I FELL IN AND OUT OF SLEEP ALL THAT DAY AND NIGHT and finally resisted the futile urge to try again around four A.M. As unaccustomed as I was to rising early of my own volition, I got dressed, made some coffee, made a few lists, paced a lot, and cried a little more, until I found that I had no tears left. About seven Tuesday morning I heard the others stirring, so I took a deep breath, armed myself with my notes, and went out to inform the crew about my decisions. I felt ancient and raw, inside and out, as if I’d been scoured with pumice.
Everyone was getting his breakfast and before any of them could say anything, I grabbed a cup of coffee and started right in with my speech. Among my many other reasons for being glad of the coffee, the cup also gave me a useful prop, a distraction when it was needed.
“You probably all know by now that Pauline Westlake was found in the house and that she is dead. I should have told the rest of you myself yesterday, but I couldn’t…if Pauline wasn’t actually a relation, she did as much as anyone to make me who I am today, and, well, it’s been a shock for everyone. I’ve decided that we’re going to stop where we are—”
A few surprised noises came from the students and I held up a hand.
“For now. We are close enough to the end of most of the active units to finish and map them in a day or two and so we’ll wrap them up and not start any new ones. We’d only get another meter or two done this last week anyway, and if we come across anything really big, well, either it will keep until next season, or we can manage by getting it out on weekends, before the semester is in full swing. So we haven’t lost much time, really, and you all will get your full stipends. What we’ll do in the meantime is work on getting the artifacts washed and labeled, so we can make the most of our time here and still be around so that if the deputies say we can go back to backfill, we’ll be here. There has to be some investigation into the source of the fire, and they won’t want us kicking up dust around their data, same as we wouldn’t want anyone messing up ours.”
That sparked a sudden, panicky thought in me, and I hurriedly set it aside. Not now.
Dian spoke up, and I noticed for the first time that her eyes were reddened. “I know I speak for everyone, Em, when I say how sorry we are for you, your loss, I mean.” She looked around and the other students nodded silently. “Pauline was great and we all loved her.”
“Thanks.” It was easier to deal with sympathy now that I’d had a little time to deal with my own grief. “So. The weather looks iffy, but the order of the day is getting things sorted out to go back to the department. I’ll probably be in and out”—my breath caught here, but I was able to master myself—“as I may need to help with the sheriff’s investigation.”
“Don’t worry about anything,” Neal said. “We’ll get everything in order.”
I nodded. “Thanks, I’m counting on that. And I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything about the…funeral arrangements. That’s it, I guess. Thanks, again.”
I went over for another cup of coffee, the bulk of the morning’s unpleasantness almost done. As if I had forgotten something, I said, “And, oh, Alan? Could I have a word for a moment?”
He didn’t get up from the table and he didn’t meet my eyes. “What is it?”
I gritted my teeth and thought, Alan, you’re making yourself a very large target today; don’t push me. Concealing my irritation, I said, “I just need your help with something, for a minute.”
I led him down the hallway, to another, empty common area, well out of earshot. “Have a seat.” I took a deep sip of coffee, wishing I didn’t have this on my plate as well. I just didn’t need it. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. I was just…sorry.” I could see a lot of his father in him when he pressed his lips together. “What’s this all about?”
“I’ll be frank with you. You’ve seemed really angry about something for the past week or so and I think it’s getting in the way of your work for me. I wonder if we can sort this out.”
He said nothing. I sighed and continued, trying my best to be fair to him and focus on the matter at hand. “I’m thinking of Friday, obviously. You showed a lot of temper, you weren’t particularly polite to me, and then you stormed out. You seem to be having some friction with Rob, and a lot with Neal, and this needs to stop. I don’t care if you don’t get on with everyone, but you do need to behave professionally.”
Alan didn’t say anything and suddenly my anger ebbed, replaced by genuine worry. He was such a mess that I hoped he was getting some kind of counseling.
Finally he spoke up. “I’m just sick of everyone…running down my work. Running me down.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Who’s everyone?”
“Well, Neal, for one. Neal especially. He’s always on my back, and everyone else follows his lead.”
“Neal’s job is to keep everyone moving along. And even I’ve had to go over procedure with you, time and again.” I paused, hating to ask the question I knew had to be asked. “Are you sure this is what you really want, Alan? It’s not like there’s a lot of money to be had for all the rigors of this field, not like medicine or the law. It’s a lot of effort to go through for something you’re not completely sure of.”
“Yeah, of course I’m sure.” He shrugged. “No, I don’t know. I just wish the whole thing would go away, sometimes.”
“Have you ever thought about taking a semester off, a leave of absence? Just to think things over?”
He looked up at me. “You’re not going to kick me out, are you?”
As much as I knew he wouldn’t like the answer, I owed it to him to be honest. “It really seems as if your heart isn’t in it, that’s why I ask. Think about it. But the next time I see a display like last week, I’ll probably reconsider hiring you. It’s not just aptitude but attitude, as well.”
“Christ, I can’t please anyone, can I?” he muttered. “Can I go?”
I could tell things were nowhere near to being resolved, but I didn’t have the stomach for it anymore. “Sure. I’ll see you later.”
I looked at my watch: only seven-fifty. It was far too early to call Brian in California and I couldn’t call Marty yet. I needed to talk to someone who could put this in perspective for me. I called my sister.
We’re not all that much alike, for sisters. For one thing, there’s a good eight-year age difference between us, not quite a generation, but far apart enough to matter. We didn’t get the usual sibling interaction because she always seemed to be sick after she was born, late in our mother’s life. It was because of that that I’d started spending so much time with Oscar as a kid; Grandpa tried to make things easier on the Maternal Parent. But by the time I reached high school, I noticed that the runt had a will and personality very much her own, and I promoted her from background noise and annoyance to probationary ally.
