Cold Case (8 page)

I know. If she was dead and buried, what the hell difference did it make? I like to walk; the school wasn't far out of my way. And my “Adam Mayhew” had spoken about Thea's time there as if he'd witnessed it, realized exactly how she'd felt.

Maybe I thought I'd just ring the doorbell and old “Adam Mayhew” would answer the call. He could damn well pay for a day of my time, a day of Roz's time.

The Avon Hill School stared down on the world from a swath of real estate that made local developers drool. Harvard had tried to buy it once. The city had wisely pulled out all the stops, determined to make the college stick its fat checkbook back in its overstuffed pockets. If Avon Hill ever folded, Cambridge was going to make damn sure its land joined the tax rolls. Non-profits, universities, schools, and churches drive Cambridge taxes so high that regular folks have to move to the suburbs.

The main building was a Georgian mansion, gray with white trim, slate-roofed, and beautifully proportioned, with a pillared center portico. From street level, you could hardly see the dormitories and outbuildings. Even the gymnasium was discreet. Because I'd read Thea's book, the place gave me the shivers. It didn't seem like anywhere children would laugh or play. It looked like the setting of some Gothic horror tale, complete with a wicked governess and a madwoman in the attic.

I climbed the well-kept slate walkway that curved along the hillside, thumped the heavy brass knocker against the oak door. It made a hollow booming sound, but nobody came. I walked around back. There had to be a playground, a soccer field, a summer school class.

Gardeners. Three long-haired males on riding mowers were cutting the grass. The drone grew louder, deafening. I waved and hoped they'd stop. The one riding right-wing waved in acknowledgment. He wore no shirt. Either he hadn't heard that overexposure to the sun could cause skin cancer or he didn't care. Handsome and young could beat the big C any day.

Life had news for him.

He swooped out of line, sped downhill, and halted a few feet from me, standing astride his mower like it was a stallion and he was an old-time outlaw. If there'd been fewer clouds, his gold hair might have shone. He wore dark heavy boots that didn't go with his skimpy cutoffs. Sensible enough to value his toes if not his health.

“Everybody gone for the summer?” I asked.

His face split in a grin.

“Headmaster,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow with a muscle-roped forearm.

“Huh?”

“House next door to the biggie. He's the guy pays us.”

“You work here all year?”

“Mostly. We cut grass, plow snow. They've got a couple old guys do the roses and shit.”

“You work here during the school year?”

“Yep.”

I'd located an outspoken informant.

“How old are the kids?”

He shrugged.

“Kindergarten? High school?”

“More like junior high. Older, maybe, I guess.”

“They give you a hard time?”

“Not allowed to speak to the snots.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, and you should see some of 'em, too. Delicious. Wiggle and giggle whenever we buzz by.”

One of his mates on the hilltop hollered down at him, made a gesture.

“I gotta be gettin' back to it,” he said, staring at his boots. His feet must have been hot.

“Headmaster around?” I asked.

He shook his head no. “Went out. No telling when he'll come back. Walks into the square.”

“Old man? Silvery hair? Glasses?”

“Kinda young. New last year.”

So much for a heart-to-heart with my lying client.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You might try the missis,” he said before he gunned the motor and returned to the hilltop.

The house next door was a well-maintained Victorian with a wraparound porch. A box of brochures rested on a rattan table. I grabbed a couple. Educational philosophy, along with a wide variety of classroom offerings, and the option of extensive study abroad. No prices. If you had to ask, you couldn't afford it. I wondered if the brochures on the porch were the gist of the school's advertising. Word of mouth and the old boy network would provide.

I knocked at the headmaster's door. I'd almost given up when it finally opened.

The woman was both young and shy. Her shiny brown hair was twisted severely and coiled on top of her head. If not for her obvious pregnancy, she would have fit the surroundings perfectly. A servant's apron and cap would have looked positively fetching.

Fetching! The otherworldly old-fashioned air of the place was starting to get me. Fetching, my ass.

“Are you selling anything?” she said. No throwback to a gentler age here. Straight to the point.

