Golden in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Frowning, she stopped herself. “How can a bridge be too far? Too far from what? It has to go from here to there. Why did I even say that when it makes no sense?”

  “I have no comment,” Roarke said, wisely.

  “Anyway, I’m going to break young Cosner, and offer a deal. He flips on his pal, he doesn’t spend the rest of his life in a concrete cage off-planet. Meanwhile…”

  “Will I have fun?”

  She grinned back at him. “It’s going to be your favorite thing. I want to drill down deep, into Cosner’s finances, but more into Whitt’s.”

  “That is my favorite thing—nearly. You’re so good to me.”

  “I figured maybe Cosner figured out how to cook the agent, but now, after talking to him, I don’t see him stumbling into that on his own. They had to have somebody—maybe Peabody’s mad scientist. They had to pay somebody. At least until they had the formula. That means payments, equipment, ingredients, safety precautions. It wouldn’t be cheap.”

  Rising, she walked back to the board, circled. “They’re rich, but Whitt’s smart, and he’s a money guy. You wouldn’t want the payments to show, to be tracked back to you. Not that he believes we’d ever actually try to hang this on him. He sees himself as above—just like Grange. But he’d be careful. He’d instruct Cosner to be careful.”

  “I’ll enjoy this.”

  “Figured. You should start looking during the time Hayward got engaged and forward. I think that’s the trigger. Whitt, he doesn’t love, he’s not capable, but in his mind she belonged to him. She—or her parents—cut him off.”

  “And the reason for that stems back, for him, to Rufty, to Duran.”

  “That’s right. It might be he decided back then, well fuck her, I never really wanted her anyway. Or figured if he ever wanted her again, he could just pick up where they left off. But the engagement, and the splash, the prominence of the fiancé’s family? Slap in the face.”

  “I see, yes. She doesn’t just do well without him.” Roarke studied Hayward’s ID shot. “She doesn’t give him a thought. She’s successful in her own right, but then, to add insult, she’s suddenly a media darling, engaged to the successful in his own right, son of a political powerhouse.”

  “Big-ass wedding to follow, you can bet,” Eve added, “and more media attention.”

  “Which all should have been his,” Roarke added, nodding. “The golden egg makes perfect sense. Gold Academy,” Roarke continued. “He had everything he wanted his way there, and envisioned it would only continue. But Rufty and those like him killed the goose.”

  She frowned. “There’s that goose again.”

  “The one that laid the golden egg, darling. Kill the goose, end the supply of golden eggs.”

  “Yeah, right, right.” She circled around it, hit the point. “Okay, yeah, that’s his little smart-ass symbolism.”

  “It only makes the delivery system uglier.”

  “I guarantee he’s had some good laughs over his goddamn cleverness. But he’d need somebody, Roarke, somebody to cook up the agent, to figure out how to—distill it or whatever it’s called. That had to cost.”

  “I’ll look into it. And what will you do?”

  “I’m going to see if I can dig up more teachers, more students who’ll talk to me. Especially the one who walked in on a fellow teacher bumping uglies with Grange on school property. The one who banged her died in a car accident.”

  “Suspicious?” Roarke asked.

  “No. Five years ago last winter. Michigan, icy roads, multicar wreck with two fatalities.” She shook her head. “So I have to hope others I talk to remember. Then I’m going to start digging into Whitt, the college years. There may be some threads to pull there.”

  “Then we should both be well entertained for the evening.”

  “Nice how that works, huh?” Since he’d gotten dinner, she walked over to clear the table. “You know what else? I actually liked planting that tree.”

  “So did I.”

  “Not that I want to take up gardening.”

  “I think, though we did well, we’ve both chosen the right career path.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, and carted plates into the kitchen.

  20

  Using Rufty’s notes of meetings with staff during the transition, and Peabody’s notes from her first pass, Eve compiled a list. She arranged it by priority for face-to-face interviews the next day. After that, she culled out the handful who’d transferred out of state, and opted to try to contact them before digging into Whitt.

