Fool's Journey Read online

  Body, mind and spirit, Freemont had found a way to invade them all, to desecrate and to rape. Diana Vibert had been subjected to the same stalking and sadistic little tricks as Deirdre. That wasn’t all. Bess had not named the acts specifically, just revealed that his demands had been prefaced by a flurry of mysterious torments. She considered the events of the previous days: the hair-cutting, the wreath, the line of poetry.

  Just the beginning, she thought grimly. At least now she could make plans to meet the coming attack.

  Deirdre stripped off her sodden coat and sweater, and rummaged in her bottom file cabinet for a T-shirt she’d tossed in there last year, a gift from one of her former students.

  Poets Do It with Rhythm, it read. Not clever, but dry. She pulled it on over her head, then ran her fingers through her thick, tangled curls. They were still dripping, but there wasn’t anything to be done about that.

  Suddenly, she remembered she was supposed to meet Manny Ruiz that afternoon. When? She must have written it down, but where? So much of the past two days were muddled.

  She picked up her telephone to call him and heard three beeps. Three voice mail messages. Maybe one was from him. She punched in her code and listened first to two students deliver excuses for late papers. Apparently the computer had eaten them. The last one, however, was different. A voice came through a background of music: There’s a department meeting you shouldn't miss. Tuesday. Two o’clock.

  A department meeting? Not a committee meeting? Annoyed, she glanced at her watch. Two-forty. She’d made a special point of checking messages yesterday to avoid just such a glitch. She glanced down at her foolish T-shirt and wet jeans. For a moment, she considered skipping the meeting on that basis alone. After all, they must be well into it by now. Whoever had called –

  But who was it? Not the secretary or any of the student aides. Besides, despite the introduction of technology, reminders about department meetings were usually posted on the bulletin board, or memos placed in mailboxes. She picked up the receiver, reentered her code and listened again.

  Odd. Very odd. It was rare that department meetings were held on Tuesdays or Thursdays. Few of the faculty came to campus on those days. Her instinct told her she had better be there, appropriately dressed or not. She pulled the sodden jacket on over her shirt and headed to the meeting.

  XVIII.

  Deirdre shivered under the damp weight of her coat as she wound through the halls to the conference room. Maybe she was getting as paranoid about department politics as everyone else, but there was something very unusual going on. Just before she rounded the last corner, she heard a door open and voices spill out into the hallway. It was over. She’d missed it after all.

  “I wish Freemont would stop dropping hints and come out with his accusations,” a voice muttered. Monica Hartwell?

  “If it’s as dire as he’s insinuating, he’ll have to sooner or later.”

  Deirdre recognized this voice instantly. Michael, the chair of the English department.

  “Must be juicy.” Monica’s voice sounded closer. “He seemed pretty pleased with himself. I swear he almost licked his chops.”

  Deirdre glanced back over her shoulder. Too far to get back to her office now. She’d just have to brave it out and run right into them. A second later, they rounded the corner. Monica’s mouth arrested mid-word.

  “Hello, Michael. Monica,” Deirdre greeted them as calmly as she could. “I’m sorry I missed the meeting. I was caught in the rain.” She gestured toward her sodden jacket.

  They didn’t have to say anything. Their faces registered a mixture of surprise and chagrin at seeing her here. Upset though she was, it was clear they were far more ill at ease.

  After a long moment, Michael summoned up a hearty chuckle and allowed his face to fall into an approximate grin. Deirdre hadn’t guessed until now that acting school was a prerequisite for an administrative position.

  “Just the usual ho-hum, Deirdre,” he said. “You didn’t miss anything. Better go dry off.” As an added touch, he gave her arm a squeeze as he stepped past her, then hastened down the hall.

  Deirdre turned her attention to Monica. She was only a few years older than Deirdre and had just been awarded tenure the year before.

  “I didn’t miss anything?”

  Monica sighed and pursed her lips. “Don’t ask me. I left that message for you – that’s all I could do.” Then she too hurried past, ducked into her office and shut the door.

