River Road

by Carol Goodman

  “Let us worry about who was driving Dr. Ballantine’s car. I can’t discuss the case any further.” He was turning away, but then his face softened. He seemed to be considering something. He leaned down, his hands braced on his knees, the way someone would lean down to talk to a child. “I can tell you that the lab has found deer hair on your car, Ms. Lewis. It looks like you hit a deer after all.”

  Then he was gone, leaving quickly as if he wanted to put distance between himself and the admission he’d just made. As if he was ashamed of that one act of kindness. He was letting me know I was off the hook—or at least very nearly so. I should have felt relieved. But instead I felt sick to my stomach, just as if I’d blindly come around a curve and struck some poor innocent animal.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “It looks like you’re no longer the police’s main suspect.”

  Cressida’s voice startled me. I hadn’t heard her come back into the room. She must have been listening from the kitchen.

  “You think he’s going to arrest Ross?”

  “You said they had traces of Leia’s clothing on his car and now they have proof he was in the boathouse with Leia. I don’t think it’s looking very good for Ross.”

  I rounded on Cressida. “Did you tell McAffrey that you thought Ross was having an affair with Leia?”

  “I had to, Nan.” Her voice had turned cold. “Leia came to me in need. If I had taken her more seriously she might be alive. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I suppose it must be how you feel about Emmy.”

  I was so blindsided by the comment that I felt dizzy all over again. “But Leia didn’t tell you she was having an affair . . . and even if they were it doesn’t mean Ross ran her over.”

  “As your policeman friend said, that’s for the police to worry about. I think it’s time you started worrying about yourself, Nan, and started taking better care of yourself . . . drinking less, for instance.”

  “I’m not—” I began to say “I’m not an alcoholic” but then I realized how many times I’d had to say those words in the last few days. The problem with repetition, I told my students, is that words lose meaning with overuse. “I’m not an alcoholic” was beginning to sound less like a protest and more like an admission.

  Cressida gave me a pitying look. “I’m sorry, Nan, I blame myself for not saying something earlier. I’ve noticed when we go out for dinner and we split a bottle you usually finish it and when you come in to your office in the morning . . . well, you sometimes look hungover. Then at the faculty party—”

  “You were the one topping off my wineglass, for God’s sake!” I exploded.

  Cressida stared at me. “Because you were holding out your glass for more,” she said with an icy calm that made me feel chilled. “But I see now that I was enabling you. Now, if you want to stay here tonight we could talk, look up support groups, go to a meeting tomorrow—”

  “No, thank you,” I said abruptly. “I have to get home to”—I searched my head for a reason. For a terrible moment I had an image of Ross’s bottle of Glenlivet in my kitchen cabinet—“to feed my cat.”

  “If you’re sure,” she said frostily. “Your clothes are dry.” She pointed to a neat pile on a teak bench by the door. “Your boots are still damp but I’ve got them on a drying rack. You can borrow a pair of mine. I can call a cab if you like. I’d take you myself but I’d have to dig out the car—”

  “I can walk,” I told her, taking the snow boots she handed to me. They looked too big for me but were lined with something that felt so soft and delicious I didn’t mind. “No need to worry I’ve had too much to drink.”

  “Oh, Nan.” She heaved an exasperated sigh. “I’m sorry if I offended you but someone has to say something.”

  “Yeah, and you’re usually the one to say it.” I immediately regretted the words but I was still too angry to apologize. I went into the bathroom to change; it was surprisingly luxurious, with pink tiling and a massive tub lined with expensive bath gels. Cressida took good care of herself. When I came out Cressida was standing in the living room holding my coat. I noticed that she’d already folded the sheepskin throw and straightened the couch cushions, smoothing away all traces of my messy presence.

  “I’m sorry I got angry,” I said, trying to mean it. “I’ve just had a lot to take in—the idea that Ross was sleeping with Leia, that he could have been the one to run her over . . .”

