An Educated Death (24 page)

"I do have a hot date," I told her, and went back to my cubicle to wait for Russ Hamlin. When he came in, the thought flashed across my mind that if I were Laney Taggert and I'd wanted to have an affair with an older man, Russ Hamlin would have been a great choice. He was small, too short for me, since I tend to be heightist, but beautifully put together and he moved with a sort of balletic grace. He had a healthy, outdoorsy tan, dark, wavy hair in a rock-star layer cut that fell to his shoulders and slightly elfin eyebrows. His whole face was as mobile as his body, his smile was inviting and his eyes were bright and brown. I have a soft spot for brown eyes.

He settled himself in the chair, bathed me in the warmth of his smile, and blew me right out of my chair. "Dorrie's instructions are that we're to be open, candid, and cooperative, so here goes," he said. "I was in love with Laney Taggert but I don't think she ever knew it, clever as she was. And I never laid a hand on her. Not to touch her, no matter how much I wanted to, never to have sex with her, and certainly never to kill her. Having such a brilliant light extinguished is like a knife in my heart. She was a sad, lost, magical young woman."

His forthrightness astonished me, and I told him so.

"I often surprise people," he said. "Most of us waver and prevaricate so. I decided long ago that I would carry one of the lessons of the theater over into my own life. When you're acting, you need to be able to let yourself go and feel what the characters are feeling, to immerse yourself in it, yet in the rest of life we all keep our feelings in. I decided not to do that. As a result, I tend to speak my mind rather more freely than most. But," he leaned toward me, his brown eyes fixed on my face, his whole being engaged in compelling me to believe him. "I can hide my feelings when I need to. I have to, working with teenagers, they're both hyperperceptive and hypersensitive."

"You've got to tell me more about your relationship with Laney, Mr. Hamlin. You can't just drop a bombshell like that and then retreat."

"I could, actually," he said, "but I've chosen to cooperate with you even though I resent the intrusion into my privacy because I want the man who seduced her found just as much as Dorrie does."

"You don't think it was an accident?"

His lip curled with scorn. "Oh, please. Do I look like I was born yesterday?" He looked as though he was born about five to ten years before the time I was born, but he could have been younger or older. I wasn't a great guesser of ages. "It was no accident. Someone wanted her dead."

"Why?"

"Why was it no accident? Because of who she was, what she was. Laney wasn't the type to go out into the woods in the dark on her own. She was brave in company, she drew courage from her audiences, but she was kind of timid on her own. Besides, she was hardly a nature lover. I'm sure Kathy Donahue has told you her nutty story about beauty and the moon...." He broke off with a satisfied nod. "I see that she has." I didn't tell him I'd heard it elsewhere. I didn't want to interrupt the flow. "That wasn't a recent conversation. I told Kathy she was all wet—kind of an awkward expression under the circumstances, isn't it—but that's just Kathy feeling guilty. She had been ignoring Laney. Kathy's basically a very selfish woman."

Once again, I was struck by how much people will tell you. I didn't even know why this guy had been sent to me, but I was fascinated by the stuff he was saying.

"What about suicide?"

He shook his head vehemently. "No way! Laney wasn't the suicidal type. She had ambition. She had plans. She was just biding her time until she was out from under her mother's thumb and then she was really going to break out. All the nickel-and-dime badness she was indulging in at Bucksport was just a rehearsal for the life she planned. If she had any role model it had to be Madonna. You know what was odd, though? Her favorite book was
Moby Dick.
I never could understand that."

He was fun to watch, more like a storyteller than a conversationalist. He put his whole self into his narrative, supporting it with his expressions, his hand movements, his body language, his intense, luminous eyes.

