The Swallows

by Lisa Lutz

  There was a knock just after four.

  I opened the door to find Mel and Kate standing in the hallway. I wished Mel had given me a heads-up about the extra guest.

  “What is this place?” Kate said as she entered, uninvited.

  “My office,” I said. “Please come in.”

  Mel followed Kate inside. I checked the hallway and locked the door behind me.

  “I want an office,” said Mel, looking around.

  “This is our office, for now,” I said with some effort.

  I was already regretting the invitation.

  “I’m hungry,” said Mel.

  I showed Mel the supply drawer.

  “Help yourself. But check the halls before you come and go. And make sure the battery in your phone is charged. It’s pitch-black down here after ten P.M. You’ll need a light to find your way out.”

  As Mel perused my food stash, Kate casually walked around my office, opening drawers, looking things over, testing out the furniture, while giving me suspicious sidelong glances.

  “So, Kate, are you with us?” I said.

  “Don’t know. What’s the plan?” she said.

  “Build an army, take down the Darkroom, and end Dulcinea,” I said.

  Mel shook her head, disappointed.

  “If someone had told me a recruitment pitch was necessary, I might have prepared one,” I said.

  “Some army,” said Kate. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” I replied.

  Kate shrugged.

  “I’m vouching for both of you,” said Mel. “Tell her.”

  Kate sat down on my couch and put her feet up on my coffee table.

  “Tell me what?” I said.

  “The photo was my punishment,” Kate said.

  “For what?”

  “I warned my little sister and a few of her friends, firmly suggesting a moratorium on oral sex. One of them told her stupid boyfriend about it,” said Kate.

  “But how did they get that photo?” I said.

  “Rachel,” Kate said, looking away.

  “Rachel Rose? Why did she have it?”

  “The girls are as bad as the boys,” Mel said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  I had many follow-up questions, but I let them slide.

  “What’s your angle?” said Kate, homing in on me.

  “Christine Cleary was my big sister. She also talked. It got so bad she had to drop out,” I said.

  “Huh,” said Kate, unimpressed.

  “Mel, how’s that hacking coming along?” I said.

  Mel unloaded her laptop and fired it up.

  “I was almost in last night. It was late. I was so close. And then I saw a maintenance notice and got immediately locked out. I could tell it was someone else kicking me out, but I think it maybe was just a coincidence—everyone got kicked out, not only me. To be safe, I didn’t try to get back in right away. But when I did, it didn’t work.”

  “So you’re nowhere?” I said.

  “Excuse me,” Mel said. “Until three weeks ago my computer expertise was limited to building a basic website to feature vintage cereal-box art.”

  “I’d keep that hobby to myself,” said Kate.

  Mel ignored her. “If I said angle-bracket curly-brace if-then-else, would you have any idea what I was talking about?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Right. So give me a break,” said Mel. “I’m working as hard as I can.”

  “My apologies,” I said. “I appreciate your efforts.”

  Kate returned to foraging through my supply drawer. She grabbed a package of licorice and offered a rope to Mel, then one to me.

  “So, it’s just the three of us?” Kate said, chomping down on a red vine.

  “I think I have someone else. I just don’t know who she is,” I said.

  Kate turned to Mel and said, “Did that make sense to you?”

  “Show her,” said Mel.

  What’s the point in having allies if you can’t trust them? I handed Kate the anonymous Q&A.

  “How did you get this?” Kate said.

  “I searched Witt’s office. I figured it was the best way to work out who was inclined to join the resistance.”

  Kate nodded her approval. “Good idea,” she said.

  “Do you know a senior who loves waffles and the Red Sox and hates blowjobs?”

  Kate returned the Q&A and picked up her backpack.

  “Why do you think it’s a senior?” Kate said.

  “Shit. I didn’t even think of that,” I said.

  “You know who Waffles is?” said Mel.

  “Yes. I’ll be in touch,” Kate said, departing.

  “I have a gift for you,” I said to Mel, delivering the book I’d stolen from the library.

  “Did you read it?” she said.

  “No. That’s your job,” I said.

  “Thanks, boss,” Mel said.

  “I’m not the boss.”

  “Really? Because it feels like I’m doing all the hard work.”

  “That’s because I’m doing all the dirty work,” I said.

  Mr. Ford

  Barely a month in and the school year was shaping up to be one for the record books. At least ten boys got stung by the scorching showers in Dickens. There was one unfortunate freshman with slow reflexes who suffered second-degree burns that required medical attention. His parents promptly pulled him out of school and contacted an attorney. Dean Stinson was slammed with lawyer meetings and consultations with the school’s board of advisers.

  Claude invited a few people over to her house on Friday afternoon for a small get-together. Her mother was in the hospital, which only Claude would think of as cause for entertaining. It was the usual suspects, minus Primm.

  Lowland has two distinct neighborhoods. The south side, where most of the full-time residents live, is primarily composed of apartment complexes and modest single-family homes, as outdated as a turquoise refrigerator. The south-siders, for the most part, serve the east-siders.

