School Days (20 page)

I
HAD FINISHED
the morning paper and was cutting out today's episode of “Arlo and Janis” to save for Susan when the Clark family, including Lily Ellsworth and minus Jared, came into my office with their lawyer, Richard Leeland. Pearl raised her head and growled at them from her place on the couch. I shushed her as I stood.

“We need to talk,” Leeland said.

“Sure,” I said and came around my desk and organized the chairs. Pearl settled back but kept her eyes open, alert for a false move. Nobody made one. Everyone sat.

“My daughter,” Lily Ellsworth said after a moment. “And my son-in-law, and this lawyer want me to fire you.”

“Eek,” I said.

Leeland leaned forward and started to speak.

“The boy is . . .”

Lily Ellsworth turned her head and looked at him.

“I am neither senile nor a dolt,” she said. “I am able to talk for myself.”

“Of course, Mrs. Ellsworth . . .”

She gestured for him to be quiet and looked back at me.

“You feel that Jared is retarded,” she said.

“Functionally retarded,” I said. “Yes.”

“You have had him examined by a competent psychiatrist,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Without permission,” Leeland said.

“Shut up!” Lily said without looking at him.

Leeland glanced at Ron and Dot and shook his head slightly, exhaled a long, suffering breath, and was quiet.

“They don't believe you,” Lily said.

“Doesn't mean it's not so,” I said.

“You believe it is so.”

“Yes.”

“They say even if it is so, he'll still have to go to jail.”

“Yes.”

“He did it,” she said.

“Yes.”

Lily was silent. She knew. She probably always knew but told herself it wasn't so.

“He's where he should be,” Dot Clark said softly.

Lily waved at her to be quiet.

“Please, Dorothy,” she said. “I'm trying to think what is best for my grandson.”

Dot squealed as if someone had jabbed her with a sharp instrument. Lily flinched at the sound.

“Grandson?” Dot said. “Grandson? He's my fucking son, mother. He's my only goddamned child. He killed a bunch of people. Maybe he's retarded, maybe he's crazy, but he did what he did. He's where he belongs.”

“I'm trying to do what's best for him,” Lily said.

Her voice was surprisingly quiet.

“Do what's best for me,” Dorothy said. “Do you know what this has been like for me? For us? We enter a room and there's an uncomfortable pause. People pretend not to see me in the market.”

“Dorothy,” Lily said.

“Shut up,” Dorothy said. “How does this shrink know? How can he spend three hours with him and say our son is retarded, and we've lived with him all his life and saw no sign? Who the hell does he think he is? How nice it will be for us if people now think we harbored this murderous retard all his life and never did anything about it.”

“Dot,” her husband said to her.

She turned toward him in her chair and screamed at him.

“You shut up, too. What if he got out? Do you want to live the rest of your life worried what he's going to do next, watching him all the time? Terrified every time he goes out? Fearful for yourself even when he's home? He's where he should
be. Can't you all see that? Can't you fucking all see that? He's gone already. We've lost him already. Lost him, lost him, lost him . . .”

She started to cry. It was a bad sound—loud, blubbering, graceless, agonized, and very unpleasant to hear. Her husband put a hand on her shoulder. She pushed it away. She wanted to be alone in her misery.

“Even if his mental situation is confirmed,” Leeland said, “they won't let him go.”

I nodded.

Lily Ellsworth's eyes looked a little moist. But her voice was steady.

“Is that true?” she said.

“There are some things I still haven't fully figured out yet,” I said. “Some things that might explain why, and might be mitigating.”

“If you do, and they are,” Lily said, “what is the best that Jared can hope for?”

“He's not an attorney,” Leeland said.

“I sometimes wonder if you are,” she said. “I trust him. What can you get him, best-case scenario?”

“An easier room in hell,” I said.

“Oh, God,” Dot said, still crying.

Her mother sat erect. Her face seemed gray; the skin seemed tightly stretched.

“And you believe he did what they accuse him of,” she said.

“What he confessed to,” Ron said.

