Death at the Wheel (10 page)

They invited me to stay for lunch, which was not a sit-down affair in the trustees' room but a trip to the dining hall. By the end of lunch, I knew that if I did the study, one thing I would recommend was a better cook. From the amount of food that I saw being thrown away, I thought the students would agree. Their liveliness and good cheer were even more impressive given that they were fed on grade-B slop.

After lunch, the headmaster took me on a tour of the campus. He led me proudly through the new theater, through the gyms, through the music facilities and the arts center, and through the science labs. Usually, such a tour reveals some weaknesses in a school. Typically, private schools do not have science facilities as good as those in public schools, and sometimes other facilities or classrooms seem shabby, cramped, or outdated. Northbrook seemed to have no such problems. Everything was up-to-date, well maintained, and inviting. I couldn't imagine a student not being impressed. The only deterrent I could see was tramping through the snow in the winter. New England had just come through a serious winter and most of us still cringed at the sight of our winter coats and boots. I mentioned this to him as we strolled across the campus.

He looked abashed. "It's such a nice day I forgot to show you the tunnels."

"Tunnels?"

"Underground. Or partly underground. They connect the buildings."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "This place is amazing."

"We think so, too. We're able to do all this because we've got an unusually large endowment. An absolute fluke, really, how we got it. You'll like the story." We had just come to a bench in the sunshine, looking out over the valley. "Let's sit here," he suggested, "and I'll tell you the story of Northbrook's fortune."

The headmaster, a man called Benjamin Franklin Rhodes III, was a short, slightly rounded man in his fifties, who moved with the vigor and enthusiasm of a much younger man. He had a bounce in his step and a gleam in his eye that made me jealous. "Once upon a time," he began in a storytelling voice, "on a snowy evening, an elderly gentleman was driving past Northbrook when his car skidded on a patch of ice, went into the ditch, bounced out, and ran into one of our gateposts. Some students who were out having a snowball fight heard the crash, ran to the scene, and pulled the man out of the car just seconds before it exploded."

I loved stories that began with once upon a time, and sat, staring out over the peaceful valley, imagining the snowy night. "They were just boys," he continued, "and they never thought about the possibility that they could aggravate injuries. They just pitched in as a group, hauled him out, and carried him to the infirmary, and while the nurse checked him out and determined that, apart from cuts and bruises, he seemed remarkably uninjured, the boys fixed him cocoa and cookies. Over cocoa and cookies, he regaled the boys with stories about his adventures as a miner in the West."

The headmaster smiled. "As luck would have it, the snowstorm turned into a major blizzard and the accidental visitor was unable to leave Northbrook for several days. He spent the first night in the infirmary and after that moved to the headmaster's house. He took his meals in the dining hall with the boys...." He caught my look. "It's not usually as bad as today," he said. "Our cook is down with a bad back and I'm afraid her assistant isn't quite up to the task. The old man's name was Foster. Edwin Foster. He'd had an interesting and adventurous life in the West around the turn of the century as a mining engineer—made a fortune at it—and now he was all alone in the world. A widower without children. So the students adopted him.

"Claiming that he was an orphan boy—they'd just finished a production of the
Pirates of Penzance
—they went to the headmaster and asked if there was some way Mr. Foster could remain on campus. There was an empty faculty suite at the time, the trustees were agreeable, and so Mr. Foster became a geology teacher emeritus, spent five wonderful and productive years here at Northbrook—he actually did teach and he was gifted—and when he died, he left his enormous fortune to the school."

"What a wonderful story."

"Isn't it? I never knew him. He was before my time. But there are a few faculty members left who did. They all say that knowing Edwin Foster was a privilege and an experience that enhanced their lives."

There was a note of finality in his voice and an impatience in his wiggling foot that said it was time for me to leave him to his other chores. I stood and held out my hand. "Thank you, Mr. Rhodes. It's been a delightful visit. Northbrook is certainly an impressive place. Where would you like to go from here? Do you want to look at the materials I brought and get back to me? Would you like more information about anything?"

He checked his watch. "I'm meeting the trustees at two. We'll see what they have to say and then I'll call you. I can't speak for them, of course, but it seems to me that we can definitely use your help."

He walked me back to my car, we shook hands again, and I rolled a bit regretfully down the drive and out through the gate. Northbrook was the first school in a long time that had made me wish I was a kid again. I wished I had no more cares in the world than the complexities of French grammar and which flannel shirt to wear.

It was only two. The drive to Andre's would take maybe an hour and a half. And, being a workaholic like me, he never came home early so I had time on my hands. If I drove another half hour north, I might be able to find Verrill Brothers Trucking and Julie's brother, Duncan.

I stopped at Malone's Kwik-Stop for coffee and directions. The woman behind the counter, probably only my age though she was shapeless and had a hard-used look, was happy to give directions. "Go on up this road 'bout two miles and you can't miss it on the right. Big sign with orange letters." She paused and studied me carefully. "You aren't lookin' for a job there, are you, honey? Because if you are, then forget it. They pay some of the best wages around here but far as I can see, they're still in the last century, it comes to hiring women. Nobody's sued 'em, I guess, 'cuz no one's about to tangle with ole Dunk. He'd make life hell on earth for any woman worked there."

"Duncan Donahue?"

Her expression was frankly curious. "You know Dunk?"

I shook my head. "His sister. I wanted to ask him some questions about her."

"I hope you aren't from the state or anything. Dunk's real protective 'bout Deanna. Always was. So if that's it, I was you, I wouldn't mess with him. Dunk's got some temper on him."

"I don't know Deanna. I came to ask him about his sister Julie. She's in trouble."

