Grave Consequences (24 page)

“Morag, get your lardy backside off my site and behind the barrier!” Jane roared as she stomped right past me. “Go, get, you stupid cow, before I—”

The other woman put her hands on her hips. “Before you what? What are you going to do, go to the police? That’s a laugh, considering how much time you’ve been spending down there recently!”

“How do you know about that?” Jane said. She slowed but didn’t stop coming toward us. “No one—”

“Oh, I’ve got my little ways. Now let me see.” She bent over, back to Jane, reaching a hand for one of my brushes.

Before I could move, Jane had reached the unit. She didn’t stop when she drew up to Morag, but grabbed her around the waist, as though they were fond schoolmates, swung her around, and all but scooped the other woman up, rushing her off the site. It was efficient, well timed, and a fatal mistake. I could barely tear my eyes from the scene, but felt compelled to turn around and see whether the reporter had picked up on any of this. He had, and was staring as shocked and excited as the rest. The entire crew gasped, astonished by Morag’s daring and scandalized by Jane’s response.

Let it stop here, I prayed. Jane, just calm down, Morag, just go away. Jane, just calm down—

I almost passed out with shock when it happened just like that. Almost.

Jane made it as far as the gate when for some reason she stopped dead, as if all her momentum had immediately been expended. Morag, on the other hand, seemed to swell with her outrage. You could almost see her skirts and peasant blouse expand like a balloon as she sputtered incoherently. I could only pick out the occasional word—assault, rights, police—from the verbal torrent. Jane stood there and took it, a still look of horror on her face.

I started to walk over, but Greg beat me to it. “Morag, it’s time to go.”

She drew away from him. “Don’t you touch me! I’ll press charges!”

Greg hadn’t touched her, hadn’t even raised his voice. “And then we’ll press charges for trespass and nuisance and anything else we can think of, so let’s call it quits, shall we? We don’t let other visitors behind the barrier unaccompanied, so you shouldn’t feel slighted, though I will say you’ve done your best to assure that you’ll never be invited back. Just go back to work, cool off, go have some lunch.”

“You’ll be sorry for this,” I saw her mouth. “No matter what else happens, you’re your own punishment, you two.”

“That’s fine, Morag.” Greg nodded. “It keeps it simple for Jane and me. Time to go.”

With that, Greg walked Jane away. Morag stared a few more moments, then turned and left. Slowly, the crew returned to their work, and although their murmuring was indistinct, I knew that they were all comparing versions of what they’d just seen.

Jane took Greg’s hand from her arm, but gently, and she went over to the reporter, who hadn’t moved a whit. I watched them talk for some time, Jane’s hands clenching behind her back. It seemed to be an argument, perhaps a negotiation, for after a long period of exchange, I saw them shake hands and the reporter left. Jane, looking purely white now, came over to my unit. Her dark hair was plastered to her cheek and her gait was unsure.

“Jane, I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t,” Jane said, sweating more from emotion than effort, I believed. “You didn’t even say a word, remember? It was all bloody Morag.”

I rubbed my forehead, then shifted uncomfortably. “What’s the reporter going to do?”

“He’d just come back to check on some details; the article should be out tonight or tomorrow, I guess. I got him to promise he wouldn’t write anything about the bones or the fight, unless it came up later, somehow, say if Morag makes
a big noise about it. I expect we’ll be picketed, perhaps, by flocks of druids or leprechauns or what-have-you. I told him he could say that we are closing in on the burial and he gets first dibs on it, after we’ve removed the bones. I just don’t want that kind of press right now, not when the skeleton’s just been uncovered. I’ve also made a lot of other promises, some involving my firstborn, etc. I really don’t want this to get out yet.”

She paused and collected herself. “So that’s she, is it?” Jane nodded her head toward the small bit of exposed bone that had just caused so much trouble.

“Yes, I think so. Bit of occipital ridge showing, I guess.”

“Well, good, then. Excellent. Well done.”

Jane’s words were hollow and brittle. I looked up at her. She wasn’t looking at the bones but over at the gate.

“Jane—?”

“Jesus, Emma, did you see what I just did? When did I become so fucking awful?” She pushed her hair off her face and left a smear of dirt on her cheek.

I wiped some stray crumbs of soil from the edge of my trowel. “Jane, you’ve had a bad time, Morag was behaving badly—”

“Never mind Morag. I’m talking about
me.
I manhandled her, all but punched her on the nose. I
hauled
her off the site—”

As fine an example of frog-marching as I’ve ever seen, I thought. “She’d been repeatedly told to stay out of the area, she was endangering herself and the site. I’ve had the urge myself.”

