The Headmaster's Wife

by Jane Haddam

  “Look,” he said, “it’s perfectly simple. The blackmail required evidence of some kind. I’m not sure what, but it required some form of physical evidence. Michael Feyre, in all likelihood, promised to give it back if the faculty member in question served as safety and gave him a blow job as part of an autoasphyxiation session.”

  “Wasn’t that risky?” Brian asked. “He was blackmailingpeople. He must have known some of them would want to kill him.”

  “He was sixteen years old” Gregor said, “and sixteen year olds think they’re immortal at the best of times. He was also, if the descriptions of him are accurate, and I think they are since one of them came from his own mother, a raving psychopath. Psychopaths think they’re immortal, too. They think they’re smarter than everybody else. They think they’re braver. They think they’re stronger. And most of all, they have supreme contempt for all other human beings. He may have suspected that some of his victims wanted to kill him, but I’ll bet anything he didn’t believe any of them would ever have the guts to actually do it.”

  “And you think this one did,” Brian said.

  “It’s really very simple, if you look at it sanely,” Gregor said. “Michael Feyre was a sadist. We know that, too. We know it from everything everybody has said about him, again including his mother. He had whatever it was he had, something absolutely damaging to his victim, something his victim wanted back. He put it somewhere he or she couldn’t get it.”

  “He threw it under this stand of evergreens,” Brian said.

  “Apparently, yes,” Gregor said, “and he told his victim that he or she could come here and get it or service him sexually so that he wouldn’t talk. Or he’d come back and get it himself and turn it in. He made it damned near impossible to find, and he put a time limit on the whole enterprise. He had to have it by X hour or he’d do something about it. You’ve got to remember that the whole administration of this school, and a good half of the faculty, live on campus. He wouldn’t have had to wait for the morning or the end of the weekend.”

  “All right. Then what? Our murderer comes out here and tries to find whatever it is, and Mark is up on the catwalk and sees the operation, right?” Brian said. “But Mark didn’t recognize the person.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Gregor said, “but the person didn’t even know he or she was being watched. The murderer tried to getunder the trees and couldn’t. The murderer tried for some time, which was why Mark could see the ’body,’ as he puts it, lying on the ground for long.”

  “Motionless, he said,” Brian pointed out.

  “Stretching, I think,” Gregor said. “And he’d moved away when the murderer got up and left. The murderer then went to Hayes House and did what Michael required to keep his mouth shut. Michael got up on that chair. The ropes were put in place on his arms, on his legs, on his neck. The murderer unzipped Michael’s fly and took out his penis—and then, instead of doing the expected, the murderer kicked the chair out from under Michael’s feet and let him hang. All that was needed after that was to put the penis back in the pants and zip up. Then leave.”

  “Everybody says Michael was a sadist, not a masochist,” Brian said. “Why did he want someone to tie him up?”

  “Control,” Gregor said. “The idea that he was so completely in control of this other person that even hog-tied he could direct the scene and never once be disobeyed. I think Michael Feyre sincerely believed that that was what was going to happen. He wouldn’t have put himself in the position he was in otherwise.”

  “It sounds like Alice Makepeace,” Brian said, “doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Gregor admitted, “it does. She’s always been the one with the most to lose in all of this, and she’s always been the one ruthless enough to get whatever she wanted however she wanted it. And she would have known that the suicide of a student would not close the school or even bring on much in the way of an inquiry. Nobody wants an inquiry into a student suicide. The parents don’t want it; it only rakes up memories they can’t handle. The school doesn’t want it; it makes them look bad. The police don’t want it; there isn’t much of any point to it and they only end up looking like insensitive asses. You’re to be commended for doing as much of an investigation as you did.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Brian said. “Now all we have to do is start rolling some people under there and find what you think they can find, even though you can’t tell them what to lookfor because you don’t know what it is. They pay you lots of money to do this sort of thing?”

  “My best guess,” Gregor said, “is that it’s going to be some kind of wallet.”

  “A wallet,” Brian said.

  Gregor kept his cell phone in the pocket of his sports jacket, not handy, because he never used it. Now he heard it ring, and for a moment he thought the sound belonged to something Brian Sheehy was carrying. When he realized it belonged to him, it took him long seconds first to find the phone and then to get it out where it could be useful.

  He flipped it open and checked the call waiting. It was a magnificent phone, a gift from Bennis on his last birthday. It reminded him of weapons used in Star Wars movies, although he had to admit that he never paid much attention to Star Wars movies. If Tibor wanted company, Gregor went with him and half slept through a large popcorn.

  There were only three people in the world who had this number: Bennis, Tibor, and Lida Arkmanian. Lida would only call if one of the other two had died. Tibor would only call in an emergency. Gregor stared down at Bennis’s number showing in the identification window and said, “Excuse me. There’s something I have to do.”

  2

  Gregor had never really reconciled himself to cell phones. He knew they were convenient, and that they could be life-savers in some circumstances. He would not like to be stranded on a deserted road with a flat tire without one, and he understood the value of them in radically traumatic events: the people who had called from the top of the Twin Towers, just before the towers themselves went down in flames, to say good-bye to the families they loved; the people who called from the edges of earthquakes and tornadoes and hurricanes; the people who called from the insides of banks during the progress of a robbery or a hostage situation. Gregor didn’t think cell phones were a bad thing. He just didn’t like the idea of standing out in the open where everybody and anybody could hear him, having a private conversation without even the small comfort of being able to sit down.

