Simon Said

by Sarah Shaber

  First, Simon looked through the Yellow Pages under the listings for psychiatrists and psychotherapists. But he couldn't tell the good ones from the quacks. He hung out with a pretty balanced crowd, so no one he knew had any recommendations for him. In desperation, he went to his regular doctor.

  "You have the common cold of mental illness," Dr. Wade Ferrell told him. "And you have company. About a third of all Americans, to be exact. You're depressed, and you have good reason to be. But unlike the common cold, we have a cure. You don't have to lie on a sofa for three years like Proust did until it goes away by itself. There's just one thing."

  "What?" Simon had asked, wondering what could possibly be left about his private life that the man didn't already know.

  "You haven't minimized your symptoms in any way?" Ferrell asked. "Have you thought at all about killing yourself ?" Simon was aghast, and it must have shown on his face.

  "Good," the doctor said. "If you had said yes, I would have put you in my car, run by your house for your toothbrush, and taken you to a very safe place until the antidepressants kicked in. As it is, I think you can go home."

  Ferrell wrote three prescriptions and tore them off his pad." 'Better living through chemistry,' " he said, handing them to Simon. "But remember, these are not 'happy pills.' They're not going to change the fact that your wife left you. But you will be able to function."

  Later, Simon stood outside his neighborhood pharmacy and inspected the little bottles of pills that would restore some part of his life to him. If Proust had had these, he wondered, would he have written Remembrance of Things Past when he got off that couch? But Simon decided to abandon existential musings for the time being and opt for feeling better. So he took his pills, and he did feel better—sort of.

  As Simon inspected the last lump of cherry vanilla yogurt at the bottom of its container, he contemplated loss and thought about Anne Bloodworth. Did she have any notion that she was about to die and forfeit all the joys and sorrows of another fifty or so years of life? She had been shot in the back of the head, so the odds were that she had no inkling that she was going to die, and thus no opportunity to say good-bye, even to herself.

  Simon walked out of the house and went over to his black Thunderbird. He had bought it when he was flush with royalties from the paperback edition of his book. Driving around town with the air conditioner on high and Paul Simon on the stereo was about the only activity that gave him any pleasure these days, so he figured the car was a worthwhile investment from a psychological standpoint. He got in the car, started the engine, shifted, slipped Graceland comfortably into its accustomed slot, and drove off toward campus, reveling in percussion all the way.

  WHEN SIMON GOT back home from his class Thursday evening, he found a message from Sergeant Gates on his answering machine, asking if he could come to see him. So Simon arrived earlier than usual at the office the next morning. Judy Smith looked up at him in surprise when he walked into the departmental office to check his mail.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked.

  "I'm glad to see you, too," Simon replied.

  "You know I didn't mean it that way. Besides, I was going to call you. Dr. Jones has called a departmental meeting for eleven o'clock." "No kidding," Simon said. A departmental meeting during summer school was very unusual. For one thing, most of the faculty weren't in town. They vanished to the beach, mountains, abroad, or to a research site from early May, when the second semester ended, to the middle of August.

  The faculty took turns teaching four courses, two in each summer session, every year. This year Simon was teaching North Carolina History, Alex Andrus was teaching The Civil War, Vera Thayer was teaching European Imperialism and Colonialism, and Marcus Clegg was offering his controversial History of Science.

  "Got any idea what it's all about?" Simon asked.

  "No," she replied. "But Dr. Walker and Alex were in crisis mode yesterday afternoon." "What do you mean?" Simon asked.

  "They spent two hours in Dr. Jones's office, and when they came out, both of them looked furious. Dr. Jones asked me to call all the faculty I could reach and tell them that there would be a departmental meeting this morning."

  Simon was fascinated. What crisis could he have missed that would cause an emergency faculty meeting to be called when the rest of the faculty couldn't be on hand to enjoy the fracas? Of course, Alex Andrus could cause trouble about anything, anytime.

