The Dead Student (34 page)

He went to the window, stared out across the night. The lights from Coral Gables and South Miami gave the distance a faint glow across the dark expanse that he knew was the golf course, but which looked in the ink dark to be an ocean. Below him, the music finally stopped.
“Don’t you want somebody to love? Don’t you need somebody to love?”
were the last words he could make out as he watched the party dissipate. “No,” he said, “I do not need someone to love.”
You could sleep now,
he thought, knowing this was untrue. No sleep until he’d made some decisions.

Take charge,
he admonished himself.
Figure it out. Dissect what you know.

“If you kill The Nephew, even if it looks like an accident, what happens?”

Full-scale murder investigation. No delay. His suspicions about his uncle’s death immediately gain complete credibility. Inevitable: newspaper and television headlines.

“If you kill The Girlfriend, what happens?”

Same. Added idea: Young Timothy will become more obsessed with me.

“If you kill The Prosecutor, what happens?”

The full weight of the Miami investigative services will descend upon that crime. The FBI will get involved. And The Girlfriend and The Nephew will tell them precisely where to start looking. Those cops and agents will never quit until they find me.

“Suppose I just disappear?”

I have to do that anyway.
He traced rivulets of sweat still running down his chest.
Nor would I ever know for one hundred percent certain that I was free. I would have to constantly monitor those three people, God damn it to hell.

He thought hard, and the beginnings of an idea started to form in his head:
Death for death.
“Bring them closer. Close enough to kill.”

“And how do you do that?”

“Fear and weakness.”
People think that fear causes someone to run away and hide. In actuality the opposite occurs.
He went to a bathroom mirror and stared into his eyes, nodding his head in agreement.

He could see dangers everywhere, and he wondered whether he had enough time to properly plan it out. Designing sudden death was something he enjoyed and took pride in. A delicious idea crept into his head. It relaxed him, and he believed it was almost time to finally go to bed. This day was nearly over.

Andy Candy felt like she was late, although no specific time had been agreed upon, so she was hurrying through morning rush-hour traffic, weaving aggressively from lane to lane down South Dixie Highway. She figured that if she were pulled over by a trooper, Susan Terry could get her out of any ticket the cop might write. This sudden sense of automotive impunity made her grin, and she was almost laughing when her cell phone rang.

She had a hands-free connection in her car, so she pressed the button on the radio panel, assuming it would be Moth, telling her about the next scheduled session with Susan Terry. “Hey, I’m on my way,” she said, cheerily. “Be there in a few.”

“You may think you are on your way, Andrea,” an unfamiliar voice said coldly, “but you will not arrive at the destination you want.”

She nearly swerved off the highway. “Who is this?” she asked, voice rising.

“Who do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. We were very close, only a few short days ago, at our mutual friend Jeremy Hogan’s house.”

Cold plunged through her at the same second that heat exploded around her. She could feel her heart suddenly racing. For an instant she thought the car had spun out of control, but then she realized the highway was
dry and it was her head that was spinning. “How did you get …” she stammered,
“… this number”
getting lost in her panic.

“Not a challenge.”

Her throat went suddenly dry. Words formed behind her lips, but they became sand on her tongue.

“I need to ask you a question or two, Andrea,” the voice continued. “Or should I call you
Andy Candy
like your closest friends?”

She croaked out a sound.
My nickname. He knows my nickname.
She looked around wildly at the other cars cluttering the highway, as if someone could help her. She felt wedged in, hammered into place. Crushed.

“First question, very simple, easy to answer: Have you ever spoken with a killer before?”

She could feel her breathing tightening. The sensation was like what she had always imagined as having a boa constrictor wrap itself around her chest and starting to squeeze.

“No,” she coughed out, the word scouring her throat.
Was that my voice? It seemed like someone else speaking.

“Didn’t think so. So this will be new for you. Okay, second question, significantly harder: Are you willing to die for your old boyfriend?”

She nearly choked. Cars ahead of her were slowing down and she had to force herself to remember to hit the brake at the last minute, avoiding rear-ending the vehicle in front of her by only inches, tires squealing. She felt dizzy, hot, and feverish. As her car jerked to a stop, she felt like she was still moving, actually picking up speed, racing pell-mell down the street. She did not know how to answer.
Yes. No. I don’t know.

She started to say
Why?
but then she realized that the phone line had been disconnected. “Wait,” she blurted to no one. Behind her, cars started to honk. She did not know whether to go forward or to stay stock-still.

Andy Candy wanted to scream, and her mouth fell open. For an instant, she thought maybe she already had screamed but had not been able to hear herself, suddenly deaf. She was unsure of everything.

31

9 a.m. Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.

Susan Terry behind her desk, trying to figure out what her day held. Loud knock at the door.

Susan: “Come in.”

“Hello, Susan.”

Quick scramble to her feet. Firm handshake. It wasn’t often that the head of Major Crimes came to her office.

“Hello, Larry. I’m sorry for the mess. I was working and didn’t expect anyone—”

His hand up in a stop sign.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

Momentary silence. The stop sign became a gesture to resume her seat, and the head of Major Crimes drew up a chair and plopped himself down. He hesitated briefly, staring directly at her, before continuing. Susan thought:
The way he’s looking at me should tell me something. Or everything.

“Susan, have you looked in a mirror at yourself?”

She had, instantly guessed what it was that he’d seen, but she said nothing in reply.

“We both know what’s going on, right?”

“I … no …” she stammered.

“You were warned when this happened before. This office cannot, under any circumstances, have people engaged in illicit drug activity. You know that. For crying out loud, Susan, we’re the people who prosecute drug crimes and put the bad guys in prison! So, you are being suspended. I’m sorry.”