  Deirdre slumped against the wall and folded her arms. So, she had a friend with a little bit of courage. A very little bit.

  Why had she never thought about the other women who had passed through the department in the brief three years she’d been at the university? Some had applied for positions at other universities before they had even finished their first year; others had simply not passed muster when it came time for their third year review. There were reasonable enough explanations for most of these departures, but at least two stood out now, not because of any furor at the time they left. It was the opposite, in fact. The women had simply resigned without a word of explanation, and Deirdre had been too caught up in her own world to ask why.

  Freemont wasn’t wasting any time, was he? How was she to respond? Fight, and face the inevitable exposure? Simply fade away and start again? Or erase him like an ill-chosen word.

  He'd made a big mistake, Deirdre thought as she retraced the hallway to her office. For once, being underestimated was working in her favor. The role of pawn in a devious game was something she had advanced beyond years ago. She had learned that passivity bought nothing but time – and when that time was spent in Hell, it was no gain. Knowledge of the game was one asset, and the courage to play another.

  As soon as she reached her office, she shut the door again, picked up the telephone. Another message had come in during the brief time she’d left on her aborted attempt to attend the department meeting. Hesitantly, she selected the retrieve option.

  Good afternoon, Deirdre. Freemont Willard’s oily voice was immediately recognizable. I’m sorry you missed our little meeting today. I’m sure you’d have found it fascinating! I just wanted to let you know I’ll be dropping in on your intro class tomorrow in preparation for your review. I’ll be sitting right up front. Just like the teacher’s pet – tongue hanging out and all!

  Deirdre slammed the receiver back in the cradle. He must really be sure of himself and of her silence to leave a message that reeked so strongly of sexual harassment.

  Anger was welcome, though. Anger was almost the same as courage. She’d need both to even the score for herself and all the others Freemont had hounded throughout the years, to spin his Wheel of Fortune and let him languish upside-down in the muck of his own evil. Above all, she wanted to make Freemont afraid, very afraid. No one was better trained than she to accomplish it. The curriculum of fear that molded her youth could be turned to her own purposes easily. Revenge could be sweet, but it had its consequences. For one burdened with a conscience, there led the way to madness. That was not a road she wanted to travel twice.

  Deirdre released a ragged sigh. If only some wise Mentor would suddenly appear who could advise her without judging.

  Rosa Ruiz, she thought at once. She reached for the telephone, then stopped herself, her hand poised on the receiver. Mrs. Ruiz was wise, true, but the notion of explaining the intricacies of department politics and personalities, let alone the story of Deirdre’s own past, was daunting. If only there were someone who could advise without asking questions she was unwilling to answer. Deirdre shook her head, feeling more alone than she had in years.

  Suddenly the telephone jangled beneath her hand, and she was startled into an involuntary cry of surprise. Heart pounding, she raised the receiver to her ear and listened.

  An instant of silence was followed by, “Deirdre? Are you there?”

  She nodded, then realizing what she’d done, said, “Yes, sorry. This is Deirdre Kildeer.”

  “M
anny Ruiz here. You scared me.”

  XIX.

  Deirdre met Manny at an espresso bar a few blocks off campus several hours later, just as the lowering autumn sky changed from gray to the lavender of evening. A street musician stood outside the door in the rain, his guitar case open in front of him on the sidewalk. Every time customers came in, his toneless rendition of "Moonshadow" followed them in through the open door. He sounded even more pitiful than he looked. Deirdre wondered vaguely whether anyone had ever offered him money to stop singing.

  “So,” Manny began as he lifted his coffee cup, “anything new today?”

  Where to begin? How much should she tell? How little? There was one thing she was sure she should confide, though. She looked Manny straight in the eye.

  “I know who’s doing it,” she said simply.

  Manny’s mug froze midway to his mouth. He returned it to the table with a distinct clunk.

  “Start from the beginning.”

  Deirdre felt his eyes on her, the force of his attention almost palpable. What she said next, however much or little, would irrevocably affect the future she’d so carefully devised.

