“And over there’s the loading docks. I guess that’s everything.” Dr. Hopkins, Assistant Dean of the University of Missouri College of Journalism, finished up my tour of Donald W. Reynolds Hall, where they produced the Columbia Missourian, the J-school paper.
I’d skipped breakfast in the dining hall and showed up half an hour early for my first meeting with my sponsor. He was a middle-aged guy, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt. I wondered if it had been a mistake for me to wear a tie. Oh, well, dress to impress.
Dr. Hopkins was already trekking back down the corridor. I admired his drive. “Let’s get back to my office and discuss your summer project. I’m going to pretty much let you manage your own schedule, but don’t be afraid to ask questions. That’s what I’m here for.”
I felt I should ask a question, just to prove I could follow directions. I glanced at a portrait of the building’s namesake.
“Donald Reynolds, was he an author?”
“Of sorts.”
“What did he write?”
“A check. Here we are.”
We entered his cluttered office and he motioned for me to sit down. I waited politely as he went through the papers on his desk, feeding several things into a shredder. Finally, he remembered that I was there.
“Sherman, we’re happy to have you here on the Missourian team. You’re a junior staff member, but that doesn’t make you any less of a reporter. I can tell by looking at you that you take this seriously.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the stories I’d like to—”
“I’m way ahead of you.” He passed me a printed page. “Here are some suggestions I came up with. Obviously, you’ll only be able to tackle a few. Take a look.
I read the list with an increasing feeling of hopelessness.
Interview the owner of a local business: The Juice Bar, John’s Pipe Shop, or one of the tattoo parlors. NOT the Peace Nook, that’s been done to death.
Public transportation: adequate for a city the size of Columbia? How does it stack up to other university towns?
Interview a graduate from ten, twenty, thirty years ago. How has MU changed? The Alumni Center can help you with this.
I tried to keep the horror off my face. I didn’t intend to spend a month on these trainee articles they’d run when a sports event got rained out.
“Dr. Hopkins, um, I’ve been the editor of my school paper for two years.”
He smiled. “That’s why I’m letting you write real articles.”
Just like a grown up.
“And I appreciate that. But I’ve been writing stuff like this for years. Here, let me show you my portfolio…”
I reached for my briefcase, but he stopped me. “Well, what did you have in mind?”
Deep breath. If he didn’t like my idea, then I’d just wasted a whole month.
“I’d like to write a complete history of the Mizzou Department of Sociology. No one’s ever really done that before, I checked.”
Predictably, the reporter gave me a curious, slightly nauseated look. “There’s no way we can print something like that. Missourian articles, we’re talking a thousand words, max.”
I expected this and had my answer ready. “So how about the University Press?”
The J School did occasionally print scholarly articles and books, but it was highly competitive. Mr. Hopkins stared at me.
“My, my, our cub reporter dreams big.”
“So what do you say?”
I expected another no, but I was prepared to argue all morning. That was the great thing about the Scholars’ program, you were expected to do a lot more than the bare minimum.
“Sherman, you realize that even if you come up with a great article, they might not print it. And by ‘might not,’ I mean you don’t have a snowball’s chance.”
“So are you telling me I can’t do it?”
He tented his fingers and looked at the ceiling. “Tell you what. You get me one of my suggested articles by Friday, and I’ll let you have a crack at it.”
“You won’t be disappointed, sir.”
He reached into his desk and tossed something to me.
“That’s your press pass. It’s the real thing, so don’t lose it. And Sherman? When you interview someone, maybe dress a little…less formal.”
“Sir?”
“You look like you’re coming for an audit. Here’s a handy rule of reporting: everyone has an embarrassing secret, and they’re all afraid, maybe subconsciously, that you’re going to figure it out and tell the world. Lose the tie.”
I wandered back to the dorm that afternoon, staggering under the weight of a box of papers. I’d spent most of the day using my new press pass to access the records in the sociology department. No one had cleaned out the files in maybe decades, and I’d gotten my hands on many original papers, some dating back to the nineteenth century. I had to promise to return everything, of course, but I think the TA who’d led me down to the basement storeroom would have been happy never to see any of this stuff again.
I fumbled with the door to Mark Twain Hall, awkwardly holding the box under one arm. This material would help me start my paper. With any luck, I’d be able to finish it before the session ended. At which point Mr. Hopkins would read it and reject it.
I didn’t care if it was published or not. I cared even less about the history of the Sociology department. The only reason I was bothering with any of this was to impress my sponsor. That way, when it was time to apply for scholarships next year, I could put his name down as a reference. I’d done my research. Praise from a guy like that was worth a lot of dough, and I sure couldn’t depend on my father to send me here. I didn’t intend to graduate college with a student loan hanging over my head.
