by Amanda Cross
“Well, I found the tenure case, and what was more, Kate had been involved in it, though only at a very late stage. A standing committee of tenured faculty had been appointed to evaluate all disputed tenure reviews, and someone not in the department of the suer was assigned to head the committee and write the final report. It will hardly astonish you to learn that Kate was, in this case, the head of the committee. The woman suing was in the physical education department and it was one of those difficult and disturbing cases.”
“Can I have simply forgotten the whole thing? There were so many threats of suits some years ago,” Kate said. “Often, however, those who seemed to have the best cases didn’t choose to sue. I think I had some responsibility for that. I’d known women who sued universities back in the Seventies, and I was well aware of the personal price they paid, in their health, their relationships, their sanity. I was often asked my personal opinion, and always emphasized the price of suing, as well as the university’s habit of fighting such cases with no holds barred. Nothing in the woman’s past life would be out of bounds to them. To be fair, this is probably true of all universities, but I only knew mine and the few cases I had heard of elsewhere.”
“Exactly,” Archie said in consoling tones. “This case was not atypical. The one woman whom no one liked or could support, neither her own department nor her students, nonetheless insisted on going through with it. This particular woman in the physical education department put a great strain on all the tenured women who would have come to the aid of someone they respected, or for whom there was even any genuine support. In the end, Kate wrote a report explaining the inability of any members of the Association of Tenured Women to support the woman in this suit. Her name, of course, was, or became, Dorothy Hedge. She waited for revenge, planning it, hiring Toni, using her mother’s and brother’s right-wing connections, and she didn’t have to wait as long as Muriel. Barely six years, in fact.”
“I’m going to slit my throat,” Kate said. “Quietly, making no mess, but with a firm hand. My God, it’s as though my whole life has paraded before me as a dismal failure. Don’t try to console me,” she said, as the others began murmuring comforting sounds. “I seem to have been a wonderful feminist, no doubt about that. At least two women wanted to kill me, or destroy me, endangering my husband while they were at it. It hardly seems the crown on a career of successful feminism or even humanity. No,” she added, as Reed offered her a drink, hoping it might calm her down. “I am simply going to die or to become a fugitive like Lord Jim, lurking about in hot climates. I hate hot climates. Oh, God!” It was a cry worthy of someone with faith actually calling upon an exalted deity.
Reed got to his feet but was pushed down again by Harriet, who also glared Archie into silence.
“Now you listen to me, Kate Fansler! I don’t want to hear another word of this shit. Because that’s what it is: shit. Emerson said a person who made no enemies never made anything else, and someone else said you knew who a person was by knowing who her or his enemies were. Sure, you pissed off two women, and I have to say that you certainly did a good job of it, they stayed good and pissed from that day to this. Do you want me to hold a celebration in Radio City Music Hall and invite all the women you’ve encouraged, assisted, persuaded, swayed into good actions and brave deeds? Because it will be a lot more than two, you can bet on that. Don’t interrupt!
“It occurs to me that if anyone were going to indulge in an orgy of self-immolation, it should be me. I. I let Toni flatter me into working with her; then, when she seems to have decided to change sides, or whatever she decided, she continued to manipulate me with exquisite skill, I who am supposed to have the savoir faire of Anthony Blunt and the chutzpah of Kim Philby. And while you’re berating yourself with failure properly to serve womankind, my dear Kate, let me point out that you stuck by me when you had a damn good reason to think I’d knocked Toni off. So shut the fuck up, and stop feeling so mea culpa, not to say sorry for yourself. Have I made my views sufficiently clear? I can go on.”
And tossing her remaining Scotch down her throat in imitation of Reed, she sat down, still glaring at Kate.
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Reed said. “I would only point out that women attacking women is the hottest game in town, particularly feminist turncoats who want a lot more attention than they’ve been getting, not to mention book sales. There are two infallible signs of a revolution’s success: a vigorous backlash and turncoats. You, my dear, have become the chosen object of both. It’s a compliment, in a way.”
“I’ll try not to become narcissistic and self-pitying,” Kate said. “I think I will venture upon a drink after all. The headache, if any, will be mine, and so will the relief from having to watch you all tossing the stuff back as though it were rotgut.”
Reed handed her a glass, and she sipped at it. “You look white as a sheet,” Archie said. “Perhaps we’d better go.”
“Sheets are now brightly colored, with designer patterns,” Kate said. “I shall resemble one of them shortly, if I can’t clear up a few points. I gather that Marjorie heard about the whole caper from Dorothy and, recognizing my name, joined in. That, doubtless, is how Toni got her name and persuaded her to put in the ad you saw.” This was directed at Harriet.
