Site Unseen

by Dana Cameron

  “Kam told me everything.”

  “Kam? How does he know about Tony?”

  Now it was Brian’s turn to look puzzled. “Tony? Who’s talking about Tony? I’m talking about Billy Griggs, that guy Kam found you with in the church parking lot. Wasn’t he the one who tried to kill you in high school?”

  Light finally dawned, a little late. “Billy—oh hell, I completely forgot about him! I thought I told you about that when you came back…” I tried to recall just what had taken place on Brian’s return from California. “No, no, I didn’t, because by that time you were home and I was having my talk with Sheriff Stannard. Then that trip to Tichnor’s house kind of put Billy on the back burner. I’m sorry, hon, what do you want to know?”

  Brian stared in disbelief. “You pick a fight with some nut who’s ready to beat the stuffing out of you and you’re asking what I want to know? You can’t believe how worried I’ve been since Kam mentioned it the other day. He figured that you’d already told me. I didn’t know what to think!”

  I was startled by his vehemence. It wasn’t that Brian was angry; it was just that he doesn’t usually get this excited about much besides work…and me, I suppose. So I told him what had happened with Billy, including my discussion about Pauline’s death with Kam.

  “It was a lot to process,” I finished. “I really did forget. I’m sorry you were startled when Kam mentioned it.”

  Brian gave me a skeptical look. “Startled wasn’t the word that sprang first to my mind, Em. I thought Kam was making it up, for God’s sake! He was getting a little weirded out when I kept telling him to knock it off.” He set the mugs down in front of me. “Imagine my surprise. Anything else you forgot to tell me about?”

  I took a sip of the nasty, unnatural decaf. “No, that’s pretty much it. You know everything else. I mean, he swung by the site the day after I found the body, but then I found that he and Augie knew each other. He didn’t even recognize me in the parking lot.”

  “And Tony. What was it about Tony—Markham?—that so suddenly sprang to mind when I asked about Billy?”

  “Oh.” I looked up guiltily. “Well, now, I was going to tell you about that, but you just kinda drove that out of my mind. It’s not like I know anything for sure, I just found something really disturbing before I left school.”

  Bless Brian; he sat there and listened to every scrap of my supposition, speculation, and suspicion without interrupting. And he waited until I was done to start shooting down my conclusions as nicely as possible.

  “You’ve got some real neat circumstantial evidence, Em, but I don’t think you’ve got anything that is very solid,” he said, almost apologetically. “I mean, look at the obvious things. Why would Tony have left that map in the case, where anyone could find it?”

  I chewed my lip. “I don’t know. Maybe he panicked and didn’t want it found on him.”

  Brian’s eyebrows disappeared under his hair. “But who would be looking for it, pork chop? All you’ve got is a photocopy of a map showing your site and some people who were never within eyesight of each other once, as far as you know. No motive, no evidence, no connections besides a little anxious coincidence.”

  I got up and led the way into the bedroom. Brian grabbed me in a bear hug and flung us both backward onto the bed. “Ooof, you’re a big girl, aren’t you?”

  I stopped laughing. “You’re going too far now!”

  “You’re right, I’m getting carried away. You’re only a medium-sized girl, with a lot packed on. Hey, wait a minute.” He stopped wrestling and looked at me seriously. “Do you see my point? I trust your instincts, but I don’t think you’ve got a lot to go on here.

  I sighed. “I know. It sounds different, saying it out loud to you. I don’t know, maybe it’s just stress, guilt, on top of everything else.”

  “Maybe. If you feel strongly about it though, why don’t you just talk to that sheriff who’s been working on this?” Brian asked. “You said he was decent, right?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I’ll think about it,” I said, yawning. It was very late.

  “Look, just try to take it easy. Pauline’s death was a bad surprise, and it’s hit you, us, hard. Lots of emotional stuff going on inside. Be careful about looking after yourself, okay? I know you’ve got to deal with this your own way, but just don’t beat yourself up for it, it’s not your fault. Remember that.”

