Fatality (14 page)

SENIORS FACE MAZE OF HEALTH CARE OPTIONS

Chrissie found herself unable to worry.

TOWN BOARD HAS VACANCY

It turned out to be the Wetlands Commission. There were times when Chrissie worried that being an adult was going to be boring.

SPRAY TREATMENT SUGGESTED FOR MOSQUITOES

BOARD OF REC OFFERS TRIP TO NEW YORK

HIT-AND-RUN ENDS LIFE

This looked promising. She read the sad little article carefully. The newspaper thoughtfully printed a map to show where the fatality had happened. But nobody on this side of the city would drive over there; too many good malls and movie theaters a lot closer.

She read on.

Sunday and Monday were especially boring days in state and local history.

Tuesday, at last, the paper covered the murder.

Chrissie settled in.

Frannie Bailey had been Milton Lofft’s partner for ten years. The two of them had developed financial programs for personal computers, and Frannie Bailey’s net worth was estimated at a hundred fifty million, which didn’t seem too shabby to Chrissie.

Frannie Bailey had been gardening just before her death. Her sneakers and trousers were earth-stained and her fingernails rimmed with dirt.

What gardening did you do in November? Chrissie wondered. Did you plant bulbs, dreaming of spring? Had Frannie Bailey been thinking of tulips when she died?

The victim had been hit over the head with a rock from her garden, said the article. Time of death would be determined by autopsy.

There were interviews, of course.

Milton Lofft expressed shock and dismay. He had seen his partner Friday afternoon and she had been fine. He had not gone inside the house but yelled through an open window.

When asked why he had not gone inside to talk, Milton Lofft replied that he never went in. Asked why he hadn’t used his computer to send the information on one of his own encrypted programs, he said he needed Frannie Bailey’s immediate response. Asked why he didn’t call on his car phone, he said he had been bringing her something.

Asked what, he replied, Not your business.

Further questions were not answered.

In Wednesday’s paper, neighbors said that Milton Lofft and Frannie Bailey frequently had screaming arguments, he standing in the drive, she leaning out an upstairs window. It seemed to be the way they conducted business.

Police questioned business associates, the garbagemen, postman, FedEx driver, the boy who mowed the lawn, and the girl who walked the dogs. No useful information was obtained.

Thursday, the police questioned little Anjelica Lofft and her friend, unidentified, who had been waiting in the car during the argument between Milton Lofft and Frannie Bailey. Neither girl had seen anything.

Great, thought Chrissie. I don’t see anything, either. My coach hates me and I learned nothing.

She went into the newspaper’s index and typed “milton lofft,” which produced several hundred hits. Forget it. She typed in “anjelica lofft” and this produced only one. The article took forever to appear.

It was a recent photograph with a caption. It showed Milton Lofft standing near an elevator with his daughter and a slew of computer giants and their daughters. Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Who would have expected Anjelica Lofft to participate in something so ordinary?

Anjelica was far more attractive than Chrissie remembered. Angular and bony, just right to model clothes but not soft enough to model makeup.

Chrissie shut down the computer, whose little icons vanished inside the screen as Frannie Bailey had vanished from life. Completely.

But icons could be resurrected and Frannie Bailey was not coming back to tell what had happened.

Rose watched Alan play. There was something perfect about a ball game: the combination of sky, grass, and diamond; the speed of the pitch and the swing of the bat.

At the bottom of the eighth, the score even, she found herself unable to tolerate the pressure. She decided to walk to Nannie’s and play croquet. There was a ladylike violence to croquet, the sound of two hard balls hitting, like skulls.

The grass under her feet was soft and bouncy, like the grass in her yard. She was relieved when she reached the road.

She pictured Nannie in a yellow cotton dress and wide-brimmed straw hat with ribbons. She heard Nannie boast, “Guess what movie I rented for us! Don’t tell your father, of course. I saw it last year. We’ll scream through the whole thing.”

Oh, Nannie! thought Rose. What do I do?

