Better Off Dead (11 page)

I stared too long, however, and Brookhouse
sensed my presence. He was like a hound dog that has caught the
scent of his quarry on the wind. He lifted his head and glanced
straight at me. Our eyes locked across the empty classroom. The
base of my spine started to tingle. He was unnaturally aware. That
alone made me suspicious.

The coed tugged at his sleeve, breaking our
eye contact, but I remained in the doorway, wondering how I could
explain my scrutiny.

I need not have worried. When he had
dismissed the girl, he strode up the stairs of the auditorium and
met me at the door.

"I don't remember seeing you before," he
said in a pleasant voice that held no accent. But I knew he'd been
born in Virginia, thanks to Burly's Internet prying.

"I recently changed my, um, style," I
offered, hoping that Marcus's dandelion hairdo and my new platinum
shade would serve as a plausible excuse.

He nodded. "I like the look. It's
different." Just to make sure it was different enough for him, he
let his eyes travel all the way down my body to my ankles and back
up again. Double uh-oh. He was definitely a wolf in sheep's
clothing.

"Are you enjoying the class?" he asked.

"It's fascinating," I admitted, though I
kept the real reason for my fascination to myself.

"Wait until next week," he said. "We're
going to talk about encopresis and autonepiophilia. You're going to
love it, I promise you."

"Really?" I looked as eager and as stupid as
possible. For me, this was a stretch, understand.

He accepted this witty response on my part
and flashed me a huge smile. Then he whispered into my ear, "If it
intrigues you, ask me about assignments for extra credit."

And with that, the horn dog sauntered off
down the hall. I saw the brunette waiting for him at the corner of
the hall. He glanced down at her dismissively, then walked by
without speaking. She scurried after him.

It didn't take a trained expert in abnormal
psychology to grasp that, whatever else David Brookhouse might be,
he was the kind of person who didn't want what he could have. He
only wanted the not-yet-attained.

I was still standing in the hallway,
wondering if being a well-dressed sleazeball qualified Brookhouse
as a rapist, when trouble reared its cute little head.

In this instance, the cute little head
belonged to a kid who could not have been more than nineteen or
twenty. He had been standing in the doorway of another classroom
watching my exchange with Brookhouse. As the professor turned the
corner, he advanced toward me, stopped a few feet away and stared.
The boy had the prettiest face, very delicate, with a slender nose
and deep brown eyes framed by thick eyelashes. But he had shaved
his head on the sides, leaving a magenta-tinted Mohawk strip of
hair right down the middle of his skull. His clothes were pure
Berlin punk, but the overall effect was that of a kid dressed up
for Halloween. That pretty face undermined all his efforts at
toughness. Not even the brass rings piercing his right eyebrow
helped. He still looked as if he were masquerading as a punk. Thank
god his nose was bare of piercings. What do people with nose rings
do during the cold season anyway?

"Why did you tell him you'd been in his
class all year?" he asked me.

Oh shit. Already my cover was blown. "What
do you mean?"

"If you'd been in our class all year, I
would have noticed you by now." He stared at me with such
undisguised sweetness, tinged with hope, that my gut started to
churn. A mere babe in the woods. He did not belong in the picture
that was rapidly developing in my mind.

"I've been here," I insisted. "You must not
have noticed me.”

"No way." He shook his head. "I would have
noticed someone like you." He stared at my outfit in admiration.
Marcus had done too good a job, it seemed.

"You must have been distracted by all those
other girls," I said.

He looked disgusted. "They're so fake, they
make me want to puke. This whole school is phony. Don't you think
so?" He looked again at what I was wearing, as if bad taste in
clothes validated my genuineness.

"Absolutely," I agreed, thinking of myself
first and Brookhouse second. "It's like no one here is who they
pretend to be."

"Exactly," he said, very seriously. He fell
into step beside me. "So where have you been until today?"

"Cutting class," I said with a shrug. "I was
down in Mexico with my boyfriend."

"You have a boyfriend?" He sounded
disappointed.

"Ex-boyfriend," I lied. "We broke up down
there. That's why I came back."

