The Snow Garden

  Alan Raines is my father’s brother, but I stopped calling him my uncle a long time ago.

  After his wife left him, he came to live with us. I was nine years old. My mom ended up clearing out her office so that he could have a room—a room that was right next to mine.

  To the best of Randall’s knowledge, Eric didn’t teach a single course that required students to submit personal essays. But that was exactly what this was. Dumbfounded, he continued reading.

  I always knew something was wrong with Alan. My parents never told me outright, but after he came to live with us I realized he was a drunk. That was why he lost his job, and that was why he was in our house.

  Upstairs, the shower halted and Randall looked up at the ceiling as he folded the essay in half. He got up from the sofa and stuffed the essay into his jacket pocket, debating whether he should get a glass of water from the kitchen to give some pretense to his excursion downstairs. He heard the wood creaking on the front porch. He peered out the front windows; the porch looked empty but the sound had been unmistakable. He knelt on the sofa, his face pressed to the glass, hands braced on the window sill, trying to see down the length of the porch.

  Two palms slapped the other side of the glass and a dark shape rose up, blocking out the streetlights. Jesse’s eyes were level with his. He had reared up from his hiding place beneath the window, his mouth a leering, triumphant grin. Randall let out a sound between a shout and a cry, and lurched back, his knees sliding off the sofa and slamming into the floor, the back of his head slamming against the edge of the coffee table.

  “Randall!” Eric’s shout echoed down the stairs.

  Stuck in his absurd position, Randall stared up at the window to see Jesse backing away slowly, pressing the tip of one trigger finger against the glass. “Found you,” Jesse clearly mouthed before withdrawing his hand from the window and receding into shadow.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RANDALL KICKED OPEN THE DOOR TO HIS ROOM SO HARD THAT IT slammed into the side of his closet. But Jesse was not waiting for him, perched on the edge of his bed, a triumphant smile on his face. Jesse’s bed was made so tightly Randall could have bounced a quarter on the tasteless plaid comforter. There was no Jesse to look up from his laptop, startled, before managing to form some barbed question like, “Get much sleep last night?”

  Randall’s breaths were nasal and rapid, and he had bunched his hands into fists against his sides. All semblances of a self-righteous speech left him. He took care to shut the door more gently than he had opened it.

  Lisa’s bottle of Chivas Regal, the one he had used to fill his flask and the only one open in the liquor cabinet, was a hard lump against his thigh where he had wedged its bottom half into the inside pocket of his jacket. It made a ludicrous lump inside his coat. After another hour of fitful sleep, he had managed to dress without waking Eric before swiping the bottle. Returning to Stockton, with dawn’s first feeble light crawling over the rooftops of east campus, Randall had walked with his arms held in front of him, wrists meeting just above his crotch. He hid the bottle under his bed, right next to his flask.

  He sat down on his bed to catch his breath and glared at Jesse’s side of the room. Clothes dangled like ghosts in the closet, and without Jesse it seemed bare. Was it a testament to Jesse’s refusal to put down roots in his new home? Did he have nothing to put down? Or did the guy just travel light, keeping his commitments few while he accumulated sexual accomplishments?

  Randall crossed the invisible dividing line. In the bottom-most file drawer of the desk, he found file folders labeled with course names. He flipped through them; they were copies of submitted papers and graded ones. In accordance with the textbooks on the shelves above the headboard, every course was your basic introductory gut.

  Examining Jesse’s living space, he saw no evidence of any driving passion that determined the flow of his roommate’s life. There was none of Randall’s strange marriage of buff models and fine art, none of Kathryn’s clutter of textbooks devoted to courses ruled by logic and analytical thinking. Anyone who knew Jesse would say his outstanding quality was vanity. But there was not a single photograph of himself or anyone else on his side of the room. Nothing to indicate the self-love that his swaggering evoked.

  But what bothered Randall the most was that there was no secret buried in his drawers, nothing Randall could use to his advantage. There were only two material things Jesse showed consistent affection for; his navy pea coat and his laptop computer, both of which were with Jesse at that very moment.

