by J. L. Newton
Grace was another hard worker. She tended to the needs of the program’s students and to the faculty’s as well, and, despite her junior status, was frequently pressed to act as chair. Directing a program, of course, took time away from writing and publishing, which were the real priorities in advancing one’s career, but running a program was a job Grace enjoyed and at which she excelled. She had a subtle touch in negotiations and even when angry she could look composed. She’d taught me to be more patient, to stay more calm when difficult situations arose.
“It’s good to see you.” I gave her a hug, and the two of us settled into the soft blue cushions.
“A student came to me, yesterday, a senior, a minor in Asian American, who is doing pre-vet. Her name’s Mei Lee. Have you had her in class?”
“No, I haven’t met her.”
“Mei Lee’s family is very traditional. They came from China when she was twelve.” Grace paused as if gathering herself together. “She told me something that you must keep in the strictest confidence. Her parents would pull her out of the university if they ever knew.” I nodded.
“Mei Lee is an intern at the Hog Barn, and it’s one of her duties to feed the pigs in the morning, including Peter Elliott’s. His pigs are young, and Mei Lee felt an interest in them because, you know, young pigs are cute.” Grace looked for a moment into the peach-colored centers of the lilies. “Here’s where it gets difficult. Peter was always in and out checking on the pigs, and he and Mei Lee grew close. I think she felt isolated at the barn, and, well, one thing led to another, and she began having an affair with Peter.”
“In the Hog Barn?” How would that work? I wondered. What is there to lie on? Bales of hay? No, that’s a different sort of barn.
“In Peter’s office, I think, which is not far away. But a few months ago, he began to act preoccupied. He’d lost interest in her, or that’s what Mei Lee thought, and their relationship had become strained. Mei Lee looks delicate—her parents call her “beautiful plum”—but she can be quite angry. They argued and she cut things off. When she came down to feed the hogs that morning and saw Peter lying near one of the pig’s pens, it came as a terrible shock.”
“Like losing him twice.”
“You can’t tell anyone about this,” Grace said, looking through her narrow glasses. “If her family had any idea, they’d be outraged, and everything she’s worked for would be lost. She’s a senior, and it’s vital she finish out the year, but she’s in a terrible state. I knew you were aware she’d been at the Hog Barn the morning they found Peter, so I wanted to talk with you before you’d told more people.” Grace leaned toward me, putting a gentle hand on my arm. “I hope we can protect her by keeping this quiet.”
“How’d you know that I knew about her?”
“Helena told me.” News circulated fast on the women’s network.
“I’ll keep quiet about Mei Lee. No need to punish her even more. Besides Peter’s in a coma. But this will cost him a good deal when it comes out. Sleeping with an undergraduate!”
The strong fragrance of the lilies began to tickle my nose.
“Right now, it would cost Mei Lee more.”
“She’s lucky to have you.” From my soft bower in the couch I could see a picture on Grace’s desk of a short, white-haired woman and a dark-haired one wearing long flowery dresses and standing in front of a mango tree, the orange-red fruit hanging from long stems like festive lanterns. I knew they were Grace’s grandmother and mother, who lived on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was a heritage that Grace loved and honored. As in her native state, she wore sandals all year round despite the fact that winters in Arborville were both wet and cold.
“Do you know,” I inquired, “if the student quarters in the Hog Barn have an oven? I ask because if Mei Lee’s real relationship to Peter were to become known to the police, it would make her a suspect in his poisoning.”
Grace wrinkled her nose. “I doubt they have an oven, don’t you? But at any rate Mei Lee isn’t into baking or cooking. She lives on takeout. And I’m virtually certain she had nothing to do with Peter’s poisoning. The police questioned her that morning but, of course, she only told them about feeding Peter’s pigs.”
“I’d like to find out whether she has access to an oven in the barn. If she doesn’t, it might help at some point to put her in the clear.”
“How will you find that out?”
“I’ll schedule a tour of the Hog Barn. I’ll say I’m writing a book on food production. How’s that?”
