Sacrificial Ground

16

The Doyle house was located on a small lot in a middle-class section of Atlanta. Ansley Park was a far cry from the shaded boulevards and spacious estates of West Paces Ferry Road. Its modest brick homes seemed to rest exactly between the mansions of the north side of the city and the poverty-ridden hovels to the south.

“Look at that,” Caleb said, as he looked at the single-story brick house with its two-car garage. “I bet they got a Buick station wagon with an old travel map of Yosemite National Park in the glove compartment.”

Frank got out of the car and waited for Caleb to join him. He could feel a strange tension growing in him, as if he were nearing the dark center of the case, the shadows where the animal lurked.

“Be careful,” he said to Caleb.

Caleb looked at him oddly. “Careful? What we got here, Frank—providing we’ve got anything at all—is an average kid who took something too far.” He glanced at the house. “I mean, look at the yard. Somebody mowed it yesterday.” He shook his head. “No, middle-class killers will put out their hands and let you snap the cuffs on. It’s like something’s already missing in them. They don’t know how to fight; they don’t know how to run.” He looked at Frank pointedly. “When you get like that, you’re better off dead.” He started up the walkway, sauntering casually toward the front door, as if nothing odd ever happened, nothing unpredictable, as if no office worker had ever blown away the typing pool.

Caleb was already rapping loudly at the door when Frank stepped up beside him. It opened immediately, and a tall, thin, redheaded boy stared at them from behind the screen. He had a light, unblemished complexion, and he was wearing a T-shirt embossed with large white letters: NORTHFIELD ACADEMY.

Caleb glanced at the letters, then at Frank. “Daddy,” he whispered, as the two of them stepped nearer to the door.

Frank pulled out his badge. “Are you Stanford Doyle?”

“Junior,” the boy said weakly, “Stanford Doyle, Junior.”

“Is your daddy home?” Caleb asked.

“No, sir.”

“You alone?” Frank asked.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said. “My father’s on vacation for the next two weeks.”

“Whereabouts?” Caleb asked.

“Florida. Fort Lauderdale.”

“So you’re living by yourself?”

“Yes, I am.”

For a moment, Frank did not know how to begin. Some things were too tender to be approached, and as far as he could tell, the boy seemed to have no idea what had brought him to his door.

“I see you go to Northfield,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“You like it there, Stanford?”

“Stan,” the boy said. “People call me Stan.”

“You like it at Northfield?”

“It’s all right.”

Caleb took out his handkerchief and pointedly swabbed his neck. “It’s hot out here. Your place air-conditioned?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Suppose we could cool off a little while we talk?”

“Oh, sure,” the boy said, as if suddenly attentive to good manners. “Come on in.” He swung open the door and Frank and Caleb walked inside.

“Would you like to sit down?”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Caleb said.

“In here, then,” the boy said. He ushered them into a small living room. The carpet was bright green, the walls pastel green with small white flowers. It looked like the sort of place where the Christmas tree stood for a long time, gathering small red packages beneath it.

Caleb sat down in one of the large, stuffed chairs which faced the sofa. “Nice place,” he said. “Lived here long?”

“All my life.”

“Lucky you,” Caleb added with a big smile. “Lot of people from Northfield live out this way?”

The boy smiled. “Not many. They mostly live farther north.”

Frank glanced at a family portrait. It was of a man and his son.

“That’s my dad,” the boy said.

“Where’s Mom?” Caleb asked.

“She’s dead,” the boy answered. “In childbirth.”

“So it’s just you and your dad who live here?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said. He looked at Frank. “Don’t you want to sit down?”

“No, thanks.”

The boy took a seat on the sofa, his eyes darting nervously from Frank to Caleb. “I’ve never had the police come around here,” he said.

As he watched the boy squirming on the sofa, Frank suddenly felt a deep sympathy for everyone who had not yet gone through the later stages of life. They were a mystery, a wilderness that could hardly have been more visible in Stanford Doyle’s eyes. He looked as if he’d just emerged from a protective shell.

