by M. A Wallace
She walked away from the meeting as the other administrators talked amongst themselves, gathering up their suit coats, loosening, straightening, and tightening their ties. She knew that her words could have had the opposite of their intended effect; instead of motivating people, if they thought her disingenuous, they could be turned off. All the more reason for them to keep filling out applications for other universities, which she knew had become a hobby of everyone who pushed papers at Shippensburg. She wondered if there was anything she could do right, besides taking the blame and resigning her position. At the meeting, she had gotten the sense that it might soon come to exactly that.
In the hallway, Zoe caught up to her. The other woman's heels click-clacked on the polished floor. She held her handbag close against her side, as though she was afraid that someone might snatch it up at any moment. A sliver of blood dripped down her chin from where she had bit her lip open. She had short hair which she could not grow out, for she was a cancer survivor. She was thin and short, almost to the point of being emaciated. For that, Lorraine envied her, for the woman always had a granola bar ready to hand, yet never gained weight.
Zoe said, “Lorraine, I think...this one might be a bad one.”
Lorraine tried not to stare at the other woman as though a flower had just sprouted from her forehead. She was not sure that she succeeded. She said, “What do you mean, 'a bad one?'”
“I've been here twenty-six years. I've seen good times and less good times. This time is a bad time.”
Though Zoe always bragged that she had one of the longest tenures of employment at Shippensburg University—first as an English instructor, then as an assistant to the Dean of Student Affairs, then as the director of an office she herself helped create—Lorraine often found herself caught up by Zoe's youthful appearance. She was fifty-five years old, a woman who had been diagnosed with breast cancer at forty-two, but who nevertheless came out of it strong and healthy. Her age only betrayed itself in her hands, where wrinkles had started to take over. Otherwise, she could have been thirty-five years old.
Lorraine said, “I'm not sure what you're trying to say.”
“The students here, they've really been pushed to the breaking point. They already know that college education can be a waste of money. They know that there's few enough jobs to be had out there. Still, they're here, they're still trying. You wouldn't believe the things I've heard in my office.”
“Yes, you told me about that the other time. You said that you had become a counselor on top of everything else.”
Zoe wiped away the blood with the back of her hand. She said, “That's right. Every April, we have Take Back the Night here. We try to inspire students to stand up and march for a cause. The multi-cultural office does the same thing with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The students don't really march. They just follow each other around, until they reach the end of the path. I think this time, with Jolanda dead, I think the same thing will happen. They'll follow each other around until they reach the end of the path.”
They had been walking away from the dining area to the stairwell which sat beneath an enclosed bridge that connected Old Main—the administrative building—to Pearson Hall, which housed the Women's Center, and a small, cramped room on the third floor that served as the university's fiction writing club. When Lorraine turned her attention away from the woman in front of her, she saw students walking in the snow and the slush. Some of them had somber looks on their faces. Others looked determined in a way that she had never seen before. She recognized the determination that comes when a person is simply fed up, and is willing to risk anything and everything to make things right.
She said to Zoe, “I think you might be right.”
Zoe took a step back from the crowd of students passing by the double glass doors that led outside. She said, “I was hoping I wasn't.”
Lorraine rolled her shoulders, trying to get the kinks out. She tried not to yawn, though she could already feel fatigue clawing at her, demanding that she go home and get some sleep. She had not slept well since taking over as the interim president. She suspected that, if she was forced to resign, she would sleep better than she had in months.
She said, “Come with me. Let's go talk to them, see what they have to say.”
She did not have to turn her head to know that Zoe followed closely behind, hiding behind Lorraine's taller body, trying not to be seen.
6
Shannon Moore felt stronger with so many people around in a way she had not expected. Alone, by herself, she had always felt vulnerable. She craved the company of others by whatever means she could find it. Sometimes this meant taking several old magazines, a hot glue gun, and a pair of scissors to make small flowers out of airbrushed pictures of women wearing expensive clothing. Sometimes it meant forcing herself awake early in the morning when she would rather sleep so that she could share breakfast with any member of the group that happened to come to the dining hall. Sometimes it meant staying out late at night so she could talk and gossip and listen. She had not regretted a single moment that she had spent getting to know other people, for she found that others made her laugh, made her cry, made her angry, made her frustrated, but above all, made her feel fulfilled.
The feeling that developed in her while she walked with the crowd to the front of Old Main was something new entirely. She felt strength growing inside her—strength that came from outside herself but which nevertheless entered her, became a part of her. Had she come alone, she had no doubt that she would have collapsed in tears. There were times when she was all too aware of her weakness in the moments when her eyes watered whenever she tried to talk about her problems. There were so many things to talk about, she often did not know where to start. Outside of the group, and outside of studying, she found solace in the moonlight during the few infrequent times when she really was alone. Each time, she promised herself she would find a friend in which to confide her deepest, most painful secrets. Each time, she went on smiling as though nothing was wrong while pain lurked just beneath the surface.
