Claire and Present Danger (20 page)

“It didn’t sound that way. Besides, she had that box with the dates and little places for morning pills and noon pills and night-time pills. They were all counted out in advance. Help me.” She sounded as if she were calling out from the bottom of a well.

I realized I had pulled my head away from the phone, and I was shaking it, as if to quell the urge to reach out and rescue her. Her defenseless “help me” echoed, and I understood how good she’d be at seducing me over to her camp. I didn’t want to be there.

I didn’t want to know what she wanted of me, why she had to see me. You don’t have to meet and plan things out if you’re going to tell the truth. That’s one of honesty’s main advantages: It saves time.

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I wanted to tell her she deserved whatever she got, and I was not going to be her next comrade in crime, or a stepping-stone to her next victim.

I looked forward to talking with the police and turning over the flyers and the news story from California, and whatever else had been faxed to Ozzie’s office yesterday after we left. I wished I could tell her that I knew enough about her already to want to stay miles away, but all I actually said was, “I’m too busy to meet with you.”

“But—you can’t do this to me! I won’t let you—”

Let me! I didn’t wait to hear what she wouldn’t let me do, what she might threaten. I said goodbye.

It took me a while to shut off the phone. It’s hard when your hand is shaking.

153

Thirteen

IHADN’Tbeen lying—I did keep a special eye out for Melanie Lawrence. Judging by the maternal concern for her sensibilities, I thought she might be somebody I’d missed, an introverted, shy, socially backward child who’d been dangerously overprotected and monitored, and I was ready to help her maneuver her way through this brave new high school world. The important thing was not to blame the sins of the mother on the child.

But I hadn’t missed her, and if ever a girl looked as if she didn’t need my help—or anyone’s—it was Melanie. She was the amazingly self-assured creature I’d noticed the first day. The leader of 154

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the pack. The girl and the mother’s worries didn’t mesh, mainly because the girl was so much of a diamond chip off the maternal block, a petite blonde with features so regular and pleasing, they were just this side of computer-generated. She sat through class surrounded by friends, attentive herself, smiling and nodding acknowledgment of points made in the discussion of the opening segment of Lord of the Flies, and adding a few well-spoken comments of her own. She was going to grow up and run the world, or at least a megacorporation.

Lord of the Flies was, as always, a great book for discussion, both rich and unintimidating. “What do we know at this point about these boys?” I asked. “What do we know about Ralph?”

“Strong.”

“Good looking,” a girl said, and when the boys laughed deri-sively, she sat up straight and said, “It says so! It says that’s one reason they picked him as leader.”

“Not that smart,” a boy said. “Piggy’s the one who figures out what to do.”

I kept checking my seating chart. Had to learn names more quickly. I wished kids came in more colors and patterns. It would be so easy to remember who went with a paisley face or plaid hair.

“Mean!” a tiny girl—Olivia—said softly. “That whole thing of calling him Piggy when he asked not to be.”

“Then is everybody mean?” I asked. “Didn’t everybody laugh when Ralph called him Piggy?”

A moment’s silence, people looking side to side, checking out one another until a boy—Tony—shrugged and said, “You know how it is. Going along with the group.”

Good. Whether or not Sonia Lawrence approved, we were moving toward a discussion of group psychology, and her daughter didn’t seem in danger of toppling over from the weight of the topic. “Any other signs of these boys being ready to go along with the group?”

They were right there with me, having made note of the choir 155

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in its matching uniforms and their obligatory voting for their leader. “And Jack,” I said. “What do we already know about him?”

“He’s dangerous,” Melanie said. “He has a knife. I was wondering why he had one. But he’s ready to use it, too.”

I decided to stop worrying about Melanie.

“He’ll use it,” a girl nearby added. “Because he lost face when he didn’t kill the pig.”

“He said so,” one of the boys added. “He said, ‘Next time.’ ”

“Have you thought about how you know these things?” I asked.

“How the author made you know that without telling you directly?” No response, but they weren’t rolling their eyes, which was a plus. “Have you ever heard the term foreshadowing?” They didn’t groan the way kids do when they’re asked to look at the craft behind the story captivating them.

