“How about seven?” I called after him.
He didn’t turn around but raised his hand in acknowledgment. The man was putty in my hands.
Or he was just so exhausted that he didn’t have the energy to put up a fight.
I headed off to school after paying homage to Trixie who was obviously getting tired of hanging around the dank dorm room. She looked at me longingly as I closed the door, avoiding her snout. When I got to my office, I was surprised to find Sister Mary waiting for me. She was standing outside of my door, her back straight and her hands folded in front of her. I passed several colleagues on my way to my office who gave me sympathetic looks; if Sister Mary stopped by to “chat,” it usually wasn’t good.
But what they didn’t know was that our relationship had changed. I no longer was intimidated by her; she had secrets just like the rest of us and now I knew what they were.
“Morning, Mary.” I unlocked the office door and extended a hand. “After you?” I contemplated using the whole “age before beauty” adage, but thought better of it.
She sat on the edge of one of my guest chairs and waited until I arranged myself behind my desk before starting. “What is it that you want from me?” she asked, her face pinched.
“I want the truth,” I whispered because I had left my door open.
Mary leaned over and slammed it shut. I was sure that that attracted some attention. “You know the truth,” she hissed.
I raised an eyebrow, asking, in effect, “I do?”
“Those were not Wayne’s drugs.”
“So Wayne says.”
“They weren’t his. Wayne is a very clean-living young man.”
I leaned across her desk. “Yes, one who throws bottles at the heads of women who walk their dogs in cemeteries and runs at the first sign of trouble. One,” I said, getting revved up, “who leaves campus despite the fact that his girlfriend was beaten and stuffed in my closet. That’s the kind of young man your nephew is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied.
“Yes, you do,” I said, pointing at her. “Where did he go, Mary?”
She stuttered for a few minutes and surprised me by starting to cry for the second time in our relationship. Oh, Jesus. Please help me. I make nuns cry. “I don’t know. He left. He cleaned out the room on the fifth floor and took the car.”
I resisted the urge to chuckle. “The Prius?” Crawford was right; nobody would ever know what time he left with his quiet car. “When’s the last time you saw him?” I asked.
“Lunch on Friday.”
So, three days ago around noontime. He had been gone long enough to qualify as a missing person but I didn’t think Mary wanted to go that route.
She continued. “I went to bring him his dinner and his room was cleaned out, so I knew that he was gone.”
“Did he leave a note?”
She looked away. “No.”
She was a lying mclyingpants, I knew it, and she knew that I knew it. “You’re lying.”
“Well, I never!” she protested.
Yes, I know, I thought. Most nuns haven’t. But you’re still lying.
I kept staring at her but she didn’t crack. But she did offer up a little nugget. “Before he left, he said something about Spencer Williamson. About him being . . . a stoner?” She acted like she had never heard the word before. Oh, please. She’s worked on a college campus since the early seventies; I was sure she had heard the word “stoner” once or twice.
“Not a crime,” I said.
“Actually, it is,” she reminded me, “but it may explain where those drugs came from.”
“The hardest drugs Spencer Williamson does are of the organic variety. I don’t get the sense that he’s a full-blown junkie or that he has access to a brick of heroin.” I leaned back in my chair. “Frankly, we don’t even know if he is a stoner. He acts like half of the guys on this campus. Are they all stoned?”
She smiled slightly. “Good point.” But any conviviality disappeared quickly. “Anyway, Wayne mentioned him before he left. I just thought you should know.”
“Thanks for sharing,” I said.
We stared at each other for a few minutes and she finally got the hint, taking her leave, the smell of Jean Naté staying in the air far longer than she had stayed in my office.
Twenty-Eight
I offered Crawford a cup of coffee from my stash in the bag on the floor of the car.
“Just the way you like it,” I said.
He was in a foul mood, not really wanting to be Chad Varick for the evening. He was still in his work clothes, though his tie was off and his shirt was unbuttoned to the third button. I could see his clean white undershirt peeking out and I felt a swoon coming on.
