School Days s-33

by Robert B. Parker

  School Days

  ( Spenser - 33 )

  Robert B Parker

  School Days

  By

  For Joan:

  hasn't it been one hell of a ride to Dover.

  Chapter 1

  SUSAN WAS AT a shrink conference in Durham, North Carolina, giving a paper on psychotherapy, so I had Pearl. She was sleeping comfortably on the couch in my office, which had been put there largely for that purpose, when a good-looking elderly woman came in carrying a large album of some kind and disturbed her. Pearl jumped off the couch, stood next to me, dropped her head, and growled sotto voce. The woman looked at her.

  "What kind of dog is that?" she said.

  "A German shorthaired pointer," I said.

  "Aren't they brown and white?"

  "Not always," I said.

  "What's her name?"

  "Pearl."

  "Hello, Pearl," the woman said, and walked to my client chair and sat down. Pearl left my side, went and sniffed carefully at the woman's knees. The woman patted Pearl's head a couple of times. Pearl wagged her tail slightly and went back to the couch. The woman put her large album on my desk.

  "I have kept this scrapbook," the woman said to me, "since the day my grandson was arrested."

  "Hobbies are nice," I said.

  "It is far more than a hobby, young man," the woman said. "It is the complete record of everything that has happened."

  "That might prove useful," I said.

  "I should hope so," the woman said.

  She placed it on my desk. "I wish you to study it."

  I nodded.

  "Will you leave it with me?" I said.

  "It is yours," she said. "I have another copy for myself."

  The woman's name was Lily Ellsworth. She was erect, firm, white-haired, and stylish. Too old for me, at the moment, but I hoped Susan would look as good as Mrs. Ellsworth when we got to that age. Being as rich would also be pleasant.

  "And after I've studied it, ma'am," I said, "what would you like me to do."

  "Demonstrate that my grandson is innocent of the charges against him."

  "What If he's not?" I said.

  "He is innocent," she said. "I will entertain no other possibility."

  "What I know of the case, he was charged along with another boy," I said.

  "I have no preconceptions about the other boy," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "His guilt or innocence is of no consequence to me. But Jared is innocent."

  "How'd you happen to come to me?" I said.

  "Our family has been represented for years by Cone, Oakes," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "I asked our personal attorney to get me a recommendation. He consulted with their criminal defense group, and you were recommended."

  "Do they represent your grandson?" I said.

  "No. His parents have insisted on hiring an attorney of their own."

  "Too bad," I said. "Cone, Oakes has the best defense lawyer in the state."

  "If you take this case and need to consult him," Mrs. Ellsworth said, "you may list his fee as an expense."

  "Her," I said.

  Mrs. Ellsworth nodded gravely and didn't comment.

  "Do you know who they have hired?" I said.

  "His name is Richard Leeland. He is my son-in-law's fraternity brother."

  "Oh," I said.

  "You don't know of him," Mrs. Ellsworth said.

  "No, but that doesn't mean he isn't good."

  "Perhaps not," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "But being Ron's fraternity mate is not in itself much of a recommendation."

  "Ron being your son-in-law," I said.

  "Ron Clark," she said. "I still remember, approximately, a passage in The Naked and the Dead where someone describes a man as `Westchester County, Cornell, a DKE, and a perfect asshole.' Mailer could have been writing of my son-in-law. Except that Ron grew up in Greenwich and went to Yale."

  "A man can overcome his beginnings," I said.

  "I wonder if you have," she said. "You seem a bit sporty to me."

  "Sporty?" I said.

  "A wisenheimer."

  "Wow," I said. "It's been years since someone called me a wisenheimer."

  "I may not be current in my slang," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "But I know people. You are a wisenheimer."

  "Yes," I said, "I am."

  "But not just a wisenheimer," she said.

  "No," I said. "I have other virtues."

  "What are they?" she said.

  "I am persistent, and fearless, and reasonably smart."

  "And modest," Mrs. Ellsworth said.

  "That too," I said.

  "If I hire you for this, will you put Jared's interests above all else?"

  "No," I said. "I put Susan Silverman's interests above all else."

  "Your inamorata?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "That's as it should be," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "Any other problems I should be alert to?"

  "I don't take direction well," I said.

  "No," she said. "I don't, either."

  "And," I said, "you have to understand that if your grandson is guilty, I won't prove him innocent."

  "He is not guilty," Mrs. Ellsworth said.

  "Okay," I said. "I'll do what I can."

  Chapter 2

  I STOOD AT my window on the second floor and watched Mrs. Ellsworth as she came out of my building and rounded the corner, walking like a young woman. Pearl got off the couch and came over and looked out the window with me. She liked to do that. Mrs. Ellsworth got into a chauffeur-driven Bentley at the corner of Berkeley and Boylston.

  "She can afford me," I said to Pearl.

  Late summer was in full force in the Back Bay. But, August or not, it was gray and showery, and quite cool, though not actually cold. Most of the young businesswomen were coatless Under their Umbrellas. I watched as the Bentley, gleaming wetly, pulled away from the curb and turned right onto Boylston. The driver would probably turn right again at Arlington, and then go up St. James Ave to the Pike and on to the western suburbs, with his wipers on an interval setting. I watched for a bit longer as two young women in bright summer dresses, pressed together under a big golf umbrella, crossed Boylston Street toward Louie's. Summer dresses are good.

