The Dead Student (54 page)

She put the pen in her pocket. Moth looked at what she had written,
nodded, and went over to the killer’s body. He savagely ripped a piece of bloodstained shirt from the man’s chest. He took the cloth and smeared a streak of red on the wall, underlining the word
Scorpions.
An artist’s touch. Perhaps a signature. He turned to Andy and saw her reach out to him—the same extended arm a drowning person might offer up to a rescuer in a boat.

Hand in hand, they staggered out of the house, supporting each other.

One step. Two steps. Three.

The night seemed oppressively hot, asthmatic, thick. They expected to hear sirens in the distance, heading their way. There were none. They expected to hear strange voices, shouting at them,
“Hey, you two! Stop! Freeze! Raise your hands!”
They did not.

Four steps, five.

They wanted to run.

They did not.

Six. Seven. Eight.

Darkness enveloped them. Moth managed to croak out, “Don’t look back.” Weak light from downtown crept along in the sky above them, a yellow glow beneath the wide expanse of starry night. But the street was nothing but shadows. They turned into the cemetery, greeting the rows of the dead like old friends, grateful for the headstones and raised crypts that concealed them. Moth found his abandoned backpack and thrust the gun inside, next to the two empty bottles of Scotch and vodka that the killer had warned him about leaving behind. He took the paper with Susan’s picture and the laptop and tossed them in as well. He looked at Andy only once, and wondered whether he was as pale as she looked in the thick black air.

The two of them mounted the rented bicycles they’d left beside the graves and rode them back to the rental store. Moth dutifully locked them up, just as the Rasta proprietor had asked them to.

Then they walked down side streets, passing a few homes that were lit up, hearing a few voices from dinner parties in full swing. They passed
one old lady walking her two pugs, but she was far more interested in the dogs doing their nightly business than in Moth and Andy Candy.

Andy thought this was remarkable, believing as she did that she was covered in blood. She realized then that she probably was not, but it sure felt that way.

Wordlessly, they returned to her car. She slid into the driver’s seat, unsure whether she could steer. Instinct took over. A momentary fumble with the keys, an inner admonition to stop shaking even though her hands were quivering and her body was nearly convulsing, a few deep breaths that seemed to help a little, and they took off.

Andy did not need Moth to remind her to drive slowly and carefully.

One mile. Two miles.

She couldn’t bring herself to look in the rearview mirror, for fear that she would see the flashing lights of a patrol car.

Four miles. Five miles. Six.

She didn’t even dare look sideways at Moth.

Twenty miles, she saw a spot by the side of the road, and pulled over. She opened her door, leaned out, and gave in to nausea, vomiting repeatedly.

Still, they said nothing. She wiped her mouth, put the car back in gear, and drove on.

They passed over the Seven Mile Bridge.
6.79 miles,
Moth thought. He saw moonlight reflecting off the light black chop of the waters.

One hour. Two.

A frustrated man in a BMW sports car zoomed past them, just dodging the headlights of an oncoming panel truck in one of the single-lane portions of the road.

South of Islamorada, they passed Whale Harbor and then Bud and Mary’s Marina, where a huge plastic mock great white shark hangs just outside the entrance. Moth thought it was curiously appropriate: a fake fish unlikely to ever visit those waters acting as an invitation.

Three hours.

They continued silently over Card Sound Bridge and swooped past the
edge of the Everglades, where the night blends seamlessly with the swamp, then the city of Homestead, and finally descended into the bright lights that mark South Dixie Highway into Miami.

Moth wanted to say:
“I couldn’t have done it without you,”
but that seemed wrong. He wanted to say,
“It’s all over now,”
but he was afraid it had just begun.

Andy Candy pulled her car into a parking place half a block from Moth’s apartment. Still without speaking, the two of them climbed out and walked arm in arm unsteadily down the street. It was like they were each holding the other upright. They went inside, climbing the stairs together. Moth found his keys, opened up, and held the door for Andy Candy. He dropped the backpack to the floor. She immediately went to the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror for perhaps three or four minutes, searching every inch of her face for some sign of what this night had done to her, or even some bizarre other change.
Dorian Gray looking at his portrait.

