Speaking In Tongues

29

A hand stroked his hair.

Lying on his side, on a cold floor, Tate slowly opened his eyes, which stung fiercely from his own sweat. He tried to focus on the face before him. He believed momentarily that the soft fingers were Bett’s; she’d been the first person in his thoughts as he came to consciousness.

But he found that the blue eyes he gazed into were Megan’s.

“Hey, honey,” he wheezed.

“Dad.” Her face was pale, her hair pasted to her head with sweat, her hands bloody.

They were in the lobby of the decrepit hospital. His hands were bound behind him with scratchy rope. His vision was blurry. He got up and nearly fainted from the pain that roared in his temple.

Aaron Matthews was sitting on a chair nearby watching them both like the helpless prisoners that they were.

What astonishing black eyes he has, Tate thought. Like dark lasers. They turned to you as if you were the only person in the universe. Why, patients would tell him anything. He understood why Bett had been powerless to resist him earlier that night when he’d come to her house. Konnie too. And Megan.

Then he saw that Matthews was hurt. A large patch of blood covered the side of his shirt and he was sweating. His nose too was bloody. Tate glanced at Megan. She gave a weak smile and nodded, answering his tacit question if she was responsible for the wound. He lowered his head to the girl’s shoulder. A moment later Tate looked up. “You’ve lost those five pounds you wanted to,” he said to her. “You’re lean and mean.”

“It was ten,” she joked.

Matthews finally said, “Well, Tate Collier. Well.

Such a smooth, baritone voice, Tate reflected. But not phony or slick. So natural, so comforting. Patients would cling to every word he uttered.

“I was just doing my job,” Tate finally said to him. “Peter’s trial, I mean. The evidence was there. The jury believed it.”

Megan frowned and Tate explained about the trial and the boy’s murder in prison.

The girl scowled, said to Matthews, “I knew you’d never worked with him on cases. Those were just more lies.”

Matthews didn’t even notice her. He crossed his arms. “You probably don’t know it, Collier, but I used to watch you in court. After Pete died I’d go to your trials. I’d sit in the back of the gallery for hours and hours. You know what struck me? You reminded me of myself in therapy sessions. Talking to the patients. Leading them where they didn’t want to go. You did exactly the same with the witnesses and the juries.”

Tate said nothing.

Matthews smiled briefly. “And I learned some things about the law. Mens rea. The state of a killer’s mind-he has to intend the death in order to be guilty of murder. Well, that was you, all right, at Pete’s trial. You murdered Pete. You intended him to die.”

“My job was to prosecute cases as best I could.”

“If” Matthews pounced, “that was true then why did you quit prosecuting? Why did you turn tail and run?”

“Because I regretted what happened to your son,” Tate answered.

Matthews lowered his sweaty, stubbly face. “You looked at my boy and said, ‘You’re dead.’ You stood up in court and felt the power flowing through you. And you liked it.”

Tate looked around the room. “You did all this? And you went after all the others-Konnie and Hanson and Eckhard? Bett, too.”

“Mom?” Megan whispered.

“No, she’s okay,” Tate reassured her.

“I had to stop you,” Matthews said. “You kept coming. You wouldn’t listen to reason. You wouldn’t do what you were supposed to.”

“This is where you were committed, right?”

“Him?” Megan asked. “I thought he’d worked here.”

“I thought so too,” Tate said, “but then I remembered testimony at Peter’s trial. No. He was a therapist but he was the one committed here.” Nodding at Matthews. “Not Peter.” Tate recalled the trial:

Mr. Bogan: Now, Dr Rothstein, could you give an opinion of the source and nature of Peter’s difficulties?

Dr. Rothstein: Yes sir. Peter displays socialization problems. He is more comfortable with inanimate creations-stories and books and cartoons and the like-than with people. He also suffers from what I call affect deficit. The reason, from reviewing his medical records, appears to be that his father would lock him in his room for long periods of time-weeks, even months-and the only contact the boy would have with anyone was with his father, Aaron. He wouldn’t even let the boy’s mother see him, Peter withdrew into his books and television. Apparently the only time the boy spent with his mother and others was when his fat her was committed in mental hospitals for bipolar depression and delusional behavior

Matthews said, “I was here, let’s see, on six intakes. Must have been four years altogether. I was like a jailhouse lawyer, Collier. As soon as the patients heard I was a therapist they started coming to me.”

“So you were ‘Patient Matthews,’ “ Megan said, eyes widening. “In the reports about the deaths here.”

“That’s my Megan,” Matthews said.

She said to Tate, “They closed this place because of a bunch of suicides. I thought it was Peter who’d killed them.”

“But it was you?” Tate asked Matthews.