That isn’t to say there isn’t the expected competition between us. I had to work hard to get good grades and people called me an overachiever. Bucky’s like Mycroft Holmes, a razor-sharp intellect and constantly accused of not living up to her potential except when she’s interested. We’d both trade for body parts; though Brian says he likes a womanly figure, I’m envious of Bucky’s boyish hips. She bristles every time I stretch and yawn, showing off the fact that I got the bust in the family.
As different as we are, Bucky and I became friends as adults. I know two things absolutely about my sister, that I can rely on her and that she will always tell me the truth. I think she knows she can expect the same of me. Even if I still haven’t forgotten the incident involving my underwear drawer and a can of chocolate sauce the night before my SATs.
As I rang up the veterinary clinic where she practiced, I counted the rings like other people tell a rosary, a little prayer with each brrr-ing tone. She was in early so many mornings that when the answering machine picked up instead, I swore and hung up, trying not to get nuts with premature disappointment. What I needed was Bucky’s calm to help me wade through this, I thought. I tried her at home.
The phone rang just once before a muffled voice said, “Vet.”
“Bucky, it’s Emma.”
“Emma who?”
“Don’t be funny—”
“I’m not. What the hell time is it?”
“Almost eight.”
“Shit. I didn’t get to bed until five. There was an emergency surgery, dog hit by a car. I got it, of course.” I heard a tremendous yawn cut short. “Why are you up? Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, yeah, there is.” I took a deep breath and told her about the fire, and about Pauline’s death. It surprised me that I could relate yesterday’s events so matter-of-factly.
“They think that it happened sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning,” I concluded. “She probably slipped and hit her head on the butcher block island in the middle of her kitchen. The sheriff said that it was probably the smoke and not the fire that did it.”
“Any idea how it happened?”
“Near as the Fire Marshal’s Office can tell so far, it was the gas stove that probably started the fire,” I finished.
“That doesn’t sound like Pauline,” Bucky said after a minute.
“I know. I’m betting it was bad wiring or something. Not an accident on her part.”
“Damn it, Em, I’m sorry. What can I do? Do you want me to come up? I can swap some of my appointments around, if you need me for a day or so—” Bucky was the most junior partner at a thriving practice in rural Connecticut; she was still paying her dues in terms of the scut work and very early or very late emergency calls.
“No, don’t, you’ve got too much going on. I just wanted to talk to you.” A thought occurred to me. “Wait, there is something.”
“Name it.”
“Keep Ma out of my hair. She didn’t know Pauline well, but she didn’t like her anyway, not when I talked about her so much. I’ve probably got to tell Ma sometime, but I don’t want her crowding me now. If she hears about the fire on the news, she’ll kill me; if she comes up here, I’ll end up strangling her.”
“No sweat,” came the immediate answer. “Say, what do you think of this? I’ll take Ma out for dinner tonight, and I’ll mention it in passing, downplay it a lot. That way she’ll know, but she’ll be so busy complaining about the service and what all that it won’t sink in.”
“I hate being so…so…” I began.
“The word you’re looking for is sneaky,” Bucky suggested. “Also circuitous, conniving, and conspiratorial. Forget it. Ma’s a pill, and we deal with her whatever way we can. Anything else?”
“No, this just sucks, is all.”
“I know. You’ll get through it though,” Bucky said, confident in her prognosis. “And for God’s sake, don’t just wade on with things like nothing happened. Give yourself some time to get over it.”
“I am, don’t worry.”
“How’s the dig anyway?”
“Over now. But we got some really amazing stuff.” I filled her in, briefly.
“Cool.”
It surprised me how much that one little syllable meant to me, almost restoring the glitter to my gold. “It really is.”
“You sure you don’t want me?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“You let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you—I’m serious, now.”
“I know. You wouldn’t give up a night to Ma otherwise.”
I heard a short, humorless laugh. “Well, you owe me.”
“Whatever you want.” I paused awkwardly. “I love you, Bucks.”
“Yeah, you too. See you, Em.” She hung up.
Even though Bucky jokes that neither of us is good with people—her working with animals and me focusing on people who had been dead for centuries—I realized how much better talking to her had made me feel.
I fussed around the dorm lab for a few more hours, then tried to call Brian. He had already left his hotel room, so I left a message to call me right away. I could have used talking to him, especially since I was soon the recipient of another visit from Sheriff Stannard, who knocked discreetly at the door to my room at about one o’clock.
I wasn’t entirely sure how I was supposed to greet him—I wasn’t being pulled over for speeding, I wasn’t going to him with a complaint, and I didn’t know what he wanted. Surely there were rules, manners for such a thing, but I had no clue what they were.
“Uh, hi.” I looked around my room in its usual disastrous shape. “Sorry about the mess.”
The sheriff looked around. “Well,” he said uncertainly, “you’ve probably been preoccupied…for a while. Is there anywhere we can sit down and talk?”
“Yeah, come on down the hall.”
After we were settled in the empty lounge, he came straight to the point. “I’ve got some bad news. We’ve got reason to suspect that the fire was not an accident. That fire was burning too hot, too fast, considering all the rain we got.”
I couldn’t believe he was saying what he was saying. “What? Not an…? No.” I shook my head. “Jesus, no.”
“The circumstances appear suspicious,” the sheriff said reluctantly. “That’s why I need to verify everyone’s statements, including yours, Dr. Fielding. If we can develop a time frame—”
“But who would…why? Does that mean that Pauline was…didn’t die by accident?” The horrid idea was impossible to imagine. Oh my dear Pauline.
“We don’t know if her death was intentional or not, whether the arson was the real goal,” he said gently. “We don’t know what the perpetrator had in mind, but it looks real suspicious at this point.”
