The Bride Wore Size 12 (13 page)

Charlie, a balding man in glasses who is sitting across the conference table, laughs diabolically. “We sure did!”

Dr. Jessup has begun to perspire visibly. “And what precisely did the IT department discover?”

Charlie opens an expensive leather briefcase that’s been sitting at his feet, then pulls out a file and reads from it.

“Someone with a New York College campus IP address has been sending e-mails to the
New York College Express
for some time. The techs haven’t been able to trace precisely who it is, but they have been able to pin down that it’s someone from the west side of Washington Square Park. There’s only one building owned by New York College on the west side of Washington Square, and that building,” Charlie concludes dramatically, “is Fischer Hall.”

To quote President Allington,
Jesus Christ
.

“Excuse me,” Lisa says, and throws a hand over her mouth as she darts from the room.

15

E
veryone’s gaze follows Lisa as she flees for the ladies’ room.

“Is she all right?” Gloria, President Allington’s assistant, asks in concern. “Shall I go after her?”

“No, she’s fine,” I say. “She’s getting over the flu.”

Now everyone’s gaze flies to the pile of finger sandwiches, into which Lisa had been digging energetically.

“I don’t think she’s in the contagious phase anymore,” I add quickly.

“Well, that’s good,” Bill says, leaning in for a roast beef and honey mustard on a croissant. “These things sure are tasty.”

“I think we can move on without her,” Muffy says, sounding impatient again. “Heather, do you know of anyone on your staff who has a reason to feel disgruntled about the prince, or the country of Qalif, or the college?”

“No,” I say, determined not to mention Sarah. “Prince Rashid seems popular and well liked. People are lining up out my door—literally—for a chance to move into the building so they can be near him. And not to kill him, to party with him. To be totally honest, his partying is getting to be a bit of a problem. Lisa was going to send him a disciplinary letter about it today, as a matter of fact, because—”

“If I may,” Dr. Jessup interrupts quickly. “She hadn’t cleared that through me. Just because the boy enjoys a social gathering is no reason to discipline him.”

“Heck,” Bill says, licking his fingers. “If we spent all our time writing disciplinary letters to every boy in this school who likes to party, we’d never have time to party ourselves!”

All the men, with the exception of Special Agent Lancaster, laugh at Bill’s hilarious joke.

“Actually we have first-year students on camera going into the prince’s room, where alcohol is being served,” I say when they’re done laughing, with a glance at Special Agent Lancaster. “I imagine you’re aware of this, right?”

Special Agent Lancaster shakes his head, but not in denial. “The bureau doesn’t comment on the behavior of those we’re protecting. We only provide for their safety.”

I narrow my eyes at him for giving such a wishy-washy response, then continue: “Well, it’s a violation of the student code of conduct for residents over the age of twenty-one to provide alcohol to students who haven’t yet reached the legal drinking age, and that’s exactly what Prince Rashid is doing. I understand that in his homeland, the drinking laws might be more lax, but here in the U.S.—”

For the first time ever, I hear Special Agent Lancaster laugh. It’s a sarcastic laugh, more of a single
Ha!
of derision. But it’s still a laugh, and draws everyone’s attention, including mine.

“Pardon me,” the agent says, the stoic mask of professionalism falling back into place. “I only meant to observe that in the prince’s homeland, consumption of alcohol of any kind is illegal, and the penalty for being found with it is imprisonment and fifty lashes.”

“Holy crap!” Bill cries, choking a little on his eighth sandwich. Not that I’m counting, except that he’s bogarting all the egg salad and salmons, which are my favorite. “People still use the lash?”

“The penalty for premarital sex in Qalif,” Special Agent Lancaster observes casually, “is beheading, so the lash is quite mild in comparison.”

“Oh my,” purrs Muffy, looking at Special Agent Lancaster from beneath her eyelashes. “How atrocious.”

I know Muffy well enough to tell that she likes what she sees. Muffy has recently gotten out of a long-term relationship—well, long term for her—with a professor ex-boyfriend of mine, Tad, who turned out to be a little too vegan for Muffy’s taste.

It appears that a special agent for the U.S. State Department who has intimate knowledge of the human rights violations of the country of Qalif might be a little . . . meatier for Muffy.

“Isn’t Fischer Hall where that girl lives?” one of the men whose name I didn’t catch asks. “The one who was dating that fellow who was head of the GSC?”

