The Body in the Bonfire (8 page)

“You have chapel every morning?” Faith was surprised.

“It's not usually as interesting as it was today. Mrs. Harcourt was something else, but yes, we meet every morning for announcements and Dr. Harcourt's words of wisdom. Sometimes a student is in charge or one of the faculty, but usually it's just the headmaster with an inspirational thought or three.”

It struck Faith that Daryl was very articulate himself—and a good judge of human nature. If he felt these boys were the ones they should start with, she was sure he was right.

She had a question. “Why is John taking my course and not Boothe's? I would have thought he'd naturally want to sit at the master's feet and absorb his wisdom.”

“Good point. But you know these teachers like Boothe. It's supply and demand. Now Boothe creates demand by keeping the supply very select. His courses are both the hardest academically
and hardest to get into on campus. It's like your parents have to sign you up at birth, and when you take one, you have to do nothing but Boothe work. To get into the Project Term course, you had to write a ten-to twelve-page essay on what you could contribute and what you could get out of it.”

Faith was amazed. “He must be putting something in the water. I can't imagine all these kids doing this. So John had had enough and didn't do the essay?”

“Wrong.” Daryl grinned. “John did the essay. Sweated bullets over it, I hear, especially as it was during exams. Boothe didn't announce the course topic until then. No, John wasn't tapped as one of the elect.”

“He must have been furious. And what a sadistic way to run a course. Talk about separating the sheep from the goats, or is it lambs from the sheep? I never can remember.”

“More like men from the boys here. But John wasn't mad. Professor Boothe makes the losers feel like it's an honor even to be considered. That's what I mean by this cult stuff. It's like that old movie with Svengali. He showed it in class once.”

“So you've taken his class.”

“Two of them. Guess I must think or look right.”

“What about Sloane Buxton? Is he one of Boothe's followers?”

“That guy only follows himself. Besides, he could never get in. Not the brightest bulb on the tree where academics are concerned. Too smart by a mile otherwise. Kind of lazy, besides, when it comes to work. Always happy to buy a paper.”

Faith had known people like this during her school years.

“Yet he is in Carleton House, and so is Boothe. It could mean something.”

Daryl nodded gravely, then said, “Or nothing.” He jumped up from the stool. “I thought of one thing you could look for in their rooms. Check to see if they have last year's yearbook and turn to the pictures of sophomores. One of the clippings I got had my picture, my yearbook picture, pasted over the dude being arrested. Whoever did it is going to have an empty spot in his yearbook. I've already checked the library's and the copies in the yearbook office. Now, we just have time for a quick tour of the campus before lunch ends and everyone will be around.”

“Connie Reed already gave me the Mansfield tour.”

“Ah yes, but not the tour of the Mansfield students' campus.”

 

Worlds within worlds. And at Mansfield, there were many. Daryl provided a running commentary and Faith began to feel as if she were in someone's “excellent adventure.”

“Starting right here at Carleton House,” he said,
leading her to the back stairs and up three flights to the attic, “we have one of the favorite fair-weather smoking lounges.” He reached behind an old wooden file cabinet and produced a key, with which he unlocked a door leading to a flat roof surrounded by decorative brickwork. The snow that had drifted against the door made it hard to open all the way, but Faith got the picture. “There's one of these on either side of the main peaked roof, and as you might imagine, it's the perfect spot for all sorts of activities. Most of the regulars have their own keys, thoughtfully handed down to someone in the younger generation after graduation.”

It was the perfect spot, high enough to escape detection from the ground and secluded from the rest of the house.

“What about Mr. Boothe? Doesn't he live just below on the third floor?” It would be relatively easy to avoid the houseparents' quarters on the first floor, but surely Paul would hear kids going up and down the stairs.

“An opera buff—headphones on whenever he's not teaching or promulgating. Plus, I don't think he'd really care so long as no one pitched over the side, although there have been some near misses, I've heard.”

“Drugs, alcohol?”

“Both and sex and rock 'n' roll.”

