Quieter than Sleep

by Joanne Dobson

  Equally formal, I replied, “Certainly, Lieutenant. What can I do to help you?” What indeed? I didn’t have a clue.

  Standing back from the doorway, he gestured toward the open door of Randy’s office. To say that my heart sank is too empyreal a metaphor; weighed down with guilt, my heart plummeted. I could almost feel it squoosh as it hit the polished oak floorboards of Dickinson Hall. My illegal entry plan had been found out!

  Was he going to arrest me? Was “the favor of your assistance” some kind of euphemism for giving me the third degree? I could feel the blood drain out of my cheeks.

  This was the last time I would listen to anything Greg Samoorian suggested. I was ready to kill him.

  Wait.

  Not a good choice of words.

  I stood rooted in my doorway until the lieutenant motioned me once more toward the rectangle of light that was all I could see in the dim corridor. In Randy’s office I noticed nothing at first but the usual welter of books and journals, blue exam books, stacks of papers. On one corner of his desk a Styrofoam coffee cup teetered crazily atop a copy of Genders, which had been thrown on top of the most recent Critical Inquiry, both of them surmounting a pile of at least a dozen copies of American Literary History.

  Then my eyes focused on Randy’s leather bomber jacket hanging from a coatrack in the corner. I shuddered. He’d been wearing that jacket the last time he’d waylaid me in the coffee shop and treated me to a short dissertation on theories of narrative encryption. The soft, expensive leather had given my handsome colleague an exceedingly becoming military air—even though the distinctive yellow-and-red divisional patch on the sleeve probably signified nothing more martial than Banana Republic.

  It was only after wrenching my gaze from the jacket that I noticed the uniformed trooper seated at the computer, dark eyes in a lean black face focused intently on the screen. Evidently the cop and Piotrowski had been going through Randy’s files.

  “Dr. Pelletier,” Piotrowski said, “we thought you might be able to help us here.”

  Really? Maybe I hadn’t been found out after all.

  “In examining Professor Astin-Berger’s computer files we’ve found something that we think might relate to you. What’s your middle initial?”

  My middle initial?

  “A. For Ann. Why?”

  “Well, there’s a file titled KAP that we have reason to believe is addressed to you. Will you take a look at it, please?”

  I turned my eyes to the computer screen. On it was a short poem. At least I think it was a poem. The amber letters read:

  Karen dark heat and distance

  my hands in all that beautiful hair

  what I wouldn’t want to do

  that white throat where the pale pulse leaps

  those eyes yes

  yes those eyes

  yes yes

  I blushed. Piotrowski noticed; I could tell by the stillness of his eyes and the deliberate lack of response in his expression.

  “Did you have any reason to believe that the victim had, ah, special feelings for you?” The lieutenant’s face was inscrutable.

  “No,” I responded, automatically. Then I thought better of it. Certainly the campus was rife with gossip.

  “Well, yes. I guess I did. Professor Astin-Berger had been very—attentive.”

  “Were his attentions welcome, Doctor?”

  “No. Not at all.” Vehemently.

  “I see. Had he been making a nuisance of himself?” Very smoothly and quietly.

  “I didn’t murder the man because he wanted to play nooky with me, if that’s what you think.”

  The officer at the computer snorted. Piotrowski whipped around and scowled at him fiercely. The young trooper stared at the monitor, blank-faced again, engrossed in the scrolling files.

  “There’s no need to be so defensive, Doctor.” The lieutenant turned back to me and raised his sturdy hands in a gesture of appeasement. Now he was going to lay it on thick with the “Doctor,” and I couldn’t very well tell him to cut it out. “I’m not accusing you of anything. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t blame the professor for being, ah, enamored.” One raised eyebrow. A conciliatory smile.

  I didn’t return the smile.

  The policeman registered my coldness. Stuck-up bitch.

  “Doctor, I just want to get the lay of the land here. Do you have any particular, ah, boyfriend at the moment?”

  “No, I don’t.” An image of Avery Mitchell flashed into my mind. What the hell? I suppressed it immediately.

  “No. And if I did, it wouldn’t be someone who would strangle anyone.”

