Tap & Gown (36 page)

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Subject: Need You

I don’t know if you’re checking e-mail, and if you are, I’m sure you’ve seen the explosion on the Phimalarlico lists, and already know what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared, Poe. Can they really expel fourteen of the most successful seniors in the graduating class a month before commencement?

Please advise.

Love you.

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While the Dean of Student Affairs held an emergency disciplinary meeting with the college deans and the Varnham family lawyer, the Diggers of D177 convened at Clarissa’s apartment.

“How can he possibly have prepared a statement?” Josh asked, digging into the bag of bagels. “Hasn’t he been under anesthesia for the past few hours?”

“Why aren’t you more concerned about this?” I asked Josh. “My dean says Blake’s trying to get all of us expelled!”

Josh rolled his eyes. “Have you read the Connecticut statutes on hazing? I have, and let me tell you, he’s got an uphill job trying to prove that we were doing anything remotely like that. No one at the tomb even knew he was there until he openly assaulted Michelle in front of a dozen witnesses. This isn’t going anywhere.”

“But my dean said it, too,” Jenny piped up.

“The only thing he’s got going for him is a battery charge against George.” We all turned to look at George, who was fast asleep on the couch, his cast-encased arm sticking up like a flag on a mailbox.

“And that’s going to fall under ‘defense of others’ pretty neatly.”

“What about Michelle?” I asked.

“She was at the Strathmore dean’s office this morning,” said Greg, another Strathmore resident. “I didn’t really get to talk to her. I was too concerned about the possibility of my Fulbright being revoked.”

“I should call her,” I said. “In fact, we should all call our taps. What are our plans for finishing the initiation?”

Odile put down her cup of coffee. “We’ve only got three more who need the final steps of the initiation.

Blake had truly crappy timing.”

“Well,” said Nikolos, “he could hardly get hold of Michelle
after
she’d taken her oaths.”

“How did he get hold of her at all?” Kevin asked. “How did he get into the tomb?”

“Who knows?” said Clarissa. “With all the people bustling in and out yesterday, maybe he just sneaked in.”

“Sneaked in?” Jenny repeated. “But it’s the Rose & Grave tomb. Who can just sneak in and out at will?”

Clarissa shrugged. “Lots of people have, over the years.”

I remembered the meeting on the quad, remembered the scene in the hall last night. “Maybe,” I began, my voice shaky as I considered the implications. “Maybe he had help?”

You wanted a Bugaboo? You got her.

“From whom?” Kevin asked.

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I took a deep breath. “From his best friend. Topher.”

T
HE
T
RAITOR
I
NTERROGATION
:

12 S
TEP
M
ETHOD

Step One:
Invite Topher Cox, a.k.a. Achilles of D178, into the tomb of Rose & Grave. Verify that he comes
alone
.

Step Two:
Array knights not currently suffering from severe bone fractures in a semi-circle in the Inner Temple, dressed in full society regalia: robes, hoods, candles obscuring our faces.

Step Three:
Let Hale lead initiate inside. Direct him to sit in chair and begin trial. Ask him if he ever betrayed the Order, either before or after taking oaths not to.

Step Four:
Ignore his denials. Ask again.

Step Five:
Inform initiate that certain knights had seen him colluding with his longtime friend and current Barbarian Enemy #1 on previous day. Coincidence? We think not.

Step Six:
Observe initiate’s wormy little upper-crust expression melt into terror as he wonders which of the stories his grandfather told him about Rose & Grave are actually true.

Step Seven:
Listen as initiate continues to prevaricate. Make threatening noises.

Step Eight:
Watch initiate break down and admit to gathered audience that he had informed Barbarian Enemy #1 of his fellow tap’s presence at a Rose & Grave tap party, and had wondered aloud to his friend if we were considering tapping her. (Initiate adds that he had considered it highly unlikely.)
Step Nine:
Receive further intelligence that initiate identified one Miss Amy Haskel as a member of Rose

& Grave to Barbarian Enemy #1.

Step Ten:
Determine manner of Barbarian Enemy #1’s entrance into tomb on Initiation Night. Confirm that initiate had no knowledge of this event. Let him promise up, down, and backwards that this is the case.

