by Dana Cameron
“I was thinking Canada. Go up, get us some beers, Cohibas, a few Mounties. Have ourselves a party. What do you say?”
“Shoot, I can’t. I have lectures to write.” And a husband to placate, and a contractor to chase, and a house to patch up, and a villain to find…
“Aw, you’re no fun.”
“Not me.”
Back at home, the phone was ringing as I juggled my bag, the keys, my coffee, and the alarm code. I caught it on the last ring before the machine picked up.
“Hello-ow!” I tried to take a sip, but the cup had twisted around and coffee splashed out, burning my hand.
“Emma, what the hell are you getting into now?”
I set the cup down and brushed off the coffee. “Huh? Marty?” It sounded like my best friend, but she seldom used any kind of bad language since the baby came and her voice was high with hysterics. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Sophia! How could you get her involved—?”
“Wait! What’s wrong with Sophia? Is she sick?” My stomach plummeted at the thought of anything at all happening to my goddaughter. Marty’s usual dramatics were never about anything serious…
“—you don’t even think of what you’re doing, of how it will affect anyone else! And now Sophia—!”
“Marty! You have to calm down! Tell me what’s wrong with Sophia! Is she hurt?”
“Not hurt, but…” I heard my friend take a long, shuddering breath. “Her picture! It came to us…from a prison! The one we gave you! From a…oh, my God!”
“What picture?”
“The one I sent you last week! The one of her at her little friend’s first birthday party!”
It took me a minute to remember the occasion, but one thing I knew for a fact…“Marty, you never sent me a picture. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Emma.” I could hear her summoning up patience. “Last week. I sent you a card, with the pictures of Sophia, the ones I took of her with the baby rabbit that the next-door neighbors have. I finally got them printed and so I sent one to you.”
“I never got it.”
“But you must have…the one I got in the mail, it’s the one I sent you. I know because I had Sophia draw on the back and I wrote your name and dated it myself. It’s the same one, I’m telling you!”
Marty’s voice was hoarse; she’d been crying a long time.
I went cold, my mind racing. “Marty, listen to me. I never got the picture you sent to me. It never came to the house. Now…where are you telling me it came from? How did it get back to you?”
“That’s why I’m so…Emma, it came from a prison. From a prisoner. And the…implication was that he was getting out and going to come for…” She couldn’t even finish; I heard hard breathing and muffled sobs on the other end of the line.
“What!”
It took her a full minute to regain her composure. “All it said on the letter—just a piece of paper, really—was a name and the words “expected release date: September 10, 2004.” Emma, that’s in two weeks!”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “How do you know it came from the prison?”
“What? There were marks on the envelope. Official ones.”
“What prison was it?”
“Emma, what does that matter? Some bastard is threatening my daughter, and somehow, he’s got the picture I sent to you!”
“I’m trying to help figure this out. Did you call the cops?”
“Yes. Kam’s talking with them now.”
“Okay, that’s good. Now, look Marty, this is important, this can help. Someone’s been pulling…no, I can’t call it pranks. The other things, they’d been threatening, but so far, harmless. This might be more of it.” I tried to ignore the site and being followed the night before; they were aimed at me. “Now, which prison is it?”
She hesitated before answering. “Pine Island. I can’t believe that you are asking—”
“But don’t you see? This is good: Pine Island only houses minimum security prisoners. Not the sort of person who…might be a threat to Sophia. And I’m not sure they’re actually allowed to mail anyone anything besides the letter, you know? I think there’s a good chance it’s a hoax—”
“There is no one who’s going to be a threat to Sophia,” my friend said, her voice steadier, surer now. “Emma, you tell whatever freaks you’ve been hanging around with, or following, or pissing off, or whatever that they don’t get near her. I see anything, anything at all and I…I have a gun. I’ll sure as hell use it. You tell them, Emma.”
I’d never heard of Marty having a gun before. The sound of her voice drove whatever warmth there might have been from my body. “Marty! It’s not me, I…I’m trying to help, listen to me!”
“Do you hear what I’m telling you? I’m telling you that someone is threatening my baby, and you…you ask me questions. Jesus, Emma, do you need to sound so goddamned calm? Do you even care?”
Marty’d never cared about my investigations before, but I’d always turned them into anecdotes for telling over margaritas. And…this was Sophia. It wasn’t that I was calm; I was just trying to cope. “Yes, of course I do. And I think…I think it’s Tony Mar—”
“Yeah, so you’ve said. And so Brian told Kam, who’s told me that he’s worried about you. And why in the name of God are you making this about you rather than my baby’s safety?”
But Brian believed me now, I thought irrationally. “I’m not, I swear to you! Marty, I’m trying to help—”
“I don’t care who it is, Emma. I don’t care what it might be. You brought this on me, on us, you fix it—”
“I’m trying—” I found myself close to tears now.
“It’s one thing if you’re going to get into stuff that has nothing to do with you, that’s your business. But you’ve got no right to get Sophia anywhere near any of this. You keep the hell away from us.”
And then she hung up.
