“I didn’t want to do any of this.”Pamela’s voice cracked slightly.“You have to understand that.I just wanted Margaret to stop.For her to leave me alone.I didn’t want her to publish those lies about me.”
The betrayal in academic circles that Margaret’s memoir had been referencing.
“What lies?”Sam asked carefully, still backing away.
Pamela’s laugh was bitter.“In her memoir.She was writing about our time at the university together.We were both graduate students, working on our dissertations in Victorian literature.I was finishing my PhD.Margaret was further along.We’d discuss our research over coffee and share ideas the way colleagues do.I thought she was helping me.”
“So this was some time ago.How was Margaret back then?Was she just as difficult?”All Sam could think about was buying time.
“Margaret was actually pretty fun back then.She was super smart and I loved getting her perspective.But when she published, it was my framework.”
Sam asked, “She’d stolen your work?”
Pamela nodded.“It was my analysis of how Victorian women writers subverted narratives through domestic fiction.When I confronted Margaret, she claimed I’d stolen fromher.Can you imagine?”
“Did you tell the English department chair what happened?”
Pamela said, “Of course I did.They investigated and sided with her.Naturally.She’d ingratiated herself with the entire department while I’d been focused on my research.I was a nobody, just an assistant professor who’d never published anything significant.”Pamela’s hands shook.“They suggested I quietly resign before my tenure review.They said it would be better for everyone.So I left academia entirely and became a librarian.I had to rebuild my whole life from nothing.”
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Pamela’s eyes filled with tears.“Margaret destroyed my entire future.And she was going to do it again with her memoir.She said the publisher wanted it by spring.I had maybe four months.”Her voice rose.“She was going to call me a liar in her memoir.Margaret would paint herself as the victim when she was the one who stole from me.”
Sam’s mind was racing, pieces clicking into place.Not just the memoir, but themethod.She said, “At the book club, the first meeting I went to, Margaret talked about the previous month’s book.It wasThe Cardiac Protocol, I think.She mentioned she was on three different heart medications.”Sam’s voice was steady now, certain.“You knew that.”
Pamela shrugged.“She told everyone at that book club meeting.Margaret loved being the expert on everything, even her own medical conditions.”
“I’ve been reading the next month’s selection.Middlemarch.”It sounded absurd, even as she spoke the words.“The book Margaret chose.There’s this character, Bulstrode.He’s built this respectable life, but it’s all constructed on top of buried secrets from his past.And then someone threatens to expose his past and destroy the reputation he’s spent decades building.”
“Stop,” Pamela whispered.
“Bulstrode can’t let it happen.The threat of exposure, of having everyone know what really happened twenty years ago, was horrifying to him.”Sam took a deep breath.“You couldn’t let Margaret make those lies permanent, in her memoir.You’d already rebuilt your whole life once before.”
“She was going to publish it,” Pamela said, her voice breaking.“Everyone would read Margaret’s version of events.Those lies about me plagiarizingherwork when she was the one who stole from me.”She stopped.“I spent twenty years being the bigger person.I couldn’t let her make those lies permanent.”
“So you put blood thinner in her coffee.You knew, from what Margaret had said, that it would interact with her heart medication.”
Pamela’s eyes filled with tears.“I didn’t want to hurt anyone.I just wanted her to stop.”
Sam thought about Bulstrode, how George Eliot had shown the way one desperate act led to another, how trying to protect a secret could destroy everything.
“I can only imagine how hurt you must have been by what Margaret did to you.And how you must have felt when she stole your work.”
Pamela’s laugh was bitter.“Hurt?I was completely erased.Everything I’d worked for was gone.And she got tenure, the publication, and all the respect.She built her whole career on my research.”She wiped angrily at her eyes.“But I never meant for Gerald to get hurt.Never.I didn’t know he’d seen me.I panicked.”
Sam’s back hit a bookshelf.She’d unconsciously been retreating and now was near the history section, halfway between the front and back of the shop.“Pamela, it’s not too late to talk with the authorities about this.It’s better that way.”
“Not too late?”Pamela’s voice sharpened.“I’ve killed two people, Sam.There’s no coming back from that.”Her gaze focused on Sam with sudden intensity.“Have you told anyone?Really, I need to know.Have you talked to the police?”
Sam tried to answer, but when she opened her mouth, no sound emerged.
Pamela closed her eyes briefly.When she opened them, something had changed.It was a hardening, as if she’d made a decision.She moved toward the counter near the register, where Charlotte kept supplies for opening boxes and processing new inventory.
Sam saw Pamela’s hand close around a heavy brass bookend shaped like an owl.She remembered it was part of a pair Charlotte used to display new releases in the front window.
“I’m sorry,” Pamela said, her voice breaking.“I’m so sorry, Sam.You seem like a genuinely good person.But I can’t go to prison and have everyone know what I’ve done.Margaret’s already taken so much from me.I’m not going to have her take my freedom, too.”