The anthropological part of my brain, over which I have no control, noticed he used the words circumstances, verify, and perpetrator the way someone who has been trained to a particular vocabulary would. In my estimation Dave Stannard would never have chosen them out of uniform. I realized that I was taking refuge in analysis and tried to face what the sheriff was telling me. It came to me out of the blue.
“Tichnor!” I stood up out the chair, as if I could invoke the man by saying his name. “Have you found him yet? Where was he this weekend?”
“We have no idea where he was this weekend.” Stannard seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “Dr. Fielding, weren’t his threats directed at you? Did he even know who Pauline Westlake was?” He flipped back through his notes. “She only saw him leave the site, and that was from a distance. What makes you think that he would try to attack her rather than you? And if he was what you called a pothunter—why this?”
I was aware that Stannard wasn’t asking me what he appeared to be, but it didn’t matter: I knew what I knew.
“But why would he need a real reason?” I argued. “The man’s a nut, running around waving that damned gun! This is probably just some way of getting back…” I let that thought die of malnourishment, as it contained a fundamental truth that I was not yet ready to face. The same one that had occurred to me this morning wasn’t going to leave me alone.
Stannard just waited.
“Don’t you think he’s the most obvious choice?” I pleaded. “I mean, look at all the stuff that’s been happening, and he’s had his finger in all of it! First Augie Brooks washes up on the beach—”
“That was an accident, Dr. Fielding.”
“—and everyone telling me how useless he was out on the water and then Nick down at the Goat and Grapes says that he sometimes hung around with Grahame Tichnor—”
“A coincidence, Dr. Fielding. I spent time with several criminals last week and it doesn’t mean that I was tangled up in their business.”
“And then he threatens me, with a gun, no less, and shortly thereafter, Pauline, Pauline is dead and her house burned, and now you’re saying it wasn’t an accident and so why aren’t you looking for him? It can’t be so hard to find him, my God, you can’t let him get away with—”
“We were looking for him,” Stannard interrupted my tirade. “Straight off, just like I promised you. And we found him.” The sheriff watched me carefully.
“Well? What’s he said?” A distant part of me marveled that anger freed me to speak so.
“Nothing. When we went to his house this morning, we did find him, but he was dead. Under suspicious circumstances,” the sheriff answered patiently. “Professor Fielding, I need to ask you, again, where were you last weekend, and particularly the night before last?”
After that everything was a bit of a haze. I remember having given Stannard Brian’s hotel number and Kam and Marty’s names and addresses, and then he must have gone because suddenly I found myself alone. Like an automaton, I found myself clutching my keys and heading for the parking lot. Unfortunately the Civic was in the shop. I took the college vehicle instead.
I don’t remember the drive out to the beach. I assume that I had been instinctively heading for Greycliff, and then veered off down the public road at the last moment, remembering suddenly, horribly, that not even the house was there to comfort me. Another gut-wrenching realization in a series of shocks. I couldn’t decide whether I was more desperate for the tight knot in my stomach to ease up and give me a chance to take just one deep breath or to keep the sharp bitterness fresh, as a memorial to Pauline. Either way I lost.
The beach was deserted; the fog that had driven away the tourists had been followed by rain that was too much for even the most dedicated of beach walkers. I pulled up to the front of the parking lot, where the margin between it and the beach itself was gritty with sand that had blown over the low bumpers. The tide was very high today, and the river seemed rebellious, impatient to reclaim the land that bound it and channeled its progress to the ocean. I couldn’t see the other shore for the fog, and the black water lent a depth and sinister quality to the river that was not imaginable on fine days. There was no comfort in the fact that the summer heat was momentarily stalled; the clammy cold leached directly into my bones.
I sat idling for a moment, reluctant to switch off the engine and be totally alone with my thoughts, though I finally realized I had come out here for just that purpose. To grapple with “words that would be howl’d out in the desert air, where hearing should not latch them.”
I put the truck into park and turned the key; the windshield wipers froze in place, diagonal across the glass. Irritated, I turned the key again briefly, just long enough for the wipers to slide obediently beneath the edge of the hood; I wanted symmetry and order. The rain battered against the roof of the truck, echoing my own sense of hollowness.
I listened for a long while, trying to make sense of the patterns of rain that snaked down the windshield, trying to make sense of everything that the sheriff had told me. Pauline was dead: murdered. Possibly killed by a man who had threatened me, who was now dead himself. What the hell could be real anymore, in the face of these things?
As if in answer, I felt a pain in my side that persisted long after I’d stopped being able to cry. Taking a deep breath, I pulled my wallet out of my slicker pocket. I stared at it for a moment and then began to rifle through it, slowly at first, then more quickly. Brian is always saying that I cram too much into it, but it wasn’t all that cluttered at the moment. I picked out the picture of me with him, the one of us goofing around at the beach down by his parents’ house, where I’m sunburned and laughing, and he’s laughing too, so completely in his element. It felt a million miles away now; worse, since he had yet to call me back.
I pulled out the rest of the stuff, license, an avalanche of library cards and college ID, a couple of weary credit cards, ATM card, and a bunch of crumpled receipts. I smoothed out the crinkled paper slips and set them aside, then shuffled the cards and set them out carefully on the seat, arranged in a rough array around the creased photograph. I was trying to read my future.
Suddenly the idea of running away was very appealing. Being nowhere; better, being anonymous. Part of what I love about traveling was the idea of vanishing from the radar for a while, even if it was just for an hour in the airport, the idea being that if I couldn’t be found, then neither could my troubles find me. No one knew who I was, no one could remind me of my responsibilities. It was just a game I played, being incognito in my own life, and it was all I desired now. How much a relief it would be to leave my wallet and all its contents on the front seat of the truck and just vanish. If I walked down the beach and headed into Fordham, and hitched a lift to Portland, I could get a bus ticket for anywhere: With some of the cash I had, I could be lost somewhere in New York state by dinnertime. If I pushed on to Pennsylvania, and then even farther, I would be completely swallowed up, beyond the pale. No one would know me.
