Ashes and Bones

by Dana Cameron

  The sun-warmed stone wall was comforting, and I felt it easing my shoulder, still sore from its abuse by Mr. Temple, who seemed to take a little too much glee in beating his lessons into me. Never get on his bad side, I thought, realizing how easily, how badly he could hurt me if he wanted to. Brian was trying to be patient about how I was dealing with things, but he couldn’t understand my willingness to go to Temple’s class. “You have such a hard time leaving the house, I suppose I should be glad, but Em, why let that big monster beat the crap out of you?” But my classes with Temple were the one place where I didn’t have time to worry about any of this.

  I tried reading, but couldn’t focus, and caught myself scanning the same paragraph three times over before I realized it wasn’t worth it. Maybe just a quick doze, and then I’d head back to campus and try to catch up on my work. Push what was going on around me away, first with a little me-time, then throwing myself into work.

  Thank God this is still here, I thought, drowsily. It seems like everything else has been tampered with, spoiled in some way…my house, my coffee place, my campus, my bar…

  I jolted awake, but caught myself before I moved too much. I made myself pick up the book again, and this time, didn’t bother trying to read.

  Why was this one place not touched? I wondered. If Tony—or whoever—knew so much about me, then why wasn’t this place vandalized or robbed or set afire or any number of other wretched options? Why was this left to me, when everything else was being taken away, more and more aggressively?

  I kept looking at the book, trying to remember to turn a page every once and a while, move my head appropriately. My thoughts raced along lines that had nothing to do with the novel I was pretending to read.

  A couple of ideas occurred at once. It was a controlled sample, perhaps, one place left to compare with the others that had been violated…

  Maybe it was being saved, for an especially bad moment. To have this place spoiled would be terrible, not only for me but the community as well.

  Maybe it was like a game preserve, where I could be observed in what might be “normal” circumstances. Or perhaps my classes were, nothing had happened there…yet.

  But where would the observer be? I wondered, looking around. Probably not in the church, as the windows didn’t afford a good view with their small, colored panes. Two busy roads on other sides, and that left…

  The apartment buildings, the off-campus student ghetto. I always thought it would be cool to live there, overlooking the cemetery, and would have when Brian and I had our commuting marriage, but the on-campus housing for faculty was so much cheaper if less interesting…

  Turn the page, Emma, and try not to look like you’re having an epiphany.

  If I wanted to live some place anonymous, I would pick those apartments. It could also be that if there was someone over there watching me, it would behoove him to keep things quiet near his lair. Don’t shit where you eat, Grandpa Oscar would have said.

  I was trembling in the warm sunlight now, all drowsiness gone. I couldn’t go investigate immediately, but I would have to soon. I needed to think first. There were four three-story buildings that were rental properties—that meant twelve apartments—and I was going to have to check out every one of them. But not at the moment, not when I was sitting right here…but why not? If anyone bolted, I’d be able to see them easily enough…

  I sat and thought until I figured out every aspect of my plan: There were fire escapes on the backs of the buildings, but they were rusted metal and they’d make a hell of a racket if anyone tried to get out that way. I couldn’t do anything about that, but I could listen for the noise and be prepared. Otherwise, the windows on the ground floor were the only other ways out, and even those would require a sizable jump to the ground. Go in, look at the mailboxes, note any that looked likely, and—then what? Call the cops? Try and get in? I’d figure it out when I got there, I decided, suddenly impatient.

  I stretched out, then jammed my book into my bag. I was as restrained as I could manage, walking at a normal pace, as if I was done with my break and heading back to campus. I had to assume I was being watched and was self-conscious: What did my normal walk look like—fast or slow? Did I keep my eyes on the ground or did I look around? Walking had never seemed so complicated a task.

  I walked past the street with the apartments, so that it would look like I was heading straight back to school. I circled the next block, and started at the last building in the row. I got into the lobby, and checked the mailboxes: I was pretty sure that the ones with multiple names on them were students—some of these were festooned with stickers and flowers, making it obvious—and I figured that the landlord would expect only one label for one tenant. I knew exactly how nosy and attentive to every change of detail they were from my own days as a student renter.

