The Dead Place (3 page)

His secretary sat behind a boxy wooden desk that he knew to be a smaller version of the one in the inner office, as if she were in training to be dean.

Mildred Wooden was small, round almost to the point of being cherubic, and of indeterminate middle age. Ian could have been convinced she was forty-five or sixty-five. Her bob of perfectly smooth ash blond hair was cut too short to flatter her round face, and she favored boxy suits in harsh colors like puce and orange. She moved her small, bejeweled hands when she spoke, and reminded Ian of a tropical bird.

“You have fifteen calls already this morning, Dean Corbin,” she said in greeting, bobbing up from her seat to wave a handful of papers at him.

Ian took them from her into his office while she flapped along behind him chattering on about a faculty meeting and other commitments. He barely heard her, focused instead on the view out the two large windows that dominated the back wall of the office.

Here was the University of Wickfield depicted on postcards undergrads sent home to their parents. The rolling green lawns and massive brick and stone buildings, the bell tower where generations of students had carved their names, the avenue of stately elm trees that had been saplings when President McKinley visited Wickfield, and the gentle curve of the river just visible at the farthest edge of campus that Ian could see. He knew that at this very moment more than one pencil-thin scull was slicing cleanly through its silver surface.

In the far right corner of his window he could see an edge of the field where the new Performing Arts Center would be built. This was why he’d been wooed, and allowed himself to be wooed, away from NYU. The chance to be part of something like this center came once, if it came at all, in a career. The building would be a design masterpiece, something that would stand for generations, and he would be part of the creative process.

Of course, it was still in the planning stages. They wouldn’t break ground, wouldn’t even be able to name the place, until funding was secure. Finding the money and convincing the rest of the university community to back this project would be his biggest challenges this year, but just the thought of being able to look out this window and see the product of his hard work excited him.

“Would you like me to call Mrs. Corbin to let her know about the reception?”

The question doused his sense of satisfaction like a splash of dirty water. Mildred Wooden paused in the doorway waiting for an answer, fidgeting now with the chain of multicolored pebbles supporting her reading glasses.

Ian turned his bark of startled laughter into a cough just in time. Ask Kate to attend two events in one week? The old Kate, yes, she’d loved socializing, but not the new one.

Ever since the assault, she couldn’t bear to be around crowds. She also couldn’t bear to be touched. He understood this rationally. It had made complete sense to him after what happened, and he’d been so careful in those first few months not to so much as brush casually against her.

But that was eight months ago. Eight damn months and he couldn’t even move his hand toward Kate, much less touch her, without that shuttered look coming over her face and her body stiffening in a way that told him without words that he wasn’t wanted.

It was hard not to take that personally. It was hard not to think that this withdrawal from the world was also a withdrawal from him.

The secretary he’d inherited from his predecessor was still fidgeting in the doorway. “No,” he said at last to Mildred Wooden. “I’ll call her myself.”

A new semester meant a fresh start. Barbara Terry repeated this like a mantra as she walked along Penton Street, killing time before her class. Last semester was a thing of the past and she couldn’t change it, couldn’t make those C’s into A’s, couldn’t go back in time and choose to study instead of attending those frat parties.

A new year meant a new beginning. She’d let herself get distracted last year, new to college, new to an independent life. Saturday night parties became Friday and Saturday nights and even Thursdays sometimes. She’d told herself that she’d catch up on studying, that everybody’s grades slipped their first semester, that she had time to make things right.

Time had crept up on her along with ten extra pounds. It wasn’t “freshman fifteen” no matter what her brothers said. As if it hadn’t been bad enough going back home with crappy grades, she’d had to put up with them making fun of her. “Some guys like a girl with a little extra meat,” Brad said, poking her in the side, and Jim laughed right along with him.

She tugged self-consciously at the waistband of her jeans, which was digging uncomfortably into her stomach. It was why she was walking through town. Part of her new plan to cram in exercise where she could, which, coupled with ridding her diet of fat, sugar, and anything yummy, would have her shedding pounds so fast that Brad and Jim would just have to eat their words.

They were just jealous because she’d gotten as far as college, and when she had a degree and a good job they’d still be squeezing cow teats and kicking manure off the soles of their boots.

She sighed as she passed Corner Bakery. The smell of freshly made muffins and doughnuts didn’t help her resolve. There was already a queue of people in the shop and she hurried past, determined not to indulge. She wouldn’t yield to temptation, not this year.

A smiling face looked out at her from a faded poster taped to a lamppost. Rain had washed out the word
MISSING
printed in caps under the picture. Red ink streaked through the plea for information below.

There were dozens of these posters when Lily Slocum first went missing, but now they had faded or simply vanished, torn from telephone poles or covered up by new signs.

Still, it wasn’t as if Lily had been forgotten. There were new security warnings on campus about leaving dorm doors unlocked or walking unescorted late at night, even though everybody knew that Lily disappeared in broad daylight.

It was warm outside, but Barbara shivered anyway just thinking about it. It wasn’t as if she’d known Lily well, not really, but they’d taken Geo Sci 146 together. Sitting in the same row of the lecture hall for an entire semester counted as some sort of bond even if they never said more than hello outside of class.

Lily had been friendly during Geo Sci, but she was a junior so naturally she didn’t want to hang out with a newbie freshman. That was what Barbara tried to think, but a part of her always suspected that the real reason Lily never suggested getting together outside of class was because she didn’t want to hang out with someone below her standards.

Lily was one of the beautiful people, those lucky few who beat the genetic crapshoot. She could sit there mainlining M&Ms in class yet never gain a pound, and even when she showed up for class without makeup and with her long blond hair pulled back in a messy knot, guys would still turn to look at her.