  There was nothing he could do about that at the moment. There was no place close enough for him to retreat to. The library was several yards up the hill behind him. He didn’t want to be that far from the action while the uniformed policemen moved in. He settled for backing up to just beyond the crowd of law enforcement, but not so far that he backed into the crowd of students, faculty, and onlookers who were being held back by even more uniformed police. He was surprised Windsor had this many people in its department. He wondered what crime was going unpoliced while what seemed to be the entire force was here tending to the scandal at Windsor Academy.

  He turned the phone on and said, “Hello?” The wind was picking up, and although it wasn’t as cold as it had been last night, it was still frigid. Gregor found himself wishing he’d worn a hat or even owned one.

  “Hi,” Bennis said.

  “Well,” Gregor said. Then he felt like an idiot. He’d known this woman for nearly a decade. He’d been living with her, officially or unofficially, for quite some time. There had to be something to say besides “well.”

  “I’m watching you on the news,” Bennis said. “There’s a camera right behind you, looks like at the top of some hill you’re halfway down. They pointed you out a minute ago.”

  “I’ve moved since then,” Gregor said. There were a lot of cameras behind him. He couldn’t tell if one of them was aimed in his direction.

  “They’ll find you next time they look,” Bennis said. She seemed to be breathing very heavily into the phone. “Liz called,” she said finally. “She’s worried about you.�
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  “About me? Why? I haven’t done much of anything here except sit around and look at papers. And talk to people. You know what that’s like. Talking to people.”

  “I know what it’s like,” Bennis said, ’but I’m surprised you do. You don’t talk to people much, Gregor.”

  “I’m using the phrase in a different sense,” Gregor said. “I was talking to suspects.”

  “You were interrogating people, you mean.”

  “All right, I was interrogating them.”

  “You’re good at interrogating people. I’ve seen you do it. You’re not so good at talking to people.”

  “I’m really not good at talking to people who aren’t talking to me,” Gregor said. “You know, I’m not a clairvoyant. If you ask me, nobody is a clairvoyant. I can’t understand what you want me to know unless you tell me first.”

  There was a long silence on the line. “I don’t know what I want you to know. And maybe this isn’t the time for it. You’re on television again. They’ve got you from the side this time. You should button your coat.”

  Gregor’s first impulse was to ask why she’d called if she didn’t want to talk, but he wasn’t entirely without the ability to understand women. He knew that she’d either go straight through the roof or descend into that icy coldness he’d had to put up with for days. He wanted neither thing to happen. He only wished that whoever was filming him would stop. There was something a little uncomfortable about the idea that Bennis could see him when he couldn’t see her.

  “Listen,” he said, “didn’t you want me to go back to work? Back on the last day you were acting like yourself—”

  “I always act like myself, Gregor. I don’t have anybody else to act like.”

  “Back then you were telling me I was driving you crazy and hurting myself by not being willing to take on a job, and here I am. I’ve taken on a job. I’m out. You told me I should get out. I’m not moping around.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Well, you know, Bennis, maybe I am, but I haven’t had time to notice. There’s a lot going on here. I miss you. You could have come with me. You’d have gotten a chance to see Mark again. The way this thing has worked out, you’d havegotten a chance to see Liz again, too. And Jimmy, if that’s what you’d wanted.”

  “If Liz is there with Jimmy, it would be inevitable.”

  “Probably. This doesn’t make any difference. I didn’t do anything, for God’s sake.”

  “You were very flippant about something I can’t be flippant about.”

  “Then act like a sane human being and scream at me,” Gregor said. “Don’t just shut up for days and expect me to guess what you’re angry about. I still don’t know if you love the idea of marriage or hate it. And I wasn’t being flippant. I was just talking.”

  “Being unserious, then.”

  “Well, I’m not likely to get serious on that subject after this reaction. I’d have had an easier time if I’d told you you were getting fat.”

  “You wouldn’t have survived breakfast.”

  “Exactly,” Gregor said. “You’d have lit into me and that would have been that. But this is crazy, Bennis. This really is. I’ve spent half my time up here worrying about it, and I don’t even know what I’m worrying about. About you. I’m worrying about you. I do know that. Most of the time I’m worrying that you’ve just got tired of this arrangement and I hadn’t noticed it.”

  “I don’t think I can have this conversation on this phone at this time,” Bennis said.

  “What?”

  Down near the pond, one of the uniformed officers, the youngest-looking one Gregor had seen yet, was trying to wedge his way under the evergreens. He was lying flat on his back, inching sideways very carefully, brushing the twigs and needles out of his face. Gregor didn’t think he was going to make it.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” he said to Bennis. “That doesn’t sound good at all.”

  “No, I haven’t got tired of this arrangement,” Bennis said. “Does that sound better? At least, I’m not tired of being with you. How’s that?”

