The Cereal Murders

“Somebody strong, somebody athletic,” Schulz mused. “The only thing all these things have in common is a threat to Arch. Scare him while he’s home alone, put something in the locker, fill the house with smoke while he’s here with you and Julian… but that part wasn’t planned, was it?”

“Being home? No, he fell on the icy front steps, prelude to Marla. Maybe that one was meant for me,” I said wryly, remembering the spider-bite incident.

“Who’s mad at you? Or Arch?” His eyes probed mine and he gently took my hand, then reeled me in like a slow-motion jitterbug dancer.

“I don’t know,” I murmured into his chest. He was warm; the clean smell of aftershave clung to his skin. I pulled back. Around his dark pupils was only a ring of green luminosity.

“All this talk about starting fires…” I said with a small smile.

And up we tiptoed to the silent second story. The cognac, the desire, the comfort of Schulz, seeped through me like one of those unexpected warm currents you encounter in the ocean. In the dark of my room he stood beside me while we looked out at the glowing jack-o’-lanterns in the neighborhood. He rubbed my back, then kissed my ear. I set my alarm for four and then slipped out of my clothes. We both laughed as we dove for the bed. It was a good thing Schulz always used protection. Ever since we had started making love, I had forgotten the meaning of the word caution.

When he pulled me next to him between the cool sheets, his large, rough hands brought calm to nerves inside and out. When he kissed me, something in my brain loosened. Before long I had abandoned not only caution but all the other petty worries that had crowded into my brain.

After our lovemaking Schulz went downstairs. He came back up and said, “Twenty minutes,” then got dressed.

“Until what?”

“Until the first shift of your surveillance shows up.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why? I mean, why now?”

He counted off on his fingers as he enumerated. “Two murders, broken glass, anonymous phone calls, a poisonous snake followed by a poisonous spider, booby-trapped steps, and a vandalized chimney, which I didn’t get to see until now. And a woman with two boys who won’t move out, despite the best advice of her local cop.”

“Arch will call his friends,” I retorted mildly, “focus on the squad car with his high-powered binoculars, and pretend we’re in the middle of a coup. Your cops will think we’re nuts.”

“You’d be surprised at how many loonies we get.”

“Actually,” I ventured, “why don’t you just do the surveillance?”

“I wish.”

I pulled on a bathrobe and stood by a bedroom window. Glowing pumpkin-candles illuminated the silky night air. Schulz went outside to his car. Five minutes later, an unmarked police car showed up. I watched Schulz leave, then I watched the jack-o’- lantern flames flicker and die. Eventually I slipped back into my empty bed that smelled of Tom Schulz. I slept deeply, dreamlessly, until the alarm surprised me.

Groaning, I slipped out of bed to start stretching in the dark. My yoga teacher had told me once that if you were just going through the motions, it wasn’t yoga. So I emptied my mind and my breath and started over, saluting to the east, where there was as yet no sun, then breathing and allowing my body to flow through the rest of the routine until I was revitalized and ready to meet the day, even if we were only four and a half hours into it.

Too bad they didn’t have a resident yogi at Elk Park Prep, I mused on my way downstairs. How could you have class rank with yoga? Its whole essence was noncompetitive, the striving with one’s own body rather than being obsessed with the accomplishments of others. Which is what education should be, I decided as a jet-black stream of espresso spurted into one of my white porcelain cups. Stretching oneself. But no one was asking me. My eyes fell on the folded papers still on my kitchen table – the article printout from Keith’s computer disk. Correction: Schulz had asked me. I sat down with my coffee and started to read.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

– Anatomy of a Hoax As a senior at Elk Park Prep, this fall I have visited ten of the top colleges and universities in this country. The qualification “top” is commonly given by the media and, of course, by the colleges themselves. I went to these schools because this higher-education journey is one I will be taking soon. It’s a journey I’ve been looking forward to. Why? Because of what I thought I would find: 1) enthusiastic teachers, 2) a contagious love of learning, 3) academic peers with whom I would have mind-altering discussions, 4) the challenge of taking tests and writing papers that would give me 5) an introduction to new fields of learning so that I would have 6) the chance to develop my abilities.

