An Educated Death (44 page)

"No, Ellie. You've done plenty. I don't know how I would have managed without you." She shot me a look, somewhere between please-try-to-understand and put-a-cork-in-it. Ellie turned and plodded away. I was disappointed with Dorrie's lack of courage and troubled by her failure to understand that she could protect herself and Bucksport from some of the fallout by acting swiftly and decisively to cut her negligent troublemakers loose. I dropped the subject. It was Dorrie's job, not mine. Meeting Suzanne's eyes across the room, I saw she was thinking the same thing.

Rocky came roaring back, greeted my return with predictable grumpiness, and then I left, taking Suzanne with me. Despite his tirade about my living dangerously, Rocky didn't insist that I take a cop with me, and Hennessey was nowhere around. On the way out, I picked up an envelope from my temporary mail slot and shoved it into my briefcase.

When I dropped Suzanne off, Paul insisted that I come in, and he hovered over both of us while we ate big bowls of thick Italian bean soup with pasta. Paul was a good cook and we were both starving. In the background, Ellie's niece played quietly with the baby, eliciting a series of joyous baby giggles. The one good thing to come out of my work at Bucksport. I wondered how she'd feel when she found out that Suzanne and I were partly responsible for getting her uncle fired.

I left Suzanne to her domestic bliss and drove home feeling lonely and sorry for myself. The gay holiday lights didn't help. I felt sour and mean and seething with frustration. Once or twice, driving up Route 128, I was sure I saw the silver Datsun, but rusty silver cars are common as cheese. I felt even more uneasy when I got back and the car wasn't in the parking lot, but I checked every few minutes for a while and it didn't show up.

There was no message from Andre. I gave up my pretense of being a tough guy and called him. He wasn't home. He also wasn't at work, if they were telling the truth, and no one admitted to knowing where I might find him. I left a series of messages that I had called, including one on our answering machine. "Hi," I said. "This is the woman who was willing to undress in front of the entire state of Maine just to try and save your life. You could at least call me."

I went into the living room to kick the cat. Not a real cat. A horrible, fluffy white stuffed cat with gooney blue glass eyes, gift from a guy named Steve whom I'd rather forget. When I do remember him, it isn't with affection, and then I go and kick the cat. Today I remembered Andre instead, but I still kicked the cat. The sight of that wad of ugly fake fur flying through the air was enormously satisfying.

Then, my spirits revived, I pulled the mysterious envelope out of my briefcase and opened it. It had come through campus mail, I could tell, because it had only my name and Metcalfe Hall written on it. Inside were photocopies of Carol Frank's file notes from her interviews with Laney Taggert with a hand-written note attached. Under the black script announcing a message from the desk of Carol Frank she had scribbled, "When we spoke, I was thinking of Bucksport and its public image but after reading them over, I can't justify keeping them confidential to protect the reputations of those who were so willing to take advantage of a troubled teenager. Other girls may have been affected and future students need protection. It occurs to me that these records may become of interest to Laney's killer, once it becomes known that I've spoken with you. I'm taking my copy with me. Having a second one out there seems like a good idea. Maybe these will help. I'll catch up with you as soon as I can."

Despite her murderer's efforts, Carol had gotten through. With trembling hands, I carried the papers over to the couch and started to read.

 

 

 

Chapter 24

 

I blessed Carol Frank for having neat penmanship. If someone had tried to read my handwritten notes they would have ended up with a migraine headache and the information that on the xte-sost fo setsiht, Suzy fixtiror dhe gone fisheihe. Even I sometimes have trouble with my writing. The only person who can always read it is Sarah. But I had no problem learning that Laney had made several visits to Carol Frank, freely discussed the men she was sleeping with, and had been equally open about her plans to have an abortion. I made myself read slowly, carefully, and in chronological order, even though I wanted to rush through to see why they were so important to Laney's killer.

Going slowly and carefully didn't do me any good. If I was expecting a new and fuller range of Laney Taggert's conquests, I was going to be disappointed. Carol's notes confirmed that Laney had slept with Chas Drucker and Josh, which I already knew. About Drucker she'd observed, "He's both demanding and inept about sex, as though he usually has to fight for it and hasn't any notion that it's supposed to be a reciprocal act." Noting that, "If I'd had to sleep with someone that fat, maybe I'd learn to just hop on and hop off, too."

She'd also slept with Chris Fuller, but only once, and, as she'd told Carol and Carol had written it down with quotation marks, "The guy's a troglodyte and who needs that?" True, Fuller was missing, which made him an interesting prospect, but he was a great, hulking guy and couldn't possibly have little feet. If possession of little feet was one of the vital criteria, we were no better off than before, unless Fuller had a jealous wife.

"Dammit, Carol," I told the unresponsive pages, "is that all you have to tell me? Someone killed you for that? Or was it because of what you knew?" But Carol would never be able to answer. I went back to the notes. I could see why she'd been hesitant to share them. Though clearly from Laney's point of view, and therefore to be taken with some grains of salt, there was a wealth of stuff about the Bucksport School staff that cast them in an unfavorable light. There was certainly damning stuff about the Donahues, stuff that, had I been them, I never would have wanted to have read, as well as the sad observation that had they only been nicer to her, had they only treated her as a valuable person they cared about, she might even have considered having the baby. But they had treated her like a nasty, miserable container.

Scathing criticism about her roommate, noisy, nosy, unsympathetic, and judgmental Genny and her frustration that Kathy and Bill wouldn't do anything to resolve the situation. All part of Laney's overall feeling that she had no control over her life, that she was always being manipulated.

