“Who’s been back here?”
“You. Me. Mr. Drummond. Probably the janitor. Helen, it’s nothing.”
Patrick’s look of concern frightened her almost as much as the jacket with its nightmare sleeves. She had worn that look. Come on, Eliza. No one is going to hurt you.
“It is creepy,” Patrick added. “It’s creepy as fuck, but this is Pittock. You’ve got to get used to it.”
****
The last thing Helen wanted to do was put on a cheerful face and explore the Pittock Harvest Festival. However, this two-day conflagration of local bands and fried dough was Pittock’s one, town–wide celebration and, as such, possessed iconic significance. “This is who we are. This is Pittock,” the mayor had told her when he had called to extend a personal invitation. After work and after a quick shower, Helen stepped out of the Pittock House into the hot twilight. At least she would not be alone.
All of Pittock had come out for the Harvest Festival. At the intersection of Main and Ferry, just beyond the Grandville Hotel, the road had been cordoned off with sawhorses and caution tape. Vendors sold hot dogs from concession stands. A Ferris wheel bearing the logo “Carne–Traveler: Rent the Stars” flashed and rumbled. Occasionally, another ride would lift passengers above the crowd, their screams mixing with the screams of the movie playing in large format on the side of Harold’s Hardware. On the front steps of the church sat Sully the fortune teller—the only character who hadn’t come straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting—with a hand–lettered sign reading, “Fortunes. $5. Know your future.”
Helen found the mayor’s tent and shook his hand. He was younger than she expected but he wore the same boxy sport coat that completed every outfit Drummond had ever worn. It was the uniform of old money in a small town.
“You’re lucky to be working with Marshal,” he said, cheerfully. “He’s a good man. His father and my father were friends. A good man.”
“Yes,” Helen said, staring out at the crowd. “He is a good man.”
The mayor followed Helen’s gaze and pointed to the center of the crowd.
“See Mad Mary?”
In the center of the crowd stood a paper mache effigy, about a head taller than a real human. The sculpture had wild, orange hair and green eyes the size of saucers. Her body was wrapped in canvas sheets.
“She represents an asylum patient. It’s an old tradition. At midnight, they burn the statue as a warning for Mary and the other patients to stay away for another year.”
Helen thought of Eliza huddled on her sofa, surrounded by junk she had bought from television: dolls and teddy bears and sundresses. For a moment, the effigy’s face seemed to flicker to life, her mouth opening slowly. Helen blinked to clear her vision.
“Do you want a glass of wine?” the mayor asked.
Helen shook her head. “I think I’ll just walk around, take it all in.”
The street was crowded. People jostled each other in the gathering darkness, their faces appearing and disappearing as they passed the lights of the concession stands. Helen noticed a news camera sticking out above the crowd. She listened to the buzz of conversation around her. It was all about the Pittock legs. They were in every conversation, adding a thrill to the evening.
Helen sighed. One of the news reporters was making her way through the crowd, microphone in hand.
“Dr. Ivers, are you enjoying the festival?”
Helen recognized the trick question. Say “yes” and she was frolicking in the beer garden while women were dismembered in the woods behind her campus. Say “no” and she had no interest in the town and its provincial offerings.
“I felt it was important to be here.”
“Do you know the identity of the legs found on campus? Are the police any closer to an explanation? Do you think we are in danger?”
A few people in the beer garden waved at the camera. She could almost hear them. “Over here. Hi Mom! Red Sox rule!” It was all carnival to them. The beer. The fried dough. Mad Mary. The Pittock legs.
Another tragedy.
“But not mine,” the drinkers seemed to holler.
“Can you tell us what the police have learned so far?”
Helen was about to speak when something caught her attention. The beer garden crowd had stopped waving and was watching something.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Two young men circled each other. The crowd parted, hoping for a fight. In the space they provided, the men faced each other. One was lean. The other was built like a bull, with a sweet, baby face.
