by Kate Flora
My first other business was to find myself a place to stay. It was clear we weren't going to get everything done tonight, especially not with Trish having to spend time with the police. I checked my mail and found that Magda, on top of things as always, had booked me a room at a nearby inn. I could remember a time when I thought staying at inns and B&Bs was exciting. Now I just hope the bed won't be lumpy, the lamps will have bulbs that are bright enough to read by, and that there will be a desk. I also have a fondness for reliable hot water, which is sometimes hard to come by, and a decent breakfast.
I checked my texts to see if there were any updates from Andre. Something sweet like "please return to bed and board all is forgiven" would have been nice. Or even a simply "sorry." No such luck. Just a terse "Roland delayed 'til morning please snap photos of jewelry and send to me ASAP" followed about five minutes later by "and the photos." Yessiree bob, I lived but to serve. I would grumble, but I would do it, even though I knew photos of blurry photos would be next to useless.
Taking those pictures meant going out to the car. It was dark now, and I have developed a reality-based aversion to dark private school campuses. I hoped the parking lot was well lit.
Grabbing my coat, I went out. The lot was not well lit, and even though I had no reason to fear for my safety here, the chill and eerie fog sent little fingers of fear creeping up my neck. I hesitated on the steps and gave myself a pep talk about having nothing to fear, then bustled across the lot to where my car now sat by itself in the dark back row.
I'd left Ginger's envelope in the back. I quickly unlocked the door and reached in to unearth it from the stuff I'd piled on top of it. Behind me, in the quiet night, I heard footsteps. I froze, holding my breath, a perfect target here, bent over and illuminated by the interior lights. As the steps came closer, I stuck my hand in my pocket, feeling for my pepper spray.
"Evening, ma'am," a deep male voice said. "Everything okay here?"
Campus security. My breathing resumed as relief flowed through me. "Yes. Fine. Just grabbing something from my car."
"Have a good evening," floated back as the footsteps moved away.
I grabbed the envelope and hurried inside. What had I been expecting? That Dr. Harrington would suddenly appear out of the night, bent on revenge? But I had been expecting something. It wasn't just my experiential paranoia. It was a thread of lingering doubt about what Trish had told me. A subject we hadn't adequately explored.
When she returned from her meeting with the detectives, probing her concerns about him would be the first thing on our agenda.
Chapter 24
Ever the good little doobie, I dumped my coat over a chair, spread out Ginger's materials, and did my best to take useful photographs which I sent along to Andre. Maybe he'd learned something that would make their relevance clearer. He had information that Randy was a thief. Perhaps the jewelry would confirm it. Be a lever to get a confession. Maybe he'd even get some clues to Ginger's identity. I figured he could definitely do something with that partial license plate.
Even though photos might be too small to be useful, I also took pictures of the locket and the pictures of Ginger and the little girl. I thought the locket was an important clue—something that linked Ginger to an earlier time. Tomorrow, it would be in Roland's hands and the police could figure out its significance.
But I am not someone who can leave things alone. I blame it on all the people who've called on me for help, then tried to keep things hidden and unsaid. They've made me into someone who digs in and asks hard questions. I'm not so much nosy as simply doing my job. Tonight, tucked up in my room at the inn, I would take that locket apart and see if there was anything more to learn. It was probably going to destroy evidence or fingerprints or somehow make Andre even angrier. But this was my problem, too. Ginger had sent me this stuff because she needed my help. I hadn't saved her but maybe I could still help get her justice. Andre might disagree that I had any special talents, especially now, when he was angry, but maybe there was something I would see that he might not.
I put everything back in the envelope, stuffed it in my briefcase, and started through the rest of my messages. An ominous one from Suzanne that simply said, "Call me." Two words, but they carried the weight of doom.
She answered on the first ring.
"It's Thea. What's up?"
"My doctor says bed rest is supposed to mean bed. And rest. Not doing a day's work from a horizontal position. He thinks I'm too stressed." A pause, as bedding rustled. "I am going to lose my mind."