Jane spun around to face me, her face ashy, her eyes filled with fright. “Yes, but the difference is, you never acted on it. You don’t give in to your baser instincts; I just did. In a horrible, public display of physical aggression. This is a civilized place, I’ve always thought of myself as
civilized.
I’m well aware that I’m bossy, a bit competitive perhaps, but I’ve never just…I mean, for God’s sake, Emma, I’m
Labour.
”

I really shouldn’t have. Jane’s face had gone from blank
almost to the point of tears, and it was just plain inappropriate of me, but I couldn’t help myself. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was just the way she said it.

I began to giggle.

Jane scowled. “Well, it’s true.”

The giggles got worse, turned into chuckles. She stomped her foot, very angry now, but mostly because she knew just how stupid she sounded. That just made me laugh all the harder.

Jane tried one last time, a feeble sop to her pride. “Good socialists just don’t—”

The tears were running down my cheeks now. I was nearly doubled over and could barely catch my breath. “They don’t…what? Don’t…assault the…masses?”

By this time, Jane had given up and now shrugged, a little abashed. “Okay, okay. That was a little pompous, perhaps…”

I straightened and wiped my eyes. “Jane, that was world-class.”

She grinned, still embarrassed. “It was hoped at one time that I would pompous for England, finally take the gold away from the Germans at the Olympics.”

“What happened?”

Jane shrugged again, this time tiredly, not bothering with the game anymore. “Oh, I don’t know. Lost my focus, I guess, or developed too much focus, perhaps. Emma, I don’t know what you’ve been thinking, how you’ve been getting through the past week or so, I’ve been so determined to just face this whole mess out. I’ve been so wrapped up that I haven’t been—”

“Don’t worry about it, Jane. It’s understandable.”

She shook her head. “Emma, let me finish, okay? I’ve been trying to make it go away by dint of will and that’s not going to happen. So I just have to get through it somehow. And I hate it but…I can’t do it alone.”

We stood quietly for a moment, almost as if out of respect for what Jane had just admitted.

“There’s always Greg,” I said. “If you still want him.”

Jane looked even more tired now. “I know, I know. We’ve got to have a long talk, as soon as possible. Something’s not right between us now—”

Wondering what the “something” might be sent a chill through me.

“—And I’m going to fix it.” She paused, thought about what she’d said. “We’re going to fix it.”

And then there came the moment that is never easily traversed, hanging between a momentous event and everyday life. We didn’t hug, we didn’t share a moment, we didn’t punch each other in the shoulder. Being who we were, we both looked away and then got right back to business.

Jane squatted by the grave shaft. “Well, the head’s in the right place, pointed toward the west, to see the second coming.”

“If it is in fact articulated.” I hated playing the devil’s advocate, but it came as second nature to me.

“Oh, don’t worry, the rest of the postcranial skeleton will be there. And it’s your job to find it before lunch.”

I checked my watch. “That’s about ten minutes.”

“Okay, all right then, you slacker, you. You can have until the end of the day. Get to it.”

By the end of the day, I hadn’t exposed the rest of the skeleton—that was just too big a job—but I had uncovered the rest of the skull and what might yet turn out to be a clavicle and a couple of ribs, and took the measurements and a preliminary photo. The jaw hung, as if dropped in shock or embarrassment or horror, and even though I knew it had to do with the muscles deteriorating and letting go of the mandible after death, I wished it looked a little less dramatic. Dean Avery hovered around just beyond my peripheral vision, waiting till he was summoned to take more detailed photos. I was hard pressed to keep my attention where it needed to be and keep from bending over with him
behind me. Finally, as much as I hated realizing how much I was letting him control my movements with his camera, I let him take a few shots of the skeleton at the close of the day.

I could tell that Jane was serious about what she’d said that morning, because instead of stopping at the pub, she suggested that we pick up Indian take-away and eat early. Even though I got the mildest thing that could be found on the menu and even though I loved the layered spices and textures of the food, by the end of the meal I was sweating and my face had gone red. Jane and Greg, each having ordered a vindaloo with three little red peppers next to the name on the menu, ate it with practiced and careless rapidity, with no apparent side effect other than both of them blowing their noses just once.

Greg shoved his plate away saying, “Good, that.”

