Necessary Evil (14 page)

I read further
into the question. She’d done a good thing by arranging for me to have help.
Now it looked like she’d been sold a bill of goods. She was asking me if I
thought so too. I did, but I answered, “I’m sure the good professor has
something up his sleeve. I wouldn’t worry about it, Auntie.”

We both knew that
she was going to anyway, but she went inside her room. I went back to the
kitchen to tidy things, then took the back stairs to the second floor without
thinking. When I went past Randall’s door, I couldn’t help but take a look.

His light was
still on. It seemed the professor was working into the night.

I went into my
room, and tossed and turned for a half an hour before dropping into a
dream-filled sleep.

We didn't have
long to wait before the meaning behind Randall’s enigmatic explanation became
apparent. The next morning, after I did my normal early morning chores and run,
I came back to a quiet house. I assumed the professor’s late-night research had
him sleeping in late, which suited me just fine. If I could get out of the
house before running into him, I would count that as a good morning’s work.

I was nursing my
second cup of coffee in the kitchen when there was a knock at the back
door. It startled me. As a rule, only students and friends came to the
back door, while strangers and new comers used the front door. It was too early
for students, and our friends weren’t in the habit of showing up without
calling first.

After a hasty
check to make sure my outfit was decent enough for company, I opened the door.

A young man I
didn’t know stood there, dressed in a band t-shirt and worn jeans. His thick,
curly blond hair was well groomed. The phone he was concentrating on was large
and expensive, as were his designer sneakers. If I was to make a stab at his
age, I’d put him a year or two in college. That meant he wasn’t my usual sort
of customer, which was almost exclusively female, and fell either into the
teenaged or fifty-plus age bracket. The sneakers meant he wasn’t here
delivering hay or other supplies - men in that business are savvy enough to
wear boots at all times - so I was at a complete loss to explain his presence.

When he looked up
from his phone to give me an uncertain once-over, I caught a glimpse of his
face and was immediately glad that Lindsay wasn’t around. Blue eyes like his
were a menace to the teenaged female.

“Hey,” he said
hesitantly. I got the impression that he hadn’t expected to see me, either.

“Hey yourself,” I
replied and crossed my arms. “Can I help you?”

“Um, yeah… I’m
looking for Professor Randall? Is he here yet?”

It struck me like
a slap across the face. Randall’s presence here was supposed to be a secret,
yet on his very first full day, this kid was asking to see him.

Professor Randall,
you have a lot of explaining to do.

“I’m sorry, kid,”
I apologized. “I think you have the wrong house.”

His forehead
puckered in confusion. “Like, really? Because he texted me this address
yesterday. He said to get here early.”

“He…
What
?”

With a sigh that clearly
showed his waning patience, College Boy scrolled through his messages, then
held up the phone to show me. Sure enough, under the heading “Prof. Glasses”
was a picture of Randall with the message,
Early
start tomorrow
followed by our street address. It was dated the previous
afternoon, when the man was supposed to be arranging his new room. Underneath
that message was a later one:
Owner is a pill. Handle with care.

No doubt about it
– this was the professor’s message, all right. It had been sent right after our
late night conversation, and it was fairly polite under the circumstances. I
mean, I would have described him in slightly stronger language.

I looked College
Boy up and down. “What is this?” I demanded.

He shrugged and
shoved the phone into his pocket. “If he’s still asleep, I can wait.” He looked
over his shoulder. “I’ll be out here. It’s really nice out today.”

I couldn’t argue
with that. Behind him, the farm was slowly wakening to the day. The sun just
reached the tree line, bathing the paddocks in its soft, young glow, making the
dew-drenched grass glitter like strands of emeralds. Greybeard and Missy
nickered companionably from the nearest paddock, and the barn gleamed despite
its peeling paint. Beyond that, the fields gave way to the warm, dark woods,
threaded with the trails, at least some of which I knew didn’t have holes
marking them today.

It was a gorgeous
day and this was a lovely spot in which to spend it, but while College Boy had
time to waste, I did not. I plucked at his shoulder, tugging him into the
kitchen.