"Oh." He brightened up at that whopper.
"Lucky we didn't have any papers while you were gone. But you did
miss a test. That's a quarter of your grade."

I shrugged. What did I care? School was just
so phony, I reminded myself, and you are supposed to be
monumentally bored.

"You're not trying to suck up to him to
improve your..." His voice trailed off.

"Listen," I said, grabbing the kid's arm. He
wore so much leather, he squeaked like a saddle. "I wouldn't touch
that guy if someone paid me."

He looked relieved. "Good, because he's a
real sleaze. I've been watching him. He hits on someone new every
week. Guys like that give guys a bad name."

I was touched by his sweetness—and by his
knowledge about Brookhouse.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, he's always saying he needs a new lab
assistant, but that's just an excuse to spend some time alone with
the moron who applies for the job."

"And that would be one of the babes?" I
guessed.

He nodded. "Guys never seem to get the job.
Then, when he's done with them, he dumps them and some poor girl
comes to class with red eyes for a while and he ignores her until
she drops out and someone new takes her place."

"Whoa," I said. "You sound pretty sure about
that."

"Like I said, I've been watching him," the
boy admitted.

"What's your name?" I asked, curious. Anyone
who hated Brookhouse couldn't be all bad.

"Luke. What's yours?"

"Casey," I said, grateful we were keeping it
on a first-name basis. You had to show ID to gain admittance to
some areas and a false identity would have been too much trouble. I
was enrolled under my real name. Better to keep it simple. You can
do that when you're an obscure female P.I. from another town.

"Where are you from?" Luke asked. "I'm from
New Jersey. This place is like Mars to me."

I could only imagine. Northerners who moved
to Durham always went into shock for the first six months, dazed
that waitresses could move so slow or that the many "good mornings"
raining down on their ears were not meant sarcastically. But I had
no desire to create a fake background story with this kid. It would
be just one more thing to remember, and remembering to be
twenty-three years old was hard enough. "I'm from all over," I said
mysteriously.

Bad move. He liked mysterious.

"Cool," he declared. "Like an army
brat?"

Somehow, he had attached himself to me all
the way down the sidewalk to the street. Was this kid going to ask
to carry my books next?

"Sort of," I agreed. "Listen, I have to run.
Nice meeting you."

"Want to go get some coffee sometime?" he
blurted out. "We could sit and watch all the posers drink their
Starbucks and talk about, I don't know, what we're doing stuck here
surrounded by so much..." He searched for a word and failed, then
simply shrugged.

"Sure," I said, wanting to kick my own ass
once the word was out of my mouth. "We'll get coffee sometime."

Good grief, I should have just squelched the
little bugger right then and there. But his big brown eyes were so
sad. And he was such a baby. And I was way too softhearted for my
own good.

It was no big deal, I told myself. I'd just
avoid him from here on out.

"See you, Casey!" he shouted after me and I
could feel his eyes on my ass as I walked toward the distant
parking lot.

Men. Boys. Sweet little punks packed into
leather gear. What's a girl to do?

That night, when I returned to Helen's, I
found we were relatively alone. Fanny had flown to Fort Worth for a
few days to visit her daughter and Bobby was taking the opportunity
to check out a couple of new topless bars that had opened up near
Garner. He called it research. I called that horseshit. Worse, he'd
taken Hugo with him.

"Is he out of his mind?" I asked Burly. "How
could you let him do that? One too many beers and one of those good
old boys could decide that Hugo is the beaner who stole his
construction job out from underneath him."

This was a valid concern. In general, my
part of North Carolina embraced the recent flood of Hispanic
immigrants wholeheartedly. In fact, the local economy depended on
them to fill the lower-paying jobs as well as the ones so difficult
that no spoiled, fat-ass American wanted to attempt them—like
nailing down melting asphalt shingles on a burning rooftop under
the hot Carolina sun. Unfortunately, some of the jeeters around
here were not interested in fostering Mexican-American relations.
They'd consider kicking the shit out of Hugo with their work boots
almost as much fun as putting a whooping on the local pederast.