I expected to find these things, but guess what? They weren’t there. My parents could have shelled out eighty-plus thousand dollars for a hoax!

The first place I visited I went for two days of classes. I never saw a full professor the entire time, although several Nobel prizewinners had prominent photographs in the college catalogue. I went to five classes. I wish I could tell you what they were about, but they were all taught by graduate students with foreign accents so thick I couldn’t tell what they were saying… .

I went to an all-boys school next. I never even saw humans teaching courses, only videotaped lectures. Over the weekend I wanted to have intellectual discussions. But all the guys had left to go to the campus of a girls’ school nearby.

The next place had real people teaching. So I went to a section meeting of the introduction to art history. It turned out the class was concentrating on thirteenth-century Dutch Books of Hours. The instructor said at one point that something was a prelude to Rembrandt, and one of the kids said, Who’s Rembrandt? After the class I asked why the instructor was teaching such an obscure topic, and one of the students said, Well, that was the subject of the instructor’s dissertation, and he was trying to do his research while teaching the class… .

I knew somebody from Elk Park Prep at the next place I visited. She graduated from our school five years ago and was now a graduate student. She needed to talk to her advisor about her dissertation, but he was doing research in Tokyo, and hadn’t been at the college for two years…

Finally I visited a school with a fantastic teacher! I went to his class on modern European drama. It was jammed with students. They were having a lively discussion of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and nobody was using Cliff’s Notes. The professor was storming back and forth, asking why did Hedda Gabler just keel over at the end. After all the disappointment at the other schools, I came out feeling great! But when the class was over, the other students were glum. When I asked why, they said that this fabulous assistant professor, who had just won the Excellence in Teaching award. had been denied tenure! He hadn’t published enough… .

Who is supporting this hoax in higher education? Certainly not yours truly. Do American students really want this false pedigree? Do we want good teaching, or an empty reputation? Do we want an educational process, or an impersonal stamp of approval? Students in the schools, unite… .

Well, well. He sounded like a valedictorian, all right. In a number of ways the article resembled Keith’s speech the night he died. But this essay was not an expose. There was really nothing in it anyone would kill to keep secret. Not that anyone else knew that, however.

Keith Andrews must have posed a threat to someone. Julian hadn’t liked him, and neither had a number of the other students. And in the last two weeks, somebody or bodies had been trying to hurt Arch and me. Why? What was the connection between the murder and the attempts on us? Was the murder of Kathy Andrews in Lakewood part of the killer’s scheme? How did the Neiman-Marcus credit card figure in what was going on? None of it added up.

Outside, the chilly Halloween night had given way to a snowy All Saints’ morning. Because the first Saturday in November is notorious for heavy snowfall, the College Board opted to give the SATs locally in the mountain area rather than have all the Aspen Meadow students attempt the trek to Denver, forty miles away. In the spirit of noblesse oblige, Headmaster Perkins had ordered me to prepare quadruple the amount of morning snack, so we could serve – his words – “the masses.” Time to get cracking.

I got out strawberries, cantaloupe, oranges, and bananas, and began to slice. Soon hills of jewellike fruit glistened on my cutting boards. Worry about Julian again surfaced. Had he been safe at his friend Neil’s house? As far as I knew, he had slept less than twenty hours this entire week. Julian, the college-scholarship kid. Why had someone done that for him?

When I finished the fruit I started mixing the muffin batters. From the freezer I took the doughnuts I had been making during the smoke episode, along with extra homemade rolls from the clergy meeting. With these set out to thaw, I mixed peanut butter into flour and eggs for the final batch of muffins and set it into the other oven, and then began to put together something I had only been thinking about, something with whole grain but sweet, like granola. My food processor blended unsalted butter into brown and white sugars. I repressed a shudder. Given the school’s reputation, I should call these Cereal Killer Cookies.

