Angel in the Snow

by Glen Ebisch

  She started to shake her head, then stopped. “Well, there is one more thing. Vicki seemed kind of nervous, you know. And she kept looking at her watch. When I asked her what was the matter, she gave a funny laugh and said that an old friend had told her he might stop by. She wouldn’t tell me any more about it.”

  Templeton stared at her and gently rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger. “You are not telling me the complete truth, Ms. Sharp. Perhaps your friend Vicki is simply out enjoying a ride with some boy she happened to meet, but I doubt it. And if she isn’t, then this is no childish prank. Something very serious may be going on here, something that could be very dangerous to you. And I can only help you if I have your complete cooperation.”

  “I’m telling you all I know,” she said, pressing her lips into a thin line.

  Templeton snorted contemptuously, then rudely turned and walked to the other side of the room.

  “Why don’t you sack out in my bed, Elaine? I’ll throw some pillows on the floor for myself,” I said, trying to smooth things over.

  We argued wearily about who should have the bed, but finally she gave in and went off to use the bathroom.

  I went over to where Templeton was standing by the table, leafing through a book.

  “Don’t you think you were hard on her? Just because you have no feelings, that’s no reason to think other people don’t.”

  He studied me for a moment, then said scornfully, “Stop thinking with your hormones. Would you condemn a surgeon for cutting into someone to save that person’s life? If I have to hurt her to find out the truth, I will. Because that’s the only way to save her.”

  “Save her from what?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he said more gently. “To save her from being driven insane.”

  Chapter 6

  Having a girl in the room made me nervous and trying to sleep on the floor in my clothes probably didn’t help much either, but whatever the reason, it was real late before I got to sleep. It seemed as though I had just closed my eyes and drifted off into pleasant unconsciousness, when I was pulled awake by an awful noise. It was a kind of high raggedy sound, an animal-like scream, that went up and down my spine like the scraping of fingernails on a blackboard. When I finally pried my eyes open, I was surprised to see that early morning sunlight was already starting to filter through the window.

  Templeton, who had been sitting at his table writing when I went to bed, was already up and looking out the window.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered, trying not to awaken Elaine, who seemed to be peacefully dozing a few feet away on my bed.

  The noise came again, and this time it sounded human rather than animal: the high-pitched wail of someone completely out of control. A few shouts could now be heard in front of the building moving in the direction of the parking lot.

  “Quick, Wood, wake up the girl! If this is what I’m very much afraid it is, we haven’t any time to lose!”

  I went over to the bed and gently shook her arm. “Hi,” she mumbled, opening her eyes and smiling up at me sweetly as she stretched her arms over her head.

  “I think we’d better get going,” I said gently, trying to keep my mind on Templeton’s order.

  She must have detected the urgency in my voice because she frowned. I turned to Templeton who walked over from the window.

  “There is a great deal of confusion beginning down there. You’d better hurry if you want to slip out of here and back to your own room unobserved.” He tossed a woolen knit hat on the bed. “Tuck your hair up under this, and move quickly until you are out the front door.”

  She nodded and put on her coat and the hat. With her slender body, it made her look a little like a boy—but a very cute boy.

  “Wood, you follow her down and make sure no one stops her. I’m going out to investigate the cause of all this commotion.” Without waiting he headed out the door.

  A few seconds later, Elaine and I cautiously peeked out from behind the bookcase to make certain that the third floor was empty and then we made a dash for the stairs. She moved like a gazelle, taking two stairs at a time with her feet hardly seeming to touch. I was afraid she would trip and break a leg. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tousled figure in pajamas appear on the second floor landing and shout, “What’s happening?” I ignored him and stayed right on Elaine’s heels. We hit the front door at a run and were halfway across the campus to her dorm before slowing to a walk. Her face was red from running in the cold morning air, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. Elaine started to take the hat off, but I suggested she keep it on in case anyone was watching.

  The screams had turned to sobs, which carried clearly on the crisp air across the snow-covered campus. A group was gathering off to the left of Stoneham Hall, out behind the faculty bungalows we had passed last night. From the small hill where they stood you had a wonderful view of the sun gradually deepening the blue of the eastern sky and turning it into a burst of color. But the audience wasn’t there to watch the sunrise because they were all looking at something on the ground.

  “What do you think is going on?” asked Elaine, still excited from her run.

  “I don’t know, but you’d better get back to your room.”

  “There’s no hurry now, let’s go look. Even if Miss Carmody sees me, she’ll think I was in the dorm all night and just came out to see what was happening.”

  I shrugged, and we walked over. The crowd was standing in a semi-circle around something. Aside from a girl who was crying into the chest of Tim Woodward, everyone else was standing quietly as if that took all the energy they had left. Templeton was in front, his thin body towering over the crowd. I gently edged forward to where he was standing. He was looking down with intense concentration at an area of snow. Gradually my eyes got up the courage to focus on the body lying in the center. She lay on her back with her arms spread out as though she was making angels in the snow, but the open eyes and the small red hole over her heart said that the only angel she’d make would be a real one.

