The Spire (23 page)

'Did you ask her brother about it''

'Yup. He gave us nothing: no diary, no boyfriends, except maybe Tillman. We had to lean on him about his drug dealing to even get him to talk about his murdered sister. All we got was what we already knew: that Carl was a greedy little shit. Which he still is, only now he's a prosperous little shit.' Bender's lips compressed. 'Too bad. What with his dislike of whites and his connections with bad people, I thought
he
might have something to do with her murder. That would have suited me fine.'

Darrow considered this. 'Where'd Carl go after the party''

'Home, he said. To bed. We never found out different.'

'Just like Joe Betts,' Darrow observed. 'That's how he got to be a witness. While we're here, mind if we look at his room''

For a moment, Bender watched Darrow's eyes. Then he shrugged. 'Why not,' he answered. 'If we open that window, I can smoke this cigarette.'

D

ARROW AND B ENDER LEANED OUT THE WINDOW OF J OE Betts's old room on the second floor, Bender smoking, Darrow watching a few summer students, clad in shorts and T-shirts, taking the pathways that radiated from the Spire. Shadowed by trees, its base was barely visible'the distance, Farr had calculated, was roughly two hundred yards. Darrow tried to imagine the scene on the night of Angela's murder.

'Exactly where,' he asked Bender, 'did Joe say he saw Steve''

Bender pointed to a spot a few feet from the entrance. Gazing down, Darrow observed, 'Seems like you'd mostly see the top of someone's head. There weren't any outdoor lights then, right''

'Just by the door itself.'

'And the moon''

'Full.' Bender took a drag, exhaling the smoke away from Darrow. 'Muhlberg and I tried it two nights later, and I could make out who he was. It helped that I knew him. But Betts knew Tillman, too.'

Darrow turned to him. 'But if Steve was close enough to identify, Joe couldn't know which direction he was coming from'let alone that he was returning from the Spire. For all Joe knew, Steve could have been outside throwing up.'

'No upchuck in the grass,' Bender said tersely. 'Or footprints we could trace to anyone'the ground was semi-frozen. As I said, we were thorough.'

'But thanks to Joe you had your murderer''

Bender did not react to this. Instead, he asked, 'Back then, how well did you know Joe Betts''

'Pretty well.'

'Did you like him''

Darrow parsed his feelings, then and now, conscious of their implications. 'It depended on the moment. And whether he'd been drinking.'

Bender flicked an ash. 'Really' Betts was more or less sober when we found him. And I still thought he was a dick.'

Surprised, Darrow asked, 'How so''

'He had attitude'not like Tillman at all. Betts was an East Coast kid, a preppy out of some rich suburb in Connecticut. We still get them at Caldwell'too lazy as students to make the Ivy League, thinking they're above whatever team they're playing on.' Bender's tone was flat. 'That was Joe Betts'he thought just getting born had made him better than anyone. That was his attitude toward us.'

'Still, he gave you Tillman.'

With a thin smile, Bender rejoined, 'At first he gave us nothing. Based on what you'd told us, we started by asking him about the party. He refused to talk. Next thing we knew, his uncle had the kid lawyered up'a criminal defense specialist out of Columbus, expensive and smart. The lawyer kept him on ice for twenty-four hours, refusing to let us take a polygraph or meet with Betts at all.

'Finally, we let it drop to your old coach that Betts was looking good for the crime'a little psychology, to loosen Betts up. Like we knew he would, Coach Fiske passed the word. That was when Betts and his lawyer decided to give up Tillman.'

Darrow recalled Joe's confession the day of Steve's arrest; Joe had told him none of this. 'Didn't that make you skeptical''

Bender laughed softly. 'Back then everything about Joe Betts made me skeptical. Especially when he claimed to have stonewalled us just to keep from getting his friend Tillman in trouble. But his story cemented a decent circumstantial case. The question for us'and Farragher'was whether to believe it.'

'Which you did,' Darrow said.

'Not at first. We'd checked out
his
life, too'he was a bad drunk, it was pretty clear, and he'd just broken up with his girlfriend. Fighting with Tillman over Angela Hall made him the leading alternative; his story might have been intended to frame Steve for a murder Betts had committed.' Bender took another puff. 'Thing is, we never found anything tying Joe to the murder. No witness, no physical evidence. Nothing to say that he didn't walk back to his dorm room, like he told us, to try and sleep it off.'

