by Sam Reaves
Graham was an old hand at this, Abby saw, mixing easily, bantering. Abby survived a few stiff introductions and scanned desperately for familiar faces.
“Dr. Markstein.” Cole West loomed, looking very adult in an actual suit, groomed and handsome. “Welcome to Tau Kappa Zeta. Glad you could come.”
“Thanks for having me. This is quite a house.”
“Oh, thanks. It used to be the mayor’s house, or somebody like that. Before the college bought it and gave it to us to tear up.”
“Well, you better get with it. I see some unbroken windows.”
He laughed. “Give us time. The semester just started.” He cocked a thumb at her, looking at his crew. “What’d I tell you? She cracks us up in class.”
Abby began to relax a little, and by the time they were ushered in to lunch she was beginning to feel at ease. Luncheon was served in what had once been a formal dining room, now a bit overcrowded with long tables, thirty or forty people squeezed in elbow to elbow. Abby was seated at a table with Cole West at the head, while Graham was across the room at another table. Abby’s suspicions of a setup subsided. The meal, as promised, was edible but unremarkable except for a quivering slab of Jell-O, which Abby stared at in fascination before attacking it with her spoon. The conversation was a little constrained at first but waxed as bellies filled.
“So, Dr. Markstein.” Cole West wiped his mouth and laid his napkin on the table. “We heard a rumor about you talking to the police, about this murder that happened just down the road here. What’s up with that?”
Abby froze for a second, spoon in the air. She set the spoon down. “Nothing much. I just happened to go jogging out there that morning and saw the car burning. I reported it, that’s all.”
“Wow. Did you see the guy inside the car?”
“No. I didn’t get that close.”
A boy down at the other end of the table said, “One of our guys snuck around through the bushes past the police line and saw them taking the body out. He said it was like burned to a crisp.”
Abby frowned at her Jell-O. West growled, “Hey, we’re eating lunch here.”
A youth across from Abby, another bruiser, said, “That’s a sinister damn place, that overpass. One of the old alums that was here at homecoming said there was a suicide there like twenty years ago. Some girl jumped off the top of the arch.”
“I’ve heard that,” said West. “Except I heard it was a guy. He’d been caught getting it on with the preacher’s son or something, some kind of weird scandal.”
A pimpled specimen to Abby’s left said, “You’d be amazed what goes on in a town like this. My uncle’s a sheriff’s deputy, and he was telling me all the stuff that goes on. There was a guy shotgunned his whole family on a farm just north of town. My uncle was the first guy on the scene. And he said once two guys got in a fight in a bowling alley and one of them beat the other one to death with a bowling ball. I am not making this up.”
The bruiser said, “These yokels around here, man. They scare me. It’s like Deliverance once you get two blocks from campus.”
Down the table, another boy scoffed. “Aw, Jesus. Don’t give me that. You Indianapolis guys and your attitude.”
This diverted things to a spirited bout of intrastate rivalry, to Abby’s relief. When that petered out the company repaired to the front room again for coffee. The talk was anodyne, and when the yawns began Abby and Graham made eye contact and shortly afterward took their leave. In the car Graham vented a brief laugh, wheeling out of the drive. “Well, that was fairly painless. Nobody made improper advances, I assume?”
“No, it was fine.”
A silence ensued; as Graham turned down Jackson toward Hickory Hill he said, “So forgive me for asking, but I can’t help being concerned. Is there any word from the police on this investigation? Have they made any progress?”
“I don’t know. I went and looked at some pictures. They’re not really keeping me in the loop. The police don’t seem to think I’m particularly in danger, so I’m just doing my best to forget about it.”
That killed the conversation, as Abby had hoped. When he pulled into the driveway of Ned McLaren’s house Graham sat for a moment looking gravely at her. “See you at the office.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem. Listen, can I take you to dinner some time? No frat guys involved?”
