Past Malice (6 page)

“There’s a body…a security guard…Justin. He’s back there.”

I couldn’t actually say the words out loud. Bucky looked at me, forehead wrinkled with concern, chin pulled back with reluctant realization, eyebrows arched, asking the question.

I nodded. “We have to call the cops. Right now. He’s been killed.”

I
’
D SAID THAT
I
THOUGHT
J
USTIN HAD BEEN KILLED
before I could figure out just how I might know that he wasn’t simply dead. I didn’t have time to go back over what it was that I’d seen that made me choose that word rather than another, because it was exactly at that moment that the graduate students arrived; I could hear them chattering and the sound of car doors slamming. Gathering myself, trying to keep a bad situation from getting worse, I turned to Bucky and held her by the shoulders.

“Stay here. Don’t let anyone else through, and for God’s sake, don’t go back there yourself. I’m going in the house to find a phone.”

Bucky was ashen. “Okay.”

I hustled around to the other side of the house, thinking how I hated seeing my sister look like she did, and almost ran into the four members of my crew. “Hey, Meg, you guys. Do me a favor. Could you wait out by the cars for a minute? There’s…there’s been an accident.” Even as I said the
word, I knew it was an easy mistruth. “I think it would be a good idea if we didn’t start right in to work. It might be a lab day, today.”

“But the weather report didn’t say anything—” Meg began, frowning. “Emma, what is it?”

The smiles froze, then melted off the faces of the rest of the crew as they realized that something was really wrong.

“It looks like Justin. I’m pretty sure he’s dead. I’m going to call an ambulance and the police.”

“You’re joking,” Meg said, in a tone of voice that suggested she knew otherwise.

“Oh, man,” Rob said.

Joe didn’t say anything, but swallowed hard.

There was a short silence. “What do…what should we do?” Dian asked.

“Just don’t go back there. Wait for me by the cars. I’ll be with you just as soon as I know what’s going on. I’ve got to—” I gestured toward the house.

“Right, yes, go.”

I went in the front door, which was, thankfully, unlocked, and headed straight for Fee’s office. She greeted me with another bright smile, and it made me tired to see it, as it felt so much more like a barrier than a welcome.

“Good morning, Emma—” she trilled.

“Fee, I’ve got to use the phone right away. There’s an emergency.”

Bless Fee, she shoved the phone right toward me without a second’s hesitation. “What is it?” she asked as I began to dial.

“I think Justin is dead.”

“You can’t be serious.” She put down the file she’d been reading.

“Yes.”

“Dear God.” Fee crossed herself. “Where is he?”

“He’s—hello? I need some help, right away!” I told the 911 operator. “Police and an ambulance—I think he’s dead. Pulse—no, I didn’t get a chance. Stone Harbor, the Chandler House, two Chandler Street, the far end of the common off Water Street. I don’t know how. I don’t know when—what? Well, it’s”—here I snuck a look at Fee, then turned away slightly—“it’s the smell that makes me think so. Emma Fielding. Right, I’ll be here. Please. Hurry.”

I hung up and saw how strangely Fee regarded me. “I’m okay,” I said. “I guess I’d better go wait outside, for the police.” I lowered and rubbed my head, trying to collect my wits, trying not to think about poor Justin.

“Emma!” Fee almost shouted. I looked up, alarmed.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I thought you were—” She darted forward and closed the file that had been sitting open on her desk, sweeping it away from me, keeping her gaze level with mine the whole time. “I thought you were going to pass out there, for a minute.”

It was such an obvious lie and she was so clearly trying to keep me from seeing what was in that file that I was at a momentary loss how to answer. “No. No, I’m fine. I’ll just go….” I hooked my thumb toward the door and tried not to stare at the file that she held, awkwardly, casually, behind her hip. “I guess you’d better call some folks. Aden, I suppose, and—”

“Oh no! Aden won’t like this at all,” she said quickly. I was struck by the dread in her voice, which seemed to be more fear of Aden himself than a reluctance to share the bad news.

“I don’t think anyone will like it,” I said. What was up with her? “But I think it’s best.”

“No, of course, you’re right.” She began to well up. “Goodness, Justin. This is so—”

“I know. I’ll be outside.”

