A Fugitive Truth (9 page)

I
DON’T KNOW HOW LONG IT WAS BEFORE
I
CREPT UP
to bed. But the next morning, I awoke with a sore head and sour stomach, both of which were only partially attributable to my excessive drinking the night before. I washed and hurried downstairs to grab several cups of coffee and a banana, then went off to the library, determined to get some profitable work done and a little internal sense of quiet before I decided how Faith fit into my life again. She was nowhere to be seen, and I was guiltily grateful for the chance to collect myself before we saw each other again. How do you relate to someone who has known you only slightly, kept you at arm’s length, and then, later, reveals stunning intimacies to you? If nothing else, I needed to blot some of the emotion from last night’s revelation.

Most days with research, you know you’re doing the best part of your work. The rush you get as you chase down clues only builds as you move toward a better understanding of your subject, as you find references to people or events, understand the use of an obsolete word, or make a connection to a historical event that actually had an impact on the folks you study. Research is in many ways a marvelous withdrawal from the world, a private challenge and pursuit, what the uninitiated think is the sum total of life as an academic. It is solitary and exciting, trying to read the letters amid blotched ink and bad writing, trying to put those pieces together—what is that letter missing on the torn edge of the page, where did I see a reference to sewing before, is the maid who spoiled the candles the same one who scorched the pudding? I prayed that research would take me away this morning and set my troubled mind and emotions at rest.

But today was one of those days where research is a plague and a Herculean struggle, and makes me pine for the honest, straightforward labor of fieldwork. Virtually every cross-reference I tried to track down was a nonstarter, each book I needed seemed to be checked out on interlibrary loan to somewhere in Witwatersrand. The photocopier was broken, and I got into an unnecessary argument with Sasha when she erroneously claimed I had used pen and smudged one of the art books I looked at trying to find a portrait of Madam Chandler. It was only after I accidentally slammed my finger in my locker that I realized that I could best profit the world through seclusion, fasting, and prayer: I decided to forget work and go for a run.

As soon as I put on my running shoes, I felt better. I left the house and hit the road before any of the others got home.

Something was finally going right; my brand-new CD player had fresh batteries, and there’s just something about the beat of rock music that makes my legs work like they’re supposed to. Of course I don’t really listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers myself; I listen almost exclusively to classical music. This was on one of the CDs I filched from my sister Bucky.

The air was warming up, and although I still needed a sweatshirt under my windbreaker, the thaw was close enough to springlike weather to wear shorts. I tore around the hill, heading toward the annex, not worrying about my pace just yet—I love to run flat out at the start, get away from it all. My head cleared as I made the crest and began to regulate my pace once clear of the downslope. A long, relatively flat patch; I got past the doggy, draggy, warm-up point, to where joints made of wet leather suddenly feel Teflon-coated and now all I had to do was let my legs take over, and I could enjoy the view. The air was still cold, but not with the bitterness of winter, and the sun, as it periodically fought clear of the clouds, let it be known that spring really was winning out. More and more green shoots had struggled through the duff, and the first brave daffodils dared to show off a bit of bright yellow to celebrate the true rebirth of the year.

The birds were also starting to come back, and I was pleased to be sharing my little bit of the planet with other beings, especially since they were nonhuman. A squirrel chased another across the road in front of me, and the two careened around the thick trunk of an oak, crazed or ecstatic with chemical instinct. After a while, with a little physical distance, I felt less muddled, less thwarted, and could consider the return to civilization and humans after all. I would miss the trees when I left here, I thought, already anticipating my month of study over. So many and so huge, they also reminded me, with a sharp pang, of the closed-in feel of home. Once the inside of the Funny Farm was completely finished, I fantasized, Brian and I would hire a landscaper to put in some oaks, cedars, mast-pines. I’d pay for it with the multimillions from my best-seller-in-the-works, I thought, and then throw in a terrace, complete with peacocks and a sweeping vista. Then I recalled what my editor said a really hot academic work would bring, and decided, that if there was enough left over from taking Brian for a decent meal, I would buy some more tulip bulbs.

