Resolve (2 page)

Everybody in this race has a story. These things have it all. This is my sixth marathon and I’ve learned that when you really look, I mean
really
look, you can file people into neat little categories. Interwoven into the expected Type-A personalities you can find the former high-school star desperately trying to retrieve a little piece of forgotten glory, the former chain smoker, the ex-druggie, the new mother who wants to lose her pregnancy weight, the scorched divorcee with something to prove, the resilient cancer survivor, the nomadic retiree who abandoned an unfulfilled career, the clinically depressed man whose meds aren’t working like they used to, the once hopeful who lost faith.

Recovery at every turn.

I trained hard, considering the circumstances. I didn’t cheat myself at any point in my preparations. However, I don’t have any illusions about setting any personal records this year. I’ll line up next to the pace group led by the young and athletic-looking blonde woman whose ponytail sways back and forth like a silent pendulum over a sign on her back that reads, 3
HR
30
MIN
26.2
PACE GROUP
. But after the first three miles, I know I won’t see her or her Ben-Gay-slathered gaggle again.

During these pre-race moments, adrenaline usually makes me feel light and free. But the full gravity of comprehension is making me feel like the road and my shoes are magnets with opposing charges.

As the starting gun goes off and the tidal wave moves forward, I can’t help but do the rough math in my head:

Out of the 4,500 people who start the marathon, many will not finish.

Over 200 will simply stop running, realizing that it just wasn’t their day.

Another 100 or so will get injured and have to stop to get treatment.

And I know that 1 is about to be murdered.

I didn’t come across this information by happenstance. I didn’t inadvertently overhear it in some random conversation on the street. It didn’t fall into my lap when I got copied on an email by mistake. There’s no real mystery as to why I know this. I know a man is going to be murdered for one simple reason.

I’m going to kill him.

Mile 1

T
he initial surge of collective momentum always carries you through the start. It’s strange that such a solitary sport starts this way. On these cool mornings, the crack of the starter’s pistol is followed by the formation of a rainbow of old sweatshirts that are tossed aside to be picked up later for charity. Occasionally, one of these articles, which was meant to keep someone warm prior to the start, will land on your head as you try to negotiate the crowd. Fortunately, the packed-in throng of runners moves so slowly at this point that not much concentration is needed. Having someone’s faded V
OTE FOR GORE
/
LIEBERMAN IN
2000 sweatshirt draped over your head could be a bit distracting at a faster pace. But at this point, the worst that could happen is you might be caught up in a crash comparable to a collision of lethargic snails.

A few spectators stand along Smallman Street, which pulls away from the downtown convention center. They are mostly family members and friends who can’t believe they got up this early, but have come to lend moral support. It’s not common knowledge that this city enjoys fewer sunny days than Seattle, but it’s true. Our audience is trying to take advantage of a rare beautiful morning, and its members jockey for position in the warm sunlight.

After the runners pass the starting line, some of the devotees will spread out to various spots on the course hoping to catch a glimpse of their wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, mother, son, or daughter. Others will visit the local markets before migrating one block west toward the overhang of the convention center where they wait for runners to start trickling past the finish line.

This stretch down Smallman Street runs parallel to the Allegheny River along the Strip District. The area is full of mostly old brick warehouses that contain markets, restaurants, and bars. The road here is a treacherous field of broken asphalt surrounded by manhole covers that jut out of the surrounding grey terrain fully intent on gripping an unsuspecting ankle. Like most western Pennsylvania roads, it is a layered patchwork of asphalt and concrete laid down with no regard to elevation or color. We have two seasons in this area: Winter and Construction.

When I look down, the only thing I can see in front of me is the next runner’s heels kicking up and preventing me from seeing any potential hazards. I know they are there. It’s just a matter of watching the people around me and preparing to react to the threat that I know is lying in wait for me. The whole thing is really kind of a paradox. You have to be comfortable and relaxed to run a good race. But the minute you get too comfortable, that’s when the wheels come off, and the hard earth below your feet races up to meet your face.

T
he first few weeks after the students return from spring break are always frustrating. Most underclassmen leave their intellectual motivation on the beaches of Florida or South Carolina, and the seniors do little more than count down the days until graduation. Ironically, many come back with actual questions about the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the questions are not derived from some deep epiphany acquired while reading Beccaria or Lombroso. Most questions are about getting records expunged for public intoxication, underage drinking, or public nudity. One time, I even had a slightly embarrassed, pimple-faced sophomore come up to me after a lecture and hesitantly ask me what the best course of action was in handling a charge related to the unlawful theft of, vandalism to, and unauthorized use of, an alpaca. You can’t make this stuff up.

It was just a few weeks ago that I was grading papers in my office with Steven Thacker, my chronically miserable, and completely obnoxious, graduate assistant for the past two semesters. For the tenth time in as many minutes, he groaned, rolled his eyes, and began a rant that I was becoming all too familiar with.

“It’s simple subject-verb agreement! And that goddamn spell-check! Do they think it is going to catch Latin phrases?” He held up the paper where a red circle surrounded the misspelled Latin phrase.

Steven’s hazel eyes narrowed and he used his pen-wielding hand to brush his shaggy blond hair away from them as he rambled on.

“Why won’t they just proofread their papers one time? And
this
is supposed to be the future of the criminal justice system?”

