Eyes Like the Night

by Emma Accola

  “I’m here in case you have any questions,” she said as if to offer comfort. “We thought it might be best.”

  Nodding to her, I joined them at the table. Working hard to suppress any tones of anxiety from my voice, I turned to the dean. “What’s this regarding?”

  Uncomfortable, he took a moment to shuffle some papers and glance out the window over my shoulder. He knew me hardly at all, and I could see him trying to discern how I might react to what he was about to say. This neatly groomed and well-dressed man liked his world predictable and calm. He wouldn’t care to have a raging, or worse, sobbing faculty member disrupting the tranquility of his day.

  “Several matters have come to light,” he said in grave tones.

  “Several?” I asked, as if startled.

  The dean was a good-looking man, nowhere near as gorgeous as Micah, but still pleasant on the eyes. He had dark hair, receding slightly at the temples, and a short beard that sparkled with a few grays. Always nicely coordinated, today he wore a light gray suit and a tie so red it was like blood running down the front of his shirt.

  “No student complaints, yet.” He let the last word hang in the air before dropping the papers. “I don’t know where to begin. These matters are delicate.”

  I waited without speaking. My dad had taught me never to run off at the mouth in an unpredictable situation when speaking to an employee. Volunteer nothing, he had advised.

  The dean seemed to swallow a sigh before speaking. “Do you have a relationship with Micah Ekstrand outside the workplace?”

  “We’re neighbors. He lives in the townhouse next to mine. If it matters, Micah was already there before Gary Kozlowski asked me to housesit.”

  The dean nodded, giving me the impression that he already knew that. His long pause before he went on was an invitation for me to say more, one I didn’t take. “I know about the salacious emails that were cobbled together and sent to everyone in Micah’s department. I know that he fired the student clerks involved. Now those students are alleging that someone—you—hacked their accounts out of spite to get them fired. They’re claiming that those emails are protected speech. They’re suggesting that you had motive.”

  “Me?” I cried. “That’s ridiculous. I couldn’t hack the password on my own laptop.”

  “That email string came from the computer in your office,” the dean said sternly.

  “What?”

  “Our IT department determined that the email was sent from the computer in your office. Now it appears that you forwarded everyone in Micah’s department an email of a sexual nature that contained material hacked from student accounts. Those students are claiming that you embellished their innocent remarks with lascivious content because you wanted them fired.”

  My scalp tingled as I paled. “When was this email allegedly sent?”

  He looked down at a paper in his hand. “In the minutes before the security cameras recorded you exiting the building.”

  A hot, angry pulse beat in my temples. “If I was computer savvy enough to hack students’ email accounts, don’t you think I would be smart enough not to use my own computer to send them?”

  The dean didn’t respond. “You’re denying this?”

  “Categorically.”

  He nodded. “Look, Gracie, if it’s shown that you sent those emails to Micah, you will be formally disciplined for sexually harassing him.”

  “I didn’t send them.”

  “You should take this seriously. It’s been bumped up to the president’s office.”

  “I do take it seriously.”

  “There’s something else,” the dean said slowly. “I received word from the campus police that Loren Hernandez’s mother is claiming that you were sexually harassing her son. You say your car had been stolen, but now you appear to have motive to hurt him. The homicide detectives have been informed of the report. Obviously Loren Hernandez has been silenced, but if another student files a sexual harassment complaint, there will be an investigation.”

  Thanks to Elina from the campus newspaper, I had been expecting this. “And what will that entail?”

  “The assistant vice president will personally call every student in each of your classes and ask whether they have witnessed or been subjected to any harassing behaviors.”

  “They will not have,” I said, but my face burned. Every time I walked into class, I would face the students who knew that I was being investigated. To many of them, the fact that I was being accused painted me with the taint of guilt. This would serve to undermine my authority in a classroom of students, many who were only a few years younger than I. My palms began sweating.

  “We will have your back on this,” the union rep said.

  “Is there anything else?” I couldn’t wait to get away from this office. My soul writhed in humiliation, as if it wanted to crawl out of my skin.

  “I’m sorry, but there is.” The dean slid a thick brown envelope across the table to me. “I got this in the mail this morning. It’s your doctoral thesis. Someone has highlighted every place in it that has been plagiarized. I personally checked the first three of the highlighted lines and found the original sources that you didn’t cite.”

  “What?” I cried.

  The dean became very somber. “Another copy has been sent to the English Department at the university that granted you your doctorate. I called the dean there and he also found places that contain a high degree of similarity—”

  “Similarity is not plagiarism. The accusation itself does not make it plagiarism.” My heart thundered in my chest as I opened the envelope to reveal a copy of my dissertation. “I was scrupulous in my research methods. My citations followed the correct protocol.”

  “Maybe this is just a copy-and-paste error,” the union rep said. “I’ve heard of cases where the plagiarized material was removed and the thesis evaluated on the remainder. At worst, you may be asked to write a new thesis.”