“Do you mind if we leave you to your own devices again this evening?” Jane said after they cleared up. She continued confidentially, “I need to have a good long talk with Greg. There’s a lot I need to find out about where his head is at, lately.”

“Well, why don’t you stay here, then? I’ll go down to the pub, or a movie, or the library, or something.”

“No, we’ll go out. It helps me to think, if I’m outside. Besides,” she confided, “I want to keep an eye on the site. I don’t want that nutter Morag coming back and messing about.”

I shook my head. “She was rude this morning, but I think that was just excitement. I’m sure she wouldn’t—”

“I’m not so sure. Someone who can’t stay where she’s told…besides, I’m sure I made matters worse today and I just don’t want to take the risk. And it’s dried out nicely since yesterday. We’ll sit by the river and talk and see what we can’t sort out. You’ll be all right?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t worry about me,” I said, following them to the door. “I’ve plenty to keep me occupied for the evening. Take care.”

“Cheers, Emma,” Greg said, and shut the door behind them.

I figured I had an hour or two, at the least. I ran up the stairs to my room, grabbed the cassette tape that had been in Julia’s bag, a notebook, and pen, and ran back downstairs to the living room stereo. It took me a minute to sort out the controls, and I finally realized I had to flip the switch on the wall outlet before the stereo would power up, but then I shut the cassette into the stereo and settled back to listen to Julia’s card reading.

T
HE TAPE WAS CHEAP AND THE MACHINE THAT HAD
been used to record the session was probably only one generation away from reel-to-reel; the clatter of the plastic as the buttons were pushed and recording started was very clear, but the voices were fainter and it was difficult to catch all of what was being said over the mechanical hiss and vibrations so faithfully recorded along with Julia’s voice. Although I was alone in the house, I had turned the volume so low that I could barely hear it; merely listening to this private moment was intrusive enough, a discourtesy that made me feel like the worst kind of voyeur, but the possibility of broadcasting it for others was unthinkable. But I was in this for good or ill, so I got up, turned up the volume, rewound the tape to the beginning so that I could hear it properly, and retreated into the couch cushions. Curiosity and embarrassment, whether for me or Julia, I could not have said, mingled with the hope that I might get some kind of lead; I didn’t believe in anything the psychic might have predicted, but I did hope that Julia herself might give me a clue, a voice beyond the grave. The reading began.

“This is a card reading for…” There was a pause and a ruffling of paper. “Julia, done by Alicia at Tealeaves and Broomsticks on June__.” The psychic’s voice was high and firm, convincing, reassuring. Professional. “Julia, although I see you’ve had two other readings here before with Erin, we’ve never worked together, so I’ll begin by telling you about myself.”

A loud, rapid flapping noise filled the parlor at 98 Liverpool Road, and I realized that Alicia was shuffling cards repeatedly, very close to the microphone in the recorder.

“In addition to being gifted with the sight—I’m clairvoyant and empathic, I read from the heart—I also read auras and I do connect with the spirit world. My family has always read in this form to create balance, inside and outside you. If a spirit is walking with you on the other side and makes him-or herself known to me, I will take their messages for you.”

I frowned and tucked my foot underneath me; what was Alicia, some sort of answering service?

There was an indistinct childish murmur from someone; it must be Julia. I strained to hear her, and was a little surprised when I realized how much I’d assumed about her, that her voice would be loud or aggressive.

Alicia responded, “No, not ghosts, but spirits. These are all around us, they are always looking out for us, and they are benign. What you see on television and the movies is mostly nonsense made up to scare people and that…well, let’s not go into how that makes me feel. Anger clouds one’s gifts.” The shuffling of cards resumed, followed by three slaps of thin cardboard on table.

“I see here that you are a very grounded person, you feel at your best outside, and you need to be near nature to connect with the other side. Do you garden? No? When you are outside in your dreams, that’s when the spirits will find it easiest to guide you. Right now, I see you’re making transitions in your life, your career, and these are where your heart area lies, this is where you are truly you, and this is definitely where you will stay and be happiest.

“Do you have a particular area you’d like me to focus on today? Money, love, job—”

The small, girlish voice said, “Relationships.”

“All right then, relationships. If you ask me about a particular person, I will try and read what their intent is for you.” I heard Alicia take several deep breaths. “I am focusing on relationships for Julia now, focusing on Julia now, I am clearing my mind and making myself open, focusing on Julia.”