My amusement over Muffy’s flirting with Special Agent Lancaster quickly dies when I realize they’re talking about Sarah.

“GSC?” President Allington looks bewildered.

“Graduate Student Collective,” Charlie, the guy with the file folder, says. He pulls a small laptop from his briefcase and opens it. “You remember, they were the ones whining last year for better wages and benefits or some silliness.”

I’ve never been to a meeting in the president’s office before, but now that I’m here, I can’t believe this is what goes on. I’m constantly hearing how there’s no money in the budget for things we need—security cameras in the second-floor library, or pens, for instance—but there appears to be plenty of money for finger sandwiches.

Then people sit around eating them while bad-mouthing excellent employees like Sarah, who works so hard for the school. She wasn’t whining when she went on strike last year. She was hoping to improve conditions for many hardworking staff members like herself.

“I think I know who you’re talking about,” I say, “and—”

“The GSC is planning on joining the faculty in the upcoming no-confidence vote on the president,” Charlie goes on, as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Hey,” President Allington says, offended. “Why doesn’t the faculty have confidence in me?”

“We explained this to you already, Phil,” Muffy says in a tired voice. “They’re a little miffed about the money you accepted from Prince Rashid’s father . . . and maybe a few other donors who might not have the most stellar reputations.”

“Who cares where the money comes from if we do good things with it?” the president demands. “What else am I supposed to do? It’s not like this school’s got an endowment, like the Ivy Leagues. We gotta take whatever money we can get. If that means letting in dumb rich kids who’ve got parents who can pay their tuition—and some who can donate extra—well, then, by God, I’m going to do it. I’m trying to educate young people here!”

“We understand that, Phil,” Muffy says in a soothing tone. “But you can’t blame the faculty, let alone the students, for objecting when they find out their shiny new classrooms have been paid for with money donated by murderers, misogynists, and anti-Semites.”

“Now hold on there,” a businessman in a yellow power tie cries, almost spilling his coffee in his haste to put it down. “That’s not what we’re doing.”

“Isn’t it?” Muffy asks sweetly. “Do you remember what all those college kids did back in the eighties when they found out their schools held financial investments in South Africa?”

Dr. Jessup dutifully holds up his hand as if we’re in a classroom, but Muffy doesn’t call on him.

“They set up little ol’ tent villages outside the administration buildings, demanding divestment and an end to apartheid,” she goes on. “I was only a little girl myself when that happened, but even I remember it was not a pretty sight.”

“But we’re not invested in Qalif,” Yellow Power Tie says in exasperation.

“Aren’t we?” I ask. “The heir to its throne is living in one of our residence halls. We’ve taken half a billion dollars from his father. I could see how that might be enough to anger some people.”

“Like that girl in the GSC,” Charlie says. “What was her name?”

“That’s not who I meant,” I say hastily. “Sarah’s our office’s grad student assistant, and while she’s no fan of Qalif, I can personally guarantee that she isn’t the leak.” At least, I hope I can. “Sarah loves New York College, just like she loves Fischer Hall and its residents. She would do anything to protect them. She’s the one who brought the piece in
The Express
on Prince Rashid to our attention this morning.”

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t write it,” Yellow Power Tie says with a bitter laugh. “If she showed it to you, it’s probably because she
is
the leak. Leaks can never wait to show off their handiwork.”

I glare at him. This is a classic example of how wars get started, I think, because some blowhard sitting in an ivory tower, high above the commoners, starts spouting off about something of which he knows nothing.

“No,” Muffy says, coming to my (and Sarah’s) defense. “Heather’s right. I know Sarah. She might not agree with the school’s politics, but she wouldn’t do anything to endanger her residents.”

“But we know the leak is coming from somewhere in your building!” Charlie cries. “Who else could it be? I thought only the freshman and transfer students had checked in this week. What would any of them care about where we’re getting our donations? They’re still feeling lucky to have been admitted here at all.”

He has a point.

“It’s possible it could be someone else on the staff,” I admit. “Someone besides Sarah. There are a lot of new resident assistants this year, and some of them haven’t exercised the best judgment. They were all at Prince Rashid’s party, for example. One of them died afterward, and the rest of them didn’t even admit to us that they’d been there themselves, or that they’d seen her there. We caught them on the video monitors. Lisa’s planning on putting them on probation to teach them a lesson.”

There are a few seconds of silence as the men—and Muffy and Gloria, who is just coming in with a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies—digest this. Then Bill says, “Well, heck. Skip the probation. Why not fire them?”