  “Of course,” Cressida said with a conciliatory smile. “It was the wrong time to bring up the drinking. You know that tact isn’t my strong suit. But I only did it because I’m worried about you, Nan. You’re so trusting . . . so vulnerable.” She helped me on with my coat, laid her hands on my shoulders, and looked into my eyes. “You need to be more careful.”

  I told her I would be and turned to go, thinking it was just what Ross had said to me last night.

  * * *

  It was only a ten-minute walk down Orchard Drive to my house. Really, it was strange we didn’t visit each other more. Of course that might be because, as she said, tact wasn’t her strong suit. An uncompromising hard-ass, John Abbot had called her. And she’d made Joan Denning cry once by telling her that adjuncts weren’t allowed to use the office copy machine. And after her experience with anorexia she had a thing about support groups. Of course she’d see a few too many glasses of wine as a substance abuse problem. But she was right. I did need to cut down. I’d already realized that myself. She was just wrong about going to meetings. She was trying to make me into a cause, like her prison students. Poor Cressida, for all her independence she must be pretty lonely. I should visit her more often, offer to carpool to work—

  For the first time Sergeant McAffrey’s words sank in. I would be getting my car back. The lab had found traces of deer fur on my bumper. They had another suspect. I was, in Cressida’s words, not the police’s main suspect. I should have felt relieved.

  Only I didn’t.

  The thought that Ross had been carrying on an affair with Leia was bad enough. That they’d had a falling-out and he’d run her over and left her to die on the road made me feel ill. It might have been years ago, but Ross had been my lover—I’d almost slept with him last night!—

  Last night. I remembered how he’d asked me if I had run over Leia. Had he been trying to get me to admit to hitting Leia in my confusion so he wouldn’t be accused?

  By the time I got back to my house I felt like I was coming down with a cold. My feet felt leaden and clumsy in Cressida’s luxurious but too big boots. My vision was blurry. As I clumped up my porch steps I tripped on something and went down hard on my knees. The sudden pain brought tears to my eyes as if I were a child who had skinned her knee on the playground. Get a grip, Nan! I told myself—only it was my mother’s voice in my head. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and get up. I planted my hands on the icy steps—and touched something furry. I screamed, thinking some poor animal had crawled to my doorstep to die—the deer I’d hit maybe—but then as I drew back my hand it brushed something metal. In the faint light from the fanlight I made out the buckle of a collar. I gingerly stroked the cold, bony animal and recognized her worn, velvety coat and knobby spine. It was Oolong, frozen to death on my front porch.

  * * *

  I brought her inside, wrapped her in the old afghan from the couch that she had liked sleeping on, and then sat with her in my lap by the woodstove, as if I could bring her back to life by warming her up. There were little balls of ice in her matted fur that melted and soaked through the afghan into my lap. Had I left her outside?

  The thought that I had caused the death of my poor old cat was almost too much to bear. I stroked her fur and wailed, letting loose a keen that didn’t sound like it was coming from me. It didn’t even sound human. It sounded like the forlorn train whistle I couldn’t bear to listen to at night, like the cries of revenants wailing for drowned children, like the deranged lament of old drunks—

  Christ! Had I forgotten to bring Oolong inside because I was hun
gover? But I’d only had a glass of Glenlivet the night before. Right?

  I got up, still cradling Oolong, and opened the kitchen cabinet. The bottle of Glenlivet was there but while I remembered it as three-quarters full it was now half empty. Had I gotten up and drunk more last night? I remembered having that strange dream about Emmy. Could I have been sleepwalking during it? It was the dream that had sent me out the next morning searching the woods for a lost memory. What kind of clear thinking was that? I thought of poor Oolong crying at the door to get in as I followed Troy down to the boathouse—

  Troy.

  He’d known where I lived. His friend had suggested they pay me a visit.

  Had he? It would be easy to break into my house. The back door had a lock so flimsy it could be opened by a credit card. Evan had meant to change it, but we lived in the country. What danger could there be? Did Troy break in—looking for money or a way to incriminate me—and let Oolong out—

  Or did he deliberately kill Oolong?

  I stroked her fur away from her neck to see if there were any signs of strangulation—and saw something snagged on her rabies tag. A purple thread. Troy had been wearing a purple Acheron sweatshirt earlier.

