I was too stunned to say anything.
“Kind of surprised me it didn’t occur to you,” he continued, “what with being hip to the Flavor Aid and everything. I mean, you’re supposed to be a history teacher.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
He took a drag off his Camel and shrugged, expelling a smoke-blue cumulus into the cold night air. “I’m insane. Who’d’ve believed me?”
The first cop car screeched to a halt about twenty yards away, siren blaring. Its headlights illuminated Dhumavati’s body, smashed deep into the snow.
“You never told Wiesner?” I asked.
To my relief, Sitzman shook his head.
“Did Gerald really grab that kid Parker’s dick last year?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Parker just wanted to go home. So did Mooney.”
“Then why’d Wiesner knock out Gerald’s teeth?”
“He didn’t know they were lying.”
“You’re sure?”
“Mooney was planning to tell him eventually, before that,” he said, “but then he figured the truth would just piss Wiesner off more. We all did.”
People were starting to come out of the Mansion.
“Would it’ve made any difference, Wiesner knowing?” Sitzman asked.
I pondered that.
If Wiesner hadn’t come to my apartment to tell me about Gerald, I wouldn’t have ended up at Gerald’s place tonight. Without me, would he and Sookie still be alive?
But it was Dhumavati who’d sent me to see Sookie in the first place, and Sookie who’d brought me to Gerald’s apartment.
Dhumavati must have known what he was going to tell me before we ever got there. Otherwise she’d have had no reason to kill Sookie, no reason to follow Gerald and me back to the Mansion with two guns in her pocket.
“No,” I told Sitzman. “In the end, Wiesner knowing the truth about Gerald wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
“I’m glad.”
“Me too,” I said. “And can you promise me something else?”
“Name it.”
“Should you happen to run into Wiesner, please tell him I said thank you.”
“No problem,” he said, flicking his cigarette out onto the lawn.
We watched more cops drive up. State police this time.
I climbed off the hood, clenched my Camel in my teeth, and reached through the Porsche’s passenger window to turn off the music.
When I stood up, Sitzman was gone. You never would have known he’d been there except for his slipper prints in the snow. They were spaced farther and farther apart across the lawn, as he’d picked up speed for the woods.
I looked back toward the crowd and saw Mindy surrounded by cops, her finger raised to point at me.
Part VI
Madmen will justify their condition with touching loyalty, and surround it with a thousand distractive schemes. . . . When and if by their unforgivable stubbornness they finally burst through to worlds upon worlds of motionless light, they are no longer called afflicted or insane.
They are called saints.
—Mark Helprin
Winter’s Tale
39
They buried Mooney and Fay in Stockbridge, side by side.
A bitter day: hard and cold and with a lacerating wind.
Nobody but Lulu and I had come from Santangelo to the service, or to the cemetery afterward. Markham stood beside us, having told the firm back in Boston that he needed several more days to wrap things up. Dean had offered to drive us, but I didn’t want him to miss work, and he’d already had to see me cry enough about all of it.
Most of the kids had been taken home by their families once the news about Dhumavati and David and all the events of the past few weeks hit the wires.
The Globe and the Times had had the gall to run op-eds extolling David’s selfless work on behalf of troubled children—citing his perennial best seller, Decrypting Your Teenager, as a constant, much needed font of comfort and enlightenment to tens of thousands of desperate parents across the country.
We were very pleased to learn that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, had finally, nonetheless, pulled the school’s license to operate.
A few homesick kids remained in the dorms even so, while the skeleton staff awaited instructions as to which institutions their parents desired to have them forwarded.
Snow eddied and whirled around us in the cemetery. Lulu and I clutched each other and wept as the officiant spoke the kindest words he was able to muster for a pair of dead kids he’d never known—first over their closed caskets in his chapel, then at the edge of their graves as we watched those dark coffins descend into the ground.
Fay’s parents seemed numb with grief—her fragile pretty mother all in black, her father decked in a somber suit and tie.
Mooney’s dad had been too busy to make the scene. We hadn’t expected his stepmother. Someone said they were in Nassau.
Lulu announced that she despised them both, and I of course agreed.
We’d heard that David was already out on bail, whiling away the hours by practicing takeoffs and landings from his helipad, instructor in tow.
It was our third funeral that week, following close on the service for Gerald and the one for Sookie.
No one bothered with Dhumavati’s.
Gerald’s mother, Mary, was scheduled for burial on Friday, and his five remaining brothers and sisters had gathered at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge. They’d come today, wanting to pay their respects to these children whom their eldest brother had tried so very hard to save—and to honor his courage for having done so.
When the hired priest closed his prayer book, everyone stood in line to shake hands with Fay’s parents.
“She was a lovely girl,” I told them. “Kind to everyone. I will miss her a great deal.”
Her father teared up, shaking my hand.
I’d like to think that her mother was still too much in shock for anything to register, to so much as alight upon the delicate elegant, pink-and-gold shell she inhabited. She was so very like her daughter, except for the utter lack of feeling betrayed by those otherwise-doppelgänger gray eyes.