  “That’s definitely better.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “You know, Bennis, I never knew much about women before we got together. I met my wife, I married my wife, we got along, she died, that was it. We understood each other. But there’s one thing I’ve learned from you. Everything is complicated. Everything. And I don’t understand why it has to be.”

  “Nobody understands why it has to be,” Bennis said. “It’s one of the great mysteries of life. It just is.”

  “Why?” Gregor demanded. “Look, I’m standing out on this freezing hillside. I’m watching this guy, this young police officer, trying to get under a stand of evergreens that grow so low to the ground they’re practically one with it, I’ve got two people dead and one who nearly ended up that way.”

  “From arsenic poisoning,” Bennis put in quickly. “Liz told me.”

  “Good. Liz told you. Also caffeine poisoning. But the thing is, with all that, this isn’t complicated. It’s perfectly simple. Sex and money. That’s what makes murder. Even most serial killers kill for sex. And don’t give me that nonsense about how rape is an expression of power and rape-murder more so. I know. I understand that. But it’s still about sex. And the rest of the time we’ve got money. That’s it. When everything is said and done here and Brian Sheehy has his perpetrator and I come back to Cavanaugh Street, it’s going to come down to sex and money. Nothing complicated. I don’t understand why this has to be complicated. Do you hate the idea of me even thinking about marrying you? Fine. I’ll stop thinking about it. Do you love the idea of me thinking about marrying you? Fine, too. I’ll think about it. Hell, I’ll go looking for a ring.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Bennis said.

  “Believe what? All I said was—”

  “No, Gregor, don’t you get it? You didn’t say. You don’t ever say. You didn’t say the last time either. Excuse me if I find it unpleasant to be considered a pain in the ass you have to placate by making sure I get the menu item I want.”

  “That didn’t make any sense at all.”

  “It should have made sense,” Bennis said. “The issue of marriage is not about what I want, or what is going to make me the least mad at you—”

  “Of course it is. What else could it be about?”

  “Jesus,” Bennis said. “This is ridiculous. Any minute now, a white rabbit is going to show up at the door, checking his watch.”

  “I’ve read Alice in Wonderland, too. You don’t need to patronize me. All I’m trying to do is to make you happy. And it’s beyond me why that’s suddenly become a capital crime.”

  “You’re on television. You’ve got work to do. I’m going to get off this phone.”

  “I don’t have anything to do but wait here until somebody gets all the way under those evergreens,” Gregor said. “Don’t you dare just walk out on me again, figuratively or literally. I’ll break your neck.”

  “You’ve got work to do,” Bennis said again, and a second later Gregor heard nothing in his ear but dead air.

  Gregor was suddenly incensed, not at Bennis, not at himself, but at the idiots who had invented cell phones. They should have made them so that they gave off dial tones. They should have made them so that they gave off some kind of noise, music, even Muzak, something to buzz when the phone had been hung up in the ear of a caller who had done nothing, absolutely nothing, to deserve it.

  This whole situation was beyond belief, Gregor thought. Whatever had made her call in the middle of the day like this, not when she was just hoping to catch him at a good time, but when she knew, because she was watching it on television, that he was neck deep in work? And what had she wanted when she called? What had she ever wanted? Had he ever understood that? He wasn’t a complicated man. They got along. He would even have said they were in love. When you got along with a woman, when you felt close enough to her to feel you we
re in love, you stayed with her. You made arrangements. You made commitments. There was nothing sacred about a marriage license and a ceremony at City Hall, or even in Holy Trinity Church. It was just a formality, and one he thought no more about one way than the other. Maybe it would have been different if he was a religious man, but he wasn’t, and Bennis wasn’t religious either. What did she want? What was she getting at? He felt as if his entire life was about to fall apart, and he didn’t have the first idea as to why.

  He was belaboring the obvious for yet another time—she’d called him, not only when he was working, but when she’d known he was working; it was completely insane to have a conversation of the kind they’d just had while standing on a hillside surrounded by people half of whom were paying more attention to him than they were to anything else—when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  He turned to find Mark DeAvecca looming over him, made to seem much taller than he was by the fact that he was farther up the hillside.

  “Don’t kill me,” Mark said. “I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I mean, there I was, sitting in that stupid hospital, watching my life go by on CNN. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  3

  Gregor Demarkian wasn’t in the mood to murder Mark DeAvecca at the moment, although he was in the mood to murder somebody and he thought he could probably be talked into taking a surrogate for Bennis if Mark wanted to push hard enough. He got it out of his mind by marveling at the impenetrability of a sixteen-year-old’s brain. They really did think they were immortal, all of them. They didn’t need to be psychopaths for that. He wondered where Mark had gotten the clothes he was wearing and decided that Liz must have brought them from the dorm yesterday when she’d gone to see Peter Makepeace. She obviously hadn’t brought him a jacket because he wasn’t wearing one. Gregor didn’t think even Mark would go wandering around in chinos, turtleneck, and a cotton crewneck sweater in this weather ifhe’d had the option of something shiny stuffed with down. Belatedly, Gregor realized just how much Mark’s clothes looked like the kind of thing Bennis would wear. Maybe it was a boarding school thing. Bennis had been to boarding school.