Sacrificial Ground

11

As he entered the theater, Frank could see a tall, lean man who stood quietly on stage. He adjusted a microphone, then glanced up toward the back of the theater.

“All right, hit the spot,” he called loudly.

Instantly a shaft of bright light cut through the dark interior of the theater. It enveloped the man on the stage, and threw a dark shadow almost to the rear wall of the stage. The man looked at the shadow, studying it closely, as if it were a dark pool of water which had just risen from beneath the boards.

“I like that,” the man said. “Orchestra won’t notice, but it’ll be a nice effect for the people in the balcony.”

Once again he looked up toward the back of the theater.

“Okay, drop it,” he called, and the light flashed off immediately.

It was only then that he caught Frank in his eye. He leaned forward and squinted. “Can I help you with something?”

Frank walked down the center aisle and flashed his badge.

“I’m here about Angelica Devereaux,” he said. “Are you Mr. Jameson?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I guess you’ve—”

“Just a minute, please,” Jameson said hastily. He looked up toward the balcony again. “Okay, Douglas, you can finish up later. Just leave the spot in position and go on to your class.”

Jameson waited until the boy had left, then he made the small leap from the stage to the floor. “The whole faculty had a private meeting about it this morning,” he said. He smiled slightly. “All that matters is that Angelica not be associated with Northfield.”

“Does everyone feel that way?”

“The board feels that way,” Jameson said. “That’s all that matters. As for the teachers, they’re a bunch of cowards, afraid for their jobs.” He shrugged. “Of course, Morrison has a point. Angelica had already graduated; she really wasn’t a part of the school anymore.”

“She was in a play, I understand,” Frank said.

“That’s right.”

“Which you directed?”

Jameson laughed. “Does that make me a suspect?”

“We’re not sure how she died.”

“Well, what does that make me then?”

“Just someone who had contact with her,” Frank said. He let his eyes drift down slightly. Jameson was dressed in a plain sweatshirt, spattered jeans and worn, unwashed sneakers. It was the sort of outfit that singled him out as a good deal less straitlaced than Northfield appeared to be.

“You did know her, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, a little. Like you said, I was her director.”

“Did you know she was pregnant?”

“I heard she was.”

“From whom?”

“Morrison,” Jameson said. “That’s got them more uptight than her being dead.”

“Do you know who the father might be?”

Jameson shifted lightly on his feet. “Not me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It wasn’t beyond imagining, and Frank had already considered it. Jameson was young, perhaps thirty-five. He was handsome in a rough-and-tumble, scraggly-clothed sort of way, and he seemed to have a definite energy in his body and his eyes, the sort that might draw a young girl to it.

Jameson smiled slowly, and as he did so, Frank caught the un-evenness of his teeth. It gave him an odd, predatory look.

“Do you really think I might be the father?” Jameson asked.

“I don’t know,” Frank told him. “Are you?”

“Isn’t there some sort of test you can do if you really want to find out?”

Frank said nothing.

“Well, Mister …”

“Clemons.”

“Clemons. You can test me until the cows come home, but I didn’t fuck Angelica.” He waited for Frank to answer, peering intently at his face. “By the way,” he said, after a moment, “what happened to you?” He smiled. “You look like a mine blew up in your face.”

“When was this play?” Frank asked.

“Two months ago.”

“And rehearsals before that?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

Frank took out his notebook. “For how long?”

“Six weeks.”

“Were they during the day or at night?”

“Both,” Jameson said. “When it got close to opening night, we had more evening rehearsals.”

“Did she come to most of them?”

“Yes, she did,” Jameson said, “and that surprised me. Kids sometimes burn out. I thought she would be one of the first. You know how it is, kids have different priorities than adults.”

Theories of child development were not what Frank was after, especially from a man who seemed to have an odd leer in his eye.

“Did she miss any particular night?” Frank asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like every Thursday night, or every Friday night?”

“No. What would it mean if she did?”

“I don’t know Angelica,” Frank said. “It would help if I could pin down some pattern in her movements.”

Jameson thought about it for a moment. “Well, I can’t remember exactly when she did or didn’t show up.” His eyes continued to stare intently into Frank’s face. “You really got pounded, didn’t you?” He laughed. “Happened to me once, too. Only it was the cops who gave it to me.” He smiled proudly. “Little place called Chicago, nineteen sixty-eight.”

Frank did not bother to write it down. “What role did Angelica play?” he asked.

Jameson’s face stiffened, as if he’d been rebuffed. “The lead.”