It is very easy to be devoured once you decide to stop resisting. Being devoured sounded very good to me.
Funny how little distance it took, physically or mentally, to move beyond the narrow scope of one’s little world. We are the centers of our own remarkably private constellations, and it was surprising to find, as one did occasionally, how fragile these consensual arrangements really are.
I looked at the photograph again and smiled briefly, then frowned: It wasn’t the thought of Brian that was keeping me here, and not my overdeveloped conscience either. There was something else, something big that I was missing, like a bear hiding behind the drapes.
Suddenly I was thinking of Oscar. And Shakespeare.
Of all the memories I cherished of my grandfather, the one that I took out least often was the one of me sitting in his lap while he read from his ancient Riverside. I was afraid that if I recalled those peaceful summer evenings too frequently, I would wear out the recollection, and it would be lost to me forever. He always said that the point of reading those plays was to teach me about context and interpretation and structure, but I knew better than to believe that, even as a kid. What I couldn’t learn from all our hikes or the visits to his sites; what I couldn’t learn about interpretation from the Oscar Fielding was not going to be found in some moth-eaten, dog-eared volume of antiquated, elitist plays.
It was simpler than that. He loved the sound of the words. He read to me for the pleasure of hearing his own voice and for the pleasure of sharing it with me. The purple prose passages suited him down to the ground, appropriately huge text for someone who had always been larger than life. That deep-timbred roar, the one that was the fear and scourge of his students and colleagues, could be harnessed and fed into a Petruchio of outstanding rudeness, the most villainous Iago ever heard, or such a witty Mercutio that if Juliet had been really smart, she would have dumped that other numbnuts and run off with him instead. And Grandpa’s Falstaff was the best.
I shook my head. Why was this coming to me now? It tortured me that Oscar wasn’t here. He was the only one who would have known the precise region of hell in which I was presently lodged. But why this particular memory?
Shakespeare? I thought about that for a minute. I had, of course, been dredging up lines associated with every outrage, every blasphemy, every—go ahead, I thought, say it—every murder, since that terrible moment on the site. The images evoked by “the soul’s frail dwelling-house” and “cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells” haunted me—the words popping into my head unbidden at inopportune intervals. But that was only natural, these were the only words big enough to express my feelings. My own feeble attempts couldn’t begin to accommodate them.
And what else? What are you leaving out that you shouldn’t be? What’s behind the words? Think about it logically. A little voice in the back of my head became more insistent, pushed and prodded for attention.
Grief, of course. Huge loss. Guilt, I suppose, but…my God, I’m so angry, I just don’t know what to do.
More, the voice urged, even more than that. What’s stronger than that? What is the common thread running through all those lines that keep coming to you?
Duty? Oh come on, revenge? Tichnor’s dead, for chrissake…
Does that mean he gets away with it? And if the sheriff isn’t convinced, perhaps neither should you be. And you’re the one in the middle here. You’re the one who knows things, who holds the key to all of this.
I thought about that as another fusillade of rain beat a tattoo on the roof of the truck. I slowly picked up the keys, then decisively turned her over. I was freezing. As I waited for the ineffectual heater to warm up the cavernous vehicle, I began collecting up the miscellany that defines me in this culture and jammed it all back into the tired wallet without regard for the tidy little plastic folders that are there for other folks to use.
I suppose, having made a decision, I should have been relieved, but I was nothing but mad: Why me? I flicked on the wipers again and backed out of the parking space. But it certainly had been a surprise, me actually going so far as to entertain the idea of letting myself off the hook. I don’t know why, it must have been exhaustion that was making me dither. Deep down, I knew that I had to find out the truth; the alternative was unthinkable. I certainly hadn’t needed to waste time and gas money to bully myself into the decision to look into Pauline’s death for myself.
And being a scientist, I only believe in ghosts for other people.
“So when is the funeral?” Brian asked later that evening. I’d finally been around when he returned my call.
“I don’t know. There’s got to be an…investigation.” I couldn’t say the word autopsy. “When can you get here?”
There was a long pause on the other end. “I’m going to do my damnedest to get there as soon as I can, but I honestly don’t know. We’re right in the middle of things, but I’m trying for a day or two.”
“Can’t Kam cover for you?” I was ashamed to admit to myself that I hoped the desperation in my voice would influence him.
“Not at the moment. His schedule’s all over the place. He’s still in Chicago for a couple days and won’t be out here until next week.”
“Shit.”
“It’s not hopeless, and I swear I’m doing everything I can to get away. Has the sheriff come up with anything else yet?”
“Just a lot of questions. I’ve got an appointment to go down to the station tomorrow to answer some more questions about times and things; I’m also going to try to get some more details from them. What I know so far is that the fire was arson; whether Pauline’s death was intentional is still up in the air. Tichnor’s dead, but that could be an accident, they don’t know yet; it looks like food poisoning. They don’t even know if the two are connected, but I do. I’m sure of it. There are too many coincidences.” I bounced my fist gently against the wall in frustration. “But every time something else pops up, it only seems to confuse the matter.”
“I know, Emma. I know.” Brian paused, and I knew he was trying to find the right words. I tried not to be impatient with him even though I knew whatever he was thinking was probably for my own good. “But look, do me a favor?” he began. “I know your instinct is to try to wrap up all the loose ends at once, but I really want you to try and just deal with what you know for sure right now. You’ve got plenty to cope with, without adding more to your plate. Just get through packing up the dig and dealing with the fact that Pauline’s gone. The other stuff will still be there once you’ve had a chance to…get that sorted out.”
