An Educated Death (35 page)

 

They were kind. They let me sleep. Some caring soul even found a blanket and covered me. It must have been a madhouse in Dorrie's office with all that was going on, but I slept through it, curled up on my couch, dreaming. I was dreaming that my brother, Michael, and two of his awful friends were chasing me around the yard, catching up with me from time to time and shaking me roughly and calling me a wimp, then backing off and attacking again. After one particularly rough shake I gave up on dreaming and opened my eyes. I was always willing to do a lot to get away from Michael. Even with my eyes open the shaking went on. Lori Leonard was bending over me, trying to wake me up.

"Cut it out," I mumbled sleepily.

She jumped back like she'd been bitten. "Sorry. I've been trying for about five minutes and I couldn't wake you up. I was
 
getting really scared." She backed slowly away. "You aren't going to go back to sleep on me, are you?" I shook my head. "Good, 'cuz everyone is looking for you. You've had three phone calls from your office... someone named Lisa? She's desperate to talk with you. Guess you're not the only workaholic there, huh? And your lunch is here. Josh came by. I told him to come back in half an hour. Nadia Soren has already left school. She's traveling somewhere with her parents. I'll see if I can track her down if you want. I'll just tell Officer Hennessey you're awake. He's been fretting like a new mother." She was gone in a swish of skirt, her ponytail flying out behind her.

I sat up and tried to wake myself a little more, stupefied from sleep. The cording on the edge of the couch had left a groove in my cheek and my hair had gone completely wild. I swung my feet to the floor and stared at the ugly traces of salt on my spiffy black boots. It didn't matter. I wasn't here because I was a fashion plate, nor to be a dress-for-success role model. They liked me for my mind. Lori came back with a tray and Officer Hennessey and swore on a stack of imaginary Bibles that she'd carried the soup from the cafeteria herself. I ate my soup while he filled me in on what I'd missed.

Laney's picture had been sent to the Oxton police, who'd carried it to the Monadnock Valley House. People there had recognized the picture but no one could give a good description of her companion, except that he was older. But older than Laney meant pretty much everyone, since she hadn't been an old-looking sixteen. "Nobody takes responsibility for anything these days," Hennessey said. "Why'd they let him check in with a sixteen-year-old anyway? We've got a copy of the register for that weekend. I expect it won't surprise you to learn that there are no familiar names on the list."

"No one remembered anything about the guy?"

"Nothing. Or at least, nothing they're willing to share with us. Maybe they're afraid they'll get into trouble." He seemed to have fallen into a funk. He'd been fine when I went to sleep.

"What's the matter, Hennessey? Rocky yell at you?"

He smiled sheepishly. "He yells at everyone."

"That can't be very good for morale."

"We get along. He's got a good heart. It's not easy having an unsolved murder in a small town. People expect a lot from him."

"About the guy she was with. Laney, I mean. There's handwriting. And pictures," I suggested.

"Sure, if we knew whose writing to compare it to. Or whose pictures to show them."

"You could start with the usual suspects," I suggested. He looked blank. Obviously not a
Casablanca
fan. "I mean the people we know she was regularly involved with." The idea seemed to cheer him up. Maybe he could share it with Rocky and gain some points.

"His temper's gonna be a lot worse when they find Carol Frank. They haven't found her yet? " He shook his head. "What about her car?"

"That was never missing," he said. "It was parked behind the gym in the visitor's lot. She called security, said it was broken down and that someone would be coming to tow it."

"To a garage?"

He nodded. "Look," he said, "this thing may be blown all out of proportion. It may be that nothing has happened to Carol Frank. Rocky says she was training to be a mediator and that involves a lot of two-and three-day training courses. Maybe that's what she's doing."

"Right before Christmas? And without telling anyone?"

He shrugged. "She usually isn't at Bucksport on Thursdays. There was no need to tell anyone. She's a grown-up."

But I had snapped at the idea of Carol's car the way a snapping turtle, with its very simple brain, snaps at something and won't let go. Hennessey was still talking, explaining why we shouldn't assume anything had happened to Carol and I was thinking "Car, car, car."

