Parsons was upset. I could hear it in his voice. He had not believed Bob Sullivan could be a viable suspect. He had not wanted to. I couldn’t blame him. This case was never going to have a “smoking gun.” Any investigation into any suspect would require a leap of faith followed by professional exposure. It was one thing when the exposure involved a man like Cruz Demarco, or even the boys who were at the party. But Bob Sullivan was Fairview’s finest. And he wielded significant power throughout the middle part of the state. Parsons and his whole investigation would be under a microscope.
There was also the issue of my son and his name being on the list of boys to be interviewed. I had timed this meticulously.
“It has occurred to me that you should have my son on your list,” I said. I’d made the call the past Friday afternoon. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of this sooner, but he is on the swim team and he was at the party.”
Parsons, as expected, had not looked at his list for the following week. Really? He said. Let me see.… Oh yeah. We have him. He’s scheduled for next Thursday. We’re having to make appointments because everyone wants to come with a lawyer.
“I’m sure. My wife does as well, I’m afraid. I have no problem with any of this. You should absolutely cross every t and dot every i. I want nothing less for the Kramers.”
Parsons was quiet for a moment. He was thinking. I suppose they know your son … uh, Jason, was there? The Kramers, I mean?
“Well, I don’t really know. I try to keep my professional life separate from my personal affairs. I suppose I should tell them, or at least Tom. I’ll take care of that right away.”
That had been the end of it. My wife called the station and got the appointment moved again to the following week. I mentioned the interview in passing to Tom at one of our sessions. I waited until he was worked up about the police being incompetent for not finding the blue sweatshirt.
We were now past that. We were on to Bob Sullivan. I had managed to kick the can down the road. But the road was not endless.
Alan, we did some checking into Sullivan. Do you have anything else on your end?
“Well, actually, I do, but it’s really quite uncertain. I don’t want to jump the gun.”
Look … I need whatever you have. Fuck … this thing is spinning out of control.
“What’s happened? What did you find?”
Sometimes life just hands you a gift. You don’t know when it’s going to happen. You can’t count on it. But when it happens, you come very close to believing there’s a god.
Uh … man. I don’t even want to say it. I have your word it will remain between us until I have enough to question him?
“Of course.”
Okay. Spring 1982. Fort Lauderdale. There’s a file that made it to Skidmore, where Sullivan went to college. Nothing came of it. No charges. Nothing like that. But it involves a sexual incident. The victim was a sixteen-year-old. Local girl out with her friends, looking to party with college kids on their spring break. Sounds like it might have been a case of morning-after regret. There’s a photo … tight little tube top, miniskirt, black eyeliner … you get the picture, right?
“Yes.”
Sullivan’s parents got him a lawyer. Charges were dropped on condition his college was informed. It’s nothing. And between you and me, if Tom Kramer wasn’t such a loose cannon, this file would be in the shredder. This is the kind of thing that ruins a man’s life. And it’s apples and oranges.
Oh, what a gift, this wind!
“Well … I can see your dilemma. How can I help you?”
Parsons sighed. I could hear his exasperation with me. I need to know why you set me out on this path. I need to know what Jenny Kramer remembers. I can’t go at this guy with a thirty-three-year-old allegation that never even led to charges. It’ll seem like a persecution.
“But isn’t it your job to follow every lead, even if it takes you to a man like Bob Sullivan? Maybe there’s more to find. He obviously has some appetites. Possibly control issues. He’s an aggressive man. You can tell that from his success, his ambitions.”
You want me to go at him with that? Seriously? Well, it makes sense that you would brutally rape a local teenager—after all, you’re ambitious and successful—
“Detective,” I interrupted him, “let me ask you this: Wasn’t the first thing you did on this case to look for anyone in and around Fairview with a sex offense? That and the blue Civic? If this college record had been an actual charge, wouldn’t you have at least asked him politely for an alibi so you could rule him out? Surely he would understand that, and gladly provide one. You’ve done more than that with half the teenage boys in this town, haven’t you?”
It’s not the same. The boys were at the party. We already knew that. How am I gonna explain my reasons for digging up his records? He’ll hire his own investigators. A team of lawyers. This whole thing will be out of my hands then. And over what?
“But he’s running for office. I’m shocked the press haven’t already found it. Let him believe someone handed it to you.”
I don’t know. Seems like a stretch. It’s the state legislature. His opponent is an eighty-year-old probate judge with a couple of nickels to rub together. No … even if I don’t tell him why I need the alibi, I gotta have something. Don’t tell me what it is. Just tell me there’s something if I need it. Tell me you didn’t send me on this goose chase without a really good reason.