I hated that he was right; it went against every inclination I had. “I’m just going to tell them again everything I knew of Pauline’s plans and when I last saw her and stuff. I don’t know any more.”
“All right.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“What is it?”
Again there was that sense that Brian was choosing his words carefully. “Emma, I hate to ask this, but has anyone said anything to you about your being a suspect? That you might have—”
I was stunned. “Brian, how could you say such a thing? Why…how could you even think…?”
“It’s not what I think,” he said quickly, “God, no, never. But I’m just worried that your relationship with her might prejudice them against you and I want you to make sure that you get a lawyer if anything like that comes up today. Give Mark Regan a call; if he can’t help you, he’ll know who can.”
I couldn’t say anything for a moment and the silence stayed between us like an icy chasm. “That’s just so cold-blooded that I can’t even think straight.”
“That’s why I bring it up,” he said. “This looks like it might be murder and I just want you to be careful, that’s all. I know you can’t imagine that anyone might think you did it, but that doesn’t mean they can’t come up with some stupid reason. Do you see what I mean?”
“Yes, and it sucks.”
“I know. I love you, that’s why I told you. I want you to look out for yourself, until I can get there.”
“So, what, you’re going to take care of me then?” Brian didn’t deserve bitchiness, but I couldn’t help it.
“Yes.”
He said it so plainly that I couldn’t make any argument. That way was easy and it let me be angry, which was so much easier than grieving. But I knew what he meant anyway, and it was no indictment of my capabilities. I decided to be as adult as Brian.
“Okay. You get yourself up here as quick as you can. Yesterday.”
“I promise. I love you so much.”
“I love you too. Come home. I need you.”
I got more of the answers I wanted Wednesday morning, but not nearly enough to satisfy me. And worse yet, it seemed, not quite enough to satisfy anyone else.
“Do you recognize any of these things, Professor Fielding?” Sheriff Dave Stannard laid out a small collection of objects on his blotter for me, a moment after I was seated at his desk.
“Well, it depends on what you mean,” I said. “I can probably tell you what most of them are.”
I was becoming very familiar with the inside of Stannard’s office. I was also becoming accustomed to the sheriff and his questions, but I just went along with them, letting the misery of the past couple of days be compartmentalized into an orderly set of details, trying to figure out just what angles he was working from. “I think you want to know something else.”
“You are right about that, but humor me for a minute,” he said. “I want to make sure that I’ve got them listed properly for the evidence inventory. Then I’ll ask you what I really want to know.”
Oh, real subtle, I thought sourly. I looked at the objects and then at the sheriff, puzzled. The little bags held artifacts, nice ones, as far as I could tell. They were collecting quality and not what I was used to finding in the ground. He nodded for me to go ahead.
“Well, that’s a porcelain tea bowl. Is it okay to touch?” I was surprised and a little disappointed that the evidence bags looked like nothing so much as the artifact bags we used. I had hoped for something a little more glamorous, I suppose, more high tech or esoteric.
Stannard nodded, and I picked up the plastic evidence bag with a thin porcelain cup and had a close look at it. “It’s Chinese and I’m not real good with the exact dates without my books, but based on that interior rim decoration, I guess it’s early eighteenth century. It’s pretty. It also looks expensive, I mean, it’s not chipped or cracked and the gold leaf is in good shape. Good enough to be in a museum.”
I put it back, and after he nodded again, I picked up the next bagged object, long and thin with some moving parts. A glint of bright metal caught my eye. “This is valuable,” I said right away. “A silver and red coral baby pacifier. The smooth coral bit was to suck on, to relieve teething pain, maybe, and they had little silver bells and a whistle to amuse an older child. It’s probably English or European, and again, it might be eighteenth or nineteenth century.”
Then it hit me that I actually recognized this piece. “This is Pauline’s!” I quickly looked at the rest of the objects. “These all belonged to Pauline! That’s what you wanted to know, wasn’t it?” I studied his face; it was grim.
“We were pretty sure of that when we found them but we needed an identification.” The sheriff avoided my searching glance. “Just keep going through the things, though, make sure they are all hers.”
What’s going on here? I wondered. Then it struck me. “Wait. These things weren’t in the house! They’re not burned!”
Stannard nodded again. “What about the other objects?”
“I wouldn’t recognize all of her stuff, you know,” I said. “Pauline collected thousands of things, objects from all different periods and everywhere on earth. I can only give you my best guess on some of them.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
I went through the remaining objects quickly. A pair of gold-bound tiger claw earrings from India, a small jade statuette of a fish, a small Egyptian scarab pendant, an ornate Venetian dagger. Before the memories of these objects and the sorrow of remembering the stories that Pauline had told me about them could overwhelm me, I picked up the last object. And gasped.
It was a brownish clay figurine. It was roughly the shape of a woman, with pendulous breasts and a huge belly. It had no arms, and only a suggestion of legs made by an incised line extending from beneath the belly down a narrowing cone of clay. The face was a blank surface and the hair was represented by a collection of whorls and what looked like dreadlocks. Depending on your point of view, it was either dull and rude, or beautiful in a very elemental way.
I had never seen this before—where the hell did Pauline get it? My God, what if it’s real! “Can I take it out of the bag?” I asked eagerly.
The sheriff nodded. “You look surprised by that,” he said noncommittally. “I’ve got no clue what it is or what it’s doing with that other stuff. It’s kinda ugly. You care to fill me in?”
“I’m not even sure if it’s genuine, but if it is, it’s pretty near priceless. At least in terms of research,” I said breathlessly. I set it down reverentially, then had to pick it up again, just to touch the precious thing. “I don’t even know how you’d go about setting a price on this.”
“What is it?”