When he paused for breath, I said, "What about the mess in her office? And the missing file?"

"Mischief?" he suggested, but he didn't sound as though he believed it.

"Where is the car now? Has it been towed? Did anyone look in the trunk?"

"I don't know," he said. He was staring at me like I had egg on my face.

"Don't look at me like that. People are always being found in their own trunks. Maybe our murderer isn't very sophisticated, despite the hemlock." I got up and grabbed my coat. He went on staring at me. "Come on, let's get over there and take a look." He still didn't move. "Okay," I said, "I'll go by myself." I knew that would move him. He was my bodyguard. He had to go with me.

As we sailed past Lori's desk, I blurted out a string of messages. "Save the soup. If he comes back, don't let Josh get away. And if Lisa calls again, tell her I'll call her back as soon as I can." It was windier outside, and colder. I started buttoning my coat and pulled up my scarf to cover my face, looking around for my car, which was supposed to have been delivered.

"Hold on," Hennessey said, stopping beside a salt-crusted cruiser. "I'll drive."

"I've got heated seats."

"How were you planning to open the trunk? Your fingernails?"

"You carry burglarious tools?"

"I carry cop tools."

"You're right." I reached for the handle, but he was there before me. "You must be a wonderful husband," I said.

"My wife didn't think so. A lot of women don't like being married to a cop. The hours, the worry, it gets to them." He backed deftly out of the space, spun around, and wound through a maze of buildings to the back exit.

"Do you know where it was towed?" I asked, but we were already moving. We pulled into a Texaco station and parked behind a black Volvo. Hennessey disappeared inside and returned a minute later with keys dangling from his hand. No need for cop tools.

"Look," I said, "no one goes away for a conference and leaves their keys behind." We approached the car cautiously, moving much more slowly than we'd left Dorrie's office, afraid of what we might find. Someone had written Wash Me in the dirt on the car's side. I wondered if Carol Frank had children and if so, what they would do now. There had been no mention of a husband.

Hennessey pulled on his thick leather gloves, took the keys, and walked to the rear of the car. I turned my back, not ready to see what I was sure was there. The sun was warm on my back, the heat absorbed by my dark coat, but I was facing into the wind and it blew sharp pellets of ice into my eyes and ears and down my neck. Behind me, I heard the grate of the key in the lock and then the sound of the trunk lid bouncing up, followed by Hennessey's loud exclamation. I turned and looked. He'd pulled out what looked like a big piece of carpeting and was pulling back some clear plastic. Underneath, curled up on her side, was Carol Frank.

I'd solved a few mysteries in my time. I'd seen horrible pictures of bodies and heard ugly descriptions of bodies and gone to the victim's funerals, but I'd never seen an actual dead body like this before. She didn't look peaceful. I wouldn't have expected her to. She wouldn't have wanted to die like this, stuffed into the trunk of her car, disposed of like unwanted goods. Yesterday she'd sat in my office looking so warm and vital and understanding that I had wanted to confide in her myself. Now her healthy pink skin was a waxy gray. Her bloody face was grimacing, the one visible eye open and slightly bulging, her long curly hair matted with blood.

A couple guys from the garage had gathered and were talking noisily and pointing as they jockeyed for a better view. I turned away from the ugly sight in the car's trunk and stared out across the street. Children playing, shovels scraping, a few plow trucks plying their trade. Cars passing, their tires hissing through the slush. It all looked so normal. I wanted to scream, to shake the skies at the unfairness of it, at the shocking evil that had done this to such a good woman, but I had no voice.

Big black spots danced before my eyes, spots that got bigger and bigger until all I was seeing was black. Swirling, tipping, tilting black and I was in the middle of it, spinning, off-balance, falling. Dear God, I was fainting, just like the weak, helpless female I refused to be.

Andre had his arms around me, holding me tightly so that I was breathing through the scent of his detergent and his soap, my face buried in his hard chest. But as my confusion faded and the dizziness receded, I realized it was Hennessey. I'd been engaging in wishful thinking, avoiding the reality of what was only a few feet away. Avoiding the awful face of death.

