“What are you having done?”
“This and that.”
“Like what?”
I lost my patience. “Dottie, I don’t have time right now to go through everything I’m having done. Suffice it to say that it’s a big job and I needed to move onto campus for a while.”
“I heard that Wayne Brookwell didn’t come back from spring break.” That was obviously her gossip trump card.
“Says who?”
She folded her arms across her chest and gave me a knowing look. “I have my sources.”
I stared right back at her. “Well, tell your sources that they need to stop trafficking in idle gossip and get back to work.”
She stomped off and returned to her desk; my hope was that she was so angered by my reaction that she wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the week. One can only hope.
I pulled my papers together and shoved them into my bag. I had forty minutes before my first class started and I could either have breakfast or do the thing that I had conjured up while showering in the mold-filled stall in my bathroom. I really didn’t have a plan but didn’t think I needed a well-thought-out one, an assumption that would probably bite me in the ass later. But I took a chance and left my office, heading up to the administration-office floor one story above me.
Sister Mary’s office was located between the dean of students and one of the reception rooms that when I was a student was called the “red room.” It was now called the “DeGeorge Reception Room” after Sister Marguerite DeGeorge, one of the founders of the school and a revered figure here at St. Thomas. It should also be mentioned that the DeGeorge family was old St. Louis money and St. Thomas is nothing if not mercenary in getting funds out of alumni or even their rich families. Max can attest to that.
I didn’t know what I hoped to find once I gained entry into Mary’s office, a place where I had been only a handful of times. Mary usually visits me when we need to discuss something that can’t be resolved on her favorite mode of communication, e-mail.
I crept down the hallway, passing the restroom, where I stopped in briefly. Not having a toilet made me acutely aware of every bathroom in the building and also spurred me to use every one I passed.
I was washing my hands when the smell of Jean Naté filled my nostrils and I turned slowly, only to see Mary coming through the door of the bathroom, as shocked to see me as I was to see her.
Startled by, first, seeing my very prim boss in a public restroom and, second, knowing that I had come up here to break into her office, I was startled. I flapped my hands in the sink, flinging water in every direction but mostly onto Mary. “Sister! Mary! Sister Mary!” I said. I grabbed a few paper towels from the dispenser and attempted to wipe off the water that I had flung onto the front of her starched white shirt.
“That won’t be necessary, dear,” she said coolly. She took the paper towels from my hands and sopped up the water soaking her shirt. She balled them up and threw them in the waste can. “This is an interesting place for you to be.”
“I’ll say,” I agreed, sounding like a moron, my voice echoing in the tiled room.
The steady drip of the old, leaky faucet was the only sound as Mary stared at me, awaiting my explanation.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m without a toilet,” I said. I made a face to illustrate just how inconvenient that was.
If looks could kill, I was dead meat.
“So, I’ve been making a grand tour of all the restrooms in the building. I realized I had never used the one up here.” I pointed to the spot where I was standing in case she had forgotten where we were.
Mary’s not stupid. And she clearly wasn’t buying my ridiculous explanation. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about, dear?”
Oh, where to begin? Having a conversation in the restroom wasn’t ideal, but I decided to take a stab at it. “As a matter of fact, there is, Sister.” I straightened up, prepared to find out the truth.
At that moment, the door opened, and Sister Louise, one of the nursing professors, busted into the room, her hands covered with blue ink. She rushed over to the sink and stuck her hands under the faucet. “Alison, be a dear and turn on the faucet for me? I’m covered in ink!” she said, the front of her wimple also stained.
I turned on the faucet.
“Thank you, dear.” She washed her hands vigorously. “Oh, Mary, wasn’t that a wonderful sermon by Fr. McManus this morning?”
Mary nodded. “Yes, it was, Sister.”
“He is such a gifted speaker,” Louise said, pushing in the handle of the soap dispenser and sudsing up. “And a delightful young man, to boot. We are very blessed to have him here.”