“She was our friend, and now she’s gone,” the bull yelled. “And you killed her.”
“I did not, you fucking asshole.” The slender boy swung a punch. He was half the bull’s size, but he was fast and struck with a rattlesnake’s speed. “You had better shut the fuck up. Everyone is saying that, and I didn’t touch her.”
“How do I know that?” The bull’s voice was too soft for his massive body. He sounded frightened. “You… you had sex with her.”
“Well that’s more than you can say, Marcus. You fucking faggot! You wish you stuck it to her. You wish you did.”
The slender boy came into view. Ricky. Ricky Drummond and Marcus Billing.
“Take it back,” Marcus yelled.
“What? Faggot? Or faggot who wanted to fuck Carrie Brown and couldn’t get it up.”
Marcus tapped Ricky’s jaw, not a real punch, just the threat of one.
“He hit me,” Ricky cried. “Somebody help me.” But he was not scared; his eyes were bright in the flickering light, black and full of malicious glee. He was having fun. He was winning, and he knew it.
Ricky lunged at Marcus, plunging his head into Marcus’s chest. The boys locked shoulders like wrestlers. Neck to neck. Skin to skin. A headless beast. Staggering. At war with itself. Someone in the crowd cheered.
A woman cried, “Call the police,” but made no move to do so herself.
A drunk man to Helen’s left, slurred, “He’s not putting his back into it. Man up, boy!”
Ricky’s punch flew up from beneath the headlock and connected with Marcus’s jaw.
Helen did not stop to think. She pushed her way through the crowd. “Stop. Break it up!”
A second later, she had her hands on the boys’ shoulders. When they did not immediately release their grips, she raised her voice. “You will stop this now.”
She grabbed a fistful of Ricky’s hair and pulled him back. Beneath her other hand, she felt Marcus’s shoulders soften. A moment later, three men from the crowd leapt forward and put their arms around the boys. Helen stood between them, arms outstretched, her fingertips resting on their chests. Ricky clutched his belly.
“Arrest him,” Ricky cried, a grin barely concealed beneath his look of mock outrage. “He hit me.”
“I didn’t hardly touch him,” Marcus pleaded. He really did look bovine, with big, wide–set eyes and shoulders like low foothills.
“That’s enough, Ricky.”
“He started it!” Ricky yelled the familiar playground cry.
“That doesn’t matter. You’re the provost’s son, comport yourself.”
“Yeah!” The drunk in the crowd yelled. “Dig–ni–ty!”
“Marcus.” Helen turned to the other boy. Marcus’s face crumpled into a look abject apology. “Carrie Brown is not dead. She transferred to UMass.”
“But Professor Wilson said…” he mumbled.
Marcus looked past her. Without taking her fingers from the boys’ chests, Helen turned to see what Marcus was watching.
“Marcus! Are you okay?” Wilson broke through the crowd and threw her arms around him, pulling Marcus away from Helen and stepping between them, as though ready to take a punch for Marcus. “Ricky Drummond, if you hurt him, I will see you flayed.”
****
Helen grabbed Wilson’s arm but with a lighter grasp than she had used on either of the boys. Wilson’s bare skin was hot to the touch.
“Come wi
th me,” Helen said between closed teeth. To the boys she added, “You two! Break it up and go home.”
She led Wilson through the crowd, then marched her down a narrow side street.
“Did you tell Marcus about Carrie?” she said when they were out of earshot of the crowd. “Is he out there because he thinks Ricky killed Carrie or because you told him?”
The street was darker than Helen had expected. Night had reached the alley first. Still she could see Wilson’s strange, ice–blue eyes travel up and down her body.
“We can’t hide the truth.”
“Yes, we can,” Helen said. “We hide it from our students to protect them. No one can know what we’re thinking.”
I want you, Adair.
“I trust my students. They know this campus.”