“The DSM-III diagnosis was that I was sociopathic-well, it’s called an antisocial/criminal personality now. How delicate. I knew the hospital examiners in Richmond were looking for an excuse to close down places like this. So I simply helped them out. The place was too understaffed and too incompetent to keep patients from killing themselves. So they shut it down.”

“But it was really just a game to you, right?” Megan asked in disgust. “Seeing how many patients you could talk into suicide.”

Matthews shrugged. He continued. “I got transferred to a halfway house and one bright, sunny May morning, I walked out the front door. Moved to Prince William County, right behind your farm. And started planning how to destroy you.” Matthews winced and pressed his side. The wound didn’t seem that severe.

Tate recalled something else from the trial and asked, “What about your wife?”

Matthews said nothing but his eyes responded.

Tate understood. “She was your first victim, wasn’t she? Did you talk her into killing herself? Or maybe just slip some drugs into her wine during dinner?”

“She was vulnerable,” Matthews responded. “Insecure. Most therapists are.”

Tate asked, “What was she trying to do? Take Peter away from you?”

“Yes, she was. She wanted to place him in a hospital full-time. She shouldn’t have meddled. I understood Peter. No one else did.”

“But you made Peter the way he was,” Megan blurted. “You cut him off from the world.”

She was right. Tate recalled the defense’s expert witness, Dr. Roth-stein, testifying that if you arrest development by isolating a child before the age of eight, social-and communications-skills will never develop. You’ve basically destroyed the child forever.

Tate remembered too how he’d handled the expert witness’s testimony at Peter Matthews’s murder trial.

The Court: The Commonwealth may cross-examine.

Mr. Collier: Dr Rothstein, thank you for that trip down memory lane about the defendant’s sad history. But let me ask you: psychologically, is the defendant capable of premeditated murder?

Dr. Rothstein: Peter Matthews is a troubled-

Mr. Collier: Your Honor?

The Court: Please answer the question, sir

Dr. Rothstein: I-

Mr. Collier: Is the defendant capable of premeditated murder?

Dr. Rothstein: Yes, but-

Mr. Collier: No further questions.

“All he needed was me!” Matthews now raged. “He didn’t need anyone else in his life. We’d spend hours together-when my wife wasn’t trying to sneak him out the door.”

“Did you love him that much?” Tate asked.

“You don’t have a clue, do you? Why, you know what we did? Peter and I? We talked. About everything. About snakes, about stars, about floods, about explorers, about airplanes, about the mind..

Delusional ramblings, Tate imagined. Poor Peter, baffled and lonely, undoubtedly could do nothing but listen.

Yet… with a sorrowful twist deep within him Tate realized that this was something Megan and he didn’t do. They didn’t talk at all. They never had.

And now we won’t ever, he realized. We’ve lost that chance forever.

Their captor fell silent, looking into a corner of the hospital lobby, lost in a memory or thought or some confused delusion,

Finally Tate said, “So, Aaron. Tell me what you want. Tell me exactly.” He closed his eyes, fighting the incredible pain in his head.

After a moment Matthews said, “I want justice. Pure and simple. I’m going to kill your daughter and you’re going to watch. You’ll live with that sight for the rest of your life.”

So it’s come to this.

Tate sighed and thought, as he had so often on the way to the jury box or the podium in a debate, All right, time to get to work

“I don’t know how you can have justice, Aaron,” Tate said to him. “I just don’t know. In all my years practicing law-”

Matthews’s face writhed in disgust. “Oh, stop right there.”

“What?” Tate asked innocently.

“I hear it,” the psychiatrist said. “The glib tongue, the smooth words. You have the orator’s gift… sure. We know that. But so do I. I’m immune to you.”

“I won’t try to talk you into a single thing, Aaron. You don’t seem to be the sort-”

“It won’t work! Not with me. The advocate’s tricks. The therapist’s tricks. ‘Personalize the discourse.’ ‘Aaron’ this and ‘Aaron’ that. Try to get me to think of you as a specific human being, Tate. But that won’t work, Tate. See, it’s Tate Collier the human being I despise.”

Undeterred, Tate continued, “Was he your only child? Peter?”

‘Why even try?” Matthews rolled his eyes.

“All I want is to get out of this and save our lives. Is that a surprise?”

“A perfect example of a rhetorical question. Well, no, it’s not a surprise. But there’s nothing you can say that’s going to make any difference.”

“I’m trying to save your life too, Aaron. They know about you. The police. You heard the message from the detective, I assume? On your answering machine?”

“They may figure it out eventually but since you’re here by yourself, an escapee, I think I have a bit of time.”

“What does he mean?” Megan asked. “Escapee?”

