Fool's Journey (13 page)

           
Deirdre looked away. “You don’t need to tell me this.”

           
“I’ve only just begun, Deirdre. I know it's horrible, but
for your own good, I’m afraid I have to insist that you listen.” She ran a hand
through her gray hair and stared at the ceiling for a moment before
continuing.
 
“Freemont knew, of course,
that he couldn’t pass muster on his own. That Ivy League degree of his reflects
family connections and money, but very little else. He needed to use whoever he
could, and with those wretched pictures, he had a way to coerce us into
collusion. Both me and Diana. She was a poet, you see, a good one. You've heard
of Diana Vibert?"

           
"Of course. I've always loved her work.
La Lune Dormée
. But she's–"

           
"Yes," Bess cut her off. "She committed
suicide twenty years ago."

           
The silence hung between them for a moment before Bess
went on.

           
"Freemont knew Diana loved me. She'd do anything for
me. He wanted some of her writing to submit as his own. I told him he could rot
in hell, or waste away at some junior college, but he just laughed at me.

           
"‘It’s already been taken care of’, he told
me." Bess's voice broke and she shut her eyes. Deirdre knew that something
even more horrible was coming.

           
“I didn’t know what he meant right away," Bess went
on after a moment. "But then it dawned on me. Diana wasn’t in Vancouver
after all.
 
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Diana and I,
we’ve worked everything out. Everything. I just wanted you to know.’ He turned
to leave, but before he did he said, ‘What a wonderful thing it is to fuck a
woman who will do anything you ask of her, and give you a volume of poems
besides’.”

           
By now the tears were streaming down Bess’s face. She
dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her napkin.

           
“Bess,” Deirdre said, her voice barely above a whisper,
"those poems he made his reputation on—they were Diana Vibert's?"

           
Bess nodded silently.

           
“Look, Bess," Deirdre said, "it’s horrible, it's
disgusting, but none of it is your fault.”

           
“I stayed,” Bess said. “My sin is that I stayed and did
nothing. Said nothing. I got my tenure and I stayed. Diana left me a few months
later and I was all alone with my precious professorship. I didn’t blame her.
We couldn’t even look at one another anymore. A few years later she killed
herself. Eventually I grew numb to the whole thing. Time does that. I just
worked my life away, and now I’m done.”

           
Deirdre leaned back in her chair, drained of any desire
to know more. She’d known Freemont was a bastard, but she’d no idea how sick
and soulless he was.

           
“I didn’t tell you this to upset you," Bess said
quietly. "I just needed to put you on your guard. You wouldn't have known
how serious this was unless I told you the whole story.”

           
Bess bent and picked up her briefcase. She glanced
briefly at Deirdre before snapping it open. “Here’s something I want you to
read. It’s never been published, but it’s the last of Diana’s writing. The
thoughts that haunted her those last days. Maybe something in these pages will
give you the resolution I couldn’t find.”

           
Deirdre stared at the manila envelope Bess held out for
her, but didn’t reach for it. “I don’t feel right...” she began.

           
"Take it. Read it,” Bess said shortly. Then she
leaned forward. “Here’s the thing. You’re going to need all the help you can
get. You have to look out for Freemont.
 
He’s jealous of you. He wants to see you fail. And the worst of it is,
when your name came up in a meeting the other day, he pretended to misspeak. He
referred to you as 'Diana'. Then he winked at me.”

XVI.

           
Deirdre kept her eyes trained on the pavement as she hurried
away from the restaurant. Direction didn’t matter, as long as it was away. With
each step, she moved farther from all those things she hadn’t wanted to hear.

           
Go on
, Bess told
her when she finished her tale.
You need
to think this through now. Freemont implied he has something on you, as he did
with me and Diana. Wrack your brains. If you can figure out what it is, maybe you
can disarm him. I hope to God you can. Remember, the past has a way of
repeating itself.

           
Yes, Deirdre thought, the past was
repeating itself, and with a vengeance. She sensed she was only beginning to suspect
how much.
 
She remembered reading a
science fiction book once in which the characters had been able to travel
backward through time to adjust events in the past, only to discover that the
patterns remained the same, despite their efforts.

Fiction was so damnably true.

           
She’d spent untold hours trying to reinvent her past,
adjust it, and erase it. It didn’t matter, though. The ghosts still reemerged
from the dark corners of the past, not quite exorcised, always ready to haunt
her again.

When
she’d encountered Freemont Willard in the English Department last night, his
smile had chilled her, and she knew why now. It was her father’s smile, pasted
on another face—superior, triumphant, cruel.

           
Maybe you can
disarm him
, Bess had said.

           
No, she thought.
 
Nothing short of murder can disarm him. Not if he knows what I think he
knows. Not if he uses it the way I think he will.
 

           
Her past was scurrying after her. The encounter with her
aunt that morning was a mere prelude. Eunice’s veiled threat of exposure paled
now, a comparative inconvenience. She could at least be bought off painlessly.
But from what Bess had said, Deirdre knew Freemont wouldn’t be interested in
money. He had plenty of his own. He would want his pound of flesh, and the
phrase made her shudder.

           
But how had Freemont found her out? It couldn’t have been
easy. The court records were sealed long ago. She had changed her name before
she'd even entered college. There had been five years between the time she had
published under her birth name and the appearance of her work as Deirdre
Kildeer. No one should have been able to make the connection. Yet, apparently, Freemont
Willard did.

