Claire and Present Danger (24 page)

I ignored the threat. It was hollow, anyway. “She kept saying sick baby, or the like. It sounded more serious and chronic than a head cold.”

“An’ Batya struck me as a hysteric.”

185

GILLIAN ROBERTS

“She’s got big-time problems. She’s a virtual prisoner there.”

“Was. But about her child? Did she say he has seizures?”

I shook my head. “She said something about the cost of his medicine.”

“It could be nothin’ more than chicken pox.”

“She had motive, Mackenzie. Mrs. Fairchild said she was leaving her money in her will but pretty much giving her nothing while she was alive.”

“Stupid tactic,” he muttered.

Batya put the pills in their proper cubbies. It would be so easy to substitute the murderous medication for a regular prescription.

It would be easy for anyone to do so. I was back to square one.

And speaking of that, “Who called 9-1-1?” I asked. “Did you ask?

They have records, right? They always know who called it in.”

He blinked and looked up at me, frowned, and seemed to reel in my words, as if they’d missed their mark but were still hovering in the ether, awaiting delayed entry to his consciousness. “Oh, right,”

he finally said. “The doctor called it in.” He put his elbows on the table and his attention on the page of his text, looking excited and challenged, like a champion swimmer about to make the plunge.

I stood up as an act of good faith. “I promise to shut up in a minute, but you need to explain, because there wasn’t any doctor there.”

He looked at me with distant recognition, then once again seemed to climb out of the book and rejoin me. “This is it, then?”

I nodded. I even meant it this time.

“There’s this gizmo people with chronic lung disease use. Circu-lar gizmo connected to the phone line. We saw it next to the bed, remember? You thought it was a lady’s compact.”

“She breathes into it, Batya said.”

“She opens it up and breathes into one side of it and, through the miracle of modern medicine, the person monitoring it on the other end can analyze the velocity of her breath and know how her lungs are doing and what she needs in the way of medication.”

186

CLAIRE AND PRESENT DANGER

“That’s amazing. I mean that seriously. It tests how well her lungs are working through the phone lines?”

“Far as I understand these things. She has to do this a few times a day, and if the results are confusing, they’d ask her to try again, and that night, apparently the test breaths showed a downward spiral—less and less velocity.”

“So it took a while. It took a long while for that drug to slowly stop her breathing.”

“Guess so.”

“And she probably didn’t fully recognize what was going on, so it wasn’t as if she called for help.”

“But the doctor did,” he said. “When the tests come back that way, they retest, and then they call the patient, they phone, because the medication needs adjustment, but, of course, nobody answered the phone.”

“She was probably unconscious by then.”

“Or dead.”

“But where was Batya? Why didn’t she answer the phone?”

He tilted his head. “You’re really set on her, aren’t you? Tom said there isn’t a phone in the maid’s room. Apparently, Mrs.

Fairchild was afraid she’d call Romania, or wherever she’s from.

Plus, Batya says she was asleep by that hour.”

“Or awake, but not interested in saving Claire Fairchild’s life.”

He ignored that. “And Claire Fairchild always kept the ringer turned down low. She could hear it, but it didn’t carry. When the doctor got no response, he phoned 9-1-1. Now you know everything I know and pretty much everything the police know at this point and when they know more, you’ll know, too. But that’ll be it. Tom said if I cared all this much about a homicide, why’d I leave? I’ve used up my bargaining chips for a while.” With great deliberation, he put his finger on a line of text and leaned forward to read it. But he looked up for one moment and said in a serious, weighted voice, “Let go of it. It’s a police matter now, and we don’t have any other option.” He didn’t wait for me to agree or 187

GILLIAN ROBERTS

promise or say I understood. He returned to his textbook with a relieved sigh.

I kept my thoughts to myself, but they kept me up even after I’d said goodnight. I registered the barb about our not needing further information about Claire Fairchild, but I couldn’t understand how Mackenzie could just turn off interest in something like this, could be content to be that chapter in somebody else’s story.

Maybe it was because I’d met everyone involved and he hadn’t.

Or maybe I was too new at investigating, becoming intimately involved in someone’s life and concerns and then, at some externally determined signal, stepping back. Way back—out of sight and out of mind.

