The Missing Professor— Episode Five

𝗔𝗿𝗸𝗵𝗮𝗺, 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗰𝗵𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘁𝘀 𝟭𝟵𝟯𝟴

Lucy didn’t like universities.

Too quiet.

Too polite.

Too many people pretending the world outside their stone walls didn’t exist.

Miskatonic sat grey and self-important under a low October sky.

Students hurried across the quad clutching books like shields. Faculty moved slower, as if time worked differently for them.

Lucy Grant moved through it all like a rumor.

She didn’t flash a badge. Didn’t need one. A confident stride and a notepad did more good than authority most days.

The secretary at the linguistics office barely looked up. Either a case of the early afternoon drowsies, or she wasn’t interested in visitors at the moment.

Maude was the name on the placard.

Lucy cleared her throat.

“Yes?”

“I’m writing a profile piece,” Lucy said smoothly. “Professor Reed. Human interest angle. I was told he’s on leave?”

“That’s right.”

“Shame. I was hoping to catch him before he left town.”

The woman hesitated.

Lucy saw it.

Line cast.

“What is it, Maude?” she asked, loading her voice with as much empathy as she could.

“I’m sorry. I really can’t say Miss.” She might be tougher than she looked.

“Oh, I understand Maude. You have to protect the staff and the university.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said. Lucy could see her wringing her hands behind the desk.

She turned to leave, then hesitated.

“It’s just that... well, this piece was supposed to come out in the paper a week ago, and my editor is furious with me. Isn’t there... anything you could tell me? You

know, to get him off my back until the Professor returns.”

“I...”

“Anything. Anything at all. I won’t name you in the story. I swear.”

Maude looked down at her lap. She looked like she was arguing with herself.

“My name won’t come up?”

“You have my word. Oh, Maude, I really could use your help.”

Hook set.

She leaned forward, dropped her voice to barely a whisper. “I... I don’t think he’s on vacation,” Maude said, removing the thick glasses and looking Lucy in the eye.

Lucy put on her best concerned look.

“Oh?”

“He’d been meeting with someone.” She leaned forward. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “A gentleman. Several times over the past few weeks.”

“What kind of gentleman?”

Maude flipped back a few pages in the logbook and looked up when someone walked toward them. Lucy looked at the pages as quickly as she could before Maude closed the book and smiled at the passerby. Upside down or not, she knew how to read a name. Only one repeated across three different dates.

“I’m sorry. This was a mistake,” she said. “I...”

“Maude, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot to save my own skin.”

“What’s your name dear?”

“Lucy. You, know Maude, I have an idea. Maybe you don’t have to tell me a name. Just what made you think he wasn’t on vacation.”

“Oh, well, okay, then. The man was always polite. Well-dressed. Handsome, too.”

Maude’s cheeks colored slightly. “The sort of man people notice when he walks into a room.”

Lucy opened her notebook. “You remember him clearly.”

“Of course.” Maude said, then seemed embarrassed by her own answer. Lucy gave her a sly grin.

“What was he doing here?”

“Waiting. Mostly. Sometimes they’d talk in Reed’s office. Sometimes they’d walk the grounds. The last time I saw Professor Reed, I saw them arguing.”

Lucy’s pencil moved fast.

“Arguing about what?”

“I couldn’t hear. But Professor Reed looked… frightened. That’s the only word for it.”

Lucy snapped her notebook shut.

“Thank you Maude. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Of course, Miss Lucy. You come back any time sweetie.”

Maude was a storehouse of knowledge locked behind a door of fear.

Outside, the wind had teeth.

She stood at the top of the steps for a long moment thinking.

She wrote a name in her notebook. Everette Carlisle. The only one that was repeated in the logbook.

Then she walked.

It took less than an hour and the price of a telephone call to a county clerk who owed her a kindness to put flesh on the name.

According to her contact, Everett Carlisle was a wealthy industrialist. Former military.

Known to keep company with certain Arkham businessmen whose reputations never quite made it into print.

Known also to spend an uncomfortable amount of time at a place called Ebonwood Lodge.

Bingo.

She’d heard of Ebonwood.

Everyone in the right circles had.

Old money.

New power.

Private gatherings.

Political influence.

And rumors.

___________________________________________________

She found Jackson near his office, leaning against a lamppost, he looked awkward. A perpetual grimace painted on his face.

“Jesus,” she said. “You’re still vertical.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

He looked more cadaverous the longer the day went. Yet, somehow, still standing.

Lucy lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out the side of her mouth, away from him.

