by Dana Cameron
“Are you mouthing off to me?” Disbelief, as well as beer, perfumed his language. “You fucking nearly took the side off my Cam, you stupid bitch!” He didn’t appear to recognize me, but hey, it had been twelve years or more. I certainly hoped that I had changed somewhat since then.
Under other circumstances, I would have done almost anything to avoid him. But all that meant nothing now. I was so thankful for the confrontation, I could have screamed “hallelujah.” It was like the sum of every Christmas and birthday that ever was to have such a deserving target for all my pent-up rage, frustration, humiliation—my fury tasted so sweet that I invited it in to stay. I found myself aching for the chance to knock the teeth out of this son of a bitch.
I turned to him, and for once, I said just what was on my mind, rather than fuming about lost anger and missed chances hours later.
“You miserable piece of shit! I’m surprised they haven’t put you away yet, you psycho, because the better part of you was left on the mattress your mother used for work!” My blood was singing and I felt good for the first time in a long while. This was the sort of berserker rage that the Viking warriors prayed for.
Dim awareness that he had been insulted competed with clouded semirecognition of me. I knew Billy didn’t require any provocation, but it was like the band compressing my skull was finally being loosened.
“Oh, fuck this.” I could see the idiot bunching up his fist, telegraphing his next move like Western Union. I tensed, ready with a little surprise of my own, when we were both distracted by someone calling out my name.
“Emma! What’s going on here? Is there a problem?” A dark, slender man sidled alongside of me, coolly appraising my opponent.
“Jesus! Kam, get out of here! I can handle this!” But my surprise at seeing him was so great that all the bloodlust drained away, and was being rapidly replaced by dread. “Kam, don’t, I—”
“Back off, nigger!” Billy spat. “You got about three seconds to get out of here.”
Kam looked put out. “How bloody typical. Emma, you can pick them.” He turned to face Billy and continued, enunciating, in his fluid Oxonian tones. “I am not a nigger. However, if you insist on employing such scurrilous epithets, you might at least do me the courtesy of a little specific accuracy. For example, in my particular case, the appropriate words might be wog, or Paki bastard, or perhaps even rag-head, although you will notice I am not sporting the headgear that some of my countrymen sport, and really, even that expression is generally reserved for my dusky brethren farther to the west. In any case, it is sheer ignorance to use such a term, never mind confusing your racial slurs—”
Only momentarily transfixed and confused by this unexpected lecture, Billy suddenly turned from me and launched a well-practiced fist at Kam’s head. He missed completely, only to receive Kam’s tremendous blow to the solar plexus. The force of it knocked Billy backward onto the driver’s seat, smacking his head against the roof of the car. He slumped forward and sprayed beery vomit all over the gravel in front of him.
Kam hopped nimbly backward and avoided being splashed by the filth. I was not so quick, and the spatter effectively ended the useful life of my poor shoes. I stared a shocked moment at the shoes before I ripped them off and stuffed them into a green metal trash can spray-painted “St. Jude.”
“Anyone coming?” I demanded curtly.
“Not that I can see.” Kam politely ignored the fact that I hadn’t said a proper hello.
I reached up under my suit’s skirt and pulled off my pantyhose, wadded them up, and tuck them with the shoes on the top of the trash. Kam stood watching me silently; I glared back at him. I was in the process of splashing some of the sick off my foot in one of the tepid puddles when that gangly Deputy Sheehan meandered around the corner.
He paused to survey the parked car, noticed the mess on the gravel, and blanched—Deputy Denny Sheehan looked like he was a sympathetic puker. “Miss Fielding, what happened here? Oh man, that’s Billy again! You”—he gestured at Kam—“will you give me a hand with this?” He pulled the moaning Billy all the way out of the driver’s seat, set him, not too gently, on the sidewalk: Billy wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Denny put the car in neutral, then, with Kam’s help, he pushed the Camaro off to the side of the lot. By the time he came back I was prepared for the questions I knew he had for me.