  I realized that I should tell Sergeant McAffrey. I got up and carried Oolong into the mudroom and laid her gently in a wicker laundry basket. Then I found my phone to call McAffrey and noticed that there were six voice mails. The first one was from Anat. I guiltily remembered that I’d meant to call her. The second one was from Dottie, the other four were all from Ross. I scrolled to the last message and played it.

  “Nan!” Ross’s voice was desperate. “Where are you? The police are here to bring me in for questioning. I need to know—”

  He was cut off by a man’s voice that sounded like Detective Haight’s saying they needed to leave now. Then the call ended. I looked at the time. The call had been made forty minutes ago. McAffrey certainly hadn’t wasted any time. He must have gone straight from Cressida’s to Ross’s house. They would be at the station now, sitting in the interview room with the water-stained yellow paint while McAffrey tossed the evidence bag with Ross’s cuff link on the table between them.

  The cuff link.

  Suddenly I recalled where I’d seen it last. In Ross’s kitchen. When I burst in Leia had spilled wine on his shirt cuff. He’d unbuttoned it—no, he always wore shirts with cuff links—he’d taken off the cuff link and dropped it into the dish by the sink. The dish with the car keys—

  Where anyone who scooped up the keys might take it too.

  Which meant that whoever had taken Ross’s car and run over Leia could have dropped the cuff link at the boathouse as well.

  I realized it was a frail clue. Even if Ross hadn’t left the cuff link at the boathouse, it didn’t mean he wasn’t having an affair with Leia. Leia had gone to Cressida feeling guilty about something—but then, Troy had said that Leia played a role for each new place she moved to and put on a different face for each new person she met. Guilt-ridden mistress might have been the one she was trying out on Cressida.

  Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe that the Ross I knew would sleep with one of his students.

  But it didn’t matter what I believed. I had to tell McAffrey that I’d seen Ross taking off his cuff link in the kitchen. And that someone had murdered my cat. I reached for the card he’d given me and started to call . . . but of course he wouldn’t answer. He was interviewing Ross. I had to go down to the station to talk to him.

  Only I didn’t have a car.

  But I knew who would come get me.

  * * *

  While I was waiting for Dottie I listened to Anat’s voice mail telling me that the police had found deer hair on my car and that they appeared to have a new suspect. “It looks like you’re in the clear but you should still lay low. Don’t talk to the police without me.”

  I hit Call Back but got her voice mail. I hesitated, not wanting to tell her I was about to do exactly what she’d told me not to—talk to the police without her and give evidence that might exonerate the police’s new suspect. I hesitated so long that the phone beeped signaling the end of my message option and then I heard Dottie’s car at the foot of my driveway. I hurried out to meet her before she tried going up and got stuck.

  “I’m sorry for bothering you on Christmas night,” I said, getting into her car.

  “I’m glad you called. I’ve been worrying about you all day. I know how much you care about your students, Nan. You’d never have left Leia to die on the road. I’m sure the police will figure that out eventually.”

  “They have,” I told her. “Only now they think it was Ross.”

  Dottie gasped, but then remained silent, gripping the steering wheel, her eyes fixed to the road, as I explained about the traces of Leia’s jacket on Ross’s car and the cuff link in the boathouse. I didn’t tell her about Oolong because I knew how much she loved cats and I thought her sympathy might undo me. When we got to the police station she turned to me, her eyes gleaming in the dark car. “It can’t be Ross.”

  “I don’t want to believe it either—”

  “No, it can’t be him. Are you sure he hasn’t offered the police an alibi?”

  “No,” I said, “but what alibi would he give? He said you were the last one to leave the house. And, by the way, you can’t tell anyone that he’s being questioned. I shouldn’t have told you any of this.”

  “I’d never—” she began, shaking her head so that her tight curls bristled. I interrupted her.

  “It’s just that . . . I know how much you like having the inside information.”

