by David Bell
I came downtown, then parked behind Troy’s as the sun came up. I’d met Rebecca here for coffee a few times as she began her thesis. I frequently meet students here because it’s close to campus and because most of them pass through here at one time or another, especially the creative writing types who see it as part of their essential selves to hang out in coffee shops and brood over their laptops.
“I need to talk to you about Madeline O’Brien,” I say, cringing inside. I know news may not have reached the students yet. It may not have reached anyone this early in the morning. But with social media, it may have started to spread. “Have you heard anything about her?”
“You mean since I told you I thought she was at your reading? No, I haven’t. Why?”
Shit.
I’ve become the bearer of bad news, the messenger with nothing at all good to share. A medieval rider on a pale horse.
“Okay, Rebecca.” I clear my throat, trying to force the right words out. “I found out very early this morning that Madeline is dead. Someone murdered her.”
The whites of Rebecca’s eyes appear to double in size. She lifts her gloved hand to her chest, placing it there like she’s about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. She looks right at me, but I don’t think she’s seeing me.
“I’m sorry, Rebecca. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you that news.”
“She’s dead?”
“Yes, she is.” I wait a beat, watch Rebecca carefully, looking for signs that she’s going to fall over or cry or lose her composure in any way. But she doesn’t. She remains upright, even with her face blank. “Are you okay? Do you want me to go inside and get you some water or something?”
She shakes her head ever so slightly, her hand still pressed to her chest.
“Would you like me to drive you home?” I ask. “I saw you got off the bus.”
“I’m okay,” she says. She starts nodding. “I am. I’m just . . . really shocked.”
“I know.”
“Does this mean that really was Madeline at your reading the other night?” she asks.
“Yes, it does. And the police are going to be trying to figure out why she was here and who might have wanted to hurt her.”
“I thought someone hurt her when she disappeared. I thought she was already . . . you know, dead. That’s why I didn’t believe it at first when I thought I saw her at the library.”
“You were right about that. And I was kind of dismissive when you told me you saw her, but I shouldn’t have been.”
“That’s okay. It’s pretty fucking weird.”
“It is.”
Rebecca seems to be coming back to herself. Color returns to her face, and her eyes focus on mine for the first time since I told her the news.
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you today, if I could. I wondered if you’d had any other contact with Madeline since that night. I know you were kind of friends and both writing majors, so I thought maybe she tried to talk to you or reach out to you.”
But Rebecca is shaking her head. “No, she hasn’t. Like I told you, she was at the library, but then she left before I could talk to her. I was kind of freaked by seeing her. I mean, I wanted to go up and get closer and see if it was Madeline, but then a part of me didn’t. I don’t believe in ghosts—I really don’t—but seeing that person there just freaked me out. I was scared.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“It’s even more complicated because another woman was murdered before Madeline disappeared. And the police are trying to make connections between the two crimes. It looks like Madeline knew the first woman who was killed.”
“Who was that?” Rebecca asks.
“Her name was Sophia Greenfield. I guess she and Madeline went to yoga together and were friends.”
“Oh, yeah. My mom read about it and called me when it happened. She was totally freaked out. Then she talked about making me come home, but I wanted to stay. So I signed up for a self-defense class and bought pepper spray to make her happy. I don’t think the murder was on campus. . . .”
Her gaze grows unfocused again. She appears to be slipping away, and I step forward, worried that she’s having a delayed reaction to the news about Madeline, that it’s just now sinking in and she’s going to collapse to the ground.
Or . . . she knows something else, and Sophia’s name triggered it.
“Rebecca?”
“I’m okay,” she says. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the matter?” I ask. “Do you know Sophia?”
“No, I don’t. Not directly.”
“Then what’s the matter? You looked like you were going to faint.”
“I think I knew who Sophia was. I saw her at a party once. And I definitely remember her husband.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
REBECCA
SUMMER, TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Rebecca wasn’t a big partier.
She rarely went to parties, preferring to spend her time with the friends she’d made in the dorm or her classes. Movies in someone’s room or at the theater. Game nights at the local bookstore. Writing in Troy’s with coffee and a laptop. Sometimes with a friend who also liked to write, and sometimes alone.
But she wasn’t a prude. She drank on occasion. Freshman year, her friend Monique got ahold of a bottle of Wild Turkey, and a small group of women did shots in Rebecca’s room until the floor started to swirl like a planet, and Rebecca woke up in a chair with the empty bottle and a bunch of red Solo cups scattered on the floor. Her head pounded, and she nearly ran out of the cafeteria to vomit when she tried to eat cereal, but she and her friends had a story to laugh about and a bunch of inside jokes to share, just as they’d shared the bottle.
