by Doug Allyn
On Friday the sun was shining, the forecast was for a high in the low seventies. The mood of the students on campus was festive; this was the last day before spring break. Frisbees had come out, and Rollerblades, and skateboards. People were already packing up their cars, ready to leave as soon as the last class was finished. When Ellen parked at the administration building, she could almost believe the last few days had been an illusion; this was how life was supposed to be. The uniformed officer at the entrance of the building brought her down again.
Rita met her in the corridor. “She wants you.” She hurried away on her own errand.
Hilde was on the phone. She looked worn, and for the first time she looked her age. She motioned to Ellen to wait, finished her conversation in a low voice, and hung up.
“I have a trustee meeting for Monday,” she said tiredly. “They want a complete list of the classes Philip taught here, his file, including his application and recommendations, and his evaluation file. They also want every article we have about this affair.” She indicated a large stack of newspapers on the low round table across from her desk. “They want a scapegoat,” she said. “Thank God I was just an errand girl.”
The phone rang. She closed her eyes briefly and said, with her hand on the telephone, “Take the newspapers to your office. Two folders, one of clippings, one of Philip’s files.” She lifted the phone and waved Ellen out.
In her own office, Ellen glanced through the stack of newspapers. They were from Bellingham down to Los Angeles, from Denver, Chicago... The Seymour name and the bizarre jewelry, the bones, a naked man... She hadn’t realized it had become a national sensation.
She retrieved the Seymour files first and then started on the newspapers. After the first few articles she stopped reading and simply scanned to determine if they were about the school or Philip. There were several long articles about Walter Melton, the honors he had accumulated, the degrees, the books he had written, where he had found various treasures... She broke for lunch and went to the cafeteria, where no one paid any attention to her. So much for Haliday’s fears of her being mobbed by reporters, she thought derisively, and returned to her office and the newspapers.
The Seymour family had many articles; she hesitated, then clipped them all. If Hilde didn’t want them, she would take them out later. More about Melton’s travels, an article about his accident and fatal infection. A history of the school. Her eyes were burning, and newsprint was smeared on her hands. She left black prints on whatever she touched. An article about Jordan. She clipped that one and put it in her purse.
“Hi, Blair.”
She looked up to see Haliday at her door. He surveyed the tiny office, scraps of paper everywhere, the disorderly heap of mutilated papers, the telephone on the floor where she had moved it to make more room on her desk.
“Your face is dirty,” Haliday said.
“And I’m busy.”
“Drop in upstairs before you take off, okay?”
“It’s beautiful outside, you can walk to town.”
He grinned. “And maybe I will, but drop in anyway. See you, Blair.”
She kept working, article after article. Late in the day Hilde came in.
“How’s it coming?”
“Okay, I guess. Here’s Philip Seymour’s files, and the newspapers aren’t as bad as you thought they might be. The one I’m doing now could have been written by a publicist from the school. Honors of graduates, high positions, art exhibitions, that sort of thing. Pretty nice.”
Hilde took the Seymour file and then said, “That many left to do?” There were a lot of newspapers Ellen hadn’t touched yet.
“I’ll take them home,” Ellen said. “I told my parents I’d have dinner with them, but it will be an early evening. I’ll finish them afterward and get them sorted by category, and bring them to you tomorrow.”
Hilde nodded. “Just don’t work too late. You look tired.”
Ellen started to cut again as soon as Hilde was gone. She wondered if the puff she was clipping had been written by a graduate, and then she stopped cutting. Art exhibitions, she thought; their art department was excellent, and Newton Bridges had been there fifteen years ago, and was now head of department. She started to cut again and stopped again. Something was nagging, she realized, and she closed her eyes a moment.
Then she heard a question in her mind: Who painted the snakes all over Philip’s body? It was followed by a second question: Where were the paints? Not listed in the stuff in his apartment. Would he have kept paints in his van? That time of year, the end of May, the interior would have been like a furnace.
She didn’t move as she thought through the night of the party. Philip had gone with someone, or followed someone home. And the next day had that same person painted the snakes on him? He couldn’t have done that alone. Then he went to the campsite and... What happened hack at the fire? She shook her head, trying to clear the question away. The important thing, she told herself, was that someone else knew what he had done, what he had been up to with his costume, his jewelry, the body paint. Janice? Would she have been able to resist watching his experiment?
She had not moved yet when there was a tap on her door and it swung open. “Good, you’re still here. I thought you’d ducked out on me.” Haliday did not enter, but regarded her with interest from across the tiny space. “Your face is still dirty.”
She stood up. It was ten past five. “I was just ready to leave,” she said.
He came into the room and closed the door. “Great. Look, I really need someone who recognizes names to have a look at those student newspapers from Philip’s days. Would you? Not on school time, but on your own time? I know it’s an imposition.”
She shook her head. “I have a dinner date. Sorry.”
“Not tonight, tomorrow. It won’t take long. We’ve pulled the right ones out; they’re all ready to view. Winona’s doing her best, but she doesn’t know anyone.”