'Did anyone see him come in''

'No. But as far as we could tell, no one saw him anywhere at all. We know he wasn't with Angela. Tillman was.'

Darrow cocked his head. 'What did Laurie Shilts tell you''

'Joe's girlfriend' Nothing much. According to her, their breakup was nothing dramatic'she couldn't see a future, I guess you'd say.'

'That's a way of putting it. Happen to notice a bruise on her cheek''

'No.' Bender turned to him, openly curious. 'I remember she was wearing a lot of makeup.'

'Maybe that day.'

'So you're telling me Betts hit her'' Bender asked bluntly. 'Just like we figure the murderer hit Angela.'

Darrow fell quiet, reflecting on his moments with Laurie.
Deep down
, she had told him,
Joe hates women
. 'Laurie never said,' he answered. 'But that was my impression.'

For a time, Bender appraised him keenly. 'You had more on your mind than we knew, didn't you''

Remembering his calls to Steve, Darrow felt his unease deepen. 'Maybe so. But I didn't know what it meant, or anything about Joe's story. Since then I've gotten better at stringing things together.'

'So it seems.'

Beneath Bender's tone, though mild, Darrow heard a note of accusation. Quietly, he asked, 'What do you know about Joe's father''

'Only that he was dead.' Bender's voice became weary. 'I guess you're also going to tell me the old man beat Joe's mother.'

'According to Joe. No reason to lie about that.'

'_That_ would have been of interest. You and I both know that men who abuse women often learned from Dad.' After stubbing his cigarette out on the windowsill, Bender put it in the pocket of his sport coat. 'But if it makes you feel better, in the end none of this would have mattered. We had nothing on Betts except the fight over Angela Hall. The only DNA we could get from her body belonged to Tillman. When the crime lab scoured Betts's room and found nothing, the one surprise was how neat it was.

'As a suspect, Betts looked better than he turned out to be'at least based on what we could find. And what would his motive have been' He'd have to have been so pissed off about what happened at the party that, four hours later, he followed Angela when she left the dorm and strangled her near the Spire. Even if you can imagine that, there's no evidence that it happened. That leaves Tillman.'

Darrow found himself gazing at the Spire, burnished in the sunlight above the trees. 'Maybe it does. But the scenario I still have trouble with is that Steve Tillman strangled her, dressed her, and then decided to deposit her body at the foot of the most iconic structure on Caldwell's campus.'

Turning, Bender had a small, grim smile. 'Who's to say he dressed her' You and I will never know what happened in that room. But, if you're interested, I can tell you what I think went on between the two of them.'

Darrow felt a new tautness, interest combined with dread. 'Sure.'

'It's simple enough. Tillman and the girl were drinking and making out, both hotted up. Tillman had a little coke, and began wanting something more. Angela wasn't so up for that. But Tillman just had to fuck her, no matter how. When she resisted, he lost it. That was when he hit her.'

Bender, Darrow realized, had thought about this long and hard; like Darrow himself, he needed a story that made sense and that, at least, conformed to the physical evidence. 'So she gave in,' Darrow said.

'A fateful choice,' Bender answered softly. 'Tillman made her undress, then used his finger to make her wet enough to enter, leaving no injuries. When he was done, she dressed herself. But Angela never left the room alive.'

'You think she threatened to report him.'

'Uh-huh. Everything we know says she was a strong-willed girl with real pride, nobody's victim. And she was too drunk or angry to realize that a guy capable of rape and battery might take the final step. But Tillman knew enough to understand that he could spend a stretch in prison, and was coked up enough for rage to overtake his reason.' Bender took another puff, eyes narrow, as though reenvisioning the murder. 'All your friend knew was not to let her talk. Three minutes later, she couldn't.'

Silent, Darrow reviewed Bender's thesis. 'If Angela let him penetrate her, why the scratches on Steve's back''

'Maybe she changed her mind, or wanted to leave her mark.' Pausing, Bender fished out another cigarette. 'Nothing's perfect. Including the logic of a homicide involving two drunken kids.'