  A dream and a dire obligation had brought Randall Stone to Atherton University.

  But what had brought Jesse? What was now driving this warped All-American guy to turn Randall into a conquest?

  “Is this a date?” Tim took a seat across from Randall, his eyes deliberately downcast as he lowered his satchel off one shoulder. Outside, Sunday hushed Brookline Avenue. Hangovers and homework kept most students indoors. Randall and Tim sat at one of three occupied tables at Madeline’s.

  “I’m sorry about the other night,” Randall said neutrally.

  “I was worried about you,” Tim said, sounding as if he were ashamed to admit it. He clasped his hands on the table in front of him, evidently waiting for Randall to explain the purpose of their lunch.

  Randall took a sip of his club soda. “You want to order something?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Tim, just order something, okay? This is going to take awhile.”

  Tim furrowed his brow, obviously puzzled. “Look, Randall, I’m sorry I didn’t try to find you Friday night but... I think it goes without saying that I shouldn’t have any illusions here, all right? It’s not like I’m planning our commitment ceremony.”

  The waitress appeared and set a cocktail napkin down in front of him. His eyes darted from Randall to the hovering waitress before he ordered a glass of water. “We have fun together,” he continued. “I mean, I don’t exactly want to use the term fuck—”

  “I need you to help me with something,” Randall cut in. When Tim got on one of his rolls there was only one way to stop him.

  “All right.”

  “Friday night. I don’t remember much, but—”

  “You were pretty sloshed. Of course, I’m not anyone to point fingers. Last year, I got so totaled my roommate called Health Services and I had to spend the entire night in the Health Center so some med student could check my pulse every hour.”

  “Stop talking, Tim.”

  Tim’s eyes widened and he crossed his arms over his chest, and slouched back in his chair. “What’s going on?”

  “Friday night, before I got sick, you were telling me something about Dr. Eberman.”

  “I don’t remember what—”

  “About how you had a meeting with your friend Richard at the Atherton Journal and he told you ...”

  “Oh! Pamela Milford. What about her?”

  The waitress delivered Tim’s water and he nervously drank it, almost emptying his glass. “Back in eighty-three, she’s the girl who wandered into the—”

  “I know who she was. Every students here does. But was there anything else?”

  “Her parents were very wealthy. Thanks to them, that’s probably why everyone remembers her so well. She vanished without a trace one night in March and her parents swept into town talking to reporters left and right, holding press conferences and accusing the university of somehow being at fault. She had been missing for one day and suddenly they posted this huge reward, which got the Atherton PD flooded with a bunch of crank calls from crackpots and psychics. The next morning, their daughter turned up in a drainage canal that empties out the north side of the hill into the bay.”

  “And she was dating Eric?”

  Tim cocked his head as if he’d heard a strange sound but couldn’t pinpoint it. “She was romantically involved with Eberman, yes. He was the one who reported her missing.”

  “But there were no signs of foul play?”

/>   “No. The police concluded that she got drunk at a party in the Chi Kap house on Fraternity Green, wandered into the Elms, and fell into Inverness Creek, which isn’t really a creek but a drainage canal. The reason the Elms are even there is because the city won’t lend Atherton the money to reinforce the canal with concrete, so they can’t exactly start pile driving next to it.” Tim looked at him hard. “I’m sorry. Did you call him Eric?”

  It hadn't been a slip, but Randall’s small attempt to break the ice in preparation of all he was about to reveal. Randall kept calm as he watched the first indications of suspicion coming to life in the back of Tim’s brain. But it wasn’t clear how many connections he was making and how fast. Randall was relieved Tim wouldn’t force the question. Obviously, he had enough of a reporter’s finesse to know when he might frighten his fish away from the spear. And Randall had enough at stake to know that in what he hoped to do, he would never allow himself to be bait or prey.

  But in the silence that settled over the table, Randall saw Tim realize that Randall’s sudden reentry into his life last week had a clear explanation. Animosity swelled within him. Randall allowed Tim his moment, draining his club soda before he spoke again. “Your friend Richard usually gives you scoops, right?”