“I have a job to finish tomorrow,” she said, gathering up newspapers into a manageable pile.
“After that.”
She stopped moving and looked at him. “What do you want from me, Haliday? Why me?” Suddenly she remembered something else and sat down hard. “You knew the first time you met me who I was, that Dad owns the garden store. I said Philip had come to the store and you asked if he was a gardener. You knew. What do you want?”
He smiled. “Good morning, Blair.” He held up his briefcase. “Look, I’m ready to split, too. Give me a lift? Maybe I’d better drive you this time, you shouldn’t touch anything with those hands.”
She gathered her things silently, and they walked out to her car. The sun was low now, but the day was still warm and pleasant. The campus was nearly deserted. She felt numb with fear.
At her apartment he went to the door with her and followed her inside. “You wash up a bit and I’ll show you something,” he said, glancing about.
She put her things down on the kitchen table and went into the bathroom to wash her hands. Her face was filthy; she scrubbed it fiercely until her cheeks showed color again.
He was sitting at the table when she returned. She took the chair opposite him. The table was so small that the newspapers and other things she had put down covered it almost entirely. Haliday handed her a sheet of paper that was creased from folding.
She read: Ask Ellen Blair who killed Philip Seymour.
She stared at it so long the words began to dance. Finally she looked up. “Why didn’t you?”
“Who killed Philip Seymour?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. That’s why I didn’t ask you before. But someone seems to think you know something.”
“Where did it come from? Who gave it to you?”
“Mail. In my box bright and early Tuesday morning. Postmarked Salem. Of course, that’s just a fifteen-mile drive, not difficult to run over, drop a letter in a box, and scoot back home.”
“But that�
�s the day you came. No one knew about you.”
“Someone did. See, I got on the case on the Friday before that, reviewed everything over the weekend, came up here on Monday, and checked into the hotel. Your sheriff knew by Friday, and he called one or two of the trustees, who no doubt called a number of people including your Dr. Melton, who might have told her own confidantes. Word gets around in a small town, Blair. You should know that.”
“You’ve been playing a game with me, watching me.”
“Someone thinks you know something, and maybe you do. I tried making you a killer and it just didn’t work, not now, not at seventeen. I mean, if you’d had anything going with Philip Seymour everyone in town would have known about it, and no one did. But did you see something, overhear something, get told something? Maybe. Did you?”
He was still playing his game, she thought. Carefully she put the sheet of paper down on top of the newspapers. He ignored it, watching her. What did he expect? That she would break down and blurt out a confession? She stood up.
When she spoke, her voice sounded as if she had rehearsed this scene. “I have to get cleaned up. I have a dinner date.”
“Will you help out with the student newspapers?”
She couldn’t hide her incredulity. “Me? Aren’t I a suspect now?”
He laughed. “Well, you’re the only one anyone’s fingered. On the other hand, you’re the only one to bring up the blue tux. After lunch tomorrow?”
Helplessly she nodded. He picked up the sheet of paper and returned it to his briefcase, and got up from the table.
“See you in the administration building. Around one?”
She nodded again.
Time spent with her parents usually was a good time; she loved them very much, and they made no attempt to hide their love for her. Her father never had a lot to say, but he smiled at her from the moment she arrived until she left, and her mother always made the things Ellen had loved as a child, and still did. That night she probably had made Ellen’s favorite dishes, but Ellen was not aware of it. She left before nine.
Her father’s store fronted North Main; the residence was behind it, facing First. She kept off Main, where she was likely to run into people she knew; at least on the back streets they were all inside their houses. She knew every house, every occupant, what the kids were up to, where the adults worked, where they had gone to school... The houses were big, with well-cared-for yards and gardens. Where the houses had started out small, they had been added to over the generations until they were an architect’s nightmare, but they were comfortable, suitable for people who preferred the small town to anything else. She could go to any door, knock, be invited in, given a cup of coffee or a glass of wine; they would chat, gossip, be at ease. They were all people who had babysat her, whose kids she had babysat. Kids she had gone to school with, she thought then, had grown up, married, moved. Changed. And there was not a person in town she could talk to.
With some bitterness she thought of the phrase she had grown up believing: a town of eighteen hundred people and no secrets. But how many of these pleasant houses sheltered people as desperate as she was, with secrets as devastating as hers?
Listening to her mother rattle on and on about nothing in particular had made her realize how much she needed to talk to someone, to tell someone about that night, to try to sort it out by talking it out.
Nothing had changed, she thought in wonder. Everything kept getting more complicated, but nothing changed. She had driven off in his van, and he had gone back to the group at the fire.
But what if he hadn’t gone back? What if Patty had told the truth, he never returned? She slowed her pace, no longer noticing the houses or gardens or the scant traffic until she reached Main and had to stop for several cars. She had told the truth, and maybe Patty had told the truth, too. And that meant that someone else had been there, and that person had seen Ellen, and that’s what the note to Haliday was about. She began to hurry, wanting to be home where she could think of what that meant, to think of Janice Ayers, who had known about Philip’s experiment. As a psychologist, would Janice have found that experiment irresistible?
