Ray Elkins mystery - 02 - Color Tour

by Aaron Stander

  “I was only in ninth and tenth grade; I probably wasn’t completely aware of what was going on. But I think things were fairly tame.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “I did meet the new headmaster, Warrington, earlier this summer.”

  “Where?”

  “I got invited to an alumni tea. It was sort of a fundraiser and student-recruiting affair. White wine, Brie, cucumber and watercress sandwiches.”

  “What was your impression of Warrington?”

  “He was very gracious, seemed interested in what I had to say without being overly solicitous. But there was something about him.” She had a troubled expression.

  “What about him?”

  “I just had this feeling he was a lech. Don’t know why. He wasn’t sneaking peeks at my parts or saying anything inappropriate. But something about him made me uncomfortable. He was just a bit oily.” She sipped some wine and refilled her glass. “You met with the staff?”

  “I did. Telling people about a death is always hard. And this was… ” His eyes showed the anguish.

  “Suspects?” Lisa asked.

  “Suspects, not really.” Ray paused briefly and then moved to another subject. “Did you have a man by the name of Quertermous as a teacher when you were at Leiston?”

  “Quertermous, Alan Quertermous, I had that creep for math,” Lisa responded, tossing her long, blond hair. “He’d walk around the room while we were doing our worksheets with a swagger stick tucked under his arm. Why do you ask?”

  “He launched into a diatribe at the end of the meeting,” explained Ray. “I was wondering about him. I sense you didn’t like him.”

  “You are so fast, Ray,” she responded in a mocking tone. “So tell us, what was Quertermous in a tizzy about?”

  “He was loudly suggesting that the crime was predictable.”

  “How so?” Lisa asked.

  “We’re going to find out,” Ray replied.

  “A likely suspect?” Marc asked.

  “Well, you have to be careful not to dismiss anything too quickly,” Ray said, “but I don’t think so. Quertermous’s outburst might have had more to do with the politics of the place than anything else. I have much to learn about Leiston School.”

  “After a day like today, do you ever regret leaving college teaching?” asked Marc.

  Ray didn’t stop to reflect on Marc’s question. “We brought the headmaster, Warrington, out to ID the victims. After he saw the bodies he got sick,” Ray stopped for a moment. “This is hardly dinner conversation… ”

  “We’re with you,” said Lisa.

  “As a rookie cop, I did the same thing,” Ray said, continuing the conversation. “But you get beyond it. You disconnect from the carnage and settle into going through the procedures. Necessary perhaps, but I’m not sure it’s a good thing.”

  “Why not?” Lisa asked.

  “I think we get hardened. And every exposure furthers the damage. I escaped into academe to get away from the nasty streets of Detroit. But,” Ray chuckled, his tone changing as he finally responded to Marc’s question, “the ivory tower is not without its dangers. The battles I saw during my university career were brutal. Fortunately, they were mostly verbal. The backstabbing was metaphorical, although I suspect there were some people who had homicidal fantasies.” He paused briefly, “And during my brief tenure as the interim director of the campus police, I had to deal with a sociopathic faculty member who was willing to kill for tenure.”

  “You’ve never mentioned that,” Marc said.

  “It’s a piece of history I’d rather forget,” he paused and peered off into space. Bringing his focus back to Marc and Lisa, Ray continued, “As I was driving over here, I was reflecting back on my university experience and thinking about the people I met at Leiston today. They seemed sincere and united in their grief and sorrow—with the exception of Alan Quertermous, of course. But I couldn’t help wondering about what was really going on.”

  Lisa refilled wine glasses, her glass and Marc’s. She looked over at Ray, holding the neck of the bottle toward his glass. He nodded his assent, making a gesture with his thumb and forefinger to suggest half a glass.

  8

  Exhausted, but still not ready for bed, Ray stood at his writing desk, a piece of white oak furniture with simple, clean lines that he had constructed by a local cabinetmaker several years before. At that time he had been struggling with back problems and standing to write had been more comfortable than sitting. Although the back pain had abated, standing at the desk had become part of his journal ritual, a routine that he tried to follow each evening before retiring. Ray took a sip from a cup of mint tea that he had placed in easy reach on the right side of the desk. He flipped through his journal, a worn leather binder filled with lined white paper, which Ray had used for years.

  He read his previous entry, a personal piece about autumn and his feelings of loss since his romantic interest had decided to move.

  Our relationship was not one of great passion, but there was comfort and companionship. However, when her daughter divorced and needed help with three young children, it was clear to both of us that she was needed there. It gave her life a purpose again; something that I felt had been missing for a long time.

  Ray started to write with his favorite fountain pen, an ancient Pelican with a soft nib, gliding over the lined paper, his impressions of the day unwinding in a graceful stream of blue ink. He had word-processed the official account of the murders before he left the office, and though the basic facts in the journal entry would be the same, he was now free to drop the official tone and guarded empiricism of a police report. In this penned account there was no precise chronology, just impressions and his horror and rage. And then there was speculation, theories about motives, questions about the victims.