  She considered the forty minutes or so that took time well spent. Expanding her own notes, she combed through the prevarications, the Grange cheerleaders, the hesitations, the Grange blasters.

  Darcie Finn-Powell, an elementary-level teacher who now worked in the public school system upstate, hesitated, lowballed, then spewed.

  And became Eve’s favorite.

  “She hit on my husband!”

  While inwardly, Eve did a quick happy dance, she responded with a carefully neutral, “I see. Can you explain that?”

  “Thad’s a firefighter, and he came in to talk to my class. Third graders. They just love firefighters. He came in with his turnout gear, helmet, the works. It was great. Headmaster Grange observed part of the presentation, and then she asked Thad to come to her office. She said she wanted to talk to him about other visits, a field trip, and that sort of thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then she moved on him. Got, you know, handsy, suggested they should meet for drinks, discuss how to start a fire. He was mortified.”

  “I assume he told you all this.”

  “That same night. He said at first he thought she was sort of joking, saying things like she found risk takers so attractive, how he must be able to tolerate a lot of heat. I mean, really? And you know what else? I was pregnant with our first. She knew it!”

  “Can you tell me how you handled it?”

  “Yes, why not? I’ll say up to that point I tried to keep my head down. I taught third graders, and did what I could to stay out of school politics and drama. I knew some of the other teachers had issues with the headmaster, especially in the upper grades, but I just wanted to teach. It was a good position, and we had a baby coming.”

  She paused, blew out a breath. “But I wasn’t going to look the other way when she went after my husband. I went to her office the next morning, and laid into her. And you know what she did?”

  Oh yeah, still pissed, Eve thought, and added some high kicks to that internal happy dance. Pissed enough she’d likely give a written statement.

  “What did she do?”

  “She laughed at me! Laughed right in my face. She said since my husband had obviously misconstrued her remarks, he must be dissatisfied at home. She claimed he’d flirted with her, which she considered harmless enough. And if I wanted to keep my job, I’d keep my marital issues out of the school. She was lying about Thad flirting with her. You have to understand—”

  “I believe you.”

  “Good.” Darcie drew air in through her nose, visibly relaxed on the exhale. “Okay, good. In any case, I stopped keeping my head down. I just couldn’t. I signed complaints with the others who went to the board. I stuck it out, even though it got stressful. It got better, so much better, when Headmaster Rufty came on to replace her. But I was only there, with him in charge, for a short time, as I went on parental leave to have our first. Thad and I decided to move, to get out of the city, so I never went back.”

  “Let me ask you this. Do you know of any other instances where Headmaster Grange acted inappropriately, with another spouse, a parent, another teacher?”

  Darcie went back into hesitation mode. “I’d rather only speak about what I know, personally.”

  “I get that. You’re an educator. As an educator, given your knowledge of and experience with Lotte Grange, do you consider her qualified to serve as headmaster of an educational facility?”

  “No, I don’t.
At all.”

  Eve let the silence hang.

  “Damn it. Damn it.” Darcie shut her eyes a moment. “I can only tell you what I heard or was told. I can’t absolutely swear to it even though I believe it.”

  “We’re not in court. I’m not going to hold you to anything.”

  Blowing out air, Darcie dragged a hand through short, nut-brown hair. “Boy, this is bringing it all back. I’m pouring myself a glass of wine. Okay?”

  “It’s okay with me.”

  Eve caught glimpses of a kitchen—a friggie covered with kid art, a kind of bulletin board holding photos and notes.

  Darcie poured straw-colored wine, took one bracing sip.

  “She was caught having sex, at school, with Van Pierson. He taught history, middle grades. Wyatt—Wyatt Yin, computer science, also middle grades, walked right in on them. Van was the last, I think, before she left. He wasn’t the first, not according to others.”

  “Do you have names?”

  Eve noted them down.

  “Parents?”

  “Oh boy, oh boy.” She paused, blew out a long breath. “The only one I have personal knowledge of is Grant Farlow—and that’s because I taught his little boy, and knew his mother. He wasn’t in my class when this happened, but in fourth grade.”