With so many people around, she felt as though she could finally be herself. She could let go of all the inhibitions she'd held for so long. She could let down all her defenses and just be.
She knew it from the moment she saw President Clifton come out of the front entrance of Old Main. Despite the cold, the president was not wearing a heavy jacket, or even a sweater. Her arms were bare up to the middle of her biceps. Her short gray hair ruffled in the strong morning wind. Her light blue rimmed glasses hung from the low collar of her shirt. That only drew attention to the tan skin on her chest, a sign that she had recently been to the beach. She had not made any attempt to hide this fact from the student body. The woman flaunted her tan as though it was a badge of honor. That had only made her the butt of several jokes across the campus.
She called out, “Everyone, please calm down.”
Shannon glanced about her, trying to figure out to whom the president was speaking. No one among all the students that had gathered in front of the building appeared unruly. They stood in the cold, some shivering, some sniffling, none of them willing to speak up. They had at first chanted, but then had stopped. Now they just stood in place, silent. She rubbed her bare hands together, trying to keep them warm. In her haste to leave the dormitory, she had forgotten to put on her gloves, her fur trapper's hat, and her scarf. Nothing protected her body against the elements save for her thick ski jacket that came down to her thighs. As she felt the cold press against her face, she wondered—not for the first time—why she had chosen to attend college in her home state and not somewhere in the south. She had been accepted to Furman University in South Carolina among the dozens of southern schools to which she had applied. She wished herself at Furman, away from Ship, away from the cold, and from the old woman standing in front of her who thought nothing of the suffering of others.
Shannon said, “You killed her.”
A look of shock passed over the presi
dent's face. Though it was there and gone, her wide eyes and open mouth conveyed everything all at once—all the disregard, the excuses, the inaction. No one in the crowd missed the president's surprise, least of all Shannon.
The old woman said, “I beg your pardon?”
Indignation stirred in her then. She wanted, more than anything, to grab the president around the neck and choke her until her face turned purple, until her eyes bulged out of their sockets. All of her irritation at the cold weather suddenly disappeared. She forgot that she tended to get sick when she stayed out in the cold too long. She forgot that she had forgotten to dress warmly, or that she left her bottle of organic coconut oil laying on top of her dresser next to the heater where it would melt by noon. She knew only a cold, black rage that welled up and welled up until it demanded to find release.
She shouted, “You killed her! You evil bitch! You killed her!”
The president took two steps back, gasping for breath. Then, someone from the crowd threw a snowball. The wet, slushy snow burst apart on the president's chest. Another one flew over her head. Shannon shouted again, using all four of the obscenities she knew.
That was when she saw the big police officer with broad shoulders and a muscular chest come forward. Beneath his uniform, he looked like a bodybuilder. He had short black hair, buzzed down with the exception of a small curl that stuck out above his forehead. She knew him from the time she had attended a self-defense class at a women's conference back in September. He had also been there in October when one of her friends held a service learning project teaching young women how to change tires and check engine fluid levels. She'd gotten her hands dirty with black grease as she had tried to figure out just which dipstick she was supposed to pull out. She thought well of the police officer, even though she could never remember his name. He had always been there with his steady, quiet presence, sometimes frowning at her.
When he advanced on her, she had no fear of what he might do. She thought he might speak a quiet word in her ear, or take her aside to offer a word of comfort. Instead, he wrenched her arm behind her back and forced her to the ground. Her jaw struck the pavement. She felt something give way in her shoulder socket. The pain was beyond anything she expected. She cried out, for the first time feeling real terror. She had not thrown a snowball—why was she being wrestled to the ground?
He let go, then stood over her. Though her vision had blurred, she saw that he had a canister of something in his hand. She said, “Stop, please stop.”
An orange mist shot out from the canister. Her body went haywire all at once. She could not breathe. Her eyes stung while her world went black. She felt a burning sensation in her nostrils, and in her mouth. She screamed, though it hurt to do so. She heard the sounds of shock from the crowd, and then chanting. Someone picked her up, held her in a pair of arms. She curled up into a ball, fearing that the police officer had her. For the first time, she thought she might die from suffocation, or from chemical poisoning, or from some other cause she hadn't yet imagined. The pain in her shoulder burned all through her. She could not move her right arm. She let it hang loose and limp, not even trying to defend herself.
She heard the president say, “My god.”
Shannon managed to choke out three words. She said, “Go fuck yourself.”
7
The next morning, which had a funereal atmosphere on campus after ninety percent of the student body had departed in the wake of the assault on Shannon Moore, a body lay on the cold, snow-covered sidewalk in front of the library. Red blood had frozen overnight, lying where it was in a pool beneath the body of a man. The man wore the badge of a police officer on his chest. He had a curl of black of hair just above his forehead. Six bullets had been lodged into his chest, the first of which had killed him before he hit the ground. Were it not for the assistant librarian coming to work early to go through the list of materials due at the end of the semester, the body might not have been discovered until noon. The librarian tripped over backwards, falling on her butt. She held a hand over her mouth, not believing what she saw. Then, instead of calling the campus police phone line as she had been instructed to do in case of emergency, she called 911.
