[Oxrun Station] The Bloodwind (7 page)

She wanted to refuse the truth in what he said, and
told herself she should have known it all along. He was
right. It happened at least once a year, but this time
she'd been so anxious to get the three started she'd been
blinded by her own enthusiasm. Her shoulders sagged
slightly, and Greg laid a hand on her arm for a moment, just long enough before she stirred and saw the embar
rassment in Stephen's eyes.

"All right," she said. "
Boy,
am I stupid."

"No more than the rest of us, Pat," Stephen said
with an encouraging smile. "We just don't like to be
reminded that we really do have feet of clay. And I
think sometimes we forget how much we can hurt these
kids without meaning to. We're human, and they don't
like it.
Especially when they hang their dreams on our
shoulders without our permission."

"Okay, okay," she said, palms up. "But really
—if
we can get off my troubles and back to Danvers—really,
smashing up a car like that? That's incredible. I can see
vicious pranks, but what they did there was downright
destruction! There would have had to have been an
army of them. And why was my mallet left behind? It's
like they were deliberately trying to implicate me."

"No," Greg said instantly. "Most likely, they had
someone watching. He saw Danvers coming and they
split. One of them dropped it, that's all. You start thinking like that, Pat, you're going to end up in a Hitchcock movie or something."

She half-smiled an admission the thought had crossed
her mind, then lifted her glass to finish her drink while Greg beckoned to the waitress to bring another round.
When she'd finished, however, she frowned. Janice
was staring at her intently, and one hand automatically
went to her hair, her throat, for something out of place.

Then: "Yes? What? Have I got a piece of lemon on
my tooth or something?"

Janice blinked rapidly, startled, and a quick flush spread over her cheeks. "God, Pat, I'm sorry. I was just thinking."

"Uh-oh," Stephen muttered.

Pat glared at him, turned back to Janice.
"About what?
Did I do something wrong?"

"No, no," Janice said, lowering her gaze to the rim
of her glass.
"Nothing like that, Pat.
I was just thinking
about tonight, that's all."

A
pause,
and Pat encouraged her with a smile.

"Well . . . your office overlooks the parking lot, doesn't it?"

"No," she said, "not really. I don't have a window on that side.
Just one that . . . why?"

"But the conference room does," Janice said. "I know that. That's right."

"So?" Greg said. "What does that have to do with
anything?"

"So why didn't any of us hear what was going on?
Or anyone in the Union, for that matter.
 I
 
mean
, you
don't smash a car like that without making a hell of a
racket, right?
Right."

"My window was open," Pat whispered, thinking.

"And you didn't hear a thing the whole time?"

"I was sleeping. I fell asleep."

"And you didn't hear anything."

Pat realized suddenly that the woman was frightened,
her eyes shifting from side to side in search of an
answer, narrowing angrily when Stephen laughed shortly.

"Well,
damnit
, don't you think it's spooky?"

Greg lifted his hands in confusion. "Spooky? Jan, what the hell are you talking about?"

Janice sighed loudly, her exasperation bringing
a sheen
of moisture to her eyes. "I mean, Greg, that it seems
awfully damned funny that with all those people around,
with Pat right there in her office with the window open, nobody heard anything. A whole car was slammed into
the ground and nobody heard a goddamned thing!"

IT was the most obvious question, and not one of them had thought to ask it, and then had no time to
respond when Greg suddenly exploded into a paroxysm
of laughter that had him coughing and sputtering until
Pat, unsure whether to be furious or amused, slapped his back several times. By the time he'd subsided,
yanking a handkerchief from his hip pocket to wipe the tears from his eyes, she noticed the waitress standing by
the table, her expression puzzled though her lips worked
at a nervous grin. Clever you, she thought when he
winked at her. Word of Danvers' misfortune would be
all over town by morning, and all they needed now was
a waitress carrying tales to as many customers and friends as she could get hold of.

"Nice," Stephen said dryly, seconding her unspoken
compliment.

Greg made a show of exaggerated modesty, then reached across the table and put a finger to Janice's wrist. "The wind," he said.

Janice leaned away from him, as if distance would
bring the words into sharper focus.

"The wind," he repeated. "If you recall, it came up
right after we left for dinner. It's apparent even to us non-scientist types that it carried most of the sound away, and we just plain did not hear the rest."

"Yes, I suppose . . ."