I felt something akin to a tickle in the heart. This was going to be a good class. We’d have fun and learn a few things along the way—and that we included me.

This was all the more remarkable because it was the last period of the day. Post-lunch for them. I’d again missed my own. Pre-freedom for all of us. This hour is generally subject to both impatience and torpor, which is not a great combo, but here they were, working together as a group, and their sparks of intelligence ignited an active discussion that lasted until the bell interrupted, announcing the end of day.

As though the bell tolled for me—my mind instantly switched to the next hurdle: getting ready. I envisioned a marathon race, a movie in fast-forward as I cleaned and ironed and manicured and even marked papers and made up a quiz for Friday, so that I’d be ahead of the game and have time for Gabby and Boy. I’d had such a good time last period that I’d barely had time to think about the impending visit, which was high testimony to the quality of my ninth graders. But now, the Mackenzies’ road-weary car—it had already visited four others of their scattered offspring—crashed into my classroom and my brain.

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The room emptied. A few boys nodded discreetly as they made their exits. I took that as high praise, a thumbs-up. I was going to be allowed to live. “This was fun, Miss Pepper,” Melanie said as she left. “But—” she leaned closer.

I felt a shudder of worry. She was going to mention evil. She was going to echo her mother.

“I think you’d want to know that you have this big ink stain on your sleeve,” she said. “It’s a real shame. It’s a pretty blouse.”

I was most assuredly not going to worry about her anymore.

And then the room was empty, except for Olivia, still placing her book in her backpack. I watched with mild amazement, because no able-bodied living human, aside from a mime, moves that slowly. I knew she spoke normally, she’d participated in class, and I wondered if she had a neurological problem. “Olivia?”

She looked up—slowly. “Sorry,” she said. “You can go. I . . .”

“Need some help?”

She looked startled, inappropriately frightened by my question, then silently shook her head.

“Are you all right?”

She switched her head shakes to nods.

“Then I have to lock up, so—”

“Could I stay a while? I won’t touch anything.”

How could I explain that this was not the day to deal with idiosyncratic desires—or serious mental problems, except for my own.

She was tiny and she looked windblown, inside the room, as if a secret storm had set her quaking. Much as I hate admitting it, it’s never a great sign, and surely not a normal sign, if a student isn’t eager to leave my room.

“Wish I could let you, but I’d be in big trouble if I did that,” I said. “What is it? Are you well?”

She nodded.

“Then is something frightening you—something out there?

Somebody?”

She sighed and shook her head, then she stood up abruptly. She 157

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was small and boyish, almost hidden—or hiding—inside her baggy clothing. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “Would it be all right if I walked out with you? How do you get home?”

“The bus. On the corner.”

“Would you keep me company? You’re on the way to my car.”

She blinked, then shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

She’d be safe and save face, because everyone would assume she was in some kind of trouble—with me. Why else would anyone be near a teacher when she didn’t have to be?

I steeled myself against all manner of real and imagined Olivia-demons, but absolutely nothing threatened or seemed out of place.

No stalkers, no cars idling, no derogatory calls, not even an embarrassing whistle or insult, and finally, the bus arrived and Olivia climbed on.

I turned away, glad for the anticlimax, and nearly smacked into a petite woman it took me a moment to recognize.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I told you on the phone—I’m in a rush. Not today. There’s nothing to say, anyway.”

“Please. I’m desperate!”

I believed that she’d once been an actress. A good one, too—and she still was. “Maybe some other time.”

“There isn’t any other time. I’m sure I’ll be—they’re going to—

please. I feel as if . . . my whole life—you have to help me.”

“Help you?” I didn’t know what to say. Help her? What was wrong with this picture? Claire Fairchild was dead. Emmie Cade’s husband was dead. A former fiancé was dead, too. The people who got close to her needed help, not her.

“You think I’m evil.”

