice wavered as she spoke. “Timothy is right. Successfully prosecuting this man—this killer—would be well-nigh impossible. There. That’s my professional opinion. And pursuing this man … well, it’s kept Timothy sober. It’s …”

She stopped there. What she was saying was either incredibly true or incredibly false. She no longer knew.

The philosophy professor jumped in.

“What do you think is happening with Moth right now?” he demanded.

“Right now?” She was suddenly aware that she was sweating. She felt like a high-intensity light was shining in her eyes and blinding her. She whispered her reply:

“He’s facing a killer.”

The room exploded again.

The first was a little toe nudge.

Don’t move. Just groan a bit. Wait for it.

The second was a sharper kick.

“Get up, damn it. Get the hell off my property.”

Another fake groan. Finger on the trigger. Two choices: He will kick a third time or else he will bend down and shake you. Either way, be ready.

“Come on, let’s go …”

Hand on my shoulder. A hard tug.

Moth rocked over suddenly, changing from crumpled sidewalk drunk to determined assassin. His left hand dropped the empty bottle of Scotch
and shot up to grab the front of the killer’s shirt, pulling him off-balance and dragging him down to one knee. The man grunted in surprise, but Moth’s right hand shot out, with the pistol extended, thrusting it up under the killer’s chin. “Don’t move,” he said quietly. Despite his calm voice, his tongue was thickening and fear was racing through his core.