Final Exam (7 page)

Eight

The next school day passed without incident and I managed to keep my nose clean for the entire day. I spoke with Crawford at lunchtime and he told me that he had found a woman in the squad who had a hook in Scarsdale. She had reached out to a detective there and found out that Wayne had not been reported as a missing person, at least not so far. But the detective promised to keep an eye out and an ear to the ground and to let Crawford know if anything turned up.

We were running out of metaphors so I hoped this wrapped up quickly.

I got back to the dorm just in time to pay the pizza guy, who was waiting for me at the front desk when I walked in. I skidded to the front desk in my high heels; my first duty as RD was going to be to have a conversation with the custodian about the high gloss on these floors. There was
clean
and then there was
dangerous
. We had entered into the latter category with Mr. Janitor’s overzealous buffing.

I had called for a pizza before I left my office thinking that I would be back at the dorm in minutes; I had gotten waylaid by a student who was not guilty about spring break, but guilty about the D he was getting in my creative writing class. If he had channeled all of that guilt into his creative writing, he would have had something to work with, but instead, he was frozen. We worked through a few scenarios, with my mind on my impending pizza delivery, his on getting a grade higher than a D.

I took my pizza back to my room and opened the door. I spied Trixie sitting on the bed, dutifully awaiting my arrival. She jumped off and ran circles around me, nearly knocking me over. I knew what we had to do before we got to eat our pizza, so I put her on the leash, stuffed a
New York Times
delivery bag into the waistband of my skirt, and took her out the side door into the parking lot.

I was still wearing my heels, but the only place I could see to take her was the cemetery, directly across the parking lot from the dorm. It wasn’t a straight shot, but up a little hill, which I reasoned I could scale in my black suede pumps. I started across the lot and up the hill, using my heels to dig into the soil. Going back to change my shoes wasn’t an option; Trixie had to go and any time I wasted going back to my room to change my shoes was going to be time taken away from eating my pizza before the house meeting. Trixie scampered up the little incline, dragging me behind her.

I realized that walking my dog in a cemetery probably wasn’t the most reverent or polite thing I could do, but the dog had been cooped up in my dorm room since lunchtime and needed to go out. I didn’t have time to do a leisurely riverside walk like we had in the morning and at noon, so this was going to have to do.

After everything I’d done and the decisions I had made, I was going to hell anyway, so if my dog took a dump on a long-gone nun’s grave, what was the harm? I led Trixie down one of the paths between the graves and as far away from a final resting place as I could and looked around as she paused, sniffed, ran in circles, and then got down to business. I said a silent apology to Sister Margaret Dolores Russell, born 1845, died 1941.

“Look, Trix,” I said, wiping off Sister Margaret’s grave marker, “she died on Pearl Harbor day.”

Trixie was not impressed.

I got up and continued walking. Off in the distance, I could see the Science Building, where my ex-husband had spent many a day teaching, hitting on colleagues and students alike, and being a general shithead. Next to that was the library, a building that was virtually unknown to most of my students. And beyond that was the dorm where I had lived for most of my time here, right next to the new dorm that was going up. From what I had read in the latest campus newspaper, the building was going to be state-of-the-art, with Wi-Fi, flat-screen televisions in every lounge, satellite cable service, popcorn machines, and rooms decorated by some fancy designer who got to put his name on every piece of furniture. I looked at my old dorm and sighed. I guess things had to change, but was the change for the better? My dorm had had Murphy beds that folded into the walls to make more room for the two girls per, laminate-topped desks bolted to the floors, and televisions with rabbit ears. And we had been very happy. At least I had. Max had always complained that living at St. Thomas wasn’t any better than living at a women’s reformatory.

Trixie was taking an inordinately long time, peeing on every gravestone she encountered. We wended our way through the cemetery, where I read some of the grave markings; others were worn away from years of exposure. Most of the sisters buried there had lived long, long lives, and many had survived well into old age without Wi-Fi.

Trixie sniffed at the grass and squatted to pee again. “Oh, for God’s sake, Trix. We’ll be back. You can mark your territory later.” I knelt down and petted her, accepting her kiss. To my right, I heard rustling and my back straightened. “Who’s there?” The hair on Trixie’s neck went up and she let out a low growl, straining at the leash. “Down, Trix,” I whispered. I stayed in the crouch, listening for more rustling.

The next sound was far more menacing as a beer bottle sailed past my head and hit the gravestone next to me, that of one Sister Catherine Marie LaGrange. The bottle shattered, shards of it landing in my and Trixie’s hair. Trixie let out a yelp of surprise and bolted, dragging me after her. I flew into the gravestone directly in front of me, the top of the stone hitting me squarely in the diaphragm. I sucked in one last gasp of air before the wind went completely out of me. I hit the ground, landing on my back, staring up at the last remaining slants of daylight in the clouds.