“Probably,” Harriet said. “But Toni had used a dog and Ovido—he of the vet’s and dog training place—for messages before. It’s a pretty clever dodge. And I would like to point out, Kate, while you’re blaming yourself for the failures of your womanhood, that if you hadn’t stopped letting Toni run the show and gotten over your unaccustomed passivity, the whole plot might have worked a lot better. I think it was when I flushed out those girls in that university apartment that Toni began to change her mind about whom she wanted to work for. But that’s just a guess.”
“So it was Dorothy Hedge who hit Toni with her brother’s baseball bat. Or was it Bad Boy himself?”
“We may never know,” Archie said. “But I’m pretty sure it was the Hedge woman.”
“I agree,” Harriet said. “You have to remember that Dorothy Hedge had years of resentment bottled up. When Toni deserted her for the other side, she must have felt very last strawish—murderous, in fact. I think that’s how it must have been.”
“I’m also pretty sure she was the one in the ladies’ room with Harriet,” Archie said. “Once Harriet has identified her, we’ll know for sure. One of the problems with this situation from the beginning has been that so many of the players didn’t meet. Harriet never met Hedge, and Kate met Marjorie rather late in the game.”
“I owe you many thanks, heartfelt I assure you,” Kate said to Archie. “You didn’t in the end have to defend Harriet, but you certainly kept your head better than the rest of us—well, certainly better than I did.”
Kate looked across at Harriet. Having shot off her mouth about her own feelings of guilt and regret, feelings she knew would never really dissolve or cease to trouble her, she now turned her attention to Harriet, who had been duped into a job and used in a plot against her friends. “I hope,” she said to Harriet, “you haven’t decided to desert the detective business. You may not, heaven be praised, offer either Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe serious competition, but I think you have a flair for the business. And I haven’t a doubt, by the way, that it was you and your presence throughout this miserable business that turned poor Toni around.”
“Not to worry,” Harriet said. “I’m still in the private eye game, and I’ve got a new partner. As young as Toni, but male this time. We met in the course of another case preceding yours, and he thought the idea of using an old dame like me was the bee’s knees. He wants to start his own firm, and while I didn’t like to abandon Toni, who had, or so I thought, treated me most kindly, I got back in touch with him when Archie had figured all this out. I asked him if the offer was still open. I told him all about how I had been used, of course, but also about how clever I had been. So we’re in business. Let me give you each a card, in the fervent hope that you
wouldn’t require it, except for Archie, of course. Archie has promised to send some business our way.”
Kate looked at Harriet with admiration. Everyone except Kate stood, the meeting having concluded itself. Banny too arose.
“I think she wants to go out,” Reed said.
“So do I,” Kate said. “No, don’t argue with me. Banny and I will take a short stroll together in the park.”
“Don’t forget to take a Baggie and a leash,” Harriet said.
“I’ll take the Baggie, but not the leash. Banny will stick by me, won’t you Banny?” Kate said.
“Take the leash just to have one,” Harriet said, handing Kate an elegant leather leash and a collar. Attached to the collar was a tag (BANNY FANSLER/AMHEARST) with the address and the telephone number. “From me and Archie,” Harriet said.
“You two have everything figured out, don’t you?” Kate said. “Come on, Banny.” And having fastened the collar around Banny’s neck, Kate departed with the dog.
There was a momentary silence.
“She’s taking it hard,” Harriet said.
“Yes,” Reed said. “I’m afraid she sees it as a total failure on her part from beginning to end. She might have figured it out for herself, you know, given time and freedom from throttling. We’ll never know.”
“Cheer up,” Harriet said. “After all, the same dreadful people are still out there, with grudges against people like Kate. We mustn’t give up now.”
“Who’s giving up?” Reed said, as they moved toward the door. “By the way, I have some news. Banny is to be allowed a dalliance with a prize Saint Bernard, but only if she likes him, of course. Stay tuned.”
From the living room window, when the others had departed, Reed watched Kate and Banny enter the park. He could only guess at Kate’s feelings, although his was certainly an educated guess. Banny’s feelings, however, were simple and evident as she ambled along beside Kate, the plume tail swaying.
From the master of the American literary mystery
come these short stories—
including eight mysteries featuring Kate Fansler:
* * *
AMANDA CROSS
THE
COLLECTED STORIES
* * *
A People “Page-Turner of the Week”
“For more than twenty-five years, Amanda Cross has been blazing a trail for the rest to follow.”—SARA PARETSKY
Available in trade paperback from Ballantine Books.