Warming Trend

by Karin Kallmaker

  “I know.”

  All the while, the notebook in the middle of Monica’s desk glowed as if it were some kind of malevolent artifact. “But if you’d never found it here in your office, it wouldn’t change anything. What if it were found…elsewhere?”

  “People will always think you took it, then. Everyone else was searched, thoroughly. Intrusively. The sleds were dismantled, all the supply bags and tent packs examined. If it’s found here, then clearly someone stole it. It’s not back at the site.” Monica paced the tiny area behind her desk. “Who would do this to me?”

  “It’s not fair.” Ani couldn’t help the note of panic in her voice. “If they find it here, in your office, you get blamed. And that takes out the whole project. Your whole thesis. The hope of getting some real action before it’s too late for the entire region.”

  “I can fight it, Ani. It’s not fair, but it’s not over.” Monica paced a rapid circuit around her office. “Look, I’m going to go find Malmoat and drag him back here. He can decide on the next step.”

  “Do you think he’ll support you?”

  Her expression grim, Monica said, “Honestly, I don’t know. I bring in the money. But he’s passed me over for a few opportunities. I’ve always thought he was a closet case homophobe and I had to watch my step. Damn. I do wish to hell it would disappear off the face of the earth, if I was going to have to pay this kind of price.”

  With that, she left Ani alone again. The notebook continued to gleam at Ani, almost as if it were blinking. If it’s never found, Ani thought, I’m no worse off than I was when I got here this morning. I didn’t steal it from Kenbrink. It was someone else’s ill will that removed it from Kenbrink’s team. And it really sounded as if…Monica couldn’t come right out and say it…tell her to…

  The next few minutes were a blur. She picked up the notebook and sealed her fate. It took only a moment to slip it under her shirt, tucked into the top of her jeans. The polypropene cover immediately stuck like glue to her sweaty skin.

  When she hurried through the corridors her first thought was the boiler, as Monica had said. Burn it up, make it forever gone. It would be simplest. Even as she considered it, she realized there was no way she could bring herself to destroy research. It was evil to take knowledge out of the world. Maybe she could simply hide it where it would be found easily. Everyone would think she’d taken it, gotten scared when the search started and dumped it, but they wouldn’t be able to prove it. All the fuss would die down, though, because the notebook had at least been found, and would go back to Kenbrink’s research partner.

  You just put your fingerprints on it, fool. So she’d wipe it clean. Fingerprints were only bad news for her and Monica, the two innocent people. With academic gain or sordid lesbian affair as a motive, her fingerprints would prove she was guilty, but fingerprints from any of Kenbrink’s people wouldn’t be proof of anything. So she’d wipe it clean. It didn’t hurt anything. God, she wanted it all to go away.

  Monica knew the truth and Monica would make sure that her doctorate, her future, didn’t suffer for this. She had to trust that, even as she was starting to think she might regret this impulsive decision.

  She passed the auditorium, the cafeteria, encountering only a few people but no one she knew. Where could she stash them that wouldn’t attach blame to someone else? She didn’t want anyone else in trouble. There were security cameras at the parking lot, the main entrance and the back doors. The dorm wing was equally covered with cameras, but the classroom wing… She changed course and took the next set of stairs down a half-level to the facilities area. There was no way she could exit the building without being recorded, but she might be able to get the notes out, thanks to a fellow classmate who smoked. The entire facility was smoke-free, including the dorm rooms. The rarely used secondary loading dock had a window that slipped open where smokers would go if the weather was so foul they couldn’t countenance using the outdoor smoking area. Even better, it was not much farther than the boiler room.

  The dock was empty, as usual, and she sprinted up the ladder to the catwalk. The window wasn’t designed to open except for emergencies. The safety latch had been worn down—Ani suspected it had been “helped” to do so—and without breaking the other seals, would open not quite a foot.

  She flipped the latch and pushed, then experimented with how far she could get her arm out the window. To the left, down a slope, was a concrete-lined drainage ditch that sometimes carried spring runoff. It wasn’t that far, and even if she didn’t make it, it would look as if someone had panicked and at least tried.

