Name Games (35 page)

Westerman looked aghast, clapping a palm to her flat chest. “Heavens
no,
Glee. No electronics whatever. We rely solely on traditional methods and a natural geo-based curriculum.”

“Which would be…?” asked Glee, suppressing a laugh with a dainty cough.

“We instruct our chill-dren, from kindergarten on, to respect the generative force of Mother Earth and to absorb the celestial harmony that governs the life cycle of the seasons.” Westerman paused in thought, then summed up, “Basic holism.”

With perfect composure, Glee queried, “The school is of course accredited? And the teachers certified?”

Westerman tisked. “None of that is necessary, and in fact, such bureaucratic meddling only serves to frustrate the learning process. According to Wisconsin state law, we need only demonstrate that a sequential curriculum—”

Two shrill noises interrupted Westerman’s lecture, noises like the call of some huge predatory bird. Glee froze wide-eyed. I nearly wet my pants. With a wild expression, Westerman grabbed Glee by the shoulders and yanked her inside the office. I slipped in with them.

“What
is
it?” asked Glee, quavering.

In a matter-of-fact tone, Westerman explained, “Ms. Avery signals the change of class periods with birdcalls. We waste no opportunity to educate the chill-dren in nature’s own native vocabulary. There’s a quiz at the end of the day. If I’m not mistaken, that was the red-tailed hawk.” As she spoke, the hustle of little feet could be heard pattering through the hall.

“But why,” Glee sputtered, “did you pull me into the office?”

Westerman paused. “I must apologize, Glee. But I didn’t want the chill-dren to see you—not like that. They might be frightened by your pelt.” She wagged a naughty-naughty finger at Glee’s mink collar.

I bit my tongue. The woman was not only ludicrous, but hypocritical. I wanted to ask, How about that collection of bones and teeth hanging around your own neck, sister?
That
carnage is enough to frighten anyone.

Westerman delicately suggested, “Perhaps if we could just hang that up…?” And she beckoned to remove the pert little cape from Glee’s shoulders. Eyeing me askance for a moment, Glee obliged by doffing the garment and offering it to Westerman, who handled it gingerly, so as not to touch its fur trim. Draping it over the back of a chair, she said wistfully, “Man has inflicted such violence on the world, there’s no point in exposing chill-dren to the sadistic butchery of trappers.”

I hoped Glee would lay into the harpy, but she remained focused on her mission. Glossing over the implied insult, she commiserated, “And to think that such wanton violence has now visited our own community…”

Westerman didn’t follow. “Trappers?”

“No,” Glee explained patiently, “murder. Carrol Cantrell was victimized within our town’s very borders. And to think that I’d actually interviewed the man before he was strangled. I’ve never met anyone who later died so horribly.”

“I met him too, but I can’t say he left a very favorable impression.”

Glee and I both waited, hoping Westerman would expound on this, but she wasn’t going to make our job that easy.

“Now then,” she said, her manner again cloyingly sweet, “would you like to see the compound?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Glee reminded her.

“This way then,” Westerman singsonged, whisking past me to lead Glee toward the door. I turned, pausing long enough to take a good look at the office. I was still wondering what had been the source of that slapping noise we’d heard earlier while Westerman was berating the tearful teacher. It took me only a moment to spot it amidst the mess on her desk—not a bullwhip, but an old-fashioned hickory pointer, the type used by schoolmarms to whack errant pupils.

Also on the desk was a computer, up and running, with a Web site displayed on its monitor. Colorful graphics jerked and flashed, coarsely animated. Unable to discern the nature of the site that Westerman had been visiting, I cleared my throat, catching Glee’s eye, directing it toward the screen.

“Oh,” she said, “just a moment, Miriam.”

Westerman turned from the hallway, looking back into the room. “Yes?”

Glancing up from her notepad, Glee asked with a confused laugh, “Didn’t you say there were no computers in the school?” She gestured toward the desk.

Echoing Glee’s laugh, the headmistress explained, “Electronics play no role in educating the chill-dren, but I myself have found the computer to be highly useful as a communications tool. Our worldwide sisterhood is wired!” she assured us. “We
know
how to network.” And she whisked us out of the room.