  When we first reached the scene, Sue and I stood a long while and looked at the bodies. In the gray light of the dense overcast, the victims’ skin had an unnatural, wax-like appearance. Even several yards away their wounds were apparent, but the heavy rains had washed away the blood, giving them a manikin look and somehow lessening the horror of the crime. The female looked vaguely familiar. Have I seen her before? Or perhaps it was something else. The colors and textures and melancholy nature of the place reminded me of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

  He wrote about the people whom he had encountered, their actions, words, facial expressions, and body language. Was the murderer in the group? How much was theater? How much was real? He wondered about the reasons for Alan Quertermous’ rage and his outburst at the meeting. He noted Ian Warrington’s agitation, both at the beach and in their later conversations. What are Warrington’s priorities? Ray wrote. Is he trying to protect his position, the students, or both in some sort of complex ratio?

  Ray then moved on to Sarah James:

  I arrived at the school and was met by one of the administrators, an assistant to Ian Warrington. Her sadness and grief, expressed in body language and tone, seemed sincere. She seemed to be working very hard to keep her emotions in check so that she could meet her professional responsibilities. She had such an air of sadness; I wonder if that is her normal demeanor or just a response to the unfolding tragedy?

  Ray thought again about the appearance of the victims. He could see the dead woman’s features again—the delicate blue eyes open to the sky, the thick auburn hair fanned out around the head. The face had a dreamlike quality that belied the violence of the scene. Ray lifted his pen from the paper for several long moments as he thought about the woman’s physiognomy. The face seemed familiar, but he couldn’t remember seeing her in the recent past. Perhaps it was a vision from some faded memory? Was it a face he’d seen once on a museum wall or in an art book? Where have I seen her before? he wrote. And why can’t I remember?

  Ray’s focus shifted, he wrote about walking from the crime scene and standing and looking out at the blackened water, the carnage at his back, as the storm surged across the lake,
the large rollers, every ninth, tenth, or eleventh wave, pushing high up on the beach. Ray had always loved watching storms blow off the lake in November, the power and majesty of nature. He took rather perverse joy in being reminded of his relative insignificance in the scheme of things. This place of great beauty has been violated by these barbaric acts, he wrote.

  After filling seven pages, Ray closed the book and placed it in the drawer of his writing desk. He refilled the pen with bottled ink and slid it into a soft leather case next to the journal.

  Ray pulled back a denim colored comforter and grabbed a copy of Jim Harrison’s newest collection of poetry from a stack on the nightstand. After a few pages of struggling to keep his eyes open, Ray switched off the bedside lamp and fell into an uneasy slumber.

  9

  At six-thirty the next morning Ray was on the phone to arrange a meeting with Ian Warrington. He wanted some background information on Arnie Vedder’s employment at Leiston School. Warrington met Ray an hour later at the school’s main entrance. “The food line is open for another fifteen minutes. Do you want some breakfast?” he asked as he guided Ray toward his office.

  “No, thank you. I’m really pressed for time.” “You can get a bagel or an English muffin. We can just pop in and get one and eat in my office.”

  “Okay,” agreed Ray a bit reluctantly.

  Warrington led the way. Small groups of students were scattered around the room eating breakfast. They passed a steam table, the congealing scrambled eggs evoking unpleasant memories. Ray couldn’t recall if they were from his undergraduate years, the Army, or both.

  “Tell me about Arnie. What happened with Arnie Vedder?” Ray asked as they settled into chairs on the opposite sides of Warrington’s desk with their bagels and coffee.

  “Last summer, a woman from the Department of Social Services contacted us about a possible placement for this young man. We’ve cooperated with them in the past and usually have had positive experiences.” He paused, his tone changed. “And I really like to do these kinds of things. Most of our students come from very fortunate backgrounds; they’ve had very little exposure to the real world.” He lifted his head and looked at Ray. “We try to include everyone who works here as part of the community. I thought that this would be good for our students and good for Arnie.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Lots of things, lots of things. He turned out to be much more damaged than… Well, I don’t think Sharon was totally open with us. He worked for Tom Bates, our food service manager. Tom is enormously accepting and helpful. Arnie was supposed to work in the dish room. You know, things like loading and unloading racks, stacking dishes, sorting silverware. Arnie’s not very strong, and he’s uncoordinated. Tom found tasks for Arnie that wouldn’t put him under too much time pressure. Early on Tom told me Arnie was having trouble catching on. He spent lots of time with Arnie, but his job performance remained only marginal. We tried to save the situation by moving him to the laundry area. His job performance there wasn’t much better. We would have probably tried to live with that, at least for a while. But another problem developed.”

  “Which was?” Ray asked.

  “His general demeanor. He had no affect and was unresponsive when given directions. Tom wondered if he was autistic or something. The girls assigned to the laundry complained about his… ” Warrington fumbled for words.

  “Can you be more specific? What did he do?”

  “He did a lot of staring at the girls. They told Tom about it; several complained to me.”

  “Was there any inappropriate behavior?”