I pretended to mull this over. I sighed. I hemmed and hawed. Parsons was very nervous.
“There is something. It’s not reliable. It would get torn apart in court. But it certainly is enough.”
I don’t think this is what Parsons wanted to hear. I think he wanted a reason to close the door on Bob Sullivan. Parsons’s zeal for this case came and went with the turn of the spotlight. When it was shining outside of Fairview, he was a tiger on the hunt. I think about him in that car, dying to pounce on Cruz Demarco. When Demarco came up with an alibi, Parsons went back at the swim team and the search for the blue sweatshirt, but with far less ambition. He did not even know the names of the boys on the list. He had been surprised to hear about Jason. What kind of detective work is that? I did not know why this was. Perhaps he didn’t want to muddy his own pond. For weeks, he’d been doing what he had to do to keep Tom Kramer satisfied—and no more. Although Tom never was satisfied.
Parsons hung up. It was only a matter of days before Bob would be interviewed, before he would know he was in the mix somehow. He would then go to Charlotte, and she would tell him about the recovered memory of his voice and how Jenny had mixed it up in her head. What then? That was the question. Where would the wind blow next? What else would the fire burn? Bob’s marriage? His run for office? Charlotte?
I went home after that call. I could not concentrate. I could not listen to anyone else’s problems. I took more lorazepam. The dose was small. It was barely enough to smooth the edges of my anxiety.
My excitement at the gift, the wind and the fire it fed, was fleeting, and I realized that a great darkness was covering my sky. I don’t know how else to explain this to you. Some of you will understand. Those of you who come to my office and sit on my sofa and tell me the things you have done that cannot be undone, or the things that have been done to you. All of life is just a state of mind, isn’t it? We are all just walking slowly to our graves, trying not to think about it, trying to find meaning, to pass the time pleasantly. Look around you. Everyone you can see will be dead in one hundred years: You. Your spouse. Your child. Your friends. The people who love you. The people who hate you. Terrorists in the Middle East. The politicians raising your taxes and making bad policies. The teacher who gave your son a bad grade. The couple who didn’t invite you to a dinner.
I have gone down this mental path when things have upset me. I find it puts life in perspective. It can be a good thing, to remember that there is very little that truly matters. A bad grade. A dumb politician. A social slight.
Unfortunately, there are things that do matter. Things that can ruin what little time we have here. Things that cannot be done over or remedied. These are the things that we regret. And regret is more devious than guilt. It is more corrosive than envy. And it is more powerful than fear.
Why did I take my eyes off the swimming pool? Why did I take my eyes off the road? Why did I cheat on my wife? Why did I steal from my clients?
People fight every day to control their regret, to keep it from stealing their happiness. Sometimes they fight just to function, to work and drive their kids to school and make dinner without jumping off a bridge. It is painful. Brutally painful. The skillful ones manage to outmaneuver it. Then they go to sleep and it finds its way back to the throne. Morning comes and they awake again as slaves to this ruthless dictator.
I pulled into my driveway, a slave to my own regret. I could already see how irreparable my actions were. I felt stained by the kind of stain that never comes out. The kind of stain that would make you throw the thing out. Red wine on a white tablecloth. Blood on Charlotte’s blouse. I thought about Bob Sullivan. A cheater. A liar. But an innocent man. I thought about Sean Logan. A hero. A tortured soul. And now the anger at Bob Sullivan was festering within him. I thought about Jenny, I thought about her blood spilled on that bathroom floor and how I was so close to giving her back her memory, and with it her very life. These things I had done, I might as well have slammed into these innocents with my car while my eyes were looking away. Maybe it’s worse than that. This was no accident. This was me driving down the road, my son on one side and these innocents on the other—and no room to pass safely between them
My wife was in the kitchen, making a snack for my son. I could hear that fucking game on in the TV room, my son’s laughter, gunfire, explosions. More laughter.
What’s wrong with you? What’s happened? my wife asked me.
I did not know this at the time, but I had been crying. Fury at having to save him this way and fear that escaped from the box on the shelf seeped from my eyes. There were a lot of tears that day.
I walked past her to the TV room. I did not stop to turn off the game. I grabbed my son by both arms and pulled him to his feet.
Dad—he started to say.
I took the remote from his hands, and I threw it at the TV. I shattered the screen. My wife screamed and ran in from the kitchen. She had the plate of food in her hands.