I wasn’t built that way. Instead, I lay in bed staring at the high ceiling, thinking about Batya, Emmie, and Leo’s stack of griev-ances against one ill elderly woman, trying not to think how easily any one of them could have killed her, and trying as well to ignore all that and build a case for what I wanted to believe, irrationally or not, which was that none of them had done this.

It was a long time before I could stop seeing brightly lit cemeteries and fall asleep.

188

Sixteen

IWASexhausted the next day, and nagged by trivia such as the realization that I’d never ironed my linen suit. Even as I thought it, I also thought “who cares?” I’d already made a bad first impression. More importantly, I was surrounded by matters of life and death and love and marriage—and adolescent educations—

and my wardrobe choice was a shameful concern.

And yet it was stuck in my mind, like a yellowing reminder on a corkboard.

I entered Philly Prep with one unworthy goal: to leave it as quickly as possible. Perhaps I could manage a brief nap at home before I faced the dual-family nightmare evening.

189

GILLIAN ROBERTS

“Oh, you!” Sunshine called out. I’d gathered my meaningless notices and flyers, relieved to see there seemed no follow-up or second chapter to Mrs. Lawrence’s flap about Lord of the Flies. “You popular thing, you!”

I looked around to see who she could mean, and she giggled. No other teachers were in the office at the moment. “You, silly! The word on the street is that there’s a blogger or five saying good things about you!”

“Blogger?” Was this the verbal equivalent of her appalling shorthand?

She waved an oh, go on with you gesture, as if I’d committed a witticism. “You know. They think you’re sharp, so you must know about Weblogs.”

“Who thinks . . . no. I’m confused.”

She giggled again. I was an endless source of amusement to Sunshine, and I wondered why it annoyed me so much to be the generator of such joy. “Can’t say who,” she said. “I promised. So let’s just say—”

I knew she was going to invoke a small avian creature. She didn’t care how shopworn her clichés were. Blogger might be new, or at least new to me, but it would soon be old and she’d still be cherishing it. And now—

“A little bird told me. They think you’re cute, too.” And she giggled again. “You could be Miss Blogg of the year! If there only were one!”

“When you say ‘they,’ who do you mean? I don’t want names, but are we talking about students?”

She nodded emphatically. “Lots of them have these Internet sites, you see, kinds of journals where they write their opinions of things and people—like you. Back to school and all, that’s what they wrote about, and they like you.”

“So far,” I said. “We’re four days into this semester.”

“First impressions count!” she trilled.

“What else do they put on these sites?”

She shrugged. “Anything they want to. Just like any other diary.”

190

CLAIRE AND PRESENT DANGER

“A diary everybody can read.”

“And doesn’t that make it fun?”

I thought that made it not a diary, but never mind.

“They talk about themselves, what they like . . . I had one for a while about my kitties because they’re so dear. And each day I’d say cute things they did. And about my unicorn collection and when I found new ones and all, and I’d list links with other really good unicorn sites or blogs I really enjoyed. Things like that.” She looked lovingly at the line of tiny creatures on the divider. “I put photos of them up and all . . . but then I got this job and, well, you know, I wouldn’t say it to them, but I . . . kind of outgrew it, I guess.”

“Blogging,” I murmured. “Live and learn.”

“Absolutely!” she said as if that was the newest, smartest phrase she’d ever heard.

I was popular! Finally! Blogs and bloggers liked me. I guessed that was nice news and I used it to keep me skating over the surface of the day. I had no intention of getting involved with my classes, as I was saving my emotions for the evening ahead.

The entire morning I accomplished this unworthy goal, ending with the juniors, who were about to embark on a research paper.

I’ve done the “do not plagiarize” spiel so often, I went onto automatic pilot.

“News alert,” I said. This part was indeed new, and I had to pay attention to what I was saying. “There’s a spiffy program I can and will use that checks the entire Internet to see whether any sentence of your paper that makes me suspicious was copied. New technology for an old problem.”

They looked stunned and disheartened. I wondered if my fans were in this class, and how soon I’d be voted out as a favorite of the gods. Favorite of the blogs, I should say.

