Tom entered Daniel Longley's downtown office unannounced.
"Sir, do you have an appointment?" The exasperated receptionist made a show of trying to intervene.
"I think Mr. Longley will want to see me." Tom found Longley's door and opened it.
"Ms. Evans, that'll be fine." Momentarily startled, Longley quickly understood the situation. His face hardened momentarily in anger and then relaxed as he took on his customary suave persona. "What can I do for you, Mr. Wills?"
"I think you know what I want to talk about. I could have called for a meeting with you but there was the risk that you might be tempted to arrange a reception with some hired goons.
"From the day that I was hired for this case, I was sure that Mr. Carstairs thought the videotape was authentic. Otherwise, why put it in the safe? Therefore he had to be careful that a police investigation could never follow the trail to him. He might have sent his chauffeur to the liquor store but there are few people he would have entrusted this transaction to. The one who comes to mind is you, Mr. Longley. No doubt you were thinking the same thing. You anticipated this line of questioning and tried to lead me in the direction of Mr. Giamatti, the chauffeur.
"I knew that without evidence I couldn't focus the investigation on you. I had to go the long way round and see if it led back to you."
"But it doesn't, does it Mr. Wills?" Longley crowed. "You haven't a shred of evidence tying me to the video. You have no idea how the video came into Mr. Carstairs' hands, do you? This is all guesswork on your part. I suppose you hope you can unnerve me into making a confession."
"Yes, you're right. This is all guesswork. I have some more guesses. Would you like to hear them?"
"Not particularly, but I suppose that you intend to ramble on and keep me a virtual prisoner in my own office until I hear you out. Go on, then."
"I don't know how you obtained the video. You might have heard about it on the Internet from one of those cultists, Ringers they call themselves, that spread the video deliberately among their friends. Or you might have found the right contacts in the underground video market. In any case you learned of its contents and knew that it would suit Mr. Carstairs' tastes. You heard about the bizarre story attached to the video, that it was cursed. It struck you that, if true, this was a gift from Heaven, or maybe, more accurately, a temptation from the Devil that you couldn't resist. You could hand over the video to Mr. Carstairs and have it kill him in a week. If you wanted him to live it was easy enough to tell him the secret and arrange passing on the video to some poor victim. I don't suppose you would have lost much sleep over it. No, you intended that Mr. Carstairs die. It was perfect. Even if your involvement was discovered no one would ever accept a charge of murder by videotape.
"I asked myself, what could your motive be for killing Mr. Carstairs. Out of curiosity I went to the trouble of checking out some of your financial dealings, both in your own name and through various numbered companies that you've created to keep your name hidden. Now, I won't bother to mention the shopping spree you've been on. The cars, the house by the lake, the expensive jewelry, all those aren't impossible on the income of a prominent lawyer. But Mr. Longley, over the last five years you've been one of the most active real estate investors in the state. You're a major apartment landlord. You own industrial parks, office buildings. I think that in the last five years you've gone from being Mr. Carstairs' trusted legal advisor to being a leech sucking the blood out of his business empire. Now, as you say, this is merely a guess on my part. But it's a guess that can be confirmed with the suitable forensic audits. Mr. Longley, I've already reported my suspicions to Mrs. Carstairs. I passed along all my notes. I think she's willing to entertain my concerns. I expect she's already contacted an independent firm of accountants."
"You surprise me, Mr. Wills. I never thought you would get so far. Mrs. Carstairs, poor sweet soul, wanted to launch a search for the girl. I hired the investigator I thought would have the least chance of following the trail. You're well known as an inebriate, Mr. Wills, a stumbling drunk. No doubt when you're sober you can put two and two together, but I've heard that you are seldom sober these days.
"I knew from the start that there would be no point trying to bribe you, although I could easily offer you far more than you make in a year. You would be loyal to the old lady. You think of yourself as the white knight riding in to save the day.
"So what was the motivation that drove you all the way to this point? It can't be that you're outraged at Mr. Carstairs' murder. You think he's an old pervert, corrupted by money and power. Besides, he had a bad heart. All I did was hasten his demise. It can't be the money. That would be divided up among his greedy relatives, and a fair chunk is coming to me in any case. You probably wouldn't have a higher opinion of those relatives than I have. No, it comes back to the video, doesn't it? You couldn't stand the thought that some anonymous girl is victimized and the perpetrators go unpunished while others spread the video for their own gain or pleasure."
