Past Malice (15 page)

“Oh?” Brian and Kam have been best friends since graduate school; they’ve known each other even longer than Brian and I have known each other. This was the first time I’d heard Brian say anything like this with real seriousness.

He shrugged. “He’s been a dickhead at work. He quit smoking.”

“Kam? You’re joking! But…that makes everyone cranky, doesn’t it?”

Brian shook his head. “It’s not just that, though. Something else is on his mind. He won’t say what’s wrong and I’m inclined to let him stew in it until he gets over it.”

“Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say.”

Brian scowled. “He’s not being very nice.”

“I can call Marty though, right? Maybe she’ll know what’s going on.” Then again, I realized that my friend, whom I’d known since our undergraduate days, had only called me once since she’d returned from her honeymoon. I should have been inundated with pictures, plans, gossip, the whole nine yards, long before now. Maybe something
was
seriously wrong….

“Sure, call Marty. Whatever.”

I decided I’d better tackle this head on. “You’re being pretty grumpy. What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay.” I got up and made as if to leave, knowing he’d speak up.

He sighed.

Here it comes….

“No, not nothing. Emma, I’m worried about you. I don’t want you messing around too much at the site.”

“Brian, I’m not messing around. I have to be there, it’s my project. I have to talk to the police, for obvious reasons. Before, I gave them the pictures of the site so that they could find whoever killed Justin. There is no extra Emma presence in that situation, other than what is expected of a good citizen. I promise, I’m not doing anything exciting—”

He broke in with an irritated gesture. “Yeah, look, I know we’ve used that word before, to talk about things I don’t re
ally even want to think about. I can’t do that anymore. I
won’t
do it anymore. I don’t want you getting yourself hurt. I don’t want you getting yourself killed because your job takes you to weird places and places you near weird people.”

I tried humor. “
Honey
. I’ve been to your Christmas parties and the folks
you
work with—”

He was in no mood for it, though. “Em, I’m trying very hard to be serious. I’m trying to be reasonable and you’re being flippant about it. I don’t appreciate it.”

I leaned against the doorway; all of a sudden our room, which usually felt like a nest and a haven, felt like the site of a cage match. “I’m sorry. I don’t like it either, that’s why I’m making stupid jokes. But I’m not going to not do my job, just because of something that has nothing to do with me.”

He leaned back against the bedstead looking defeated. “But how do you know it won’t have something to do with you? If there’s someone with a grudge against that place, those people, and you’re seen to be connected with them—jeez, Emma, you’ve been in the local papers, already—then why doesn’t that make you an obvious target? Especially if they want to make a big, public gesture. You’re a large, slow-moving target, as far as they’re concerned.”

“But I don’t think it is just people with a grudge against the historic site,” I said. “I think it’s much more likely that—”

He slapped the bedspread with a bunched fist. “Damn it, you can’t even leave it alone when you claim it has nothing to do with you! Emma, I don’t want you going back there.”

That hung between us for a long while.

“Just wait a few months,” he pleaded. “Come back to it after they’ve found whoever’s responsible for killing Justin Fisher and Aden Fiske.”

More silence.

He folded his arms. “I really think that would be best.”

I came over and sat on the bed, where the old wooden floor and the braided rag rug unaccountably held my attention. “Well, I don’t. I’ve got a schedule. I’ve got other people whose jobs are in my hands. I’ve got work at the end of this summer that I’ve got to do, and then it’s time for classes. What am I supposed to do about that?”

I waited a long time for his reply.

“What if I ask you not to go?” Brian was very quiet now. “Really ask you not to go, like it means as much to me as the promises we made to each other when we got married?”

I pulled at one of the tufts on the chenille spread. “You can ask, but I don’t think you have a right to.”

“I don’t have a right to not want you to get hurt?” he exclaimed. “What the hell is that about?”

