The Spire (33 page)

'It could be. But she's twenty-eight'looking for her first full-time job, completing her PhD dissertation, and intent on living in a major city when I've just moved to the place she never felt at home. Those are pretty serious impediments.'

'So what is it about her''

Darrow smiled a little. 'As near as I can tell in a month's time' Everything else.'

Still watching Darrow, Seitz smiled too, signaling encouragement. 'If she's the right one, Mark, see if you can make things work. It says something that you've opened up to her.' His smile vanishing, Seitz picked up a piece of paper from the table beside his chair. 'On to a grimmer subject. I took detailed notes on what you told me about this diary. You're right that the whole thing could be fiction'the abstract quality of the narrative might suggest that. Still, you've asked me to assume it's real. So let's reprise the rules.'

'All right.'

'First, you want me to speculate on the character of the narrator and the man she chose to call HE. Second, you asked me to assume that HE killed her.' Seitz briefly checked his notes. 'Finally, you're trying to compare HE with a man you
know
to be real: a former classmate who was frequently inebriated, physically abusive to women, and obsessed with bondage involving African-American females. But who also, by your account, gave up drinking shortly after the strangulation of our narrator, and since then has led an ostensibly productive life that includes a highly successful career and a wife and kids he appears to cherish. Does that about cover it''

'Pretty much.'

Seitz puffed his cheeks. 'This isn't psychology, Mark'it's more like divination. We should be doing this in a bar. But I'll try.'

'All I can ask, Jerry.'

'Though we know nothing else about him, the acts Angela ascribes to HE are clearly aberrant. Equally apparent, this man feels a deep contempt for women, however well masked in his so-called normal life. A common background begins with a hard-handed father who exploited a codependent mother. These guys often hate their fathers but also despise their mothers, for being weak.'

'That's my old classmate, Jerry. Or so he told me in college.'

'Interesting. The next step is that the son adopts the contempt of his father toward his mother, while Mom, replicating the pattern, placates him.' Seitz grimaced. 'In an adolescent boy there tends to be an erotic element in his subjugation of Mom'her submission begins feeling sexual to him. And because he hates his father, he begins to compete with Dad for power.

'This can get pretty tangled. When he was sixteen, a patient of mine came home from a date and found his mother in a negligee, drunk. So he pulled up her negligee and fucked her. She responded, and he liked cuckolding Dad. But he and Mom never spoke of it again. Perverse enough for you''

'It'll do.'

Seitz cocked his head. 'By the way, what do you know about your classmate's wife''

'Never met her. As near as I can tell, her role is to be wife and mother.'

'Well, maybe they're the Cleaver family. Of course, you just can't know what happens once the kids are in bed. So I'll move on to the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath.'

'Think HE is one or the other''

'Only one of them,' Seitz said succinctly. 'As a lawyer, no doubt you've met your share of sociopaths'superficially charming but wholly lacking in empathy. For a sociopath, the only function of other people is to fulfill their own needs. If you're perceptive, they're pretty easy to spot. Most critical here is that they tend to be nonviolent'their sense of caution is too great.'

'That would be Carl Hall, actually.'

'Which brings me to the psychopath.' Seitz's voice softened. 'Psychopaths are very special people.'

Beneath Seitz's words Darrow heard a warning. 'In what way''

'To begin, they're pretty rare. Like sociopaths, they tend to grow up in an abusive and hostile environment.' Seitz paused, then added quietly, 'So did you, I know. But psychopaths experience other people solely as objects. And they have absolute mastery over emotions that most of us can't control.'

'Such as''

'Fear. Put an ordinary person in a frightening situation'say, someone draws a knife'and their heart rate jumps. But a psychopath's anxiety level actually
decreases
. They thrive on danger, and tend to be absolutely fearless.'

Imagining HE as a real person, Darrow felt uneasy. 'How do they relate to women''

'For a psychopath, sex is power. He needs and despises women at the same time. So he seeks out submissive women'perhaps prostitutes.' Again, Seitz paused. 'As the diary also suggests, he can get off on the thrill of it, until the need for sexual dominance becomes an addiction.'

