The Headmaster's Wife
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Authors: Jane Haddam
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JANE HADDAM'S
GREGOR DEMARKIAN MYSTERIES
“Dazzlingly ingenious, Jane Haddam's novels provide style, humor, and philosophyâthey're real spellbinders, sparklingly written and smashingly plotted.”
â
The Drood Review
THE HEADMASTER'S WIFE
“Gregor, like the series itself, shows no signs of stopping.”
â
Booklist
“Sharp, intelligent, and inventive ⦠the kind of mysteries a Dorothy L. Sayers or a Josephine Tey might have been proud to come up with in the genre's so-called Golden Age ⦠Like a good cabinet maker, Haddam knows exactly how to cut and polish her material into art.”
â
Chicago Tribune
“Fans of Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian mystery stories will be pleased that the celebrated FBI agent is back to crack another case ⦠Intelligently written and well-paced ⦠Haddam handles multiple murders and complex story lines in a masterful way that makes this tale a worthwhile read.”
â
Indianapolis Star Moreâ¦
CONSPIRACY THEORY
“Haddam plays the mystery game like a master.”
â
Chicago Tribune
“Haddam, a prolific writer (before the Demarkian novels, she wrote under an assortment of pseudonyms), likes to tackle big themes in this series, and devotees of strongly written, intelligent mysteries drawn from the headlines will be pleased to find that she remains hard at work.”
â
Booklist
“[A] fascinating study in conspiracies and those who adhere to them ⦠the book is as up-to-date as today's headlines.”
â
Romantic Times
SOMEBODY ELSE'S MUSIC
“Crisp character development and a roadrunner-swift plot.”
â
Publishers Weekly
“Haddam keeps her long-running series fresh by developing suspects and victims who are as fascinating and entertaining as her recurring cast⦠This is one of Haddam's best Demarkian outings yet ⦠Riveting!”
â
January Magazine
“News of a new Jane Haddam mystery is music to the ears of her fans ⦠Whether it's read as next in the series or a stand-alone,
Somebody Else's Music
is a standout.”
â
The Drood Review
TRUE BELIEVERS
“Haddam is a fine and compassionate writer, and Demarkian, the retired chief of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit who now solves crimes in his spare time, is one of the more interesting series leads in the mystery marketplace. It's a pleasure to find a solid mystery combined with engaging discussions of issues outside the genre ⦠A guaranteed winner.”
â
Booklist
“Haddam's large cast pulses with petty jealousies, vanities, and fears as they confront the mysteries of life and religion. This is an engrossingly complex mystery that should win further acclaim for its prolific and talented author.”
â
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
SKELETON KEY
“A delightful read for lovers of classic crime stories.”
â
Romantic Times
“[A] smoothly running mystery marked by lively characters, good descriptions, and enough misdirection to keep a reader's interest high.”
â
Publishers Weekly
“A sophisticated style, excellent delivery, and riveting plot make this an excellent choice for all collections.”
â
Library Journal
“A real winner⦠Sure to grab readers from the first page ⦠A fine entry in a fine series.”
â
Booklist
Jane Haddam
Not a Creature Was Stirring
Precious Blood
Act of Darkness
Quoth the Raven
A Great Day for the Deadly
Feast of Murder
A Stillness in Bethlehem
Murder Superior
Dead Old Dead
Festival of Deaths
Bleeding Hearts
Fountain of Death
And One to Die On
Baptism in Blood
Deadly Beloved
Skeleton Key
True Believers
Somebody Else's Music
Conspiracy Theory
The Headmasters Wife
JANE HADDAM
St. Martin's Paperbacks
NOTE:
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
THE HEADMASTER'S WIFE
Copyright © 2005 by Orania Papazoglou.
Excerpt from
Hardscrabble Road
© 2006 by Orania Papazoglou.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004057824
ISBN: 0-312-98911-3
EAN: 9780312-98911-8
Printed in the United States of America
St. Martin's Press hardcover edition / April 2005
St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / February 2006
St. Martin's Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
10Â Â 9Â Â 8Â Â 7Â Â 6Â Â 5Â Â 4Â Â 3Â Â 2
For Matt
âwith my fingers crossed
People are never so sincere as when they assume their own moral superiority.
âThomas Sowell
Every individual human being ⦠carries within him ⦠an ideal man ⦠and it is his life's task to be⦠in harmony with the unchanging unity of this ideal.
âFriedrich Schiller
Totus mundus facit histrionem.
âAnonymous, said to have been written on the wall of the Globe Theatre in the time of Shakespeare
1
Later, Mark DeAvecca would say that he could see the body from the moment he first looked out the narrow arched Gothic window at the north end of the Ridenour Library's narrow catwalkâhe could see it lying there, on the snow, under the stand of evergreens near the pond. It wasn't true. The body wasn't a body. It was alive. If Mark had been able to stand next to it, he could have heard it breathing, in and out, in and out, in a ragged contrapuntal staccato that sounded a little like broken bells. He could have felt the fear, tooâor maybe not, since his own fear was as all-encompassing as anything he had ever felt in his life. His head was full of fuzz. The muscles in his hands were twitching spasmodically. He was so tired, it was as if all the blood had been drained from his body. He kept closing his eyes and trying to think of the word. What came into his head were scenes from
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Bats with human heads and fangs seemed to be hovering around his head. They darted away to hide in the stone arches in the ceiling whenever he turned to look for them. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. He flexed his hands and felt the pain in his joints like needles under his skin.
Exsanguinated,
he thought.
That's the word I want.
It was nine o'clock on the night of Friday, February 7,
2003, and as cold as Mark could ever remember it being. It was so cold there was ice on the inside of the window he was sitting next to and ice on the stone frame around it. The glass was leaded and heavy. That was supposed to mean something. He couldn't remember what. Usually he came up here when he couldn't face one more person wanting to look into the deepest reaches of his soul. Today he only wanted to read two short pages in
The Complete Guide to Family Healthy
a book he had been carrying around with him for five days. It was big, and heavy, and awkward, and there was always the danger that somebody would notice it and ask what it was about.
It wouldn't be so bad if they ever came up with anything except clichés,
he thought.
What does it mean that they look into the deepest reaches of my soul and come up with clichés?
The book was lying on the floor. He was sitting on the floor. The floor was made of stone and was as icy as the stone frame around the window. He flipped the book open to the double-page spread on Huntington's chorea and rubbed the side of his face until the skin under the stubble started to bum.
Depression,
he thought.
Yes, Mood swings. Twitching. Inability to concentrate. Memory loss. Clumsiness. Forgetfulness. Nervousness. Mental deterioration. Yes and yes and yes and yes and yes.
The problem was, there was a single
no,
and it was the answer to the most important question.
“Huntington's chorea is caused by a single dominant gene.”
Dominant,
Mark thought.
Dominant means it always exhibits. If you have it, it exhibits. And you had to have had a parent who'd had it, and parent would have exhibited.
Mark put his head down between his knees and tried to breathe. He had no idea why he wanted to believe he had Huntington's chorea instead of a simple mental illness, schizophrenia, something. He was very sure he was going crazy. He had been away at school now for five months, and in that time he seemed to have managed a 180-degree personality
turn. He no longer recognized himself in the mirror. He no longer recognized himself as a human being. If he'd been allowed to have a cell phone, he'd have called his mother five times a day just to hear her voice. After about a week of that, she'd probably have driven up here to Massachusetts to get him.
