An Educated Death (9 page)

"I didn't expect this," he said, waving a hand that was supposed to indicate me.

"I probably remind him of his ex-wife," I said, meaning to be sarcastic. I accidentally scored a direct hit.

Rocky Miller's slightly protuberant blue eyes glared at me across the table. "How the hell did you know that?"

"Maybe I'm a better detective than you give me credit for?"

"All right, you two, that's enough!" Dorrie said, her voice so low it was almost inaudible. As the ad says, when you want to be heard, whisper. "Rein in your egos and listen to me. First, Thea, I apologize for the way this was sprung on you. I didn't mean it to happen this way but it seems that very little is happening around here the way I want it to. What I want from you is an assessment of whether it was an accident or if there is any reason why Laney Taggert might have wanted to kill herself. I don't even know why we're talking about murder investigations here. As far as I know, there is nothing to suggest foul play. Rocky thinks the way to handle this is to bring in a few of his men and send them around the campus to interview people. Frankly, I don't think that approach would work. Your best information will come from the students and most of them are so antiauthority they aren't going to cooperate—"

"We talk to kids all the time, Dorrie," the chief interrupted.

"It's the power relationship that's the problem," Dorrie said. "I know how good Thea is at talking to these kids. I want them in a situation where they feel safe. She's going to be talking to them anyway, about the security procedures, the sign-out process, faculty checks, all the things she needs to ask for her audit. It'll be easy for her to slip in some extra questions about Laney. Once the students start talking, they're going to want to continue. If they have concerns or suspicions, they'll want to share those... with the right person."

"Which is a trained police officer," Rocky said.

Dorrie sighed, a sigh of gentle exasperation. I admired her patience. I wanted to throw something at him. "I'll go over this one more time, Rocky, but I'm beginning to feel like a broken record. Bucksport is a well-known and well-respected private secondary boarding school. Our endowment is growing, but it's still small and it takes a lot of money to maintain a campus like this. We are dependent on tuition and annual giving to make ends meet. Both tuition and annual giving are dependent on how the school is perceived by parents, alumni, and potential applicants. Even the hint of a scandal can have a significant impact on our applicant pool, our donations, even our current population. Therefore, any inquiry which takes place must be done with the utmost discretion." She paused and looked at Rocky, who was playing with his fork. For a second, I thought she was going to tell him to stop fiddling and pay attention. Instead, she reached out and took the fork away, leaving her hand over his.

"My choice of Thea to conduct this inquiry does not reflect a lack of faith in your department and you shouldn't take it that way. I intend for us to continue to work with you very closely. Everything we learn will be shared with you immediately and if anything suggests Laney Taggert's death was neither accidental nor suicide, Thea will immediately bow out and let you handle it. I assure you that Thea's experience with murder investigations has left her extremely cautious." Dorrie's reconciliation technique reminded me of the way I was taught to darn socks. First you circle the hole with thread and gently pull the thread tight until you've closed the gap as much as possible. Then you begin to weave threads back and forth across the gap until the hole is mended.

"I know that Thea reminds you of Sharon and you've translated that into young, inexperienced, and untrustworthy. But she isn't Sharon. She's a mature, extremely able, and accomplished professional woman. In my opinion, she's the best person we could get for this job and we're lucky to have her. By the way"—she paused and gave me a curious look—"I didn't tell her about Sharon. That was just a good guess on her part." Rocky took his hand out from under Dorrie's and put it on top, giving her hand a squeeze.

It didn't take a detective to see that there was more between them than just a professional relationship and it surprised me. There must be more to Rocky than the juvenile, belligerent, sexist man I'd seen. I'd only known Dorrie in a professional context, but we'd spent enough time together to know each other's stories. Although she was older—about Rocky's age, I realized—we had a lot in common. We were both somewhat reserved, workaholic young widows who took our professional selves very seriously. Dorrie and Rocky seemed like an odd pairing to me.

"You didn't tell her about Sharon?" he said.

"Of course not."

"Sharon, as you probably guessed, was my wife," Rocky said. I thought I was going to get a story but that's all he said. I let it go. With Dorrie's help we were slowly working our way toward a truce, and a truce was what we needed if we were going to be able to work together. Besides, there was no way I was going to undertake any sort of investigation into an unexplained death without a policeman in my pocket. I'd taken a lifetime's worth of chances already, first with my sister, Carrie, and then with Helene Streeter and with my mother's protégée, Julie Bass. I knew that life could be very dangerous. But with the caveat that if things got dangerous, I would bow out and hand the job over to Rocky, I could see that I was needed here. In her career as headmistress, Dorrie would probably never face a more challenging and delicate situation. I had just spent seven years developing the expertise and reputation to be selected as the consultant of choice in such situations. In a small, crass corner of my professional self, I recognized this as an important opportunity.

Over dessert, which was a succulent apricot tart, we discussed some of the specifics and Rocky reluctantly agreed to Dorrie's plan. After lunch, he strode off to attend to some business elsewhere on campus and Dorrie and I went back to her office to talk. I was to start the next morning, after I'd checked in at work. I'd be talking to a list of people that Lori Leonard had already scheduled. We reviewed the hierarchy and I took copious notes on how the parietal system worked, how the day's schedule flowed, and at what points a faculty person had regular contact with students, how sign-out worked, and bed check, and what sort of special privileges upper-class students had. I also had an overview of how the campus security system functioned.

I'd gotten as much sleep as I could on the plane, but the redeye is aptly nicknamed. By the time I left her office, I was bleary-eyed, my throat felt scratchy, and I was sick of the clothes I'd been wearing for almost twenty-four hours. I rushed down the brick walkway to my car, oblivious to the dangers of smooth leather shoes on ice. Just as I reached for the door, my foot slipped. A strong hand under my elbow stopped the fall and pulled me gently to my feet. "Returning to our conversation about pigs," Rocky said, "a woman in high heels is as unstable as a hog on ice." He got into his car and drove away.