"It's only a few weeks, Suzanne. Watch some television. Read chick lit. Get Paul to paint your toes some luscious color."
"Humbug," she said.
"What's really the matter?"
"I feel like everything is falling apart. Our clients are impossible. Lisa wants to work less. Bobby is feeling stressed and thinks he needs a vacation, though we both know that's Quinn talking, not Bobby. You do need a vacation and I'm about to have a baby."
"You won't believe this," I said, "but everything will work out."
"Work out how?" She was almost yelling. "Let the business tank and then we won't have to worry about all this?"
"Stafford is back on track. Bobby finally has the data to finish that report. Things are going well here at Blackwell. We can get another part-timer to take the pressure off Lisa and Bobby. And having a baby is a good thing."
"You sound like a damned Pollyanna."
Right. Because my life was all sweetness and light. I'd been in the middle of gruesome murder scene. I'd been assaulted by a bad guy and nearly hit by an ambulance and was bruised from head to toe. My husband wasn't speaking to me. I suspected my client was holding out on me and we were about to have a heavy 'tell me the whole truth' conversation, and I was having a hard time seeing silver linings myself. But Suzanne was supposed to be staying calm and I needed to help with that.
"Too true. I'm such a ridiculous optimist, as you well know. And my life has been so charmed it's hard for me to imagine that anything could ever go wrong."
There was silence on her end. Finally she said, "Sorry. I'm being an idiot, aren't it?"
"Just temporarily losing your perspective. I can't imagine bed rest."
"Neither can I. Paul threatened to borrow Andre's handcuffs and fasten me here."
It was a laugh out loud image, neat and dainty Suzanne, cuffed to her bed in her feminine pink pajamas. I didn't think she found it funny.
"I know you're doing your best," I said.
She muttered an unconvincing "Yeah."
"Let Magda do more. She'll do anything for you. You know that."
"I do. It's more a matter of control. I'm not so good at delegating."
"Who is? You don't build a business, especially one based on your own talent and credibility, by doing a lot of delegating." I hoped she was listening. "And it's only for a few weeks."
"Like you are a model of patience and self-control," she grumbled.
She had me there. "I should be done here tomorrow. I'll come back. We'll talk. We'll make a plan."
"Okay." She sounded like a sulky child, but I understood. She was sulking about the fact that her body had betrayed her right into bed and she hated it when there wasn't a way to improve a situation. Like me, Suzanne was a fixer. A control freak. The hardest thing in the world for her was a situation she couldn't manage.
"I'll call you tomorrow. Meanwhile, don't do anything to make Paul pull out those handcuffs. Think about your sweet little girl. Nuzzling her yummy downy soft newborn head. Those darling pink outfits. Her precious, perfect fingers and toes." My stomach clenched. I wanted that so badly for myself.
"I'll try."
It was all I could ask.
I moved on down through my messages, making notes as I went of what needed a prompt response and what could wait. Sent a long e-mail to Bobby. Another one to Lisa. I would have preferred conversations, but they deserved some hours of the day when they didn't have to concentrate on busin
ess, and tomorrow morning I expected to be very busy here. I sent some advice to a school that had a planning question.
The building grew silent and empty around me and Trish still hadn't reappeared. Strange, empty places at night are kind of creepy, so I immersed myself in work to stave off anxiety. I was Thea the Great and Terrible. Nothing was supposed to scare me. Not wind around the building or mysterious creaks or the fact that I was in a situation I didn't fully understand. I don't like uncertainty.
I worked my way through my email queue, mostly deleting the junk that had accumulated. Ignoring the ads that promised to find me the perfect wardrobe and shoes I needed, and the lover I didn't, as well as the delicious recipes for dinner tonight, a cruel tease for someone who doesn't have time to cook, whose last two dinners had been fast food courtesy of the Maine State Police. Why did this thing designed to help us stay connected have to be such a turnoff?
