A Faint Cold Fear

  “No,” she said, though she had. Her pants were looser than they had been last week. Lena had not felt much like eating lately. “Was he one of your kids?”

  “Andy?” Richard asked. “Sibyl had him for a quarter right before—”

  “What kind of kid was he?”

  “Nasty, if you ask me. His parents couldn’t do enough for him.”

  “He was spoiled?”

  “Rotten,” Richard confirmed. “He nearly failed Sibyl’s class. Organic biology. How hard is that? He’s supposed to be the next Einstein, and he can’t pass OB?” Richard gave a snort of disgust. “Brian tried to lean on her, call in some favors to get the grade bumped up.”

  “Sibyl didn’t do favors like that.”

  “Of course she didn’t,” Richard said, as if he had never called it into question. “Sib was very polite, as usual, but Brian was ticked.” He lowered his voice. “Let’s be honest. Brian was always jealous of Sibyl. He lobbied night and day for her position as department head.”

  Lena wondered if Richard was really being honest or just stirring up shit. He had a habit of putting himself in the middle of things. At one point during the investigation of Sibyl’s murder, Richard’s big mouth had nearly talked him onto the list of suspects, even though he was as capable of murder as Lena was of sprouting wings.

  She tried to put him on the spot. “It sounds like you know Brian pretty well.”

  He shrugged, waving at someone else behind Lena as he said, “It’s a small department. We all work together. That was Sibyl’s doing. You know her motto was ‘Teamwork.’ ”

  He waved again.

  She was half curious to turn around and see if anyone was really there but decided she would be better served pumping Richard for information.

  “Anyway,” Richard began, “Andy ended up dropping out, and of course Daddy found a job for him at the lab.” He puffed an irritated breath. “Not that I’d call sitting on your ass listening to rap music for six hours a day a job. And God forbid you complain to Brian about it.”

  “I guess he’ll take the news pretty hard.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Richard asked. “I imagine both of them will be devastated.”

  “What does Brian do?”

  “Biomedical research. He’s working on a grant right now, and between you and me . . .” He didn’t finish, but Lena knew that it was between Richard and the entire school. “Well, let’s just say that if he doesn’t get this grant, he’s out of here.”

  “He doesn’t have tenure?”

  “Oh,” Richard said knowingly, “he has tenure.”

  Lena waited for more, but Richard was uncharacteristically silent. She had worked on campus for only a few months, but Lena could guess how the school would get rid of a professor who was underperforming. Richard, who taught remedial biology to drooling freshmen all day, was a perfect example of how the administration could punish professors without exactly firing them. The only difference was, someone like Richard would never leave.

  She asked, “Was he smart?”

  “Andy?” Richard shrugged. “He was here, wasn’t he?”

  Lena knew that that could be taken a couple of different ways. Grant Tech was a good school, but any geek worth his salt wanted to go to Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Like Emory University in Decatur, Georgia Tech was considered one of the South’s Ivy League schools. Sibyl had gone to Georgia Tech on a full scholarship, and it had given her instant cachet on staff. She could have taught anywhere she wanted to, but something had drawn her to Grant.

  Richard sounded reflective. “I wanted to go to Georgia Tech, you know. For as long as I could remember. That was going to be my way out of Perry.” He smiled, and for just a second he seemed like a regular human being. “When I was a kid, I had posters all over my walls. I was a Ramblin’ Wreck,” he said, citing one of Georgia Tech’s many school mottos. “I was going to show them all.”

  “Why didn’t you go?” Lena asked, thinking she would embarrass him.

  “Oh, I got accepted,” Richard said, waiting for her to be impressed. “But my mother had just died and . . .” He let his voice trail off. “Oh, well. Nothing I can do about that now.” He pointed his finger at Lena. “I learned a lot from your sister. She was a very good teacher. She was a role model for me.”

  Lena let his compliment hang in the air between them. She did not want to talk about Sibyl with Richard.

  “Oh, God.” Richard sat up quickly. “There’s Jill.”