Alan!
Holding my son’s arms, I shook him, hard. “You tell me right now! Why were you in those woods? What were you doing in those woods!”
I wasn’t! I told you!
I shook him again and again. My wife set down the plate and rushed to my side, grabbing hold of my arms, trying to pull me away from our child.
“Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know what might have happened? Tell me! Why were you there? Why were you in those woods?”
Julie stared at him, waiting for an answer. The more time that passed, the more she had come to wonder whether he had raped Jenny Kramer. I could see it in her eyes, the sadness that had crept in.
I saw his phone sitting on the couch. I grabbed it. I knew the password because my wife had told me. I also knew from my wife about the porn she’d found on his computer. I opened the home screen and checked the browser history.
What are you doing! Stop that! Jason screamed. He lunged for the phone, but I was faster. His arm swept through the air, missing me completely.
I let an image load, some porn star’s hairless pussy with a giant cock about to enter. The picture started to move into video. The image of people fornicating on the screen. The sound of people fornicating on the audio. My wife gasped, her hand drawing to her mouth.
Mom … Our son turned to her for help. She looked at him and then to me. My emotions had infected her.
“This is how you’re building your house? This is what you want the police to see if they get your phone? You want one more thing that makes you look like a rapist?”
Jesus, Dad! Everybody looks at this stuff. It’s just regular stuff! It doesn’t make me a rapist!
“Regular stuff?” I said, shoving the phone up close to his face. “There is nothing regular about this. Nothing!”
Julie pleaded with him. Jason, please! We still love you. We’ll still help you. But we have to know. Tell us! Please, just tell us!
My son’s face was bright red, and I knew we had turned him. I knew he was breaking. And for a moment, I actually thought it was possible that he had done those terrible things to my sweet Jenny. Oh, the places the mind can go! We are so fragile. So very, very fragile.
Okay! He screamed at us, pulling his arms from my grasp. Just let me go!
We stood there in the center of that room. Julie and I holding our breath with anticipation. Jason gathering his courage. I turned off the phone and tossed it onto the sofa.
I was there, okay! I was fucking there! Are you happy now? Are you happy I’m going to jail?
Julie gasped. What did you do? My God, what?
“Jason…” I said, almost in a whisper. My mind was out of control.
Jason started to cry. I told you there were a lot of tears that day. He sat on the couch and hung his head into his hands.
I went to find that guy. The guy in the blue Civic.
“Cruz Demarco?” I asked. “The drug dealer?”
I had a hundred dollars. And I went to find him.
“Where did you get a hundred dollars?”
I took it. From a wallet in the kitchen. I don’t know whose it was—it was just there and it had all this money in it.
“So you thought you’d steal the money and buy drugs?”
There was this girl. She asked if I had anything. I knew the guy was out there. Kids were coming in and out, whispering about it. He had all kinds of stuff.
“And you thought if you bought these drugs, then what? She would go out with you?”
I looked at my wife. She was almost laughing. I wiped my face and tried not to smile. Relief had swept through us both.
“What happened next? How did you get from the road to the woods?”
I just … I got close to the car and I got scared. So I pretended I was just walking by.… I went to the other side of the car, the side next to the woods, and as soon as there was a clearing, I went near the woods just to the line of trees, then came back to the house. I put the money back. I told the girl the guy had left.
“So you were never in the woods?” My head was spinning then. It is one thing to ask the question. It is quite another to know the answer is coming. This is the reason many questions remain unasked. Sometimes it is easier not knowing.
No!
The word echoed, bouncing against the walls of my heart. Thank God! Oh, sweet Jesus, thank you!
My wife couldn’t speak without revealing her joy, pure joy that her wonderful son was still wonderful.
“This is not who you are,” I said sternly. I don’t know how, but I managed to conceal myself. My head was spinning.
“Stealing money and even thinking about buying drugs!”
Jason slumped back into the couch. He really had no idea about anything.
“Why don’t you go to your room. Take the Xbox with you. I’m sorry I broke the TV.”
Am I grounded?
“Yes. Until next weekend.”
Jason got up, unplugged the Xbox, and grabbed all the wires and controllers and games. He skulked away to the stairs and then up to his room.
Julie fell into my arms and we both laughed. The fear was gone. The box on the shelf empty. It did not lift the darkness. It did not clean the stain. But I was resigned to live dirty, under this shadow for the flawed but wonderful creature we had created.