“You like this area?” Caleb asked amiably.

“I’ve never lived anywhere else,” the boy said. His voice was weak, almost plaintive, and as he spoke he lowered his eyes slightly. It gave him a look of lingering innocence.

“Northfield, that’s a pretty expensive place,” Caleb said.

“Yes, it is.”

“Been going there long?”

“For the last two years.”

“What are you now? Junior? Senior?”

“I graduated,” Stan said.

“When was that?” Caleb asked.

“Last month,” the boy said. “I’m supposed to be going to college in September.”

“Which one?”

“Emory.”

Caleb smiled broadly. “Well, that’s wonderful? Right, Frank?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. He paused a moment, then pushed ahead, since there was no other way. “I guess you have some idea about why we’re here.”

The boy said nothing.

“Angelica Devereaux,” Frank added.

The boy nodded slowly.

“She was in your graduating class.”

“Yes.”

“We’re trying to find out a little about her,” Frank said. “How well did you know her, Stan?

“A little.”

“No more than that?”

“We talked sometimes.”

Caleb leaned forward slightly. “Well, that makes you sort of special.”

Stan looked at him. “Why?”

“The way we hear it, she didn’t talk to anybody over at Northfield.”

“That’s right,” Stan said. “She didn’t.”

“But she did talk to you?” Caleb asked pointedly.

“Not much.”

“Yeah, right. A little, like you said.”

“She didn’t really have any friends at the school,” Stan said. “I don’t know why.”

“But that’s pretty strange, don’t you think?” Caleb said. “I mean, a pretty girl like that?”

The boy shrugged. “That’s the way she was.”

“What way?” Frank asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How would you describe her?”

“Well, she was very pretty.”

“Beyond her looks,” Frank said. “Her personality.”

“I don’t know about that,” the boy said. “I really don’t. I mean, we weren’t close.” He glanced out the front window to the close-cropped lawn. It was turning brown along its edges, and the heat which blazed down upon it seemed to be sucking at its essential life.

“The thing is,” Caleb said. “Here we have a real pretty girl who’s been in a school for quite some time, and yet nobody knows anything about her. “ He looked at the boy piercingly. “Does that make any sense to you, Stan?”

“That’s just the way she was,” the boy said again.

“Shy, you mean? Aloof?”

“I guess, “ Stan said. “She acted like she didn’t really want anybody to know her.”

“Did you know she had a phone in her room?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“She only made three calls from that phone during the last three months.”

Stan looked at Frank vacantly.

“They were all made on one day, May fifteenth.”

Still no reaction. The boy stared at Frank.

“And they were all made to the number at this house.”

Stan’s lips parted. “To me? She tried to call me?”

“You didn’t get these calls?”

“No.”

Caleb looked questioningly at Frank, then turned to Stan. “You didn’t know she was trying to get hold of you?”

“No, I didn’t,” the boy said frantically. “I swear I didn’t.”

“Do you have any idea why she might have been trying to reach you?” Frank asked.

Stan shook his head vigorously. “I hadn’t talked to her since the play.”

“You were in the play?”

“Yes, sir.”

Frank took out his notebook. “She called you three times on May fifteenth,” he said. “You have no idea why?”

“I don’t,” the boy said emphatically. He looked helplessly at Caleb, then back at Frank. “I swear to you, I don’t know about these calls. Maybe she just got our answering machine, and didn’t leave a message.”

That was possible, Frank thought. The call would register even if she didn’t say anything.

“Did you know she was pregnant?” he asked.

The boy drew in a quick breath. “What?”

“Angelica was pregnant,” Frank told him. “Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Takes two, of course,” said Caleb pointedly.

Stan’s eyes closed slowly. “I didn’t know she was pregnant,” he said. “I swear I didn’t know that.”

“She found out on May fifteenth,” Frank said, “the same day she called you.”

