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"I mean, first it was Oscar, right? He called the chair at Coolidge University to help me get into graduate school. I wanted to go so badly, I didn't even think about what that might mean later on. Then the Caldwell job came up, and of
course, it just happens to be near where Oscar did most of his really important work. Then the fact that Pauline had this amazing site on her property and let me excavate it. You see now?"

"I'm afraid I don't, quite." Kam exhaled and was veiled in cigarette smoke.

I frowned at him frustratedly; he was being obtuse on purpose. "All my professional life I've had everything handed to me on a silver platter!" I shouted. "Everything I've ever done has been because someone else has done or given me something! Just when I thought I was going to be able to do something, get tenure, get
my
program established at Caldwell on my own, all that, Pauline steps in again and paves the way. I mean, she even gave me the site, but I found the fort, at least that much was my work. And now this--"

"That rotten cow," he offered with mock sympathy.

"Kam, I'm serious!" I slammed my mug down on the table. "How will I ever know that I was able to make it on my own!

"Oh for Christ's sake, Emma! Don't be such a horse's arse!" Kam was usually as impeccable with his language as he was with his clothing. "What, were you hoping to live in a vacuum, so you could prove yourself?"

"That's just my point--" I started.

"Shut up a minute," Kam commanded. "Now, listen to me. Was Oscar the sort to tolerate flummery? Carry a dead weight?"

This was idiotic. I didn't answer.

"Was he?"

Truculently. "No."

"No, of course not," Kam said, unmollified by my acquiescence. "He had a reputation for being an exacting son of a bitch, did he not? I seem to remember Brian being rather intimidated the first time he met your grandfather, and we both know what it takes to daunt Happy Boy, right? So Oscar must have thought you had something to offer, or
he wouldn't have bothered. Don't you intercede on behalf of talented students?"

"That's different--"

"Oh come now, Emma!" He took another long drag on the cigarette, as if fueling his argument. "If it were really just a favor to your grandfather, the department at Coolidge needn't have given you all that funding all those years, need they? If you were the drooling imbecile you seem to imagine you are, they could have just let you pay your tuition and flunk out, yes?

"And what about Pauline?" he continued. "Did she suffer fools, gladly or otherwise? We both know the answer to that, don't we? And while we're on the subject, what about your husband and friends? We're not ninnies, so why would we waste our time loitering with someone who was?"

Suddenly Kam calmed down, and while his words were no less forceful, at least he was smiling to take some of the sting out. "Look, you. You've got your share of faults: You can be pigheaded, selfish, and didactic. I'm not denying that. You make revolting puns. You are an amazing slob, and I can't imagine what kind of survival skills I'd need to deal with you before eleven in the morning," he added.

"Hey, have a heart!" I protested.

But Kam grew serious again. "But you are also a brilliant, beautiful, kind woman, with a drive that scares the dickens out of most everyone you meet. That and your generosity and your curiosity will make you into the kind of person you are so afraid of not being. It is for those reasons that you have people rushing to do you favors. So forget proving yourself to the world, the world is convinced. Here endeth the sermon." He leaned back and calmly swallowed some more of his tea.

I wasn't pleased with most of his lecture, but the kindly ending made me feel even worse. Tears started oozing out of the corners of my eyes again, and I brushed at them impatiently. The hard wood of the bench was starting to wear my butt flat and I was getting tired, but I wasn't done.

"There's something else," I said.

"Tell me."

I finally said out loud the thought that I had been too loath even to think. "It's Pauline. I can't help feeling responsible . . . I'm convinced it was Tichnor who killed her, and he wouldn't have ever bothered her if I hadn't been there first." I took a deep breath. "It's my fault Pauline's dead. All of this stuff, everything, has happened since I got here. Bodies, site robbers, Billy, arson . .. murder ..." I lifted my hands helplessly.

"Don't be such a git." Kam sighed and stubbed out the tortured cigarette. "From all that you've told me, Pauline should have called the sheriff, not tackled this guy on her own. Most people would consider it extraordinarily foolish to approach a violent trespasser, with a criminal record yet, unarmed and alone."

I flushed angrily and stood up, ready to leave before I had to listen to any more of
that.

Kam pulled me back down onto the bench. "Calm down," he said exasperatedly, as he dug out another cigarette. "I'm not blaming her at all. I'm only pointing out that there are a lot of ways of looking at this. She could have stayed in Boston, she could have stayed inside the house. Tichnor could have run when he saw her, he could have stayed in bed that day. And yes, you could have dug someplace else this year.

"But blaming yourself is an exercise in self-glorification. There are too many random occurrences that make up the circumstances in any one day for you to take the blame for this particular chain of events. Chances are, he would have been wandering around looking for artifacts or whatall even if the dig weren't on her property, right?"

I shrugged and looked away impatiently.

"I know what she was to you," Kam said, grabbing my hand to emphasize his point. "Emma, I
know.
And I am damned sorry. But what would she think about
anyone,
anyone at all, trying to take responsibility for how she lived her life?"

That made me smile.

"Right," he said. "And if anything, she is probably haranguing the devil himself to make sure that rotten little sneak thief gets an extra portion of whatever they're doling in hell. So you're straight out of the running. Don't give it another thought."

I mulled it over for a minute. His reasoning was logical, maybe even convincing, but it wasn't entirely comforting. "Okay, you win," I said tiredly. "Where'd you get your degree in psychology, anyway?" I wasn't ready to thank him just yet.

"Oh, you know, Himalayan lamas and all. Same place I learned to sustain a woman in a continuous state of orgasmic pleasure for hours on end. The usual." He leered pleasantly over the cigarette as he lit up again.