“Could you button your shirt?” I asked.
He took a sip of the coffee and looked at me. “No. Chad likes to be comfortable. Come to think of it, could you unbutton your shirt?”
“Nice try. We’re in Scarsdale. Respectable people live here.”
He peered over me, attempting to see what else I had in the bag.
“Italian sub with the works or turkey on a roll?” I asked.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t care,” I lied.
“Yes you do.”
“I don’t.”
“Italian sub.”
I tried to hide my disappointment.
“Ha! I knew it,” he said, reaching into the bag and extracting the turkey on a roll. “I didn’t want it anyway. I just wanted to prove that you were lying.” He opened the sandwich. “Anything on here?”
“Lettuce and tomato.”
“Mayo?”
“I hate mayo,” I reminded him.
He let the sandwich and its wrapper fall onto his lap. “But you were having the Italian sub.”
“I couldn’t take that chance.”
“Mayo packets?” he asked. “Who eats dry turkey?” he muttered, taking the sandwich apart to see if I was telling the truth. I was.
I reached into the bag and pulled out two foil packets of mayonnaise. I was nothing if not prepared for food emergencies. He leaned over and gave me a kiss. “I love you,” he said.
“And I you, Crawford.”
“ ‘And I you’?” he asked. “What’s with your speaking pattern lately? You either sound like a writer for Superman episodes or someone from Shakespearean times.” He pulled open the foil packet and spread some mayo on his sandwich. “And I you!” he said gravely. “I, too, love you! And I do! Unhand her!” he added, harkening back to my encounter with Amanda and her boyfriend. The one from Princeton. They were getting hard to keep straight.
I looked out the window beyond Crawford, ignoring his performance. I saw Eben Brookwell carting a garbage can out to the curb. “Shut up!” I said. “And duck!”
Eben surveyed the street, spending an inordinate amount of time staring at our car. After a few minutes, he started across the street.
“Oh, shit. We got made,” I said.
“Now you’re an extra from Boyz n the Hood.” Crawford, realizing that we weren’t getting out of this without a good story, sat up straight, folded the deli paper around his sandwich, and plastered a huge smile on his face. He got out of the car and extended his hand to a very puzzled Eben.
“Well, hello, there!” Crawford said, as if running into Eben Brookwell were the most natural thing in the world.
“Chad? Coco?” Eben said.
I got out of the car and came around to where they were standing. I leaned in and gave Eben a peck on the cheek; I figured we had made it this far, why not give the old guy a thrill? After all, I was a flight attendant; friendliness was our stock in trade. “Hi, Eben. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he said warily. “What are you doing here?”
Crawford looked like a deer caught in the headlights, so I improvised. “You’ll never guess! We bought a house!”
“Really? That’s wonderful.” His smile went from wary
to jubilant at the news.
“And we came by to tell you!” I said with as much cheer as I could muster. I was going to deserve an Academy Award when this was over.
“Which house?” he asked. His kind face and his obvious elation over our move to Scarsdale made me feel really, really bad.
“Which house?” I said. “Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we’ll be neighbors.” I linked arms with Eben and Crawford, putting myself between them.
“No. Really. Which house?” Eben said, the smile not leaving his face.
I hadn’t wanted to use this information, but it seemed like I had to. Before Crawford had picked me up for our night of subterfuge, I had gone on Realtor.com and looked at houses in our price range, finding one that might suit Coco and Chad Varick. “Twenty-seven Fairway Drive!” I exclaimed. I knew that Fairway was a few blocks away from the Brookwells and figured that that would send Eben over the moon.
Crawford looked at me like I was insane.
“Twenty-seven?” Eben asked.
“Twenty-seven? Or twenty-three?” I looked at Crawford for help. “Do you remember, honey?”
“Twenty-seven,” he said in a zombielike tone, staring straight ahead.