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

I am not, by nature, a morning person, so it's a peculiar twist of fate that I've chosen a profession where everyone gets up with the birds. Nevertheless, I was up with the birds on Monday and in my office by eight with a cup of steaming mochaccino and a chocolate croissant. I occasionally give in to my chocolate impulses. It's either that or join Chocoholics Anonymous and I don't have time for that. I figure, why spend time in some dingy church basement listening to other people's tales of woe and addiction when you can just eat the stuff?

By eight-thirty, everyone else was in, too, and things at the office were unusually chaotic. Magda, Suzanne's secretary, was shouting something into a phone in a language I assumed was Hungarian and taking notes in something that looked like hieroglyphics; calm, cheerful Bobby had been pulling at his hair so that it looked like a fright wig; and my secretary, Sarah, was yelling at a pair of legs that emerged from behind the copying machine. I debated grabbing my stuff and hurrying to Bucksport, but I hadn't been at work for several days, so instead I waded in and started sorting things out.

My desk looked as if someone had stood over it and shredded a roll of pink insulation. Even from the doorway I could see that many of the messages had Urgent! written on them in red. Sarah stopped screaming at the man and machine and charged into my office. "I thought we got a new copier so that we wouldn't have to have the repair man here all the time," she said.

"So did I. I'm afraid I haven't been paying attention. Has it broken down a lot?"

"A lot? It's worse than the last one."

"Have you kept a record of all the repairs?"

"In the file," she said. "Every last one of 'em."

"Bring me the file, then, and I'll look into it. Anything else I should know about?"

Sarah indicated my desk with a wave of her arm. "Other than this? Someone sent you flowers. Yanita Emery called while you were in the bathroom and says she has a crisis. And Mrs. Merritt is in her office crying because her day-care lady quit and Junior is crying right along with her. Maybe you can help. Call me if you need me. I'm going to go back and yell at the repair man."

"Does it do any good?"

"No, but it makes me feel better."

I decided to deal with the last item first. Mrs. Merritt was my partner, Suzanne, who started the business. Not a woman given to tears and weakness. I found her behind her desk scowling at something she was reading. There was no sign of breakdown other than a slightly red nose. "So, partner," she said, "how did it go? Romantic days and nights of unbridled lust?"

"Of course."

She smiled at her son, who was sitting in the corner playing with an elaborate contraption of beads and colored wires. "Better be careful. Here's graphic evidence of where all that can lead."

"Well, Andre has been getting a strange gleam in his eye lately and talking about children. Speaking of children, Sarah says your day care has fallen through again?"

"It's like a nightmare, Thea. I spent a week interviewing people to find just the right one... and then she lasted, what? Five weeks? Whatever happened to work ethics? The way things are going, the kid's gonna end up crazy from having no stability in his life. What am I supposed to do, quit?"

"Could you stand having someone live in?"

She shrugged. "Depends on the person. And you'd have to give up your room. Why? Got someone up your sleeve?" She sounded hopeful.

"Maybe." I told her about Ellie Drucker's niece and gave her the number. Then I went back to my office to call Yanita Emery. The flowers on my desk were from Andre's boss, thanking me for my rehab job.

I got waylaid by pink message slips. I was sorting them into urgent, needing attention, and discard when the phone rang. It was Suzanne. "I am constantly reminded of how smart I was to make you my partner," she said. "Her name is Marion. She loves babies. And she's on her way over right now."

"Good luck," I said. "I hope things work out." I had gotten as far as lifting the receiver to call Yanita Emery when Bobby appeared in the door, looking miserable. Yanita would have to wait. "What's up?" I asked.

He shook his head hopelessly. "I don't know where to begin." He lowered his big body into a chair, sinking down until he managed to look small and pathetic. I waited; he didn't say anything.

I looked at my watch. "Well, you'd better spit it out, because I'm due at Bucksport in an hour. I don't have time for twenty questions."

"This is no joking matter," he said.

Seeing how upset he was, and knowing that Bobby was gay, it crossed my mind that he might be about to make an announcement about his health. I braced myself for bad news, hoping that wasn't what was coming. We all loved Bobby. In a lot of ways, he was the emotional soul of the office, the only one of us who usually managed to be good humored and nice to everyone. He hesitated, and the tension level in the room rose tangibly. "What?" I said.

"It's about your condo," he said. "That you sublet to my friend Ryan?"

I was so relieved I almost laughed out loud. "What about it?"

There were tears in Bobby's eyes. "Oh, Thea, I'm so sorry. I'm so awfully sorry. I feel like it's all my fault, but honestly, I never knew... I never expected... I didn't realize what kind of a person he was underneath, or I never would have suggested..." He trailed off, his hands clasped tightly in his lap, unable to meet my eyes.

I couldn't stand it. "Get to the point, Bobby," I said. "What's happened to my condo?" I loved my condo. It was the first place I'd ever had that was really, truly mine, that I didn't have to share with anyone else, and that was arranged just the way I liked it. When I moved to Maine to live with Andre, I'd sublet it to Bobby's friend Ryan. I'd been too busy to notice, but now that I thought about it, I hadn't had a rent check this month.

"He trashed it. Things are dirty, things are broken, things are missing. There are holes in the walls, spots on the rugs... the shower door is broken, the toilet tank is cracked... I was there for a party this weekend, and I couldn't believe it. Such a beautiful place and he'd treated it like a dump. I lost my temper and I... uh... well, I'm afraid I didn't make things any better." His voice fell until it was almost inaudible. "I pushed him right through the slider."