And then there was Kent, the guy who had lived one floor below her freshman year. They met in the second-floor study lounge one night, when Rebecca was reading Gulliver’s Travels in a chair by the window and Kent was sprawled across one of the couches scrolling through his phone, his books and laptop on the floor by his feet untouched. They started talking after a while. And talking led to kissing. And periodically throughout the semester, they texted each other and then met in one or the other’s room to fool around. And Rebecca loved every minute of it until Kent dropped out of school at the semester break because he hadn’t gone to class in two months and his GPA was just above zero.
So she knew how to have a good time. She just didn’t like parties. People pushing against one another, yelling and screaming. The music always too loud, the beer always gone, and the liquor disgusting.
But she showed up at that party sophomore year because a professor threw it. Dr. Hoffman. And while she’d never taken his class, she was a creative writing major and knew someday she might end up with him as a professor. And Monique—who was also a creative writing major and a sophomore—said Hoffman occasionally threw these parties for students and it was a good way to meet people.
“Besides,” Monique said, “your boy, Kent, left a few months ago, and you need someone to take his place.”
And Rebecca remembered her mother telling her once that when she was in college—a thousand years ago and in another state, but Rebecca liked hearing the stories about her mom anyway—her professors used to have students over for dinner or parties, and it was one of the best memories she had of her time in school.
So Rebecca went with Monique. Hoffman lived in a small house about ten minutes from campus, and Rebecca didn’t know the area well but remembered looking out the window as Monique drove them in her SUV and noticed a dog park on the way. Rebecca wished she’d been able to bring her pug with her to school, but she couldn’t do that in the dorm, and her mom would never let her anyway, since she’d basically become obsessed with taking care of Toby. Reb
ecca couldn’t ever take him away from her.
Rebecca expected a professor’s house to be kind of fancy, with a lot of dark wood paneling and antique furniture and bookshelves, and Hoffman’s place had the bookshelves but not much else. His furniture was kind of ragged, and some of the walls needed to be repainted. At first, Rebecca saw Hoffman only from a distance. But the bathtub was filled with cans of beer on ice, so she and Monique each took one and wandered around together—a pack of two—looking for people to talk to. Monique made friends in three seconds flat, but Rebecca mostly looked at the bookshelves, curious to know what an English professor would have in his house. She recognized some of the authors but not others. A lot were just names she’d heard but hadn’t read—Baldwin, Carver, Morrison, Lahiri. Would she ever read everything she wanted and needed to read?
She was thinking that when she bumped into another student, one who seemed to be doing the same thing.
“This must be where the writers gather,” the woman said. “Or the socially awkward.”
Relief flowed through Rebecca. She wasn’t going to just stand around alone. She had found one person to talk to. And apparently someone who had something in common with her.
The woman said her name was Madeline. And she was also a creative writing major.
“Do you know Dr. Hoffman?” Rebecca asked.
“I’m in his class now. He’s okay.” Madeline wrinkled her nose. “He has moments of being a really good professor and mentor. But other times he’s just kind of . . . not there.”
“I’m no good at poetry anyway.” Rebecca switched her beer can from one hand to the other, relieving the cold, which was starting to hurt. “I’m kind of surprised a professor is having us all here drinking. It seems like a lot of people are underage. Including me.”
“Hoffman doesn’t care. He’s not exactly a rules kind of guy. You’ll find that out if you get to know him better. Or take his class.”
“I guess college really is a different world.” Rebecca laughed a little.
“It is.” Madeline looked past Rebecca’s shoulder and nodded. She kind of rolled her eyes. “Oh, I have to go. My friend is leaving.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s cool.”
“Maybe we’ll take a class together soon. Or I’ll see you at one of the open mics they have in the department.”
“Yeah, I need to come and read at one of them.” Rebecca said this even though the thought of reading her work at an open mic sounded overwhelming.
“You do.”
Madeline went off, leaving Rebecca alone again by the bookshelves. She took a quick glance around, hoping to see Monique. She caught a glimpse of Madeline heading to the door, walking alongside a woman with blond hair. Very pretty.
Beautiful, in fact.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Rebecca wandered around the party for a while. She finished one beer and opened another. Monique seemed to have disappeared, likely with a guy. Or possibly a woman. Monique said she liked to check all the boxes. Rebecca thought that seemed like the kind of thing you should say if you’re in college, but she wasn’t ready to say it about herself yet.
Rebecca drank her beer and felt a tingly buzz along her hairline. She liked the feeling, and it probably allowed her to stay around at the party longer than she would have without it. Liquid courage, her dad called it. He sometimes threw back a shot before a conference call with his boss. He said it took the edge off.
“You appear to be a lost freshman.”
She looked up, and Dr. Hoffman was speaking to her. He wore a Commonwealth U sweatshirt, and she saw a dark stain—coffee or chocolate—near the giant white “C.” He held a beer, and his eyes looked red and seemed to be seeing nothing while looking right at her, like the kids in her high school who used to get high before they came into the building in the morning.
“I’m actually a sophomore.”
“Well, you’re among friends here. This is your tribe if you’re an English major.”