  Tim nodded curtly.

  “And he’d probably give you more, if you could return the favor. In a big way.” '

  “Wait a minute. Richard doesn’t work for the AP. The stuff he usually gives me is town versus gown stuff. Hardly sexy. But he did have a lot of high hopes riding on the Lisa Eberman thing. He thought the police were going to turn up evidence of a marital squabble at least.”

  “And no doubt you shared your take on Dr. Eberman.”

  “Yeah, I may have planted the seed. But Richard couldn’t find anything to back it up.”

  “But he looked, right?”

  “Of course he did. The coroner’s office conducted what’s called a medical legal autopsy. It’s standard in all cases of sudden death and all the findings are collected in a manner that would make them presentable in a court of law. I got the one-up on Richard by telling him about my conversation with Lisa’s sister, Paula.” Tim looked sour. “He was giddy. He managed to convince himself that Lisa hadn’t been drunk. Tox reports came back and she was point oh nine. That’s drunk.”

  “Anything else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Toxicology. Did it turn up anything weird?”

  “Traces of stuff she had prescriptions for. Why?”

  Randall took a deep breath and brought a hand to his forehead. He saw disco lights panting swaths across his vision instead of flickering. In his stomach, he felt the churning of rancid scotch. He imagined the same things happening to a woman behind the wheel of a car. “Randall?” Tim seemed to call from a distance.

  He jerked his head up. “Eric Eberman’s your mortal enemy, right?”

  Tim, who had bent forward over the table, sat back in his chair as if the force of Randall’s sudden question had hit him in the chest. “I think the guy’s a closet case. As a rule, I don’t like closet cases.”

  “Be honest, Tim. Why were you and your reporter friend panting to pin Lisa’s death on Eric if you didn’t think it was a way to prove he was as queer as a three-dollar bill?”

  “I made the connection. Yes.” Tim sounded defensive.

  “But it didn’t work.”

  “No,” Tim said, as if a great personal failure of his had been pointed out. “The car went into the river in perfect condition. She was good and numb, and she was driving. End of story.”

  “Does Richard Miller agree?”

  “No. Richard wants to know how a man who has been involved with the deaths of two different women had managed to slide through both investigations with less than twenty minutes spent in the interrogating room. And I’d like to know too.”

  “Wouldn’t you be halfway there if you could prove Eberman was gay?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And how could you do that?” Randall asked. “Write an editorial in the Herald about how he threw you out of his course after you hit on him? See if maybe he’s been brave enough to make advances toward some male students.”

  “That wouldn’t be good enough. We’re not talking about a government official with a history of condoning anti-gay policy here. If somebody like that makes an advance, his entire career is founded on hypocrisy, and that’s a story. But with a professor at a private university—well, the story wouldn’t carry any weight unless it entailed something like what he did to me but with some wandering hands involved and some proof that a student was penalized for not accepting his advances.”

  Randall lifted his eyes to Tim’s. “And if a student did?”

  “Did what?” Tim asked, even though it was clear he already knew.

  “Accepted his advances?”

  “You son of a bitch, Randall.” Tim’s eyes shot away from Randall’s as his upper lip curled in disgust.

  “Chill out, drama queen, I haven’t confessed to anything.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I need you to help me with something first.”

  Tim gave a slow, exaggerated nod of his head. “Do you ever!”

  “I’m not coming forward tomorrow. And you’re not running to your friend Richard until I tell you it’s okay.”

  Tim was silent. His shock was giving way to disapproval. And perhaps a healthy portion of jealousy he would never admit to.

  “Tim!”

  “It sounds like you’re giving me orders.”

  Randall felt his face tighten as he bent forward, clasping his hands around his glass to anchor himself. If he took a deep breath it might force him to think twice, so instead he dropped his voice several volumes. “Depending. on how badly you want to ruin Eric Eberman, maybe I am.”

  “Since when do I want to ruin — ”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Tim.” Randall fought to maintain his steady volume and won.