As I shut the door behind me, I could already hear the sirens in the distance. As I made my way out the front door, I wondered what in the file was so secret. Concentrating, I recalled an unclear image of names and numbers, but I hadn’t been thinking about it, hadn’t been focusing on it. Was it telephone numbers? Social Security Numbers? Street names or people’s names? I shook my head; I had no idea what it was Fee was trying to hide from me. I looked over my shoulder and saw her place the file into a buff-colored filing cabinet, which she locked before she picked up the phone.

The sirens drew closer, and I could see a flash of blue lights as they came down the long avenue to the house. I held up my hand, as if they wouldn’t find their way to the imposing brick structure on their own, and waited for it all to begin.

It seemed to take an eternity. I had the most unappetizing sensation of dissociation; my head felt as though it was about ten feet above and to the left of the constricted knot of my stomach, all stretched out and like one of the drawings of Alice in Wonderland by Tenniel. The dizziness that had been creeping up on me was firmly situated now, a feeling that my bones had shrunk away into nothingness, leaving a hollow core that would not support me if I stopped concentrating on standing upright. I rubbed my fingers together, trying to chase the cold out, but they were slick with sweat and I couldn’t generate any friction to warm them.

Bucky was still back there.

The police cars were parked, and I was aware of someone getting out. All I knew was that I couldn’t leave Bucky alone any longer, so I said, “I called, he’s back here,” and hurried around the house the long way around.

Bucky was where I left her, now fully awake, gray as the oversized sweatshirt she clutched around herself, and staring
fixedly at some point past the spoils heap. She started when I called her name, and I knew I shouldn’t have left her by herself for so long.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Fine.” She frowned and shrugged my arm off her shoulder. “Cops here?”

I stepped back and stooped to check the knot on my bootlace. “Yeah, right behind me. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t do anything. I just did exactly what you said.”

I straightened up. “Good. That was good.”

“You’re okay?” she asked.

“I’m not hurt or anything.”

“Good.”

“Okay, which one of you put in the call?”

It was then that I got a look at the officer for the first time. He was young, with a blond crew cut that would have made him look even younger if it weren’t for the nearly palpable aura of authority that he radiated. That reminded me of Justin and I felt my eyes start to well up. I tried to focus and looked at his nameplate: Officer Lovell.

I raised my hand when I had gotten a grip on myself. “I did. Justin’s back there, past the spoils heap—”

“The what?”

“The…pile of dirt right there. He’s past that, under some bushes.”

He gave me a stern look. “Did you touch anything?”

“No, nothing.”

“Is this the only way in?”

“Pretty much. We have to walk all the way around the house to get here; we used to just cut through a space in the shrubs at the front, but they asked us not to do that. It detracted from the experience, was what Fee said.”

Lovell glanced at the space I indicated, which was just narrow enough to slide through sideways, if you really wanted to. Most people wouldn’t want to. “Okay, that’s still a possible entrance though. Did you check his pulse?”

“No, I didn’t get close enough. I…the smell….”

He cut me off with an abrupt gesture that suggested he was afraid that I might throw up or start crying or something worse. “Okay, okay, never mind. Stay put. You,” he indicated Bucky. “Give your statement to Officer Hill over there. I’ll be right back.” He picked his way carefully across the uneven mounds of dirt and was lost in the shrubbery.

It was then that Ted Cressey showed up for work. He was about five ten, narrowly built, tidy little hands, and a head full of graying hair. His brown trousers and white shirt were both pressed, and the shirt was tucked in with care. His face reminded me of a wood carving that hadn’t been sanded all the way down, a little rough, a little lined, with good teeth that showed when he smiled. When he saw the police, he stopped in his tracks and almost turned around, then caught himself, and asked Officer Hill what was going on. He looked over at me and said something I couldn’t hear.

Lovell returned from Justin, looking sober.

“Do you know who he is?”

“His name’s Justin Fisher. He’s a security guard here at the house.”

“Know him well?”

“No, just to say hi to, talk to. I gave him some advice about a paper he was working on in one of his classes.”

“Who are you? You work here too?”

“My name’s Emma Fielding. I’m working here now, contracting, as an archaeologist, but I teach full time at Caldwell College in Maine.”

Officer Lovell looked up from his notes. “You live in Maine?”

“No, I wish. I live over in Lawton.”

He frowned. “And what’s wrong with Lawton?”

