Stalking Death (12 page)

"Probably. Won't do any good, though."

"Why not?"

His full lips lifted in a cynical smile. "Because Alasdair is a devious, vicious, arrogant son-of-a-bitch who knows he can do whatever he wants and nothing will happen." He spread his hands wide. "Look what he's already gotten away with."

"So you're sure he's doing it?" He looked so surprised I wondered if he'd been referring to something else Alasdair had done. That something everyone hinted at and no one would talk about. Then his face hardened and a wary look came into his eyes. "You think my sister's makin' this up?" He looked away, considering, then back at me with those studying eyes. "You see those pictures she got?"

I nodded. "Have you?"

"Where the f..." He caught himself before the word came out. "Where your brains at, lady? She sure ain't making them herself." There was a strangled quality to his voice. Anger, grief, or a combination of both. I thought about those ugly pictures. About the things we do for our little sisters.

He misinterpreted my silence. "You think she did that herself? There ain't no way that my sister... She did that, she'd have to be crazy. Shondra's got her problems... she got kind of a bad attitude, and other stuff... like maybe lovin' basketball too much, and kinda holdin' herself off from other people, but she ain't crazy. She's decent. Those pictures weren't decent."

He started away, then turned back. "You gotta wonder," he said, shaking his head, "how so many smart people can act so dumb. It's all gonna come out sooner or later. You can't hide shit like this. I wish you all weren't forcin' me to do your jobs for you. I'd rather stay out of it. But if you all gonna act like assholes, then me and Shondra... we gotta stick together. Comes down to it, family is everything. You know?"

I knew.

He turned on his size sixteen feet and lumbered away, leaving me with a sinking feeling in my stomach and a bunch of questions I'd never gotten to ask. I worried about what he was going to do, how Alasdair was going to react, and what the fallout would be. It didn't bode well for Chambers' plan of sending the letter and then sweeping this under the rug. Trying to sweep Jamison and Shondra Jones under a rug would be like covering a couple elephants with a tarp and claiming they were rocks.

Luckily, worrying about Jamison Jones wasn't my problem. I'd only been asked to look at a letter and talk to Shondra Jones. Sure, I'd needed to understand the situation, and sure, there were things I'd learned that ought to be addressed, things I'd suggest when I met with Chambers if he could get his head out of the sand, or shake off those visions of sugar plums and dandy new arts centers long enough to focus. But I wasn't volunteering to try and straighten out Shondra Jones, and I certainly wasn't getting between Jamison Jones and Alasdair MacGregor. That was a job for Todd Chambers, his deans and his security staff. Or Godzilla.

I'd forgotten Mrs. Leverett. I hurried inside and checked the classroom. Empty. In the math department office, they told me she'd returned to the dorm. By the time I'd hiked the ten minutes back there, I'd only have fifteen minutes left for an interview. Not enough time to do a decent job. Sighing, I picked up my briefcase and headed for Chambers' office. It had been a totally unsatisfactory morning. I was longing for some satisfaction and didn't expect I'd find it at my next destination.

On the way, I passed a building that smelled like lunch and thought hungrily of thick sandwiches on decent bread. Eye-opening coffee. Anything that looked like serious food. As I frequently tell Andre, I'm a big girl, and big girls need to eat big meals. Usually I'm telling him this while he's trying to steal the food off my plate. He reminds me that big boys need big meals too, distracts me somehow, and steals the food. It's how I stay slim and he stays happy.

I didn't follow my nose into the building that smelled like food, I detoured into one that, despite its modern brick façade, smelled a little of moldy old books—the library. I asked for a copy of last year's yearbook, then sat at a table and thumbed through it, looking for pictures of Alasdair MacGregor. Because of the name, I'd been expecting fair hair and sturdy features. What I found surprised me and explained Maria Santoro's dreamy look when his name was mentioned. MacGregor had the sculptured-cheekbones and slightly bruised and vulnerable look of a young Gregory Peck.

