Grave Consequences (13 page)

I caught my breath; it was such an ugly idea, and Julia at the heart of it. “What did she mean?”

He pushed the cork over and it rolled away from him. “She couldn’t stop now, because of all the ambitious young turks right behind her, waiting to steal it all from her. I told her she was silly, she got angry. I got angry. Of course I did.”

He drank again and finished his wine. “I want a family more than anything—I grew up with no one but my Gran and Mads—and I know she wants one too. And now she was saying that she didn’t feel like she could stop because of the Julias. She left, and I left. It was horrible. But I was absolutely determined to have it out, to sort this all out for once and all.”

I had an appalling image of ranks upon ranks of young women marching on Jane. But Greg caught my attention: the more he spoke, the faster he spoke, as if releasing something that had been trapped inside of him. He didn’t slur his words much and seldom paused. This had been building awhile, I guessed.

“I had tried, you know, to do without her, to give her all the space she seems to want, but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t stay away from her, no matter how much I tried, how much I tried not to think about her. I don’t like to think about how I tried. But I couldn’t do it, and I came to the realization that we would have this out or we would be over. But I can’t make her see…”

“Jane’s a bright girl,” I said, picking at the chips that were limp on the wrapping paper. “She’ll sort something—”

“You know, everyone is always talking about how
brilliant
Jane is, how much
energy
she has,” Greg interjected. “I love hearing that, you know. But every once in a while, I get the undertone, sometimes the edge of a conversation, that people don’t think I’m up to her level. But would someone that bright be willing to hang around with a complete duffer? I think anyone with a bit of sense would realize that Jane wouldn’t pick someone who wasn’t on the ball. If she’s so bloody marvelous, then there should be something to me, wouldn’t it follow? But she is marvelous, I’d do anything for her, I love her, I just want her to come
home
—”

The phone rang, effectively cutting off this unwelcome outpouring. I sagged with relief and embarrassment but noticed that Greg’s eyes were red but he didn’t shed a tear. Something in him was keeping him from that, even in the state he was presently in. Greg shook his head, trying to clear it, and sprang for the phone.

“Jane, where are—? Oh. Oh yes, of course. I’ll put her right on.” He held the receiver up. “It’s your husband, Brian. Why don’t you take it upstairs, in the parlor.”

“Are you sure?”

“It will give me a chance to clear up down here.”

As I hurried up the stairs, I realized that it was astonishing to me how Greg’s personality had done a complete turnabout. It was as if the rest of the evening hadn’t happened. Was it just that he needed a bit of catharsis, and now that he’d had it, it switched off what had been driving him before? Or was it something else?

I didn’t have time to wonder. I found the phone in the parlor—a cozy, decadent little room decorated in what might be called pre-Raphaelite Turkish—settled down into a deeply cushioned couch, and answered.

“Brian!” I heard the click of the phone downstairs being hung up.

“Hey, babe. How are you?” I could hear the hum of the lab outside his office.

“I’m good, fine.”

“Emma, what’s wrong?” came the immediate reply, concerned and urgent.

I thought about how I could hear the sounds of clearing up downstairs—had they become a little fainter, a little slower?—and realized I didn’t want to tell Brian what was going on and let Greg hear. Was that the squeaky bottom stair outside the kitchen? Was Greg listening to our conversation? Would he? “I can’t really say…”

“Oh, man. It’s the student, isn’t it? The missing one?”

“Yes.”

“It’s bad, right? She’s been…found?”

“Yes.”

“And things are…getting worse?” Although there was no need for Brian, he’d lowered his voice too.

“Yes.”

“Oh, man, I’m sorry to hear that. Are you going to be okay?”

“Oh, yes, fine. I’m great.”

“Hmmm.”

“Really.”

“Well, be careful, okay? And call me tomorrow when you can talk.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.” His tone suggested that he knew I’d already started looking into things in that casual way that’s gotten me into so much trouble in the past. He didn’t tell me not to, I noticed, which wouldn’t have worked anyway. “Now. Er. How did you feel about that green pillow on the couch? The one with the tassels?”

Alarm bells went off and I was temporarily distracted. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me Quasi—?”

