All Fall Down (10 page)

“I guess that was enough,” he said dourly.

“What was I supposed to do? Lie?”

“It wouldn’t have hurt.”

“John!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that.” He leaned forward to let his hands dangle between his knees. Blaine grew still.

“I think you did mean it. What has you so upset, John?”

“If a lot of rumors get started about Rosie and me, I could lose my job.”

“I thought of that, and that’s why I stressed to Logan that you were helping Rosie with her writing. I in no way implied there was anything romantic going on, and neither did Robin.”

He grinned, although his eyes remained solemn. “Okay. Sorry again. It’s just that in a town this size, you have to watch your back all the time.”

Blaine frowned, but he was looking out the window, his expression worried.

2

A crowd gathered in the hall.

“So my dad says her wrists were cut
real
deep.” Arletta Stroud held up her left wrist and made a violent slashing motion, then repeated the pantomime on the right, grimacing horribly. “But even then not all her blood drained out.”

“Arletta, you’re a real ghoul, you know it?” Dean Newman said, turning to walk away. “C’mon, Susie.”

Arletta looked off as if thinking, her small eyes squinting beneath hair she teased straight up in front and lacquered into place. “Jeez, maybe she was still
alive
when he left her! Maybe she was still conscious when the animals came and began taking great big old bites out of her!”

Kathy Foss suddenly turned white and sank to the floor.

“She’s
fainted!
” someone shouted.

General milling broke out as Susie Wolfe bent over her. “Dean, go get someone,” she called, lifting Kathy’s bleached head and laying it on her lap. “Mrs. Avery’s door’s right there, and I think she stayed in for lunch today.”

Dean Newman, his brown eyes both alarmed and excited by the sight of the imperturbable Kathy lying in a helpless heap, strode down the hall to Blaine’s door. While he rapped, Arletta began subtly easing out of the crowd. Everyone was so intent on Kathy, no one noticed her inching guiltily toward the girls’ rest room. She had just disappeared when Blaine’s door opened. After a quick consultation with Dean, Blaine rushed to Kathy, John following closely behind her. She knelt, took Kathy’s pulse, then glanced up. “Did someone go for the nurse?”

Students looked at one another blankly, and Blaine reminded herself that in high school, the school nurse didn’t elicit the awe she did in grade school. Probably a lot of the kids didn’t even know there was a school nurse. “She’s on the second floor, next to the counselor’s office. Someone go. And
hurry
.”

She didn’t like Kathy’s extreme pallor or the icy hands she now chafed in her own, feeling like some school matron in a Victorian novel trying to revive a swooning hothouse flower of a girl. “What happened here?” she asked the faces peering down at her. “Was Kathy sick this morning?”

Susie Wolfe shook her head. “She seemed okay in first period. Even at lunch. Kind of quiet, but okay. Then Arletta was telling us about Rosie being murdered.”

“Arletta?” Blaine said sharply.

Instantly everyone began looking around. Dean said, “She must have taken off.”

“Let me guess,” Blaine said. “Arletta was describing Rosie’s death in the most graphic terms.”

Susie nodded. “She was being pretty gross. She was talking about animals eating her before she was even dead.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Blaine muttered. The mild language didn’t express the disgust she was feeling for Arletta, but she couldn’t let her true dislike of the girl show in front of all the other students.

John leaned down and touched Kathy’s face. “I think she’s getting some color back.”

“But she’s still so cold.”

“What on earth is going on?”

Blaine looked up to see the school nurse hovering over them. “Kathy seems to have fainted.”

The nurse pushed aside the gaping teenagers and leaned over Kathy. She took the girl’s pulse, then held a tiny vial under her nose. Kathy’s face twitched, and she turned it away. The nurse passed the vial under her nose again, and this time Kathy’s eyes fluttered open. She looked wildly around her. “Rosie!” she cried, grabbing the nurse’s arm. “Rosie, I was there. I
saw…
”

1

Blaine pulled up in front of a cheerful yellow, white-shuttered, rectangular frame building. Behind a chain-link fence stretched a neat lawn with a swing set, a natural-wood activity cube complete with cargo rope climb and sandbox, and a cedar playhouse. Black script on a white wooden sign near the door read “Caitlin’s Day Care.” Blaine opened the front gate, carefully closed it behind her, and went to the front door, shivering slightly. The white-gold sun that had warmed the day earlier had vanished behind a cloud, throwing the day into lavender gloom. Dry leaves rattled in the trees as the wind picked up, and overhead, Blaine saw a formation of Canadian geese flying south. According to the calendar, winter wouldn’t officially arrive for a month, but to Blaine the season had already descended.