I was surprised by this. “Nothing, nothing’s wrong with Lawton. It’s just…my husband and I moved here almost two years ago, it’s halfway between our jobs. We like Lawton fine, but it’s still a long haul to work.”

Lovell returned to business. “Right. What time did you find…Justin?”

“I got here about seven-forty-five. It was just after that.” Then I remembered my conversation with Claire Bellamy. “No, it was a bit longer, say five minutes or so? I was having a look at the units, I had a talk with the neighbor—” Not a very nice talk, I recalled, but that put me in mind of something else. “She was complaining about the racket that my students and I were making out here at five-thirty, but I had to tell her no one from the project was out here by then. It had to be someone else.”

“Where’s the neighbor live?”

“Just over there, across the road.”

He followed the direction of my hand pointing. “Okay, well, the neighbor will be our next stop.”

Officer Hill joined us as he said that, leaving Bucky where she was and having sent Ted to wait out front. I realized that these two would be the first two in a long line of official visitors to the site today. I also realized that Claire Bellamy would not thank me for directing the police to her. It would negatively affect her quality of life. I found myself hard pressed not to take a little satisfaction from that.

“Oh, I know them,” Hill said. “She’s got us on speed-dial.”

“Yeah?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Every little thing. They’ve got a couple of big dogs over there, poodles or something.”

“Poodles?” Officer Lovell didn’t look convinced.

“I’m telling you. Big mothers, and jumpy, too. Keep an eye out, is all I’m saying.”

Lovell turned back to me. “Okay, a few more questions here.”

After he finished, I gave him my address and telephone number. That’s when the ambulance arrived and the crime scene unit and things started getting crowded around the site.

A detective in plainclothes also arrived, conferred with the two uniformed officers for a minute, and looked my way. They talked a little more, and for the sake of not asking Bucky again if she were all right and for something to do, I began to size up the detective. He was a big man, over six feet and built like a tree trunk. He was wearing a sports jacket in a nice summer weave of light brown wool over a yellow shirt and tan trousers, with shoes that spoke of careful selection. I wouldn’t have noticed that he was just starting to get a little thick around the middle but he pushed his jacket back to rest his hand on his hip. I guessed the clothes weren’t really expensive—they weren’t on the first line of fashion, but fit well and suggested an interest in a stylish appearance that didn’t seem to match the workaday wear that I was expecting. His face was long, broad, ruddy, and creased with wear and care; a wide brow gave him a look of concentration and disapproval, or at least skepticism, and the lines alongside his mouth hinted at jowls that might come with another fifteen or twenty years. He was probably in his late forties or thereabouts. His hair was dark brown with a lot going to gray; there was plenty left though the widow’s peaks were probably getting higher every year, but there was no need of a comb-over yet. A few locks that fell forward suggested a boyishness that wasn’t present in the rest of his demeanor.

He caught me staring and came over. “I’m Detective Bader. I understand that you were the one to find the body?”

“Yes.” It must have been nerves on my part, because I
blurted out the first thing that came into my mind. “I’ve got my crew out front, waiting to work.”

He shook his head and I felt stupid. “I would make other plans, if I were you, for today at least. I’ve got some questions for you.”

“Okay.”

“You got here about seven-forty-five? Did you notice anything unusual? Anything out of place?”

“Mmm, no.” I frowned. “One of the rocks we use to hold down our tarps had slid into the unit, that’s all.”

“Oh?”

“This one.” I indicated the rock with my toe. “Well, it had been fine last night. There’s no particular reason it should have moved. Sometimes dew or rain will weight down the tarps and drag them in.”

We all looked at the rock. It was a big rounded cobble that wouldn’t have moved easily on its own.

“Who is allowed back here?”

“Back here? The grounds are open to the visitors during the day, there are landscapers who come—”

“During the day, right. I mean, who is allowed in this fenced-in area?”

“Well, no one, really. My crew—they’re all out front—sometimes some of the staff come back here, while we’re here, to see how we’re doing. And sometimes they bring VIP visitors, to show us off. So besides them, the staff, and my crew, no other visitors, as a rule.” I started thinking of the multitudinous footprints, and wished the crime scene specialists good luck: The soil was dry and dusty and might have held a clear track for a short while before it was disturbed by someone else, or a breeze, or the squirrels.