The Spire (4 page)

'As the events surrounding Angela's death suggested, reputation, once lost, is hard to regain'especially among the donors we need to survive. We were planning a hundred-million-dollar capital campaign when the board got wind of this. All that's needed for disaster to strike, I've realized, is for Caldwell to dream up a new fund-raising effort.' Farr's voice softened. 'Clark's embezzlement has become an existential threat. How do you ask people for money when they don't believe you can safeguard what you have''

Darrow stopped, hands in his pockets, facing Farr. 'You've just redefined your problem, Lionel. It's public relations. How much does the media know''

'Nothing, yet.
That
problem is still hanging over us.'

'Then if you've come to me for advice, I've got some. I assume the board is hiring a forensic accountant to sort out how Durbin's supposed to have done this.'

'As we speak.'

'Have them draw up a new system of financial controls, to assure the alumni'and the media'that nothing like this can ever happen again.' Squinting into the afternoon sun, Darrow put on his sunglasses. 'The next thing is to engage an outside public relations firm. You'll need to write this story before somebody else does.'

Farr folded his arms. 'The board's current hope,' he responded in a dubious tone, 'is to keep this quiet until we find out all the details. There's some thought that Clark will help us retrieve the money in return for a low-key resignation because of 'health.' Durbin has reason to cooperate'if he refuses, and this leaks out, some on our board want to press criminal charges. I doubt a mild-mannered heterosexual like Clark will want to make the kind of 'special friends' he'll encounter in state prison.'

Reflexively, Darrow thought of Steve Tillman. 'At least Durbin won't have spent his life there.'

From the glint in Farr's eyes, Darrow saw that he'd grasped the reference. 'True enough. But let's hope, for Clark's sake, that one prisoner from our community is enough.'

'Whatever the case,' Darrow said, 'get all the facts, then make a complete disclosure. Dribbling out partial information is almost as bad as stonewalling.' He looked at his mentor keenly. 'But you know all this, I'm sure. So tell me what else I can do.'

Farr was silent for a moment. 'That depends, I suppose, on how you feel about your current life. And what plans you have for the future.'

Darrow slowly shook his head. 'I can't help but think about the first time you asked me that question. My answer's much the same: I don't really know. Before she died, Lee and I talked about what we'd do if she got tired of chasing after campaigns. But all that was complicated by the idea of starting a family . . .'

His voice trailed off. 'What about the law'' Farr asked.

Darrow shrugged. 'I'm a very good trial lawyer, no doubt. I've proven that. But there are other talented lawyers who can bring these cases, and I can't tell myself that I'm doing God's work. My dilemma is that it's easier to feel restless in the present than to define a different future.' Giving Farr a fleeting smile, he finished: 'It's like you said when we first met. I'm lacking in direction. But if you still want me to join the board, I will.'

Briefly, Farr paused. The look in his eyes struck Darrow as speculative. 'Actually, I want you to consider becoming president of Caldwell College.'

This time Darrow did laugh. Removing his sunglasses, he said, 'You're joking.'

'Hardly.'

'Then you should be. I've got no academic credentials; no administrative experience; no background with an educational institution of any kind. I haven't even kept up with the school. I've already offered the only thing I'm good for'money.'

Farr folded his arms. Fleetingly, Darrow imagined how they looked to others: two men in business suits in the middle of the Public Garden, talking quietly but forcefully about something very serious. 'If your model of a college president is someone like Clark Durbin,' Farr said bluntly, 'God help us. That's the last thing we need. Even colleges that aren't in trouble are making nontraditional hires: Oberlin just hired Michigan's outside lawyer, and the Stanford Business School's run by a former CEO.'

'That makes a kind of sense,' Darrow said. 'This doesn't.'

'No'' Farr countered dryly. 'You spent five years prosecuting criminal cases'including homicides'and eight more years untangling every financial scam known to man. Given Caldwell's recent history, some might say you're perfect.'

'_That's_ pretty sad.'

'But true. More fundamentally, you embody the best of Caldwell College: a small-town boy who made good through attending a school that stresses teaching instead of research. To be plain, you're here because of Caldwell.'

'And you,' Darrow answered softly. 'I'm well aware of that.'