  Rosen stood at the door, looking around for Lena. The woman seemed lost, and Lena was debating whether to say something to her when Richard tossed one of his girlie waves.

  Jill Rosen smiled weakly, walking toward them.

  Richard stood, saying, “Oh, honey,” as he took both of Rosen’s hands.

  “Brian’s coming in from Washington,” she told him. “They’re going to try to get him on the next flight out.”

  Richard frowned, offering, “If there’s anything I can do for you or Brian . . .”

  “Thank you,” Rosen said, but she was looking at Lena.

  Lena told Richard, “I’ll see you later.”

  Richard raised his eyebrows but bowed out gracefully, offering a final, “Anything you need,” to Jill Rosen.

  Rosen gave a tight smile of thanks as he left. She asked Lena, “Is Chief Tolliver here yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Rosen stared at her, probably trying to ascertain if Lena had held up her side of the bargain. Lena had, actually. She was sober. The two drinks she had grabbed at her apartment after telling Rosen about her son were hardly enough to make her drunk.

  Lena said, “He had some things to deal with first.”

  “Do you mean the girl?” Rosen asked, and Lena guessed she’d heard the news about Tessa Linton at least twenty times walking from the counseling center to the library.

  Lena explained, “I didn’t want to tell you.”

  The woman’s tone was clipped. “Of course you didn’t.”

  “No, not because of that,” Lena said. “We’re not even sure if it has anything to do with Andy. I didn’t want you to think—”

  “It was her blood on the note?”

  “That came after,” Lena said. “They just had it and . . .”

  Tears welled into Rosen’s eyes. She rested her hands on the table as though she needed help standing up.

  Lena said, “I could leave you alone if you wanted,” hoping like hell the woman would take her up on the offer.

  “No,” Rosen said, blowing her nose again. She did not offer an explanation as to why she wanted to keep Lena around.

  They both stood there, staring aimlessly at the people in the library. Lena realized she was rubbing the scars on her hands and forced herself to stop. She said, “I’m really sorry about your son. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

  Rosen nodded, still looking away. “After the first time”—she indicated her arm, and Lena took it that she meant Andy’s earlier suicide attempt—“he was getting better. We’d gotten his medication balanced. He seemed like he was doing better.” She smiled. “We’d just bought him a car.”

  Lena asked, “He was enrolled in school here?”

  “Richard told you, I suppose,” she said, but there was no bitterness to her tone. “We took him out this last quarter so he could concentrate on getting better. He was helping his father at the lab, doing some things around the clinic for me.” She smiled, remembering. “Thursdays he had art lessons. He was very good.”

  Lena wished she had her notebook so she could write down this information, but there was really no reason for her to do so. As Jeffrey had pointed out, Lena was not a cop. She was just Chuck’s security gofer, and barely that.

  Rosen asked, “What will Chief Tolliver want from me?”

  “Probably a list of your son’s friends, where he hung out.” Lena took a wild guess, unable to stop herself from thinking like a cop. “Was Andy using drugs?”

  Rosen seemed surprise
d. “What makes you ask that question?”

  “Depressed people tend to self-medicate.”

  Rosen tilted her head to the side, giving Lena a knowing look. When Lena did not respond, Rosen said, “Yes, he did drugs. Pot at first, but he was moving into the heavier stuff this time last year. We sent him to a treatment facility. He came out a month later.” She paused. “He told me he was clean, but you can never be certain.”

  Lena admired the fact that the woman admitted she did not know everything about her son. In Lena’s experience parents tended to insist they knew their kid better than anyone else did, even the kid.

  “When he came out of the program, none of his friends would talk to him. No one who’s using wants to be around someone who’s not.” She added almost as an afterthought, “He was always lonely, though. He never really fit in. He was very smart, and other kids found that off-putting. I suppose you could say he felt a bit alienated.”

  “Were any of his friends mad at him? Mad enough to wish him harm?”

  Lena could see a spark of hope glimmer in Rosen’s eyes when the mother asked, “You think he could’ve been pushed?”