Eben looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “Twenty-seven Fairway Drive burned down three nights ago. Boiler exploded. It was for sale, but obviously, it’s not anymore.”
I could almost hear my intestines fill with fluid at the news.
The jig was up. Eben studied my face as if the answer to his question were printed there. “Who are you, really, Ms. Varick? And why are you here?” Eben asked.
I focused on the garbage can that Eben had just brought out to the curb, hoping for some divine inspiration. When none was forthcoming, I focused on the black car driving slowly down the street, not making a sound. When I realized who it was, I threw an elbow into Crawford’s side, screamed, “Gotta go!” and jumped back into the car.
But before I did, I locked eyes with Wayne, who also knew that the jig was up. Eben turned around and called to Wayne, who put pedal to the metal, and took off down the street. Crawford threw the car in drive and peeled out of the spot, sandwich fixings flying around the car.
“When this is over, I’m going to kill you,” Crawford said, not unkindly. He took a corner on two wheels, following Wayne at a safe distance, the two of them slowing down to the requisite twenty-five miles an hour as a school appeared out of nowhere.
“This is like the O.J. chase,” I said, my adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“If we get pulled over, you keep your mouth shut. Do you hear me?” he asked.
“I hear you,” I said, bracing a hand on the dashboard and keeping one eye on Wayne while admiring the beautiful houses of Scarsdale with the other. “Look at that one,” I remarked, turning my head to look at a spacious Dutch colonial with a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn.
“We’re not looking at houses,” Crawford reminded me. “Keep an eye on Wayne.” He took his eyes off the road for a minute. “Oh, great. I have mayonnaise on my pants.”
“Serves you right,” I said, as I watched Wayne hang a left. “He’s making a left.”
“I see him.”
“I thought you were looking at your pants.”
He sighed. “Why don’t we just be quiet for a little while?”
I agreed that that was a good idea. Since we were going so slowly, only having reached a cruising altitude of thirty-five miles an hour, I pulled my sub out of the bag and unwrapped it, taking a big bite. “Want some?” I asked Crawford, holding it in front of his mouth.
He leaned over and sank his teeth into the side I hadn’t touched. Wayne made another left turn and it appeared that we were heading toward the Hutchinson River Parkway. “Where the hell is he taking us?” I asked as we merged onto the highway, finally reaching fifty-five miles an hour. Wayne puttered along in the right lane, while Crawford sped up and pulled up alongside him in the middle lane. “Tell him to pull over,” Crawford said.
My hands were kind of taken up with the sub, so I rolled down the window and waved the sandwich at Wayne through my window. “Pull over!” I called.
Wayne stayed in the right lane, staring straight ahead.
“What did he say?” Crawford asked, keeping his speed at the same pace as Wayne’s.
“I think he said no.”
“Goddamn it,” Crawford said, and took serious action. He started nosing the Passat toward Wayne in the right lane, avoiding hitting the Prius by inches. I started to get nervous.
“Have you done this before?” I asked, taking another bite of sub. I was nervous, but not that nervous. I bit into a hot pepper that made my eyes water.
“Yes,” he said, and nosed toward Wayne again. Wayne drifted over to the shoulder but remained mostly in the right lane, driving the speed limit, looking straight ahead.
Crawford straddled the line on the road and finally succeeded in pushing Wayne completely onto the shoulder. Fortunately, there weren’t too many people on the road at that hour, so we were able to muscle Wayne over without attracting too much attention.
Wayne got out of the car and began running along the shoulder. Crawford pulled over and put the car in park. “Stay here,” he said, as he bolted from the car and began running along the shoulder, no match for Wayne and his superspeed.
“He’s really fast, Crawford!” I called after him, but it was no good. The two of them were way down the shoulder, Crawford, in his tie-up dress shoes, trying to catch Wayne in his hundred-and-fifty-dollar sneakers.
The last thing I heard before I saw the state trooper’s head in the sideview mirror, making his way toward Crawford’s car, was Crawford screaming, “Stop! Wayne! You’re under arrest!”
