AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The two women are out back on Olivia’s patio, drinking sodas and waiting for the Crossman Funeral Home hack to come and take away the old poet’s earthly remains. There is no question about any of the arrangements; Olivia left complete instructions with Marie after her last bout of a-fib, right down to the music she wanted played (Flogging Molly’s “If Ever I Leave This World Alive” at the start; “Spirit in the Sky,” by Norman Greenbaum, at the end). What she didn’t specify was a memorial reading on the Bell College quad, and that’s what Barbara suggested.
When Rosalyn hears that Olivia has passed, she bursts into tears. They have Marie’s phone on speaker, and that makes them both cry. When the tears end, Barbara tells Professor Burkhart her idea, and the department head gets on board immediately.
“If it’s outdoors we can gather,” she says. “We can even make masks optional if people agree to stand six feet apart. We’ll read her poems, is that the idea?”
“Yes,” Marie says. “She has plenty of author copies. I’ll bring them and we can hand them out.”
“Sunset’s around quarter of nine this time of year,” Rosalyn says. “We can gather on the quad at say… eight?”
Barbara and Marie share a glance and say yes together.
“I’ll start making calls,” Rosalyn says. “Will you do the same, Ms. Duchamp?”
“Absolutely. We may duplicate a few, but that’s okay.”
Barbara says, “I’m going to the funeral home when Olivia goes. I want to spend some time in their chapel, just to think.” A new idea strikes her. “And maybe I can get candles? We could light them at the reading?”
“Wonderful idea,” Rosalyn says. “Are you the promising young poet Olivia talked about? You are, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am,” Barbara says, “but all I can think about now is her. I loved her so much.”
“We all did,” Rosalyn says, then gives a teary laugh. “With the possible exception of Emmy Harris, that is. Join us when you can, Barbara. My office is in Terrell Hall. I assume we’re all vaccinated?”
Barbara follows the hearse to the funeral home. She sits in the chapel, thinking about Olivia. She thinks this is the way birds stitch the sky closed at sunset and that makes her cry again. She asks Mr. Greer, the funeral director, about candles. He gives her two boxes of them. She says they’ll take up a collection at Olivia’s memorial to pay for them. Mr. Greer says that will not be necessary. She drives to the Bell campus and joins Rosalyn and Marie. Others come. They go outside, where there are tears and laughter and stories. The names of favorite poems are exchanged. More calls are made and more people join. Boxed wine makes an appearance. Toasts are given. Barbara feels the almost indescribable comfort of like minds and wishes she were one of these people who think stories and poems are as important as stocks and bonds. Then she thinks, But I am. She thinks, Thank God for you, Olivia.
The afternoon passes. In Olivia Kingsbury’s living room, Barbara’s phone sits on the coffee table, forgotten.
11
At three o’clock that afternoon Holly sits in her office, looking at her framed photo of Bill Hodges. She wishes he were here now. With no backup she can count on—unless she wants to call Izzy Jaynes, which she most assuredly does not want to do—Holly is on her own.
She goes to the window and looks out on Frederick Street. It always helps to speak her thoughts aloud, so that’s what she does.
“I’m not surprised that the police didn’t realize what was happening. This guy has been extremely smart as he goes about his business.”
And why wouldn’t he be? she thinks.
“And why wouldn’t he be? If I’m right, an extremely smart professor of biology has been helping him, getting background information before and planting false trails—at least in some cases—after. His wife is probably also helping him and she’s smart, too. There are no bodies, they’ve been disposed of somehow, and the victims have absolutely nothing in common. I have no idea what the Predator’s motive might be, or why the Harrises are aiding and abetting, but the very fact…”
She stops, frowning, thinking how she wants to say this (sometimes thinking is knowing, Bill used to say). Then she goes on, speaking to the window. Speaking to herself.
“The very fact that the victims are so different actually spotlights the method. Because in every case… except the Steinman boy, and I tend to think more and more that he was a victim of opportunity… in every case the Harrises are there in the background. Rodney bowled with Dressler. Craslow worked in the building where I’m sure Rodney has or had an office. Bonnie was one of their Christmas elves. And now this guy Jorge Castro. Emily Harris was his colleague in the Bell English Department. I think the Harrises are in this up to their necks. Are they using a disability van? Is one of them playing crippled quail?”
There’s nothing she can prove, not one single fracking thing, but there may be one thing she can do. It would be the equivalent of giving a potential witness a sixpack of photographs to see if the wit can pick out the doer.
She searches her iPad, locates what she wants, then finds Imani McGuire’s number in her notes and gives her a call. After re-introducing herself, Holly asks if she has Internet on her phone.
“Of course I do,” Immi says, sounding amused. “Doesn’t everybody?”
“Okay, go to the Bell College site. Can you do that?”
“Wait… gotta put you on speaker… okay, got it.”
“Select YEAR. It’s on the pull-down menu.”
“Yup. Which year? They go all the way back to 1965.”
Holly has already picked one out and is looking at it on her tablet. “2010.”
