Red 1-2-3

30

The Big Bad Wolf gasped once, then shouted out an incomprehensible torrent of curses. He spun about and had to restrain himself from punching the kitchen wall. Instead, he crushed the local news section of the daily newspaper in his fists and closed his eyes as if someone were drawing fingernails across a blackboard making a scratching sound that assaulted every nerve end in his body. Beneath his fingers was a headline on a short article: Former Schoolteacher a Suspected Suicide.

“No, goddamnit! No!” he bellowed in sudden, uncontrollable rage.

Bright light reflected off the river surface. The rain had finally stopped and the weather had warmed slightly. The wind had dropped and the morning sun had risen into a wide, cloudless blue sky. A small crowd was gathered on the bridge, leaning up against the low concrete barrier and watching the activity below. A news crew seemed bored, their shoulder-held camera lying uselessly against the wheel of their panel truck. Cars on the bridge slowed down as they gawked at the activity before speeding away. Three Hispanic women, each pushing a baby-filled stroller, had paused and were talking rapidly and gesticulating toward the flat black water surface. One woman crossed herself three times rapidly. The Big Bad Wolf slid in beside a pair of men not much older than him. He knew they would both be observant and filled with opinions readily shared. They were smoking, letting wisps of cigarette smoke pungently fill the still air.

“I tell yah, they ain’t gonna find nothin’,” one man said confidently, although he hadn’t been asked a question. He wore a tattered gray overcoat and a crumpled brown felt fedora that was snugged down tight on a weather-beaten forehead. He shaded his eyes against the morning glare.

“Man, I wouldn’t go in there,” said his companion. “Not even with a safety line.”

“You know, they ought to post no-swimming signs all over the place.”

“Yeah, except they ain’t looking for no swimmer.”

The two men grunted in agreement.

Poised thirty yards from the bridge buttresses were two small aluminum outboards. A pair of policemen in black wet suits and wearing twin aluminum air tanks were taking turns slipping into the river, while others held ropes and maneuvered the boats against the strong currents.

The Wolf watched carefully. There was something hypnotizing in the way a diver would disappear, leaving a trail of air bubbles and a slight disturbance on the water surface, only to emerge within a few moments, struggling against the powerful flow of the river. He could see frustration and exhaustion as the divers were pulled from the water and the boats moved to a different position. A grid search, the Big Bad Wolf thought. Standard police technique: Divide the area into manageable segments and inspect each before moving to the next.

“Have they come up with anything at all?” he asked the two old men, who clearly had been watching all morning. He used a carefully chosen tone of idle curiosity.

“Some crap. Like a kid-sized jacket or something. That got ’em all excited for a while and both guys went under for maybe fifteen minutes. But nothing else. So now they’re moving back and forth. Maybe trying to get lucky.”

“I sometimes fish that stretch,” his companion said. “But no one is dumb enough to go near the river until after it comes down in the summer. At least no one who wants to live.” This old man was wearing a navy baseball cap adorned with the name of the USS Oriskany, a retired Vietnam-era carrier that had been sunk to make an artificial reef. The cap had a frayed peak. The Wolf noticed that his hands were scarred and gnarled, like the roots of an ancient oak.

“I tell yah, they ain’t gonna find nothin’,” the other man said again. “They’re just wasting our tax dollars out there. They buy up all that fancy diving equipment and never get much chance to use it.”

“They’ll give up soon enough,” Baseball Hat said to Fedora.

The Big Bad Wolf decided to keep watching. But he thought the old man was probably right.

They ain’t gonna find nothin’.

Maybe, he thought, because there’s nothing to find.

He just wasn’t sure, which irritated him no end. He knew certainty was the lifeblood of murder. Small details and accurate assessments. He sometimes considered himself to be an accountant of killing. This was one of those moments where attention to minutiae was critical. It’s like doing a tax return of death.

Maybe I have killed her, he thought. Certainly the intense pressure he’d brought to bear was enough to drive someone to take her own life. If you know you’re about to be murdered, wouldn’t you elect to kill yourself? That made a certain amount of sense. He thought of prisoners awaiting execution who hang themselves in their cells, or people who receive a diagnosis of a terminal illness. He had a vision of doomed financial brokers and office workers throwing themselves from the Twin Towers on 9/11. The uncertainty of awaiting death can be far worse than the pain of suicide. And he knew that Red Two was the weakest of the three Reds. If she had tossed herself into the river, well, that was almost as good as choking her to death himself. For a moment he could feel pressure in his hands, as if they were wrapped around Red Two’s neck and he was actually throttling her beneath him. Certainly worth putting a notch on the gun, he told himself, thinking like some old Western gunslinger.

Death is like the truth. It answers questions.

He made a mental note to put that in his next chapter. Perhaps he could legitimately claim her murder alongside the two others. He considered this possibility and realized that his earlier anger just might have been misplaced. Readers will be intrigued by the thought that I could drive her to take her own life. It will be shocking. Like all those people slowing down on the bridge to see if they can spot something, readers will need to see what happens next. It will make them more anxious for Red One and Red Three. And that will make the last days for the remaining Reds a little easier to manage, with one less stop along the road to death.

Like a journalist collecting elements for a story on deadline, the Big Bad Wolf looked around. He took in the policemen working in the river, he counted the people watching from the bridge, he noted the news crew packing up their cameras and sound equipment and readying to leave for some bigger and better photo op. This made him smile. They don’t know it, he thought, but this is the best damn story around. By far.

But this story is all mine.

The Wolf decided he would give the river searchers another half hour to pluck Red Two from the black currents, but no longer. He settled in and waited for answers that he didn’t really expect to get from his perch above the waters.