“Please …”

“No
pleases
. No excuses. No debate. Suspended. And truly fortunate that I’m not saying
fired
. Late last night Narcotics got a goddamn unusual anonymous tip and went out and arrested a man I think you know and know goddamn well, because those were the first fucking words out of his mouth when detectives arrived at his place and caught him cutting up a key of coke. He’s not lying, is he? Don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear any crap. And he says he recently sold you a dime bag. He was specific about that. And then another last night—which tells me you already went though the first. That’s not a lie, either, is it? Again, don’t answer. That’s what the smug bastard told those cops and they were nice enough to call me in the fucking middle of the night before making any sort of official report with your name prominently displayed in it. You caught a big break on that.”

“That’s …” she started, then stopped short. She understood how stupid anything she said would sound.
Who made that call?
she wondered, only to realize the question was irrelevant.

“You want to keep your job?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Then either check yourself into residential rehab, or start going to meetings regularly and see a shrink that specializes in addiction or find an outpatient program—I don’t give a shit, as long as it’s a plan and you can stick to it and it works. You’re taking a leave of absence. Maybe a month. Maybe two. We’ll see. Then you can come back to work under
supervision and with routine unannounced piss tests. That’s the best deal I can give you. Or you can quit right now, hang out a shingle, try to go into private practice, see how that works for you. I mean, maybe somebody out there wants to hire a lawyer who spends their spare time doing lines of coke. I wouldn’t know. Or maybe you can just become a junkie. Up to you.”

This sarcasm sliced her skin.

“My cases …”

“Reassigned. This will create some additional work for your colleagues, but they’ll manage.”

She nodded.

“You’re not to have any contact with anyone associated with this office. We’re going to have to give your drug dealer buddy a helluva deal to keep his mouth shut about you, and I don’t like doing that. If the press ever heard—Christ, what a mess that would be; I can see the headline
: State Attorney Cover-up for Addict Prosecutor.
Jesus. Anyway, what you’re going to do is go get straight and then we will see where we are.”

“Shall I …”

“Out of here in an hour. I’ll make up some story for everyone. Like I’m putting you on a special assignment. Everyone will know the truth, but it’s a reasonable lie. Cover asses. Save face.”

She wanted to say something. Again she did not.

“That’s it. And Susan …”

“Yes.”

“I really hope you can pull yourself together. You want the names of some rehab specialists? I can get you those. And I want you to check in with me every week. Not with anyone else. Call my private line. I want to hear the rehab plan by the end of this week. By the end of next week I want to hear how it’s going. And so on. And I will want names of doctors, sponsors, whatever, so I can call them and speak with them myself. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“Susan, everyone here is pulling for you.”

He did not add
Don’t fucking let us down again
but she knew that was implied. She wished that her boss had sounded more angry, outraged even, but he had not. Mostly he’d just sounded weary and resigned.

It took her an hour to stack her current cases on her desk in as orderly a fashion as she could manage, and leave behind some notes so that whichever prosecutor took them over wouldn’t be hopelessly lost from the get-go. Then she took her badge and her handgun and slid these into her briefcase.

The only file she didn’t leave behind was ED WARNER—SUICIDE.

Near hysteria, verge of panic, tears and clammy sweat, quaver in the voice, quiver in the hands. Moth saw all the fear in Andy Candy’s eyes, face, and body and thought it was like delirium tremens after an alcohol bender, or the pallid, near-dead look of someone coming down off a two-day crack cocaine binge. He was familiar with the looks created by substances, less accustomed to the looks created by terror.

Andy’s voice was plaintive, trapped. “What do we do now? He knows who we are.” A pause. “What do you think he will do?”

What she wanted to say was
Kill him, Moth. Kill him for me.
She did not say this and did not know why she didn’t because it made sense.

Moth wanted to pace aggressively around his apartment, like a general planning a siege, at the same time that he wanted to sit beside Andy Candy, throw his arm around her, and bring her head to his shoulder.

Andy dropped her face into her hands, and very much wanted to be comforted except that she doubted there was anything Moth could say right at that moment that might comfort her. She was actually a little surprised that she’d managed to drive the remaining blocks to his apartment with the killer’s words ringing in her ears. She seemed to ricochet between sobbing breakdown and cold, determined resiliency. Any sensation of toughness surprised her and seemed new. She wasn’t sure what to make of it, but hoped it would stick with her.

She looked up at Moth.
He’s afraid for me.
She thought he looked stricken, like she imagined she must have looked on the day her father
was given his deadly cancer diagnosis.
No brave words, no stiff-upper-lip, let’s-keep-our-eye-on-the-ball-and-we’ll-get-through-this bullshit,
she thought.
Just murder waiting in the doorway, ready to push inside.

Cancer and abortion and murder all blended together in her imagination as if they weren’t all different moments in her twenty-two years, but were somehow combined into a single entity.

“All right,” Moth said, his voice even-keeled. “We talk to Susan Terry and see what she says.” He smiled wanly, trying to encourage Andy Candy. “Call in the cavalry. Bring in the Marines. Whatever will keep us safe. Susan will know exactly what we should do.”

But she did not.

“Christ,” Susan blurted.

The three of them were standing in the parking lot adjacent to the Miami-Dade Office of the State Attorney. It was late morning, nearly noon, heat was building, and the steady drone of nearby traffic punctuated their conversation. Moth could see a line of sweat forming on Susan’s forehead. She seemed pale to him, as if she was sick or hadn’t slept. He thought Andy should be the pale one. Or maybe him. Their threat was real. But it was Susan who seemed shaky—more shaky than she’d been in the sushi restaurant—as if something was terribly out of kilter. He thought he recognized this for what it was, but said nothing—although the words
up the nose
fixed in his head. He wasn’t sure whether Andy Candy saw the same integers that added up to a single quotient:
cocaine
.