“I’m sorry,” Lu says for the second time. What else is there to say? Despite what people think, “I’m sorry” is more than adequate. When Gabe died, that’s all Lu wanted to hear. I’m sorry. She didn’t want to be told that God wouldn’t give her anything harder than she could handle. That she would be happy one day. Or that Gabe wanted her to be happy. She certainly didn’t want to answer any questions. What exactly happened? Who found his body? What was the cause of death? Were there any warning signs? Given the other choices, “I’m sorry” is really underrated.
She stands to go. Fred does, too. “I’ll walk you to your car.” She starts to protest that it’s early, the neighborhood perfectly safe, but maybe Fred needs an excuse to go. Or maybe he wants to reproach her for the passive-aggressive jab in the column.
“I liked him,” he says once on the sidewalk.
“Who?” she asks, her mind still on the Beacon-Light.
“Rudy. I offered to pay for the funeral, but his parents said a good Samaritan had stepped forward. They’re pretty strapped. I don’t know how they were going to afford the trial. I guess I didn’t want to think too hard about how they were managing this.”
Well, the trial did get cut short and there won’t be any appeals.
Fred seems to pick up on her unspoken snark.
“As I got to know Rudy, I would have been happy to do this case pro bono, not that it was my choice. Once he trusted a person-he could be good company. Funny, self-deprecating, smart. You know, he did pretty well, getting as far as he did in the world, given that no one figured out he was depressive and dyslexic until after he dropped out of college.”
Dyslexia? This is the first Lu has heard of it and her office pored over reams of medical documents about Drysdale, all provided by Fred.
“How could no one have noticed that?” Lu asks.
“It was never an official diagnosis, but it’s so clear to me that was part of his problem. People had these very narrow ideas about dyslexia a generation ago. They thought it meant you couldn’t read at all, and Rudy’s good grades helped mask his problems. Rudy had this genius for coping. He had this-not exactly photographic memory, but his memory was very visual. He taught himself to see the page, whole, and somehow, that allowed him to fake it. He was a good listener-I mean, really good, in a way almost no one is. Plus, at that crazy high school you all attended, you could take tests over, right? Rudy told me that. If you flunked, you were allowed to take the test again. And it was the same test. He could memorize the answers, the second time. I’m not describing it right, his condition. But you get what I’m saying.”
“I was years behind him at Wilde Lake. And by then, it was a totally conventional school. A good one, too.” Lu has always been a little defensive about her high school, which now has a less-than-stellar reputation. “You know, you didn’t provide any of this information. In discovery. Was dyslexia going to be a part of his defense?”
“I don’t want to talk about what might have been.”
She yearns to ask Fred if he thinks Rudy did it. Not because she has doubts. She doesn’t. She just wants Fred to admit she would have beaten him like a drum in that courtroom.
“People think dyslexia is all about reading,” he repeats. Lu tries to hide her impatience. Lord, once a man goes to the trouble of acquiring new information, he can’t let it go. What’s the point of learning something if you can’t bore others to death with the subject. “And that’s the core. But there are other issues. For Rudy, the biggest problem was spatial. He got so confused, about left and right. I thought that was why he hesitated at the courtroom door, at first. He was trying to remember which way he would have to turn when he ran out.”
So, no, she hadn’t imagined Rudy stopping at the door.
“I think it was an attempted suicide by cop.”
“Yeah, I think that, too. Now. But left and right was a huge problem for him. Sometimes, he wrote the letters on his wrist. L, R, so he would remember. I thought you should know.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t part of my case. I’m not breaching privilege here. I observed this on my own, and then his mom filled me in. I could still see the ‘R’ and ‘L’ on his wrists, the day I visited him in lockup. I thought the ‘R’ was for Rudy. But the letters were fresh that day.”
“Fred, what the hell are you talking about?”
He smiles. There’s a sense of payback here, as if he needs to tear her down because she didn’t win fair. Gee, Fred, sorry your client attacked me and committed suicide. I’m sorry, too, I didn’t get my day in court. Because I would have destroyed you.
“See you, Lu. Who knows when our paths will cross again?”
She stews all the way back to Columbia, mired in rush-hour traffic, an unpleasant novelty for her, given how early and late her days run. What the hell was Fred talking about? Right, left, who cares? She goes back to the office, cursing the Drysdales for the three hours her kindness has cost her, resigned to working late. No good deed, etc. etc.
Dusk has fallen by the time Lu thinks to glance out the window. She sees her reflection in the glass. The glass makes her think of sliding doors, a woman walking into her bedroom, discovering a strange man.
Then she thinks of the man, standing outside the apartment in the dark, choosing his point of entry.
He didn’t know right from left. He didn’t know right from left.
If Rudy had gone to the other apartment, his victim would have been Jonnie Forke, the state’s witness, the woman who saw him lurking around the complex the week before Mary McNally was killed.
Okay, so what? What difference did it make if Drysdale killed the woman behind door number 1 or the woman behind door number 2? If Jonnie Forke had any connection to Rudy Drysdale, she would have mentioned it to Mike Hunt or Andi. They would have told her over and over again to be candid, to reveal anything that might come up in court. If she knew him, recognized him from somewhere, it only would have strengthened the ID.
Lu Googles “Jonnie Forke”-nothing. Literally, nothing, which is bizarrely impressive. She plugs “Jonnie Forke” in Facebook, finds an entry for Juanita Forke. Graduated Centennial High School. No overlap with Drysdale there. Relationship status, single. She has only seventy-four friends, so she’s one of those people who actually uses Facebook for friends, yet doesn’t think to opt for the highest-security settings. To be fair, the site changes its privacy policy so often, some well-intentioned people don’t realize their fences are down. Lu can even look at all of Jonnie Forke’s friends.
Nine of whom have the surname Flood.
Jonnie Forke.
Juanita Forke.
Jonnie Flood Forke.
Juanita Flood Forke.
Had she given her full name at the grand jury proceeding, the syllables sliding past Lu’s ear because she was so full of adrenaline she couldn’t be bothered to note that a witness’s legal name was different from the one she used? But “Juanita” didn’t mean anything to Lu, and there was no reason for Jonnie Forke to use her maiden name.
Juanita Flood Forke.
Juanita Flood.
Nita Flood.
APRIL 8
The apartment doors at the Grove-still THE G OVE on the sign, perhaps forever THE G OVE now-have fisheyes. Did they always, or were they an add-on, a concession to the modern age and the changing nature of the people who lived here? Not that a fisheye would have saved anyone from Rudy Drysdale, no matter which door he chose. Lu stands in front of Jonnie Forke’s door for one, two, three minutes, waiting to be examined and deemed worthy of entrance. She definitely heard footsteps in the apartment after she knocked. Didn’t she? She takes a few steps backward, just in case the person on the other side of the door can’t see her. Can’t blame the woman for being extra careful. After all, a tenant was killed here not that long ago.