“High tech or low, the penalty’s the same. If you don’t acknowledge the original source, you fail. So let’s go over how to take notes and to give credit where credit is due.” I heard a collective sigh, but I didn’t feel a moment’s qualms about making it hard 191

GILLIAN ROBERTS

and even painful to steal someone else’s ideas. “If people don’t footnote and attribute quotes and ideas, there’s no way to check whether what you’re being told is true or not. And this applies to the miracle of the Internet as well. Check their references before you accept whatever is written there as gospel truth. It’s too often rumors or one person’s opinion. Check the source.”

And after a familiar demonstration of note taking and record keeping, it was lunchtime.

I decided to spend the hour out of doors, in the park across the way. I’d find a sandwich or the pretzel vendor. The day was sunny and crisp, with the sweet tang of impending autumn. A day to cherish and press into a keepsake book, and I wanted to be part of it. My need to leave had nothing whatsoever to do with the Square’s proximity to Claire Fairchild’s condo.

I was obviously not the only person heading for the great out of doors, and it took a while to merge with the lunchtime exodus.

The stop-and-start human traffic and, perhaps, the clusters of whispering and giggling girls gave me time to remember that it was imperative that I speak with my sister.

Once outside, I stood near the school building at a polite distance from the students pouring out, and I made my call. As annoying as they are, I was once again grateful for the invention of the cell phone, which kept me from making my personal calls in front of the office staff. Even though Sunshine would never scowl, tap her foot, and check her watch the way our former secretary, or warden, had, I did not want her privy to my web of lies.

Even before I spoke a single word, I felt winded, as if I’d already jumped hurdles. Beth was sweet and serene. She’d pick our parents up at the airport in two more hours and, in the interim, she’d whipped up delicacies that would earn her toque at Le Cordon Bleu. “They’ll love, love, love it all,” I said. “Just the way they adored their hoagies last night.”

“Where? Who? You said they were arriving today. Why were they here last night?”

“It had to do with Noah’s daughter’s sleepover, so don’t ask.” I 192

CLAIRE AND PRESENT DANGER

told her the entire sordid tale, starting with my surprise introduction and rushing as quickly as I could toward and over my amazing, damning gaffe.

Beth squealed, and I knew she’d be applauding if she weren’t holding the phone. Actually, I realized, those peeps, squeals, chuckles, and whoops were, indeed, the sound of one hand clapping.

“Would you tell Mom and Dad, then?” I asked. “I mean, before we all get there? So it looks as if you’re breaking a brand-new secret?”

She agreed. “But Christmastime? Why then? Places are booked solidly and—”

“Beth, I don’t care if it’s in that mansion. Maybe it can even be postponed, or forgotten. And if not, it can be in our loft, which is not booked for the holidays. Or City Hall. I don’t want to go to Louisiana and be half of Lutie Mackenzie’s fourth wedding into a, quote, rowdy, unquote, family.”

“Have you told Sasha yet?”

My friend Sasha was still partying her way through Great Britain. “You’re the only person, aside from his parents who—”

“Better tell her soon. It’s hard to get decent flights during the holidays.”

“I cannot believe you’re already working on the guest list,”

I said.

“Okay, okay. Just trying to make things easier on you.”

“I realize that.” I didn’t mean my sigh to be as loud as it was.

“Don’t worry about it,” Beth said. “Let me see what I can do.

I’ll work on it this very afternoon.”

I had no doubt she would. They would. I imagined my mother hurling her bag onto Beth’s guest room bed, rolling up her sleeves, and digging in to Beth’s library of sites for overblown events while my father asked, dolefully, “How much does that one charge?”

“They have an enormous family,” I reminded her. “Eight kids, six—no, there’s Lutie’s intended—seven spouses, thirty-seven grand-kids, uncles, aunts, cousins . . .”

“You might want to reconsider their offer. I wouldn’t mind a trip to New Orleans.”

193

GILLIAN ROBERTS

“Then go. You don’t need a family wedding as an excuse. And Bethie? Tonight? Expect a Technicolor explosion. Gabby Mackenzie has never heard the word neutral, not in colors or opinions or temperament.”