The Far Time Incident (32 page)

“Do you and Dr. Little know each other personally?” I asked. I couldn’t think of any reason why Dr. Little would want to kill Nate that was related to the case.

“We’re next-door neighbors. There was an incident during the summer, just after I moved in. I had requested that Dr. Little and his wife cut down a red oak that was swaying during thunderstorms and was in danger of falling on my new house. Dr. Little wanted me to pay for it. But the law is the law. The tree was on his side of the property. He seemed to think I was abusing my police powers somehow.”

“You think he sent us here, Chief Kirkland?” said Abigail. “Because of a personal grudge against you?”

“You’d be surprised what behavior people will to stoop to with their neighbors. But there’s something more to this, something that’s eluding me,” Nate said. “Someone wasn’t just using STEWie as a weapon. There’s a significance to how our disappearance was staged. It’s bound to affect the program itself, isn’t it? Make it harder to get funding?”

“Probably,” I agreed. “You think someone doesn’t approve of us knowing more about the past than we used to? Like Mrs. Butterworth?”

“Who’s she?” Abigail asked.

“A frequent and generous donor to the school. I wasn’t really suggesting her as a suspect, only giving an example. She wasn’t too happy that we ruled out Sir Francis Bacon as the penner of Shakespeare’s plays. I suppose there have been other things our researchers have confirmed or disproved that may have rubbed someone the wrong way. If it’s someone within the department, especially an untenured professor, he or she may not wish to rock the boat by saying something openly against the program. This way—well, like Xavier said, Dean Sunder will have his work cut out for him. He’ll need all the help he
can get from donors like Mrs. Butterworth and Ewan Coffey to keep the lab going.”

“Ewan Coffey? You mean our library donor?” Helen asked as she and Xavier came over to where the four of us were gathered in the shade of the pine. “I’ve never seen any of his movies, but he has done a lot for the school.”

“He was the lead in
Robin and Marion
,” Abigail explained in a dreamy voice, “and in
Antony and Cleopatra
and
Juliet’s Romeo—
though the movies themselves,” she added more briskly, a touch of pink rising in her sunburned cheeks, “were silly history-wise, of course.”

“They should consult us on these things,” Kamal, who had ambled over after taking his photo, concurred.

“Whatever happened with the new STEWie generator, Julia?” Xavier asked as we watched Kamal’s photo appear on the print. “Was Lewis able to arrange for one?”

“He was, through Ewan Coffey. Though everything was put on hold after you, uh—left.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ve heard that Ewan Coffey is coming to campus for this year’s graduation, Julia, is that true?” Abigail demanded.

“He might,” I admitted. “Don’t spread this around if we make it back, but there’s been talk of giving him an honorary degree from the Drama Department.” Technically, Ewan Coffey wasn’t an alum because he had never finished his studies, but that was a minor point when it came to generating good publicity for the school.

“Do you think there’s a chance he might stop by the TTE lab?” Abigail breathed.

I opted not to remind her that two-thousand-some years separated us from Mr. Ewan Coffey and his smoldering good looks. “Is anyone else keeping any secrets?” I asked, with a look
at Nate. I felt a little irritated that he hadn’t told us about his trouble with Dr. Little. He seemed to think this was his investigation only. It was part of my job to help figure out what had happened and why. Dean Sunder had instructed me to do so.

“Well…” Helen said.

She glanced at Xavier.

“What?” he said.

“Well—Gabriel and I went out on a few dates. Before you and I met.”

“I know. Rojas was the one who introduced me to you. He said it didn’t work out.”

“I was the one who broke it off. He was a little—too polite, I suppose. I could never tell what he was thinking. He didn’t seem to mind when I broke things off. Then he met Lane and it didn’t seem to matter that you and I were getting married. But all these years, even after he married Lane, I’ve rather thought that he might still have feelings for me. At your memorial service, as Lane was putting a basket of flowers by the enlarged photo of you that Julia had ordered, Gabriel quietly asked me out for coffee.”

