An Educated Death (23 page)

"Thanks. I appreciate that. Their perspective is critical." I hesitated, not wanting to sound like a complainer, but decided the point was important. "You should know that he hasn't been helpful, either. He was supposed to see me yesterday. He didn't show up and he didn't call. You know I need their cooperation. Not just on procedures, although that's important. They're the ones who ought to be able to tell me the most about Laney. About her moods. Who she hung around with. About her interesting habit of flouting the rules."

She frowned at that but didn't say anything. I moved on to the next item on my agenda. "Dorrie, something happened yesterday as I was leaving that was quite upsetting."

"What was it?" She spoke with the hesitation of someone who didn't want to hear any more bad news. I described my encounter with Chris from the maintenance department and my resulting decision to have the chief do a background check on all Sawyer's people. Her shoulders sank as she listened and her face took on a look I'd seen before at other schools when I delivered news they were expecting and didn't want to hear. I called it the shoot-the-messenger look.

She sighed wearily. "I'm sorry that happened, Thea. You know I wouldn't have asked you to do this if I'd thought there was any risk to you. Curt Sawyer is supposed to do a check on all his people before he hires them, but we both know Curt. I'd rather he didn't know about it, though, the check, I mean, unless something turns up."

I was disappointed even though it was the reaction I'd expected. To me it was simple—if he threatened one person and got away with it, what was to keep him from doing it again? I could sympathize with her position, though. She didn't want to rock an already unsteady boat. "Of course. Also, I need to be able to lock my office door. You heard what happened yesterday, didn't you?"

"You mean Chip Barrett?" I nodded. "He didn't take anything, did he?" she asked anxiously.

"He tried to. I caught him before he could get away. He said something upsetting, though, before he left."

"He's always saying upsetting things. That's part of his technique. To be so controversial people will correct him and give him the information he wants or to get people so mad they blurt out things they don't mean to say. I wouldn't pay attention to anything he said. You used to be a reporter. I should think you'd be used to that."

"I'm sure you're right but I'd like to tell you what he said—"

"Why don't I tell you what I think he said?" she suggested. "He said that everyone knows what really happened here, which is that a pregnant student was murdered, but the whole thing is being hushed up because Rocky and I are lovers."

I was astonished. It was almost word for word what Barrett had said to me. "How did you know?"

"He tried the same line on me. And on Rocky. And on Dave. And who knows how many other people."

"But how did he know Laney was pregnant?"

Dorrie sighed. "I wish I knew. It's not information available to the public. We've tried to keep him off campus but he keeps showing up. Some of the students know about the pregnancy, how could they not with Marta Taggert bellowing it all over the place like a wounded cow? He probably heard it from one of them, unless he goaded Curt into telling. I could see that happening." She changed the subject. "Any idea who the father of the baby was? Was it Josh?"

I figured we might as well get this one out on the table, too, even though I hadn't finished my interviewing. "We may have a real problem here. He says no. He and Merri both say she had another lover, Merri says an older man, though older to these kids could be nineteen, but neither of them know who it was. Or so they say. Except to suggest that it was someone who works here. I keep getting the sense that everyone is holding things back, that there's a lot they're not telling me...."

"Maybe I was overly optimistic, thinking they'd talk to you," Dorrie said, "but I had to try it. Rocky thinks I'm just trying to prove I can do anything. To prove I can handle this better than he could."

"Do you care what Rocky thinks?"

She gave me a cool look. "You know the answer to that. Anyway, he's wrong. I'm doing it because it's my job and because I can imagine how he'd approach things. I still wish you were coming up with more, though. Any clues about who might have gone out there with her?"

I shook my head. "Is there anyone who thinks there were two people out there besides Rick McTeague?"

"So you've met our local author?"

"He came to see me yesterday."

"And you thought he'd never leave, right? I wish someone other than Rick had noticed the footprints. He's hardly a credible source. He starts out reasonable enough, but then he gets sidetracked onto one of his crazy ideas and he's off into never-never land. The problem is that everyone else arrived there with a specific purpose—to rescue someone from the pond. They weren't there to observe what might have happened."

"Wait a minute," I said, "what about the police? Were there any cops at the scene?"

