An Educated Death (7 page)

I resisted the urge to point out that not understanding the word no was a problem a lot of males had, even though I'd just given a talk at the last Independent Schools Symposium on managing issues of violence and coercion by boys in the boarding school environment. I was as nervous about Dorrie's suggestion as her lawyer was, but for different reasons. I'd sworn that I'd steer clear of anything that looked like an investigation. Even if Laney's death was an accident and not suicide, I'd already had my share of traumatic deaths. I wanted to stay at a nice clean arm's length from the details. I was here to inventory procedures and process. That I could do and that was as close to the death as I wanted to get. I didn't mind finding out the facts like what time she'd signed out and where she was supposed to have gone. What I didn't want to do was come to know Delaney Taggert. I didn't mind knowing her schedule; I didn't want to know about her life.

It sounded as if Dorrie had a different agenda in mind but that wasn't something that needed to be discussed before a roomful of people. We could have a quiet one-on-one later.

"Okay, that's it for now," Dorrie said. "Curt, you'll be working closely with Thea. I want you to be sure she has access to any of your people that she needs to talk to and I don't want any macho horsing around about not talking to her because she's a woman. And don't give me that look. I know how your people are. A few sessions of law-enforcement training and all they want to say is 'Just the facts, ma'am.'" Curt's face was belligerent but Dorrie stared him down, and he went without saying whatever it was he wanted to say.

Dorrie sighed as he went out the door. "If that man weren't so good at what he does..." She gathered up her papers and went back behind her desk. From the security of that position, she directed the rest of her troops. "Dave, would you show Thea where her office will be?" She checked her watch. "Thea, I need about twenty minutes with Peter and the chief and then I was hoping you and I could talk over lunch?"

I followed Dave out, noting the tense set of his shoulders.

Lori wasn't at her desk. I took advantage of the fact that we were alone. "Has it been hell, Dave?"

He nodded. "It sure has. Dorrie's handling it well. She's doing a great job with the parents and the media. Her damage control measures are excellent and bringing you in is an inspired move. But she has no idea how shaken up the faculty is. Her focus has been on the students. I think the faculty could use some counseling as well. They take it very personally, as you can imagine. I guess I don't have to tell you what the boarding school environment is like. You know as much about it as any outsider can. It's kind of like a small town. We all live in each other's pockets here, and right now, everyone is looking in everyone else's pocket, trying to find a place to put the blame. They all feel responsible. You'll see what I mean when you talk to them."

He led me down the corridor and opened an anonymous door. "We've put you in here. A bit cramped, I'm afraid, but we've done what we could to make it comfortable."

A bit cramped was putting it nicely. The office they were giving me wasn't much bigger than a closet, but it had a window looking out over the circle, a rug on the floor, and chair that looked as if it wouldn't ruin my back. There were even a couple nice pieces of student art on the walls. "Whom have I displaced, Dave?"

"No one." I knew better. Private schools are always short on space. Offices don't sit around long before someone discovers them and asserts squatter's rights. "The assistant business manager. But she's on maternity leave. Come next door for a sec and I'll introduce you to Ellie Drucker, our 'Jill of all trades.' If you have a question and you can't find me or Lori, Ellie can help. She does fund-raising and organizes faculty events and probably most important of all, she's responsible for our perennial gardens."

"It's Sunday, Dave. Why is everybody here?"

He shrugged. "Like I said. It's a small town."

I followed him a few steps down the hall to the next door. It was open, revealing a cubicle like mine. A woman was sitting behind the desk staring intently at a computer printout. "Ellie, can I bother you for a minute? I'd like you to meet someone."

She put the papers down and smiled at Dave. "I'm always glad to be interrupted when I'm doing this," she said. She stood up and leaned over the desk, her hand outstretched. She was a tall woman with a wide, pleasant face and well-cut gray-blond hair. She had obviously once been quite attractive. Now she was carrying at least sixty extra pounds and the weight had puffed up her skin so that her cheeks were squirrelly and her chin blended into her neck. She was wearing the suburban matron's costume of flowery skirt and a sweater with matching flowers. The cheerful colors suited her but the skirt exaggerated her width.

"Eleanor Drucker, this is Thea Kozak."

She had a nice firm handshake. "Is this Dorrie's consultant?" Dave nodded. "Well, I hope you can get to the heart of this thing quickly and reassure everyone that it was an accident," she said. "My husband, Chas, was Laney's advisor. It's been a terrible shock for him and I know many of the students are upset as well."

"I told Thea that you were a fount of valuable information and advice," Dave said. "I hope you don't mind."

"I appreciate the compliment, Dave. I'd be glad to help Ms. Kozak anytime." She smiled ruefully. "You can usually find me right here."

I realized then that we'd met before, or at least spoken, when Suzanne and I were doing our earlier consulting project, and I was embarrassed. The fact was, though, that Ellie Drucker was one of those people who toil quietly behind the scenes and don't get noticed. "We spoke before, I think, the last time EDGE was working here." EDGE was what we called our educational consulting business. She nodded.

As we were leaving she called after us, "By the way, you two don't know of anyone who needs an au pair, do you? My niece from Indiana just landed on my doorstep looking for a job. She drives me nuts, but she's great with kids."

"I'll ask around," I said. Dave just smiled and shook his head.

I followed him back to my office. "Let me know if you need anything, okay? And I think Dorrie's arranged for everyone to have lunch later. I'll check." Dave had turned to go but he turned back. "I'm glad you're here, Thea." Then he left. I was surprised. Dave and I get along all right but he'd never seemed particularly glad to see me before. Suzanne and I are kind of like doctors. People consult us because they need us, because we can help them, but they aren't happy about it since needing our help means that something went wrong.