Well, at least someone thinks so, I thought; I thought about Kevin heading downtown to the archdiocese’s office and said a silent prayer for his well-being and return to the school. I excused myself, Mary giving me a look as I slid past her and into the hallway, making haste down the stairs and back to my office, where I hoped I would be safe for at least a little while longer.
If she had been trying to intimidate me into leaving things alone, she was having moderate success.
Fourteen
There was a new set of keys in my mailbox at the end of the school day, a welcome relief. I wondered how many people had copies of this set. Now if only there was a new toilet to go with my new keys, but I didn’t hold out much hope. Progress is slow around these parts, something I had learned during my time here.
I was looking forward to getting back to my room and relaxing for a few hours before checking in with Kevin, but as I was walking up the steps toward the dorm, I realized I had promised—or more aptly, been coerced into—sitting desk for Michael Columbo. Because I was cool like Wayne! Or a giant patsy. So, I had one hour to freshen up, grab some kind of dinner, and get my behind into the chair behind the desk to monitor the comings and goings of both the students and any visitors they might have on this balmy Wednesday evening.
Since it had been two days since my Wayne sighting and I hadn’t returned to the cemetery since, I decided to take Trixie back to the scene of the crime. Or the scene of the bottle throwing. I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and leashed her up. We headed over to the cemetery and wandered around the gravestones, looking for evidence of Wayne’s wanderings.
Trixie found a dead chipmunk, but other than that, we came up empty. By Trixie’s reaction, we had found the pot of gold. She raced around the gravestones, the chipmunk hanging from her mouth, delighted with her find. I finally convinced her to drop it and dragged her back to another row of graves to get her as far away from it as possible.
After the dog was finished, we headed back to the dorm, where I loaded up on food from the vending machines in the laundry room. My dinner consisted of Oreos, pretzels, potato chips, Diet Coke, and a PowerBar, just to round out the cache. Two thousand calories and most of them junk. I felt like I had entered a time machine and gone back a decade and a half or so to my own college days. I didn’t feel like pizza or Chinese and I didn’t know if any of the other restaurants in the neighborhood delivered, so I made sure I stocked up so that I wouldn’t starve to death. Not that there was much of a chance of that happening in a six-hour time span.
I relieved the day desk sitter and settled in, spreading my purchases around me. Trixie looked up at my hopefully. “Sorry, Trix, this is all for me,” I said, opening the potato chips first. “And after where your mouth has been, I’m not coming anywhere near you.”
She fell to the floor with a thud and a sigh, resting her head on my feet.
I looked around the desk to see what was what. I was still amazed that Merrimack and Etheridge had thrown me into this job without a lick of training. Either they thought that I was sufficiently intelligent and would figure it out or they didn’t give a rat’s ass about Siena dorm and hoped I would bring my Midas touch to the place—in which case, Siena dorm and its denizens were in huge trouble. There was a log-in pad to keep track of visitors (alt
hough this information should have been on a computer; St. Thomas is always two steps behind everyone else), a computer with some outdated word-processing programs and nothing else, a list of emergency numbers (which I didn’t need—if there was an emergency, I was going straight to 911), a list of the RAs and their phone numbers, and a stack of takeout menus, all of which boasted delivery service.
Now we’re talking, I thought, and perused the menus in the stack. I made a decision quickly and was on the phone to a local pub, ordering up a cheeseburger and fries, which they assured me would be delivered within the half hour.
I leaned back in my chair, happy that I wouldn’t have to exist on vending-machine food, when my first visitor arrived, a stocky, bowlegged man in a polo shirt, slacks, and loafers, a heavy gold watch hanging from his meaty wrist. A diamond pinkie ring brought the whole look together. The whole look brought to mind a kind of Mediterranean, swarthier Neil Diamond. I sat up again, disturbing Trixie, who woofed her displeasure at me. “Can I help you?”
The man had one of those smiles that didn’t go all the way up to his eyes, a half-smile that was supposed to lead me to believe that he was friendly when in fact he was just trying, but not successfully, to put me at ease. “Wayne Brookwell, please.”