“Come on in here,”
I ordered.  “I’ll wake him.”

He followed,
protesting, “I can wait.”

“You can. I can’t.
Sit.”

He sat at the
counter, shrugged, and pulled out his phone as I slipped up the backstairs and
went to pound on the professor’s door. He appeared after a minute, sleepy-eyed,
hair mussed, and tying his bathrobe. He fumbled with his glasses, then blinked
at me.

“Did I miss the
second coming?” he asked.

“I had thought
that we agreed to keep your presence here a secret.” I glowered at him.

He took a deep
breath, looked to one side, then back at me.

“I’ve only just
woken up,” he pointed out. “There is no way I could have done something to tick
you off already this morning - unless, of course, I was walking in my sleep. If
so, in all fairness, you really can’t expect a man to be responsible for what
he does when he’s…”

“I’m
talking
about Joe College downstairs,” I hissed. “You promised to keep your mission
here a secret, and yet one of your students showed up this morning for a
meeting with you. What did you do, tell your whole class?”

“Joe – oh, good
grief, you must mean Jacob. Is he here already? What time is it? Never mind,
come downstairs and I’ll explain. I hope you were polite to the poor boy. He’s
going to be your assistant for the summer.”

He led the way
downstairs as he spoke and my, “He’s
what
?” echoed in the kitchen.
College Boy was talking to Aunt Susanna, who was brewing him a cup of coffee.
They both turned as we entered.

“Good man, Jacob,”
Randall said, and Jacob hopped out of his seat to shake his hand, an old
fashioned gesture that seemed out of place for both of them. “Did you have any
trouble finding the place?”

“Uh, no,” Jacob
said, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “It was easy. I used to skate on
Wason Pond, you know. Like, back when I was kid, so I kinda know the area.”

His phone was on
the counter, blinking. Aunt Susanna was making gestures and mouthing messages
to me, but I wasn’t in the mood to interpret.

“Excellent,
excellent.” Randall ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up even
further and I saw Jacob bite back a grin. Okay, so he wasn’t so intolerable.
“You’ve already met Miss Warwick, I see.”

“Oh, yeah.” He
ducked his head, grinned, and bobbed it at Aunt Susanna.

“Actually,” I
stepped forward, “
I’m
Maddie Warwick and this is Susanna Chase. And you
are?”

“This is Jacob
Adamski,” Randall announced, clapping a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He was my
student last semester, and what he lacks in the science of history, he more
than makes up for in eagerness to learn.”

“A pleasure,” I
said dryly, and Aunt Susanna gave Jacob a warm smile as she limped over with
his mug of coffee.

“Are you helping
the professor with his research?” she asked.

“Oh, like, no,” he
said, accepting the coffee eagerly. “That is, partially. I’m here for the
stable hand job.”

When Aunt Susanna
looked at Randall, he beamed proudly. “I promised to give assistance and here
he is, ready and raring to go, right Jacob?”

“Oh, yeah. Like, I
totally love working with animals, you know?”

“Now wait a
minute,” I protested. “The deal was that
you
were supposed to help,
Professor, and that you weren’t to let anyone else know that you were here
working on the Chase-McInnis treasure.”

Jacob choked on
his coffee. Aunt Susanna snatched a napkin and handed it to him, while
Professor Randall sighed heavily and leaned against the counter.

When he could
breathe again, Jacob demanded, “Treasure? What treasure?”

I groaned. The
professor gave me a sidelong look.

“Yeah,” he said.
“He didn’t know about that. Until just now.”

“All I knew was
that he was researching some book!” Jacob’s somewhat sluggish look was gone –
in its place was a lean, hard expression that I knew all too well. “What kind
of treasure? Gold?”

“Oh, boy,” I said.

The full story
came out. Randall, knowing that his time would be too pressed to be of much use
around the farm, had offered Jacob a trade: he would assist on the farm for a
few days a week and help the professor with the research in return for a
passing grade in Randall’s American History course. Both swore that Jacob
neither accepted money from Randall nor needed any from me, but I didn’t
believe them. I would have thrown the boy out, but for that he claimed to have
worked summers in a horse farm in Epping for a number of years and knew all
there was to know about the business.