In the midst of my frenzy of deletion, I almost missed a message from Jasper Cope. It had the terseness of a text, of someone tying things up before disappearing, as his words made clear. Thanks for yr note. Luv that pic, too. Off in an hour to Kenya. Without e-mail ten days. Girl's name Penelope. Nickname Pen or Penny. I forget her last name. JC
I forwarded the message to Andre. Maybe he could send Roland down to Stafford to look at old yearbooks. Or go himself to have another opportunity to avoid me.
My chores done, I spent a productive half hour ordering my grouchy husband some new clothes, and wishing I didn't have to try things on. At least one of us would be decently dressed. I did get myself some new boots and a pair of rather sexy, strappy sandals. If we went on vacation, new sandals would be nice.
* * *
Just as I'd decided to quit for the night, Trish bustled in, looking like she'd been gnawed on. Spending time with the police will do that to you. Heck, even talking to some cops on the phone can do it.
She grabbed a sandwich and dropped into her chair. "I'm exhausted," she said. "Dealing with that detective has just about done me in."
"What did he want?"
"My soul, I think. Something I can't understand—why can't the police treat us like the well-intentioned and decent people that we are instead of likely suspects?"
I knew just how she felt, and that she wanted to vent, but what I needed right now was to be brought up to date. "Seriously."
She sighed and pushed her hair behind her ears. "Seriously? He wanted me to look at an endless succession of horrible pictures to see if I recognized anyone. The Dean of Students, who has been here for decades, a science teacher who was a close friend of the departed Dr. Harrington, and I got to spend the last two plus hours looking at things that make me want to jump in the shower and stay there for the rest of my life. And he wants us to do more of that tomorrow morning."
She took a breath. "I had no idea that people did... that there were... it's just. I mean, I don't think I'm naïve, Thea, but I don't see how anyone could take pleasure in looking at pictures like those. The very thought that Charles Harrington was sitting right here on my campus, surrounded by the students who've been entrusted to our care, and doing that, is sickening. It's... it's beyond sickening."
She'd finished her sandwich and now stared blankly at her empty plate. I gave her another sandwich and she started eating. She seemed so upset I figured I'd better walk her through this, so I asked the critical question. "Did any of you recognize current or former students in the pictures?"
Her silence went on so long I was expecting the worst. Finally she sighed and said, "No."
"But?" Because there was definitely a 'but' there. Someone had recognized something.
"But the science teacher, Ruven Lanport, did recognize one of the boys. It's from a while back. At least ten years ago. A local boy who used to play with one of Ruven's sons." She shook her head. "Never mind the students, I think Ruven is going to need some crisis counseling himself. He's devastated, thinking he unwittingly exposed the boy to this." She stared down at her clenched fists. "And wondering if there are other pictures we haven't seen. Pictures of his own son. He and Harrington were close."
Another hesitation. "There are evidently a lot more pictures that we haven't seen yet."
I was thinking about the boy Lanport had recognized. Maybe Harrington had carefully kept his predation out of his own community. Not an uncommon strategy. Prey on the locals, but not the boys at his own school. It was such a classist kind of manipulation, along with all the other things that were wrong with it. As though children who didn't belong to his exclusive circle were fair game.
"All young boys," she said. "And oh my God, Thea. The pictures."
She didn't just look stunned, she looked ill. Made physically ill by what she'd been forced to watch. She probably needed a tumbler of Scotch and a hot bath. But crises don't go on hold while the people in charge get themselves under control. Life isn't like that.
I moved on to what seemed like the most immediate issue on our agenda. "We'd better brace ourselves for Mrs. Hoover's... I mean, Mrs. Savage's arrival, which looks like it has been delayed until morning. Sometimes fog can be your friend." She almost smiled at that. "So, anticipating that her focus may be on finding a way to blame Blackwell School for trauma to her son, do you have any idea how much of this he saw before he confiscated Dr. Harrington's computer?"
