More Bitter Than Death

by Dana Cameron

  I stopped by the desk, checked for messages, then looked over the bulletin board. Nothing. I went up to my room, called Scott’s number and got nothing. There were no new messages for me there or on my cell phone either. I wasn’t about to go back downstairs, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to hide out in my room.

  The red light bubble on the phone got me thinking, and I called down to the desk, identifying myself. “I’m trying to find Dr. Scott Tomberg,” I said. “He’s been sorting out the issues with the, uh, with Dr. Garrison’s decease.”

  “Just a moment.”

  I heard Muzak—apparently one of the things that was updated at the General Bartlett Hotel was the phone system—until another voice, this one male and even more businesslike, picked up the line.

  “I’m the day manager. I don’t know where Dr. Tomberg is, but if you’d care to leave him a message?”

  “No thanks, I’ve done that,” I said.

  “It’s possible he’s been speaking with the police. They arrived here about an hour ago, along with the ambulance. There’s been a lot of delays with the storm.”

  “I see. Thanks for your help.” I didn’t wait for his response, and all but slammed down the phone. I grabbed my coat, gloves, and hat, pulled on my boots, and shot out of the room. I didn’t wait for the elevator, but ran down the stairs and down the side of the lobby to the side entrance, zipping up as I went plowing through the snow.

  I was glad for all my heavy gear, for although it had warmed up since yesterday, the snow was still flying and had mounted up considerably through the night. Wet snowflakes had replaced the light fluff, and if I kept standing there, I was going to get soaked through. I kept moving, slogging along a path that had been made by a herd of anonymous officials who’d been by this way not too long before me. If I didn’t keep moving, keep following that path, if I stopped where I was, I would begin to blend in with the rest of the landscape, just another indistinct shape that wouldn’t regain its identity until spring or a premature melt.

  The well-trodden path led out around back and down the stairs to the lake. I hesitated at the top of the hill for a moment. Snowflakes had begun to fill the footsteps, blurring them, yet the pathway was marked out in front of me as clearly as a sign. The wind buffeted me, and I clung to the railing, almost giving myself enough time to think about what it was I was really doing. What are you waiting for, Emma? What do you want?

  I was just about to answer myself, was on the verge of turning around and going back into the hotel, when a gust of wind kicked up and all but shoved me forward down the staircase. I slid a ways, the stairs never where I expected them to be, the path iced over by compacted snow. When I regained my footing, I continued to follow the steps and path down to the lake.

  I was glad of the twists and turns in the staircase, which gave me occasional glimpses of the frozen lake—and the tableau that was displayed out there now—while still concealing my own progress. I knew that Scott was nowhere near out here, and I knew that I would be shooed away as soon as I appeared. I wanted to postpone that moment as long as possible.

  I could see a gurney and some dark-green uniformed officers busying themselves about near the base of the stairs. Frowning, I continued down, wondering why they would be working so close by the stairs. Perhaps Garrison had taken his walk later than I had; maybe he’d gone this morning, I thought, and that’s when he kicked it. A stroke, maybe, or perhaps his heart just wasn’t up to all those stairs. Something like that.

  The sound of voices muffled by the snow grew louder as I descended, and branches swayed slowly under their burdens; a wet flake of snow hit my neck where my longer hair used to be. I could just about make out that people were starting to take notice of my arrival, and I made use of the switchbacks through the trees to make my way as far down as possible before I was stopped. I actually made it down to the beach when the four men near the stairs realized I wasn’t another officer or EMT. There were an awful lot of folks here for an accident…

  One of them was just zipping up a body bag. “Would you mind staying where you are? In fact, if you could just turn around and—”

  “I’m looking for Scott Tomberg,” I said. “I was told he might be here and he wanted my assistance in dealing with…well, I’m assuming that’s Professor Garrison.”

  “Mr. Tomberg isn’t here right now. I think you’ll probably find him back in the lobby.”

  “He wasn’t there, and they sent me out here.” I tried to put as much authority into my voice as possible. The snow-covered ice on the lake was no longer pristine; an irregular rectangle almost thirty feet on its long sides had been trodden. A dark red stain ringed with diffusing pink was near one edge of the space. Must have been where he fell, I thought, the way the blood had…bled into the snow. “Do you know when Professor Garrison died? Mr.—?”

  “Officer. Walton. He’s been out here a while.” Walton shrugged. “Hard to tell with the temperature.”

  “What about the snow?” I pressed. “Was there a lot on top of him?”

  He wasn’t giving any more away, however, and said with an annoyed look, “Who are you?” He was joined by a second officer, who looked no more helpful and less friendly.

  I introduced myself, noticing a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the officers. “I thought I could help. You see, I was out here last night, just before one o’clock, and this was all fresh snow then. No tracks that I could see.” No body either, I continued to myself.

  “Well, they’re going to take a look at him and see what it was that did him in,” Walton said. “Shouldn’t have been out here at all, man of his age. Constitutional or no. Probably wasn’t too bright of you to be out here either, in a storm. You take constitutionals too?”

  “I just wanted to get some air before I slept,” I said, realizing that Walton hadn’t said so directly, but suggested that Garrison was out during the night. “My room was too hot and the crowds were too loud.”

