The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares (11 page)

Female nudes, and so what?

“Good thing it isn’t kiddie porn, officers, eh? That stuff is illegal.”

Even as a kid Zallman hadn’t been able to resist wisecracking at inopportune moments.

Now, he had a lawyer. “His” lawyer.

A criminal lawyer whose retainer was fifteen thousand dollars.

They are the enemy.

Neuberger meant the Skatskill detectives, and beyond them the prosecutorial staff of the district, whose surface civility Zallman had been misinterpreting as a tacit sympathy with him, his predicament. It was a fact they’d sweated him, and he’d gone along with it naively, frankly. Telling him he was not
under arrest
only just
assisting in their investigation.

His body had known, though. Increasingly anxious, restless, needing to urinate every twenty minutes. He’d been flooded with adrenaline like a cornered animal.

His blood pressure had risen, he could feel pulses pounding in his ears. Damned stupid to request a polygraph at such a time but—he was an innocent man, wasn’t he?

Should have called a lawyer as soon as they’d begun asking him about the missing child. Once it became clear that this was a serious situation, not a mere misunderstanding or misidentification by an unnamed “eyewitness.” (One of Zallman’s own students? Deliberately lying to hurt him? For Christ’s sake
why
?) So at last he’d called an older cousin, a corporation attorney, to whom he had not spoken since his father’s funeral, and explained the situation to him, this ridiculous situation, this nightmare situation, but he had to take it seriously since obviously he was a suspect and so: would Joshua recommend a good criminal attorney who could get to Skatskill immediately, and intercede for him with the police?

His cousin had been so stunned by Zallman’s news he’d barely been able to speak. “Y-You? Mikal? You’re arrested—?”

“No. I am not arrested, Joshua.”

He believes I might be guilty. My own cousin believes I might be a sexual predator.

Still, within ninety minutes, after a flurry of increasingly desperate phone calls, Zallman had retained a Manhattan criminal lawyer named Neuberger who didn’t blithely assure him, as Zallman halfway expected he would, that there was nothing to worry about.

Luridly spread across the front pages of the newspapers were photographs of the missing girl, the missing girl’s mother, and “alleged suspect Mikal Zallman.”

It was a local TV news magazine. Neuberger had warned him not to watch TV, just as he should not REPEAT SHOULD NOT answer the telephone if he didn’t have caller ID, and for sure he should not answer his door unless he knew exactly who was there. Still, Zallman was watching TV fortified by a half dozen double-strength Tylenols that left him just conscious enough to stare at the screen disbelieving what he saw and heard.

Skatskill Day students, their faces blurred to disguise their identities, voices eerily slurred, telling a sympathetic female broadcaster their opinions of Mikal Zallman.

Mr Zallman, he’s cool. I liked him okay.

Mr Zallman is kind of sarcastic I guess. He’s okay with the smart kids but the rest of us it’s like he’s trying real hard and wants us to know.

I was so surprised! Mr. Zallman never acted like that, you know—weird. Not in computer lab.

Mr. Zallman has, like, these laser eyes? I always knew he was scary.

Mr. Zallman looks at us sometimes! It makes you shiver.

Some kids are saying he had, like, a hairbrush? To brush the girls’ hair? I never saw it.

This hairbrush Mr. Zallman had, it was so weird! He never used it on me, guess I’m not pretty-pretty enough for him.

He’d help you in the lab after school if you asked. He was real nice to me. All this stuff about Marissa, I don’t know. It makes me want to cry.

And there was Dr. Adrienne Cory, principal of Skatskill Day, grimly explaining to a skeptical interviewer that Mikal Zallman whom she had hired two and a half years previously had excellent credentials, had come highly recommended, was a conscientious and reliable staff member of whom there had been no complaints.

No complaints! What of the students who’d just been on the program?

Dr. Cory said, twisting her mouth in a semblance of a placating smile, “Well. We never knew.”

And would Zallman continue to teach at Skatskill Day?

“Mr. Zallman has been suspended with pay for the time being.”

His first, furious thought was
I will sue
.

His second, more reasonable thought was
I must plead my case
.

He had friends at Skatskill Day, he believed. The young woman who thought herself less-than-happily married, and who’d several times invited Zallman to dinner; a male math teacher, whom he often met at the gym; the school psychologist, whose sense of humor dovetailed with his own; and Dr. Cory herself, who was quite an intelligent woman, and a kindly woman, who had always seemed to like Zallman.

He would appeal to them. They must believe him!

Zallman insisted upon a meeting with Dr. Cory, face-to-face. He insisted upon being allowed to present his side of the case. He was informed that his presence at the school was “out of
the question” at the present time; a mere glimpse of Zallman, and faculty members as well as students would be “distracted.”

If he tried to enter the school building on Monday morning, Zallman was warned, security guards would turn him away.

“But why? What have I done? What have I done that is anything more than rumor?”

Not what Zallman had done but what the public perceived he might have done, that was the issue. Surely Zallman understood?

He compromised, he would meet Dr. Cory on neutral territory, 8
A.M
. Monday in the Trahern Square office of the school’s legal counsel. He was told to bring his own legal counsel but Zallman declined.

Another mistake, probably. But he couldn’t wait for Neuberger, this was an emergency.

“I need to work! I need to return to school as if nothing is wrong, in fact
nothing is wrong.
I insist upon returning.”

Dr. Cory murmured something vaguely supportive, sympathetic. She was a kind person, Zallman wanted to believe.

She was decent, well intentioned, she liked him. She’d always laughed at his jokes!

Though sometimes wincing, as if Zallman’s humor was a little too abrasive for her. At least publicly.