“No.”

“Okay. Um, is it about one of the students, because they're on vacation.”

I could simply wait until she hit on the reason for my visit. Or I could supply one.

“Hello,” I said, taking the steps quickly, opening the screen door, pressing her hand warmly. “I'm so glad you answered the door. You're Mrs.…?”

“Mrs. Emerson. I'm, uh, the headmaster's wife.”

She blushed when she said that, and twisted her wedding ring. She hadn't been the headmaster's wife for long. I wondered if the pregnancy had predated the wedding.

“Is your husband in?”

“No. I'm sorry.” She started to close the door.

I wished I'd dressed better. Still, it was hot and old money doesn't flaunt its presence.

I touched my fingertips to my forehead and breathed a deep sigh. “It's only that my sister, Helen, called last night and begged me to take a look around. She's raising two children in Colombia, South America, you know. Political unrest. She hates letting them go, but lately she's been thinking of sending them to school in the States.”

“We have quite a few foreign students,” the woman said, her eyes brightening as I dangled two hefty tuition fees.

“Helen, my sister, was planning to do the rounds herself. B, B, and N, Southfield, Phillips-Andover, but she had to go in for minor surgery, and the recovery period just stretched and stretched.”

“You're not talking about a fall placement?”

“I know it's late. You're probably full.” I tried to look apologetic and contrite.

“We do have a waiting list.”

“I told my sister it was too late,” I said, turning away, accepting defeat graciously.

“We might have an opening or two for
next
September,” the woman said.

I paused, feigning reluctance, checking my wristwatch as though I had a tight schedule.

“Next September,” I said, summoning up a sigh of regret. “Those kids need someplace now.”

“Since you're already here, it wouldn't do any harm to look around,” the headmaster's wife said, as though suddenly remembering her sales pitch. “What age are the children?”

Good thing I'd scanned the brochure.

“Paolina's thirteen,” I said without having to lie. I quickly gave my little sister an imaginary sibling and christened her Cecilia. “And Cecilia's fourteen, fourteen and a half.”

The woman turned and snagged a set of keys from a nearby hook. Her voice became animated, brisk.

“Let's start with the main building. The school was founded in 1898. We maintain a tradition of excellence.”

She'd done this routine before. The mansion door creaked when she put her shoulder to it.

The entry hall was filled with glass cases. Elaborately framed photos hung everywhere, as though someone had banged nails into the molding at random. Classes, sports teams, rowers on the Charles. Shelves and glass cases were devoted to trophies. Silver Paul Revere bowls, some tarnished, some shiny. Aged sepia photographs, lying on their backs. Blue, red, and gold ribbons, some mounted, some piled.

Oil paintings of founders, headmasters, and headmistresses lined the other wall. Talk about gloomy. The entire corridor must have been lit by a sixty-watt bulb.

“Who are some of your famous alumni?” I inquired when she came to a halt. “That's the kind of thing my sister would want to know.”

She quickly rattled off a U.S. senator, a popular national news anchor, a rock singer, a woman who'd won the Alaskan Iditarod three years running, an attorney who regularly appeared before the Supreme Court, and several hotshot businessmen, including a software billionaire who could have made all future fund-raising moot with a grant.

“Anyone in the arts? Actors? Writers? My sister's very big on arts education.”

She stuck her tongue firmly between her teeth and furrowed her brow. Extreme thought.

“We had a poet, I think,” she said.

“Would you mind if I looked at a few of the photos?”

“Not at all. You really ought to come back when my husband's here. He knows so much more about the arts offerings. We do have a cooperative program with the Boston Ballet School.”

“Does that mean there's no ballet teacher on campus? What about music? Cecilia plays the cello beautifully.”

Damn, I find it so easy to lie to people it scares me sometimes.

She tucked her tongue into the corner of her mouth and furrowed her brow again. “What you need is a faculty list.”

“A list would be marvelous,” I agreed.

“My husband has them.” Her brow stayed wrinkled, her mouth pursed.

“Probably keeps things like that in his office, don't you think?” I suggested offhandedly.