He saw no reason to tell her now that her friend Amy was dead. He shook his head and continued, “Let’s talk, Aaron. I’m a wealthy man. You’re going to have to leave the country. I’ll give you some money if you let us go.”

“Leading with your weakest argument. Doesn’t that mean you’ve just lost the debate? That’s what you say on your American Forensics Association tape.”

The faint smile never wavered from Tate’s face. “You saw my house, the land,” he continued. “You know I’ve got resources.”

A splinter of disdain in Matthews’s eyes.

“How much do you want?”

“You’re using a rhetorical fallacy Appealing to a false need-for diversion.” Matthew’s smiled. “I do it all the time. Soften up the patient, get the defenses down. Then, bang, a kick in the head. Come on, I didn’t do this for ransom. That’s obvious.”

“Whatever your motive was, Aaron, the circumstances’ve changed. They know about you now. But you’ve got a chance to get out of the country. I can get you a half million in cash. Just like that. More by hocking the house.”

Matthews said nothing but paced slowly, staring at Megan, who gazed back defiantly.

Tate knew, of course, that money wasn’t the issue at all; neither was helping Matthews escape. His immediate purpose was simply to make the man indecisive, wear down his resistance. Matthews was right- this was a diversion. And even though the man knew it Tate believed the technique was working.

“I can’t make you a rich man but I can make you comfortable.”

“Pointless,” Matthews said, shaking his head as if he were disappointed.

“Aaron, you can’t change things,” Tate continued. “You can’t make it the way it was. You can’t bring Peter back. So will you just let us go?”

“Specific request within the opponent’s power to grant,” Matthews recited, “requiring only an affirmative or negative response. Your skills are still in top form, Collier. My answer, however, is neg-a-tive.”

“You tell me you’re after justice.” Tate shrugged. “But I wonder if it’s not really something else.”

A flicker in the doctor’s eyes.

“Have you really thought about why you’re doing this?” Tate asked.

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“I-”

Tate said quickly, “It’s to take the pain away, isn’t it?”

Matthews’s lips moved as he carried on a conversation with himself, or his dead wife, or his dead son. Or perhaps no one at all.

What a man hears, he may doubt.

What a man sees…

Tate leaned toward him, ignoring the agony in his head. He whispered urgently, “Think about it, Aaron. Think. This is very important. What if you get it wrong? What if killing Megan makes the pain worse?”

“Nice try,” Matthews cried. “Setting up straw men.”

“Or what if it has no effect at all? What if this is your one chance to make the pain go away and it doesn’t work? Did you ever consider that?”

“You’re trying to distract me!”

“You lost someone you loved. You lie on your back for hours, paralyzed with the pain. You wake up at two AM. and think you’re going mad. Right?”

Matthews fell silent. Tate saw he’d touched a nerve.

“I know all about that. It happened to me.” Tate leaned forward and, without feigning, matched the agony he saw in Matthews’s face with pain of his own. “I’ve been there. l lost someone I loved more than life itself. I lost my wife. I can see it in your face. These aren’t tricks, Aaron. I do know what I’m talking about. That’s all you want-the pain to go away. You’re not a lust killer, Aaron. You’re not an expediency killer. You’re not a hired killer. You only kill when there’s a reason. And that reason is to make the pain go away!”

And to Tate’s astonishment he heard a woman’s voice beside him. A smooth contralto. Megan, gazing into Matthews’s eyes, was saying, “Even those patients you killed here, Aaron… You didn’t want to kill them. I was wrong. It wasn’t a game at all. You just wanted to help them stop hurting.”

Excellent, Tate thought, proud of her.

“The pain,” the lawyer took over. “That’s what this is all about. You just want it to go away.”

Matthews’s eyes were uncertain, even wild. How we hate the confusing and the unknown, and how we flock to those who offer us answers simple as a child’s drawing.

“I’ll tell you, Aaron, that I’ve lived with your son’s death every day since the Department of Correction called and told me what happened. I feel that pain too. I know what you’re going through. I-”

Suddenly Matthews leapt forward and grabbed Tate’s shirt, began slugging him madly, knocking him to the floor. Megan cried out and stepped toward them but the madman shoved her to the floor again. He screamed at Tate, “You know? You know, do you? You have no fucking idea! All the days, the weeks and weeks that I haven’t been able to do anything but lie on my back and stare at the ceiling, thinking about the trial. You know what I see? I don’t see Peter’s face. I see your back. You, standing in the courtroom with your back to my son. You sent him to die but you didn’t even look at him! The jury were the only people in that room, weren’t they?”

No. Tate reflected, they were the only people in the universe. He said to Matthews, “I’m sorry for you.”

