Stalking Death (27 page)

"When she calls, we'll both take a break and discuss this with her," I said. "Until then, we soldier on, okay?"

Soldier on. More battle imagery. What was it with our language? Sports and war, sports and war. Motherhood is an unending twenty year commitment, at a minimum, but no one ever says "mother on," even though soldiers are more likely to get a night's sleep. Oh well. I was the one who'd used it. "You want to ride together?"

He gave a non-committal shrug. Not a happy camper. Well, I wasn't a happy camper, either. I had a bruised head and had missed a night's sleep. Like Shondra Jones, I don't take well to being messed with.

I shrugged, too. It seemed like the gesture which fit this situation best. "I don't like this place... this situation... any more than you do, Bobby, but I'm worried about these kids. The ones who were just here, and the rest of the student body. As you pointed out, no one's taking charge. They're under stress and in an information void. That's not a good place to be when you're trying to learn."

He started to shake his head, but I pressed on. "At least we know what's supposed to be done. We can try to make it happen. If we fold our tents and go home, it's the students who'll suffer. I don't want to leave without trying to put things in better shape than they are now."

I stopped there, knowing the rest of my motivation would worry Bobby. I wanted to know who'd attacked me. And why.

"Okay," he said. "Want me to drive?"

"You know what? I think I'd better drive myself. If we can get things under control, I'd like to visit Jamison Jones."

"As long as it's not because of my car."

"How likely is that?" He just grinned and thumped away up the stairs. Bobby has a powder blue 1968 Mustang he's totally in love with.

The rustling paper bag in my briefcase reminded me I should have given the pill container and empty can to Bushnell. I probably would have if he hadn't been such a big jerk. Well, I wasn't carrying them around all day, and given the nocturnal phone calls, and the damage to Shondra's room, I wasn't leaving them here. That meant the trunk of my car. My traveling closet. I'd once hidden a controversial briefcase in there and a nosy cop, after picking through the empty coffee cups and donut bags, assorted dry cleaning, beach chairs, and other items, had glanced at it without interest and moved on.

I stopped to tell Mrs. Mitchell we'd want the rooms for another night. She looked a little worried, checked on her computer, and then smiled. "Not a problem," she said. Despite Bushnell's rude behavior, she was a very forgiving woman.

I wasn't optimistic that we'd finish today. There were too many undercurrents we hadn't explored. Too many things happening. Maybe, if we were lucky, Bobby could leave. But I wasn't leaving until I'd figured out what was really going on, even if it meant another day away from Andre.

"She's
in there," Wendy Grimm whispered, as I passed her desk.

I thought twice, in my guise of Thea the Human Towtruck, about putting myself into reverse and backing right out when I saw the line-up that awaited me. Along with Chambers's and Dunham's gloomy faces, the resurrected Miriam Chambers was there, coiffed and swathed in designer garb, and she looked like whatever she'd had for breakfast didn't agree with her. The only person who looked even vaguely welcoming was Frank Woodson, and that could have been because his face was hidden behind a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee.

I set down my briefcase and pulled out a chair. "All right." I forced a bright, unnatural smile. "Where would you like to begin?"

"Why don't you tell us?" Miriam Chambers said, running a riff with her bright red nails down her chair arm. "Isn't that what we hired you for? Managing the situation?"

Lady, you didn't hire me for anything. Last I saw you, you were trying to fire me.
No one bothered to ask how I was, but I hadn't expected them to. I looked at Chambers. "What's the news on Shondra Jones?"

Chambers looked to Woodson for the answer. "She's okay," Woodson said. "Not a happy camper, but getting your stomach pumped is never pleasant. They'll let her go later today. But I guess we won't know what she took until they get the tox screen back."

I thought we already knew what she'd taken, but maybe this was another failure of communication. "They are running some tests?"

Woodson shrugged. "Said they would."

I felt like I was nickel and diming the day away, but these questions needed to be asked and answered. "What about her room?" I directed this one to Craig Dunham. "Right now, she's got no place to come back to."

"Well, what does she expect?" Miriam Chambers sniffed. "She did it to herself, after all."

"We don't know that." I wasn't getting into a pissing contest with her. Not with so much work to be done. "Maybe you could get Jenna Adams and her teammates working on that? I bet they'd like to do something to help. And you must have spare furniture."

"Good idea." He shoved back his chair. "If you'll excuse me, I'll take care of that."

"Get Margolin to help. And remind Coach Adams that Shondra will need clothes. Maybe there are some tall teammates who can help." I knew how difficult it was to find clothes when you were tall.

I turned to Woodson. "Are Bushnell and his people still nosing around?" Whatever Andre said, Bushnell would have to do something spectacularly good to revise my opinion of him.

Woodson's grim nod suggested his opinion of Bushnell wasn't much higher than mine.

"Any idea what they're looking for?"

"Clues?" he suggested. "What I hear is, Jones won't say a word. Not one damned word. Kid lawyered up soon as the cops grabbed him... guess that's no surprise, given his background. Most of the kids here wouldn't know the rules 'til they called Daddy and Mommy, but Jones, he just said he wanted a lawyer and wasn't a damned thing they could do." He sounded proud of Jamison, which made me wonder whether they knew each other, maybe had some kind of relationship.

"Do we know anything about the cause of death yet? Any autopsy results?"

"I think they did that yesterday, but Bushnell is being pretty close-mouthed. Damned frustrated, too. I guess they thought they'd gotten one possible identifier fingerprint, and then it turned out they couldn't find a single one in MacGregor's room to match it to."

