LITMIR.BIZ

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nerves were churning and I didn’t have the energy to think even about a glass of water. “Have you been listening to the TV news? I imagined you were tearing around town after witnesses.”

      “I took a dinner break,” he said. “At O’Bal’s. They have six TV’s, all of them on different news stations.”

      “I’ve been watching. They’re talking a lot but saying very little. Do they know anything they’re not sharing with the public?” I asked. “I mean…I know what they say they know. But causes? Three women in one day? Three separate women, all…they didn’t happen at the same time, did they?”

      He shook his head no. “Very close in time however.”

      “How close?” I asked. “The news doesn’t give many details.”

      “I came to ask you questions,” he said.

      “The mayor said stay indoors. What does that mean? Do the police think there is a menace wandering our town setting women on fire?”

      “Tell you what. I will ask you the questions. After I’m done, you can ask me anything you want. I will answer as best I can. But I’m a reporter, not a fire inspector or detective.”

      “Fine,” I said. “Sorry to make you feel like I’m interrogating you. But I was so close. Why her and not me? It could have been me. She was maybe ten feet behind me, if that.”

      He started to jot down notes. “You really are rattled.”

      “Wouldn’t you be?” I asked. “Cindy Barrow was a friend. You just told me a friend of mine is dead. I haven’t quite taken that in yet.”

      His hands went still on his notepad. He pushed his glasses up his nose again. “She was? I am very sorry.”

      He took out a tissue and wiped his glasses clean. I watched his hands. He wore a ring with a familiar symbol over the stone. I leaned forward. “Where did you get that?”

      “My ring?”

      I stuck out my hand. “Me too.” My college ring was gold plated and the stone was a ruby. Over the stone, where summa cum laude or magna cum laude symbols are added for those smart enough to earn those distinctions, my ring carried an unusual insignia, a lyre. Professor Fields had awarded me this honor in secret, telling me to reveal to nobody the significance of the symbol on the ring he wore, which, he said I too would receive in the mail if I accepted the honor.

      “Amazing.”

      “Yes. I haven’t met another member ever.”

      “You studied?”

      “Geology. Archaeology. Anthropology.”

      “Journalism and history,” he said.

      “Yes,” I smiled. “That makes sense.”

      “Where did you earn the ring?”

      “At Sheffield University. England.”

      He stuck his thumb toward his chest. “College of New Jersey.”

      I laughed. “Really? I had no idea there was representation here.”

      “The Fraternity for Contemplative Research.” He said it with reverence.

      “Yes. For subjects outside the parameters of acceptable academic questioning.”

      He laughed. He said, “Shut out of academia for veering off in directions deviating from the path of scholarly acceptance.”

      “A consolation prize, of sorts.” I smiled a rueful smile. “Dubious honor, huh? What did you do to piss them off?”

      He leaned back in his chair. He let his pen rest on the steno pad. He took off his glasses and rubbed at them. I rocked in my chair. This was so very strange. I’d nearly forgotten my initiation into this fraternity at Sheffield. Dr. Fields, my mentor, my advisor, the man who encouraged my work, had bestowed the honor upon me on the day the university accepted my Masters’ thesis but did not admit me to the doctoral program. I rocked my chair, waiting for this Doug person, whose card said, ‘Investigative Reporter’ to tell me what his great failure was back in his day.

      “I would rather not say,” he said. “It is part of membership to not reveal it.”

      “So you are a reporter,” I said.

      “Yes. And you?”

      “I work part-time at the Newark Museum and I’m raising my kids.”

      I couldn’t help seeing it, a tiny drop in the muscles around his eyes, a sign that I was more disappointing than he might have anticipated. But, of course, I was buoyed by a sense of connection and it somehow made me feel safer. I had never seen the ring on anyone, not at Sheffield or in India or here in Hillston where it seemed everyone was actively and enthusiastically employed by the mainstream. For all I knew, since Dr. Fields bestowed the ring upon me, I was in a fraternity of one, or maybe two since Fields himself was a secret member who must have redeemed himself somewhere along the way since he was a member in good standing in the academy. I would keep my secret and Doug would keep his, but the commonality of the ring and the cloud of mystery around where and what he might have explored as a student was not lost on me.

      “So shall we get on with what I came for?”

      I nodded. I trusted his judgment and trusted that his write-up of whatever was said here would be accurate and honest, all because he wore the ring. Doug stayed for an hour. During that one hour, he learned about what I witnessed that morning. He learned that Cindy had been my friend and how we fell apart. He also let me tell him about our mom’s group and how I turned my interest in the poor women of Bangalore back in my anthropologist days into a self-help group for Hillston women. That had been the start of Cindy’s and my friendship, our sisterhood in spirit, after my own real sisters seemed to hardly notice I was back in town.

      I shared with him the history of my work in England, archaeology, and how, when I went to Bangalore, I diverted my attention from studying the past toward analysis of modern cultures juxtaposed onto the remnants of traditional ones. Bangalore had been the perfect place for that. Then, coming home, the museum was the only place I could find where I could use what I knew about prehistory and culture and still focus on raising my family. As I explained myself to him, I felt the desperation to gain a level of respect that I had long ago stopped experiencing and for which the old boxes of field notes up in my attic were such a catalyst for restlessness.

      I knew I was talking too much, yet he was patient, polite and seemed genuinely interested. While he listened, the phone rang twice and I half listened as the muffled voices of Bruce and Pete left messages, the contents of which I could not give my attention. With Doug here, my need for Pete was receding.

      Finally, Doug stood. But I said, “Uh-uh, now it’s my turn to ask questions, remember?”

      He sat back down. “Yes,” he said.

      “What are you going to write?”

      He stared down at his pad. “I don’t know. I still need to check in again with the Hillston police and fire department. They are sure to make another statement before today is over.”

      “So which witnesses did you speak to? I gather nobody was able to say anything that was helpful. I imagine they – whoever they were – were like me, mystified.”

      “Pretty much,” he said.

      “Did they say their clothes burned?”

      “Actually, I didn’t ask.”

      “Well, you should.”

      “Really?”

      “I told you that I watched her burn and her clothes dropped to the floor, the ground, and were entirely undamaged.”

      “Yes, you did. I have that in my notes.”

      “I also said her rings dropped to the ground. Perfectly intact. And her purse…and the coffee

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