“Could you tell me what happened, Miss Fielding? As if I didn’t already have a pretty good idea.”
I took a deep breath. “Griggs came bombing through the parking lot and almost rammed into the back of me. I got out to give him a piece of my mind, when he threatened me, and then attacked my friend here. Dr. Shah reacted in self-defense.”
Just saying it aloud drastically oversimplified the morass of emotions that had consumed me. But even simply repeating this abbreviated version, I managed to scare the hell out of myself pretty thoroughly. What had I gotten myself into? I started to tremble. It didn’t occur to me until just then that I stood a much better chance of being badly hurt than of doing any real damage.
Deputy Sheehan scratched his arm and nodded. “This isn’t anything new for Billy here, but you acted pretty silly, getting out of the car like that.” He turned to Kam. “You want to press charges?”
Kam shook his head.
“We’ll get someone to tow the car and let Billy sleep it off. We can charge him with DUI, not that it matters any, because his license is already suspended, but maybe he’ll spend a little time in the tank. Not much we can do with him; he seems to spend more time with us than at home, though maybe that’s a blessing for his wife.” Deputy Sheehan scribbled down a few of the details we gave him, and radioed into the sheriff’s department for a tow truck. He turned back to me, and I imagined that I was now looking every bit as worn out as I felt, now that the excitement was over. My bedraggled dress felt like it weighed about a hundred pounds in the humidity.
“Miss Fielding, I came back here to see if I could catch you. The sheriff needs to change your meeting to nine-thirty, okay? Schedule conflict.” The young deputy shifted his weight from one foot to the other for a moment, considering his next words. “Miss Westlake was a nice lady. I know that you were close to her, and since you’ve only been answering questions for us, you shouldn’t mind that old cat in there. I’m sorry for your loss.” He nodded at Kam, a gesture he had clearly acquired from his boss, and left us alone.
Steam rose off the puddles in the gravel. My feet now hurt me like the dickens from standing in one place on the gravel for so long, and I sat on the fender of the truck. Kam leaned over to me.
“You care to tell me what was going on there? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk like that before.”
“I always try to use small words and easy clichés when I’m insulting the intellectually challenged,” I explained. “If I’d had a minute to think, I might have been able to work his dog and his car into it too.”
“Emma—” Kam started.
“I didn’t need you to come barging in like that!” I snapped. One might have said I sounded ungrateful. “I was on top of things, okay? I didn’t need you to flounce in and save me!”
“No, you weren’t on top of things, you were picking a fight with an inebriated redneck who was intent on pounding you into jelly,” Kam said. “I’ve no doubt that you can handle yourself, but there are easier ways to commit suicide than by courting trouble like that.”
Those words had been flinty, the next were coaxing, softened with concern. “C’mon, it’s me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
That simple command broke the seal on Pandora’s box. My breath caught once, and all of a sudden the tears that before had come only sporadically came surging out. I caught the lapel of his jacket, and my howls were muffled by his arm around me. I couldn’t stop weeping, and for a long time he rocked me, making absurd, reassuring shushing noises.
It was a while before I quieted and sat up. I snuffled again, loudly, but finally. “I hope the dry cleaner can get
snot out of your Armani.”
“Never mind the jokes, girl. We’ve got to get you someplace where you can clean up and then we are going to talk.” He looked pained. “Besides, it’s not an Armani. It’s Hardy Amies, and you’d better never confuse the two in front of him. Give me the keys.” I started to protest but caught the look on his face and thought better of it. “We’ll come back for the Jag later. Now, which way out?”
Chapter 13
I TOOK MY TIME CHANGING INTO DRY SHORTS AND A sweatshirt after the silent trip back to the dorm. The air had cooled off after the rain, making everything uncomfortably clammy, and I knew that I would have to come across with some answers for Kam. In a further attempt to gather my wits, I dawdled over making two cups of tea. I knew he wouldn’t wait for me to go through the whole ritual to create the coffee I craved so badly…
“Why are you here?” I asked finally. “Isn’t this a little beyond the reaches of civilization for you? I mean, you can’t even get cornetti e cappuccino up here.”