  Simon walked on down the hall toward the lounge and the coffeepot, where he hoped to pick up some scuttlebutt about the meeting. The history department was located in one of the original college buildings built in 1834. It was faced with hand-carved stone left over from the State Capitol's construction, and like the Capitol, it was early Greek Revival, complete with dome and pedimented portico. Every bit of the building was built by hand. There wasn't a right angle in the entire place, but the halls were wide and the windows were as tall as a man and could actually be opened during the spring and fall. The hand carved woodwork, wood banisters, and moldings were maintained meticulously by a fund specially set up for the purpose of preserving the four original campus buildings. Although the history faculty complained about the erratic heating and cooling and the unreliable plumbing, not to mention the mice, most would not have dreamed of forsaking the old building.

  The lounge had once been the original library for the entire campus, and it was still lined with bookshelves that held faculty publications and part of the original collection. A few battered leather couches and a couple of tables filled the center of the room. A full pot of usually decent coffee sat on one table. During the academic year, one could find the entire history department in the lounge at this hour, but this morning, only Professor Vera Thayer was ensconced on one of the couches. She was drinking a steaming cup of coffee and reading the Raleigh News and Observer.

  Vera looked up at him as he walked into the room. "It's good to see you," she said. "Where have you been all summer?" Simon wished that everyone would stop noticing his comings and goings. He really didn't enjoy explaining to the world that he had been having some difficulty getting out of bed in the morning because of a bout with clinical depression but that he was feeling much better, thank you.

  Thayer suddenly seemed to realize the implications of her question.

  "Oh, I forgot, North Carolina History doesn't meet until the afternoon, does it?" she said, covering for him. "That's right," he said. Of course, he continued to himself, as he filled a cup of coffee to the brim and laced it with sugar, you're not teaching anything until second session, and you're here bright and early every day, loaded for bear. Professor Thayer was in her late fifties. She was always dressed meticulously in a suit, wore full makeup, and had her hair fixed twice a week. She was the type of middle-aged career woman who was so selfconscious about her success that she was constantly playing the part of the perfect academic. She was not brilliant, but she was tough and had written seven books, most of them now out of print. She was the first woman at Kenan to make full professor. She was not a popular teacher because she had no empathy with her students, but everyone who passed her courses knew the material backward and forward. Of course she knew that Simon's wife had left him, but she usually accepted no excuses for herself or anyone else, and it surprised him that she would excuse his "malingering." Simon, and everyone else on the faculty, except perhaps Walker Jones, tended to wilt under Thayer's scrutiny. Simon wondered if she would be chair of the department after Jones retired.

  Simon picked up part of the paper and the two read in silence while the sun slowly rose higher in the sky and slanted into the room through the huge windows. After a while, Simon became aware that Professor Thayer had let her paper fall into her lap and was studying him. He looked up at her, and she seized her opportunity to speak.

  "I heard about all the excitement yesterday from Judy," she said. "I'm glad you could identify that woman," she went on. "It must have been an interesting experience." "It was," Simon said. "Kind of grueso
me, too. I thought about it half the night." "I understand that the policeman in charge of the case is coming to see you this morning? What about?" Simon shrugged. "I don't really know. He seems to think I might be able to help them more. Apparently if she was murdered, there might be some kind of an official investigation, even though it happened a long time ago."

  "It would be a mighty cold trail."

  "But we historians investigate old, cold trails all the time," Simon said.

  "True." She sat silently for a few minutes. It was clear that she had just been warming up to what she really wanted to talk to him about. "There's going to be a faculty meeting at eleven."

  "I know. Do you know what it's about?"

  "I'm afraid it's going to be unpleasant for you," she said.

  Simon felt his stomach constrict and his armpits grow damp.

  "What on earth—"

  "Simon," she said, "since you haven't been yourself this summer, which," she added quickly, "we all understand, under the circumstances, I'm afraid that there is an individual in the department who will use it against you."