  Claude’s family home was on the east side. When I first saw the house, four years ago, I was struck by its relative grandeur. Resting atop a modest hill, 344 Crestview Drive looked like a ski chalet fallen from its former alpine heights. Reaching the front door required a climb up a steep stone walkway. A few years ago, someone installed a wheelchair elevator on the side of the house. Claude says it ruins the remote elegance of her home. For my money, the house is best on the inside anyway. The backyard overlooks acres of lush, rolling land with a shimmering pond and towering oak trees.

  Claude answered the door in this rose print dress that was outdated but lovely in all the right places. She wore pearls around her neck and lipstick in a shade of mauve that made her appear younger and warmer than her usual blood-red war paint did. Sometimes I forget that she’s hot because she’s so severe.

  “Finn, so glad you could make it,” Claude said, looking past me. “You didn’t bring Witt?”

  “I assumed she’d come on her own,” I said.

  Evelyn, slicing limes in the open kitchen, said, “You were vague about the time, Claude. ‘After school’ can mean anything.”

  “What are we drinking?” I said.

  “Vodka mojito,” Evelyn said.

  “Vodka?”

  “Don’t start,” said Evelyn. “I drank a lifetime’s worth of rum in college. The smell alone causes a gag reflex.”

  Evelyn served me a drink and Claude asked for another.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to eat something?” Evelyn said.

  “Let’s watch the sunset,” Claude said, weaving her way onto the back deck.

  She’d been at it a long time. There are three distinct phases to drunk Claude. The
first few drinks sharpen her edges—take a paper cut and swap it out with a razor. After that, she gets nicer, more fun, but her guard remains intact. The third phase is sloppy, sweet, and sometimes very sexy. Phase three made a rare appearance.

  “She was like this when I got here,” Evelyn said, popping some frozen appetizers into the oven. “She needs to eat something.”

  The deck was covered in candles. It looked like a music video from the eighties. As night fell, the candlelight played that trick of making everyone look ten years younger. Claude appeared as she did when I first met her, when all I could see was a fuckable bookworm.

  Witt arrived after dark with a bottle of cheap red.

  “Shit. This place is incredible,” Witt said.

  “You’re late again,” Claude said.

  “Am I?” Witt said.

  “You said come anytime,” Evelyn said. “You can’t be late for anytime.”

  “Of course you can,” Claude said with a slur.

  “What’s the occasion?” Witt asked, remarking on either the candlelight or the untouched spread of prosciutto-wrapped cantaloupe, cheese puffs, and an assortment of cured meats.

  Evelyn poured Witt her dangerous concoction.

  “I never get to entertain here,” Claude said.

  “Why not?” said Witt. “Seems perfect for it.”

  “It is perfect,” Claude said.

  “Where is your mother?” said Witt.

  “In the hospital,” said Claude, without a note of concern.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Witt said.

  “Somebody needs to eat this food,” said Claude.

  “Yeah, you,” Evelyn told Claude.

  “Did you grow up in this place?” Witt said.

  “We moved here when I was eleven. My mother’s third husband was Frank Woolsey, the dean of Stonebridge before Stinson.”

  There’s a fourth phase of Claude’s inebriation. Sometimes you can bypass it if she passes out. If not, tread cautiously, because her dark side is like a black hole with a powerful magnetic force. Evelyn gave Claude a glass of ice water and changed the subject.

  “Do any of you have an idea who the shower terrorist is? I heard there’s a reward. I could use some extra cash. Any theories?”

  “Gemma,” mumbled Claude.

  “Really? I thought perhaps Kate or Tegan,” said Evelyn.

  “It could just be a mechanical problem,” said Witt.

  We laughed at Witt’s naïveté. Evelyn asked me if I had any ideas.

  “No idea,” I said.

  I was pretty sure the asshole was Keith. I couldn’t prove it. I only know that I saw him lock the door to the engineering room early one morning. He doesn’t live in Dickens. Why else would he be there?

  Claude demanded another drink. Witt tried to distract her by asking for a tour of the house.

  Claude took Witt’s arm to steady herself as the women walked down the long hall.

  “Don’t forget my drink,” Claude called out.

  I poured a glass of water and followed after them. I’d visited the house only once, a few years back, when her mother was out of town. I remember Claude briefly showing me the hallway. She pointed at her bedroom door but never let me inside. We had to fuck on a chaise longue by the pool.

  I heard muted voices in the master bedroom, at the far end of the hall. I took a quick peek at Claude’s bedroom while I had the chance.

  Inside was a canopy bed with an ornate iron headboard. A gauzy curtain, festooned with holes, wrapped around the bed like a veil. The only other piece of furniture was a pink dresser. The room was unsettling, not just because it was stuck in the past. There was nothing about the room that signaled the Claude I had come to know. I closed the door and followed the voices down the hall.

  “He was older,” I overheard Claude say. “Sixty-six when he died.”

  “How old were you?” said Witt.