  Templeton grabbed my arm and shook it until I turned away from the body and looked at him.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “I believe she is—”

  “Vicki? Is that you Vicki?”

  Elaine had pushed through the crowd and was staring down at the body. There was a shaky edge to her voice, as though the next sound to come out might be a scream.

  “Get her out of here!” Templeton ordered. “Take her back to her dorm and get someone to stay with her. Then come back here. We have to make plans.”

  Although she resisted at first, as though staring at Vicki was going to bring her back to life, I half walked and half carried Elaine back to her dorm. Miss Carmody was in the lobby. Pulling her bathrobe around herself at the sight of me, she asked what was going on. Quickly I explained that Vicki was dead and Elaine very upset. She immediately took over, saying she would see that someone stayed with her.

  By the time I got back to the crowd, it had grown. A number of teachers, Mr. Jameson among them, were there, urging students to go back to their rooms. Finally several guys in uniform, part of the school’s security force, arrived and started moving us away. The one in charge, a big guy with an impressively large mustache, walked over to where Templeton and I were standing near the body. Templeton had crouched down, and seemed to be staring at the snow.

  “Okay, back away there, you two. There’s nothing more to see,” he said to us. When we didn’t move he asked, as though it were our fault, “What’s the matter? Is she drunk or strung out on drugs?”

  Templeton glanced up as though he had been annoyed by a fly.

  “Ah, Sergeant Foster, how good of you to come. Better late than never I always say. And I’m afraid that, as usual, you have completely misjudged the situation.”

  The sergeant’s face reddened, and he took a step toward Templeton then, with obvious effort, got control of himself. He bent over and examined the body. He frowned and loo
ked around wildly for a moment as though hoping the murderer might be standing nearby waiting to confess.

  “Get out of here, Templeton, this could be a case of murder,” he said finally. “It’s not some minor theft of a weathervane.”

  “Could be murder? Sergeant, I think it most obviously is. Unless you believe she stabbed herself through the heart with a thin-bladed instrument to commit suicide. I also agree that it is far more important than the theft of a weather vane, but since you were unable to solve that relatively simple crime, I have serious doubts about your ability to solve this.” Without waiting for a reply, Templeton turned and headed back to our dorm.

  Foster stared at me as though trying to think up some offense to arrest me on just for hanging around with Templeton. I started to hurry back to the dorm as well but swung around when someone called my name. Mr. Jameson ran up and stood very close, as if trying to frighten me by pushing his face up into mine. It might have worked if he had been a foot taller. As it was he ended up sort of nuzzling my chest.

  “Listen, Wood, if you ever expect to go on to senior English, you’d better forget that you ever saw me last night,” he said in his best threatening tone, which was pretty good.

  “Why?”

  “That’s none of your business. Just remember, I can be a good friend or a bad enemy,” he said. Then turned and walked away rapidly, as though he had just remembered an appointment. I already knew he could be a bad enemy, but I had some doubts about the other part.

  When I returned to our room, Templeton was already sitting in one of the leather chairs staring at the ashes in the fireplace. I sat in the other chair and waited for him to say something. I waited.

  “I should have foreseen that this was going to happen,” he finally said so softly that I barely caught his words.

  “How could you have guessed? I know you’re smart and read a lot about crime and all that, but you’re exaggerating if you think you could have known Vicki was going to end up dead.”

  Templeton gave me a humorless smile. “A girl disappears in the middle of town at night. She has ways of getting what she wants when it comes to special privileges. What does that suggest to you?”

  I pretended to be thinking for a moment. “I don’t know? What?”

  “Blackmail. And blackmail is a frequent motive for murder.”

  “Just for the sake of argument, whom would she have been blackmailing?”

  “I don’t know yet. But it must have been a person with some authority at the school or else how did she get these privileges?”

  “Okay, let’s just say you are right. What could you have done last night?” I asked. “You didn’t know where Vicki was or who she was with. How can you blame yourself?”

  He sat there quietly for a moment. “You’re right, Wood, false humility is even worse than false pride. There was nothing I could have done. I am saying foolish things because this criminal has gotten the jump on me and I am embarrassed.”

  “This may turn out to be a very easy crime,” I said. “In fact, based on what you just told me, I have some evidence that may lead to a solution in the next five minutes.”

  Templeton glared at me. “Well, say whatever you have to say.”

  I explained about seeing Jameson last night and his words to me this morning.

  “What bungalow was he coming out of?” Templeton asked.

  “The third from the right.”

  He gave a snort of laughter. “You did indeed catch Jameson, but not in the act of committing murder. That bungalow is occupied by Miss Pritchard, the youngest and most attractive member of the English department. I am certain that Jameson would not care to explain what he was doing there so late at night. The headmaster would hardly believe that they were discussing the great works of western literature, and he does not approve of romantic relationships between members of his teaching staff.”

  “How do you know that’s where Miss Pritchard lives?”

  “It’s my job to know that kind of thing.”

  “Oh. Well, if you know so much, what does Vicki’s death have to do with the attack on Elaine?”

  “Perhaps our friend Elaine has the same secret knowledge that her dead roommate was using to gain preferred treatment.”