“Clever.” Grace looked at me with admiration. “You do have a knack for gathering information.”
“I’ll let you know what I find.” Grace was so warmhearted toward her students that she would find it nearly impossible to suspect Mei Lee, but I, having never met the young woman, wasn’t so sure. I wanted to know more. Mei Lee, of course, could have bought corn bread and poisoned it. That would be difficult to trace, but the question of the oven could be easily resolved.
* * *
As I approached the Hog Barn, it struck me with greater force than before that its yards lay open to the sky just ninety feet outside the Institute for Analytical Dynamics, where Wilmer worked. I felt a connection with Wilmer now, a man who’d been afraid to even touch me, but that the Hog Barn and the Institute lay virtually side by side gave me a moment’s pause—until the memory of Old Spice and wiry arms diverted me and I brushed the thought aside. I, myself, after all, had been in Bauman Hall the night before Peter was found, and Bauman was almost as close to the Hog Barn as Analytical Dynamics. Proximity to the scene of a crime wasn’t proof of anything.
Like most on campus, I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what “Analytical Dynamics” meant, but I knew that it was housed in an impressive building, boasting an entire wall of reflective glass, and I knew that important visitors in math and science were frequently brought within its precincts. The Institute, now absorbing the blinding sun in its black and mirrorlike wall, seemed a symbol of the future—just as Wilmer had observed—and the Hog Barn, with its dull red siding, dirt-brown shingles, and marshy pens, seemed a vestige of the past, an emblem of a more modest time when Arbor State had been no more than a university farm with a long horizon. The proximity of the Institute to the Hog Barn had become a campus joke and, to some, a professional embarrassment. I wondered if Wilmer, despite his country origins, had found it painful at times to parade distinguished visitors past these reeking sties and lolling, fleshy forms.
Although the odor from the yards had pierced my nostrils, I moved in closer to study the enormous pigs, which, lying on their sides and exposing their bellies to the air, appeared to have surrendered themselves to the oppressive heat. I’d always found these hogs a pleasing eccentricity. Their mud-encrusted bodies sprawled in the middle of what had slowly become a futuristic landscape of expensive buildings—all devoted to science and technology. It had made me laugh to see the hogs lay claim to expensive real estate, like country cousins lounging on the doorstep of a tony family with suitcases tied in string.
That a high-ranked professor had been found face down and poisoned among these icons of rural innocence was like a bad dream—or, more to the point, a bad joke. But the joke was now on me. Who would have thought ten days ago that I would have become embroiled with the Hog Barn and its inhabitants or that I myself would be under suspicion of poisoning someone I barely knew? If Peter were to regain consciousness, of course, the whole case would be laid out at once. He would know where he had gotten corn bread and that would be that. I could redirect my energies to other matters, such as Polly and my work and hopefully Wilmer Crane, and I could stop fretting about unexpected visits from police.
I walked to the wide double doors of the entrance where a young woman was already waiting. She was not Mei Lee, but a stout blonde.
“Thanks so much for giving me this tour,” I said.
“No problem. We do this all the time. My name’s Heather. The first room we’ll see is for the farrowing sows.”
We entered the reception room and turned left through long strips of plastic that acted as a kind of curtain. The smell of pig and pig waste hit my nose like a foul wind. I had trouble breathing.
“It takes some getting used to,” Heather said. “We keep these sows for farrowing.”
I looked into the concrete pens with interest. Giant pink pigs with black patches lay on their sides in some twenty pens, with fifteen to twenty piglets attached to their teats. Some of the baby pigs were squealing loudly as they struggled to find a nipple. I wondered how Heather and Mei Lee could bear to hear those shrieks, the cries of creatures desperate to eat, desperate to survive. I found it unnerving, though being a mother and considerably older than the young woman in front of me, I probably thought more about mortality than she.
Heather picked up a piglet, which wailed piercingly. She held it closer to get it calm. I stroked its pale pink body, which was covered in fine white hairs. Its small round eyes looked out from pink circles of skin, giving it an air of surprise, and its ears were huge and a deeper pink than that of its body. Sweet, I thought. Baby animals always have such large ears. The piglet continued crying, and Heather was forced to put it back down in its pen.