Faith wished she didn't know so much about being a teenager. She and Tom had vowed the instant she knew she was pregnant with Ben that
they would lie their heads off when their wee babe grew old enough to ask about his parents' activities at various points in their lives. It would be “Do as I say” all the way. She planned to adopt the same attitude with Daryl and let him assume she'd spent her adolescence in a convent.

“Where do the kids get the stuff?”

“Second half of senior year is when the campus really buzzes—literally. Seniors can have cars then, and most do. Other times, people are always going home for weekends when it's not vacation. Plus, there are the day students.”

The day students! Faith remembered the look of dismay on Brian's face when he saw her—and everything Pix had said about Danny came rushing back. What had these two boys gotten themselves into?

Daryl continued the catalog. “Then there are the Cabot girls. A dealer or two over there. You know, when you've just got to have that Abercrombie sweater and mean old Pops won't buy it for you.” He laughed. “Am I disillusioning you? It's not all the kids—or even most.”

“No, you're not—and maybe that's what's making me feel bad. I wish you were. But lead on, Mcduff. What next?”

“You didn't have Mr. Freer, obviously. It's ‘Lay on, Mcduff,' but no matter.” He chuckled. “You should have seen the guy when we did
Othello.
He didn't know where to look, and I swear few
classes have ever whipped through that play so fast—or so superficially.”

“Does this happen a lot? Teachers uncomfortable when a race-related topic comes up?”

“Yes and no. The ones I like are the ones who neither go out of their way to avoid it nor emphasize it. Those are the worst—the emphasizers. To them, I am the house Negro, the spokesman for my entire race. ‘Now, Daryl, what are your thoughts on affirmative action?' Or the ones who make sure I know they've read everything Richard Wright ever wrote but who then explain he just doesn't fit into the curriculum as well as John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, or some other white guy. I don't care! Just let them be honest about it all.”

They were walking rapidly toward another dorm—Daryl's. It was newer than Carleton House and larger: a square stone building with Doric pilasters on the front, vaguely reminiscent of a bank. On each floor, the rooms lined the corridors on either side, Daryl told her. His was on the second floor, Zach's on the third.

“Can't get to the roof here,” he pointed out as they passed by. It was shingled with copper and sloped sharply.

The campus was deserted, but glancing at her watch, Faith realized it wouldn't be for long.

Daryl saw her movement. “You're right, but I want you to know the layout. We'll be quick. This path leads to the lake.” They walked briskly; an
cient rhododendrons towered above them, their leaves palsied with frost.

“Give me your map and I'll mark the other places kids go when they don't want to be found. The new sports center went up right over one of the old favorites, I've heard—almost like Harcourt knew what he was doing. But with a campus this large, it's impossible for the faculty to keep an eye on us all the time. Especially late in the day, between the end of classes and dinner. Off-campus faculty are leaving; on-campus faculty have had enough of us. And the security staff is a joke. One of them was caught smoking dope with a kid last year and he got booted out, but the kid managed to stay. He was a senior and only a week from graduation. Lame. Very lame.” Daryl appeared to be considering the frailties of his fellow students. He looked at Faith in mock seriousness and pointed straight ahead. They had reached their destination. “You have to hope they never drain the lake. There's probably a few stories of empty beer cans at the bottom.”

If there were, the ice gave no sign, smooth except for a few holes cut for ice fishing. It was a beautiful spot. The trees had been cleared on the side where they were standing, but the rest of the shore had been left unmanicured. Cattails and tall grasses gave way to towering pines.

“What's all this?” Faith asked, pointing to piles of wooden crates and assorted tree limbs not far
from where they were standing. It seemed an unlikely location for Mansfield debris.

“The makings of a bonfire. A humongous bonfire. One of the Project Term traditions. We all sit by the bonfire drinking hot cocoa, warm in front, our asses freezing. It's pretty cool, though. You should come.”

“When is it?”

“Sunday night.”

It might be fun for the kids, Faith thought. It would also give her another opportunity to be at Mansfield.