  On another sip of wine, Darcie stopped pacing around her cheerful, kid-friendly kitchen, and sat.

  “They pulled him out of TAG, and I spoke to his mother because Deke was such a good student. She told me Grant had confessed to having a fling with the headmaster. It was over, they were going to counseling, but she wouldn’t have her son in the school.”

  “You were friendly with the mother?”

  “Yes. They ended up moving to Philadelphia—fresh start. We’ve lost touch except for the occasional e-mail, but I know the marriage didn’t make it. Grant’s not blameless, but this woman is a predator.”

  “So there were others?”

  “You hear, or heard. But again, I don’t have personal knowledge.”

  “What can you tell me about Stephen Whitt?”

  “I remember the name because it came up a lot when the group of us who’d formed got together. Bully, cheat, ringleader, and headmaster’s pet.”

  “Her pet?”

  “He could do no wrong, and he knew it. I didn’t interact with him, but others in the group did. His parents were big contributors—the money flowed in. And…”

  “And?”

  “Well, crap.” She took another drink. “I can’t confirm. It’s really speculation that the headmaster had a relationship with Stephen Whitt’s father. He wasn’t the only one, but that was the name in big lights before she transferred. And since the boy also transferred, a lot of us thought that capped it. But it’s really no better than gossip.”

  Gossip added up, Eve thought as she expanded her notes.

  And the name Whitt wouldn’t keep filling in blanks if it meant nothing.

  She managed to contact Wyatt Yin in his home in Colorado. He looked at her with dark, soulful eyes.

  “Yes, I heard the terrible news. I still keep in touch with some of the friends I made at TAG.”

  “You left the academy about a year after Dr. Rufty came on as headmaster.”

  “Yes, but not because of Dr. Rufty. He was a fine headmaster, dedicated, fair. It was … I never felt quite at home, not in New York, not at TAG. It was all too big, and at the same time, confining. I spent a summer here in Colorado teaching underprivileged kids, and found my place. I met my wife.” He smiled now. “It was meant. Here I am home.”

  “Tell me about Lotte Grange.”

  The smile faded. “TAG was my first experience with such an elevated private institution. She was my first experience with a headmaster.”

  “Would you describe her as a fine headmaster, Mr. Yin? As dedicated and fair?”

  “I would not. Again, I was very new, and only had the experience with her for some eighteen months. And again, I was not a good fit.”

  “Tell me about Van Pierson.”

  He sighed. “It was not his fault. You have, obviously, heard what happened all those years ago. I want you to understand, he wasn’t at fault.”

  “Why is that?”

  “We came on at the same time. Both very young, very new. Van and I taught the same grades and often spoke about our mutual students. He was a good teacher. I was working late, tutoring one of my students. This wasn’t encouraged, so I … you could say I did this on the down low?”

  “All right.”

  “After I sent the student off, I did some work. As I was leaving, I stopped by the break room. I thought to get some coffee for the walk to my apartment. And I walked in on the headmaster and Van. I was shocked, of course, embarrassed, left very quickly. A couple hours later, Van came to my apartment, shaken, distraught. First he begged me to say nothing. I don’t know what I would have done, but it came out—and I believed him—that she had pressured and demanded. She had insinuated that if he wanted to keep his position, he would allow her to … be intimate. He was new, like me. Young, like me. So he did as she wanted.”

  “You didn’t say nothing.”

  “No. We talked, for some time, Van and I. And I convinced him we had to report this. She’d used her power and authority to coerce him into sex, and that couldn’t stand.”

  He sighed again. “But you see, we were young and new, and she was power. She countered this, claimed he had assaulted her, and that I had taken his part against her. He was dismissed. I was reprimanded. I needed the work, so I stayed, and I knew by then she was leaving at the start of the year, so I stayed.

  “Van left New York, and with this black mark was unable to teach anywhere. There was a car accident five years ago. He was killed. And I think, if I had said nothing, he would have continued at TAG—where he was a good fit. He wouldn’t have been in that car in Michigan on icy roads. So how much is my fault?”