'As the alumni are of you. You're an athletic hero, enshrined in our Sports Hall of Fame. You're a graduate of Yale Law, a nationally renowned lawyer. You've been on the cover of
U.S. News
, the
ABA
_ Journal, American Lawyer _, and'three times already'our alumni magazine.' Farr spoke with quiet urgency now, brooking no interruption. 'You're young, attractive, and gifted with considerable charisma. You know the school. And what the school needs is a leader with 'lan and a sense of humor, the vitality to lift our morale, redefine our message, refocus Caldwell on its future, and, in a year or so, help restart the capital campaign required for us to
have
a future.

'For you, the job wouldn't be a stepping stone to somewhere better. You'd be saying you believe in Caldwell College'that if you invest, others should.'

Darrow held up his hand. 'You need more than a symbol. You need someone with qualifications.'

'The first qualification is judgment, which you have. Critical for the fix we're in, you're not remote, authoritarian, or rigid'in fact, you've always been adaptable, the quickest study I know. You won't have to learn the culture of Caldwell or the town.' Farr's tone became emphatic. 'With you as president, we can address our problems squarely. You're more than just a symbol, Mark. You're a human Hail Mary, a concrete sign that Caldwell can rise again. Anyone else is second best.'

Stunned, Darrow felt a surge of doubt, the stubborn urge to dissent. ' 'Anyone,' Lionel' What about you''

'The board will make me interim president, if that's necessary. But I'm too old to do what's needed. We need a fresh face, one that doesn't look like a relief map of Afghanistan.' Seeing Darrow smile, Farr added swiftly, 'If you wish it, I'll stay on as provost'for any president, a good relationship with the provost matters. I can walk you through the budget, issues regarding the faculty and board, where the figurative bodies are buried. Whatever you need to ensure that you do well.'

'You talk like all you need is my consent. Don't you have a search committee''

'To be sure, and you'd have to meet with them. But I'm not here on some frolic of my own. There's substantial support for this idea'starting with Joe Betts, who seems to recall you more admiringly than you remember him.'

'We were friends,' Darrow demurred. 'With a reservation here or there, I liked Joe, whatever his role in Steve Tillman's trial. But Joe no more knows me in the present than I know him.'

'He thinks otherwise. So do I. By your senior year, your essential character was apparent. You were, and are, a leader.'

'Of what, precisely' The football team''

Farr looked nettled. 'Don't be obtuse. People were drawn to you; you had a gift for empathy rare in someone your age. You can't be in the dark about why you've done so well with juries.' Farr softened his speech. 'Even the timing is right. It's April'if you start in June, you'll have two months of paid rehearsals before the students arrive. During which you can focus on our alumni.'

Darrow smiled at this. 'As usual, you've thought of everything. Except whether the timing's right for
me
.'

Farr's face clouded briefly. 'Only you can say for sure.' Glancing at his watch, he said, 'It's past four-thirty. Suppose I buy you a drink at the Ritz Carlton.'

'Won't help, and the Ritz is now the Taj, a cog in the global economy. But sure'the bar's the same, and it still makes a good martini.'

Silent, they walked across the gardens in lengthening shadows, crossing Arlington Street to enter the hotel. The first-floor bar faced back toward the gardens; its paneled walls, leather chairs, and oil paintings of hunting scenes reminded Darrow faintly of Farr's study. With a look of satisfaction, Farr sat across from him at a marble table by the window and ordered dry martinis for them both. Farr permitted Darrow a first bracing sip before saying, 'About your timing, I
do
have thoughts.'

'So do I. My life in Wayne, Ohio, seems like a thousand years ago. And as you confessed after Lee's memorial service, the dating pool is not exactly infinite.'

Farr raised his eyebrows. 'At last, you refer to a personal life. Is there one''

Darrow pondered this. 'Call it a half life. On a good day, three-quarters.'

'There's a woman, then''

'Plural.' For a moment, Darrow fell quiet. 'Physically, I function well enough. But my emotional equipment feels a little stuck.'

Farr contemplated the table, considering his next words. 'Forgive me if this sounds tactless. But it seems you're free to leave Boston without uprooting anyone, including yourself. This may be your time for something new.'

