The Dead Student (53 page)

Moth swallowed hard. He had imagined much about this evening—but a conversation about psychological truths versus legal truths had not been something he’d considered.
I am lost,
he said to himself. He wanted to hide.

“No, Timothy, the truth is, you are screwed either way. You were screwed the moment you arrived here.”

“If we walk away …” Moth started. Weak.

Student #5 shook his head.

“We could take all we know to the police,” Moth continued. Weaker.

“Has that worked out for you before?”

“No.”

“But even if they did follow up on what you say, what will they find should they actually listen to your crazy story?” Moth didn’t answer, so Student #5 filled in the silence. “They will find some signs of an innocent man who no longer exists. And that will be where their trail ends.”

Again the room grew quiet. It was Andy who finally croaked out: “Are you going to kill us?”

Student #5 recognized the provocative nature of this question. It was the last, crucial question. He knew if he said
no
they would not believe him, no matter how much they might want to. If he said
yes
then they might pull the trigger, because they had nowhere else to turn, no move left on the chessboard of death. And so, he decided on uncertainty.

“Should I?” he asked, returning the nonchalant tone to his voice even as he tensed every muscle in his body.

Moth felt like he was swimming, exhausted, barely able to keep his head above a darkened sea of doubts. He tried to picture his uncle’s dead body, hoping that this vision would give him the strength to do what he knew
he needed to do, even if it was wrong and touched on the same evil that had fueled him all the way to this room.

Andy Candy felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. Nothing was right. Nothing was fair. Everything that she had once imagined for her life had evaporated.
Fog surrounds me,
she thought.
I am trapped in a burning building being overcome by great clouds of smoke.
The only future she had was staring across the room at her. “Kill him,” she whispered, without conviction.

“You are not killers,” said the killer in front of them. “You should not attempt to be what you are not.”

“Kill him,” Andy repeated, even softer.
Can Moth fire a bullet into the cancer that killed my father? Can he shoot the arrogant date-rapist who pitched me into despair? Can he kill both our pasts so we can start anew?

“I think this evening, interesting as it has been, is finished. Timothy, take your friend Andrea and leave now. Best to hope we never see one another again.”

“Can you promise that?”

“There’s no promise I can make that you would believe. You might want to believe it. You will try to persuade yourself to believe it. But all that is delusion. Really you can only hope that is the case. And that hope—well, that hope is your best option.”

Moth looked at the gun in his hand. In all his studies—of great men and great events—he knew about risks and uncertainty. Nothing was ever certain. Nothing was ever sure. Every choice had unseen outcomes. But the choice of not acting was the only one that was crippling.

He lifted his eyes. “Let me ask you a question, Mister Lewis—or whoever you decide to be tomorrow. If I kill you now—whose fault really is it?”

An existential question. A psychological question. The exact same question the killer had demanded of his uncle.

Student #5 knew the only true answer was,
Mine.

And in that same instant, Student #5 knew the game he was playing had abruptly changed. If he answered correctly, it would give a murderous
license to the historian in front of him. And there was no convenient lie that might shove the question into some safer spot.

“Whose fault is it?” Moth repeated.

He waited for the reply.

“Kill him,” Andy repeated, for the last time. But this time she added, “Please …” She didn’t think she had the strength to say those words again. The words came out of her mouth like kicked gravel. Her voice sounded weak, sickly, as if she was going to pass out.

And, in that same moment, Moth made his first and worst mistake. He heard all the built-up pain in Andy’s voice and, distracted by the river of emotions, turned slightly to the girl he had loved, now loved, and imagined he would always love, taking his eyes off the killer before them.

Student #5 had always prided himself on the ability to act. Even with all his planning, scheming, and analysis, he recognized there were moments when the demands of the moment required action. Instantly, he saw his opportunity:
Eyes averted. Concentration lapsed. Finger resting beside the trigger, not on it.
He had trained himself physically and mentally for this moment, seen it in his head on more than one occasion, and didn’t hesitate.

He exploded.

Thrusting himself out of the chair, Student #5 threw himself the few feet between his chest and the gun barrel.

Andy didn’t scream—but she shouted in shock.

Moth, too, cried out, in sudden panic. He tried to tell himself,
Shoot!
But the moment was fumbled.

And then, he and Student #5 were locked together.

The chair Moth occupied smashed backward, as the two of them instantly tumbled to the floor. A stray shoulder and wildly flung forearm caught Andy across the bridge of her nose, and she slammed sideways, crunching against the wall in a heap. She was overcome by panic and the shock of pain and she clasped her hands over her ears, as if the sounds of the fight threatened to deafen her. In her vision, amidst the shadows, Moth and the killer had become one entity, a hydra-like murder beast rolling on
the floor. She could see kicking, punching, blows flying—but she lost sight of the gun. It had disappeared, trapped between the two fighters.

Moth was beneath the killer, feeling Student #5’s weight bearing down on him. He kicked up, trying to bring a knee to the groin, anything that might turn the fight in his favor. He knew one thing: He could not release his grip on the gun—although he could barely tell whether he was still attached to it or not. His thoughts were like electric currents, sparking wild arcs.

The gun is death.

No matter what happens, do not lose it.

His right hand was wrapped around the pistol handle, a death grip in more ways than one. He tried to get his left hand free, to ward off the cascade of blows slamming down upon him. At the same time, he felt the killer’s hand encircling his own, around the gun’s grip, twisting his index finger savagely, threatening to break it. He could feel the killer’s thumb trying to force its way inside the trigger guard. He could feel the barrel moving—away from the killer, toward his own chest—and he realized he was millimeters from dying.

Moth tried to shout, but words were stifled as the killer’s free hand punched at him, then found his throat and started to choke him.