I looked at him. “You don’t have a right to use how I feel about you against me like that.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to use?” He stood up, really agitated. “Logic isn’t working! You’d laugh in my face if I said ‘I forbid you to go.’ What else am I supposed to do to keep you from getting yourself killed? Huh? You tell me what you think would work, because I believe I’ve got every right in the world to want you safe. I think I’m being a freaking prince about this, all things considered. And I’m only saying this because I love you.”

I threw my hands up. “Yeah, I
know
. All I’m saying is that this isn’t like bungee jumping. I’m not doing something stupid just for kicks, I’m trying to do my job. I’m telling you, if all these things had happened in broad daylight, if there were drive-bys, that would be one thing. But this is all happening at night, after everyone’s gone.”

“Yeah?” Brian nodded unhappily. “What about the motorboat?”

“That was a mistake, it wasn’t meant for me—”

“And that is just exactly the kind of mistake I’m worried about!”

I tried to be as patient and understanding as I could. “Brian, I’m only out there for another couple of weeks. I’m out there with a crew, several hundred visitors trooping past us, landscapers roaming over the landscape, and so on. We are in the center of town. I’m not going to go poking around where there’s trouble. I’m not looking for trouble. I’ve got my phone with me, I’ve got my sister with me. I’m going to do my job. I won’t stay there after work. I’ll come straight home. I think that’s enough. I think that’s fair.”

There was a long silence hanging now, spreading out like a chasm between us. “I guess I’ll have to be happy with that,” he said at last, but he was far from satisfied. “Look, one thing. I know we’ve been leaving the alarm system off at night with the students downstairs, so they could come and go as they wanted, but I’m going to feel a whole lot better if we move them inside and set the alarm, okay?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Where are we going to put them? The dining room isn’t done, the living room is a warehouse—”

“We’ll put them in my office. It will be tight, but if I move some stuff around, there should be room enough for them and their stuff. It’s not like they’re going to be penned in there forever; they’ll just be in there to sleep at night. And there’s an air conditioner in there; they won’t feel so crowded if it’s nice and cool.”

I really thought that he was overreacting, but it was something I could live with and it would be a gesture to Brian that I really was taking his concerns into consideration. “Okay, I’ll let them know about the plan; do you need some help getting things moved around?”

“No.” His forehead wrinkled. “Look, you’ve just got to tell them not to touch the stereo or the albums, okay?”

“Brian, I am sure they wouldn’t hurt—”

“Emma, those things are my pride and joy. Please—unless you’d like to move the kids into your office? In with your books?”

I hated anyone being near my work or books—it might look chaotic, but there was a method to the madness. “No, it’s too hot up there,” I said hastily. “I’ll tell them.”

“Fine, I’ll get started. Give me about an hour to get things ready.”

I went around to the front of the house and climbed up onto the porch swing, pushing myself off from the railing with my toe. The dry, dusty boards of the porch felt comforting beneath my tired feet, solid and reassuring.

Brian and I hadn’t had to have the discussion that most of my married archaeologist friends inevitably had, about being out of the country for long periods of time, or working in areas that were dangerous because of the political situation or the physical environment itself. I knew very few archaeologists who were married to archaeologists, or who stayed together more than a few years: It just didn’t work out well when both partners were in the field at different times of the year, or worse, competing for the same jobs. We’d been lucky, for the most part, since almost all of my work has been within spitting distance of home, and even when we’d been a dual-house household for a while, it was only lonely, not impossible. Now I found myself weighing my career—something I considered to be more of a vocation—versus my marriage, and I can’t say that I liked it much.

I knew I had to give Brian a lot of credit; he’d always understood when I’d had to be away from home, sometimes for
weeks on end, and he was always supportive. He’d been there with me through my dissertation-writing stage and the first massive job hunt, two periods of my life that taught me a lot, though I’d just as soon forget what they did to my personality at the time. Even now, with a house torn apart and my sister visiting, he still didn’t blink an eye when I suggested letting the four graduate students stay with us, even though he’d heard about what disgusting habits archaeologists could evince while in the field—the drinking, the bizarre ways of combating boredom, the sex, the lack of hygiene. So it wasn’t like he was kicking up any extraordinary fuss. And to be fair, he was worried about me.