  Dottie started at this. “Are you calling me a gossip?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  “No—”

  “Because I know that’s what people think, but no one has any idea how many things I have to keep to myself. All day long my desk faces that row of offices. I see things. People think I don’t notice, but I do! People treat me like I’m invisible, but I thought you were different. I thought we were friends.” Her voice ended on a sob.

  “Dottie,” I began, shocked and appalled that I had managed to hurt Dottie’s feelings. But she was right. I had treated her like she was invisible. I had taken her friendship for granted. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that you were a gossip. I’m the one who should have kept my mouth shut. I should have realized how much it would upset you to hear about Ross. I shouldn’t have called you.”

  “No,” she said, her voice hoarse but firm. “I’m glad you did. Only”—she looked away from me and gripped the steering wheel—“I think I’ll stay here in the car while you go in. I don’t think I could face anyone right now.”

  “Of course, if you’re sure you’ll be all right.”

  “Don’t worry about me. You just tell the police what you saw. I’m sure they’ll see that it wasn’t Ross.”

  “Okay.” I squeezed her shoulder. She still didn’t look at me. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want me to see her crying. Or maybe she was angry that I’d called her a gossip, and now I’d lost one of the last friends I had at Acheron.

  The first person I saw in the waiting room was Kelsey Manning double-thumb typing on her phone.

  “Professor Lewis, are you here to give evidence against Professor Ballantine? Is it true he was having an affair with Leia Dawson?”

  “Where did you hear that?” I demanded.

  “I can’t divest my sources,” she said smugly.

  “Divulge,” I corrected automatically. “The word you’re looking for is divulge.”

  She blinked at me rapidly and licked her glossy lips. “Yeah, whatever. Anyway, it’s what everyone is saying. Everyone knows Leia was his special pet and she got all sorts of special treatment from him. He practically drooled over every little thing she said in the Brit Lit class I was in with her. Were you, like, jealous, because he broke up with you and was going out with a younger woman?”

  I stared at her, unable to think of a reply that she
wouldn’t somehow misquote; then I looked over her shoulder and spoke to the clerk at the reception desk. “Can you please tell Sergeant McAffrey that Nan Lewis is here to see him—and that he’s got a news leak here in his station tweeting confidential information.”

  “I’m not tweeting,” Kelsey said, holding up her phone. I could make out a post that read Professor Ross Ballantine taken in for questioning! “I’m posting to ‘Overheard at Acheron.’ That’s freedom of the press.”

  “That’s interfering with an ongoing investigation.”

  Sergeant McAffrey was standing in the hallway glaring at Kelsey’s phone as if he wanted to snatch it out of her hands. I’d often felt the same when I caught my students texting or playing Candy Crush Saga in class. He took a deep breath and in a firm, controlled voice asked Kelsey to leave.

  “This is a public space—”

  “You’re interfering with an investigation.” His voice had dropped two octaves. I could feel it rumbling in my stomach. Kelsey fidgeted with her hair and teared up. I almost felt sorry for her.

  “Okay, but I’m putting this in my story as an example of police brutality!” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, a defensive gesture that reminded me of how Oolong would nonchalantly lick herself after falling. I felt my lip trembling at the thought of poor Oolong’s frozen body. McAffrey, mouth open to say something to Kelsey, must have seen my eyes filling. He grabbed my elbow and steered me away from Kelsey.

  “That girl’s a menace,” he muttered when we were out of earshot. “But you shouldn’t let her get to you.”

  “It’s not her,” I said, and then to my horror and dismay I broke into loud, mucousy sobs. Looking as embarrassed as I felt, he steered me into the nearest room.

  It was a different interview room, a cozier space with cushioned chairs, a coffee machine, and potted plants. This must be where they took traumatized witnesses—the innocent—or at least the ones crying over their dead cats. McAffrey pulled out a chair for me and offered me a cup of coffee. I shook my head but he fixed one anyway. I realized he was giving me time to get myself under control, so I endeavored to do so. By the time he came back to the table with two mugs I wasn’t sobbing anymore. I took a sip of the coffee and was surprised at how good it tasted. Even the coffee was better in this interview room.