Evil. Such an old-fashioned word, a pre-Freudian word, but obviously back in popularity. This was the second person in as many days to present me with the idea of evil. “I have no opinion of you,” I lied. “I don’t even know you.”

“You were investigating me. Maybe you still are. I’m sure you’ve 158

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heard bad things, but they aren’t true.” She spoke softly, but they aren’t true sounded strained, as if she wanted to scream them. “I have to convince somebody that they aren’t true.” Her calm façade crumbled as she spoke, and she waved her hands, pushing off her phantom “bad things.”

I was painfully aware that we were standing on the corner, smack on the busy sidewalk of a midtown street, and students who passed stared openly. “This isn’t the best place,” I said softly.

“Where is, then?” she said. “I waited outside here for you. I only—I feel as if—”

Her stammering felt fake and annoying. In fact, I couldn’t stand the entire situation. I had things to do, a life of my own and no time to be segmented and pulled apart.

“It has to be now.” Her voice had regained calm and a new solidity. “Now.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m sure you have your reasons, but I honestly cannot—”

“If somebody was poisoned, and you could save them, but you were really busy right now—and I don’t doubt that you are—all the same, would you wait until it was convenient for you to see them? They could be dead by then!”

But the nonhypothetical person was already dead. Odd she should pick the poison analogy.

And maybe this business was not for me. Could you imagine either Nick or Nora ignoring the damsel in distress—or the femme fatale—whatever this shape-shifting woman was—because they had to prepare for their in-laws? I sighed, reconsidered, and admitted that my priorities were slightly skewed. “Can you be quick, please?” I finally asked. “I wish I were exaggerating about how pressed for time I am, but I’m not.”

“I’d like to think that I’m as important as any other case you’re investigating,” she said quietly.

I was flattered. In her eyes, once I left the schoolhouse, zap, I was instant P.I.-woman. “You are, of course,” I said, “but the truth 159

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is, this isn’t my case anymore. Our investigation is over. The client died.”

“That’s just it! It isn’t over. Can’t be, with that—what they said, and you never had time to find out who I really am. You only heard bad things.”

I pulled back a step.

“Didn’t you?”

“Tell me what’s on your mind. I don’t have time for games, and I’m going to my car in five minutes.” I checked my watch and made sure she saw me doing it. It also reminded me that I truly meant what I was saying. Ready, set, go.

She looked around, clearly wishing for a more intimate spot and for time to present her case. “If we could find a—”

“Can’t. Here and now, or not at all. Five minutes—less the time we’re wasting.”

“It’s that I don’t know how to say it because I don’t know what’s going on.”

“You need to talk to me but you don’t know what to say?”

“How to.”

“Try. One word, then another. The way you usually would.”

She blinked, then she looked down, at the tips of her chic, polished shoes. “People don’t like me,” she said, head still lowered.

I might have expected this of a teenager. Or the poor child Lily, who’d tried to kill herself because of perceived unpopularity. Or from me, those months in sixth grade, but not from an adult, and a near-stranger. “I’m not a mental health worker. I can’t help your personal problems.”

“You’re proving my point. You don’t like me, either. Do you?

And you don’t even know me. I’m not talking about not being invited to the prom. People like me that way—but then something happens. Like it did with Leo’s mother. People—for no reason—

get bad ideas about me.”

“Hey, Miss Pepper! Don’t you ever go home?” a student called out as a gaggle of girls walked by. I waved and returned my attention to Emmie Cade’s poor, pitiable-me routine.

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She hadn’t turned to see who’d spoken and didn’t react to the mild interruption. She was completely engrossed in her own woes.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, although I had a working theory of what she was up to. She knew we’d found out about her various and sundry dead consorts, the mystery surrounding her recent and untimely widowhood, and this was damage control. A helpless, girlie variety of same.

“Mrs. Fairchild told Leo she’d heard bad things she wanted to check out. Bad things about me. But what? Why? Who said them?

I’m an ordinary person, trying my best. Bad things happen to me, but that can’t be what she meant. I’ve had bad luck with men, but now, with Leo, I thought—” She tilted her head and looked at me, her expression pure needy appeal.