The Snake Tattoo (17 page)

A four-by-six card was taped to Reardon's office door. It said: “Classes canceled for the day.” It was signed with a flourish: “Geoffrey L. Reardon.”

I lurked in the hallway, casually reading a bulletin board, until two girls finished wailing over a homework assignment and disappeared. I tried the door. Locked.

A credit care will do the trick nine times out of ten. The tenth time you'll split the card, and it's such a pain to explain that you need a new VISA because the old one failed while breaking and entering. So I carry what is known in the trade as a “loid,” a thin strip of celluloid that slips down between the door and the jamb and snicks those lousy little bolts back before you can dial 911. I was in Reardon's office as quickly as if I'd had a key.

The drawer that had been filled with notebooks was empty. I sank into Reardon's desk chair and dialed his home number. Seven rings. Eight. I yanked his center drawer open while I waited. Pencils, erasers, scissors, tape—the same stuff I'd pawed through two days ago.

I sat up straight. Someone had taken the phone off the hook.

“Hello,” I said cautiously.

Someone grunted.

“Hello,” I repeated. “Mr. Reardon?”

“Yeah? What?”

“Mr. Reardon?” I repeated.

“Which one?” The voice was gruff, male.

“Geoffrey.”

“Not here.”

“Don't hang up. Please, it's important. Do you know where he is?”

“Lady, I'm half asleep. He's not here. He's at work.”

“I'm calling from the Emerson. He's not here.”

“He must be. The Reliant's gone.”

It took me a minute to realize he meant a car.

“'Bye,” said the voice on the phone. Then I heard a click and then nothing but a hum.

Damn. The car was gone. The man was gone. The diary was gone. Valerie was gone.

I searched the desk again, to make sure he hadn't transferred his paperwork from drawer to drawer. The key was still under the blotter. As I fitted it into the bottom-drawer keyhole, my fingers felt a roughness and I leaned closer for a better look. There were scratches, scratches I hadn't left there. Strictly amateur hairpin stuff.

The bottle of Wild Turkey had been shoved to the back to make room for a pile of diaries, maybe twenty in all. I leafed through them quickly. Most had a name inscribed on the front. Two had the name scrawled in the upper left-hand corner of the inside cover. None of the names was Valerie's. I went through the pile again, making sure one book hadn't been tucked inside another by mistake.

Then I gazed longingly at the bottle of Wild Turkey, which proves how upset I was. Wild Turkey at ten-thirty in the morning. Ugh.

I had the strong feeling that Reardon and Valerie were in a Plymouth Reliant motoring toward some southern state where you could marry your first cousin provided you were both over the age of eight.

I pitched the diaries back in the drawer, relocked it, and went out into the hallway. I wondered if Reardon had put up the sign yesterday or this morning. Maybe I'd missed him by minutes.

The doorway to the little theater was closed, but unlocked. Backstage, it was pitch black. When I opened the door something stirred, so I reached in my purse and yanked out a can of hair spray that fooled me by its shape. I use that old fashioned lacquer-style hair spray as a substitute for Mace. It costs less and is just as effective. I tried again and got my flashlight. I ran it around the stage perimeter and heard the scrambles and giggles of teenagers getting dressed in the dark. Puppy love. Puppy sex.

“Reardon?” I called into the sudden hush.

“He's not here,” said a boy whose voice threatened to squeak.

“You see him today?” I asked.

“No.” This voice was female, childish.

“Thanks,” I said. I turned off the flash and left the room to young love.

My knee was starting to stiffen again, so I decided on the long way back to the car, thinking a walk might do it—and me—good. The long way led past a rustic shack, built to look older than it was and hold gardeners' tools or maybe athletic equipment without ruining the tone of the place. The path wound through stands of pine trees, oaks just beginning to bud. The sun shone brightly and even I, a woman nervous out of sight of concrete, began to enjoy my country ramble.

Right before making a sharp left to get back to the car, I turned for a final view of the school buildings, the athletic fields, the trees, the squirrels—and I stopped dead and waited.

What's wrong with this picture?

That was my first conscious thought, that something was wrong.

