An Educated Death (45 page)

To be fair, I considered the rest of my suspects. For every name I thought up, I could come up with a dozen reasons why they couldn't be the one. Genny Oakes, for example. Killing two people seemed like a pretty extreme way to get rid of an unwanted roommate, even one who'd hurt your feelings badly. The same went for Merri Naigler. It was pretty dramatic to kill someone because you wanted her boyfriend. In neither case could I see any reason to kill Carol Frank. Laney's mother might be thoroughly unlikable, but she seemed too upset by what people would think. That left me with Kathy Donahue.

I went back over Carol's notes. Yes, Laney had mentioned Sarah and Merri and Kathy. She'd even said that Kathy was trying to talk her out of an abortion, being cruel and making her feel abandoned. But that wasn't enough to make Kathy kill Carol Frank, was it? Could she have feared that Carol might get her fired? I didn't know. And there seemed to be no reason for any of them to want to kill me. What could Carol and I possibly know that would get us killed? Nothing except the truth about Chas Drucker.

I ran to the phone and called the Sedgwick police station. The person who answered the phone informed me that the chief was temporarily unreachable and they would have him call me as soon as they could. Not wanting to harm Bucksport by a public declaration about the Druckers, I left the message that I had some urgent information about Laney Taggert's death and asked that Rocky call me as soon as possible.

Then I tried the Bucksport switchboard and was informed that Dorrie wasn't to be disturbed and I could leave a message. Angry, I disconnected and called Dorrie at home but all I got was her machine. Once again I left a message, feeling frustrated and angry and invisible. After a minute, I tried again but all I got was the machine. The powers that be had taken the night off.

I sat and stared at the phone, frustrated by my inability to do anything. I got up and paced the room. Kicked the cat. Called Dorrie again. Got the machine again. Paced some more, seething with frustration and anxiety. Of all the times for everyone to go AWOL! All the pacing and worry was exhausting. I sat on the couch and stared out at the water, wishing there were something I could do.

Then the paranoid thought hit me that if I could figure things out, so could they. That maybe they knew and didn't want to act. Maybe no one was responding to my calls because they didn't want to hear what I had to say. Maybe once they'd known about Chas and Laney, and about the small feet, they'd been faster adders than I was and had already put two and two together. Maybe even now they were huddled together, pondering what to do, and they didn't want me to be part of the discussion.

I knew Dorrie was not happy with the way I was unearthing skeletons on her campus. Maybe at first she'd thought she wanted to find a killer but she certainly didn't want all this dirty linen aired in public. So far I'd turned up problems with Kathy and Bill Donahue, a faculty member who'd impregnated a student, a physical plant employee with a history of sexually abusing young girls, and now I wanted to tell her that another valued employee was a murderer. Maybe she didn't want to hear it.

Maybe she'd never expected me to succeed. By now I was quite sure that Dorrie had hired me to solve her murder and not just to do a systems assessment, but it wouldn't be the first time someone had hired me to do a job and then been surprised when I did it. Dorrie was an excellent administrator and she genuinely believed in acting for the well-being of her students but her loyalty was to the institution—an institution that my discoveries threatened to seriously damage. Maybe I was wrong. Not about Ellie but about Dorrie. Maybe she, maybe all of them, didn't want me to find the killer just as they hadn't wanted me to know the truth about Kathy Donahue. Maybe they all knew what was going on and I was, as Chip Barrett had said, just window dressing.

I got up and started pacing around the room. On my third pass I stumbled over the cat. "No one," I said loudly, kicking the cat in a tumbling arc over the sofa, "hires me to be a fall guy or a fool." I kicked it again, and its gooney blue eyes caught the light as it flipped, giving it a surprised look. But surely they couldn't have all been in on a plot to kill me. That would be too much to believe. Maybe the conspiracy was just to protect Ellie. Maybe she knew she didn't have to worry, that they would cover things up and she would never be discovered. If that was the case, Dorrie must be mighty mad at me right now. Her token investigator actually solving the crime? And then again, maybe I was being paranoid and there was no plot and all of this suspicion was the product of an exhausted, overstimulated mind.

While I was still steaming and stewing the phone rang again. There was only one person I knew who might be calling. Andre. Eagerly I picked up the phone. "Thea Kozak?" asked an unfamiliar voice.

"Yes."

"This is Ellie Drucker. I'm sorry to disturb you at such an awful time but I know you've been working on this murder business for Dorrie... that is, I know you know about my husband and... and that girl... and I've been sitting here thinking... and well, I need to talk to you. If you'd be willing... right away... if you could come here?" She stopped, breathless. Her normally pleasant and controlled voice sounded forced and staggering as though she were teetering on the brink of control.

There was only one reason for her to call me—to try to lure me there so she could finally kill me off. The suspicion flitted briefly through my mind that Dorrie had called and set me up. But I dismissed it just as quickly. However much her interests might seem different from mine, Dorrie wanted the killing stopped. She wanted her campus safe and orderly again.

Right now my problem wasn't Dorrie, it was what to do about Ellie Drucker. There was no way I was delivering myself into the hands of a double murderer. "I'm sorry, Ellie," I said, "but I'm exhausted. I'll be happy to talk with you in the morning."

"I don't think you understand," she said, her speech once again hesitant and strange. "I know you think I did it. I heard you talking with Dorrie today and I know you were in my office, that you know I've been listening to your conversations. I don't know how to convince you, before you splash it all over the papers and ruin what little I've got left, which is my own self-respect, that I'm innocent. I'd never have killed that girl—"

She was breathing heavily, as if she'd just run up several flights on stairs. "Look," she gasped, desperation in her voice, "just sit down and talk with me. Give me a chance to tell you my side of the story... then you can do what you want. I hate to ask you to come here... I know I should come to you but I'm... I'm not well. It's one of the penalties of being fat...."