“It looks like he took a sudden aversion to it. Dragged it out to the garden and savaged it. I’ve been picking stuffing off the baby tomato plants since yesterday night.”

“I loved that pillow!” I said. “It was going to be perfect, when we got the living room done and a new couch and curtains and—”

“Well, we can get a new one, right?”

I stared at the bookcases opposite me and swore under my breath. “That pillow weighed almost three pounds! How the hell did he do it? And what is it about that cat? I wasn’t even there, I couldn’t have aroused his wrath long-distance, could I?”

“Maybe he misses you.”

“Ha!” Quasimodo was a belligerent stray that Brian had taken in, named for his unappetizing appearance and his antisocial behavior. He was devoted to Brian, who’d never had a cat, and a terror to everyone else. He tolerated me when Brian was there or when I had a food bowl in my hands, but other than those two cases, it was gloves off, claws-unsheathed loathing between us. And I like cats.

Brian continued. “The bell seems to be working, though—”

Ah, that was it: revenge for the bell. Quasi was a formidable hunter and the bird song outside my window had diminished considerably since Brian had rescued him and brought him home from work. The cat only seemed to get the interesting ones, never grackles or sparrows, though he did bring home an inordinate number of seagulls. So shortly before I’d left, I had proposed the bell and, presumably, signed the death warrant of the pillow.

“—He’s only gotten two since you’ve been gone.”

“That’s better, but someday he’ll bring home a wild turkey, and then I’m moving out.”

“I checked that your office was still locked up tight, just in case, anyway. I don’t want any more ‘accidents.’ How’s work going?”

Back to the world I’d so happily escaped for a few moments. “Um, apart from the obvious, my work is going along pretty well, I guess. Not a great day today, though. I couldn’t seem to find my groove.”

“You’ll get it back tomorrow.” Brian seemed to sense that I needed to change the topic. “I’m doing real good, though. My new vacuum flasks came in—”

“Are they beautiful?”

“Gorgeous. And work is going really well. I did a Stille coupling
and
I dodged a meeting this morning.”

I fiddled with the phone cord. “Well, I’m glad to hear someone’s doing okay. You are pining for me, though, aren’t you? New flasks and Stille couplings aside, you’re absolutely miserable, right? Can’t wait for me to come home?”

“Of course,” Brian said cheerfully. “I can’t believe it’s only been three days.”

“Me either.” I heard the door slam and watched as Jane blurred past the parlor doorway, rushing down the stairs to the kitchen. “Brian, Jane’s home. I’ve got to see how she is.”

“Okay, but call me later tomorrow, okay? I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine. It’s nothing to do with me.” But Jane was being questioned and Greg was revealing unsuspected depths of unhappy emotion; how could it not affect me?

“And yet it always seems to become something to do with you.”

“Brian, I’ll be careful. I love you.”

“I love you too. And so does Quasi, in his own way.”

“Please. Bye, hon.”

“Bye.”

The voices had already become raised by the time I hung up. I couldn’t hear everything that was being said, but enough to know that my presence would be unwelcome and superfluous. Jane was pleading, Greg was furious, and I was wondering why I’d come here in the first place.

“—Don’t know. Walking, thinking. Please, Greg, I’m—”

“Jane, don’t you dare shut me out again! You need me now, especially now! After all we’ve been through, after all I’ve done for you—”

“Will you keep your voice down! You’ve no business—”

It was at that point that I decided that I had to go up to my room. I picked up my backpack out of the front hall and climbed the stairs as quietly as I could. I admit that I thought about listening to my friends—I was desperate to know
what was going on. But somehow, this seemed wrong, like taking advantage of the situation. I locked my door and thought about what Sabine had said in the bell tower, about prurience and my habit of getting into the middle of matters. I was saturated by the emotion around me, expressed and unexpressed.

My stomach was now growling—I’d had nothing to eat but a few cold, soggy chips and a mouthful of wine. I wasn’t about to go downstairs again, though, not for something as unnecessary as food. Then I remembered the candy bar I’d bought at the cafe that first day and thanking my provident stars, tore the purple and orange wrapper off it. It was melted and very sweet, but I wolfed it down and then washed up and got into bed, trying desperately to get to sleep before my belly realized it was getting nothing else tonight and my brain started to consider all it had been force-fed.