Abby’s heart sank. She met his gaze and said, “Let’s just keep it at the office for a while, OK? I have enough on my plate right now.”
His look darkened for a moment, but then he smiled. “OK, I understand. Forget I asked.”
I will do my best, Abby thought, getting out of the car.
Abby stood at the edge of the woods, enjoying the early evening cool and putting off going inside. Inside there was nothing but work, solitude, yearning and regret. And with darkness, possibly an attack of the terrors. Every day that passed put a little more distance between her and the sight of a blackened corpse contracting in a fireball, but her nerves were still raw. She lingered, hoping to catch another glimpse of the deer, but none appeared and after a while she turned to go back into the house.
“Evening.”
Abby was startled by the sight of her landlord standing on the covered porch at the top of the steps. “Oh, hi.”
He was in his version of evening dress, white duck trousers and a blue batik shirt, tail out. His left hand was in his pocket and his right hand dangled at his side, holding a bottle of beer by the neck. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“That’s OK. Just daydreaming. It’s nice out here.”
“Yeah.” Ned nodded, surveying the woods with a solemn look. He fixed on Abby and said, “Can I offer you a drink?”
This was a lifeline. “Thank you, yes. That would be nice.”
They sat in the director’s chairs, looking out over the woods as the light faded. Abby had opted for a glass of pinot grigio, crisp and cold. She sipped and said, “That was good this morning. Thank you. I really needed a good hard run. Life’s been a little stressful recently.”
“I can imagine.”
Abby let her head loll back and released a long sigh. “As in, the whole last year of my life.” She let that hang in the air, already regretting the slip.
Ned was studying the label of his beer bottle. “I’m all ears.”
Abby realized how badly she wanted to talk about it and how pathetic it might sound. “I’m sorry, I won’t bore you with it if you don’t want me to.”
“After an intro like that? Please, bore me.”
Abby gave it a token laugh. Here we go, she thought. “I should be in my second year of teaching at Amherst. But just as I was packing to move there, a little over a year ago, the boyfriend I had just broken up with killed himself.”
There was no sound but the buzz of the crickets in the failing light. After a long moment Ned said, “Man. I’m sorry.”
“It really knocked me off the rails. I was a wreck for a while, just long enough that Amherst had to give the position to someone else. I found a mindless retail job and started learning how to live with guilt.”
“That’s a tough one.”
“Yeah. The one thing I can say for this murder is, it’s distracted me from thinking about Evan. I’m not sure that’s a good long-term therapeutic approach, though.”
They sat in silence for a while. Ned said, “Don’t let him do that to you.”
“Yeah, that’s what everybody says. But he’s doing it.” Abby emptied her wineglass. “We were together for three years. I thought we would probably get married. We met at MIT. He was a physicist. He was really brilliant. But his depression was always a problem. Maybe that went with the brilliance, I don’t know. But he struggled with it. There was medication, there was therapy, there were good times and bad. It got easier for me when I realized I wasn’t responsible for making him happy, that in fact I couldn’t. That made daily life easier, but it was bad for our long-term prospects. He sensed I was se
aling off a part of me from him and he resented it. He got needier. When I’d had enough and started trying to disengage, that’s when he really sank his claws into me, with the guilt. And I didn’t react very well to that. I finally snapped and told him to stop feeling sorry for himself. In other words, I completely repudiated the idea of his depression as a clinical condition. I essentially told him it was nothing more than a personal failure. And I ended things, just ripped the bandage off. Big scene, it’s all over, good-bye. He moved out, a couple of weeks went by, things were calm, the tearful phone calls had stopped, I thought I was out of the woods. Then one night I came home and found him hanging from a light fixture in my apartment.”
They listened to the crickets for a while. Ned drained his bottle and stood up. “Want some more wine?”
“If I have any more wine I might start crying.”
Ned shrugged. “I can bring you a Kleenex, too.”
“I better not.”
“OK.” He stood looking down at her. “Give him credit. He killed himself instead of you.”
