by Kate Flora
Distraught as they all were, it worked. All four fell silent, waiting for him to speak.
“Let’s all sit down,” he gestured toward his two big couches, “and talk about this.” He remained standing until they were all seated, then he and I sat. He took a moment to reintroduce me and remind them why I was there, and then went immediately to their most urgent question.
“Yes, there was a body found down by the river, but it is not Heidi. She is still missing, and we still need your help to find her.”
“Whose body is it then?” Ronnie asked.
“What about her stepfather? Did you ask him where she is?” Jaden interrupted, not having focused on Ronnie’s question. “She was so afraid of him, and so worried about him coming here. And if she didn’t know about this pregnancy, who better to be the cause than someone right there in the house and already acting like some skeevy, child-molesting creep. We told you how he acted.”
There was a chorus of yesses as the others leaned in, waiting for his answer, the body, for the moment, overshadowed by what he had to say.
“Her stepfather has gone back to California,” Gareth said.
“How do you know?” Ronnie said, which was a very good question.
“Her mother and stepfather were staying at the same inn that I am,” I said. “They left early this morning. I saw them get in their car, and the innkeeper said they were going to the airport.”
Did a culture of truth-telling mean we had to tell them we now wondered if his departure had really happened?
“How could they do that?” Bella said, her delicate face tight with outrage. “It’s her mother’s job to be here looking after her. Why, I’ll bet she hasn’t even seen the baby yet, and that baby is her granddaughter.”
“She’s a sorry excuse for mother,” the girl named Tiverton said. “We’re a better family to Heidi than she is.”
“Yeah. Where’s her mom in all this?” Ronnie said, voicing the group’s outrage. “Did she book it for California as well? She’s never been willing to step up for Heidi.”
“Mrs. Norris was contacted about Heidi’s disappearance before she got on a plane. She’s supposed to come back here,” I said, “to help us deal with Heidi’s disappearance.” It felt like a dumb thing to say since she’d never appeared.
“I’ll bet he didn’t go back to California at all. I’ll bet he took her,” Ronnie said. “I mean, who had more motive to want to shut her up?”
He looked around at the others, who murmured their concurrence.
“Probably they both took her. Heidi says her mother always puts him first.”
“I hope not,” Bella said quietly. Her voice was so small and soft I thought none of the others had heard it, but they fell silent, waiting for her to finish speaking. It was such a Simmons thing—this respect for each other’s voices.
“How would we know they really left, Dr. Wilson?” Bella asked. “I mean, this is so suspicious, Heidi and her parents both disappearing around the same time. Is there a way to know?”
Honesty was the campus rule. Much as he might have liked to dissemble, Gareth answered. “We don’t know if they left, or if Heidi is with them, Bella.” He leaned forward, his hands knotted, his face betraying his anxiety. “We’re still sorting this out. When I spoke with her mother this morning, she said General Norris was flying back to California, and she was returning to Simmons to help us deal with Heidi’s disappearance. Only the police have the resources to check and see if one, or both of them, got on a plane, but they are tied up right now, investigating that…uh…body down in the picnic grove.”
He looked at me, perhaps hoping to be rescued, but I didn’t have anything to offer, so he took a breath and carried on. “Whatever the status of her mother and stepfather, it would be very helpful to us, in finding Heidi, if we could get the deepest possible understanding of her, her relationships, fears, concerns about people who might have posed a threat to her—anything you know about her circumstances before she came to Simmons. For example, do you know why Heidi was so distressed that her stepfather was coming. Or who she might call for help.”
But Ronnie wasn’t done. “I bet they grabbed her, or tricked her into meeting them by saying they’d help her, and now she’s in their clutches. Or else they…”
He stumbled to a stop, not wanting to finish the thought. “What about her useless father? Where is he in all this? I saw him driving away this morning, and I haven’t seen that fancy red Beamer coming back.”