She heard Jordan calling her name and looked around to see him trotting down Main. Not now, she thought, but she stopped and waved, and he crossed the street to catch up.
“I was watching for you to pass Papa’s,” he said. “Good ravioli tonight. Your mom said you’d left already, or I’d have gone by their house. Walk you home?”
“Sure. I had to leave early because I have homework. Hilde loaded me up for tonight and tomorrow.”
He caught her hand and held it as they walked. “Not even Hilde expects you to work twenty-four-hour days,” he said lightly, but his grasp of her hand was hard.
“Just this once. For a special meeting of the trustees on Monday. They’re driving her crazy.” They had reached her building.
“Can I come in?” he asked at the door. When she hesitated he released her hand “I really do have an awful lot of work,” she said, “This won’t go on much longer, and everything will get back to normal.”
“It’s been going on for more than a month,” he said evenly. “It just gets worse. Ellen, I don’t care what happened years ago, what you did, what anyone else did. I simply want you back.”
“Please, let’s talk about it later, next week, not now. I’m tired and I have work to do and I have to get some sleep...” Her voice faltered and she inserted her key in the lock.
“Right,” he said. He walked away.
She looked after him, started to call him back, then bit her lip and went inside Why not? she demanded at the mirror. There was no real answer until she had hung up her jacket and gone to the table to stand regarding the newspapers with loathing. Then she knew why not If he had come in, he would have pressured her to tell him what was wrong, and she probably would have done so, because she was desperate to talk to someone. She realized she had known from the start what he would say: don’t say anything, don’t get any more involved than you already are. It will blow over.
That wasn’t fair, she thought almost wildly, and anyway that was exactly what she had been doing, what she intended to keep doing. Even if that was the only sensible thing to do, she did not want to hear it from him. But what else was there to say?
Angry at the impasse, she sat at the table, ignored the papers, and thought about that night. Whoever painted Philip must have gone either with him or after him to the campsite, and must have been there when he put Ellen in the van and she drove away. And then what? There was no answer, but it no longer was a certainty that Philip had returned to the fire. Also, that person wanted Ellen to talk about it, implicate the others. And that observer, she added, feeling icy, could in apparent innocence mention to any of the six that Ellen was talking to the police, or intended to talk, or that she had hinted she knew something vital. How much of a nudge would it take to goad desperation into action?
If she told Patty or Bev what she suspected, then what? She shook her head. To them it would be the same problem: if Ellen talked, they would be dragged into a police investigation of a sensational murder case that included drugs, an orgy in the woods, a naked teacher and his students... Would they even believe her? As far as they were concerned, she had left with Philip.
“All right,” she said aloud and stood up, knocking some of the newspapers off the table. She had forgotten them. She put on coffee to get her through the next several hours of work, and she was glad that she would have a crack at the microfiches after all. If there were any gossipy items linking any of the current staff to Philip, she wanted to see them. She did not even question her assumption that a woman had painted Philip and later killed him. She didn’t believe it had been a student; it had been someone with a house or an apartment where he could hang out all day and his van not be seen by a passerby.
She assembled the clippings in the morning, sorting them by category, labeling them. By ten she was finished, but it was too early. Haliday had s
aid after lunch. She didn’t need him, she decided; she would deliver this stuff to Hilde and start on the microfiches by herself.
She found Hilde in her office in the administration building and handed her the folder of clippings. The building was deserted. Hilde was dressed in jeans and a sweater, running shoes. The telephone was off the cradle.
“As soon as I wrap up a couple of things here,” Hilde said, “I’m taking off for the cottage. My God, the phone has driven me crazy this week.” She lifted the phone, grimaced, and put it down again on its side. “Thanks, Ellen. You get some rest this weekend. I won’t be in Monday. I’ll just go straight up to Portland, be back in the evening sometime. Maybe if things are settled down here, we can get some real work done.”
They talked briefly about what needed doing on Monday; then Ellen left and headed for the back door and the path to the journalism building.
The path led among shrubs to the Little Agate Creek footbridge, wound among more shrubs and trees to the journalism building, where she cursed under her breath. Locked. She hadn’t even thought of its being locked. She glared at the building, walked around it and up a dozen steps to try a different door, also locked. Haliday must have made arrangements to have it opened for him later. The building was ivied brick, as they all were, and very quiet. There would be some students on campus, she knew, but not up and around much before noon on a Saturday of spring break. From where she stood no other building was visible, no voices audible, just an eerie silence, and deep moist shadows. She shivered and started to retrace her steps, resigned to waiting until one to return and work under the watchful eye of Haliday or one of his flunkies. Then she heard the other door close. Someone had gone in.
Maybe he was early, she thought, heading back to the main entrance. Before she got there, she reconsidered. She had not heard him approach, had not heard voices. She stopped again, then turned and hurried back to the administration building by a different path. The parking lot was empty. She didn’t enter the building, just got in her car and drove away, thinking it could have been anyone, a maintenance person, the head of the department, an instructor, anyone. She realized her fear was becoming paranoia.