  He waited for me to go on. When I didn’t, he pulled a small notebook out of his jacket pocket, flipped through several pages, read something with close attention, and changed his line of questioning.

  “According to some of your colleagues, you’re the person around here who would be most likely to know what’s what with Professor Astin-Berger’s scholarly work. Can you give me some idea of what might be significant in his files?”

  I told him that Randy and I both worked in nineteenth-century American literature but from very different perspectives. My specialization was gender and class. His was sex. He was doing a study of homoerotic troping in sermon discourse.

  Piotrowski rolled his eyes. “What does that mean—in English?”

  “Well, Randy was reading sermons, both published and unpublished, for evidence of either homophobic reaction or repressed homosexual desire. What he was doing was actually much more complex and specialized than I can explain. But it was very important work. Professor Astin-Berger was highly regarded in the scholarly community.”

  Piotrowski looked first disgusted, and then puzzled.

  “But he wasn’t, it seems, qu—ah, gay, himself?”

  “It wouldn’t seem so.”

  He was silent while he digested this information. Then again he took his inquiry in a different direction.

  “Do you have any new thoughts about this letter the victim mentioned to you?”

  “No. I’m still baffled.”

  “Might it relate in any way to this, ah, work he was doing?”

  “Could be. But I don’t know why he’d think I would be so excited about it. Thrilled, he said.”

  “Yes, so you told me.” The lieutenant’s face was impassive again. “What about this, ah, document on the computer? Do you think that might be the letter? A letter that he thought might thrill you?”

  I felt myself blush again. “In his dreams!” I snapped, then bit my lower lip. Antagonizing the police wasn’t going to do me any good.

  “Listen, Lieutenant, I’m sorry. I know you have to ask these questions. But I really hardly knew Randy. He talked so much that I never listened to him when I could avoid it. Whatever fantasies he had were his alone. Believe me, Lieutenant, I never gave Randy any reason to think he could thrill me in any way. Now, I’m exhausted. I’m upset. I’m starving. I don’t think I can be of any further help. Can I please go home?”

  “Certainly.” With another shrug. “You’re under no restraint. Just keep yourself available for more questioning. And let me know if you’re going to leave town for the holidays.”

  He turned back to the officer at the computer. As I went down the hall I heard Randy’s printer start up, most likely printing out that embarrassing little poem.

  By the time I returned to my office and remembered the telephone, the caller had, of course, hung up. It was well after nine. Greg, thank God, hadn’t shown. I called his house and got no response. That puzzled me. When he didn’t appear by nine-thirty, I gathered up the exams and papers, stuffed them in my briefcase, pulled on my heavy gray wool jacket, and started for home.

  Hunger and exhaustion have never been good for my brain. As I headed toward my car I realized how confused I really was. And—was it possible I hadn’t told the detective the whole truth? Was there something I’d forgotten? If there was, what was it? Well, I’d stop at the McDonald’s out on the m
iracle mile and get myself a Big Mac And fries. Maybe a massive infusion of calories and fat grams would jolt my memory into gear.

  My thoughts began to revolve again around my final conversation with Randy. What was it he had been saying to me? Why hadn’t I been listening?

  Unexpectedly, a wave of pity engulfed me; Randy was dead, horribly dead, and I was treating his death merely as a puzzle. For the first time he became real to me as a human being, rather than as a nuisance to be avoided. This was a man—an odd man, maybe even a nasty man—but a fellow creature.

  It seemed to me now that whatever he was saying at our final encounter had been immensely important to him. Was I fantasizing, or did I truly recall that he had produced his information as if he were playing a trump card of some kind?

  The Queen of Hearts, probably, knowing him.

  Five

  IARRIVED HOME in a state of weariness unparalleled in my adult life. I hung my jacket on a hook in the foyer, eased out of my boots in the hallway, nudged the thermostat up to sixty-eight degrees, dropped my sweater and skirt in a heap at the foot of the bed, turned off the telephone bell, and hit the mattress in my old sweats. Then I slept for more than twelve hours, a dead, dreamless sleep.

