Baggage

by S. G. Redling

  This one is chubby and the bulky utility belt only sets off his gut and thick thighs. His heavy jacket keeps catching on his gun as he fans it against his body, trying to find some relief from the heat in the office. His radio is loud enough to be heard from space and he keeps touching it, as if he can compel one of the endless relays to be directed to him. There’s a snow clump melting on his hat and I’m much more interested in watching it slide to the floor than in anything he might have to say.

  When Meredith doesn’t wrap up her phone call in a timely enough manner for him, he huffs, hitches up his belt, and finally notices me through the dividers. Clearly, he’s no detective. He nods at me as he heads toward me, the “Ma’am” he throws my way sounding like he stole it from a cowboy movie. He stands at the corner of my desk and I see that he can’t be twenty-five years old. He is a kid. I should probably stop heaping so much hostility on him. Probably.

  He pulls out a notebook. “Ma’am, I’d like to ask you some questions pertaining to the incident that occurred on the premises earlier this morning.”

  Jesus, do they send them to school for this kind of shit? “Pertaining to the incident”? I’d bet everything I own that this kid would struggle to spell pertaining. He probably has incendiary opinions on NASCAR. If I asked him, he’d tell me he doesn’t trust the French but for the life of him couldn’t honestly tell me why. His dream vacation is Myrtle Beach or maybe Daytona and he thinks Africa is a country.

  He thinks everyone that works at the college is a snob. In this case, I guess he’s right. The much-ignored sane part of my brain suggests that I might be projecting on this poor guy, that my silent disapproval and snap judgment might be more the result of my own fear bias than any actual shortcomings on his part. I also realize I sound just like my mother. He’s not helping, however, with his foot-to-foot shifting and endless readjusting of his overloaded belt.

  After he’s found the proper page in the notebook he’s been rifling through, but before I’m forced to pretend to be polite, Meredith finishes her call and whooshes our way with her usual fanfare. Hair, arms, random edges of sweater all flapping and signaling that we should not start whatever this is without her.

  “A thousand apologies. Important call. Desperate student and all that. I’m here. I’m all yours, Officer . . . ?” She squints at the breast of his jacket, what I would consider a universally understood gesture requesting one to reveal one’s nametag. He just blinks at her. She’ll just have to make do with addressing him as “Officer.” For surely that is what he is. There is no world in which this man is a detective.

  He refers to his notebook. “Ma’am, I’d like to ask you some questions pertaining to the incident that occurred on the premises earlier this morning.”

  Ah, a word-for-word repeat. A script. Yet another in a long list of reasons to be glad nobody I love is dead at that scene. If someone were murdered, and that murderer is in this building, and this cop is responsible for collecting the evidence to capture said murderer, Justice can go ahead and take a spa day. It won’t be called to duty any time soon.

  Meredith settles at the edge of my desk, her attention fully on Officer Chubby. “In the basement, right? I heard the sirens.”

  “Ladies, this is just a preliminary examination of persons on the scene at the—”

  “Was it suicide?” Meredith interjects.

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss the—”

  “Oh, is it a crime scene?”

  “At this juncture, ma’am, we cannot—”

  “Of course, you can’t tell us anything.” Meredith nods to me. “If it’s a crime scene, they have to establish the whereabouts of anyone normally on the premises. I watch a lot of true-crime shows.”

  This puffs up the already puffy Officer Chubby, restoring his place as lawful authority, not some civilian hanger-on. “Ma’am, I know television makes this all look like a lot of fun, with lots of excitement. The reality is most of police work is just that—work. Hard work.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.” Meredith nods a lot, her pale red curls flopping around her face. “They make it look easy. One hour, crime solved. You guys have to actually do the hard work, right? To solve the crime?”

  He gives her a humble-brag shrug, tugs on his belt, and does that full-face sniff. What is it with macho guys and that sniff? I can’t believe Meredith is getting dazzled by this dollar-store cop-talk knock-off.

  “So it is a crime scene?”

