The Final Judgment (26 page)

“But how would that hurt Brett?”

“It wouldn’t, I suppose.” Betty paused. “Except if they tried to make her seem—I don’t know—more volatile.” Caroline was quiet for a moment. “I wouldn’t worry,” she answered. “I doubt that Jackson would want to give the jury too much time with Brett’s agonized mother. Regrettably, he has better things to do.” The front door opened behind them. But when Caroline turned, expecting her father, it was Larry who appeared. His face was grave. “Hello, Caroline.” Betty went to him. “Have you checked Father?”

“Yes. He’s up now.” Larry turned back to Caroline. “This has been a strain on him. He’s usually up at six, but he’s seemed so tired. Still, when it’s close to nine, and no one’s seen him ...” He paused, shrugging. Caroline nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said to Larry. “But there’s something I need to ask you.” Larry turned to her, his face tired and wary. “What is it?”

“This student—the witness against Brett. Her name is Megan Race. I was wondering if you knew her, or have a faculty friend who does.”

“Megan Race?” Larry repeated. He shoved his hands in his pockets, staring down at the porch as Betty watched him intently. “That’s the woman James was seeing?”

“Yes.” His eyes seemed to narrow. “Do you know what her major is?”

“Not offhand. Is there any way I could get my hands on her file?”

“No legitimate way ...”

“I’m not asking you to do that. Just for any information you can come up with.” Larry seemed to exhale. I’d have to think about it,” he said. “Very hard.”

When Caroline returned to the inn, there were two messages. The easiest to return was from Walter Farris. She placed a call, waited on hold for ten minutes, pacing the room. By the time that Fares took her call, she was certain that he would tell her the nomination had been withdrawn. “Caroline,” he said brusquely. “I’ve spoken to the President.” She felt herself tense. “And?”

“And we reserve the right to widraw the nomination if + this all goes on too long, or if there’s any problem in what you’re doing up there. By that I mean any problem as we down here define it.” Farris paused for effect. “But, as of now, your nomination is still alive.” Caroline sat down on the bed. “Thank you.”

“Thank the President, who has more compassion than I would.” His voice grew softer. “Please, Caroline, don’t misunderstand You’re on your own now. Any misstep, and I’ll pull the plug myself.”

The second message, from Joe Lemieux, required two calls to his beeper. “I have her schedule,” he said. “No grades, but at least you can see what she was taking. For whatever it might be worth.”

“It’s a start. We can see what professors might know her, who else might have been in her classes. How did you get it, incidentally?”

“The school’s computer systems. The student can punch in for class schedule, registration, and a bunch of other

stuff.” Lemieux laughed softly. “The computer age presents an unlimited potential for invasion of privacy—in this case, all I needed was Megan’s student number, which wasn’t that hard to come by. But I wouldn’t mention this to anyone.” Caroline took a deep breath. “I won’t, believe me. And please, check with me before you do anything else like. this. I’m not interested in coming up on ethics charges, thank yOU.”

“I understand.” He sounded faintly nettled. “Look, do you want this stuff or not.”?” Caroline paused for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “I want it. But don’t fax it over. Drop it off by hand.” She hung up and went to Carlton Grey’s office. For the next two hours, she read statute books and talked by phone to experts—a serologist, a criminalist, and a doctor who treated drug and alcohol addiction. So that it was perhaps three-thirty before she returned to the inn and found the manila envelope beneath her door. Caroline opened it. Megan was a senior now; Caroline reached the first trimester of her junior year before she stopped, staring at the schedule with what she wished were disbelief. The telephone rang again. She was slow to answer. “Caroline,” Larry said, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

“Yes,” she replied. “I know.”

Caroline found him in his office at the English Department, sitting at his desk. He seemed too distraught to look away. Caroline sat facing him and then said softly, “You should have told me sooner.” Larry stared at her. “What must you think of me?” he asked with a certain dignity. “I didn’t know who the witness was until this morning, and I thought my confession could do without Betty. Given that your presence would complete her humiliation.” Caroline’s eyes met his. “She doesn’t know’?”

“Not to a certainty, and definitely not who.” He stood abruptly. “There’s something wrong with her.”

“Megan, you mean?”

“Of course Megan.” His hands gripped the chair. “First getting involved with Case, and now as the key witness against Brett. It’s like she’s had a plan to destroy my daughter....”

