Deadly Little Sins (23 page)

My fingers move faster than my brain can direct them. I pull up the feed outside of the main campus circle for the morning of May 16—the morning I was sent home. I start with when I was called down to Tierney’s office—around eight A.M.—and work backwards.

At 7:38 A.M., Ms. C walks into the administration building.

Ten minutes later, she comes out. She’s upset—her fingers are pressed to her mouth. Her strides are long as she bypasses the humanities building, where her office is. She heads for the garage.

To a casual observer, it looks like Ms. C just got fired.

But who was it—Tierney? Goddard?

Or the man who followed me into the administration building—the third horseman?

At breakfast the next morning, April sets her tray down and surveys everyone, as if she’s about to make an announcement.

“So I heard something about Headmaster Goddard,” she says.

I nearly choke on my bite of apple. The acid stings my nasal cavity as I cough up a piece of skin. But no one seems to notice.

“I know what you heard, and I don’t know if you should be sharing that info,” Murali says to April.

“Well if both of
you
know, you probably found out from your parents,” Remy says. “So spill.”

April’s father is on the board of Massachusetts General Hospital. And Murali’s mother is a surgeon there. “Is Goddard sick?” I blurt.

“Stage three lung cancer,” April says quietly. “Murali’s mom did his surgery.”

“Okay, you just broke like three different HIPPA laws,” Murali says.

“Relax.” We all turn our heads toward Brent, who’s putting milk in his coffee. “I already knew. I thought everyone did.”

Kelsey frowns. “That’s so sad. Is he going to die?”

“Stage three lung cancer?” Cole shakes his head. “I’ll be shocked if he makes it six months.”

Quiet settles over the table. Either everyone is trying to be respectful, or no one has anything left to say. I, on the other hand, have thousands of questions. About the annex, Plymouth, and how everything ties back to Natalie.

There’s nothing I can do about the body in the burned car for now. But I can head back to the library and see if there’s anything else on Plymouth that might point back to Natalie.

Goddard may have the answers, but time is running out before he takes them to the grave.

The library is as empty as you’d expect it to be on a Saturday morning at nine thirty. Read: The only other person there is Peepers. I find him replacing books in the main stacks as I head for the archives.

“Hey, Artie.”

He looks up at me, pushing his glasses up his nose. “What are you doing here?”

“Just a little side project.” I nod to the books in his hands. “What about you?”

“I … uh, I work here.” Artie shrugs.

So that’s how he knew about the secret library passage to the tunnels. “Oh. That’s neat. Like a work-study thing?”

“No. I just wanted to. So they let me.”

Color seeps into his cheeks, and I feel awful for embarrassing him. “That’s cool. Really.”

“Thanks.” He replaces another book. “If you’re looking for something in particular, I could help you.”

I consider the offer; with Artie’s help, I can track down the articles in half the time. And if he comes with me, the reference librarian probably won’t follow me and breathe down my neck.

“Sure,” I say. “That would be great.”

Five minutes later, we’re in the periodicals section, combing through old editions of
The Boston Globe.
I catch Artie reading the headlines on one of the papers he pulled.

“Are you researching Plymouth Reform School?” he asks.

“Yeah. I think it’s kind of fascinating.”

“It’s
way
fascinating,” Artie says. “Especially the settlement with all the former students.”

“Settlement?”

“One sec.” Artie types something into the reference computer. He murmurs to himself and wanders over to the drawer of papers from the 80s. “Here.”

He produces a paper with a headline about an oil spill in the gulf. “Not that,” he says. I take a closer look—the right column is entitled F
ORMER
P
LYMOUTH
S
TUDENTS
S
EEK
U
NDISCLOSED
D
AMAGES FOR
A
LLEGED
A
BUSE.

“Students sued the school?” I ask.

“The state. The students came forward and said the guards beat them,” Artie says. “And not 1950-style beatings with paddles. One said he was burned with a cigarette for not finishing his lunch.”

I feel a phantom pain where Spencer grabbed my shoulder. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah.” Artie looks at me, curious. “I thought maybe that was why you were researching Plymouth.”

“It is. I think.” I take the newspaper from Artie, rereading the headline. This paper is from 1989. “What happened with the lawsuit?”

“They settled, not that long ago,” Artie says. “The state just wanted the whole thing to go away and paid the accusers a buttload of money.”

I feel Artie’s eyes on me as I scan the article. “Thanks. For helping.”

“No problem.” He looks around, awkwardly. “Okay. I’ll be in the stacks, if you need me.”

When he’s gone, I gather all the papers and sit at the table in the center of the room. I start with the 1989 article. There’s a photo of the old Plymouth School: a sparse white building with a barbed wire fence around the perimeter. It looks like a prison.

Nearly three decades after its closure, Plymouth Reform School is back under public scrutiny amid allegations of physical and psychological torture from two former students.

Raymond Nesbitt, of Worcester, is the first plaintiff named in the suit against the State of Massachusetts. Mr. Nesbitt, who attended Plymouth from 1954–1958, claims that the school staff “engaged in regular beatings that far surpassed levels of acceptable punishment.” In the twenty-page lawsuit, Mr. Nesbitt and another unnamed plaintiff outline the alleged horrors that took place at Plymouth, including being strapped to their beds and whipped.

According to Mr. Nesbitt, the most extreme offenders were relegated to the “jail,” where they were chained to a wall and deprived of food and sleep, sometimes for days. In the lawsuit, Mr. Nesbitt claims he was sent to the cabin for fighting with another boy in the school’s cafeteria. “There was no light in the room,” he recalled during a phone interview with the Globe. “Except for when they come in [sic] to whip us more.”