  The answering machine message light was blinking as I stumbled into the kitchen late Saturday morning. The machine whirred back through yesterday’s voices and clicked as it replayed the first message.

  “Mom, it’s me. Friday afternoon. It’s five-thirty. They’re talking about Enfield College on the news. An English professor strangled to death. Until they said his name, I thought it was you. Why didn’t you let me know?” Click. Whir.

  Oh, shit! I hadn’t called Amanda.

  “Mom? Me again. Are you there?” Silence. “Mom. Call me. It’s after seven. I’ll stay in the dorm.” Click. Whir.

  “Mom? I’m worried. It’s after ten and you still haven’t called.” (As if I didn’t know.) “Where are you? Don’t do this to me.” (To you?) “Call whenever you get in. I’m waiting.” Click. Whir.

  Oh, God. How could I have forgotten to call her? Now it was the middle of finals, and she was getting hysterical. Well, I’d call, but I wasn’t about to let my daughter know just how closely I was involved in this murder. She had an active enough fantasy life already; she didn’t need to picture dead bodies falling out of closets on top of her hapless mother. As the only child of an only parent, she worried about me far too much anyhow.

  Pause. Click. Whir.

  Why was I hearing the click? There hadn’t been another message. I rewound the tape, but after Amanda’s previous message there was only a brief silence, an intake of breath, and a hang-up. The tape continued to roll, and the next voice startled me. The dulcet tones of Avery Mitchell.

  “Karen? I’m calling at, ah, eleven-oh-seven. I just wanted to check in and, ah, make sure you were okay. Sorry to make it so late, but, ah, it’s been an insane day.” Brief silence. “As you can imagine.” Longer silence. “Well.” Silence. “I’ll touch bases with you tomorrow.” Click. Whir.

  Bemused, I turned the rewind knob and sent the tape back to its beginning. It wasn’t his words that mystified me quite as much as it was the silences. What did the silences mean? And, then, what did the words mean: touch bases with you tomorrow? On the one hand it was a nice sports metaphor, implicitly accepting me as one of the gang—or the team, so to speak. On the other hand, wasn’t “touch” a particularly loaded word? And “bases”? I didn’t even want to think about it.

  God! I must be sick. Only someone with a truly sick mind would think such a thing.

  I had set the coffee dripping and was halfway through my shower before I remembered Amanda’s calls. I am an appalling mother, I thought. Obsessing over a perfectly casual phone call from a man and forgetting all about my only child. The phone was ringing again when I stepped out of the shower. Amanda! I snatched up a thick white bath towel and sprinted into the bedroom.

  “Hello!” My tone was brusque. Guilt does that to me. It wasn’t until the word was out that I remembered it might be Avery Mitchell. “Hello,” I said again, immediately, in a different tone of voice. Friendlier.

  But it wasn’t Avery. It was Darien Cromwell, the college physician, calling to tell me that one of my students had tried to kill herself and was in guarded condition in the intensive care unit at Enfield Regional Medical Center.

  It was Sophia Warzek, and she was asking for me.

  I pushed open the double doors of the ICU at about one-thirty. A chubby man wearing a white cotton jacket and pants stopped me at the desk.

  “May I ask where you’re going?”

  Since medical personnel all dress alike nowadays, I didn’t know how intimidated I should be. I looked at the black lettering on the white plastic badge. Robert Martin, R.N., Head Nurse, ICU. Plenty intimidated.

  “Yes,” I said. “I got a call from Dr. Cromwell. I’m looking for Sophia Warzek? She wanted to see me?”

  “Oh, yes. Well, she’s not available to visitors at the moment—”

  “But I’m not just a visitor. Sophia tried to commit suicide. She’s in crisis. She’s asking for me.”

  “I’m aware of all that. But you’ll have to wait. You’ll find other college officials in the lounge.” The nurse gestured to a small room just inside the doors of the ICU and bustled off.

  “But …”

  Earlene Johnson, the Dean of Students, sat in the lounge with Darien Cromwell. Next to Earlene, who is black, chic, and energetic, Darien’s tall, stooped body and sallow face looked enormously unhealthy. A network of broken capillaries webbed his prominent nose, and the whites of his pale eyes were tinged ever so slightly with yellow. He fidgeted with a pack of cigarettes, even though a No Smoking sign in neon-orange and black occupied a place of honor on the wall.