“Somehow, Larry, I doubt she counted on James Case dying.” Larry stiffened. “How do you know Megan didn’t kill him? This can’t be some coincidence—” Caroline held up one hand. “I’m not saying that, either. Only that you brought this woman to Brett’s doorstep.” He blanched. “But wouldn’t that mean Brett’s innocent?” Caroline tilted her head. “No. But what it may mean is that the key witness against her is damaged goods.” She paused for a moment. “In addition to whatever it does to your mareage.”

Larry’s gaze was bleak. “There’s no help for that,” he said at length. “Like so much else, Caroline, it’s far too late.” Slowly, Caroline nodded. “Then tell me about you and Megan. Considering that you’re the only one who seems to know her. Besides James Case.” Eyes averted, Larry walked to the door of his office, closing it tight, and then went to the window. He stood there, watching the late-afternoon sun fall softly across the red-brick buildings and rolling campus. “It’s been good here,” he said. “All in all.” Caroline studied his slender frame, the sunlight catching the silver in his hair. She said nothing. Larry seemed to steel himself. “My only excuse, Caro, is that I wasn’t looking for her, at least not consciously. This woman came to me.” Caroline considered him. “I don’t believe in Kismet. In my experience, people like Megan Race always know who to find.”

“Perhaps.” Larry turned from the window. “But in the classroom, I was the one they heard. Not like at home.” There was a faint undertone of self-contempt, as if Larry saw both versions of himself—the admired teacher, the deposed husband—as visible. “And Betty?” Caroline asked. “Where was she in all this?”

“Silent, in the great tradition of your family. Which slowly became mine.” He faced her again. “In my experience, all those sex manuals miss the point. It isn’t a matter of putting tab A in slot B. It’s all the things that are unspoken and unresolved.” Briefly, Larry looked away. “A kind of gray depression seeps into your soul, almost by stealth. So that you’re so taken by how vivid someone like Megan Race can seem that you’re blinded to the obvious—that whatever it is she sees in you is not about you. “At first, she didn’t seem that remarkable: a blond girl in the front row, asking questions, listening to your keenest points with her body leaning forward, her face open, straining to get it all. Then you notice the way she’ll sit there for

a moment when the lecture ends, a thoughtful, almost fond, half smile at the corner of her mouth. Until you begin to look for her and then, in an odd way, to count on her. Without either of you having said a word.” Larry paused for a moment. The sadness in his eyes seemed to go with the creases in his face and neck, the sag of a persona that had lost its vitality with the loss of illusions. “When she started coming to my office,” he said quietly, “something inside me knew. “It all began to fit. The way she moved the conversation from T. S. Eliot to things outside the class. The way she shut the door behind her, showed no interest in having coffee, or being in a public place. The almost reckless candor about herself and, after a few times, her sex life. “I watched us with a kind of fascination, like a spectator to my own seduction. The married professor, listening with placid interest to the pretty student while she segued from Dylan Thomas to things like, ‘I think sex is spiritual, don’t you—I mean, a mind that is uninhibited is more sexual than a well-toned body’” He stopped himself shaking his head.

“I’ve met her,” Caroline said quietly. “You’ve developed some gifts as a mimic, Larry. She does have a certain breathless way of speaking.”

Larry’s eyes shut. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he mumbled. “How could I have done this?”

“Because, as with several other things, you didn’t see the consequences. At least not all of them.”

He turned from her. “I never imagined, Caro, that I was endangering my daughter. Merely that I was risking my marriage and perhaps my job.” His voice held a musing bitterness. “Later, I wondered if I didn’t have some wish for self-destruction. To end my life, figuratively speaking, as I knew it. “Whatever, I’d crossed the line. By the time Megan came to my office, to say she wanted an affair with me, I was past surprise.

“I sat there while she proposed the rules, with this

strange light in her eyes. We would only meet at her apartment. She would no longer come to my office. She’d never mention my name to anyone. She wouldn’t cause trouble in my marriage or take any more of my classes. All that she wanted was time with me.” Larry’s voice grew quiet again. “When she reached across the desk and placed the key in my hand, I could already imagine us. “The next afternoon, I went there.” Part of Caroline, the girl who had teased with her sister’s husband over twenty years before, had heard enough. But the lawyer Caroline had no good use for her own sensitivities, or the remnants of his pride. “Please, don’t spare me the details,” she said. “I need a picture of this woman.” Larry leaned against the wall. As if to himself, he murmured, “I’m late for dinner.” Through the window, the fading light caught the hollows of his face. Caroline did not answer. “The first time we were alone,” Larry said softly, “she asked me to lie on the bed, and watch her. “There was a full-length mirror on the wall. Slowly, she took off everything, a piece at a time .... “Just before she was naked, she turned to see herself.” Larry paused, shaking his head. “Do you know what I remember? That when our eyes met in the mirror, she mouthed ‘I love you.”