As soon as she opened the door, though, all thoughts of winter vanished. The room was carpeted in a warm golden indoor-outdoor carpet; the walls were lined with shelves holding bright coloring and story books. Above the shelves hung pictures of Disney characters. Multicolored blocks lay scattered in one corner, a puzzle with huge, vivid pieces in another. Caitlin sat on a white plastic chair with about eight children ranging in age from three to five gathered around her. On her lap sat a wide-eyed child no older than eighteen months.

“So who can tell me what happened on the first Thanksgiving?” Cait asked.

One little boy with hair like corn silk solemnly volunteered, “The Indians came and taught the pilgrims how to square dance.”

To her credit, Cait didn’t crack a smile. “Well, not exactly, Doug.”

“I know, I know!” another little boy piped up. He had an angel’s eyes and a devil’s smile. “The Indians brought mean turkeys that ate up all the pilgrims!”

Cait frowned. “Now, Jack, you know that’s silly. Turkeys don’t eat people.”

“They
do
,” Jack insisted, glancing around to make sure all eyes were fastened on his five-year-old self. “My daddy told me about how this one Thanksgivin’ when he was little the turkey got right up off the platter and bit his sister’s nose off!”

Six little faces crumpled in giggles while the beautiful, sensitive eyes of a girl of around three filled with tears. “You mean I’m gonna get my
nose
bit off at Thanksgivin’ dinner?”

“Oh, Sally, of
course
not,” Cait said firmly. She glared at Jack. “You tell your sister that’s just a story.”

“But it
isn’t
,” Jack insisted with injured dignity. “Sal, you know how funny Aunt Dot’s nose looks?” The little girl nodded fearfully. “Well, that’s what happened. Grandma didn’t cut the turkey’s head off, and that ole thing got right up off the platter and—” Jack stood, opened his mouth wide, and snapped his teeth together. Sally shrieked. Three children fell sideways, laughing uncontrollably. Jack bent double in his glee. The baby began to howl.

“Need some help?” Blaine asked.

Cait whipped her head around. “Oh, Blaine! Can you really stay a while?” Her hair was pushed back as if she’d run her hands through them repeatedly, and her shirt hung out from her slacks on the right side. “My assistant had to go to the dentist this morning for a root canal,” she said. “Maybe it’s just the approaching holidays, but as you can see, they’re all a little wound up today.”

“Sure, I can stay.” It was only four o’clock, and most of the mothers wouldn’t be arriving until after five. From the look of Cait, she’d never last that long. “Robin’s going over to Susie’s after school to study for a test and have dinner, so there’s no meal to worry about.”

“Thank goodness,” Cait murmured.

Blaine shrugged out of her coat and looked at the children with feigned excitement. “I’ve got an idea! I’ll tell you a story, and you draw a picture of what I’m telling you.”

“We’re only s’posed to do what Miss Cait tells us,” Jack announced, looking truculent.

Cait gave him a long stare. “
Do
it.”

Jack frowned darkly. Cait had already told Blaine that Jack was both the most precocious and the most maddening child who had ever been enrolled at the center, and he wasn’t easily intimidated. At the same time, he wasn’t used to the steel in Cait’s voice, either. He blinked at her a couple of times before looking back at Blaine. “Okay, but we’re
sick
of nursery rhymes.”

Me, too, Blaine thought, remembering hearing “Ring Around a Rosy” over the phone. “I won’t tell you nursery rhymes. Just get paper and your crayons, then do your very best.”

