Wallflower (15 page)

Janek sat at Jess's desk and held his fists to his head. First Greg Gale, now this. But the longer he thought about it, the more clearly he understood that Jess was no less enigmatic than other homicide victims he had investigated. So perhaps he shouldn't expect to understand her; perhaps, like every other human being, she would turn out to be unfathomable.

He took up his search again, combing through her notebooks. He checked her address book for coded telephone numbers. He pulled every book out of her bookcases and fanned its pages for hidden notes. He emptied her wastebasket, then searched each scrap for a revealing notation. When, at two in the morning, he finally left the dorm, a new security team was in place at the desk and he had to show his shield to get out.

H
e didn't sleep well that night. Images of Jess kept ricocheting in his mind. He recalled Dr. Archer's words: "Perhaps you had unconscious fantasies about her. Perhaps you longed for her in some way you don't fully understand. . . .
"

Was that true? He had interviewed Jess's lover, handled her underwear, searched out her secret pictures. When he'd found the pack of condoms in her dresser, he'd tossed them casually aside. But inside, he hadn't reacted casually at all. The condoms spoke of sexuality; if she owned them, she used them. And now, as whenever he thought of her engaging in sex, he felt something he couldn't define: a quick flush of excitement, followed immediately by a hard, harsh throb of despair.

Had he desired her, and, detesting his desire, immediately repressed it? Perhaps Dr. Archer was right; perhaps he had forced his way into this investigation in order to stay close to Jess. Was he after her killer, or was he really chasing something inside himself, some perverse aspect of his character he had hitherto denied?

The question tormented him until, with the dawn, he got out of bed, went to his living room, sat in his easy chair, and stared at Monika's glass. Then memories flooded back, memories of their carnal afternoons in room 13 with the sea smell drifting to them from the lagoon. Longing for Monika, her body, and her touch, he knew that Dr. Archer was wrong. It was Monika he wanted, not Jess. Feeling confident this was true, he knew he could go on.

H
e and Aaron spent the entire first week of November talking to people, then using what they learned to fill in the grid on their office wall. As is usually the case with students, Jess's schedule was rigorously defined. She went to classes, worked out with the fencing team, studied, ate, slept. No one took attendance at Columbia, so there was no hard proof which classes she attended and which she cut, but by putting together the recollections of her friends, they were able to reconstruct a large portion of her final days.

There were other less typical things she did, and they charted these activities as well: her midmorning therapy sessions with Dr. Archer; her late-afternoon classes in martial arts at a dojo on upper Broadway; her long, lonely early-evening runs through Riverside Park. But still there were gaps, often hours long. And they had no way of knowing what she did at night; students in her dorm came and went as they pleased.

W
hen Janek met Fran Dunning, he felt a familiar glow. She was the confidante he was looking for. Jess's fencing coach, Sergei Simionov, pointed her out in the fencing hail at the Columbia gym. Janek recognized her at once; he had seen her at Jess's funeral and at the cemetery, too.

"
They were teammates and best friends," Simionov said. He was a stout, mustachioed, barrel-chested Soviet émigré, a onetime Olympic medalist in saber.
"
Fran's the one you want to talk to," he said.

Janek stayed to watch the workout. Women athletes fascinated him. He liked their poise, the way they moved, their ease and comfort with their bodies. Fran Dunning, a thin, willowy blonde
with pert features and puffed cheeks, moved across the exercise floor with the smooth, liquid mobility of a dancer.

He waited until the workout was over, then positioned himself outside the women's locker room. When Fran appeared, he introduced himself, then asked if she had time to talk. She was on her way to a biology lab, but she invited him to escort her as she walked across the campus.

"
I know who you are," she said on the steps of the gym.
"
Jess talked about you a lot. I saw you at the funeral. I wanted to say hi, but you were busy with the Dorances. I didn't want to intrude."

Janek liked her. She had the same direct look-you-in-the-eyes manner as Jess. Taller, thinner, she carried herself the same way, too, back straight, head high in the confident manner of an athlete.

"
I miss her a lot, still can't believe she's gone. You read about these things, but you never think they can happen to anyone you know."

"
What do you mean by 'these things,' Fran?"

"
Getting attacked, suddenly, for no reason. Running in the park, just enjoying yourself, thinking your thoughts. Then suddenly a man appears out of the dark."

"
Could Jess have known her attacker?"

"
The way I heard it, it was one of those psychos, maybe a mugger gone berserk." Fran stopped walking, looked at him. "Do you think she knew him?"

"
I don't know yet," Janek said. "Did you see much of her the last few days before it happened?"

Fran nodded. "The Sunday before. We spent the whole day together."

She and Jess saw each other daily at fencing practice and also spent time together on weekends. That particular Sunday was the last day of the Custom Knives Show, so they joined up in the morning, took the subway down to Grand Central, then walked over to the Hotel Roosevelt, where the show was being held.

"Jess got me started with knives. She had this great collection, mostly historical pieces, Italian stilettos, a couple of Japanese tantos, an Indonesian kris, a terrific French rapier. When I saw her stuff, I knew I wanted to collect, too. She was very generous with
advice, and she steered me to the good dealers. That's how we became friends. On the fencing team we were rivals. We kidded each other about one of us switching to saber so we wouldn't have to compete. The joke, of course, was that neither of us was willing to switch."