Step Eleven:
Remind initiate that the word “secret” exists in the phrase “secret society” for a reason—even when it comes to close, personal barbarian friends. Remind him, also, that oath violations are punishable offenses. Remain vague on nature of punishments. Try not to exchange glances with fellow knight who may be dating your roommate and who shares with you an inability to keep your society a secret from her.

Step Twelve:
While preparing to administer a punishment to initiate, receive cell phone call from college dean summoning you to the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs tout suite. Learn that you have become a party of particular interest to the case. Appeal to the aforementioned fellow knight dating your roommate for his legal guidance. Leave before the fun stuff starts.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Josh asked me along the way.

“Yes,” I said. My nerves tightened with every step closer to the Eli Dean’s office. “Michelle has already told us how Blake could get into her apartment, how he stole her stuff, how he managed to vandalize the
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car of one of her T.A.s. We broke into Micah’s apartment last fall. We broke into the Dragon’s Head tomb this spring. Is it such a stretch to imagine that Blake sneaked in, with all the hustle and bustle this Initiation Night?”

Josh had to concede the point as we headed up the stone steps and into the office of the Dean of Student Affairs.

In four years at Eli, I’d never done more than pass by this building on my way to and from classes. This is where troublemakers went. The freshman who’d burned down his dorm room. The group of rowdy sophomores who, drunk at Spring Fling, had dumped over a porta potty. The Bio major who’d stolen his classmate’s lab notebook and turned it in as his own. The newspaper editor who’d published photos of all the disguised bodyguards who protected the Prince of Qatar. All those famous bits of gossip came back to me at that moment, as well as their denouements: suspension, expulsion, rustication. The Dean of Student Affairs—Becky Pasternak, or Becky P, as the students all called her—was known for being strict but fair. She loved the students, and she loved to nail their asses to the wall.

I don’t know what I expected from her domain. In my mind, it had looked a bit like the bridge of the Death Star. Instead, Josh and I were greeted by wooden paneling, blue upholstered armchairs, and a large vase of daisies.

“I’m Amy Haskel,” I said to the secretary. “I was called to—”

“Amy.” I turned to see Dean De La Roche. “Have you seen George? I haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”

“He’s asleep,” I said. “The pain meds—”

“Who is this?” The petite yet powerful figure of Becky P appeared in the doorway to her office. She pointed at Josh. “He’s not Prescott.”

“I’m Joshua Silver, ma’am.” He stuck out his hand.

“Hello. You can’t be here. Only invited parties.”

Josh took a deep breath. “I’m the secretary of this year’s class of Diggers. No decision gets made in our society without my knowledge or permission.” Okay, that was a stretch, but I wasn’t about to disagree with him. “It is our understanding that Blake Varnham is claiming that he’s been hazed as part of our initiation ritual, and I’m here to explain to you that this is categorically not the case.”

“We didn’t call you in. We called Miss Haskel and Mr. Prescott.”

Why me? Only George was involved in the fight. “Anything you can possibly have to ask me about Rose

& Grave,” I said, “could be better answered by Josh.”

Becky P raised an eyebrow at me. “Indeed? Well then, come in, illustrious Diggers. Grace us with your presence.”

Josh shot me a look. We were so screwed.

In the room sat the dean of Strathmore College and Blake Varnham, looking remarkably well for a guy who’d just taken a knife to the back. (He was, it should be noted,
not
leaning against his chair.) Indeed, I
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think he got off better than George in the injury department. Maybe flesh wounds stung less than broken bones. Beside him sat a man who was either his father or a lawyer, and off in the corner, looking very much alone, sat Michelle Whitmore.

No wonder she hadn’t answered any of my calls. She’d been stuck in here all morning. I went to her immediately.

“Are you okay?”

She shrugged without looking at me. I supposed I deserved that. After all, I’d promised that Rose & Grave would protect her from Blake, yet she’d hardly stepped foot in our tomb before he’d launched his most grievous attack on her yet. Was Becky P blind? Here was this young woman, obviously traumatized, sitting alone while her dean—the Eli faculty charged with protecting her—palled around with the likes of Blake Varnham and his support crew.

