The Traveller (33 page)

She saw the murderer’s brother moving quickly through her line of sight, toward his car. She thought: I’ll be damned. He’s making a move.

She waited while he crawled behind the wheel, started

the engine, and pulled out of the lot. She stifled the desire

to hurry, to latch on to him instantly, leechlike. Instead

she bided her time, pulling out well after he’d exited,

following him carefully, keeping him just at the edge of her

vision.

Martin Jeffers figured that the detective was somewhere bethind him, but paid it no heed. If she wants to waste her time he thought, she’s welcome. He knew he could lose her

at any point in the labyrinthine downtown Trenton streets. It was something he planned to do at some moment when

it would not seem so obvious.

He paralleled the Delaware River, glancing over at it every so often. It seemed dark and dangerous to him; there were rapids that swept white water over rock points. He turned away, and in the distance caught a glimpse of the shining golden dome of the statehouse. He maneuvered his

car through traffic, winding away from the river, cutting

between the steady gray block office buildings that housed various branches of state government. He turned onto State Street, which was lined with trees and brownstone buildings on one side, across from the grassy lawns and marble entrance to the statehouse. There was a free meter just

down the street from where he wanted to go, and he parked the car quickly. He checked the rearview mirror for some

sight of the detective. He did not see her, but again he figured she was back there. He shrugged to himself, locked the car, and headed into the main entrance of the statehouse.

Inside there was a huge state seal inlaid on the floor. It was cool, slightly dark, with a touch of echo gathered about the footsteps of the visitors and office workers who paced through the building. He saw a summer-school class collected in one corner, listening to a teacher recite New Jersey facts. Across the forum he could see the pale-blue-jacketed New Jersey state trooper who guarded the entrance to the governor’s suite of offices. The trooper was reading a magazine. Jeffers strode quickly across the center of the entrance forum and ducked down a flight of stairs. There was an underground passageway leading to the New Jersey State Museum. It was empty and quiet and his heels made a snapping sound as he walked swiftly down the corridor. He found the flight of stairs leading up and mounted them rapidly.

There was a librarian at the front. He showed her his state identification card and she whispered, ‘How can I help you, doctor?’

‘I’d like to check whatever newspapers you have on file for last September,’ he whispered back. She was a young woman with dark hair that slid around her shoulders. She nodded.

‘We have the Trenton Times, the New York Times, and The Trentonian on microfilm.’

‘Can I try them all?’

She smiled, a little wider perhaps than necessary. Jeffers felt a twinge of attraction, then immediately dismissed it. ‘Of course. Let me set you up at a machine.’

There was a bank of blue microfilm machines adjacent to the card catalog. The young woman led Jeffers to a seat, then left him momentarily. When she returned, she carried three small boxes. She removed the first roll and showed Jeffers how to load the machine. Their hands touched briefly. He thanked her, nodding, but thinking instead of what he was looking for.

In the New York Times he found a three-paragraph Associated Press story in a corner of an inside page:

Campus Killer in Miami Claims Fifth Victim

MIAMI, Sept. 9 (AP) - An 18-year-old coed at the University of Miami was discovered murdered here Saturday, the apparent fifth victim of a killer police have dubbed ‘The Campus Killer’.

Susan Lewis, daughter of an Ardmore, Pa., accountant, a sophomore majoring in oceanographic studies, was found at Matheson-Hammock Park several hours after disappearing from a party at the University’s Student Union. She had been beaten, strangled and assaulted, police said.

Police said she was possibly the fifth victim of a killer who has struck at a number of colleges in the South Florida area.

That was all. Space must be at a premium at the Times, Jeffers thought. He read the story twice. Then he took out the roll of microfilm and began searching in the Trenton Times. It did not take him long to find an obituary in the Bucks County edition of the newspaper.

He read: ‘ … She is survived by her parents, a younger brother, Michael, an aunt, Mercedes Barren of Miami Beach, and numerous cousins. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Cousteau Society.’

He read that again.

It explains a great deal, he thought.

He had one other idea. He went back to the librarian at die desk and returned the microfilm. ‘Is it possible,’ he asked, smiling, ‘to find out if there were any follow-up stories on a subject? I mean, is there any way I can give you a name and you could check to see if there were any recent stories?’