  When they had crossed, I turned back to my desk and sat down and picked up Mrs. Ellsworth's scrapbook. Neatly taped on the cover, an engraved calling card read 'Lily Ellsworth,' with an address in Dowling. I opened the scrapbook and began to read. Pearl went back to the couch. She liked to do that, too.

  Two seventeen-year-old boys wearing ski masks had walked into the Dowling School, a private academy they both attended, and opened fire, each with a pair of nine-millimeter handguns. Five students, an assistant dean, and a Spanish teacher were killed. Six more students and two other teachers were wounded before the Dowling cops arrived, and the kids had barricaded themselves in the school library with hostages. The Dowling Police kept them there until a State Police hostage negotiator arrived with a State Police SWAT team standing by. Negotiations took six hours, but at three in the afternoon, one of the boys took off his ski mask and swaggered out, hands in the air, smirking at the cameras. The other one had disappeared.

  The captured boy was named Wendell Grant. After two days of questioning, he finally gave up his buddy, Jared Clark.

  Clark denied his participation but had no alibi for the time, and was known to hang with Grant. After a few days in jail, Clark confessed. There was much more. Newspaper stories, transcripts of television and radio newscasts. Copies of police reports and forensic data; pictures of the boys. Neither was unusual-looking. Profiles of victims, interviews with survivors, and bereaved relatives. It didn't offer me much that was useful at the moment, though it would be a good source for names and dates later. And I didn't
expect it to be a good source of facts, now or later.

  When I got through reading the scrapbook, I called Rita Fiore.

  "What do you know about a defense attorney named Richard Leeland?" I said.

  "Never heard of him," Rita said.

  "He's counsel for one of the kids who shot up the school in Dowling," I said.

  "That kid shouldn't have a defense counsel I never heard of," Rita said. "But, I gather, at least he has you."

  "His grandmother took your recommendation."

  "Huh," Rita said. "That's who was asking. Everyone was so fucking discreet, I didn't know who the client was. How come they didn't hire me to help you or, actually, hire you to help me after they hired me?"

  "Leeland was the kid's father's frat brother at Yale."

  "Oh, God," Rita said.

  "I know," I said. "Can you find out if he's any good?"

  "Sure. I'll call the DAs office out there. What's in it for me."

  "Dinner?" I said.

  "At my house?"

  "Sure. You get a date, I'll bring Susan, it'll be swell."

  "You smarmy bastard," Rita said.

  "You can't get a date?" I said.

  "I had other plans," Rita said.

  "I thought you were seeing that police chief from the North Shore," I said.

  "I was," Rita said. "But he loves his ex-wife. You. Him. Every winner I find is in love with somebody else."

  "Maybe that's not an accident," I said.

  "Fuck you, Sigmund," Rita said.

  "Or not," I said. "Susan's in North Carolina. I'll buy you dinner at Excelsior."

  "How easily I settle," Rita said. "I'll meet you there at seven."

  "Have your secretary make us a reservation," I said.

  "My secretary?"

  "I don't have one," I said.

  Chapter 3

  DOWLING IS WEST of Boston. High-priced country with a village store and a green, and a lot of big shade trees that arch over the streets. As I drove along the main street, I passed a young girl with long blond hair and breeches and high boots, riding a bay mare along the side of the street, and eating an ice cream cone. It might have been pistachio. I pulled into the little lot in front of the village store and parked beside an unmarked State Police car and went in. There was a counter and display case opposite the door, and a few tables. In the back of the store were shelves, and along two sides were glass-front freezers. Two women in hats were at one table with coffee. A young couple who looked like J. Crew models were having ice cream at another table. Alone at a third table was a stubby little guy with thick hands and thick glasses, wearing a tan poplin suit and a light-blue tie. I took a wild stab.

  "Sergeant DiBella?" I said.

  He nodded. I sat down across from him at the table.

  "Healy called me," he said. "I used to work for him."

  There were a few crumbs on a paper plate in front of DiBella.

  "Pie," I said.

  "Strawberry rhubarb. Counter girl told me they make it themselves."

  "I better have some," I said. "Don't want to offend them."

  "Make it two," DiBella said.

  The pie was all it should have been. DiBella ate his second piece just as if he hadn't eaten a first one. We both had coffee.

  "I've read the press accounts," I said, "of the school shooting."

  "They're always on the money," DiBella said.

  "Sure," I said. "I just wanted to test you against them."

  A couple of local girls came in wearing cropped T-shirts and low-slung shorts, showing a lot of postpubescent abdomen. We watched them buy some sort of iced coffee drinks.

  "Be glad when that fad is over," DiBella said.

  "I'll say."

  "You got kids?" DiBella said.

  "No."

  "I got two daughters," he said.

  "So you'll be really glad," I said.

  The girls left.

  "Healy says the Clark kid's grandmother hired you to get him off."

  "I like to think of it as establish his innocence," I said.

  DiBella shrugged.