I stiffened a little bit. “I’m sorry. He’s not available.”
The smile left his face. The smell of his pungent cologne filled the small space between us. It reminded me of my late father and when he went through his Ralph Lauren Polo stage. I still had the lingering scent of Sister Mary’s Jean Naté in my nose and now this. “When will he be available?”
I folded my hands on top of the log-in pad. “Not sure. He’s on vacation,” I lied. I didn’t want to tell this man the truth although I wasn’t sure why. “Can I leave him a message for when he returns?”
He regarded me with interest and I got another scent: the scent of menace. So did Trixie. She sat up and put her head on the desk, not exactly asserting her dominance, but letting the man know she was there and ready to rumble, if necessary. She was eighty pounds of unconditional love and affection, but he didn’t need to know that. He stared at me for a few more seconds, seemingly deciding how far to take this. “No. No message,” he said, and left as abruptly as he had come in.
Holding the door for him on the other side of the small entryway was Crawford, whom he brushed by without even a thank-you. Crawford looked after him, miffed, and came in, a bag of Dunkin’ Donuts in hand. He was dressed for work in black pants, a nice blazer, white shirt, and tie. A little stubble on his chin told me that he had been at work for a while. But he was still handsome Crawford, despite how tired and rumpled he looked. “Who was that?” he asked. Thankfully, Crawford didn’t smell like anything except clean laundry and that was a good thing.
“Don’t know. But you’ll never guess who he was looking for.”
“Mr. Goodbar?”
“Guess again.”
“Carmen San Diego?”
“One more time.”
“Wayne Brookwell?”
I put my finger to my nose. “Bingo. The plot thickens, eh?”
Crawford put the Dunkin’ Donuts bag on the desk, ran out to the parking lot and stood there for a few moments, coming back in and reciting the words “roger, bert, eric, nine, two, five . . . roger, bert, eric, nine, two, five . . . roger . . .” He looked at me. “Write this down! Roger, bert, eric, nine, two, five.”
I pulled out the log-in pad and wrote down the words he recited. I knew exactly what he was doing. “R-B-E-9-2-5.” I ripped off the piece of paper and handed it to him. “New York plates?”
“Jersey.” He pulled out his cell phone and made a quick phone call to the precinct. He recited the tag number while I checked in a female student going up to the fourth floor to see Michael Columbo, the kid I was sitting desk for. Wasn’t he working? Isn’t that why I was here? Why was she here? A booty call for when he arrived home? She was a lithesome young lady wearing a shirt that looked like underwear over her skintight jeans. She gave Crawford the once-over, along with a practiced come-hither look. Yep, he’s a hottie, I wanted to say. And old enough to be your father. Crawford didn’t notice, or was too much of a gentleman to acknowledge her in my presence.
“Name, please?” I asked.
She flipped her light-brown hair over her shoulder. “Mary Catherine Donnery.”
I dutifully wrote her name down in the log-in pad. “Purpose for visit?” I told her that Michael was out of the building.
“I know,” she answered. “I just have to pick up a book in his room.” She turned and began to walk away but then came back. “Where’s Wayne?”
Oh, for God’s sake. Who cares anymore? I wanted to tell her that he was probably in the convent, having the dinner that his aunt procured from the cafeteria, but held back. “He’s on vacation,” I said for the second time that night. I hoped that if I said it enough it would actually start to sound true.
“Huh.” She bit her glossed lip. “He was a cool guy.”
“I know!” I said, a little too loudly. Crawford looked over at me and gave me a raised eyebrow. “I know,” I said more softly, trying to look wistful at the thought of eternally cool Wayne on vacation somewhere.
“Amanda must be bummed,” she said, almost to herself. She took another look at Crawford, looked back at me, and smiled.
“Why would Amanda be bummed?” I asked. I already knew that they had some kind of relationship but I thought this friends-with-benefits thing was a no-strings-attached arrangement. Her tears the day before would suggest otherwise.