She shook her head. ‘If this was a newspaper library, sure. That’s how they file things. It would be easy. But we don’t have that kind of computer capacity. The Times puts out a yearly index to stories, but this year’s isn’t out yet. What is it you’re interested in?’

He shrugged, suddenly resolved to drive over to one of the local newspapers and see if he could talk his way into

their library system. ‘Oh, it’s not that important,’ he said. ‘Just a crime down in Florida.’

‘Which one?’ the librarian asked.

‘Someone called the Campus Killer.’

‘Oh,’ she said, smiling. ‘They caught that guy. I remember seeing it on the news.’ She made a face. ‘A real creep. Almost as bad as that guy Bundy.’

‘Caught?’

‘Yeah, last fall. I remember because my sister was gonna go to the University of South Florida and then she changed her mind, and then changed her mind back again because the guy was arrested. He went to prison, too.’

It took Martin Jeffers another half hour to find the short story documenting the arrest of Sadegh Rhotzbadegh in the New York Times, and slightly expanded versions in both Trenton papers. He read them carefully, printing the information in his mind. Then he made photostats of the stories.

He thanked the librarian profusely. She seemed disappointed he didn’t ask for her telephone number. He managed a wan smile, trying, in a look, to say that he never asked anyone for her phone number, which he knew was the truth. Then he let his mind wander elsewhere, instantly forgetting the look of disappointment on the young woman’s face. Instead, he was organizing his thoughts, trying to plan his next step, trying to process what he’d learned, trying to create some reasonable picture in his mind that would result in an explanation for why the aunt of a murder victim in a solved crime would suddenly want to talk to him about his brother.

He knew that outrage would be a traditional response. He could scream: Why are you bothering me? What are you doing? What have I got to do with this crime? Who’s in charge?

He knew he would not challenge her.

He looked down at the photostats. Campus killer

ARRESTED IN MlAMi: CHARGED IN SERIES OF MURDERS. They

caught the man, he thought. So what does Doug have to do with this?

He refused to answer his own question. Instead his heart filled with fear, an awkward, disquieting sensation. He thought he should be pleased by what he’d discovered in the newspapers, but he wasn’t. His nervousness simply grew. He felt encapsulated by danger, as if every step, every action, every movement were riven with chance.

He hurried back to his car, thinking: Time to lose the detective. He knew there was no particular insistence for this feeling other than the massive need to know he was alone with his fears. He did not think he could handle the added pressure of knowing she was watching him. He needed to be completely, utterly, confidently, alone.

He took a quick turn over to Broad Street, then a fast left, and another right, heading down Perry Street, past the Trenton Times offices. He accelerated up a rampway onto Route 1, then, just as quickly, took the Olden Avenue exit. At the bottom of the exit ramp he made an illegal U-turn, and headed back the way he’d just come. He thought he saw the detective then, trapped by the traffic, and he quickened his pace.

Martin Jeffers tried to dissect his feelings. In a way, he thought, it is childish to insist on losing the detective. He realized that, but he wanted to digest what he’d learned, and he wanted to do it in a solitude of his own construction. He headed back to the hospital, slowly, trying to compartmentalize his knowledge.

He knew he was no longer being followed. The downtown area of Trenton is an unlikely maze of streets and construction, daunting enough for the regulars, hopeless for the uninitiated. Miami, he thought, is probably all thruways and boulevards, wide, tree-lined streets, not the tangled confusion of an old Northeastern city clinging to life and livelihood. He envisioned the detective, her cool, silken presence melting in the twisted melee of cars, buses, and work crews. He wondered why it did not seem more amusing to him.

And, at the same time, he was still unable to shake the sense of foreboding that followed him even more doggedly than the police detective.

She, of course, was about a hundred yards behind him, her eyes set dead ahead, her mind a blackness of anger.

At five minutes past 5 p.m. Detective Mercedes Barren knocked on Dr Martin Jeffers’ office door. He let her in immediately, motioning her to a chair in the cramped office. She sat down, placing her pocketbook on the floor and a small leather briefcase in her lap. She quickly glanced about herself, eyes scanning the rows of books, the stacks of papers, the weak attempt at decoration with a pair of framed posters. She thought to herself: Don’t let the clutter fool you; he is likely to be as organized as his brother.

