Wallflower (39 page)

He paused for effect. Her eyes were riveted to his. She hated him, of course; her eyes told him that. But no matter her hatred, she could not look away. He held her spellbound with his words.

"I came today to tell you to your face I'm not convinced at all. I see straight through your phony story and your transparent pack of lies. Now I promise you this: When I'm done with you, the whole world will see through them, too." He leaned forward. "You're a mind fucker, Beverly. You mind-fucked Diana. You designated the people she killed. You sent her out to do your dirty work because you didn't have the guts to do your killing for yourself. 'Mind murders' my chief calls them. 'How're you going to prove your case?' I'm not sure. I've got some ideas. We'll see how they turn out. You're sick. You're perverted. I think you're evil." He rose. "That's it. That's why I came, to tell you that, and to let you know I'll be working now full-time to put you away. The game's over, Beverly. No Diana around to protect you anymore. The real fight's about to start. It's just you and me, babe. And I don't intend to lose."

With that he turned on his heel and headed for the door. He opened it, didn't bother to shut it, just kept walking straight through her waiting room, past an attractive college-age girl who gazed after him with fascinated eyes, straight out the front door of her house and onto the street.

He maintained his pace as he walked down to Second Avenue, never once turning around. When at last he was certain he was completely out of view, he stumbled against the brick wall of an apartment building and then, arms extended, leaned against it and gasped.

His head reeled; his forehead was dripping.

God help me,
he thought.
I just threw the gauntlet down.

W
hen he phoned Monika and told her what he'd done, she was startled and also a little angry. "Why did you do that, Frank?"

"To unnerve her."

"I understand. But look what happened. You also unnerved yourself."

"Yeah, well, I think it was worth it."

"Listen to me." Her voice was urgent. "She's a dangerous woman. What if she comes after you?"

"With an ice pick and a pot of glue? Don't worry about that. She's the most contemptible type of criminal, a coward. There's nothing she can do to me now. Without her hatchet woman, she's impotent."

There was a pause at the other end. "I wonder if you aren't too close to this."

"Spare me, please, Monika. You sound like Kit."

"Maybe Kit's right. You despise Beverly Archer, don't you?"

"Let's say I don't like her very much." He paused. "Okay, I despise her," he admitted.

"Is that a healthy way to relate to someone you're trying to prove committed a crime?"

"I don't know whether it's healthy, Monika. But I assure you I'm under control. Anyway, there's no law that says I can't have feelings about my work."

"No one objects to your feelings, Frank," she said quietly. "I just don't want to see you . . . hurt yourself over this."

O
n New Year's Day Aaron called from Cleveland: "Time for you to come out here, Frank."

The next morning, the first workday of the new year, Janek flew to the Midwest. Gray skies, a vast frozen lake, plumes of industrial smoke, a furious late-winter storm. His plane circled Hopkins Airport for three quarters of an hour. Concerned stewardesses with glossy brows and frozen smiles paced nervously. After numerous unctuous announcements from the captain, the plane started down through impenetrable sleet, an endless descent, it seemed to Janek, until finally, unexpectedly, it landed hard. When it jerked to a stop, the relieved passengers applauded and shook their heads. The captain, face red, collar tight, stood nodding at the door. The collected crew wished everyone a happy New Year, a safe continuing journey, and, in the event Cleveland was the final destination, a most pleasant stay.

Aaron was waiting for him by the gate. He hustled Janek into his rental car, then drove into the city on an elevated highway.

"What kind of town is this?" Janek asked, looking down at gas stations, commercial strips, snow-crusted parking lots, endless blocks of drab gray buildings.

Aaron pondered the question. Then he looked up. "Mind if I wax poetic, Frank?"

Janek laughed. "Be my guest."

"Cleveland," Aaron intoned sonorously, "is a Rust Belt town of broken dreams."

Janek nodded; he liked that. And staring out the window, he also decided he liked the town. Perhaps because of the deliberate lack of any appliqué of glamour, he found it oddly glamorous.

Aaron laid out their schedule. He'd arranged three interviews for the afternoon. In his preliminary meetings with the people he hadn't told them much, just that a lieutenant of detectives was coming from New York to ask them questions about Beverly Archer. The case, he'd told them, was important and at this stage, highly confidential. As there were as yet no indictments, informants had been assured their cooperation would be held in confidence.

Something about the way Aaron was talking signaled Janek that he was holding back. "You found something?"

"Yep." Aaron grinned.

"Going to keep it a secret?"

"I think you're going to be surprised," was all Aaron would say.

Their motel, a standard low sprawling complex, was situated beside a remote shopping mall. Janek checked in, unpacked his stuff, washed his face, then examined himself in the standard motel-room mirror. His tan, acquired in Mexico, had all but disappeared. What he saw was a middle-aged man in an inexpensive business suit with lines in his forehead and bags beneath his eyes. But he noticed something special about this man.
He looks like a guy who doesn't give up.
The idea of that made him feel good. He descended briskly to the lobby, then out to the portico.

"Okay, Aaron," he said, getting into the car, "I'm ready. Let's roll."

T
heir first stop was the Ashley-Burnett School for Girls. They drove awhile, entered a posh suburb of impressive homes, then came to an open gate which Janek at first took to be the entrance to a park. A discreet sign pointed the way down a winding, tree-lined drive. The campus extended on either side, athletic fields and lavish lawns covered with snow, crisscrossed by well-shoveled paths. Finally the school proper came into view, an impressive vine-covered red-brick building with two extended wings.

"This is one ritzy setup," Aaron said as he drove into the visitors' lot. "I didn't know real people sent their kids to joints like this."

As they walked to the administration building, Janek could hear the shrill cries of girls and the scampering of little female feet through the windows of what he took to be the school gym.

