by Nina Wright
“His offer is close to current market value,” I said. “About what you could reasonably expect to get if you listed now for a quick sale. The ‘plus’ is that it’s a cash offer, which means you can—”
“—be done with all this.” She finished the sentence, her voice cold.
“Is the house in both your names?” I said.
She shook her head. “It’s in my name only. I understand, though, that it’s viewed as marital property.”
“That’s not an issue at this point if you want to sell. Do you want to sell?”
“Don’t you really mean, do I want to sell to George Bentwood?”
“You’d be selling to The Bentwood School,” I pointed out.
“True,” Pauline said. “But I’d have to deal with that bastard.”
I could feel my eyebrows arch. Nothing in my brief dealings with Pauline Vreelander had suggested that she strongly disliked the school president. My mind flashed back to the chaotic assembly that morning. Pauline had taken over for an utterly ineffective Bentwood when she calmly addressed the student body. Did she dislike him for his lack of leadership, his apparent laziness, or another reason altogether? I decided to tread lightly.
“I can recommend a real estate attorney who could handle this transaction for you. You wouldn’t have to deal directly with Bentwood.”
“Forgive me,” she said. “My remark was inappropriate. I called you, Whiskey, because I like what I’ve heard about Mattimoe Realty. Also, you inspire trust.”
I did? Pauline Vreelander had seen me only amid the post-mortem kiddie chaos at The Bentwood School. I found it hard to believe that, in that setting, I had inspired trust. My name alone had inspired panic.
“You remain calm under pressure,” Pauline added. “Chief Jenkins told me you behaved bravely last night.”
Ah, last night. I hardly considered my reaction to Mark Vreelander’s murder “brave.” At least I hadn’t peed my pants or turned my bike around and headed for home, screaming at the top of my lungs. I had called the cops like a good citizen and scrambled into the woods to save my life and my baby’s. My baby. I had used the possessive form automatically. Like a woman with genuine maternal instincts.
“Whiskey, are you all right?”
Pauline Vreelander studied me with genuine concern.
“Oh. Yes. Sorry. I was just thinking about last night.”
“How awful that must have been for you, especially in your condition.”
I glanced down to see that both my hands had moved to cover my bump.
“Do you have children?” I asked.
“Like many educators, Mark and I devoted our lives to other people’s children.”
“I see.”
I didn’t, though, at least not completely. “I thought Mark was career Army.”
“Mark was a teacher first, a good one and then he went into administration. At the last possible minute he enlisted.” She shook her head at the memory. “Mark was determined to serve his country. He built a military career designing training programs. When he retired from active duty, he couldn’t wait to get back to his first love, K through 8.”
Odd, I thought, but who was I to pass judgment on anyone’s career path? I, who had been my ex-husband’s part-time roadie and full-time groupie-repellant until I found my calling in real estate, which happened only when I found and married Leo Mattimoe.
“If you don’t need or want to sell the house immediately,” I said, “we may be able to get you a better offer. It’s entirely up to you.”
“Would you like a tour?” Pauline asked.
Would I ever. I liked the looks of the living room and what I could see from there of the kitchen, which had been recently updated with stainless steel appliances. The house featured exposed wood ceiling beams, wide wood molding and shiny golden oak floors. Everything on the first floor appeared to be in excellent condition. The furnishings, too, were of high quality and the décor—in warm light gray, dark brown, deep red, and amber—was tasteful and relaxing.
“Did Mark hire a decorator?” I said.
Pauline hesitated before replying, as if deliberately selecting both tone of voice and word choice.
“Loralee Lowe decorated the house when she lived here with her daughter. I understand she trained as an interior designer before becoming a teacher.” Pauline scanned the living room. “Perhaps she should have stayed in the design field.”
I glanced at the widow, who had affixed a stiff smile to her face. It didn’t seem connected to the rest of her.
“This is nice,” I agreed neutrally. “So, you and Mark bought it from Loralee and her ex-husband?”
I assumed the teacher and her spouse must have sold the house to arrive at their divorce settlement.
Rather than answer my question, Pauline commented on her own previous remark. “She definitely has a fine eye for color and shape.”
I seized the opening she gave me. “You think Loralee is a better designer than teacher?”
“Oh, my, yes,” Pauline exclaimed and then tried to backtrack. “But who am I to say? I don’t work with her.”
“Mark did,” I let my voice rise hopefully, cuing her to continue.
She switched the topic to the renovated kitchen. It featured gray and beige granite surfaces, a bright terracotta floor, and lots of sunlight streaming through three windows. From there we checked out the small dining room and the more than adequate master bedroom suite, complete with Jacuzzi tub. Upstairs were another full bath and two relatively small bedrooms, one used as a guest room, the other as an office. The office door was closed.
“I apologize in advance for Mark’s mess,” Pauline said, her hand on the doorknob. “He was obsessively neat about everything except his office, and I haven’t had time, needless to say, to clean it up.”
Her remark contradicted Jenx’s report about Vreelander’s spartan office at The Bentwood School. Was Pauline over-apologizing for a room that needed cleaning?