I scraped ice cream scoopfuls of the thick batter onto cookie sheets, took all the muffins out of the oven, then nipped outside with two hot ones wrapped in a cloth napkin. The policeman doing the surveillance accepted them gratefully. He wouldn’t follow me to the school. His orders were to watch the house, not me. Back inside, the enticing scent of baking cookies filled the kitchen. When they were done, I packed up several gallons of chilled vanilla yogurt along with the rest of the goodies and set out for Elk Park Prep, waving to the officer in his squad car as I pulled away. He saluted me with a muffin and a grin.

The heavy clouds sprinkling thick snowflakes reminded me of detergent showering into a washing machine. Someone had the foresight to call the county highway people and get the road to Elk Park Prep plowed. At seven, after carefully rounding the newly plowed curves, I arrived at the school driveway, where a pickup with a CAT was smoothing a lane through the thick, rumpled white stuff.

I skirted the truck, put the van in first gear, and started slowly up the snow-packed asphalt, already much traveled by vehicles carrying test-taking students. In a spirit of Halloween festivity, the elementary grades had carved row upon row of pumpkins to line the long entrance to the school. But the sudden cold wave had softened and crumpled the orange ovoids so that their yawning, jagged-toothed mouths, their decaying, staring faces now leered upward under powdery white masks of snow. A jack-o’-lantern graveyard. Not what I’d want to see the day of a big test.

The parking lot was already three-fourths full. With relief I noticed the heavily stickered VW bug that belonged to Julian’s friend, Neil Mansfield. When I came through the front doors that were still draped with wilted black crepe paper, Julian spotted me through the crowd of students and rushed over to help.

“No, no, that’s okay,” I protested as he took a box. “Please go back over to your friends.”

Cereal Killer Cookies

2 ź cups old-fashioned oats

2 6-ounce packages almond brickIe chips (Bits O’ Brickle)

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

˝ teaspoon salt

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

ž cup granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375°. In a small bowl, mix the oats with the brickle chips. Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. In a food processor, mix the sugars until blended, then gradually add the butter. Continue to process until creamy and smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and process until blended. Add the flour mixture and process just until combined. Pour this mixture over the, oats and brickIe chips and stir until well combined. Using a 2-tablespoon measure, measure out scoops of dough and place at least 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool on wire racks. Makes 4 to 5 dozen.

“I can’t,” he said brusquely. He hoisted the box up on one knee of his jeans and shot me a beseeching look. “They’re driving me nuts asking each other vocabulary questions. After that bookstore meeting last night, Neil and I played five-card draw until midnight. It was so great! The only question we asked each other was, How many cards do you want?”

Neil also came over to help. To my surprise, so did Brad Marensky and Heather Coopersmith. My sudden and unexpected popularity seemed to be owing to their not wanting to test each other on last-minute analogies. I directed the four teenagers to set up two long tables and layout the tablecloths and disposable plates, bowls, spoons, and forks that I had brought. Julian, to my great relief, had already started coffee brewing in the school’s large pot, but he had done it in the kitchen, and I didn’t know how to move the immense pot out to the foyer.

“I wanted to start the coffee out here,” Julian informed me as if he were reading my mind, “but I couldn’t find the extension cord that’s usually with the thing.”

Oh, spare me. For the hundredth time since finding Keith Andrews’ battered body out in the snow, I pushed away the thought of the dark cords twisted around his body. “Julian,” I said as I searched for a sugar spoon, “never say the words extension cord to me again. Please?”

He gave me a puzzled look that abruptly changed to a knowing one; He and Neil brought out cups of coffee on trays. When the bowls and platters were uncovered, kids began to come up to me to ask if they should eat now, where were they supposed to go, were the classrooms marked?