“Cool. I am.”
“Some people are smoking out back if you want to join in,” Hoffman said, grinning like an elf. “I bought the stuff, so tell them I sent you. Do you know Isaac? He’s a creative writing major. He can’t get enough.”
“Okay. I’ve never done that before.”
“You haven’t? Oh, wow, you really are a babe in the woods. What shitkicker county did you come from?”
Shitkicker?
“Hart County.”
“Get out there and smoke,” he said. “Start your education tonight.”
And he walked away from her like they’d never spoken.
Rebecca considered her options. She suddenly felt weird about being at the party. Maybe she didn’t belong there. Maybe she wasn’t in her tribe.
Maybe she didn’t have a tribe. And she belonged back in Hart County like so many of her high school classmates who didn’t go to college and never planned to leave.
Despite the nearly two beers, her rational mind still functioned. She told herself she was thinking silly thoughts. She knew Monique, and Monique was an English major, and the two of them were close.
Did she just need to loosen up a little? Get outside of herself like she had that night with the Wild Turkey? Like she used to do with Kent? Monique had pushed her to come to the party because she wanted Rebecca to meet a guy. Could she meet one sharing a bowl or two? Would this Isaac guy be the next Kent?
Her brain lost its ability to override her feet because Rebecca was moving before she knew it. She went out the sliding-glass door onto the small patio, lit by a floodlight that made it seem like they were standing on the moon. The patio was cracked, and little weeds poked through all over. A warm night, early September, still feeling like summer. Three guys stood at the edge of the patio, one of them holding a bong, another a lighter. The guy with the bong in his hands was coughing like a consumption patient in a Victorian novel. He saw Rebecca but couldn’t do anything to stop hacking.
He held the bong out toward her.
“Go ahead,” the guy with the lighter said. “Hoffman bought it. And Isaac can’t get his shit together now.”
She recognized the smell from high school parties. Sweet and inviting.
She put her beer on a window ledge and took the bong in her hands and looked at the guy with the lighter. His eyes were glassier than Hoffman’s, and he wobbled a little, like he might tip over.
“I just inhale when you light it,” she said. “And then I hold it in as long as I can. Right?”
“You seem to have the basics down,” he said, flicking the lighter with his thumb.
What the hell? Rebecca thought. It’s college.
She took what seemed like a reasonable hit, but the guy with the lighter said, “Easy now.”
The smoke burned her throat and then her lungs. She thought her chest was going to explode. She held the smoke for about two seconds, and then it all came flying out when she started to cough.
“All right,” the guy with the lighter said. “That’ll get you there.”
Even Isaac, the coughing guy, started to laugh as he collected himself. “She’ll fit in just fine around here.”
Rebecca reached for her beer, happy to have the cool liquid. She took a large swallow, which soothed and burned at the same time.
The tingling along her scalp increased in intensity, a telegraph wire transmitting under her skin. Dots and dashes and urgent messages.
She took another long drink of the beer. It felt like her lungs were sunburned.
“Want more?” the guy asked.
She shook her head, drank more beer, stepping away from the three guys and out into the yard itself.
She heard the voice then.
“Stop it.”
Rebecca thought it came from behind her, one of the guys laughing and jostling for the next turn at the bong. But it wa
s a woman’s voice. And it came from in front of her.
Rebecca walked that way, still holding the beer, even though she’d drunk it down to where just the brackish stuff sloshed around, like in the bottom of a boat. Ahead of her, she saw an alley where a few cars were parked, the only illumination coming from a lone streetlight.
“I’m not joking. Stop it.”
“Come on.”
As Rebecca approached, she saw a guy and a girl near one of the cars, their bodies partially in the shadows. The woman’s back was pushed up against the car, and the guy faced her, his hands on her hips, his head leaning in close for a kiss.
But the woman turned away.
Madeline. It was Madeline. And a guy with a beard.
Rebecca hesitated for a moment. The party waited behind her. As the tingling increased along her scalp, so did her heart rate. Blood rushed in her ears, like the ocean in a seashell.
But she didn’t like what Madeline was saying to that guy. Didn’t like that she’d already said it twice and his hands were still on her.
“Will you please? You’re married.”
“Easy.”
The guy’s hands slid from Madeline’s hips to up under her shirt, exposing some of the flesh above Madeline’s jeans.
“Hey,” Rebecca said. As soon as she said it, she knew she hadn’t been loud enough. So she tried again. “Hey.”
Both heads turned, and the guy stepped back. He fixed his eyes on Rebecca, and while he didn’t say anything, she could see the contempt in the look, the sense that he couldn’t believe someone had dared speak to him that way. Especially someone like Rebecca.
A woman.
Madeline straightened her shirt and used the interruption to slide away from the guy and walk out of the alley, heading toward Rebecca and the house.
When she reached Rebecca, she said, “Let’s go. He’s drunk.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m good. Thank you. You really helped me out.”