So then—Earth Woman had gone techie. Suddenly, there was a plausible explanation as to how she might have learned Cantrell’s true purpose in Dumont. Linked by the Internet to a network of antiporn crusaders, she could have picked up a leaked list of defense witnesses from just about anywhere. Further, I now knew that she had the wits to plant a file in Cantrell’s laptop and rig its clock. Still, the hanging question remained: Did she make that cake?

Out in the hall, Westerman was explaining, “Our curriculum is ideally suited to the open-classroom approach, and I like to think of A Child’s Garden as an entire school without walls.” She yammered on while leading us through the building, which did indeed have walls—lots of them. Some of the “classrooms” were little more than closets, where two or three kids would labor at a card table on projects ranging from mud pies to macramé. In spite of Westerman’s professed allegiance to traditional teaching methods, I saw no activity that could be described as even remotely academic. Indeed, the whole setup struck me as something of a nursery school for kids of all ages—even the older ones engaged in nothing more mental than the chanting of wicca lore.

Leaving the main building, we followed Westerman through the compound, listening to her prattle about earthbound religions, the Great Goddess, and holistic feminism, confirming my assumption that the true purpose of her school was not education, but indoctrination. We toured the barn (where a child was instructed in the finer points of milking a cow), an activities building (where another student attempted to contort herself into the lotus position), and finally the dining hall (where a woeful child labored at husking corn, dutifully laying out the silk to dry for some unknown purpose). Encountering each of her students, the headmistress would warble, “Brightest blessings, child!” To which each would respond dully, mechanically, “Brightest blessings, Ms. Westerman.”

Standing there in the lunchroom, listening to her lecture Glee on the importance of strict adherence to the principles of organic nutrition (everything was natural, herbal, and of course vegetarian), I was concluding that our mission had failed. Though I was more convinced than ever that Westerman’s drug-addled hippie days had left her brain permanently impaired, and while Glee had accumulated more than sufficient material for a jaw-dropper of a story, we had not managed to glean from this wacky character any evidence of involvement in Carrol Cantrell’s murder. The mere presence of a computer on her desk was not sufficient to implicate her—we needed to know if she had baked that suspicious cake. Then I realized that we stood not ten feet from the dining hall’s kitchen, its swinging door propped open. Catching Glee’s attention, I discreetly led her glance to the door. With equal discretion, she nodded that she understood.

“Can I assume then,” she asked Westerman while adjusting her glasses to read her notes, “that you also serve as the school’s dietitian?”

“Indeed,” Westerman puffed. “I pride myself as a holistic chef and have developed every aspect of the chill-dren’s menu.”

Poor kids, I thought, imagining the dreary grub forced on them.

“
Really?
” With mock astonishment, Glee removed her glasses. “I had no idea, Miriam—you’re something of a jack-of-all-trades.”

Westerman beamed. “Actually, more of a Jill,” she corrected Glee with a wink.

If this was a joke, it was a lame one, so Glee let it pass without comment. Instead she asked, as if she’d just thought of it, “May we see your kitchen? I’d love to see where all this wholesome culinary magic is conjured.”

“Of
course,
” Westerman gushed. “I’m flattered that you’d ask.” And she led us through the doorway.

I half expected to find a fat black cauldron bubbling on a crumbling brick hearth, but the kitchen was new and unremarkable, of utilitarian design, doubtless up to code. There was a big commercial cooktop and ovens, a long stainless-steel sink, and a double-doored refrigerator with windows, its contents lit. Aluminum pots hung from ceiling hooks. Rows of shelving hung from wall brackets. These shelves contained books and dishes, as well as bags of pantry staples like flour and cornmeal. Also displayed there were large clear-glass jars containing…well, weird brown stuff, the type of stuff collected in the woods, like twigs and herbs and dried berries and buds. One of the jars contained leafy things that looked for all the world like bat wings.

Then I noticed that Glee’s eyes had settled on another row of jars on the room’s opposite wall. Their contents were not the least bit mysterious or unconventional. These jars contained a wide assortment of readily recognizable nuts: walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, pecans, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, peanuts, cashews, and a smaller jar of precious pine nuts.

Glee asked, “Do you bake?”

“It’s a bit of a challenge,” lamented Westerman, “without refined sugar, as nothing really turns out
white,
but I do my best, and the chill-dren always seem to enjoy my treats.”