She ignored him. She looked at me, waiting.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

She turned toward her daughter and rested her hand on Dot's shoulder. Dot let it stay there.

“I am a forceful woman,” Lily said, “and I am rich. And I have never seen any reason why I shouldn't get what I want.”

Dot nodded faintly.

“But I love you,” Lily said. Her voice was a little shaky.

“Mama,” Dot said.

Dot leaned out of her chair, put her head against Lily's chest. Lily put her arms around her and patted her softly on the back. She looked past her daughter's head at me.

“It is over, Mr. Spenser. Send me your final bill. . . . I thank you for your effort.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

Then Lily began to cry, and she and her daughter cried softly together with their arms around each other. It was not at all unpleasant to hear.

“S
O IT
'
S OVER
,”
Cleary said to me.

I sat with him and Sergeant DiBella in Cleary's office at the courthouse.

“I still want to know the deal with Beth Ann Blair and Royce Garner,” I said.

“Even though no one's paying you,” DiBella said. “And the lady was paying you wants you to stop.”

“Yuh,” I said. “That's about right.”

“You're a pushy bastard,” Cleary said. “I suspect you'll find that out in a while.”

“I suspect that, too,” I said.

“So, what will you do with it?”

“If it had nothing to do with the school shootup,” I said, “I'll forget about it. I don't care who bangs whom.”

“Whom?” DiBella said.

“Whom,” I said.

“I'll be surprised if that's what you find out,” Cleary said.

“Me, too.”

“So if you find out it's germane?” Cleary said.

“Jesus Christ,” DiBella said. “Germane?”

“Try to learn from us,” I said to DiBella.

DiBella grinned.

“What'll you do?” Cleary said.

“We'll talk,” I said.

DiBella took a small notebook from his inside pocket and opened it.

“Beth Ann Blair,” he said, looking at the notebook, “has been a school shrink in Santa Cruz, California; Louisville, Kentucky; Vero Beach, Florida; and Belfast, Maine. All private schools, all coed.”

“Moves around a lot,” I said.

“Nothing suspicious anywhere,” DiBella said. “She stays a couple years at a school, moves on.”

“Be interesting to talk to the students who were there when she was.”

“For crisssake, Spenser,” DiBella said. “I got no budget for this. We got no case here. Kid confessed. You even agree he did it.”

“She's a child molester,” I said.

“There's that,” Cleary said. “And you say you've got the
photo to prove it. But if you open that up, then don't you open up the whole Jared Clark thing?”

“That's why we're just three pals chewing the fat,” I said.

“Until you find out whom this is all germane to,” DiBella said.

“Nice,” I said.

“I'm a fast learner,” DiBella said.

“I got no problem letting you roam,” Cleary said. “But I'm the chief prosecutor in Bethel County, and I take the job seriously.”

“I heard that,” I said.

“So, it's cool, as long as your interests and mine coincide,” Cleary said. “But as soon as I decide they don't the leash is going to get a lot shorter.”

“I sort of guessed that,” I said.

“So you want to keep shaking this tree for a while on your own, for free, be my guest. Be kind of interesting to see if something falls out.”

“It will be,” I said.

“And in case you feel like getting cute, remember I can be a lot more unpleasant than I am now,” Cleary said.

“Wow!” I said.

S
OMETHING FELL
from the tree quite promptly. I was in my office bright and early the next day, studying the new fall wardrobes of the women from the insurance company up the street. The phone rang. Still standing in my bay, looking down at Berkeley Street, I answered.

“Mr. Spenser?”

“Yes.”

“This is Carol Kenny at the Dowling School. President Garner would like to meet with you, at your earliest convenience.”

“How about this morning?” I said.

“Eleven o'clock would be open,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

“So today, at eleven, here at the school. Do you need directions?”

I didn't. Pearl and I had been to Dowling so often now that I was pretty sure Pearl wouldn't need directions, either. But Pearl was sick of going. I did some quick phone work with the dog runner to have Pearl cared for all day. I took Pearl and dropped her off, and drove out to Dowling. I parked on the circular drive in front of the school in a space marked
ABSOLUTELY NO STUDENT PARKING
.