Rose walked on and on. She detested exercise that didn’t count. She liked a coach giving her credit or a Stairmaster registering her efforts, or at least a friend at her side who could be out of breath before she was. Yet she stretched the walk out dawdling and leaning on things and wasting time, the way she had walked home from the Y four years ago, filled with silly airy daydreams about the lovely popular time at Anjelica’s. Worrying about what suitcase or duffel to use. As if it would matter, in the end.

Rose wondered if she’d ever be allowed to drive or if she was doomed to walking for the rest of her life. Nannie of course had not been allowed to drive for years. Nannie said it was criminal, the way her grown sons had ripped her car out of her life, turning her into a recluse and destroying all her fun. “Better than destroying stray cats or three-year-olds,” Dad explained.

Nannie was not amused. “I have never had an accident in my life,” she said fiercely.

Not that you noticed, thought Rose.

She was hot, and the walk made her hotter, and it felt as if she might go on and on, walking, walking, walking, and never arriving. On her right was the town cemetery, stone after stone, and the grave markers seemed to walk beside her, agreeing that she would never arrive. Under old trees bloomed lily of the valley, scenting the air like a wedding or a funeral.

A car roared. It sounded close enough to drive up her spine. It was losing control, brutally tearing tire tracks in the soft grass. It was mowing her down.

Rose flung herself into the cemetery. Her face missed a headstone by inches; she caught her elbow on it and skinned both knees painfully under her jeans.

But when she looked back, the vehicle was not out of control and had not torn up the grass. Her imagination was the thing killing her.

“Sorry, Rose,” said Alan Finney, leaning out the window of his black Explorer. He was still in his baseball uniform, sweaty and grimy. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She got up, determined not to let him realize that she had hurt herself. “You drive too fast, Alan.”

“I happen to be an excellent driver.”

“You’re a terrible driver. Look at all the daffodils you just mashed.” People didn’t mind if you said they were terrible at math or art or catching a ball. But tell them they were a bad driver and you stabbed them through the heart. She cradled her hurt elbow, studying Alan’s transportation. The Explorer was your basic boxy anonymous sports utility vehicle.

Suppose it was Alan who tried to run over me, she thought. Then I’ve been really wrong about somebody. Of course the whole problem here is how wrong I’ve been about people.

“Where are you going?” asked Alan.

“Nannie’s,” she said. “How come you didn’t stay to shower? Who won? Where are
you
going?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Coach let me go early. We won by one. Hop in. We need to talk. Please?”

She got in. Her feet got tangled in his school backpack, laptop carrier, pizza box, CD container, and unzipped, overflowing sports duffel.

Memory returned so hard and fast she needed steel shutters against the hurricane of it. Coming in the door to hear Mom and Aunt Sheila chatting, Aunt Sheila saying, “Of course I haven’t seen Rose in five years so I was holding my breath.”

She remembered the crazed frantic need to write. Her hand clenching the pencil, her grip so tight her hands ached all night. Alan’s fingers seemed to be that tight on his steering wheel.

“There’s the turn to Nannie’s, Alan.”

For a moment, she thought Alan was going to drive past. That he did have somewhere to go, and she wouldn’t have liked it. In his face was indecision that was close to fear. But he turned in, and there was Nannie, garden shears in her hand, going after a blue hyacinth.

Nannie’s yard was big and run-down, with overgrown lilacs looming over porches and a fifty-year-old swing set rusting in the back. The house itself looked too small for raising a family, but here Nannie had had four children, and now eleven great-grandchildren.

If that was the right number.

Nannie straightened, one hand pushing at her spine to accomplish it.

“It’s me, Rose, Nannie,” she called, so that her great-grandmother would not be worried about a strange car. Whatever it was he needed to say, Alan hadn’t said it yet, so Rose offered him time. “Want to stay, Alan? We’ll play croquet. Nannie’s good. She’ll whip us both.”

Alan looked at Rose as if there were a smudged window between them and he could not see her clearly. “I’d like that,” he said slowly, and he stayed, and the three of them played croquet, and Great-grandmother Nannie Lymond flirted madly with a boy sixty-eight years younger. She actually made Alan blush.