I heard more cards being laid briskly and murmurs from Alicia that were oddly reassuring, almost lulling. “You in the past, you in the present, you in the future, what surrounds you now—there’s a lot of energy around you at the moment and things are very unclear to you. A lot of energy. There’s so much activity on many fronts; you’re at the center of many, many things, some of which are known to you, some of which are not—”

Oh, lordy, I thought. That leaves just about everything in the world open to Alicia. Isn’t everyone at the center of a lot of things they don’t know about?

“—And I see that you’re just recovering from a financial setback, you are struggling at your job—no, you’re at university—”

“I’m doing a graduate course,” Julia corrected her in a near whisper.

“Yes, I see you struggling there, it’s harder than you thought, but you will eventually triumph there and in your chosen career. I see that you are a very creative person, someone who is involved in the arts in some way, the visual arts, painting, photography—?”

My ears pricked up at that last, thinking of Avery.

“No, not really,” came the indistinct reply.

“Well, then that is something you will discover in the future.”

Well, none of that was very helpful, I thought. Anyone looking at a young woman with bags under her eyes and a bump on her middle finger from writing might tell that she
was a student, and doesn’t everyone in graduate school struggle and worry about money? Although, from what I understood, things didn’t seem all that tough for Julia, academics-wise.

I heard Alicia slap more cards down. “People around you are confusing to you now, they are making demands of you and you’re not sure whether they have your best interests at heart.”

“Yes.” A sigh followed here.

“Well, I see that some do and some do not, but only you can decide that. You need to step outside yourself, clear your mind of the surrounding noise, static, all the confusion, and see how you need to respond here. With regards to your work, you carry a lot of stress with you. You tend to worry quite a lot, but what I can suggest to you is that you let things go, don’t focus on the negative or be judgmental, and everything will be made right.”

I yawned and looked down at my notepad. I had written nothing down yet.

Alicia continued, “You are on the cusp of many changes, new beginnings are manifested around you, and I find that you need to let go of what is valuable to receive what is valuable. It will be hard to walk away from what you know best, people will say that you are acting out of character, acting foolish in their eyes, but by doing so, you’ll become freer, in every way.”

“Could you possibly be a little more specific?” I noticed a note of impatience in Julia’s voice. “I’m really having a hard time with my boyfriend, my instructors, my family, and I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know how to begin to fix any of it.”

“Part of the reason that things are so unclear for me is that they are so complicated for you,” Alicia chided. “Let me concentrate and I’ll tell you what I see.”

There was a pause, followed by three more cards being placed, and then three more. “You are at the center of a lot of thoughts and intentions lately, many more than you know,
but there are four very strong people in your life who are thinking a lot of you lately. Two men and two women.”

I obediently scratched this down on my pad, waiting for Julia to comment on them.

“The women…the women are very unclear to me,” Alicia continued. “Both of them are very strong willed, older than you—in authority, maybe, bosses, parents, teachers? One is working for you, but in a very clumsy way. You don’t always see eye to eye, but she is looking out for you. The second is outwardly very hostile and is trying to keep you back; her feelings are mixed though.”

I noted this down: possibly Morag and Jane? What about her mother, perhaps? But which was which?

Julia echoed my desire for details, pressing Alicia. “Do you know what their names are? Are they at work or outside it?”

“Names aren’t coming to me but they are both deeply interested in your work, for different reasons. And now the men…”

I heard more cards being put down, then it sounded like they were being rearranged. “Does the letter A mean anything to you?”

“My boyfriend’s initial,” Julia whispered.

“Are you involved now?”

My heart pounded as I waited through Julia’s hesitation. “I…I’m not sure. I’m not sure he loves me, but I think he might.”

Shuffle of cards. “He does, but he doesn’t know it yet. He doesn’t know why he loves you and not someone else. He feels a great deal toward you, but he is a confused, angry man.” Several more cards were put down. “Very angry. He is split, emotionally and psychically, and you should be very careful of him.”

“What do you see? For us?”

“To sit here and tell you that there won’t be troubles, well, I wish I could. I do see a new transition taking place, but you are both still connected.”

“We are in the midst of breaking up, I think.”

“That may be what is going on now, but what I see is the future, I can’t say how far ahead. Because the thing is, I think that he will finally come to decide that he loves you, and then everything will change for him. You too. Lots of change, and if you can hang on through all that change, stick to your guns, because you know what is right for you, you’ll be fine.”

“I hope so. I think we could be good for each other. I’m just honest enough for his good, he’s just strong enough for mine.”

Whoa, I thought. That was some pretty advanced emotional reasoning.

There was another flutter of cards. “Has he broken a date lately?”