When I saw that flippancy wasn’t going to get a smile out of Kam, I said simply, “I thought you were still in Chicago.”
“I finished up and left for home early,” Kam said, removing the tea bag from his mug. He took a sip from his tea and wrinkled his nose at the stale flavor. “Brian caught me when he got stuck in Pittsburgh. He was going off his head when he finally caught up with me, and so to keep him from having an aneurysm, I told him I’d come up and see how you were doing. I’m glad I did too.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“It means that, obviously, you’ve had a series of dreadful shocks and we thought someone should be here for you,” he said. “Now, no more fooling around. Tell me what I walked in on back there.”
I gave him a marvelously succinct description of the week’s events, including the scene with Claudette Peirce at the church and the news about Pauline’s endowment.
Kam said nothing for a moment, sipped his tea meditatively, more out of polite habit than desire, I suppose. It wasn’t very good tea. “That was a pretty remarkable thing for Pauline to have done,” he said reflectively. “No more struggling. You’ll be able to do whatever you want.”
It worked precisely as he expected: I exploded. “You’re missing the point entirely! You just don’t get—”
Then I figured out what he was up to and shut up in a hurry. But it was already too late.
“What don’t I get, Em?” The infuriating man looked all innocence as he pulled out his cigarette case. It was silver, an antique, no doubt, but one I had never seen him use before. It suddenly occurred to me that things might be heating up between him and Marty.
The words came very slowly, reluctantly, but only because I knew he wouldn’t let me off the hook now. I stared, fascinated, at the etched detail on the cigarette case, seeing it and not seeing it, wishing I was anywhere but here.
“It will only make it harder,” I said slowly, “for me. To establish myself on my own terms.”
“Go on.”
I heard the snap of Kam’s lighter, smelled the smoke of the Dunhill he lit; there was no way I could meet his gaze now. It took me a minute to summon up the courage I needed to reveal my thoughts.
“I mean, first it was Oscar, right? He called the chair at Coolidge University to help me get into graduate school. I wanted to go so badly, I didn’t even think about what that might mean later on. Then the Caldwell job came up, and of course, it just happens to be near where Oscar did most of his really important work. Then the fact that Pauline had this amazing site on her property and let me excavate it. You see now?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, quite.” Kam exhaled and was veiled in cigarette smoke.
I frowned at him frustratedly; he was being obtuse on purpose. “All my professional life I’ve had everything handed to me on a silver platter!” I shouted. “Everything I’ve ever done has been because someone else has done or given me something! Just when I thought I was going to be able to do something, get tenure, get my program established at Caldwell on my own, all that, Pauline steps in again and paves the way. I mean, she even gave me the site, but I found the fort, at least that much was my work. And now this—”
“That rotten cow,” he offered with mock sympathy.
“Kam, I’m serious!” I slammed my mug down on the table. “How will I ever know that I was able to make it on my own!”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Emma! Don’t be such a horse’s arse!” Kam was usually as impeccable with his language as he was with his clothing. “What, were you hoping to live in a vacuum, so you could prove yourself?”
“That’s just my point—” I started.
“Shut up a minute,” Kam commanded. “Now, listen to me. Was Oscar the sort to tolerate flummery? Carry a dead weight?”
This was idiotic. I didn’t answer.
“Was he?”
Truculently. “No.”
“No, of course not,” Kam said, unmollified by my acquiescence. “He had a reputation for being an exacting son of a bitch, did he not? I seem to remember Brian being rather intimidated the first time he met your grandfather, and we both know what it takes to daunt Happy Boy, right? So Oscar must have thought you had something to offer, or he wouldn’t have bothered. Don’t you intercede on behalf of talented students?”
