Kiss Them Goodbye

by Joseph Eastburn

  “For you, yes, of course.”

  “And for yourself?”

  Allington paused. “Have you chosen a replacement?”

  Dr. Hickey pulled his wrinkled hands out of his perennially gray trousers, carefully adjusted the Windsor knot on his tie, and looked into Allington’s eyes. His smile was ironic. “Well,” he said, “I guess you’ve gotten your way after all.”

  He walked out of the room.

  BY EIGHT O’CLOCK that evening, as people were turning off Main Street to park behind the Rotary Club, a rumor had spread through the dorms up on campus that Ms. Coates’s car had been found on the golf course. Faculty members and friends of the math teacher tried to convince themselves she had been called away for some emergency.

  Nick Fowler was standing across the street from the auditorium. He saw some students skulking around in the parking lot, smoking. He tried to manage a smile when he saw Maureen drive up. He was hardly surprised at how great she looked in her dress. Aquamarine with matching shoes; around her neck, a simple string of pearls. When she approached him, he took her hand, but he was nervous, on edge.

  Nick had managed to get a fresh suit out of the cleaners. He had cut himself shaving and was on his second white shirt. They both noticed two police cars in the parking lot. He took Maureen aside. “Ms. Coates is missing.”

  “Oh no.”

  He unfolded a sheet of white paper from his breast pocket. “This poem was on a bathroom wall in one of the dorms. What do you make of it?”

  Maureen was looking into his eyes as she took the sheet of paper in her hands. For a long moment, she couldn’t look down.

  ALGEBRA I

  She presses weights and barbells—and such.

  Because he hits her whenever she fucks.

  The tar on her thumb,

  The soot on her bum,

  She can’t appreciate living that much.

  So then—she takes off all of her “Coates”

  For boys on whose affection she dotes.

  She opens her knees,

  The greatest of ease,

  Don’t let him catch her sowing your oats.

  Maureen looked up at him. “I don’t know . . . ‘tar on her thumb’?”

  Nick was studying her face. “That’s what struck me, ‘tar,’ ‘soot.’ Wonder what it means.” He folded the poem into his pocket. They walked inside.

  They stood in the corner of a large room decorated here and there with black and white art deco cutouts. They watched a few faculty members come in. They saw Mr. Pullen enter, bowing to several ladies who knew him. The little man made polite conversation, then awkwardly excused himself.

  The ceiling was veiled in a canopy of red material, thematically correct; on a closer look, Fowler realized it was a parachute. The masking tape holding the black and white streamers to the walls disappeared when the lights went down. Mr. Pullen was making his way to the top of the bleachers in the dark when the band started to play.

  Mr. Toby arrived in a flurry, preened his way across the dance floor, his courtly gestures becoming a parody of old-fashioned manners. His black hair was elegantly matted in a forties style. Mr. Carlson, the German teacher, who had seen the first victim in Ardsley, kept looking down at his cordovan wing tips—as if they had a life of their own. Mr. Curamus, the Latin teacher, managed to spill some punch on his suit; that seemed to baptize the evening as people became more relaxed and actually started to dance.

  Nearly all the faculty came. There was an electricity in the air. People were standing around in groups, laughing or being dazzled by the professional dancers from New York City, elegantly attired, doing impeccable turns around the floor.

  On the stage was an eight-piece band that played tunes from the forties. They started out the first set with “Tangerine” and ended it with “Midnight Serenade.” People flooded the dance floor and began to pull out the old steps. The musicians themselves were old-timers and understood the music—getting quickly to its heart. The elegance of the ballroom dances were punctuated by swing tunes like Count Basie’s “One O’clock Jump” and Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train.” The floor was completely full when they picked up the tempo even more with Glen Miller’s “In the Mood.”

  Finally Dr. Brandon Hickey and his wife arrived. The headmaster was dressed, to everyone’s surprise, in a dark blue suit. He seemed serene. Right behind him was Elliot Allington, dressed casually in gray slacks and a blue blazer, as if he had appropriated the headmaster’s uniform.

