Ashes and Bones (16 page)

I nodded, got in my car, and went back, out of reflex, back to Caldwell. At least in my office, I didn’t feel so damned lost.

I
SAT IN MY OFFICE, WONDERING ABOUT
D
ORA AND
the painting. I thought about poor Jim, who I was now convinced was dead. And it was all so specific. Why, if Tony had survived the storm, had gotten clean away with a bunch of gold, the whole world at his disposal, would he ever have come back? If he was as bored as he’d said he was, why wouldn’t he have just created a new life for himself, from scratch? He could have done anything in the world he wanted to, so why come back?

He needed an audience. A particular audience. Me. I shivered, feeling numb. That’s why things were spiraling in, closer and closer, with more and more violence each time something happened. And if this kept up—

The phone rang, scaring the bejeezus out of me. “Hello?”

“It wasn’t you, was it?” said a male voice after a pause so profound that I almost hung up.

“I beg your pardon!” I hate obscene phone callers, and this guy’s voice was classic. Not actually breathy but a little too much oomph behind the words for polite society. Good, careful pronunciation, though. Weird.

“You never would have sent me that letter, would you, Auntie?”

“Who is this?” But I was starting to recognize the low, depressed voice and erratic telephone manner already. A darkened room, a library at the western part of the state, a raincoat like a security blanket, scholars dying under mysterious and violent circumstances…and there he was, in the midst of it all, as ridiculous a suspect as he was a compelling one.

“It’s Michael Glasscock.” He said it as if he was the only one in the world with my phone number and I was a dope for not recognizing that fact. I was his dull old “Auntie.” “And you never sent me the letter, did you?”

“What letter are you talking about?” My heart was still pounding. There was really no point in asking how he was. For Michael, it was either agony or ecstasy and he could rationalize his way from one to the other in a microsecond, the benefits of a staggering ego, a brilliant mind, a mercurial wit, and too much philosophy, or not enough.

“The really filthy letter, detailing your undying lust for me and what you were willing to do to prove it.”

Michael’s sense of humor, such as it was, did not run to practical jokes. And yet, I still hoped. “Michael, this isn’t funny.”

“You’re telling me. It was so good that I almost believed it. Nearly thirty seconds of unalloyed shock and excitement. How often do humans get that, really, these days? We’re a jaded lot, we modern humans.” I heard a massive sigh, the sound of a man who’d come to grips with the fact that he’d been robbed. “But of course, it wasn’t you. Couldn’t have been.”

“Why not?” I couldn’t tell why I was so annoyed by this.

“Well, the handwriting was pretty similar to yours, in some ways—the downward stabs, characteristic of someone who digs, a gardener, perhaps—but it was the crowded left margin of someone clinging to the past that suggested
an archaeologist to me. But the rhythm was off, the spacing was strange—with those too-wide spaces between the words? Shit, it was nearly as antisocial as my own. And the variation from the baseline showed me that it was someone with no interest in conforming. Dangerous, even. And that my dear, is not you.”

“Thanks a lot. Now you’re telling me that someone sent you a letter, and signed my name?”

“That’s about it, Auntie. Except for the picture. That almost killed me.”

“Picture?”

“I’m going to leave orders that it be buried with me. Or cremated, I haven’t decided which I favor, yet. The jury’s still out on the afterlife.”

Michael might have been a philosopher, but it never seemed to do anything for him, except provide rationalizations. “What kind of picture?”

“As a man, I’m a connoisseur of pornography. As, well,
me
, I take my hobbies seriously. This…whew. Like I said, if I had really believed you’d sent it to me, I would have dropped everything, run out, and bought new underwear, just on the possibility.”

I took a deep breath. “Michael, please! Start over. Someone sent you a dirty picture?”

“Yes. One of you.”

I gasped. “It couldn’t be—”

“No, of course not. But it was a good enough fake to keep my interest. Someone put your head on an astoundingly inventive, and might I add very flexible, body. God bless the Internet. Not that you aren’t flexible—I’m sure you are—and frankly, since I got the picture, I’ve been speculating about that. But there was a certain quality about the upper body that, while similar to yours, was just a trifle too…enthusiastic. Enhanced, but an outstanding job, in my considered opinion.”