Through the gap between buildings, Helen could see the effigy of Mad Mary swaying above the crowd. As she watched, the puppeteer turned Mary, and Mary’s eyes were suddenly in shadow, like great gaping holes. Helen felt dizzy. She leaned against the wall behind her.
“What is it? You’re not okay,” Wilson said.
“I’m fine.”
“I live right over there, at the Grandville. Come upstairs.”
“It’s just a touch of asthma, the heat.” Helen sat down on the curb. “You’re right. I don’t know what to do.”
“What is it?” Wilson sat beside Helen and put an arm around her shoulder.
“Someone left a straitjacket in Meyerbridge Hall.”
“A straitjacket?”
“In the closet. And it was old. It was used.” Helen could still smell the must coming off the fabric. She could feel the arms of the jacket closing in. “It’s a sign.”
“Of what?”
Helen felt her body go cold. She made a move to stand, but Wilson held her back.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
Helen tried to slow her breathing. It came in frantic gasps. She had to stay calm. “I need to do something. Someone has to know.”
“Back in your office, when I showed you the picture of the legs,” Wilson said, “what were you looking for? You fell to the floor, and you said, ‘Help me.’ What do you need? Let me do something.” Wilson’s voice was earnest. “I want to protect you.”
“No.” Helen rose, stepping away from Wilson. She had to get out of the heat, out of the alley, out of the shadows. In the distance, she saw an orange glow surrounding Mad Mary. They had begun the burning. The crowd cheered.
“At least let me get you a piece of fried dough, a beer, a glass of water. Something. You look pale. You should eat. Come home with me.”
Wilson was on her heels.
Helen spun around. “You’re so lovely.” It came out like an accusation. She had meant to say leave me alone. She had meant to say go away. She’d meant to lie. Instead, she fell into Wilson’s embrace. Wilson’s arms closed around her, warm and safe. She smelled Wilson’s rich, exotic cologne, like the smell of frankincense and springtime and sex and chandeliers hung over marble floors.
“I can’t do this,” Helen whispered into Wilson’s shoulder. “I can never have a drink with you. I can never eat fried dough with you. Ever.”
Helen felt Wilson’s smile against her cheek. “I bet those are words you never thought you’d have to say.” Her voice was very tender.
“You need to understand.”
“I don’t understand.” Wilson pulled her closer. “I won’t understand.” Her voice dropped to an even softer whisper, barely a breath. “I want to fuck you, but I’m also trying to be your friend.”
Helen shook herself loose and pulled at the edge of her suit jacket, feeling the shoulder pads settle. The façade and the real: so hard to distinguish.
“I have to focus on the college right now.”
“Is that the price you pay for your position? For being president?”
“It just is.” Helen heard the sadness in her own voice.
“If you don’t fraternize with your subordinates, what do you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you even have friends? Do you have a hobby?”
Hobbies? Helen saw Eliza’s visage flickering on the faces of the crowd. Always on the periphery of her vision, always dissolving when she looked closely. Always there. The eye sockets empty.
Helen had never had any hobbies. No ballet lessons. No high school track. No piano. Only Eliza screaming in her bedroom, and Helen waiting for the panicked footsteps, the car engine starting again. Another flight to the hospital. The mad house. Their mother had begged Helen not to call it that, but she refused to give Eliza the dignity of a euphemism.
“I don’t have time for a lot of hobbies,” she said.
“Nothing,” Wilson pressed. “Hiking? Scrapbooking?”
God no. What could she possibly want to save from the past?
“I’ve been thinking about redecorating the Pittock House.” She had to say something. Hobbies were normal. A woman with no hobbies, no pleasures, no gentle leisure time—that was a woman on the edge. “I want to do it all in white.”
She was hurrying out of the alley, barely glancing at Wilson, talking to keep from telling the truth.
I want you.
“There are some great antique stores in the area, but last thing I need is antiques.” She reached the street, where she could see the flames consuming the last of Mad Mary. “I want white carpet, white sofa, white art, white vases with white flowers.”