The truth was that Barbara had been sort of jealous of her. She’d felt bad about that after Lily disappeared. It was weird, thinking of someone just vanishing like that, but maybe she’d just taken off with some guy. That’s what a lot of people said.

Wickfield’s business district wasn’t much, just a lot of stores that appealed mainly to old people—they didn’t even have a Gap—but there was a decent college bookstore and two pizzerias and even one cheap sit-down restaurant that catered to students. Not that she was going to eat out this semester. This semester she was definitely eating in and saving her money.

Barbara felt a little pang, thinking of all the pizza she’d enjoyed last year, but then she pushed it out of her mind and picked up her pace. Her focus had to be on class work or she was never going to have the grades to get into grad school. Not that she knew what she wanted to do yet, but she knew she wasn’t going back to the dairy farm.

She walked briskly past Evers Hardware and its display of old-fashioned bamboo rakes, and past First National Bank where a teller about her age was grabbing a smoke. The young woman gave Barbara the disdainful look affected by townspeople who didn’t like college students, and stubbed out the cigarette with the toe of her cheap pump before flouncing through the double glass doors.

When Barbara reached Thorney Antiques Emporium at the end of the street, she unconsciously slowed down. This was the one old store she really loved, though her friends laughed at her when she insisted on stopping. Two stories crammed with several centuries worth of furniture and bric-a-brac, the shop looked as if it had stood there forever.

The owner, Mrs. Thorney, was slightly deaf and in some indeterminate period of old age between seventy and ninety. She dyed her hair shoe-polish black and wore it in a twisted cone, pinned to her head, so that it looked like a knob of polished ebony. She was fond of 1960s boldly patterned caftans and 1940s Bakelite jewelry and she called everybody “hon,” though her tone of voice could make that either crotchety or a caress.

She didn’t like the “college kids,” but made an exception for Barbara, who treated her store and its possessions with respect, and Barbara returned her affection.

There was no sign of Mrs. Thorney through the front window, but she’d obviously been busy over the weekend. There was a new display, Victorian-themed with an emphasis on white. Clusters of lush white flowers and greenery framed the window and curved around silver picture frames and a gilt-edged porcelain tea service on a wide silver tray. There were carved ivory fans and a few sparkling broaches mounted on a velvet pillow, and a wide-brimmed hat with fluffy white feathers curving around its brim.

Barbara stared at the montage, oohing and aahing over the various elements and able, as was Mrs. Thorney, to ignore the fact that the flowers were silk, the broaches made of rhinestones, the velvet pillow moth-eaten on one corner, and the band of the hat stained yellow with some long-ago wearer’s perspiration.

Her eyes flitted over everything, but came back to rest on a photograph in one corner. It was fairly small, maybe five by seven, and black and white with a sepia tone. It was in a silver frame that was tarnishing on its edges. This in no way detracted from the beauty of the young woman depicted, lying full-length on a chaise lounge, her body covered by a filmy-looking white dress with a high-neck. Her raised head rested on a pillow and she clasped flowers in hands folded demurely just below her chest.

Barbara looked, then looked again. She pressed her face so close to the window that it fogged up and she rubbed away the steam with an impatient hand. The young woman’s eyes were closed, but she knew what color they’d be if they were opened. Watery blue. She’d seen them before. She’d seen them in the halls of her dorm and staring out at her from posters all over campus.

“Lily!” Barbara rapped on the window, staring from the photo to the street and back again. “It’s Lily Slocum,” she cried to a passing car, but the driver only gave her a strange look and didn’t slow.

Barbara rushed to the door, but the knob wouldn’t turn. She knocked anyway and repeatedly pushed a grimy buzzer adjacent to the mail slot. “It’s Lily,” she kept repeating, and when Mrs. Thorney finally came to the door, looking angry, then startled, she fell into her arms repeating the same thing over and over.

“Stop it, girl, take a breath,” Mrs. Thorney said, giving the much larger Barbara a firm shake belied by her small stature and voluminous green robe. “Get a hold of yourself!”

But Barbara pushed past her and raced to the front window, knocking over a wicker carriage and a tower of moldering books in the process.

“Hey, stop that!” Mrs. Thorney yelled, but Barbara was already reaching into the display and grabbing the frame. She held it out to Mrs. Thorney with shaking hands, pointing at the young woman.

“It’s Lily!” she said. “Lily Slocum.”

Mrs. Thorney looked from the photo to Barbara’s face and shrugged. “It’s an old photo, dear, a Victorian mourning photograph. I don’t know the identity of the young woman.”

“It’s Lily Slocum!” Barbara cried, but Mrs. Thorney continued to stare at her. She felt like shaking the old woman. “The student who went missing in May!”

Mrs. Thorney looked affronted, but then recognition seemed to dawn. She grabbed the frame from Barbara and peered through coke-bottle glasses at the photo. “It can’t be,” she said. “This is an old photograph. Over a hundred years.”

Barbara could barely hold onto the frame she was shaking so hard. “It’s Lily,” she said. “It’s got to be Lily.”

“But it’s an antique, dear.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Thorney looked helplessly around the crowded store and then up at Barbara. “I’ve had it for a long time, haven’t I?”

The dim and dusty shop seemed far less romantic now to Barbara. She pushed past Mrs. Thorney to hold the frame under a lit reproduction Tiffany lamp. Under the clear light she was even more convinced that it was Lily, but she flipped the frame over anyway.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Thorney demanded. “You can’t do that to my property!”

Barbara ignored her, pushing the brackets out of the way and taking off the frame back. She removed the paper backing with shaking hands and carefully lifted out the photo. There was no writing on the back, but the photograph didn’t look so old close up. She held the photo under the light and scrutinized the face. It was definitely Lily Slocum. And there was something else, something she hadn’t noticed when it was behind glass.

Lily Slocum wasn’t sleeping, she was dead.