Abby blinked at him. “That’s pretty hard-hearted.”
“You need to stop feeling sorry for him and get mad at him.” Abby could just see him smiling. “Take it from me. I’m an expert in guilt. I’ve been on both sides.”
Ned went inside. Abby was gathering herself to get up and take her leave when he came back with a fresh beer in hand. “I’m sorry if that was cold,” he said. “I know there’s grief involved, too.”
Abby said, “Yeah, there’s grief. It’s terrible sometimes.”
Ned settled back into his chair, took a drink, and looked out into the dark woods. “I had a lady friend in Paris. I met her in Africa. She worked for one of the NGOs out there. We hit it off, had a little thing for a while, and then she went back to France. We kept it going long-distance for a couple of years. I would go and stay with her on my furloughs and that would keep me going for another few months. We went on little trips or just hung out in Paris, being in love. There was never any explicit talk about the future, but I thought we had an understanding. Then one day I got the Dear John e-mail. The subject line said, Je ne t’aime plus: I don’t love you anymore. That was all I needed to see. I didn’t even open the e-mail for three days. And it said pretty much what I thought it would.”
Abby turned her head to look at him. “I’m sorry,” she said.
The ghost of a smile stretched his lips. “That was the only time I ever gave serious thought to killing myself. Just for a day or two, but I was looking it in the eye. And I remember thinking, man, would she feel bad. I have the power to make her hurt. But I knew she didn’t deserve it. She didn’t do anything wrong. Things just changed. So that’s why I come down hard on your guy. He had that power and he used it, and you didn’t deserve it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The night hummed with the electric noise of crickets, the black woods shifting in a gentle breeze. “I’m not sure we can assume he did it to punish me,” said Abby. “I don’t think I’m capable of knowing what went on in his mind. I’m trying not to blame him for what everyone tells me is a clinical condition. But yeah, the effect on me was . . . brutal. And it helps to hear that it wasn’t my fault. So thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Ned took a drink of beer. “Just one of the many services we provide.”
Abby locked the door of her apartment, stowed the key in her purse, and wandered across the grass toward the trees, slinging her backpack over one shoulder. Monday morning had dawned a little cooler, promising an easing of the heat as September progressed. She had a class to teach at 11:10; she was well prepared and not pressed for time and looking forward to an unencumbered hour or so in her office. She stood at the top of the slope, looking down into the cool shadowed woods, the stream betrayed by fleeting ripples glinting through the foliage. She turned and looked at the windows of Ned McLaren’s living room, above her own. The past twenty-four hours had expanded her comfort zone by just this much: that the man who lived behind those curtains was no longer completely a stranger.
A siren rose, keening on the morning air. Abby listened, trying to discern its direction, as it grew louder. The vehicle tore down Jackson Avenue past the entrance to Hickory Lane, screened from her by the trees, and away up toward the center of town; simultaneously a second siren swelled faintly in the distance.
She had been hearing sirens all her life and ignoring them, but now the sound terrified her. Suddenly all she could see in her mind’s eye was a man being roasted, skin blackening and splitting. She sank to her knees on the grass, dropping her backpack, taking deep gulping breaths. Abby knelt there with her heart pounding as the sound of emergency vehicles arose in every direction, a dissonant chorus in the bright morning air.
She listened until the sirens died away and there was nothing but the sound of the birds in the trees. When her heartbeat had calmed, she stood up, shrugged into her backpack and mounted the stone steps at the side of the house.
“All right. Chapter One test on Friday. Be ready. If you need help, you know where my office is. Don’t be shy.” Abby bestowed what she hoped was a benevolent smile on the dozen or so members of her Calculus I section and snapped the cap onto her dry-erase marker with authority, signaling the end of the session. The assemblage stirred and broke up, chairs scraping, voices rising.