This was a far less confident and bombastic Ronnie than the boy we’d seen earlier. Watching him, I realized something I’d missed before. While Ronnie might try to wear the guise of “just a friend,” he was in love with Heidi. It was also clear that the others knew this, and respected it.
“Headmaster,” the girl named Tiverton interrupted. “Before we talk about Heidi, do you know who it was…the person who was killed?”
Tiverton was a tall, athletic Latina dressed in yoga pants and a plaid flannel shirt open over a tank top, with hair even wilder than mine. She was gorgeous and tough and owned her height and strength and kickass figure with an easy comfort. It was utterly un-PC of me, but I couldn’t avoid thinking that a photo of the four of them would have made a perfect cover for the school’s marketing materials. They were diversity personified. They would also have been great co-stars of a teen superhero series. Imagining teen superheroes sure beat what we were doing here.
“Yes, Dr. Wilson,” Jaden said quietly. “Since you want our help ‘finding’ Heidi, can you tell us who was killed?”
I hadn’t noticed it before, because he was so nervous, but there was a quiet authority in Jaden’s calm voice. Evidently the others recognized it, because they all fell silent and waited for Gareth’s response. All of them had authority and agency, as great superheroes should. It looked like Heidi had been wise—and lucky—in her choice of friends. These four absolutely had her back.
“We don’t have any official confirmation of his identity,” Gareth said. “It was a male, maybe late twenties to early thirties.”
“Official confirmation?” Ronnie scoffed. “Come on, Headmaster. We’re her best friends, and we’re concerned. What Tivvy asked is whether you know who he is. Like if it’s her stepfather or her dad or whatever. Do you? ’Cuz if you do, you need to tell us.”
Boy, a culture of honesty could be such a bitch.
Gareth rubbed his eyes wearily. He looked exhausted. He needed to drink that restorative cup of tea we’d discussed earlier and feed that big, athletic body. He was running on fumes.
“We think we do,” he said, “and if we’re right, it’s a very peculiar thing. One we can’t easily explain and one that we fear will make Heidi even more distressed than she already is.”
He stared out the window, but I knew he was really viewing an internal picture of Heidi’s face when she learned the troubling news. Unless Heidi had been in that clearing, as her father’s drunken rambles suggested, and already knew. In which case, she was even more badly in need of comfort and safety than ever. Dammit! We needed to know what had happened down there last night, and all the players who could tell us were either dodging us or passed out.
“Headmaster,” Bella’s shy voice chimed in, “we know this is hard for you, just like it is for us. We’re not here to attack you or make unreasonable demands. We aren’t here to accuse you of anything. We’re here because our friend is in trouble. She’s missing and we want to help you find her. We want to comfort her and let her know that she’s believed and cared about. Which, because of how her parents behave, isn’t easy for her to accept. So please be honest with us about what you know. And let us help you if we can.”
The other three, in their individual ways, seconded Bella’s statement.
The air in the room shimmered with tension. The clock on the wall said that Gareth had to be at a meeting in twenty minutes. Before that, he and I needed to talk and, if possible, update Miller and Flynn.
Gareth looked at th
e four of them. I knew what he was thinking—that the news they insisted he deliver would amp up their anxiety about Heidi. But honesty was the rule they’d all agreed to live by, so he took a deep breath, let it slowly out, and said, “I truly wish I didn’t have to tell you this, because it’s very bad news indeed. We believe the person who was killed is a man named Lt. Alexander Crosby. He went by Sandy, and we believe Heidi’s father, and quite possibly Heidi herself, referred to him as Dee and another of General Norris’s aides, as Dum.”
Their reactions were as individual as they were. “Oh dear. No!” Bella said, looking stricken. “Why would he be here? He’s definitely not her friend.”
Ronnie didn’t speak, but his big fists curled like he wanted to punch something.