  I turned on her like a raging harpy. “There is no plagiarism. I know how to do citations, and just to be doubly safe, I used a professional editing service. I didn’t cut any corners.” I spun around on the dean and jabbed my finger at him. “This is wrong.”

  “People make errors,” the union rep said in conciliatory tones. “You’re not expected to be perfect.”

  My temper flared at her. “I teach using proper methods of citations to my students. There are no citation errors in my thesis.” I turned back to the dean. “I worked closely with my advisor. There was no plagiarism. Three professors approved my dissertation before I was granted my doctorate.”

  “And just how close were you with your advisor?” His mouth became a thin line and his brow lowered.

  My intuition flashed a warning. The question couldn’t be random. “I met with him a lot. That’s what candidates do. You have a doctorate. You know the process.”

  The dean’s eyes narrowed as he pushed a piece of paper across the table at me. “This letter came with your thesis. It alleges that you had an affair with your advisor that resulted in his divorce. If that’s true, it raises questions about his judgment. And yours.”

  I had to pause to make sure my voice wouldn’t carry a tremor. “His marriage was on shaky ground long before I met him. That was common knowledge in the English Department. His wife was having an affair with a PE teacher. Not that it’s any of your business, but I was in a long-term relationship while I was in grad school. I was engaged.”

  The dean patted the letter. “According to this, your fiancé broke up with you when he found out about you and your advisor.”

  “No, no, that’s not what happened.” I paused, fighting to keep my composure as I wondered how close to home this would get. “Leonardo was cheating on me. Our decision to part ways was mutual.”

  The disclosure seemed to embarrass the dean. “Look, I’m not trying to pry into your personal life. But, Gracie, I would be lying if I didn’t say that this looks bad for you when it’s all added together.”


  “Not that you’re having any trouble piling it on,” I said with a pointed look at the union representative.

  She started to protest, but the dean cut her off with a wave of his hand.

  “Are we finished here?” I snapped.

  “Unfortunately we are not,” the dean said in a low, gravelly voice. “Last but not least is something from Human Resources.”

  “And just what would that be?”

  The dean wavered as if he didn’t know whether to become angry or resigned. “When the department advertised for someone to cover Gary’s classes, you and all the other applicants followed the standard procedure of emailing your application materials. The applicants then received emails saying that their materials had been received. Strangely, the applications of everyone who was equally or more qualified than you went missing. Consequently, the hiring committee never saw them or even knew they existed. Because the applications had been culled, the deck was stacked heavily in your favor.”

  My lips went numb.

  The dean’s face hardened. He chose to go with anger. “I discovered this when a couple highly qualified part-time instructors who have been working here for several years came to me separately asking why they didn’t get an interview. I told them I was surprised that they hadn’t applied. They both showed me that they had, and I followed up with HR and IT. After a lot of effort, IT found that the applications from the qualified candidates had been deleted.”

  The dean waited for me to respond. An angry flush rose from my chest, going up my neck and burning my cheeks. Harry Spice, the computer hacker extraordinaire, had been at his work. He had made damn sure that I got this job at Bailey College. He had baited a pretty cage, and now that I was in it, he had snapped shut the door. Every muscle in my body, large and small, clenched. My heart wanted to hammer its way out of my chest. Even I couldn’t think of a way to explain my way out of this or the other charges.

  I shoved the envelope with my dissertation back at the dean. “Everything you’ve accused me of is a pack of lies. Since I have come into this room, all I’ve heard are lies and calumnies.”

  “Which part?” the dean asked as he slapped his hand on the envelope. “The part where your student Lucie Eagan, whom you accused of sending you a threat, disappears? The part where your car inexplicably starts on its own and runs down a student who was about to accuse you of sexual harassment? Or is it the part about the emails that were sent from your desk causing Micah Ekstrand to fire half a dozen student clerks? The missing applications? The plagiarized dissertation? And what is it between you and Micah Ekstrand? You used to wear an engagement ring, but you’re not anymore. I’m told you’re driving Micah’s car since yours has been impounded as a murder weapon. That’s quite a list.”

  My temper flared. “I didn’t write or send those lurid emails and I was in my office when Loren Hernandez was killed. I do live next door to Micah, and he did lend me his car, but let me remind you that I’m housesitting for Gary. I didn’t know Micah would be my neighbor until after I moved in. My dissertation isn’t plagiarized, and if some applications went missing, that’s an issue for the HR office. Someone there clearly botched that up. Let them figure out what happened.”

  The dean scowled and clasped his hands together. His mouth tightened in disapproval. “Your veracity has been called into question. And I don’t just mean the thesis.”

  “Until the past couple of weeks, nothing has ever assailed my reputation.”

  “But that’s not strictly true, is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We know about the case where you stood witness against Harry Spice, the man who was accused of raping your roommate,” he said softly. “It appears as if you committed perjury. Now your advisor from the university that granted you your doctorate is facing an inquiry. Add that to the accusation of plagiarism and everything else, and it’s all bad.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Can’t you see what’s happening here? There’s someone out to ruin me. I know who it is.”