The state conducted several investigations at the school since allegations of mistreatment surfaced in 1951, when a student was reportedly transferred from the Plymouth infirmary to a nearby hospital with several broken bones. The school was placed on probationary status pending the results of the investigation; ultimately, investigators released a report detailing “poor living conditions and low staff morale,” but “no concrete signs of institutional abuse.” Upon the administration’s failure to improve the conditions at Plymouth, the state shut the school’s doors in 1961.

Now, surviving students such as Nesbitt are calling for a formal investigation. However, most of the school’s records were damaged in an administration building fire a year prior to Plymouth’s closing. The remaining records, investigators say, are incomplete, illegible, and riddled with errors. The state estimates as many as twenty Plymouth students—apparent runaways—are unaccounted for.

When asked why he is coming forward now, Nesbitt says, “They abused their power and got away with it for too long. Now they want to bulldoze the place for good.”

I flip through the papers until I find the next mention of the lawsuit. Apparently it wasn’t settled until nearly ten years later. I find the story tucked in the front cover of a 1999 edition of the
Globe.

There’s a photo of a man in this one—an elderly black man with an oxygen tube feeding into his nose. He sits on a porch, frowning at the camera. According to the caption, this is Raymond Nesbitt.

The state attorney’s office confirmed Tuesday morning that it agreed to settle a civil case involving alleged abuse at Plymouth Reform School. The undisclosed settlement amount is said to be in the mid–six figure range, to be paid out to two plaintiffs, former Plymouth students.

Alan Greenburg, the attorney of Raymond Nesbitt, the first plaintiff in the suit, released a statement in the wake of the agreement:

“The decision to settle was a difficult one for my client, who experienced years of trauma at the hands of Plymouth Reform School Staff, most of which are not alive today to answer for their crimes. The settlement money is small compensation for the years of my client’s life that were taken away. We are disappointed that justice was not done for him, and countless other boys.”

Nesbitt was sent to Plymouth in 1959 by a judge after assaulting his stepfather with a bat. At 55, Mr. Nesbitt is once again under the care of the state. After several hospital stays due to severe emphysema and a mini-stroke, Nesbitt was transferred to the Worcester Nursing Home. When asked why he and a now deceased, unnamed plaintiff were the only students to come forward, Nesbitt commented, “We was [sic] the only ones left.”

The state attorney’s office declined to comment on the settlement.

I have to stop reading. Students tied to beds. Whipping. Starvation. And I thought Wheatley was bad.

Plymouth Reform School sounds like hell on earth.

One phrase from the first article sticks in my brain.

The jail.

The jail.

I hurry back to my room and tear through the bag I was using the day I went down into the tunnels. It’s still there—the note I found on the floor.

I’m afraid if I go to the jail again I won’t come back.

According to the online library catalog, the Boston Public Library has the case documents from the Plymouth settlement on file. I also need to find more information on the jail, and figure out if the journal entry I found was really written by an abused Plymouth inmate.

And how it—or he—wound up at the Wheatley School.

There are remnants of toilet paper and shaving cream on the walk to the T station. Someone’s adorned the overpass railing with silly string. I can’t remember if it was there last night.

I hear it before it pulls up next to me: a red Camaro. I’m trying to get a look inside the driver’s window when the door swings open. I take a step back, but he has me by my arm. And he’s a hundred times stronger than I’ll ever be.

He throws me into the passenger side and locks the door. I beat my fist on the window and scream for help, but he’s already driving away.

I fumble in my bag for my phone, but Spencer smacks it out of my hand. He pulls over; we’re about a mile from campus, at the scenic overlook. If I can just get out, I might be able to run fast enough to get us out in the open.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he says. “I just want to talk.”

“You came all the way to Wheatley to talk?”

“I like to slum it sometimes.” Spencer smiles.

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

“I wanna know why you’ve been up my ass. I saw you at the Notre Dame game.” His smile fades. “You a narc?”

“I don’t care about your business.”

“Interesting.”

I massage the spot on my shoulder where he grabbed me. “You as rough with everyone that you find interesting?”

“Depends on which of my sides they find themselves on.”

“That what Natalie did to deserve two black eyes? Got on your bad side?”

“The fuck you talking about?” Spencer growls.

“Her sophomore year. Someone messed up Natalie’s face,” I say. “Caroline thinks it was you.”

“Caroline was probably high as a kite when she said that.” Spencer snorts. “And it
wasn’t
me. I don’t beat up girls.”

No. He just shoves them into his car against their will. “When was the last time you saw Natalie?”

Spencer looks bored. “I told you. The night before she got expelled.”

“I don’t think you told me everything about that night. I think Natalie saw something at the annex.”

There’s the slightest crack in Spencer’s poker face.

“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me and you’ll never see me again.”

“She didn’t see anything,” Spencer says. “She made a bunch of shit up to try to get out of trouble. Nat would never tell that I was dealing. Not if she thought it would screw up her chances with me.”

“What did Natalie say she saw?”

Spencer laughs. “Two men with shovels. Arguing, digging up shit.”

A chill runs through me. “Why would she make that up?”

“Because,” Spencer says, “she said one of them was Goddard.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

“What if it’s true?” I say.

“Yeah, and there was a chupacabra running around the annex, too,” Spencer says. “Natalie lied. And it wouldn’t have been the first time.”

“That’s a pretty huge lie.”

“She was about to be expelled,” Spencer says. “She had nothing to lose.”

“What do you mean, ‘it wouldn’t have been the first time’?”

“What do you think? Someone messed up her face, and it wasn’t me or Kathy.”

Luke’s face springs into my mind. Natalie could have been protecting her brother by claiming that Caroline attacked her.

“What are you going to do with me?” I ask Spencer.

Spencer unlocks the door. As I reach for the handle, the lock clicks again. I slump back in my seat. He grabs my chin and forces me to look in his eyes.