Jaden studied his shoes, and Tiverton said, “Are you sure? Because how would you know that it’s him? It’s not like he’s been here to visit Heidi or anything. He’s just a slimeball perv, and one of the reasons Heidi wanted to come here. You’ve never seen him, so—”
“So yes, we can’t be certain,” Gareth agreed. “But Ms. Kozak saw him, his…uh…the victim. We’ve looked him up on the internet, and from his photographs, it does appear Crosby is the person who was attacked…and it is his body that is down there in our assembly clearing. His death that the police are now investigating.”
Bella’s voice came from behind two small hands clasped over her face. “This will be too terrible for Heidi. If you hate someone, and wish them dead, and then…” Her hands dropped. “But where is she? What’s happened to Heidi? If Dee was here, she’s got even more reason to flee. Does that mean Dum is here, too? I mean, they’d only come if her stepfather wanted them here. There’s no other reason.”
Her words accelerated. “Was she there? Does she know that he…that Dee has been killed? Have the police taken her? Has the killer taken her? How can something like this happen here, where we’re supposed to be safe?”
It was the central question for everyone on the Simmons campus.
Jaden moved closer and put an arm around her shoulders.
There was silence, and then Ronnie repeated Bella’s question. “Was Heidi there? Down in the picnic grove? Did she see what happened?” He popped to his feet. “Headmaster, have they taken her?”
Gareth drooped like someone had drained a few pints of his blood as his four students stared at him, waiting for answers he didn’t have.
All he could do was take refuge in honesty. “We don’t know if Heidi was there. Our security staff found a pale blue jacket we presume to be hers. There are tracks in the remnants of snow, and the police will have the dogs out searching for anything which might provide some answers. In the meantime, we hope for the best, assume she’s still all right, just hiding somewhere, and put our heads together to come up with places we might look, and anyone we should talk to who might have ideas about where she’s gone.”
There was a moment of silence, like at a church service after the benediction, and then everyone started talking at once.
This time, it was my turn to stand and hold up my hand for silence. “We want, and need, to hear what you have to say, but while we talk, Dr. Wilson and I need to eat. This day started very early for us.”
They looked at me blankly.
I pointed to the trolley with the sandwiches, tea, and coffee. “Maybe you’d like some cookies?” I said, reluctantly offering the plate.
In my experience, while adults may lose their appetites under stress, teenagers need to snack. It worked. They fell on the cookies like they’d been starving in the wilderness, while Gareth shot me a grateful look and took a sandwich.
As we ate, the four of them provided what more they could about Heidi’s home situation, and naming three of the same four possible suspects Ted Basham had. Beyond that, they didn’t have too much to offer. None of them knew of any day students who were close enough to Heidi to have picked her up and spirited her away, nor of anyone in the area to whom Heidi might have turned for help if she was desperate to leave the Simmons campus.
It was then that I asked my last question, the one meant for closure, to dismiss them. I wasn’t hoping for an answer. “Thinking beyond Simmons,” I said, “is there anyone from back home she might have called on? A close friend or close friend’s parent, perhaps?” I was thinking about Stephanie, who’d also left for boarding school, or her mother who had tangled with General Norris.
They did mention Stephanie, and Bella said she could probably find Stephanie’s contact information. She thought Heidi had it somewhere on her desk. “They don’t talk much, but I know they were close.”
The only other person they could think of was her music teacher back in California, William McKenzie, and they all thought it highly unlikely, even though Heidi had called him, that he could have come. He wasn’t a rich man, they said, and was hardly likely to jump on a plane and get tangled up in the mess that was going on here.
“He is nice, though,” Bella said. “He sends her things, and when he calls, he makes her laugh.”
I didn’t mention that Ted Basham had suggested McKenzie might be here or that he’d done something to sever his daughter’s connection to her music teacher. His ramblings had been too vague.
* * *
Their revelations, unenlightening as they were, involved a great deal of consultation and discussion among the four of them. Before I could ask my question about someplace on campus where Heidi might be hiding, based on the comment Dr. Purcell had made, Gareth looked at his watch and announced we had to get to a meeting.