I sat down at the desk, opened the file, and stared at the first thing inside. A picture of Delaney Taggert. It was a posed picture in black-and-white. But even in black-and-white, her huge dark eyes stared out at me with a frightening challenge. She had the kind of face that grows beautiful with time but is hard for a teenager to wear. High forehead, heavy eyebrows, jutting cheekbones and a thin, elegant nose. Her mouth was too wide, too well defined, and had a slightly insolent curl. Just from her name, Laney, I'd been expecting someone less challenging, sweeter, more innocent looking. She seemed to be asking me something. I leaned over the picture, studying the challenging, almost arrogant face, and it became clear what she was asking. "Come on, Thea Kozak, do I look like someone who would kill myself?"

I closed the file with a snap and leaned back in my chair, eyes closed. I was not going to let my imagination run away like this. I was here to do a job and I would do it, but that was all. Someone else, Chief Miller maybe, could figure out who Delaney Taggert was and what had happened to her.

Out in the hall, I heard the rapid approach of heavy feet. The door flew open. A disheveled teenage boy burst in and slammed it shut behind him. "Are you Thea Kozak?" he asked, throwing himself into my visitor's chair. I nodded. "Good," he said, "I need to talk to you about Laney Taggert."

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

After his precipitous entrance, the boy tossed his book bag onto the floor beside the chair, shifted an overgrown shock of hair out of his face, and stared at me with the total misery only an adolescent can manage. He had the fragile, ravaged look the young get when they go without food and sleep, but even in his unkempt state he was beautiful, someone who belonged in a glossy fashion ad for Gap or Benetton. We stared at each other for a minute before he remembered his manners. "I'm Josh," he said, thrusting a reddened hand toward me. "Josh Meyer. I was Laney Taggert's boyfriend."

His hand was unexpectedly callused and rough, his handshake brief and a little awkward. Adult conventions were a veneer that had been laid on him; they weren't really a part of him yet. He settled himself back in the chair and we studied each other again. He had an enviable mane of chestnut hair and gorgeous eyes, dark-ringed gray irises peering through impossibly thick lashes. I recalled as a teenager being convinced that guys always got the best hair and eyes. It was certainly true of Josh Meyer.

"You're the detective, right?" he said, and went on without waiting for my response. "Good. I had to tell somebody and there's been no one around to tell. I mean, no cops or anything, and I wasn't about to waste my time with one of their caring counselors." He made "caring" sound like an obscenity and seemed to assume that I understood what he meant. "Whatever they may tell you, Laney didn't kill herself." He watched my face closely as he delivered this bombshell. "Laney was a complicated person. That's a fancy way of saying real screwed up. She didn't have a lot of confidence in herself. But she was tough, too, and she had plans for her life. She knew being pregnant was no big deal. I mean, she was just going to get an abortion and be done with it. It wasn't something she'd kill herself about."

I had a million questions I wanted to ask him, chief among them where he'd gotten my name and the idea that I was a detective, but dealing with teenagers was a delicate business. It could be tough to get them talking. Once you started, you didn't interrupt them. It was far too easy to say the wrong thing or ask the wrong question and have them clam up, end of conversation, good-bye. So I didn't ask Josh Meyer my million questions. I just leaned back in my chair and listened.

It was hard. Moderation wasn't a word in Josh's emotional vocabulary. In both physical appearance and manner he typified the word 'edgy.' A few sentences into his monologue, he jumped up, wrenched himself out of his coat, and flung it on the floor beside his book bag. Despite the weather, he was wearing only a T-shirt, dingy white with a repellent picture of skeletons and violence fading into gray obscurity, ripped at the shoulder. His long thin arms reminded me of a monkey, the muscles and bones sharply visible beneath the skin, and he was never still.

"People are going to tell you that Laney and I had a lot of fights and it's true. But how am I supposed to feel when my girlfriend tells me she's pregnant and I know the baby isn't mine?" He leaned forward, gripping his knees, and glared at me as if Laney's pregnancy, or at least her failure to comprehend his reaction to it, was somehow my fault. His knees were as bony as his arms and were coming through the holes in his worn-out Bucksport sweats. "Guys aren't supposed to admit stuff like this, but I'm not hung up on all that macho stuff. Laney was the first girl I ever slept with but I'm not so stupid that I wasn't careful. So, yeah, when she told me she was pregnant, I pushed her around a little."

He fingered the hole in his shirt. "Laney did that." I realized that wearing the shirt had nothing to do with the weather; it was a memorial act. He swallowed and raised his head, his bony jaw at once tough and vulnerable. "I didn't know how to feel, you know, I was, like, choking on my feelings. Laney understood that." He took a deep breath. I could feel the punch line coming. "What I wanted to tell you was... you find the father of her baby and you'll find the person who killed her."

He sat back in the chair, the starch going out of him, absently playing with one of the rings in his ear. He'd been carrying this message around since learning about Laney's death, searching for the right person to receive it. Obviously, that person had not been Chief Miller. Now that his task was done, he looked spent.

Something vaguely motherly stirred in me. I wanted to give this kid a sandwich and milk and put him down for a nap. He might be old enough for sex but he couldn't take care of himself. This was someone's beautiful son. Unslept, unshaven, unfed, and under-dressed. "May I ask some questions?"

His gray eyes regarded me suspiciously. "I guess." The set of his jaw was pugnacious and he perched on the edge of his chair, ready for flight. That was another adolescent thing—they said what they wanted to say and then they wanted to be gone. Suzanne, who is learning to cope with an adolescent stepson, calls it hit-and-run speech.

"What makes you think Laney Taggert's death wasn't an accident?"

"Laney wasn't stupid." I waited for more but that was all he said. Outside the window, the blue sky was clouding over.