Jeffers chewed on the end of a pencil before speaking.

‘So, detective, you’ve come all the way from Miami, and I’m still confused as to why you need to see my brother with such dispatch.’

She hesitated briefly before replying.

‘As I said earlier, he is a material witness in a murder investigation.’

‘Could you explain exactly how?’

‘Have you been in touch with him today?’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘Answer mine first. Doctor, your evasiveness about this is irritating. I am a police detective investigating a homicide. I do not have to explain myself in order to obtain your cooperation. If need be I can go to your superiors.’

That was a bluff. She knew he knew it.

‘Suppose I said, go ahead.’

‘I would.’

He nodded. ‘Well, that I can believe.’

She thrust forward: ‘Did you talk with him today?’

‘No.’

They hesitated.

‘There’s an honest answer for you,’ he continued. ‘I have not been in touch with him today. Here’s another honest answer: I don’t know how to get in touch with him.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

He shrugged. ‘Believe what you like.’

Again they were silent.

‘All right,’ she said after a moment. ‘I think your brother has information about a murder. I said that earlier. I do lot know the extent of his involvement. That is why I want to speak with him.’

‘Is he a suspect?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Detective Barren, if you want me to answer any of your questions, then you damn well better answer a couple of ine.’

Her mind raced, trying to sort out small lies from big ones, trying to chart a course that spoke some truth, enough to gain the brother’s assistance.

‘I cannot say whether he is or isn’t. A piece of evidence that we have traced to him was discovered adjacent to the crime scene. For all I know he may have a perfectly good explanation for this. He may not. That’s what I’m here trying to find out.’

Martin Jeffers nodded. He was trying to deduce whether she was at least in part truthful. Sex offenders are easier, he thought wryly.

‘What kind of evidence?’

She shook her head.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘The crime is…’

‘Murder.’

‘And your involvement…’

‘I’m a police detective …’

He pulled out one of the photostats of Susan’s obituary and slid it across the desk to her. His voice was rigid with distaste. ‘I hate lies, detective. My whole business, my whole being, is dedicated to the pursuits of certain kinds of fundamental truths. It is an insult for you to come in here and lie to me.’

He thought he sounded properly pompous and angered. He was unprepared for her response. He had expected her to adopt a polar position, either chastened or outraged. She was neither.

‘I insult you?’ she asked in a frightening, low voice. She did not wait for an answer before plowing ahead. ‘And now . you have the audacity to make a speech about truth? And

all the time you’re sitting there smugly, playing a little head-game and hiding your brother from — from — from questioning. All right. First you tell me that you think your brother is incapable of this.’

She fished about briefly in her briefcase, finally bringing forth one of the crime-scene photographs and tossing it onto his desk.

He pushed it away without looking at it.

‘Don’t try to shock me,’ he said.

‘I’m not.’

He realized then that her words had the force of screams, but that she’d not once raised her voice. He picked up the picture and stared at it.

‘I’m sorry for you,’ he said.

But his imagination was swept into a slippery vortex of fright. The picture seemed like an etching by Goya, each shadow hiding some terror, each line a sense of horror. He saw the young woman stretched in death, savaged. He thought of a moment in medical school when he’d confronted his first corpse. He had expected someone, something, old, tired, misshapen with age and disease. But his first cadaver had been that of a sixteen-year-old prostitute who’d overdosed one unfortunate night. He had looked down into the dead eyes of the girl and been unable to touch her. His hands had shaken, his voice quavered. For an instant he’d thought he was going to faint. He’d turned away, heaving air into his lungs, gasping. It had taken him every fiber of strength to go to the anatomy professor and request an exchange. He remembered switching with another student — a loathsome man who’d remarked, ‘Nice tits,’ as he wielded his scalpel. Jeffers could still see the corpse of the elderly wino he’d been assigned, wanting in some strange way, before plunging his own knife into the man’s hairless chest, to embrace this skeletonlike shape and thank him for ridding him of some of his terror.