All but the baby scrambled to assemble their art paraphernalia, then settled down, looking at Blaine expectantly as she struck a dramatic pose and said in a ringing voice, “This is ‘The Tale of the Three Golden Apples.’ ”

Most of the children began industriously drawing misshapen gold and yellow orbs. Her niece, Sarah, the image of Caitlin, attempted to draw the three beautiful young women who sat on the riverbank making wreaths of flowers. Jack, predictably, drew the terrible dragon with a hundred heads that kept watch under the golden apple tree.

At five-thirty, when the last of little coats had been buttoned, prized crayon drawings shown to tired but admiring mothers, and Sarah sent back to Cait’s house next door to watch
Mr. Rogers
, Cait turned to Blaine, her face drawn with fatigue. “You saved my life.”

“I’m glad I could help, but I’ve never seen you so strung out over the kids.”

“Our enrollment nearly doubled this year. Thank heaven half of them go home at noon. Also, I’ve never handled a whole day alone with them. And Jack, of course, equals about five kids instead of one. I’m glad he goes to school next year.” She sighed. “Besides, I guess I’m still shaken over Rosie—not sleeping well, that kind of thing. I didn’t know her very well, but seeing her that way…” Cait shuddered.

“Finding a body like that is something you never forget.”

“I guess you’re an expert. I’m
so
sorry it had to happen again.”

“You and me both.” Cait didn’t say anything about Rosalind’s things being found in Blaine’s basement. Apparently the news hadn’t reached her yet, and she looked too exhausted to be hit with any more shocks, so Blaine made her voice casual. “Caity, do you have a recording of ‘Ring Around a Rosy’?”

One of Cait’s red eyebrows went up. “Has your taste in music changed lately?”

“No. I just wondered.”

The amusement left Cait’s face. “No, you didn’t just wonder about a thing like that. What’s going on?”

“Don’t give me a hard time. I’m tired, too. Just answer the question.”

“Okay. I’ve got dozens of records, but I don’t remember that one.”

“Are you sure you don’t have it here in the center?”

“No. When I opened this place, people gave me things, including records. I know I didn’t buy a copy of it, and we never listened to it. The kids prefer songs from shows like
Sesame Street
. But you’re welcome to go through the record collection and see for yourself.”

Fifteen minutes later, Blaine had studied every record and tape in the day-care center’s collection. “Nothing,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “It’s not here.”

“You got another crank call, didn’t you?” Cait demanded. She stood over Blaine, hands planted firmly on her hips, and Blaine had a sudden image of their mother standing over her in exactly the same position when one frigid February evening an eight-year-old Blaine had brought home a stray mixed-breed puppy and tried unsuccessfully to hide it in her bedroom in a wooden box on which she was sitting. Unfortunately, the puppy wouldn’t be quiet. Within ten minutes the dog was on the street again, and Blaine had lain sobbing in bed until eleven, when her father, returning from a local bar and wondering what all the commotion was about, had retrieved the whimpering, frightened puppy from under a nearby tree and slipped it into Blaine’s bed. Jim O’Connor spent the night on the couch for his trouble, and his wife hadn’t spoken to him or Blaine for a week, but the puppy had stayed.

“You got another crank call,” Caitlin repeated. “Blaine, answer me.”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t think you’d suddenly become overwhelmed with a desire to hear ‘Ring Around a Rosy.’ Besides, I may not be Sherlock Holmes, but I can certainly make the connection between
Rosy
and
Rosie
Van Zandt.”

“Okay.” Blaine got to her feet. She was two inches taller than Cait and the added height often served to restore her sense of control in the face of her sister’s sometimes disconcerting mimicking of their mother’s aggressive mannerisms during an argument. “Someone
did
call and play that record several hours after we found Rosie. And before you say any more, let me tell you that I’ve already reported the call to Logan and had Call Trace put on my phone.”

Cait at first looked troubled, then annoyed as she realized the significance of Blaine’s search through her record collection. “You didn’t think
I
made that call, did you?”

“Oh, Cait, of course not. But it was a child’s song, and as Robin pointed out, dozens of people are in and out of here every day.”

“Not
dozens
.” Cait’s face eased. “But a lot. It was a logical assumption that the record might have come from here, I guess. But I don’t know who would do such a thing. The mothers of the kids are nice.”

“Probably many of the people who called and accused me of murdering Martin seemed nice, too.”

“I still say you shouldn’t be in that house.”

