'No problems.' He put his glasses back on. 'I cannot avoid blaming myself, Mr. Scudder.'
'For what?'
'For everything. What is it that they say? `The cobbler's children always go barefoot.' Perhaps that maxim applies in this case. Perhaps I devoted too much attention to my congregation and too little attention to my son. I had to raise him by myself, you see. That did not seem a difficult chore at the time. It may have been more difficult than I ever realized.'
'Richard's mother-'
He closed his eyes. 'I lost my wife almost fifteen years ago,' he said.
'I didn't know that.'
'It was hard for both of us. For Richard and for myself. In retrospect I think that I should have married again. I never... never entertained the idea. I was able to have a housekeeper, and my own duties facilitated my spending more time with him than the average father might have been able to manage. I thought that was sufficient.'
'And now you don't think so?'
'I don't know. I occasionally think there is very little we can do to change our destiny. Our lives play themselves out according to a master plan.' He smiled briefly. 'That is either a very comforting thing to believe or quite the opposite, Mr.
Scudder.'
'I can see how it could be.'
'Other times I think there ought to have been something I could have done.
Richard was drawn very much into himself. He was shy, reticent, very much a private person.'
'Did he have much of a social life? I mean during high school, while he was living here.'
'He had friends.'
'Did he date?'
'He wasn't interested in girls at that time. He was never interested in girls until he came into that woman's clutches.'
'Did it bother you that he wasn't interested in girls?'
That was as close as I cared to come to intimating that Richie was interested in boys instead. If it registered at all, Vanderpoel didn't show it. 'I was not concerned,' he said. 'I took it for granted that Richard would ultimately develop a fine and healthy loving relationship with the girl who would eventually become his wife and bear his children. That he was not involved in social dating in the meantime did not upset me. If you were in a position to see what I see, Mr.
Scudder, you would realize that a great deal of trouble stems from too much involvement of one sex with the other sex. I have seen girls pregnant in their early teens. I have seen young men forced into marriage at a very tender age. I have seen young people afflicted with unmentionable diseases. No, I was if anything delighted that Richard was a late bloomer in this area.'
He shook his head. 'And yet,' he said, 'perhaps if he had been more experienced, perhaps if he had been less innocent, he would not have been so easy a victim for Miss Hanniford.'
We sat for a few moments in silence. I asked him a few more things without getting anything significant in reply. He asked again if I wanted a cup of coffee. I declined and said it was time I was getting on my way. He didn't try to persuade me to stay.
I got my coat from the vestibule closet where the housekeeper had stashed it.
As I was putting it on I said, 'I understand you saw your son once after the killing.'
'Yes.'
'In his cell.'
'That is correct.' He winced almost imperceptibly at the recollection. 'We didn't speak at length. I tried only to do what little I could to put his mind at rest.
Evidently I failed. He... he elected to mete out his own punishment for what he had done.'
'I talked to the lawyer his case was assigned to. A Mr. Topakian.'
'I didn't meet the man myself. After Richard... took his own life... well, I saw no point in seeing the lawyer. And I couldn't bring myself to do it.'
'I understand.' I finished buttoning my coat. 'Topakian said Richard had no memory of the actual murder.'
'Oh?'
'Did your son say anything to you about it?'
He hesitated for a moment, and I didn't think he was going to answer. Then he gave his head an impatient shake. 'There's no harm in saying it now, is there?
Perhaps he was speaking truthfully to the lawyer, perhaps his memory was clouded at the time.' He sighed again. 'Richard told me he had killed her. He said he did not know what had come over him.'
'Did he give any explanation?'
'Explanation? I don't know if you would call it an explanation, Mr. Scudder.
It explained certain things to me, however.'