  “You think that wonderful girl is a blackmailer!” I shouted, leaning forward in the chair.

  Templeton raised a soothing hand. “I don’t think she is actually blackmailing anyone, or else she would not have come to me for help. But someone may think that as Vicki’s friend she has the same sensitive information Vicki had and want to keep her quiet.”

  “How?”

  “As I said last night, by frightening her back into paranoia, so she would have to leave school. In that event anything she said would be discounted as the imaginings of a sick mind.”

  I slumped back in the chair. “That’s a pretty fantastic idea, even for you, Templeton. But if you’re right, and Elaine is in danger of being terrorized again, what should we do next?”

  “First, we must attempt to eliminate any suspicion that Elaine was involved in Vicki’s death. Then we must find out who killed Vicki and is now attempting to drive Elaine insane.”

  “Sounds simple enough,” I said with what I hoped was obvious sarcasm.

  Ignoring my wit, he continued, “You and Elaine must go to her advisor, tell the entire story of the attack on her, and ask him to report it to the headmaster. Someone is certain to know that Elaine and Vicki were going to be together in town last night, so the sooner Elaine comes forward with the facts, the fewer problems she’ll have with the authorities.”

  “I guess I can take care of that, but I still have the feeling that you’re working on the basis of some wild assumptions about this whole thing.”

  “Not assumptions, Wood, but hypotheses. And just as a good scientist tests his hypotheses by performing experiments, so we will test ours by conducting an investigation. We will gather evidence which will prove or disprove my theory.”

  “And how are we going to start gathering this evidence?”

  “Today is Thursday; perhaps on Saturday we should go into town for a visit.”

  “A visit to whom?”

  “There’s a garage I know where a certain motorcycle gang gathers. I think it would be most educational if we paid them a visit.”

  “How do you know about them?”

  Templeton stared at me.

  “Sorry, I forgot, it’s part of your job. But what can we find out there? Even if the three guys who chased Elaine do belong to that gang, what good is it going to do us to talk to them? Do you think they killed Vicki?”

  Templeton shook his head. “I doubt it very much. But someone hired them to frighten Elaine. Remember what the leader said when you began pelting them with snowballs, ‘We aren’t getting paid enough for this.’ If we can find out who hired them, we may discover who murdered Vicki.”

  “They aren’t exactly going to volunteer that information. How do you plan to get them to talk?”

  “Perhaps you could demonstrate your talent for clearing chimneys.”

  Chapter 7

  Mr. Hawthorne crossed his right leg over his left and waggled his expensive brown loafer nervously. He had been doing the same thing, alternating his right and left legs, for the last twenty minutes, ever since Elaine and I trooped into his office and began telling our story about last evening.

  Getting word to Elaine hadn’t been easy. After leaving Templeton, I’d rushed to my first period history class, and jotted down a note to her giving the essence of Templeton’s suggestion that we meet with Mr. Hawthorne. In the note I warned her not to tell Hawthorne about crossing paths with Jameson last night or her visit to the boys’ dorm. Better just to give him the story that after rescuing Elaine I’d escorted her back to the girls’ dorm, and Miss Carmody had happened not to see her return.

  The whole school was talking about Vicki and what the police were doing to find her killer. I assumed that if it wasn’t already, the phone i
n the headmaster’s office would soon be ringing off the hook with calls from anxious parents. But private schools are known for their ability to smooth over “difficult situations” and North Hill was no different. Vicki’s body had just been found that morning and it was already classes and business as usual. The headmaster would calm the fears of any parents who called and would convince them that there was no need to pull their precious offspring out of school.

  The hard part was convincing Sandra Wilder, who sat next to me in history, that she had to run right over to the dorm with the note between classes. Only a girl could go upstairs to the student rooms in the girls’ dorm. I knew Sandra kind of liked me because on my first day in the class she’d given me an appraising glance and asked me a lot of questions about what I liked to do for fun. But it’s a little tricky asking one girl to deliver a note for you to another girl. Sandra had narrowed her eyes suspiciously when I’d made my request, and only reluctantly agreed when I told her it had to do with a boring science project Elaine and I were working on together.

  I spent most of the morning wondering if Elaine was going to be in any shape to answer my note. She certainly hadn’t been when I’d seen her last. But at lunch Sandra brought me an answer from Elaine saying I should meet her in Mr. Hawthorne’s office at two o’clock. When I had arrived at two and gotten old prune face to tell Hawthorne I was there, Elaine was already in with him.

  Mr. Hawthorne sat quietly for a few seconds after we finished, staring at his shoes as though wondering whether he shouldn’t have gotten the black instead of the brown. I was wondering how he kept them looking so good with all the snow around. Finally he shook his head. When he spoke his voice was soft and sad.

  “I feel terrible about Vicki’s death. She was one of my advisees, just as the two of you are, because she was a transfer student and only started at North Hill in September. But I felt that in the short time she’d been here I’d gotten to know her quite well. She was an unusual person with many gifts. And, of course, it’s always a horrible thing when a young person dies, but that is even more true when the death is a result of violence.”