“They don’t feel much. They died years ago.”
“Why do you keep contradicting me, Tate? You know it was Delilah Bibb.”
“Knowing and proving are two separate things.”
Carly’s gaze landed on the painting of a lighthouse Jaysaree had purchased from a discount department store. She stared at it for a long time. No one’s eyes had been on it this long since the original artist.
“Can I offer you a drink? Dark rum? Skim milk?”
“Can I use your computer?”
I turned on my desktop. I disabled my screen reader and pulled out the chair for her.
“I just want to check the status of a story submission.”
I gave Edward a scoop of the dry stuff. He wasn’t hungry enough to eat it. He followed me to the nightstand to say there were messages. More likely he recalled the single time I put his treats in my sock drawer.
The first message was a hang-up. So was the second. Nobody liked talking to machines anymore. Both calls had come in the early afternoon.
Carly hadn’t typed much when she stood up. “Why were you Googling my name?”
A third message was the click of a shy or disappointed caller.
“Why, Tate?”
“Were you checking my computer to see if I had?” A fourth hang-up. Then a fifth.
“I was typing Carolina Literary Review. Your search engine filled in my name.”
“I’m sure it didn’t mean to.”
“What were you looking for?”
That I had searched Monday afternoon for a picture of her to enlarge on my screen, to decide how excited I should be about our stroll through campus, was nothing I felt like sharing.
“I wanted to read one of your stories. I thought I might find one online.”
“If you want to read one of my stories, just ask me.” If her tone got any sharper, I’d need stitches.
“Understood.”
The answering machine continued to announce the hour and minute of my missed calls. For the first time, a shallow breath preceded the click.
“Tate, it’s me.” Mollie DuFrange waited a few seconds to let me—or herself—figure out why she was calling. “Are you going to be around later?”
I turned down the volume. Carly stepped around me and turned it up.
“We need to talk. About who we talked about earlier. It’s kind of urgent. Call me back when you get this.”
Carly alternated glances between me and the answering machine. “Who were you talking about, Tate?” Carly turned around to face my computer, seeming to shake her head. “The two of you were investigating me, weren’t you?”
“What would we be investigating?”
She didn’t like that one enough to answer it. I asked her again, thinking maybe it would grow on her. It didn’t.
“I expected this from Mollie. I’m not even surprised that our psycho interim dean is stalking me. But I thought there was something between us, Tate.”
“Sure I can’t talk you into that drink, sweetheart?”
She spun around quickly. I thought I was going to get slapped, but her hands remained at her side. “Do you know why I write, Tate?”
I sat on the bed and let her tell me.
“My characters never betray me. Heroes, villains, they’re all on my side. Real people,” she said, “only disappoint you.”
“One of us,” I said, “has no idea what you’re talking about.”
She put her hands on my shoulders, leaned forward, and gave me a hard smacker on the lips. “See that? Already it doesn’t feel the same.”
“Not when you do it like that.”
She grabbed her jacket from the back of a chair. Edward began a figure eight around her legs, which she didn’t let him finish. Sometimes when an animal likes someone, you can take it as a sign of their essential goodness, but Edward liked anyone who scratched behind his ears. We all do.
“Feel free to waste your time scrutinizing me. I have no interest in wasting mine,” she said, slamming the door as hard as its bent edges would allow.
Chapter 18
CARLY HADN’T BEEN GONE the length of a slow pop song about second chances when the hard knock came. It seemed closer to the doorknob than the peephole. I pictured Carly on her knees, asking my forgiveness. I opened the door with an outstretched hand to help her up.
Her entrance was a blur, nothing but a torso and a short pair of arms. Her hair was darker and shorter. The smart money said she had not been to a salon since I last saw her.
“Mr. Thayer. So nice of you to stop by.”
He extended his hand, his knuckles connecting with my groin in a gesture no one has ever mistaken for a handshake.
“I’m not a violent person,” he said.
“Agree to disagree,” I said from my position on the floor.
Thayer was offering his hand again, much slower this time. I had a
clear shot at his face, but the moment seemed to have passed. I sat up without his help.
“That phone number is specifically for acting business, Cowlishaw. Imagine my disappointment upon receiving a call about a stolen
file cabinet.”
“Not interested in theft cases either, huh? Is there a particular crime you do like to solve?”
Thayer hopped a few inches onto the bed. “Listen, Cowlishaw. I’m sorry about your dean. I’m sure it’s been—” He stopped talking when I raised my hand.
“I would have used your number at the station, but didn’t think you’d want your partner to know about this.”
“Know about what?”
“I should have contacted you myself. And I do apologize for giving the impression this was not acting-related business.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Cowlishaw?”
I paused until I myself was sure. “I was very taken with your performance in Glengarry Glen Ross last year. I’ll be honest, Thayer: I’m not much for musicals, but after seeing you in Godspell, I ordered the original cast recording.”
“Wow. Thank you. Do you know how hard I had to fight to play Judas? Directors say I’m too sympathetic. They never say why, but I know it’s because of my condition.”
The room filled with silence and the fresh heartbeat of his dying dreams. “Are you bullshitting me, Cowlishaw?”