  “What happened?” I asked, looking at Earlene. She was dark-skinned with a long, thin, arched nose, high cheekbones, and, right now, a deeply concerned expression. As she opened her mouth to respond, Darien broke in.

  “It seems the kid slit her wrists and OD’d on Valium at the same time. If her mother hadn’t heard her fall off the bed about five this morning she sure as hell wouldn’t have made it. Brought her in, pumped her stomach, stitched her up, and it looks like she’ll pull through. They just called us an hour ago. Her father wanted us to know she wouldn’t be taking her final exams, for chrissake. I came to check up on her medical status. Earlene here came along to talk to the parents. Kid’ll only talk to you, she says.”

  He crossed his arms over his hard, round little stomach, nodded his head once, firmly, and abruptly stopped speaking. All had evidently been said.

  I thought about Sophia’s thwarted attempt to speak to me the night of the party. I thought about the missing blue book. I thought about the impulsiveness of youth. And I didn’t know what to say. This could be as much my fault as anyone’s. Why hadn’t I insisted that she talk to me, then and there? Tears came to my eyes.

  Earlene was on her feet with her arm around my shoulder before I even knew I was crying.

  “It really sucks, doesn’t it?” She led me to the orange vinyl couch, sat me down, and supplied tissue—all in a series of practiced, compassionate moves.

  “She was—is—the neatest kid. All those privileged crybabies on that campus, and that brilliant, beautiful child, working her fingers to the bone—I just can’t stand it!” Earlene, too, had tears in her eyes.

  Darien looked at us as if we were some sort of inferior species, then immersed himself deeply in a Newsweek with a picture of Dan Quayle on the cover. We were all relieved when the head nurse, obsequious now in the presence of a physician, came to take Darien into Sophia’s room.

  “So, Earlene, what happened?” I demanded. “I mean, what happened? Do you know?”

  “Karen, all I know is that her mother heard the thud when she fell off the bed, ran to her room, found the door locked. Then she heard moaning and called Sophia’s father. He took the door off its hinges. Found her c
overed with blood and her eyes rolled up inside her head. No note. Mother’s practically catatonic. Father’s a cold son of a bitch. Pissed as hell that she’s not gonna finish the semester.” The slip into the vulgar showed how shaken Earlene must be. Her usual manner was controlled and elegant.

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Just from the doorway. She looks terrible. Won’t talk to me. Won’t talk to her mother. Sure as hell won’t talk to her father, and I don’t blame her; that’s one scary dude. Won’t talk to anyone but you. Why’s that?”

  As I began to tell her about our aborted conversation at the party, Nurse Martin returned to escort me to Sophia’s bedside.

  “Only five minutes, at the most. And, remember, she’s a very sick young woman. Don’t say anything to upset her.”

  Sophia did look terrible. Her eyes were sunken, each surrounded by a deep, unhealthy purple, like an old bruise. She lay thin, flat, and immobile under white sheets. The monitors danced and beeped, ceaselessly reminding her that she was still alive. Both wrists were heavily bandaged. Her eyes were closed when I entered the room. She didn’t seem to know I was there.

  An equally thin and pale woman, an older, worn, version of Sophia, stood up from the bedside chair and slipped out. She didn’t introduce herself or acknowledge my presence. Just vacated the room silently, as if she were used to removing herself unobtrusively from the scene. Any scene.

  I walked over to the bed and sat in the chair. Sophia’s eyelids flickered; her eyes opened when she saw me. She reached out, feebly, attempting to take my hand. Surprised, I took her hand in both of mine and bent toward her.

  “Sophia, I’m so sorry….” But she shook her head almost imperceptibly, and I shut up.

  “I tried to call you,” she whispered. The words were raspy, and painful to hear. “Last night. I thought you’d … understand.”

  “Me?” But as soon as the word was out, I realized she desperately needed me to understand, or at least to seem to understand. I nodded.