Not at all. When she swung open the door, I was stunned by the windblown state of the space. Loose papers appeared to have been tossed with notebooks and journals—some cracked open at the spine—across the L-shaped desk, the credenza, the coffee table, the loveseat, the two chairs, and the floor. Some papers were in short messy stacks; others seemed to have fluttered aimlessly to their final resting spot. The room struck me as a private place, the retreat of a person who didn’t work seriously there, or who didn’t care how it would look to others because others never entered. Could that explain Mark’s being a slob at home and a neat freak at work? I wasn’t sure if the psychic duality was possible, but how else to explain the contrast, unless Jenx had exaggerated her findings, or someone had straightened Mark’s school office before the chief arrived.
“Chaotic, I know,” Pauline said. “I, for one, couldn’t work like this, but Mark swore he could find anything he needed in two minutes or less.”
I chuckled politely. “Did he use the same system at work?”
“It was the system he preferred,” Pauline replied. “Mark was extremely self-disciplined in almost every respect. But his approach to office organization? Entirely intuitive and impulsive. He loved being able to run his office the way he wanted to.”
“Did he and Bentwood see eye to eye?”
“On what?” Pauline’s voice turned sharp.
“The way Mark ran his office and the school.”
“If you’re asking me whether Mark and George got along, the answer is yes. George was instrumental in hiring Mark. After having been headmaster himself for fifteen years, he was ready to step down, not retire but rather remove himself from the day-to-day running of the school. Oh, there was pressure from the Board and some of the parents to make a change, but I believe that George accepted it. He had met Mark at a couple NAPA conferences—”
“I’m sorry—what’s NAPA?”
“National Association of Private Academies. It’s an accrediting organization, highly esteemed. I accompanied Mark
when he came here for the interview last spring. We discussed the pros and cons of his accepting the position. The salary was less than he could have commanded on either coast, but the cost of living in Michigan is relatively low. We both liked Magnet Springs so much that we imagined retiring here, and we got an excellent price on this house.”
When she told me the figure, I nearly swooned.
“Were Loralee and her husband facing foreclosure?”
Pauline frowned. “Loralee’s husband never lived here. We bought the house from George Bentwood.”
“Was it part of the school?” I asked.
“It was never part of the school. It was George’s private love nest.”
18
“Love nest?” I stupidly repeated the phrase.
“Let’s put it this way,” Pauline Vreelander said. “George owned the house and he visited often. Loralee and her daughter Gigi lived here, after Loralee’s husband threw them out.”
I wanted to hear Pauline’s take on the scandal. “George is married, isn’t he?”
“In the eyes of the law.” Her tone was as dry as the best martini.
“Loralee moved out and your husband moved in?”
“Mark needed to move in before Loralee had found a place. So he worked out an arrangement. Loralee stored her belongings in the basement and moved to a motel until she could find an apartment.”
Pauline paused deliberately.
“Mark and I believed that George sold the house because his wife found out about it. We also thought she’d found out about Gigi, who is George’s daughter, although George hasn’t admitted paternity.”
Anyone who works in real estate hears more tales of domestic drama than the average barkeep, but this was shaping up to be a doozy.
“Why does Bentwood’s wife put up with him?” I said.
“Who knows? I’ve never met the woman. They own a second home in Naples, Florida, where she spends most of her time. According to Mark, Mrs. Bentwood has her own money and lots of it. George, of course, has a trust fund. The only career he’s ever had has been directing this school in some capacity. He draws a modest salary, yet he lives very well.”
“By ‘very well’ you mean the homes and the mistress?”
I hoped that Pauline would spill every dirty detail she’d ever heard. Although she was a classy lady, rage and resentment simmered beneath her polished surface. I wanted to lift the lid and smell the whole stinky soup.
“When Mark came to work here, he discovered quite a web of intrigue. George Bentwood has his issues, and so does the PTO. It appears that the PTO plays nicely with others only when it suits them to do so.”
“And when it doesn’t suit them?”
“They do whatever it takes to get what they want.”
“What does the PTO want?” I said, truly clueless.
“What does any private school PTO want? Occasionally, it’s something that directly benefits the children. Usually, though, it’s something that will raise the parents’ stock by making them look prestigious.”
I recalled Stevie McCoy’s comments about the PTO’s vanity and possessiveness.
“You’re saying that parents at The Bentwood School feel entitled to call the shots?” I asked Pauline.
“You won’t find a private school where that isn’t at least partly true,” she replied. “Here, however, it’s completely true.”
Her voice was dark with bitterness. I asked my next question cautiously.
“Did the PTO continue trying to run the school after your husband arrived?”
“They didn’t try to run it. They absolutely did run it. Mark instituted policies and rules that the mothers subverted at every turn. They went so far as to …”
I half-expected her to say “murder him.”
“ … pressure Bentwood into making Mark back down.”
“But I thought the PTO didn’t like Bentwood. I thought that was why he hired Mark.”
Pauline said, “The PTO doesn’t like anyone who interferes with their preferences, whether it’s their tradition or their brand-new idea.”