School was in session, and even though the front hall was empty of students, you could feel the repressed energy behind the closed doors of their classrooms. I'd been in prisons that felt this way. Prisons were noisier, and uglier, but they, too, had the same feeling of kinesis restrained that schools did.

I walked to Garner's office and went in. An attractive woman with short salt-and-pepper hair sat at her post outside the great man's office.

“Carol Kenny?” I said.

“Mr. Spenser?”

“Yes.”

“Please take a seat,” she said. “I'll tell President Garner you're here.”

She was wearing a gray suit, a white man-tailored shirt, and sensible black shoes. But when she went to speak to Garner, I noticed that her body deserved better. She was gone for a moment and came back out.

“President Garner will see you shortly,” she said.

I smiled politely. Although he had called me, or she had,
the way she spoke suggested that I was the supplicant. Make me wait a little. Soften 'em up. Cool.

“May I get you coffee, or a drink of water, or anything?” Carol Kenny said.

“I'll just sit quietly,” I said, “and drink in your beauty.”

She giggled, which was a little disconcerting. She didn't look like a giggler. I smiled to show I didn't mind a little giggling now and then. And she went back to her computer, her hands moving smoothly over the nearly soundless keys. In a little while, Royce Garner appeared in his doorway and nodded at me.

“You may come in now, Mr. Spenser.”

“Hot diggity,” I said.

I stood and went past him into his office. Carol Kenny did not look up as I passed. Struggling with her emotions, no doubt. Garner closed the door behind me and indicated a black chair with maple-stained arms in front of his desk. The chair had the school seal on its backrest.

“You may sit there,” he said.

I sat. He leaned back in his chair and rested his gaze on me, tapping a pencil softly against the edge of the desk. I bore up as best I could.

“Before I call my attorney,” he said after a time, “perhaps you would like to explain to me why you went to my home and upset my wife.”

I shook my head.

“Excuse me?” he said.

I shook my head again.

“What does that mean?” he said.

I said, “It means . . .” and shook my head.

“I don't find you amusing,” he said.

“Damn,” I said.

“Your invasion of my privacy and my wife's is unconscionable. I am prepared to take action against you.”

I nodded.

“Goddamn it, say something,” Garner said.

“Unconscionable,” I said.

Garner was still. He stopped tapping his pencil. He tried glaring at me, but it wasn't very effective.

“Let me say this plainly, sir.” Garner was trying to talk with his lips compressed, which is kind of difficult, but he pulled it off. “I will not tolerate any, repeat, any, further harassment. If you come anywhere near my home again, you will hear from my attorneys.”

“A fearful prospect,” I said. “How about the Rosewood Condominiums in Framingham.”

Garner's face remained composed, but his eyes sort of darted.

“What?” he said.

“Where Beth Ann Blair lives,” I said. “With a view of the lake?”

Garner shook his head.

“I'm afraid I don't understand,” he said.

“You spent the night there last week,” I said.

“I'm sorry, you must be mistaken,” he said stiffly.

“No. It was you,” I said. “How long have you been boffing the good doctor?”

For a moment, something faltered in Garner's gaze, and an
ugly thing peeped out. He glanced briefly down at his hands folded in his lap, and when he looked up again, the thing was gone.

“I'm afraid this conversation has concluded,” he said.

“Did you know that Beth Ann was also intimate with Jared Clark?” I said.

Garner's eyes darted again. He opened his mouth and closed it, and stood up suddenly. Without a word, he walked around the desk, past my chair, and out through the reception area. I sat for a minute in case he changed his mind. He didn't. After a while, I got up and walked back out through the reception area. Carol Kenny had a startled look frozen on her face, but she tried her best to remain professional. She smiled.

“Meeting over?” she said.

“Yep,” I said. “I'm afraid it's finished between us.”

She smiled again. “You can find your way out then?”

“I can,” I said.

And did.