  There was nothing that stood out as obvious, so I moved on to the next building. As I stepped up to the foyer, the inside door swung open, and a gaggle of giggling females came pouring out: It was too nice a day for normal people to stay inside. I pressed up against the side of the vestibule, to let them by, but the door had a security hinge and swung shut almost immediately: There was no chance of getting in that way. The mailboxes were equally unhelpful, but there was one with a single name on it—I kept in mind to check that one if nothing else showed up.

  The third building I struck pay dirt. Two of the mailboxes had two or three names, the third had just one. On a smudged piece of paper, I could make out just the first and last initials of the name: E and F.

  Ernie Fishbeck. I had my man. Our Ernie, the one that was now unhappily the guest of Detective Bader and the rest of the Stone Harbor Police didn’t live here; he had given them a local Massachusetts address. Tony Markham had used his identity to find himself a lair near campus.

  I was staring at the label, trying to convince myself that I was on the right track and that I needed to decide what to do next when the door opened. I stepped back, hoping to sneak in as whoever it was left, when I realized no one was coming out. An older woman, maybe in her late sixties, came bustling out and planted herself in front of the door, blocking me. She wore a Caldwell sweatshirt over black leggings and had a bandanna kerchief tied over her short hair. She had a broom in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other.

  “Can I help you?” she demanded. It wasn’t an offer so much as a challenge, the dragon at the gate.

  “Uh…I’m not sure,” I said. I decided that it was best to come out with a bit of the truth. “I’m trying to find someone, who might live here. Someone who has been…harassing me, hurting people.” I pointed to the mailbox. “I’m pretty sure that’s his name. My name is Emma Fielding, and I work at the college. I hope you can help me.”

  She figeted uncertainly, not sure whether to believe me. I pulled out my license and my Caldwell ID card. “Just so you know I’m not trying to pull anything. Can you at least tell me if there is an older man, who lives here alone? I can’t read the label on the mailbox; that can’t be any kind of breach of security or trust, can it? Is it Ernie Fishbeck on the label?”

  It took her another minute to decide. “I manage all four of the buildings along here, hell, I own them, too. I usually only rent to girls, and I look after them. My girls are the best-looking and the smartest on campus.”

  I got the impression that she said that to all of the renters and their parents, if they were undergraduates, as if that would convince them that this was practically a convent they’d be installing their daughters in. My heart began to sink, when she continued.

  “But yes, it’s just one gentleman in this building. I wouldn’t ordinarily, but both of the other places in this building are rented to couples, and I thought no one would get up to any funny business. Name he gave me was Ernie Fishbeck.”

  I tried not to get my hopes up, but I could feel my heart racing anyway. “How old is he? What does he look like?”

  “He’s older, but you know? I don’t want to tell
you any more. No offense, sweetie, you look like a nice girl to me. But I gotta look out for my tenants.”

  “Look, I’ll tell you what I think the guy looks like, and maybe, if you recognize him, we can go from there, okay?”

  She shrugged. “I ain’t saying anything. You can talk all you want.”

  I gave her my description, and her eyes went wide. “And maybe,” I concluded, “he hasn’t been living here all that long? Maybe just renting month to month?”

  “I ain’t saying.” But she sounded less sure of herself now.

  I seized on that uncertainty. “How about we call the Caldwell police? There’s been a couple of crimes on campus, and if we could nail this guy…a security guard was killed, over in the college art museum. I just want to make sure no one else gets hurt.”

  She hesitated, and I knew that the landlady didn’t want to be held liable for anything. “We can do that,” she said finally.

  “Maybe you could ask them to come up quietly? I wouldn’t want anyone to run away, or start shooting or whatever.”

  Now she looked truly alarmed, rather than suspicious of me. “Definitely gonna call the cops.” She stuck her cigarette behind her ear, propped her broom up against the corner, and pulled an expensive cell phone out of the pocket of her sweatshirt.

