The Northbury Papers

by Joanne Dobson

  “Mom! I’m twenty years old!”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what worries me. I was a mother before I was twenty.”

  “Well—that was then.”

  “And female anatomy has changed?”

  “Mother, I work for Planned Parenthood.”

  I grinned at her, and ruffled her short, chestnut hair. “God, I miss you, kid. We always have the best conversations.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not coming home again if you don’t feed me. Do you know there’s absolutely no food in this house?”

  “Let’s go to Bub’s. I’m hungry, too.” The flashing red light on the telephone answering machine tempted me as I walked past it, but Amanda was already out the door.

  Bub’s Coffee Shop is a shabby eatery on 138, five miles from home. I’d become a regular after Lieutenant Piotrowski had introduced me to its hearty, homey fare the year before. I liked the good food and the working-man’s prices, but what really attracted me to Bub’s was its location, so far from Enfield that I never had to worry about running into any of my colleagues there.

  Amanda pushed open the restaurant’s glass front door, still chattering about her internship at Planned Parenthood, and crashed into a behemoth of a man on his way out. As she staggered from the impact, the big man grabbed her by the shoulder to steady her. A familiar voice said, “You okay, lady?” Then, “Amanda Pelletier? Is that you?”

  Before she could reply, another, far more familiar, voice succeeded his, “Karen?”

  “Lieutenant Piotrowski?” Amanda queried.

  “Tony?” I echoed.

  It was Tony, standing just behind and a little to the left of the big lieutenant, his blue eyes wide and startled.

  “What on earth …?” I gasped.

  “I never expected to see …” He seemed to choke on the words.

  “For lunch?” the teenaged waitress asked. “How many? Two? Four? Smoking or non?”

  I sat across the table from Tony, his square, clean-shaven face as familiar to me as if I’d woken up to it that very morning. He looked good, wearing jeans and a gray golf shirt, his shoulders as broad, his black hair as curly as ever. Well, what did I expect? I walk out on a man, and he shrivels and dies? Then, in the light from the big window by our booth, I saw that the hair at Tony’s temples was threaded with gray.

  “So?” It was hard work to keep from reaching out to stroke his hand. “What brings a big-city cop like Captain Tony Gorman to the backwoods of New England?”

  Tony and Piotrowski exchanged glances. Piotrowski raised his eyebrows. Tony shrugged. Evidently that constituted an agreement, because the lieutenant said to me, “Captain Gorman and me, we been talking quite a bit lately. About … about some stuff you really don’t need to know. And … and … you’re not gonna believe this, Doctor—”

  “No?”

  Piotrowski glanced at Tony again. Tony nodded. The lieutenant continued, “Interestingly enough, Gerry Novak’s name came up.”

  “Gerry?” I was flabbergasted. Tony specialized in the New York City drug trade. He didn’t investigate homicides. I stared across the table at my former boyfriend. He was fiddling with the plastic daisy in its milk-glass vase. The dark, curly hair on the back of his big, square hands was peppered with gray.

  “We’re pretty sure Novak was doing a little trafficking in drugs,” Piotrowski said. So that’s why Tony was involved. Drugs! I recalled Schultz saying that a special team was coming in to go over the Novak cottage. Tony’s unit?

  “Novak wasn’t big-time,” Tony interjected. “He just worked the New England corridors a bit. He’d come into Manhattan on errands for his employer. Use the opportunity to make himself a little cash. Looks like he was dealing a little literary weed.”

  Piotrowski picked up the story. “Novak knew a lot of—you know—artsy types. All that poetry stuff—makes for a good clientele. We looked at him for Dr. Hart’s death, but couldn’t get anything on him. But he smelled wrong, so we kept on him. Then Captain Gorman contacted us about some big-time dealers, and Novak came up connected. But, like I said—small potatoes. Then, last night—”

  “Do you think Gerry killed Edith?” I interrupted.

  Piotrowski shrugged. “You know I can’t say nothing about that, Doctor.”

  “Do you think maybe he was killed by drug dealers, Lieutenant?”