I also decided that perhaps the day wasn’t a total waste, as I’d crossed a good many things off my list, and the better part of science, I lectured myself easily as I chugged along, was eliminating the obvious. Sasha would obviously find that I hadn’t been responsible for that smudge, as I take better care of my books than I do of myself.

And Faith’s courage, her guts in leaving Paul, now impressed me more than the sadness and anger of her story. It even took away some of the resentment at how she ambushed me with it. My admiration for her grew the more I thought about it and that let me know that I dared to face her again. She had been drinking an awful lot, and maybe she’d not intended to share any of it with me, but I would just be there for her, and if she were pleased to continue our renewed relationship, then we’d see where that took us. I wouldn’t take it personally if she regretted telling me her story—it was pretty clear she needed to talk to someone.

Whoops! My right foot landed and rolled on a twig, and I momentarily lost my balance, only avoiding a fall with a couple of quick, awkward catch-up steps. Time to turn around, I thought, no sense in pushing it too far, just when I’m starting to feel good. I made it to within sight of the annex in good time. I’d go back past the house and then see how I felt about tackling the hill down to the guardhouse and back.

I started back the way I came, along the little stream that delineated part of the extreme western boundary of the property, and followed the road a way. The light improved now, a big gap in the clouds combined with the last full light of the day. The bare trees, made darker by the recent wet weather, stood out starkly against the gray sky. The blackness of the stream similarly acted as a foil for the new green leaves of the daffies, and a single shaft of light hit the water just right, suddenly placing me in a backdrop as wistful and romantic as a pre-Raphaelite painting. A bit of Oscar’s sonnet came back to me: “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” It wasn’t Oscar’s, of course, but I always associated my grandfather with Shakespeare. It didn’t matter—the view was privately magical.

I pushed a little harder, to see what reserves I had, how fast I
could
go if I wanted, when something caught my attention. When you’ve spent more than twenty-five years picking out grubby artifacts from rocks and dirt in the bottom of a screen, you get used to all sorts of distinguishing clues, no matter how small: I
notice
when something stands out of its context. A sharp edge or corner, not usually seen in nature, or a glimpse of bright color where you might expect to see only dull soil and broken roots; it’s what I do.

It was a flash of white that distracted me from my concentration. A patch of snow, I thought. But the recent rains had cleared nearly all of the remaining snow away out here. I sighed and jogged back, slowly now, just to satisfy my curiosity. A plastic grocery bag, I wondered, or possibly a weird reflection of the stream in this Burne-Jones sunlight?

I got closer to the place, and slowed down to a walk, stunned by what I thought I saw. And when I realized that I wasn’t mistaken, I skidded down the leaves on the muddy slope from the road to the edge of the brook.

I found Faith Morgan lying facedown. Her head and torso rested in the stream, her hair spread out and tangled around her on the water. Dead leaves surrounded her body, but they more resembled a nest than rubbish to be cleared away. I rolled her over carefully, hoping that she had only just fallen, but that was more of a fervent wish than a real possibility.

For a split second, I thought I could wake her up; she would catch cold without her coat. She needed to run to keep warm, like me. But even before I pushed back some of the hair from her still face, I knew she was dead and I mustn’t disturb her further. I tried to slow my heavy breathing, the only intrusive thing in this place. Although I remotely understood that I must leave her in the water, I couldn’t resist moving some more of the wet hair from her eyes.

Something besides life had left her, and I sat a moment, trying to figure out what the change was. Her lips were bluish, but it did not detract from the look of peace—that was it. The bitter, haunted look had left her, possibly for the first time in our slender acquaintance.

The light shifted again, and the golden beams were blocked behind another bank of clouds. The wind was picking up again. I sat with Faith a little longer to keep her company in the lonely afternoon, until I realized that I was getting cold too, and that someone should be told. I told her I would return quickly, brushed the leaf duff from my shorts, and scrambled back up the shallow bank to the road.

It felt silly to be running again, I felt childish, suddenly, in my sneakers and windbreaker, goose-pimply legs churning fast again, with no thought as to managing my pace. I knew I wouldn’t do Faith any good with speed, but I needed to feel the blood moving through my body again, and she at least deserved the respect of urgency.

I pounded down the road toward the house, noticing how the clatter of bare branches overhead is a very lonely sound.