"Sounds like even if Bushnell is being close-mouthed, someone is talking. Maybe they ought to look for prints in Shondra's room." It felt like something zinged rapidly among them, but it was nothing I could read on their faces. "Does Jamison have a lawyer?"

"Oh, yeah," Woodson said. "Hotshot named Tamora Fleming, comes from the biggest firm in New Hampshire. I hear she does mostly white collar crime." His lined face lifted in a passing smile. "Course, given our population, and the identity of the victim, I guess you might call it a white collar crime." Chambers and Dunham, both white collar types themselves, didn't look amused. But Woodson wasn't done. "And I hear she eats prosecutors for breakfast."

Chambers grimaced. Miriam gave a restless shift that in a younger woman would have been a flounce. "Frank, given how nervous our students are, maybe you ought to get out there and kind of... well, just be around," Chambers said. "Don't you think?"

Woodson shrugged. "If you're done with me." He shifted his eyes to me and I thought I detected sympathy. "Before I go, young lady. I hear you got kind of banged up last night. Donnie, that's the guy who found you, filed kind of an incoherent report. I thought maybe we could take a few minutes," his hesitation was deliberate, "when you've got some time, and try to write something a little more organized? Be kinda nice to figure out who the bastard was."

"I don't know how much help I can be, Mr. Woodson. I didn't see much. But I'll be glad to try. It is upsetting to think something like that could happen on this campus." I deliberately shifted my own eyes to Todd Chambers. "Especially when we're making such a big effort to reassure the students and their families that they're safe."

"Exactly," he agreed. "Well. Better get out there and act reassuring, huh? I'm at 774-1202. Give a call when you're free."

Dunham was gone and Woodson was leaving. Where the heck was Argenti? Soon I'd be all alone here with the Chambers. Sure enough, the door had barely closed behind him when Miriam Chambers pounced. "You have got to help us out here," she said in her low, husky voice. "Keeping the parents calm is all important."

Wasn't that what we'd all spent yesterday working on?

"I told Todd we should expel Jamison and Shondra, make it clear we were taking appropriate steps to rid the place of trouble-making elements. What do you think?"

The words just tumbled out. "I think you must be out of your mind. And I think you should stop trying to meddle in the affairs of this school, because your judgment is awful."

"You're the one who meddles," she said. "I'm not at all sorry about what happened last night. And now that we've got things back under control, I can't allow you to do anything which will interfere with Todd's legacy."

She gave me a slightly loopy smile, picked up the heavy vase of flowers from the table beside her, and flung it at my head.

Chapter 21

Having amply demonstrated how good her judgment was, she gave her husband a melting smile, mouthed, "Now she'll leave," and glided from the room. Chambers took a step toward me, a step toward the door, then flung out his arms and simply stood there. "I'm sorry... I... you know that... well... Miriam isn't well... and sometimes she... that is, she didn't mean anything by all that."

He gave up his pathetically inadequate explanation. "Are you all right?"

I was wet and bruised, decked with and surrounded by mangled posies, and all I could think of to say was so inappropriate it was perfect. "She's got a hell of an arm."

"Yes. Well. Miriam works out."

I thought she wasn't working out, or at least, that she was working out very badly. But if he didn't already know this, he didn't need to hear it from me. Or couldn't. People have funny receptors where relationships are concerned. Luckily, I hadn't taken off my coat. And being a spiller, I tended to wear dark colors, so the front of my dark green sweater didn't look wet and neither did my long black skirt. Dressing for success, Thea Kozak style.

If I'd had more time, I could have entertained myself designing a line of work clothes for women in challenging professions. Chic Tyvek blouses topped by Kevlar vests in feminine colors. Bullet proof, control top panty hose. Belts with pockets for phones and holsters for guns. Steel-toed pumps. But Chambers was waiting.

So far, I had successfully survived both nocturnal and diurnal attacks, and kept my temper, a feat my mother would have marveled at. I stepped out of the circle of flowers, pulled off my raincoat, and dropped it over the back of a chair. The bone in my wrist, which had deflected the vase, was stinging. Otherwise, it was just another small incident in the life of Thea Kozak, educational consultant. I opened my briefcase and pulled out my notes. Neither rain nor sleet, nor snow nor thugs nor flying flowers were deterring me from my appointed rounds.

"Sit down," I said. "We've got work to do."

"I should check on Miriam," he said.

You do and I quit. I didn't say it aloud. Mentally, I already had one foot out the door. I wasn't walking through it, though, until I'd done what I could to stabilize things. Nor was I giving him the satisfaction of sending me packing. I wanted to be in charge of time and place. "Not now. You have to think about your students, Todd. They're all out there wondering what the hell's going on. It's your job to give them some answers."

"But there's nothing to tell them. We don't know anything."

"Then start finding out. You know that their parents have been contacted, right? And that Shondra is okay? That the police are proceeding with their investigations? And what about funeral arrangements? A memorial service? Have you thought about any of that?"

He had that sullen little boy look again. "It wouldn't hurt to simply reassure them that life is going on as usual," I said, "or to tell them that counselors will continue to be available. Treat it like a reassuring daily update, putting the best spin on it that you can."

Instead of responding, he walked over to the window. I went on anyway. "I doubt if many of them will have heard about the attack on me, so we won't mention that."

"They don't know you anyhow," he said.