But for the lack of peacock feathers and my view of bare trees against November-sullen Berkshire sky, I could’ve sworn I’d woken up circa 1970, somewhere in the Haight.
“Try drinking a little water,” Lulu said, reaching for a glass on the bedside table. “You couldn’t keep anything down last night.”
My lips were so dry it hurt to clamp them onto the edge of the glass. She tipped it up. More water spilled down my chin than got into my mouth, and she pulled the glass away.
The tiny sip made me feel thirstier. “More?”
“See if that stays down. I can make you some tea if you like.”
My head was too heavy to hold up, so I let it fall back to the pillow.
“I’m going to go put the kettle on,” she said.
I dozed off while she was gone, waking up when she sat down and made the mattress jiggle again.
She gave me another small sip of water. I kept it all in my mouth this time.
“You had a rough night,” she said.
I swallowed. “What happened?”
“I thought you’d gone back to Pittsfield at first,” she said. “Figured you’d ditched me because you didn’t feel well.”
“No.”
“I know, it seemed pretty strange. I started walking home alone when the party was over.”
She brushed a strand of hair off my forehead. “But on the way, I saw your car. So I got Pete, and we started looking for you. We finally found you mumbling to yourself out behind the vegetable patch, down by the Farm. You’d been sick. You kept talking about spiders.”
“The snow,” I said. “It looked like spiders.”
“You were delirious.” She gave me more water.
“How long was I out there?” I asked.
“They’d all gone to sleep down at the Farm.”
The kettle started whistling.
“Peppermint tea okay?” she asked, standing up.
The idea was repulsive. “Just water.”
“The mint will soothe your stomach. I’ll put some honey in it.”
The whistling got shriller. Lulu stood up and left the room. After a minute I could hear her opening and shutting cabinet doors. She returned, bearing a hand-thrown clay mug, steam rising up off it with the smell of mint.
The scent made my stomach ripple, and I felt my mouth filling with spit.
She put it down on the bedside table. “I’ll let that cool off.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think I’m quite up for it.”
“Give it a minute.”
“Tell me what happened first,” I said, shutting my eyes again.
“It was tough getting you here. We were going to take you to my apartment, but we didn’t think you’d make it that far. You were so sick. This was closer.”
“I’m sorry.” I cringed, picturing her and Pete carrying me uphill from the Farm while I was covered in puke.
“Whose nightgown is this?” I asked, plucking at the unfamiliar sleeve on my arm.
“Dhumavati’s. Your clothes were pretty nasty. I washed everything last night, but we had to put you in something.” Lulu pointed to a pile of folded stuff on a small wing chair near the door. My jacket was hanging on the back.
“You didn’t have to,” I said.
“Well . . . I really did. Either that or throw it all out.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Plus, everything was wet from the snow.”
“You guys must all be exhausted,” I said. “I’m grateful.”
“I’m just glad we found you.”
“So am I.”
“Have some tea,” she said.
She held the mug to my lips, and I took a big swallow. It felt like it was going to stay down all right. I took it from her, drinking more, slowly.
She closed her eyes, leaning against the headboard next to me.
“Dean knows I’m here?” I asked.
“We called him after we got you cleaned up. He wanted to come down, but we told him he might as well let you sleep.”
“Why don’t you lie down all the way, get a little rest yourself?” I said.
“Feels good just like this, after that chair.”
I heard the front door open in the next room. A breath of cold air washed over us.
Pete appeared in the doorway. “She’s awake?”
“We both are,” said Lulu.
“Hey,” I said, slowly sitting up, “thank you for everything. Both of you.”
“Are you feeling a little better?” he asked.
“Better,” I said. “Not exactly great.”
The two of them were silent for a bit too long.
“Have you told her?” Pete asked Lulu.
“Told me what?”
The phone rang out in the living room.
“I’ll get it,” he said, looking relieved.
“Told me what?” I asked Lulu.
“Shhh,” she said.
He mumbled a few things, then got quiet. Finally, he said, “I’ll let them know.”
I heard him exhale before he fumbled the phone back in place.
He came into the doorway again and looked at Lulu. “That was Tim,” he said. “Everything’s canceled for the day . . . classes . . .”
I looked at him. “We got a snow day?”
Pete shook his head. Started to say something and then stopped.
“Pete?” I said.
He cleared his throat. “The police are here.”
I tried to catch his eye. “Why?”
He walked over toward us. Took a seat at the foot of the bed. “They want to talk to everyone about last night.”
“About what, last night?”
“Mooney and Fay.”
“They ran away?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“What?”
Pete stood up again.
“Come on,” I said, “what happened?”
He wouldn’t look at me, couldn’t stand still.
“So it’s true?” asked Lulu.
“Yeah,” he said.
I turned toward her. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Last night,” she said, “Mooney and Fay committed suicide.”
