Look Closer

But I’ve chosen to live with that lie. And now, after Lauren, with two lies. The brilliance of the law is that it’s not concerned with one person but with a system applicable to all. It protects the guilty so it can protect the innocent. It protected me, the guilty, from prosecution twice now.

“Professor?” From one of the back rows, a hand raises, a woman I don’t know well, to whom I’ve not said more than brief hellos in the hallway. I want to say her name is Amara Rodriguez, but I’m not a hundred percent, so I play it safe and stick with the title.

“Yes, Professor,” I say.

“You mentioned St. Louis. And you’re probably aware that these events in St. Louis have come to light during the committee’s candidate review process.”

I am, but only because Anshu told me.

“I’m happy to answer any questions about St. Louis,” I say.

“Is it true that only a few weeks ago, in November, the St. Louis police identified a suspect they believe was guilty of your father’s murder? Based on new forensic evidence?”

“Yes, that’s true,” I say.

I’m not privy to the inner workings of the St. Louis police, but I can only imagine that the people in charge have the same pressure to close cases as a tiny little hamlet like Grace Village. Whoever was in charge of the cold case got the new evidence of Lauren’s fingerprints on the bottle and eventually her DNA on the wineglass, too, along with the information that Lauren had briefly returned to the country during that time. The case was closed as solved. All the easier when the suspect is now dead, not subject to prosecution and unable to contest the determination in any way.

“That must feel like cold comfort,” she says, “being exonerated twelve years later.”

Something like that. They were never going to pin St. Louis on me, as long as they couldn’t talk to my shrink, to whom I spilled my guts the next morning. (A moment of weakness I will never forget or repeat.)

Comfort? I wouldn’t use that word. I wouldn’t even say I’m happy about what I did. Or unhappy. Virtually every moral code and penal code would condemn my actions. I analogize it to the law of war, instead. My father and Lauren declared war on my mother and me. They killed her, and I killed them back. Soldiers aren’t prosecuted for killing other soldiers. They’re prosecuted only for killing innocents. Lauren and my father were the furthest things from innocents. I don’t require approval, nor do I accept disapproval, for what I’ve done.

Did I know that the Grace Village P.D. would fingerprint Lauren and take a DNA sample? Sure, they always do that, if for no other reason than exclusion, differentiation from other prints and DNA found at the scene. Did I know that they’d enter this information into FBI databases? Of course—standard protocol. Did I know that this newly submitted information would find a match in the databases for the champagne bottle and plastic flute found at my father’s crime scene? I hoped so. I couldn’t be sure Lauren’s prints or DNA would be on that bottle or those champagne flutes. But a guy can hope.

And did I time this entire thing so that St. Louis would be in a position to declare its investigation solved and closed only weeks before I had to stand here before this committee and answer questions?

Well, let’s just say the timing worked out okay.

“I’m just glad to put it behind me,” I say, looking squarely at Dean Comstock as I do.

105 Simon

The forest preserve outside Burlington, Wisconsin, where Vicky stashed her post-Halloween burner phone to communicate with me, seems as good as any place to meet. I get there early, having the longer drive and not wanting to be late. The habit of timing things perfectly with Vicky, so critical over the summer and fall, is hard to scrub from my DNA.

I assume there isn’t much of a need to be careful anymore. The day after Jane Burke visited me with the news about Lauren’s fingerprint on the champagne bottle, Grace Village P.D. announced a solve in the murder of Lauren Betancourt. Nicholas Caracci, aka Christian Newsome, killed her in a jealous rage after she rejected his advances and then took his own life out of remorse. I watched the press conference, which featured Jane Burke standing behind the chief, looking as happy as someone with hemorrhoids.

Through the light snowfall, Vicky walks up the trail in a new, long wool coat and matching hat.

I wonder how she’ll approach, arms out for an embrace or hands tucked in her pockets and keeping a distance. It’s no secret that we have very different feelings about our relationship, that I want far more than she does. That made it awkward on occasion over the months that we plotted our scheme. It wasn’t easy executing this plan. It was scary and stressful. At times, we clung to each other for comfort—a hug, a peck on the cheek, a quick rub of the back.