An Educated Death (48 page)

I staggered down the steps and out into the misty night, deliberately tripping and falling, determined to leave at least a bloodstain in the snow. Looking for a chance to fight back. Knife or no knife, I would not go gentle.

Cursing, he hauled me up and I charged straight at him, ramming him with my head. We were battling in a wet, white, cottony world. I saw his arm go up, knew the knife was coming, and threw myself sideways. It came down, catching the leather of my jacket, but missing me. I kept on rolling through slushy wet snow, giving the half of me not clad in leather an icy bath, then scrambled to my feet, and staggered on toward noise and light and safety, off balance from my bound arms, limited by my bad foot, unable to haul in the air my starving lungs needed through my bound mouth.

"Oh, no, you don't!" The words came from his depths, like the growl of some primitive thing, deep, guttural, furious. I only managed a few steps before he had me again, head forced back, knife against my throat. "You are not getting away from me."

Oh, yes, I was. Like John Paul Jones, I had not yet begun to fight. I stamped down on the top of his foot with my heel and I twisted my head down and sideways. The knife scraped my cheek, but as long as my head was still attached, I wasn't quitting. I stepped sideways and kicked him again and then I ran, to hell with my ankle, I ran. I could feel him behind me, limping and cursing.

Even without looking, I felt him coil for the leap that would bring him up to me, as though in the fierceness of our battle, we'd developed some primeval connection, some primitive ability to sense each other in the darkness.

I sensed other bodies in the darkness. I felt Hamlin fall behind me under the weight of a bigger body. When my ankle twisted again and I fell, it was safely into the right set of arms.

"You're all wet," he said.

As soon as the duct tape was off, an experience not dissimilar from leg waxing except that it took part of my swollen lip as well and involved some creative cursing on Andre's part, I said, "Excuse me," turned my head aside and screamed. Then I said, "Thanks, I think you're fine, too. Where'd you leave the white horse?"

"It was a silver Datsun. I left it down the road a piece."

"And Dom?"

"He's capturing the perp."

"I just love that word."

"Capturing?"

"Perp. Perpetrator is good, reducing a vicious human being to a neutral term, but perp is even better. It sounds like a cute little fuzzy animal. There's nothing fuzzy or cute about that guy, though. What took you so long?"

"Just the usual stuff. An injured female, gunshot wound to the chest. An injured male, blunt trauma injury to the head. A psychotic student with a handgun, threatening to shoot himself, who needed to be restrained. A house without lights. A fire. Fog as thick as pea soup."

Several men had come around the corner with flashlights, lighting up Hamlin being led away in handcuffs. He turned an enraged face toward me. "You'll pay for this," he said.

"Wrong. You'll pay for this. This isn't playacting, Professor. This is real life. And real death."

"You'll see," he promised. Then his escort led him away.

He was replaced by Rocky, who, courteous and considerate as ever, shone his flashlight directly into my eyes. "Ouch! Can't you shine that thing somewhere else?"

"Are you all right?" he demanded.

"What the blankety-blank, blistering, flickering hell do you think, Rocky? Sure. Andre and I are going out dancing just as soon as I wash off all this blood."

Rocky rolled his eyes. "I don't envy you, buddy," he told Andre.

Andre pulled me tighter. It hurt and I didn't give a damn. "Too bad for you," he said. "This woman once took her clothes off before every major network in the state of Maine just to save my life. Can you beat that?"

"I don't think I can. Well, young lady, as soon as we get you cleaned up, we've got some talking to do."

"We
aren't cleaning up anybody, Chief. I can do it myself. And if you call me 'young lady' one more time, I'm going to pop you one."

Andre was grinning from ear to ear. "Isn't she just the cutest little thing?" He knows how I hate to be called cute.

Dom came up to join us. "Sorry I took so long. Goddamned trunk lock jammed. I was wrapping my jacket around my arm to break the window that way when Jungle Boy here came flying past me and dove right through."