But I was worried about me too. And if I were being fair to myself, I’d been there for him too. It was mostly the contract work I did while we were still at Coolidge that kept us fed while he finished his dissertation, and I did more than my share of the cooking, uninspired and can opener–based as it was, when he had a deadline or crunch time. He sometimes had to take off for meetings across the country, sometimes with less than a couple of days’ notice, and I did my best not to bitch too much about that, even though it seemed a little unfair when I knew months in advance what my schedule was like, and he had plenty of time to get used to the idea. There were times when I realized the sort of chemicals he occasionally used at work were highly dangerous, and a tour to see the emergency eye-baths, showers, and other safety protocols hadn’t done much to reassure me. What did put me at ease, most days, was that I knew how careful he was, how good he was at his job.

And, damn it, I was good at my job too. And I was careful, I didn’t want to get hurt or worse, any less than he. No way. Did he have the right to ask me to stop because of something beyond my control?

It was the creaking of the chains against the S-links in the
roof of the porch that told me I was going too fast, that the swing wasn’t made for the kind of workout I was giving it. I slowed down to a more leisurely pace and tried to take the same calm approach to my thoughts as well.

He did have the right to ask me, and I was obliged to listen and give serious consideration to what he was saying: I owed him that. What happened after, though, was up to me. There were times when I could oblige Brian and did so, happily. I wasn’t certain that this was one of them, however. I couldn’t stop my work because he was afraid for me, any more than I would stop because I might be afraid myself. It wasn’t any risk that I was taking, it was something outside me, beyond the project and nothing to do with me, and I refused to let that stop me from doing my work. Whatever else Brian might have to say about my decision, he at least had to realize that it was mine alone to make.

And I realized that whatever happened after having made that decision was up to us both. I had faith in us, in our ability to sort things out, and was willing to bet that we would be okay. I was ready to take responsibility for my decision now because I knew my reasons and I had considered what Brian had to say. It was the only honorable thing to do, and I could live with that, I hoped.

It did, however, occur to me that there were others who had a stake in this, for whom I could not make such decisions. I had to talk to the students about what they wanted to do.

I stopped by the fridge on the way out back and pulled out a six-pack and a soda for Joe. They were out by the barbecue, trying to get a fire going. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but then saw Dian toss aside a piece of wood with a bit of leather and realized that they’d been trying to light the fire without using matches. A cheer broke out when the embers spread into small licks of flame, and
then they started to add some larger kindling. I wished I’d been out here too, setting fire to things and forgetting what had sent us home early again.

“Now that you have successfully captured fire, can I talk to you all for a minute? It shouldn’t take very long.”

“I hope not,” Dian said. “I have to invent the wheel and writing before we go to bed.”

“That for me?” Meg asked as she took the beer from me and started passing them around before I could answer.

“Have a seat, everyone.” I handed Joe his soda.

“This sounds serious.”

“It is,” I said. “I want to know what you all think about going back to work at the site, what with the trouble there and all. The murders.”

The students exchanged worried looks and sat down without another word.

“I’m going back to work Monday. I’ve thought about it a lot, and once I get the okay from the police, I’m going to finish up the job. It’s only a few more days, all told. I want to know whether any of you are willing to come back with me. If you’re not, I will completely understand. I will say that again: You are under no obligation whatever to go back to work at the Chandler House if you are not one hundred percent comfortable with the idea. I will not hold it against you, and neither will anyone here, I know.” I looked around at each of them, letting my gaze linger on Meg just a little longer so that she would get the message. There was to be no unnecessary bravada about this.

They exchanged uneasy glances.

“But…Emma,” Joe said. “It has nothing to do with us, right?”

“That’s a matter of opinion, but that’s how I feel about it. What do you all think?”