  He looked over at Tony, then replied, evasively, “All I can tell is—the guy was basically your high-class scumbag. When he wasn’t hanging with the local literatzi—”

  “Literatzi?” I queried.

  He looked at me blankly. “You know, poets, scholars, that type.”

  “Oh.” I had a hard time repressing a grin. “You mean literati.” Literatzi. I’d have to remember that; I knew a few.

  “Whatever. Anyhow, when he wasn’t hanging with them, he’d be in Springfield associating with some real, er, interesting boys. And it’s really them the captain here is looking at. You know, the big picture. As to whether the homicide is drug-related …” He shrugged again. That was all I was going to get from him.

  “Poor Jill,” I said. “Poor Edith …”

  Piotrowski glanced at me warily; was I going to start bawling? “Well, anyhow, yesterday, when we went back to Novak’s place—”

  “That’s all she needs to know.” Tony’s abrupt tone startled me; he’d been so quiet. “She understands why I’m here, now,” he was talking to Piotrowski but looking at me, “and that’s—enough.” The waitress brought coffee for the men, and hot turkey sandwiches for Amanda and me. I wasn’t hungry anymore; sitting across from my ex-lover had done something to my appetite. Tony went on. “And you know, don’t you, Karen—you, too, Amanda—how important it is that you keep this information to yourselves?”

  “Sure thing, Tony,” Amanda assured him, between mouthfuls of stuffing and gravy. She was wired with excitement; I could feel it radiating from her body like an electric charge. I’d been keeping her up-to-date on the Hart case by phone, and, on the way to the restaurant, I’d told her about Novak’s death. She’d been interested in the Enfield College investigation the previous year, and I hadn’t seen how talking things over with her could hurt. Now here she was, right in the thick of things again. Her eyes were shining. I groaned; medicine was so much safer a career than law enforcement.

  “Karen?” Tony queried. I nodded, sure thing, Tony, sure thing. I sliced a small corner off the soggy turkey sandwich. I couldn’t keep my eyes off his hands, cupped around that white ceramic mug. My fork clattered as I dropped it on the plate. Even one bite would be a bite too much.

  “If you’re not gonna eat that, Dr. Pelletier …”

  I shoved the platter of bread and turkey across the table to Piotrowski. “Tony, how about we go for a walk while these guys finish eating?” As soon as I slid out of the booth, Amanda began to question Piotrowski about homicide investigation.

  Tony and I scuffed along the dusty roadside, kicking up miniature clouds of fine brown dust. We each had our hands firmly ensconced in our pockets.

  “How you doing, Karen?”

  “Fine,” I responded. “And you?”

  “I’m fine. Just fine.” He inspected his Nikes, then scuffed up a particularly impressive dust cloud. I looked down, too. My white Keds were now the color of sand.

  “How’s …?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Any signs of …?”

  “Not yet. But we’re working on it.”

  “Good. I know you’ve always wanted—” No matter how fast I blinked my eyes, I could hardly keep the tears back. I looked over at Tony; he had the cop face on, deadpan, emotionless. Abruptly, I stopped walking. “Tony, I’m sorry. This is a mistake. Let’s go back.”

  Tony glanced back at the diner, then turned toward me and took my hand. “Karen, I miss you. Every day I see or hear something I want to tell you, something that makes me think of you.”

  “Me, too, Tony. There’s no one like you.” I seem to have given him both hands. He s
queezed them tight.

  “But what I have with Jennifer is good, Karen. And with kids—well—it’s what I want. What I need.”

  “I know, Tony. I know.” I squeezed his hands, kissed him on the cheek. His skin tasted of salt. “And what I have is what I need. My work—” I pulled my hands away, pivoted abruptly, and strode back to my car.

  Miles’s phone message awaited me on my machine. “Karen, some members of the department are planning a quiet memorial service for Gerry Novak, a young local poet, who’s been cut off in his prime. Such a tragic loss—a fine new poetic voice, foreshadowing the anxious postmodern morality of the approaching millennium…”

  I pushed the rewind button, and spun Miles’s voice off into oblivion.