At the same time, Laney had been a keen observer of the people around her, aware of a lot more about them than they gave her credit for. About Josh's friendship with Russ Hamlin, for example, Laney had observed that Hamlin basked in the admiration without really reciprocating the feelings. Professor Hamlin, Laney had noted, had the hots for her, though he thought she couldn't see it. As Laney had put it to Carol Frank, "How could I not notice he touched me every chance he got? Was I supposed to not notice his erection when he leaned against my leg to fix my makeup?" Laney had said, "Professor Hamlin would do anything for me, I'm sure, and so I have to always be very careful not to ask for anything." The notes included Carol's own observations, expressing concern that the faculty needed reminders about their responsibility to the students. She had been distressed that Laney felt she had to protect her professors.

I got up again and kicked the cat, working up a pretty good sweat beating on the poor stuffed thing, then I kicked it into the corner and started pacing. Okay, I told myself, if it was a woman, who are the candidates? Who, whether because of her pregnancy or for some other reason, might have wanted Laney Taggert dead? I was pacing the floor and trying to juggle all the candidates in my brain when the phone rang. I grabbed it and said a fast hello.

It was my dad. "I'm sitting here working on my Christmas list. Tomorrow's the day your mom and I are going shopping, and I wondered if there was something special that you wanted." Every December they spent a day in the city shopping, usually on Newbury Street, had an early dinner, and went to a play. They'd been doing it since I was a little girl. I used to beg to be taken along but they always said no. It was a personal, grownup thing. When we were little, Michael and I, and then Michael and Carrie and I, used to spend hours going through catalogs and making up our Christmas lists. Now, faced with the same decision, I couldn't think of anything I wanted, except to have the murderer caught, to be working on safe and simple projects, and to get a phone call from Andre, none of which my father could give me.

"Surprise me," I said, "I love surprises. Maybe a small painting? The only good one I have is that one Michael did."

"Okay, honey," he said, "we'll surprise you. Now, what about that young man of yours... Andre... I'd like to get something for him, too, since he'll be here with you. Any suggestions?"

It looked like a case of not-to-decide-is-to-decide. I'd refused to call and tell them my plans so they'd gone ahead and planned for me. "I don't know if he's coming," I said.

Dad hasn't been the town's best lawyer all these years without developing a strong instinct for what's unsaid. "Trouble, huh? Well, don't worry. You two will work it out. You've had fights before. Just tell me what he likes to drink. I'll pick up a big bottle and then if he doesn't come we can always drink it ourselves."

"Bourbon would be fine." He didn't need me in this conversation. He was doing just fine on his own. "Dad," I began, and then I hesitated. I sort of wanted his advice but it went against my strict policy of not involving him in my life.

It was too late to turn back, though, he'd read all the nuances in my voice. I have to be prepared if I'm going to fool him. "What is it, Thea? Is something bothering you?"

I shaded the truth a little and asked my question. "I've got this position to fill and a really diverse bunch of candidates. None of them are a perfect match. How do I choose?"

"You know what to do," he said in that condescending voice that I hadn't even realized was condescending until we'd differed as adults. As I child, I'd just thought that was how dads talked. "You make yourself a chart. Put the characteristics you need for the job across the top, then see which candidate fulfills the most needs. That's the one to hire. It's so logical, honey, I'm surprised you even had to ask."

Don't worry,
I thought to myself,
I won't make the same mistake twice.
"Thanks, Dad," I said. "Have fun tomorrow."

"We will. See you on Christmas Day. Your mother wants you to bring that wonderful plum chutney you make. It goes so well with the turkey." He hung up without waiting for my reply. Good, that meant I hadn't ever actually committed to going, had I?

I grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil to make a chart but before I'd even started drawing lines on the page I knew I didn't have to. My own phrase leapt back into my head. "Unless he had a jealous wife." Ellie Drucker, jolly, helpful omnipresent Ellie Drucker. Big body. Small feet.

Suddenly I was as awake as a person could be. How could I have missed something so obvious? Like the purloined letter, I hadn't seen what was right before my eyes. I had made the mistake of assuming she couldn't be the murderer because she was so nice. Psychologists tell us all the time that murderers, particularly passion killers, are often quite nice people. Hastily, I reread Carol's notes. According to what she'd told Carol, Laney Taggert had asked Drucker for the money she needed to have an abortion and been upset by Drucker's response that he wanted to help her but didn't see how he could because his wife controlled the money.

I could hear Ellie Drucker's voice as clearly as a bell. She was standing by the coffee machine, chatting with Lori about the teenager who'd shot her married lover's wife. "If I'd been the wife," she'd said, "I would have shot that girl dead. Youth is no excuse for messing with a married man. Sometimes I think kids these days haven't got any morals at all." Then Lori had said, "Not me, boy, I would have shot the husband," and then Ellie and Lori had digressed on a long discussion of morals and who was at fault and why they'd shoot one or the other of the culprits, which I'd abandoned to go back to work. Poor hardworking, long-suffering cheated-on Ellie Drucker, the woman I'd been feeling so sorry for.

That hole in her office wall was no defect lingering for lack of repair, it was there so she could listen in on my conversations. No wonder I never heard anything from her office. She was down on her hands and knees listening at the hole. If it hadn't been so dreadful, it would have been comical to think of her crouching there with her rump in the air, listening to everything that was said in my office.

With a shudder, I remembered the peppermint tea she'd brought me, her surprise when I was still around after the first cup, the way she lingered while she waited for me to drink the second. Invisible because she was always around, it would have been easy for her to doctor my sandwich. What had someone told me? Ellie did all the gardens, was quite an expert when it came to plants, knew the botany of the campus intimately. Dr. Tuff had even suggested she might know where someone could find water hemlock. And Carol, who thought of her as a friend, would never have been nervous at her approach.