Chapter 9
AFTER MARTY HUNG UP—SLAMMED DOWN—I stood there for a while, trying to take it all in, trying, in some small, selfish way, to minimize the danger, to be able to dismiss Marty’s anger much as Brian had tried to maintain that I was imagining Tony was behind all these events. But all I could do was remember that day at the hospital….
The first time I met Sophia Asefi-Shah, I thought she was the least convincing person I’d ever seen. Marty looked like hell and I could fully believe that Sophia’d just come out of my best friend because she looked like something that had just been removed from a human body. I held the baby and tried to hide my reaction and realized there wasn’t really much to recommend her; in addition to scarlet lumpiness, her head was huge in comparison to the rest of her body, she had all sorts of spots on her face where she wasn’t covered in thick, downy black hair, and her eyes were screwed shut. Yet, she was tiny and infinitely vulnerable; she weighed so little in my arms that I worried lest I forget she was there and she simply float off. I had to hold her tightly, but not so tight that I would crush her. Then one eye opened, brownish and opaque, her froggy little lips yawned wide, and her eensy little hand flexed open and then closed, grasping for something she didn’t know she wanted, something that might not even be within her reach.
Suddenly, I wanted to take piano lessons.
I wanted to brush up on my French, really learn which constellations were where, improve my writing skills, and take first-aid classes. I wanted my green belt in Krav Maga, and vowed silently to redouble my efforts toward that goal, because I understood with perfect clarity the ancient instinct that Sophia was now a part of my herd and I would die to protect her. Everything I knew, I wanted to teach to little Sophia. I was already planning how I would introduce her to Shakespeare, starting off with the sonnets to get her used to the language and the images, and then introduce the plays and their characters. I would teach her how to pee in the woods without getting her feet wet, how to use my power tools safely, how to look at a recycling bin and identify the ethnic background and economic aspi
rations of my neighbors, the best way to tie your sneakers, so that you didn’t get shin splints when you went for a run. I wanted to teach her everything I knew. I wanted her to be ten times better at it than I was.
It was over in a heartbeat. But the memory of it was imprinted on me forever.
“Funny looking, isn’t she?” Marty had yawned. “The doctors say she’ll improve over time, but I’m not counting my chickens just yet.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kam took Sophia away from me with an ease that suggested he’d been wrangling babies all his life. “My Sophia is the most beautiful girl in the world, the nonpareil of babies.” He pressed his face close to hers. “Yes, she is. She’s magnificent.”
Kam now had another woman in his life to worship.
“And I?” Marty hauled herself up in bed, wincing, and I handed her a glass of water. She looked like hell, which scared me, but if she was fishing for compliments, she couldn’t be too far off her usual form.
“You, my dear, are the only person in the world who could have produced such a miraculous baby. It is clear that she got all of her looks from you, and the best thing she could do with her life would be to imitate you in every respect. She is the most beautiful girl in the world, but you my dear”—he kissed his wife on the forehead—“are a goddess.”
Marty’s hair was slicked back with sweat, her eyes were puffy from crying and dark-lined from lack of sleep, and her skin was slack and sallow. Still, she smiled; and if Kam had been telling me that—he believed it with every fiber of his being—I would have believed him too.
Putting down the phone, I thought about what Marty had told me and, suddenly, I felt my stomach heave. I made it to the bathroom, felt the tiles dig into my knees as I stumbled across the floor to the toilet, just in time. I wiped my mouth, flushed, and then washed my face. That’s m’girl, Emma. Keep your cool when your friend needs you to melt down, and lose it after.
I didn’t look in the mirror, I didn’t want to see what would be looking back at me. I felt the shakes come on, and clutched the sink until it had passed.
God, what was I doing? It was one thing to get myself into this, it was another to drag everyone else into it.
But I wasn’t dragging anyone, I protested; they were being targeted by a crazy man. It wasn’t my fault. I tried to stop him, had at least got the police pointed at him, exposed him at least. If he couldn’t stay decently escaped, then that wasn’t my fault.
Sophia wouldn’t be endangered, at least not in Marty’s mind, if it weren’t for you…
Yeah, well. How the hell was I supposed to predict this would happen? And if I had, wouldn’t I have taken steps to avoid it?
Marty wants me out of her life. Away from her and Kam and Sophia, and oh, God…
How the hell did someone in the Pine Island lockup get Sophia’s picture? A picture that was mailed to me? I mulled over that a while and realized that I’d been at home when Marty claimed that she’d sent the picture. When I hadn’t been home, the alarm had been on. Something gnawed at me, and I realized that I’d left Artie alone one day when I’d gone to CaféNation. I’d ask him if he’d noticed anything. The mail usually came late morning; maybe he could shed some light on this. He might have seen someone at the box at the end of the driveway, especially if he was on a cruller break.
The phone rang again; it was Kam.
“Emma, I’ve just finished with the police. It’s just as you said, it appears to be a hoax.” I’d never heard him sound so serious and he was a serious guy.
I exhaled in relief. “Thank God for that. Did they say—”
He continued on, as if he hadn’t heard me. “It doesn’t much change things for us. It still remains: Someone has threatened my daughter. And you seem to be connected.”
I almost protested, but caught myself: He had a point. “At least tell me, what did the cops say?”
