Skin Deep

40

HAWTHORNE ENGLISH PROFESSOR ARRESTED IN THE MURDER OF STRIPPER

Hawthorne State College English Professor Earl Pendergast was arrested for the murder of Terry Farina, a personal trainer and part-time exotic dancer from Jamaica Plain. According to Boston District Attorney Carol Dean, Pendergast, fifty-one, had been a person of interest in the case from the beginning and had been brought in for questioning after police discovered that he had dated Farina.

Investigators began to make a connection when they discovered sexually explicit documents on the college-owned desktop computer used by Pendergast in his English Department office. Police described the material as a variety of “porn images” as well as promotional photos of the Mermaid Lounge in Revere, Massachusetts, where Farina was an exotic dancer.

Pendergast vigorously denies killing the woman. According to Alden Goodfellow, Pendergast’s attorney, his client was at home when Farina was apparently murdered.

Pendergast has a record of three misdemeanors as well as an arrest in New Hampshire for lewd conduct involving a female seventeen years of age.

Farina’s naked body was found in her bedroom on June 3. Police are not saying how she was murdered. She was last seen at the club two days before her death talking to Pendergast.

It was early evening, and Steve was parked in front of the Northeastern quadrangle, across the avenue from Conor Larkins.

Do it, he told himself. Call Jackie, cancel the appointment, drive to headquarters, and tell Reardon what you know about you and Terry on the day she was killed. It’s the only decent thing to do. Get Pendergast the hell off the hook. Get Neil off the hook. Get Reardon off the hook. Get everybody off the friggin’ hook.

Dana, too. ( Sorry, baby.)

For too long he had kept alive the illusion that he and Dana would put the pieces back together again, that he’d find a center and reinvent himself as the family man….

Reinvent yourself. Such romantic bullshit. Can’t do that except on the outside. And just below the skin you are what you are. Always were. “The child is the father of man.” He had never known how brutally true that Wordsworth line was.

Do it. Call her and cancel. Put the car in gear and drive down the street and end this.

Another voice cut in: Do that and consider that this is the last day of the life you used to live. That your life as an ordinary man and cop is over. And the rest, just miserable details—investigation, arrest, arraignment, trial, and, if found guilty, incarceration until your death.

On some deep level that possibility seemed to have a sublime inevitability. He fingered his PDA.

But you still don’t know that it’s you. What about the stockings? Everything else lines up but the murder weapon.

Don’t know. They could have been hers. She had a hundred pairs.

Besides, Jackie had spent the night poring through the files, watching the video. He couldn’t cancel now. He got out of the car, thinking, What a feeble excuse.

Because it was nearly seven P.M. on Sunday, the Northeastern campus was dead. He cut across Huntington to the quad and made his way to Churchill Hall and up to the fourth floor to the College of Criminal Justice where Jackie was waiting for him in her office.

“You look like you could use some java,” she said. She nodded him to a coffee machine where he poured himself a cup. Her office was lined with journals and books. She was at her desk with a small pair of reading glasses that sat on her face like a toy. The Farina file lay open before her. Also a copy of that day’s Boston Globe.

“I take it you read about the arrest.”

“And the file, the M.E.’s report, the C.S.S. report, the student blogs, and evaluations. I also watched the entire interrogation.” She peered over her glasses at him. “And that dinner will be at Tour d’Argent in Paris.”

Steve smiled. “I’ll check our consultation budget.”

“In that case, Wendy’s in Saugus.” Fanned out in front of her were crime scene photographs of Farina, including close-ups of the stocking ligature.

“So what do you think?”

“No news flash, but there was considerable rage in this killing. The speed and force to knock her out before she could resist suggest the attack was explosive, committed by someone quick, strong, and determined.”

Steve nodded, and felt his forehead begin to bead with sweat.

“But if, as you speculate, he brought the stockings with the intention of killing, he’s someone who planned his moves and charmed his victim.”

“Do you see that in Earl Pendergast?”

“Well, on the surface he’s the quintessential womanizer—smooth, articulate, and handsome. He’s probably adept at faking romance and presenting himself as every female’s dream. He’s got an eye for beautiful women and cruises strip clubs, escort services, and porn sites. While that suggests a man out to score as many as possible, I think one of his students says it best: Professor Pendergast just ‘wants to be loved.’ My guess is that he’s got insecurities big-time—that he still feels vulnerable and isn’t able to trust others. Isn’t able to commit to anyone.”

