Final Exam

by Maggie Barbieri

  Smart man, that Detective Hot Pants.

  I approached the house and despite the grass needing to be cut—a chore that I had hired out to the kid across the street—everything looked like it had when I left the weekend before. The block was quiet so I got up the front walk without running into anyone—my neighbor Jane appeared to be out, and she was really the only person I wanted to see. Being a single woman with no children left me out of many personal interactions in my neighborhood.

  Max wasn’t home, either, and I was instantly relieved. It seemed like she had left every single window in the house open but even the cool air wafting in and out, rustling the curtains, couldn’t mask the smell of paint that assaulted my nasal passages as I entered the downstairs hallway. I sniffed suspiciously, looking around. The living room looked the same and the dining room, having been painted just a few short weeks earlier, was still the same color. A trip to the kitchen confirmed that it was still the outdated robin’s-egg blue that it had been when I left.

  I ran up the stairs to the second floor of the house. The hallway was the same fingerprint-stained beige. Curiously, my bedroom door was closed when I reached the top of the stairs and as I stopped on the landing, trying to catch my breath and prepare myself for what awaited me on the other side, my mind flashed back to the can of paint that had been sitting on my counter the previous weekend.

  Million Dollar Red.

  I grabbed my stomach and bent in two, breathing deeply, muttering, “Max, what have you done?” to myself.

  I opened the bedroom door, my fears confirmed.

  My bedroom, once a soothing ecru color with white trim was now Million Dollar Red. Floor to ceiling. With black trim. It was an assault to the senses and I knew at once that I would never be able to sleep in a color so jarring, so bright, so . . . tacky. My room looked like a New Orleans bordello and I wasn’t going to be happy until it was back to the way it was.

  Which, obviously, would take two coats of primer followed by three coats of paint.

  Any goodwill I had toward Max evaporated. If I had felt guilty about being angry at her before, I now wanted to kill her with my bare hands.

  Twenty-Six

  I was still seething that evening, safely ensconced in my room and lying on my bed, when Crawford called. I had picked Trixie up from Kevin, neither I nor my once-favorite priest exchanging a word during the handoff.

  I was losing best friends faster than someone losing weight on the Atkins diet.

  “We picked up one of the guys who roughed up Amanda,” he said. I knew that by “we,” he didn’t mean himself or Fred personally, but rather someone in the extended NYPD family.

  I sat up. “You did?” My tale of woe would have to wait.

  “Yep. Some two-bit idiot from the Newark area. Amanda, amazingly, got a look at the plate of the car and gave us a partial. The Newark cops got a tip, too. It all went very quickly and smoothly.”

  “That’s great,” I said, although it was the kind of good news that comes with strings attached. Good news that they caught one of the guys; bad news because of the nature of his deeds. I was sorry we were having this conversation at all.

  Trixie could tell something important was happening and came from her usual sleeping area in the little parlor room to the edge of the bed, resting her head on the mattress near my feet.

  “He’s not giving anything up, though,” he said. “But he’ll crack. They always do.”

  And not without a little help, I thought. But I didn’t care. They could treat him like a suspected terrorist at Guantánamo Bay, if they wanted. I wanted him to tell the cops what he knew, who was involved, and why they had taken their aggression out on an innocent girl who suffered from the familiar and common problem of having bad taste in men. “Well, let me know if you find out anything,” I said.

  “You sound down.”

  I thought about going into detail on the whole painted-bedroom story but decided against it. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t such a big deal. It just happened to be the icing on the cake for one of the most interesting and annoying weeks of my life. And I still had a healthy dose of guilt from my outburst at Max that was managing to creep in and add to my depression. “No,” I said. “I’m fine.” I attempted to shake off my mood and sound upbeat.

  “You want me to come get you?” he asked. “The girls and I need dinner and we could just as easily eat in your neighborhood as mine.”

  He was being kind. Coming back up to St. Thomas and having dinner with me in my present mood was not going to be enjoyable for anyone. And it wasn’t as easy as it sounded with the New York City traffic getting started at this hour. “No, Crawford, I’m fine,” I reassured him. “Call me tomorrow.”

  I resumed my prone position, staring up at the cracked ceiling, moody and sullen. Finally, I decided that I had had enough and put Trixie on her leash, taking her outside for an early evening walk.

  We headed down to the river where I took her off her leash and let her frolic in the sand and the little whitecaps that floated to shore, the foam dripping off her face after a few moments. I sat on a rock and watched her, wiping her chin off with my sleeve when she came over to give me a kiss. Whatever problem I was having, being with my dog made it all go away. I kissed Trixie on the nose and rubbed her belly.

  We lasted until the sun had set and dusk had fallen on campus. I put her on the leash and walked back up to the main part of campus, the buildings silhouetted against the darkening sky.

  I went to the parking lot of Siena and stood by my car, ruminating on the boot on the passenger’s side tire. The parking lot was quiet and I was surprised when a car pulled up beside me, the Reese/Grigoriadis family revealed to be behind its tinted windows.