“Dr. Rojas?” Abigail asked, incredulous.

“Professors are human, too,” I said, impatient to hear more of the story.

“Coffee, huh? And what did you say, Helen?” Xavier asked.

“I said no, of course. I would have said no even if he had asked at a more appropriate time and place. Again, he didn’t seem to mind, and his behavior as we prepared for the New York City trip was as usual, but—”

“—here we are,” Nate finished the sentence for her. “Well, crimes have certainly been committed for lesser reasons.”

“Let’s hope Dean Sunder manages to keep the program going so Dr. May’s team comes to the Colosseum dedication as planned. And that it happens without delay at their end,” Helen
said. “If things are put on hold for a year or two or ten, everyone we know will be older when we make it home—even your Ewan Coffey, Miss Tanner. That would certainly be strange.”

“It would be very strange,” I said, thinking of a new dean’s assistant taking my place in the small office on the ground floor of the Hypatia of Alexandria House, of Dean Sunder retired, of Jacob Jacobson with a
Dr.
in front of his name, of Officer Van Underberg in charge of campus security. I felt melancholy, like all signs pointed to us having to stay in the past, never to set foot again on the sprawling St. Sunniva campus. I stared at the volcano, mesmerized by its hidden power. “Vesuvius is beautiful, isn’t it? The vineyards, the rich farmland, the orchards, the power and beauty of the mountain itself…”

“As powerful and beautiful as a coiled snake,” Kamal said. He had obtained sweets earlier and he pulled out a handful from the satchel. Abigail accepted a piece. “You want some, Julia? Chief? Professors?”

To my surprise, Nate took one of the sticky sweets.

I shook my head at Kamal’s offering. “Got a bit of a headache. I think I just need some water.”

“We should be getting back anyway,” Nate said. “I want to see if we can accidentally run into Nigidius by his front door so that we can ask him some questions.” He popped the sweet into his mouth.

Abigail was looking at me with concern. “I thought you said you felt better, Julia.”

“Let’s see your hand,” Nate said through a full mouth.

“Well—all right.” I unwrapped Faustilla’s cloth. The yellow paste, dried and cracking, enveloped my index finger and hid whatever was underneath. But the underlying redness and swelling had spread to the neighboring fingers in thin reddish streaks, even up my hand a bit. “I guess Faustilla’s ointment didn’t work,”
I said. Kamal had moved away and stopped eating the sweets, his face a little green. I noticed that Xavier was staring at my hand as if debating something, but he only bit his lip in thought.

I rewrapped the hand and changed the subject. “What’s pumice anyway?”

“Hmm? Pumice? Superhot, frothy lava that cools fast and solidifies into sponge-like chunks upon being ejected from a volcano,” Xavier explained.

“Sponge,” I said slowly.

“Exactly. A light rock with many air pockets.”

“No,” I said. “Sponge. Not as a noun but as a verb. Faustilla—when we saw her with Sabina at the baths, she was scrubbing a darkish stain off the sleeve of her garment. I think it was garum. From the broken jars.”

“You didn’t mention that before,” Nate said. It was his turn to sound irritated. “But most likely the stain got there as she was cleaning up the mess in the shop,” he suggested, as if to rule out that possibility before jumping to any conclusions.

I visualized the scene again—Secundus sweeping, Faustilla wiping down the wall, Sabina being chastised for wasting time talking to the foreigners from Britannia. I shook my head. “She had on a sleeveless dress when we saw her in the shop. Any splatter would have gone on her arm. The dress at the baths—I’m pretty sure it was the one she had on yesterday morning, in the villa courtyard. She must have changed back into it—”

“The stain could have been from making beet juice,” Xavier said. “She sells it to clients. It’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac.”

Nate took charge. “If there’s a chance that Faustilla’s responsible, we had better hurry back. Professor, you saw how Secundus was looking at the town’s top garum maker. He may head over to spit at his feet. If Scaurus is blameless, that can only end badly.”