The rustling got louder and I heard the sound of footsteps. In between gasping for air and wondering if you could die from having the wind knocked out of you, I sat up and saw a figure running through the gravestones. I couldn’t see the front, but from the back, the figure was tall, male, and thin.

And if I could have guessed, I would say slack-jawed.

I tried to speak but couldn’t. Trixie was in hot pursuit, having freed herself from my hold on her leash, jumping over gravestones and weaving in and out of the rows of dead nuns. I finally took in some air and screamed his name.

“Wayne! Wayne Brookwell!”

But Wayne, or whoever it was, ran up the hill and out of sight. Trixie wasn’t chasing him anymore, so when I was able to breathe again, I got up to find her.

She was crouched on the grave of Sister Mary Lawrence Cassidy, born 1893, died 1995. I got closer and saw that Trixie was eating the remains of a ham and swiss on rye. She looked up at me guiltily.

“You almost killed me, Trix,” I said, clutching my midsection. The pain was intense and I realized I had tears streaming down my face. I wiped my cheeks with the arm of my sweater and pushed my hair back, looking around. Still not a soul in sight, the bottle thrower long gone. I grabbed Trixie’s leash and hobbled back to the dorm.

Nine

I was still breathless from nearly being impaled on a gravestone. “I think I saw him,” I said. I was back in my room, sitting on my twin bed, talking on my cell phone. Crawford was at his desk in the squad.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Crawford said.

“Wayne. Wayne Brookwell.”

That got his attention. “Where? When?”

“A few minutes ago.” I explained how I had been walking Trixie in the cemetery and how I was about 99 percent positive that Wayne was only a few rows of graves away.

“So, he’s alive.”

“I think so,” I said. “But not for long if I get my hands on him. Between having to live in this dump, and getting a beer bottle thrown at my head . . . and, oh, yeah . . . getting pulled over the top of a gravestone, I’m getting more and more ticked off by the minute at this guy.” I took in another deep breath. Yep, still hurt. “Even if he has the loveliest parents in the world.”

Crawford asked me to hold on; I could hear his muffled voice as he talked to someone in the precinct. “Radio car is on its way over.”

I groaned. “Why?”

“Because anyone who throws a beer bottle at your head deserves a tune-up.”

“A what?”

“A talking-to.”

I didn’t think that that’s what it really meant, but I let it go. “How are you going to find him?”

“I told them to start with the cemetery and take it from there.” He paused again. “Now I’m pissed.”

“It’s okay, Crawford,” I said, knowing that him being angry at Wayne would not help the situation. “I’m fine.”

“Are you really okay? Or are you just telling me that so I won’t make a big deal out of this? Because if we find Wayne, he’ll have bigger problems than a brick of heroin in his toilet.”

I touched my midsection, and while it was sore, it wasn’t excruciating. “I don’t think I broke anything but I could be bleeding internally,” I said, only half joking.

“Do you want me to come over?” he asked.

“Under normal circumstances, I would say ‘yes,’ but I have a meeting tonight with my resident assistants.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“And with the internal bleeding and all, I don’t think you’d enjoy being around me.”

“Right.”

I thought of something else. “Hey, did Lattanzi or Marcus say anything about the stuff from the toilet?”

“Haven’t seen them. But I’ll hook up with one of them tomorrow and see if they found out anything. I haven’t heard anything on the prints that were taken, either, but I’m guessing we’re also not going to get anything back from those.” He sighed. “Unless you can find Brookwell on your own, you’re stuck there until the end of the semester, I’m afraid. First chance I get, I’m coming over to poke around with you.”

“That sounds vaguely dirty.”

He chuckled. I heard his radio crackle again in the background. “I’ve gotta go. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for listening.”

The house meeting commenced right at seven o’clock, just like Amanda said it would. Internal bleeding probably would have been the only thing that could have kept me from attending, given Amanda’s insistence the day before. She was as jittery that night as she was the first time we met and I watched as she took a seat on an upholstered ottoman directly across from me, her leg going up and down in a nervous rhythm. She was in the same getup as when I had first met her: pink flip-flops, jeans, the Princeton sweatshirt. Fortunately, the other RAs seemed like an amiable, if laconic, bunch. One, Bart Johannsen, had brought his lacrosse stick, which he twirled repeatedly during our meeting, making me dizzy. He was a giant kid whose Scandinavian genes had presented themselves in an impressive genetic specimen: Bart was well over six feet, built like a redwood, with a tanned face and a head of platinum-blond hair. Another, Michael Columbo, bounced a basketball. Michael was a boy in a man’s body—giant feet that he didn’t know quite how to maneuver yet, and long arms that swung at his sides when he walked. Yet another, one Spencer Williamson—a nebbishy-looking kid who looked like he was straight from central casting—I had had in class in an earlier year. He sat across from me, looking dolefully at the back of Amanda’s head. Although these kids had gone through a rigorous interview process and were responsible for the students who lived on their respective floors, they didn’t seem any different from their charges, so I wasn’t sure what had set them apart from the other students who had interviewed for these coveted spots that afforded them free room and board for the duration of their tenure.