  Fowler didn’t see Nathan Clarence come in. At one point, he just noticed the man was on the dance floor, dressed in a white suit, jitterbugging with the librarian. Ms. Leach was already sweating, her armpits dispatching the aromatic warning that gave her whatever dancing room she needed. The doctor looked quite flashy.

  Nick Fowler was dancing slowly with Maureen in the middle of the floor. His eyes were panning the room, reporting in her ear what he was seeing. He tried not to look at Mr. Pullen, hunched in the distance, not moving, a statue in a black polyester suit.

  Nick held Maureen’s hand loosely, his other hand on the small of her back. They were cheek to cheek.

  “I’m exhausted,” he said.

  “You look tired.”

  “I don’t see anything, do you?”

  “No.”

  Fowler was staring at Mr. Toby, who had been dancing from the beginning, negotiating the steps discovered at every crime scene. He was whirling one of the masters’ wives around, doing slip-aways, arch turns, pivots. He did the Charleston, the Polka.

  “That guy’s a regular encyclopedia of moves.”

  “Who?”

  Fowler twirled her around so she could see. “The guy in the gray suit, what’s his name, Astaire.”

  “Oh yeah. I saw him before. He’s good.”

  In the other corner of the room, Fowler could see Dr. Brandon Hickey, after several more drinks, putting down some steps too.

  “The old headmaster. Look.” Again he turned her around.

  “Not bad for an ancient.”

  Elliot Allington sat in the grandstand sipping punch. Finally Dr. Hickey’s wife pulled him up with great ceremony. She maneuvered him behind several groups of people so that Fowler could see only his head and shoulders. Some time later, he was twirling Mrs. Hickey around the room. They were reckless and livened up the floor. At one point Fowler thought he saw Allington holding her hand as she bent down to pull up the strap on her shoe. She shook her hair out with an uncharacteristic abandon.

  Maureen had already sat down. An hour had passed. Fowler was threading his way back to her from the bar. He was not wondering any longer who was a good dancer, but why nothing had transpired. He had the realization that this was too obvious a trap. Nothing would happen tonight.

  When he reached Maureen and handed her a plastic cup with punch in it, he told her he had overheard a group of people at the buffet table asking how Ms. Coates—easily the most attractive woman on the faculty—could have missed this dance. One of the wives had even gone to the pay phone to call her, she told them, but there was no answer.

  The band announced the last dance, a slow one called “Everything Happens to Me,” and the lights were dimmed. Fowler looked around the room. He saw all the faculty members and town officials either dancing or sitting and suddenly felt that it was none of them. He looked from one person to the other, discouraged, and although he couldn’t locate the doctor in his white suit—all his suspects looked remarkably tame.

  In the middle of the last song, the lights abruptly came on as something tore through the parachute in the ceiling. It fell in slow motion, sending the red material ballooning back up into the ceiling, until the rope pulled instantly taut. At the end of the rope was the body of a woman, hung by her ankles still jerking up and down. She was wearing a fitted purple dress now bunched down around her thighs. Her arms were frozen rigidly above her head with 45 rpm records glued between her fingers. Her throat had been cut.

  The entire r
oom went silent. People stood where they were, mute, in shock, until the grotesque features of the hanging woman sent a roll of panic across the room. Here and there people began to scream. Then a chorus of screams. Women and men alike got sick and fainted. In the course of a minute or two, the entire room was in pandemonium. People were rushing to get out of the door, others were crying, some were in hysterics; people who had been close to Ms. Coates were calling out to the heavens, shrieking above the chaos.

  Fowler fought his way to the body, saw that it was the math teacher, grabbed one faculty member and demanded that he run outside and get the police. He stood at eye level with the corpse, now dangling at the end of the rope; he reached a hand up to stop it from swinging. He looked into her face, overwhelmed with remorse that he could have prevented this. He made himself look at her. Now the victim was a woman, he thought. He glanced around the room. Mr. Toby’s petrified face was staring at him.