  “Anytime there is an unnatural or unusual death, protocol says we—”

  “Sure, sure, notify next of kin, collect evidence, determine COD, all that.” She’s nodding and I’m getting a little hypnotized by the bounce of one lively curl that juts out over her ear. I watch it spring around when she turns back to me. “COD, that’s cause of death. Cop talk.”

  I lean back in my chair, content to watch her hair flounce and frizz as she responds to the cop’s questions with animation. She’s dying to answer him, he’s enjoying the focus. She gives him our names and department and doesn’t seem to judge him at all when she has to spell both of our names twice. My name is Anna Ray. She has to spell it twice. Slowly.

  But in a minute, I go from half listening to watching in surprise. Yes, Meredith is jumping in to answer his questions with enthusiasm and, yes, Officer Chubby appears fully invested in his World-Weary Beat Cop character. So invested, as a matter of fact, that he doesn’t realize that Meredith is interrogating him.

  In ten minutes of lively back and forth, we learn that the dead body is an adult male. From the condition of the body and evidence on the scene, suicide has been ruled out; an accident seems unlikely, leaving homicide in the lead. He learns our names, titles, and what time we got to work. It doesn’t seem like a fair exchange of information, but Officer Chubby doesn’t notice. Instead he lets Meredith fawn over him, shaking her head and clucking her tongue at the brave and thankless work he and his fellow officers have before them. Another unnecessary hitch of his belt, another Gary Cooper nod, and of course another manly sniff, and Officer Chubby thanks us for our cooperation and wishes us good day.

  Once he’s gone, Meredith turns those wide eyes on me. “Wow, it looks like we missed a lot this morning. Can you believe that? A murder?”

  “I’m still trying to wrap my head around what just happened here. You totally pumped that guy for information. I thought he was going to show you police records.”

  She waves me off. “Oh that. He was dying to talk about it.”

  “He was here to get information. Now we probably know more than he does. He’s going to go back to the station, look at his notes, and go ‘Hey . . . ’ You’re a master interrogator.”

  She scowls at me. “Never underestimate my ability to find stuff out, but really, let’s not oversell this. You saw that guy. I’ve eaten sandwiches that could outwit him. I just wanted to know what was going on and I didn’t want to wait for Lyle Dunfee to tell us. I hate when he has the skinny on campus gossip.” She grimaces. “I guess this isn’t really campus gossip, is it? I mean, someone is dead. You don’t think it’s Walter Voss, do you? Oh, wouldn’t that be awful?”

  “I don’t think so. I saw him on the way to the library.” That seems like a hundred years ago. My estimation of this day has plunged and soared so many times since waking up in the tub I’m getting the bends. And I haven’t even had any breakfast yet. I mention this last bit to Meredith, confident she’ll have something delicious stashed in her many cubbies.

  “I love it!” She jumps off the desk, her trailing sweater creating a small paper avalanche. “Appetite in the face of death, a celebration of life in the face of mortality.”

  “And I’m hungover.”

  She frowns her disapproval. “Oh, yeah. Ollie’s. Did you have fun?” She heads back to her end of the office and starts shifting and pulling at boxes and tubs. “I forgot Professor Fitzhugh-Conroy was your cousin. That goes a
long way toward explaining how you came all the way here from Nebraska.” She disappears, bending over behind her desk. “I thought maybe you’d just had enough of wide-open spaces.”

  I’ve followed her to her desk. I figure if I’m going to beg breakfast out of her, it’s too much to ask her to deliver. There, I learn one of her secrets.

  “You do have a refrigerator tucked away in here.”

  “Of course I do.” She pulls out a Pyrex bowl with a blue lid and slams the fridge with her knee. “I have two of them. You don’t think I’d risk salmonella poisoning and leave sausage dip out at room temperature. Is it salmonella you get from pork?”

  “Trichinosis,” I say as she pulls off the lid. “Is that the sausage dip from yesterday?”