Later I realized it was the wheel tracks cut into the sod where no vehicle should have gone, coupled with the steady drone of an automobile engine. Now, in no hurry, merely curious, I followed the tracks over a rise, past stately pines.

The car was a black Plymouth Reliant, maybe five years old. The engine was running and a corrugated vacuum cleaner hose snaked from the tail pipe though the right rear window.

Someone was inside, slumped over, head resting on the driver's window. I ran the last fifty yards, forgetting my knee.

I grabbed the front-door handle. Locked. All the doors were locked. Bright gold hair pressed against the glass. Given time and tools, I can crack a car.

I shouted. The hair didn't move. I pounded the glass. The hair didn't move.

I ran around and yanked the hose from the back window, shoving it behind the car so it would spill its poison far from me. There was maybe a two-inch gap at the top of the window. I shoved my hand in, choking from the fumes, then pulled away and stripped off my gloves, my jacket, rolled up the sleeve of my shirt, anything to make my arm thinner, make it slip down far enough to pull up the button, open the door.

I could make it through to about six, seven inches above my wrist. The button was three inches away. It might as well have been a mile.

What do you use to break a car window—a shoe? a rock? I was wearing sneakers. There were only pebbles on the ground. I remembered the feel of the flashlight in my hand and I grabbed it out of my bag.

It was safety glass; it wouldn't shatter, I reminded myself. I could stand close without getting cut. The first time I hit it, it just cracked, so I wound up, the way I do for a volleyball spike, and drove the flashlight damn near through the glass. Then I used my coat to shield my hand, reached through, and unlocked the passenger door.

It opened easily. I kneeled on the front seat, grabbed Reardon's shoulders, and started hauling him out of the car. He was unwieldy, the way drunks are, lolling and heavy. His left foot stuck behind the gear shift and I had to crawl into the backseat, reach over, and free it. I knew he was dead before I got him onto the grass. Still I held my fingers to the pulse at his throat. He was cold.

A stiff. That's what we used to call them when I was a cop. We never gave them the dignity of a first name, a last name. A stiff is not a human being. A stiff is nobody's mother, nobody's child, nobody's teacher, nobody's friend. A stiff made the job possible.

Sometimes we named them for their choice of death—floater, croaker, roast.

I looked away from Geoffrey Reardon's face, away from the half-open blue eyes, the spill of golden hair, and turned him into a stiff so I could go on with my job.

I pulled my right glove on, reached into the car, and shut off the motor, leaving the keys in the ignition. There was a notebook on the seat. I grabbed it, thinking it was Valerie's missing diary. It was the manuscript of Reardon's play. I riffled the pages. Nothing fell out. I checked the rest of the car, the glove compartment, the cassette holder. I felt under the seats. Old Kleenex and loose change.

Twenty feet away, I sat on the ground and made myself breathe, in and out, in and out. Deeper and slower. Then I walked back to Reardon's office, 'loided the lock again, and carefully wiped my prints off the doorknobs, the desk, and the phone.

I tried to remember if I knew anybody in the Lincoln Police Department, but I couldn't come up with a name. I left Reardon's office, went to the building closest to Reardon's body, the one to which I'd have logically fled after finding the grim scene in the woods. I asked a gray-haired woman where I could find a phone. Student lounge, she said, pointing straight ahead. The place with the blue velvet couches. I wanted to sink into one of them and sleep for a week.

I punched 911. The bored voice perked up and turned officious when I mentioned the Emerson School. I gave my name and told the voice I'd meet the patrolmen at the scene. Then I found a dime and called home, reaching my own message machine which was what I wanted. Maybe Reardon had phoned after I'd left.

Holding my remote beeper to the receiver, I pressed the button. It made a noise like a turkey gobbling.

There was the scratchy sound of tape, then Mooney's voice. He said: “Hey, I'm going into this hearing pretty damn soon. You got anything? Do I owe you or do you owe me?”

Then there was a beep and a second message.

“Hello. This is Preston Haslam. Valerie's come home, safe and sound. Please send me a bill for your time, and thanks for your concern.”

