An Educated Death (14 page)

"Who else on the faculty was she close to?"

"I really couldn't say."

Meaning he wouldn't say. He must have known. I changed the subject. "I understand that you normally had dinner with Laney and several other students?"

"Not exactly," he said. Now that he was annoyed, there was a prissy note in his voice that hadn't been there earlier. "I've been on the Bucksport faculty for about twenty-five years. Normally, a faculty member's responsibilities include coaching and dining hall duty. But seniority has its privileges. For years I lived in the dorms with my wife and family, serving as a house parent. Eventually we—my wife, Ellie, and I—graduated to a house on the campus but we still ate with the students. For the last few years, I haven't had any dining hall responsibilities. Much as I like the students, it has been nice to have quiet evening meals at home. I was just filling in last week for a faculty member who had to be away."

"Were you filling in on the night she disappeared?"

"I may have been the last person to see her," he said sadly.

"Can you tell me about that?"

"What's to tell? I was coming across the campus toward the dining hall and I ran into Laney. She said she wasn't feeling well and was going to skip dinner. She went her way and I went on to dinner."

"Was Mrs. Drucker with you?" I asked, hoping Ellie might have noticed something he didn't. He dashed my hopes with a terse no.

"What sort of illness was it? Did she tell you?"

"I have no idea. It was a five-second conversation."

"What time was it?"

He looked at his watch. "Almost two. I have to go. I've got a class."

"I meant when you met Laney."

"Around five, I think. I'm not sure."

"What time do you usually arrive for meals?"

"I told you. I don't usually arrive for meals."

I'd lost him. I made one last effort to get him back. "Did you notice what she was wearing?"

"Not really. What they all wear, I suppose. Some sort of jacket and a short skirt over those ugly leggings and clunky shoes. I really must go. If you have more questions you can call me." He reeled off a telephone number and stood up, concentrating on arranging his scarf. I could push and pry all I wanted but I wouldn't get anything more.

"Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Mr. Drucker." This time he didn't urge me to call him Chas. He just carefully arranged the scarf around his neck and the cap on his head, pulled on his gloves, and left. Was he too devastated by his student's death to talk about it or had he spent so many years in the rarefied atmosphere of the Bucksport School that any persistence was interpreted as undue pressure? I'd have to ask Dorrie what she thought.

I called Lori, who said Jack Taggert was around somewhere and she'd find him and send him to me. Then, like a hungry amoeba, I flowed around my sandwich and made it disappear. I'd had a very hard time ignoring it while Drucker was in the room. Talking with him had been like pulling teeth. I'd rather eat than pull teeth any day.

I was just licking the crumbs off my fingers when Jack Taggert came in. Lumbered in was more like it. He was dressed like a businessman but as he settled his bulk into the chair I was once again struck by how oddly his clothes went with his body. As if he were reading my mind, he grabbed his tie. "Marta says I ought to keep it on but I don't see what it has to do with being sorry about Laney. Do you mind if I take it off?"

"Not at all, Mr. Taggert," I said. "Neckties have never made sense to me."

"Damned right!" he said, tugging at the knot with clumsy fingers. "I hate the damned things. Always have." He flung it over the arm of the chair. His face was wide and creased, the cheeks chapped. The whites of his eyes were red. He sat in the chair and stared at me and I don't think he saw me at all.

"I'm very sorry about your daughter, Mr. Taggert. It must be hard coming here and going through all this when you'd like to have a chance to be alone with your grief. I'll try not to take up too much of your time...."

"I don't mind," he said, his voice harsh with the strain of controlling his feelings. "I'd like to talk about her. Everyone around here is so uncomfortable they barely mention her. Even to us, though that's why we're here. She wasn't a very nice girl but it was just a phase she was going through. She would have gotten over it." He put his hands over his face and started to cry. I got the box of tissues that has become part of my standard interviewing equipment, went around the desk, and knelt down beside him, pushing a handful of them into his hand. He gripped my hand so hard it hurt and held on tight. "Oh, God, I don't know what I'm going to do without her. I never wanted her away from me in the first place, her funny little laugh, the way she'd cock her head and tease me, those wonderful impressions she did... and now this."

He tried to bring himself under control but the tears were there and they needed to come out. I couldn't visualize Marta putting her arms around him and comforting him but I knew a whole lot about what he was going through. About how life, with its too-fast pace and superficial expectations won't let people grieve, but hustles them past the moment the way you'd steer a child around something unsightly on the sidewalk. I ended up beside his chair with his head against me, gently stroking the stiff graying hair. He was a massive man and hard as a rock and right now that rock was being shaken by a succession of earthquakes.

It was odd that I could comfort this stolid man when I hadn't been able to comfort Josh Meyer, but it also made sense. Josh had that distrustful adolescent skittishness that made him difficult to approach, while Jack Taggert was just heartbreakingly sad.

Finally the tremors subsided and he lifted his head, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Ms. Kozak. Awfully sorry. I don't know what came over me. I've never..."

"You don't have to apologize, Mr. Taggert. I lost my husband in an accident a few years ago. I know how it feels."

It was the right thing to say. He settled himself back in the chair, blew his nose, and raised his sad red eyes to meet mine. "How can I help you?"

I wanted to ask him lots of questions about Laney. He had a very different view of her, but I didn't think he was ready to spend a lot of time talking about her. I handed him the sign-out card and the note. "Your wife says she doesn't know anything about this. Did you write this note?" He nodded. "So only you spent the weekend with Laney? Mrs. Taggert wasn't with you?"

He shook his head and sat looking at me, hands folded in his lap on top of the papers, looking like a guilty child called to the principal's office. "I wasn't there either," he said in a gruff voice. "I just wrote the note for Laney."