  “Too gross for morning?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I figured as much. You strike me as an unhealthy eater.” She pulls out a tall, purple Rubbermaid tub from beside a filing cabinet. Within it, I see plastic utensils, packages of paper plates, paper towels, even pot holders. She chooses a long-handled spoon and starts stirring the cold dip. “A few minutes in the microwave and this will be perfect.”

  She hands me the bowl. I know where the microwave is, sort of. It takes me a minute to scan the wall unit that blocks the southern window. Only Meredith, I think, would block southern exposure to store mountains of boxes and crates of god only knew what. I find the white microwave partially disguised under bumper stickers declaring “Stop Bitching! Start a Revolution!” and “Women who behave rarely make history.” I have to push the Greenpeace logo to open the door. In four minutes, my hangover will be that much further away.

  “Your cousin was very popular here.”

  It takes me a minute to remember what we were talking about, so focused am I on the smell of warming sausage. “Oh yeah, Jeannie. She’s always popular. She’s easy to like.”

  “She was a well-respected professor. Tough. The kids put a lot of weight on her opinion. Maybe a little too much sometimes.” She sets out paper plates and pulls a bag of Tostitos Scoops from her desk drawer. “What’s she doing back here? She’s not leaving Penn State, is she? That’s quite a step up.”

  “No, she just came in for a visit. She has a graduate student covering her for the week.” I’d rather not get into the real reason Jeannie is here now, this week. I don’t want to bring up the discussion of anniversaries.

  “She picked a bad week to come through the mountains. She’ll be lucky to get home this month with this snow. Speaking of which . . . ” She joins me beside the microwave, crouching at my feet to pull out a squat cardboard box decoupaged with pictures of Paris. “You’re going to need these.” From within the box, she pulls out a pair of maroon corduroy house shoes.

  She sets them beside my feet, guiding me into them as I’m pulling hot dip from the microwave. I almost protest until I feel how cozy they are.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Wow.” I set the dip down and let her spoon out a gob onto my plate. “Student advocacy, diner, and haberdashery. How do you do it?”

  “They belong to my son. I got them for him for Christmas one year but he left them when he moved to Nashville. Said they were for old men.” Her smile is sad when she pulls a framed photograph from the corner of her desk to show me. I’m really glad I have a mouthful of chips and dip when she holds it in front of me. She nods as my eyes widen. “I know, right? So handsome. That’s my beautiful boy, Derek. Hard to believe he was ever a little boy.”

  I take my time swallowing my mouthful, grateful I don’t have to make an immediate comment on the man-child in the picture. Maybe it’s because I’ve never had kids of my own, maybe it’s because of the type of people I was born among, but I’ve never been good at lying about pictures of people’s kids. Meredith’s son towers over her in the photo but not in any manly, athletic way. He looks like a pasty ogre with bad skin and worse facial hair and a surly smirk that reveals at least two crooked teeth. As socially awkward as I am, however, even I know the wisdom of keeping my big mouth shut on the matter. In her eyes, he is an Adonis.

  So I nod. And keep chewing. She puts the photo back but keeps it turned toward us. I have to say something so I focus on the background of the picture. “Was that taken at Ollie’s?”

  “It was. Derek went to EAC for three years, studied English and music. He would play guitar at Ollie’s on their open mic night.” She actually blushes with pride at the memory. “Despite your cousin’s opinion to the contrary, many talented students do play at Ollie’s. Derek is so gifted. Everyone says so.”

  “Does he still play?”

  “Well.” She turns the picture back so it faces her. Her finger lingers over his face. “He moved to Nashville. You know the story. It’s a tough business. Not everyone is tough enough. That eternal struggle between art and commerce.” I know that struggle all too well. I’m never more reminded of it than in late February, and I really wish I could think of something to change the subject. I bite loudly into a chip.

  Lyle Dunfee from the Adjunct’s Office comes to my rescue when he sticks his head in the door again, just as breathless as he was earlier. “Offices are closing at eleven. Classes are cancelled due to the death.” Before we can respond, he whirls away, reveling in his newest duty of delivering the news. He doesn’t get far. I hear his phone beep and then I hear him gasp in the hall. He actually gasps.