  “You mean did he touch people or make improper comments?” Warrington asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “No. It was just the staring. But he looks very strange and some of the girls found him frightening. He would also hang around campus when he wasn’t working and watch the students playing tennis or Frisbee. He would just sit and stare. I don’t think there was any evil intent on his part, but the students started referring to him as ‘the stalker.’ He also hung around Ashleigh’s cottage. She was very kind to him.” Warrington stopped, looked thoughtful, and continued. “That was one of Ashleigh’s special qualities. She really reached out to people. I know she would take time to talk to Arnie, and I think he was hanging around because he was hoping to see her.” Warrington stopped and sipped his coffee. “But when underwear starting disappearing…”

  “Underwear?”

  “Yes, after he started working in the laundry. Ma, Mrs. French, is very kind and patient. She took Arnie under her wing. But after he had worked there for a few weeks, a number of our female students complained that some of their underwear wasn’t coming back from the laundry.”

  “How does your laundry system work?”

  “The student body is divided into four laundry groups, corresponding with the days of the week, Monday through Thursday. Members of each group are to drop off their wash on their assigned day when they come to breakfast. Mrs. French washes and folds the laundry and takes it back to the dorms where the students pick it up.”

  “The underwear, how many pairs disappeared?”

  “Don’t know exactly, five, ten pairs.”

  “And how did you decide it was Arnie?”

  “I didn’t decide, Tom came to me with the suspicion. He thought that since the problem started after Arnie was moved to the laundry, he was the most likely suspect.”

  “How about the woman in the laundry, Mrs. French, did you talk to her?”

  “I had a short conversation with her.”

  “Did she think Arnie had taken any underwear?”

  “No. But even if she had, she probably wouldn’t have said anything. She was very protective of Arnie. Apparently she’s known him for years.”

  “Did you ask her directly if she had seen him take some underwear?”

  “Yes, and she said if she had she would have done something about it.”

  “The clean laundry, where does Mrs. French put it when she takes it back to the dorms?” Ray asked.

  “There’s a room off the lobby with mailboxes and an area for the laundry.”

  “Is this a supervised area, a place where someone—the house parents—watches the comings and goings?”

  “No,” Warrington responded.

  “So, it would be possible for another student to snatch some laundry now and then?”

  “It’s possible, but I really think that Arnie is the most probable suspect. And that was Tom’s thinking when he asked me for permission to fire Arnie. There was also the problem that the girls believed it and were refusing to work in the laundry if he was going to be in there with them.”

  “Were there any other suspects?” Ray asked with mild irritation.

  “No, he was the obvious suspect,” Warrington said.

  “No one else would have had an opportunity to steal these articles?”

  “I can tell by your sarcasm that you’re not very impressed with… ”

  “I didn’t mean to be sarcastic,” Ray said, “but isn’t the evidence awfully weak?”

  “Perhaps it is, but I have a school to run here. I have a million details to see to every day and on some of these things I go with the judgment of my staff. This was a quick fix to a problem. We did everything we could to accommodate Arnie’s disabilities. But we’re not a social agency, we’re a school.”

  “And if laundry continues to disappear, will Arnie Vedder be called back to work?”

  Warrington’s anger flashed. “Is there anything else, sheriff?”

  10

  It was just a few miles from Leiston School to Nora Jennings’s home on Lake Michigan’s shore, Ray’s next destination before he began searching for Arnie Vedder. Ray pulled into Nora’s drive. The doors of her detached garage were open, and the tailgate of her Ford Explorer was ajar. When Ray slammed his door, acacophony of barking erupted as both dogs ran to the screen door and announced his arrival. They quieted when Nora came to the door. “Going
somewhere?” he asked as she unlatched the door for him.

  “Just got back,” she explained. “Had to get supplies to make these guys some more food.”

  “Do you think they have any idea how good they have it?” he asked, kneeling and rubbing the dogs, one with each hand. “A special diet—free-range chickens and organic brown rice with assorted vegetables mixed in.”

  “Just look at them, and you’ve got your answer,” she responded with pride. “They’re ten and twelve, Ray. Look at the condition they’re in, fit and healthy.”

  “I had a call early this morning, Nora.”

  “I bet you did,” she responded with a knowing nod. “Jeannie, my daughter, rang you at home I bet, probably before seven.”

  “She’s worried, and I think her concern is justified,” observed Ray. “Even if she hadn’t phoned, I was planning on coming by and talking to you today. In fact, I almost drove over late last night. I didn’t like the idea of you being alone.”

  “Ray, it’s been ten years since Hugh died. Ten years I’ve been here alone and nothing has ever happened.”

  “True,” agreed Ray. “But there’s never been a murder on this beach before. Everything is different now and will be until we find the murderer. “

  “I’ve got protection,” Nora said. She crossed the room and pulled a double-barreled shotgun from the top of the mantle. The long, heavy old weapon loomed large against her delicate frame. “It’s loaded with buckshot, too.”

  Ray crossed to her and lifted the unwieldy firearm from her grip. He inspected it carefully, noting the hammers were not cocked; then he opened the breach. Using the nails on his thumb and middle finger, he extracted the two shells and scrutinized them. After setting the cartridges on the table, he pointed the barrel toward a ceiling light in the kitchen and looked at the bore.

  Nora stood a few feet away, watching Ray’s careful examination. “Well, doctor, how’s the patient’s health?”

  “When was the last time this was fired?” he asked, setting the shotgun on the table.