"She tried to explain it to me once—something about singularity of vision and personal quests and having to put what you need to do personally above the interests of the people around you even if it seems selfish and even cruel. It was pure Laney and it didn't sound much like what I remembered about the book. Of course, I probably just read the Cliff Notes anyway, but it would have given me the benefit of what some great thinker had concluded. All I remember is something about what you took away depended on what you brought to the book—and maybe that explains Laney's reaction. So anyway," he said, spreading his hands in an apologetic gesture, "you must be wondering how this answers your question. The short answer is she had a lot to live for, loads of ambition, and a finely developed ability to be selfish when her own interests demanded it. That doesn't sound like a suicidal nature, does it?"

"I've heard she was depressed."

"Have you met her family?" he asked, glancing at the door and lowering his voice. "Have you met her roommate, Miss Hockey Stick?" I nodded. "Well, that accounts for some of it. Besides, it's quite normal for adolescents to be depressed, particularly the ones who find the systems set up to control and protect them unwieldy and confining. Laney was born to be a grown-up, you see. She chafed at the confinements of adolescence. All those grown-ups clucking and tut-tuting and putting their heads together to decide what was good for her without listening to a word she had to say. No wonder she was so determined to beat the system. And then there was her delicate condition."

"She told you?"

"That wasn't the sort of thing Laney would share. Josh told me."

"Before or after the accident?"

"Before."

I wanted to ask more about this, it was something he should have shared with the administration, but questioning him about how he'd handled the information in his role as teacher might stop the conversation. I decided to defer the lecture on responsibility. That was Dorrie's job anyway.

"You said you were in love with Laney. Tell me about that."

"I've confessed to the feeling," he said, placing his hand mockingly over his heart. "I prefer to keep the details to myself. It should suffice for your purposes that I never acted on it."

"You are close to Josh as well?" He nodded. "Could he have been responsible for Laney's death?"

"I'm sure there are times when he wanted to be," Hamlin said, "but that would have been too bold a move for Josh. He's more the spin-around-in-his-own-space-like-a-dervish type. He can work himself into quite a frenzy, but underneath he's a decent, polite kid who was brought up to be nice to others. He and Laney had a volatile and very physical relationship that frankly did sometimes come to blows, but I think it was really a form of theater. They were acting out their emotions, testing the limits to which they could take them, rather like boxing in a padded room where you know you can't get seriously hurt. No, I can't see him as a killer. He would have dithered about too long to ever get around to it. If he'd taken Laney out to the pond they would have skirmished for a few rounds, gotten themselves all stirred up, and then come back and hopped into bed. At least, that's how I see it."

He grinned at me and folded his hands like an obedient schoolboy. "Next question?"

"Do you know where Laney went over Columbus Day weekend?"

"Is that when we think the love child was conceived?"

"Maybe. Do you know?"

"I know where she was supposed to go. To the beach, with Merri and Josh and a bunch of the kids. Merri's older sister was going along to provide an adult presence. As I heard the story, at the last minute, Laney said she couldn't go because she had too much work to do. The rest of them went, though, and that led to an interesting complication. I hear that Laney's so-called best friend, Merri, got her hands on Josh and had herself quite a good time comforting the poor bereft lad." That was consistent with what I'd observed, so I wasn't too shocked.

"Do you know if Laney did stay on campus?"

"No."

"No, you don't know, or no, she didn't?"

"That sounds like Gilbert and Sullivan."

Russ Hamlin's gossipy, theatrical cheerfulness was beginning to wear on me. He was a beautiful creature until he opened his mouth. Then he was a fascinating raconteur for a while, but his flippancy about a girl who had died was inappropriate and even a bit ugly. This was true despite the fact that he was providing a wealth of useful information. He loved to gossip, too, I could tell. His self-selected role was gadfly and troublemaker and he obviously found it great fun.

"Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Laney?"

His smile was sly as he peered at me under lowered lids. "You've talked with Kathy? So you know about her troubles?"

"What troubles?"

The smile grew, if possible, slyer and more insinuating. He resembled a faun, or was it a satyr? I never could keep them straight. I knew before he answered that I was going to get another of his coy refusals. "If she didn't tell you, I certainly can't. Maybe you need to ask her."