  “No press!” he shouts. I don’t know why he shouts it or to whom he is shouting, but he shouts it like CNN is bearing down on him. “We just got an e-mail from the President’s Office. Do not speak to the press.” Another beep, another gasp, and then what sounds like a combination moan and sob. Meredith cocks her eyebrow in comic concern. Lyle’s dramatics are nothing new.

  “Should we bother reading our e-mail?” she asks me. “Or should we just let Lyle perform them for us?”

  I scoop up more sausage onto my Tostitos. “To be fair, it’s probably devastating him that he can’t talk with the press. I’m sure he had a statement prepared.”

  We hear more voices in the hall, more gasps of shock. That must be some e-mail. Meredith clicks her computer to life and opens her inbox. She scans the screen for a moment, clicking through e-mails, and then shrugs. “It just says we’re closing early due to a tragedy. We’re cooperating with the investigation, blah blah blah.” Click. Click. “Refrain from speculating. Blah blah blah. Information will be disseminated as the investigation continues . . . troubled times . . . statements to the press are discouraged, blah blah blah. I don’t see anything especially shocking. Except, you know, the fact that there’s a dead body downstairs.”

  “Well, the dead body is just the beginning,” I say around a mouthful of food. “Now the real excitement starts. Now the professional mourners kick in. Who wants a funeral dirge when we can have the extended dead dance remix?”

  Meredith looks at me with an odd expression on her face and I think maybe I’m showing too much callousness. Maybe I shouldn’t make my familiarity with this sort of thing so obvious. Before I can deflect her attention, Lyle throws himself against our doorframe, clutching his phone to his chest, biting his lip. I have my own opinion on whether or not he is biting back tears or biting his lip hard enough to raise them. I’m going to ignore them either way.

  “You did not hear this from me.” He glances around furtively, as if we don’t know he’s already told everyone on the floor. We also know that he is dying to tell us and god help anyone who tries to take credit for breaking whatever this news is. “They’ve identified the body.”

  The last word disappears in a breathy sob as Lyle grinds his pale knuckle against his lips. Here we go, step two of the Great Grief Showcase: I Knew Him Better Than You. Whoever is being carted off to the morgue is now becoming best friends with dozens of people who wouldn’t have lent them cab fare a week ago. Upon hearing the victim’s name, Lyle and his kind will suddenly
remember months, years, decades they had spent bonding and growing with the deceased, cherishing them and sharing intimacies. Not because they actually give a shit about them but because that intimacy will bump them up higher on the grieving pecking order. Their tears will hurt more, their lives will matter more because a bigger hole has been torn into it by this untimely, tragic death.

  I am too familiar with the massive wave of bullshit bearing down on me and I know I’m not polite enough to fake my way through this conversation so I turn in my seat and pretend to do something with the bottom of my shoe. Whatever kicks Lyle is going to get from his grief parade, he’s not going to get them from me.

  Meredith does what I cannot and will not do. She leans in, her face a mask of concern. “Who is it, Lyle?”

  “It’s . . . oh my god, I can’t believe it. I can’t even . . . ”

  Oh for fuck’s sake, Lyle, spit it out. Then you can hurry home and update your Facebook profile with pictures of the unlucky sap.

  “It was Ellis.”

  Just the first name. He’s going to make us ask for the last name. I’m hiding my eye roll as the name sinks in.

  Ellis Trachtenberg.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  And just like that, I feel guilty.

  It’s such an easy emotion to fall into, a wide splash of unpleasant that covers your soul from top to bottom with none of the relief of believing you’ve been wronged. It’s a feel-bad you believe you deserve and it clings to you like napalm.

  In a split second, I feel guilty for the mean things I’ve been thinking about Lyle. People are whispering and crying in the hallway and I feel guilty for my gut reaction, which is to dismiss them as drama queens and hangers-on. They knew Ellis. Everyone in this building has worked at this small college longer than I have, a lot longer in most cases, and they knew Ellis Trachtenberg. They counted him among their friends and now he’s gone forever.