CHAPTER 20

The Lincoln Police, represented by an aging lieutenant and a patrolman too young to shave, gawked, poked, and nodded, murmuring “roger” and “over and out” into their walkie-talkies while shooting sidelong glances to see if I was trying to eavesdrop. They seemed united by one desire: to avoid calling in the State Police. If it was homicide, what with all the petty larcencies and minor drug deals already on their plate, they'd need to holler for the Staties. Therefore Geoffrey Reardon had committed suicide. Open and shut.

I was the sole fly buzzing in the ointment. If a private cop hadn't been around, I don't think they'd have raised a sweat, just called the meat wagon and written the report. I could practically see the thought balloons over the head of the young one: “Drama teacher kills himself. Well, why the hell not? Probably a faggot. Maybe had AIDS, for Christ's sake.”

The rookie, pursing his lips and looking like he wanted to rush to the patrol car for a pair of rubber gloves, used the tips of two fingers to extract Reardon's wallet from his pants pocket.

I'd wondered about Reardon's sexual preference myself. He'd given off conflicting signals. His incredible beauty and the signed photo of the gorgeous guy in his desk drawer pointed one way. His flirtatious manner and his photo collection of scantily clad teenage girls led another.

Now that the adrenaline had quit on me, I could feel the cold in my toes and my knee. I kept rubbing the tip of my nose and thinking about frostbite.

The Emerson had clout. No doubt about it. The cops made a silent approach—no flashing lights or tacky stuff like that. Refraining from blocking campus roads, they maintained a deferential attitude to a Mrs. Filicia Stoner, Vice Principal in Charge of Damage Control, who must have gotten a phone call as soon as I reported Reardon's death. Mrs. Stoner had been loosed to deal with the matter diplomatically, and it was fun to watch a pro at work.

A dignified woman with a graying bun, she viewed the corpse, said, “He must have been deeply unhappy, poor man,” with just the right tone of pained regret. She declared she knew she could trust Lieutenant Harrison to handle every little detail. As to next-of-kin, she would inform Mr. Reardon's brother—she believed it was a brother—whose name and address were surely in Mr. Reardon's personnel file. If, of course, that was all right with the officer in charge?

Harrison, the older cop, beamed.

Then she turned her gaze on me. “And you are here with the police,” she said.

It wasn't really a question and it wasn't really a statement. I got the feeling she expected me to wither under her stare and confess to responsibility for Reardon's death. Or at least for the awful circumstance of his death occurring on hallowed Emerson ground.

Harrison jerked his chin in my direction. “Private investigator,” he said. “Came to talk to Reardon. Found the body.”

“I don't believe we met when you checked in at the office,” Ms. Stoner said.

“I don't believe we did,” I replied with my best smile.

“If Mr. Reardon had private business with you, we would, of course, expect him to conduct that business on his own time,” she recited.

“Of course,” I agreed, politely not pointing out that time and Reardon no longer kept company.

She waited for me to elaborate and when I didn't she said, “I would appreciate it if you'd drop by my office on your way out.” Her voice, warm when it flattered the cop, acquired an edge of frost.

I could tell by her steely eye that the amount of information I could squeeze out of Ms. Stoner wasn't worth the trip.

“Nice meeting you,” I said.

She did a pivot the nuns must have taught her at school—straight-shouldered, tight-hipped—and snubbed me in dignified silence.

Since the mighty Ms. Stoner had given them the okay to be rude, the cops weren't concentrating on charm when they questioned me. So I left out the part about searching Reardon's office. They wanted to see how the hose had been stuffed in the crack of the window and I showed them as best I could, given the shards of glass.

And what was I doing at the Emerson anyway?

I bit back my automatic “free country” response.

I said I'd had an appointment to speak to Reardon concerning a runaway student. On my way, I'd noticed the tire tracks, heard the engine, come down to investigate.

Ah ha! Then how did I know the identity of the victim? Gotcha!

Sorry, boys, but I'd seen the man before—yesterday. Wanted to ask him a few follow-up questions.

Who's the runaway student?

Really, I didn't see where that was any of their business, I said, not being dumb enough to speculate about the affairs of a client—or an ex-client—in front of two cops.