That rat uncurled in Steve’s gut again.

“Possibly he suffered some form of abuse as a child and/or abandonment.”

“Enough to make him snap and kill a woman?” Steve asked.

“Possibly. He seems threatened by women, perhaps in fear that they may assert power over him, discover his weaknesses then drop him. Maybe Terry Farina had a special hold on him and they had more of a relationship than reported. Maybe she announced it was over and he lost it.”

Steve’s throat was suddenly so dry he downed half the coffee. “He said he was searching for the right woman to fill a void. Doesn’t sound like someone bent on killing women who don’t measure up.”

“No,” Jackie said. “It sounds more like someone who’s in constant search for an ideal soul mate who’s forever out of reach.”

“Like his first love.”

“Or his mother.”

The rat took a nip at something.

“Of course, he could be lying to get pity from the interrogating officer. From what I’ve read, he’s got a history of prefabrication. But what I see is a man who feels bad about himself. The guy who killed Terry Farina feels bad about women. It’s not clear why—maybe to punish them for something. He’s also a person who craves control and authority, suggested by how he made his way into the bedroom, killed her, then staged a suicide without a trace.”

“You said punish her.”

“For being sexy, for turning him on, for not turning him on, for reminding him of his mother, his old girlfriend—”

His wife.

“—of whomever. But something about her set off a bomb.”

Steve nodded and his eyes fell to his hands, and for a split instant he tried to detect any recall, a dark muscle memory, the feeling of the stocking cutting into his palms. Thankfully, nothing. But he could also not recall purchasing champagne last week and he had a signed receipt in his wallet. “We’re working on the theory that he brought the stockings with the intent to kill. What we’re having trouble with is that there are no signs of sexual contact.”

“That is unusual. The stocking, of course, is an intimate item and part of her stripper’s wardrobe.”

“Sometimes her entire wardrobe,” Steve said.

“Yes, which makes the stocking a coda for her sexuality.”

“So, it might be some kind of bad fetish that sets off the rage.”

Got one you didn’t know about? One curled deep in your R-complex?

“Possibly.” She glanced at a photo of the strangled Terry Farina. “No semen or mutilation, yet she had secreted sexual fluid. So there must have been some kind of foreplay before it turned deadly. Also, since there were no signs of her voiding on the dress, she was probably naked before she died. It’s possible her sexuality represented something he desires yet fears at once—something alluring yet forbidden.”

Alluring yet forbidden.

“You mean he covets what he can’t have.”

“Yes, and possibly the stocking represents a female from his past against whom he’s conflicted and feeling hostile.”

“Which he resolves by killing.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re saying the killer may recognize something in the victim—maybe his mother, girlfriend, whatever, who possibly abused and abandoned him.”

“Yes, and here’s the Freudian in me. Let’s say the victim’s sexuality reminds him of dear old Mom. In killing her he resolves oedipal conflicts and incest taboos.”

“If it’s Pendergast, what about the lack of violence in his other offenses?”

Jackie looked at the photograph. “Maybe this is the first one who comes close to Mom or whoever the love original is.”

Steve’s mouth felt full of sawdust, and he guzzled the rest of his coffee. “The suspect was on antianxiety meds. There’s also evidence that he drank alcohol when he visited the vic.” He was startled by his own disingenuous use of the depersonalizing shorthand. “Could the combination have triggered the rage?”

“What were the meds?”

“Ativan.”

“Brand name of Lorazepam. If he’s susceptible to it, absolutely. And if he’s a bad drunk, the alcohol alone could have triggered an explosive fit.”

Steve nodded. “He claims he was at home the night of the murder. Is it possible the combination with booze could also have blotted out his memory of the murder?”

“Absolutely. In fact, Lorazepam is the drug of choice of the CIA for use on suspected terrorists. It destroys their memory of interrogation techniques—what we mere mortals call torture. If a high-enough dosage of Ativan and alcohol doesn’t kill you, it can make you forget your killing someone else.”