She knew she was different now, and she watched herself, seeking some outward sign, until, finally, not completely persuaded that some stranger wouldn’t be able to see what had happened to her face, she splashed water wildly onto her lips and eyes, cheeks and forehead. It did not make her feel clean.

At the same moment, Moth was bent over the kitchen sink, washing his hands. Once. Twice. A third time, trying to scrub murder off.

They collapsed together on Moth’s bed, arms entwined. For a fleeting instant Andy Candy thought they were like a sculpture resembling the fight earlier that night. There are, she realized, some touches more intimate even than sex. She closed her eyes, exhausted. Sleep, she thought, would feel like death. Still, she welcomed it, right beside the absolute uncertainty of life.

For a few seconds, Moth smelled her sweat, listened to her even breathing, stroked the skin of her arm. His last thought, before he, too, fell asleep was simple: He could not see how they could stay together. Nor could he see how they could ever be apart.

EPILOGUE

The Next Day and Beyond

24 hours after death:

“Hello,” Moth said. “My name is Timothy and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi, Timothy,” the gathering at Redeemer One replied. Usually this response was pro forma, a muttered reply that was merely a part of getting the evening rolling. This night, however, it enthusiastically burst from the lips of all the regulars, and Moth could feel a groundswell of energy amidst relief wrapped in the greeting.

“We’re very glad to see you, Timothy,” said the philosophy professor. He did not add the word
alive,
though that was what they were all thinking. This reply—far out of the normal—was seconded throughout the room.

“I’m glad to be here,” Moth said.

He paused.

“I have …” He hesitated. “Actually, I’m not exactly sure now how many days of sobriety I’ve got. Things have been confusing. A bunch, I think. I can’t tell any longer.”

There was a momentary quiet in the room.

“Are you safe?” asked Sandy in a no-nonsense, corporate-attorney voice.

“I think so,” Moth answered. “How can anyone tell?”

He could have meant anything, from a killer stalking him, to a legal system ready to pounce and prosecute, to the constant desire to drink. None of them could have actually answered this question. Moth remained standing in front of the group.

Sandy tried again. “Timothy. Are you safe?”

Heavy emphasis on the word
safe—
as if all the membership were speaking this single word in unison.

“Yes,” he replied. He could have said:
“There’s no one left that’s trying to kill me, except maybe me.”
He did not.

“Then I have an idea,” said Fred the engineer. “Let’s call this Day One.”

Moth smiled. This made a great deal of sense to him. He hoped it was true. What he truly hoped for, and what he believed his uncle had tried to teach him, was to be a fighter.

“Hello,” he repeated. “My name is Timothy and I have one day sober.”

“Hi, Timothy,” the entire group responded.

When she finally arrived home, her mother was at the piano, doing scales before her next student arrived. Often this repeated practice irritated Andy Candy, but this time the notes seemed light and melodic. Up and down, sharps and flats. The necessary routine of a music teacher. The same was true of the scrambling, scuffling, tail-wagging response she received from the dogs. Expected. Happy. Musical.

Her mother looked up—afraid to probe, afraid to not ask, completely unsure what to say or do, with absolutely no idea whatsoever what her daughter had been through. The mother wondered whether she would ever know. She doubted it.

“Are you okay?” A bland question.

“I’m okay,” Andy Candy responded. She thought this might be the truth or it might be a lie. She’d find out soon enough.

“Is there something we should talk about?”

Everything? Nothing? Murder and death? Survival?

“Is Moth …”

Love? Loyalty?

“He’s fine,” she said. “We’re fine.”

But changed.
She did not say this out loud.

“Back together?”

“Sort of,” Andy said.

She headed toward the shower, hoping that her scraggly, almost weather-beaten appearance hadn’t shocked her mother too much. Over her shoulder, she called out: “I think I’m going to go back to school.” She knew this would make her mother happy.