  “No,” Lena answered, knowing that Jeffrey would kill her for putting the thought into Rosen’s head. At the thought of Jeffrey, Lena felt her heart drop.

  “Listen,” she told Rosen, “are you going to tell Jeffrey about today or not?”

  Rosen took her time answering, moving closer to Lena, as if she wanted to smell her breath. All she would sniff was minty-fresh gel, but Lena still felt a moment of panic.

  “No,” Rosen decided. “I won’t tell him about today.”

  “What about before?”

  Rosen seemed confused. “Therapy?” She shook her head. “That’s confidential, Lena. I told you that in the beginning. I’m not in the habit of revealing who my patients are.”

  Lena could only nod, overcome with relief. Jeffrey had given Lena an ultimatum seven months ago: Go to a shrink or go find another job. The choice had seemed simple at the time, and she had tossed both her badge and her gun onto his desk without reservation. Now Lena would put a bullet in her head before she admitted to Jeffrey that she had weakened last month and gone to the clinic. Her pride could not take it.

  As if on cue, the large oak doors at the front of the room opened and Jeffrey came in, looking around the room. Chuck walked over to meet him, but Jeffrey must have said something to cut him off, because the next thing Lena knew, Chuck was leaving the room with his tail tucked between his legs.

  Lena had never seen Jeffrey look as bad as he did now. He had changed clothes from before, but his suit was rumpled and he was not wearing a tie. The closer he got, the worse he looked.

  “Dr. Rosen,” Jeffrey said. “I’m sorry about your loss.” He did not shake her hand or wait for her to acknowledge his words, which struck Lena as very unlike Jeffrey.

  He held out a chair for Rosen. “I need to ask you some questions.”

  Rosen sat, asking, “Is the girl okay?”

  His expression changed just enough to make Lena feel sorry for him. “We don’t know anything yet,” he said. “The family is driving into Atlanta right now.”

  Rosen folded the tissue in her hand. “Do you think the person who attacked her could have killed my son?”

  “Right now,” Jeffrey said, “we’re treating Andy’s death as a suicide.” He paused, probably to let his words sink in. “I talked to your husband earlier.”

  “Brian?” She was surprised.

  “He called at the station after he spoke with you,” Jeffrey told her, and Lena could tell from the way he squared his shoulders that the father had been far from polite.

  Rosen must have picked up on this. “Brian can be abrupt,” she said by way of apology.

  Jeffrey said, “Dr. Rosen, all I can tell you is what I told him. We’re following every possible lead we can, but with your son’s history, suicide seems the most likely scenario.”

  Rosen told him, “I’ve been talking to Detective Adams—”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jeffrey interrupted her. “Ms. Adams isn’t on the police force. She works for campus security.”

  Rosen’s tone said she wasn’t going to get caught in the middle of this. “I’m not sure what the hierarchy has to do with the fact that my son is dead, Mr. Tolliver.”

  Jeffrey looked only a little contrite. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, taking something out of his coat pocket. “We found this in the forest,” he said, holding up a silver chain with a Star of David hanging from it. “There weren’t any fingerprints on it, so—”

  Rosen gasped, grabbing the chain. Tears sprang into her eyes again, and her face seemed to crumple into her neck as she held the charm to her lips, saying, “Andy, oh, Andy . . .”

  Jeffrey glanced at Lena, and when she made no move to comfort Jill Rosen, he put his hand on the woman’s shoulder, trying to do the job himself. He patted her like a dog, and Lena wondered why it was perfectly acceptable for a man to be bad at this, but the same deficiency in a woman made her somehow less of a person.

  Rosen wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s perfectly understandable,” Jeffrey told her, patting her shoulder a few more times.

  Rosen fingered the necklace, still keeping it close to her mouth. “He hadn’t worn it for a while. I thought he might have given it away or sold it.”

  “Sold it?” Jeffrey asked.

  Lena provided, “She thinks he might have been using drugs.”

  Jeffrey said, “The father says he was clean.”

  Lena shrugged.

  Jeffrey asked Rosen, “Did your son have a girlfriend?”