Charlie closes his briefcase with a snap. “Sounds good to me.”

“The damage is already done,” Muffy says musingly, “but if one of them is the leak, termination would eliminate the problem. They’ve already violated their employment contract once, and proved they can’t be trusted.”

“Agreed.” Yellow Power Tie lifts his coffee cup again, clearly in a celebratory mood. “But before they move out, we’ll have to make sure they sign confidentiality agreements that they won’t discuss anything they’ve seen inside the building, or they’ll be expelled.”

A guy in a blue tie begins making a note on his smartphone. “I’ll have Legal write something up. Should have it ready to be placed in their mailboxes by five o’clock. That way,” he adds with a diabolical grin, “when their parents start calling our offices to bitch and moan about having to start paying their room and board, we’ll all have gone home.”

“I like it,” says the president, rubbing his hands together with glee. “How about one of those cookies, Gloria? They smell amazing.”

Gloria beams and walks toward him. “Fresh baked, the way you like them, Phil.”

“Wait,” I say. My heart is pounding in my chest. “I said it’s possible
one
of them might be the leak. You can’t kick
all
of them out of the building . . . especially not without any warning!”

“We just did,” says Charlie with a shrug.

I feel a rush of emotions . . . mainly concern and worry for Fischer Hall. What will happen to the building if we fire nine members of the student staff, then have to replace them all—and train their replacements—a week before classes start?

It’s going to be a nightmare . . . almost as bad as the nightmare of losing an RA to natural causes.

I’d known there’d be repercussions from what I’d seen on the security tape, but that this would be one of them had never occurred to me.

“Now, hold on here a minute.” Dr. Jessup looks uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to be the bad guy here, and I agree these RAs screwed up and need to be disciplined. But they’re still students. We can’t throw them out onto the street. They were promised room and board for the academic year.”

“They fucked up, Stan,” Bill says, munching on a cookie. “When you fuck up, shit gets real.”

“We don’t even know for sure any of them is the leak,” I say, grasping at straws. “We can’t punish all of them for what one of them
may
have done.”

“Really?” The guy in the blue tie presses send on his phone and smiles at me. “Seems to me they all bit from the forbidden fruit by going to the prince’s party. Now they gotta pay the price, like Adam and Eve.”

Lisa comes hurrying back into the room, looking flushed but much better than she had earlier, and takes her seat.

“I’m so sorry,” she says brightly. “What did I miss?”

16

L
isa cries the whole way back to our office.

“I’m sorry,” she says between sobs as we walk through Washington Square Park, dodging black squirrels, tourists, and young nannies pushing baby strollers. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t even necessarily disagree with them. Those RAs are such rotten shits. They deserve to be kicked out. I just c-can’t stop crying. Like I can’t seem to stop puking.”

“Yeah,” I say. “About that . . .”

I have a hand on her arm and am steering her through the crowds—it’s another beautiful warm fall day, and the park is packed—since I’m not sure she can see through her tears. No one pays any attention to crazy Asian girls walking through the park crying because there are so many other distracting things to look at, such as the barefoot guitar players, overturned-plastic-can drummers, incense sellers, proselytizers, and cute dogs.

“Is there any chance you could be pregnant?” I ask.

Lisa stops walking in the middle of the park, or as close to the middle as we can get without walking directly into the huge fountain, the jets of which are shooting twenty feet into the air.

“What did you say?”
Lisa demands. She isn’t crying anymore.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. I probably should have saved this conversation for when we get back to the office, only I’m not going back to the office now. I’m going to make sure you get there, then I have to go run an errand—”

“Heather!”
The tips of Lisa’s ears begin to turn red.

“It’s a work-related errand,” I say. “Don’t worry. But even if I went back to the office with you, you know we hardly ever have any privacy there. I just talked to Sarah”—I wave my cell phone in front of her—“and she says there’s another line of parents out the door—including Kaileigh’s mom, who’s heard about Jasmine being dead. She isn’t too happy that her daughter is not only assigned to a floor with a dead RA, but that her roommate Ameera is now weeping all the time instead of out sleeping around. Plus you have that RA candidate arriving at two, and Jasmine’s parents scheduled to arrive at three, plus nine RAs to fire. When are we going to have another chance to talk about this? I’m guessing this is my only opportunity.”