American-made custom knives were Jess's most recent passion. And as with the historical daggers and swords, she was the one who took the lead, learning to differentiate the work of the leading makers, then introducing Fran Dunning to the field.

"The knives some of those men make are remarkable," Fran said. They're like art objects, but still, you can use them. Hunting knives, bowies, fighting knives—Jess thought knife-making was one of the few crafts at which Americans excel."

The knife show was held on the mezzanine floor of the hotel. The main room was a large hall, filled with long exhibition tables arranged along aisles, occupied by hundreds of knife-makers from all over the country who had brought their wares to sell. At first Jess and Fran explored together; then they split up so each girl could look at the knives that most interested her. When Fran rejoined Jess, she sensed her friend was upset.

"
I asked her if something was the matter," Fran told Janek as they crossed in front of Butler Library.
"
She shook her head, said it wasn't anything. I went along. What else could I do? But I didn't believe her. As I'm sure you know Jess was not a moody type of girl. But something must have gotten to her because she started out so exuberant, but when we met up at the door, she was downcast, almost sullen."

"What did you do after the show?"

"
Took the subway uptown, worked out for an hour with foils in the gym, then showered and went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant on Broadway and a Hundred and Nineteenth."

"
Anything unusual happen?"

"
Nothing I can think of."

"
Did either of you buy a knife?"

Fran nodded.
"
Jess did. A real beauty, a switchblade with an ivory handle. It wasn't legal. The man who made it was very cautious about showing it to us." She smiled.
"
Jess told me you'd give her hell if you ever found out she bought it."

A switchblade—why on earth?

"
I didn't find it when I searched her dorm room," Janek said.
"
Maybe she dropped it off at her mother's. If I knew Jess, she probably hid it someplace."

Janek thought about hiding places.
"
Something I want to ask you.
"

Fran peered at him. "I'll help you as best I can."

"First, close your eyes." Fran obeyed.
"
Now think of two women fencing. Imagine them topless, both of them."

"Uh-huh. . . .
"

"Think about it. Does the image remind you of anything?" Fran shook her head. But Janek felt something tentative in her denial.

"Does it embarrass you?"

Fran blushed. "It
is
kind of wild."

She not a very good liar,
Janek thought.

"I found photos of Jess and another girl fencing like that. They were hidden in Jess's closet."

He stared at Fran, waiting for her to respond. When she looked away, he stopped walking and gently touched her cheek.

"Please understand," he said. "I need to know everything."

"Yeah. . . ." Fran took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was agitated and her delivery faster than before.

"There's a painting by a French artist, Emile Bayard. It's called
An Affair of Honor.
Jess found it in one of her books about dueling. It shows two topless women fighting with rapiers while three other women look on. Jess was intrigued by it—I don't know why. She was equally intrigued by a whole slew of stories she dug up on women duelists. She told me she wanted to write a paper about them for some feminist-oriented European history course she was taking."

"
But there's more to it, isn't there, Fran? Did she ask you to fence topless with her?"

Fran nodded.
"
I
didn't want to. For one thing it's dangerous. For another . . . I just didn't like the idea. So I told her: 'I'm a jock, but I'm not that butch.' I think she understood."

"
Did you take her proposal as a sexual overture?"

Fran shook her head.
"
If Jess was inclined that way, she never showed it. No, I think it was just something she wanted to do. Fencing, fighting—those were things she loved. In some way, I guess, the image turned her on. And once she got it into her head, she wanted to act it out."

Janek showed Fran the Polaroids. Fran could not identify the other girl, nor did she recognize the room where the pictures had been taken.

"
I wonder if it's a fencing salon at the Ruspoli Academy in Italy. Fran was there last summer. It's certainly not any practice room we use around here."

"
A final question," Janek said.
"
Did Jess do or say anything that Sunday, anything at all, that made you think she might be afraid."

Fran shook her head.
"
I don't think Jess was afraid of anything. That's why she was such a terrific fencer. I remember something she said to me once: 'I'll take life any way it comes.' I think if she saw someone running toward her with an ice pick, she'd have put up a terrific fight. She knew karate. She could disarm a man twice her weight. So whoever killed her must have come at her from behind, and the only reason she didn't hear him coming was that she had her Walkman turned up at the time."

A
aron's interviews convinced him that none of the members of the Greg Gale crowd had harbored any ill will toward Jess.

"
They're not murderous types, Frank. Just your standard spoiled, overeducated, decadent, attractive young people with a hunger for dope and thrills. Actually they don't do that much drugs. Mostly pot, occasionally a little coke. To them the sex group's good clean fun, not a cult they'd kill to protect."

Aaron had looked into former boyfriends, too. Except for Gale they all seemed to be jocks.

"
Maybe not the brightest guys, but most of them fairly decent. She didn't like pretentious or over studious types."

Simionov, the fencing coach, had told Janek pretty much the same thing:
"
She talked straight and she fenced straight and she liked straight-talking people. If she'd lived, who knows how far she might have gone? Bronze medal, maybe even silver." The coach had shaken his head with grief.
"
She had everything: talent, will, strength and speed, and as fierce a fighting spirit as I ever encountered in a woman. Who knows? With a little luck she might have gone all the way."