“Which was?”

“Medusa. Ever heard of her?”

Frank nodded.

“Her hair was all snakes,” Jameson said with a thin smile. He placed his fingers on his head and wriggled them wildly. “Much abused by men, that was Medusa’s story. The snakes were to ward off rapists.” He drew his hands down from his head and dropped them to his sides. “I wrote the play myself. I figured it would shock the hell out of the old blue-haired grandmothers who usually show up at Northfield Academy productions.” He grinned childishly. “And it did, too. Poor Morrison must have gotten twenty calls about it.”

“How was she in the part?” Frank asked.

“Pretty good.”

“She wanted to be an actress.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Did she have any talent?”

“Not really,” Jameson said dismissively. “She fit the part, that’s all.”

“Did you know she was planning to go to New York?”

Jameson laughed. “Isn’t everybody?”

“To be an actress.”

“I repeat: Isn’t everybody?”

“Did she speak to you about it?”

“She might have thrown the idea out a couple of times,” Jameson said.

“Did you get the impression that she meant it?”

“I didn’t get any impression one way or the other,” Jameson said, “but I’ll tell you one thing, that little girl would have ended up with her back on the casting couch more than once.” He patted the pockets of his trousers. “You have any cigarettes? I’m fresh out.”

Frank handed him his pack.

“Been trying to quit, but I can’t,” Jameson said. He lit a cigarette. “You know, I’ve always been interested in cops.” He lifted his hand up near Frank’s face then slowly made a fist. “It’s sort of a hands-on profession, don’t you think?”

Frank jotted down a few of the things Jameson had already told him.

“Not exactly Sherlock Holmes, are you?” Jameson asked haughtily.

Frank ignored him.

“I thought of writing a mystery once,” Jameson said. “A sort of parody, you might say, I was going to call it ‘The Deductive Detective.’”

Frank looked up. “Do you have a copy of the play?”

Jameson smiled happily. “Yes, since I wrote it. It’s an adaptation from mythological sources. I have copies of it at home. I could send you one.”

Frank handed him one of his cards. “Send it to me at that address,” he said.

“Happy to,” Jameson said. “I hope you find it interesting.”

Frank glanced back down at his notebook. “How many other people were in the cast?”

“Five,” Jameson said. “A few of them are right outside. They’re in the summer production, too.”

“Was Angelica close to any of them?”

Jameson smiled thinly, and Frank caught the leer again.

“Well, what do you mean by close?” Jameson asked.

“Whatever you want it to mean.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, Angelica didn’t really associate with the other kids very much.”

“No one at all?”

“Not that I ever saw,” Jameson said. “She was quite aloof, that one. Most of the kids thought she was sort of snobby.”

“So she had no friends at all here at Northfield?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How about acquaintances, people she hung out with in the hall?”

Jameson shook his head.

“Are you telling me that she was entirely isolated at the school?”

“She seemed that way.”

“From both the girls and the boys?”

“Come on,” Jameson said, “you’re not really looking for a girl friend. You’re looking for the guy who knocked her up.”

“I’m looking for anyone who might have known her in a personal way.”

“Personal?” Jameson laughed. “Right, personal.” He shrugged. “Well, as far as I could ever tell, she was alone.”

“Even from the cast of the play?”

“Even from them.”

Frank wrote it down. “Why do you think she was isolated?”

“Because she wanted to be,” Jameson said, with a slight, resentful edge in his voice. “She thought she was better than everybody else.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Jameson asked, as if the answer could hardly be more obvious. “Have you ever seen a picture of Angelica?”

“The one in the yearbook.”

Jameson shook his head. “That stupid picture doesn’t even begin to suggest how beautiful that girl was.” He looked at Frank as if he were an innocent. “She had a quality, a way of walking, something like that, and it made people take notice, let me tell you.”

“What kind of notice?”

“Come on, you know what I’m talking about.”

Frank said nothing.

“Sex, man,” Jameson said. “She gave off this incredible sexual thing. It was a wave of heat coming right off her body.” He stopped, as if sensing that same heat in the air around. “Everybody wanted her.”

“Did you?” Frank asked bluntly.

Jameson’s eyes squeezed together. “That’s none of your business.”

Frank looked at him intently. He could see something crumbling behind his eyes. “Everything about Angelica Devereaux is my business,” he said.

“Look, if you’re after horny stories, why don’t you go over to the boy’s locker room?”

Frank said nothing. He could see Jameson’s agitation building steadily, and he waited for it to crest in a wave of sudden truth.