A
S
I
GASPED MY WAY UP THE FRONT STAIRS
, I
FUMLED
for my key in the pocket of my windbreaker. I was hyperventilating now, and between that and the sweat pouring into my eyes, I could barely fit the key into the lock. It clicked open; I stumbled into the foyer and heard someone coming down the main staircase, the clink of ice on glass audible. I skidded across the tile to the phone, but regardless of my haste, Jack started in as soon as he realized he had an audience.

“Well look what the cat dragged in!” he announced from the stairs. “And dragged over hill and dale by the looks of you!”

“Jack, just—don’t! Faith’s dead!” I dialed 911 and told them we needed an ambulance and police at Shrewsbury, and said I would meet them at the spot. Then I rang the security desk at the annex. Jack never stopped blathering the whole time, the old fool. He should have known he’d get more from listening to my calls than he would by pestering me.

“Dead? Faith?” he was stammering. “How can she be dead? Are you sure?” Jack took another big draught of his drink, then set it down, then picked it up again, leaving a big wet ring on the hall table.

I hated him for his frail, human incredulity, and for making me think more about this than necessary. “That’s why I get these scholarships, Jack,” I snapped as I hung up. “I notice when someone’s lying on the side of the road.”

“On the side of the road? Was she hit by a car? Perhaps she’s only unconscious,” Jack offered eagerly.

“I don’t think so. I think she’s been dead for hours, maybe since last night, maybe this morning. It looked like the leaves had blown around her for a while,” I said, pausing to retie one of my sneakers. “I’m heading back there. If anyone calls back, tell them about a half mile from the house, on the road by the stream. Not as far as the gazebo, but within sight of it.”

“Not dead this morning,” he mumbled, picking up his drink and emptying with one last gulp. “That can’t be, it just can’t. I—”

But I shut the door on him and his unhelpful fretting and hurried back to Faith. I walked quickly, but sped up when I saw a security vehicle already there. Someone was moving down the bank, crashing through the branches and leaves like an elephant through that fragile place.

“Hey!” I gasped as I ran, but I was still too far off to be heard. “Wait a minute!” I picked up speed, but my legs were trembling now with the exertion and nerves, and I knew I was heading for a big muscle crash.

“Hey!” I shouted again, my chest heaving violently as I reached the top of the bank. A guard was rolling Faith over. “Get away from her! For God’s sake, don’t touch anything!” I couldn’t believe that he was just pawing Faith like that. No one could be that stupid, that insensitive. At least I’d had the hope that she might still be alive.

I couldn’t see clearly, I couldn’t be sure, but then I thought I saw “Officer” Gary Conner put something into his pocket.

As I slid down the bank, he released the body, which rolled back into the water with a small, sickening splash.

“What the hell are you doing?” I was revolted by his discourteous treatment of Faith. “What did you just take? Give it to me now!” I stuck out my hand, actually expecting that he would hand over whatever it was. Had he really been going through her pockets?

Gary’s face was maddeningly deadpan. “I didn’t take anything. You must be seeing things.”

“Bullshit!”

“Look, just move back,” he said pompously. “We don’t need any civilians messing up the crime scene!” He actually grabbed my arm and tried to jerk me away, but I wrenched myself away from him, using more force than he expected.

“Keep your damned hands off me!” I said. “And don’t give me that ‘civilian’ crap! You’re nothing but a rentacop! And what makes you think it’s a crime scene, anyway?”

For a minute I swear he looked panicked but the unease was quickly replaced with cunning. “You just said so,” Gary replied smoothly.

“I don’t think so,” I answered, rubbing my arm as the blood rushed back painfully into where his fingers had been snapped away. “All I know is that you were messing around with a…a
body
and I’m sure as hell going to—”

I was interrupted by the arrival of the EMTs on the scene, and off in the distance, I could hear the insistent warning of other sirens coming from town. Gary Conner took the opportunity to step away and murmur something into his walkie-talkie, and as badly as I wanted to hear what he was saying—and to whom—I was caught up in the barrage of questions that the ambulance driver had for me. He took a look at her and tried to find a pulse, then stepped back and asked me who she was.

