A Faint Cold Fear

  Lena had only ever been in the waiting room or Rosen’s office, so she was surprised to find herself in a large conference room. The space was warm and open, with lots of plants, just like Jill Rosen’s office. The walls were painted a soothing light gray. There were chairs covered in mauve fabric tucked under a long mahogany conference table. Large four-drawer filing cabinets filled one side of the room, and Lena was glad to see they were padlocked to keep people from prying.

  The doctor turned around, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Jill Rosen had a narrow face and shoulder-length dark brown hair. She was attractive for her age, which was probably early forties, and dressed in an earthy style, with long, flowing blouses and skirts that suited her figure. There was a no-nonsense manner about her that had been very off-putting to Lena, especially when the doctor took it upon herself to diagnose Lena as an alcoholic after only three sessions. Lena wondered that the woman had any patients at all with that kind of attitude. Come to think of it, there was not much to be said for a shrink who couldn’t keep her own son from taking a deep dive into a shallow river.

  Predictably, Rosen got straight to the point. “What’s the problem?”

  Lena took a deep breath, wondering how strained this was going to be, considering her past with Rosen. She decided to be direct. “We’ve come about your son.”

  “Andy?” Rosen asked, sinking into one of the chairs like a slowly deflating balloon. She sat there, back straight, hands clasped in her lap, perfectly composed but for the look of sheer panic in her eyes. Lena had never read anyone’s expression so clearly in her life. The woman was terrified.

  “Is he—” Rosen stopped to clear her throat, and tears sprang into her eyes. “Has he gotten into trouble?”

  Lena remembered Chuck. He was standing in the doorway, hands tucked into his pockets as if he were watching a talk show. Before Chuck could protest, she shut the door in his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Lena said, pressing her palms against the table as she sat down. The apology was for Chuck, but Rosen took it a different way.

  “What?” the doctor pleaded, a sudden desperation filling her voice.

  “I meant—”

  Without warning, Rosen reached across the table and grabbed Lena’s hands. Lena flinched, but Rosen did not seem to notice. Since the rape, the thought of touching someone—or worse, being touched—made Lena break into a cold sweat. The intimacy of the moment brought bile to the back of her throat.

  Rosen asked, “Where is he?”

  Lena’s leg started to shake, the heel of her foot bobbing up and down uncontrollably. When she spoke, her voice caught, but not from sympathy. “I need you to look at a picture.”

  “No,” Rosen refused, holding on to Lena’s hands as if she were hanging over a cliff and Lena was the only thing keeping her from falling. “No.”

  With difficulty Lena freed one of her hands and took the Polaroid out of her pocket. She held up the picture, but Rosen looked away, closing her eyes like a child.

  “Dr. Rosen,” Lena began. Then, moderating her tone, “Jill, is this your son?”

  She looked at Lena, not the photograph, hatred glowing like white-hot coals.

  “Tell me if it’s him,” Lena persisted, willing her to get this over with.

  Rosen finally looked at the Polaroid. Her nostrils flared and her lips pressed into a thin line as she fought back tears. Lena could tell from the woman’s expression that the dead boy was her son, but Rosen was taking her time, staring at the picture, trying to let her mind accept what her eyes were seeing. Probably without thinking, Rosen stroked the scar on the back of Lena’s hand with her thumb as though it were a talisman. The sensation was like sandpaper on a blackboard, and Lena gritted her teeth together so she would not scream.

  Rosen finally asked, “Where?”

  “We found him on the west side of campus,” Lena told her, so taken by the urge to jerk back her hand that her arm began to shake.

  Rosen, oblivious, asked, “What happened?”

  Lena licked her lips, though her mouth was as dry as a desert. “He jumped,” she said, trying to breathe. “From a bridge.” She stopped. Then, “We think he—”

  “What?” Rosen asked, her hand still clamped onto Lena’s.