  "Grant fingered him," DiBella said. "He confessed. You got some heavy sledding."

  "But nobody actually saw him in the school," I said.

  "He was wearing the ski mask."

  "So you only have Grant's word."

  DiBella grinned. "And his," DiBella said. "'Course, he could be a lying sack of shit."

  I nodded.

  "Where'd they get the weapons?"

  DiBella shook his head. "Don't know," he said.

  "Not family weapons?"

  "Nope, far as we can tell, neither family kept weapons." "So two seventeen-year-old kids in the deepest dark center of exurbia come up with four nines," I said.

  "And extra magazines," DiBella said.

  "Loaded?" I said.

  "Yep."

  "All the same guns?"

  "No," DiBella said. "A Browning, a Colt, two Glocks."

  "Same ammo," I said. "Different magazines."

  DiBella nodded.

  "The magazines and the guns were color-coded with Magic Marker," he said.

  "Sounds like a plan," I said.

  "Yeah. The thing is, they planned how to do it pretty good. But they didn't seem to have any plan for afterwards."

  "You mean to get away," I said. DiBella nodded.

  "They explain that?" I said.

  DiBella smiled. "They don't explain shit," he said. "All they say is we done it, you don't need to know why."

  "Or how the second kid got away with the cops around the building."

  "My guess? He took off his mask and ditched his guns and ran out with the other kids early in the proceedings."

  "Must have been a Chinese fire drill," I said.

  "Especially before our guys showed up. When it was just the local cops."

  "Did you get there?"

  DiBella nodded.

  "Me, everybody. I came in with the negotiation team. SWAT guys were already there. The bomb squad showed up a little after me. There were two or three local departments on the scene. Nobody in overall charge. One department didn't want to take orders from another department. None of them wanted to take orders from us. Took a while for the SWAT commander to get control of the thing. And when he did, we still didn't know who was in there, or how many. We didn't know if the place was rigged. We didn't know if they had hostages, or how many. We'd have shot somebody if we knew who to shoot. Kids were jumping out windows and running out fire doors."

  "Who went in?"

  "Hostage negotiator. Guy named Gabe Leonard. Everybody was milling around, trying to figure how to get in touch inside, and the bomb-squad guys were trying to figure how to tell if the place was rigged. I was trying to get a coherent story from anybody, a student or teacher who'd been inside and was now outside, and Gabe says, `fuck this,' and puts on a vest and walks in the front door."

  `And nothing blew up," I said.

  "Nothing," DiBella said.

  We were out of coffee. I got up and got us two more cups.

  "Gabe walks through the place, which is empty, like he's walking on hummingbird eggs. There's nobody else in there except the bodies, and finally the kid, in the president's office, with the door locked. They establish contact through the locked door and Gabe eventually gets the kid to answer the phone. Kid says he will, and Gabe calls out to us and one of the hostage guys calls the number and patches Gabe in, and they're in business. Gabe, and the kid, and us listening in."

  "How'd he get him out," I said.

  "I'll get you a transcript, but basically, he said, 'Be a standup guy. Whatever you were trying to prove, you need to finish it off by walking out straight up, not have us come in and drag out your corpse.' "

  "And the kid says, 'You're right,' and he opens the door and comes out," DiBella said. "Takes off his ski mask. Gabe takes his guns, and they walk out together. Gabe said he wouldn't cuff him, and he didn't."

  "Until he got outside," I said.
/>
  "Oh, sure, then the SWAT guys swarmed him and off he went."

  "Film at eleven," I said.

  "A lot of it," DiBella said.

  Chapter 4

  THE DOWLING SCHOOL was on the western end of town, among a lot of tall pine trees. I drove between the big brick pillars, under the wrought-iron arch, up the curving cobblestone drive, and parked in front, by a sign that said FACULTY ONLY. There was one other car in front, a late-model Buick sedan.

  The place had the deserted quality that schools have when they're not in session. The main building had a stone façade with towers at either end and a crenellated roofline between them. The front door was appropriate to the neo-castle style, high and made of oak planking wirli big wrought-iron strap hinges and an impressive iron handle. It was locked. I located a doorbell and rang it. There was silence for a long time, until finally the door opened and a woman appeared.

  "Hello," she said.

  "My name is Spenser," I said. "I'm working on the shooting case and wondered if I might come in and look around."

  "Are you a policeman?" the woman said.

  "I'm a private detective," I said. "Jared Clark's grandmother hired me."

  "May I see some identification?"

  "Sure."

  I showed her some. She read it carefully, and returned it. "My name is Sue Biegler," she said. "I am the Dean of Students."

  "How nice for you," I said.

  "And the students," she said.

  I smiled. One point for Dean Biegler.

  "What is it you wish to see?" she said.

  "I don't know," I said. "I just need to walk around, feel the place a little, see what everything looks like."

  Dean Biegler stood in the doorway for a moment. "Well," she said.

  I waited.

  "Well, I really don't have anyone to show you around," she said.

  "That's a good thing," I said. "I like to walk around alone, take my time, see what it feels like. I won't steal any exam booklets."

  She smiled.

  "You sound positively impressionistic," she said.

  "Impressively so," I said.

  She smiled again and sighed.