Another Shrewsbury security vehicle pulled up, arriving at the same time as a Monroe patrol car, their lights adding to the general confusion. I was momentarily discouraged about the possibility of anything getting sorted out, of even being heard, when, after a plain car pulled up and the door opened, a sharp female voice cut through the mayhem.

“Okay, folks, a little order, if you please! Tim, Steffie—” here the authoritative voice addressed the EMTs—“If you would sit tight for just a minute. Mr. Constantino, what have we got here?”

“Excuse me, sir!” The authoritative voice called out again, and a woman dressed in plain clothes stepped forward as Gary began to climb back down the slope.

A look of disgust crossed the woman’s face as she recognized Gary. “Oh, it’s you, Conner. You get back here and keep yourself planted ’til anyone tells you to move.”

Reluctantly Gary climbed back up to the road and stood sullenly behind Constantino, who had emerged from the second security car.

The woman spoke briefly with the patrol officers and then addressed us. “Now. Let’s start from the beginning. Who found the deceased?” As the EMTs stood aside, I saw the plainclothes officer clearly for the first time. She was a hair shorter than me, with dark, mannishly cut hair. I could tell that she was slender, even under her thick gray jacket, but her heavy belt and jeans looked as though they were molded to her.

I stepped forward, shivering. “Me, I did. She’s Faith Morgan.”

“And who are you, ma’am?” The detective’s gaze flicked over me like a lash, taking everything in. I knew what she saw; I sure as hell didn’t look reputable.

I hate being called
ma’am
; I know what it means, but it sounds like it’s short for mammary or mammal. “Em…Emma Fielding,” I said, trying not to chatter too much with the cold and exertion.

“Detective Sergeant Kobrinski, Dr. Fielding is one of our researchers here,” Constantino offered in that patronizing tone of his, as if that explained my eccentric appearance. I noticed that he appropriated my title to bolster his authority, but she rejected it just as easily.

“Is that so?” the detective said, eyebrows raised. She looked me over again, apparently not impressed with what she saw. “In that case, I bet Ms. Fielding can answer for herself, can’t she, Mr. Constantino?”

Constantino backed off, which surprised me; one of the patrol officers took him aside and began to ask him questions. The detective turned back to me. “Can you tell me precisely what happened?”

I gave her the story, including my observation of Gary moving Faith’s body around. I was pleased to see how much that seemed to bother her.

“Now, even you should know enough not to screw around with a situation like this, Gary Conner. Did you take something from the deceased?” Detective Kobrinski asked, though I got the impression that she already knew what the answer would be.

“I was just checking to see if she was really dead,” Gary insisted, as if hurt.

“I told you she was dead when I called!” I protested disbelievingly. “I think I can tell when someone is dead!”

“Ms. Fielding, if you don’t mind,” Detective Kobrinski cut me off, then spoke to Gary with deceptive lightness. “Now, of course you
know
I can’t search you, not unless I arrest you for something, right? Is there any reason you know of why I should do such a thing, Conner? Any outstanding parking tickets or anything?”

Conner didn’t move at all, but he looked like he could easily strangle the life out of her without thinking twice about it. He murmured, “Fuck you,” barely moving his lips, just loud enough to be audible.

“I didn’t catch that, Gary,” Kobrinski said threateningly. “Did I?”

Constantino stepped in. “Detective, I think it’s safe to say that Dr. Fielding here was seeing things.” He gestured to me with what was supposed to be sympathy, but it came off as an indictment. “She’s clearly upset by this experience.”

It wasn’t fair: I didn’t look the part of a detached witness. I was soaked with congealing sweat and shivering with cold, overexertion, and low blood sugar. My chattering teeth and the “Red Dwarf” sweatshirt I had stolen from Brian were not the best witnesses to my sober observational skills.

“I’m not hysterical!” I said defiantly. “I was alert enough to notice her in the first place and not make a mess of the scene—” here I shot a look at the younger guard that I fancied would have dropped an angry cobra in its tracks—“then make the calls, and get back here to meet you all. Where I saw him take something from Faith!”