  “Twenty-nine. He died two weeks before the wedding. If he’d hung on just a little bit longer, I could have been a widow.”

  Claude and Witt were lying on Mrs. Woolsey’s round bed. If it weren’t for the medicine bottles on the nightstand or the cloying antiseptic odor, you’d think it was a porn set from the seventies.

  “Did you love him?” Witt said.

  “Of course I loved him. I was going to marry him. God, it was awful when he died. His horrible children kicked me out of his house. I had nothing.”

  Claude’s eyelids flickered like a child fighting sleep, until they were entirely drawn. Witt rolled to her left, until she reached the edge and dismounted clumsily.

  I set the glass of water on the nightstand.

  “Let’s go,” I whispered. “She needs to sleep.”

  When Witt and I returned to the deck, Evelyn had already made a dent in the cleanup. I cleared the glasses and reloaded the dishwasher, which prompted a brief spat with Evelyn, who pondered the possibility of a male conspiracy on dishwasher protocol. Her husband is apparently a Nazi about the loading configuration. Witt stayed out of the argument and kept busy packing the uneaten appetizers in a Tupperware container.

  Then Evelyn poured herself a jumbo glass of wine and told us to leave. She’d handle the rest of the cleanup.

  “I don’t have to be home for another hour,” Evelyn said. “I’m going to have some me time. You two get out of here. The night is still young.”

  * * *

  —

  As soon as we left Claude’s place, Witt started in with the questions. She wanted to know if I was friends with Whitehall. We were friendly, I told her. Although I couldn’t recall a single conversation. Witt asked if I’d observed any disturbing behavior among the students. I asked her to be more specific. Never mind, she said.

  Then she wanted to talk about Claude. She got a hinky feeling in that bedroom. I didn’t want to talk about Claude, although I had the same feeling. I asked Witt about life in the cottage. Witt insisted it was habitable but admitted that she missed television and electricity, in that order. I told her she was free to use my television or electricity anytime. She was checking her phone. It’s such a vulgar habit. I don’t know if she even heard my offer.

  “Does Dulcinea mean anything to you? I mean, beyond Don Quixote,” Witt said, out of the blue.

  “No, Detective Stark,” I said. “Should it?”

  Witt got weirdly silent after I referenced her father’s books. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned him. All women have daddy issues, I’ve come to learn. The quality of the fathering is ultimately irrelevant. A shitty dad means a needy woman who can’t trust you to turn off a light switch. But for my money, the good dads fuck you up the most, because you’ll always disappoint their daughters.

  It was dark. I asked Witt if she wanted company back to her cottage.

  “I can’t do this tonight,” she said, sounding annoyed.

  I’d offered to walk her home, not fuck her.

  Ms. Witt

  When you live and work in a small pond, like a boarding school, there’s a slow and steady beer-goggle effect that takes place. Eventually all age-appropriate men appear more attractive than they would in the outside world. At least that was a theory an old colleague used to have. My point is, I didn’t fully trust my attraction to Finn. (Although I think I was genuinely attracted to him, at the time.)

  As we were walking back to campus, we briefly discussed the merits, or lack thereof, of a round mattress. I tried to pivot the conversation to the blowjob contest, but he didn’t seem to know anything. I turned my phone on and was suddenly barraged by an insane influx of messages. I could feel the text vibrations as my father grew increasingly desperate to make contact. I was not in the mood to deal with him.

  It was dark and those woods were kind of freaky and I’d forgotten to bring my flashlight. I was hoping Finn would offer to w
alk me home. He didn’t. Maybe feminism killed chivalry. Or maybe my expectations were unrealistic. I didn’t ask and Finn isn’t a mind reader.

  We parted ways at the main gate. I started along the fire trail, then stopped to read the messages before I lost reception.

  Dad: Please call. Must talk.

  Dad: Alex, where are you?

  Dad: Urgent. SOS.

  Dad: Six months of work down the drain.

  Dad: Oh my Lord. What have I done?

  I turned off my phone for the night and continued to my cabin. About ten feet from my front door, a bright light flashed into my eyes. I looked away and stepped out of the beam. A newly installed floodlight was responsible for my temporary blindness. I quickly unlocked the door, stepped inside, and snapped the deadbolt behind me. I turned on a lamp and inspected the cottage for disruption. A small square of paper had been slipped under the door.

  Now that you know, what are you going to do about it?

  The only thing I wanted in that moment was to track down the note-leaving lunatic and break his writing fingers. Or at the very least remove all ink and paper from his—or her—household.

  Some people count sheep. What finally sent me to sleep was cycling through possible job alternatives in alphabetical order. For soporific purposes, you can’t leave anything off the table. I fell asleep sometime after carpet installer.

  * * *

  —

  The shorter days made it easy to sleep in. I can’t say I was refreshed when I did finally wake up. There was a brief moment of elation when I realized that it was Saturday, but that sensation was quickly dethroned by the murky memory of Claude’s house, followed by my father’s desperate pleas, ending with that fucking note.