Fuck the date-rapist,
she thought.
Fuck him and his evil. It will catch up to him eventually. Maybe not this week or next year. But someday it will. It will all balance out. Karma is a bitch.
She was absolutely sure of this, but didn’t consider who it was that had taught this lesson to her.

“I need to finish up that last semester,” she added, tossing the words toward her mother, back over her shoulder. The piano. The dogs. Her home. Familiar stuffed animals on her bed, framed family pictures on the walls. Everything was so normal it almost overwhelmed her. “Get my degree. Got to move on,” she said quietly, not sure whether her mother heard her or not.

And, she realized, she had much left to learn in subjects far different from what she had studied over the past days.

Four weeks after death:

Susan, happily back at her job, stared down at the computer printout of her picture and bio. There was a bloodstain in the corner. She had the killer’s computer next to her own, on her desk at the state attorney’s office, but she had yet to open it, boot it up, and even make an attempt to see what it contained. She didn’t want to know; her picture told her everything she needed to. She picked up her telephone, dialed a number. It was the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. A couple of quick electronic transfers and she reached a supervisor in the Homicide Department.

“Hey,” she said, after identifying herself—giving her name and title with unequivocal toughness. “Are you making any progress on that killing on Angela Street the other week?”

“Not much, Counselor.” She could hear the resignation in the supervisor’s voice. “I mean clearly there was a helluva fight. Things were knocked around pretty good. The guy didn’t want to get shot, that’s for sure. You know, usually these drug gang murders are, well, I guess you’d have to call them ‘cleaner’—if you know what I mean. Usually find the dead dude trussed up with blowtorch marks on his genitals, that sort of thing. Or floating in the mangrove trees where he’s been dumped. Not too often do they get a chance to get a few licks in. But until we get some suspect in mind … well, not too much to go on. And apparently the dead guy, well, there’s just not too much on him anywhere. Sort of a cipher. He did a pretty good job of concealing who he was. Maybe you can help? You know something?”

Susan Terry knew a great deal. But what she answered was: “No, not really. The guy’s name came up in another narcotics investigation—you know, peripherally. I was just checking to see if there’s any connection.”

“You think?” the cop asked.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Probably just another wild-goose chase. Don’t waste time. If I hear anything else, I’ll be sure to call.”

“Thanks.” The detective hung up.

He probably didn’t recognize that lie,
she thought. Susan went to the paper shredder in her office. She carefully fed the bloody computer printout into it.

Six months after death:

Susan had waited diligently. She’d known it was only a matter of time before the right case with the right evidence came up in the courtroom worlds adjacent to the prosecutor’s office. It was a convenience store robbery that had gone terribly wrong. A clerk was dead. Two suspects arrested within minutes. Facing life in prison. Not a good trade for the $323 they tried to steal.

The guilty pleas were taken in open court. Susan sat two rows back. Family members—both the victim’s and the robbers’—sobbed behind her. The judge accepted the plea, banged her gavel, and that was it.

Susan paused until the room was clear, with only the judge’s clerk lingering behind. Susan approached her.

“Hi, Miss Terry,” the clerk said. She was an older woman and she had seen just about everything in her courthouse years. “What brings you here? Nothing special about this case.”

Susan shook her head. “No, you’re right about that. It’s just I wanted to check some of the evidence out. I have this feeling that these guys might have done another robbery or two, ones I’ve got on my desk. Think I can look at that?”

She pointed to an evidence box on the clerk’s desk.

The clerk shrugged. “Have at it. It’s all going to storage anyway.”

While the clerk busied herself with paperwork, Susan began to paw through the box. What she wanted was on top, encased in a sealed bag, with the court case number on it in thick black ink. A .357 Magnum revolver—exactly like the one Moth had given her. The only difference was the serial number on each weapon. Susan had placed Moth’s weapon in a similar plastic container, with the identical court case number. As soon as the clerk was distracted enough to turn aside, Susan performed a little sleight of hand, removing the convenience store murder weapon from the box and placing Moth’s gun inside. She hid the other gun in her briefcase. Switch complete.