Stalking Death (16 page)

"Might as well be," she said. "Way everybody acts."

"That's really good," I said. "Put yourself way off in a corner, then complain because everyone acts like you're way off in a corner. Does that really make sense?"

"Nothing about this goddamned place makes sense. This place, or this thing that's happened, the way everyone acts. It's like something from bad TV, only it's real."

This was going to be like pulling teeth. Even though her situation was terrible and someone ought to pay attention to her, I just didn't have the time. "Look, I'd like to help you, Shondra. I want to. But right now, I've got to figure out what kind of help the school needs. That's my job. Once I've got that under control, we can talk." I started driving.

"I don't know why I bothered. You're no different from the rest of them. Later, Shondra. Catch you later. You gotta be patient. You gotta calm down. We're takin' care of it. Just wait. Wait. Wait. We'll get back to you. Yeah, like I've never heard that before. And them numbskulls just go on doin' what they're doin'."

Even though the car was moving, she unsnapped her seatbelt and grabbed the handle. "I don't know how, but somehow, Alasdair set this up, him or those friends of his."

"Shondra, for heaven's sake. Alasdair's dead."

"I sure hope so. He deserved it. But Jamison didn't do it. I did. I'm the one who told him there were pictures."

"Shondra, what are you talking about? What kind of pictures?"

But she was gone, jumping out of the car and going down hard on one knee, then bouncing back up and taking off at a run. She disappeared into the trees along the road, swallowed up in their darkness.

I found Craig Dunham in Chambers' office, along with a man I recognized as Argenti, two others who were unfamiliar, and a woman I hadn't met. There was no sign of Chambers. Dunham looked shaken and exhausted, Argenti calm and in charge. It was Argenti who came to greet me, giving me one of those alpha male handshakes that cripple little old ladies and leave the rest of us with frozen smiles and tears in our eyes.

A table by the wall held a coffee urn and cups, and a tray of pastries. Wendy Grimm hurried toward it, looking back at me over her shoulder. "Did you want coffee, Ms. Kozak?"

"Please. Cream and sugar. Thanks."

Argenti was already speaking. By the time I tuned in, he was saying "...your advice about what to tell our parents."

"Pastry?" Wendy Grimm asked.

"No thanks."

"You certainly took your time getting here," Argenti said, dropping into a chair and waving to the one beside him. "We want to get right on this. Now..."

I opened my briefcase, pulled out a pad of paper, and signaled for Craig to join us. "Can you bring me up to speed, please? What are we dealing with?"

"Cold blooded murder," Argenti said.

"Is that what the police told you?"

"They arrested the boy, didn't they?"

I shrugged. This was not moment to suggest that cops didn't always get it right. Except my own personal cop, of course. "If you could describe what happened."

Craig Dunham sighed, shifted his broad shoulders, and sighed again. Today he'd traded his cheery stripes for a somber white shirt and dark suit. He didn't sit down. "The police haven't told us anything, so we still don't know much more than I told you on the phone. Last night around11:30, one of our security guards spotted what he thought might be a fire back in the woods. It happens sometimes. A group of students will slip away and build a fire. Usually to sit around and talk. Sometimes to drink. Normally harmless, of course, but it's against the rules, so he went to check."

He fiddled with his shirt cuffs and then with his collar, like a kid uncomfortable in Sunday clothes. "When he got closer, he could see it was a fire, but it appeared to be unattended. Then he realized that someone was kneeling beside the fire, pulling on what looked like a human leg."

His own legs suddenly seemed to give way. He dropped into the chair beside me, taking a few seconds to regain his composure. "Sorry. I'm not... God... I don't know how to say this."

"Go on," Argenti barked, running manicured fingers through his thick silver hair. "We haven't got all day."

He was right. We
were
in a hurry. But first we had to get a handle on what we were dealing with. Then we could start managing it. "Mr. Argenti, are the other trustees aware of the situation?"

"Called 'em all myself, soon as I heard."

I nodded. "Craig, please continue. Have you eaten anything?"

"I can't remember."

We needed some real food, not hollow carbs. I called Wendy Grimm over. "I know it's early, but can you get dining services to send us some sandwiches?"

"Oh. Of course. I should have thought of that." She hurried out, grateful for a chance to escape the frenetic atmosphere of the room.

"The security guard called out something like, 'hey, what's going on,' and the kneeling figure jumped up and ran."

"So, how are they so sure it was Jamison Jones?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Argenti said. "How many 6' 7" black students do you suppose there are at St. Matthews? Pity, though. Boy's a fabulous athlete. Guess you can take the boy out of the city but you can't take the city out of the boy." He raised his heavy eyebrows. "You know the two of them were fighting earlier this week?"

"I saw it."

"Oh... uh... right." The eyebrows dropped.

I wondered what version of the story Chambers had given him.

"The guard had called for back-up as soon as he saw the fire," Dunham continued. "But when Jamison ran off, he was still alone, and he'd gotten close enough to the fire to see that someone was lying in or near it. He grabbed the leg Jamison had dropped and hauled the person out. But it was too late. The boy was already dead."

"Alasdair MacGregor?" He nodded. "Was there any trouble identifying him?"

"Well, they haven't done that yet. Officially, I mean. But they were MacGregor's clothes. MacGregor's wallet was in the pocket. The face was badly burned, though, so they may have to use dental records."

I looked down at my hands, squeezed white-knuckle tight. The others had clustered around us, listening. I wondered if he hadn't told the story before, or if they needed to hear it repeatedly to accept it? This wasn't just some story on the news, it was their new reality, and sudden, violent death is a hard thing to process, especially when it involves someone you know.