  “Harry Spice? You’re going to try blaming him for all of this?” the dean said, sweeping his hand over the table that held all the damning evidence. “Ray Biles told me about your accusations against Harry Spice just this morning. Ray did some research and he thinks that case is starting to look like a miscarriage of justice. Are you aware that last week Harry Spice took a lie detector test and passed with flying colors? No deception, Gracie, no deception.”

  “What specifically did they ask him?”

  “They asked one question, whether he raped your roommate, Tamra. He replied no. The test showed that he was telling the truth. Can you explain that?”

  I fought to keep my voice down because my insides were rolling. “The machine is wrong.”

  The dean crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows. “And now you say Harry Spice is after you. Can you prove it?”

  “Not yet, but I will.” In spite of my confident tones, what I really wanted at that moment was for the floor to break open and swallow me whole. “I promise you that I will, and at that point, you’ll need a box of salt in order to eat all the crow.”

  “Bring on the salt.” The dean pushed back from the table and regarded me with guarded eyes. “I’ve been a dean here for the past five years. I always tell the students who are sent to me for disciplinary issues that I trust what they do and not what they say.”

  Trembling, I leaned over the table. “Good, because I didn’t do any of those things and you have no evidence to the contrary.”

  His reply was a shrug.

  The union rep got to her feet. “Look, Gracie, I’m your advocate. Sit back and let the system work for you.”

  My reply was a scathing glance at both of them. Without another word, I left the dean’s office and walked with stiff legs down the long hallway to my office.

  The system? Really? Harry Spice was using the system to ruin me. No way was I sitting back. The union rep’s words of comfort had exactly the opposite effect—they filled me with a terrible resolve. Upon returning to my office, I started to fire off an email to my advisor. But my fingers recoiled as if the keyboard were red hot. This computer had been used to tighten the bonds of guilt around my wrists. Probably it was so compromised that using it could only result in more harm to me. Thinking that my cell phone was more secure, I picked it up and then hesitated. What would he think to be hearing from me now, especially under such sensitive circumstances? I had no idea, but hoped he would be my ally at a time when I had few. Finally I decided not to contact him at all because I was afraid it would only make everything worse.

  The bright rage in my chest burned hotter. No one except Tamra and I had ever stood up to Harry Spice. Everyone had said that when I agreed to take the witness stand. Clearly this was why. A fierce and terrible opponent, he had used all his skills to ruin my personal and professional life, and he hadn’t missed a trick.

  For the first time ever, I second-guessed myself for standing witness against him. Obviously nothing good had come of it. He was on the streets and Tamra had gone into hiding. I thought of that night when I saw him in the hallway outside of Tamra’s and my apartment, walking toward me with his characteristic arrogant swagger. Of course I recognized him. Besides seeing him at my family’s winery, for months he’d been lingering on the edges of my and Tamra’s social circle. I’d caught him staring at her in a hungry way, watching him drink up her beauty and sweet nature like it was heavenly ambrosia. The hairs on the back of my neck had stood on end. When he had gotten close to me in the hallway that night, my mouth opened to demand what he was doing in the building, but he turned down a short hallway, opened a door, and was swallowed up by the stairwell. That was the night my fate tipped. I didn’t care what the lie detector said. Harry Spice was there that night. I felt that certainty the same way that I knew he was steering my fate right now.

  After checking the campus LMS to make sure he hadn’t posted something horrible for my students to see, I picked u
p my cell phone and tapped a message to Micah telling him what I needed him to do.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  For years I’d known that I had a sixth sense. My sister, Faith, called it my little voice. My dad called it, with some patronization, my woman’s intuition. My mom said I was just being squirrelly. Whatever it was, I only used it in small matters, like at the winery when I could always tell where an employee was bending the truth or which vendor to contact when we were short on something and the usual sources couldn’t help. This ability had given me the reputation of someone to call when there was a problem. Now as I paced in my animal-motif living room waiting for word from Micah, I stopped to stare at a Heart of Darkness poster. It seemed apt, since I found myself cast into a terrible and unknown place.

  Harry Spice had been working to ruin my life with a frightening thoroughness. People believed what they saw, and he had honed in on every single way possible to undermine me at my job and with my family. My brain burned with such wrath that my fingers wanted to tear my hair out. Who wouldn’t see me as culpable and out of control? My car had run down Loren Hernandez, my computer had sent the salacious emails, my application had gotten to the hiring committee when those of equally qualified candidates hadn’t, and a video portrayed my naked body wrapped around my sister’s fiancé. Even the most rational person would think that some of this had to be true. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? Weren’t clichés repeated through the generations because they held truth?

  For years the completely cogent part of me had in many cases overruled the little tingles of my sixth sense. But right now, with my life spinning out of control, logic failed me. I needed everything at my disposal, even the irrational, like my intuition. A knock sounded on my door, interrupting my thoughts. It was Micah. Stress had sketched lines on his face and thinned his mouth. He strode inside without waiting for a greeting and turned to face me amid the menagerie of animals.