Wilde Lake(80)

“I’m here to see Davey Robinson.”

“Is Pastor Robinson expecting you?”

“Yes.” Lu had not wanted to visit without some warning. She delayed the meeting for one reason or another—work, the tax-filing deadline. Finally, she called yesterday, said she wanted to talk to him about the events of 1980. Those were her exact words. “The events of 1980.” She chose 1980 and not 1979 because Davey would assume she meant the night he was attacked. But, of course, everything goes back to 1979. Citing 1980 was simply less adversarial.

“Follow me,” the woman says, moving quickly on her long legs, admirably swift in her stiletto heels. Lu feels ridiculous, trying to match the woman’s stride without appearing like a clumsy little puppy. She’s pretty sure that’s the point.

Davey’s office does nothing to diminish Lu’s first impression, that this church is a castle he has built for himself. His desk is huge. Across from him, she feels like a child, called to the principal’s office, not that Lu was ever called to the principal’s office as a child. She has to perch on the edge of the chair so her feet are flat on the floor. She is Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians, dwarfed by the scale of everything here. And Davey is larger than ever, broad in his chair. She wonders how hard it was for him, an athlete gifted enough to be considered for a college team, to adapt to a body that could no longer move as it once had. But he has spent almost twice as long in this body as he did in his previous one.

“Look at Little Lu,” he says. His tone is affectionate, so she tries not to bristle at the use of “little.” “Who knew you were going to grow up to be such a player, the most powerful woman in the county right now?” But not as powerful as you, right, Davey? “I read about what happened earlier this month.”

He almost certainly means the attack, and Lu would feel sanctimonious, telling him that Rudy’s suicide has affected her far more than the assault.

She says only: “I’m fine. But something, well, weird has come up, in the wake of that. I have reason to believe that Rudy Drysdale intended to kill someone else, that he broke into the wrong woman’s apartment that night.”

Davey cocks his head as if interested, but confused. Why am I listening to this story?

Lu takes a deep breath. “He had a kind of dyslexia that resulted in spatial confusion, literally couldn’t tell right from left. If the events of December thirty-first were premeditated, then he might have entered the wrong apartment. The woman who lived across from the victim was Nita Flood. She thinks Rudy was sent to kill her, but she won’t tell me by whom.”

Davey’s eyes narrow, all friendliness gone. It was a fake friendliness to begin with, Lu realizes. He may have hoped this was not to be the topic today, but he’s not particularly surprised.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. But when I spoke to Nita—Jonnie, she’s known as Jonnie now—she still maintains, after all these years, that you raped her.” Quickly adding: “I know that’s not true. If you had, you would have been charged. My father did everything he could to make sure that no one was given special treatment. But she believes this to be true. Or has come to believe it. It’s probably sheer revisionism on her part, thirty-five years later. But if she had threatened to go public—”

“Thou shalt not kill,” Davey says. “I’m a minister, Lu. I preach the Lord’s words. Do you think I could so easily violate one of his most basic commandments?”

The fact is—she can’t. The moment she began to speak, she felt ludicrous. “No, no, I don’t. But I do believe that Rudy Drysdale targeted her and I can’t figure out why.”

“He always liked her,” Davey says. “She barely paid him any mind, but he had a crush on her.”

“You knew him?”

“Just to nod hello. He worked in the camera store in the mall, the one near Nita’s cart. He was always hanging around her, doing things for her. I noticed because I would hang around, when I could. I’m not even sure she knew his name. I used to tease her about Rudy. I sure as hell wasn’t jealous of him. I was surprised when I read about him being arrested, but—well, he seemed to be pretty far around the bend. He was always an odd duck. Some people thought he didn’t like girls at all, but I never got that vibe from him. He definitely liked Nita.”

She feels almost deflated by the banality of it all. Man sees woman he once had a crush on, breaks into her house—believes himself to have broken into her house—ends up killing the wrong woman in sheer panic. That could even explain the DNA: he became excited, in advance. Rudy was a violent man. He stabbed his father. He attacked her. It fits together. Never disdain the obvious answer. That’s an article of faith for police and prosecutors. The defense attorneys are the ones who have to manufacture conspiracy theories and alibis and alternative killers. Even before Facebook, people were inclined to look up old crushes. Rudy Drysdale, a deeply disturbed individual, saw his old high school crush and decided to kill her. Or something. It’s not as if he were known for making rational decisions.

Davey laughs softly, as if privy to her whirring mind. “Not so mysterious now, is it? If I had known—but, of course, I didn’t know. Well, I guess Nita was due some good luck.”

“Due?”