  Andrus, Simon thought. He wants my job. Always has. Simon had been jumped over Andrus for tenure when his book won the Pulitzer. Andrus hated him for it. There were no more tenured positions available and wouldn't be unless someone left. Simon guessed that he was a candidate for that someone.

  "Exactly what will be the context of this unpleasantness, Vera?" he asked. "Bobby Hinton's senior thesis grade," she answered.

  Simon had given Andrus's pet student a C on his senior thesis, and Andrus had been griping about it ever since.

  "I'm not going to change that kid's grade, Vera, and that's all there is to it," Simon said.

  "You know I agree with you," she replied. "But there is a formal process for appealing grades, and it starts at the departmental level, at this meeting this morning. Be prepared." Now that he understood the issue, Simon wasn't concerned. The grade was final, and he was sure the department would back him up. He looked at his watch, then stood up. "I've got to go."

  As he walked out the door, Professor Thayer stopped him again.

  "Simon," she said.

  "Yes?"

  "Just watch your back," she answered.

  Simon worried about their conversation all the way down the hall to his office. The situation didn't seem to him to warrant Thayer's concern, and he wondered what he didn't know.

  By the time he got back to his office, Sergeant Gates and the legal counsel for the police department were waiting for him. Gates looked older than Simon had thought at first—his short hair seemed grayer and Simon noticed deep lines cut into his forehead. Again Simon had an urge to step back a pace to get a look at the complete man. Judy, who knew everything about everybody in town, had told him that Gates went into police work after a very successful football career. The combination of the man's size and brains must have made him formidable.

  Simon hadn't expected anyone other than Gates, and he quickly had to sweep a pile of papers and files off a chair before he could seat both his visitors. Gates introduced Simon to the young woman who was with him.

  "This is Julia McGloughlan, the policeman's friend," Gates said. "She keeps us straight, legally speaking." McGloughlan shook Simon's hand. His first thought was that she would be attractive if she wasn't wearing a gray suit with a burgundy-and-gray tie knotted under the collar of a stark white blouse. She had auburn hair and hazel eyes, and she looked particularly bad in gray. Nonetheless, Simon automatically checked her left hand. No rings. He caught himself mentally, surprised that he would care.

  "I hope you don't mind my coming along, Dr. Shaw, but I'm very interested in this case," McGloughlan said.

  "If it is a case," interrupted Gates. "It's a case," she said. "A woman shot inside the city limits of Raleigh is definitely a case. The DA doesn't want to spend time and money on a case that is probably insoluble," McGloughlan continued. “He knows perfectly well that there is no statute of limitations on murder."

  "We don't know that it's murder, although it seems likely," Gates said. "If it is, the murderer is dead by now, too. Isn't the point of solving a crime to bring the perpetrator to justice?"

  "Maybe," she admitted. "But I don't know, it just bothers me. It seems wrong to ignore a crime just because it happened a long time ago."

  "It bothers me, too," Simon said. "But historians are bothered by things that happened a long time ago. It's what we do for a living." "That's sort of why we're here, Simon," said Gates. "We've pretty much decided to look into this, and the chief says it's okay as long as we don't spend too much time and money on it. We've got the authorization for an autopsy, but we have a favor to ask of you."

  "Shoot," Simon said. "We need a positive identification of the body. We think she's who you say she is mostly because of circumstance. The fact that we can authenticate her jewelry is important, but what we really need is a physical description of Anne Bloodworth to give the ME so that he can positively identify her and then give a death certificate that lists the cause of death as homicide."

  "The sergeant has some good men on the police staff, but they're not historians," McGloughlan said. "We don't have any idea how to research this. The sergeant tells me that he thinks you might be willing to help us."

  "What kind of information do you need?" Simon said.