'What about their willingness to kill''

'It's often very high. That, too, typically originates with a harsh father. But because a psychopath feels neither anxiety nor guilt, he can kill without remorse. And once he does, he can go to bed and never lose a minute's sleep.' Seitz looked hard at Darrow. 'By nature, psychopaths aren't anxious people. They don't tend to act on impulse. Instead, they're typically brilliant planners, meticulous in what they do. The man who murdered Angela Hall and her brother'assuming it's the same man, and that Hall was, in fact, murdered'may well be a psychopath. All he'd require is a reason that compels him.'

'Would blackmail do''

Seitz nodded. 'Blackmail,' he said gravely, 'would do very well.'

Reflective, Darrow sat back, steepling his fingers to his lips. 'It was after Angela's murder that Joe Betts became sober. Maybe he was reacting to being dumped by his college girlfriend. In either case, that doesn't feel consistent with what you're saying.'

Seitz tilted his head, as though examining Darrow's question with a jeweler's eye. 'If your classmate was moved by shame or conscience, I'd agree. But simple self-preservation is sufficient for a psychopath. Pretending to honor the rules can enable them to conceal who they are. Given the proper motivation, psychopaths are capable of incredible self-control, even over their own deepest desires. Often for years at a time.'

Darrow felt a nascent sense of dread. 'You're saying HE could have lived a seemingly normal life after murdering Angela Hall. Including succeeding in a demanding career, as Joe Betts has.'

'Sure,' Seitz responded with an ironic smile. 'In the annals of psychopaths, success as a financial adviser is pretty small potatoes. Consider Hitler and Stalin, both paragons of the breed. We remember them as mass murderers. But both also managed to outmaneuver their rivals'and, indeed, entire countries'until they dominated a fair share of the world.'

'They were also obviously nuts.'

'A lot of people didn't think so. And their form of insanity helped them.' Seitz got up, cracking his window to admit a measure of fresh air from another sunlit day. 'For one thing, they loved power and had a talent for exploitation'show weakness, and they'd only become more cruel. The only people they respected were those who shared their ruthlessness and lack of fear.

'For them, a couple of murders and a little embezzlement would have been light work. Yet they were often brilliant at reading other people. Neither felt any sentiment that would interfere with their insight and discernment. Faced with Hitler, Neville Chamberlain never had a prayer.'

'Ruthlessness is one thing,' Darrow retorted. 'Charm is another. Sociopaths have that.'

'So can psychopaths. And their confidence'concealed arrogance, really'inspires trust in them.' Seitz slowed his speech for emphasis. 'Stalin and Hitler survived in a much harsher environment than Wayne or the financial services industry.'

Darrow fell quiet. After a time, he said, 'I'm trying to square this with Joe Betts. For that matter, with his present family life as he presents it.'

Seitz pondered this. 'The man you describe is engaging, and capable enough to be a great financial success at a very young age. So much so that Caldwell made him a trustee in his mid-thirties, then asked him to oversee the school's investments.

'What you can't know is what he's like to be around in his most unguarded hours. As you concede, you don't know Betts's wife at all. But if she's perceptive, a spouse may realize there's something off. Best to have a wife who's somewhat otherworldly and trusting. Family members see more than the rest of us.'

Darrow was still for a time, staring at a watercolor he did not truly see. 'Outside the family circle, would HE have any weakness''

'Arrogance. Psychopaths tend to have superior intelligence. They also know it. So every success they have in getting away with something increases their feeling of omnipotence.' Seitz's tone became clipped. 'As I noted, they excel at reading other people. But, because they can, they tend to underrate those around them and overrate themselves. They get caught, if at all, when they finally encounter someone as smart as they are.'

Darrow took this in. 'Tell me about Angela Hall.'

'Sure,' Seitz said promptly. 'Unlike HE, we know Angela was real. What we don't know is whether the narrator in the diary is Angela or a surrogate for fantasies she never actually experienced. But a fair chunk of the populace gets a rush from a modest amount of pain, as long as it's not too dangerous. So in 'normal' S&M, there are rules.

'The problem for our narrator is that HE seems to have no rules. His pleasure comes not just from scaring, but from hurting. Thus his entwinement with her becomes more dangerous, his techniques ever more sadistic.'

