Thomas Cook - Sacrificial Ground

Frank said nothing.

“Well,” Theodore added, “as a few more days passed, I simply did nothing. I suppose I would have come to you eventually.”

“Well, now I’ve come to you,” Frank said pointedly.

“Yes,” Theodore said. He folded his hands together and placed them quietly on his desk. “You’ve already gathered that Angelica was basically friendless, isolated.”

“So far, that’s the picture.”

“Well, it may not be a completely accurate one,” Theodore said.

“In what way?”

“Well, in what it suggests,” Theodore explained. “I mean, the image of Angelica it suggests. We have this somewhat shy, melancholy, perhaps tragic young girl who lives in a large house and has practically no life of her own at all.” He smiled. “Is that what you’re turning up, that image, the one I’ve just described?”

“Yes, something like that,” Frank said. “At least at first.”

Theodore pulled back slightly. “You mean, you’ve found something else?”

Frank did not answer.

Theodore looked at him knowingly. “You have, haven’t you? My congratulations, Mr. Clemons. I’m surprised, because Angelica must have been very careful. I mean, it was by sheer accident that I came to see her … as you might say … out of character.”

Frank lowered his pencil to the page. “What do you mean, ‘out of character’?”

“The shy, aloof, breathtakingly beautiful young girl who appears hardly even to know how beautiful she is.”

Frank wrote it down. “Go on,” he said.

“Well, I never quite bought that, if you want to know the truth,” Theodore said.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t believe that anyone that beautiful can be oblivious to her beauty.”

“So you had your own ideas about her?”

“Yes.”

“What were they?”

“That she was into something,” Theodore said bluntly. “I didn’t know what. I thought it might be drugs. All I knew is that it had to be something. I just didn’t buy the notion that someone like Angelica could have absolutely no social life. Instead, I assumed she had one that had certain characteristics which made secrecy necessary.” He smiled. “For a time, I thought she was probably gay.” He pulled a bottle of brandy from his desk and opened it. “Care for a drink, Mr. Clemons?”

“No, thanks.”

An odd sadness suddenly flooded Theodore’s face. “Really? Why?”

“It’s a little early.”

“For me, it’s already a little late,” Theodore said quietly. “As you can see, Angelica is not the only human being who ever had her secrets.” He poured himself a drink. “It gives me strength,” he said. “Nothing else does.” He took it all down with one quick gulp. “I drink because if I don’t, time stops for me. Completely stops.” He poured himself another round. “Even if I were happy, that would be unbearable.” He glanced at his watch. “Ah, see, time is moving again.” He laughed. “All quite simple, when you put it together, don’t you think?”

“What about Angelica?” Frank asked insistently. He already knew that each man had his own individual reason for the bottle.

“Well, as I said,” Theodore replied, “I always assumed that something was going on in Angelica’s life, although I never knew what it was. Still, during the last few months before her death, I could see something in her.”

“What?”

“She grew even more aloof,” Theodore said. “She would hardly speak to me when I came over to talk to Karen, and she never came into the gallery anymore. There was a time when I would sometimes see her in the mall. That all ended, too.” He shrugged. “Of course, one can always assume that it’s some strange stage or something. But I never felt that was the case with Angelica.”

“Why not?”

“Because she was not a person for stages,” Theodore said. “Some people are somewhat eccentric from the beginning. Angelica was like that.”

“What was her eccentricity?” Frank asked.

Theodore poured himself another drink. “Her beauty,” he said. “That was the thing that distorted her.” He smiled. “For some people it’s money; for some, it’s power. Whatever it is, it takes you out of the world’s common experience. And whatever does that, Mr. Clemons, cripples and perverts you.” He glanced at the bottle on his desk. “And so you have to find some other way to make contact with real life. With me, it’s this.” He smiled knowingly. “With Angelica, it must have been something else.”

“A secret life,” Frank said suddenly.

“Yes.”

“What kind of life?”

“I’m not sure of that,” Theodore said. “But I am sure that she had some sort of life outside that pristine little existence she lived at home and at school.”

“How do you know?”

“I came across it,” Theodore said. “And it was all quite by accident.” He took another drink, and then carefully put the bottle away. “As you can see from the gallery,” Theodore began, “my taste in art is quite varied. Because of that, I keep in touch with all sorts of little art movements here and there. I visit small, out-of-the-way galleries in Atlanta and in a great many other places.” He drew in a long, slow breath. “And that’s what I was doing around three months ago.”

“Going to galleries,” Frank said as he wrote it down in his notebook.

“One in particular,” Theodore said. “A place called the Knife Point Gallery. It’s an awful place, actually, and it has a sort of sadomasochistic air about it. I mean, there were chains coiled on the floor, and a little collection of whips in a gold frame.” His lips curled downward. “It was all quite ridiculous, really. And it certainly had nothing to do with art.”

“Where is this place?” Frank asked.

“Over on Piedmont,” Theodore said. “Near where it runs into Peachtree.”

Frank noted it in his book.

“It’s really a dreadful place,” Theodore repeated. “Quite unappetizing. It looks rather like a combination dungeon-whorehouse. Dark little rooms with all these little artifacts of … well … pain.” He poured himself another drink. “I knew this morning that it would be like this for me today. I hope you don’t mind.” He emptied his glass in a quick gulp. “Anyway, among all these disgusting implements of torture, there was Angelica.” He smiled. “Shining Angelica. So beautiful.”

“What was she doing?” Frank asked.

“She appeared at first to be touring the gallery,” Theodore said. “I was amazed to see her there. I mean, she’d never had much interest in art. I certainly hadn’t expected her to have an interest in the sort of trash that was hanging in the Knife Point.”

“Was she alone?”

“I think so,” Theodore said. “There were a few other people in the gallery. The sort you would expect. A rumpled painter in one corner, a drooling sadist in the other.”

“Did you speak to her?”

Theodore shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I rather shrank away, actually. I had an odd feeling, like I’d come upon someone doing something that she didn’t want me to know about.”

“So after you saw Angelica, you left the gallery?” Frank asked.

“Yes, I did,” Theodore said. He leaned forward slightly. “And I would appreciate it if you would keep all this to yourself. I mean, Angelica’s dead. It hardly matters at this point how she lived.”

Frank said nothing.

“And besides, what could she do about it?” Theodore asked. “I’ve learned enough about the world to know that people do the things they do because they can’t do anything else.” He glanced toward the drawer where he’d put the bottle. “That’s the great lesson of life,” he said. “Helplessness.”