“Don’t you think they talked about her, those boys?” Jameson said. “Don’t you think they dreamed about her?”

Frank continued to watch him closely, his pencil held motionless above the page.

“Oh, you can bet they talked about Angelica,” Jameson sputtered. “And you can bet Angelica knew the things they said.”

Frank still said nothing. He kept his eyes steadily on Jameson’s face.

“It was like a spotlight was always on her,” Jameson went on. “And she wanted that light. She knew what it was. She knew everyone turned around when she came into a room. She knew what they whispered when she walked by them.” He nodded frantically. “Oh, she knew, all right, and she loved it.” He stopped suddenly, and his lips squeezed together tightly, as if in a desperate effort to hold something back. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, then wiped a line of sweat from his upper lip. “That kind of beauty,” he said quietly, at last, “it can fuck you up.”

“You, or her?” Frank asked pointedly.

Jameson’s eyes flashed toward him. “Look, I didn’t fuck that girl. What happened between us, it was nothing.”

“What was it, exactly?”

“This is in confidence, right?” Jameson asked cautiously.

“If it doesn’t pertain to her murder,” Frank said.

Jameson’s eyes narrowed. “Murder? I thought the cops weren’t sure about how she died.”

“I’m sure.”

Jameson’s eyes darted about nervously. “Well, I can tell you that I didn’t have anything to do with a murder.”

“Just tell me about you and Angelica,” Frank said.

“It’s got to be between you and me,” Jameson insisted.

Frank glared at him icily. “If you withhold one thing from me,” he said, “it’s obstruction of justice, and I’ll nail you for it.”

Jameson sucked in a quiet, desperate breath. He seemed to think about it all for a moment, calculate what was to be gained or lost. “All right,” he said finally. “It’s not what you think. I mean, I really didn’t fuck her. I didn’t knock her up, you understand.”

Frank lowered the pencil to the page.

“We were working late one night,” Jameson began. “We were up here on the stage. Everyone else was gone. I don’t know why Angelica decided to hang around that night. She was usually the first one out of here.” He drew in a long breath, then let it out slowly. “Anyway, she hung around for a while, so we started to run lines together. She was standing right next to me. She was so beautiful. Unbearable.” He glanced toward Frank, as if for sympathy. “You know what I mean?”

“She was seventeen,” Frank said.

“But worldly,” Jameson said quickly. “I mean, she knew what she had. She knew what people wanted. I mean, she gave it to somebody, right?” He shrugged. “Well, the fact is, I had a weak moment.”

Frank said nothing. He suspected that Jameson’s life had been made up of a long string of weak moments. “What happened, exactly?” he asked.

“Well, like I said, we were on the stage together,” Jameson said. “We were running lines. She was about three feet from me, I guess. Then something happened. I don’t know what. I heard the back door of the theater open, or something else distracted me, and when I looked back, she seemed so close. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I moved, or if she moved, but she seemed to have gotten closer to me.” He stopped and shook his head wearily. “Well, when I looked back at her, she sort of smiled. We started running lines again, but it was different. She kept smiling and her voice changed. It was like she was talking to me, not to the character I was playing.” He pointed to himself. “To me, those lines I had written for her.” Then he quoted them: “‘For you, this beauty, arrayed in wanton fire.’” He fell silent again, as if to recall the folly of the moment. “And then I leaned toward her and kissed her.” He shook his head despairingly. “I could hardly believe I’d done it.”

“What did Angelica do?” Frank asked.

“She just drew back and looked at me. There was this expression on her face—I hardly know how to describe it. It was a look of triumph, you know?—and at the same time of utter distaste. It said, I made you do what I wanted … and you disgust me.” He made a small noise, half-grunt, half-sigh. “Talk about a Medusa stare.”

“Then what happened?”

“She just walked away. Neither of us ever mentioned it again.”

Frank started to write it down.

Jameson grabbed his arm. “Please,” he said, “you’ve got to keep this in confidence.”

Frank pulled his arm from Jameson’s grasp. “I’m not your priest,” he said.

Jameson’s body grew tense, but he said nothing.

“You said that some of the kids who were in the play with Angelica were still around, is that right?”

“Yes,” Jameson said stiffly.

“Where are they?”

“Just outside the auditorium. They usually laze around under the trees out there until I call them in.”

“What are their names?”

Jameson stepped over to one of the empty chairs and pulled a piece of paper from a rumpled stack. “Here’s the program for the performance. All the names are in it.”

Frank took the program and put it in his pocket.