  Lena could take no more, and she found herself begging, “Please, I’m sorry . . .” A look of confusion crossed Rosen’s face, which made Lena feel even more trapped. The level of her voice rose with each word, until she was screaming, “Let go of my hand!”

  Rosen recoiled quickly, and Lena stood, knocking over her chair, moving away from the other woman until she felt her back against the door.

  A look of horror was on Rosen’s face. “I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Lena leaned against the door, rubbing her hands on her thighs like she was wiping off dirt. “It’s okay,” she said, her heart shaking in her chest. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

  “I should have known . . .”

  “Please,” Lena said, feeling heat on her thighs from the friction. She stopped the motion, clasping her hands, rubbing them together as if she were cold.

  “Lena,” Rosen said, sitting up in her chair but not standing. She said, “It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

  “I know that,” Lena said, but her voice was weak, and the taste of fear was still sour in her mouth. “I’m fine,” she insisted, but she was still wringing her hands. Lena looked down, pressing her thumb into the scar on her palm, rubbing into it as if she could rub it away. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

  “Lena . . . ,” Rosen began, but she did not finish the thought.

  Lena concentrated on her breathing, calming herself. Her hands were red and sticky from sweat, the scars standing out in angry relief. She forced herself to stop, tucking her hands under her arms. She was acting like a head case. This was the kind of thing mentally ill people did. Rosen was probably ready to commit her.

  Rosen tried again. “Lena?”

  Lena tried to laugh it off. “I just got nervous,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. Sweat made it stick to her scalp.

  Inexplicably, Lena wanted to say something mean, something that would cut Rosen in two and put them both back on a level playing field.

  Maybe Rosen sensed what was coming, because she asked, “Who should I talk to at the police station?”

  Lena stared, because for a split second she could not remember why she was here.

  “Lena?” Rosen asked. She had retreated back into herself, her hands clasped in her lap, her posture ramrod straight.

  “I—” Lena stopped. “Chief Tolliver will be at the library in about half an hour.”

  Rosen stared, as if she could not decide what to do. For a mother, thirty minutes of waiting to hear the details of what had happened to her son was probably a lifetime.

  Lena said, “Jeffrey doesn’t know about . . .” She indicated the space between them.

  “Therapy?” Rosen provided, as if Lena were stupid for not being able to say the word.

  “I’m sorry,” Lena said, and this time she genuinely felt the emotion. She was supposed to be here comforting Jill Rosen, not yelling at her. Jeffrey had told Chuck that Lena would be an asset, and she had fucked everything up in the space of five minutes.

  Lena tried again. “I’m really sorry.”

  Rosen raised her chin, acknowledging the apology but not accepting it.

  Lena uprighted the chair. The desire to bolt from the room was so strong that her legs ached.

  Rosen said, “Tell me what happened. I need to know what happened.”

  Lena folded her hands over the back of the chair, holding on to it tightly. “It looks like he jumped from the bridge by the woods,” she said. “A student found him and called 911. The coroner got there a little while later and pronounced him.”

  Rosen inhaled, holding the air in her chest for a few beats. “He walks to school that way.”

  “The bridge?” Lena asked, realizing that Rosen must ha
ve a house near Main Street, where a lot of professors lived.

  “His bike kept getting stolen,” she said, and Lena nodded. Bicycles were constantly being stolen on campus, and the security team had no idea who was doing it.

  Rosen sighed again, as if she were letting out her grief in little spurts. She asked, “Was it fast?”

  “I don’t know,” Lena said. “I think so. That kind of thing . . . it would have to happen fast.”

  “Andy’s manic-depressive,” Rosen told her. “He’s always been sensitive, but his father and I are . . .” She let her voice trail off, as if she did not want to trust Lena with too much information. Considering her recent outburst, Lena could not blame her.

  Rosen asked, “Did he leave a note?”

  Lena took the note out of her back pocket and put it down on the table. Rosen hesitated before picking it up.

  “That’s not from Andy,” Lena said, indicating the bloody fingerprints Frank and Jeffrey had left on the paper. Even considering everything that had happened with Tessa, Lena was surprised Frank had let her take the note to Andy’s mother.