"Of course."

"Well, they're trained to observe. What did they see?"

"I don't know," she said. "I never thought to ask. Do you want me to ask Rocky?"

I didn't think Dorrie was that dumb and wondered if she was letting her relationship with Rocky interfere with the performance of her job. Still, I offered her an out. "I have to call him anyway. I'll ask him then."

"How are we doing otherwise," she asked, glad to drop the subject even though she'd brought it up, "are our procedures working?"

"I'll know better when I get some straight answers from Bill and Kathy Donahue. But if they're any example of your dorm parents, then you'd better start looking over Warren Winslow's shoulder."

"Thea, I resent that," Dorrie said. "One person has a bad day and another misses an appointment and on the basis of that you conclude that my houseparents are failures."

"Hold on, Dorrie. That's not what I said. Remember, you and Dave made up that list. It was up to you and Dave to impress upon people the importance of these interviews. Furthermore, Bill and Kathy Donahue aren't just any dorm parents. They are the dorm parents in charge of the dorm where Laney Taggert lived and they are the dorm parents charged with paying attention to her mental and physical state and ensuring her personal safety. The only thing of any substance that Kathy was able to tell me was that they were very lax about keeping track of the sign-out cards. Lax meaning she hadn't bothered to look for Laney's card and didn't know where it might be. If this thing comes to litigation, a vague 'I don't know, you'll have to ask Bill' isn't going to reflect very well on Bucksport, is it?"

Dorrie had been standing, her hands on the desk, looking for a minute as though she wanted to jump across it and pick a fight. Instead, she sank slowly back into her chair and rubbed her forehead. "I'm sorry I snapped at you, Thea. I'm under a lot of pressure here." She smiled ruefully. "I'm supposed to be able to handle it, aren't I?"

She was trying to change the subject, but I was too concerned about the turn things had taken to let it drop. "I think we need to be clear about what you want me to do here, Dorrie. If you want a true picture of what's going on, I can continue with the project. If you want a whitewash, if you want someone to find that everything was nice and proper and everyone was scrupulously careful and did things right, I can send you a bill for the work I've done and recommend someone else for the job."

"Thea, please. Take it easy. We both understand what you're supposed to do—exactly what you're doing. Of course I don't want a whitewash. You don't need to jump all over me because I was a little protective of my staff."

"And you don't need to jump all over me because I was a little critical of your staff."

Dorrie held out her hand. "You know what I want you to do, Thea. I want to know if there's any reason to think someone killed Laney Taggert. It's just hard for me to face it, that's all. I believe it was a tragic accident. I just don't want to find out later that I missed something obvious. In particular, since we're into truth-telling here, I don't want Rocky to be able to come back and throw it in my face, okay?" she said. "Truce?"

"Truce," I agreed.

We shook hands, both smiling again, and then Dorrie went back to signing cards and I went along to my office, thinking that Dorrie had deftly avoided the issue of the baby's father being someone on the Bucksport staff. I didn't think she was entirely surprised, though. When she'd asked me to take on the project, I'd known there were several unspoken questions behind the obvious one.

I met Lori in the hall, her nose bright red from the cold, her arms loaded with mail, and followed her back to her office to get the list of Sawyer's people and my day's schedule. "Who's up for today?" I said.

"It's not as bad as yesterday," she said. "You've got Russ Hamlin, her drama coach; Carol Frank, one of our school counselors—you asked for her, remember?—and Bill Donahue, who promises he'll make it this time. Then lunch and the long break you asked for, then I've scheduled Nadia Soren, another of her friends, and Curt Sawyer asked me to put one of his people, a guy called Chris Fuller, on the list." The guy who'd threatened me was named Chris. I quickly scanned the list to see if he had several employees named Chris, but Fuller was the only one. My concern must have shown because Lori said, "Thea, is something wrong?"

"I was just thinking about yesterday. Could you ask Curt to have someone put a lock on my door?"

"No more Chip Barretts, eh?"

"That's right."

"He's a horrible person," she said. "My neighbor had a child badly burned in a fire. He came to talk to her, practically forced his way in, and while she was crying he stole a picture of the child and used it in the paper. Did you get coffee?"