“I don’t want your fucking pity.” Another wave of fury crossed his face and he lifted Tate in his powerful hands and shoved him to the floor again, rolled him on his back. He took a knife from his pocket, opened it with a click and bent down over Tate.

“No!” Megan cried.

Matthews slipped the blade past Tate’s lips into his mouth. Tate tasted metal and felt the chill of the sharp point against his tongue. He didn’t move a muscle. Then Matthews’s eyes crinkled with what seemed to be humor. His lips moved and he seemed to be speaking to himself He withdrew the blade.

“No, Collier, no. Not you. I don’t want you.”

“But why not?” Tate whispered quickly “Why not? Tell me!”

“Because you’re going to live your life without your daughter. Just like I’m going to live mine without my son.”

“And that’ll take the pain away?”

“Yes!”

The lawyer nodded. “Then you have to let her go.” He struggled to keep the triumph from his voice-as he always did in court or at the debate podium. “Then you have to let her go and kill me. It’s the only answer for you.”

“Daddy,” Megan whimpered. Tate believed it was the first time he’d heard her say the word in ten years.

“Only answer?” Matthews asked uncertainly.

Tate had known that eventually it would come to this. But what a time, what a place for it to happen.

All cats see in the dark.

Therefore Midnight can see in the dark.

He leaned his head against the girl’s cheek. “Oh, honey..

Megan asked. “What is it? What?”

Unless Midnight is blind.

Tate began to speak. His voice cracked. He started again. “Aaron, what you want makes perfect sense. Except that…“ It was Megan’s eyes he gazed into, not their captor’s, as he said, “Except that I’m not her father.”

30

Matthews seemed to gaze down at his captives but he was backlit by dawn light in the picture window and Tate couldn’t see where his eyes were turned.

Megan, pale in the same oblique light, clasped her injured face. A pink sheen of blood was on her cheeks and hands. She was frowning.

Matthews laughed but Tate could see that his quick mind was considering facts and drawing tentative conclusions.

“I’m disappointed, Collier. That’s obvious and simpleminded. You’re lying.”

“When you were stalking Megan and me how often did you see us together?” Tate asked.

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“You followed us for how long?”

A splinter of doubt, like a faint cloud obscuring the sun momentarily Tate had seen this in the eyes of a thousand witnesses.

Matthews answered, “Six months.”

“How many weekends was she with me?”

“That doesn’t-”

“How many?”

“Two, I think”

“You broke into my house to plant those letters. How many pictures of her did you see?”

“Dad…

“How many?” Tate asked firmly, ignoring the girl.

Matthews finally said, “None.”

“What did her bedroom look like?”

Another hesitation. Then: “A storeroom.”

“How much affection did you ever see between us? Did I seem like a father? I’ve got dark, curly hair and eyes. Beth auburn. And Megan’s blond, for God’s sake. Does she even look like me? Look at the eyes. Look!”

He did. He said uncertainly, “I still don’t believe you.”

“No, Daddy! No!”

“You went to see my wife,” Tate continued to Matthews, squeezing Megan’s leg to silence her.

The doctor nodded.

“Well, you’re a therapist. What did you see in Bett’s face when you were talking to her? What was there when she was telling you about us and about Megan?”

Matthews reflected. “I saw… guilt.”

“That’s right,” Tate said. “Guilt.”

Matthews looked from one of his captives to the other.

“Seventeen years ago,” Tate began slowly, speaking to Megan, finally revealing the truth they’d kept from her for all these years, “I was prosecuting cases, making a name for myself. The Washington Post called me the hottest young prosecutor in the commonwealth. I’d take on every assignment that came into the office. I was working eighty hours a week. I got home to your mother on weekends at best. I’d go for three or four days in a row and hardly even call. I was trying to be my grandfather The lawyer-farmer-patriarch. I’d be a local celebrity. We’d have a huge family, an old manse. Sunday dinners, reunions, holidays… the whole nine yards.”

He took a deep breath, “That was when your aunt Susan had her first bad heart attack. She was in the hospital for a month and mostly bedridden after that.”

“What are you saying?” Megan whispered.

“Susan was married. Her husband, you remember him.”

“Uncle Harris.”

“You were right in your letter, Megan. Your mother did spend a lot of time caring for her sister Harris and your mother both did.”

“No” Megan said abruptly. “I don’t believe it.”

“They’d go to the hospital together, Harris and Bett. They’d have lunch, dinner Co shopping. Sometimes Bett cooked him meals in his studio. Helped him clean. Your aunt felt better knowing he was being looked after And it was okay with me. I was free to handle my cases.”

“She told you all this?” Megan asked. “Mom?”

His face was a blank mask as he said slowly, “No. Harris did, The day of his funeral.”