They were exactly where Jameson had said they would be, slouched around a large oak tree just outside the auditorium, two boys in white tennis outfits, and a girl in a white blouse and bright red shorts.

Frank pulled out his badge as he stepped up to them.

“You’ve all heard about Angelica Devereaux,” he said.

The three students nodded and glanced apprehensively at each other.

“Were all of you in the play with her?” Frank asked quietly.

“Yes,” the girl said.

Frank took out his notebook. “What is your name?”

“Danielle Baxter.”

Frank looked at the two boys. “And how about you?”

“Philip Jeffers,” the taller boy said.

“Aaron Shapiro,” said the other.

“There were six people in the cast,” Frank said. “Where are the other two?”

“Joanna’s in Europe for the summer,” Danielle said. “She’s spending it with her father.”

“And Stan Doyle couldn’t do the summer show,” Aaron added.

“Yeah,” Danielle said, “he had to take a summer job.” Her voice was almost mournful, as if no worse fate could be imagined.

“I’m trying to find out as much as I can about Angelica,” Frank said. “And to tell you the truth, so far I haven’t been able to come up with very much.”

Danielle nodded. “Yeah, well, she was sort of strange.”

“In what way?”

“She wasn’t friendly,” Philip said. “She wasn’t a joiner.”

“She joined this cast,” Frank noted.

“Well, that’s the only thing,” Danielle said, almost scornfully.

“She wasn’t very well liked then?” Frank said.

Aaron shrugged. “We’d probably have liked her if she’d given us half a chance,” he said defensively. “But it’s like Philip and Danielle said, she was sort of strange, and she didn’t really socialize very much.” He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think she liked us very much. The kids at Northfield, I mean.”

Philip laughed. “I mean, the way she looked, you can bet she would have been popular. Especially with the guys, right, Aaron?”

“Yes,” Aaron said. He looked at Frank. “All the guys were hitting on her.”

“Yeah, like crazy,” Danielle said. She smiled cunningly. “Even you, Philip.”

Philip bristled slightly. “That was before Tina.”

“How did she react to being hit on all the time?” Frank asked, trying to get them back on track.

Aaron faked a shiver. “Brrrrrrr. She was a cold fish.”

Philip sighed painfully. “Yeah. It was tragic, the chill she could put on you.”

Danielle laughed self-consciously.

Frank turned to her. “How did the girls feel about her?”

“Maybe a little jealous at first,” Danielle admitted with some reluctance. “I mean, the way she looked, she was a sort of threat to everybody. Philip and Aaron are right, all the boys were hitting on her. But then, when she froze them out, she just sort of disappeared in our minds.”

“Because she wasn’t a threat anymore,” Aaron said confidently. “Right, Danielle?”

“I guess so,” Danielle said. “I guess that’s the way it was.”

“Did she have any friends at the school?” Frank asked.

“Not really,” Danielle said.

“How about during the play?” Frank said. “Did she get close to anyone in the cast?”

Almost simultaneously, the three students shook their heads.

“When rehearsals were over,” Frank said, “didn’t the cast go out together?”

“Sometimes,” Aaron said, “but not Angelica.”

“Where did she go?”

“She always left by herself,” Aaron said.

“What about teachers?” Frank asked. “Was she friendly with any of them?”

“No,” Danielle said. “She didn’t really talk in class.” She looked at the two boys. “Were her grades any good?”

Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I never saw her name on the honor roll,” Philip added, “so I guess they couldn’t have been that great.”

Frank could tell that the well was drying up, and that if he were going to find out anything about Angelica Devereaux, he would have to look outside the campus of Northfield Academy. Still, he decided to try one more question.

“We have reason to believe that Angelica had a boyfriend of some kind,” he said curiously. “Any idea who that might have been?”

The three faces stared back at him blankly.

“Maybe a boy from college,” Frank added. “Somebody like that.”

The blank stares remained in place.

“Okay,” Frank said wearily. “If you think of anything that might help me, give me a call.” He gave each of the students one of his cards. Then he stepped back and looked at each of them pointedly. “I know that none of you was close to Angelica,” he said, “but remember that she was young, like you, and that she had her whole life ahead of her, like you do. Now she won’t get a chance to live that life, maybe even to turn into someone you would have liked better.” He stopped, and allowed his eyes to settle on them. “I need to find out why that chance was taken from her.”

The three young faces softened somewhat, and for the first time, Frank thought he saw something other than the self-centeredness of youth in them: a little bit of sympathy, a little bit of fear.