I got a fresh cup and went to work. The dreary little cubicle was beginning to feel like home. I had a sweater on the rack, a pair of shoes under the desk, and several unwashed coffee cups sitting around. That was about all it took to establish me. All that was missing was a liquor bottle in the desk drawer and I wasn't about to add that. In 1930's detective stories it seems just right, but I can't drink during the day and expect to get any work done.

I'd gotten off to a nice early start and still had about twenty minutes before the first victim appeared. I checked my school directory and called Chas Drucker.

The voice that answered sounded teenaged and bored. I asked for Drucker and heard her calling, "Dad, phone," loudly, several times. Finally she came back on the line and asked, "Who's calling?"

I identified myself, and added, "Tell him I'm the consultant working on the procedures audit."

I heard her shout again, "It's Theo Kotchick, some auditing consultant." Boy, I thought, that ought to really bring him running. It didn't, but after I'd cooled my heels a while she came back on the line. "I'm sorry," she said, "we don't accept telephone solicitations."

"This is not a solicitation," I said coldly, before she could hang up. "Please listen carefully and try to give an accurate message to your father. My name is Thea Kozak. I'm a consultant working with Dorrie Chapin on Laney Taggert's accident and it is important that I speak with him."

"Why didn't you say so?" the voice asked. It was slightly nasal and just offensive enough to infuriate.

Again I cooled my heels, taking advantage of the opportunity to drink my coffee before it was cool, too. I could have pushed back my cuticles and manicured my nails in the time it took Drucker to finally come on the line. "Sorry," he said, "Angie misheard you the first time. What can I do for you?"

"Just a quick question, Mr. Drucker..." I waited for him to say "Chas," which he did. He was feeling friendly again this morning. "Chas. Laney Taggert signed out to her parents for the Columbus Day weekend but she didn't spend the weekend with them. I was wondering if she might have said something to you about her plans."

"Not that I recall." He cleared his throat explosively into the receiver. "Sometimes she treated me like her father confessor and other times she was like a clam. Anyway, I don't remember her saying anything about that weekend and I couldn't tell you whether she stayed on campus because I wasn't around. That was parents' weekend at my son's college. Roger is at Cornell. Sorry I couldn't help you and please feel free to ask other questions as they come up." He hung up before I could ask anything else.

I called Genny Oakes, a call that involved many rings, a hurried girlish voice who agreed to check and see if she was around, and finally Genny herself on the phone, sounding breathless. I identified myself and asked if she knew what Laney had done on Columbus Day weekend. "I don't know. I went off with my parents that weekend to look at colleges. But she was supposed to go to the beach with Merri and a bunch of other kids. I assumed she did. I saw her packing and she came back after I did on Monday night. There was one odd thing, though, come to think of it. She packed a couple dresses and her best shoes. I remember thinking that was odd stuff to take to the beach. Sorry I can't help you more." Today Genny was being the polite, well-brought-up girl she was supposed to be. I thanked her and disconnected.

My mind was beginning to follow the same course Josh's had, except that where he believed I needed to find out who had fathered the baby, I thought I needed to find out who she'd spent the weekend with. If my calculations were right, they were the same person. I tried to call Josh but he wasn't there so I popped out to Lori's desk to ask if she could track him down and send him to me later. "I've got a message for you. Two messages, actually. Rick McTeague called and says he'll have to cancel for this afternoon. He's blocking out a scene in his living room and doesn't want to break his concentration. Bet you're heartbroken, aren't you? But you're not going to have time on your hands because Rocky Miller says he can see you at one, and when Rocky says he can see you, what he really means is that you'd better be there."

"Gee, thanks, Lori. Got my weekend planned, too?"

She turned her back on me and tapped a key, bringing up a sea of figures on her monitor. "I'm strictly eight-thirty to four-thirty, Monday through Friday. What you do on weekends is your business. But if you want my opinion, I hope you've got a hot date." Lori has joined the ranks of people who want to marry me off. People like my mother and Suzanne who think I'd be happier if I were married. I don't know where they get the idea I'm unhappy. I'm too busy to be unhappy.