Student #5 battled—all his expensive tae kwon do and yoga training had made him exceptionally strong and well educated in points of vulnerability—but Moth’s wiry muscles rendered the struggle oddly even. Student #5 fought furiously, one hand grasping for the gun—
Get the gun! Kill them both!
—the other trying to encircle Moth’s neck and choke him into unconsciousness.

Using all his weight and strength, Student #5 thrust down and felt the steel of the weapon, and knew he was seconds away from jamming it against Moth’s abdomen and shooting. He expected he might wound himself as well—but he didn’t fear injury. Small price. He felt no fear at all, just a cold-minded singleness of purpose. And he knew he was about to win.

Moth could sense blackness creeping over him. Oblivion seemed near.
I’m going to die here now.
He struggled, gathering whatever he had left
inside him and trying to concentrate it on the gun in his hand. But he could feel it all slipping away. He had faced so many ends with bottle in hand; that was how he thought he would die. Those moments were all lies.

This was death.

He felt his eyes start to roll back and he tried to swallow a last breath, lungs screaming for air.

He wanted to shout,
No, no, no, I don’t deserve this,
but he could not.

In that second, there was a sudden rogue wave that struck him with immense power.

It was Andy Candy, slamming into the killer from the side. She hit him first with her shoulder, the way she imagined a football linebacker would, crashing the three of them sideways into a tangled heap on the floor. She wrapped her arms around Student #5’s neck, pulling back as hard as she could, thinking only that she had to separate the killer from Moth before the boy who had been her only love was murdered.

In that second, the dying equation changed. Student #5 let out a grunt that was almost a shout. He released his hand from Moth’s throat and reached behind himself to claw at Andy Candy. But his nails only ripped her shirt.

Moth gasped for air. Red fury replaced black oblivion.

Andy kept one hand around the killer’s neck and fiercely grabbed at his wrist, dragging his right arm back. She was strong—not as strong as him, but strong enough to compromise his grip on the gun.

The three of them, entwined, tugging, battling, lost any idea or plan. They were animals now. Prehistoric. It was simply a fight for survival.

For an instant, it seemed like they were all balanced precariously on a cliff edge. Two against one—two young, naïve, and confused; one singular, determined, experienced.

Moth felt the gun shift position, caught between the killer and himself. He was pushing it as hard as he could, desperately trying to envision where it was pointed. He did not know if this second would be his first opportunity, his only opportunity, or no opportunity at all. He did not
know if firing a bullet—
right now!
—would kill a furious killer, kill a onetime lover, or kill a recovering drunk. But he jabbed back on the trigger regardless, fearing death, hoping for life.

The blast from the Magnum was like a huge
thump!
in the room. The tangled bodies helped to muffle most of the report.

Moth thought for a minute that he was dead.

Andy Candy imagined a sheet of pain, blood pouring from her body.

Student #5 managed a thought:
Impossible.

The force of the bullet lifted him a few inches as it crashed through his core, ripping through stomach, intestines, and lungs before finally lodging next to his heart. It simply ravaged his midsection.

He felt like a puppet whose strings had been severed. It did not hurt. But he could sense the collapse within him. He took three shallow breaths. Blood instantly burbled to his lips. He rolled over, pitched sideways by a great thrust from Moth, who used what he believed was his last remaining ounce of energy. Like two spiders scuttling away, both he and Andy retreated from the quivering killer. Student #5 stared up, saw the paddle fan spinning above him, thought,
This isn’t right—I have been killed by children.
Then he twitched and died.

Andy Candy wanted to scream or cry, but remained in a crippled silence. The violence in the room had been like a waterfall of noise and anger, mixed with fear and adrenaline.

Moth stared at the dead figure on the floor, and his only thought was,
I can never go back,
but
back to what
wasn’t part of the mental computation.

Both knew that they had to do something. Respond. Perform. But for a moment they were frozen.

Moth told himself,
Think!
It took what might have been only seconds, but seemed to both of them to be much longer, before Moth finally croaked out, “Andy, we have to leave. Now. Someone might have heard …” He stopped there. It was like being caught up in a film, sucked suddenly into a cinematic world where they no longer knew the plot, they hadn’t
memorized their lines, but everything was happening with supersonic speed around them.

She looked away from the body on the floor, locking eyes with Moth. She knew the answer was
yes,
but she couldn’t actually form even that simple word in her mouth.

He finally managed to get to his feet. The silence in the room surrounding the killer’s dead body threatened to crush him; the air of death felt as heavy as a weight crushing down on his chest. He wanted to run, but knew he had to maintain what shreds of composure he still had. “Come on, Andy,” he said softly. “Now.”

He stepped across and took her by the hand, lifting her up. He could not tell if she was hot or cold.

Still without speaking, Andy Candy found the piece of paper with Susan Terry’s photo and information on it. She also grabbed the laptop computer. She felt like she was about to slide into some robotic world.

“We have to go,” Moth repeated. “Don’t leave anything behind,” he said.

Andy Candy nodded, then stopped. An idea—as if spoken deep within her by some truly evil force—pushed to the forefront of her head. “No,” she said. “We have to.” She hurried into the kitchen. On the counter was a jar with a couple of pens and pencils, next to a notepad and beneath a wall-mounted telephone. It was the sort of arrangement one might see in almost any kitchen.

She grabbed a large black marker, then returned to the living room, where Moth was standing, stiff, pale, gun still in his hand.

“He said ‘lucky drug dealer,’ ” Andy whispered. “What the cops should find is an unlucky drug dealer.” She approached an empty white wall in the room. Using the marker, she wrote in large block letters:
Cheat Us Pay the Price Scorpions.

The last word was the only name of any drug dealing organization she could recall. They were from Mexico, and operated in California, and so might not be locally known, but she didn’t know if that would make a difference.