“Now when you think about it,” Caleb said, “when you get news like that, there’s a couple people you might want to call.” He stuck a single finger into the air. “Your best friend, maybe.” He looked at Stan. “But you say you didn’t know Angelica very well.” A second finger shot into the air. “Or maybe the father. You might want to call him.”

Stan took a deep breath. “I may be the father,” he said.

“May be?”

“I slept with her once. I don’t know if anyone else did.”

“You only slept with her once?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“So it wasn’t exactly a romance,” Caleb said.

“No, sir, not at all,” Stan said. “When I told you a minute ago that I didn’t know Angelica very well, that was the truth. I really didn’t. I had practically never said a word to her before that night.” He looked at Frank. “The night we did it, I mean.” He turned toward Caleb. “We’d just pass in the hallway at school. She might say ‘hi,’ she might not. It was like that. Until that one time.”

“When was that ‘one time’?” Caleb asked bluntly.

“It was the last night of rehearsals,” Stan said.

“When was that?”

“April first.”

Frank wrote it down.

“It was a Friday night,” Stan added. “The next Saturday was opening night.”

“So you had the rehearsal,” Frank said. “Then what?”

“We went for a ride.”

“In your car?”

“No, Angelica’s.”

“The red BMW.”

“Yeah, that one,” Stan said. “What a car. She’d only had it about a month.”

Frank looked up from his notebook. “Go on.”

“Well, the rehearsal was like always,” Stan went on. “Maybe a little more intense, since we were opening the next night.” He looked toward Caleb. “It was over around eleven, which was later than usual. Everybody was tired.” He leaned back farther into the back of the sofa and let out a long, slow breath. “Anyway, I was headed toward my car … my father’s car, actually, and that’s when Angelica pulled up.”

Frank could see her behind the wheel, her blonde hair streaming over her shoulders. “What did she say?” he asked.

“Well, she’d been a little nervous all night. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the opening night jitters.”

“What did she say, Stan?” Caleb asked insistently.

“She had this look in her eye. Like she was mad at me or something. I thought she was going to say something bad, but she didn’t. I mean, she’d been really sharp to people all night. Everybody was waiting for Mr. Jameson to chew her out, but he didn’t. He just stayed clear of her, like he was afraid of her or something.”

Frank could see her face, the hard blue eyes, the tight strained mouth, the cool, lean words that came from it when she spoke.

“‘Get in,’ she said,” Stan told him. “It was in this hard voice. She just said ‘Get in.’”

Frank wrote it down quickly.

“Is that all she said?” Caleb asked.

“That’s all she said.”

“So you got in, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Stan said. “I got in and I really didn’t know what was going on with her. So I just said, ‘What’s up, Angelica?’ or something like that. And she just laughed this little laugh and she said, ‘You’ll find out, if you keep your mouth shut.’ Then she pulled out of the lot. And I mean she really pulled out, squealing her tires, you know?”

Frank could hear the echoes of the tires as they resounded through the summer night, a high, thready wail.

“Where’d you go?” he asked.

“We headed downtown,” Stan said. “I remember it very well. It was a clear night, and the dogwoods were blooming, and I said something about how beautiful they were, and she said, ‘Yeah, beautiful.’”

“So you went downtown,” Caleb said. “Whereabouts?”

“We ended up on the Southside,” Stan said, “Grant Park, around in there.”

“Did you just end up there, or did she look as if she was headed there in particular?”

“Well, now that you mention it, she seemed to know where she was going from the first.”

“And she went directly to the Southside?”

“Yes, sir, directly,” Stan said. “She went right to Grant Park. Then we circled the park a couple of times, maybe more. She was always looking out the window. I got the feeling she was looking for somebody.”

“Did she mention drugs?” Caleb asked.

“No.”

“Because a lot of dealers hang around the park.”

“She didn’t say anything about drugs.”

“But she did circle the park?” Frank asked.