The dean stood in his doorway and half-smiled at Mrs. Big Bad Wolf. He seemed troubled, as evidenced both in his soft tone of voice and his hunched-over posture. “Did you read the report from the girls’ basketball coach? They had some trip back to school,” he said, shaking his head.

On her computer screen, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf began reading a copy of a single-page account that the coach had e-mailed to the dean. It was short on description, just a brief recitation of the reasons for their delay getting back after a victory. She had the distinct impression the coach would have preferred to write about the win, not the aftermath. Nothing in the coach’s report indicated that the suicide victim Jordan saw had red hair. Or that Jordan knew the victim. Or that they were connected in any way.

She nodded her head to the dean to let him know she was finished reading.

“Will you send a text and a follow-up e-mail to Jordan Ellis’s history teacher-that’s where she’s in class next period. Ask him to tell her to come to my office before lunch.”

“Will do,” Mrs. Big Bad Wolf replied cheerily.

The dean thought for a second, then said, “Tell him she’s required to be here.”

She typed out the messages. After sending them, she punched up Jordan’s schedule on her screen. Then she glanced at the clock on the wall, and guessed that Jordan would walk through the office door at eleven.

She was off by two minutes.

Jordan seemed hurried, distracted. Mrs. Big Bad Wolf put on her most sympathetic look and used her most understanding voice. “Oh, dear, that must have been simply terrible last night. I can’t imagine how frightened you must have been. It must have been awful for you. And so sad.”

“I’m fine,” Jordan said briskly. “Is he in?” She gestured toward the inner office.

“He’s expecting you, dear. Go right in.”

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf felt a quickening in her heartbeat. She had not realized how exciting it would be for her to find herself close to Jordan-knowing that she was a literary model for a murder victim. She suddenly felt alive, as if caught up in a swirling confection of secrets. Jordan’s sullen responses and slouching, contemptuous attitude made Mrs. Big Bad Wolf imperceptibly nod her head in total comprehension. She’s perfect, she thought. No wonder he chose her. She could suddenly see hundreds of reasons to kill Jordan.

Kill her, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf thought. On the page. Her hands trembled slightly, quivering with a delicious sort of intrigue. It’s like being caught up in my own private novel. Mrs. Big Bad Wolf felt herself sliding, as if slipping into some world where what was real and what was fiction were no longer different. It was like descending into a warm and soothing bath.

Jordan strode past her desk, and Mrs. Big Bad Wolf watched her from behind. She could suddenly see arrogance and selfishness and teenage isolation and nastiness all wrapped up in Jordan’s every step.

Her breathing was shallow, and she wanted to burst out in a laugh. It was a little like being let in on a huge, wonderful secret. She could suddenly imagine the entirety of the writing process, turning a self-centered, privileged young woman into a character in a book. Just like being present at the Creation, she thought, although she admitted that was overstating matters slightly.

She suddenly rose up and trailed Jordan into the dean’s office. As Jordan slipped into the chair across from the dean, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf cheerily said, “Don’t forget about the phone meeting with the trustees.” This phone session was not until later, but it gave her an excuse to leave the office door ajar, which she guessed neither the dean nor Jordan would notice.

A production assistant, she thought. A good production assistant listens to everything. I’m a lot more than just a secretary.

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf returned to her desk and craned her head to listen, arranging a pad of paper on the desk in front of her to take notes.

The first thing she overheard was: “Look, I’m okay. I don’t need to speak with anyone, especially some touchy-feely psychologist. I’m fine.” Jordan’s voice seemed angry and filled with contempt.

“I understand, Jordan,” the dean replied slowly, “but these sorts of traumatic incidents have concealed impacts. Seeing a woman kill herself the way you did can’t just be shrugged off.”

“I’m okay,” Jordan stubbornly repeated. She was desperate to get out of the office. Every second she spent distracted from the real threat was potentially dangerous. She knew the only respite she had from the Big Bad Wolf were her moments on the basketball court, when she could lose herself in exertion. She wanted to scream at the dean, Do you know that I’m doing something far more goddamn important than any class or any meeting with a shrink or anything you can imagine in your closed little private school mind?

She said none of this. Instead she could feel tension within her tightening like a knot and she knew she had to say the right thing to get out and get back to the more serious business of avoiding being murdered.

“Well, yes, I believe so,” the dean continued. “And I’ll take your word for it. But still I’m insisting that you speak with someone. If you do that and the doctor signs off, says all is okay, then so be it. But I want a professional involved. Did you sleep any last night?”

“Yes. Eight hours. Slept like a baby,” Jordan trotted out the cliché, not actually imagining that the dean would believe her.

He shook his head. “I doubt that, Jordan,” he said. He didn’t add Why do you lie to me? although that was what went through his head. He handed her a piece of paper. “Six o’clock. This evening at Student Health Services. They will be expecting you.”

“All right, all right, I’ll go, if that’s what you want,” Jordan said.

“That’s what I want,” the dean replied. “But it should also be what you want.” He tried to say this in a softer, more understanding tone.

“Can I go now?”

“Yes.” The dean sighed. “Six p.m. sharp. And fail to show up and we’ll just be back here tomorrow morning, doing all this all over again, except this time someone will escort you to the appointment.”

Jordan stuffed the appointment slip into her backpack. She rose and exited without saying anything else. The dean watched her leave, thinking he had never seen anyone as determined to throw away every opportunity as Jordan.

Outside his office, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf hurried to jot down everything she had heard. Six p.m. Student Health Services. She looked up as Jordan swept by her, then reached for her telephone. The teenager hadn’t even looked in her direction.