Chapter 15

Liza Jane looked up from her latte when the bell over the deli door signaled another customer's arrival. When she saw Jesse Connor, she raised her hand to get his attention.

He glanced around the shop, spotted her, and approached the booth. He was dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and a down vest. Definitely not the look she liked in a man, but she had no intention of dating him.

"Thanks for meeting me," she said.

"Yeah. Sure." Standing at the end of the table, he slipped his hands into his jeans pockets. "I... I was surprised when my mom gave me the message that you'd called." He scuffed his boots, looking down. "At first, I thought she had the name wrong." He gave a laugh. "She does that sometimes. You know, says the cable company called about the bill being late when really it was the phone company."

Liza Jane laid her hand on the middle of the table. "You want to sit down?"

"Um. Yeah. Sure." He sat on the edge of the fake leather bench, then slid over so he was sitting directly in front of her. He'd somehow managed to get his hands in his pockets again.

"I'm having a latte." Liza Jane closed her hands around the paper cup, enjoying the warmth on the chilly morning. "You want one?"

"Um. Nah." He shook his head.

"I know. You just want to know why I called." She released the cup and reached into her backpack beside her, pulling out a notebook. "I called because I'm doing a little work for the campus newspaper and maybe the TV station, and I was hoping you could help me out."

He eyed the notebook and the pen. "What... what kind of help?"

"You realize, it's been almost two weeks since Peter Wright was killed, and do you know how much the students on our campus know about that death? Zilch. Nothing more than what was released that week. Peter was attacked from behind by an unknown suspect, hit in the back of the head, then in the face with a rock found nearby. Then the killer cut off his ear with Peter's own penknife and took his ear, leaving him to die. That's all we know."

He pulled his hands from his pockets to rest diem on the table, where he fiddled with his fingers. "The FBI was brought in by the college's president or the governor or something."

"I know that, Jesse." She nodded, looking into his pale brown eyes. "My dad's an FBI agent, remember? He was assigned to this case. I know you probably talked to him after the murder."

Jesse bobbed his head. Half-smiled. "He was nice to me. I... I really didn't know anything."

"Jesse, my point here is that students are scared, and the FBI is refusing to cooperate. No one's said exactly why they were even called. Obviously it must have something to do with Bart Johnson's death... maybe even Jessica Lawson's."

"I wouldn't know anything about that."

Liza Jane tapped her hand on the table. "Students want more information. They want to know if this was something personal, like if someone who was mad at Peter killed him, said quietly, "you should use all the resources available to you."

"What do you mean? I swear, I've talked to half the students and professors on the campus in the last two weeks."

"Try the Internet?" He looked up with this goofy grin.

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged, hands in his pockets again. "I mean, did you Google them?"

Her eyes widened. The thought had never occurred to her. "I could find out if they'd ever been arrested by Googling them?"

"Maybe." He shrugged. "If not, there's other databases the public is welcome to access. You just have to know where to look."

She glanced up, grinning. "And I bet you know where to look, don't you, Jesse?"

Another shrug. "Maybe. Look, you see what you can find. You find anything interesting, you need more, you call me and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction."

"Thanks, Jesse." Liza Jane glanced at her watch. "Listen, I have to get to class, but I really appreciate your help and... well, you not letting me screw up and sacrifice my integrity."

He pushed open the glass door and held it open for her, the big grin still on his face. "You have a good day."

She flashed him a smile as she passed him, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. "You, too, Officer."

* * *

I have given up fighting the urge, and like so many other citizens of Ashview and the surrounding county, I turn on the TV Tuesday night in time to see Axel Cunningham's handsome face. I have used the remote control to set the timer on my VCR and I hear it click on and begin its steady hum. I sit in my chair, my eyes glued to the television as people I have come to know, fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, parade across the screen.

I know the truth and yet I am powerless to turn away. The show is broadcast, I know, to perpetuate the lie. I hear what others say about the show, about the students who attend Chesapeake, and I know that they have been successful. The viewers have all been fooled. They do not know the true nature of these young men and women. It is almost as if they are being brainwashed.