"See?" he said. "No problem, once you put a supe
rior mind to the task. Besides, it's not our job to worry about it. That little puzzle belongs to Abe Stockton and
his band of merry men. They'll find out soon enough who the culprits are, and I'm taking odds right now it
was someone like . . ." He hesitated, and Pat tensed.
"Like Ollie or Ben."

"Hey," Pat protested, twisting around to face him more squarely. "Now that's a little much, don't you think, Greg?"

Greg was startled by her reaction, but he set his jaw
to jutting in defense. "Well, maybe not, but you have
to admit, Pat, they're hardly the darlings of dear old
Hawksted
. And lest you forget, I know them fairly well
myself. And I just happen to know they're madly in lust
with Sue Haslet, who just happened to have been Dan
vers' premier actress." He stopped, then, and grabbed
for his water glass. He didn't lift it, however; he turned
it slowly between his palms. "She was already in one
Long Wharf production, and Ford was pushing her hard, very hard, to try her luck in New York over
spring vacation. He didn't seem to care if she graduated
or not. She was a nervous wreck. I wouldn't blame Ollie
if he and his friends ..."

As his voice trailed into silence, Pat looked to Ste
phen for an explanation, saw instead Janice wringing
her hands just below the level of the table. It took her
several moments to realize that Susan Haslet must have
been the woman killed in the crash the night before.
And she could see then how
Fallchurch
might blame
Danvers for it. So torn between the lure of Broadway and the tangible result of four years of studying, she
might well have lost her concentration for a moment,
might have been drinking too much, might have done
any number of things that finally, fatally, led her onto
Mainland Road.

"Greg . . . ?"

He shrugged. "Well, she needed someone neutral to
talk to, you see."

Another silence somewhat awkward and extended
until Stephen, lighting a cigarette whose paper was as
brown as its tobacco, drolly slipped into a story con
cerning one of his own students, a recognized miscreant
whose millions were, it was alleged,
the
only reason he
was still permitted on campus. By the time he had
finished, Greg was ready with a story of his own, and
Janice was clenching and splaying her fingers eagerly,
waiting for a chance to cut into the round.

Pat listened with a dreamy smile for a few minutes,
then
withdrew into a glum series of speculations cen
tered around Greg and his relationship with Susan
has
let
. He was, she had come to learn, an intensely emotional
man, quick to laugh, quick to weep, liable to slide into
moods that were, at best, puzzlingly incomprehensible.
That she might actually be jealous stung her for a brief
second, pleased her for a longer one, until an image of
Ford Danvers surfaced suddenly and unbidden. She
scowled to herself. It definitely wasn't fair. On what
should have been the sweetest, most exhilarating night
of her life, she wondered if it had all been worth it. The man was more than likely going to make the rest of the
term as miserable as he could for her, and the look of
anguished confusion he'd given her as she'd left the
conference room would be enough to keep her awake
for the rest of the winter if she wasn't careful. She had
noted no threat there, only the shadow of a beaten man, and the salt of the hideously demolished automobile had
obviously added substantially to his pain.

Hollow, she thought, with a trace of self-pity. Why
not, just once in my life, can't I do something right for myself and not feel so damned guilty about it? Not that
she would race right to his office in the morning and
hand it all back to him; but she was positive it was
going to take a long while before she really felt like
celebrating.

"They're all bastards, no doubt about it," Janice
said, loudly enough to bring Pat back to the lounge. "Cute, hunks, some of them horny as hell, but essen
tially they're all class-A bastards. They don't want
anything from me but what I can give them, as long as I
give it to them so they don't have to work, or think."

"So why do you teach?" Stephen said.

Another familiar field that invited
replowing
.

She retreated once again, this time hoping the politics
of running an embryo department in an established school wouldn't prove too much for her to handle.
Though she believed she'd proved herself handily by
getting this far without losing her position, accepting
the Fine Arts chair only meant more responsibility, not
only for herself but for those working under her, the
students who picked it for a major, the reputation of the
college . . . through all those months of maintaining
that the department did in fact need creation, she real
ized she had not really considered the aftermath.

Unfortunately, dear, she reminded the doubts and the
niggling dark fears, there's not much you can do about
it now,
is
there?

"Hey, Pat, what's the matter?" Greg whispered then, leaning so close his chin almost rested on her shoulder.
"Is it something I said?"

"No," she said quickly. "It's ... the car. If you only knew how Kelly drives ..." And as soon as
she'd spoken she chastised herself for not having thought
about Kelly and the station wagon since that afternoon.
It made her feel almost guilty, as if lack of concern
somehow constituted vehicular abandonment.