"My hero," I whispered.

"Which one of us?" Dom asked, ever the smart-ass.

"Both of youse guys."

A very possessive pair of arms pulled me tighter. I looked up at him. Jungle Boy had a cut on his forehead and a very determined look on his face. "I am not letting you go again...." It was just like the end of one of those awful romantic novels where the heroine on the cover is always bursting out of her dress. I looked down quickly to be sure my own chest was covered. It was.

"Can we go someplace warm and dry, please?" I begged. Andre's arms were warm, but my wet rear end was freezing.

"That's my girl," Dom said. "Preferably someplace with food."

"She's not your girl," Andre said. "You go find your own."

"Woman," Dom said. "I've got one."

"We're going to Dorrie's," Rocky said. "Follow me." He strode away, taking the light with him.

"Great guy. Great manners," Dom said. "You sure can pick 'em, Princess."

"I didn't pick him. I wouldn't have picked him if he'd been the last apple on the tree...." I trailed off. I wanted a big cup of ice cubes to press against my swollen lip and Advil for my aching head. I didn't much feel like talking. "You were following me," I said. "That car I kept seeing. Was you?" The pain was reducing my conversation to a You-Tarzan-me-Jane level perfectly suited for conversing with someone labeled Jungle Boy.

"What else could I do? You wouldn't let me stick around and protect you."

I kept my head pressed tightly against him, listening to the rumble in his chest. "As I recall," I said, my voice faint, "you said 'Cease and desist,' not 'Let me protect you.'"

"I suppose you've never said something hard to back away from and then discovered you were wrong?"

"Just the other day," I said. "I've been trying to say I'm sorry. I've left messages all over the state of Maine."

"And carefully stayed out of danger, too, I've noticed."

"I need to sit down," I said. "I'm dizzy. My ankle hurts. I'm bleeding. Stop talking and kiss me." He laid a row of kisses down the side of my face and neck that left me breathless. Maybe all there was between us was sex and violence, but man, did we do that well. "I was thinking about the laughing boys and the little brown girls. How I might never see them...."

"Historically, we Lemieuxs are a pretty fertile bunch."

I laid a finger across his lips. "Later." With Andre's help, I limped to the car and we drove to Dorrie's.

She answered the door hollow-eyed and haggard and immediately started fussing over me. I waved her off. "Just give me a washcloth and something dry to put on. I'll be fine." I hadn't said anything about the wound. A quick glance showed it ugly and gaping and definitely needing stitches, but I couldn't face that right now. I found gauze pads and adhesive tape in the medicine cabinet and did a temporary repair job. Then I carefully washed my tender, bloody face and limped out. Hopped, actually. I could no longer put any weight on my foot. The woman in the mirror had wild green eyes and lips like the Pillsbury doughboy. A thing of beauty and a joy forever. I was past the point where cosmetics might help. I needed a veil.

I'm not so brave. I screamed when Andre pulled my boot off. He almost screamed when he saw my foot, while Dorrie scampered for ice. I was not going to be rocking around any Christmas trees after all.

"Okay, Sherlock," Rocky said, pulling up a chair and sitting down beside me. Good old Joe Hennessey sat down right behind him, pencil poised. I closed my eyes. Detectives, it seemed, couldn't always choose the company they kept. Dorrie had a chair. Andre was sitting by my head, holding my hand. Dom stood at the foot of the couch, arms folded. He looked ready to spring if Rocky stepped out of bounds. "What's the story?"

 

 

 

Chapter 27

 

So I told it like a story. "Once upon a time there was peaceful kingdom called Bucksport. At least, its inhabitants thought it was peaceful. All the inhabitants watched each other closely and clung together in a model of community. But underneath its civilized veneer, relationships had begun to rankle and fester. Marriages were troubled, fertility an issue, midlife crises abounded. There were intrigues and jealousies. The children of the kingdom were being neglected by the grown-ups entrusted with their care. The Queen of Bucksport, busy with her chancellor of the exchequer and her chamber of commerce, didn't see what was happening. Her staff kept it from her, as did her subjects...."