I am not so foolish—so deranged, of course—as to think that it is only fraternity brothers and sorority sisters who have a propensity for cruelty. After all, I am educated and well traveled. I know that one must take care with generalities. I know that the same behavior, the same attitudes, can be found in any dorm and in any hall of learning on that campus.

My gaze falls to the magazine cutouts I have spread on the floor in front of my chair. It takes time for me to decide what I will add to my collage next, so I spend a great deal of time thinking, studying. I linger over the half of the photograph I took from the pub that has not yet been added to the posterboard. I read somewhere—the local paper, perhaps—that her name is Tiffany Faulk. She attended Bart Johnson's funeral and apparently gave a rather moving epitaph, but I know that is not really her name. Her name is Cheryl, Cheryl Cleaves, and she once invited me to a movie.

I return my attention to the TV, listen, watch, as Axel and his friends go about their day, their night. There is laughter and roughhousing, opportunities lost and gained. As the hour progresses, I find that watching it is physically painful to me, but I cannot stop myself. There is talk of planning a Halloween party at Phi Kappa Alpha and I find myself actually becoming nauseous at the thought of it. I know what goes on at those parties.

I am saved by the end of the show and the college's newscast that directly follows.

Liza Jane Thomas appears on the screen with those piercing blue eyes of hers that tonight, I fear, look straight into my eyes. Into my heart Her newscast has been expanded to fifteen minutes. She appears in several previously taped clips, talking about a blood drive students sponsored, an upcoming film festival, and a cute piece on a stray dog that has been adopted by one of the sororities. Then she appears live in the newsroom, and I slide to the edge of my chair to listen to each word she utters.

More than two weeks have gone by since Peter Wright's passing, she tells me. She uses a different word than passing, but I ignore her unkind implication. Accusation. She is, after all, still a child. Well, perhaps not a child, but she is certainly not an adult, either. She tells me that she is still investigating the death of the fellow student and that while local and federal police agencies claim to be working on the case, she and other students are working on it as well. She cuts to a previously taped interview with the janitor on duty in Wooten Hall that night and one with an angry parent who had taken his son out of Chesapeake College and had him transferred to a place where he will be "safe" to walk the campus at night. Then, back live in the newsroom, she again meets my gaze, vowing to students that she will not give up her investigation until Peter's killer is found. She finishes off by mentioning that she is following a lead that might possibly link Peter Wright's death to Bart Johnson's.

The news show ends and the cable station signs off, leaving my TV with nothing but a dark screen and the white noise of static. I am concerned by what I have heard tonight, what Liza Jane has said. She is very bright, very inquisitive, with an air of fresh honesty. She could potentially cause me great harm and I know that I must be more cautious. To fall at the hands of a nineteen-year-old girl would be tragic. The idea angers me, and yet at the same time I cannot fight a certain feeling of something akin to envy. She has the kind of mind I admire.

I wish that I had known Liza Jane all those years ago. I wonder if a friend like her, just one, might have made my life turn out differently.

* * *

Jerome was reading some notes into a dictating machine when Mrs. Elright buzzed him. He glanced at the large clock on the wall. He still had another half-hour before his afternoon appointments began.

He pressed the "pause" button on the dictation machine. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Dr. Fisher, but a Patricia Williams is calling from your home. A nurse, I believe. I thought you would want to take it."

"Yes, of course." Jerome felt a tightness in his chest. His pulse fluttered. "Thank you."

"Line one."

Jerome punched the red button on his phone. "This is Dr. Fisher. How can I help you?"

"Dr. Fisher..." The nurse hesitated. "Your wife specifically requested that I not call you. She didn't want to bother you. She thought it could wait until you returned this evening."

He removed his glasses, relief washing over him. At least Sela wasn't dead. Every time someone called him about her these days, he feared the worst. Her condition was deteriorating quickly, faster than either had anticipated. But if Sela was able to tell Patricia not to call, she couldn't be too bad off, could she? "What's the trouble?"

"She's having difficulty breathing again. Severe difficulty."

"I see." He rubbed his eyes. After her last MRI, they had learned that the cancer had metastasized in her lungs as well as her bones, but she'd begun to have trouble breathing only last week. "And the oxygen isn't helping, even if you turn it up to a higher percentage?"