  “He’s never really dated.” She gave a humorless laugh. “Girls or boys, not that we would have minded. We just wanted him to be happy.”

  Jeffrey asked, “Was there any particular person he hung around with?”

  “No,” she said. “I think he was probably very alone.”

  Lena watched Rosen, waiting for more, but the doctor’s composure had started to slip again. She closed her eyes, squeezing them tight. Her lips moved silently, but Lena could not tell what she was saying.

  Jeffrey gave the mother some time before saying, “Dr. Rosen?”

  “Could I see him?” she asked.

  “Of course.” Jeffrey stood, offering the woman his hand. “I’ll drive you to the morgue,” he said, then told Lena, “Chuck went to see Kevin Blake.”

  Lena said, “All right.”

  Rosen seemed lost in her own thoughts, but she told Lena, “Thank you.”

  “It’s okay.” Lena forced herself to touch Jill Rosen’s arm in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

  Jeffrey took in the exchange with a glance. He told Lena, “I’ll talk to you later,” in a tone that sounded more like a threat than anything else.

  Lena rubbed her thumb into the back of her hand as she watched them leave. There were noises on the second-floor balcony, where a couple of guys were horsing around, but Lena ignored them. She sat down, going over the last ten minutes in her mind, trying to figure out what she should have done differently. She was a couple of minutes into the process before she realized that what she really needed to do to make things right was relive the whole damn year.

  “God,” Nan Thomas groaned, plopping into the chair across from Lena. “How do you work with that jerk?”

  “Chuck?” Lena shrugged, but she was glad for the distraction. “It’s a job.”

  “I’d rather shelve books in hell,” Nan said as she pulled her stringy brown hair into a red rubber band. There was a huge thumbprint on the right lens of her glasses, but Nan did not seem to notice. She wore a Pepto-Bismol pink T-shirt tucked into an elastic-waisted denim skirt. Red Converse All-Stars completed the ensemble, worn with matching pink socks.

  Nan asked, “What are you doing this weekend?”

  Lena shrugged again. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “I thought I’d have Hank com
e up for Easter. Maybe cook a ham.”

  Lena tried to think of an excuse, but she’d been blindsided by the invitation. She looked at a calendar only to see when she was going to get paid, not to figure out which holiday was coming up. Easter came as a surprise.

  Lena said, “I’ll think about it,” and, to her relief, Nan took it well.

  There was a shout from above, and they both turned to look at the boys playing on the balcony. One of them must have sensed Nan’s displeasure, because he gave her an apologetic smile before opening the book in his hand and pretending to read it.

  “Idiots,” Lena said.

  “Nah, they’re good kids,” Nan told her, but she kept her eye on them for a few beats to make sure they stayed settled down.

  Nan was the last person on earth Lena would have thought herself capable of being friends with, but over the past few months, something had shifted. They weren’t friends in the normal sense—Lena wasn’t interested in going to the movies with her or hearing about the gay side of Nan’s life—but they talked about Sibyl, and, for Lena, talking about Sibyl with someone who really knew her was like having her back.

  “I tried to call you last night,” Nan said. “I don’t know why you don’t get an answering machine.”

  “I’ll get around to it,” Lena said, though she already had one sitting in the bottom of her closet. Lena had unplugged the damn thing her first week living on campus. The only people who called were Nan and Hank, both of them leaving the same concerned messages, wondering how she was doing. Now Lena had Caller ID hooked up, and that was all she needed to screen her calls, such as they were.

  “Richard was here,” Lena said.

  “Oh, Lena.” Nan frowned. “I hope you weren’t rude to him.”

  “He was trying to dig up dirt.”

  As usual, Nan tried to defend Richard. “Brian works in his department. I’m sure Richard just wanted to know what happened.”

  “Did you know him? The kid, I mean?”

  Nan shook her head. “We saw Jill and Brian at the faculty Christmas party every year, but we never really socialized. Maybe you should talk to Richard,” she suggested. “They work together in the same lab.”

  “Richard is an asshole.”