  We snuggled for a while, then fell asleep. But around four in the morning, I sat bolt upright with the astonishing, obvious thought that all I’d have to do was have a really close look around the department to make sure that everything was just as Brian had said.

  Chapter 18

  I CAUGHT AN EARLIER BUS SUNDAY, OSTENSIBLY TO GET back to Caldwell to get some work done and have an early night before another busy week. I also wanted to have a look around the storeroom that night, before anyone came in Monday morning. When I left, Brian had beamed at me approvingly, and I rationalized that I was only doing as he said, taking care of myself, handling things my own way. On the bus I started to get nervous about what I was planning to do, what it would mean if, against all the odds, I found something, and what it would mean for me personally if there really was nothing to find.

  The light was starting to fade in the sky and there was the muted sound of competing stereos coming from the dormitories around the quad. There were a few students moving about, though most everyone was probably at dinner. Those I saw scurried with the sort of subdued panic that comes with the realization that the beginning of a brand-new week, with all of its deadlines, loomed but six hours away. A cool breeze picked up as the sun set, a reminder that the interlude between a Maine summer and a Maine winter was glorious but brief.

  As I jogged up the stairs of the Arts and Sciences Building, I was steeped in the feeling that I was doing something dishonest, despite the fact that I had legitimate access to the building and to the department. My heart started to pound, and the tingling sensation that signaled an increased level of adrenaline started at my toes, and got stronger and more insistent as it spread up my back. My movements became jerky, and sweating hands caused me to fumble endlessly with the lock on the outer door.

  Oh, get over it, Emma, I chided myself. You’re not doing anything wrong. A little weird and obsessive perhaps, but nothing that would bruise even the most delicate of moral or legal sensibilities. In fact, you are the good guy here. Straighten up and fly right.

  Yeah, but it’s scary, a little voice whimpered back to me. What if I find something? I don’t want to find out that Tony’s a murderer. Not Pauline’s murderer. See? I’m even ready to let him off the hook for Tichnor. I don’t care, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be here.

  Well, you don’t know any of that yet, I soothed myself. And I know for a fact that Dave Stannard will call up tomorrow and tell you that everything is fine and he figured it all out. So no problem. Let’s just take a deep breath, go up the stairs, and have a look around, okay? Hey, we can even get some work to bring home if that will make you feel better—

  Liar! You’re lying, you know Stannard isn’t going to call. And what would Brian say? You know Brian wouldn’t like—

  This is just the sort of careful, logical thing that Brian would want me to do. You’re looking for excuses. You can shiver later, when you’ve got reason. Now knock it off and get going.

  Still unconvinced of the sanity of my mission, I forced my hands steady, opened the door, and began the climb to the third floor. The elevators were shut down for the weekend and the hallway lights were on night mode and barely lit up the dim staircase. The familiarity of the surroundings contrasted oddly with the half-lit shadows. I quieted my footsteps unconsciously, not from fear of discovery, but to keep the echoes from intruding on the extraordinary silence of the corridors.

  I unlocked my own office and quickly turned on the lights. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I felt reassured. There were shelves and shelves of my books, familiar friends and enemies; there was the l
ittle case full of some prized artifacts from sites I’d worked on; there was the couch that was perfect for reading and sleeping. I put down my bags and took a sip out of the open soda can that was the only thing left in my little fridge; it was flat, but the sweetness was a relief after the bout of nerves I had given myself downstairs. I convinced myself that most of my shaking had to do with low blood sugar.

  Having established myself in my sanctuary, I was a little ashamed of my trepidation outside, but I couldn’t quiet the nerves that still jangled. A thought occurred to me that I had never taken the chance at home to carefully examine the photocopy of the map that I found in the map file, the twin of the one that we found on Tichnor’s bulletin board. Perhaps a little focused study would yield some clues and give me a moment to calm down.