Darrow nodded. 'At the beginning of her diary,' he said, 'the game seems somewhat manageable. What I was feeling was a process of seduction'Angela could take it, perhaps even be intrigued by it. But by the end, beneath her tone of eerie dispassion, she sounded frightened to me.

'My problem is that I knew her'or thought I did. I know we flatter ourselves by thinking that we understand people based on seeing a tiny fraction of their lives, that which they allow us to see. But the Angela I perceived wouldn't have signed on for this. At least not voluntarily.'

'What do you know about
her
family''

'Nothing.'

'So for all you know,' Seitz said pointedly, 'Dad beat Mom. Like spousal abusers, their victims tend to replicate what they grew up with.'

'Suppose that doesn't apply here''

Seitz shrugged. 'You know the alternatives. One, she liked it. Two, HE had some kind of leverage. Three, HE paid her.'

Darrow sat back. 'Joe had no leverage I can think of. If Joe was HE, they either met each other's needs or he was paying her. God knows Joe was rich enough. But the cops found no sign that Angela was getting money from anything but work.'

'What about those diamonds''

'Those were her brother's'' Darrow stopped himself. 'Let me think about that.'

'Let's return to Betts. How well does what I've told you fit''

Darrow organized his thoughts. 'Some pieces do. The abusive dad, contempt for women, hitting his girlfriend, an interest in S&M involving black females. And Joe was always smart enough and'at least when he was sober'personable.

'But could he have done all this' Beneath the arrogance you describe, Joe seems vulnerable and insecure. That's what I still struggle with.'

Seitz nodded. 'Anything else''

'Your point about dormancy is important'the idea that a psychopath, if faced with danger, might have sufficient self-control to swear off S&M for years. Or, equally, important, alcohol . . .'

'That would especially be true,' Seitz asked, 'if he'd killed someone while drunk'either in a rage, or because he didn't know how to stop. He might well not kill again until Carl Hall threatened to strip the cover off his Norman Rockwell existence.' Seitz paused, then admonished Darrow: 'As you know better than anyone,
facts
are what you need here. The best you can do is take what I've given you and use it as a guide. Never forgetting that all our theorizing could be a pile of garbage.'

Despite the darkness of his mood, Darrow smiled a little. 'I'll still pay your bill, Jerry. But there is one thing I'm certain of. The personality you describe is
not
Steve Tillman.'

D

ARROW AND T AYLOR DINED AT E XCELSIOR, ENJOYING A table by the window overlooking the Public Garden. Over cocktails, Taylor described her interview.

'They're very serious,' she said, her tone sober and a bit surprised. 'The museum wants to expand its collection of contemporary art, and they have the resources to do it.'

'And they also seem serious about you''

'Definitely. I don't have a lot of experience with interviews like this, but they were very thorough and interested in probing my ideas.' She smiled, acknowledging a pride she could not contain. 'In fact, they asked me to come back tomorrow, to meet with the head curator.'

That she would be leaving Wayne, Darrow told himself, was inevitable; whatever his real feelings, his role was to be pleased for her. 'If they offer you a job, would you take it''

Taylor bit her lip, her look of pleasure succeeded by perplexity. 'I wasn't expecting to make a decision this soon'either about a job or a city I barely know. But jobs like this are hard to find.'

'Can you hold them off for a while''

Taylor shook her head. 'Not if they want me. They'd like someone to start tomorrow, if they could, and they're interviewing other candidates.'

Darrow gazed out at the greenery of the Public Garden, his eyes following a young couple holding hands as they walked a meandering pathway. 'Sometimes,' he observed, 'it's easier when decisions get made for you. It's far more difficult when
you
have to make them, not knowing what else may be out there.'

Taylor gave him a curious look. 'What was it like to live in Boston''

The question made Darrow feel oddly glum. 'As a single person' Fine, I guess'there's enough to do. Compared to a lot of cities, Boston's a magnet for young people. It's where I met Lee.' Darrow gave her a somewhat rueful smile. 'It seems like we're headed in different directions. Thanks to your dad, I'm a citizen of Wayne, Ohio.'

Catching his mood, Taylor covered his hand. 'If you hadn't come to Caldwell, Mark, we wouldn't know each other at all. At least not in this way.'