  Fowler looked back at the body. His eyes welled up. Ms. Coates’s features were hideously distorted in death. He closed his eyes, shaking his head repeatedly.

  Elliot Allington’s voice came over the loudspeaker. He was up on the bandstand, speaking into the microphone in front of the stunned band, trying to quiet people down.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please . . . faculty members, please be calm, I beg you. I’m told the police will be here presently. Just, if you can . . . get a hold of—” There were more screams from the floor. “Please everyone? . . . Just . . . everyone? . . . Please leave quietly. We’re sorry. This is a terrible tragedy. Please just drive safely. Please . . . be careful.”

  Fowler had his hand on Ms. Coates’s shoulder as if comforting her when Captain Allen Weathers walked through the gym doors and strode over to him. The burly man couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “Fowler, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Never mind what I’m doing here.”

  “I thought I told you to stay away.”

  “I tried.”

  “You make trouble wherever you go.”

  “The trouble was already here, Allen.”

  “I’m beginning to think you’re the trouble.”

  Fowler was in no mood. “Tell that to her.”

  He stepped out of the way and Ms. Coates’s body swayed toward the captain.

  53

  AN HOUR AND a half later, red lights were still flashing against the storefronts beside the Rotary Club. Fowler was pacing, watching the façades on the street blinking on and off, when he saw Bill Rodney coming out of the same side door of the auditorium that the crime unit was using. He ran up to him.

  “Bill, what’s up?”

  Rodney’s old leathery face looked startled, worse for wear. He glanced over his shoulder nervously. “Let’s talk over here.” They walked around a line of police vehicles sitting out in the parking lot.

  “He’s on the rampage,” Rodney said.

  “Weathers?”

  “Yeah. Tech services is almost finished. The woman has been dead over twenty-four hours, we think. She was dragged through the freakin’ woods. They found crushed leaves in her hair, bits of moss. Seems the crew had the parachute up for a day or so. Somebody strung her up there and tied off a rope that fed down into the squash court next door. Whoever killed her just walked into the next court, untied the rope, retied the end and let her fall thirty-five feet. Then he flicked on the lights.”

  “The lights went on just before.”

  “Couldn’t have.”

  “I was there, Bill.”

  “But the switches are on the other side of the gym, pal.”

  Fowler was thinking. “Then we have two people. The lights may have been the signal to let the body go.”

  Rodney looked away. “Hmph,” he grunted, and pulled out a cigarette.

  Fowler watched him strike a match. “Do you mind?” he said, reaching for his pack.

  Rodney looked at him in surprise. “You smoke?”

  Fowler lit the cigarette and blew the smoke out. “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Anything on the background checks?”

  “We’re trying,” said Rodney, “but it’s a logistical nightmare.”

  “Let me help you. Get me to the computers in the station house.”

  The old detective looked at him out of the corner of his eye, almost laughing. “You got to be kidding. Tonight that place’ll be a madhouse.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Look, I’ll try. Can’t promise anything.”

  Fowler’s head felt dizzy when he took another drag. “I want to do a search according to theme. A serial killer who goes after young boys . . . now a woman. I want to check field reports, autopsies. These aren’t the first murders. This person is seasoned.”

  “I’m sure they’ve already done that, Fowler.”

  “I also want to check DMVs for past addresses. I’m going to match those against personal files from school administration.”

  “We’ve already subpoenaed the school records. They’re tied up in litigation.”

  Nick paused, staring intently at Rodney. He looked at the pavement. “I’ll have to get around that.”

  Rodney pulled on the cigarette uneasily, and as he blew the smoke up, it turned red in the flashing lights. “Why do you think he murdered this one, Nick?”

  Fowler looked up at the building, shaking his head. “Not sure. Some kind of hate . . . some passion . . .”

  “Though the way he displayed her was too calculated.”

  “Maybe to conceal the real place of death?”