  “Well, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d like to get out of the snow now,” he said, with mock courtesy.

  “Sure.”

  I stepped back as they hoisted the gurney up the stairs. It was going to be a long trip for them. I let them pass, and then tagged along, not too far behind.

  “This is all a shock,” I said, scrambling to keep a foot in the door, so to speak. Crunching up the stairs, our breath came in gasps as we stumbled over the patches made icy from compaction. “I mean, he was a colleague of my grandfather’s. He used to come to our sites, my grandfather’s sites, all the time.” Which wasn’t quite stretching it past truthfulness; just a matter of contextual timing.

  That bait seemed to work. “Sites?”

  “Archaeological sites.”

  “So you’ve known him for a long time?”

  “Seems like forever.” Sometimes, it really felt like forever, too. “I know he was old, but I didn’t think he was particularly frail or anything.”

  “We’d heard from Dr. Tomberg that he was a little unsteady. And that other one, the older woman, Petra Williams? She said that his medications had been bothering him.”

  “I didn’t know he was on any medications.” No reason I should have, but I was on a roll here.

  “Anticoagulants, among other things. I guess they were making him a little dizzy, but even if he hadn’t been on them, he shouldn’t have been out here in that weather. What time did you come out here again?”

  “It was before one, I think.” As I said it, I remembered the noises that had ultimately driven me back into the hotel. I told him about the noise I’d heard, the sharp crack and muffled thud in the woods I’d attributed to breaking branches.

  Officer Walton was interested for real now. “And he wasn’t there when you were out?”

  “No. It seemed like I was the first one out here then. I mean the snow was still pristine, still in drifts, if you know what I mean.”

  “No footsteps that might have been filled in? No cleared-off railings, nothing like that?”

>   I thought back, and all I could come up with was just how untouched everything was. “I really don’t think that there was anything like that. I would have noticed. If someone had been out there ahead of me, he would either have had to come a different way or been out there so much earlier that all the traces were reburied by the snow. And there was no…Garrison was not out on the ice when I got there, that much is for sure.”

  He sucked his teeth, unconvinced. “You would have noticed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say: Because I’m an archaeologist, damn it! Don’t you ever watch the Discovery Channel? Right next door to a forensic investigator, hell, I’m doing it a few hundred or thousand years after the fact, instead of hours or minutes or days, and that makes me better at it, to my mind! Because I’m paranoid as hell. Because I’ve been through this before…

  “It’s sort of a thing with me,” I said. “You know, seeing how sites get formed. I practice at home, identifying what my husband’s been eating based on the crumbs and plates; what he’s been doing when I’m not there. Noticing that the cats have been fighting while I’m gone, that sort of thing.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And how can you tell the cats have been fighting if you’re not there? They get scratched?”

  “No. Tufts of hair on the carpet or couch.”

  “Oh. You must be a lot of fun to live with.”

  I shrugged. “But I’m pretty sure about what I saw last night.”

  Walton barked a laugh. “If you had any idea of how sketchy eyewitness accounts can be…”

  “But I do have an idea,” I said, thinking of the hundreds of documents I’d evaluated for what was said and what was left unsaid. “And this isn’t like I was observing the color of someone’s eyes or what football team shirt they were wearing. This was whether someone had come down the steps before me or not.”

  “Gotcha.” He smiled, maybe at my earnestness, maybe my naïveté, and I noticed how photographically cute he was, snowflakes on eyebrows.

  We were coming to the top of the stairs. The gurney was being loaded into the ambulance, and I noticed that there was a growing crowd gathering outside the side doors, wide-eyed and whispering. So much for Scott trying to keep things quiet until the official announcement. I didn’t want to be a part of the show, not with this audience, so I made as if to leave.

  Walton put his hand out. “You wait right here, a minute.” He turned his head and hollered. “Hey, Mark? Detective Church? Over here.”

  The two conferred for an instant, but before I could blink, I was being handed over to the second officer. I would have passed him by in any crowd: just below medium height, not-quite-stocky frame, short blond hair that was just barely visible beneath a navy blue baseball cap, he looked like any number of junior corporate types up in New Hampshire for the skiing.

  “Hi there, how’re you doing?” he asked me with an unexpected smile that knocked me for a loop. “I’m Mark Church.”

  I found myself smiling back, and then he launched into the questions. They were the same that Walton had asked me, and he went over them like he already knew what was going on here.

  “I don’t know what it was,” I said as I finished telling him about the loud cracking noise I’d heard, “but now I wonder if it mightn’t be significant.”

  “That’s good, that’s real good, thank you,” he said, beaming, and I felt like I’d won a ribbon.

  By the time he was done, there was quite the crowd by the side door. I cast about desperately and caught Walton’s eye.

  I hurried over to him. “Maybe you could do me a favor? Maybe you could let me know when you find out whether it was a heart attack, or something? I’d just feel better knowing, you know—” Here I stopped because I didn’t know why I’d feel better knowing, or even how I could plausibly lie about what earthly reason I might have for wanting to know.

  “Because of your grandfather,” Officer Walton filled in.