  Which was pretty much what had happened, she mused. She hesitated. If she did nothing, they were going to blame her and Professor Tyndell. If she screwed this up, they’d only blame her, and the people who had set up the professor wouldn’t get what they wanted. And this might work, and she might get clear enough, with Monica’s support, to put all of it behind them both.

  Using her shirt she scrubbed at the notebook cover as hard as she could. From top to bottom, the spine, the clasps, around and around. Realizing she’d get prints on it once again, she doffed her shirt and used it as a glove. Once she was satisfied that all fingerprints were at least smudged beyond recognition, she slipped the notebook to the other side of the window and did her best attempt at a slow pitch to heave it toward the drainage culvert. It landed face down, several feet above the ditch, but skittered across the firm ground to teeter on the edge. Ani watched in disbelief as it wavered in the eddies of wind. Finally, after a few seconds, it went over the lip, out of her sight. From the other direction, the culvert was visible from many of the faculty offices in the other wing. Someone would see the bright blue, especially when everyone knew what was missing.

  She pulled her shirt back over her head, and lost no time getting out to the corridor, running past the boiler room and back up the stairs.

  She had only made it around one corner before they found her. She knew it sounded lame, out of breath and flushed, to say, “I had to go to the bathroom.”

  Dean Malmoat started to say something, but Monica cut him off with, “Where are the notes, Ani?”

  Sticking to the literal truth, she said, “I don’t have them. I didn’t take them from Professor Kenbrink, either.”

  Dean Malmoat said, “The fact that they weren’t in your pack I’m afraid doesn’t clear you of anything. At this point they could be anywhere.”

  Ani tried to look calm even as her mind grappled with the scenario. So Monica hadn’t told him about the notebook in her office yet? Had they walked into her office and she’d seen it was gone and realized that Ani had decided to do the one thing that would get them out of this mess? Her proximity to the boiler room had to be obvious to Monica.

  “Ani.” Monica’s patience was exaggerated. “Just tell us where they are, and it doesn’t have to be this way.”

  Ani tried so hard to say with her eyes that everything was going to be okay now. The bright blue cover would be spotted within twenty-four hours. Slowly, she said, “I didn’t take them from Professor Kenbrink, and maybe it’s time to search the route we took from camp two. Anybody could have stashed them along the way.”

  Dean Malmoat said firmly, “Oh, we’re going to search all right. If we have to we’ll search your friend’s house too.”

  There was an extra edge to the way he said friend that made Ani realize Monica was right about him. He wouldn’t stick up for either of them. Over his shoulder, Ani made fleeting eye contact with Tan Salek, who was watching all of them carefully. Her expression was not as hostile as the Dean’s, nor as accusatory as Monica’s. Ani had to look away, though, because the disappointment in Tan’s eyes was obvious. With a sinking feeling, she realized she did care about some people having a good opinion of her. Then it hit her between the eyes that she hadn’t even given a thought to what Eve would think. Surely Eve would realize she’d done the best she could.

  Well, when the notebook was found, there’d be no way to tie it
to Monica, and if people wanted to believe that Ani had ditched it in the culvert somehow, at least Monica knew why. Tan had always been so supportive—she’d give her the benefit of the doubt.

  “What did you do it for, Ani?” Monica looked tentative, like she was on the verge of telling the dean the rest of the story.

  Please, Ani pleaded silently, just let it be. We can weather this.

  “I didn’t,” she insisted. Then she realized that by appearing to accuse her, Monica was scuttling the whole Lesbian Lovers theory. Okay. She’d stick to true statements. “I never saw anyone in our team handle his notebook while we were out, either.”

  Even as she had said the words, she had heard her father predicting nothing good would come of lying by telling the truth. He’d hated academia, though, because of the competitive shallowness that undercut the research. That kind of behavior had never been in her nature, but these circumstances had been extraordinary. Someone had tried to frame Monica.