“They said it was a fake but it had all the right marks. Very convincing.” He paused, then said, “They wanted to know where the picture came from. It had your name on the back, of course. And I assured them, it couldn’t be you.”
“Thanks for that.” I tried not to sound as bitter as I felt. “I never even saw the picture. Marty says she sent it to me? Then someone must have intercepted it, taken it from the mailbox—”
Kam had no time for my speculation. “Emma, the police believed me. But…they took less convincing than Marty will. She’s not sure what’s going on, but I strongly urge you to…give her some space. Until we know what is going on, for certain.”
I had to protest now. “She knows it isn’t me! How could she ever—?”
“She doesn’t think it’s you, not truly, but there’s some connection and, Emma…this is our daughter. I think you’ll agree that whatever your friendship with Marty may be, Sophia and her well-being will always come first. And Mariam’s…more than scared. Please, just don’t call, don’t come by until we get this sorted out. Please? For me? I know you’ll understand. It’s Sophia.”
“I understand,” was all I could bring myself to say. “I won’t call.” Then I blurted angrily, “Does Brian get to talk to you at work?”
“Don’t be like that!” Kam pleaded.
“Be like what? I’m not the one who’s talking crazy about guns. I’m not the one who threatened Sophia—we’ve even found out it’s a hoax! And if I talk to you, I might be able to help.”
“Marty doesn’t agree. I’m sorry, Em.”
He hung up.
I don’t believe this, I thought. I’m getting out of here.
I called Brian and told him about Sophia; irrationally, I didn’t want to, but I knew that Kam might say something next time he was at work. Brian said nothing for a moment, then asked all the same questions I had. It was so frustrating; he couldn’t make any more sense of it than I. Finally, he just asked me to be careful, and we said goodbye.
I checked my email upstairs to confirm the time that I was supposed to have coffee with Dora. Now, because it was Dora, it wouldn’t be a watery cup of something brown from a cart on the quad. Dora had her own espresso maker in her office; as far as I knew, only her TAs were allowed to touch it, and only after extensive training and a probationary period. I could use a dose of Dora’s bravura, too. I needed something.
The drive up to campus gave me a chance to think about things. Traffic was still pretty light, but in just a week, the roads would be clogged with cars full of parents, students, hopes and expectations and dread.
I realized that even before I saw Dora, I needed to see my painter, Dominic Harding. Known primarily as a portraitist in the eighteenth century, there was a tiny landscape of his I’d fallen in love with. Fortunately, Dora and Dominic’s landscape were both in the Caldwell College Fine Arts building.
The stairs to the building were uneven and worn, the stone buffed by generations of feet and thousands of first-year art students’ bottoms as they sat pondering art, philosophy, and the hot guy in the black jeans. The doors opened, the smell of floor polish and old canvas hit me, and a calm stole over me.
I was in no particular hurry, I had time before our meeting. Strolling past the temporary installation of student work in the central hall, none of which I understood, a scuffling and a crackling of radio static caught my ear. Campus police, Caldwell County police, and EMTs with a stretcher invaded the gallery from behind me, and moved past me in a phalanx. It wasn’t that I was following them, it was just that they were heading in the same direction I was, toward the American room.
Brightly lit with indirect sunlight, the high ceilings of the room had always been more of a church to me than any holy structure. I came here for repose, meditation, recreation, to visit art that was not a professional specialty, but a comfort as familiar to me as my face in the mirror.
That sanctuary had been violated. I picked up my pace, curious, a knot of dread tightening in my stomach. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me, I told myself, but I was going to find out for sure.
The EMTs were busy in two areas. One was tending to a young woman with dark hair, her slight build made smaller by a white lab coat. She was hyperventilating and her brown eyes were wide: the police were gathered around her. Another group, the one with the stretcher, was in the room just beyond.
I had just decided that I would come back later—surely it was a nasty coincidence, none of my business—when Dora stormed into the room. She ignored me, saw the empty space, frowned, and addressed herself to the woman in the lab coat.
“Ms. Reibach, what is going on here? What’s happened?” Dora’s words were, as usual, a command, but there was something in the way that she said it that seemed to reassure Ms. Reibach, who was able to catch her breath.
“Professor, I…there was this man. He…started talking to me. Asking me strange questions. But…then he…he just took the little Harding landscape and put it into a backpack.” She took another shuddering breath, trying to collect herself. “I tried to stop him. He shoved me, and I fell.”
“I don’t think there’s a fracture,” one of the EMTs said. “But you might want to come along with us, get an X ray. Could be a concussion.”
The young woman wasn’t registering any of this. “I think I was out of it…maybe. Just for a couple of seconds,” she said, measuring each word carefully, as if that would help her make sense of what had happened. “When I came around, I called security. And that’s when I found…” She began to gasp again, waving toward the other room. “Jim wasn’t moving!”
Not Jim, I thought, I’ve heard wrong. It can’t be, this wasn’t happening. He was the nicest guy, loved his job, always said hello to me, always happy to help people—
“Lois? Lois, it’s okay. My buddy Cliff is in there, and he’s going to do his best job on your friend in there—Jim’s his name?”