“Yes, sir. She circled it at least twice, maybe more.”

“Then what?”

“She drove into the park itself,” Stan said. “She went down to where they’re doing the restoration on that historical diorama thing, you know, the battle of Atlanta?”

“The Cyclorama?” Frank asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Frank wrote it down.

“And that’s where she parked,” Stan added.

Frank looked up from his notebook. “She parked at the Cyclorama?”

“That’s right. She pulled over to this storm fence they have there, and she parked.”

“How long did you stay there?”

Stan thought about it. “Maybe ten minutes. Maybe less, maybe more. I’m not really sure. To tell you the truth, I didn’t exactly know what I was doing at that point. I mean, she hadn’t said a word to me all the way downtown. I figured since we’d parked, maybe she’d start to talk. But she didn’t. She just sat where she was, smoked a cigarette and stared into the rearview mirror.”

“The rearview mirror?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not straight ahead?”

“Well, there was nothing but a fence in front of us,” Stan said, “and the Cyclorama sign.” He shrugged. “Once in a while she’d glance up at the sign, then back in the mirror.”

“Did you get the idea she was waiting for someone?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know,” Stan said. “I couldn’t figure out what was going on with her. She’d smoke one cigarette, then another one. I’d never seen her smoke before.”

“She didn’t say anything at all?” Caleb asked unbelievingly.

“Not until just before we left,” Stan told him. “Then she just looked over at me with this real hard look in her eye, and she said, ‘Well, this is your lucky night,’ and that’s when she started the car again, and we drove out of the park.”

Frank could hear the engine as he wrote in his notebook and could smell the smoke of her cigarette, see its white garlands in the air around him.

Caleb leaned forward slightly. “Did she drive through the park some more?”

“No, not through it,” Stan said. “We went around it once. I was getting sort of bored. She was so weird. She wasn’t talking or anything, and when she did say something, it was something you couldn’t understand.”

“Why couldn’t you understand it?”

“It was under her breath,” Stan explained. “She was sort of muttering under her breath.” He looked at Frank. “I just wanted to go home.”

“Then why didn’t you tell her to take you?” Frank asked.

Stan shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess because she was so beautiful. Just being near her, it was like a thrill, or something. It was like something was coming off her body. It just swept around you. You couldn’t pull away from it. At least, I couldn’t.”

As he listened, Frank tried to recall the intensity of such youthful desire. He remembered long nights when he’d been unable to sleep because of it. Everything became moist, swollen, infinitely sweet. He knew that that was how Stan must have felt as he sat beside Angelica Devereaux. Frank had felt that way for Sheila, and it struck him that the slow decline of such passion, the way time wore its sharpness down to a flat, featureless nub, was one of life’s great losses.

“I had had some experience before,” Stan said, quietly. “I mean, before that night. But nothing like Angelica.”

“Where did you go after you left the park?” Frank asked.

“We drove around that same area,” Stan said. “We just went all around that part of town.” He shrugged. “I’d never been over there much before. But Angelica, she seemed to know it pretty well.”

“How do you know that?”

“She just acted like she knew it, like she’d been around there a lot.”

“Did she ever mention any names? People she might have known who lived in the area?”

Stan shook his head. “No.”

“Did she concentrate on any particular streets?”

“Well, there was one that she went up and down a couple of times.”

“Do you remember the name?”

“No, sir,” Stan said.

“Are you sure?”

“I didn’t notice a name. I’m sorry.”

“Think hard,” Caleb said.

“I’ve been trying to remember everything,” Stan said, “I really have. But it was at night, and I’d never really been around that part of town much.” He looked at Frank. “It’s sort of seedy over there, you know. I got sort of nervous. I mean, I locked my door. I remember that. And I even told Angelica to lock hers.”

“Did she?” Frank asked.

“No.”

Frank jotted a few notes into his notebook then looked back up at the boy. “So you drove around the Grant Park area for a while, then what?”