Longley smiled wryly. "I disgust you, don't I, Mr. Wills?" Under that calm exterior you're seething with the desire to punish me. Maybe you'd like to drive me out to some lonely country road, put a bullet through my head and dump me in a ditch."
"Funny, I thought that's what you'd like to do to me."
"Or maybe you'd feel better if you just pounded me unconscious with your fists. What a shame you won't get the chance. You have no outlet for your anger." Tom was convinced that these were, indeed, his unconscious thoughts. He was surprised how easily they could be guessed. But now that he had arrived at the end of the trail he no longer felt any anger that needed to be released in action. There was only a sense of emotional disappointment.
"You might like to make me the villain of the piece, Mr. Wills, but I am no more guilty than anyone else involved. I know about the people who call themselves Ringers. I like that image of the ring. It's so appropriate. Every point on a circle is indistinguishable from any other point, the same distance from the center. It may hurt my ego but I can accept that. This is much bigger than you or I. Think of ripples on the surface of a pond, Mr. Wills, ever expanding outward. You can't stop this. No one can. It's everywhere."
That night Tom appeared on Rachel's doorstep again. She let him in, hardly saying a word. He could see that she was worried about him.
"It's too late for dinner. You should have called. I could have made something for you and saved it."
Tom shook his head slightly. He told her about his investigation and what had transpired with Longley.
"I would offer you a drink but I don't have any alcohol in the house."
"I have plenty," replied Tom, not able to suppress an impish grin.
That was the alcoholic's syllogism. If there was liquor in the house he couldn't stop himself from drinking it. Unless there was liquor in the house he felt anxious, he couldn't face the day. Therefore there was always liquor in the house and therefore he drank.
While he was pouring a glass, Rachel asked, "Do you want me to drink with you?"
"It doesn't matter. I mean, it won't change my drinking a bit. Don't worry about it." He didn't want to seem curt. He thought he should explain further. "Amy used to drink with me, a long time ago. Maybe she thought it would moderate me. Maybe she thought it was her duty to keep me company. I don't know. But she would fall asleep and I would continue on regardless. She knew it wasn't healthy for her. She wanted one of us to be sober."
Rachel declared, with great seriousness, "I feel like drinking. I think I deserve it." It was difficult to always be thinking of being a model for your child.
There was a knock at the door. Tom went to get it. The thought crossed his mind that it might have something to do with him, not that he could come up with any plausible scenario. He looked through the peephole. It was a teenage boy.
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm here to see Rachel Keller."
"What is this about?"
"I'm looking for a copy of a videotape. She knows what I mean. I heard she's the one to go to." To Tom he seemed a little scared. He was talking louder and faster than he needed to.
"Go away, son. We've got nothing for you." The boy stared and stood rigid. Then his courage seemed to crumble and he hurried back to his car on the curb.
Rachel was watching Tom carefully. "You're not going to pass on the video, are you? You've decided to see out your seven days."
"Yes." He looked at her expectantly, wondering what her reaction would be. She turned away and grimaced. She sat on the sofa, cocooned in her thoughts. After a moment she picked up the glass and started drinking. Tom knew better than some alcoholics who wanted to idolize any woman who would accept them as an angel of mercy. He knew that there were limits to her acceptance and understanding.
"Are you angry?"
"No. All right, a little. It's a terrible waste. Don't bother arguing with me. I know it's the right thing to do."
"I'm not being heroic. It just has to end here. I mean, my tiny piece of it ends here. As Longley says, it's much bigger than me."
Rachel didn't try to dissuade Tom from his decision. She drank silently. "I was thinking that I lost Noah and now I'm going to lose you, but it doesn't feel the same. I blame myself for dragging Noah into this. He's a filmmaker—was a filmmaker. I recruited him because I needed his expertise with the video. He didn't believe in any of it at first. You know what you're getting into. As much as that's possible, I mean."
Tom could guess that she had grieved over Noah's death and it was a grief she could not share with those around her. But now it seemed to have exhausted its power to draw tears from her. Tom sat beside her on the sofa. He looked at her intently. He placed a hand on her shoulder and caressed the round softness of her flesh. She exhaled slowly. She looked down at Tom's hand on her shoulder. She placed her other hand lightly on top of Tom's. He reached around her waist and pulled her body against his.