  "Stuff like her height, weight, age, any injury that might leave a skeletal record, maybe dental records," McGloughlan said. Simon thought for a few minutes. He had run across newspaper articles about Anne Bloodworth's disappearance when he was researching his book, and he remembered the details fairly well. The police departments of the entire state had been alerted. Her father had hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to search for her all over the country. Surely a detailed description of her must have been circulated by the authorities.

  "I'll see what I can find out. If there is anything, it shouldn't take long to find it," Simon said. "I'll try to let you know something in a couple of days."

  "Good," Gates said. "Let's see, today is Friday, and the autopsy is Monday. That should work out okay."

  Gates and McGloughlan stood up to leave.

  "Listen," Gates said. "I've got to get back to the office. Julia wants to see the site. Would you have time to take her over there?" Simon checked his watch. He had almost an hour until his meeting. "Sure," he said. "I'd appreciate it," Julia said. "But if you have something else to do, just say so."

  "No problem at all," Simon said. If only she knew, Simon thought, just how little I have to do. Together, the two walked across the Kenan campus, obsessing about the same things all North Carolinians obsessed about at this time of year: the weather and the pollen count.

  Each year May brought rampant floral beauty and a massive accumulation of plant reproductive matter. Pollen and giant tree pods lay in clumps all over the ground. Little seeds with various wing configurations helicoptered out of the trees to the ground. Children couldn't go barefoot, for fear of stepping on the countless little round seed canisters with spikes that were thick on the ground.

  The oak pollen was the worst. Huge clumps of oak flowers clogged up sewers and drains, gummed up windshields, and ruined car finishes. Everyone constantly prayed for rain to wash the stuff away and signal the coming of the month of June, that limited, blessed time that precedes the heat and humidity of July.

  So Julia and Simon discussed the possibility of rain. Did all those black clouds and the oppressive atmosphere mean rain? If it rained, would all the pollen wash away, and would there be a final onslaught? Was ridding the neighborhood of pollen a worthy trade for canceling a Durham Bulls doubleheader and having to sandbag Crabtree Creek? Yes, they unanimously agreed as cascades of yellow dust drifted out of the trees around them.

  After they had disposed of the weather as a topic, Julia wanted to talk about Anne Bloodworth's disappearance.

  "Don't you think the FBI would have information on microfiche or something?" she asked. Simon shook his head. "Pr
obably not," he said. This happened in 1926 . Most of the crimes we think of as federal crimes weren't designated as such by Congress until the 1930s, when the Depression caused a crime wave. For instance, kidnapping became a federal crime after the Lindbergh baby was abducted in 1932."

  "So what did people do if they wanted to search for someone in another state?" Julia asked. "If they had any money, they hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency. It had offices in every major city in the country. But the best place to begin researching anything is the newspapers. I'll start there tomorrow."

  The crime-scene tape was gone from the site, and David Morgan was back at work excavating. He was watching the sky while supervising two students spreading plastic over the site.

  "So you think it's going to rain?" Simon said by way of a greeting.

  "I can't take the chance it won't," Morgan said. "This place will be pure mud if it's not protected. The trenches would fill up and we couldn't empty them for days." Simon introduced Julia McGloughlan to him. David acknowledged her with a noncommittal nod. She could have been seventy and walking with a cane for all the attention he paid her. Most women were insulted by this—Tessa certainly had been—but Julia seemed unconcerned. She was only interested in information.

  "If you have the time, Dr. Morgan, please show me where you found the body," she said.

  David obligingly walked her around the site, pointing out how and where the corpse was found.

  "How could she have been buried here without anyone knowing it?" McGloughlan asked.

  "The kitchen was abandoned before 1926," David said. "But you really need to ask Simon about the chronology of all this." Julia turned to Simon. "This building had a dirt floor, a fireplace, and a wood-fueled stove. It was used for over a hundred years. A modern kitchen was added to the house right before the First World War," Simon said. "Then this building was used for storage until it burned to the ground in 1933."