His office. She charged down the hall like a knight in pursuit of the Holy Grail, and I started some serious staring. Class of '73? '74? Which would be Thea's class? No leatherbound edition of
Nightmare's Dawn
graced any trophy case. In light of its content I wasn't surprised.

She came back too quickly, with a flimsy sheet of paper, two large folders, and the flushed face of success. “I've got the faculty list. We have some very prominent professors who give generously of their time.”

“Wonderful,” I enthused.

“And I brought two applications. Just in case,” she said.

I wondered whether they offered a two-for-one deal on application fees. Probably not.

I studied my watch, made a clicking sound with my teeth.

“I really have to be going,” I said.

“But you haven't seen the gymnasium—”

“I know, but since there's so little chance of admission—”

“You, really ought to hear my husband talk about this place. He's an alumnus.”

I did a little rapid arithmetic. He could be ten years older than his wife and still be called “young” by the teenage gardener. He could have been Thea's classmate.

“I'd certainly like to speak to him,” I said. “Let me give you my card.” I chose a plain one. Address and phone number. Nothing concerning profession.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Emerson,” I said.

She stole a look at my card. “Miss Carlyle.”

“Oh, and your husband's first name?”

“Anthony.”

“Tony?”

“He prefers Anthony.”

“Thank you so much.”

We said our farewells at the door of the Victorian. Once she disappeared inside, I quickly ran my finger down the faculty list. No Adam Mayhew, no teacher with the initials A.M.

I walked back to the mansion and sat on the front porch, not really waiting for the headmaster to return, but trying to put myself in a place Thea might have been. I looked across the grand lawn with the eyes of the young woman who'd written
Nightmare's Dawn
, saw her imaginary snakes and rodents. Moles digging by night, secrets eating at the students by day. Cliques, anorexia nervosa, hazing, bullying, underground societies, exclusion.

I blinked. The sky was azure, furred by high cirrus clouds. The air smelled of fresh-mown grass. To me, it looked like Eden the day before God created apples.

9

It was too hot to rush home. I walked slowly, savoring the colors of late summer blossoms I couldn't name, impressed by the industriousness of bees. No one tailed me. I heard the ragged engine of a motorbike and wondered idly whether any self-respecting mobster would use such primitive transport, but it traveled another street.

Stifling an urge to kick the mail under the rug, I grabbed the envelopes cascading from my door slot. The kind of correspondence I get usually isn't worth bending down for. Circulars from my local hardware and grocery stores, like I have the time or inclination to clip coupons for things I never wanted in the first place. Reminders to visit the dentist who once charged me a bundle to replace a tooth knocked out in the line of duty.

A postcard from Paolina made me smile, her irregular scrawl on one side, a quaint New Hampshire vista—small-town idyll spiked with white church towers—on the other. I inhaled, holding the card close to my face, wishing I could smell the cherry Life Savers aroma of my little sister. She's thirteen now, the single truth in the pack of lies I'd dealt Mrs. Emerson, but I remember her best at seven, bruised, scared, and defiant. Despite her liberal use of trendy free-sample scents, Anais Anais one week, DKNY the next, she'll always be cherry Life Savers to me.

“
Ola
, Carlotta! I'm really having an okay time. Better than okay. Terrific! My cellies are cool even. How's Sam? Kisses and hugs to Gloria and you too. Remember to feed my bird!”

At fourteen, a scant year older, Thea Janis had written:

perhaps as penance,

i must walk,

barefoot and holy,

through snow-wax camellias

as bitter as the ichor of

the living

or fruits of the dead.

If Thea wrote like that at fourteen, why the hell not kill herself at fifteen? What act had she committed that required such penance? What crime, outside her fanciful imagination?

I reread Paolina's card, slightly troubled by her use of “cellies.” It's current jail jargon for “roommates.” Did a fellow camper have family in prison? Was I shelling out good money so my little sister could learn to boost cars instead of sailboats? Boosting cars she could learn in her own neighborhood, just by sticking her head out the window.