"Never mind," he said. "We'll send out a search party if it isn't back yet."

She gave him a brief smile, not bothering to reveal the lie, and immediately she did he launched into a
series of torturous, lengthy puns that soon had
DiSelleone
working to top him. And unlike Greg's
headthrust
un
derscoring of the punch lines, Stephen's pianist fingers
wove the air into designs she could almost see if she
peered hard enough through the dim lighting. It was
easy to understand why Janice was taken by him, why she seldom moved more than an inch from his side in
spite of the fact that he made a cautious show of not
noticing. He was mesmerizing, and witty, and the four
of them were not long in laughing freely, desperately
reaching for the pun long before it could be delivered.

Then, just as Pat thought the stitch in her side would
send her into tears, Greg excused himself, returning a
few minutes later with an ice bucket speared with a
bottle of champagne. He poured for them all, lifted his
tall glass and winked. "Lest we permit the poor dope
Danvers to spoil this forever," he said, his crooked smile wide, "I suggest we remember for the moment
that we've all been promoted. That Stephen and Patrice here are destined to assume Constable's place on the
academic pantheon through a bloodbath of politics five
years from now, while Janice-love and I will be outfit
ting our togas and sharpening our knives.
To us, my
friends.
God love us, and spare our dear children."

And it ended that way, the quiet, satisfying celebra
tion Pat feared had been lost, a settling of moods and
tempers that lasted until Greg parked in front of the
house and kissed her gently on the cheek.

"You are a marvel," he told her. "I swear
,
I would have given up the first time Ford said no."

"You don't know me very well, then," she said,
hoping it sounded more a joke than she felt.

"No," he said somberly. "No, I guess I don't."

The heater was billowing too-warm air around her
legs, and the combination of gin and champagne laced
a
fuzziness
through her thinking she could not control.
And she suspected it was making her tongue looser than
it might otherwise have been.

"Greg, that Susan Haslet ..."

He pulled away and folded his gloved hands into his
lap, staring at the center of the steering wheel and
nodding to himself slowly. The windshield fogged over.
In the dashboard's unnatural glow his eyes vanished,
his mouth broadened to a thick, gleaming slash.

"She was a good kid," he said quietly. "A little
pushy, but I suppose that comes with an actor's ego. I wanted to protect her from Ford's shoving as much as I could, to let her grow her own way, but toward the end
she wasn't listening. Ben and Oliver came to me once,
a couple of weeks ago, and told me to leave her alone.
It was like something out of a Cagney movie.
The cowboy and the one-armed bandit.''

The abrupt eruption of bitterness in his voice took her
aback, but his reaction was understandable. She wouldn't
have been surprised if he too had somehow managed to
find a way to blame Ford for her death. He turned to
her, then, and she had to check herself hard not to back
away from the hunger in his eyes.

"Greg . . ."

He looked back to the windshield and hunched his
shoulders as if against the cold.

"No, it isn't like that," she said, though she made no move to touch him.

"I know," he said. "It's funny, in a way.
All those
creeps, all those slimy little men and blue-haired women
who were after me while I was in New York.
They
never let me alone, you
know,
never let me do my own work. Art was something that matched the furniture,
matched the walls."
A laugh, short and acid.

"You survived," she said, perplexed at the direction
he'd taken.

"Sort of," he said. "But you, you're different. You
overcame. A divorce, Lauren's death, your parents think
ing you should be a good little girl and do good little girl things. You overcame, Pat. Like today." Then he did look at her, his smile tentative. "I am given to
cliches
, Pat, but we're birds of a feather, you and I. And if you ever need help ..." And he said nothing more. He reached across her lap and opened the door,
at the same time brushing his lips against her temple.
She gripped his hand and squeezed it, slid out before
she did something foolish like invite him upstairs.

And when the faded VW chugged down the street
and turned the corner, she decided it was too soon to
leave the night yet. A walk; and she moved up the corner and turned left, heading for Mainland Road.
There was a thin ice feeling to the air, no stars that she
could see. Cars parked at the curbing were lifeless and
uninviting. A few of the homes still had their
porchlights
burning, and windows were glowing
brittlely
. She in
haled slowly and deeply, her hands thrust to the bot
toms of her pockets. The breeze she made as she walked
sifted under her skirt, and the tingling at her thighs
made her grin. After a single long block she felt a dull stinging at her ears and adjusted her woolen cap more
snugly around them.