Another panting silence. I pictured her trying to get her breath back so she could speak. "I expect, being the nice, thorough little investigator that you are, that you've already called the police, and probably Dorrie, too. Have you?"

Stunned, I muttered "No," meaning that I hadn't reached anyone.

Before I could explain, she said, "Good. Before you jump in and destroy whatever bits of my life you haven't already smashed in your do-gooder zeal, I figure that you owe me this at least—give me the courtesy of coming here and listening to what I've got to say. I'll be waiting for you."

"Ellie, are you crazy? I'm not coming to your house, knowing what I know."

"What you think you know. Before you decide, you should know—" She broke off, sounding like she was about to cry. "Josh is here. He wants to see you. Alone. If you don't come, I can't vouch for... for what might happen." She hesitated. There was a long pause, a pause during which I felt myself shaken to the bone. "You do understand what I'm trying to say, don't you?"

I thought I did. That damn fool Rick McTeague had told Josh his theory about the small feet and Josh, remembering he had seen Ellie Drucker crossing the quad right after Laney, had put two and two together and gone to see Ellie. Heaven only knew what she'd done to him, that poor boy who'd already been through so much. He'd already gotten more of an education into the dark side of human nature at the Bucksport School. Now he was caught like a fly in her spider web.

"I'll be there in an hour. Is Josh all right?" She smashed down the phone.

I stood there, stunned, listening to a buzzing line. I needed help. I called Dorrie again, got the machine again, and knowing my voice was laden with impotent fury, told her what was going on and what I was going to do. I hung up without knowing whether I could count on her. Yes, she was stressed and exhausted, and needed rest, but she'd picked a hell of a bad time to take the night off. I tried Rocky and got the same message. I'd have to wait until the chief called in. I told them it was an emergency, but I hung up without any confidence that the urgency of my message would be conveyed.

I might be big and brave and impulsive but this was one case where I had no interest in being the Lone Ranger and no certainty that anyone would be there to back me up. I called my friend Dom Florio, my second-favorite cop. I met him when my friend Eve's mother was murdered. He'd cornered me at the funeral and tried to pump me for information about the family. Although I was reluctant to be his spy, as the matter unraveled, Dom and I ended up spending a lot of time together. He and his wife, Rosie, were everything my parents weren't, and we'd sort of adopted each other. Dom was a good man to know in a crisis and as far as I was concerned, that's what I was in. Besides, being a cop, he was used to being disturbed at night.

The phone only rang twice before he answered, sounding as calm and awake as if he'd just been sitting by the phone instead of sleeping. "Florio," he said.

"Dom, it's Thea Kozak," I said.

"Oh, no!" he groaned. "Now what's the matter?"

"I knew I could count on you, Dom," I said.

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"I'm sorry to call you in the middle of the night like this, but I need help."

"And when you need help Mommy said to find a nice policeman, right?"

"You bet." In the background I heard Rosie's voice. I could make out a questioning tone but not the words, though I heard his reply.

"It's Thea. Suggesting a nocturnal rendezvous." Rosie spoke again and then Dom came back to me. "Rosie says you wouldn't call unless it was important and I should stop giving you a hard time."

"She's right."

"Rosie is always right," he said. "What's up?"

I didn't know where to begin but gut instinct led me to say the right thing. "Someone tried to kill me."

"Again? I thought you'd vowed to reform. Take only safe work and leave the dangerous stuff to us."

"I tried, Dom. But the person who tried to kill me just called and wants me to meet her. I've got to go, Dom."

"Why?"

"Because they've got a hostage. A student."

He sighed. "Where?"

"Sedgwick. The Bucksport School."

"Did you call the police?"

"Twice. The chief is taking the night off and this is sensitive. Send in a screaming horde of patrol cars and who knows what might happen."

"So sensitive you should risk your life?"

"I'm not risking my life. That's why I'm taking you. Look, can we talk about this on the way? This woman poisons people. She's got a kid in there... and she said she couldn't vouch for what would happen...."

There was a long silence on his end. I heard him breathing. I could picture his plain, serious face, his forehead creased with a frown. Dom didn't look like much unless he smiled, until you saw him close up. When I met him I thought he looked like an accountant but that was before I noticed his eyes. His dark blue, sharp, and knowing eyes. All his experience was in those eyes. They were always moving and always seeing. He was a regular guy, flawed and stubborn and opinionated, not some superman, but he came as close as anyone I knew to being one of my heroes.

"Dom, please...." There was a tremble in my voice I couldn't conceal.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'll come. I was about to make Rosie here the happiest woman in the world but she can wait. Patience is the eternal burden of the policeman's wife."

That time I heard Rosie's words quite clearly. A most unladylike "Fuck you, Florio."

And his reply. "That's what I was trying to do, Rosie." Then he sighed again for the lost pleasures of his night. "Where do I meet you?"

 

 

 

Chapter 25

 

The night was thick with fog. It hovered around the lights and pooled in the hollows, making the whole world soft. Christmas lights, shimmering through the white haze, had the amorphous, melting quality of M&M's in soft-serve ice cream. They were pretty, but I wasn't in the mood for pretty right now. There's nothing pleasant or Christmasy about going to meet a murderer. I'd done it before, I knew what could happen, and I was sick with fear. Scared enough so that I took the extra precaution of looking for the strange silver car. Maybe Ellie had an accomplice—Chas, for example. Or maybe the missing Chris Fuller was stalking me, seeking revenge for his lost job. The car was there, parked under a streetlight. I walked over and peered in. Empty. If I
was
being stalked, it was in a rather desultory fashion.