Although he claimed never to have played croquet, Alan got into the spirit of the game, whacking Rose’s ball so far out of bounds that Rose had to cross a brook to get it back.

“You killed her,” said Nannie with satisfaction.

Alan caught his breath and looked away.

C
HRISSIE KLEIN WAS TAKING
a geometry test. She was having no trouble with the equations. There was time to glance out the window and dream of summer and getting older and possibly even taller. Beyond a row of flowering dogwoods, a gray Pathfinder circled slowly among the hundreds of student cars in their slanting slots, looking for a space. Somebody was seriously late for class.

The driver got out, a tall, slim girl wearing khaki pants and a plain navy tee, hair pulled into a ponytail. The girl blended well against the spring watercolor of the trees. Chrissie watched her thread through the packed parking lot, heading for the front lobby.

It was Anjelica Lofft.

Chrissie’s hair prickled.

What could Anjelica be here for? Why wasn’t she attending her own school? Surely even boarding school did not end this early in the spring. Was she cutting class to be here? What information could be in the office that Anjelica Lofft needed? The same information she would have asked Chrissie for, if Chrissie had stayed on the phone? And if Anjelica didn’t want information, why visit? The high school was filled with the same kids she had despised four years ago.

Or was Anjelica meeting somebody? In which case, who on earth had remained friends with her?

Rose?

Chrissie berated herself for not forcing the Anjelica issue after all. She had let school and sports and food take precedence over the Rose problem. She glanced at the clock. One more minute and this class would be over. She’d better find Rose during passing period. “Hey, Halsey,” she muttered. “Where’s Rose right now? And what’s her next class?”

Halsey shrugged and kept working.

Keith whispered, “She has art this period, I think.”

“Time’s up, pass papers forward,” said the math teacher.

Halsey sighed, passed hers forward, and said, “Next, Rose has history, Room 202. I know because I do, too. We have a test there as well. I wrecked this one, I’ll probably wreck that one, Rose will get extra credit and score a hundred and ten.”

Chrissie couldn’t care less how Halsey did on quizzes. She gathered her stuff and hurried. Art was in its own wing, next to drama and across from music.

She didn’t want Rose having to deal with Anjelica Lofft right now. Anjelica was about as sensitive as a sidewalk. How disappointing Anjelica’s choice of car was. A girl with so much money should at least be in a Lexus.

A thousand students flooded the halls, swinging book bags, stopping at lockers, getting drinks of water, rushing into bathrooms, exchanging news, continuing classroom arguments. Chrissie had never seen so many people she did not care about.

She did not find Rose.

Art was empty.

Chrissie turned around and walked all the way back to 202, and by the time she arrived, history class had already begun and she was going to be very late for her own. “Rose here?” she asked.

“Ought to be,” said the teacher, looking around.

But Rose was not there.

“Rose cutting class,” said one of the boys. “It’s the same sad story, isn’t it? First you steal a police car—next, you skip history.”

The class laughed. Chrissie did not.

It isn’t
first steal a police car,
she thought. It’s
first see something the Loffts don’t want you to see.

Chrissie broke into a run.

The map in the newspaper article finally made sense.

She sped toward the office before realizing that Rose, who had had the guts to steal a police car, would not bother with authority. Chrissie swerved, picking the nearest exit to the student parking lot.

She knew what the second secret was.

Rose was astonished to find herself next to Anjelica Lofft. They walked companionably, matching pace in the sea of students changing classes. “I hardly recognized you, Anjelica,” said Rose, as disoriented as if Nannie had appeared in a yellow frock, swinging a red croquet mallet.

“I hardly recognized
you.
You look
wonderful,”
said Anjelica. Rose must have looked so awful in seventh that Anjelica had very low expectations for her in tenth.

How had Anjelica gotten into the building? There was supposed to be a floor monitor who ID’d guests and strangers. This was ridiculous, of course, since there were a thousand kids in the school. No hall monitor knew all of them. Anjelica need only melt into the crowd. And she had.

“Rose,” said Anjelica, “will you cut a class and come for a drive with me? We need to talk. Or at least I need to talk. I know you have the answers.”

Answers? To what questions?