“Please take a seat, Miss Haskel,” said Becky P. I looked around the room. Dean De La Roche had already resumed his seat near the other men, and there was an open chair next to him. I picked it up and moved it over to Michelle, then plopped down. Josh, failing to hide his amusement, took a seat on her other side. We were Diggers, even if Michelle hadn’t been initiated yet. We stuck together.

Becky P didn’t miss the nuance. She sat down behind her desk and folded her hands in front of her.

“It is well documented that I have zero tolerance for the abominable tradition of campus hazing,” she said. “It makes no difference to me who the perpetrators of this crime are: sporting teams, fraternities, or even the oldest secret society on campus. It is naive of the secret societies to believe that because they operate outside the aegis of the Hellenic Society, Singing Group Council, or any other governing body, they are also exempt from the rules of this university and of the State of Connecticut. Do I make myself clear?”

Josh spoke up. “I understand the hazing statutes of the State of Connecticut, ma’am. I am curious to see how they apply in this case.”

“This young man was stabbed in the back when he failed to comply with your bizarre initiation rites.”

“We weren’t initiating him!” I said. “We didn’t tap him. He broke into the tomb on his own.”

“We didn’t stab him, either,” Josh clarified. “He fell on that knife—a knife, I might add, that he was using to threaten Michelle. It was an accident, brought on by his own outrageous behavior.”

The man next to Blake turned and glared at us. “I see you three have your story all worked out. This is precisely what I’m talking about. These people don’t operate within the law.”

“That’s rich,” Michelle mumbled.

Becky P pursed her lips. “This is a conundrum. Miss Whitmore claims that Miss Haskel and her fellow society members were inducting
her
into their organization when the incident occurred. Mr. Varnham says that he was the inductee—”

“Of course he was the inductee,” sputtered the man at his side. “Who is Rose & Grave more likely to tap? The straight-A student, the prep school graduate, the pillar of his residential college and his department of studies, the Eli legacy? Or some girl whose grades are so mediocre and whose mental
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state is so fragile that she had to drop out of school?”

Michelle’s harsh little intake of breath was the only indication that the words stung.

“Excuse me,” I said, cocking a thumb at the man next to Blake. “Who is this guy?”

“This guy
,” he hissed at me, “is Walter Varnham the Third.”

“Blake’s father,” Michelle added, entirely unnecessarily.

“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?” I said. Josh stifled a groan.

“Miss Haskel, have you any idea the severity of this situation?” Becky P asked. “Your actions last night could have caused the death of an Eli student. Please do not be so flippant.”

“I’m not being flippant, Dean Pasternak,” I said. “But I can guarantee you that we did not tap Blake Varnham. We find him hateful and unworthy of membership in Rose & Grave.”

“They say that now,” said Mr. Varnham, “because they’re in trouble. These societies are a blight upon our Ivy League schools. Everyone knows how much research they do on their members. They dig up any dirt they can so they can keep them under their thumbs. No doubt they found out about Blake’s unfortunate situation with
that girl
and now they’re trying to use it in some bizarre, childish revenge scheme to sabotage my son’s future!”

“I take it you weren’t tapped, Walter,” I said drily.

Josh jumped in to save me from myself. “As you may already be gathering, Amy is a bit of a renegade, and her choice of tap—Michelle—reflects those tastes. I’d be happy to provide you with documentation and witnesses proving that we invited Michelle to join our organization and not Blake.”

“Of course he would!” said Mr. Varnham. “All the members of Rose & Grave are going to tell you precisely the same thing so they can keep their asses covered.”

“Documentation can also be obtained from any number of other societies on campus,” Josh added,

“with whom we shared our tap lists.”

“More collusion, no doubt,” Mr. Varnham said. “An increased amount of scrutiny would be a disaster to any of these organizations. They protect their own. Why don’t you look at real sources. Speak to Dean Ryan here. He can tell you about that girl’s history of trying to spread lies about my son.”

Michelle looked like she’d had enough. “Would you kindly,” she said at last, “stop referring to me as
that girl?”