"Aw, come on," Burly said. "Give the kid a
break. He deserves some fun. He's been working hard. You should see
what he did for me down by the pond. Besides, Weasel went with
them."

"Weasel weighs one hundred and twenty pounds
soaking wet."

"You'd be surprised how tough he is. Come
here. Quit pouting. You're not the whole world's den mother." He
pulled me onto his lap and snaked his hand underneath my black
stretch T-shirt. "Is it true punk chicks always go braless?"

"Burly," I complained, "your hands are ice
cold." He pulled them away, disappointed. And not a moment too soon
as I realized we were not alone in the room. Helen was sitting
quietly on a window bench, staring out at the dusk creeping over
her front lawn, oblivious to us. Neither one of us had even noticed
her, she was so still.

"Helen?" I said. She did not respond.

"How long has she been like that?" I
asked.

Burly shrugged. "She's seemed a little
distant all afternoon. I thought she was still in the kitchen."

"Helen?" I repeated, louder.

She turned to look at me, surprised to see
me there. She touched the scar at her throat. "So you've seen him
in action by now," she finally said. "You've seen him."

I nodded. "I even spoke to him today."

Her body seemed to draw into itself,
collapsing as it shrank from the very thought of David Brookhouse.
"Was he—" She stopped, then started over, the words rushing out.
"Was he laughing? Did you hear his laugh?”

"No. And He seemed perfectly normal," I told
her. "Though he is, without a doubt, a complete slimeball. Did you
know about the lab assistant routine? Apparently, he uses the job
as an audition for his girl-of-the-week."

She stared back out the window and shook her
head. "When I was his TA, he didn't have anything to do with the
lab assistant jobs. That was Lyman Carroll's project. Carroll had a
contract with a Research Triangle Park firm. He was testing a new
psychotropic drug for them. They were doing a control group study
on volunteers and the lab assistants mostly got stuck with
paperwork, witnessing volunteers taking the medication, conducting
questionnaires on their emotional state. David didn't have anything
to do with it. Is it the same study?"

"I don't know. But Brookhouse is in charge
of some study now."

She turned to me, surprised. "Then Carroll
must have screwed up, because he would never have invited David
Brookhouse to be a part of it. They hate each other. They're the
department's biggest rivals. Only one of them is likely to get
tenure and after my... my trial, I thought it would be Lyman
Carroll." She stared at the floor. "He was the only one in the
whole department who ever called to ask how I was doing. And he
only called me once. Right before the trial."

"Carroll called you?" I asked. That was
interesting. Maybe he'd be an ally.

She nodded. "But if David has control of
that study now... something must have happened."

"I'll check into it," I promised her. "How
are you doing?"

"Me?" she sounded startled, as if the
question was ridiculous. "I'm fine. Mother is upstairs resting. She
does that a lot these days. It... helps. The house seems so quiet.
I'm just..." Words failed her and she stared back out the window.
"I'm just waiting for Hugo to get back."

My god, I thought, how we humans find our
comfort when we need it. It was pathetic and moving at the same
time. Pathetic because Helen Pugh's greatest friend in this dark
time in her life appeared to be her Mexican gardener. Moving
because that Mexican gardener had not only accepted the
responsibility, but did so with compassion and pride.

"Come on," Burly whispered in my ear. "I
want to show you something before it gets too dark. Outside."

"Will you be okay?" I asked Helen. "Burly
and I are going to take a walk."

She nodded. "I'll be fine. So long as I'm
here inside."

We left her sitting in the same position,
staring out the window. Burly was being mysterious. I followed him
as he wheeled down the front ramp. Within seconds, the weight of
Helen's case had lifted from my shoulders and I felt gratefully
free from the gloom that pervaded her house. It was a perfect
October evening, the air was crisp, the sun a fiery ball in the sky
as it headed toward sunset, the blue sky bleached to a pale aqua,
the air smelling of distant wood fires and, from somewhere nearby,
freshly cut grass. God, but it reminded me of home, of my
grandfather's farm, of the infinite and well-earned quiet we used
to enjoy after a hard day's work in the field.