Tate had been upstairs on that eerily warm November night years ago. The funeral reception, at the Collier farm, was over.

Standing at a bedroom window, Tate had looked out over the yard. Felt the hot air, filled with leaf dust. Smelled cedar from the closet.

He’d just checked on three-year-old Megan, asleep in her room, and he’d come here to open windows to air out the upstairs bedrooms; several relatives would be spending the night.

He’d looked down at the backyard, gazing at Bett in her long black dress. She hiked up the hem and climbed onto the new picnic table to unhook the Japanese lanterns.

Tate had tried to open the window but it was stuck. He took off his jacket to get a better grip and heard the crinkle of paper in the pocket. At the funeral service one of Harris’s attorneys had given him an envelope, hand-addressed to him from Harris, marked Personal, apparently written just before the man had shot himself. He’d forgotten about it. He opened the envelope and read the brief letter inside.

Tate had nodded to himself, folded the note slowly and walked downstairs, then outside.

He remembered hearing a Loretta Lynn song playing on the stereo.

He remembered hearing the rustling of the hot wind over the brown grass and sedge, stirring pumpkin vines and the refuse of the corn harvest.

He remembered watching the arc of Bett’s narrow arm as she reached for an orange lantern. She glanced down at him.

“I have something to tell you,” he’d said.

“What?” she’d whispered. Then, seeing the look in his eyes, Bett had asked desperately: “What, what?”

She’d climbed down from the bench. Tate came up close, and instead of putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders, as a husband might do late at night in a house of death, he handed her the letter.

She read it.

“Oh my. Oh.”

Bett didn’t deny anything that was contained in the note: Harris’s declaration of intense love for her, the affair, his fathering Megan, Bett’s refusal to marry him and her threat to take the girl away from him forever if Harris told Bett’s sister of the infidelity. At the end the words had degenerated into mad rambling and his chillingly lucid acknowledgment that the pain was simply too much.

Neither of them cried that night as Tate had packed a suitcase and left. They never spent another night under the same roof.

Despite the presence of a madman now, holding a knife, hovering a few feet from them, Tate’s concentration was wholly on the girl. To his surprise her face blossomed not with horror or shock or anger but with sympathy. She touched his leg. “And you’re the one that got hurt so bad. I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

Tate looked at Matthews. He said, “So that’s why your argument doesn’t work, Aaron. Taking her away from me won’t do what you want.”

Matthews didn’t speak. His eyes were turned out the window, gazing into the blue dawn.

Tate said, “You know the classic reasons given for punishing crimes, Aaron? To condition away bad behavior-doesn’t work. A deterrent- useless. To rehabilitate-that’s a joke. To protect society-well, only if we execute the bad guys or keep them locked up forever. No, you know the real reason why we punish? We’re ashamed to admit it. But, oh, how we love it. Good old biblical retribution. Bloody revenge is the only honest motive for punishment. Why? Because its purpose is to take away the victim’s pain.

“That’s what you want, Aaron, but there’s only one way you’ll have that. By killing me. It’s not perfect but it’ll have to do.”

Megan was sobbing.

Matthews leaned his head against the window. The sun was up now and flashed on and off as strips of liver-colored clouds moved quickly east. He seemed diminished and changed. As if he were beyond disappointment or sorrow.

“Let her go,” Tate whispered. “It doesn’t even make sense to kill her because she’s a witness. They know about you anyway.”

Matthews crouched beside Megan. Put the back of his hand against her cheek, lifted it away and looked at the glistening streak left by her tears on his skin. He kissed her hair.

“All right. I agree.”

Megan started to protest.

But Tate knew that he’d won. Nothing she could say or do at this point would change his decision.

“I’ll call the dogs to the run. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

31

“Is it true?” she asked, tears glistening on her cheeks.

“Oh, yes, honey, it’s true.”

“You never said anything.”

“Your mother and I decided not to. Until after Susan died. You know how close Bett is to your aunt. She wanted her never to find out about the affair-it would’ve been too hard for her. The doctors only gave her a year or two to live, We were going to wait to tell you until she’d passed away.”

“But…“ Megan whispered.

He smiled wanly “That’s right. She’s still alive.”

“Why didn’t you tell me last year, or two years ago? I was old enough not to say anything to Aunt Susan.”

Tate examined the wounds on her palms. Pressed his hands against them. He couldn’t speak at first. Finally he said, ‘The moment passed.”

“All these years,” she whispered, “I thought I must’ve done something.” She lowered her head to his shoulder. “What a terrible thing I must have been for you. What a reminder.”

“Honey, I wish I could tell you different. But I can’t. You were half the person I loved most in the world and half the person I most hated.”