Ronnie repeated what was obviously his greatest concern, “You need to find out if The General really left, because if he didn’t, he’s where to look for Heidi.”
We would ask that, of course, as soon as we could talk with Miller and Flynn.
Ronnie’s statement ended the meeting. Before they left, I asked about caves or holes or hiding places, but they had no ideas. The four of them trooped out, leaving me with a host of unanswered questions and the disappointed sense of someone whose eagerly-anticipated ice cream cone has fallen on the sidewalk.
Despite their willingness to help, I still thought there were things they weren’t saying. We’d learned little. Heidi was still missing and so was her mother. Her stepfather’s whereabouts were unknown. We still had a murdered man on campus. The situation was a private school’s worst nightmare.
Twenty-Six
What do you say to an anxious student body when all you have is a deepening crisis and a huge dearth of information? Or, in the current parlance, a big nothingburger? Tell the truth as we knew it, complete with our unanswered questions. That’s what Gareth did.
It was both painful to watch—because I knew how much he wished he could give them better information—and impressive, because his finest leadership abilities came out when he spoke. He was open and eloquent, and in such evident distress at the situation, and at their distress, that he convinced the majority of them of the complexity of the situation and the need for patience while he sought answers. He acknowledged their right to be scared. He joined them in their concern and frustration about what was happening on their campus.
In all my years at schools, I had never had a principal, superintendent, dean, or headmaster who exhibited so much leadership, honesty, and compassion. I was reminded of how utterly unsuited I would be to his job. I also felt our vast to-do list growing tentacles that wrapped me in anxiety and despair. At the top of that list? We had to update the Simmons parents about the situation as soon as possible. An on-campus homicide, even if the victim was a stranger to the community, couldn’t be ignored. It would be all over the news.
Then we needed to have a sit-down with Miller and Flynn, share what we’d learned about their victim and from Basham’s babbling, and hopefully get more information from them. We needed this murder solved and Heidi found so that Simmons could return to some kind of normal. I had such a knot in my stomach about Heidi and all the unknowns it was difficult to breathe.
Gareth was coming to the end of his Q&A session—mostly Q and little A—when there was a reprise of yesterday’s dramatic interruption. This time, the person who burst in demanding answers and an immediate interview with Gareth was not Heidi’s mother but her father.
If her fellow students had had any doubts about why Heidi had needed to escape her parents and find refuge at Simmons, yesterday’s entrance by Mrs. Norris, and now this one by Ted Basham, set them to rest.
When he made his dramatic entrance into Gareth’s office, challenging the Norrises’ attempt to keep him in the dark about Heidi’s situation, Basham’s unkempt look had had a deliberateness about it. An artsy, “I just threw this together” assemblage of carefully curated garments that was rather attractive. Today, uncombed, unshaven, and in clothes he’d slept in, the look was grad student laundry basket. His face was still creased from sleep, and quite possibly, as his staggering gait down the aisle suggested, he was not fully recovered from his recent drunkenness. He stood out in this room full of fresh-faced youth like a worm on a flower.
“Headmaster,” he bellowed, “I’ve been entrapped by your underlings. We need to speak at once.”
Though “entrapped by your underlings” was a hell of a phrase, this particular underling didn’t like it much at all.
“As you can see, Mr. Basham, we are in the middle of a meeting here. Please go and wait for me in my office,” Gareth said.
“I’ll wait right here,” Basham said, thumping with his crutch for emphasis.
“Suit yourself,” Gareth said. He shot me a “do something” look and went on with what he’d been saying.
Basham stayed, swaying and occasionally banging his crutch. The students who were near him were frightened. Where was Amad, I wondered? He’d seemed capable and responsible dealing with the intruder in Heidi’s room, and on our mission to extricate Basham from the bar, so how had he let Basham escape? I tried to get a better look at Basham’s crutch. Had he done something to Amad?