Bill Pronzini: With an Extreme Burning

What wasn't tolerable was punishment for being victims. Official or otherwise. From strangers like the county district attorney and the media people who made allowances for Cotter. And most galling of all, from those you considered to be your friends …

Cecca was on her way back from the house. He smiled at her as she dragged her chair over beside him and sat down. “You were in there a long time,” he said. “I was beginning to worry.”

“There was a call. I thought I'd better answer it.”

“Let me guess. Drummond.”

“The very same.”

“What now?”

“He wants to go over a few more things with us.”

“Today? Can't it wait until Monday?”

“He insisted. The hearing date is close and he wants our case to be tightly scripted. That was the phrase he used—‘tightly scripted.’ ”

“Christ. What did you tell him?”

“That we'd have dinner with him tonight.”

“In Santa Rosa?”

“Brookside Park. Scannell's. Do you mind?”

“I guess not. Necessary evil.”

Michael Drummond was their lawyer. From Santa Rosa, and a good one—up to a point. He believed in them, and that the charges were an unreasonable—“unconscionable” was the word he liked to use—political backlash, the product of an upstaged Los Alegres Police Department and the county D.A.'s overzealousness in trying to make an example of them as a deterrent to the concept of “vigilante justice.” Drummond hadn't been able to get the charges dropped, but he was confident that there wasn't a jury that would convict under the circumstances. The problem was, he was as big a publicity hound as the D.A., with political axes of his own to grind, and over their protests he insisted on fighting the case in the media. Currying public favor was smart strategy, he claimed. Dix had twice come close to firing him. But where were they going to find a better lawyer at this late date, and at an equally affordable fee?

When the charges were first brought, he'd asked George Flores to represent them. George had hemmed and hawed and finally declined, on the grounds that he was too close to the principals and might not be able to provide adequate counsel. Which was bullshit. The truth was, George felt uncomfortable with the whole sorry business. He wanted to forget it had ever happened, that he'd walked arm in arm for four years with a homicidal lunatic. And to do that he had to disassociate himself from the lunatic's primary victims.

George wasn't alone.

Laura, Tom and Beth, Sid and Helen … all cut from the same cloth, all scrambling to avoid the taint of evil. Solicitous at first, then backing away as more facts came out and the publicity heated up, and now mostly invisible. Using the excuse that they felt betrayed—Dix had made the mistake of admitting that he and Cecca had been suspicious of all their male friends—when in fact they were the betrayers. Owen, at least, was honest enough to have shunned them all along: too hurt by Cecca's relationship with Dix to make even a pretense of caring. Friends for years, these people, some for nearly a lifetime, all of whom he'd forgiven time and again for their sins and shortcomings—and one by one they'd gone away.

It was the same sort of thing elsewhere in the community. When Amy returned to school, she'd found herself a social misfit; even her best friend, Kimberley, had begun to avoid her. At Better Lands, Tom had taken to giving newer agents listings that should have gone to Cecca. She wouldn't be surprised, she said, if he found an excuse to fire her before long. At the university, the president and the dean of faculty affairs had been supportive in the beginning, before the criminal charges were pressed; now Dix sensed that if he were convicted, he might well be asked to resign—or at least to relinquish his tenure—in the best interest of the state university system. He could fight that with Drummond or an ACLU attorney, and he'd probably win, but it would be a hollow victory.

At the university, too, he had been treated like a freak in a sideshow: stares, whispers, avoidances, even a few tactless and infuriating questions. The one time he'd encountered Charles Czernecki, the smug little bastard had laughed in his face. Elliot, embarrassed and self-protective—Cecca had told Dix about the episode at the Andersen farm—would have nothing to do with him, communicating on faculty business through memos. If he were squeezed out, Elliot would be relieved. Might even go so far as to actively lobby for his dismissal. For all of these reasons he'd considered resigning immediately, to make sure he kept his tenure, and then finding a position at another school. But he wouldn't do it any more than he would sell his house and voluntarily leave Los Alegres. It would be running away, and he was all through running—from people, things, phantoms, and himself.

So there you had it. The law punishes the victims; society punishes the victims. Fair? Hey, nobody ever said life was fair. But there were moments when he would have liked to get into the faces of all the self-righteous people, friends and strangers alike, and say to them: “What would you have done if it had been you? Look inside yourself and tell me honestly that you could have handled it any better than we did.”

Cecca stirred in the chair beside him. “Amy,” she called, “you shouldn't lie in the sun like that. You'll burn.”

“It's not that hot out here.”

“At least put some sunblock on your back and shoulders.”

“Oh, all right. Where is it?”

“Stay there, I'll get it.”

He watched her fetch the sun creme, take it to where Amy was stretched out on a towel, begin to apply it to the girl's shoulders. Average middle-class domestic scene: family at poolside on the last day of Indian summer. False illusion. They weren't average, not anymore. They were a cluster of three little islands cut off from the mainstream, alone and vulnerable. And he felt a fierce protectiveness toward each of them, himself included.

Surviving victims. People damaged and set apart by circumstances beyond their control. People no one could truly understand or empathize with except others like themselves.