“She was really into Wayne.” She giggled. “But so were a lot of girls.” She gave me a knowing look and flounced off, taking the stairs two at a time.
So, slack-jawed was in? Who knew?
Crawford finished his phone call and came back to the desk. He opened the bag and pulled out a cup of coffee out and handed it to me. “Dark and sweet, just like your men, right?”
“More like black and strong. We’ve been through this a thousand times, Crawford,” I said, rolling my eyes in mock exasperation.
“I guess I forgot.” He reached into the bag and pulled out another cup for himself and a chocolate glazed doughnut. He took a big bite and smiled, his teeth covered in chocolate.
“You’re a walking cliché,” I remarked, looking into the bag and pulling out a jelly doughnut, my favorite. I held my hands up at equal height. “Cops, doughnuts. Doughnuts, cops.”
“How about ‘thank you, Bobby, you’re the best’?”
“Thank you, Bobby, you’re the best,” I recited dutifully. “Hey, did you see that girl?”
He shrugged. “Not really. What girl?”
“The one that I just signed in. She told me that a lot of girls had a thing for Wayne.”
“So what? He was big man on campus?”
I walked Crawford through it slowly so that he would understand. “Well, if lots of girls on campus had a thing for him, and he in turn enjoyed this popularity, maybe the way to smoke him out is to use a pretty girl.”
He considered that. “Another flawed plan but one I could get behind if you work out the details.”
“Give me a couple of hours. I’m sure I’ll come up with something.” I took a sip of my coffee. “Now to what do I owe this honor?”
“I’m on my meal break,” he said.
“Where’s Unfrozen Caveman Homicide Detective?”
“Running errands.”
“Is that code for ‘doing surveillance on Max’?”
He shook his head. “No. Buying toilet paper at the Food Emporium. He’s finally run out and realized that he needed that and a host of other items. And with Max not coming back anytime soon, it finally dawned on him that he has to do his own grocery shopping. He dropped me off here.” He finished his doughnut and looked at his watch. “He’ll be back in about ten minutes. Want to make out?”
I shook my head. “Can’t. Sitting desk. I’m responsible for every person in this dorm
until eleven.”
“Damn.”
I finished off my jelly doughnut. Crawford perched on the front of my desk and surveyed the tools of my night watch. “Very impressive,” he said, taking in my log-in pad, computer, and master key.
“You have to be really organized to keep all of this stuff straight.”
I saw Kevin coming in through the front door, Michael Columbo right behind him, dressed in a vaguely military uniform that I recognized as being the one Wayne wore when he was driving his limo. Crawford turned when he heard the outer door slam and Columbo gave me a quick hello, scurrying up the stairs either to get to his beautiful visitor—the one who was supposedly just picking up a book—as quickly as possible or to avoid a conversation with me. The look on Kevin’s face was more dejected, more heartbroken than I had ever seen it, and I had seen Kevin during some pretty devastating situations. But those situations had everything to do with other people and his ability to shore them up; this seemed to be more personal. He came in, dressed as I hardly ever saw him in full black clerical garb: black shirt, white collar, black jacket. He stopped at my desk.
Crawford shook his hand. “Everything okay, Father?”
Kevin shook his head and I could see that he was fighting back tears. “It’s worse than I imagined,” he said, laughing ruefully. “I’ve really screwed things up this time.”
Crawford, also used to helping people in emotional and dire situations, pulled a chair in from the TV room and told Kevin to sit down. He perched on my desk again and looked at my best friend—my priest—and asked him what was wrong.
I had a very bad feeling.
Kevin uttered that nervous laugh again. “It seems that Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt—our friends Fred and Max—are not, nor were they ever, legally married.”
Kevin looked at me, waiting for the outburst that never came. I was struck silent. “Their marriage is neither legal nor sanctioned by the Catholic Church,” he said, which, while pretty straightforward, didn’t make it any clearer to me.
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