Desperately, I turned to Julian. “I need to do the food. Would you please find a faculty member or somebody to shepherd everyone around?”

He sighed. “Somebody said Ferrell went to get the pencils.” Before we could worry about it further, thankfully, a pair of faculty proctors appeared. The kids could take another twenty minutes to have their breakfast, they announced. Then alphabetized assignments were made to classrooms. The students crowded around the serving tables, shouting encouragements and vocabulary words to one another as they juggled muffins, doughnuts, cookies, bowls of yogurt with fruit, and cups of coffee. I was so busy refilling platters that I didn’t have a chance to talk to Julian again until just before he went into the P-Z classroom.

“How do you feel?”

“Okay.” But his smile was halfhearted. He clamped his hands under the armpits of his gray sweatshirt. “You know, it’s funny about that scholarship. Somebody – somebody besides you – cares about me. Maybe an alumnus, maybe one of the parents of the other kids. Not knowing who did it is kind of neat. I kept waiting for Ferrell or Perkins to say, Well, you have to do this, or you have to do that. But nothing happened. So now I think it doesn’t matter so much how well I do on these tests. They’re not the be-all and end-all. And that gives me a good feeling. I’m all right.”

I said, “Great,” and meant it. Egon Schlichtmaier, his hair fashionably tousled and his hands in the pockets of a shearling coat, came up and shooed Julian along to the classroom. I went back to clean up. The foyer was empty except for one lone student. Macguire Perkins stared morosely at what was left of the Cereal Killer Cookies.

“Macguire! You need to go take your test. It’s starting in five minutes.”

“I’m hungry.” He didn’t look at me. “I’m usually not up this early. But I can’t decide what to have.”

“Here,” I said, quickly grabbing up a handful of cookies, “take these into your classroom. Follow Schlichtmaier down the hall.”

Still not meeting my eye, Macguire stuffed them into the pouch of his baggy sweatshirt. “Thanks,” he muttered. “Maybe they’ll make me smart. I didn’t have any last year, and I only got 820 combined.”

“Oh, Macguire,” I said earnestly, “don’t worry…” His miserable pimpled face sagged. “Look, Macguire, everything’s going to be okay. Come on.” I scooted out from behind the long table. “Let me walk with you down to the classroom.”

He shrank from my attempt to touch his arm, but slouched along next to me without protest toward the classroom where Egon Schlichtmaier had just closed the door. I glanced up at Macguire. The boy was shaking.

“Come on!” I exhorted him. “Think of it as being like basketball practice. Do it for a couple of hours and hope for the best.”

He looked down at me, finally. His pupils were dilated with fear. Dully, he said, “I feel like shit.” And without waiting for my response, he opened the door to the classroom and slipped inside.

I scolded myself all the way back to the foyer, where I scooped up dropped napkins and paper cups, cleared away paper bowls and plastic spoons, and covered the remaining muffins, bread, and fruit. There were crumbs everywhere. Basketball practice? Maybe that was the wrong thing to say.

The SAT was scheduled to take three hours. There would be only two five-minute breaks. The headmaster and Miss Ferrell had determined that it would be best not to try to serve the food more than once. And speaking of the college advisor, I had to find out where we were supposed to meet after the test. I poured myself a cup of coffee and walked down to Miss Ferrell’s classroom. Unlike the other unused classrooms, it was unlocked but dark. I turned the lights on and waited. The desk was a mess of papers, indicating perhaps that she had been in to do some work but was coming back. Sipping my coffee, I waited for her over an hour, through the two five-minute breaks, but she was obviously involved with students.

Returning to the foyer, I decided to consolidate the food and wash my own empty dishes and bowls rather than haul them all home dirty. I found liquid soap, filled the porcelain basins of the old hotel kitchen with hot soapy water, and got to work, humming. Without a dishwasher the task took quite a bit longer than I anticipated. Oh, well, at least I wasn’t in one of those classrooms, trying to figure out the meaning of words like eleemosynary.