'There's also this,' Darrow rejoined. 'Joe didn't have a car that night; he left on foot, and then we clever fraternity boys parked his Miata in the library. But Steve
did
have a car. Does illogic also cover a drunk with a trick knee carrying a corpse two hundred yards to a very public space'instead of dumping her in his trunk and throwing her in the river' Or dumping her body in a place'the old lime pit, for example'where you might never find her''

Bender seemed unruffled. 'No clue'Tillman sure didn't tell us. Maybe he thought she'd leave traces in his car. All we know is what he did with her.'

'How do you know
what
he did' How did he carry her, for one thing' Did the forensic people find any drag marks on her heels''

'No. But if he carried her over his shoulder, there wouldn't be.'

'In which case,' Darrow rejoined, 'you'd think there might be traces of her saliva on his clothes. Were there any''

Momentarily quiet, Bender considered the implications of the question. 'Corpses drool,' he said. 'Maybe just not this one. At least not that the crime lab found.'

'In other words, there's no evidence at all that Steve carried her to the Spire. All we know is that I found her there.'

'Not all. Pat Flynn'the waitress from the Donut King'saw the guy who carried her there. She swore he was about Tillman's height and build.'

'That could have been me, Fred. Or anyone.' Darrow hesitated. 'Does Pat still live in Wayne''

'Yup. Same life, same job. Donut King's still there.'

For a long time, Bender said nothing more. 'Since you came back,' he finally asked Darrow, 'have you run into Joe Betts''

'Once.'

'Last few years, I've met him a couple of different times. By appearance, I could have picked him out of a lineup. But he seems like a different guy, and not just because he's sober.' He turned to Darrow. 'A decent guy, wouldn't you say''

Darrow hesitated. 'Yeah,' he answered. 'I would.'

WALKING WITH D ARROW back to his office, Bender paused at the foot of the Spire for a final smoke. For Darrow, the site evoked many things. But what he recalled now was stopping with Joe Betts to watch the rally where Dave Farragher had pledged before a swarm of TV cameras to solve the murder of Angela Hall.

'Tell me about Farragher,' Darrow said.

Bender weighed the question. 'At the time of the murder, he was still pretty new in the job'had only been prosecutor for three years. But he'd been an assistant prosecutor, known for being sharp. Legally and politically.'

'Which mattered most''

'In this case, both. Dave was up for reelection, so he was on the hot seat. No point indicting someone if you may well lose at trial, or just turn out to be wrong. Dave needed to be right.'

'Within three days''

'A fair question,' Bender conceded. 'Dave was under a lot of pressure, including from the black community, as well as from the college. And the media. You didn't need to be as smart as Dave to know this one was make-or-break, the biggest case he might ever see.' Briefly, Bender interrupted himself by coughing. 'No one thought his vision of the future ended with county prosecutor. Some folks used to call him 'Governor' behind his back. Only two things could derail him for sure'some sort of scandal or fucking up this case. He needed a conviction.'

'So when did he decide that he could win a case against Steve''

'When Muhlberg and I brought him Joe Betts's story. 'That makes Tillman a liar,' I recall him saying. 'If I can prove to the jury he lied about something that important, that could seal a conviction.' ' Bender finished his cigarette. 'I wasn't there when he met with Betts. But whatever Joe said was enough to convince Farragher that Tillman was the one. A few hours later, Dave had him arrested.'

This was another detail, Darrow remembered, that Joe had not revealed to him. He felt Bender watching his face. 'Look,' the detective said evenly. 'I know this is complicated for you. You found her body. Steve Tillman was your best friend, and you also knew Joe Betts pretty well. Looking back at it, I imagine you're remembering a lot of things, and maybe feeling some sort of guilt you can't quite put a name to.

'But this is a classic cold case, with gaps no one can fill in. The passage of fifteen years has made it worse.' Dropping the cigarette in the grass, Bender ground it with his shoe. 'The real problem is Angela Hall. She's what I'd call a legitimate victim'not some gangbanger anyone might have shot, where there are a lot of potential witnesses. Or suspects.

'People like Angela aren't courting death. With victims like her, often there's no witnesses except the killer. So you work with what you've got. And you learn to accept that that's probably all you'll ever have.'

'Not easy.'

Stooping, Bender picked up the butt, then faced Darrow. 'Believe me,' he said quietly, 'I wish I had all the answers. This was the last case of my career. No one wants to end with an unsolved homicide. But no cop wants to die still wondering about his biggest success.'