Darrow smiled a little. 'Whose idea
was
this, Lionel''

Farr gave him an ironic smile of his own. 'Mine. But the last idea I had about your life turned out pretty well.'

'Except when it didn't,' Darrow answered mildly. But that was not Farr's doing. In all but one respect'that which had come to matter most'Darrow was the luckiest man he knew. His debt to Caldwell College, it seemed, was indistinguishable from his debt to Lionel Farr.

As if reading his thoughts, Farr spoke quietly: 'There's no place where you could make such a difference. In a few years, you could give our college what it needs. Perhaps you need that as well.'

Darrow sorted through the jumble of his thoughts, the minefield of memory. The apogee of his young life, and his greatest trauma until Lee's death, had occurred at Caldwell College in the space of sixteen hours. Perhaps that was why he had never returned. 'Do you ever visit Steve Tillman'' Darrow asked.

This seemingly irrelevant question would have puzzled anyone but Farr. 'On rare occasions. These days we struggle for subjects. As you'd expect, it's very sad.'

Despite his own guilt, Darrow heard no rebuke. The two men lapsed into silence.

Darrow finished his martini, feeling its initial jolt filter slowly through his system. 'Give me a day or two, Lionel. You took me by surprise, and there's a lot for me to sift through. And remember.'

Farr's eyes held understanding and compassion. 'Perhaps more than anyone, I know. That morning we stood at the Spire, looking down at her, is something no one could forget. Certainly not the two of us.'

S

IXTEEN YEARS LATER, D ARROW'S MEMORY OF THAT TERRIBLE night and morning remained as fresh as yesterday, as disorienting as the aftershock of a nightmare.

Moments after ringing the great brass bell, he had descended from the Spire, less triumphant than grateful for his release from its stifling gloom. For a while he was caught up in the jubilation of the crowd. Then he headed for a celebration at the Delta Beta Epsilon house, his pleasure fading into a slightly melancholy sense of life's transience.

What the campus called fraternity row was, in fact, a grassy oval, surrounded by red-brick houses. Sheltered by trees, each house varied in style: one had filigreed balconies reminiscent of a New Orleans mansion; another reflected the Georgian revival; two had pillars that evoked southern plantations; still another, the greatest departure, resembled a suburban ranch house. The DBE house was a mixture of styles. Three stories high, it had a small portico at one side as its entrance, and steps in the rear that rose from a parking lot to a generous porch. At the front were six tall windows through which brothers congregating in the living room could monitor the abode of their fiercest adversaries, the SAEs, whose stone lions, situated by the front steps like sentries, stared fiercely across the oval.

For Mark, the sight of the lions summoned a memory shared by only one other person. After the Ohio Lutheran game two years before, he and Steve Tillman, armed with tear gas canisters, had gassed the second floor of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at four A.M. This act of daring, attributed in legend to suspects as varied as students from Ohio Lutheran and a local motorcycle gang, had caused a cluster of SAEs to flee the house, weeping and vomiting, as the two adrenalized perpetrators watched from DBE's darkened living room. Reaching the house, Mark wondered what memories
this
night would bring.

On the lawn, Mark passed a band of would-be athletes'his fraternity brothers, fueled by beer'playing a desultory game of touch football. Declining their shouted invitation to join them with a wave and a smile, Mark entered the house. Though it was not yet six o'clock, the sound system was pumping out Pearl Jam, and revelers were gathering in the living room and library'so called because, although no one ever used it for studying, its shelves of athletic trophies were interspersed with leather-bound books no one ever opened. Avoiding notice, Mark climbed the scuffed linoleum stairs to the second floor, still in search of his best friend.

Like Mark and several other football players, Steve had a room in the stadium itself. Mark had not found him there. As a junior, Steve had ripped up his knee in this emblematic game, leaving him with a permanent limp and no physical outlet for his competitive nature; the pain of no longer playing, Mark knew, sometimes caused Steve to separate himself. But Steve was one reason Mark had no date this year, just as on the same night one year ago he had postponed his date to go with Steve to the hospital. Out of friendship and solidarity, Mark had resolved to spend this special Saturday with his friend.