I dismissed the possibility with a laugh. “I used to wish I were an actor. Perhaps that’s why I’m so taken when I meet one.”
“You didn’t mention any of this when we took you in.”
I remained on the floor. I thought of relocating to a chair, but let my guest continue being the taller one in the room. “What would the praise have meant from a suspected murderer?”
“Yeah, well.” Thayer kicked off his shoes and pulled his feet onto the bed. “I’m sorry about that. You were never a suspect, Cowlishaw. We knew all along it was a suicide.”
“You mean your partner knew.”
Thayer sighed. He hopped down from the bed, got on his hands and knees, and made kissing sounds. “Come here. Come on. What’s your name, Mr. Kitty?”
I told him.
Thayer patted the carpet, making little gerbil noises. Edward stayed put under the chair.
“He’s had a rough night,” I said. “A pretty blonde stormed out on him when he was just getting to know her.”
Thayer faced me. “I think I saw her. She was sobbing in her car.”
I looked in the direction of the parking lot. My walls and blind spots were in the way.
“I know my partner can rub some people the wrong way,” Thayer said. “Deep down he’s a pretty sensitive guy.”
Thayer swept his hand from side to side on the carpet. I wished he liked detective work as much as he liked cats and theater. I got the canister of Edward’s treats from my dresser drawer. The slightest shifting of its contents sent Edward sprinting in my direction. I gave Thayer the canister. “Are you familiar with the Parshall Theater?” I asked.
“Sure. Over on Gray Street. Before I made detective, my beat inclu
ded shooing away bums who made their home in the orchestra pit. I was an undergrad over at State when it got condemned. Big loss for the community.”
Edward took a treat from the detective’s hand. After another, Edward lay on his side, offered up his belly to rub.
“The theater’s former patron was F. Randolph Parshall, whose family founded the college where I work.”
Thayer turned in my direction. I paused for the sake of his imagination. I took a little while longer for my own.
“Dr. Parshall is at the point in his life when he has to think about his legacy. At the top of his list is the revitalization of Grayford’s theater community.”
“I pass by that theater twice a day, Cowlishaw. It’s a half-stick of dynamite away from its final resting place.”
I gave him a half-smile. “His plan,” I said, working it out as I went, “is to use the theater on campus, roughly the same size as the old Parshall downtown. I’m hoping—both of us are—that you will accept a pair of roles in the project. The first involves cleaning up crime on campus. As it is, the school’s atmosphere isn’t conducive to entertaining.”
“What’s the other role?” He sounded disappointed by the first.
“You tell me,” I said.
Thayer said he didn’t follow.
“The theater will need a repertory. Actors, directors, the whole nine. Any interest?”
Thayer didn’t speak. His mouth was too small to notice if it hung open.
“As you might have gathered, Dr. Parshall has a limited amount of time to see this happen.”
Thayer took a bigger breath than yes or no required. “I’m going to level with you, Cowlishaw. Your compliments, while gratifying, are the first I’ve received on my acting in a long time.” He let out the rest of his breath. “I’ve kind of made peace with it, you know. I’ll always have a passion for acting. Lately, though, I’ve been venturing further and further down the path of screenwriting. I’m still trying to find my voice, as you could probably tell from the piece last night.”
“Sounded like you found mine.”
“It doesn’t come easily to me,” he said. “At least not yet. I love it, though, and I’m not sure how much energy I’ll have for it if I’m acting or directing.”
“Be our writer-in-residence,” I said. “We’re looking for one of those, too.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
Thayer stood up. He backed into the bed and lifted himself onto it. He raised an arm in the air and jumped up and down, higher and higher. It had been years since anyone had been so happy on my bed.
At last I moved into a chair. “About that first role,” I said. “I hope you have a little patience for an old man’s paranoia. Dr. Parshall still harbors suspicions about the circumstances of our dean’s death.”
Thayer started to say my name, and I put up a preemptive hand. “He doesn’t dispute the findings of the investigation. He would, however, appreciate some kind of proof one way or the other, something tangible to ease his mind about opening a theater two buildings from the site of a possible murder.”
Thayer hopped down from the bed. “That doesn’t sound unreasonable. This writer-in-residence gig, how much is that going
to pay?”
“Competitive,” I said, recalling how Scoot Simkins had described the salary I would earn at his college. He never said the decade in which the salary would have been competitive.
“So what’s your role in all this, Cowlishaw?”
I told the truth, or what might have been the truth if my promises weren’t thinner than the walls of the Gray Knight. “Parshall was in love with my late grandmother. I’m the closest thing he has to family.”
Thayer extended his hand and I shook it. “You did the right thing, by the way, not telling me this while my partner was around. I don’t know if jealous is the right word, but he can be a little resentful of my creative endeavors.”
I held the handshake an extra second, trying to decide if Thayer was a good, good man, someone I could work with. You can’t tell much from a hand. Edward vouched for him. He let him rub his belly, but he was probably responding to the treats.