  Manny searched Deirdre’s face for a clue to what its still surface might hide. I would never betray your secrets, no matter what they are. He willed her to feel his thoughts, to accept his help, to trust his intentions. He knew she might not be able to confide, though, even if she were willing to try. Behind the delicate traces of strain that framed her eyes, Manny sensed an iron wall of self-protection. Whatever she told him, he would have to be careful not to probe too deeply or too fast.

  “Do you know Diana Vibert’s poetry?” Deirdre asked him suddenly.

  He shook his head. This was not what he had been expecting. “The name is familiar. I don’t remember reading anything of hers, though.”

  “It doesn’t really matter, I guess. Just believe me when I say her work was beautiful.” She rested her head in her hands for a moment, then took a deep breath and continued. “I’m going to tell you a long, rambling story. I heard it myself for the first time today. Just stay with me to the end, and I think you’ll see how the threads of it manage to come together.”

  Manny listened silently as Deirdre recounted the story Bess had told her earlier in the day. He could see she felt the iniquity of what had happened to this Diana Vibert as forcefully as if she herself had been the victim. During the whole narration, she kept her eyes averted, and her fingers grasped the edge of the table so tightly the white showed in her knuckles.

  Long before she reached the end, a sickening sense of wrongness crept over Manny, almost as if he were being forced to watch the wings torn from a butterfly. He wanted to take Deirdre’s hands in his own and tell her everything would be all right. He’d be lying though. Nothing was guaranteed. The cold fingers of instinct tracing his spine told him that the ordeal was far from over.

  When she finished, Deirdre picked up her cup again, took a sip, and grimaced.

  “Cold,” she said, and pushed it away. She huddled back in her chair and looked out the window into the night.

  “So,” Manny said at last, “you think it’s this Willard?”

  She nodded. “It has to be. I know it.”

  “He seems like the best possibility, but...”

  But where was the blackmail, he wondered? Aunt Rosa had warned him Deirdre had secrets, but he could not believe that the woman before him could have anything so horrible to hide.

  “Everything points to him,” Deirdre continued. “He’s sadistic, he hates women, he’s done this before –”

  “It’s not quite the same this time, though,” Manny interrupted. “Willard seems to be playing with you, true, but that may be all it turns out to be. It’s horrible, but unless he really has something on you, he can’t do what he did before.”

  She shook her head. “He’s going to act soon. I know it. Then we’ll see. He’s coming to my class tomorrow. He’ll show his hand then.”

  Her voice was both bitter and frightened. What was she hiding?

  “Deirdre,” he said, “can you trust me a little?”

  Deirdre raised her eyes to his. “I trust you as much as anyone,” she whispered, “but there are some things...”

  Manny smiled. “You don’t have to tell me specifics, but do you know of anything Willard might be able to use against you?”

  She said nothing, merely shook her head. It was hard to say whether she was indicating there was nothing to tell – or that there was nothing she was willing to tell.

  “A woman looked at my palm years ago, when I was just a little girl,” Deirdre said. “She told me she couldn’t see anything, but...she had tears in her eyes.”

  A moment passed, and then she held out her right hand in front of him. “Here. Look for yourself. I think it’s all there.”

  Her trust wasn’t offered in the way he had hoped, but for now, it was enough. Manny took Deirdre’s outstretched hand in both of his and held it for a moment.

  “I don’t read palms in the usual way,” he said. “I don’t pay attention to the lines.”

  As Manny studied Deirdre’s hand she wished she could look at her palm through his eyes for even a moment, see what he was seeing. Would he be able to interpret what was there? She didn’t know whether she wished he could or not. By stretching out her hand to him, she had opened a window on her life.

  “What do you see then?” she asked quietly.

  He shrugged as he continued to study the hand before him. “I don’t really see anything in the sense you mean it. I don’t see with my eyes. I get ideas, though. Pictures, symbols. Then I try to figure out what they mean.”