She blabbered on, bestowing baking tips on Glee, who dutifully recorded them in her notes. I was mulling the comment about recipes not turning out white, when I recalled that the cake I’d seen at the crime scene had looked homemade because it seemed so inelegant and unappetizing—and its bland appearance stemmed from its being so
brown.
No icing, no color, no sheen. If not for its shape, the cake could have passed for a loaf of pumpernickel. Its coarse texture could easily have disguised all manner of nuts, which were stockpiled in potentially lethal quantities right here in Westerman’s kitchen.

Glee and she had moved to the refrigerator and were peering through its glass doors. I sidled up behind them and nosed over their shoulders. Westerman was crowing about the organic lettuce stored there: “Our greens are fertilized with our own manure.” I made a mental note to steer clear of her salads. “And it would be
criminal
to pasteurize our milk.” I hoped, for the sake of the kids, that the fridge was cranked to the max.

Glee tapped her pen on the window. “What’s that, Miriam?”

“Hmm?”

“Back there in the corner—it looks like a strongbox.”

Sure enough, at the bottom of the refrigerator, nestled beneath a clump of grotesque vegetables (rutabaga or something—nothing
I’d
eat) was a drab green strongbox, which appeared to be locked.

Westerman responded coyly, “Secret recipes.”

Glee fished, “Like what?”

“If I told you, they wouldn’t be secret.”

That afternoon, I decided to pay Grace Lord a visit. Though she’d been questioned at length about what and whom she’d seen in the environs of the coach house on Sunday, the morning of the murder, I would now try to jog her memory regarding Saturday. Perhaps she could recall something of the arrival of the cake.

Driving from the
Register,
I heard the hourly beep of my dashboard clock and recalled that it was time for Denny Diggins. Since his Tuesday show with Miriam Westerman, I’d made a habit of listening daily, wondering if Doug Pierce or I would again be publicly trashed. So I switched on the radio, tapping the button for the local station in time to hear the end of the Chevrolet jingle.

We’re back, friends. You’re listening to
Denny Diggins’ Dumont Digest.
And
I
…am Denny Diggins. As we told you before that important commercial break, our guest this Friday afternoon is none other than Harley Kaiser, Dumont County’s distinguished district attorney. Welcome to the program, Harley. So good of you to take time out of your busy schedule.

Thanks, Denny. Glad to be here.

Now, Harley. We all know that the Carrol Cantrell murder investigation has reached something of a critical stage. We’re also aware that you’re limited in your ability to speak of these matters, in light of your esteemed position. I wonder, though, if you could share your
feelings
about the investigation.

I’m, uh, not quite sure what you mean, Denny.

I’m referring to the—shall we say?—more “sensational” aspects of this story. And there are indeed many: the murder itself, the now acknowledged sexual liaison between the victim and Sheriff Pierce, the sheriff’s possible implication in the murder, the reassignment of the investigation to Deputy Kerr. The list goes on and on. Have these many—shall we say?—“wrinkles” been an obstacle to your pursuit of justice?

Of course. An investigation of this nature is never easy, but I must say, this particular go-round has proven particularly vexing. Are you aware that there’s new evidence to suggest that the victim may not have died of strangulation after all?

Ooooo! Really? Why no, I’m not aware of that development. But then, where would I learn of it, Harley, if not from you? The
Register
has certainly been mum on all this.

The press has its own agenda, Denny.

By “the press,” I assume you refer only to the
Register,
Harley.
Dumont Digest
has no agenda beyond the education of an informed citizenry, which—

Yeah, Denny, whatever.

So tell us: What are these new developments regarding the cause of death?

It would be premature of me to speak publicly on that issue, but information should be available very soon. In fact, when I leave the studio today, I’m going directly to meet with Vernon Formhals.

Ooooo, the coroner—how delicious! Then what?

Then things should start to move fairly fast. Sheriff Pierce may well have cause to worry. That’s all I can say right now.

You’re
such
a tease, Harley. Well then, since we still have plenty of airtime to fill, would you care to talk a bit about…obscenity?

Denny, I thought you’d never ask.

As our listeners know, this is a nasty issue that just won’t seem to go away. In spite of the county board’s finest efforts to stamp out trash at our doorstep, mounting a worthy crusade that reflects the good, decent values of a smut-weary populace, next week’s obscenity trial has been maligned…