"Oh yeah. Marty told me all about that."

Kam choked on the inhale and began coughing violently.

"Just kidding," I added.

"Hmmm. Well, I know for a fact that you've driven Brian to distraction on more than one occasion with this nagging self-doubt of yours." Kam had recovered himself for the moment and continued in a jocular tone. "Frankly, I've always recommended a good sound beating, but he seemed to think that he could reason with you. Maybe hearing it from someone who doesn't have his obvious biases will help. Otherwise I've got the leg irons and the riding crop in the car," he said, and stretched indolently. "Nope, no more of this soft, lovey-dovey Western nonsense for you, m'dear. As Brian's best man, it is my duty to help him through these little ups and downs." Kam sounded smug and secure in his evaluation of the subject.

I smirked. I'm sure you think you're a real terror, you big muffin, I thought, but Marty'd knock you sideways if she ever heard you talk like that.

Aloud I said, "So what else has Brian told you that he shouldn't have? You two are the worst gossips."

"Well, he never told me about that fellow down by the
church," Kam said lightly. "Emma, you were scaring me. Who was he?"

I swore inwardly. I had hoped that because I left out any reference to Billy, Kam would have forgotten about him. Looking back on the situation, I marveled at how far out of hand I had let myself get. The problem was that I understood completely why I had welcomed that confrontation. I chose my words carefully, now convinced that Billy's drives past the site had more to do with his erstwhile friend Augie's death than anything about me.

"Billy and I had a ... run-in ... ages ago," I said. "He's mean, he's stupid, and he's vindictive, and since then he's believed--still believes, I guess, if he actually remembers me too--that I wronged him. He's probably certifiable. After the week I've had, when he nearly bashed into me, something just... snapped. The fact that it was him, that he is such a maggot, just made the prospect of... lashing out... so much more tempting." I shrugged, downplaying the affair as much as I dared. "What can I say? I lost it. Sorry I snarled at you. Like I said, it's been a rough week."

"I see," he said, nodding. "And once again, someone stepped in and did what you thought you should have been able to do yourself. But my God, Em, he must have had fifty pounds on you, and who knows what kind of previous experience! Unless you've had a secret life scrapping in biker bars, you could have been killed! What were you going to do, debate him, barehanded, into submission?"

"Well, not entirely barehanded." I went back into my room and brought out the light summer suit jacket I'd worn that morning, drawing forth my "surprise" to show him. It was an antique hat pin I'd been wearing as a stickpin, eight inches of its shaft and razor-sharp point concealed in the lapel of my jacket. I twirled it around so that the deep blue stones, in the shape of a fleur-de-lis, shone in the dull light.

Funny I should have this today, I thought. I wore it for Pauline.

I continued out loud. "Don't forget he was drunk out of his mind too, and I was really wound up. Besides, this is a non-issue. You showed up, my knight in shining armor, and whether I got to bash him, and despite my sarcasm, I am glad to see you." I kissed him quickly on the cheek, and squeezed his arm.

Kam received that tribute, as all else in life, with equanimity.

"Besides," I said, "what made you think
you
could take Billy, aside from your insufferable male ego?"

"Besides the fact that I did? You forget, woman, that I learned--"

"Yes, yes, I know, from Himalayan lamas ..." I laughed, anticipating another line of charming bullshit.

He leaned back and stretched luxuriously. "No, impudent one. At Oxford, I earned my blue pummeling weak-chinned youths from Cambridge. C'mon, put on some real clothes, and I'll take you to dinner before Brian gets in."

Chapter 14

"Okay, here's the deal
--"
Sheriff Stannard began
Friday morning.

Once again I was sitting in his office, rubbing my head wearily. Brian had come into Boston late Thursday night and after we discussed it, we agreed that he should come up to help me move back to our place for the three weeks or so before school began and I had to move back to my apartment on campus. The students had already packed up everything and left.

"You with me, Dr. Fielding?" He interrupted my distracted thoughts.

I nodded.

Stannard leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at the ceiling. "I've got a real problem. On one hand, there's a bunch of circumstantial evidence pointing to you in Pauline Westlake's death: the will, your proximity to that death and that of Grahame Tichnor, and the fact that you have access to a couple of unusual sources of information about poisons--"

My jaw dropped. "I beg your pardon?"

The sheriff nodded. "It didn't help your case any when I found out what your husband does for a living--"

"But Brian works for a pharmaceutical company--" I stopped.

He looked at me grimly and nodded. "There's very little difference between what you might call a medicine and what you might call a poison. The other is that one of your students presented you with a thesis last year on Native American plant use."

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, trying to think. "Alan's thesis was really more a caloric study than a focus on medicinal plants, though. Everyone on the faculty read it."

"Well, when we had our little talk, he seemed to know quite a bit about the local plant life and what it was used for. I don't think he's a bad sort," he added, "but something's troubling him, for sure."

I threw my hands up in the air.

"The other thing working against you is that you had a grudge against Grahame Tichnor. Even if you didn't have anything to do with the Westlake death, you had plenty of reasons to murder him, maybe even revenge, if you really believed that he had killed Ms. Westlake. And there's also the possibility that you killed her and then killed him and planted evidence to make it appear as though he had done it. If Dr. Moretti's right and Tichnor died about the same time as the fire was set, you and your students would really be the only ones who would recognize the meaning of that brown clay statuette. I mean, who else would have collected that batch of things? No ordinary house thief did this, that's clear."

"Okay, that's it. I want a lawyer," I announced, jumping up. "I'm way out of my depth here--" I remembered Brian's warning and realized that I was in hotter water than I ever imagined possible.