chapter 40
Decca
“What are you doing out here? You know you can come on back.” Jeanette’s battle-hardened face flashed around the corner.
I didn’t want to be here. In Knoxville. Tainting a place I loved with my misery. Jeanette didn’t need me wasting her time with this pseudo-interview.
I was doing my part for Gus’s charade. Sitting in this plastic chair in this generic holding area, waiting for the right time to let the boss down easily.
As soon as I heard her voice, my throat tightened.
Why had I bothered to come all the way here? Did I really think he’d figure out he couldn’t live without me in the twenty-four hours I’d be gone?
Hot, angry tears pooled, despite my attempt to will them away. Just as one slipped down my cheek, I heard her groan.
“Oh, no.” She said it without any undue empathy.
Good. I didn’t want empathy. Jeanette’s frankness was part of what I loved about her, what had sent me running to her office years ago when Granny had died. She found meaning in work and instilled the same ethic and value in me.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” she gripped my elbow hard. She wasn’t big on touch, but when she gave in, it was meaningful and deliberate. There was a strength in her grip that conveyed the reluctant but sincere compassion that lurked within her.
I wasn’t sure what was wrong. Just that I shouldn’t be here.
“My father-in-law. He’s on hospice. He... doesn’t have long.” I didn’t lie, but Jim wasn’t why I was crying now.
She pulled me into her office. It wasn’t a typical university administrator’s office. But Jeanette wasn’t a typical admin. She was very active in the field, teaching classes and taking on grad assistants.
Sheets of paper stuck out from stacks of books. The books that were on the shelves weren’t placed vertically, they were haphazardly everywhere, as if each shelf was a dumping ground for journals, temporarily bound papers, service awards, and Tupperware containers from lunch. Posters from 90s-era Shakespeare in the Park festivals adorned the walls, faded with the sun from the window behind the desk. Muddy boots were piled in a corner.
Even Jeanette didn’t look like an admin. Her tangled hair fell to her mid-back. It was parted in the middle, curtaining her face, and gunmetal grey from the ear up. She wore a worn-out polo shirt with the FAC logo embroidered above the left breast, khaki cargo pants, and clean work boots. I’d never seen this woman dressed up in anything more than business casual, and that was for court appearances. Even then, it was cheap dress pants and an ill-fitting button-down. I didn’t know why I’d expected to see her in anything but what she wore today, but the dependability of her wardrobe was like wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. I drew strength from her weather-beaten face, her graying hair, her strikingly blue eyes and Virginia Woolf nose.
I kicked my feet into the chair with me. This wasn’t an interview. There was no need to be formal with Jeanette. She’d shown me how to collect blowfly larvae off my first bloated corpse, watching my face for signs of shock or lightheadedness. She’d cried with me when a grandmother had finally come through with an identification of the Baby Doe I’d exhumed from under a highway overpass.
“Do you want to talk about him?”
I shook my head. Just because she was tied to the dead, it didn’t make her capable of dealing with grief. Or any feelings-y business. I was a bit of an anomaly in that respect.
Then again, just because I’d been trained in helping others pass, it didn’t give me the skills to be able to deal with my own grief. Especially not the grief of potentially losing my marriage to a man who wouldn’t fight for it.
“Jim? There’s nothing to talk about. We made an end-of-life plan. I’m supposed to be there to help implement it.”
“I know you came all this way, but we can do this another time.”
I didn’t respond. We were both quiet for a while. A humorless huff escaped me as my eyes unfocused on the stack of papers on her desk. “My husband’s trying to push me away. He thinks this job means he doesn’t have to feel guilty anymore.”
“What is he guilty of?”
“Accepting what I offered him.”
She inhaled and blew out a long breath. She was aware of some of my situation, but she’d never been a true confidante. As my professor and mentor, I’d yearned for her admiration for my work, her respect as a future colleague; not her coddling of my emotional breakdowns.
But my mind was too busy oscillating between dullness and overstimulation to stop myself from vaguely catastrophizing my marriage in front of her.
Sometimes it helped to think the worst. To wallow in the negative. That way, reality couldn’t possibly screw me over.
Some witch I was, I couldn’t manifest shit.
“Do you want to talk about the job?”