He was in a lot of pictures, and in every one, a single twisted dark curl graced his forehead as though the stylist had just arranged it and ducked out of the frame. Then, for no reason other than I had some time left, I checked for pictures of Shondra, of which there were a few, and of Jamison. Like MacGregor, he had many, towering above his classmates, generally smiling, looking like a big man on campus.

I checked my notes and then looked for the two women who were gone, leaving no one to corroborate Shondra's story. Her last year's roommate, Allison Schwartz, had the hunch-shouldered droop of the chronically depressed and a sullen look that marred her pretty features. There was only one picture of Deborah Zucker, looking fit and athletic, wielding a field hockey stick. It gave no clues to why she hadn't fit in.

Unenlightened, I returned the book to the shelf and went back out into the fall sunshine, ignoring the rumblings of my stomach as I traversed the busy pathways back to Chambers' office. My watch said I was on time—I am a compulsive slave of the clock—but he wasn't at his desk. I went back down the hall to find his secretary, a bright, cheerful woman whose nameplate identified her as Wendy Grimm. She smiled at me over her half-glasses. "Todd? Oh, I think he's at the gym. He usually plays squash with Dean Dunham on Mondays at eleven."

"I'm Thea Kozak, from EDGE Consulting? He asked me to meet him here at eleven." I managed to get just the right degree of confused disappointment into my voice. "Do you suppose he forgot?"

"Oh, dear." A plump, freckled hand went to her lips. "I really don't know. He's been so distracted lately... getting ready to launch the new campaign. I suppose it might have slipped his mind. He's usually so prompt."

"Well," I said, "I'm sure he'll be along any minute. Something else you could for me? I need a couple of addresses. A staff member and student who are no longer here. Could you look them up for me?"

She smiled, relieved I wasn't angry and glad to do something for me. She grabbed a pen. I gave her Allison Schwartz and Deborah Zucker's names. "No problem. I'll have them when you..." She trailed off, staring over my shoulder. The smile stayed in place, but her brightness vanished. "Mrs. Chambers... this is Ms. Kozak, the consultant... she was supposed to meet with Mr. Chambers."

"I know who she is and why she's here. You can get back to whatever you were doing. I'll take care of it." Wendy Grimm returned her attention to the documents on her desk, but not before I glimpsed the intense distaste on her face.

"If you'll follow me." Miriam Chambers turned and glided out of the room. At breakfast she'd been wearing a green caftan. Now she wore black slacks and a blue blouse that revealed a fashionably gaunt body. The clothes were expensive and well-cut, and with the elaborate makeup she wore and her black hair piled up, she looked quite elegant. Without the rustle of fabric, her silent way of moving was unnerving.

She led me into her husband's office and nodded toward a chair, floating back behind his desk and settling into his big leather chair. She tented her hands together in what I hoped was an unconscious imitation of her husband. "I'm afraid we got off on rather an awkward footing last night," she said, as though we hadn't had an equally awkward and chilly breakfast just a few hours ago. "I'm afraid Todd is... we're both... rather preoccupied with the new arts center project. It's the biggest thing St. Matthews has ever undertaken. So very important for the school's image... for the future."

She gave me time to absorb her words. Unnecessary. The importance of the project was obvious, as was its relevance to the matter that had brought me here. It didn't negate any of the concerns I'd expressed last night, though I knew she hoped it would.

"Obviously, nothing can be allowed to get in the way," she continued. "That's why we have to manage this situation with the Jones girl before it gets out of hand."

Too late for that. It was already out of hand. I wasn't sure any of us knew how far, but I wasn't discussing that until her husband appeared. He was my employer, not her. Some instinct for self-preservation made me switch on the tape recorder I always keep in my briefcase. Probably highly illegal, I didn't know New Hampshire law and 'Live Free or Die' might not cover everything, but what I did know was that after what she'd just said, I wanted EDGE protected in case they didn't take our advice and later claimed we'd supported their actions.