Daryl gestured toward the fuel for the bonfire. “Maintenance totally gets into it. They're the ones who build it with the senior class each year, although I can't say that everybody participates. Mostly, it's the jocks and preppies like Sloane and his buddies who seem to feel the need to erect something really big.”

The allusion was not lost on Faith, and she laughed. They were walking back toward the main part of the campus.

“For the maintenance guys, it makes a change from the routine; plus, they get a chance to get rid of all sorts of crap. They save the really good stuff all year, like those crates. The new pianos for the music department came in them.”

Suddenly, there were boys on the paths everywhere, running, pushing, shouting. Pix's unerring nose had been right and there had been a snowfall over the weekend. Not a major No'th
easter, but enough for snowballs, and they were whizzing through the air now. Faith and Daryl parted ways, and ducking a snowball, Faith returned to Carleton House, finished stocking the larder and taking inventory, then put on her coat to leave. The temptation to begin her search was overwhelming, and she was just about to creep up the back stairs, ostensibly in search of a bathroom—she'd removed the toilet tissue from the one downstairs—when Sloane Buxton entered the hallway.

“I was looking for a bathroom. The one down here seems to be out of supplies,” she said quickly, uncomfortably aware of the two rolls of Charmin in one of the zippered tote bags she'd used to transport what she'd needed for the morning's class.

“I've been taking an inventory and stocking the larder. It seems no one has used the kitchen in a while.”

Sloane Buxton had not expressed any surprise at seeing Faith still there, nor had he questioned her, but she found herself rattling off explanations in a disjointed and highly unprofessional way. It was Sloane who appeared to be the calm and canny sleuth, not Faith. He reminded her of her friend and sometime partner, Detective Lt. John Dunne of the Massachusetts State Police, who could get more information by not asking questions than anyone Faith knew. He simply kept his mouth shut, and after a while you would
say anything to fill the empty air, and that anything was usually what Dunne wanted to know.

“Why don't you come and use the facility on my floor? I can assure you it is well stocked.”

Was he being ironic? She felt herself blushing. Damn it! The kid was seventeen or eighteen years old. He had no business being so poised, so Charles Boyer.

The facility
was
well stocked—to the point of slight effeminism. A terry-cloth bathrobe with the school crest on the pocket hung neatly from a hook on the back of the door. The towels were clean and fluffy, stacked precisely on a shelf that also held various toiletries—no Right Guard in sight; rather, Calvin Klein and several varieties of Penhaligon's cologne, which Faith herself bought for Tom at Louis, carefully removing any price tags. When she met him, Tom had been strictly a soap and water man—and the soap was Ivory. The soap in Sloane Buxton's bath—and Faith wondered whether he shared it with anyone else—was French, rogeR&Gallet, sandalwood. She dried her hands on a tissue from her purse. She didn't want to touch anything.

He was waiting outside the door.

“Sorry you were inconvenienced. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. The maintenance people don't get here all that often. It's a bit out of the way from the rest of the dorms.”

Faith was unpleasantly aware of that—and aware that they were apparently the only people
in Carleton House at the moment. He followed her down the stairs just a little bit too closely, and when they got to the front door, he leaned against it, blocking her exit.

“I'm really looking forward to your course—and getting to know you better.”

“I'm glad you're interested in cooking,” she said, reaching for the knob. He reached, too, covering her hand with his and smiled confidently as she pulled back.

“Until tomorrow then,
Mrs. Fairchild.
” There was no mistaking the emphasis—or the look in those devilishly piercing blue eyes. Sloane Buxton thought he was God's gift to women—and maybe he was.

 

Faith walked into her house feeling as if she had been away somewhere for days. And judging from her emotional and physical exhaustion, that somewhere had been trekking in the Himalayas.

She could hear Tom talking on the phone. He sounded more excited than usual. She quickly took off her coat and threw it over the back of the chair. Ben wasn't home from school yet and presumably Amy was napping. What was going on?