  “It’s blood?”

  Lena nodded but did not explain. She would leave it to Jeffrey to decide how much information to give the mother.

  Rosen put on her glasses, which were hanging by a chain around her neck. Though Lena had not asked her to, she read aloud, “ ‘I can’t take it anymore. I love you, Mama. Andy.’ ”

  The older woman took another deep breath, as if she could hold it in along with her emotions. Carefully she took off her glasses, putting the suicide note on the table. She stared at it as if she could still read it, saying, “It’s almost identical to the one he wrote before.”

  “When was this?” Lena asked, her mind clicking onto the investigation.

  “January second. He slit his arm up the center. I found him before he lost too much blood, but . . .” She leaned her head on her hand, looking down at the note. She put her fingers on it, like she was touching a part of her son—the only part that he had left her.

  “I’ll need that back,” Lena told her, even though Jeffrey and Frank had destroyed its value as evidence.

  “Oh.” Rosen moved her hand away. “Will I be able to get it back?”

  “Yes, when everything’s finished.”

  “Oh,” Rosen repeated. She started to fidget with the chain holding her glasses. “Can I see him?”

  “They’ll need to perform an autopsy.”

  Rosen latched on to the news. “Why? Did you find something suspicious?”

  “No,” Lena said, though she was still unsure. “It’s just routine because the death was unattended. No one was there.”

  “Was his body badly . . . damaged?”

  “Not really,” she said, knowing that the answer was subjective. Lena could still remember seeing her sister in the morgue last year. Though Sara had cleaned her up, the small bruises and cuts on Sibyl’s face had seemed like a thousand wounds.

  “Where is he now?”

  “At the morgue. They’ll release him to the funeral home in a day or so,” Lena told her, then realized from Rosen’s shocked expression that the mother had not let her mind think through the steps to the point where she would actually have to bury her son. Lena thought about apologizing, but she knew what a pointless gesture the words would be.

  “He wanted to be cremated,” Rosen said. “I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can let them . . .” She shook her head, not finishing. Her hand went to her mouth, and Lena noticed a wedding ring.

  “Do you want me to tell your husband?”

  “Brian’s out of town,” she said. “He’s been working on a grant.”

  “He’s at the college, too?”

  “Yes.” Her brow furrowed as she fought back emotions. “Andy was working with him, trying to help. We thought he was doing better—” She tried to suppress a sob but finally broke down.

  Lena clutched the back of the chair, watching the other woman. Rosen was a silent crier, her lips parted but no sound coming out. She put her hand to her chest, squeezing her eyes closed as tears poured down her face. Her thin shoulders folded inward, and her chin trembled as it dropped to her chest.

  Lena was overwhelmed with the urge to leave. Even before the rape, she had never been good at comforting people. There was something about neediness that threatened her, like Lena would have to give up part of herself in order to console someone. She wanted to go home now to fortify herself, to wash the taste of fear out of her mouth. Lena had to find a way to regain her strength before she went out into the world again. Especially before she saw Jeffrey.

  Rosen must have sensed Lena’s feelings. She wiped away a tear, her tone turning brisk. “I need to call my husband,” she said. “Can you give me a moment?”

  “Of course,” Lena told her, relieved. “I’ll meet you in the library.” She put her hand on the doorknob but stopped, not looking at the doctor. “I know I don’t have a right to ask this,” she began, aware that Jeffrey would write her off completely if Rosen told him what had happened.

  Rosen seemed to sense exactly what Lena was worried about. She snapped, “No, you don’t have a right to ask.”

  Lena turned the knob, but she could feel Rosen’s stare burrowing into her. Lena felt trapped, but she managed to ask, “What?”

  Rosen offered what seemed like a compromise. She said, “If you’re sober, I won’t tell him.”

  Lena swallowed, and her mouth could almost taste the shot of whiskey her mind had been conjuring for the last two minutes. Without answering, she shut the door behind her.