  She stretched in the narrow airplane seat and gave Lisa a wan smile. “So you can see how well it all worked out for me.”

  “I don’t get how he didn’t have his stuff on a Blackberry or something.”

  “I wish he had. But he was the last of the pencil and paper guys. He didn’t trust anything that needed power out on the ice.”

  “Did she get the big grant and all the money?”

  Ani nodded. “University of Fairbanks GlacierPort Facility won the multimillion dollar grant to assess the possible amount of methane gas to be released at the current rate of melt. Raw data has been released, with preliminary findings.”

  Looking sleepy, Lisa stretched out her legs. “So they found the notebook and people still thought you ditched it?”

  Ani nodded. “Well, this is the part where my own stupidity comes into play. The drainage ditch where I’d thrown it was always dry in summer, but I couldn’t tell from that angle that the outlet had clogged. There was water in it. The notebook was water-resistant, but not waterproof. By the time someone saw it, the pages had semi-dissolved. There was no saving any of it. I wasn’t just a data thief, I was a data killer. I might have just as well thrown it into the boiler.”

  It was Ani’s turn to look out the window. She had never considered that the data would be destroyed, that Kenbrink’s last project would go unfinished, that his brilliance as a scholar had been diminished. When she’d seen the notebook, bloated and worthless, she’d burst into tears. She’d acted guilty—and she was.

  “Monica was right. I should have left it on her desk, but I thought I could fix it. I thought I was so smart.”

  Lisa put her hand on Ani’s forearm. A quick glance revealed Lisa’s eyes fluttering shut. Ani turned her gaze to the clouds outside the window. They were white and even, like someone had poured whipped cream from here to the horizon. From far above, the ice fields looked almost as soft and magical. But up close they were sharp and brittle, an icy moonscape. Like friends who wouldn’t look you in the eye. Like Eve… Eve asking in horror, “How could you?”

  Going home was a mistake. She was probably the only one, after all this time, who still felt the cold of the ice and none of its fire. But maybe she could let go by making sure that Eve had moved on. Say she was sorry, without excuses, own her mistakes, get her stuff and go. Tell Tan not to send her any more boxes and find a life she could embrace with as much love as she had had for her old one.

  Chapter 6

  As grateful as Eve was to have Monica Tyndell’s financial support, along with Monica’s adherence to the meaning of silent in silent partner, being beholden to her had its drawbacks. The Dragonfly was only closed on Tuesdays and she was spending most of her one day off making and delivering an array of desserts for a fundraiser that Monica was chairing.

  “It’s for charity,” Monica had said, which was a double whammy. Eve couldn’t say no, regardless of her other commitments, and she had to do it for cost, or nearly. Not that she had anything against breast cancer research, of course not, it was just that she already supported the cause other ways, and she could have used the day off for laundry and paying bills. Plus, it seemed like two weeks out of four she was doing something on the side. Honestly, she thought, there were reasons she didn’t have a personal life.

  She had been to GlacierPort many times since Ani had left, for catering functions and meeting with Monica about the restaurant. She made herself think about anything but dancing on the glacier, but it was hard not to when the event was on the patio adjacent to the glacier access. In summer, the research facility looked like a sprawling ski lodge with a bodacious view. The event was set up on the patio there, taking advantage of a glorious summer evening and the truly majestic landscape of the half-mile wide Naomi and its dramatic moraine strip as a backdrop. With evening shadows rising, she could count at least ten shades of white and cursed her monolingual limitations. Natives had dozens of names for all the shades and types of ice and she was stuck with white and cold.

  It took two trips with heavy trays to get most of the desserts moved. She went back for a last sheet of lemon bars and let Tonk out of the van to have a run. Tonk had been back less than she had, and she wondered if he remembered that night—she caught herself. She was thinking about it again.

  That’s how it works, she told herself. Think about it, live it, let it go. If that was the case, then, she ought to live all of it, not just the good parts. She had to remember that last night, when Ani had come and gone without another word.

  “Eve, these look fabulous! You’re a miracle worker.” Monica and her usual following of grad students emerged from the building with stacks of chairs. “And you’re early.”