“To ask me if I’m
pregnant
?” Lisa’s eyebrows have shot up to their limits.

“You’re showing a lot of the early symptoms,” I explain, having to raise my voice to be heard over a guy who has come strolling by playing the bagpipes. “Breast tenderness, moodiness, nausea, vomiting. I could be totally wrong, but Eva thinks—”

“Eva?”
Lisa’s voice too rises. The bagpiper, who is wearing a kilt, has decided to stand near us. He’s gathered a small crowd of admirers. “You told the
medicolegal investigator
that I’ve been moody lately? And that
my boobs hurt
? For God’s sake, Heather!”

“Well, you clearly don’t have the flu, because you’re fine right now,” I point out. “Except for the crying. When’s the last time you had your period?”

“When’s the last time you had yours?” she fires back, outraged.

“Three years ago,” I say. “I’m on continuous birth control pills for my endometriosis. Lisa, even if I weren’t on the pill, I couldn’t get pregnant. I have no idea what it’s like to be pregnant, and I doubt I ever will. I know it’s none of my business if you are, but I sit in the office outside yours all day, five days a week, so I know you pretty well. And if you
are
pregnant, I just want to make sure you know it, and take care of yourself.”

Lisa turns sober. “Oh, Heather,” she says, and reaches out to squeeze one of my arms. “Of course. I’m so sorry. Things have been so crazy lately. Honestly, I can’t even remember when I last had my period.”

The bagpiper ends his dirge on her last words, so that everyone nearby hears her shout “I can’t even remember when I last had my period” and looks over at us with varying degrees of pity, confusion, and amusement.

Lisa lifts her free hand to her now pale face. “Oh my God,” she says, and tightens her grip on my arm, then begins dragging me around the opposite end of the fountain, away from the bagpiper and his audience. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I just did that.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t think anyone heard you.”

“Are you kidding me? They
all
heard me. Oh,
crap
.”

Her face pales even further. I’m not sure why until I turn my head in the direction she’s looking. Moving swiftly toward us is a large crowd of people, some of whom look familiar—

And no wonder, since they’re residents of Fischer Hall.

“Hi, Lisa!” Jasmine Tsai calls, waving cheerfully as she steers a group of her residents across the park. “Hi, Heather! Hey, you guys,” she informs her residents, who are clearly all first-years. “That’s the director of Fischer Hall, Lisa, and the assistant director, Heather Wells. Say hi.”

The residents—the majority of whom are overexcited girls dressed to meet boys, under the auspices of taking a walking tour of the campus—all squeal and wave. “Hi, Lisa! Hi, Heather!”

Lisa and I wave lamely back, noticing that there are a few boys trailing along behind the group, but not the kind of boys the girls on the tour appear to be interested in.

“Hi, Lisa. Hi, Heather,” Howard Chen and Christopher Mintz call sheepishly.

“Hi, you guys,” I call back, and give them a thumbs-up. “Looking good! Way to show your school spirit.”

Neither boy waves back. I can hardly blame them.

“Oh God,” Lisa says, when they’re out of earshot. “They heard me. They totally heard me. Now the whole dorm knows I might be pregnant.”

“No,” I say. “They didn’t hear you.” They probably did. “Anyway, what do you mean, you can’t remember when you had your last period?”

“I don’t know.” Lisa turns to stride quickly toward Fischer Hall, looming before us on the west side of the park like the elegant—if slightly battered—brick lady that she is. “The truth is, it’s been so busy, what with my wedding and then starting this job and moving in, then everything we went through when they were filming that reality show in the building, then RA training and check-in. I’ve barely had a minute to myself. I must have had it in June. I’m almost sure I had it in July—”

“Lisa,” I say, having to jog a little to keep up with her rapid steps. “It’s almost September.”

“Oh my God.” She looks like someone punched her in the stomach. “Oh my God. How could this happen to me? I’m the hall director. I’m supposed to be a role model. How could I let this happen?”

“You don’t know that anything’s happened yet,” I say. Except that quite a lot has happened. A member of her staff is dead, and most of the rest of them are about to be fired. I don’t feel I need to belabor this point, however. “You’re probably only late because of the stress of check-in. But it’s better to know, right? Why don’t you go to the drugstore right now, get an early pregnancy test, then go up to your apartment and take it before you go back to work?”

I turn her bodily so that instead of facing Fischer Hall, she’s facing the dog run, behind which (a block away, on Bleecker Street) the nearest pharmacy is located.