Once the dishes were laid on the counters to dry, I came back out to the foyer. Crumbs and bits of fruit still littered the floor. I had only fifteen minutes before the kids would be done. On their way out, their shoes would grind every last morsel into the smooth gray rug. The things a caterer has to do, I thought with great self-pity. I wiped the crumbs off the tables. No telling what my chances were of finding a vacuum among the plethora of closets in the kitchen. Well, process of elimination, as Julian had told me of the multiple-choice SATs. The first closet held phone books and boxes. The next one I opened was the storage area for old Elk Park Prep yearbooks. I never did find out whether the third one held a vacuum cleaner. When I opened the door, I faced the dead body of Miss Suzanne Ferrell.

18

Her petite body swayed in the slight stir of air I had created by pulling open the door. I touched the bruised skin of her arm. No response. I stumbled backward. Incoherently, I called for help, for someone, anyone. I scanned the kitchen wildly: I needed something – a footstool, a ladder – to climb up and cut her down. Maybe I could help her. But she couldn’t be alive. There was no way. I had just spent the last hour cleaning in this room and I would have heard her. If she had been alive, if there had been a chance…

Julian and a gray-haired, hunched-back teacher, a man I had seen earlier that morning, hurtled into the kitchen. Their voices tangled in shouts.

“What? What’s wrong? What’s the problem? The testing is still – “

“Quickly,” I rasped, gesturing helplessly, “cut her – ” I choked.

The older man limped forward and gaped at the contents of the open closet. “God help us,” I heard him say.

Voices clamored at the kitchen door. What’s going on? Is everything all right?

“No, no, don’t come in,” I yelled at two startled students who rushed into the room. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, they stood motionless, staring at the closet.

“Keep everybody out,” I ordered Julian tersely. He nodded and pivoted toward the kitchen entrance, where he motioned to the students to leave. Then he stationed himself at the door, where he spoke in low murmurs to the people there.

The voice of the older man broke as he asked me to get a knife. I groped for one in a drawer and handed it to him. At the door, Julian watched my every move. I think the sight of my face scared him.

Once the gray-haired man was at the top of a stepladder he’d pulled from the first closet, he said brusquely, “Have the boy go back to his classroom. I’ll need your help.”

Julian nodded and left. Together, the man and I grasped Miss Ferrell’s tiny body and lowered her to the floor. I could not look at her grotesquely frozen grimace again.

The teacher told me to call the police. He choked slightly and coughed, then asked me to find a teacher who could pick up the answer sheets from his room. Yes, the one he and Julian had left when they heard my shouts. He would wait with the body. I did not need to see medals to know this was a war veteran. His impassive tone and the grief in his eyes said all too clearly that he had seen death before.

There was no phone in the kitchen. My head pounded. The kitchen door fanned me as it closed, and a sudden sweat chilled my skin. When I arrived in the hall, there was the beginning of distant scuffling from the classrooms. The clock in the hall said five to eleven; the SATs were almost over. Dizziness swept over me. Should I make some kind of announcement? Should I tell the students to stay? That the police would be here soon, and they would all be questioned? I walked quickly to the phone in the hallway.

I pressed 911. I identified myself and where I was, then said something along the lines of, “I’ve just found a body. I think it’s Miss Suzanne Ferrell, a teacher here.” There was a whirring in my ears, like being inside a wind tunnel.

“Are you there?” The operator’s voice sounded impossibly distant.

“Yes, yes,” I said.

“Don’t let anybody leave that school. Nobody. I’ll put in a call to get a team up there right away.”

Groping for words within my mental fog, I hung up and stumbled to the P-Z classroom. I tersely told Julian to announce to his class and the others’ that after their booklets were collected, they must wait.

“If they ask, you know, because they heard me screaming, don’t… tell them anything else,” I said hesitantly.