  Twenty-two

  If Miles Jewell had his way, he would have spun me off into oblivion. At ten-fifteen the next morning, Miles stopped by my office as I was going through the accumulated mail and voice-mail messages of the past hectic week. Four publishers’ catalogs, three pleas for letters of recommendation from recent graduates, two requests from academic presses to review scholarly manuscripts for publication, and one reminder from American Literature that a book review I’d promised them was two weeks overdue. All I needed now to compound my work load was a partridge in a pear tree. And there was Miles, partridge-shaped, clearing his throat just outside my open door.

  “Karen—if I may have a word …?”

  “Come in, Miles.” I gestured toward my green vinyl armchair, and, to my dismay, he shut the door behind him before plodding across the office, sinking into the chair, and pulling out a white handkerchief to wipe his florid face. No one shuts doors in this department unless they’re about to dish the dirt—or give you hell. And, from his sour expression, I didn’t think Miles had any gossip to monger. “Karen, I have an extremely touchy issue to discuss with you.” Oh, God. But it was in my best interests not to sound as panicky as I felt.

  “Really?” Cool as a mango snow cone.

  “This puts me in an extremely difficult position, especially now that you seem to be in the president’s confidence.”

  “I’m not in—”

  He waved my protests away with an irritated hand. “There’s been a complaint.”

  A complaint? What the hell? “Oh, really?” Cool as a Ben & Jerry’s Peace Pop.

  “Yes, you’ve been charged with gender bias—”

  Cool as—“Huh?” Gender bias?

  “Gender bias—and personal animosity. And Thibault Brewster, making the complaint on behalf of his son—”

  Ah. Tibby Brewster.

  “—claims he can provide witnesses to support a consistent antimale bias in both the content and the style of your teaching. Male bashing is how he put it. The grade of C-minus you submitted for Tibby’s course work, he claims, is documented evidence of harassment. Mr. Brewster has requested that you file a change-of-grade form with the registrar by the end of June. If you refuse to do so, he says, he will present a formal complaint to the Dean of Faculty, charging pernicious pedagogical sexism and a personal vendetta against his family—”

  Pernicious pedagogical …? “You’ve got to be kidding!” My attempted nonchalant laugh emerged as a nervous titter.

  “There’s nothing frivolous about this, Karen.” Miles’s chest swelled with indignation. “These kinds of cases get national attention—especially when they occur at a prominent school such as Enfield. If Brewster goes ahead with this charge, it would constitute a slur on the department’s reputation. And you must realize that for a junior member of the faculty, these would be extremely serious charges. Now, I’m speaking to you as one who has your best interests at heart when I recommend that you seriously consider changing that grade.”

  “But, Miles, Tibby’s work was appallingly bad, and his attitude was arrogant—”

  Miles was shaking his shaggy head ponderously. “There are no signs of substandard work in the boy’s other courses. He has consistently earned a three-point-zero—not a brilliant GPA, to be sure, but respectable. Now, may I report to Mr. Brewster that you will consider changing Tibby’s grade?”

  “No.” Suddenly I was so angry the pounding of my heart just about deafened me.

  “No?” Miles’s expression was incredulous. “You are aware, aren’t you, of the influence Thibault Brewster is capable of bringing to bear on the administration of this institution—”

  “Are you threatening me, Miles?” I stood up from my desk and strode over to him. Having once broken free of an abusive marriage, I tend to react to intimidation with knee-jerk hostility. Even when it might not be prudent to do so. Like at this very moment. As I advanced, Miles rose from the vinyl chair. The white handkerchief came into play again. He was sweating far more copiously than the humid day would seem to warrant.

  “Threatening you? Far from it, Karen. I’m merely pointing out the perilous position you could be placing yourself in, in the not-too-distant future, when your teaching contract comes up for renewal. Even if at the moment you seem to have the inside track with the administration because of that Northbury thing—” he flicked the research center away with his thumb and all four fingers, “you’ve still got to consider your reputation within the department. When is your contract renewal scheduled? Next year? And then tenure, in three or four more years—”

  “Miles,” I said, my voice frigid, “has the concept of abuse of power ever been explained to you?”