“One time I said something to Mom,” she said, weeping softly. “I’d been with you for the weekend and Mom asked how it went. I said I’d had an okay time but what could you expect? You were just an adequate father. I thought she was going to whip me. She freaked out totally. She said you were the best man she’d ever met and I was never, ever supposed to say that again.”

Tate smiled. “An adequate father for an inconvenient daughter.”

“Why didn’t you ever try it again, the two of you?”

He echoed, “The moment passed.”

“How much you must love her.”

Tate laughed sourly to himself at the irony. The child who drove husband and wife apart had now brought them back together-if only for one day.

How scarce love is, he thought. How rarely does it all come together: the pledge, the assurance, the need, the circumstance, the hungry desire to share minutes with someone else. And the dear desperation too. It’s miraculous when love actually works.

He looked her over and decided that the two of them, his ex-wife and her daughter, would be fine-now that the truth had been dumped between them. A long time coming but better than never. Oh, yes, they’d do fine.

Gritty footsteps approached.

“Now, listen to me,” he said urgently. “When he lets you out find a phone and call Ted Beauridge at Fairfax County Police. Tell him your mother’s probably in jail in Luray or Front Royal-”

‘What?”

“No time to explain. But she’s there. Tell him to get cops out here. She told them you were here but they might not’ve believed her.”

The girl looked at him with eyes that reminded him of her mother’s. Not the violet shade, of course-those were Bett’s and Bett’s alone- but the unique mix of the ethereal and the earthy

Matthews appeared in the doorway.

They turned to look at the gaunt man standing before them, his muscular hand pressed to his bloody belly.

“Okay, get going,” Tate said to her. “Run like hell.”

“Go on,” Matthews said, and reached forward to take her arm.

She spun away from him and hugged Tate hard. He felt her arms around his back. Felt her face against her ear, heard her speaking to him, a torrent of fervid words flowing out, coming from a source other than the heart and mind of a seventeen-year-old high school junior.

“Megan he began.

But she took his face in both her hands and said, “Shhh, Daddy. Remember, bears can’t talk.”

Matthews grabbed her again and pulled her away. Took her to the door.

He unlocked it and shoved her outside. The door closed with a snap behind her. Through a dirty, barred window Tate saw her sprint down the driveway and disappear through the gate.

“So,” Collier said, glancing up at Matthews.

“So,” he echoed.

“Outside?” the lawyer asked, looking around at the gloomy place. “Would that be all right? I’d rather.”

Matthews hesitated for a moment. But then decided, why not? “Yes. That’s all right.”

He unlocked the door again and they stepped into the parking area and walked around into the grounds behind the asylum, past the wild rottweilers in their runs.

Matthews was thinking back to the times he’d been committed here. He recalled how beautiful these lawns and gardens had been then. Well, why wouldn’t they be? Give five hundred crazy people grounds to tend and, brother, you’ve got a showplace. He’d sat for hours and hours and hours talking to other patients and-in his imagination-to his dead Peter. Sometimes the boy responded, sometimes not.

The dawn sun was still below the horizon but the sky was bright as they walked side by side through the tall grass and goldenrod and milkweed while dragonflies zipped from their path. Grasshoppers bounced against their legs, leaving dots of brown spit on their clothing. The dogs were in a frenzy behind them, sniffing the ground and bounding at the wire fence of their run, trying to escape and go after the intruder who walked beside their master.

“Look at this place,” Matthews said conversationally. He waved his arm. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the strange things people would say. The delusional ones, the paranoid ones, the depressed ones. The ones who were simply nuts-you know, Collier, the mind isn’t an exact science, whatever the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual says. Some people are just plain crazy and that’s all you can ever say about them. But I always listened to them. Why, people give themselves away like free samples at a grocery store. Hand themselves to you on platters. And what do they use? Words. Aren’t words the most astonishing thing?”

Collier said, “You bet they are.”

There wasn’t much time, Matthews reflected. He supposed he had an hour or two until the police arrived. At best it would take Megan two hours to get to the nearest phone. Enough time to finish here, bury Peter, and get to Dulles for a flight to Los Angeles. Or maybe he should just drive west. Hide in the hills of West Virginia. He took a deep breath. “Stop here.”

They were beside a shallow ditch. It would make a fine grave for Collier. And he’d decided that he’d kill the lawyer with a single shot to his head. No pain, no torment. And he wouldn’t let the dogs have the body Out of respect for a worthy adversary.

Then the lawyer stunned him by closing his eyes and whispering, “Our Father, who art in heaven He slowly completed the Lord’s Prayer.

Matthews laughed then asked, “You believe in God?”

Collier nodded. “Why does that surprise you?”