  Rodney looked at him. “That’s what I think.”

  ONE THING FOWLER realized, driving up into the campus, was that Cary Ballard was still at the juvenile detention center awaiting trial. Nick had made sure Maureen kept any news of his detention out of her paper. At least the boy couldn’t be blamed for this one.

  Nick parked his car in back of the school kitchen. He tried all the windows on the ground floor of Ardsley Hall. He had to get into the administrative offices, which dominated the floor, and tonight with everyone too frightened to come out, there would be little foot traffic. He checked the grates to all the basement windows and found one loose. He rattled it until he was able to unscrew the bolts with his pocketknife. With the butt of his .38, he tapped a windowpane through, then listened to the glass sprinkle the cement floor inside. He reached in and unlatched the window. After he crawled in, he jumped to the floor below.

  He caught sight of a figure moving against a far wall. Nick shifted between steel columns, breathing hard. He watched as a shadow crept on all fours toward a door that had a crack of light underneath it. Fowler rushed to the next column, aimed his gun, and shone the flashlight on the figure. It broke into a run.

  Fowler yelled, “Freeze!” His voice echoed off the walls. He saw a flash of brown trousers, heard shoes sliding as he ran toward the figure.

  The light revealed a small man wearing a khaki uniform. His two front teeth were missing. He was flattened against the wall, sweating, eyes senseless with fear.

  “Who are you?” Nick pointed the beam onto the floor.

  The cracked, nervous voice said, “Stanley. I work the graveyard shift here and over on the boilers at the power plant.

  “Do you have any identification?”

  “Yeah.” The shaky hands pulled out an old tattered wallet. Fowler looked at it quickly under the flashbulb. He handed it back to him.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I thought you was that killer.” A line of spit issued from his teeth.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “You’re that lieutenant fella.”

  “Right. Sort of. Look, could you help me out?”

  “What?”

  “I’m still investigating these murders, and I need to get into the administrative offices and have a look at the faculty files. Now, what I’m doing is important, but it’s technically illegal because the lawyers for the school won’t rele
ase these records.”

  “Anything against lawyers, I’ll do it. They’ve ruined this damn country.”

  Nick smiled. “Can you get me upstairs?”

  “Sure, have keys to all the offices. Them sons of bitches have a double-locked door to the basement anyway. You would have had a hell of a time. Probably would have ended up in the tunnels.”

  “Stanley, you’re a lifesaver.”

  Upstairs, the little wombat ambled back down the hallway as Nick drew the blinds in the administrative offices. He had targeted seven files. The personnel records were locked up. After a long search through all the drawers, books, the secretary’s desk, he finally found the file keys at the bottom of a brown monogrammed pencil cup that matched the desk blotter.

  He studied the files with his flashlight for quite a while, spread the manila folders down on the carpet. He had it narrowed down to three people. He was leaving when he noticed the smudge on the carpet. He knelt down, holding a dab to his nostrils. No doubt about it: tar.

  THE GREEN COMPACT pulled across the strip, rambled soundlessly around the Grotto, parking in back of the pink motel. The figure behind the wheel got out, carrying a large suitcase. He walked around the building, rapped on the door of the room at the end. The door opened.

  Dr. Nathan Clarence was standing there, still in his white suit, a cheerless look on his face. A champagne bucket was sweating on a black-veneer table. He stared incredulously.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Shh,” the deep voice reverberated around the room. “I brought something for you.” He closed the door.

  Dr. Clarence was nervously adjusting his tie, trying to pull the lapels of his suit jacket down as if it didn’t fit. “I’ve been waiting and waiting . . .”

  The figure gestured around. “Is this okay for our first time?”

  The doctor gave a brief, jaundiced glance around the room. “It’s enchanting.”

  “Have to start somewhere.” The man thrashed at the cloak, which floated down onto the shag carpet. The scarf was lifted. A schoolboy smiled now at the doctor, the white face with the clown lips becoming more distorted each time he saw it.