“But they were just . . .”
“Oh, honey, I know.” She put an arm around my shoulders to draw me close, tears running down her face.
I couldn’t even cry, I was too numb. “How do you know for sure?”
“Dhumavati got a call this morning,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She asked me to wait. We wanted to make sure you were okay first.”
I looked up at Pete. “Who found them?”
“Gerald,” he said. “Early this morning. Up in the loft.”
“What loft?”
“Above the living room at the Farm. He wondered why the ceiling hatch to it wasn’t closed all the way.”
“How do you know they . . .” I couldn’t finish the question.
“They drank something,” said Pete. “Nothing up there with them but two half-empty cups of punch, and Gerald said there was some—”
He stopped.
“Some what?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I pulled away from Lulu. “Some what, Pete?”
He grimaced.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Gerald said there was foam. Around their mouths. And that the cops were talking about poison.”
I pushed the covers off my legs.
“Madeline, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked Lulu.
I didn’t answer, just crawled away from her and started to climb out the other side of Dhumavati’s guest bed.
I felt horrible when I stood up—pounding headache, still sore all over. Weak and shaky. I caught sight of my reflection in an old mirror hanging over Dhumavati’s bureau. I looked so horrible I closed my eyes. “This wasn’t suicide.”
“How do you know?” asked Pete.
I opened my eye
s and stared at him in the mirror. “I just do.”
“Madeline,” said Lulu, “come lie down before you fall over. I told Dhumavati I’d keep you in bed.”
“I can’t.” I walked over to the bureau and braced myself, one hand against the top drawer.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
I turned toward Pete. “Where is everyone, in the dining hall?”
Lulu stood up. “You’re sick as a damn dog.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “You puked all over yourself in the snow. Couldn’t even walk without us holding you up. I’ve never seen anyone get hit that hard with the flu.”
“Look, Madeline,” said Pete, “if the cops want to talk to you, they’ll come down here.”
“Dhumavati told me to let you rest,” said Lulu. “Half the school’s down with this bug.”
I walked back to the bed so I was standing in front of her.
I took her hand. “Feel my forehead.”
She reached up, laying her palm against my skin.
“No fever, right?” I asked. “And I didn’t have any fever the first time you touched my face this morning, did I?”
She pursed her mouth, unswayed.
“And I haven’t puked since you guys found me out there last night.”
“Once,” she said. “We had to change the sheets.”
I turned to Pete. “Was that the last time, after you guys put me to bed?”
“We’re not going to argue about this. You need rest,” he said.
I walked over to the chair that held my folded clothes. “I need to get up there.”
Lulu said, “You don’t.”
Pete stepped into the doorway, blocking my way out and looking all concerned.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Lulu’s right. You shouldn’t go out in the cold. You’re just gonna make yourself worse.”
“Trust me,” I said, “right now there’s nothing I’d rather do than go home and lie down, preferably through Thanksgiving.”
He pulled my shoulder gently, trying to turn me away from the door.
I shrugged his hand off. “Look, you guys—I don’t have the flu. Somebody fucking dosed me.”
17
That’s why I have to talk to the cops,” I said. “Ask them to find out what the hell I threw up out in the snow—see if it’s the same shit Fay and Mooney drank.”
Lulu considered that. “You don’t think it was suicide?”
“Was there a note?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure the police would discuss that with us.”
“Gerald would’ve,” I said. “And I can tell you right now he didn’t find one.”
I picked up my clothes off the chair. “I talked with Fay and Mooney last night. There’s no way they were planning to kill themselves.”
She nodded, but Pete looked like he wasn’t about to give up blocking the doorway.
“If the police think they did,” I said, “they’re not going to look at anything else. Because then it’s just a couple of crazy kids up at that crazy school. That’s not what happened. They have to know.”
“But Fay cutting herself,” said Pete. “And the idea that anyone here would—”
“Maybe I’m wrong,” I said. “I hope to hell I am.”
“But maybe you’re not,” said Lulu.
She stood up and walked over to Pete.
“Go wait in the living room. Let Madeline get dressed.”
She closed the door behind him, then turned back toward me. “You’re sure about this?”
“Fay and Mooney wanted me to come back down to the Farm this afternoon so we could talk. They promised me they weren’t taking off before then.” I tossed Dhumavati’s nightie onto the bed and started getting my clothes on.
“Okay,” she said.
I sat down and reached for my boots. “Did you tell anyone about the rest of it?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Want me to spit into my palm so we can shake on it?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had to ask.”
I stood up and checked myself out in the bureau’s mirror again. There was a crocheted panel of lace laid out beneath it, with a few small mementos and framed photographs scattered across its surface. “You’re just the only person I can trust,” I added.
“Same here,” she said. “Do you think there’s any way this was suicide?”