Chapter 19
THE ACTOR-DETECTIVE HAD BEEN GONE only a few minutes when another knock came. Again I thought of Carly. Again I was wrong. The almond musk of Mollie DuFrange’s imported shampoo registered in my nose before the rest of her registered beneath my blind spots. She wore a short skirt and a top that didn’t take her arms under consideration.
“Are you here alone?” she asked.
I gestured to the empty room behind me. She took it as an invitation, and I closed the door behind her. “Where’s that husband
of yours?”
“Home, I guess. I told him I was going out to sing. Where’s your significant other?”
“She heard your message on my machine. She thought you were talking about her.”
“I was.”
“I know.”
Mollie sat down on my bed and peered at the inch of night between the curtains that weren’t entirely closed. She rested an elbow on her bare knee and cupped her chin in her hand. “Hi, Edward. It’s been awhile.”
I offered to close him up in the bathroom. When we were together, she claimed to have severe cat allergies. Her symptoms included mercurial headaches and wary looks in Edward’s direction.
“It’s okay,” she said with a measure of contrition. “I’m not
really allergic.”
“I know.”
Mollie eyed me with surprise, guilt, or contempt, possibly none of the above. I continued to look at her, my most convincing argument that I could see, which was my most convincing argument that she had chosen poorly in deciding to go back to her husband three years ago.
Mollie reached for the messenger bag by her feet. She opened the flap of an orange envelope and let out a breath. “This may hurt initially, but I’m trying to save you from something far worse.”
Mollie handed me a book no larger than one of the poetry collections she had shelved on my window sill for a couple of months. She handed me another, this one red and twice as thick. There was a third and a fourth, each a little bigger than the one before it. One of the middle two had a dark cover with the word Dustbowl in large white letters. River Creek Review took a little more time to glean.
“The font in the tables of contents might be too small for your magnifier. I’ve got time if you want to scan them into your computer.”
“I take it these are the stories of our colleague, Ms. Carly Worth. And I take it you find the content a little disturbing, suspicious even.”
Mollie took back the Dustbowl and read me the fiction selections from the table of contents. She got out a sheet of paper from the orange envelope. “This is the curriculum vitae of Carly Anne Worth. If you’ll recall, Simkins asked me to chair the committee on writing across the curriculum, and I asked everyone to send me their CVs. Never got yours, by the way. Under ‘Publications,’ Carly Anne Worth lists a story called ‘Thumb and Forefinger’ from this issue of Dustbowl Literary Review. Did you hear that title among the stories I read you?”
“Perhaps she typed the wrong issue number.”
Mollie emptied the messenger bag onto the bed. “This is every issue of Dustbowl from the last four years. I subscribe to it, Tate. The other journals I handed you are equally devoid of fiction by Carly Anne Worth, although all are supposed to feature her stories, according to her vitae. I subscribe to half the journals she lists, Tate. I’ve published poems in a few of them.”
I paged idly through a River Creek Review. Over the years, I had worked assiduously to ignore what I couldn’t see, what I didn’t know. Suddenly I felt aware of every minuscule letter swimming in the abyss of my former vision.
“What has she told you about this novel she’s allegedly sold?”
“Just that it’s about vampires.”
I’d rather she wrote about a disgruntled college instructor putting bullets
into the skull of an insufferable dean. That was a story we had all imagined.
“On top of this, her CV says she earned an MFA in fiction from Iowa seven years ago. I made some phone calls, Tate. There’s no record that she ever went there.”
I stacked the journals on the floor. I recalled Delilah’s suspicions of Carly. I had assumed she was trying to shine a light on someone other than herself, but it was possible she knew what Mollie knew. Mollie’s hand found my leg above the knee. It wasn’t a hard leg to find. Most of it was touching hers.
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Tate.” She tilted her head onto my shoulder. “It’s ridiculous, I know, but I was a little jealous when I learned you were seeing Carly. Probably because Ben and I have been increasingly . . .” Poet that she was, Mollie sometimes paused for fifteen seconds in the middle of a sentence, searching for the best word. “Dissatisfied with each other.”
One of her hands moved from her lap to the bed behind us. “Do you want to know something really ridiculous?” she said. “For weeks now, I tried to gather the . . .” She paused again. “Temerity to knock on your door. I imagined myself in tears when you opened it, but I’m all cried out about Ben. As Edna St. Vincent Millay says, it kind of went in little ways. I half-hoped you would cry when I told you about Carly, not that I’ve ever seen you shed a tear.”
“You do like tears,” I said.
She gave a despondent little laugh. “People are more likely to touch each other when one of them is crying.”
Mollie pulled very gently on my shirt until it came untucked. I faced her to find her lips parted. She had just wetted them and took her time wetting mine.
My hand found the back of her head, her hair crunchy with mousse. The warm static of her breath filled my ear. She kicked her shoes in Edward’s direction, sending him scurrying toward the bathroom. I ran my fingers along her blouse until I felt the cold tip of a zipper beneath her arm. Finding things with your hands is easier than you realize, and everything on Mollie was exactly where I had left it.
“I’ve missed you,” she told me sleepily an hour later.
“This is the easy part,” I said. “It’s the day-to-day living that wears you down.”
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