  I slid the paper out of my briefcase—such a little thing to get so upset about, I told myself. I flicked on the switch to the small light table I had, a relic of Oscar’s with which I invoked Grandpa’s keen eye and acute mind. When the light stopped flickering and steadied, so, it seemed, did my nerves. The very act of doing something so ordinary, of looking at a document for clues to its origin and meaning, brought calm: I knew what I was doing here. I picked up a small loupe and began to study.

  First the paper. It was a modern photocopy, that much was clear enough, and although it had been pressed very flat, the photocopy was a little dog-eared and there were still minute creases in the paper. Okay, so it was new but had been kicking around for a little while. Not years, but more than a week or two, probably. There was no watermark, it was just cheap copy paper, but as I looked beyond the paper itself, to the image, I realized that there were clues there as well. For one thing, there were dark spots on the paper that looked like the small imperfections that one sees in old, well-made linen paper, bits of flax stem, maybe. So my initial evaluation of the handwriting seemed to be confirmed; this was probably an eighteenth-century document. I considered the possibility that the copier on which this was made had been dirty, but realized that I could see the faintest shadow of one of the drawn lines overlying one of the marks—the dark spot had been written over.

  The map itself was not particularly revealing and I found nothing more than I had seen when I first looked at the copy at Tichnor’s house with Sheriff Stannard. Although the labels were in French, it was clear that it showed Fort Archer and the ruins of Fort Providence along the Saugatuck River. Although I already had some indication that my fort, the seventeenth-century fort, had been destroyed, it was nice to know that it was in ruins by the latter part of the eighteenth century. But it didn’t tell me anything more I didn’t already know about either site. There were some small marks made along the center of the river, close to the squares that represented Fort Archer, but I assumed that these were indications of channels in the river.

  Wait. I looked at those marks more carefully. They weren’t channel marks, or at least two of them weren’t. Two of them looked like little half moons. I wouldn’t be able to find out what they meant until I discovered where the map came from.

  The only thing left was the blurred library stamp that was in the lower right-hand corner. I moved the lens over that and was immediately gratified. I couldn’t see too much more than I had before, but the letters that I could see were vastly clearer with the loupe. A series of letters resolved themselves for me, the end of a word,—rid. The word after that began with an E, not a B as I had believed before: Esp—.

  An enormous weight tumbled off me as I realized I had not missed the map through some stupid error. It was now clear that the map had come from somewhere I never would have thought to look: Madrid, Spain. A tingling rushed over me, the same way it does when I find what I’m looking for in the library or a hunch has paid off: The game is afoot. For a moment I felt a twinge of guilt that I was getting such satisfaction from this hunt, but then realized that anything that got me closer to the reason for Pauline’s death was worth celebrating.

  Even as I congratulated myself on having figured that out, I began to wonder how an English document showing fortifications had ended up in Madrid. Spain and England had seldom, throughout history, enjoyed the best of international relationships. I shrugged. It was an accident of history, documents ended up in odd places for the oddest of reasons. It might possibly have been the result of espionage—but it was more likely that this had probably been intercepted en route back to England and had spent the next two hundred years languishing, unnoticed, in the archives in Madrid.

  There was one more thing, however, that caught my attention. Like the copy at Tichnor’s, the corner of the photocopy showed that at least one page had been folded over. There had been more than one page associated with this map. If I could find what had been on the pages that came before, I might have a much better idea of what was going on around here.

  I flicked off the light box and slowly put the photocopy back in my briefcase.

  So, I thought. How about a little trip to the storage room now?

  I couldn’t put it off any longer and there was really no rational reason to. I walked back into the semidark hall, paused before the storage room door, and took out my keys. The key fit smoothly into the padlock and twisted open readily, seemingly eager to reveal the innocence that lay within. I found the light switch easily and switched it on.

  The room was just as it had been when I left on Friday afternoon. There was no reason to assume that it should not have been. But something made me open the drawer to the map file in which I’d found the out-of-place photocopy.

