Stalking Death (13 page)

While she frowned over our rates, I read the new version of the letter. It was better. It still referred to a thorough investigation, which I now knew was baloney. It reassured parents that no stalking had taken place, which I suspected was also baloney, and it now characterized the situation as a misunderstanding between students, which was a more tactful view of Shondra, though I doubted that she'd see it that way.

"It reflects a fairer view of Shondra," I agreed, "but it still makes some statements which could be considered misleading."

"It just describes what happened. What we know."

"I'm afraid it doesn't. It says that you conducted a thorough investigation. You didn't talk to her last year's advisor, or last year's roommate. You didn't talk with Alasdair MacGregor, or his friends. Or ask the local police for advice."

"That was unnecessary."

"You've ignored the evidence of your own records. You have a report from last year, from Deborah Zucker, concerning harassing phone calls to Shondra Jones."

"Oh. Well. Deborah. She was such a bleeding heart she'd believe anything."

"The school bought Shondra an answering machine to help deter the calls. The school's own records and behavior suggest a belief that she was being stalked. How are you going to deny that, if challenged?"

She shrugged. "Those records can disappear."

"Shondra's not going to disappear."

"She could. Given her record, we've ample justification for asking her to leave. Whose side are you on, anyway?" she demanded, shaking the draft contract. "You want us to pay you these big bucks to side with that impossible girl?"

"No. I want St. Matthews to pay reasonable bucks to discover the truth, defuse a potentially volatile situation, calm Shondra Jones and the parents, and to keep something like this from happening again." The help they'd asked for. Sometimes I got so tired of people who thought they were entitled to make a reasonable living while Suzanne and I were supposed to work for peanuts. Clients who wanted us to drop everything and come running when they called, but who refused to try and work as a team.

"It was a big mistake, calling you," she said. "You just don't understand the issues here. Your partner, Suzanne, wouldn't have given us all this trouble. She'd have approved the letter, and gone back home to help out her own husband, just like I'm trying to help mine. She would have understood our situation."

She looked over at the plans. "Like his father before him, Todd is a born headmaster. This is his legacy that we're building, every bit as good as his father built at Riverdale—a school with strong ties to its history and strong alumni support. Why, the naming opportunities alone." She swiveled the chair to face me. "Nothing is going to get in the way." She tore the contract into pieces and dropped them in the wastebasket. "I think you might as well leave. Obviously, we're going to have to handle this ourselves."

Todd Chambers, pink and sweaty and vastly more cheerful than when I'd last seen him, appeared in the doorway, still in his gym shorts. He dropped a gym bag by the door, and smiled. "Sorry I'm late," he said. "Hope I didn't miss anything."

Chapter 9

"I've fired her, Todd." Miriam Chambers, in just four words, summed up the situation. "She wouldn't approve the letter without speaking with you. She produced an outrageous contract." She searched for it briefly before remembering that she'd just torn it up. "... and she seems to be taking that awful girl's side against us."

Chambers, hovering beside the desk, looked meaningfully at his chair. His wife, with an audible snort, got up and came around the desk, dropping neatly into a chair beside me and crossing her legs at the ankles. Movements very different from her eerie glide but just as theatrical. Chambers settled himself into his chair, his sweaty skin squeaking slightly as it met the leather. "Miriam," he said, as though I were invisible, "do you think this is wise?"

Normally I would have waded in at this point and stated my case—but the couple's interaction was giving me too much insight into St. Matthews' current situation, so I just watched.

"I do," she declared. "I think we're better off without her. She wants to turn this into a federal case, well beyond the scope of what we need. It was Suzanne Merritt we wanted anyway. She wouldn't have given us all this trouble."

Their assumptions about my partner rankled. They weren't talking about the Suzanne I knew. She wasn't trying to run any school, just being a good, supportive wife while running her own business. They must have mistaken Suzanne's reputation for tact and diplomacy for something more saccharine and obliging. I considered correcting their assumptions, but it would have served no purpose, so I bit down again on a tongue that was getting ragged.

Chambers smiled wearily at his stony wife. "Well, she's here and her partner's not and we've got to do something." He shifted his gaze to me. "You read the redrafted letter?" I nodded. "And?"

"As I told your wife, it's much better." His smile widened. "But, while it may allay some of your parents' concerns, it doesn't address the bigger problem. And it isn't factually correct."

"What's not correct?"

"You see," she said, "we did just what she wanted, and now she wants more. It's just a way to pad her fee, Todd. That's all. Gets her nose in under the tent and suddenly she wants to run the whole show."

Run it? I much preferred the idea of watching the curtain coming down on this show and seeing St. Matts in my rearview mirror, but I wasn't leaving until I'd shared what I'd learned and tried to help him face reality. "The bigger problem is that you've got an explosive situation here, as well as gross misconceptions on the part of your staff about what stalking is... but, assuming we're going concentrate solely on the letter, it is factually inaccurate in the following ways."

I outlined what I'd told Mrs. Chambers in greater detail, adding some of the stuff that I'd known was baloney. "You can send that letter, but if Shondra Jones, on her own or acting through a legal representative, questions your assertions and brings out the facts, your efforts to calm the situation will backfire and make the school look far worse."

Chambers's pleasant smile was gone, replaced by an angry frown. I was sorry. We all want to be loved, even if we don't need to be. But I'd come here to help, so I soldiered on, offering them an abbreviated version of my solution.