Julian turned back to his class, his face tight with worry. Sweat now covered my skin like a mold. The pounding in my head intensified agonizingly. I walked in slow motion back to the kitchen door.

“The police are on their way,” I told the gray-haired man. Down on one knee, he had stationed himself next to the body. An unfolded white napkin shrouded Miss Ferrell’s face. The teacher acknowledged my announcement with a grim nod, but said nothing.

The room felt oppressive. I could not stay there next to Suzanne Ferrell’s corpse. In a daze, I went back out to the foyer. I found paper and pen in my supplies bag to make signs for the doors. Gripping the pencil was difficult. My shaking hand wrote, Do not leave until the police say you can. The room looked like the abandoned set of a surrealistic foreign film: What was all the debris, where did these bits of fruit come from, why were boxes of mine up on the tables? I grabbed a corner of one table to steady myself.

The recollection washed back, horrid, filthy. I saw my hand opening that door, saw a body swaying heavily in a bright orange and pink dress, saw a grotesque purple face that in no way resembled the perky French teacher. My fingers had blanched the darkening skin when they touched her. Her body had been strung up like the snake in Arch’s locker. I squeezed my eyes shut.

The police arrived in a blur. I glanced at my watch: 11:45. The sky through the foyer’s windows had begun to drop millions of snowflakes. An extremely tight-lipped Tom Schulz strode in. He was all business as the homicide team bustled around him, taking orders, falling into the grueling routine brought on by sudden death. They took the kids in the classrooms one by one. I knew the drill. Name. Address. When did you arrive, what did you see, and do you know anyone with a grudge against Miss Ferrell?

And of course the question that pressed in on my brain, caused throbbing at my temples, was the inevitable corollary: Who hated both Keith Andrews and Miss Suzanne Ferrell?

I sat on one of the benches and numbly answered Schulz’s questions. When did I arrive? Who else was in the school at that time? Who had access to the kitchen this morning? Pain still knocked dully at the back of my brain, but I also felt relief. This horror was now in the hands of the police. In the kitchen, their team would be painstakingly processing the scene: taking photographs, making notes, sprinkling black graphite fingerprint powder everywhere. Julian came through a doorway, crossed the room, and slumped down next to me. “Ninety-eight percent of the people who were here can be eliminated,” I heard Tom Schulz say to a member of his team. Julian and I were mute while the other seniors, finally dismissed, somberly filed past. I could feel the students’ eyes on me. I didn’t look up. All I could hear was my heartbeat.

When the lobby was again empty, Schulz sat down on the bench next to Julian and me. He said that Julian and his friend Neil had been the first to arrive that morning after the gray-haired faculty member, whose name was George Henley. Henley, it appeared, had found the outer doors unlocked upon his arrival shortly before 8:00. He had been given a set of keys by Headmaster Perkins, and had assumed Miss Ferrell, who was assigned to help him set up that morning, was “around somewhere,” because the door to her classroom was open, although the light was off. No, the unlocked doors had not puzzled him because of the headmaster’s much-touted belief in the “environment of trust.”

“What we’re looking for,” Schulz said wearily, “is how this could relate to the Andrews murder. Know anyone who had problems with this woman? Someone who maybe disliked Keith too?”

I repeated what I had already told him about Egon Schlichtmaier and the supposed romantic link with Suzanne Ferrell. He asked if we had seen any exchange between them-we hadn’t. Or between her and anyone else.

“This took place at the school. Because of what’s already happened here, we need to look at the school first,” Schulz insisted. “Is there anything else?”

A number of people, I told him numbly, might have resented Miss Ferrell. Why? Schulz wanted to know. Because of their own highly emotional agenda concerning grades, recommendations, the college issue. She was the college advisor, after all. And there were things she might have known. From what I had learned about the school in the past couple of weeks, the place seemed a veritable repository for secrets.

