The Dead Student (52 page)

No one said anything, but each member of the group at Redeemer One stood up, even the priest.

Andy Candy wanted to sit, or maybe lean up against a wall, perhaps even lower herself to the hardwood floor and close her eyes. At the same time,
she wanted to run in place, do sit-ups and push-ups, leap into the air or find a piece of jump rope and use it while singing some childhood exercise rhyme:
“Blue bells, cockle shells, easy Ivy over” …
She was exhausted and energized, terrified, yet calm.

She moved stealthily through the kitchen and saw nothing but kitchen. Into the bathroom, seeing nothing but bathroom. It was a small house, barely larger than an apartment, with only two bedrooms down a windowless corridor. She opened closets; the only one that held anything was in the master bedroom, and it contained just a minimal amount of clothing on hangers. She took some tissue paper and used that to cover her fingers as she opened drawers and poked around.
A killer’s underwear, T-shirts, and socks.
She didn’t know whether the tissue would prevent her from leaving any traces of her presence behind. She doubted it, but amateur hour that it was, she could think of no other approach.

Andy didn’t want to be scared, but every minute that passed, fear grew within her—not just because they were lingering in a killer’s home, but because she could find
nothing
that said
anything
about who the man seated in his favorite chair in the living room actually was.

She hadn’t exactly known what to expect. Perhaps a closet filled with weapons? A wall of paintings devoted to killers, from Caligula to Vlad the Impaler through John Dillinger and Ted Bundy? She had no idea what she was searching for, although she knew her search was somehow necessary. She ransacked her memory, going to movie images, popular novels, television and theater, but couldn’t recall anything actually set in murderers’ houses that displayed items that unequivocally stated who they were and what they did.
Please, there must be something.
It wasn’t like expecting to see law books on a lawyer’s desk, or medical texts lining the walls of a doctor’s office. There was no architect’s diploma and certificate on the wall. There wasn’t even a restaurant menu hung up prominently.

The last room was set up as a guest room.
Did killers invite friends to stay over?
She stepped inside quietly. There was a futon with a bright multicolored print cover, a small desk, and a chair. It was sparse, almost monastic. She was about to turn away when she noticed the laptop computer.
There’s something,
she thought. She looked around and saw a wireless printer stuck in a corner on the floor. There were a few stray sheets of paper next to it.

She approached these objects as if they were sharp-edged and dangerous.

“Why did I kill your uncle? What makes you think I did?”

“Don’t screw around. Just tell me the truth.”

“You believe I’m capable of murder, but not capable of lying to you?”

“I don’t think people staring at a loaded pistol tend to lie,” Moth replied.

“Ah, you’re wrong about that, Timothy. That’s precisely when people do lie. Enthusiastically. Flagrantly. Pleading and begging. Lies and lies and lies. But, leaving that aside, why would you believe the truth would help you?” The killer continued to speak in a bemused voice. He pushed forward slightly, so he was perched on the edge of the chair. It unsettled Moth immensely, increased his anxiety. He could feel sweat gathering on the back of his neck. He tried to impose a chill into his replies, to hide his shakiness.

“I’m the one asking the questions,” Moth said stiffly. He moved the pistol barrel slightly to underscore his point. He thought for a moment that he sounded like he was caught up in some John Ford Western from the ’40s.
“Smile when you say that, pardner …”

The two were seated a few feet apart. The only light in the room was from a single lamp on a table that left most of the room in shadows. Moth thought every word spoken increased the darkness. A paddle fan rotated lazily above them, stirring air that seemed preternaturally calm.

Student #5 stared hard at him. He kept his eyes lifted beyond the angle of the gun barrel, almost as if he could ignore it and make it disappear. “All right,” he said. “I didn’t kill your uncle.”