  “Yeah.” I shrugged and smiled a little. Jesus, Emma, what is your problem? Why are you doing this?

  “I’ll see what I can do. You staying here?”

  “Yes. Well, I gave you my room number, but here’s my card too.” I wrote my cell phone number on it in ballpoint, so it wouldn’t run.

  He looked at it, nodding slowly, then handed me one of his own. “You don’t hear from me in a couple of days, give me a call. If I can help, I will.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  And then there was nothing else for me to do but go back into the hotel. I didn’t really fancy answering a lot of questions from those waiting there—I didn’t know anything about what had happened, after all—but I decided I couldn’t very well wait outside until everyone left. It was just too cold, and, well, there was no reason for me to be here really. I just felt protective of…I didn’t know what.

  Luckily I didn’t know too many of the people there. Widmark had been by the doorway, but he ducked out of the way as the cops and stretcher went by. The only two I knew there were Noreen, who I ignored, and Sue Ayers, who was pale under her freckles.

  “Damn, Emma, what happened? Are you okay?”

  “Am I okay?” Why wouldn’t I be okay? “I was just getting some air, and they were there.”

  “Oh, how horrible for you! Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Really, I’m fine.” What was her problem? She kept patting at me and trying to look in my eyes. Maybe she was afraid that I was contaminated somehow.

  “It was Garrison, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Her eyes were suddenly filled. “Emma, I’m so sorry.” She patted me on the arm.

  I was still puzzled. “I’m just going to go up to my room.”

  “Of course, come through this way.”

  I could feel some of the eyes from the group on me, and just managed to catch a familiar voice saying “—making a scene, first in the session and now here. Can’t stand not being the center of attention.”

  Screw you, Noreen. Center of attention, my eye.

  Chapter 6

  I GOT UPSTAIRS AND THEN WONDERED WHAT I HAD been doing all afternoon, avoiding my friends and real work, getting into stuff that didn’t really have anything to do with me. Why was I drawn to go to where Garrison had died? Was I coming to some sort of decision about how I wanted to fit into these investigations? Or was I just indulging in a world-class morbid streak?

  I guess I wasn’t willing to come to any real conclusion yet, but neither was I about to go down and resume life as a normal person either. There was no way I wanted to run into anyone downstairs in the common rooms, so I got another load of gym stuff out and went back to the fitness center. It wasn’t a great solution, but I told myself it would do for the moment.

  It was empty, as I’d hoped. I hopped up onto the treadmill and started to beat it. After about ten minutes, I could feel my muscles loosening up, and I was getting to that place where if I’m not actually enjoying an endorphin rush, I am able to pretend that I’m not bothered by the things that are on my mind. The door opened and I saw that it was Petra Williams, Garrison’s ex. I immediately caught myself; I had to stop thinking of her as that; she’d had a career of her own, as overshadowed as it was, and it was just plain ignorant and unfair of me to use the shorthand that everyone used. She pulled back, and I noticed that she was wearing her business suit, but was also sporting tennis shoes—not sneakers, not running shoes, real live tennis shoes—instead of her low heels.

  “I’m done here,” I said quickly, in case she was after the treadmill. “Or are you looking for someone?”

  “No, I just wanted to get a little exercise. But only if you’re sure?”

  “I’m going to stretch now. I just wanted to warm up. Please.” I sprayed a paper towel with the disinfectant and wiped off the handrails and control board. “It’s all yours.”

  “Thank you. My doctor is always after me…” She trailed off, los
t in considering the controls. I was just about to offer to help, when she found the setting she wanted and set off at a gentle, walking pace.

  I suddenly realized that I wanted to offer her my condolences, but what if she didn’t actually know herself? I realized I didn’t know who knew about Garrison and who didn’t. I scanned her face, looking for signs of grief, and didn’t see anything obvious. If she did know, however, she wouldn’t know that Scott had told me too, and so I decided to keep my mouth shut.

  I sat down on the mat at the far side of the room, and began working out the kinks. Five minutes later, I’d just managed to convince my back that it could in fact uncurl a little more, that I could just about put my chin on the outstretched legs in front of me, when Scott came in. His hair was askew and his pen was in rapid motion, waggling to beat the band. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in a long while, and the overhead lighting wasn’t doing him any favors. His clothes were starting to crease, becoming shiny with constant wear. He looked at me and looked at Petra, who was puffing slightly as she slowly but steadily moved along. I mouthed, do you want me to leave, with a jerk of my head toward the door, but he waved me off, forgetting about me just as soon as Petra looked up and saw him.

  “So?” was all she said.

  “They’re done now. We should know something soon.”

  “Thank you for letting me know. The business meeting tonight—?”

  “I’ve already spoken to the board about it. We’ll make the announcement then. You’re sure you don’t want to…do something more? Call things off? I’m sure it’s not up to me, but…”

  “Not in the least. Not what he would have wanted either.” This last she said firmly, as though Garrison’s wishes were still paramount.

  “Okay.” Scott looked around, distracted, then shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else, at the moment.”

  “Then, please, don’t worry about it.” She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small, plain linen handkerchief, and pressed it carefully to first one eye, then the other.