  “Maybe I’m just returning the favor, Randall. You think I didn’t wonder why you suddenly waltzed back into my life after not returning a single phone call for a month? You wanted to know if anyone had a clue you were sleeping with him, didn’t you?”

  “I wanted to know if he killed her,” Randall said as flatly as he could. The coldness of the statement obviously struck Tim, because he shook his head and scanned the empty tables around them. Emboldened, Randall continued, “And I need you to help me find out.”

  Tim drew a deep breath, and Randall could see what was contending inside him—whether or not to believe Randall in the face of the realization that their renewed affair had been little more than an information-gathering mission, and the fact that a man he knew might have killed his own wife. “I’m listening,” Tim said finally.

  Randall looked to his water glass and summoned the nerve required to articulate his role in the narrative. “Lisa Eberman drank only scotch. She kept bottles of it stored in her liquor cabinet. You want to know how I’ve been filling my flask, Tim? You’re right, I haven’t found a liquor store that’s been sold on my fake ID. And since Lisa always seemed to have extra, I started borrowing from her. I filled my flask from the last open bottle three nights after she died. After three slugs of whatever was in that bottle, I threw up my entire stomach and couldn’t remember a thing the next day. Whatever was in that bottle, Tim, it wasn’t just scotch.”

  Feeling like he had just confessed a crime of his own, Randall worked to lock his eyes on Tim’s. Tim’s expression was fixed, intense. “You think he slipped her some of her own meds.”

  “That’s what I want you to help me find out.”

  “This is out of my league, Randall.”

  “This is exactly the story you were hoping for.”

  “And you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you get ,out of this?”

  “Nothing. This is about Lisa.”

  Tim smirked. “Nice try.”

  Randa
ll fought his ingrained reflex against telling anything about himself that someone could read as motive. “I was in bed with him the night of the accident,” he finally answered, sounding as reedy as he had after a slug of poisoned scotch. “She left him a note.”

  “What did it say?”

  “That she knew about us. That she had seen us that night. Eric tried to make me believe that I was the reason she was driving like a maniac.” That was all Tim needed to know, Randall told himself, and even that admission felt like a giant one. Tim would serve a specific purpose and therefore require only specific information.

  “I see you’re not very good at feeling guilty.”

  “For what?” Randall snapped. “The fact that Eric killed his wife?”

  “You have to prove it first.”

  “We will.”

  “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

  Randall summoned his most acidic smile. “Sorry, I forgot. You’re way too busy covering the latest student outcry against the administration’s policy of not letting freshmen keep cars on campus.”

  Tim rolled his eyes. “It’s not like this isn’t tempting.”

  Randall waited for Tim to continue, and when he didn’t, Randall bent forward, one hand almost touching Tim’s across the table. “I don’t expect you to help me with this just so I can sleep better. And I’m not defending the fact that I had a thing with a married man. But Lisa Eberman’s death should not be on my back, Tim. And that’s exactly where Eric tried to put it.”

  “Go to the police,” Tim responded promptly. “Tell them you were in bed with him the night she died. That’s all they would need to take a second look. Unless. . .” Tim bent forward, mimicking Randall’s posture and bringing their faces within inches of each other. “Maybe you think if the two of us start playing detective we might prove your little conclusion wrong. Clearing the way for you and the good professor to live happily ever after.”

  Randall felt his jaw clenching, his top teeth grating against his lower ones. How desperate was he to put himself in this situation-enduring sermons from Tim? Tim Mathis had that undeniably gay male quality of being great at self-righteous indignation and all too eager to abandon his lofty principles when it came time to get on all fours. Randall had witnessed this sweaty, split-second disappearance of integrity in Tim and many men before him—too many to remember all at once. Randall coated the sting of honesty in Tim’s statement by reminding himself that a year earlier, if Eric had accepted Tim’s dinner invitation, the inconvenience of a drunken wife might have faded into the background for Tim as well. Randall clung to these thoughts as he spoke again. They gave him fragile moral ground and kept the full force of his anger from his words.