"Why not send a letter saying you don't feel there is a stalking situation on the campus, but rather a misunderstanding between students. Affirm that this is a very safe campus with a concerned and accessible security service. Say that to be absolutely sure everything is done to ensure student safety, you intend to conduct a detailed investigation of the student's complaint according to the school's procedures, and will make a full report when the investigation is concluded."

I felt like a weasel, but it was a sensible suggestion. It gave them an out and, hopefully, committed them to doing the proper thing, both from a procedural standpoint and because it might appease Shondra Jones. I didn't mention the second part of my agenda—workshops on stalking and sexual harassment. I'd be lucky if I could get them to accept this.

Their faces were disappointingly stony. I waited, practicing the kind of patience and self-control that builds character. If character building is anything like muscle building, I'm becoming a moral colossus. I built my character in a silence that went beyond awkward. She sat beside me, rigid as a student at a military academy, while he studied his fingers like he was learning to draw the prints from memory.

A lesser woman would have let the silence force her into blurting something out, but I've got a determined nature. They'd called me and I'd given up part of a precious Sunday with Andre to come here. If they wanted to dismiss my advice and ask me to leave, they'd have to take the initiative. And I'd still send them a bill.

Finally, Chambers forced a little, self-deprecating smile. "I guess we don't exactly have a meeting of the minds here, do we?" He picked up the redrafted letter and reread it, nodding, then looked at me. "I think this is a pretty fair letter."

I'd already given him my opinion and advice, so instead of repeating myself, I said, "And what about Shondra Jones? How will you handle her reactions?"

"That ought to be easy," Miriam Chambers said. "Everyone knows the girl is a thief and a liar."

"Does that 'everyone' include her brother?"

Chambers shook his head. "Jamison is applying to colleges this fall. There's no way he's going to jeopardize his standing with the faculty and administration."

I almost asked, 'and how would standing up for his sister's honor do that?' but Chambers' meaning was obvious. He believed Jamison Jones could be blackmailed into silence even if his difficult sister could not. I wasn't sure I agreed. The young man I'd just met had evinced a strong sense of family honor and solidarity, as well as a lot of self-confidence. If push came to shove, I thought he'd step up for his sister.

I thought something else, too—that I was wasting my time here. I didn't believe the trustees could have known what they were getting, hiring Chambers to put this school back on track. There was a big difference between conservative and corrupt. In my presence, the headmaster's wife had spoken glibly about destroying student records, now he was telling me that he had no compunction about blackmailing Jamison Jones into silence. It was ugly and dishonest. Put that together with a Dean of Students who was clueless about sexual harassment and stalking, and I was looking at a bad situation. No wonder they hadn't wanted any trustees sitting in on our meetings.

I wanted to be gone. Back to my desk, already groaning with work, to our still understaffed office, back to my searches for a secretary and a house. Back to my own piles of dirty laundry, which I knew how to handle. Most of all, back to Andre. Suddenly the distance between us seemed vast.

Chambers looked at his wife, then at me, and down at the letter in his hands. Something like a smile played around his mouth. It didn't take a mind reader to know what he was thinking. "I guess there's nothing more to say," he said. "Thank you for coming."

Bad as their situation was, his decision meant it wasn't my problem. All that remained was to cover my ass, and EDGE's reputation, so this wouldn't come back to haunt us when it blew up in Chambers' face. I pulled the small tape recorder which had just memorialized our conversation out of my briefcase. "Just for the record," I said, "so there can be no misunderstanding about what has happened here."

Chambers looked like he wanted to vault the desk and snatch it. In his agitation, he crumpled up the letter into a ball as I summarized the events which had transpired, up to and including their refusal to sign a contract or take my advice about the letter. "So, since it appears that you do not want any on-going relationship or follow-up from EDGE Consulting, we'll bill you for our time to date and send a report of my interviews and preliminary advice."

I smiled at them. A genuine smile. I was leaving. "I know this seems very formal, but we don't want any misunderstandings about our role in this or about the advice given and not taken. I have my professional reputation, and the reputation of our firm, to protect."

I switched off the tape recorder, tucked it back in my briefcase and swung the strap onto my shoulder. "Good luck," I said, and headed for the door.

The small blonde girl rushing in almost knocked me off my feet. "You've got to come quick, Mr. Chambers," she panted, planting her hands on her thighs as she bent to catch her breath. "Out behind the gym. Alasdair MacGregor and Jamison Jones. They're fighting, Mr. Chambers, and I'm afraid someone's going to really get hurt!"

It was the girl from Shondra's dorm who'd told me where to find Mrs. Leverett. Her porcelain skin had lost its pink underglow and she looked like she was in shock. Still, I wasn't surprised when they went rushing out without any concern for her welfare. Alasdair MacGregor was their prize student.

I located the gym on my map, then took her by the arm and led her out to Wendy Grimm's desk. "She's just seen a fight and she's upset. Look after her. And in case no one else has, call security and tell them two students are fighting behind the gym"

"I'll take care of it," she said. She held out a piece of paper. "That information you wanted."

"Thanks." I shoved it in my pocket and headed over to the gym.

It was a typical student fight, wary combatants circling each other, sweaty and gasping with bloody faces and fists, oblivious to anything but what was between them. The jostling crowd watched like violence was great good fun, mumbling commentary and observations with no intention of interfering. Jamison was bigger and angrier, and clearly getting the better of his slighter opponent, but Alasdair was the one who seemed to be enjoying it. Each time Jamison dropped his fists and backed away, Alasdair smirked and taunted him until he was drawn back into the fight.