  Lena sat at an empty table by the circulation desk at the library, watching Chuck making a fool of himself with Nan Thomas, the school librarian. Setting aside the fact that Nan, with her mousy brown hair and thick glasses, was hardly worth the effort, Lena happened to know that the woman was gay. Nan had been Sibyl’s lover for four years. The two women had been living together when Sibyl was murdered.

  To take her mind off Chuck, Lena glanced around the library, looking at the students working at the long tables lining the middle of the room. Midterms were on the horizon, and the place was pretty packed for a Sunday. Other than the cafeteria and the counseling center, the library was the only building open today.

  As libraries went, Grant Tech’s was pretty impressive. Lena supposed that the school’s not having a football team meant more money could be spent on the facilities, but she still thought they would have been better off with some sort of athletic department. Five years ago two Grant professors had developed some kind of shot or magic pill that made pigs grow fatter in a shorter amount of time. Farmers had gone nuts over the discovery, and there was a framed cover of Porcine & Poultry by the library entrance with a picture of the two professors looking rich and satisfied on the cover. The headline read “High on the Hog,” and judging by the smiles on the professors’ faces, they certainly were not hurting for money. As with most research institutes, the school got a chunk of the proceeds from anything its professors worked on, and Kevin Blake, the dean, had used some of the money to completely refurbish the library.

  Large stained-glass windows facing the eastern side of the campus had been reglazed so that heat and air-conditioning didn’t seep outside. The dark wood paneling on the walls and the two stories of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves had been lightened so that they were still imposing but not oppressive. The overall atmosphere was soothing, and Lena liked coming here at night as part of her after-work routine. She would sit in one of the cubicles in the front and thumb through whatever book was handy until around ten, when she would return to her room, have a drink or two to take the edge off, and try to go to sleep. All in all, the routine worked for her. There was something comforting about having a schedule.

  “Fuck,” Lena groaned as Richard Carter walked toward her.

  Without waiting for an invitation, Richard slumped down in the chair opposite Lena.

  “Hey, girl,” he said, flashing a smi
le.

  “Hey,” she said, injecting as much dislike into her tone as possible.

  “Whatcha know good?”

  Lena stared at him, wishing he would go away. Sibyl’s ex–teaching assistant was a short, husky man who had only recently traded in his thick glasses for contact lenses. Richard was three years younger than Lena, but he already had a large bald spot on the crown of his head, which he tried to cover by brushing the rest of his hair straight back. Between the new contacts, which had him constantly blinking, and the widow’s peak on his forehead, he had the appearance of a confused owl.

  Since Sibyl’s death Richard had been promoted to an associate professorship in the biology department where, considering his repellent personality, his career would probably stall. Richard was a lot like Chuck in that he tried to cover his suffocating stupidity with an air of completely unfounded superiority. He could not even order breakfast at a restaurant without implying to everyone around that he knew more about the eggs than the cook did.

  “Did you hear about that kid?” Richard made a low whistle like a plane going down, waving his hand in the air and slapping it on the table for emphasis. “Jumped right off the bridge.”

  “Yeah,” she told him, not offering more.

  “Assassination plots abound,” Richard said, almost giddy. He loved gossip more than a woman; appropriate, considering he was queer as a three-dollar bill. “Both his parents work at the school. His mother is in the counseling department. Can you imagine the scandal?”

  Lena felt a flush of shame as she thought about Jill Rosen. She told Richard, “I imagine they’re both pretty broken up. Their son is dead.”

  Richard twisted his lips to the side, openly appraising Lena. He was very perceptive for a self-involved asshole, and she hoped she wasn’t giving anything away.

  He asked, “Do you know them?”

  “Who?”

  “Brian and Jill,” he said, glancing over Lena’s shoulder. He gave a silly little-girl wave to someone before turning his focus back to Lena.

  She stared, not answering his question.

  “Have you lost weight?”