"How long did Beverly go here?"

"All twelve grades," Aaron said. "Old Bertha Parce was her high school English teacher." He glanced at Janek. "But later Beverly came back. It was just after she got her Ph.D. She spent a year in Cleveland trying to build up a practice. She was just starting out. Referrals were few and far between. To keep herself busy and make ends meet, she wangled herself a part-time job at her old alma mater as student counselor and school shrink."

The headmaster's secretary, a pretty young woman in a navy skirt, asked them if they wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes in the reception area. Aaron sat on a soft leather couch, while Janek inspected the display of school memorabilia on the walls.

There was a glass case full of trophies, most of them for arcane sports such as field hockey and equestrian dressage. There was an ornately framed wooden plaque emblazoned with the words "Head Girl" and the names of young women, student leaders in their respective years. There were also numerous class photographs. Janek asked Aaron what year Beverly was graduated.

Aaron checked his notebook. "Class of '68," he said.

Janek found the picture, inspected it closely. Two dozen girls,
all wearing the same school uniform of white blouse and blue and red tartan skirt, were posed in two rows before the main building of Ashley-Burnett. He discovered Beverly in the second row on the end. She was standing slightly apart from her classmates. There was something separate, distant about her, something slightly alienated in her posture. But her face bore the same half-smile he had come to know so well, the thin-lipped half-smile that said "I have superior knowledge" and
"
Don't get too close."

"Mr. Bramhall will see you now."

Janek turned. The pretty secretary motioned them toward an inner door. Janek and Aaron followed her across polished parquet floors into a spacious cream-colored office. A handsome man in a beautifully tailored tweed jacket rose from behind an antique partner's desk.

"You must be Lieutenant Janek. I'm Jud Bramhall," he said, extending his hand.

Janek studied him while they made small talk about the brutal Cleveland weather. He and Bramhall, he decided, were about the same age, but there the resemblance stopped. Bramhall had the patrician good looks and arched eyebrows of an affable old-fashioned WASP politician, the kind that can't get elected in an American city anymore. He had the same kind of old money voice as Stanton Dorance, a voice that spoke of a fine eastern education and all the privileges attendant thereto.

"Sergeant Greenberg tells me you want a briefing on Bev Archer's sojourn here as school psychologist."

Janek was pleased by Bramhall's crisp announcement that it was time to discuss the matter at hand.

"A certain confidentiality implicit in our relationships with former staff precludes my getting too specific. But after consulting with our attorney, and based on the gravity of the matter, as explained by the sergeant here, I'm prepared to fill you in on a background-only basis. For anything more than that I'll require a subpoena."

Janek nodded. "That's fine. We're just trying to get a sense of what she was like."

Bramhall pulled a pipe from a rack on his desk, stuffed it with
tobacco. Then he leaned back, a signal he was going to be expansive. Watching him, Janek had the feeling Bramhall would tell his tale well.

"
It was a strange thing that happened with Bev. . . .
"

The events he described occurred in 1977. The school, Bramhall didn't mind admitting now, was then a fairly troubled institution. There were drug problems, student pregnancies, a general breakdown in discipline. Nothing that wasn't going on at other independent schools at the time, but he, Bramhall, had been appointed headmaster only two years before, he was the first male head in the history of Ashley-Burnett, and he was anxious to make innovations and turn the school around. So the idea came to him that a trained psychologist ought to be available to any student needing help. He took it to the board of trustees, the concept was approved, and then someone brought up Beverly Archer's name. She was qualified, she had just gotten her degree, and, best of all, as a fairly young alumna she would be in a position to identify with the particular problems of Ashley-Burnett girls, pertaining to the school and also to their social lives outside.

"
We are, after all, a fairly special group." Bramhall finally lit his pipe.
"
We have minority students, and we hope to recruit more as times goes on. But basically our function is to educate the daughters of Cleveland's older families. I make no apologies for that. Ashley-Burnett is an elite school. We consider ourselves the equal of any young women's academy in the East."

He made this last statement with uncondescending pride, a pride Janek could not help admiring. The man carried the torch for a world he must know was increasingly irrelevant, yet he did so without apology.

"That first autumn, when Bev came on board, I thought I'd made a pretty smart move. Here was an intelligent, well-motivated young woman eager to help her old school get back on track. And I have to admit that in the beginning at least things did seem to improve. As troubled kids turned to her for guidance, student and faculty morale tilted up. I got some calls from parents, too, always complimentary. A staff psychologist was a great idea. Why hadn't we thought of it before?"

But then, Bramhall admitted sadly, the euphoria of autumn began to turn. The winter term was always the hardest, he said, always the low point of the year. Cleveland's harsh climate was partially responsible. The gray skies and miserable cold forced everyone indoors. Kids caught the flu. Corridors resounded with sniffles and coughs. All educators are familiar with the phenomenon, a species of cabin fever that leads inevitably to a lowering of morale. But that particular winter, the winter of '78, seemed worse than usual. There was something indefinably miserable in the air. Bramhall, naturally concerned, called a number of staff meetings. Beverly, he remembered, kept fairly quiet. At the time he attributed that to shyness; she was new to the school and possibly intimidated by older staff. Then one weekend in late February disaster struck. A senior girl, a very popular one, too, hanged herself at home.

The suicide turned what had been a very dark winter term into a totally black one. In such a situation extensive counseling was called for, and Beverly seemed to rise to the occasion. But then, ten days later, a second girl hanged herself, this time in the school gym. Her dangling body was discovered by a group of eighth graders, all of them deeply traumatized by the sight. And then the truth came out. Two other girls came forward and admitted to the existence of a "suicide club." Bramhall moved quickly to break it up.