"Ask her what?" I couldn't keep the impatience out of my voice, even though I knew it would please him. He obviously thrived on the disapproval of others. No wonder he'd been attracted to Laney. Loving her—if indeed he had loved her and wasn't just saying this to be provocative—would have been like looking in a mirror.

"How she felt about Laney's delicate condition. And then there's Merri the loyal friend. Other than that, who knows? She hung around with the grounds and buildings crew a lot. Probably atavistic memories of daddy the workman or something. Wish I could help you more but alas, I was not her confidant. Things were fevered between us. She wanted me to be attracted to her, of course. Her power over men was the only power she thought she had. I'm afraid my influence tended to stir her up. I don't regret it, though. When Laney was stirred up, her performances were brilliant. I have a video of one of our workshops, Laney as Ophelia—who knew then how prophetic that was—and she's marvelous. I'd be glad to show it to you sometime."

He checked his watch and rose from the chair with enviable grace. "Alas, duty calls," he said.

"Who was her confidant?"

"Drucker." His face twisted with distaste as he said it.

"Do you think there was anything between them?"

"You've got to be kidding. Drucker? That dried-up old... never mind, forget I said that. No. I don't think so. No way. Besides, Ellie keeps him tied to her apron strings. Even if he'd wanted to stray, he'd never have a chance. Living on a campus like this is like living in a small town, and Ellie is the all-knowing, all-seeing, omnipresent wife. Kind as can be, but I'd hate to be married to her."

"Were there other guys besides Josh? Students, I mean?"

"A lot of guys were interested. How could they help it, with that Julia Roberts face and that"—he kissed his fingertips and waved them in the air—"that delicious little body. And she could be anything! The ultimate fantasy dream girl. As sexy or sedate as she needed to be—madonna, whore, schoolgirl, nun, sophisticate. You name it and in the blink of any eye, she could be it. It was unnerving in one so young."

"Do you know of any particular guys—her age or otherwise?" I persisted.

He shook his head. "It's been lovely chatting with you, but I must away. If you have a chance, do visit our theater. We're quite state-of-the-art, you know."

"Just one more question. What did you mean when you said Kathy had been neglecting Laney?"

"That's a question for Kathy, isn't it?" he said. "Along with the possibility that Kathy might have been neglecting Bill, and Bill might have turned to Laney... but I do doubt that. Bill's awfully straitlaced. More the drool-but-not-touch type." He sketched a mocking bow and departed.

I stared at the closed door for a minute and then made a flurry of notes, trying to get down all the questions he'd provoked before I forgot them. After seven years of this, I knew that some of the people attracted to teaching in private schools were pretty unusual, but Russ Hamlin was right up there in the all-time quirky top ten.

 

 

 

Chapter 12

 

My chat with Russ Hamlin had made me tired, especially coming on the heels of a restless night. I already had a page of things to follow up on from earlier interviews. Now he'd given me a second page all by himself. It was only midmorning, and I was longing to go home to bed. Instead, I called my office, attended to some business, and then I treated myself to a refreshing trip down the hall to the ladies' room where I gave my skin a spritz of Evian water and let my hair go free. It was one of those days when it felt too long and too heavy. On such days, I have to stay very busy because I want to go into a salon and get it all chopped off. I'm like a modern day Samson—afraid if I lose my hair I'll lose my strength. Never mind what Andre would say.

When I got back, a man was waiting for me. He was large and had a broad, pleasant face with deep smile lines around his eyes. "Carol got tied up so we switched places," he said, offering his hand. "I'm Bill Donahue." I shook his hand and got immediately to my questions, quickly discovering that his pleasant look was misleading. His manner, at least in response to me, was glum; his answers, while more responsive than his wife's had been, were definitely on the laconic side. He addressed all his replies to the folded hands in his lap.