He had scrawled the correct spelling under the student’s error in big red letters. I squinted slightly to see from across my desk.

Without mentioning that Steven was only a couple of years older than most of the undergraduates, I reminded him, “A lot of them aren’t Criminology majors. Even out of those who are, many will end up doing something else.”

If ever there was a confluence of conflictions, Steven was it. He was an elitist from a poor family. He was quick to condemn others, but couldn’t stand to be judged. He despised jocks, but was dutiful in his kickboxing training. And he hated anyone who was apprehensive about declaring his beliefs, yet he was still in the closet about his sexuality.

I happened to know about his sexual preference because while on a solitary run near campus one day, I saw him kissing another young man in the doorway of a townhouse. He saw me when he turned around, and later told me that he was in the closet because if his family knew he was gay, they would cut off all communication with him. That was about as close as I had ever come to having a heart-to-heart conversation with Steven. He could be horribly abrasive at times. Okay, actually he was pretty much an arrogant jackass, but I assumed that much of his animosity and abrasiveness must have come from his feeling like he had to hide from the world. I never liked Steven, but I still felt terrible that he thought he had to hide his true self from those around him. In this day and age, it must be torturous to feel as if you have to live in the shadows.

“Regardless of their major,” Steven fired back without looking up, “they should realize by now that this isn’t exactly high school. It’s time for them to take a little pride in their work.”

He cast a critical eye back on the paper. “Holy crap! It’s
t-h-e-i-r,
not
t-h-e-r-e!”
Steven spat out with an air of disbelief.

He slammed down the notebook and wiped droplets of spit from his chin. In just a couple of months, he would be on his way to Florida State to work on his PhD. At this point, Florida didn’t seem far enough away for my liking.

He was right that this wasn’t
exactly
high school, but this wasn’t
exactly
Harvard either. The Pittsburgh area is absolutely overflowing with colleges. In addition to the well-known schools like the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, and Carnegie Mellon, smaller schools are sprinkled all along Interstate 79 and branch out from the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela rivers. Some of the downtown schools are so close together that a wide-eyed, map-holding freshman could be walking through one campus and accidentally drift onto another.

For those outside the city, Pennsylvania has more unique ways to confuse the uninformed. We actually have universities named after people or towns that have the same names as other U.S. states. Imagine the bewilderment when an alumnus tells a prospective employer that they went to California University . . . of Pennsylvania. Or a proud parent proclaims, “My daughter got into Indiana University,” and then has to add the requisite “. . . of Pennsylvania.” It’s all very odd. You never hear of other states advertising the “Pennsylvania University of Alabama” or some such nonsense.

Most colleges in the region do alright in the prestige department. If you were to put them on three tiers, I suppose Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, and the Penn State branch campuses get the most academic respect. A majority of the other schools in the area struggle to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Then there is my distinguished employer.

Three Rivers University lies just north of downtown and just south of respectable. Originally founded by the wealthy and highly deranged owner of a steel company, the university acquired a reputation for providing a slightly less-than-mediocre education at an affordable price.

As the story goes, by 1923, the founder—the late Henry Gadson Jr.—had been the mesmerizing leader of a nice little group of the upper-class citizenry in the Pittsburgh area. By today’s standards, I suppose we would categorize Mr. Gadson’s New Strength and Accordance Society as a cult. Inspired by the influx of eastern European laborers and their various beliefs, he and his circle of bored and wealthy associates strongly believed that by meeting in rooms full of candles, drinking prohibited spirits, covering their faces with a peculiar oil, and reciting passages from obscure religious and philosophical texts, they could bring about a new enlightenment during this period of exciting industrialization and unrelenting prohibition. To bring about this period of enlightenment, Gadson needed a platform.

So he used his resources to create the College of Casting Light and encouraged the Hungarian, Polish, and Czechoslovakian millworkers to learn English and improve their understanding of the world. Although the school was, and is to this day, very blue collar, it was a progressive undertaking that was unheard of in the era.

In spite of language barriers and cultural differences, by 1927 the college was doing pretty well. Finding people who could communicate in all of the necessary languages was certainly a major problem, but bit by bit the school helped some people improve their situations or, at least, learn a little bit of English. Then things started to head downhill for good ol’ Henry. First, his cult disbanded and left Gadson without the moral support of his closest peers. Then came the stock market crash in 1929 in which Gadson lost a bundle. After traveling to New York to meet with his company’s investors and accountants, Henry returned to Pittsburgh and took a walk into one of his mills. Standing on a walkway over a large vat of molten steel, Gadson decided to enlighten himself and forge a path into history by throwing his body headfirst into the white-hot abyss. Legend has it that his statue in the middle of campus was actually made from that very same tub of molten liquid, but that seems a little crazy even for this place.

The college’s board members, fearful of the public scandal and tired of Gadson’s eccentricities, understandably decided to create some distance between his legacy and the school. While the name change was an easy thing to do, the university is still basically a blue-collar, career-oriented entity with its share of oddball faculty members and trustees.

“Dr. Keller?”

Between being absorbed in the paper in front of me and Steven’s weekly nervous breakdown, I hadn’t heard the knock on the door. Steven had taken his gloomy presence away from my desk in order to retrieve another paper from the box in the corner of my office. His head was buried in the large cardboard box. He looked like an ostrich hiding from a cheetah.

“Hello, Lindsay. What can I help you with?”