“Stop the crap, I know—”

“What do you know, Timothy?” Student #5 said, turning abruptly harsh, emphasizing every syllable of Moth’s name:
Tim-O-See.
“You don’t know anything. But let me make this simple, maybe even simple enough for a history student to understand. Or simple enough for a drunk to understand:
I didn’t kill your uncle.
”

Moth thought he might be dizzy. The room seemed to spin, but he said, “You might consider this: That explanation is the only thing between you and dying.”

Once again, Moth surprised himself with the determination in his voice. He had no idea where it came from, and it seemed a little like it was someone else speaking. It was all entirely false.

“Your uncle killed himself,” Student #5 said.

Susan Terry looked at the group of alcoholics and addicts surrounding her, standing shoulder to shoulder, some with linked hands, in what to any outside observer would have appeared to be a prayer. But she knew it had nothing to do with asking the Almighty for help. She understood that she was being asked to examine her route forward. She could join or she could walk away, but failing to make a decision was not an option. It was as if she could see two entirely different lives mapped out in front of her. Both were deeply flawed. Both were dangerous. Both were filled with compromise and pain. Indulge her weakness. Try to find her strength. As simple as that. As complex as that.

She inhaled sharply.

Choose now!
she screamed to herself.

Moth sputtered his reply: “That’s crazy.”

“Do I act like a crazy person?” Student #5 asked.

“No. But I know you killed—”

Student #5 shrugged, a motion that interrupted Moth. “I was there. Perhaps I even pulled the trigger. But your uncle killed himself.”

Student #5 hid a smile. Every bit of confusion and doubt he could sow was a point scored in the psychological game. He was reminded of a scene in a movie—an Oscar-winning film from long before Timothy Warner was born. In
The French Connection,
the actor Gene Hackman played a police detective named Popeye Doyle. He would demand of suspects, “Did you ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?” It was a wonderful, nonsensical, utterly incomprehensible question. It rendered the people being
interrogated speechless with astonished doubt as they tried to sort through their confusion to an answer, never having been in Poughkeepsie, New York, and having no idea what was meant by picking one’s feet.

Student #5 was using a variation on the same theme.

“You killed the others, too,” Moth objected.

“No. They, too, killed themselves.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It depends on your perspective. You would agree that actions have consequences?”

“Yes.”

Student #5 lifted his hands in a dismissive gesture. “What they did to me in the past defined their futures. They killed me. Or killed who I was and what I was meant to be. Same thing as outright murder. In doing that, they effectively wrote their own death warrants. Same thing as killing themselves, no?”

The logic of revenge and murder twisted in Moth’s head. He could
see
that argument. He wanted to disagree, but could not.

“So, Timothy, your uncle Ed merely paid the price for an obligation he’d owed for years. No more, no less. As a psychiatrist, he understood that completely in his last moments.”

Moth felt pummeled. The killer’s rationale was spoken with such undebatable precision that he was at a loss for a reply. He felt weak and suddenly even more afraid, about not only what he’d done, but what he was going to do. He teetered on a familiar brink of doubt, one that usually resulted in a trip to a bar and enough alcohol to make him forget why he was doing what he was doing. He knew he had to change the direction of the conversation.
If you want to kill him,
he thought,
best to create something different.

His mind was racing through possible replies just as Andy Candy walked into the back of the room. She had a single sheet of paper in her hand.

“Kill him,” she said shakily. “Kill him now.”

51

Don’t think. Take aim. Pull the trigger.

He didn’t act.

Whatever her sudden reasons were for saying what she had, he knew she was right. He should fire the gun, grab Andy Candy by the hand, and flee. Never look back.

Moth immediately regretted not instantly doing what Andy told him to. A part of him understood that he needed to act impulsively in order to kill. That moment had come and gone, and he was wildly unsure whether he could re-create it.
Am I a killer?
he demanded of himself.
Well, not too long ago I was doing a fine job of killing myself. Of course, that’s not the same thing. Is it?
Wrapped in conflicted thoughts, Moth caught a quiver in the man’s languid, easygoing facade. For a moment, the killer across from him had been scared.
That’s something,
he told himself. But what that
something
was he didn’t know.