“What I think it is, is a late Paleolithic figurine, sometimes called a “Venus” figurine. Some people consider these to represent the first organized form of religion.” I was lost in marveling over the small object.
“Late Paleolithic?”
“Um, Old Stone Age. This is probably at least twenty-five thousand years old, probably European. Possibly North African.” Though it could be from Western Asia, too, I thought—I really didn’t know much about this sort of artifact. I had no idea that Pauline was interested in such things; it had to be from an old private collection, for I knew she was too scrupulous to have touched anything that was to be found on the illicit antiquities market.
Stannard still looked confused. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it messy, something I could see was a habit with him when he was in thought or confused. I could see he had no frame of reference for that scale of time.
“If you think of the Egyptians as having built the pyramids five thousand years ago,” I explained, “then this shows up twenty thousand years before that. The first anatomically modern humans only appeared about fifty thousand years ago. That gives you some idea of its importance.”
The sheriff let out a long whistle. “Pretty darned old. I would have thought a kid made it. It’s not real impressive-looking.”
“Well, you’re right about that,” I said, turning it over and thinking that I should really be wearing gloves to handle it. It seemed stable enough, though, and clay wasn’t nearly as susceptible to body oils as glass or metal or paper. “It’s got all these exaggerated features, and it’s small and looks dirty, but on the other hand, it’s got a lot of subtle style to it. Look at the detail in the hair. The proportions of the body are well balanced, even with the huge breasts and belly. It’s very well executed, and it’s been fired too. A lot of thought went into the making of this.”
“I can see that, now that you’re showing me. You look at your evidence the same way we look at ours,” he said. “But how many people would recognize a thing like that?”
“Oh, any number, I suppose,” I said distractedly; I wished Stannard would be quiet for a minute. I couldn’t imagine the next time I’d be allowed to examine such a wonderful thing. “Anyone who’s taken an art history course, or a course in prehistory or maybe anthropology. Possibly some collectors, but it’s a pretty rare sort of item. They do come up on auction blocks, but that’s not something I really follow.”
I failed to attribute any significance to the silence coming from the other side of the desk.
“That’s a real small percentage of the population, you know,” Stannard said finally.
“Not in the circles I travel in,” I said, grinning slightly. The sensation was odd: Eventually I would have to get used to smiling again.
Suddenly I got the point the sheriff was making, and my grin vanished as quickly as it came. I put the figurine down, very carefully. “Where did you find this? Why is it in with all these other things? Why aren’t they burned?”
Stannard got up and began to pace. “I was kind of hoping you could tell me something about that. We found all of these other things stashed under the bed in Grahame Tichnor’s house.”
“I knew it! I told you, of course he did it!” But vindication meant nothing now; I clenched my teeth to resist imagining how Pauline died.
He nodded and continued his measured progress back and forth across the floor. “It certainly suggests to some of us that he was the one who killed Pauline Westlake. But—”
“But what?”
“Most of these things here make sense, if you are a regular crook without too much imagination or smarts.” He walked over to the desk to look at the objects again. “Valuable-looking stuff, with gold or silver or precious stones on them. That clay figurine is a different thing altogether. Not too many people around here would recognize its value. Even that teacup is a stretch—who’d know that an old blue and white cup was valuable?”
“Tichnor might have,” I pointed out. “He was a pothunter.”
Stannard frowned. “Those aren’t pots, are they? Leastwise, not the sort of thing that crops up around here. What if he was the one who’s been digging up the park at Fort Archer? I mean, there are all those rumors about pirate treasure or buried gold around here, right? I always figured that’s what whoever was doing it was after. But none of this stuff is the sort of thing you’d find there, is it?”
“No, of course not. But you said all this was found in his house, right?”
“Yes. That’s not to say that he put it there.”
“Why wouldn’t he have put it there, then, if you found it in his house?” I was thoroughly confused now.
“Someone who wanted it to look like Tichnor had killed Pauline Westlake and set the fire. It’s pretty convenient he’s dead all of a sudden, wouldn’t you say?” The sheriff sat on the corner of his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “You seem to be pretty eager to blame him yourself.”
My jaw dropped, and I struggled to make sense of what he was saying. “Well, yeah, but he was crazy, he threatened me, he had a gun—”
“But Mrs. Westlake wasn’t shot, was she?” Stannard said reasonably. “I just think there’s a little more going on here than appears on the surface.”
Before I could digest that the phone rang, startling us both. The sheriff got up, a little angrily, I thought, and snatched the receiver. “Yes?”
At the same time the door to his office opened and the gnomic medical examiner stumped into the office. “Ooooh, weee! Boyo, when you bring ’em on, you bring ’em good! If I’da known it would do this much good, I woulda set up complaining long ago.”
“Thanks for trying, she’s already here,” Stannard said shortly and hung up the phone. “Ever heard of knocking, Dr. Moretti? How about procedure?” His voice was mild but I couldn’t miss the rebuke. Dr. Moretti apparently couldn’t have cared less.
“I gotta hand it to you, this is a pip! No interesting work since old lady Ballard fell cold off her chair at work last year, then, bang! First Augie and two now suspicious, little ducks all lined up in a row! What a hoot! Next you’ll be handing me the brides in the bath!”
I watched the sheriff take a deep breath. “Best behavior, Terry, we’ve got company.” He nodded in my direction, and she quieted down. Dr. Moretti regarded me suspiciously after she recognized me.
“Oh, yeah, you,” she rasped. “You’re the one out at the Point, the archaeology lady.”
I tried to erase my dislike of her. I’d spent a huge part of my professional life trying to develop a sympathy and respect for the dead, a respect that she clearly didn’t share. Considering her profession, her cavalier attitude exasperated me. But she obviously had information I needed. “No one’s told me how Grahame Tichnor died,” I said.