I put my sandwich on the dashboard, carefully wrapping it so that the oil and vinegar dressing didn’t drip onto Crawford’s floor mats.
The trooper arrived and tapped on the side of the car with his radio.
I smiled, hoping that there was no lettuce stuck in my teeth. “Good evening, Officer.”
“License and registration, ma’am.”
I then realized that I had bigger problems than lettuce stuck in my teeth.
Twenty-Nine
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard Crawford mutter, “I hate you,” while I was thanking the state trooper for his time.
We were in the car and trying to find an exit so that we could go south and head back to St. Thomas. I started to talk.
Crawford held up a hand. “Nope. Not a word. Not yet. Too soon.”
“What are you so mad about? It was your idea to run after him on the shoulder of the highway.” I unwrapped my sandwich and began to eat it again now that things had calmed down.
“It was your idea to go to the Brookwells,” he said, merging into the left lane and hitting eighty miles an hour. It appeared that he couldn’t drop me off fast enough.
“Interesting thing about you, Crawford: you’re always ‘in’ when it comes to these little capers until things go a little bit wrong. Then, it’s all my fault. Then, you’re completely ‘out.’ ”
He waited a beat. “You could have waited to tell me that when your mouth was empty.” He slowed down a bit. “Is that a piece of lettuce on my dashboard?”
I wiped the lettuce off with a napkin and threw the rest of my sandwich in the bag. “I’m not even hungry anymore.”
We drove to school in silence, both ruminating on the chain of events. After Crawford took off after Wayne on the shoulder, the trooper had arrived and I had had some explaining to do. When I told him that we were there to arrest one Wayne Brookwell, the trooper, initially dubious, took off after Crawford and Wayne, coming back with only Crawford. Wayne was in the weeds, a veritable Flash in a T-shirt and jeans. While Crawford discussed the situation with the trooper, I wisely kept my mouth shut, just as I had been instructed. The trooper was going to impound the Prius and put an APB on Wayne.
“What is Wayne so afraid of?” I said, not realizin
g I said it out loud. Crawford looked over at me. “It can’t just be Costas and Brandon. And if he had explained the situation to Merrimack and Etheridge, I’m sure this whole thing could have been worked out. What is this about?”
Crawford looked at me but I could tell he was thinking. At the same time, the two us said, “They were his drugs after all.”
I looked at my watch as we pulled onto campus and saw that Crawford and I had another two hours before visitation ended. Crawford was still ruminating on our conclusion. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk it through?” I said. He didn’t seem mad anymore and I hoped to entice him into coming in to do more than talk.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said, and got out of the car.
We went into the dorm, which was pretty quiet. I walked to the main area, leaving Crawford in my room, and checked in with the RA on duty: Spencer Williamson.
“Hi, Spence.” I perched on the edge of the desk and looked casually at the logbook. “Anything going on?” I signed Crawford into the logbook.
For a supposed stoner, Spencer’s desk sitting was far superior to any of the other buffoons who supposedly kept track of things in the dorm. He flipped through the logbook. “Not really. A couple of visitors but nothing too earth-shattering.”
I should hope not. “How’s Amanda?”
His pale face grew paler. “She’s having a tough time. She’s really scared.”
“If you see her, tell her that if she needs anything to come see me. Okay?”
He nodded. “Got it.”
I started off down the hall, turning back when I heard Spencer call after me.
“Any sign of Wayne?” he asked.
“Not a one,” I lied.
He made a little sound. “Too bad,” I heard him mutter.
I didn’t know what that meant and didn’t feel like asking. I returned to my room, where Crawford was searching the contents of my medicine cabinet; Trixie was on my bed, a place she wasn’t supposed to be. He didn’t turn around when I came into the bathroom.
“You’ve got a lot of lipstick,” he commented.
“You’ve got a lot of tube socks,” I said. “But, unlike you, I thought it rude to say anything about it.”
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