“If you want me to go with you,” I say, noticing that her knees have locked and she’s not budging, “I will.”

“What?” Lisa asks in surprise. She’s begun to move again, thankfully in the direction of the drugstore. “No. I’m an adult, I can go to the pharmacy by myself, thank you. Besides, I thought you said you had an errand to run.”

“I do, a quick one. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Fine,” Lisa says. She’s trudging as if her feet are encased in cement blocks. “See you then.”

I turn around and head for a horrifically designed building once described as a “miracle of modern architecture,” but which really is just a spiky tower of windows and black metal triangles, called the Gottlieb Student Center. As I stride toward it, I pull out my cell phone and return one of the many messages Cooper has left.

“Hey,” I say. “It’s me.”

“Jesus,” he says. “I thought you died. Where have you been?”

“Having finger sandwiches with the president of New York College and his millionaire cronies,” I say. “One of them birdied the sixth hole at Maidstone last weekend.”

“I put a guy in a headlock in a bar in Jersey City last weekend,” Cooper says. “Where’s my finger sandwich?”

“I’ll have a finger sandwich for you when I get home, big boy,” I say, lowering my voice to a sexy growl.

Cooper sounds surprised, but delightedly so. “Whoa. Is that a promise?”

“Uh . . .” I was actually joking. I’m not even sure what a finger sandwich is, in sexual terms. Is it a thing? I realize it must be and I’ve promised to do something in bed with my husband-to-be I have no idea how to do. I’m going to have to Google it. This is what I get for getting carried away on the phone with my fiancé during working hours. “Definitely. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Oh, not a whole lot,” he says. “Nicole’s only called me seven times begging me to forgive her. Your mother’s left three messages back at the house for you, your dad’s left one, and Perry the wedding planner refuses to call back to reschedule our lunch from yesterday. I think she’s trying to teach us a lesson for canceling on her. She’s incredibly important and sought after, you know.”

“Damn,” I say, forgetting about the finger sandwich. “We need to go over those seating charts, especially in light of the fact that your sister’s invited an additional—how many people? Do you even know?”

“Nicole says no more than twenty, but I’m guessing she’s afraid to fess up to the real number.”

My smartphone chirps. I look down at the screen and see that Eva from the OCME is trying to get through to me.

“Cooper, let me call you back,” I say. “I’ve got the medical examiner’s office on the line.”

“Don’t forget your promise,” he says in a sexy voice before hanging up.

Maybe his voice wasn’t purposely sexy, I think to myself as I press to accept Eva’s call. It sort of always sounds that way.

“Eva, hi,” I say, crossing the street along with a crowd of excited freshmen, a few parents, and some orientation leaders in blue-and-gold “Welcome to NYC!” T-shirts. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Heather.” Eva sounds a bit friendlier than she had before, though no less harassed. She’s still all business. “So I wanted to give you a heads-up. Your dead girl must be somebody pretty important—or connected to somebody pretty important. They just completed the autopsy.”

“No way. I thought you said—”

“That we’re completely backed up? Yeah, we are. We got bodies in here that have been waiting for autopsy since the weekend before last. But the chief got a call. A few calls, actually.”

“I take it they weren’t only from the victim’s parents.”

“No way,” Eva says with a snort. “State Department.”

It’s my turn to snort. “How funny. Special Agent Lancaster just got through telling me the bureau’s only job is to provide for the safety of those they are protecting.”

“Oh?” Eva’s voice turns casual. “You’ve seen Special Agent Lancaster today? How is he?”

I’ve hurried up the steps to the student building and am flashing my staff ID at the security guard at the entrance. He nods and allows me through the gate. “Special Agent Lancaster seemed just fine, Eva. Why, do you miss him?”

“That jackass?” Eva sounds indignant. “No! He’s so not my type. He looks like he goes home every night and listens to podcasts about the rise of the Aryan Nation while polishing his gun.”

“I think you’re being a little hard on him,” I say, fighting my way through the crowds of students to the elevator, “but whatever. What’s the news on the autopsy?”

“Oh,” Eva says. “So I told the chief what you said to me this morning about the party the vic was at the night before she died. Even if we put a rush on the tox screens, it will still be a few days before we get the results—better than a few weeks, though. Hey, what’d you hear about the trash from the party the vic went to? Get anything?”

“I don’t know yet, I’ve been away from the office almost all day. As soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”