"I think she needs to go to the hospital, Dr. Fisher. There could be an infection that's preventing her from utilizing the oxygen we're giving her." She hesitated again. "I really am sorry to call you and I feel terrible going against the other Dr. Fisher's wishes. She's such a nice lady."

"No, no. You did the right thing. You know how stubborn she can be." He paused for a moment, thinking. "How about if I come home for a surprise visit? A late lunch. I do that sometimes. If I find her doing poorly, I can be the one to suggest we go to the hospital. That way she doesn't even have to know you called me."

The nurse laughed, but it was a sad laugh. Jerome knew Patricia was having a difficult time dealing with his wife's deteriorating health, too. They had grown quite friendly in the last few months, though they were of different races, different religions, different social classes. Sela was like that; everyone loved her.

"I'll be there in twenty minutes. You just look surprised to see me."

"Thank you, Dr. Fisher."

As he hung up the phone, he got out of his chair, leaving his file open on his desk. He walked to the far corner of his room where a Victorian wrought iron coatrack stood and grabbed his overcoat and hat. It was the last week of October and it was chilly out. There was even talk of snow flurries this weekend. Jerome felt silly in the old-fashioned woolen bowler hat that looked like one his grandfather had worn forty years ago, but Sela had insisted this morning that he wear it and there was no denying her when she got something in her head.

He walked out into the intimate, tastefully decorated waiting room, and Mrs. Elright rose from her desk. She was a tiny white woman from New England with close-cropped gray hair and a no-nonsense attitude. She'd been keeping him and Sela straight for seventeen years.

"I have to go home."

"Is Dr. Mrs. Fisher doing poorly?"

It was the name she had created years ago to differentiate between the two of them when they had shared the practice. For years, Sela had tried to get her to simply call them by their first names, but Mrs. Elright was a force to be reckoned with, even with Sela.

"I may have to take her to the hospital." He strode across the room. "Difficulty breathing." He pressed his hand to his chest, trying not to think about what it must feel like to inhale and not get oxygen. To be slowly suffocating. "A little bug or something, perhaps. Some antibiotics, a breathing treatment or two, and I'm sure she'll be fine."

"I'm sure she will be, Dr. Fisher."

He rested his hand on the doorknob. "I'll need you to cancel the rest of my afternoon."

"All of your appointments?"

He hesitated. He was supposed to see Blue at five. He hated to have to cancel that particular appointment. Blue was the one patient worrying him these days. There always seemed to be one he couldn't shake, couldn't leave behind at the end of the day, and Blue was that patient right now. Nothing seemed to be following the pattern of typical bisexual behavior, and it concerned Jerome that his intuition was right and that there were underlying problems, perhaps even greater than the issue of bisexuality.

But his Sela needed him. "Yes, cancel all of them. Reschedule as you or the patient feel necessary. I'll stay late tomorrow if I need to."

Mrs. Elright settled in her chair behind her immaculate desk again. "Yes, Dr. Fisher. Of course. And please give Dr. Mrs. Fisher my regards."

He forced a smile, lowering his wool bowler hat to his head. "I will, Mrs. Elright. Thank you. I'll see you in the morning."

* * *

The phone call came out of nowhere, blindsiding me. Dr. Fisher has never cancelled on me. Never. He wouldn't do that. He is a good doctor. Conscientious. He knows how important our weekly appointments are. In fact, only last week we had discussed increasing my visits to twice a week. He said he sensed we were about to hit a bump in the wad and he would feel more comfortable seeing me more often.

As I hang up my cell phone after speaking with the Puritan-like Mrs. Elright, I am surprised by a feeling of fear that passes through me. I am afraid to go the week without my visit with Dr. Fisher. It is my weekly visits that keep me in check... or at least keep me from crossing a line that will truly put me, my life, in jeopardy.

How dare he! How dare he, I think, substituting my fear with anger. It is a far more palatable dish, one I am confident I can handle. One I can control.

And I have been doing so well, recording in my journal, examining my thoughts, my feelings. A bump in the road, Dr. Fisher said.

I feel it coming, too.