All Around the Town

  He grabbed a robe, opened the door and just looked at her. She was wearing a linen dress and sandals and looking cool and fresh as the morning itself. She came in, put on the coffee, set out the bagels and told him not to bother making up the bed. She was driving home and could only stay a few minutes. After she left, he could sack out all day if he wanted.

  When she was leaving, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him lightly, telling him he needed a shave. “But I still like your looks,” she’d teased. “Nice nose, strong chin, cute cowlick.” She’d kissed him again, then turned to go. That was when it had happened. Impulsively Gregg followed her to the door, put his hands on her arms, swooped her up and hugged her. She went crazy. Sobbing. Kicking her legs to push him away. He dropped her, angrily asked her what the hell was the matter. Did she think he was Jack the Ripper? She ran out of the apartment and never even spoke to him again except to tell him to leave her alone.

  He would have liked to do just that. The only problem was that over last summer, working an internship in New York, and during the fall term, studying at the Banking Institute in London, he’d never gotten her out of his mind. Now that he was back, she was still adamant about refusing to see him.

  * * *

  On Monday evening Gregg wandered over to the cafeteria at the student center. He knew Laurie sometimes dropped by there. He deliberately joined a group that included some of the people from her residence. “It makes sense,” one of them was saying at the other end of the table. “Laurie goes out about nine o’clock a lot of weeknights. His wife stays in New York during the week. I tried kidding Laurie about it, but she just ignored me. Obviously she was meeting someone but she sure wasn’t talking about it.”

  Gregg’s ears pricked up. Casually he moved his chair to hear better.

  “Anyhow, Margy works afternoons in the administration office. She picks up a lot of dirt and knew something was up when Sexy Allan came in looking worried.”

  “I don’t think Grant is sexy. I think he’s just a very nice guy.” The objection came from a dark-haired student with an air of common sense about her.

  The gossiper waved aside the objection. “You may not think he’s sexy, but a lot of people do. Anyhow, Laurie certainly does. I hear she’s been sending him a bunch of love letters and signing them ‘Leona.’ He turned the letters over to the administration and claims that everything in them is fantasy. Maybe he’s afraid if she’s writing to him about their little romance she might be blabbing to other people too. I guess he’s making a preemptive strike before anything gets back to his wife.”

  “What did she write?”

  “What didn’t she write? According to the letters, they were making out in his office, his house, you name it.”

  “No kidding!”

  “Well, his wife’s away a lot. These things happen. Remember how at her parents’ funeral, he went racing down the aisle after her when she fainted?”

  Gregg Bennett did not bother to pick up the chair that he knocked over as he strode from the cafeteria.

  37

  WHEN LAURIE CHECKED her mailbox on Tuesday, she found a note asking her to phone the Dean of Student Affairs for an appointment at her earliest convenience. What’s that about? she wondered. When she made the call, the dean’s secretary asked if she was free to come in at three o’clock that day.

  At the end of the ski season last year, she’d bought a blue-and-white ski jacket on sale. It had hung in her closet unused this winter. Why not, she thought as she reached for it. Perfect for this weather, it’s pretty and I might as well get some use out of it. She matched it with blue jeans and a white turtleneck sweater.

  At the last minute she twisted her hair into a chignon. Might as well look like the sophisticated senior about to leave the halls of learning for the great world outside. Maybe when she was out of the college atmosphere and among working adults she’d lose this crazy feeling of being a scared kid.

  It was another cold, clear day, the kind that made her take deep breaths and throw back her shoulders. It was such a relief to know that Saturday morning she wouldn’t be sitting in that damn office with Dr. Carpenter trying to look kindly but always probing, always digging.

  She waved to a group of students from her residence then wondered if they were looking at her in a funny kind of way. Don’t be silly, she told herself.

  The knife. How had it gotten to the bottom of her tote bag? She certainly hadn’t put it there. But would Sarah believe her? “Look, Sarah, the stupid thing was stuck between my books. Here it is. Problem solved.”