“After a moment, she bent over. “I understood it as she meant me to. When I was inside her, she masturbated until she came. And when I came, my eyes still open, she smiled at her own reflection. “‘I’ll do anything you ask me to,’ she whispered. “Suddenly, Caro, I was God. There was nothing I couldn’t have from her—nothing. And when we had done whatever I asked, she would tell me that I was the best lover she had ever imagined .... “ Larry’s voice became tired, empty. “‘Imagined’ was the word— I’m sure that my new prowess happened only in her head. But it also happened in mine.” He searched for

words. “Part of me knew that this ‘relationship’ was arbitrary, of her own invention. But I was a sexual person again. I felt myself walk taller, smile more easily, a great lover within my secret world. Even as I lay next to Betty, frightened to death ...” Caroline watched him steadily. “That was all there was’? This meld of lntermezo with Fatal Attraction?” He winced. “No. I also listened to her.”

“About what?”

“There were recurring themes. Her social views—which turned out to be some weird hybrid of Camille Pagtia and ‘the politics of meaning.” Literature, of course: sometimes she’d ask me to read to her.” He reflected. “And, more and more frequently, her childhood. Mostly trauma, loneliness ... Her father was killed in an accident.” Caroline nodded. “Did something strike you about that?” His eyes narrowed. “Less then than now.” He faced her now. “When I broke it off, I gave Brett as a reason. What I remember now is Megan saying that I’d chosen Brett over her.” He shook his head, chagrined. “In retrospect, it was like she’d lost a father.” Caroline’s eyes changed. “I thought all she wanted was a little piece of your mind. And body.”

“At first, yes. There were rules for that too: Monday and Thursday, from three to five-thirty. Until she came to my office by surprise. “That was the first breach of the rules. “She was talking before I could protest.” Larry stopped, pensive. “What I haven’t conveyed to you is any picture of her energy—the excitement, the intimacy with which she looked at you, this incandescent smile. It was like she took you over.... “Yes. I’ve seen some of that, too. I sensed a tinge of desperation about it.” Caroline considered him. “I assume that she wanted, or needed, something from you.”

“To go away for a weekend.” In profile, Larry looked ashen, unable now to face her. “And then she slipped a

white envelope in my hand and asked me to open it before I answered. “Inside was a Polaroid picture. One she had taken of herself, in front of the mirror. She had only one hand on the camera .... “His voice fell off. “Yes,” Caroline said evenly. “I think I get it. Do go on.” Larry crossed his arms. “There was also a note, making me a promise. The one thing I hadn’t dared ask her to do.” He paused again. “I don’t know whether it was that, or the smile on her face when I looked up. “‘You see,’ she said, ‘I know you.”“ Caroline felt a kind of dread. “So you went with her.”

“Yes.”

“And Betty’?.”

“When I said I was going camping, she became very quiet.” Larry gazed out the window. “I hadn’t done that since Brett was small, and Betty has this instinct for anything that threatens her, or hers. The week before I went away, we hardly spoke. “Megan and I drove to the White Mountains. With every mile, I felt more haunted, less safe. We had hardly pitched the tent before I made her keep her promise. But all that it meant to me was an escape from my own thoughts .... “To Megan, it meant something more. “‘We’re different now,’ she told me. ‘No boy has ever done that to me. I was waiting for a man.”

“Something in her voice made me cringe. Part of it was the feeling—suddenly quite clear—that she had cast me in a fantasy that was far too comprehensive. But the worst part was the contrast between the ‘man’ of her imaginings and the real man, filled with the regret and memories of a twenty-five-year marriage, fearful of being caught before he gave that his due.” He paused. “And then—and this was eerie—she started asking about Betty.” He shook his head. ‘I’d had this illusion, Caro, that I’d kept my worlds separate—that all I had to do was spend a few hours in one, and lie a little in the other. And then suddenly Megan wanted to know everything: about how Betty