           
But how?
 
How had
he found the
shadow child from nowhere
?

           
Then
the obvious occurred to her.
Of course! Freemont Willard was wealthy. He had family money, just
as she did. Neither of them used it ostentatiously, but apparently they both
found it useful in smoothing the way and getting what they wanted. Freemont was
using it for his little hobby – destroying people. He cared enough about
bringing her down that he had paid to have her investigated.

That
had to be it. Here in Seattle, the only connection to her past was her mother.
It would have been easy enough, she reasoned, for a detective following her
movements to observe her regular visits to the nursing home. Then all he had to
do was ingratiate himself with the staff and discover the name of the patient
she visited. The rest would have been child’s play once her mother’s name was
revealed.

           
But the other business with the hair? She couldn’t
feature Freemont doing the actual deed, but could he be so sick and cold that
he would pay someone to send her this message?

Considering
the story Bess had just confided, the answer was an unequivocal yes.

           
How uncanny that Freemont could have guessed exactly what
to do to get her. There was nothing about her hair in any of the newspaper
accounts from her past. Somehow he had known. Were there references in any of
her poems? Possibly. Probably. She couldn’t think clearly enough to recall. Still,
among all the images her lines contained, why would he have chosen that one to
exploit?

Unless
the radar of sixth sense had pointed him there.

           
“Deirdre!”
She
heard
her name screamed even as she felt herself pulled back and
heard the sound of brakes.

           
 
It took her a
moment to realize she’d been pulled out of the path of an on-coming car.
 
The driver wound down his window with a
couple of angry jerks and snarled, “Watch where you’re going, lady!” Then he
bore down on the accelerator and sent an arc of rainwater over her as he drove
off.

           
“Professor Kildeer!
 
You could have been killed.”

           
Deirdre realized someone still had a tight grip on her
elbow. She turned to see a pair of brown eyes, narrow with fear, staring into
hers.
 
A heartbeat later she recognized
the face beneath the shadowed hood of his rain parka—her student, Adam Watts. A
quick glance at her surroundings told her she’d found her way to the edge of
campus, more than a mile from the restaurant where she’d started.

           
“Thanks, Adam,” she said shakily. “I guess I was almost a
dead poet.”

           
“You’re soaking wet,” he said, not laughing at her little
joke, but dropping his hand from her arm.

           
“But I’m all in one piece,” she said.
 
“Thank you. I think you probably saved my
life.”

           
“I saved your life?”
 
His eyes widened.
 
“Gee. I guess I
did.”

           
He was still staring at her, a bemused grin now spreading
over his features. She’d always abhorred the word ‘goofy,’ but it was a perfect
description of his expression. She hated to agree with Panda on this point, but
Adam seemed to have joined the ranks of male students who all too often fell in
love with her for a term or two.
 

           
“Maybe I’ll save your life sometime,” she said lightly.
“At least if you’re wavering between and ‘A’ and ‘B,’ I’ll know which way the
scales tip. Thanks again, Adam. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

           
“I’m heading to campus right now anyway. Is it okay if I
walk with you?”

           
Deirdre would far rather be alone, but it was difficult
to find a reason to refuse his request.
 
As long as she was this close to campus, at least she could go up to her
office to dry off.

           
“Sure, Adam. Are you on your way to a class?”

           
He hesitated a moment. Then he grinned again. “Some
cultures would say I’m responsible for you now. I learned that in anthropology.
I guess I’ll have to follow you around.”

           
Deirdre fought the impulse to shudder. His remark was ill
timed, but surely innocent. “What else are you studying this term?” she asked,
trying to turn the conversation.

           
He shrugged. “Nothing very interesting—finishing up
requirements.”

           
She nodded and, as they crossed the street together, she
quickened her pace. Adam rattled on about a particularly boring history class
he was taking, and she managed to provide appropriate responses as they crossed
campus. Adam was a nice kid, but she wanted to be by herself.

           
“Thanks for the escort, Adam,” she smiled when they
finally reached the English department.

           
“Sure,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow.
But be careful. It’s a dangerous world.”

XVII.

           
 
The English
department was the last place Deirdre wanted to be, especially today, given Bess’s
story. There nothing warm and fuzzy about the place, but today, as she entered
through the back of the building, she could sense the unhappiness and
desperation that had played out there.

           
How could Bess Seymour have brought herself to stay?
Considering her scholarly reputation and numerous publications, Bess could
easily have found a position at a better university. Survivor’s guilt. She knew
it well herself. Bess was not been responsible, but it was clear she felt
responsible for the death of Diana Vibert. Poor Bess! Perhaps she simply
couldn't leave the scene of the crime.

           
Rainwater was dripping down Deirdre’s face and neck,
trickling in rivulets beneath her sodden clothes. If she could make it to her
office without running into anyone, she’d be all right for the moment. Behind
the closed door of her office, she could dry off and collect her tattered
thoughts. The squish of her shoes as she climbed the back stairs to the fourth
floor echoed in the stairwell. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a trail of
puddles glistening on the treads, as if some swamp creature, gone academic, had
decided to join their scholarly set. The way things were going, chances were he’d
get tenure before she did.