  And Sarah would reasonably ask, “How did it get in your bag?” Then she’d probably suggest talking to Dr. Carpenter again.

  The knife was in the back of the closet now, hidden in the sleeve of an old jacket. The elastic cuff would keep it from falling. Should she simply throw it away, let the mystery go unsolved? But Dad valued that set of knives and always said they could cut anything clean as a whistle. Laurie hated the thought of something being cut clean as a whistle.

  As she walked across the campus to the administration building she mulled over the best way to place the knife back in the house. Hide it in a kitchen cupboard? But Sarah had said that Sophie had looked everywhere in the kitchen for it.

  An idea came to her that seemed simple and foolproof: Sophie was always looking for things to polish. Sometimes she’d take the knives down and do them when she was going over the silver flatware. That was it, Laurie thought! I’ll sneak the knife into the silver chest in the dining room, way to the back so it won’t be seen easily. Even if Sophie had looked there, she might think she’d missed it. The point was Sarah would know that was at least a good possibility.

  The solution brought relief until inside her head a derisive voice shouted, Very clever, Laurie, but how do you explain the knife to yourself? Do you think it jumped into your bag? The mocking laugh made her curl her fingers into fists.

  “Shut up!” she whispered fiercely. “Go away and leave me alone.”

  * * *

  Dean Larkin was not alone. Dr. Iovino, the Director of the Counseling Center, was with him. Laurie stiffened when she saw him. A voice in her mind shouted, Be careful. Another shrink. What are they trying to pull now?

  Dean Larkin invited her to sit down, asked her how she was feeling, how her classes were going, reminded her that everyone was aware of the terrible tragedy in her family and that he wanted her always to understand that the entire faculty had the deepest concern for her well-being.

  Then he said he’d excuse himself. Dr. Iovino wanted to have a little talk with her.

  The dean closed the door behind him. Dr. Iovino smiled and said, “Don’t look scared, Laurie. I just wanted to talk to you about Professor Grant. What do you think of him?”

  That was easy. “I think he’s wonderful,” Laurie said. “He’s a great teacher and he’s been a good friend.”

  “A good friend.”

  “Of course.”

  “Laurie, it’s not uncommon for students to develop a certain attachment to a faculty member. In a case like yours, where you especially needed compassion and kindness, it would be unusual if in loneliness and grief you didn’t misinterpret that kind of relationship. Fantasize about it. What you daydreamed it might be, became in your mind what it is. That’s very understandable.”

  “What are you talking about?” Laurie realized that she sounded like her mother the time she became annoyed at a waiter who had suggested he’d like to phone Laurie for a date.

  The psychologist handed her a stack of letters. “Laurie, did you write these letters?”

  She skimmed them, her eyes widening. “These are signed by someone named Leona. What in the world gave you the idea I wrote them?”

  “Laurie, you have a typewriter, don’t you?”

  “I write my assignments on a computer.”

  “But you do have a typewriter?”

  “Yes, I do. My mother’s old portable.”

  “Do you keep it here
?”

  “Yes. As a backup. Every once in a while, the computer has gone down when I had an assignment due.”

  “You turned in this term paper last week?”

  She glanced at it. “Yes, I did.”

  “Notice that the o and w are broken wherever they appear on these pages. Now check that against the broken o and w that regularly appear in the letters to Professor Grant. They were typed on the same machine.”

  Laurie stared at Dr. Iovino. His face became superimposed with the face of Dr. Carpenter. Inquisitors! Bastards!

  Dr. Iovino, heavyset, his manner one of all-is-well-don’t-worry, said, “Laurie, comparing the signature ‘Leona’ with the written addenda to your term paper shows a great similarity in the handwriting.”

  The voice shouted: He’s not only a shrink. He’s a handwriting expert now.

  Laurie stood up. “Dr. Iovino, as a matter of fact, I’ve let a number of people use that typewriter. I feel this conversation is nothing short of insulting. I am shocked that Professor Grant leapt to the conclusion that I wrote this trash. I’m shocked that you would send for me to discuss it. My sister is a prosecutor. I’ve seen her in court. She would make mincemeat of the kind of ‘evidence’ that you purport connects me with these disgusting outpourings.”