“No, not him…but someone else has.”

“You’re also close to this other person?”

“Very. We don’t see each other as much as we’d like, but I was supposed to meet him for a drink and he didn’t arrive. We’ve got a fallback plan, and I’ll try again and meet him tomorrow night.”

I noted this down excitedly; this reading took place the day before Julia’s murder.

“Well, this is a younger man and he didn’t mean to miss the meeting, it wasn’t his fault. He is thinking of you often and he wanted to see you.”

I heard Julia sigh. “He’s not the second man, then?”

“No, that’s all I see of him.”

Who was that, then? I wondered. That first sounded like Andrew for sure, though. I wrote down “angry, dangerous, split emotionally.” It didn’t sound too far off from everyone’s opinion of him, so far, and I had his own admission of the affair. How dangerous was he?

“The other older man…he’s married…he sees you as the source of all of his problems, a thorn in his side, if you were not in the picture, he believes his life would be easier.”

I caught my breath. Could it be Greg?

“He too needs to decide where his heart is, because he is distracted by too many emotions that are outside his character. Do you know an older man who worries a lot?”

A short laugh from Julia. “Too many.”

“Well, keep an eye on them. This one will lead you astray. He wants to help you, but he’s going to lead you into trouble, however inadvertently. His work is terribly important to him.”

That made me think of Julia’s father, George Whiting, or, then again, perhaps it was Palmer—but of course, I was dealing with only the people I knew who knew Julia. Who knew who else I might be inadvertently omitting?

I heard a few more cards being flipped over and there was another worried, muted question from Julia, and I strained to hear her. It was so frustrating having to try to translate what Alicia meant and to try and guess what Julia was asking based on her responses.

“No, no. That card always worries everyone but when Death shows up in the array, it doesn’t necessarily mean death as we understand it.” Oh! But it had in Julia’s case, I thought sadly. “It means the end of something, and can often be a good indication of change that will be good for you, you making positive decisions, you removing yourself from harmful situations, and taking good, healthy, positive steps. In this context, I think that you will be able to resolve a lot of things very favorably in the next six months or so…I can only suggest that you try and put all that confusion behind you and do what your heart tells you.”

I shook myself, surprised at how lulled I’d become by the hypnotic effect of Alicia’s voice. Do what your heart tells you? That doesn’t help much, I thought. Apparently Julia didn’t think so either.

“I could have gone to the university counselor and got the same advice,” she said, nowhere near as relaxed as I’d become; she sounded quite annoyed. “I just wish I knew what to do. I mean, I’m only twenty-two—”

“Would you like to make another appointment, perhaps
go back to working with Erin? Maybe she’d see things a little more clearly for you.”

“No, don’t bother—”

And with that, the tape ended.

I shifted my weight off my legs uncomfortably. That last bit of Julia’s frustration was heartbreaking and it answered for me the question of why she might have gone to a card reader in the first place. She sounded confused, and who wouldn’t be, I wondered. She was very young, she was having an affair with one of her instructors, she was on the outs with her family, and at odds with her adviser, who seemed to hold most of her future in the palm of her hand. I had always had Oscar to talk to, then my sister Bucky, then Marty, and Brian, of course, later, but from what I could tell, Julia wasn’t close to or even casual friends with her classmates, and all the people who she might have reached out to—parents, lover, advisers—were ambivalent at best toward her.

And I believed that one of them had eventually killed her.

I didn’t actually believe anything that Alicia had told Julia, there were simply too many vague statements, things that could have been applied to anyone. Anytime she even came close to the mark, they were things that could have been clues available to any canny observer. But what I could do, I realized, was focus on how Julia had responded to those questions, and identify what she had asked about. Maybe there’s where I would find some sort of clue, through Julia, that would tell me what she was thinking about just before she died.

I listened to the tape several more times. Julia had asked about ghosts as opposed to spirits, her relationships, whether the women Alicia mentioned worked with her or not. She’d corrected Alicia in terms of her work and interests (and Alicia had immediately gone back to the last thing that had given her a positive response, I noticed). Julia’d admitted that she was involved with someone who wasn’t sure about her, but Julia wanted to know if it would last, whether he would decide he loved her. It sounded to me like she loved
Andrew and hoped the relationship would continue, though she didn’t think it would. She was worried that people close to her didn’t have her best interests at heart and she wanted to repair the rifts that might be between them. She knew too many older men who were anxious. She’d asked about the card depicting Death when it had appeared in the array.