“I found your man. One of them, at least,” she said, picking a fleck of tobacco from her lip.

Jackson’s good eye sharpened.

“Name.”

“Everett Carlisle. Big money. Bigger friends. Ex-military. Been sniffing around Reed for weeks.”

“Why?”

“That’s the question.”

Jackson pushed himself off the lamppost with a lot more effort than it should’ve taken. He kept a hand on it for good measure.

“And there’s more. He’s connected to Ebonwood Lodge. You know it?”

Lucy watched him over the glow of her cigarette, waiting to see if the name hit him as hard as it had hit her.

Jackson nodded. “The building from the clipping.”

“Yes. And Jackson… listen to me. Ebonwood’s bad weather. Men like Hyde don’t get through the door unless somebody inside needs a mess cleaned up.”

Jackson said nothing.

“They don’t buy patrolmen. They buy the men who appoint them. Judges. Senators. Governors when the occasion calls for it.”

She dropped the cigarette onto the sidewalk and ground it out with the toe of her pointy, black dress shoe.

“You don’t investigate men like that. You survive knowing their names.”

The words sat between them, fangs bared.

“I’m sorry, Jackson. She means something to you huh?”

He stared past her toward the fogged river.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Guess she does.”

____________________________________________________

Less than an hour later evening had settled in. Damp cold rolled in off the river. The kind that crept under doors and made your feet ache.

Jackson had brought a pair of oyster po’boys for Darla and Cody. And a bottle of milk to settle his stomach from his diet of codeine. His jaw took the appetite out of him.

No symbols.

No crazy.

For a few minutes, the world felt almost normal.

He hadn’t realized how much he needed that.

But the world had a way of barging in when you let your guard down, even for a moment.

Jackson stood near the window, hands in his coat pockets, shoulders stiff.

“Darla… I can’t just go in there shooting,” he said. “Ebonwood isn’t some dockside gin joint. That place, those people, make Hyde look like a housecat. I’ll keep digging, but if Reed’s tangled up with men like Carlisle…”

He tried to let the thought die.

Darla looked at Cody. Her shoulders low.

Cody still sat at the table, staring at a piece of oyster that seemed to have offended him. He picked up the morsel and began tracing shapes in the air. His nose scrunched.

“Of course, Jackson. I understand.” She sighed as she stared at the man who had replaced her brother.

Cody glanced to the side and raised the glove to his mouth, intent on removing it.

“Don’t,” Darla said sharply.

He froze. Then placed the oyster on his plate and lowered both hands into his lap like a scolded child.

“They’re white,” he murmured. “White and they don’t like…”

His voice trailed to nothing.

Darla turned back to Jackson.

“He’s in trouble,” she said. “Professor Reed is the only man I know who might understand what’s happening to Cody. I can’t just sit and wait while something happens to him.”

Jackson studied her.

There was steel there now. Fear still— but tempered.

“Ebonwood is dangerous,” he said quietly.

“So are we,” she said, and immediately looked as though the words had surprised her as much as him.

There was a glimpse of the steel he’d seen when they’d first met.

“Just what does that mean?”

“It means…” She exhaled. “Never mind. You need rest. You can take the couch again if you want. But I won’t be responsible if Cody decides to decorate your face again.”

She laughed — tired, cracked — but real.

“God, you were furious.”

“Yeah,” Jackson said. “Still am, a little.”

He shifted, winced. Just standing and talking made him feel out of breath. The bandage had to be too tight.

“I better head home. Try to sleep in an actual bed.”

“Get some rest,” she said.

“Darla, you know I wish I could just walk into Ebonwood, grab Carlisle by the collar, and drag him out into the street. But I wouldn’t make it twenty steps in there. Not like this.”

Cody spoke again; eyes fixed on nothing.

“They hate dirt,” he whispered. “White as snow...”

The words settled over the room, chilling it instantly.

The DeSoto growled through the dark as he drove home. Fog curled low along the streets. Arkham looked like it was trying to hide from itself.

One thought wouldn’t leave him alone.

I remember when you died.

Cody had said it so plainly.

Like it was a fact. He wasn't sure if he should be scared, or ignore him.

Now another piece of the puzzle rattled around in his skull. He dug into his coat pocket and fished out the clipping of Reed at Ebonwood. He flattened it against the steering wheel as best he could.

Professor Reed stared stiffly out from the photograph.

Around him stood men in white dinner jackets.

White as snow...

Cody had never seen the picture.

Thanks for tuning in again for more adventures with Jackson and Darla. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s episode. Please like and share if you find some enjoyment. Mike.