She smiled at me, staring off somewhere beyond my left shoulder.
“Thank you so very much for your gracious condolences,” she said, “in our time of sorrow.”
She said the very same thing to Lulu, and to each of Gerald’s siblings in turn, before the chauffeur ushered Mr. and Mrs. Perry to their waiting limousine.
They’d made no further arrangements.
No reception.
No wake.
No chance for the thin crowd of their daughter’s mourners to gather in her memory, out of the cold.
So as that long black car started with a purr to bear Fay’s parents away, Markham invited each of us to join him for lunch back at the Red Lion Inn, having already arranged to cover the check.
“The very least those poor kids deserve, honey lamb,” he said to me. “Only wish we’d had the chance to meet in person, even once, so I could’ve sent them off on the journey with a kind word and my hopes for a bon voyage.”
“I think they know,” I said. “I choose to believe that the two of them know.”
“Better place awaits us all, darlin’,” he said. “Sweet chariot itself’s gonna swing down for to carry us home—every last weary soul.”
Markham reached for my hand, warming it in both of his.
“There’s not a whole lot in this life I trust,” he said, “but Lordy, how I do so need to trust in a little of that.”
Lulu heard him and smiled.
We were all just milling around, getting ready to walk back to our cars, but she stepped over to the head of the two graves and began to sing.
First “Swing Low” itself, for Markham, and then “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
It was a gift, the sound of her.
She made us all stand up taller.
She made sure Fay and Mooney w
ere embarking fully blessed.
Then we shook hands, we remaining people who didn’t mind the cold, didn’t have any planes to catch, didn’t think there was a damn thing in the world more important than what we’d come for.
And we started off toward the road, all of us happy in the knowledge that we’d have more time together, thanks to Markham.
He unlocked his car, and we climbed in: Lulu and him up front, me in the backseat. As we drove toward the cemetery gates, I could’ve sworn I caught a glimpse of Wiesner and Sitzman in the mirror—heads poking out from behind a putti-bedecked mausoleum’s white marble, fists raised in solidarity.
I turned to look out the rear window, but the yard was empty.
Markham stood up at the head of the table, his wineglass raised. The conversation around him, already subdued, died down to nothing at all.
“I’d like to make a toast,” he said, “to the memory of Fay Perry and Mooney LeChance—rose-lipped maiden, lightfoot lad—may they long be remembered for their grace, their compassion, and their very great love for one another.”
“Hear hear,” someone said, and we lifted our glasses to drink.
I stood up as Markham took his seat. “Here’s to the memory of our dear friends Gerald Jones and Sookie Hamilton, and to Mary-Claire and Mary Jones. May we be inspired by their courage and by their kindness. They will be sorely missed.”
We drank again, and when I resumed my seat, Gerald’s sister Caroline reached across the table to touch my hand.
“I know my brother must have liked you a great deal,” she said, “and I only wish that Mother and Mary-Claire had known you, because I’m sure they would have agreed with him, as I do.”
“I wish I’d known them, and I wish I’d known Gerald better. If I could have done more . . .”
“You did what was necessary,” she said. “And what was right. That’s all any of us can hope to do in this life.”
Across the Red Lion’s dining room, I saw a man in the doorway who was searching the assembled diners for familiar faces.
“Will you excuse me for a second?” I said to Caroline. “I have a ring to kiss.”
I pushed back my chair and stood up, rushing forward to greet my godfather, Uncle Alan.
I brought him back over to the table. He pulled up a chair at the corner, on Markham’s left and across from me.
Markham signaled the waiter to bring another glass.
“I am so grateful for your help, Uncle Alan,” I said. “I never would have expected—”
“Think nothing of it, Madeline,” he said. “Least I could do.”
He turned to Markham. “What remains to be wrapped up here?”
“Your goddaughter and her friends have done the heavy lifting, sir,” said Markham. “I just want to make sure that justice is done as a result. This man Santangelo . . .”
Uncle Alan nodded. “Of course.”
“This is on my dime, sir—the follow-up. We all feel it’s important, back at the firm.”
The waiter placed a wineglass in front of Uncle Alan, then filled it.
My godfather took an approving sip, then turned back to Markham. “You’re to be commended on the very fine work you’ve done so far, young man. Most impressive.”
“I appreciate your saying so.”
“Do you think you’ll get this Santangelo person?”
“Hope to. He’s made bail, but we’re going after his assets. Restitution to the families. Hard to track everything down. He owns property in Mexico, and there’s been talk of his reopening the school down there.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” said Uncle Alan.
“I understand he’s got some people down there already,” said Markham.
“How the hell would they get any students?” asked Uncle Alan. “I mean, after all this—trusting one’s child to these people? Nobody in their right mind . . .”
“Desperate measures,” I said, and Markham nodded sadly.
“Horrible,” said Uncle Alan. “Horrible stuff.”
We all drank more wine.
Uncle Alan drummed his fingers on the tablecloth, seeking a way to lighten the mood.
There wasn’t one.
40
I’m unemployed, I have no health insurance, and I’m dying,” Lulu said before she was consumed by another horrible bout of coughing.