Zallman was protesting the decision to suspend him from teaching without “due process.” He demanded to be allowed to meet with the school board. How could he be suspended from teaching for no reason—wasn’t that unethical, and illegal? Wouldn’t Skatskill Day be liable, if he chose to sue?

“I swear I did not—
do it. I am not involved.
I scarcely know Marissa Bantry, I’ve had virtually no contact with the girl. Dr. Cory—Adrienne—these ‘eyewitnesses’ are lying. This ‘barrette’ that was allegedly found by police behind my building—someone must have placed it there. Someone who hates me, who wants to destroy me! This has been a nightmare for me but I’m confident it will turn out well. I mean, it can’t be proven that I’m involved with—with—whatever has happened to the girl—because I am not involved! I need to come back to work, Adrienne, I need you to demonstrate that you have faith in me. I’m sure that my colleagues have faith in me. Please reconsider! I’m prepared to return to work this morning. I can explain to the students—something! Give me a chance, will you? Even if I’d been arrested—which I am not, Adrienne—under the law I am innocent until proven guilty and I can’t possibly be proven guilty because I—I did not—
I did not do anything wrong
.”

He was struck by a sudden stab of pain, as if someone had driven an ice pick into his skull. He whimpered and slumped forward gripping his head in his hands.

A woman was asking him, in a frightened voice, “Mr. Zallman? Do you want us to call a doctor?—an ambulance?”

U
NDER
S
URVEILLANCE

He needed to speak with her. He needed to console her.

On the fifth day of the vigil it became an overwhelming need.

For in his misery he’d begun to realize how much worse it was for the mother of Marissa Bantry, than for him who was merely the suspect.

It was Tuesday. Of course, he had not been allowed to return to teach. He had not slept for days except fitfully, in his clothes. He ate standing before the opened refrigerator, grabbing at whatever was inside. He lived on Tylenols. Obsessively he watched TV, switching from channel to channel in pursuit of the latest news of the missing girl and steeling himself for a glimpse of his own face, haggard and hollow-eyed and disfigured by guilt as by acne.
There he is! Zallman!
The only suspect in the case whom police had actually brought into custody, paraded before a phalanx of photographers and TV cameramen to arouse the excited loathing of hundreds of thousands of spectators who would not have the opportunity to see Zallman, and to revile him, in the flesh.

In fact, the Skatskill police had other suspects. They were following other “leads.” Neuberger had told him he’d heard that they had sent men to California, to track down the elusive father of Marissa Bantry who had emerged as a “serious suspect” in the abduction.

Yet, in the Skatskill area, the search continued. In the Bear Mountain State Park, and in the Blue Mountain Reserve south of
Peekskill. Along the edge of the Hudson River between Peekskill and Skatskill. In parkland and wooded areas east of Skatskill in the Rockefeller State Park. These were search and rescue teams comprised of both professionals and volunteers. Zallman had wanted to volunteer to help with the search for he was desperate to do something but Neuberger had fixed him with a look of incredulity. “Mikal, that is not a good idea. Trust me.”

There had been reports of men seen “dumping” mysterious objects from bridges into rivers and streams and there had been further “sightings” of the living girl in the company of her captor or captors at various points along the New York State Thruway and the New England Expressway. Very blond fair-skinned girls between the ages of eight and thirteen resembling Marissa Bantry were being seen everywhere.

Police had received more than one thousand calls and Web site messages and in the media it was announced that
all leads will be followed
but Zallman wondered at this.
All
leads?

He himself called the Skatskill detectives, often. He’d memorized their numbers. Often, they failed to return his calls. He was made to understand that Zallman was no longer their prime suspect—maybe. Neuberger had told him that the girl’s barrette, so conspicuously dropped by Zallman’s parking space, had been wiped clean of fingerprints: “An obvious plant.”

Zallman had had his telephone number changed to an unlisted number yet still the unwanted calls—vicious, obscene, threatening, or merely inquisitive—continued and so he’d had the phone disconnected and relied now upon his cell phone exclusively,
carrying it with him as he paced through the shrinking rooms of his condominium apartment. From the fifth floor, at a slant, Zallman could see the Hudson River on overcast days like molten lead but on clear days possessed of an astonishing slate-blue beauty. For long minutes he lost himself in contemplation of the view: beauty that was pure, unattached to any individual, destined to outlive the misery that had become his life.

Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with human evil.

Desperately he wanted to share this insight with the mother of Leah Bantry. It was such a simple fact, it might be overlooked.

He went to Fifteenth Street where the woman lived, he’d seen the exterior of the apartment building on TV numerous times. He had not been able to telephone her. He wanted only to speak with her for a few minutes.

It was near dusk of Tuesday. A light chill mist-rain was falling. For a while he stood indecisively on the front walk of the barracks-like building, in khaki trousers, canvas jacket, jogging shoes. His damp hair straggled past his collar. He had not shaved for several days. A sickly radiance shone in his face, he knew he was doing the right thing now crossing the lawn at an angle, to circle to the rear of the building where he might have better luck discovering which of the apartments belonged to Leah Bantry.

Please I must see you.

We must share this nightmare.

Police came swiftly to intercept him, grabbing his arms and cuffing his wrists behind his back.

S
ACRIFICE

Is she breathing?

. . .
Christ!

She isn’t
. . .
is she?
Is
she?

She is. She’s okay.

. . .
like maybe she’s being
. . .
poisoned?

We were getting so scared! Anita was crying a lot, then Anita was laughing like she couldn’t stop. Denise had this eating-thing, she was hungry all the time, stuffing her mouth at meals and in the cafeteria at school then poking a finger down her throat to make herself vomit into a toilet flush-flush-flushing the toilet so if she was at home nobody in her family would hear or if she was at school other girls wouldn’t hear and tell on her.