"Do you know where she went that weekend?"

"No." He stopped, realized that it was not enough, and tried to explain. "Laney didn't want to be at Bucksport. It was her mother's idea. Having Laney around made Marta very nervous, particularly since Laney became a teenager and got willful. They didn't get along. Probably they never got along. Marta has about as much maternal instinct as a clam. When Laney started getting into trouble at school, Marta couldn't deal with it and insisted on sending her away. I did what I could to stay in touch. We talked on the phone a lot. She even wrote me letters. I have all of them at work. In my desk."

"Columbus Day weekend?" I prompted.

"Oh, yeah." He shook his head as if he were trying to clear it. "She called me. Said she and a friend wanted to go off campus but she knew she wouldn't be allowed to leave unless it was with a parent. She asked me if I'd write the note. It all sounded perfectly innocent. A group of them were going down to Cape Cod to someone's beach house. There was going to be a college-age sister there as chaperon."

"So you knew it was going to be a mixed-sex group?"

"You make it sound bad," he protested. "It wasn't like that."

"What was it like? Can you give me names of some of the other kids who went so I can ask them about it?"

He thought for a minute, kneading his broad forehead with a big hand. "This is embarrassing. The only one I can remember was Merri. It was Merri's sister who was going to be the chaperon. I don't know what you think of me, but try to understand. We'd sent her away against her will. I couldn't deny her this favor that she asked for. I expect her boyfriend went along as well."

"Laney's boyfriend?" He nodded.

"Have you met him?"

"No," he said loudly, "and I hope I never do. I'm not sure I could control myself after what he did to Laney."

"You're sure he was the father of Laney's baby?"

He gave me an angry look. "She wouldn't have been promiscuous."

I asked a question that was really too pushy, but sometimes you have to be pushy, and Jack Taggert, for all his devotion to his daughter, hadn't given me much of an idea of how close their relationship was. "Did she discuss her sex life with you?"

"Of course not!" he said. "But I knew my daughter. She wouldn't have... look, I'd like to help you, but I can't do this... analyzing her like some casual acquaintance." He stopped talking and just sat staring at his hands.

I gave up, feeling a little guilty about what I'd asked. Jack Taggert's emotions were too stirred up. It was time to send him on his way and call it a day at Bucksport. Not that my day was over. When I called the office, there were sure to be half a dozen things that needed attention. "Thank you for talking to me, Mr. Taggert."

Relief that he was being dismissed was all over his face. He got up from the chair, stuffed the tie in his pocket, and grabbed another handful of tissues. "Never know when you're going to need these," he said, and shambled out. He might not have known his daughter very well but he sure had loved her. It was some small comfort to think that the girl who had been described to me as cold, brilliant, and manipulative had had at least one person who simply loved her.

I finished my notes on what he'd told me and added them to the file. On the way out I stopped to ask Lori when I was going to be seeing Merri Naigler. "Tomorrow," she said, "right after you've finished bright-eyeing and bushy-tailing Curt Sawyer. Dorrie wanted to see you before you left but she's in a faculty meeting right now."

"Have her call me. I'll be at the office until seven, home by nine. She can call anytime." I gave her the cellular phone number since I didn't know where I'd be sleeping. I should have stayed longer and done more, but I was bone weary. Talking to sad and anxious people all day had taken a toll. Nothing about the matter was simple or easy. A night on the red-eye hadn't helped, and neither had the news about my condo. I wanted to go home and curl up with Andre and I didn't expect I'd get to do that.

"Tell me something, Thea. Do you ever have time for fun?"

"What's that?"

"Thought so," she said. "Now, when I get home, I've got Al. And Al is fun, that's why I married him. That and to get rid of my maiden name."

"Which was?"

"Snitz. I swore if I heard one more joke about someone getting in a Snitz I was going to court and changing it. Then I met Al."

"You're a lucky girl."

"Woman," she said. "We are very PC around here."

"And proud of it, I'll bet."

She took me by the shoulders, turned me around, and pushed me gently toward the door. "Go home, Thea, before you put your foot in it." I went.

 

 

 

Chapter 7

 

The world I was driving through was a riot of gay and gaudy Christmas lights and I was so far from feeling festive I almost snarled. Against my will, I was getting caught up in the story of Laney Taggert. I wanted to put her out of my mind, go home, and veg out in front of the TV. But Suzanne's spare room wasn't home, my condo was trashed, and home was in Maine, two hours away. I could go there, if I could summon the energy, but not yet. Dark might have fallen, but the day had hardly begun.

Back at my office, I found things in a state of orderly chaos. Magda was still conducting intense negotiations in Hungarian with someone. The repair man was back for the second time that day and the copier was still broken. I decided we'd had enough. When your solution to a problem only causes you more problems, it's time to send it packing. I nudged him out from under it with my toe, showed him the list of repair calls Sarah had prepared, and asked him who I needed to talk to to get rid of the thing. He gave me a name and number, and added, "You're doing the right thing, you know. This model has been a lemon from the get-go." Everyone brightened considerably when I announced that the machine was getting the hook.

I called Yanita, but she was out, so I left a message, and I was elbow deep in correspondence when Sarah stuck her head in. "Almost forgot. Your mother called. She wants to be sure you're coming for Christmas dinner and wants to know if Andre is coming, too."

Christmas. Bah, humbug. The gaudy decorations, the trashed carols piped into every public place, the buying frenzy everyone got into, the delicious strain of mandatory family events. I wasn't really a curmudgeon. I loved listening to the
Messiah
and wrapping presents. I still got a flash of that powerful excitement on Christmas Eve that Santa would come and the world truly was infused with magic. I loved every sentimental story of good deeds and love discovered and impulsive generosity. I just didn't want to spend Christmas with my family.