“You see their tails,” Heather said. “They’re born with curly tails, but there’s no feeling in the curl and they often bite each other’s tails, and if there’s blood, the other piglets will pick on the bloodied pig to establish hierarchy. So we cut off the curl before that happens. Pigs fight a lot until they’ve established dominance.”
“Pigs fight?” This was the first I’d heard of it.
“Yes, they fight for the first teat. Usually the biggest male pig gets it. And then when they’re older and are put in pens separate from their mothers, they fight again. That’s why we put pigs from the same litter in a pen together. They fight far less that way.”
“Do the sows fight too?”
“Yes, until they’ve settled on a hierarchy. But boars are especially aggressive. That’s why we keep them in separate corrals.” Heather looked down at her pig wards fondly. “Pigs are smart, though. They dung in a corner of the pen that is away from their food. And the reason they roll in the mud is to keep cool. They don’t perspire, but the mud brings their body temperature down. People don’t give pigs nearly enough credit.”
I began to think so too. Heather led me to the outside pens where the pungent pig smell lightened.
“These are slightly older pigs,” Heather said. “These are being fed an experimental genetically engineered food.”
“How often are they fed?”
“These pigs have access to food whenever they want it.”
I looked at the young pigs more closely. They’d been shy at first, backing away together, warily, in a mass, but now a few pushed forward sniffing in a friendly way through the metal bars. Their ears were still quite oversized, giving them the look of porcine kindergarteners. One looked up inquiringly, as if it might have questions of its own for me.
“Could you tell me about your duties?” I asked Heather.
Heather went on about the feeding, the hosing of the pens, the cleaning of the pig waste.
“And you live upstairs?” I wondered how it smelled up there.
“Yes, another girl and I do.”
“How do you get on? Do you make meals? Do you have a kitchen? An oven?”
Heather snorted a laugh.
“We have a hot plate.”
“Ah, so you don’t bake.” I was disappointed.
“No, we usually eat at the cafeteria or bring something in.”
“Sounds like a challenging life.”
“We don’t get a lot of visitors upstairs.”
I looked at the young pigs once again. More of them now were poking their noses through the bars, as if eager to get acquainted.
“But down here, do people go in and out for their work?”
“Yes, the Hog Barn is a busy place. Graduate students and faculty are in and out for their projects all the time.”
Who knew? I thought. Someone other than Wilmer and Mei Lee might have visited the barn that morning along with Peter.
* * *
My clothes smelled of pig, but I returned to my office anyway and, on a whim, decided to stay late and finish the justification document for Women’s Studies—this despite the fact that I was getting hungry. I’d purchased a corn muffin earlier that day and had forgotten to eat it. It had looked plump and delicious early in the morning, and, though it must be misshapen from a day spent among the books and papers in my rolling bag, it would tide me over. I rooted around in the bag to find it and then removed it from its paper sack. One of its sides had caved in, giving me pause. Should I be eating muffins I hadn’t baked myself? Already salivating, I looked at it then tossed it in the trash. I was getting paranoid.
I could write documents touting Women’s Studies in my sleep, but this latest round was particularly important. I needed to argue not just for my own program but for its interdependence with ethnic studies. I reviewed the questions I had to answer. What were the program’s goals, how did they fit with the long-term priorities of the campus, what resources did the program need, what could be cut, how would I justify the continued funding of the program?
The university’s stated priorities were so lofty and so broad that I had no trouble plugging the program in. The university claimed to be invested in diversity and transnational study. I could be utterly truthful when I wrote that one of the central goals of the program was to help make women’s studies a field in which the important issues and questions were arrived at through dialogue across gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, class, and national divides. The women’s studies program, I continued, had also worked with all the ethnic studies programs on campus to build close and fruitful ties, a strength we meant to build on in the future. The stark contradiction between the university’s stated investment in “diversity” and its actions toward the women’s and ethnic studies programs was a continuing source of somewhat bitter amusement to me and my colleagues.