I
WAS RELIEVED TO WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, ONCE
I realized that I was no longer asleep and had been dreaming. My dreams were disturbing, unfocused save for the omnipresent thought that no matter where I turned, I was unwanted. Then a long line of gray, twisted people, straight out of a Hieronymous Bosch painting, followed me, claiming me for one of their own. The emotional content was high, and I was left uneasy and sweating when I awoke.

Even the relief at being awake didn’t last for long. The memory of the previous night’s scene with Greg and the row that followed Jane’s arrival home soured my still clamoring stomach. I’d have to go downstairs and find out what had developed, if I wanted to get any coffee or food, the only things that were going to take the ugly edge off my mood.

I washed up and on my way out of the bathroom, noticed that the door to Andrew’s room was closed tight; there was still no sign that he’d been home since Tuesday or worked any further on the report on the modern skeleton for all I knew. I dressed, sighed, gathered together my courage, which was more than bolstered by curiosity about where
Jane had been after she’d left the police, and went downstairs.

Greg was nowhere to be seen and Jane…well, Jane looked as though she hadn’t slept a wink all night. She probably hadn’t. Her face was drawn, her eyes were swollen and red, and I’d have bet my hope of coffee that she’d just finished crying. Her hair was still damp, her clothing wrinkled and untucked, and it suddenly struck me that Jane usually ironed her work clothes. I never ironed anything at all, if I could help it, much less clothes for fieldwork. She sat at the table, now cleared of the disastrous fish and chips feast, twisting the plain gold wedding band on her left hand. It made me nervous just to see her; strange how uneasy you feel when someone you think of as invulnerable suddenly isn’t.

“I was just waiting for you,” she said, but the false brightness in her voice didn’t even convince her. She wrung her hands plaintively. “Oh, God, Emma. I’m in shambles. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even think properly. It was all I could do to get dressed.”

“Yesterday must have been horrible for you,” I said.

She shrugged listlessly. “I had a case of nerves while I was waiting to be interviewed by the police, but after that, it was just boring, for the most part, sitting in that horrid, institutional little room. It was only at the end, when they started asking about who knows whom on the site, how everyone interacts, that I felt really upset. I realized…too many things. The worst of which is that the police actually think that someone Julia knew did this to her.”

She fell silent, resisting that idea. “I can’t even imagine this. I don’t know the crew well—as long as they do their work, I don’t have much to do with them, outside of class, I mean—but to think that someone I know might be a killer. It’s just too much. No sooner had they started in with all these questions, than they stopped…made me a cup of tea, sent me on my way. I was so…so thrown by it all, that I
just left, just started walking. It was hours later that I finally snapped out of it.”

I nodded, but still wasn’t convinced; her story didn’t really strike all the right chords with me, and Jane herself seemed to be reciting rather than telling her story. “You just walked around? Didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t stop for a bite to eat?”

Jane had paused long enough before answering me to make me wonder whether she wasn’t lying to me, covering something up. “No, not at all. I found myself almost at the far edge of town by the time I woke up.”

Could it be true? Why she hadn’t come home, or at least found Greg at the site, if she was so overwrought?

She must have read my mind, or maybe some facial clue gave me away, because she looked at me sharply. “I have a tendency to hide myself away to lick my wounds. I’m afraid it’s not sitting very well with Greg at the moment.” She dug a handkerchief from her pocket and sighed. “He’s been acting so strangely lately. We’ve been fighting so much…”

I almost thought she’d finished when she added, “We’ve been fighting so much that I wonder if we’re not coming to the end of things.”

I let out a breath. “If you think so, you’d better start talking to him about it. That’s the only way to fix it or find out.”

She shook her head with a quick, jerky movement, overwhelmed. “I just don’t know how. I just need to get through today. I’m sure you must have heard us last night, I do apologize.”

I waved it away. “Things have been very hard lately. Don’t worry about it.”

“But it’s so much worse than I thought—” she blurted out. And then started crying.

