Look Closer

“Simon Peter Dobias!”

Maybe he’s not home. He said he would be. Maybe he decided to go for a run. That boy and his running.

I walk up the stairs. “Hello-o,” I sing.

I hear something. Something above. I go into the hallway. The stairs have been pulled down from the ceiling. He’s on the rooftop deck.

I take the stairs up, open the storm door, and step onto the wooden deck. Simon is sitting on one of the lawn chairs he’s put up here, gripping a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

“Hey,” I call out.

He turns, waves me over. “Didn’t hear you,” he says, but he’s slurring his words.

“You okay?”

I sit in the other lawn chair but turn to face him. Yep, glassy eyes. He’s thrown a few back, all right.

I take the bottle from his hand. “What happened?”

“‘What happened?’” He pushes himself out of the chair, opens his arms as if preaching to the masses. “What happened? What happened is he knows, that’s what happened.”

“Who knows what?”

“Dean Cumstain, as you call him.” He raises his chin and nods. “Come to think of it, I’m gonna call him that, too.”

“Knows what, Simon? What does the dean know?”

“He knows.” He turns and stumbles. He’s not close to the edge of the roof, but he’s starting to make me nervous.

“Simon—”

“Twelve years ago, I believe it was!” he calls out like a circus announcer, whirling around to his audience in all directions.

Twelve year—

Oh, no. Oh, shit.

“The year of 2010! I believe it involved a grand jury looking into the murder of a prominent—”

“Hey.” I grab him by both arms, put my forehead against his. “Keep your voice down. Someone might hear you.”

“I don’t care—”

“Yes, you do,” I hiss, holding his arms as he tries to break free. “Quit acting like an idiot and talk to me. Let me help.”

—

“I am so fucked,” Simon says, slumped over the wooden railing of the roof deck, head in his hands. “The dean owns me now.”

I run my hand up and down his back. “You aren’t fucked. We’re gonna figure this out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. He’s got me by the short hairs.”

“What does he have? That court opinion didn’t name you—”

“Oh, come on, Vick.” He turns to me, ashen, shaken. “It might as well have. It would take anyone with a brain about five seconds to figure out that the court of appeals was talking about me in that opinion. ‘A male family member,’ they wrote. Another place, they said the ‘family member’ was twenty-four years old. How many family members did my father have, period, much less a man who was twenty-four in May of 2010? Mom was dead, I’m an only child, and so was my dad. He didn’t have a wife, any other children, any brothers or sisters, nieces or neph—”

“Okay, okay.” I take his hand. “I get it. If anyone read the opinion and knew the context, they’d know it was you.”

“And they’d ask me, anyway,” he says. “If this came to the attention of the faculty and the tenure committee, they’d just come out and ask me to confirm that the subject of that judicial opinion was me. I’d have to say yes.”

“You wouldn’t have to.”

He shoots me a look. “Even if I were willing to lie about it, which I’m not—nobody would believe me. Then I’d be a liar, too, if being a murder suspect weren’t enough.”

“Oh, stop with this ‘murder suspect’ crap,” I say. “He’s been dead twelve years, Simon. I don’t see anyone putting you in handcuffs.”

“Yeah, and guess why? Read the opinion. I got off on a technicality—that’s what everyone will think.”

“You’re overreacting. You think a bunch of law professors, of all people, wouldn’t appreciate the importance of a therapist/patient privilege?”

“Sure, they would. They’d probably agree with the court’s decision, too. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t murder my father.”

I have no answer for that. He’s right. I’m trying to rally him, but he’s right. This judicial opinion has been lurking out there all along, for the last twelve years, talking about a subpoena issued by a grand jury investigating the murder of Theodore Dobias at his home in St. Louis, Missouri, where he moved after Glory died and Simon disowned him. It didn’t name Simon specifically, but it described a twenty-four-year-old male who was a member of Ted’s family—and Simon’s right, only he could possibly qualify.

The St. Louis County district attorney was interested in a phone call Simon made to his psychotherapist in the early morning after the night Ted was found dead in his pool, stabbed to death. The grand jury subpoenaed his therapist to testify, but she refused to answer on the grounds of privilege. Simon hired a lawyer and fought the case up to the court of appeals, which ruled in Simon’s favor. Nobody got to ask the shrink what Simon said to her that morning.

The police probably still think Simon killed his father, but realized, at some point, they couldn’t prove it. And Simon’s right. It will look like he was never charged because of a legal technicality. If the tenure committee hears about this, Simon is finished.