  “Who’s this?” she said, as soon as there was a connection. “Good. Bill, it’s Helen Clarke, down on Park Street. Yeah. Look, I got someone here, says she thinks she’s found someone who might have had something to do with the murder at the college, recently…yeah, security guard, that’s what she said. That was in the paper, right? Jeez, what you see, these days, huh. Now, I’m not going to let her look around without one of you guys…yeah. That’s it. And, Bill? I don’t think he’s in, but maybe you could park on the other side of the street, or—what? Right, I’m at number seven, right now, park in front of number three, so we don’t tip anyone off, okay? Good boy. Thank you much.” She hung up and glared at me. “Well, they’ll be here in a few minutes. You might as well come in, wait in the hall with me, so you’re not sticking out there either.”

  I accepted gratefully, barely able to speak I was so nervous. The thought that I might be able to put this behind me…that this might be over today…was making me dizzy. The landlady pretended to sweep and dust the lobby—a hallway, really—but kept casting suspicious glances in my direction. I realized I couldn’t feel my hands anymore, that the floor seemed to have vanished from beneath my feet.

  I looked at my watch: two-fifteen. The cops might be here in five minutes. Three more, to take my story. An instant to climb the stairs and open the door…wouldn’t even have to break it down, the landlady has a key…it could be done, all but the shouting, by two-thirty. Even before my lunch break is over…

  The rap on the door came ten minutes later; it took an effort to recall the first time I’d looked at my watch. The instances between then and now were numerous and futile: nothing stuck in my head. Ten minutes is fine, I’ll be a little late getting back from lunch, I’ve got no appointments, no meetings the rest of the day…

  The officer looked like he was in his fifties, and not well preserved at that. He was crew cut and grizzled and weather-beaten, paunchy and irritable. He took my information and then my story, and to my credit, I told it beautifully. I could tell—it felt as though I was watching myself do it—and I’m my own harshest critic. My voice was level, my words clear and to the point, my story succinct, all a thousand miles away from where I felt I stood. The cop’s disbelief wavered; he looked to Helen, who, bless her, did not refute any of my points, even nodded in a few places, and I loved her from the bottom of her worn-out tennis shoes to the dandruff on the shoulders of her red sweatshirt.

  Officer Paunchy—I could not for the life of me fix the name on his tag in my mind—called back to the Campus Safety Office, asked questions, about the museum, Dora, the painting, the death of the security guard. His eyebrows raised, until he caught my hopeful look, and he scowled again, turning away.

  It was two-thirty-five by the time he turned and said, “Well, I’ll go up and check it out.” He jerked his head at Helen, who pulled out her keys and mounted the stairs. I moved to follow.

  “You stay down here. Out of the way. Don’t leave, either.”

  “But—”

  “Stay down here. Don’t leave. Got it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll stay here. I won’t leave.”

  He frowned, decided that I would do as he said, and then preceded Helen up the stairs.

  I did move, I went to the back of the hallway, past the first-floor apartment entrance, and in the back there was another door—probably to the basement—and a small window. From there I could see the fire escape, the backyard, and the cemetery. I was struck by how nice a day it was, and I could see the oak trees better from this angle. I stood there, waiting, keeping an eye on the fire escape.

  I could follow the footsteps of the two people up the stairs, a short way down the hallway. A brisk rap on the door, sharply spoken if indistinct words as the officer demanded entry. Silence, then a shuffling of steps: Helen was unlocking the door.

  Barely aware of the warm sunlight on my face, I tensed, waiting for what had to come next. A shout, a scuffle, a shot…

  There was a scream.

  I pelted down the hallway, skidding on the well-worn tiles. I stumbled up the stairs, straining to identify what was going on.

  The door was still open, and what I saw stopped me cold just inside the room.