  “I’m happy to do it.” One of the people setting out chairs was wearing slacks and a simple twin set—not a student at all. Eve said, “Hi, Tan.”

  Tan Salek had always been unfailingly polite to Eve—to everyone, for that matter. As the head of GlacierPort’s administrative services, she was reputed to rule faculty and students with a precise carrot-and-stick system, softened by a sympathetic ear. Ani had always spoken highly of Tan. “How’s the restaurant business?”

  Eve answered lightly, trying to decide what it was in Tan’s tone that had always seemed a little too polite ever since Ani had left. It was almost as if Tan blamed her for something, but what on earth could it be? Ani had admitted what she’d done, at least privately. Monica had confessed to failing to use the best judgment in the situation. Eve had just been the girlfriend who hadn’t suspected a thing. Had thought Ani loved her. “My biggest worry is making it through the first winter. But I’m really hopeful.”

  “It’s a tough time to be doing anything risky, so I applaud you for it. I’m holding on to my university benefits and retirement plan with both hands.” Tan tweaked a tablecloth into place. “I’m outta here when I’m sixty. Twenty more years and I’m set.”

  Twenty years, Eve mused, as she unloaded the boxes of tarts and cookies onto the platters that a student had brought from the cafeteria. She had not really thought that far ahead. Her mind always seemed so filled with work that there wasn’t room for anything else. “What will you do with retirement?”

  “Travel, I think. Everyone says Canada is beautiful. All I have to do is be healthy as a horse—and I’m working on that every day.”

  “I’d like to travel too. I’ve always told myself I would, but the years go by and I’m always investing more into my business. I’m basically a homebody, I guess.” I just never thought I’d be an alone homebody. With a rueful inward smile, she acknowledged that Ani had ruined her standards. She couldn’t settle for just anybody. She wanted somebody who made her feel the way Ani had.

  Her tone markedly neutral, Tan said, “I have a friend in Key West who has offered to put me up if I wanted a nice beach vacation. I might take her up on it someday. For a change. Though I can’t imagine liking it much—it’s hot and I hear they have really big bugs. Let me get another cloth to put over the top of everything until it’s tim
e to serve.”

  She watched Tan’s small, sturdy figure disappear into the building. As far as she knew, Tan wasn’t married and didn’t date, but then she wasn’t hooked into university gossip. Well, they’d never be friends, Eve allowed, and there was no reason to fret about it. She just couldn’t stop hearing Tan’s voice on the phone later that day, the day after Ani had returned from that awful expedition.

  Eve had been unnerved by that unexpected visit from campus security that morning to collect Ani’s pack and jacket, and that was on top of the surreal quality life had taken on since word had spread about the accident. Ani’s dorm room phone just rang and rang, and Professor Tyndell’s phone clicked immediately to voice mail. She finally tried Tan’s number.

  Tan sounded more officious, and certainly more tense, than usual. “Really, Eve, I’m not at liberty to discuss it. Did you try her dorm room?”

  “She didn’t answer. I expected her back here is all. Thank you. I’m a little bit scared—security was here and Ani was so exhausted we hardly talked before she left again this morning.”

  Tan’s tone was ominous. “I wish I could be of help, but my hands are tied.”

  Eve hung up, very confused and more than a little scared for Ani. She’d pulled into her driveway after her catering gig, fully expecting Ani to be there. The sun was still well above the horizon. There was no sign of Ani’s truck, and Ani hadn’t left a message. Eve had wanted to add Ani to her cell phone plan, but Ani couldn’t afford it and wouldn’t let Eve foot the bill. Now Eve wished she’d insisted.

  She cleaned up the kitchen, showered, tried to focus on her shopping list for her next couple of jobs. She was staring at the phone when it rang.

  “Eve? It’s Monica Tyndell. I apologize for being so slow to call you, but I don’t know what to say, except that I’m so very sorry.”

  Her throat was suddenly so tight Eve was surprised she could speak. “What are you talking about?”