  “Like writing a poem,” Deirdre said. “I don’t know what it means until I’m almost done sometimes. Maybe not even then.”

  “There are a lot of cages,“ he said suddenly.

  Deirdre shuddered.

  “Some of them are gilded, like a bird’s,” he went on. “Others are like jail cells.”

  An impulse shot through Deirdre’s arm, almost as if she had received an electrical shock, a reflex to withdraw her hand from his scrutiny. There were cages in her past, sure enough. They had been metaphorical, except for one, but she had been confined as surely as if they had been real.

  “The doors are twisted off their hinges. Whatever, whoever escaped must be very powerful.”

  Manny’s strong fingers closed over her hand again, enveloping it in warmth. He looked into her eyes. “Remember, Deirdre: In the court of God, justice is all that matters.”

  Deirdre felt the tears prick at her eyelids. She blinked them away and tried to smile.

  “I’m sorry, Manny,” she said. “I know I could tell you everything and it would be all right. But I can’t even get the words to form. Why can’t the past stay buried in its grave?”

  “It’s a lesson we all have to learn,” he said quietly. “Nothing stays in the grave that’s not at rest.”

  XX.

  After Manny dropped Deirdre at her apartment, he found himself making his way back towards the university. The need to get some hard evidence had grown moment by moment since Deirdre revealed her suspicions. She was probably right about this Freemont Willard character, but knowing that was helpful only to a degree. Until Manny discovered connections between Willard’s motives and the means to achieve them, his ability to help was crippled. Deirdre hadn’t given him much to go on.

  He’d always had a way with reading palms, or so people told him, but he was more comfortable with facts. Even without looking at her hand, he’d known that her past was as troubled as her present.

  What could be so horrible that its exposure would prompt such fear? If she wouldn’t tell him, maybe Freemont Willard would, one way or another.

  As Manny drew up to the campus, he could see that most of the buildings were still lit. Night classes often went until ten o’clock. He knew from his aunt’s days as part of the university custodial staff that some professors worked late and students often de
livered papers under office doors, particularly if the assignment was late and they didn’t relish a confrontation. No one would think twice about his presence in the building, even at this hour.

  Parking about a block from the English department, he walked up to the building through a double row of dark oaks. As he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, he could smell the familiar scent of pine cleaner on old wood and was reminded of his childhood, following Aunt Rosa as she went about her work.

  He glanced at the door to Deirdre’s office as he walked by. Unlike other doors in the same corridor that displayed political cartoons and cryptic literary messages, hers was anonymous except for posted office hours and class times. Just across the hall, Freemont Willard’s office stood open, an abandoned custodian’s cart just outside.

  Looking in the door, Manny saw a man hunched over the keyboard of his computer, grinning. Even at a glance, Manny could spot a slime and this one would leave a trail a foot wide. The thought of this gusano, this worm, harassing Deirdre made his fingers curl.

  Manny cleared his throat. “Professor Willard?”

  Willard looked up and the grin disappeared from his face. “I told your compadre not to bother me,” he snapped. “You can come back later and empty the waste.”

  Manny had planned to ask for next term’s syllabus, just as a means of scoping out this guy, but Willard’s assumption prompted an even better opportunity.

  Manny shrugged, grabbed a dust rag from the cart outside the door and walked into the office. “No comprendo,” he smiled as he took two more steps forward.

  “Idiot,” Willard muttered.

  Manny picked up the wastepaper basket and gestured toward a pile of student papers on the desk. “¿Mas?” he asked, and made as if to sweep them in with the rest of the garbage. If his blood weren’t burning, he might even find this assumed idiocy pretty amusing.

  “No!” Willard growled. “¡No mas! Get out! Now!”

  Manny smiled again. “Gracias, señor,” he said with a mock bow. Then he began to dust, whistling a tune as he did so. Freemont Willard was fuming, but apparently he’d already run out of simple Spanish phrases. On the screen of the computer monitor, Manny could see a partially composed letter to the Dean of Liberal Arts.