Quoth the Raven(92)

“But Krekor, this is not a case of rape. This is not even a case of attempted rape.”

“I know. But look at what Donegal Steele did. In the first place, he posed a concrete threat. His mere existence on this campus posed a concrete threat—to someone’s career, to someone’s advancement. In the second place, the way he was going about taking control—and that was what he was doing, Tibor, taking control—emotionally and psychologically as well as practically—everything we’ve heard about the man and what he did in his short tenure at this college says that’s the kind of person he was—anyway, the way he did that jeopardized not only someone’s self-image, but that same person’s future. In the third place, the fact that he could show up here at all, that he could land on our murderer in a way that was totally out of our murderer’s control—”

Tibor sighed. “Is this what you did, Krekor, in the Federal Bureau of Investigation? No wonder you were a wreck when you came to Cavanaugh Street. Aristotle and Augustine spent their whole lives thinking about human nature, and if they had thought like you, they would have been wrecks, too.”

“Dostoevsky was a wreck. Wasn’t that what you told me?”

“Dostoevsky was an epileptic.” Tibor shivered.

“Well, Tibor, maybe I just needed to make it make sense to myself after the fact. The hard evidence is incontrovertible. Hard to present in court, maybe, but incontrovertible. The only alternative I can think of is to have you stand here right now and tell me it was you who murdered Donegal Steele.”

Up above them, not only in Constitution House but all over the quad, lights in windows were being blocked out, the windows themselves covered tightly with cardboard and construction paper. Gregor found himself thinking irrelevantly that it had to be seven thirty, that he and Tibor had taken a longer time with their talk than he would have expected. Seven thirty was when the blackout was supposed to go into effect, turning the entire open expanse of the college over to the forces of Halloween. In the suddenly deepened darkness, the torches looked brighter and fiercer and much more dangerous. Flames seemed to lick at the air and the black skeletons of trees like the unquenchable fires of Hell. Gregor wanted to get in out of the atmosphere. He wasn’t even happy about the idea of having to walk across this benighted lawn on the way to the hall where he would give his speech. He held firmly to his original ambivalence about Halloween: fun was fun, but there was a point beyond which no sane person would go.

He tugged the edge of Tibor’s cassock and said, “Come on. Let’s go up and see if Markham is back yet. Maybe Bennis is even finished editing my speech.”

But Tibor held back. “Krekor,” he said slowly, “I think there is something now I should have to tell you.”

“Sure. Tell me anything you want.”

“Yes, Krekor, I know. I can tell you anything I want. I cannot tell you I killed Donegal Steele, and so upset all your theories. I did not kill Donegal Steele.”

“Of course you didn’t. Good Lord, Tibor, what made you think I thought you capable of killing anyone?”

Father Tibor Kasparian sighed. “Krekor, Krekor. Before I came to Cavanaugh Street I had another life in another place among another kind of people. In that place, I was not only capable of killing a man, I was guilty of it. In fact, I killed two.”

“What?”

But Father Tibor Kasparian was already halfway up the steps to the doors of Constitution House, moving through the flickering light with his spine straight and his head held high up into the wind. The breezes caught at his sparse hair and lifted them in and out of the light. It was so odd to see him like that, not the fumbling little priest with the talent for languages, not a kind of ecclesiastical comic relief, but a grown man who had once lived in hiding in dangerous places among dangerous people and who had managed not only to get out but to make some kind of stand for the things he believed in. Christianity and Constitutional Law, that was Father Tibor Kasparian. Gregor found himself wondering what else was Father Tibor Kasparian, what in God’s name could have happened to make what he had just said true.

Out in the middle of the quad, somebody sent up a firecracker. The rocket whistled and burst into a green chrysanthemum in the air. Firecrackers were illegal in the state of Pennsylvania unless licensed and properly supervised, but Gregor didn’t think anyone was going to harp on those rules tonight.

Tibor was disappearing through the Constitution House doors, and Gregor decided to follow him.





2


UP IN TIBOR’S APARTMENT, Bennis Hannaford was sitting on the living room floor, the pages of Gregor’s new speech spread out before her, her reading glasses sliding down her nose. She had taken the books that had migrated to the coffee table off the coffee table and put them on the floor. She had unearthed a trio of bright red pencils from God only knew where, sharpened them to points, and stuck them into her hair. She had a fourth in her hand. When they came in,’ she looked up, blinked at them, and sighed. That was when Gregor noticed Lenore, sitting on page six of his magnum opus and looking wise.