“I told them I had an idea about something we could do,” I said.
“Did you tell them what?”
“No,” I said. “But I know they wanted to find out. Mooney’s the one who told me to come back today.”
I picked up a tin ashtray that held a white shell button and couple of bobby pins. Somebody’s dented souvenir from Fisherman’s Wharf. “I mean, I could believe they decided to blow me off and run away, but even that would’ve surprised the hell out of me.”
“And where would they have found anything to do it with on their own?” Lulu asked.
Her question brought me up short. Because the first time I went down to the Farm, Mooney had told me about laying out the poison for rat duty.
If he and Fay had wanted to die, Mooney knew exactly what to spike the punch with.
But wouldn’t rat poison be locked away? We weren’t allowed to keep bottles of Wite-Out in our desks. Too many kids wanted to huff the fumes.
And Fay and Mooney had been so much less morose the night of the party. He’d even given me shit about keeping my sweater on around Wiesner.
I tilted the photos so I could see them better. One of young, dark-haired Dhumavati with a pretty little girl on her lap, the pair of them sitting on a picnic blanket in front of a spindly pagoda. One of Dhumavati alone, holding up a GET OUT THE VOTE! sign in a crowd of cheering people.
“When was the last time you were on overnight duty at the Farm?” I asked Lulu.
“Couple of weeks ago,” she said. “Why?”
“Did you have to do anything about the rats?”
“We set out traps at night. I didn’t think it was working too well.”
“It wasn’t,” I said. “They’d started using poison.”
“Would Mooney have known that?”
“He had to help spread it around at lights-out,” I said. “But I can’t believe anybody would leave shit like that sitting on the kitchen counter till morning, can you?”
“Of course not,” she said. “There’s a locked cabinet. Everything questionable goes in there—right down to the dish soap.”
“Padlock or key?”
“A key. When you’re on duty you have to wear it around your neck, even in bed.”
“Are there any spare copies?”
“Probably,” she said. “But Madeline, would it matter?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there was still poison on the floor, wasn’t there? Whatever got put out for the actual rats . . .”
“And Mooney would know where those little piles were,” I said.
“That’s not how it works,” she said. “We had a ton of rats in our barn back home. They don’t just walk up to a pile of straight poison and lick it.”
“So what do you do, spread it on cheese?”
“Mashed it up with peanut butter, in the old days. But now you’re more likely to buy it premixed in little cardboard containers. The tops are perforated, and you rip them open when you want to use them.”
“Did you see any in the cabinet?”
“No,” she said. “Just the traps. But ask Pete. He was there last week, right?”
“I will,” I said, “and thank you again for taking such good care of me last night.”
“You can repay me by going up there to kick some ass on behalf of Fay and Mooney. I’ll call Dean.”
I put on my jacket, hugged her, and opened the bedroom door.
Lulu told Pete to drive me up to the dining hall, assuring us she�
��d stay to wait for Dean.
“You go in there with her, Pete,” she said. “Call me if you need anything. I can leave a note for Dean, worst case.”
She took a woolly hat and a scarf from the coatrack by the front door and bundled me up in them.
“Flu or no flu,” she said, “you’ve been through a ton of shit, and it’s goddamn cold out there.”
She hugged me again, hard, then pushed us out the door.
Pete had an ancient hatchback, and it took a minute for the engine to turn over.
“There we go,” he said when it finally caught and came to life. He gave the accelerator another pump to make sure, then put it in reverse and threw his arm around my seat, looking over his shoulder to back out.
“She’s a good friend, Lulu,” he said.
“She is,” I replied.
We were going five miles an hour across campus. I couldn’t see the dining hall yet.
“Listen,” I said, “can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Mooney was on rat duty last week, when you had overnight at the Farm.”
“He was,” said Pete. “Do you think that’s how they . . .”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I wondered what kind of poison you guys were using. Lulu said it’s usually these little cardboard things you rip open.”
“Exactly,” he said. “There’s a gross of them, locked up in the kitchen.”
“But some are left out at night, right?”
He nodded. Then he hit the brakes.
“This was my fault. I’m the one who put Mooney on rat duty.”
“Pete, I still don’t believe this was suicide.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Even if I’m wrong, it wasn’t your idea to use poison in the first place, was it? I mean, we’re all told how dangerous Wite-Out is, but somebody thought it was okay to leave a bunch of little boxes of strychnine lying around?”
“Arsenic,” he said. “At least that’s what’s printed on the box.”
“Arsenic,” I said. “That’s just brilliant.”
“I should’ve realized. Should’ve said something.”
“Sure,” I said. “Me, too. And Gerald and Cammy and anyone else who’s been on duty since they stopped using traps down there. If anyone’s responsible for that negligence, we all are.”
The Crazy School Page 13