“It sounds like a hospital.”
“It sounds clean,” Helen said and rushed away from Wilson, until the crowd separated them and she could not hear Wilson’s reply.
****
Helen stopped a block later. She could still hear the noise of the festival, but beneath that, footsteps sounded close behind her. She thought, for a moment, that Wilson had followed her.
“Wilson?”
A shadow merged more fully into the black mouth of a recessed doorway. Then the street was still.
“Adair?”
Nothing.
Helen hurried back to the Pittock House, thankful for the extra lighting installed by security. She paused when she got to her porch. There was no one in sight, no motion in the darkness, and yet she felt a human gaze slide down her body. It’s nothing. Don’t give in.
****
A window in the peaked roof of the Pittock House, gave him a clear view of the president. She sat at a desk, her dark, red hair glinting in the glow of a laptop, like the color of blood in the moonlight. He tried to imagine that, instead of sitting at a desk by the window with the lower half of her body obscured by the wall, she was sitting in a wheelchair. Better yet, she was sitting on a little platform, right at window height. Nothing below. Just the stumps of her legs, serving as a pedestal for her torso. He felt the need. Without thinking, he drew nearer, ducking into the shadows of the bushes.
The branches around him rustled, brushing the side of the house. Ivers stood up. No! He could see the tops of her thighs. She walked to the window and pressed her face to the glass. The stumps were gone, his imagination replaced by the reality of her complete body silhouetted against the window. She closed the blinds.
Her face remained frozen in his mind, a photograph burned into his retina. She was much prettier than Carrie, older but far more beautiful. He eyed the front door. It would be easy to force his way in. Any one of the windows or doors would give way at the thrust of his shoulder. He could even request a key if he wanted. Just turn the key and step in.
The problem was the students. It was always the students, each one an insipid fool. There were so many of them. In the Ventmore dormitory, directly across the Barrow Creek, thirty windows stared into the night. At any one, a girl might be talking on the phone, a boy might be blowing out cigarette smoke. The building had a hundred eyes. He would have to think of another plan.
He pulled a twig off the holly bush at his elbow. The bark peeled away like skin, bloodless at first. There was always a
millisecond before the blood started, as though it took the body a moment to respond to the wound, to recognize the end. Ivers was living in that moment. He slipped from behind the bush and placed the broken twig across the bottom step of Ivers’s porch. Just a token. A foretaste.
Chapter Thirty-nine
The next day, he waited as Hornsby made his way across the Pittock campus, toward the Barrow Creek bridge. Hornsby moved slowly for a police officer. It was hard to imagine a criminal who couldn’t outrun him. Still, when Hornsby arrived he drew himself up to his full height like some real man. Mr. Cop.
“Thompson saw the medical examiner’s report,” Hornsby said.
“I know.”
“He’s alerted the media.”
“I know.”
“There was nothing I could have done. He ordered another copy of the report. He forged my signature on the request.”
“How are you going to fix this?”
“I can’t do anything more,” Hornsby said. “If I cover it up again, he’ll suspect something. He’ll call someone in. Just let it go. If Thompson finds something, great. If he doesn’t, fine. I did everything you asked.”
“I said make the legs match the body.”
“You can handle the PR! People will lose interest. This isn’t the end of the world.”
“I told you to make this go away.”
He could tell by the look on Hornsby’s face that the truth was finally dawning. How quaint. How innocent. He had not even thought about it.
“You…you didn’t do it?” Hornsby asked, his breath a gasp. He took a step back, tripping on a loose board. “Tell me you didn’t. You wouldn’t. That’s not what this is about. Tell me that’s not what this is about.”
“You still want to sleep at night, don’t you?” He put his hand on the back of Hornsby’s neck. “You want to be the good cop who keeps us safe.”
“If I find out you….If it was Ricky…No one is going to get away with this.”
The Admirer Page 19