“I’m not, like, a
great horseman,” he said. “But I know how to clean stalls and stuff. It’s
weird, but I like the work. It’s all real labor, you know? Good way to get a
work-out and almost no stress. It’ll be great. And there’s, like, the treasure
thing.”

Aunt Susanna,
having fallen sway to his large blue eyes, thought it was a great idea, but I
had my doubts and expressed them to Randall when he followed me into the office
to get the work-release forms.

“I can’t afford to
hire a boy I don’t know,” I groused. “I can barely afford one I do know.”

“I know him,” he
said. “And it’s volunteer work.”

“Sure it is. Come
on, Randall, I wasn’t born yesterday. How much are you paying him?”

He mentioned a
number that made me balk.

“I can’t match
that!” I gasped.

“Why would you?”

“I won’t accept
charity,” I snapped. “We don’t need your help or anyone else’s.”

“That’s a
debatable statement,” he said dryly. “And it’s not charity. I agreed to provide
assistance in return for room, board, and access to your archives. My schedule
makes it impossible for me to fulfill that part of my bargain personally, so I
hired Jacob. He isn’t the most talented conversationalist, but he’s familiar with
horses and he’s surprisingly strong for his size. More important, he needs
academic help in the worst way. He will benefit from my expertise, while you
will benefit from his youthful eagerness to pitch hay and clean out stalls.” He
shuddered at the thought. “Most important of all, he’ll keep me from having to
shovel manure and for that, madam, I would gladly part with half my salary.”

I tapped the pages
against my chin, thinking. Jacob had the slouching attitude of a boy who hadn’t
worked in a while; but his face and arms were tanned from being outdoors and he
did look strong. I had to admit, having a boy around for even just a few days
would ease my work burden considerably. Randall was right. This was as much for
his benefit as it was for mine, perhaps more so. Letting him pay the boy wasn’t
such a bad idea. It would ease my finances and save me the bother of having to
look for extra help.

Besides, I had no
faith in Randall’s abilities to wield a pitchfork or drive a tractor.

Randall had been
looking around the office as he spoke. In the silence that followed, he turned
back to me expectantly.

“What do you say?”
he asked, finally. “Let the boy work here? Give us all a break?”

I hated,
hated
giving way to him on one more thing. But once again, he presented a wholly
logical plan, and it would be foolish to dismiss it simply because I didn’t
like the presenter.

“I’ll give him a
week tryout,” I said, and a smile spread across his face.

“Excellent.” He
nodded. “I knew you could be reasonable. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll get
dressed.”

He turned and had
his hand on the doorknob when I, smarting from that last remark, called out to
him.

“I’ve done a
little research of my own, you know,” I said. “On your background.”

It may have been my
imagination, but his spine seemed to stiffen. Nevertheless, his smile was still
determinedly intact when he turned to face me.

“Oh?” he said.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Very. But it did
confuse me. I mean, if you are as good as you say you are and as good as
they
say you are, why are you working for a little nothing university like Hadley?
Fifteen years ago, you were getting offers from Harvard, Oxford, and the
Smithsonian. Then, suddenly, you just disappeared off the academic radar.” I
cocked my head, feigning the same innocent expression he used from time to
time. “Jealousy in the ranks, Professor? Anything you care to tell me?”

There was a moment
of silence. When he chuckled and the smile didn’t reach his eyes, I knew that I
had rattled the man, if only for a moment.

“I’ll tell you
someday, when I know you better. It has little bearing on our current business
dealings. Now, may I go? Or was there something else?”

“There was,
actually,” I said.

The past two weeks
before he’d come had been an experiment in living on a minefield. Aunt Susanna
knew about the forged letter, and she no idea who could have done it: she was
far too concerned with proving her husband right to worry about it. I was
convinced that it wouldn’t take too much detective work on her part to finger
me. After all, Randall, who had known neither me nor the exact circumstances of
the discovery, had done so rather handily. Randall hadn’t told her yet, but why
wouldn’t he?