Ellen grasped the back of a chair. Beverly! Bev had threatened her by saying how desperate they were, and now she was adding weight to the threat through Hilde Melton.
Hilde came to Ellen and put her arm around her shoulders. “I’m very sorry, dear. I shouldn’t have let you get this involved.” Then she said fiercely, “Ellen will return to my office tomorrow. She works for me and the college, after all, not for your office.” She tightened her arm for a moment and then released Ellen and patted her shoulder. “You go on home. It’s well past quitting time, and it’s been a long day.”
Ellen nodded. All she wanted to do was go home and try to think this through. They were desperate, afraid she would tell the police, threatening... Were the threats real? What happened that night back at the fire? She looked at Haliday, who was watching her. “I’m pretty tired,” she said.
“Come to my office when you arrive in the morning,” Hilde said. “All that work you’ve had to put off is still waiting.”
Haliday was stuffing papers into his briefcase. “Ms. Blair,” he said, “can you give me a lift to town?”
Hilde glared at him. Ellen nodded. They had to fight, she understood; Hilde had worked too hard to surrender her authority without a struggle, and Haliday acted like a man who was used to getting his way. Let them, she thought, she just wanted out.
No one spoke again until they got downstairs and said good night at Hilde’s office door. Ellen and Haliday left the building, dashed through the rain to her car, and got in. She began to drive.
“She doesn’t have any kids, does she?” he asked after a moment.
“Who? Dr. Melton? No.”
“Widow now for what, four years? You know the papers are writing more about the famous Walter Melton than about her? Died in Sumatra, didn’t he?”
“You know more about it than I do,” she said tightly. “I wasn’t here at that time.”
“Sumatra,” he said. “Had an accident, got bad care, infection set in, and he came home and died in a Portland hospital. Never even made it back to Crystal Falls. Tough. So all she has now is the college. See, Blair, I’m wondering why she’s come on so maternal about you. You sick or something?”
“I am perfectly well,” she said, clipping the words.
“I thought so,” he said. “Was that awful woman reporter Beverly Kirchner? Is she the one who cornered you yesterday?”
“Yes,” she snapped.
“And she was Seymour’s student,” he commented. “Such a small town, everything keeps coming back to home plate, doesn’t it?”
When had he had time to learn Bev’s name? She bit her lip and made no comment. As if reading her thoughts, he said, “In police work you train yourself to make connections, to notice things and remember them, things that relate to the case in hand, at least. I saw her name on the list of people still around. Burt Craxton, the sheriff’s son, is another one. Interesting, isn’t it? Anyway, like I was saying, when you get in the right mode you notice things, like you noticing no blue tux was on that list, and dredging up a memory.”
“Where should I drop you?” she asked, stopped at the corner of Main and Adams. Her apartment was a block away.
“Your place, I’ll walk from there.”
“You’ll get soaked.” The hotel was five blocks away, city hall three, nothing farther than six blocks, but he would get soaked.
“Got an umbrella,” he said cheerfully, and opened his briefcase to pull out a collapsible umbrella.
She turned the comer and suddenly she thought, he wanted to make sure she went home; he was keeping her under observation, just as Winona Kelly had kept an eye on her, and the uniformed officer... She jerked to a stop at her driveway.
He got out and snapped his umbrella open. “See you tomorrow, Blair.” He started down the street toward town.
Inside her apartment she stared at the blinking answering machine and finally started to listen to the calls: Patty, an old friend or two, her mother, and then Bev’s voice: “Remember, Ellen, I get the story first. For old-time’s sake.” She hit the stop button and erased the tape.
They were using Bev to keep the pressure on her, she understood, because Bev had a legitimate excuse for hanging around. She tried to remember what the others were all doing now: John Le Croix had married money, had a dairy farm in Tillamook; Burt Craxton was in state government, a man with a future, they said; Sheila had married him, they had two children; Les had a car dealership in Salem, other businesses; Patty was a librarian. They all had a lot to lose.
Why didn’t Bev tell them that Ellen would not talk about that night? Why didn’t Patty? Then she thought of it from their viewpoint. She was working for the police, was closeted with the lieutenant for long stretches of time, went driving with him... If he had set out deliberately to make it look as if she would talk, he couldn’t have done a better job of it. She felt a rush of gratitude toward Hilde Melton for demanding an end to it, for demanding Ellen’s return to her own work. The word would get out. Bev would know, she would tell the others.
Philip would have had them hallucinating, doing crazy things maybe, and then if he told them the mushrooms were plain mushrooms, not hallucinogenic, what would they have done? She remembered what Janice Ayers had said: It’s dangerous to start a process you can’t control. How much did Janice know? What happened hack at the fire? How far would they go to make sure no one ever found out? Then she realized that they would never feel safe as long as she lived.
She should tell Haliday, she thought wildly. At least she would have police protection. She shook her head. He would believe them, not her; her protection would be a cell.
Suddenly she was weeping, and furiously she swiped at her cheeks and then went to shower. The tears kept flowing as she cursed, “Damn them all. Just damn them all!”
On Friday the sun was shining, the forecast was for a high in the low seventies. The mood of the students on campus was festive; this was the last day before spring break. Frisbees had come out, and Rollerblades, and skateboards. People were already packing up their cars, ready to leave as soon as the last class was finished. When Ellen parked at the administration building, she could almost believe the last few days had been an illusion; this was how life was supposed to be. The uniformed officer at the entrance of the building brought her down again.
Rita met her in the corridor. “She wants you.” She hurried away on her own errand.
Hilde was on the phone. She looked worn, and for the first time she looked her age. She motioned to Ellen to wait, finished her conversation in a low voice, and hung up.
“I have a trustee meeting for Monday,” she said tiredly. “They want a complete list of the classes Philip taught here, his file, including his application and recommendations, and his evaluation file. They also want every article we have about this affair.” She indicated a large stack of newspapers on the low round table across from her desk. “They want a scapegoat,” she said. “Thank God I was just an errand girl.”
The phone rang. She closed her eyes briefly and said, with her hand on the telephone, “Take the newspapers to your office. Two folders, one of clippings, one of Philip’s files.” She lifted the phone and waved Ellen out.
In her own office, Ellen glanced through the stack of newspapers. They were from Bellingham down to Los Angeles, from Denver, Chicago... The Seymour name and the bizarre jewelry, the bones, a naked man... She hadn’t realized it had become a national sensation.