  Costas got out of the car and came around to open the back door on my side, giving me a curt nod as a greeting. Amanda slid out of the back seat, her face still bruised, but otherwise looking the same as she always did—a little unkempt but adorable nonetheless. She had on what looked to be replacement glasses—these were more fashionable with a small tortoiseshell frame that didn’t dwarf her face. She looked at me and then surprised me by coming over and throwing her arms around me. In the little space of light afforded by the open back door, I could see the back of a perfectly coiffed head, black hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail secured by a jeweled barrette.

  “Say good-bye to your mother,” Costas said to Amanda.

  Amanda pulled away from me and leaned into the car, putting her hand on her mother’s shoulder. Her mother turned and kissed Amanda’s hand, and I caught a glimpse of her blotchy, tearstained face.

  “You’d better take care of my daughter.” Amanda’s father shook his finger in my direction. “If it were up to me, I’d pack up her room and get her out of this place.” He looked over at the Siena dorm in disgust. “Her mother is beside herself.”

  I looked at Amanda who was studying the pavement during her father’s minitirade.

  “I’ll do my best, Mr. Grigoriadis.” I put my arm around Amanda’s shoulder and led her toward the side door.

  “You’d better do better than your best,” he sputtered, and went back around to the front of the car.

  I wasn’t sure that was possible but I didn’t want to get into a semantics discussion with him. Amanda and I went in through the side door and stood in front of the door to my room. “Amanda, what can I do to help you?”

  She burst out crying. “I’m not sure. I’m so confused!” she wailed.

  I leaned against the doorjamb. “Do you want to come in?”

  “I just want to go back to my room and go to sleep and forget this ever happened,” she said. She closed her eyes and shuddered.

  “Detective Crawford told me that they got one of the suspects,” I said, thinking that I probably shouldn’t have shared that after I blurted it out.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Hopefully, he’ll point them in the right direction.” I opened the door to my room. “Sure you don’t wa
nt to come in?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m just going to go back to my room. Brandon wanted me to call him the minute I got back.”

  Something about that statement riled me a bit. The minute she got back? Was it a trust issue or was he that concerned? After seeing his behavior in the parking lot a few days back and knowing that Costas preferred him to Wayne, I got to thinking that young Princetonian Brandon may have had the Costas possessiveness gene. I thought about giving Amanda some advice along the lines of “ditch the guy,” but I decided to keep my mouth shut. For one thing, I knew nothing about Brandon—or Costas, for that matter.

  And for another, she was no longer standing in front of me in the hallway, having started down the hall, stopping briefly to chat with Spencer Williamson.

  “Thanks for coming to the hospital last night,” I heard her say.

  I watched his cheeks flush red and thought, There’s a boy with a serious crush. Miss Amanda Reese certainly attracted all kinds: Princeton boy, slack-jawed Wayne, and now, anime-producing Spencer Williamson. Looked to me like she had herself a nice love quadrangle in the works.

  I went into my room and returned to my prone position on the bed after retrieving my cell phone from my messenger bag. I dialed Max’s number; instead of hearing her greeting, I was put straight to voice mail. I didn’t bother leaving a message because, wisely, I realized that that would just exacerbate things. Oh, so that’s how we’re going to play it, I thought. You think you’re mad? I only called you selfish. I didn’t paint your bedroom bordello red.

  I decided to make one more call. The phone was picked up on the sixth ring, just as I was about to give up. The voice had its usual terse timbre.

  “Hi, Mary. Listen, you’re either with me or against me on this one, so what’s it going to be?” I was emboldened by crankiness and nothing more.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear.”

  “I think you do. Do you want to help me find who put that nephew of yours in this precarious situation or not? Because, frankly, I’m getting sick of living in this hellhole, in spite of its proximity to my office.” I took a deep breath. “So what’s it going to be?”

  “It’s not going to be anything, dear.”

  I sat and stared at the ceiling, waiting for her to continue. When she did, she stated something that I already knew.

  “I’m afraid Wayne has left campus and I don’t know where he’s gone.”

  “That’s obvious, Mary. Where did he go?”

  “If I knew, would I be this upset?” she asked, a catch in her throat.

  Probably not. “Where did he go?” I asked, not responding to her question. “His parents’ house? Somewhere else?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “And I’ve been keeping the fact that he’s in trouble from my sister and her husband.”

  “They still don’t know what’s going on?”

  She got defensive. “Wayne asked me not to tell them and I’m going to respect his wishes.”

  I decided not to go any further with the conversation because Mary was stonewalling and I didn’t have the energy. I bid her a good night and hung up, thinking about how I was going to spin this whole thing to Etheridge and Merrimack, who I was convinced had a dart board with my picture on it.

  Twenty-Seven

  Sunday passed without incident, and I caught up on some much-needed rest and overdue schoolwork. Crawford stopped by on his way to work on Monday morning to supervise the removal of the boot from my car. Visitation didn’t start until three o’clock, so I dragged him into the janitor’s closet across from my room so that we could have a discussion in private. He got the wrong idea.

  I pulled his hand out from under my blouse as I avoided a dirty mop head that I had dislodged from its spot on my way into the closet. “Stop, Crawford. This is important.”

