Guilt By Degrees

33

“Were Simon and Zack close?” I asked.

Claire’s features softened. “Always,” she said quietly. “There was a fairly big age gap. But if Zack was around, he’d always take care of Simon. Anyone ever hurt Simon, they’d answer to Zack.”

“Did that happen a lot?” I asked. “I mean, Simon getting into trouble?”

“No,” she admitted. “Simon was never one to mix it up with other kids. He was a dreamer, lived in his world of creations. But when he was little, there’d be the occasional bully who saw Simon as easy pickings…” Claire paused and teared up. “Zack would step in whenever he could. Simon…well, he just worshipped Zack.”

I reached out to comfort her, and she patted my hand.

Claire continued, her voice shaking with the effort to hold back tears. “I remember how, when Simon was just in kindergarten, he’d sit on the stairs, waiting for Zack to come home from school so he could show his brother what he’d made.”

I groped for something to say to ease her pain, but I knew from my own hard experience that the wounds of loss would bleed for years to come. Then, one day, they’d find that a few seconds had gone by without some painful thought or memory; over time, the seconds would stretch into a minute, the minutes into an hour. Eventually they might be lucky enough to get a whole day. But that day would be a long time coming.

“Did Zack and Simon stay close as they got older?” I asked.

“As much as that was possible, living in different worlds,” Claire said.

Fred cleared his throat again. “You know, what with Zack being a police officer and Simon being an artist, they didn’t have the same group of friends or anything. But they loved each other.”

“And was Simon still the younger brother, if you know what I mean?” I asked.

Claire nodded. “Oh yes. Zack remained the exciting older brother. I think being a police officer actually made him even more of a hero to Simon.”

“So Zack’s passing was pretty devastating for him too,” I said gently.

“It completely destroyed him,” Fred replied, his voice for the first time showing real signs of anger. “Until then, he’d been a pretty happy guy. Had a nice girlfriend-what was her name, Claire?”

“Angie,” Claire chimed in. “She was an artist too. A painter. She hung in there with him for quite a while after Zack’s…murder.” She stumbled over the word, still unable to put it next to her son’s name. She took a shallow breath. “Lord knows it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Simon got obsessed with the case; it blocked out everything else. Angie believed he’d get past it when the case was over. But when Lilah got acquitted, Simon totally shut down. For weeks, he didn’t eat, didn’t speak, wouldn’t even get out of bed.”

“And so she left him?” I asked.

“No, God bless her,” Fred said. “She tried to stay and take care of him. It was Simon. He pushed her away, then he pushed her out.”

“Only thing he’d do was sit in front of the computer. Got one of those LexisNexis accounts, read up on the law,” Claire said, shaking her head. “That’s when he came up with the idea of taking the case to the federal court.”

“And once he latched on to that idea, he was like a man possessed,” Fred said. “He’d write to the federal prosecutors every day. Took a while, but they finally wrote back. Thanked him for his interest, but said the case didn’t fit their guidelines.”

It wasn’t high-profile enough and it wasn’t a slam dunk. And it took only one of those problems to knock it out of the running.

“That set him off but good,” Fred continued. “After that, he started going to the Federal Building downtown.” He stopped and looked down at his hands, which were clasped together between his knees.

“How long did Simon keep that up?” I asked.

“I’d say a good six months,” Claire said, her expression pained. “But then one day, he got a little too…agitated. We got a call saying he’d been arrested for causing a disturbance.”

Bailey and I looked at each other. There was no record of this.

“Did they book him?” Bailey asked.

“We went down and spoke to the arresting officer,” Fred said. “Explained the history, what had happened with Zack’s case and all. Turned out the officer knew about the case. Felt bad for Simon. Just made him promise not to come back and cut him loose.”

“So did he stay away from the court after that?” I asked.

“He stayed away from everything after that,” Claire said, her mouth turned down at the corners. “One week later, he disappeared. No phone call, no e-mail. He left his studio wide open.”

Fred coughed, covering his mouth with one big hand, then dropped it back into his lap. “We went crazy trying to find him,” he said, his voice weary from just the memory of the ordeal.

“Did you file a missing persons report?” I asked.

“Of course,” Claire said. “But they didn’t find him. He came back on his own two weeks later, looking like hell. Filthy, sunburned, skinny; he looked half dead.”

Her eyes welled up.

“We got him to a hospital, they fixed him up,” Fred said. “It was mostly dehydration. We brought him home, got him to stay here for a little while. Even got him into therapy-”

“Then one day, he just up and left again,” Claire said. “That time we were a little more prepared for it. But he was gone longer, for a few months, and we just didn’t know if…”

“Did that keep happening?” I asked.

Claire nodded.

“And how was he”-I searched for a gentle way to say it-“mentally?”

“I didn’t want to see it at the time, but the truth was, Simon wasn’t himself from the moment Zack died,” Claire said, shaking her head, her expression etched with grief. “He surely went downhill after the verdict, but by the time he went to the street, he was sliding fast-”

“His memory was all screwed up,” Fred said, tapping his head. “He’d have days where he seemed okay, and then something would just…slip, and he’d make no sense. Talk gibberish, or not talk at all.” He dipped his head and brushed away a tear.

“He’d rant about the government,” Claire added. “Said you couldn’t trust anyone, they were all liars, and on and on…”

“I know you’re wondering why we didn’t just commit him.” Fred sighed. “We thought having him locked up like that would really be the end of him. And after that damn jury, and then the Feds turning him away…well, I guess he didn’t seem all that crazy to me,” he admitted. “I think he just lost all faith, you know?”

I certainly did know. I’d felt that way for a long time after losing Romy. It had a lot to do with why I became a prosecutor. Even if there was no justice for my sister, I could believe it still existed if I could find justice for someone else.

“And was that a consistent theme for Simon?” I asked.

Claire nodded sadly. “But the last time he came back, he looked better,” she said, a smile passing briefly across her face, sun momentarily breaking through clouds. “He was still too skinny and leathery. But for the first time in two years, he seemed normal-almost upbeat.” Claire turned and patted Fred on the knee. “We had a great visit, didn’t we, Fred?”

Fred nodded silently, his gaze fixed on the coffee table.

“But a week later, he was gone again,” she said. “A week after that, he…” Claire covered her eyes for a moment. “I know I should’ve been ready for this, the way he was living.” Her voice trembled. “But…”

I could finish the thought for her. There’s no way a parent can prepare for the death-let alone the murder-of a child.

Much less two.