  “None of it. It begins and ends with Grange, Mr. Yin. Besides Van, do you know of others Grange either pressured or just had sexual encounters with?”

  “There were rumors. I only know, conclusively, about Van.”

  “Brent Whitt. Stephen Whitt’s father.”

  “At the time of all this, the strongest rumors aimed there. But I don’t understand how this information helps in your investigation into the tragedies.”

  “That’s for me to figure out.”

  And, Eve thought, she damn well would. She began digging down through the layers on Stephen Whitt.

  Academically, there hadn’t been so much as a blip with his transfer. Probability of that, she mused, dead low. She believed him when he’d told her he’d been pissed, upset, argumentative.

  Added to it, he’d bullied and cheated his way, apparently with Grange’s blessing, at Gold. So, logical assumption? She’d smoothed over that period.

  Family legacy and money would have helped get him into Northwestern, but he’d needed the grades, too. And he’d needed to maintain them once he didn’t have Grange running interference.

  Not stupid, though. Highly intelligent. And savvy enough to know he had to buckle down enough if he wanted that big corner office.

  He liked money—playing with it was a game to some. Didn’t she know it, she thought with a glance toward Roarke’s office.

  Money was power, and power was the goal. Power and prestige and lifestyle.

  She scanned through articles. Society pages, financial pages, gossip pages. Oh yeah, he was an up-and-comer, a young gun. Lots of fancy dos with him with a woman on his arm. Never the same more than twice, she noted, and wasn’t it interesting how many of them bore at least a surface resemblance to Hayward?

  She hung you up, didn’t she, Steve? The one who got away.

  She kept digging.

  She barely glanced up when Roarke came in, when he eased around her to use her command center’s AutoChef.

  “I’ve got more on Grange. One way or another she’s going down. If it comes to it, I migh
t be able to leverage her against Whitt. Or use them against each other. Plus, he’s still hung up on Hayward, so…”

  She caught the scent before he set the little plate on the counter. Cookie. Big, fat, chunky cookie.

  She picked it up—still warm—and shifted when he sat at her auxiliary. “Either you got something that meant cookie reward, or you bombed out and wanted the cookie consolation.”

  “The first.” He bit into his own. “You’ll want to run Lucas Sanchez, aka Loco, though I already did. He’s dead, killed about a month ago in what appeared to be an illegals deal gone south. Stabbed multiple times in an alley in Alphabet City. Jenkinson and Reineke caught it.”

  “It’s still open.” She pulled the bullpen’s board into her head. “Open and going cold.” She had to push back, pull reports and quick conversations back into her head. “An illegals cook, an addict.”

  “That’s correct. If one goes back about a decade, it appears young Lucas had one semester, on a science scholarship, at Gold Academy before that scholarship was rescinded when he was arrested for possession.”

  “Son of a bitch! In a really good way,” Eve added.

  “I thought you’d see it that way. Some of the possession was already inside his system when he attempted to mug a couple of tourists in Times Square. Females. One of whom kicked him in the balls while the other called the police.”

  “He knew Cosner and Whitt.”

  “Almost assuredly. I also believe he qualifies as Peabody’s mad scientist. He showed flashes of brilliance with chemistry, earned that scholarship.”

  She shoved up. “They bullied scholarship students—not one of them. But he’d have had a leg up if he could cook illegals, supply them. Cosner, another addict—The Facilitator, according to Hayward. Loco might’ve been his supplier, and that may have led to using him to cook up the agent.”

  She turned back to Roarke. “How’d you get that out of the financial search?”

  “Roundabout. Cosner isn’t so clever as Whitt. They both use casual gambling, purchases to cover payments.”

  Eve felt another happy dance coming on. “What payments?”

  “I’ll get to it. Cosner, however, slipped twice, and has a transfer of ten thousand to Lucas Sanchez. As Whitt ostensibly had gambling losses of the same amount at the same time, I thought it expedient to look at Sanchez.”