Chapter Two
1
When the alarm went off at six in the morning, the miniature lumberjack with a smiling face and the words Welcome to Vermont painted carefully on its stomach fell to the floor. A hand reached out for the cell phone that gave off the alarm in the form of a twenty-second clip of classical music. The figurine thumped to the floor, as it had done many times before. A pair of feet swung themselves out from underneath two heavy quilts, one of which slid off one side of a queen-sized bed, crumpling to the floor. The feet pushed themselves into two blue slippers, then supported the weight of a man who stood up and stretched his arms above his head while he yawned.
Michael Ross had forgotten that the alarm he had set for the previous Saturday morning, during which he had been working on a nonstop investigation, had not been removed. The alarm had carried over to the following week. He had wanted to sleep in on his first day off in five weeks, yet he knew that once he was awake, he was awake. Nothing could be done about it unless he became tired, as he often did, watching old Diagnosis Murder episodes that he had downloaded from the Internet. He never found the show particularly interesting, especially due to how neatly every case was wrapped up at the end of each episode. Real life was rarely, if ever, so simple. Rather, having watched an episode of the show every night before he went to bed, his body had come to associate the show with sleep. Now, when he wanted to watch it during his free time, he found himself yawning at Dick Van Dyke's sometimes clever witticisms.
That, he decided, might not be a bad idea for something to do after lunch. If he couldn't have his extra sleep during the morning, he would have it in the afternoon. He walked out of his room and into the hallway of his trailer home. A shiver passed through his body at how cold it had gotten. Partly out of habit, and partly because he wanted to save money whenever he could, he always turned the heat down when he slept. The thermostat sat at sixty degrees, though the thermometer he'd tacked to the wall next to the controller read fifty-nine. As he turned the knob up to seventy-five, the heating system kicked into gear and pushed out air from the four floor vents in the house. Though he knew the system would take at least an hour to heat up the house to the temperature he preferred, he decided to have his breakfast anyway.
He went back into his bedroom, put the figurine back in place, and wrapped the quilt around his shoulders. He turned the hallway light on to keep from tripping over himself, as he had done before on more than one occasion. He walked past his lemon-lime-colored bean bag chair, his desktop computer and laptop, both sitting on low ankle-high Japanese tables. There was no television in his living room, no couch or reclining chair. There were, however, bookshelves placed in front of the windows on either side. Books of all sorts lined the shelves—some on web design, others on chemistry, still others from Robert Heinlein, an unsorted collection of out of print books that he'd tracked down through library book sales, yard sales, Internet auctions, and a variety of other places. The tables, the computers, and the books were the only luxuries he allowed himself to buy with his discretionary income ever since he decided that he had something greater in mind with his detective's salary.
He opened a cupboard next the refrigerator and pulled out an old black frying pan that he had purchased secondhand at a thrift store. He pulled out two strips of bacon from a ziplock bag in the fridge and let them sizzle while the element on the gas stove put out small blue flames. He pulled out another ziplock bag, this one with a collection of brown liquid and matter that looked like someone's internal organs. When the bacon finished, he grabbed a slice of liver with his bare hands, then washed his hands at the kitchen sink with a green bar of Lava soap. After the bacon, he added a slice of watermelon, then took it all to the living room where he sat down in his beanbag chair to look at the upcoming matchups for hi
s fantasy football team.
After washing his dishes and his hands, he brought the quilt back to his bedroom and made the bed. That was a habit that he'd kept from his four years in the Army where he'd had to fold his white underwear just so, make his bed just so, or else face the wrath of anybody with any rank who happened by. Though he no longer folded his underwear or his socks, he still made his bed. Whenever he left his bed unmade, it gnawed at the back of his mind until he finally did. He fluffed his pillows and straightened out the sheets, noticing as he did so that the sheets were ready for their monthly ironing.
He vacuumed the floor, then gave kitchen a cursory scrubbing. When he finished, he sat down in front of his computer to play a Super Nintendo game when his cell phone went off in the other room. He rushed over and answered it on the third ring. He said, “Hello, Michael Ross speaking.”
The man on the line spoke in a morose, deadened voice. He said, “Hey Ross, got a case for you. You want the overtime?”
Michael recognized the voice of Billy McGee, his fifty-two year old partner who insisted on being called William instead of his nickname. Naturally, everyone in the department called him by his nickname to irritate him. He was a career officer, one who would probably end up as a sixty-five-year-old beat cop before they finally forced him into retirement and a pension. He, unlike Michael, had only made detective the previous year and was only just beginning to enjoy the privileges that came with the position. For him, this meant being able to wear a suit and tie, rather than showing up in a blue uniform that didn't fit quite right and made his back itch.