Once I’d finished the document, I grew unsettled about the fact that it was dark and that I was still in Haven Hall. In the past few months several thefts had been reported. The programs had composed a letter of complaint to the administration, pointing out the thefts, repeating the staff’s concerns with regard to their own safety, and urging the administration to move the lab to another building. The letter had produced a meeting with lower administration, but nothing whatsoever had been done. By day, Haven buzzed with life. Doors stood open, faculty clustered in the halls, and program offices swarmed with students. But by night the doors were shut, the lights were low, and you could hear your own footsteps in the empty corridors. The unsettling effects of The Sixth Sense had not worn off, and when I walked down the hall to the women’s bathroom, I half expected to encounter a sudden, ghastly figure or the warning sign of red. I could feel my throat tightening, my heart beating in my chest. Staying past dark in Haven Hall had been a mistake. I would head home now.
I gathered my papers into their file folders, stuck the files into my rolling bag, and headed down to the main door. Outside, the moon was the size of a sliver and the quad was barely lit. For a moment, I thought of calling the campus escort service, which would have provided a student to walk me to my car, but the distant sight of two figures descending the library steps was reassuring. I was not alone. I walked toward the library and then turned left on Library Lane, staying on the right side of the street so as to be near the building.
I reached the edge of campus at Lupine Avenue and looked to my right. About a block away a wooded path lay in shadows between some squat, utilitarian-looking buildings, and a wild-haired man was walking toward me from it. There was no one else in sight, and I stood there for a moment, stunned. Then I felt for the keys at the bottom of my purse—stabbing myself on the same pencil and fingering the same crumbs as I had that morning—while the figure gained ground. I froze, then stopped groping for the keys, lo
cated my car in the near empty lot, glanced at the approaching figure, and finally began to run. Sprinting, I reached the driver’s side, dumped the contents of my purse on the ground, felt for the keys, scraped everything back in, unlocked the door, threw myself in, relocked the doors, and started the engine. Through the front window I could see the man pause to look at me and then continue his solitary stroll. As he passed under one of the streetlights, I saw a glimpse of dusty red.
Backing out, I turned the car and aimed it straight across the parking lines toward the far exit, then turned right, passing a blue van. Instantly, the engine of the van started up and its lights turned on. I felt a spill of fear pass through my stomach. I glanced in my mirror, saw the van right behind me, and drove quickly down Mariposa Avenue, turning left on Poppy Lane and then left on Paintbrush Boulevard. The university’s athletic fields lay in the darkness on one side and old houses, now devoted to fraternities and sororities, on the other. The van closed in. Don’t panic! I told myself. This is a common way to get to the west and north of town. Nonetheless, I drove faster, and at the corner of Paintbrush Boulevard and Ceanothus Avenue I barreled through the yellow light to turn right. The blue van stopped.
I sped past the elementary school and the streets named for wild animals—Wild Deer Lane, Coyote Court, Badger Crossing—until I reached the maze of smaller streets with Spanish names. I reached my house, looked behind me, and hurried to the porch. It was hard to see the keyhole, and my hand was trembling. At last I put both hands on the key, guided it into the lock, and opened the door, stepping quickly inward. I locked the dead bolt, turned on the living room lights, and took refuge in the kitchen. I’d spooked myself and needed a glass of wine—maybe two.
That night I dreamed I was walking toward the water tower in the darkness. The moon was half full, and the tower’s white cylinder and its ghostly legs glimmered pale as bones in the moon’s muted light. Someone frightening, dressed in red, was chasing me. I began to climb the small white metal ladder to get away. But as I progressed, one hand over the other, one foot after the next, it occurred to me I’d made a horrible mistake. What had made me think the tower was a safe place to be? What if the red figure climbed after me? What if we reached the catwalk? There’d be nowhere else to go. I was deathly afraid of heights. How had I forgotten? Below me on the road, I saw a blue van in the darkness. It stopped and parked to the side of the water tower’s northern legs. The van turned off its lights.