An Educated Death (20 page)

I still hadn't had a chance to ask about the mysterious Columbus Day weekend. One more person for my phonathon. Maybe it was just as well. What might be lacking because I wasn't having face-to-face contact might be compensated for by being able to ask everyone the same questions in rapid sequence. While I was at it, I thought I'd call and ask her advisor the same question. If he was close to Laney, she might have said something to him.

I was rubbing my forehead and wondering if I could afford to take a sick day when Dorrie stuck her head in the door. "Hi. How's it going?" she said. "You were great with the Taggerts yesterday."

"I'm beginning to wonder if there are any normal people left in the world," I said.

"Oh, come on. Is it that bad?" She had a please-don't-quit-on-me look.

"No. Not really. You got a minute?"

"Of course." She settled herself in my chair.

"What's the story with Kathy Donahue?"

"Is there a problem?"

"I think so. Something's going on with her. I have no idea what. When I interviewed her, she was practically catatonic. Acted like she didn't give a damn about Laney. Denied having conversations about Laney with Joanne Perlin. Wouldn't answer any of my questions. Didn't even seem to know what the procedures were for signing students out. Couldn't focus on why it was she'd taken more than six weeks to get around to resolving a roommate dispute between Laney and Genny. She was scary, Dorrie. I hope she's not an example of the kind of dorm parents you've got here."

"That's odd," she said. "Kathy is one of our most popular dorm parents. I know she's been sick. Maybe she'd taken too many decongestants or something. You know how spacey they can make you. But I'll double-check. See if Joanne knows what's going on."

There wasn't anything I could put my finger on, but I got the feeling that Dorrie wasn't telling the whole truth. It disturbed me. Maybe it was just the insidious effects of Chip Barrett's suggestion that there was something everyone else knew and I wasn't being told. If I continued to get that sense, I'd have to confront Dorrie, but it was too soon for that. Her explanation was perfectly reasonable, and she had offered to look into it.

"I'm getting an interesting and complicated picture of Laney Taggert. The rest is more of a mystery than anything else."

"What do you mean?"

"Some people think she was careless and had an accident, some think she might have been depressed. Josh and Chip Barrett are sure it's murder. Everyone is sure she had a lover other than Josh. Some older man. But everyone denies knowing who it might be, except that it was someone on the staff."

"Oh, God, no!" Dorrie covered her face with her hands. "Who told you that? Kathy?"

Her surprise didn't seem genuine. "That's what you wanted me to find out, isn't it? That's what this 'audit' is really all about."

Dorrie shook her head. "I want the audit," she said firmly. "We need it for the trustees, for the parents, for our reputation. You won't find many flaws in our system...." She hesitated. "The other thing? I want you to find out who was out there with her. You heard me this morning. It weighs on my mind... what kind of a community we are... when someone knows what happened and won't come forward."

Time for the hard question. "Do
you
think that second set of tracks means Laney was murdered?"

"I just don't know. It could have been an accident and the person who was with her panicked and ran. Especially if it was someone who shouldn't have been there."

"And you'd like to know who he was." Dorrie didn't reply. "What does Rocky think?"

"I told you. That there's no sense in stirring up trouble. That we should plump up the pillows and put some flowers on the coffee table and get on with life as usual."

"Even if a troubled sixteen-year-old has been murdered?"

"He thinks it was an accident, at least that's what he says. I'm not sure that's what he believes. He's still poking around, he's just trying to be subtle about it."

I tried not to smile at the idea of Rocky being subtle. "Can you find out what she was wearing when they pulled her out of the pond?"

"Call him yourself. It's okay. He won't bite your head off. And keep me posted." She gave me Rocky's number and left.

I looked at my watch. Bill Donahue was already late. I didn't want to be in the middle of a phone call when he arrived. I could call Rocky in the morning. I reviewed my files, made some notes to myself, and still Donahue hadn't appeared. I called Lori and asked if she could track him down. I was running out of time. I was about to give up and leave for my meeting with Yanita when a slight man in running clothes opened the door. "Bill Donahue?" I said.

He shook his head. "Rick McTeague," he said. "Actually, it's Thomas Rodrick McTeague. That's what it's going to say on the book jacket, anyway. If I ever get published."

The polite and conventional thing to say would have been, 'Oh, so you're a writer?' but I'm not especially polite or conventional and my tiresome day had made me impatient. "What can I do for you, Mr. McTeague?"

"Rick, please," he said, settling himself into my chair. "I'm the one who found the body."

"You're the jogger."

"Right," he said, delighted to be recognized. "I didn't actually find the body. I just saw the pink glove and the hole in the ice and suspected something might be wrong, so I jogged over to the building and grounds office and got them to call nine one one."

"You're the one who saw the second set of footprints?"

"That's me." He was taking far too much delight in being a part of such a sad business, but maybe nothing exciting ever happened in his life. I'd met people like that. They didn't mean to act inappropriately; they honestly didn't know how they were behaving.

"What brought you to me, Mr. McTeague?"

"Rick," he corrected. "I thought you might want to talk to me."

"That was very thoughtful of you."

"She only drowned because of the boat channel," he said. "Oh?"

"Yes, you see, the pond has been silting up and bushes have been filling in. It was almost impossible to launch the boats anymore, so last summer they got permission to redredge the channel leading out from the dock to the open water. Ten feet in either direction and she could have touched bottom. Poor kid. If only she'd known that this needn't have happened. But when people are drowning, they panic and lose their sense of direction. I've been reading up on drowning," he said, "for the book I'm working on. It's a terrible way to die."

I gave in and uttered the words he was longing to hear. "So you're a writer, Rick?" He nodded eagerly. "What sort of books do you write?"