“Jesus Christ,” Schulz muttered under his breath. “When does anyone around here have time to learn? What about this headmaster? Any animosity there?”

“None that I know of,” I said, and turned to Julian, who opened his hands and shook his head dumbly.

“We’ll talk to him.” Schulz looked at me. I could see the strain of this second murder in a week in his bloodshot eyes and haggard face. “She’s been dead about six hours. Our surveillance guy can verify when you left your house, so you’re not a suspect.”

“For once,” I said dryly. I felt no relief. “Either one of you feel okay to drive?” Schulz asked. Neil Mansfield of the bumper-stickered VW was long gone. Julian said, “Let me take Goldy home in her van.” His face was bone-white. “Will you call us later?” he asked Schulz.

Schulz gently touched the side of Julian’s head. “Tonight.”

Snowflakes powdered the smooth lanes made by the CAT. Snow continued to swirl. The pumpkins edging the drive were now mounds of white, their leering faces long ago obscured. Julian edged the van around State Highway 203’s winding curves. I wondered how I would tell Arch about Miss Ferrell’s murder. After a long stretch of silence, I asked Julian how the tests went; he gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Know what I feel like doing?” he said abruptly.

“What?”

“I need to swim. I haven’t been near a pool in two weeks. Probably sounds crazy, I know.” He fell silent, concentrating on the increasingly treacherous road. Then he said, “This stuff at the school is getting to me. I can’t go back and sit in that house. Do you mind?” He gave me a quick sidelong glance. “You probably don’t feel like cooking.”

“You got that right. A swim sounds good.”

We parked in front of the house. With the heavy snow, it was hard to tell if anyone sat in one of the cars lining our street. Schulz’s surveillance cop had to be there, I told myself. Had to.

Once inside, I gratefully stripped off the caterer’s uniform and quickly slipped into jeans and a turtleneck. We gathered swimsuits and towels. There was a message on the machine from Marla: Could we come by for an early dinner? She had finally located Pamela Samuelson. Pamela Samuelson? Marla’s taped voice reminded me: “You know, that teacher out at Elk Park Prep who was involved in some kind of brouhaha with the headmaster. She really wants to see you.” Marla added cryptically, “It’s urgent.”

I dialed Marla’s number. The private nurse said her charge was taking a nap. Don’t disturb her, I told the nurse. Just tell her when she wakes that we’ll be there at five.

We switched to the Rover because of the roads. As we drove to the rec center, my heart felt like a knob of granite. Or maybe it wasn’t my heart that felt that way, but some unexpressed emotion that had solidified inside my rib cage. Was it fear? Anger? Sadness? All of the above.

I wanted to cry but could not, Not yet. I wanted to know if Arch was all right, but I reassured myself that of course he was. After all, he was in Keystone with his father, miles away from these ugly events. Just keep going, some inner voice said. Of course, that was what I had always done. But the rock in my chest remained.

At the pool Julian dived in at once, landing with an explosive crack that sprayed water everywhere. He plowed down his lap lane like a man possessed. I eased myself with infinite care into the water, then moved like a person drugged to the lane to Julian’s left. Closing my eyes, I allowed my arms to wheel into a slow crawl. Warm water washed over me. Twice I started to think about the events of the morning and accidentally inhaled water. I sputtered and changed to a backstroke, while in the next lane Julian repeatedly lapped me. After I had done a halting, uneven set of about twenty laps, I stopped Julian as he was about to do one of his rolling turns off the concrete wall. I was taking a shower, I told him. He said he was almost finished.

I shampooed my hair four times. The pine-scented shower gel would dry it out to straw, but I didn’t care. The sharp, woodsy scent brought back memories of boarding school with its comforting routines: history class, field hockey, wearing pearls to dinner and gloves to church. Too bad Elk Park Prep was not nearly so safe a place.

Waiting for Julian in the lobby of the rec center, I stood at the window, watching the snow. It drifted down like bits of ash from a distant fire. I suddenly realized that I was famished. Julian came out shaking droplets from his hair, and we drove in silence to Marla’s house in the country club area.