“I’m withdrawing my application, Jeanette. I’m sorry for wasting your time. I know I gave you my C.V., and maybe it’s silly for me not to keep my options open.”
“Mm hmm.”
“I like working for the state. The government pay is less, obviously, than desired, but I’ve found ways to slip around and avoid the bureaucracy when I need to. Actually, I love it there. I have a great team. I still have good relationships with so many of you here, and you give me lab access and extra hands when I need them, plus you know I’ll always take on students when I can. I don’t want to be so far from Nashville anymore.”
She smiled. “Dr. Carter told me as much.”
“Chris? He’s the one who’s been pushing me to apply.”
“Maybe he has some guilt himself.” Jeanette pushed herself back in the chair and crossed her arms.
I looked up sharply.
“Can I be frank with you?” She shot me a look that I couldn’t interpret.
“You always are.”
“He’s exactly who we need.”
“Really?” I was stunned. “But… that’s great.”
She tilted her head. “I’ve only hinted to him so far, but my hints haven’t gone over well. It might take some convincing on your part. I know how close you two are. He hasn’t published nearly as much as you. No one has. But Chris has been prolific in his own way, dividing his teaching hours between here and the dental school. He can’t do everything I do, but the position doesn’t require getting your hands as dirty as mine.” She smiled.
“I just can’t seem to stay out of the woods. We’re the same, you and I. But moving forward, the program doesn’t need people like us. Carter’s confident with people in a way you and I aren’t.” She paused before continuing. “The program will be expanding in upcoming years. We’re bursting at the seams. Forensics needs…”
“Fundraising,” I said, the light dawning.
She nodded once. “Fundraising.”
“Oh, that’s so exciting. And that rules me out as a candidate, anyway. I’m so used to not having money, I can’t conceive of asking people to fork over theirs. Chris will be great. He’s got the right car and everything.”
No wonder he pushed me into this so hard. He wanted it, but he needed every reassurance he wasn’t taking the job away from me. “Does he know? What’s coming down the line?”
“No. I don’t think he would have put you up for it if he did. He knows how much you like field work.” She looked at my waist. “How much you hate wearing suits.”
Fair enough. My suit was fierce, but it was definitely not made for comfort. “I doubt it’s even occurred to him that he might be a better fit than you. He was… extremely hesitant to express any legitimate interest when I mentioned he should apply, though I could tell it was there. He clearly thinks this job is rightfully yours. Under normal circumstances, it would be.”
I nodded.
“It still can be. If you change your mind. Did you come here for me to try to persuade you? I didn’t disappoint you, did I?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m relieved. I came here to break the news to you gently. I stopped wanting to be you years ago. Now, I definitely don’t want to be you.”
“I thought as much. You know you’re always welcome here. No matter who the director is. Though, if it’s Carter, he’ll probably build you a goddamn lab of your own.”
I didn’t think I’d be so emotional, turning down a job I didn’t want.
It was nostalgic, being here in this capacity. As faculty. I hadn’t taught here since my fellowship, and I’d loved every minute of time spent on this campus. It was like coming home.
And packing it up.
The memories flooded out of me, the cases. Everleigh Lundy, whose face I’ll never not see when I close my eyes. Or Joseph Bolton, the first time I’d dated remains so inaccurately it would have led police on a wild goose chase, if Jeanette hadn’t kept the pressure on me to remain skeptical to the end.
Turning down a directorship was also a huge power move. It was freeing to be finally rid of a dream I’d had for so long. After I’d met Gus, that dream had become a burden. Now that the strings were cut, I was floating.
It was flattering to be considered. I was young for the position. From what Jeanette had told me, it was clear they wanted someone long-term. To build a new facility and age alongside the building. They’d want to hang a pretty oil portrait next to the one of Dr. William Bass—a tiny brass plaque hanging underneath with their name and contribution to the University of Tennessee.
I laughed. A hearty, full-bellied one racked through me. I’d never want my picture on a wall.
Part of me had kept an open mind. But that was just youthful egotism.
Now the chains were off. I was free to go back home. To my husband. Take a look at our skeleton again and see how many of the two-hundred-six bones we have left to discover.
Something worse came only a few hours after that.