  “Miss Pelletier! I … I … I … assure you, I have no intention—”

  But I was guiding him toward the door, my hand far more gentle on his arm than it wanted to be. “Good-bye, Miles.” Even after I’d closed the door, I could hear him sputtering in the hallway. Then I shot the bolt; I didn’t want anyone stumbling in on me while I was sobbing in fury at my suddenly imperiled desk.

  “I don’t know what’s happened to Miles.” Greg paused to detach the wedge of lime from the salted rim of his margarita glass. “He used to be good people. Oh, he was always a bit stuffy and old-fashioned. And he’s passionately opposed to what he considers to be invidious ideological assaults on his precious Great Writers. But I never would have suspected him of stooping to intimidate an untenured professor.” He squeezed the lime juice into his drink, spraying the table, then plopped the rind in after it. “After all, department chairs have ethical responsibilities to nurture and protect members of the junior faculty.” Since the previous year when Greg had been voted chair of the tiny Anthropology Department, he’d become extremely vocal about the rights and responsibilities of academic chairship.

  “And he’s got to know,” he continued, after a long, frosted sip, “that you don’t go in for male bashing. He’s read your work; he knows it’s historically grounded and objective—if we’re allowed to use that word anymore. He’ll come around.”

  When I’d pulled myself together after Miles’s departure, I’d called Greg for advice. Now we sat on his back deck in the humid air, sipping tall, frozen drinks. The long shadows of late afternoon provided some relief from the heat. The margaritas provided more. Irena, wearing a two-piece brown-and-yellow-polka-dot bathing suit, reclined on a wicker chaise on the lawn, her beautiful, rounded belly browning in the sun. As soon as she’d heard we were going to talk shop, she’d groaned, scooped up her bottle of Evian, and departed for more golden climes. But she couldn’t fool me; she relished Enfield gossip. She had positioned the chaise well within earshot.

  “You’ve only been department chair for a year, Greg. It’s all fresh and new to you—including your sense of the responsibilities of the position. Miles has headed the English Department for a quarter century, and I have a funny feeling that’s the issue. Miles wants to protect the department he knows against the department he’s afraid it’s about to become.”

  Greg grabbed a handful of pretzel nuggets from a bowl on the glass-top table and began munching. “You mean he wants to save a department that specializes in traditional courses, like Introduction to the Major American Writers, from
becoming one known for trendy stuff, like that Body in the Library course Sally Chenille has cross-listed for the fall?”

  I laughed. “Well, of course,” I said. “I can understand that. But he also seems intent on preventing us from turning into a department that offers senior seminars in Emily Dickinson. That’s a problem. There’s got to be a happy medium between trendiness and ossification.”

  “Miles is frightened,” Greg ventured, flicking a pretzel nugget in my direction. “Change is coming too fast for him, and he can’t see the woods for the trees. But I don’t imagine that, even as chair, he has enough influence left in the department to give you any real trouble. And I can’t help thinking that once he has time to reflect on the situation …” He let the thought trail off. “It’s Brewster you’ve really got to worry about. Somehow you’ve got to devise a way to get around the Brewsters.… How about poisoned pretzel nuggets?” He flicked another of the small, salt-crusted chunks in my direction.

  “Don’t even joke about that,” I replied, sending it back. “I’ve seen more than enough homicide since I’ve come to Enfield.” Suddenly, my career problems diminished in importance. There were worse things than the denial of tenure. Death, for instance. And, after all, there was a world outside academe. I wouldn’t starve; I could always go back to waiting tables. “Any margaritas left?”

  Greg rose. “Margarita,” he mused, then grinned at me. “That’s a nice name. How about Margarita and Daiquiri?”

  I snorted. “How about Pink Lady and Gin Blossom?”

  Irena rose majestically from the wicker chaise. “Sounds like if Miles Jewell had the naming of these kids they’d be called Old-Fashioned and Horse’s-Neck.”

  As Greg headed for the kitchen to freshen up the drinks, Irena donned a short terry robe and lowered herself into his vacated chair. “Karen, have you talked to this kid?”

  “Kid?” For a wild moment I thought she was referring to one of her babies.