This is left-field: How did she feel about abortion?
It was about the only agenda-type issue she was interested in. Libertarian, but with great qualms. Me too. That’s why I goof off on the subject and hand it over to the women.
-+=*=+-
At times, not so orderly. At times, our talk tended toward the not so orderly:
“Look at this.”
He was in the armchair, his reading chair, next to a round table on which books were stacked—also lamp, glass, framed photographs. Now he reached for a certain ruffled paperback, saying,
“It was in the shelves with its spine to the wall. I can’t believe she actually read it.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s so lousily written.”
A small-press publication, called Making Sense of Suicide. By some doctor with two middle initials. I flicked through it. Not one of those how-to guides that have recently been getting a lot of play. Written more from the counseling end of the operation—crisis center, help-line, talk-down.
“She made marks,” I said.
“Yeah. Habit. She always read with a pencil in her hand. I don’t know when she bought it. Could have been anytime in the last ten years.”
“She signed it.”
“But she didn’t date it. And her signature—her handwriting settled down pretty early. Why don’t you nuke it, Mike? With your forensic arsenal. The boron-activation test. Wasn’t that it?”
I sat back. I couldn’t quite get a take on his mood. I said, “That was Colonel Tom, Trader. The guy was down to his last marble. I had to do it for Tom.”
“Hey, I got one for you. Tom did it.”
“Did what?”
“Killed Jennifer. Murdered Jennifer.”
“Come again?”
“He’s the least likely guy. So it has to be him. Come on, we can cook this shit up. All you need is a little irresponsibility. It’s like redecorating the bedroom—you can do it a hundred ways. Miriam did it. Bax Denziger did it. You did it. But let’s stick with Tom. Tom did it. He waits till I leave. Then he sneaks in and does it.”
“Okay. Then why doesn’t he let it sleep? Why’d he crank me up? What am I doing sitting here tonight?”
“That’s a blind. That’s just a diversion. So the truth would never occur to anyone sane.”
“Motive?”
“Easy. I got it. Jennifer recalled a terrible secret from her past. A memory she tried to suppress. With drugs.”
“With drugs?”
“When she was just a little girl, she asked her daddy…why he came to her bedroom. Why he made her do those bad things. Why he…Oh no. Oh. I’m sorry, Mike.”
“That’s okay. But let’s stop this. Jennifer did it.”
“Jennifer did it. See? Why doesn’t everyone just keep their mouth shut. Why doesn’t everyone…just shut the fuck up.”
Then a revelation:
Did you talk to Professor Denziger?
Yeah I talked to Bax. He told you what—
Yeah, he did. He agonized good about that. I thought it was kind of typical of her in a way. Not the incompetence. That wasn’t typical. But how she did it. Changing the values. Changing all the givens. Why’s that?
Like if you said to her, I don’t know, who’s going to win the election in November, she had trouble getting interested. Because of the givens. The parameters. Not just the candidates—the whole thing. For her the thread had gotten lost so long ago.
Did Denziger tell you that what she did looked deliberate?
I think the only way you can genuinely go wrong there is when you have an ax to grind. Like when Sandage started wowing everyone with his quasar discoveries. His results were contaminated by brown dwarves, which quasars can resemble. It’s like in tennis: You want the ball to be good so much you actually see it good when it’s not. Jennifer wouldn’t see anything that wasn’t there. I think it was just part of the pattern. You said she wasn’t the pattern type. But that’s what mental illness does—it ropes you into a pattern. Some very corny stuff. There’s something else she did too. She started buying things. What? Don’t tell me. Cars. Pianos. No, paintings. Real crap, too. She wasn’t particularly visual, and I’m not either. But they look like airport art to me. I keep turning deliveries away. The galleries don’t holler. It’s a suicide. They’ve seen this before.