“That’s different—”
“Oh come now, Emma!” He took another long drag on the cigarette, as if fueling his argument. “If it were really just a favor to your grandfather, the department at Coolidge needn’t have given you all that funding all those years, need they? If you were the drooling imbecile you seem to imagine you are, they could have just let you pay your tuition and flunk out, yes?
“And what about Pauline?” he continued. “Did she suffer fools, gladly or otherwise? We both know the answer to that, don’t we? And while we’re on the subject, what about your husband and friends? We’re not ninnies, so why would we waste our time loitering with someone who was?”
Suddenly Kam calmed down, and while his words were no less forceful, at least he was smiling to take some of the sting out. “Look, you. You’ve got your share of faults: You can be pigheaded, selfish, and didactic. I’m not denying that. You make revolting puns. You are an amazing slob, and I can’t imagine what kind of survival skills I’d need to deal with you before eleven in the morning,” he added.
“Hey, have a heart!” I protested.
But Kam grew serious again. “But you are also a brilliant, beautiful, kind woman, with a drive that scares the dickens out of most everyone you meet. That and your generosity and your curiosity will make you into the kind of person you are so afraid of not being. It is for those reasons that you have people rushing to do you favors. So forget proving yourself to the world, the world is convinced. Here endeth the sermon.” He leaned back and calmly swallowed some more of his tea.
I wasn’t pleased with most of his lecture, but the kindly ending made me feel even worse. Tears started oozing out of the corners of my eyes again, and I brushed at them impatiently. The hard wood of the bench was starting to wear my butt flat and I was getting tired, but I wasn’t done.
“There’s something else,” I said.
“Tell me.”
I finally said out loud the thought that I had been too loath even to think. “It’s Pauline. I can’t help feeling responsible…I’m convinced it was Tichnor who killed her, and he wouldn’t have ever bothered her if I hadn’t been there first.” I took a deep breath. “It’s my fault Pauline’s dead. All of this stuff, everything, has happened since I got here. Bodies, site robbers, Billy, arson…murder…” I lifted my hands helplessly.
“Don’t be such a git.” Kam sighed and stubbed out the tortured cigarette. “From all that you’ve told me, Pauline should have called the sheriff, not tackled this guy on her own. Most people would consider it extraordinarily foolish to approach a violent trespasser, with a criminal record yet, unarmed and alone.”
I flu
shed angrily and stood up, ready to leave before I had to listen to any more of that.
Kam pulled me back down onto the bench. “Calm down,” he said exasperatedly, as he dug out another cigarette. “I’m not blaming her at all. I’m only pointing out that there are a lot of ways of looking at this. She could have stayed in Boston, she could have stayed inside the house. Tichnor could have run when he saw her, he could have stayed in bed that day. And yes, you could have dug someplace else this year.
“But blaming yourself is an exercise in self-glorification. There are too many random occurrences that make up the circumstances in any one day for you to take the blame for this particular chain of events. Chances are, he would have been wandering around looking for artifacts or what all even if the dig weren’t on her property, right?”
I shrugged and looked away impatiently.
“I know what she was to you,” Kam said, grabbing my hand to emphasize his point. “Emma, I know. And I am damned sorry. But what would she think about anyone, anyone at all, trying to take responsibility for how she lived her life?”
That made me smile.
“Right,” he said. “And if anything, she is probably haranguing the devil himself to make sure that rotten little sneak thief gets an extra portion of whatever they’re doling in hell. So you’re straight out of the running. Don’t give it another thought.”
I mulled it over for a minute. His reasoning was logical, maybe even convincing, but it wasn’t entirely comforting. “Okay, you win,” I said tiredly. “Where’d you get your degree in psychology, anyway?” I wasn’t ready to thank him just yet.
“Oh, you know, Himalayan lamas and all. Same place I learned to sustain a woman in a continuous state of orgasmic pleasure for hours on end. The usual.” He leered pleasantly over the cigarette as he lit up again.