The woman seemed delighted to have an audience outside her regulars. “Near as I can tell—” She broke off hurriedly and looked at the sheriff, who shrugged.
“I’ll start,” he said. “This is what we’ve got: It looks like the victim had just finished clearing up from dinner—all the dishes were washed and in the rack, and there was some fresh garbage in the pail—carrots, potatoes, some small bones, and a beer bottle in with them.” He added wryly, “Not only was the deceased given to violent behavior, but he didn’t recycle either.
“The deceased was found lying on the floor, and he had convulsed, kicking a chair over.” The sheriff hesitated, considering his evidence before he revealed his hypothesis. “I’m beginning to think it was the potatoes.”
“What, did he choke?” I asked.
He turned to me. “No, that much I’m sure of. Some of the skins were a little green. Most people don’t know that green potatoes, or their eyes, can be every bit as deadly as drinking Drano. They’re in the same family as deadly nightshade.” He glanced at the medical examiner for confirmation.
“Well, it was poisoning,” Dr. Moretti began, “but where the hell are you coming up with deadly potatoes? Belladonna’s a whole ’nother kettle of fish! This is convallatoxin.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Stannard. His immediate challenge told me that pathology wasn’t any more cut and dried than archaeology.
“I couldn’t at first.” The medical examiner settled in to her story, now that she had us hooked. “First thing I noticed was his heart looked dicey to me. This stif—deceased had vomited, so I figured, no problem, he was an old coot, maybe it was his ticker. I looked at the crime scene report, and for once they’d checked out the wastebasket and the medicine cabinet—you need to ride those little wieners every minute! But! No heart medicine in the cabinet and based on the trash and the dish rack, it looked like homemade soup for dinner. Next I have a squint at the kidneys: no digitoxin or digoxin, which was what this was looking like to me. Okay, then we have a wee peeksy in the gut, and we find the remains of dindins.”
Dr. Moretti eyed us sternly. “Always chew your food, children. It makes my job more difficult, but it saves wear and tear on your innards. In this case, Mr. Tichnor did not chew the required forty times per mouthful, nor did he seem to chew any better for lunch, which was a little further down the intestinal tract—”
“Dr. Moretti, cut to the chase.”
“Calm your liver, Sheriff, I’m getting to it. Well, I’m taking a tour through dinner and there wasn’t a lot. Bingo, I figure something didn’t agree with him, so I have a closer look at what was going down and I found carrots, potatoes, a little beef, some celery, whatever. Matches what was in the garbage can. Also some chopped-up herbs, but the only one I could clearly recognize was some curly parsley. There’s some other greenage but I’m about to give up when I say to myself, remember, in spite of those washed dishes, there wasn’t really enough for a whole dinner, he didn’t make it all the way through the meal, something’s wrong, keep looking. But how the hell am I going to identify chopped, chewed greens? Not on cell structure, that’s for sure, and the uncooperative son of a bitch hadn’t conveniently ingested any roots or seeds or whole leaves to make my job easier—”
“Dr. Moretti—” The sheriff was trying hard to keep his patience and was losing. I just kept my mouth shut and watched the exchange with all the fascination of one watching a train wreck.
She waved him off dismissively. “But then I poke around one last time, before I take a sample to send back to Augusta, and I find this.” She produced a small vial filled with clear liquid. There was something small, round, and orange-brown suspended in it.
“What is it?” Stannard squinted at the mangled object in the vial. I peered over his shoulder.
“A berry. From lily of the valley, Convallaria majalis. Toxic as hell, acts a bit like digitoxin, and is occasionally confused by the unlucky and the stupid for wild garlic.” The medical examiner was positively preening now. “I looked it up. Ingesting it will knock your socks off; even the water from the cut flowers ain’t too good for you. A few finely shredded leaves wouldn’t look suspicious and would do the job nicely. I think that it confirms that our dead chum was murdered.”
“I thought you said it could be confused with wild garlic,” the sheriff said.
“I did, but not by this guy. For starters, I don’t think anyone would mistake the flowering Convallaria for a wild garlic, even past bloom; it’s just too commonly recognized. For another, from what I’ve seen of this guy’s sheet, he was a survivalist nut and probably wouldn’t have made the mistake in any case; they’re usually up on living off the land. Also, it’s a little too neat that the dishes were all washed up and put away, right? Even if he wasn’t hungry, it seems awful convenient that his convulsions did not preclude doing the dishes. I think that someone poisoned him and was trying to clean up any extraneous evidence.”
“Any idea of the time of death?” the sheriff wanted to know. I just sat there speechless, torn between my admiration for the way in which these clues were pursued and revulsion at Dr. Moretti’s obvious enjoyment of her work.
“Well, as it so happens, this time, yes,” the ME said. “Glycosides like the one found in Convallaria act pretty quick, depending on the dose, and the physical condition of the victim, etcetera, etcetera. So based on the blood chemicals, rigor, lack of significant infestation, sanguinary drainage”—she caressed the words, made them sound like blank verse—“I guess that this one deceased late Sunday evening, early Monday morning.”
I watched Stannard mull this over; my own mind raced to see how this might be tied in with Pauline’s death. “Do you have any idea when Pauline died?” I cleared my throat. “Before you said it was the smoke that did it.”
After another silent exchange between the sheriff and the medical examiner, Stannard answered.
“This is what we’ve got so far. Pauline Westlake got home late on Friday afternoon, stopping by the garage because the car was making a knocking noise; I checked it out with Mike at the Texaco, he gave her a lift home, say about four-thirty or so. It was raining still—that didn’t let up until late Sunday.”