Andy Candy stepped farther into the room. She moved slowly, as if reluctant to get too close. Her voice was stretched thin. “Kill him now,” she repeated, but this time softly, as if she was fading beneath the man’s stare.

Moth quietly asked, “Andy, what is it?”

She seemed to be staggering. She lurched next to Moth and thrust a single sheet of paper in front of him.

It was a printout of a page taken from the “Prosecutor’s Directory” at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Major Crimes. Susan Terry, Chief Assistant. A nice, full-color photograph, not unlike a high school yearbook picture, accompanied by her bio and a list of some of her more prominent cases. It was the sort of page that exists on almost every such website. There was little special about it other than one obvious detail: It was in the possession of a killer.

“It’s Susan,” Andy said shakily. Then she added, accurately: “But it’s also us.”

Moth understood its implications. Something that was speculation had changed into a reality. He looked over at the killer. “Jesus,” he said. “You’ve already started.”

Before replying, Student #5 took a second to assess the situation.
The Nephew hesitates. The Girlfriend is disintegrating. He clings to doubt. She is scared. Stay calm. Your moment will arrive.
When he spoke, his voice had dropped some of the toying pretense. Now it was ice cold, and each word was as sharp as a weapon.

“I like to know who I’m up against,” Student #5 said.

There was silence. Moth was aware that Andy was breathing heavily at his side.

“Do you even know who I am?” Student #5 asked.

Moth’s head reeled. He thought he’d learned a great deal, but right at this moment, he believed he knew nothing.

Andy Candy stammered a reply: “Your name is Stephen Lewis. You’ve killed more than a half-dozen people …”

“No,” Student #5 said evenly. “Stephen Lewis has killed no one.”

She stepped forward slightly, waving her hand as if she could dismiss this reply. “We were there, when the trailer exploded and—”

“That man is dead. The man who lived there.”

“We were there when you shot Doctor Hogan …”

“The man who performed that murder is dead.”

“When Moth’s uncle died …”

“All dead.”

Andy’s voice started to get frantic. She waved her arms. “These are bullshit arguments that don’t mean anything …”

“You are wrong, Miss Martine. You are completely mistaken. They mean everything.”

She stopped mid-wave.

“The man you see before you has no connection to any of those deaths. Right now, I am Stephen Lewis, happy-go-lucky, never-hurt-a-fly drug dealer who made a single big score like more than one person down here, walked away, and is now an independently wealthy resident of Angela Street in Key West and coincidentally a completely law-abiding citizen of the state of Florida. I’m a member of Greenpeace and a reliable contributor to progressive causes. You have absolutely no right or reason to kill me.”

“We know who you really are,” Moth said. Some of the frantic tones he’d heard in Andy’s voice had crept into his.

“And you imagine that will justify what you do?”

“Yes.”

“Think twice, history student.”

He couldn’t even think once.

The room grew quiet, before Student #5 said: “I won before you even arrived here. I won every step of the way—because I was right about what I did, and you are wrong. You don’t have any choices left, Timothy. The gun in your hand is useless, because if you pull that trigger and try to kill me, you will take your life just as effectively as you take mine. You are the criminals here tonight, not me. This state still has the death penalty. But maybe you will only go to prison for the remainder of your life. Poor choice, that.”

Again silence. Moth realized that the killer was saying almost exactly what Susan the prosecutor had said. The same warning. Opposite sources.

“And even were you to get up in court and claim you killed me out of a sense of revenge—well, can’t you just hear someone telling a jury:
‘What right did he have to take the law into his own hands?’
”

Moth didn’t reply, at first; he thought hard, then said: “You took the law into your hands.”

“No I didn’t. The people I pursued didn’t break any law. They were guilty of something far greater. They made their choices and then they paid their debt. That’s not your situation, is it, Timothy?”