  She picked up the letters and threw them across the desk. “I expect a written apology, and if this has leaked out just as everything that happens in this office seems to leak out, I demand a public apology and retraction of this stupid accusation. As for Professor Grant, I considered him a good friend, an understanding friend at this very difficult time in my life. Clearly I was wrong. Clearly the students who call him ‘Sexy Allan’ and gossip about his flirtatious attitude are right. I intend to tell him that myself, immediately.” She turned and walked rapidly from the room.

  She was due in Allan Grant’s class at 3:45. It was now 3:30. With any luck she’d catch him in the hallway. It was too late to go to his office.

  She was waiting when he strode down the corridor. His cheery greetings to other students as he made his way to the classroom ended when he spotted her. “Hi, Laurie.” He sounded nervous.

  “Professor Grant, where did you get the preposterous idea that I wrote those letters to you?”

  “Laurie, I know what a tough time you’ve been having and . . .”

  “And you thought you’d make it easier by telling Dean Larkin that I was fantasizing sleeping with you? Are you crazy?”

  “Laurie, don’t be upset. Look, we’re getting an audience. Why don’t you see me in my office after class?”

  “So we can strip for each other and I can see your gorgeous body and satisfy my lust for it?” Laurie did not care that people were stopping and listening to their exchange. “You are disgusting. You are going to regret this.” She spat out the words. “As God is my witness, you are going to regret this.”

  She broke through the crowd of stunned students and ran back to the dorm. She locked the door, fell on the bed and listened to the voices that were now shouting at her.

  One said, Well at least you stood up for yourself for a change.

  The other screamed, How could Allan have betrayed me? He was warned not to show those letters to anyone. You bet he’s going to regret it. It’s a good thing you have the knife. Kiss-and-Tell will never have to worry about hearing from us again.

  38

  BIC AND OPAL flew to Georgia directly after the Sunday program. That night there was a farewell banquet for them.

  On Tuesday morning they started driving to New York. In the trunk were Bic’s typewriter, their luggage and a can of gasoline carefully wrapped in towels. No other personal possessions would be forwarded. “When we pick a house, we’ll get ourselves a state-of-the-art entertainment center,” Bic decreed. Till then they would live in the suite at the Wyndham.

  As they drove, Bic explained his reasoning to Opal. “That case I told you, where a grown-up woman remembered something her daddy did and Daddy’s in prison now. She had vivid memories of what happened in her house and in the van. Now suppose the Lord tests us by allowing Lee to start remembering little bits of our life with her. Suppose she talks about the farmhouse, the way the rooms are laid out, the short steps to the upstairs? Suppose somehow they find it and start going back to see who rented it those years? That house is visible proof that she was under our protection. Other than that, well, Lee’s a troubled woman. No one ever saw her with us ’cept that cashier who couldn’t describe us. So we got to get rid of the house. The Lord has dictated that.”

  It was dark when they drove through Bethlehem and arrived in Elmville. Even so they were able to see that little had changed in the fifteen years since they’d left. The shabby diner off the highway, the one gas station, the row of frame houses whose porch lights revealed peeling paint and sagging steps.

  Bic avoided Main Street and drove a circuitous route the five miles to the farm. As they neared it, he turned off the headlights. “Don’t want anyone to happen to get a look at this car,” he said. “Not likely of course. There’s never anyone on this road.”

  “Suppose a cop comes along?” Opal was worried. “Suppose he asks why you don’t have lights on?”

  Bic sighed. “Opal, you have no faith. The Lord is caring for us. Besides, the only places this road leads to are swamps and the farm.” But when they reached the farmhouse, he did drive the car behind a clump of trees.

  There was no sign of life. “Curious?” Bic asked. “Want to take a peek?”

  “I just want to get out of here.”

  “Come with me, Opal.” It was a command.