"Very little," she said. "Tommy told me that he'd seen one or two pictures and observed that there were many more. He was concentrating on how he was going to get out of there with the computer, not on exploring further. He said he figured that was a job for the police. Actually..." Despite her distress, this time Trish did smile. "He was pretty proud of himself for his ruse and said he'd enjoyed playing detective."
"That's good news."
"We hope."
"He said this to the police, as well as to you?"
"He did. If this thing has any bright side, it's that Tommy, who's kind of a geeky kid, has achieved a kind of hero status on the campus. Suddenly, despite their distress about Dr. Harrington, they're noticing that having some tech savvy can be a pretty interesting thing. But..."
I sensed she was about to change the subject, but we weren't done with Tommy yet, so I walked her through my questions. Had his father also been notified? Yes. How had he reacted? With indifference. And they weren't expecting him to show up? No. Had Tommy been offered counseling? Yes, but he hadn't thought he needed it. So far, so good.
I had the manuals but hadn't looked at them yet. A job for when I got to the inn. It looked like sleep was nowhere on my horizon.
She stared out the dark window like there was something to see, absently reducing her half-eaten sandwich to a pile of crumbs. "I've tried to be so careful, Thea. I don't know what else I could have done."
More staring and silence. If I was reading her correctly, she was wrestling with something she wanted to tell me, and couldn't figure out how to say it. I gave her some space, hoping she'd reach a decision soon, share the information, the two of us could outline tomorrow's work, and we could get some sleep.
The silence went on for what felt like a very long time.
"Charles Harrington," she said. And stopped. "Dr. Harrington. His public persona is all avuncular charm and good feeling. The beloved professor who loves teaching and loves his boys. And that's not really who he is."
Chapter 25
Unable to keep Ginger and her secret identity out of my thoughts, I asked, "What do you mean? You mean that's not really his name?"
"It's not that. I mean the lovable, avuncular professor—that's not really his nature. When I say 'public persona' I mean the face he put on for the world. And, to some extent, for his fellow faculty. But I've had some run-ins where I've seen a very different side of him."
Yesterday she'd told me that she hadn't investigated him despite a suggestion that he needed looking into because he was such a respected and beloved faculty member. Was she now telling me something different? Was she saying she had knowledge that he posed
some kind of threat to the community that she had chosen to overlook? Was this what yesterday's hesitation had really been about? Something she'd planned to hide from me, the revelation of which had been prompted by the images she'd seen? I was already wondering how we would spin it if she did know dark secrets about him.
"You're going to have to explain."
Too much time with the police again—I watched her wrestling with whether to lie. She decided, wisely, to tell the truth. "He has a violent streak. Or an anger management problem. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly. It rarely raises its head, but I've encountered it, and it was frightening."
I waited for her to explain.
She fidgeted, reducing the crumbs to finer crumbs. "The first year I was here, he was passed over for a faculty award he believed he should have gotten. He was perfectly nice and gentlemanly in public—the genial, 'it doesn't matter to me, I know I'm loved' facade—but a few days later, he found me alone in my office... late in the evening after the staff had gone home... and he let me know exactly how angry he was."
She trailed off, staring at the mess of fine crumbs on her plate.
This was going to take some prompting. "How did he let you know?"
She pointed at the dark, elegant cabinet that held the school's collection of Cantonware. "He took out one of those lovely pieces and smashed it."
She dumped the crumbs into the wastebasket and pushed the plate aside. "Did you eat something? I was gone so long... I figured you'd understand, though."
"I ate. So, he smashed it how?"
"By aiming it right at me. I ducked and it hit the wall behind me."
"And you didn't fire him on the spot? Or at least put him on leave and require anger management counseling?"
"I was new," she said, bowing her head like a chastised child, aware that her explanation was inadequate, "and he was hurt. And he was immediately profusely apologetic. He said he'd never done anything like that before. That he'd been taking some new medication and it must have had a peculiar effect on him. He seemed shocked himself. So I gave him a pass. As far as I knew, that was the only time he'd behaved like that. And then yesterday..."