“So, what did Wayne usually talk about with all of you at these meetings?” I asked, perching gingerly on the edge of the credenza against the wall. I assumed that word of Wayne’s unceremonious departure had swept the dorm and that we didn’t need to cover that.

My question was met with a bunch of vacant stares, with the exception of Amanda, who looked up at the ceiling as if it held great interest.

“Any issues?”

Nothing.

“Any concerns?”

Michael Columbo spoke up. “Yeah. I need someone to cover the desk for me Wednesday night. I have to work.” He dribbled his basketball a few times, deftly working it between his legs. He pretended to shoot at an imaginary basket.

Impressive, I thought, watching his basketball skill. I wondered about his “work.” Wasn’t being an RA a job? “Okay. Any takers?” I asked. There was murmuring and mumbling about plans made and studying to do but no commitments. I looked around. “Spencer? What about you?” He didn’t look like the type who would have an impressive social calendar, but who was I to know, really? I took the chance that I was right.

He responded with a huge sigh and a shake of his blond, overgrown mop.

“Is that a ‘no’?” I asked.

“I’ve got a Japanese anime convention in the city that night.”

Of course you do. That was so weird that I knew he hadn’t made it up. If you’re going to lie, you usually use something a little less, well, specific. “What do you do if nobody can do it?” I had a feeling I knew the answer but I hoped against hope that I was wrong.

Amanda looked at me. “The RD has to do it.”

Of course they do, I thought. I looked at her and smiled weakly. “Is that what Wayne used to do?”

They all nodded in unison.

“Wayne was the best,” Amanda said, her eyes filling with tears.

“Well, he’s not dead! We don’t have to talk about him in the past tense,” I reminded her. “Why was he the best?” I asked. I looked around the room. “Anyone?” I felt like I was leading the “Wayne Brookwell Seminar” with a group of unwilling students.

Everyone was silent. Finally, Bart Johannsen stopped twirling his lacrosse stick long enough to proclaim, “Wayne was just really cool.”

What a testament. “Anything else?”

“Really cool,” an RA named Jamie chimed in. There was a collective murmur of “cool, really cool,” uttered by the RAs.

“What made him cool?” I asked.

“He just
was,
” Amanda said, wiping another tear from her eye. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Why? Because I’m old? Or because I hated him for putting me in this predicament? I obviously wasn’t going to get anywhere tonight, so I called the meeting to an end at precisely seven oh seven and headed back to my room.

Crawford was leaning against the door to the janitor’s closet, across from my room, talking on his cell phone. He smiled when he saw me coming down the hall.

“I love you, too,” he said to the person on the other end of the conversation, and mouthed “Erin” to me. She was one of his twin seventeen-year-old daughters, and from what I had both gathered and observed, the needier of the two. “You, too, honey. Sleep well.” He flipped his phone shut. “You can’t joke to me that you’re bleeding internally and not expect me to follow up.” He gave me the once-over, holding me at arm’s length. “You look pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” I asked. “Pretty good?” I repeated, my voice rising. “I expect better than that.”

“You look amazing,” he revised. He gave me a hug and it didn’t hurt, so that was a good sign.

“Did the guys in the radio car turn up anything?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing. They went through the cemetery and all of the usual hiding places on campus, but nothing.”

I hadn’t expected that they would turn up anything, including Wayne, but it was worth a try, I guess. “I’d ask you to come in, but you know, I wouldn’t want to look like a hussy,” I reminded him, shrugging my shoulders apologetically.

He nodded. “I know. And I wish I could take you to dinner but I have to go back to work.”

“I’ve got an entire cold pizza in there. Want to take a few slices back to the precinct?”

He mulled it over. “No. But thanks. I’ll pick up a sandwich on my way back.” He looked me over once again. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Really. Go back to work.”

“Stay out of the cemetery,” he pleaded.

I hustled him toward the door. “I will. Promise.” I crossed my fingers over my heart. Even in my heels, I was still not tall enough to reach him without standing on my tiptoes. I kissed him good night, my toes squishing into the front of my heels. “Now go. If you get found here after eleven, I’ll have to write you up. And then I’ll get written up, and suffice it to say, it will be a big giant mess.”

“I wouldn’t want that.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” I said, and watched him as he went through the side door and back to his police-issue Crown Victoria. I gave him a little wave as he drove off.

“Good night, Crawford,” I whispered, tracing a little heart on the glass on the door.