  He leaned in, his lips grazing my neck, and I lost my train of thought, going with the flow for a few minutes. But the sound of students passing by on the other side of the closed door brought me back to earth. I pushed his head up by applying the palm of my hand to his forehead.

  “You are such a killjoy,” he said. “Did you know that?”

  I put a finger on his lips. “Shhh. If I get nabbed with a big hunk of cop in the janitor’s closet, it’s curtains for me. Hear me? Curtains!”

  “You need to read other things besides Wonder Woman comic books,” he said. “You’re starting to talk like a superhero.”

  I pulled him in close by his collar to get his attention. “Pinto is coming by here in a few minutes to talk to me about what happened, so I’m glad you’re here. He called me at six o’clock this morning and said that he’s saving me a face-to-face with Etheridge so I had better give him all the details.”

  “Pinto is a cream puff. What are you worried about?”

  “He’s not a cream puff. He’s a kickboxer. And I’m worried I’m going to get my ass kickboxed right out of a job if I don’t tell them everything’s that’s going on.”

  “So you want me to be your wingman?”

  I didn’t even know what that meant, but I agreed nonetheless. “Make sure I give it to him straight.”

  He saluted me, giggling a little bit.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

  “I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in days,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I think I’m getting punchy.”

  “I would have to agree,” I said, and opened the door to the closet; the smell of cleaning supplies was starting to make me punchy, too. I peered out and saw Jay Pinto standing in front of the door to my room. I quickly ducked back into the closet and pinned myself against the wall. I motioned to Crawford to be quiet. “It’s Pinto,” I mouthed.

  We stood in the closet, staring at one another, Crawford trying not to laugh. The mop, which was balanced precariously against the wall, slid down and made a racket as it clattered to the floor. In order to avoid getting hit on the head with it, I stepped out of the way and knocked into a semifull bucket of soapy, gray water, which sloshed out over the side and onto my shoes. The bucket scraped a few inches across the floor, adding to the cacophony coming from the presumably empty janitor’s closet. I looked at Crawford, wide-eyed, as I heard Pinto’s footsteps approaching the door of the closet.

  He knocked. “Who’s in there?”

  I decided that the best defense was a good offense. I opened the door and exposed myself and Crawford. “Just us, Jay.” I smoothed down the front of my skirt and adjusted my blouse, thinking as I did that the best time to have begun to put myself back together would have been before I opened the door. I gave him what I thought was a winning smile.

  Pinto looked in the closet and nodded at Crawford. “What are you doing in there?”

  “Looking for a plunger,” I said, grabbing one from behind the door and proffering it as proof of my business.

  “You don’t have a clogged toilet again, do you?” Pinto said, grimacing.

  “Sink,” I said, marveling at how smoothly the lies just fell from my tongue.

  He looked at me until I reminded him that he had come to see me. “Oh, right,” he said, snapping out of his reverie. “About Amanda Reese. How are we on that?”

  “How are we on that?” I repeated. “Not sure what you mean.” I turned to Crawford, who looked as if he didn’t have any plans to participate in the discussion, mesmerized by the water on my shoes.

  “Oh, Amanda Reese,” Crawford said, after a gentle poke to the ribs. “We’ve got a suspect in custody, Jay, and we’re questioning him.”

  “Good,” Pinto said.

  “I’m assuming you’ll give a complete report to Etheridge?” I asked, after I’d listed the rest of the details on the goings-on of the weekend. Crawford, it turned out, was no help at all.

  He nodded. That was very good news. A day without Etheridge, for me, was a day with sunshine and flowers and all things good and wonderful.

  “Keep me posted?”

  Crawford gave h
im a little salute not unlike the one he had given me. It came off as less sarcastic than I assumed he meant it. “Will do.”

  Pinto looked at the two of us for another second, curious, but walked off, his kickboxing ass looking fine in his gabardine slacks. Crawford and I went into the hallway.

  “I’m glad you’re here” I said, sliding my feet out of my shoes, once a beautiful black suede and now a soggy mess.

  “You sounded down when we talked so I wanted to make sure you were doing okay,” he said.

  “You’re a nice guy, Crawford,” I said, still a little amazed that he was my nice guy. “I’m fine.” I opened the door to my room and Trixie bounded out to kiss Crawford. “What are you doing later?”

  “Sleeping?” he said, as if the answer were obvious.

  “I think you need to be Chad for another night.”

  He shook his head and began muttering. “No, no, no, no . . .”

  “Well, how weird would it look for Coco to be visiting the Brookwells without Chad? Where should I say you are?”

  “Working late on the Anderson account?” he said. “The Anderson account needs a lot of graphic design.”

  “No, you’re coming with me. I want to see if the Prius is parked in the driveway.”

  “You can do that by yourself.”

  I whimpered. “But it’s not as much fun without you, Chad.” I looked around and, seeing no students, slid my hand into the top of his waistband. “I’ll make it worth your while,” I whispered in his ear.

  He pulled away as if I had burned him. “Okay, that’s enough. I’ll come with you. Stop it,” he said, taking my hand and putting it on the doorknob. “I’m going. I’ll see you later.”