"It looks like a very exciting project," I said.

"Oh, it is." She walked to the easel and began flipping plans, pointing to various parts of the building, describing the ways they'd be used, the architect's clever ideas for creating multipurpose space, the focus groups they'd had with faculty and students to identify needs and create the design. For the first time, she was animated, her pale cheeks coloring as she talked. "And this is just the beginning. It is going to be Todd's legacy, bringing the campus into the 21st century."

Wasn't it a little soon to be thinking about a legacy? Chambers had only been headmaster for two years, and it usually took the first year to settle in. "What do your fundraisers say about the timeline for raising the money?"

"The MacGregor family foundation is putting up most of it, and we have firm commitments from several other prominent alumni. We only have to raise about five million. The materials for the general solicitation are at the printer right now."

I tried not to goggle at her use of "only" and "five million" in the same sentence. That seemed like a lot of money. But these old New England boarding schools had connections. I once heard a headmistress describe a West Coast fundraising event in which she got pledges for ten million in a single evening. I thought about my friend Jonetta's school for poor black girls in New York City. She busted her butt to raise every precious dollar. But as my mother often said, only the naïve expect life to be fair.

Shondra's timing couldn't be worse, from a PR standpoint. I wondered if she was more calculating and devious than she seemed. The genteel and ornate face of the tall clock said Chambers was now twenty minutes late. "Do you think Mr. Chambers will be much longer?"

"I really don't know," she said. "But we don't need to wait for him. Todd and I redrafted the letter after breakfast this morning, taking your concerns into account. I think you'll find it substantially improved." She returned to the desk, opened a file, and passed me a single sheet of paper.

Without looking at it, I said, "As I've tried to make clear, the contents of this letter are only a small part of the problem. No matter how tactfully you draft your communication to the parents, it will not put an end to your difficulties with Shondra Jones. The matter has gone too far, and gone on too long, without a satisfactory resolution from her point of view."

"Shondra doesn't matter," she said. "One crazy troublemaker cannot be allowed... "

"I think we should wait for Mr. Chambers," I said. "Ultimately, how to proceed is his call, but I have some concerns to discuss with him before any decisions are made. My conversations this morning with Dean Dunham, with Shondra Jones and her brother Jamison, and with Maria Santoro, have raised a number of issues I hadn't anticipated."

"Just read the letter," she insisted. "Todd has delegated everything to me."

One thing about being a consultant, at least in our business—just when you think you know how to deal with what comes along, something completely unexpected rises up, like the shark in Jaws, and shows you its pearly whites in what isn't a smile. I didn't know whether she really had the power to act for him or only wished she did. It didn't matter. My concerns properly went to the Headmaster and his deans and trustees, not to the Headmaster's wife. I was just being practical. Headmaster's wives usually don't have the authority to sign contracts or pay bills.

To test my assumptions, I said, "You have the authority to sign contracts that are binding on the school?" I got out our standard contract and started filling in the blanks.

"You want me to sign a contract?" As shocked as if I'd asked her to shuck her designer grab and dance naked.

"Standard procedure," I assured her. "Business relationships work better when the expectations of the parties and their mutual understanding about the work to be performed are discussed and put in writing at the beginning." Especially in cases where the client wanted to use our name without taking our advice. I should have done this last night.

Miriam Chambers raised her chin until the tendons stood out in her neck. She flapped a hand at the letter, trying to regain control of the situation. "Just read that over for me, would you please?"

"Happy to," I said, passing her the contract. "And you can take a look at this."

She almost snatched it out of my hand. Not that there was much to see. A clause setting out our rate for the initial consultation and our rates for work thereafter was already in the boiler plate. The details still needed to be agreed on and written in. All I'd done was fill in names, places and dates and begun a paragraph describing our involvement thus far—reviewing the draft letter and the school's handling of a student complaint, including our proposed process for thoroughly reviewing the complaint and the school's adherence to its own rules.