I had no one to blame but myself. I'd insisted on staying on the job, on being here. I'd demanded that Hennessey come with me and open the trunk. The price of my willfulness was that now I had to face what we'd found. I wasn't going to hear about Carol Frank's death through a phone call or even Rocky's raucous shout; I wasn't going to read about it on paper. I was always going to have the awful picture of her in my mind, embedded there as deeply as if it had been branded.

"Come on," Hennessey said, "let's get you into the car. I've got to call this in." I didn't want him to take away those comforting arms. I wanted to linger a little longer where it felt safe, but duty called. He dropped his embrace, put one arm firmly around my shoulders and steered me to the car. "None of you touch anything!" he told the small crowd. "This is a crime scene."

What he reported on the radio was so disguised in codes and euphemisms that if I'd been listening on a scanner I would have had no idea what he was talking about, though I knew that scanner aficionados did. I thought about Dorrie and what a nightmare all this was for her. There was no way to keep this one out of the papers. I wondered what on earth we could do for damage control now. Was it any better that this body had been found off campus, even if it had been conveniently towed there?

Luckily, the school was closing for Christmas vacation in a few days. Maybe the best thing to do would be to close now and send everyone home. I wasn't sure. I needed to talk to Suzanne and get some input from psychologists about whether it would be better to keep them together in the face of tragedy or send them back to their families. The psychologist who knew the students best wasn't going to be able to help us now.

The problem was, so many of them came from dysfunctional families. For many of the students, Bucksport played a vital in-loco-parentis role, with the dorm parents closer to the students than their own families. Except for Bill and Kathy Donahue. Maybe they had been, once, but now they were so distracted by their lack of a biological child that they were neglecting all their existing children.

I was shivering, chilled to the bone even though I'd only been outside for a few minutes. It was shock, I knew, and not cold. I could hear my pulse whooshing in my ears. I no longer felt like I might pass out but I was still lightheaded and weak. Hennessey started up the car and turned the heat on full blast. At that moment, I couldn't have gotten too much heat. "As soon as they get here, I'll take you back," he said.

"She is dead, isn't she?"

"Yes. I know this is a shock. The first body always is. I wish you hadn't had to see her... like that." He reached over and took my hand. His own was almost as cold as mine. His fingers traced the faint line of scars across my wrist and he looked at me curiously.

"It's not what you think," I said. "Someone tried to kill me."

"An odd method to choose."

"It was supposed to look like a suicide. I'd rather not talk about it, especially not right now." I rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes. Nothing in life prepares us for moments like this. It shouldn't. The only kind of preparation would be some kind of desensitizing, something to get us even more used to violence and death than the media already has, and the world doesn't need any more of that. "Was she married?"

"Divorced."

"Children?"

"Pretty well grown-up, I think."

"So she lived alone? The killer must have known that. Probably counted on no one missing her for a while. It's so cruel! Not just the killing, but to dump her here, to leave her to rot in her trunk like that, as if she wasn't a person at all but just a—a—thing."

I'd had a hard twenty-four hours. I'm big on control but all the lids that I kept on my feelings had been jarred. Now they came popping off. All my pain and weariness, my shock and sorrow, and awareness of the loneliness I was going to feel without Andre came flying out like the troubles from Pandora's box.

When Rocky came screeching up beside us and threw open the door, he found me sobbing like a lost child in Hennessey's arms. For some unexplainable reason, he didn't bluster or yell, just handed me his handkerchief and took Hennessey off to debrief him. I used the time alone to get myself back under control. I would have powdered my nose, but it would have taken a lot more than powder to subdue it. I looked like Rudolf and my limited supply of cosmetics was in my briefcase back in Dorrie's office. The best I could do was find an elastic to tie back my hair, which was clinging to my wet cheeks and making me crazy. By the time Hennessey came back, I was once again a poised professional. With my blotchy face and shaking hands, I looked like a professional druggie, but there wasn't anything I could do.

We left a crowd of blue-clad men standing around Carol's trunk and drove back to the administration building. Hennessey pulled in, reached past me, and opened the door. "You're not staying?" I said.