She gave me a puzzled look. "Maybe you've got the wrong guy. Dunk's only got the one sister. Deanna. Little bitty blond thing with huge eyes and a face like a baby doll? Looks so lost and pitiful you feel like you oughta take her home and feed her?" I nodded. "That's Deanna, then. Don't look a bit like her brother, what with him big as a house and got that red hair. So she's changed her name to Julie, has she? Probably thinks it's more classy. Always was a climber, that Deanna."

"What do you mean?"

"Mind if I get myself some coffee? If you're trying to help Deanna, there's things you ought to know. That'll be eleven seventy-five," she told the man behind me. She took his twenty, gave him his change, sold him a lottery ticket, and poured herself coffee.

By the time the cashier, Cindy, had finished her story, I knew more about Julie Bass's early life, at least according to local gossip, than I could ever have imagined wanting to know. According to Cindy, Deanna and Duncan were abandoned by their father when Deanna was very small, left in the uncertain care of an alcoholic mother. The mother died when Deanna—Julie, that is—was only sixteen. After that, her brother raised her, and he raised her to make something of her life, or, as Cindy put it, to think she was better than she was. Deanna had not had dates because Duncan drove even the boldest boys away.

Between Dunk's protectiveness and her own shy nature, she'd been so aloof she'd gotten a reputation as a snob and person who thought too well of herself. It didn't help that she was academically talented and ambitious, quietly winning things like the school math prize that, in the community's opinion, ought to have gone to a boy. When she got a college scholarship, there was a lot of talk about it being unfair either because of Duncan's bullying or Deanna's machinations, but whatever the reason, Deanna had left town and never returned. From what I'd heard, I didn't blame her.

"Thanks, Cindy," I said, heading for the door and the fearsome Duncan Donahue.

"You're welcome," she said. "I hope I haven't offended you, being a friend of Deanna... uh...Julie's and all, but she was always so good at putting on an act, I thought you oughta know. What I mean is, don't let that fragile exterior fool you. She's no dope and she can be tough as nails. Back when Verrill Brothers used to sponsor a race car and Dunk was in charge of it, Deanna was a member of the pit crew, and that dainty little babe could hold her own with the best of them."

 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

Smirking men at Verrill Brothers Trucking were happy to send me down a dimly lit, battered corridor to the loading dock where they said I would find Duncan Donahue. Forewarned is forearmed, so I was expecting their behavior, thanks to the helpful Kwik-Stop clerk. She was wrong, though. They weren't so much still in the last century as still in adolescence. The hall was lined with pinups of air-brushed improbable bodies and I thought, as I marched past them, that if there were any women employed at Verrill Brothers, even as secretaries, they'd have themselves a pretty nice sexual harassment case. If this wasn't an atmosphere hostile to women, I'd never seen one.

As I neared the end of the corridor, a commotion of male voices, yelling and cursing, penetrated right through the heavy metal door. I stuck my head out just as someone went flying by and crashed into the wall beside me. A man with blood streaming from his nose clawed his way up the wall, scrambled to his feet, and pushed past me. I turned from watching his retreat to find a gigantic man with blazing red beard and hair bearing down on me with a crowbar in his hand.

"Where the fuck's Jimmy gone? And what the hell are you doing out here?" he bellowed, waving the crowbar.

Pleased to meet you, too, I thought, battling my urge to turn and run. I didn't know anything about Jimmy, though I assumed he was the fleeing man, so I just stated my business. "I'm looking for Duncan Donahue."

"What the hell for?" The rasp in his voice would have scraped the shell off a turtle.

I was ready to take my toys and go home. This wasn't any fun. The circumstances didn't look auspicious and I hate people who try to intimidate me. I'd come a long way to help Julie, though; it didn't make sense to leave without trying to talk with her brother, even if he did have the manners of a junkyard dog. I didn't waste any time on pleasantries; I got right to the point.

"I want to talk about your sister Julie."

The ruddy giant laid a grimy hand on my shoulder and gestured with his chin toward the battered door. "In my office," he said, and steered me none too gently through some doors and into a chair. He dumped the crowbar in a corner, dropped himself into a chair across the desk, and subjected me to a crude third degree. "What are you, a fuckin' cop?" I shook my head. "One of those snooping social workers then? Her kids are fine, thank you, and no, you can't see 'em without showing me some kind of a court order. You got that?"

I shook my head again. He wasn't making this easy. "Look, Mr. Donahue, I'm not a social worker or a cop or anyone who's trying to hurt your sister. I'm a friend of hers. That is, I'm trying to be. I haven't really known her very long. And my mother told me I had to help."

To my surprise, he smiled at that. His smile was pleasant and with it some of his fierceness dropped away. For the first time, I saw the shadow of a resemblance to Julie. "You're a pretty big girl to be doing what your mamma tells you."

"You haven't met my mother."

"How is she? Julie, I mean," he asked with almost boyish eagerness. "Is she doing okay?"

He must be talking to her, I thought, he had her kids, but not wanting to alienate him further, I tried to answer the question. "She had a hard time that first night... when I saw her... there was a doctor in to see her. Look, I think we both know that jail is not a nice place, Mr. Donahue. I haven't seen Framingham, but it can't be nice, either. I expect it's an especially awful place for someone as sensitive as your sister. And you know how she worries about the children. The important thing is to get her out. I came to see you because Julie seems to have trusted you and confided in you. I don't believe she's guilty..."

"You're damned right she's not guilty!" he roared.

"...but it's difficult to talk with her while she's in jail. Her lawyer asked me for help. I'm trying to find out who might have wanted to harm Calvin Bass. To give the police an alternative... another suspect. "

"You make it sound like she's a suspect," he said, the genial look vanishing. He leaned across the desk and glared at me, the heat of his anger scorching me from five feet away, the bulging veins in his forearms seeming to pulse with it.