All part of the plan. I had my goal and nothing was going to distract me from it.
As I passed through the lobby, I noticed someone sitting at one of the large tables, reading a book. It was the brunette from earlier. Abandoning thoughts of working on my project, I casually dropped my box on the table next to hers. It landed with a loud thump that caused her to look up.
“Pardon me!” I said, as if the whole thing hadn’t been contrived.
She smiled. Her teeth were so perfect they looked almost fake. She had intense, brown eyes that smiled and smirked at the same time. She saw right through me, knew that I hadn’t arrived here by chance. I almost bolted.
“Quite a package you have there,” she said, one eyebrow raised.
Warily, I sat down at the adjoining table. “Research. For my big project. I’m in journalism.” That somehow didn’t sound as impressive as it had in my head.
She nodded, and seemed on the verge of going back to her book. “I’m Sherman,” I blurted out, in a desperate attempt at conversation.
She giggled and tried to hide it. I reddened. Sherman. What the hell had my parents been thinking?
“I’m Steph,” she said, trying to cover up her laugh. “Boring old psychology major.”
As I tried to think of something complimentarily about psychologists, I happened to notice what she was reading.
A Bible.
I cringed. Girls who read the Bible in their spare time are not generally likely to want to go over to the park and make out.
“Are you reading that for one of your classes?” I asked. Hope springs eternal.
“Nope, I try to read it every day, especially when I’m away from my church.” She looked smug, as if daring me to have a problem with that.
I soldiered on, like a mountaineer determined to reach the summit, no matter how many toes he had to sacrifice. Some of those religious girls liked to be bad. I took a chance Steph might have a naughty side.
“So what church do you belong to?”
“The Mormons.”
Or not. Getting lucky with an LDS chick would involve one milkshake and two straws. Which was regrettable, since they were all uncannily hot. Maybe it was some kind of Utah eugenics thing.
“So what exactly do you have in there?” she asked, gesturing to my box.
“Old papers from the Sociology department.”
“Thrilling.”
“More gripping than ‘so and so begot such and such.’” Now that I wasn’t trying to get into Steph’s panties, I felt much more relaxed around her. I began to dig through my finds.
It soon became obvious that there was a reason they’d let me borrow all these papers. Over a thousand individual sheets, and not one interesting thing. Supply inventories from the eighties. Class lists from the sixties. Payrolls from the nineties…the eighteen nineties.
I started stacking everything in two piles, one for useless materials and one for slightly interesting materials. I quickly gave that up when I realized everyone was going into the first pile. The dust of forgotten decades began to well up around me. Steph stage-coughed.
So I’d been too optimistic. Did I really think one trip to the archives would supply me with enough material? I was going to have to dig harder. Jesus, I might actually have to go interview someone. That was a sickening thought.
I began to put everything back into the box, more or less in the right order. When I picked up an ancient accordion file, something brown with many legs popped out and skittered across the table. Steph saw it and let out a sitcom-esque squeal.
I swatted it with the folder, causing the papers to shoot out like confetti. As I stacked them back up, a yellowed sheet caught my eye.
I think I noticed it because it had been banged out on a manual typewriter. All the Gs were faint and all the Ls were half a line too low. It was dated 1935, though I couldn’t make out the month.
Professor Louis Roebuck
Department of Sociology
University Of Missouri, Columbia
Dear Louis,
It looks as if the authorities are not going to investigate the fire. I’m not sure if they couldn’t find you-know-who’s body, or if they CHOSE not to. I think we would all do well not to mention what we discovered to anyone. I’ve spoken to Sammy and Sgt. Knowles and they agree.
Thank you for everything. Please be careful. Contact me if I can help you in any way. I believe we did a good thing, and I pray that we are not punished.
Yours,
Rev. David Gowen
Holiness Church
Columbia, Missouri
I stared, unbelieving, at the page for several minutes.
Fire? Body? A police cover up?
“Hey,” said Steph. “Close your mouth before you start drooling.”
I grabbed a clean-looking folder, emptied it, and placed my find carefully inside.
“What’re you so excited about?” She had closed her Bible and was looking at me oddly.
I tried not to let my giddiness show.
“Just a little something I found.”
“More dirt?”
Pay dirt, more likely.
“I gotta run.” I abandoned my box on the table. Stephanie tried to say something, but I didn’t stay to listen.
This was big.