“Do you realize what it means if Faustilla did trash her son’s shop?” Nate asked as we hurried along. The others had been immediately behind us, but History had blocked them from taking the same street and they were forced to take a longer route back to Secundus’s shop.

“What?”

“I tasted garum for nothing.”

“Ow,” I said as my right hand brushed against a building wall.

“Your hand?”

“I didn’t want to say it before, but it’s
really
starting to hurt.”

We found Secundus outside his shop. His mother was behind the counter, and they seemed to be arguing about something. As we approached, we saw him give a dismissive wave to end their conversation, as if to say,
Enough, I’ll do what I must
. Then he turned and left.

“Secundus, wait!” Nate and I called out at the same time and ground to a stop.

The urgency of our tone halted the shopkeeper. He looked almost comical as he stood midstride on the pedestrian stepping-stones outside his shop, staring at us in puzzlement.

I pointed to Faustilla and then the pile of refuse by the stepping-stones—the broken jars and dried-up pickled vegetables that he
had swept into the street yesterday morning, now covered with flies. I didn’t say a word, but I didn’t need to. My meaning could not have been plainer.

Secundus looked down at the fruits of his labor, mingled with grime that had been lodged against the stepping-stones by long-passed rain torrents and refuse newly discarded by the proprietor of the tavern across the street. I felt for him. It was through no fault of his own that he was not his mother’s favorite, but the mere accident of birth order. Those deep eyes of his rose to meet Faustilla’s and she didn’t look abashed, just angry that she had been found out. Proud and defiant, she met her son’s gaze for a long moment, then turned to Nate and me. For a second I thought she might follow Secundus’s plan and spit at our feet, but she merely turned and went into the back room. She had destroyed her son’s carefully nurtured garum and her own pickled vegetables, but had not been able to bring herself to do the same to the ointments and mixtures that she kept in the back.

She returned a moment later with a cloth purse in her hands. She released it and it landed with a loud clink on the stone counter. The take from Secundus’s till. One of the coins, a chipped brass one, rolled out and I watched as it came to a stop and settled on the counter. I didn’t understand what Faustilla said to Nate and me, but I imagined it was something along the lines of everything being fair in love, war, and the battle for personal happiness. She had been willing to let her son confront Scaurus, something that was bound to end disastrously, rather than admit the truth.

She went into the back room for a second time, came back with a shawl, and, draping it over her head and neck, hurried past Nate and me without looking at her son. I knew where she was headed.

“She’s gone off to have a curse tablet made,” I murmured to Nate. “We are about to be one cursed married couple.”

Secundus had wordlessly taken his mother’s place at the shop counter. His shoulders seemed squarer, his back straighter. He sent us a look of thanks—intermingled with something in the vicinity of
Family, what can you do?
—and picked up the change bag and threw it behind the counter, then began hawking his wares to passersby.

“Well,” Nate said uneasily, “that went better than I expected.”

“Now that Secundus has all the facts, he can make an informed decision whether to stay here or sell out and join his brother in Rome. I rather hope it’s the second, of course, what with the volcano and all,” I said as Nate and I headed to the theater-mask fountain. Xavier had asked us to fill a couple of jugs with water for our journey. Abigail and Kamal had gone down to the harbor with Sabina, and Helen had stayed behind to help Xavier ready everything. It was time to leave. The sun was just about at its highest point in the sky, meaning that we would face the full heat of the day, but none of us wanted to stay a minute longer under Faustilla’s hostile stare. We had buried the note addressed to Dr. May under the pear tree in the garden behind the shop. If it got to her in time, she would know to keep an eye out for us in the vicinity of the Roman Colosseum.

“Whatever he decides, it will be the same decision he would have made anyway, whether we came here or not. Right, Julia? Otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to say anything. I have to believe Secundus would have changed his mind about confronting Scaurus even if we hadn’t stopped him.”