  A body swung gently back and forth, suspended from an old-fashioned lighting fixture in the center of the room, breaking the beams of light that filtered in between the slats of the Venetian blinds. It was wearing a Caldwell College Physical Plant uniform. A note was pinned to the front of the shirt.

  It was Tony. I knew it.

  A thrill ran through me, mingled shock, relief, and something that felt exactly the same as the moment I held my first book in my hands, the day I realized I wanted a second date with the guy who’d rescued me at the library, reading the letter that assured me of a full scholarship to…

  Something was wrong. The cop was scowling, and the landlady wasn’t screaming. He was angry, she agape with disbelief. I looked again, more closely this time.

  It was a dummy. Carefully, even lovingly, constructed so that the weight looked right, there were no unnatural bulges, even a wig had been pinned onto the head, which now looked like a pillow case to me. Latex gloves had been fashioned into hands, and the boots had been fastened to the inside of the trousers.

  Before she could be stopped, Helen touched the dummy, sending it spinning slowly. I could see a second piece of paper pinned to the back. As my eyes adjusted, I could read the note on the front, just two words, I saw now.

  Too late.

  I stepped around to the back, and stopped it with the merest brush of my fingertips against the shirt. There was a note there, too.

  Tell me, where is fancy bred?

  I felt my mouth go dry.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Helen demanded. “And look, the stupid idiot misspelled ‘bread.’”

  “It’s not…not that kind of ‘bread,’” I said. “It’s a note for me.”

  “Why should it have anything to do with you?” the cop demanded. “Where do you see your name on this?”

  “For one thing, it’s a quote from The Merchant of Venice. People know I’m big into Shakespeare. For another thing”—I pointed to the paper on which both notes were written—“these are shooting-range targets, one on the heart, one on the head. The next line goes, ‘or in the heart or in the head.’ A friend of mine was shot recently.” I swallowed. “Most people agree that the rhyme in the poem directly references lead. As in, lead in the heart, lead in the head.”

  “Kinda out there,” the cop muttered.

  “There’s something else.” I pointed to the feet, slowly swaying, a pendulum running out of momentum. While the rest of the clothing was worn but clean, th
e only thing that was unusual in any was the dirt on the bottoms of the boots. I recognized it immediately, as it was the same color as I often had on my own. I could even tell you the specific classification I had assigned it with the Munsell book, the color-coded chart that archaeologists, geologists, and the like use to describe soil colors: 10YR3/4, dark yellowish brown.

  It was just a guess of course, the color was ubiquitous in New England, but I was willing to bet any money that the soil on the shoes would be identified to match that at the Funny Farm.

  The thing was, nothing about the room or its contents was illegal. The rent had been paid through the end of the month, on a month-by-month basis, always with a bank check. The room was spotless—literally. It had been wiped down of every kind of print.

  The only other piece of paper in the room was the third shooting target on the window on the far side of the room. A hole was cut through the bull’s-eye, and looking through it, I saw a great view of the cemetery, and the tree under which I usually sat.

  I went back to my office. It took me a long time to realize I was just sitting there, with the door locked, and that I could do that just as easily at home. I sorted out the papers on my desk, making neat piles that meant nothing, and left my backpack on the couch. I took my pocketbook and carefully locked the door behind me.

  I was too late because Tony had been on campus, watching me, waiting for the moment I might figure out where he was. He would never go back there again, and I was willing to bet that there were any number of similar lairs elsewhere. He had used several fake IDs, but had used Ernie’s near Caldwell, confusing the trail with just enough true information. The cops showed Helen a copy of the picture of Ernie, and she believed it was the man she’d rented the apartment to, but wasn’t completely sure. When she saw a picture of Tony—I’d taken to carrying one around with me—she was positive.

  Tony wasn’t afraid to show his face around campus. He’d colored his hair, and he looked a little more rugged, less well-fed than he had when he’d been there last, but that was four years ago. No one was looking for him there. I wondered if the fact that he was unafraid to be seen meant that he was getting eager and sloppy, or whether it was just that he was no longer worried about people knowing that he might be back.