“When I’d see you in court it seemed that only the judge and jury were your gods.”

“No, no, I believe He exists. That He’s merciful and He’s just.”

“Just?” Matthews asked skeptically.

“Well, He’s the reason I don’t send people to death row anymore… Do you? Believe in God?”

“I’m not sure,” Matthews said.

“You know I always wanted the chance to prove the existence of God in a debate.”

“How would you do that?” Matthews asked, truly curious. “Resolved: God exists. Isn’t that how debates start?”

Collier looked up at the purple sky “You know Voltaire?”

“Not really No.”

“I’d make his argument. He said there had to be a God because he couldn’t imagine a watch without a watchmaker.”

Matthews nodded. “Yes, I can see that. That’s good. That’s compelling.”

“But, of course, then you run into all of the counterarguments. The con side.”

“Such as?”

“Incompatible religious sects, interpretations of holy scriptures proven wrong later, no empirical proof of miracles, the Crusades, ethical and secular self-interest, terrorism… That’s an uphill battle, all right.”

‘No answer for that?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve got an answer.”

Matthews was suddenly fascinated. After Peter’s death he’d prayed every night for six months. He believed that the boy bad answered some of those communiqués. It gave him clues, but not proof, that Peter’s soul floated nearby. “What is it, what’s the answer?” he asked hungrily.

“That a watch,” Collier answered slowly, “no matter how well made, can never comprehend its watchmaker. When we claim to understand God, everything breaks down. If God exists then by definition He’s knowable and souls-yours, mine, Megan’s, Peter’s-are beyond our understanding. When we create human institutions to represent God they’re inherently wrong so He has to exist apart from our flawed visions of Him.”

“Yes, it makes sense. How simple, how perfect.”

“You’ve thought about questions like this, haven’t you? Because of Peter?”

“Yes.”

Eyes on Matthews’s, Collier said, “You miss him so much, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.” Matthews stared down at the ground. For all he knew he’d stood on this very spot two or three years ago, studying slugs or dung beetles or ants, hour upon hour, wondering how, in their wordless world, they communicated their passions and fears.

“You can get help, Aaron. It’s not too late. You’ll be in jail but you can still be content. You can find a doctor to help you, somebody who’s as good as you were.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. It’s too late for that. One thing I learned-you can’t talk somebody out of his nature.”

“Your character is your fate,” Collier said.

Matthews laughed. “Heraclitus.”

He’d learned the aphorism from one of Collier’s closing statements. He lifted the gun toward the lawyer.

Then Collier’s eyes flickered slightly. “You won’t turn yourself in?” Collier asked.

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” the lawyer said.

Matthews frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m so sorry.”

A snap of brush behind him.

Matthews spun around. There stood Megan, holding the gun Collier had brought with him. Matthews had left it in the lobby of the hospital and had forgotten about it. The girl was ten feet away and was pointing the black muzzle at Matthews’s chest.

Matthews laughed to himself. Oh, yes… He understood. Remembered her whispering to Tate before she’d walked out of the asylum. They’d planned this together. Collier would stall him-with his talk of theology-and Megan would pretend to run but would return for the gun. He remembered Collier protesting as they’d hugged. But she’d had her way.

Maybe she wasn’t his blood kin but at the moment she was her father’s daughter.

He glanced at her eyes.

“Drop the gun,” she ordered.

But he didn’t. He wondered, would she go through with it? She was only seventeen and, yes, she had anger in her heart-enough to attack him with a knife-but not enough to kill, he believed.

Character is fate…

He saw compassion, fear and weakness in her eyes. He could stop her, he decided. He could get her to lower the gun long enough to shoot her.

“Megan, listen to me,” he began in a soft voice, gazing into her blue eyes, which were so unlike Collier’s. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’ve been through. But-”

The first bullet tugged at his side, near the knife wound, and he felt a rib snap. He was swinging his gun toward her when another shot struck his shoulder and arm.

Collier dropped to his knees, clear of the line of fire.

Megan stepped closer.

“Peter Matthews whispered, struggling to hold on to his pistol.

She pushed through the grass until she was only a few feet away.

Matthews squeezed the grip of the pistol. Then he looked up into her eyes.

Always the eyes…

Her gun fired again. And for an instant his vision was filled with a thousand suns. And in his ears was a chorus of noise-voices, perhaps.

Peter’s among them, perhaps.

And then there was blackness and silence.

32

The beach at San Cristo del Sol in Belize is one of the finest in Latin America.

Even now, in May, the air is torrid but the steady breezes soothe the hordes of tourists during their endless trips from the air-conditioned bars and seafood joints to the pools to the beach and back again. Windsurfing, paragliding, water-skiing and racing Jet Skis keep the surface of the turquoise water perpetually turbulent, and within the bay itself hundreds of snorkiers and resort-course scuba divers engage in their elegantly awkward amphibious ballets.