“We ended up in this back alley,” Stan said. “It was behind some buildings. I don’t know exactly where it was.”

“Did you notice any signs in the alley?” Caleb asked. “Any particular kinds of trucks, like a beer truck or a TV repair truck, anything like that?”

“It was empty,” Stan said. “I think that’s why she stopped.”

“Because it was empty?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because of what we did,” Stan said. “I mean she picked it because she knew what she was going to do.”

“Which was?”

“Well, have sex,” Stan said hesitantly. “She stopped the car and just sat there for a while. She didn’t say anything. She just stared out the window. I don’t know how long. I didn’t say anything to her. Angelica had a way of making people keep their mouths shut. When she wanted you to be quiet, she could make you, just with a look. And that’s what she wanted, just to sit for a while and be quiet. Finally though, I just mentioned that we could go over to the Varsity and have a hamburger and onion rings.”

“What did she say?” Frank asked.

“She gave this little laugh of hers,” Stan said. “Very cold laugh, almost nasty. And she said, ‘Hamburger? Is that what you want?’ Then she laughed again. Then she said, ‘Don’t you want me, Stan? Isn’t that what you want?’” He glanced nervously to Frank, to Caleb, then back to Frank. “Then she just started to unbutton her blouse. She laughed again, that same laugh. ‘Me,’ she said, ‘everybody wants me.’”

Frank could almost hear Angelica’s voice, almost see the flinty look in her eyes. There was something in both that was wounded beyond repair. He could sense that some part of her was either already dead or swelling with the wish to die.

He wrote “everybody wants me” in his notebook, then looked up at the boy. “She started to unbutton her blouse,” he said. “Then what happened?”

“I really didn’t know what to do exactly,” Stan said. “I mean, I’m not stupid or anything; I knew what she was getting at. But I couldn’t figure out why she was doing this with me. She could have had anybody. Some hotshot college man or something. That’s who I figured she’d end up doing it with. But not me.” He shook his head. “And not like that with anybody. I mean, in the car, in a back alley. She didn’t seem to be the type for a quick thing like that.” His voice softened, and his eyes took on a look of tender wonderment. “She was so beautiful. I couldn’t believe it.” He stared out the front window as if he were looking for something in the trees. “Anyway, it was fast. And then she just got dressed and drove me back to Northfield.”

“Did she say anything?” Frank asked.

“No,” Stan told him. “Not one word. I tried to make a little conversation. Who wouldn’t at a time like that? But she wasn’t interested. Every time I tried to talk to her, she’d just glare at me like I was something terrible, something ugly, like she was disgusted with everything that had happened.” He looked at Caleb. “And that’s the way she looked at me from then on.” He turned back to Frank. “Of course, I couldn’t really blame her. I mean, when it’s your first time, you want it to be special.”

“First time?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“For you?”

“For her,” Stan said. “I mean, I haven’t been around a lot, or anything. I’m not saying that. But I wasn’t a … virgin.”

“But Angelica was?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Stan smiled. “I’m not that stupid,” he said. “I know the difference.”

“What was Angelica like when you saw her after this?” Frank asked.

“She acted just like she had before. Before that night, she barely knew I existed, and that’s the way she acted after it.”

Frank wrote it down, then closed his notebook. “Thanks for your help,” he said.

Caleb stood up. “Yeah, thanks,” he said. “And we’ll stay in touch.” He handed him a card. “You keep in touch, too. Especially if you think of something that could give us some help.”

Stan got to his feet. “Listen,” he said cautiously, “I know it’s not exactly right to bring this up, but this pregnancy thing, my father doesn’t know anything about that. I mean, I didn’t know about it before you told me.”

“And you’d just as soon keep the slate clean as far as your daddy is concerned, right?” Caleb asked him.

“If it’s possible.”

“It’s possible,” Caleb assured him. He looked at Frank. “Think we could keep this just between the menfolk?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Frank said. He got to his feet slowly. “We’ll probably talk to you again, Stan,” he said. “We may have to go over everything several times.”