Columbia, Missouri, May 6, 1935—It was 4:30 a.m. Dr. Louis Roebuck was alone on St. Francis Quadrangle on the University campus. The professor stopped to admire the six huge limestone columns in the middle of the quad, all that was left of old Academic Hall. He had been a mere undergraduate the night an electrical fire gutted the main campus building. He remembered rushing into the inferno with everyone else, grabbing whatever he could save. He and six others had just deposited the stuffed African elephant onto the snowy field when an explosion tore the roof off the building. That had been the magazine of the Missouri National Guard, inadvisably stored on an upper floor. Salvage operations stopped after that.
The campus had changed since then. It had grown from eight buildings to over twenty. When Roebuck graduated there had been six thousand students; now there were over 15,000. There was even talk of allowing Negroes to attend.
The University had changed, but Dr. Roebuck had not. He had gone from a promising undergraduate, to a bright young graduate student, to a hard working teaching assistant, to a learned professor of philosophy and sociology. He’d never lived outside of Columbia. He’d married a local librarian and lived in a house within walking distance of campus.
Seeing the chubby, bearded Dr. Roebuck wandering about at night was a typical campus sight. Some claimed he was an insomniac. Others figured he was just plotting new ways to make his exams more difficult. Others had darker suspicions. No one ever guessed that he simply enjoyed being on campus. He loved the college.
Dr. Roebuck headed towards home, taking a shortcut through the trees behind the Engineering Building. He could recall when there were deer in the woods and visitors arrived on horseback.
The professor was so deep in remembrance than he almost didn’t hear the whimper. If the night hadn’t been so still, he might not have. Somewhere in the darkness. Something moaning. Muffled.
Dr. Roebuck had never considered himself a brave man. Aside from his amateur firefighting years ago, he’d never been called upon for heroics. He’d been too old for service in the Great War. The last thing he wanted to do was wander off in the darkness, searching for whatever was crying.
The noise came again. Louder. Human. Female. He could no longer pretend it didn’t concern him.
He paused to pull out the electric torch he carried in his coat for emergencies, then took off in the direction of the noise. He cut a path through the trees, struggling to see what lay ahead of him in the light of a half moon. He nearly stepped on the girl before her saw her.
She was gorgeous, no more than twenty, with auburn hair and freckles. She lay in the grass, her left arm awkwardly twisted beneath her. She wore not a stitch of clothes; those were piled off to her left, torn and discarded. The beam of the flashlight revealed blood streaming out of her mouth and nose. Even in the darkness, Dr. Roebuck could see the whites of her terrified eyes. The girl groaned again, the voice of sheer terror.
Roebuck had covered her with his overcoat before he’d fully processed what he was seeing. Gingerly, he knelt beside her.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered, knowing damn well that it wasn’t. He moved to take her hand, then thought the better of it.
The girl stared blankly at him until he looked away. “Who did this to you?”
“Him…”
“Who? What’s his name? We’ll find him. We’ll make him pay for this.”
“HIM!”
Dr. Roebuck narrowly missed a heavy boot to the back of the skull. With surprising agility for a man of his age and weight, he leapt up, standing between his attacker and the prostrate woman. He shone the light at the man, as if its beam would hold him back.
The man was about thirty, with thinning hair, cauliflower ears, and a pinched face, like a turtle’s. The professor noticed with disgust that the man’s pants and shirt were unbuttoned and his suspenders hung loose around his knees. The rapist wore a strange medallion around his neck and carried a large hunting knife.
“Just keep moving, fat ass. This don’t concern you.” His voice was phlegmy and his teeth were brown.
It’s times like this that show what kind of a man you are. What kind of a man you REALLY are. While Dr. Roebuck could never forget the horror of what he’d seen, he could take small comfort in the fact that his opponent would sport a broken jaw for the next month or so.
The criminal hadn’t expected the blow, which is probably why he lost his grip on the knife. The professor slammed his porky fist into the man’s face again, and watched him go down.
He paused to grope for the attacker’s weapon, but couldn’t locate it in the dark. In retrospect, that might have been for the best; he would have done something rash. Roebuck simply contented himself in watching the rapist stagger to his feet and run off into the night, clutching his face.
The fight fizzled out of the professor. He flopped down, wheezing, next to the woman. Her eyes were now closed, but she was breathing shallowly. Once he regained his breath, he’d find the night watchman at the University Clinic.
As he forced himself to his feet, he noticed something on the ground. At first he thought it was the knife, but it was actually the attacker’s medallion. It was difficult to make out what was engraved on it. It looked like two letters: a three pronged figure and an X.
The woman, as it turned out, was a cook at the dining hall on her way to work. When she got out of the hospital a week later, she refused to speak to the police about the attack and moved back home to Ohio.
Dr. Roebuck never took a nocturnal walk again.