It went on for so long I was about to whack her between the shoulder blades, in the hope that she’d thereby gain a chance to inhale, but she shook her head at me, gasping.
“Won’t help,” she wheezed. “Just have to let it play out.”
We were sitting in the apartment in Pittsfield. She was making collages of her photographs and paperwork from Santangelo, covering the sides of a dozen different cans she’d washed and saved for the purpose. Orange juice concentrate, V8, corned beef hash.
“These will be good for keeping things on your desk,” she said. “Pencils, paper clips, what have you.”
“Screwdrivers,” I said, thinking of Wiesner, whom I hadn’t seen head nor tail of since I’d pushed Dhumavati off the top of the Mansion.
“Do you have any more Scotch tape?” Lulu asked.
“Second drawer,” I said, “left of the stove.”
“You know,” she said, getting up, “I still don’t get why Dhumavati went to all that trouble. Not just putting the necklace in your pocket but everything else besides.”
“Like framing me for murder?”
“Exactly,” said Lulu, her breathing still raspy. “We know she must have overheard you talking to Sitzman about Jonestown after class—then Mooney broke the window practically simultaneously, which meant that whole situation was coming to a head—”
“So she’s already stuck with making sure Fay’s pregnancy can’t threaten Santangelo,” I replied, “and then she’s got to worry whether I know too much about the Flavor Aid. Why not just kill me?”
“Maybe you were supposed to drink more punch.”
“How stupid would that look?” I said. “‘Yes, Officer, the teenage lovers committed suicide, but only after poisoning a kindly teacher in the middle of a party, carefully ensuring her fingerprints were prominently placed on the cups they drank from hours later’?”
“Bizarre campus love triangle leads to tragedy?”
I shook my head. “If I’m such a threat, cut my brake lines or something. Get rid of me.”
“So maybe she wants to punish you,” said Lulu, sitting down again with a fresh roll of tape in hand. “Santangelo decides you can do her job, and she’s pissed off. She’s gotta take out Fay anyway, before anyone else finds out about the baby.”
“And?”
“And if Mooney dies, too,” she said, “she’s got Gerald as a fallback suspect with plenty of motive.”
“So one of us takes the rap, doesn’t matter who?”
“Exactly,” she said, taping a small photo over the last silvery gap on what had once been a quart-sized can of chicken broth.
“And this is because Dhumavati knew Gerald was about to finger her for Jonestown and Mary-Claire?”
Lulu’s eyes snapped up to meet mine. “She did?”
“She had to,” I said. “Unless she killed Sookie for sheer entertainment.”
“Shit,” said Lulu.
“Markham realized there must have been a bug in Gerald’s apartment,” I said. “Someone broke in a few weeks ago. Probably put one in Sookie’s office, too, which would explain why Dhumavati confronted me about the autopsy—she needed an excuse to send me up to Sookie’s. No other way she would have known where to find us all that night. And that’s how she knew she had time to get Sookie out of the way while Gerald was waiting for his detective’s phone call.”
“Shit,” said Lulu. “Did the cops find any bugs?”
I shook my head. “Someone did a good job cleaning up.”
She tapped the roll of tape against her knee. “Must have been Santangelo.”
“No way in hell he’s going to admit it.”
>
We both slumped down a little farther in our seats, like somebody’d turned up the gravity.
“Maybe Dhumavati was in love with him,” she said, after a minute.
“Santangelo?”
“I mean, she kind of had to be, didn’t she?”
I thought about that.
“She was jealous of you,” said Lulu, “and I bet she was jealous of those girls, too. There was no other reason for her to target you. If she knew Gerald was connected to Mary-Claire, she knew she had to kill him eventually, right? So why not frame him to begin with, or just kill him outright?”
“Dude,” I said, “talk about dark.”
But I felt the skin on my forearms tighten with recognition, and didn’t have to look down to know that all the little hairs were standing straight up.
What if Dhumavati had never cared about loose ends, or getting caught, or even surviving? What if the point, all along, had been finding ways to demonstrate how very much she was ready to put at risk as proof of her devotion?
Santangelo certainly wasn’t the only man for whom she’d been willing to murder a child. He was merely the last.
Whether or not she’d done it all for love, Dhumavati had told me the truth up on that roof: There didn’t have to be a reason. She was just fucking nuts.
“Did I tell you I ran into Tim?” asked Lulu.
“And?”
“And he told me he and Pete were going on a road trip together.”
“Where?”
“Mexico,” she said.
“You’re fucking kidding me!”
“David wants them on staff down at the new school. He’s planning to get it up and running after New Year’s, soon as he’s finished up with his court stuff.”
“They’d allow him to leave the country?”
“David certainly thinks so,” she said, “from what Tim was saying.”
“‘Free to Be,’” I said. “God, doesn’t it just make you want to puke?”
“I have faith in Markham,” she said.
“When are they leaving?”
“Tim wouldn’t say. I think he suddenly remembered who the hell he was talking to, and the minute it sank in, he couldn’t scuttle away from me fast enough.”
The Crazy School Page 24