He tapped his pen against his teeth. “I’m no expert, but like I said, it doesn’t seem like a faulty wire would be hot enough or fast enough to get that blaze going; I’m still waiting for a final report from the state Fire Marshal’s Office. The Point’s volunteer firefighters got the call about the fire from a neighbor early Monday morning.”
I finally dared to engage Dr. Moretti one on one. “I didn’t think it could be an accident on Pauline’s part.” I took another deep breath. “What was the real cause of her death?”
This time the medical examiner seemed to notice me as a person. It was her turn to cross her arms over her narrow chest, and she looked me up and down. I held my breath the whole time. An idea must have caught her in mid-chew for she scraped her gum off the roof of her mouth slowly, stretching it over her pointy little tongue contemplatively before she sucked it back in and snapped it loudly. She exchanged a look with the sheriff, who shrugged then nodded.
“When I examined the deceased, I found that there was a fractured skull. The break was very recent and, contrary to our supposition based on the location of the deceased in the kitchen, it wasn’t made by anything sharp like a corner of a table. I haven’t really pinpointed the exact time of death, but I’m going out on a limb and saying that she died close to the time the fire was set. Call it a hunch.” The gum was being worked quickly now, in synch with her reasoning process. “It wasn’t the butcher block, but it is possible she mighta slipped and hit her head on the tub, got up, and then wandered into the kitchen, and then fallen. Ayuh, head wounds, concussions, are tricky things, you know. Makes it hard to tell.”
“Well, was it the tub?” I was starting to get impatient with the old ghoul’s games myself.
“No.” Dr. Moretti looked me over appraisingly. “The skull was crushed by something with a broader surface than that,” she said slowly. “It was a blow to the frontal lobe with an instrument of broad facies. Something wide, maybe with an edge.”
“The side of an ax head,” the sheriff offered. I got the impression that he was used to this game of twenty questions. I thought of Dr. Moretti leaving a trail of clues like bread crumbs, and that brought to mind Hansel and Gretel and their short-term landlady. More witches to compare with Dr. Theresa Moretti.
“Look, please tell me what you know,” I begged. “Pauline was my friend, I have to know.”
The medical examiner considered. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, lady.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Terry—” Stannard was trying to step in now, but it was too late. The genie was out of the bottle.
“My best guess, and my guesses are pretty damned good, for your information, is that her head was crushed with a shovel. Boys in blue over here claim they found signs of a struggle outside and that wound had to be made up close.” She snapped her gum loudly again. “Maybe by someone she knew well enough to approach. And there were an awful lot of people running around the Point with shovels lately, weren’t there?”
For a moment I couldn’t believe what she was suggesting. “You can’t be serious! You don’t know what you are talking about, my crew would never—and neither would I! There’s not one of them I wouldn’t vouch for!”
“Oh, yeah, the momma fox swearing her babies wouldn’t go near the henhouse,” she answered sarcastically. “And just who are you to be vouching for anyone?” She flipped through her report and then stared at me, gum temporarily silenced. “Wasn’t the first thing out of your mouth, ‘Oh my God, Pauline’? Right off? How could you have known it was her?”
I looked at Stannard, who said nothing. My mouth opened and shut several times of its own accord. “I just…I just knew. It was just a feeling. I wish to hell I’d been wrong.”
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Dr. Moretti, I think it’s time for you to leave. This isn’t really your part of the investigation.”
“And all I’m saying is that I’m always reading how these archaeologists always got their noses into weird things, old things.” She turned from me to the sheriff. “It’s unnatural what they do, digging up old garbage, poking around other people’s business.”
I could only gape, but Stannard just shrugged. “Not so different from what you and I do, Terry,” he said carefully, “and let’s not forget the small matter of evidence, all right?”
The medical examiner backed reluctantly toward the door. “I’m telling you, they’re all loopy, probably repressed as hell, hunched over their bits of things.” She didn’t even notice me in the room anymore; I had been downgraded from sparring partner to hypothesis.
“Out.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” She reached for the door handle. “Jeez, try to do someone a favor…” She took her gum out and threw it at the sheriff’s wastebasket. It bounced off the edge and onto the floor, and she made no move to recover it.
“Good-bye, Doctor.”
I watched as she scuttled, crablike, from the room, jamming that cigarette she had stashed behind her ear into her mouth before the door shut behind her. The sheriff went over and closed the door after her, then with a piece of paper, picked up the gum and deposited it in the trash.
“She’s the one who examined Pauline?” I couldn’t help asking.
The sheriff smothered a sigh. “Dr. Moretti is more than competent in the lab. I wouldn’t have her if she wasn’t. But…you could say her people skills aren’t all we’d like.”
Someone knocked at the door, and the gawky deputy I’d seen before stuck his head through.
“Sheriff Stannard—?”
“Yeah, Den?”
“Time.”
Stannard looked at his watch, and his shoulders drooped slightly. “I’ve got another appointment I’m already late for. Can we get together tomorrow, say, after the memorial service?”
I was stunned. “Memorial service?”
“You didn’t know? Tomorrow, ten A.M., at St. Jude’s.”
“This is the first I’ve heard anything about it. Who—?”
“The sister, Claudette Peirce. She’s made all the arrangements. Everyone else in town seems to know.” He frowned. “I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.” He looked at his watch again. “I’ve really got to run.”
“Fine, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I nodded vigorously, and for a moment wondered if I could stop nodding. “After the service.”
I walked out, bowed over by the onslaught of unwelcome information. Several things were clear to me. Even if the sheriff wasn’t coming right out and saying it, he didn’t actually believe I’d had anything to do with it. Just as clear was the fact that, for whatever reason, others weren’t so convinced. I also couldn’t believe that I’d found out about Pauline’s memorial service by chance—everyone in town knew about our relationship. I shook my head, trying to clear it. Once Brian got here, he’d help me make sense of all that was happening.