The town is also a well-known staging area for those who wish to see Mayan ruins; there are two beautifully preserved cities within five kilometers of the main drag in San Cristo.

The Caribe Inn is the most luxurious of all the hotels in town, a Spanish colonial hacienda that has four stars from Mobil, and accolades from a number of other sources, proudly displayed behind the registration desk at which Tate Collier now stood, hoping fervently that the clerk spoke English.

The man did, it turned out, and Tate explained that he had reservations, proffering passports and his American Express card.

“That’s a party of…?” the clerk queried.

“Party of two,”

“Ah,” the desk clerk responded. Tate filled out the registration card with ungainly strokes.

“So, you are from Virginia,” the clerk said. “Near Washington?”

“Si,” Tate responded self-consciously, ready for his pronunciation to throw the conversation off kilter if not insult the clerk personally.

“I have been there several times. I like the Smithsonian especially”

“Si,” Tate tried again, forgetting even the words that conveyed some meaningless pleasantry-words he’d practiced on the flight. For a man who’d made his way in the world by speaking, Tate’s command of foreign languages was abysmal.

He watched the clerk glance down at the reservation form with a momentarily perplexed frown on his dark, handsome face. Tate knew why. The clerk had taken a good look at the attractive woman who’d entered the hotel on Tate’s arm a moment before, and though surely, in this line of work, the clerk had seen just about everything, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why these two would want separate rooms.

A man is, after all, a man… And an age difference of twenty years… well, that’s nothing.

Megan came out of the lobby phone booth and walked to the desk just as the clerk was showing Tate a diagram of the available rooms. Tate pointed to two, first a smaller inside room, then a corner unit with a view of the beach. “I’ll take this one. My daughter’ll have the corner room.”

“No, Dad, you take the nice one.”

“Ah, this is your daughter?” the clerk said, his curiosity satisfied. “Of course, I should have known.”

“I’m sorry?” Tate asked him.

“I mean, the resemblance. The young lady takes after you.” The man’s suspicions crept back when he saw the two guests exchange fast glances and struggle to suppress laughter. Tate thought about pulling out driver’s licenses and proving the relationship but then decided: it’s none of this guy’s business.

Besides, mystery has an appeal that documented fact will always lack.

They settled on the rooms and after Tate’s card was imprinted they followed the bellhop through a veranda.

“Josh said his new physical therapist is great,” Megan told him.

“Glad to hear it.”

“But the way he put it was he said ‘she’s’ great. Think she’s old and fat?”

“We’ll be back in six days. You can find out for yourself. When do you say de nada again?”

“After somebody thanks you. It means, ‘It’s nothing.’”

“They say gracias and then I say de nada.” Tate repeated the words several times as if he were a walking Berlitz tape.

“Then I called Bett,” Megan continued. “She’s glad we got in okay. She said to take lots of pictures.”

“I’ll call her later.”

"She, urn, was going over to Brad’s tonight. But she said it in a funny way. Like there was something going on. Is anything going on?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

Megan shrugged. “She said she talked to Konnie and he’s coming to your office on Tuesday at nine to talk about the case.”

The previous week Tate had made his first appearance in a criminal court in nearly five years-Konnie’s arraignment. He’d answered the judge’s simple query with simpler words. “My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”

He had a novel defense planned. It was called “induced intoxication,” and although he’d promised Megan that they would be spending the week doing nothing but seeing the sights and partying he’d hidden three law books in his suitcase and suspected the last day of the trip would find him with at least a rough draft of his opening statement to the jury-if not a set of deposition questions or two. He knew that as soon as Megan met a handsome young windsurfer-probably at the cocktail party that night-he would have at least a few hours free on most of the evenings.

He and Megan arrived at their rooms.

“Gracias de nada,” Tate said, and slipped the confused bellhop an outrageously generous tip. A half hour later they’d showered and were in khaki shorts, T-shirts and wicker hats. Every inch los turistas. They walked down to the lobby and asked about how they might bicycle to the nearest Mayan ruin. The clerk arranged for the bike rental and gave them directions. It was just past the afternoon siesta and most of the guests were headed for the white sand beach. But Tate and Megan snagged two battered bicycles from the rack in front of the inn and started away from town.

“Which way?” she called.

He pointed and they mounted up.

Despite the opposing foot traffic and the astonishing heat, they cycled fast along the cracked asphalt path straight into the dense, fragrant jungle, standing on the pedals, hollering and laughing, racing each other, as if every moment counted, as if they had many, many hours of missed exploration to make up for.