Except you, Abby thought, watching as Ben Larch crammed his things into a shoulder bag. You could afford to be a little shyer. She had come into class with some trepidation, anxious to see how Ben would respond to what she hoped were brighter lines of demarcation. She had made routine eye contact with him a couple of times during the class, meeting a blank stare she imagined was just a shade on the sullen side. Ben had asked no questions, volunteered nothing, made no notes as far as Abby had seen. Now he slung the bag over his shoulder and went out of the room without looking at her.
Eat something, Abby told herself. Get a grip and go have lunch. Her stomach was just beginning to recover from the tension that had gripped her when she heard the sirens and again when she saw Ben walk into class. She dumped her books in her office, locked it, and left the building. In the snack bar she bought a chicken-salad wrap and a yogurt and headed directly for the round table in the corner that by long-settled convention was reserved for faculty at lunchtime. As she approached she saw Jerry Collins holding forth. With him were Adam Linseth, Philip Herzler and a man she didn’t know. “Can I join you?”
“Of course.” Jerry beamed at her. She took a seat and he introduced the stranger, who turned out to be a historian whose name went right over Abby’s head. “Abigail here is the new star of the math department,” said Jerry.
“I don’t know about that,” said Abby. “New kid on the block, anyway.”
The usual questions and subtle flaunting of credentials followed. The historian was from Brown and his specialty was the Carolingian Empire. “Star or not, if you can do math, I bow before you,” he said.
“If you can read Medieval Latin,” said Abby, “I think you just trumped me.”
They laughed and then Jerry frowned abruptly and said, “We were just talking about Jud Frederick.”
Abby blinked at him. “What about him?”
“You didn’t hear, huh? Apparently he was murdered last night.”
Abby set down her wrap. “Oh, my God.”
“Yeah, it’s a shock, isn’t it? He was found dead in his home this morning, and it wasn’t an accident.”
Abby drew a deep breath. “I heard the sirens.”
“We all did. Lisa Beth was still at home, but when she heard them she tore off in the car to go chase them. I called her a little while ago and she said she was at the police station waiting for somebody to talk to her. She said it was a home invasion.”
“Are you OK, Abby?” Philip Herzler was sending her a concerned look across the table.
“Oh, my God. That’s horrible.” Abby slumped back on her chair. “What is going on?”
“Well, I can
tell you what the police think is going on,” said Jerry. “After Frederick’s TV interview the other day, they’re going to be looking even harder at the Mexicans.”
“The Mexicans?” said the historian.
“They think Lyman was killed because he informed on a Mexican client of his,” said Jerry. “And Frederick was ranting on TV the other day about Mexican criminals. So I think that’s kind of at the forefront of the investigation right now.”
“How was he killed?” said the historian.
“Lisa Beth didn’t say. All she said was, she heard it was a bad crime scene.” Jerry looked at Abby and opened his mouth to say something and then hesitated. No, thought Abby, please don’t.
Adam Linseth came to her rescue. “Who was this guy, anyway?”
Jerry leapt for it, enjoying being in the know. “He was a real estate guy. A slumlord, Lisa Beth called him. He owned a lot of properties around town, including the trailer park.”
“Where a lot of Mexicans live,” said Linseth.
“The plot thickens,” said the historian.
“I think we might be jumping to conclusions,” said Herzler.
“And that’s the job of the police,” said the historian. “I’m happy to leave it to them.”
Jerry was still looking at Abby, as if he were considering whether to out her. “You know, actually I have a pile of papers to grade,” Abby said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to go have lunch at my desk.”
“I seem to have triggered a murder epidemic. I hit town, and people start dying.” Abby sat with her phone to her ear and her eyes closed, a hand over her face.
“What on earth is going on out there in the heartland?” her father said. “It used to be, I’d get calls from out-of-town friends asking if I was OK in the hellhole that was New York. Now we’re sitting here wondering if you’re in mortal peril out there in the cornfields.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. Nothing to do with me, that’s all I know. I’m OK, Daddy. Really. I’m handling it.”