“Lucy,” I began, “help me understand.”
“I’ve been fucked,” she said, taking a swallow of beer.
“If that’s true, then how?”
“What do you mean’if’?” She stared hard at me, her eyes filling with tears.
“How can you think for even a minute… Oh, shit. What’s the point?” She looked away.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth,” I said, getting up as I decided that I wasn’t hungry, either. I went to the bar and poured Scotch over crushed ice.
“Let’s start with the facts,” I suggested as I returned to my chair.
“We know someone entered ERF at around three a.m. on this past Tuesday. We know your PIN was used and your thumb was scanned. It is further documented by the system that this person–again, who has your PIN and print–went into numerous files. The log-out time was at precisely four thirty-eight A. M. ”
“I’ve been set up and sabotaged,” Lucy said.
“Where were you while all this was going on?”
“I was asleep.” She angrily gulped down the rest of her beer and got up for another one. I sipped my Scotch slowly because it was not possible to drink a Dewar’s Mist fast.
“It has been alleged that there have been nights when your bed was empty,” I quietly said.
“And you know what? It’s nobody’s business.”
“Well, it is, and you know that. Were you in your bed the night of the break-in?”
“It’s my business what bed I’m in, when, and where, and nobody else’s,” she said. We were silent as I thought of Lucy sitting on top of the picnic table in the dark, her face illuminated by the match cupped in another woman’s hands. I heard her speaking to her friend and understood the emotions carrying her words, for I knew the language of intimacy well.
I knew when love was in someone’s voice, and I knew when it was not.
“Exactly where were you when ERF was broken into?” I asked her again.
“Or should I ask you instead who you were with?”
“} don’t ask you who you’re with.”
“You would if it might save me from being in a lot of trouble.”
“My private life is irrelevant,” she went on.
“No, I think it is rejection you fear,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw you in the picnic area the other night. You were with a friend.” She looked away.
“So now you’re spying on me, too.” Her voice trembled.
“Well, don’t waste any sermons on me, and you can forget Catholic guilt because I don’t believe in Catholic guilt.”
“Lucy, I’m not judging you,” I said, but in a way I was.
“Help me understand.”
“You imply I’m unnatural or abnormal, otherwise I would not need understanding. I would simply be accepted without a second thought. ”
“Can your friend vouch for your whereabouts at three o’clock Tuesday morning?” I asked.
“No,” she answered.
“I see” was all I said, and my acceptance of her position was a concession that the girl I knew was gone. I did not know this Lucy, and I wondered what I had done wrong.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked me as the evening tensely wore on.
“I’ve got this case in North Carolina. I have a feeling I’m going to be there a lot for a while,” I said.
“What about your office here?”
“Fielding’s holding down the fort. I do have court in the morning, I think. In fact, I need to call Rose to verify the time.”
“What kind of case?”
“A homicide.”
“I figured that much. Can I come with you?”
“If you’d like.”
“Well, maybe I’ll just go back to Charlottesville.”
“And do what?” I asked. Lucy looked frightened.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d get there, either.”
“You’re welcome to my car when I’m not using it. Or you could go to Miami until the semester’s over, then back to UVA.” She downed the last mouthful of beer and got up, her eyes bright with tears again.
“Go ahead and admit it. Aunt Kay. You think I did it, don’t you?”