Blaine rolled her eyes. “Cait, Logan has a patrol car going by every hour.”

“A patrol car? What for? It was suicide, wasn’t it?” Cait watched Blaine turn and brush imaginary dirt from the back of her skirt. “Well,
wasn’t
it?”

“No, it doesn’t look that way,” Blaine said reluctantly. “I mean, they’re not sure, but—”

“That does it! You and Robin are coming back to my house.”

“No, we’re not. You and Kirk have put up with us enough—first with Kirk and coming out to the house all the time to help with Martin when he first came home from the hospital, then trying to get him used to the wheelchair, and later when I stayed with you when I was sick. Besides, you two need your privacy.”

“We do not. We’ve been married for six years.”

Blaine smiled. “Oh, well, in
that
case, Robin and I will bring sleeping bags and camp out in your bedroom.”

“Sounds like an interesting idea to me,” said a masculine voice.

Blaine looked around to see her brother-in-law in the doorway. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt, his sandy hair cut short, his gray eyes laughing in a face that might be called rugged if not classically handsome.

“Will you two stop making jokes!” Cait said hotly. “Kirk, the police have decided Rosie Van Zandt was murdered.”

Kirk immediately sobered. “Murdered!”

“That’s what they
think
,” Blaine said. “They’re not sure.”

“I told her she and Robin should come back and stay with us.”

“Maybe that would be a good idea,” Kirk said.

“We’re all right at home,” Blaine insisted.

Caitlin told her husband, “She thinks they would be in the way of our privacy. Maybe she didn’t notice, but when she was sick, you were hardly ever home in the evenings.”

Blaine looked away, feeling uncomfortable. One of the reasons she didn’t want to return to Cait and Kirk’s home was the subtle tension she had noticed between them lately. Although she didn’t know what was wrong, she knew that her and Robin crowding in on the couple wouldn’t help.

Kirk shrugged. He was tall and heavily muscled, both from manual labor and from the weight training he’d done since high school. “We had some big orders, Cait. We were working late every night. But I’m home on time every evening now. I could look after everyone.”

“Thanks, Kirk, but it really isn’t necessary. We have a new security system, and as I told Cait, the police are watching our place pretty closely.”

“The police?” Kirk seemed taken aback. “Well, I guess that’s natural if they suspect a murder was committed on the property.”

Blaine nodded. “Apparently a cheerleader at school, Kathy Foss, knows something about it, but she’s not talking.”

“You didn’t tell me
that!
” Cait exploded.

“And I shouldn’t have said anything now.” Blaine could have bitten her tongue. “Anyway, Robin and I are okay. And your house
is
too crowded for all of us. We’ve already found that out. If you’d just let me loan you the money to buy that house on Townsend Street you both like so well…”

Cait’s chin set. “You know we won’t take a cent of your inheritance, even as a loan. But stop trying to change the subject. I don’t know how you can even think about staying in that house after all that’s happened.”

“I have to go, Caity.” Blaine put on her coat.

Cait sighed gustily. “Stubborn.”

“Just like my sister.”

“All right, if you’re determined to go back to that spooky place, go right ahead.”

“Thank you. I will.”

“Kirk, can’t you say something to change her mind?”

“I never try to change the mind of an O’Connor woman. It’s hopeless.”

“A wise man,” Blaine said.

Cait managed a halfhearted smile. “Okay, I give up. But I’ll ask the children tomorrow if any of them have a recording of ‘Ring Around a Rosy.’ ”

Blaine leaned down and kissed her sister’s cheek. “Thanks, kid. And don’t worry about me.”

“I just wish I didn’t have to,” Cait said softly as Blaine headed for the door.

2

Blaine glanced at the glowing digital numbers of the car clock. Six-fifty. She had forty minutes to drop off the pager Rick had left at her house last night and get to school for the talent show rehearsal.

She sighed, wishing she’d let someone else take over the direction of the talent show. She was already adviser of the student council and director of the senior-class play. Considering her recent illness, everyone on the faculty would have understood if she’d relinquished one activity for the year. But she’d wanted to prove she was fine again and willing to take on her share. Since Rosie’s death, though, she’d felt drained. She did not need the talent show on top of everything else.