My mouth hurt. "Can I have some water with lots of ice?" Dom went to get it. "Into the midst of this troubled community came a princess from another country. Talented, aloof, manipulative, and vulnerable, and she became the catalyst that exploded all the community's problems. The teacher who had grown tired of his wife basked in the princess's admiration and determined to seduce her, not knowing that she had also decided to seduce him, just for the practice. A high-strung student fell in love with her, a love which was reciprocated, but he couldn't understand her foreign ways. Another teacher allowed himself to fall hopelessly in love with the princess, a fact of which she was unfortunately aware, and as she had a cruel streak, she allowed herself to tease and tantalize him. Two members of the nobility, discovering that the princess was pregnant, determined to have her baby for themselves. And thus, because it wasn't an idyllic kingdom, was the stage set for murder...."

Rocky sighed and would have spoken, but Dorrie put a firm hand on his arm and whispered "Hush!"

"The princess, finding that her relationships with her new countrymen were puzzling to her, went to see one of the wise women of the kingdom, and confided her confusion. The wise woman, to keep a careful record, wrote all these confessions down—"

"Which goddamned confessions then went missing," Rocky said.

"I have them."

Rocky lurched forward, and he might have grabbed me and shaken me, except that there were two big, snarling men in his path. He subsided into his chair. "What the hell," he said. "How did you get 'em?"

"I found them in my mail slot when I was leaving tonight. She must have mailed them before she died, before Hamlin got to her. I don't know why he killed her. It's not that obvious, from her notes. Not unless you know he was in love with Laney, and how much he disliked Drucker. I haven't found anyone who'll say this, but I think she went to Drucker for money. He turned her down. Then, because she was Laney and she was desperate and couldn't see why she shouldn't do it, she went to Ellie, and Ellie told her to go to hell. She wouldn't ask Josh, just as a matter of pride. The Donahues were hovering like a pair of vultures, desperate to get her baby, so there was no help there. Her best friend, Merri, was openly disapproving. So who did that leave?"

No one spoke, so I answered my own question. "It left Russ Hamlin. Laney knew he was infatuated with her. She was in trouble and she needed help. It never occurred to her that the fact that she was carrying another man's baby, another faculty member's baby, would be anathema to him, when he'd worked so hard to keep his hands off her, to keep his lust to himself. It made him feel like a complete fool. I expect he made her reveal the identity of the baby's father as a condition of handing over the money. He may even have intended to give it to her, but when he heard it was Drucker, a man he despised, a man he felt was so far inferior to himself, he snapped and he killed her."

"So then he tried to poison you because you were getting too close?" Dorrie said.

"That was Ellie Drucker," Rocky said.

"How do you know?" Dorrie asked. She ran a shaking hand through her hair. "How many murderers and attempted murderers do we have on this campus? We might as well close this place and sell it for tract mansions. We'll never live this down." She looked as exhausted and confused as I felt, with a kind of sad, resigned helplessness I'd never seen before. "Look, I know this doesn't absolve me, but Thea, my whole career has just been ruined... poor Josh has been pushed beyond his limits... Carol is dead. You could have been, just because I was sure Delaney Taggert's death was no accident and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I never should have asked you to come back and keep working on it."

"Are you suggesting it would have been better to ignore things and let Russ Hamlin get away with his crime?" Andre asked.

Dorrie sighed. "I'm just not sure anymore. I'm not sure what I think. That is, I'm not sure what we've gained by my determination to find the truth. Look at all the people who have been hurt. It's like tossing a pebble into a pond. The circles keep getting bigger and bigger and affecting more and more of the pond. Laney's death, a small pebble. Carol's death, a bigger pebble. And now there's Josh and the Druckers and Hamlin."