Suddenly Dunham looked at his watch, jumped up, and started pacing the room. "We've called an assembly for 9:15," he said, rubbing at his forehead. "I've got to think about what I'm going to say."

"Where's Todd?"

Argenti answered for him. "Headmaster Chambers," he said sourly, "appeared briefly, looking distraught, asked if anyone had seen his wife, and then dashed off without another word, apparently to look for her." He stared around the room, seeking confirmation. "If we had known, when we interviewed him, about her history of mental illness, he never would have been chosen. A headmaster's wife is a vital asset."

I wondered how Suzanne would have responded to being called, 'a vital asset?' "Can we get your security chief in and get his version of the story? Also, has there been any contact with the police?"

"They're coming at 10:30," Dunham said. "The cops, I mean. New Hampshire state cops. A Lt. Bushnell. Wants us to help him coordinate his interviews." He walked over to the window and stared out, his shoulders drooping.

Argenti gave him a disapproving look, then shifted his sharp gaze to me. "Well, what do we need to do?"

Find some backbone, I thought. I began ticking off my list. "Prepare for the assembly. Notify all the parents. Control the information flow. Do what we can to help the police."

He held up a hand. "One thing at a time. How do we deal with the parents?"

"We need to write a script and then you need to call all the parents and reassure them that things are under control here and that their children are safe."

"I need to call all the parents? Me, personally?"

"Of course not. But it's best if the calls come from Trustees or senior administrative staff whose names will be familiar to the parents."

"Are their children safe?"

It was his school, his call. But Argenti wouldn't want to hear that. And in Chambers' absence, he was the client. "Assuming Jamison Jones is the perpetrator and Alasdair MacGregor is the victim, this was personal. And they are safe."

Big assumptions, since we didn't yet have an identified victim and no one had talked with Jamison Jones, but Argenti was satisfied. "How do we do it?"

"Grab your deans, administrative staff, and a bunch of faculty, give them their script and a list of names, and start making calls."

"Right." He rose decisively from his chair and turned to the woman I still hadn't met. "Cristabel, Craig's got a lot on his plate. Can you take charge of this?"

She nodded, turning to me with a weary smile and holding out her hand. "Christabel Ivers, Dean of the Faculty. And these," she indicated her colleagues, "are Cullin Margolin, head of residential life, Aidan Lamont, Director of Counseling Services, and Jordan Perry, Associate Dean of Students."

We all shook hands. Dean Ivers was a small woman with an elaborate coil of shiny dark hair. She was at least part Asian, and used a cane. She was the only woman I'd met so far with a title, and a mean part of me noted that on the diversity scale, she was a three-fer: woman, ethnic, and handicapped.

"This is just such a tragedy," she said. "And the timing couldn't be worse." As though there was ever a convenient time for violent death.

I supposed, from St. Matt's standpoint, there was. After the school had secured pledges for the new arts center and collected the checks. During the summer, when most of the students were gone. Or even during Christmas break. But it's a fact of life that death is always inconvenient.

I was about to sit down with Deans Dunham and Ivers to plan for the assembly when the front door banged open. There was a commotion in the hall outside. A fist thundered on the room's tall, black door and a furious voice, theatrically loud, preceded the man who flung it open and entered without waiting for an invitation. "... someone who can tell me just what the hell is going on here. Where is my grandson?"

Chapter 12

Grandfather MacGregor had the coloring I'd imagined for his grandson, along with the full voice, larger-than-life presence, and grandiose delivery of a Shakespearean actor. He catapulted into the room, a broad-chested, bulky man, nodded at Argenti, and barked, "Where the hell's Chambers? Man's got some explaining to do, leaving that ridiculous message." Once he'd entered, though it was a large room, he took up all the space and air.

"Actually, Mr. MacGregor..." Craig Dunham stepped forward cautiously. "I was the one who left that message. I... we... there's been..."

Argenti was wringing his rolled-up papers like a man killing a chicken. I didn't have to be a mind reader to get his thoughts. How had it come to this, that he found himself surrounded by stumbling incompetents?

I could have told him: hiring Chambers, who valued fundraising, enhancing facilities, and his own prestige over educating students and then not keeping a close enough eye on things. No doubt Chambers had had good credentials, despite the crazy wife and a bad case of blind ambition, but any new employee, however much he may exude confidence and competence, bears watching.

Ignoring Dunham, MacGregor fixed his angry eyes on Argenti and beetled his heavy golden-white eyebrows. "Charlie, where the hell's Chambers? I need some goddamned answers." He peppered the rest of us with machine-gun glares. "Don't you people have work to do? I need to speak with Charlie."

We retreated to Dunham's office to prep him and Dean Ivers for the student assembly. As I walked them through the basics, I was sadly aware of the hollowness of their responses. Instead of drawing on some genuine concern or compassion for their students, they simply took down whatever I said. Even Lamont, who, as Director of Counseling ought to have had helpful suggestions, waited for me to tell him what to do. True, they were in shock, but looking after a community of teenagers was their job.

I laid much of this at Chambers' doorstep. Culture comes from the top and what was coming down was a careless indifference to what ought to have been their primary mission. I'd had my quarrels with the way Dorrie Chapin had handled a death at the Bucksport School, but while there had been systemic problems, she hadn't forgotten the basics of her job as Headmistress or lost sight of her fundamental responsibilities to the students in her care. Here it felt as though the word "care" would be out of place.