Document of Expectations

Tuesday night

185 tuesDaY niGHt the night of the verdict, the newly appointed department chair, Ben rogers , and his wife marge dined in the tanglewood country club’s “cork room.” the dining room was so named because the ceiling and walls were covered in brown cork. marge was dressed elegantly and smoothed her outfit continually to make sure it made the right impression on the other golfing diners. “to us,” Ben said as he raised his glass. they were on their second bottle of wine. marge appeared puzzled. it wasn’t their anniversary. “i’m happy for you, dear. You’ve always wanted to be chair.” “for fifteen years,” he agreed. “You deserve what you finally got,” she said. “How’s your back today?” “still sore sometimes.” “it’s been months. You fell pretty hard. You should watch the trail more carefully when you hike.” “Yes, i should. But i was trying to get a picture of the deer and i forgot how easy it is to slip on those little rocks. too excited, i guess.” “Well, now you’re the chairman of the department. and a big raise. maybe cheesecake tonight?” “Honestly, i didn’t think they’d ignore me like they have.” “those people you work with? they overlooked a lot of qualified faculty. You’re not the only one they ignored.” “no, i mean i was ignored in the investigation. the murder. roxanne’s attack.” “Well, of course. You didn’t have anything to do with those things.” she sipped her white Zinfandel, set down the glass, and smoothed the napkin over her lap. Ben swallowed the last of his wine, then laughed. He leaned forward slightly and said in a low tone, “margie, i planned them.” “What?” “Well, me and a certain lady made most of the plans, and the others did what we told them to do,” said Ben, looking coy. He grinned big, his capped teeth dazzling against his golf tan. 186 “You murdered tony smoke rise?” “i didn’t say that.” “You attacked roxanne?” He shrugged. “thought it would work. she was too quick.” marge sat up straight. Her long silver earrings swayed back and forth with the motion. she gave her husband a look he hadn’t seen before. “What’s with you?” he asked, then cut a chunk of the sirloin and dipped it in steak sauce. “i had to protect myself.” His smile dropped. “that stupid clipper. unreliable. i thought he was going tell someone about what we were up to at the dig. so i rigged a little surprise for him in his garage. or i should say, Leo rigged it.” “Leo put that rope in his garage?” “Yeah. He also wanted to climb the wall that night, but ross made him flip for it.” “flip a coin to see who’d kill tony?” marge looked stunned. “and roxanne. if she had found out about the extent of what we located, she’d have swarms of indians down here. she can be a bulldog bitch, marge.” rogers leaned over the table and spoke softly. “tony stole the best artifacts . Look, he found out about the dig and it was only a matter of time before he told roxanne. so we paid him to advise us, but it also was enough to keep him quiet. then that twerp took what would’ve been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.” “tony did? He took the artifacts?” “You think he was a saint? Hell yes he took them. He took, i don’t know, a dozen skeletons. Hundreds of artifacts. He snuck in at night and stole them from us.” “How do you know he was going to sell those things? What if he was keeping them from you so he could return them?” “return them to who? an extinct tribe?” “that’s not what happened, Ben. the papers said that montana tribe offered to rebury the remains. and, according to the papers, there were quite a few other tribes willing to take them. that was the decent thing to do.” 187 rogers tapped his knife on his plate and ran his tongue over his teeth. a piece of steak was lodged between his veneers. marge stared at her husband. “i’m going to tell the police what you did.” “i don’t think so. i won’t be able to buy you nice shoes from prison, margie . i got two boxes...