“Damn it, knock it off, Michael!”

“I’m just building the proof, don’t take it out on me.” Another pause, and I could almost hear the effort it took to wrench the conversation back around to me. “So it seems like you’ve got some problems. Someone’s got it out for you, and they’re not playing nice, are they? Am I the first?”

“The first to get smut,” I said.

“Why me?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” I told him about the “gifts” sent to my family, the fire at the animal hospital, the picture of Sophia. The site, the chase. The art museum guard, the painting, and Dora’s parents.

“It’s not like you’re a member of my family. Or a particularly close friend.” As soon as I said it, I felt uncomfortable, but it was the truth.

It didn’t seem to even register with Michael. “Hardly. I would have said that the odd email now and then didn’t actually constitute a relationship. But people are getting married on the strength of just that these days, and the odder the email, the better, in some cases. Perhaps, if you’ve got a stalker, which it seems to me you do, he’s trying to indicate how well he knows you, knows your movements. How long’s it been since we were at Shrewsbury? Year and a half?”

“Something like that.” I shuddered, thinking that if he was right, Tony’d been very, very busy.

“Huh. That’s scary, isn’t it? Someone who’s willing to go to that kind of trouble, spend that kind of time?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly, I felt my eyes welling up. As much of a weirdo as Michael could be, he was taking my fears seriously, and I found myself promoting him to friend status on the spot. “It is scary.”

“Hmm. Kind of obsessive, if you ask me.” Asking Michael about obsession was kind of like asking the Pope about Rome. “Once I started really studying the letter—”

“Oh, enough already!”

“Emma, please.” His disdain was so palpable I could almost hear Michael drawing himself up out of his perennial
slouch over the phone lines. “I meant, once I realized it wasn’t you, I started to analyze it. I’ve picked up a thing or two about graphology, studying personal documents as I do, and a little bit about forensic attribution along the way. And it’s my informed opinion that whoever’s responsible for this is a nut case.”

“That’s a big help. Huge.”

“Also highly intelligent, perceptive, inventive. An egoist of galactic proportions, he’s as desirous of an audience as he feels impossibly superior to any one else in the world.”

“You got all that from the handwriting?” Frankly, the description sounded like Michael himself.

“Not all. Handwriting is not a good indication of gender, but, well, men and women write porn differently. In my considered opinion, this felt like a guy trying to sound like a woman to me. Do you have any idea of who might be doing this?”

The flesh at the back of my neck crawled. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Presumably you’ve been to the authorities?”

“Yes, but it’s only recently that there’s been a crime—or any evidence—worth troubling about. No one’s seen this guy, and they’re also mostly convinced that Tony is dead.”

“Well, that’s what I call dedicated. Good work, from beyond the grave. Do they have Kinko’s in Tartarus?” A pause. “Can you get me a sample of Tony’s handwriting?”

“Uh, yeah. You think you could compare them, find out for certain?”

“No. But I have a friend who could. Specializes in attribution. I’m just more of a talented amateur. Developed while I was stalking women as an undergraduate—oh, and doesn’t that word have such a rotten, narrow, loaded connotation these days? Send me a more recent sample of your handwriting, too. For comparison.”

“I will. And you have to send the letter and the photo to me.”

“I can’t!” he said petulantly. “I’m going to have it buried with me, I told you!”

I counted to ten, then to twenty. “Make a copy, if you must, but get me that letter. The original.”

“Okay, but after I show it to my friend. She works better with the original.”

“Fine. I want the cops to be able to check for fingerprints. I want them to have every opportunity to nail this guy.”

“Interesting choice of words, given the situation. Emma, this letter troubles me. This guy seems to know exactly what buttons to push, on you and those around you. A person with a less subtle grasp of the situation would be impressed. I’m just scared.”

Michael’s frank admission surprised me. “Me too. I don’t think Tony would do anything to you, but be careful, would you?”

“Oh, sure. He’ll have to cut through the swathes of adoring women.”

“Sasha’s out of the picture, then?” Too bad, I thought. I liked Sasha, and if anyone had a chance of taming Michael, calming him down, it was she.