I looked around desperately. I got up and brought over a box of tissues, even though Jane had her own already. Jane was not the sort to be hugged and comforted, but I couldn’t sit and do nothing. “Look,” I said, “I’ll help you get through
today. Then you’ll feel a little more like handling everything else, okay?”

She sniffed. “Thank you, Emma. You can’t know how that helps.”

I smiled ruefully. “Well, just don’t resent me for it too much, later.”

That took Jane aback, and she had a look of comic confusion and horror on her face at my bald statement. Then she laughed, and blew her nose.

“Come on. I’ll buy you one of those really disgusting breakfasts down at the cafe,” I offered. “Nothing left un-fried: eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausage. Fried bread, yum. There won’t be a piece of fruit, a flake of oatmeal in sight.”

“You just want the excuse for one yourself,” Jane answered back. She looked better now, a little relieved, and she sounded better too.

“Yep, that’s my plan.”

She got up, then paused. “Just a minute, Emma.” She went to the fridge and got out some carrot peelings and dandelion greens and put them in the tortoise’s tank and changed the water in the shallow little dish. “I think Greg forgot to feed Hildegard this morning.”

After the promised fry-up breakfast, served by a waitress I’d never seen before and washed down with enough coffee to fuel a fighter jet, we got to the site. Greg was already there, and barely greeted Jane; every comment addressed to her was carefully neutral and directly related to the running of the project. There still was no sign of Andrew—he hadn’t been at work since Tuesday. Needless to say, nothing was being done about the area from where the modern skeleton had been removed, though Jane badly wanted to have a chance to study the stratigraphy—the changes in soil levels—particularly as it cut through the two earlier burials that were definitely medieval. It was some indication of just how
depressed she was that she hardly spared a curse for the absent Andrew, and when I asked about the police report on the modern skeleton with the iron in its sternum, she only shrugged.

“I probably won’t ever see that; he’ll write something up for me. That’s all I’m really concerned about. As long as the police are off my back for that, I don’t care what he does.”

I found that hard to believe. “Is he always this unreliable?” I said. Or is he dragging his feet for some reason? I wondered.

“His work is first rate and he meets his deadlines,” Jane said. “That’s all I care about.”

“Yeah, but Jane,” I said, “aren’t you the least little bit curious about the skeleton?”

“Of course I am, it is an odd situation, but I can hardly do anything about it until Andrew formulates his opinion, can I, Emma?” she replied reasonably. “It has no direct bearing on my work and I am in no position to push forward with the report: that is Andrew’s job. It’s entirely under control, trust me.”

This sorry state of affairs continued through all of Thursday and into Friday morning. The tension at the house was almost unbearable, and worse since it was so obvious that Jane and Greg were struggling to act normally in front of me. At least at the site, I was able to bury my own unease as I worked, but the crew was unusually quiet, as if they sensed the friction between their directors. We were all relieved when a local school group stopped by for a tour of the site Friday morning. A horde of ten-year-olds in dark blue pullovers and gray trousers and skirts were barely kept in check by the half dozen or so teachers who tried, with limited success, to keep everyone’s attention on the talk Jane was giving. Head down over my work, I smiled to myself as I heard the kids’ comments: “Sir, are they going to dig up an ancient toilet?” “Sir, Stuart said he’s going to steal one of the skellies!” “Sir, will this be on the exams?”

But Jane soon got their attention by telling them what
could be learned from studying whole groups of burials—about age indicators and the sexual differences that can be seen in the skeletons, as well as information about diet and disease, which fascinated them—and asking them what future archaeologists might say about their skeletons. The hands shot up and a chorus of “ooh, miss, please!” followed as each student tried to get Jane to pick her. The teachers settled back in a clump to smoke long-awaited cigarettes, a fog of smoke around them. After about an hour, Jane finished and the group left, caroling good-byes and thanks, and a sort of tranquility reigned again.

Jane, faintly flushed, and pleased with her success, came over to see how my work was progressing on burial nineteen.

“Got a few converts there,” I said.