"Thrillers," he said. "I'm trying to create my own genre, actually. Sort of a counterculture bodice-buster romance and macho adventure story. Well, not quite like that. Something that will appeal to both men and women. My heroine, see, is this woman who has had a sex change operation. She used to be this real macho cop but he, I mean, she, always knew that there was a softer, more feminine person inside and finally that person just had to come out. Anyway, she nurtures this secret love for the man who used to be her partner. Of course, she isn't a cop anymore, she's a private detective. That's why I wanted to meet you."

"Excuse me?"

"Research," he said. "Fact-finding. When you're a writer, everything is grist for the mill, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid I'm still not following you. What does all this have to do with finding Laney Taggert's body?"

"Nothing. I wanted to meet you because you're a detective. I wanted to study you. You're not at all what I'd pictured, though. Josh said you were motherly and I was quite intrigued by the idea of a motherly detective. I guess I was picturing Miss Marple and not Jane Russell."

For a fleeting second I wondered if I'd drifted through some sort of a warp and landed in an asylum, but when I looked around I was still in my office, seated in front of my notes, and Rick McTeague was sitting in the bishop's chair, grinning with delight. Yellowish teeth peeked through the gap in his luxuriant facial hair. "How did you hear about me?" I asked.

"From Josh. I teach a creative writing class and he's in it."

If they let this nutcase teach at Bucksport, things were in even worse shape than I thought. I made a note on my pad.

He must have read the confusion on my face. "It's not a regular course. That is, I'm not getting paid for it. I'm not on the faculty. It's a volunteer thing that I do. The kids like it and it's fun for me. I started it when I got laid off. I was a software engineer until my company went belly-up. It's not easy to get another job when you're in your fifties. I tried for a while but I couldn't stand the rejection. I'm too old to sit there all bright and eager while some know-nothing tears my career to shreds. Anyway, my company let me take early retirement so I have a pension and stuff and my wife works, so I decided to write."

You, I thought, and at least two thousand other laid-off mid-level managers in Massachusetts. It was scary to think of the number of trees that were dying to support this endeavor. "What did Josh tell you?"

"Oh, he really didn't tell me anything. Just mentioned you, that's all."

I had a few more questions for Rick McTeague. Then I had to figure out how to get him out of my office. I was already running late. "Tell me about the second set of footprints."

"There's not much to tell. There were two distinct sets going out onto the ice. Out at the end, they were sort of confused, like there had been a scuffle and then there was a single set going toward the hole, widely spaced, like someone was staggering. At least, that's how it looked to me. Of course, by the time the police and the fire department got through out there, the whole scene was so messed up you couldn't tell what had happened. It was fun to watch, though."

"Of course," I said, "all grist for the mill, right?"

I must not have kept the sarcasm out of my voice because he looked hurt, and said, "I didn't say I wasn't sorry about what happened to that poor girl, but just 'cause something's sad doesn't mean I can't learn from it." He got up and headed for the door.

"Don't get huffy, Rick. Remember, I spend whole days immersed in Laney Taggert's life. For me, her death is very sad."

"You're right," he said, pausing in his aggrieved exit. "Maybe I could take you out there and show you the scene. It would make it easier for you to understand what happened."

There was nothing I wanted less than a hike through the damp, muddy woods with someone as garrulous and inappropriate as Rick McTeague, but he was right. I might learn something. We agreed to meet the following afternoon.

Aftetr he left, I called Lori, told her I had to leave, and asked her to reschedule Bill Donahue whenever she reached him. I was looking forward to my meeting at the King School. Their problems might be serious, but at least the people there were refreshingly normal, willing to answer questions, and inclined to tell the truth.

I was almost at the door when a big hand reached out and pulled me into a dark alcove. It was Chris, the hulking guy from grounds and buildings. Seen close up, he was just as Merri had described him—attractive in a Neanderthal way. His behavior, however, was anything but attractive. "You've been bugging Curt Sawyer about wanting to talk to his workers," he said hoarsely, almost suffocating me with his hot onion breath. "How he runs things is none of your business. You lay off of him, if you know what's good for you." He shoved me roughly against the wall and disappeared through the door.

 

 

 

Chapter 10

 

I really burned up the road getting out of there. Partly I drove fast because I was late, but mostly I drove fast because I was mad. Anyone will tell you that's a stupid thing to do, even I knew it was stupid thing to do, but I couldn't help it. I hate being threatened. It's supposed to intimidate me but such is my stubborn nature that it usually has the opposite effect. The Neanderthal Chris couldn't have drawn my attention to Curt Sawyer's staff any better if he'd painted a huge red sign and stuck it in the middle of the lawn. Once I got myself sufficiently under control so that I could keep the rage out of my voice, I called Lori on the car phone and asked her to get me a list of names, addresses, and social security numbers for all the employees in the maintenance and security departments. Me thought so much objection suggested something rotten in Denmark. I planned to take the list to Rocky and have him do some checking.

Right now, however, my concern was with the King School. I took all my Bucksport issues and all my Bucksport questions and filed them away under 'tomorrow,' shifting into gear to do a different, but just as difficult, form of damage control.

Yanita Emery, Arleigh Davis, Denzel Ellis-Jackson, and Lisa were waiting for me in the trustee's room. It had once been the dining hall of the mansion that now housed the school. A vast paneled room with a painted ceiling, a fireplace big enough to roast an ox, and tall windows looking out onto the grounds. The last time I'd been in the room it had been spring. Now the only view was whiteness where lights hit the sparse snow. The one statue in the garden that I could see looked cold and depressed. Someone had put a scarf on it.