“I understand.”

Within a few minutes the three of them were standing together on the front lawn.

“Must be interesting, being a policeman,” Stan said casually.

“Sometimes,” Caleb answered dryly.

“I thought about law enforcement as a career,” the boy added, “but my father wants me to go into something else … something more … more …”

“Well, he’s probably right,” Caleb said. “The flatfoots, they walk a ragged way, don’t they, Frank?”

Frank nodded quickly. He could see Angelica in her muted frenzy, hear the sharp pain in her voice. What had caused it? He wondered if Sarah’s silent agony had been like this, dark, sullen, edged in a rage he could neither see nor hear in his own daughter. A sudden wave of depression swept over him.

“Well, we’d better be going, Stan,” Caleb said heartily. “Nice meeting you, son.” He walked to the passenger side of the car and got in.

For a moment, Frank stood frozen, staring lifelessly at the neatly kept yard.

“Hey, Frank,” Caleb called.

Frank turned to him. “I don’t want to drive, Caleb,” he said.

Caleb’s eyes narrowed slowly. “You don’t? Well, okay.” He slid over behind the wheel, and waited as Frank took the now empty passenger seat.

“Nice boy,” Caleb said, after he’d backed the car out of the driveway.

“Yeah,” Frank said dully.

“No killer in Ansley Park, that’s for sure.”

“No.”

“’Course he could be lying,” Caleb added, as he pulled the car into Piedmont Avenue and headed back toward downtown, “but I don’t think so.”

Frank fixed his eyes on the angular gray wall of the city as it rose before him.

“Hey, Frank, you okay?” Caleb said after a moment.

“Yeah, fine.”

“You look like you ate something that didn’t agree with you.”

“I’m okay.”

Caleb stared at him closely. “No, you’re not,” he said. “Do you need a drink?” He smiled softly. “All you got to do is tell me you can handle it.”

“I can,” Frank said firmly.

“Good enough,” Caleb said. He pulled into the next bar he came to, a little plaster imitation of a Mexican tavern.

There was an empty booth in the back, and they walked directly to it.

“Give me one of them Tequila Sunrises,” Caleb said when the waitress arrived. “What about you, Frank?”

“Scotch.”

They drank silently when the drinks finally came, and Frank allowed his eyes to drift idly over the grain of the wood of his table, then up along the rough, exposed beams toward the plaster ceiling, and beyond that to where the sky could be seen, blue and vacant, through a small skylight at the very crest of the ceiling.

After about a half-hour, Caleb glanced at his watch. “Want another round?”

“No.”

“You look like you’re coming down with something, Frank.”

“I got tired all of a sudden,” Frank said. “Got very tired. That ever happen to you?”

“Yeah. It’s the sign of a bad ticker, the doctor told me.”

Frank nodded slowly. “Could be.”

“That’s what the doctor told me, anyway,” Caleb added. “So I said to the doctor, ‘If you got a bad ticker, what can you do about it?’ He said you couldn’t do very much. So I said, ‘Well, there must be something I can do, for Christsake.’ And that bastard just smiles at me and says, ‘Just one thing, Caleb. Live like hell.’” He gulped down the last of his drink with a laugh and grabbed his wallet. “This one’s on me, Frank,” he said. “With a bad heart, you don’t ever know, it might be your last one.”

It took almost another half-hour to make it back to headquarters. Alvin was standing beside Frank’s desk as the two of them entered the bullpen. His face looked as stricken as Frank had ever seen it. He looked as if everything he’d ever cared about had been tossed over a cliff.

“What is it, Alvin?” Frank asked immediately. He thought of Alvin’s wife, of Sheila, even, illogically, of Karen, but he could not guess what dreadful thing had happened.

“What is it?” he repeated.

Alvin shook his head slowly. “Daddy died about an hour ago,” he said quietly, as he drew his only brother gently into his arms.