“Could be,” she said. “I’m past due for looking in on my students, though, and—oh, blast!” She looked around her, searching for someone. Her shoulders slumped again when she had no luck. “I suppose Avery’s already gone on his supply run? I’m assuming that he’s finished developing the pics he took of the ringer skellie already. They’re probably in the darkroom—”

Just then, Bonnie, the singularly untalented student, approached. “Pardon me, Dr. Compton? You told me to come get you when I thought I was getting near the surface of the burial, and I think I’ve got there.”

Jane raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You’ve got a soil change?”

The student nodded. “Yes, though that was a bit ago. And this is a bone, right?”

Bonnie held up what was—or, at least, should have been—to all eyes, a very nicely preserved human metatarsal or foot bone, ripped untimely from its place in situ. My grandfather Oscar used to call such a find, taken out of the ground before it could be properly measured or photographed and waved around for all to see, “aerial archaeology.” It was a very bad thing. I was just glad that she hadn’t done this in front of the school group and that Andrew
wasn’t also there to see this. Seeing how Bonnie was mishandling the skeletal remains, he might have gone in for a spot of GBH.

I looked anxiously at Jane, who had closed her eyes, apparently in silent prayer for strength. She opened her eyes but nothing came when she tried to speak. Before words she might later regret did come out of her mouth, I spoke up quickly.

“Why don’t you go over and help Bonnie and I’ll run to the darkroom and get the photos you need? Just tell me what and where.”

When Jane could bring herself to speak, her words were careful and measured. “Thank you, Emma. The darkroom is back at the house, a little addition right off the kitchen’s garden door. Here’s the key to it. If you would bring back anything that has been dried and pertaining to the modern burial you worked on the first day, I would be eternally grateful. It should be on the right hand side. I hope Avery hasn’t moved things around too much; I haven’t been in the darkroom since we hired him.” She pulled out a key chain and unhooked one and gave it to me. Then Jane turned back to Bonnie and crooked a finger, her face grim.

“Come, miss. Let us have a look at this ‘possible grave’ you’ve uncovered.”

I scurried off, lest I be caught as collateral damage when Jane saw just what kind of havoc Bonnie had wrought. The sky was clouding over and the threat of rain also hurried me along the streets back to the house.

It was odd to be in the house by myself. The quiet seemed to warn me against making too much noise, and I found myself treading as silently as I could, avoiding the last squeaky step. The kitchen was as clean as it had been earlier, but the room seemed almost to hum with the high emotions that had been generated here last night, barely contained by the mere material things. I passed through to the back of the room quickly. Just as Jane had said, ahead of me there was a door; this led to a small mudroom with two doors. One led out to
the
garden,
Greg would have called it—a
yard,
he had explained patiently to me, was a nasty place where garbage was kept and animals stalled—and another, newer one that led into a small shed addition on the left. I knocked, then, feeling silly, noticed the brand-new padlock on the door. There would be no one working in there with that on. I used the key and let myself in.

I couldn’t see a thing and paused: a heavy curtain brushed my outstretched hand and barred my way. Reasoning that I wouldn’t be able to find anything without turning a light on, and that nothing should have been left unfinished in the developing baths, I reached out my left hand, located the edge of the curtain, and instinctively felt for a switch. The cool dryness of the wall reassured me—I had automatically suspected cobwebs, but there were none—and hit the switch. Around the curtain I could see a dim light flicker on; and I pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the room.

The room was small and very tidy—on the counter surfaces. The floor, however, was littered with all sorts of odds and ends: bits of paper, clips, empty coffee cups, and empty chemical bottles. A small sink was on the wall shared with the kitchen—the easier for plumbing, I assumed—and an enlarger on a table on the wall off that one. A large metal table was in the center of the room, and a string for drying prints ran over that. On the last wall was a tall cabinet for drying negatives of 35mm film, which were hanging like wilted party streamers, a rack of chemicals, and a lightbox. The room smelled like ashtray and astringent chemicals. I found a tray marked “finished prints” and recognized the number of the burial I’d been working on with Andrew. I didn’t dare rely on looks alone: one set of bones could easily look like another. I scooped out the photos and put them into an envelope after scrutinizing them: I still couldn’t identify what was bothering me about the stratigraphy. I turned to leave and slipped on a candy wrapper.