Detective Kobrinski eyed me, weighing my words. “Why don’t you go over and have a seat with Tim and Steffie over there, for just a minute, while I sort this out?” She crooked a finger at one of the EMTs, who came trotting over. “See if you can’t dig up a blanket, or something, for Ms. Fielding here, before we get another corpse on our hands.”

I wanted to stamp my foot and protest, but one look from the detective assured me that I would lose this battle. I convinced myself that the only way I would get ahead here would be to cooperate and appear as rational as I knew I was, but it rankled that this was just what she wanted anyway. The EMT named Tim gave me a cup of water from a cooler and one of those shiny silver sheets. It looked flimsy, but it was warmer than I expected, and I thought I looked even goofier than before, like a potato wrapped in tinfoil.

I tried not to think about Faith lying down there in the water with us wrangling up here. Part of me was shocked that she had been alive and talking to me just last night, part wasn’t at all surprised that she was gone, and a corner of my mind held onto that alien, tranquil look I’d seen on her face. I couldn’t sort things out, and yet, the nasty idea darted through all my confusion that Faith had been setting me up. Had already set me up.

Someone, Steffie, I guess, poked me in the shoulder gently, and I turned to face a chocolate cupcake head-on. “You look like you could use a little glucose right about now,” she said, offering the snack to me.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’m not feeling real hungry.”

“You’re not going to do anyone any good if you drop before you can answer her questions, are you?” Steffie said reasonably, jerking her head toward the detective.

“I’ll try.” I decided I’d take the damn thing just to make her happy. It was one of those packaged chocolate cupcakes, without an ounce of real anything in them anywhere, and a shelf life of…no, make that a
half life
of fifty years, easy. Just the sort of thing Brian’s been trying to wean me off forever, claiming that he had pictures of what such a thing did to the internal organs of lab animals. I had actually gotten to the point where I believed I didn’t like them anymore.

The thing was gone, and I was licking the crumbs from my fingers before I knew what happened. “Thanks,” I said. “I guess I really did need that.”

“Hey, I think I’ve got some Fritos in the glove, if you want…” she offered.

“No, no thanks,” I said, embarrassed by my sudden gluttony. “I feel much better now.” I looked over to the little scene by the bank and pulled my rustly silver blanket closer around me, drawing my knees up onto the inside of the door of the ambulance.

Detective Kobrinski had led Gary Conner over to one side, far enough away to be out of everyone’s hearing—I could see Constantino straining to hear what was going on, while the other cops made sure he did nothing more than try to eavesdrop. In a vivid pantomime, I saw her go on perfectly calmly while Gary grew increasingly more agitated. He never moved from the spot he stood on, but the shifting of his weight, the flood of color to his face, and the hunching in his shoulders all indicated that he was seething. He didn’t hand anything over to the detective.

Finally, she turned and left him standing behind her, when I saw him say something very briefly. She stopped, slowly turned, and even more slowly walked back to face Gary again. She didn’t say anything that I could see for the longest time, just stared at him with those dark laser eyes of hers. Finally she responded just as briefly to him and returned to her car where she spoke for some time on the radio. Gary walked back over to where Constantino was standing, but I noticed he never turned his back on Detective Kobrinski as he passed her.

I never thought I’d envy Constantino for anything, but I knew that he’d find out what they’d said to each other long before I did.

The Detective Sergeant moved carefully down the hill to take a look at Faith. She squatted carefully and then reached down towards Faith’s skirt. She hesitated and pulled her hand back, and I realized she’d just successfully resisted the urge to twitch Faith’s skirt modestly down over the bare skin of her exposed legs. Suddenly within the melee of emotion, I was overwhelmed with gratitude: Someone was finally paying respectful attention to Faith. Kobrinski got up and surveyed the surroundings briefly. She nodded to herself and returned to speak to the other officers, then went to her car, where she spent some time on her radio. I moved closer to the main knot of activity, the better to observe what was transpiring.

One of the cops went to the trunk of his cruiser and without a word, began to fasten a bright line of yellow flagging around a tree on the top of the slope about ten yards above where Faith lay. The other spoke into his radio.

“How long is this area going to be cordoned off?” Mr. Constantino demanded. “There’s a fund-raiser next week and I’ve got the landscapers coming. Mr. Whitlow wants it all—”