“Oh, not a chance. We’ve moved in together. But the woman—she’s a devil, Emma. She’ll do everything but marry me. She drives me to distraction, as elusive as she is.”

You can be elusive and still live in the same house? It struck me that Sasha was doing things exactly right; Michael’s obsessions usually ended with a trip to the altar, at last count, four. If Sasha could keep him entranced, while still enjoying domestic bliss, then she was even cannier than I gave her credit for. Not marrying him, for example, apparently keeping herself unattainable, by his lights. “And these other layers of women?”

“Oh, nobody. Just the usual armies of enthralled. Send me the sample text when you get it.”

“Right. And then make sure I get the originals.”

“It might take a while,” he said. “The tattoo artist works better from originals, too.” He hung up.

I remembered that I’d wanted to speak to Artie, find out if he’d ever left the house when I wasn’t there. I tried his number,
got nothing. Called his boss, got a gum-chewing secretary, and was told that Artie wasn’t due at my house that day.

“I know that,” I said.

“So why do you want to talk to him?” The gum stopped for a moment.

“I need to find out something from him. Can you have him call me?”

“Is there some complaint?”

Not yet, I thought. “I’d just like to speak to him.”

“I’ll leave a message…” she said doubtfully, working the gum back up to normal speed.

“Thanks.” It all led me to imagine that I’d hear from Artie when next I saw him, whenever that might be.

I waited until the department was even emptier than when I came in, and then went down to the map room. There had never been anyone to claim Tony’s papers and files and books and things; after his disappearance, the college boxed up the materials in his office, and were presumably charging rent against Tony’s estate or the day he should reappear. Didn’t make things easier for me; a few friends in the department, while shocked to hear of what had gone on, had always seemed a little more distant to me since then. Tony wasn’t there, and since I was, it was almost as if I was to blame for disrupting things so much. The three new professors that had to be found, the gaps in the table at faculty meetings were obvious reminders that I had rocked the boat.

I couldn’t really blame my colleagues; it was a lot of upheaval. We were lucky to get the slots filled, not lose the lines or the funding. That was the quick work and diplomatic ways of our new chair, Jenny Alvarez.

The rest of the files were in Professor LaBrot’s office; I could get at the map room, though, and assumed that some of them would be annotated.

I was in luck. A terse, irritated and threatening note from Tony about the return of maps to the correct places was stuck near the top of the pile in the map room. Long enough, complex enough, to possibly be of some use.

I cast about for a piece of paper to leave a note and realized how foolish I was being. Yes, I was taking something from the files and not leaving the appropriate paper trail. No, it didn’t really matter.

Still felt funny, though. I didn’t like skulking and sneaking and taking things that didn’t technically belong to anyone. Stealing wasn’t my style.

I made two copies of it, replaced one in the files, and then packaged up the original to send to Michael in the next day’s overnight bag. I put the other in the file I’d been keeping, just to keep track of what I’d done and why, in response to what. It was getting rather thick, I thought glumly.

The next day, I stopped by the office to check my mail. A strange young woman was sitting in Chuck’s seat, filing folders. Not just strange because she was unfamiliar to me. A long, burnt-orange dress in velvet with a long row of jet buttons from the high neckline to the skirt swept the floor—it looked like something from a vintage store. As she rolled the chair back to the desk, little black boots with matching buttons skittered beneath her. Short black hair was a surprise—I would have expected Beardsley’s flowing locks to go with the dress—but her beautifully shaped face could have taken any haircut easily. The kohl around the eyes and dark lips told it all, and I was putting my money on first-year fine arts major.

She must be roasting in that dress, I thought. Even with the air-conditioning.

I waved as I stuck my head into the mailbox area. Nothing yet. “Hi. I’m Emma Fielding. Chuck’s out today?”

The look she gave me was fixed and poisonous. “I know who you are.”

Not “I’ve seen your name,” not “Oh, hi! I’m Trixie!” “I know who you are.” I shivered in spite of myself. “Oh? How is that?”

“You were in the museum yesterday. When the guard was killed and Professor Sarkes-Robinson collapsed. I heard that you were responsible.”

“She collapsed because a painting was stolen. Apparently there was a threat made against her as well.” Why on earth am I explaining myself to this child?