  At first everything appeared as I remembered leaving it, but then I realized that something was different. Instead of the lower edges being neatly aligned, as I had done when I’d straightened them out, the maps had been shuffled around and were lying scattered across the bottom of the drawer.

  Someone had been here since I’d left on Friday. Someone who was in there after Tony and I had left. My mind raced—who could it have been? No one else would have needed anything in this drawer, it was all New England, mostly Maine, and I was the only one doing fieldwork of any sort around here. No one but the faculty and administrator had keys to the room.

  Tony had said we were the last ones still around the department. Tony had seen me with the maps. Tony had come back to see if I had seen the map from the Spanish archive.

  Quietly, mechanically, I shut off the light and relocked the door. I leaned heavily against it, trying, with no success, to shut off the flood of thoughts that was cascading through my mind. For the life of me, I couldn’t decide if the panic spreading over me was the reasonable result of solid intuition or hysteria, blowing perfectly ordinary things out of proportion. After a minute I was left with only the internal voice that had nagged me downstairs.

  See? my doubtful self said. It’s every bit as bad as I warned you. You have to admit now, something’s definitely up.

  Yes, it certainly looks that way.

  Can I panic now?

  Well, yes, perhaps a bit of controlled hysteria could be usefully channeled now. Nothing too extreme, mind; we need to keep our head straight.

  What do you mean? We’re out of it! Remember what Brian said? Just call Stannard and let him do his job!

  Don’t twist that conversation around. I will talk to Stannard, but he needs some proof. We’re going to get it. We need more information.

  Wait, where are we going? Where are we?

  Well, it looks like we are standing in front of Tony’s office door.

  Oh, jeez, I moaned to myself. Snooping around after hours is one thing, this is illegal!

  So’s murder. But hey, don’t you remember your Berkeleyian logic? Well, this is only illegal if you someone catches you doing it. So pipe down while I see if any of my keys fit his lock.

  The question of trying to break into Tony Markham’s office didn’t trouble me as much as I thought it would. Certainly the panic welled, and I was nearly put off by the fear of getting caught. But the fact that someone, probably Tony, had come
back to check the storage room changed everything. I was committed to this; it was no longer an idle intellectual game or an abstract concept or a fantasy concocted in a tired mind. It was real now, and since I believed he had set the rules, I would now play by them.

  I ran quickly through my keys; if the size of the key ring was any indication of the power that one wielded, then it was perfectly clear that I was still departmental small fry. I was just contemplating whether I should try a credit card on the creaky old door with the resistant lock when a firm hand clamped on my shoulder.

  Chapter 19

  I SCREAMED LONG AND LOUD AND THREW MYSELF AROUND to face my captor. I spun too hard, too far, and smacked my liberated shoulder painfully into the doorjamb. I felt rather than saw my assailant stumble against the opposite wall with a muffled exclamation, and I kept on screaming, even when I recognized the owner of the hand as the department’s administrator, Chuck Huxley. Still pumped, I resisted kicking him as he lay sprawled only by the narrowest of margins.

  “Aaarrrgghhh!” Bang! I slammed into the door behind me with my fist. “Good sweet Jesus, Chuck! What the hell are you trying to do to me? You nearly gave me a coronary!” Startlement and anger temporarily transformed me into the inquisitor and not the almost-burglar.

  “Whoa there, Dr. Fielding!” Chuck picked himself off the floor and made what he apparently thought would be the sort of palms-down, calming gestures one might make to quiet a mad dog. “Deep breath, you’re shooting some rilly spikin’ auras there! Baaad energy, the worst kind. Just slooow down, and get those chakras opened up again.”

  I successfully restrained myself from grabbing Chuck by his long, leather-bound ponytail and smacking his head repeatedly against the wall, chanting “I know” (Bang!) “you were raised in Orono!” (Bang! Bang!) “Do not dude me” (Bang!) “or speak to me” (Bang!) “in surfing syllables!” (Bang, bang, bang!). Some fantasies are better left unexplored.