  Opal felt herself sliding on the ice-crusted ground and reached for Bic’s arm.

  There was no sign that anyone was living in the house. It was totally dark. Windowpanes were broken. Bic turned the door handle. The door was locked, but when he pressed his shoulder against it, it squeaked open.

  Bic set down the gasoline can and took a pencil-thin flashlight from his pocket. He directed the beam of light around the room. “Looks pretty much the same,” he observed. “They sure didn’t refurnish. That’s the very rocking chair where I used to sit with Lee on my lap. Sweet, sweet child.”

  “Bic, I want to get out of here. It’s cold and this place always gave me the creeps. That whole two years I was always so worried someone would come along and see her.”

  “No one did. And now if this place exists in her memory that’s the only place it will exist. Opal, I’m going to sprinkle this gasoline around. Then we’ll go outside and you can light the match.”

  They were in the car and moving rapidly away when the first flames shot above the tree line. Ten minutes later they were back on the highway. They had not encountered another car in their half-hour visit to Elmville.

  39

  ON MONDAY Sarah had been interviewed by The New York Times and the Bergen Record about the Parker conviction. “I realize that he has a right to argue that the victim was the enticer, but in this case, it makes my blood boil.”

  “Are you sorry you didn’t ask for the death penalty?”

  “If I’d thought I could have made it stick, I would have asked for it. Parker stalked Mays. He cornered her. He killed her. Tell me that isn’t cold-blooded, premeditated murder.”

  In the office, her boss, the Bergen County prosecutor, led the congratulations. “Conner Marcus is one of the two or three best criminal defense attorneys in this country, Sarah. You did a hell of a job. You could make yourself a bundle if you wanted to switch to the other side of the courtroom.”

  “Defend them? No way!”

  Tuesday morning the phone rang as Sarah settled at her desk. Betsy Lyons, the real estate agent, was bubbling with news. There was another potential buyer seriously interested in the house. Problem was the woman was pregnant and anxious to get settled before the new baby arrived. How soon would the house be available if they decided to buy?

  “As fast as they want it,” Sarah said. Making that commitment felt as if she
were taking a weight off her shoulders. Furniture or anything else she and Laurie decided to keep could be stored.

  Tom Byers, a thirty-year-old attorney who was making a name for himself in the patent infringement field, poked his head in. “Sarah, congratulations. Can I buy you a drink tonight?”

  “Sure.” She liked Tom a lot. It would be fun to have a drink with him. But he’d never be special, she thought, as Justin Donnelly’s face popped into her mind.

  * * *

  It was seven-thirty when she unlocked the front door of the house. Tom had suggested going on to dinner, but she’d taken a rain check. The unwinding process that always followed an intense trial had been taking place all afternoon, and as she told Tom, “My bones are starting to ache.”

  She changed immediately to pajamas and a matching robe, stuck her feet in slippers and looked in the refrigerator. Bless Sophie, she thought. There was a small pot roast already cooked. Vegetables, potatoes and gravy were in individual plastic-wrapped dishes waiting to be heated.

  She was just about to carry the dinner tray into the den when Allan Grant phoned. Sarah’s cheerful greeting died on her lips as she heard him say, “Sarah, I started to tell you this the other day. I know now that it wasn’t fair not to warn both you and Laurie before I went to the administration.”

  “Warn about what?”

  As she listened, Sarah felt her knees go weak. Holding the receiver with one hand, she pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. The typewriter. The letters Laurie had been writing on the cruise and the way she’d been so secretive about them. When Allan told her about his confrontation with Laurie, Sarah closed her eyes and wished she could close her ears instead. Allan concluded, “Sarah, she needs help, a lot of help. I know she’s seeing a psychiatrist, but . . .”

  Sarah did not tell Allan Grant that Laurie had refused to continue seeing Dr. Carpenter. “I . . . I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Professor Grant,” she said. “You’ve been so kind to Laurie, and this is very difficult for you. I’ll call her. I’ll somehow find whatever help she needs.” Her voice broke. “Goodbye. Thank you.”