“But what leverage do they have?”
She cocked her head as though she couldn’t believe my density. “Tuition. If parents stopped sending their children here, the school would cease to exist.”
“Isn’t that Stevie’s job as recruiter, marketer and general go-getter?”
“Stevie can’t sell a school that is blackballed in its community.”
“The PTO could do that?”
“The PTO would do that if their demands weren’t heard. Trading favors is the preferred currency of The Bentwood School. George is open to many options, and so are the other players.”
Her choice of the word “players” caught me off guard. I imagined a giant game board with stand-up cardboard cut-out figures that looked like Bentwood, Vreelander and the most aggressive PTO moms.
“How did your husband feel about his job?” I said.
“Mark loved working with children. Their needs always came first. As for dealing with adults, he had the ability to pick his battles, to decide what mattered now, what could wait, and what he could surrender without regret.”
“I imagine that’s an essential skill set for this job,” I commented.
“Mark had an extraordinary ability to read people and, to some extent, to play people. He could make them think they were winning when in fact he was winning. I used to wonder if that were due to his military training or a natural talent.”
Suddenly, I had a strikingly different view of Mark Vreelander. Not merely the buff, youthful career Army educator bent on shaping up The Bentwood School, but a canny leader and manipulator keen on subtlety and careful plotting.
I wondered how their marriage worked. They seemed like a “power couple,” two professionals pursuing individual goals that required them to live far apart. Mark had looked younger and more attractive than his wife. Did any of the PTO moms try to seduce him? Did anyone succeed?
“It must have been difficult for you to live apart this year,” I ventured.
“We’ve lived apart most of our marriage,” Pauline said. “Twenty-six years. When Mark was in the Army, I was assistant principal and then principal at three different schools, none of them located near where he was stationed. Fortunately, I had a fairly flexible schedule during summers and holidays, and that’s when we spent time together. Otherwise, it was mainly a long-distance marriage.”
She inhaled deeply as if to steady herself.
“A challenge, yes, but it worked for us. We talked on the phone every day of our lives. Mark and I are—were—strong individuals. Independent. And yet we loved each other very much. We were looking forward to living together here in Magnet Springs.”
For the first time, Pauline’s voice cracked and I saw that she was genuinely overcome. This was not a woman who permitted herself to show emotion. She tried to cover the surge by smoothing her hair, which didn’t need smoothing. My hair did. I turned away to pat my own unruly curls and give her what privacy I could.
My mind reeled. How could a man as physically attractive and energetic as Mark Vreelander have lived a nearly celibate life? In my experience, a typical guy could sublimate his urges in a gym or on a bike for only so long, and then he needed sex. Live, hot, intense sex. And maybe even companionship, somebody to hang out with. How could daily phone chats and a few in-person visits a year sustain a man with a healthy libido? Even inmates got more conjugal visits than Mark Vreelander. Did he lack a libido? Or was he taking care of his needs in a way that Pauline either didn’t know about or didn’t want to know about? Maybe Pauline did know, but she didn’t want anyone else to.
I had a lot of questions but no graceful way to ask them. I took another approach.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d like to know how Bentwood sold this house to you and Mark in the first place. Did he mention it to Mark as soon as he offered him the position?”
“He did,” Pauline said. “George
made it sound like an offer that was too good to refuse. He encouraged us to look at comparable homes in the area, which we did. George’s asking price was well below the competition, and he even included the furnishings. We liked almost everything.”
“Loralee is an outstanding designer,” I said.
“If only she put that much enthusiasm into her teaching,” Pauline said. “Mark wouldn’t have had issues with her.”
Jenx had remarked that Vreelander was ready to fire Lowe. I asked Pauline if that were true.
“He wasn’t going to break her contract, but Mark did warn her that she needed to make definite and specific improvements before the end of this year.”
“Such as?”
“Mark was highly skilled at developing training programs. He insisted on working with Loralee to devise one that would shore up her weaknesses as a teacher. She refused, however. I’m sure she thought George would save her.”
“What are her weaknesses?”
“Content area, mostly. She’s sloppy when she teaches science and history and often doesn’t get her facts straight the first time around. If she backpedals to correct herself because somebody points out her errors, she only confuses the students more.”
“Do parents complain?”
“Some do, but Loralee has a powerful ally in George, and Kimmi Kellum-Ramirez is her best friend.”
Finally, we were talking about my least favorite mom, the one I most relished dishing. I asked Pauline to tell me what she knew about Kimmi.
“What can I say? Every private school has some version of her, the hot nouveau-riche young mother with too much money, estrogen, and time, and absolutely no breeding. Kimmi’s the type who has plastic surgery as a hobby.”
“Also shoe-shopping,” I said, and Pauline smiled.
“Seriously, though, Kimmi knows how to organize her peers. She may lack impulse control, but she’s skilled at convincing others to do what she wants them to.”
Kimmi was in fact the one who had organized the bike trail blockade. I wasn’t sure, though, if she had intended for it to be a stop along Vreelander’s last ride.