Marla greeted us with a shriek of happiness. Her leg was in a thick plaster cast that already bore a number of colorful inscriptions.

“I thought you might be along,” she said to Julian, “so I ordered you a grilled Gruyere sandwich along with our cheeseburgers. There’ll be jalapeno-fried onions and red-cabbage coleslaw too,” she added hopefully. Embarrassed to be so attended to, especially by someone in a cast, Julian flushed and mumbled thanks.

“Come on, then.” Marla hobbled forward. “Goldy’s been bugging me to find this person since last week.” Over her shoulder she said to Julian, “You may know her already.”

Pamela Samuelson, former teacher at Elk Park Prep, sat perched at the edge of a muted green and blue striped couch in Marla’s living room. A generous fire blazed inside a fireplace edged with bright green and white Italian tiles.

“Oh, Miss Samuelson,” Julian said in a surprised tone. “Eleventh-grade American history.”

“Hello, Julian.” Pamela’s hair had the look and texture of a much-used Brillo pad, and the fire reflected in her thick glasses. She was about fifty years old and slightly doughy, despite Marla’s introduction of her as “one of the regulars” at the athletic club. “Yes,” she said with a touch of irony, “eleventh-grade American history.”

“Pam’s selling real estate now,” Marla interjected with genuine sympathy. Realtors were not Marla’s favorite people. “She got shafted out at that school.”

I said, “Shafted?” Pamela Samuelson threaded and unthreaded her plump fingers. She said, “One hates to hang out dirty laundry. But when I heard about Suzanne, and Marla phoned me – “

“You’ve heard already?” I exclaimed. Why was I surprised? My years in Aspen Meadow had certainly taught me the terrifying efficiency of the local grapevine.

“Oh, yes,” Pamela said. She touched her wiry hairdo. “The fall SATs. First Saturday in November.”

I glanced at Julian. He shrugged. I said, “Please, can you tell me more about the school? I hate to say it, but … dirty laundry may help us figure a few things out.”

“Well. This was what I was telling Marla. I don’t know if it’s relevant.” She fell silent and looked down at her hands.

“Please,” I said again. She remained silent. Julian got up and added a log to the fire. Marla studied her cast, which she had propped up on a green and white ottoman. I heard my stomach growl.

“Before I was dismissed,” Pamela said at last, “I gave a final exam in American history. The essay question was, Discuss American foreign policy from the Civil War to the present.” Her eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. “It was the question I myself had had on a preparatory school American history exam. But several Elk Park Prep students complained. Not to me, mind you,” she said bitterly, “to Headmaster Perkins. Perkins gave me hell, said he hadn’t had such a challenging question in a test until graduate school.”

I said, “Uh-oh.” “I said, ‘Where’d you go to graduate school, the University of the South Sandwich Islands?’ And oh, that wasn’t the worst of it,” she continued sourly. “It was soccer season, don’t you know. The weekend before exams, Brad Marensky performed brilliantly as goalie down in Colorado Springs. But he hadn’t studied for his history exam, and on this essay question he unfortunately left out both World Wars.”

Julian said, “Oops.”

Pamela Samuelson turned a face contorted with sudden fury toward Julian. “Oops? Oops?” she cried. When Julian drew back in shock, she seemed to will herself to be calm. “Well. So I flunked him. Flat F.”

No one said oops.

“When the honor roll came out at the end of the year,” Pamela went on, “there was Brad Marensky. He could not have gotten there with an F, I can assure you.” She spread her hands in a gesture of incomprehension. “Impossible. I demanded a meeting with Perkins. His secretary told me the Marenskys had protested Brad’s grade. Before the meeting I checked the master transcript kept in a file in Perkins’ office along with old grade books. The F history grade had been changed to a B. When I confronted Perkins, he wasn’t even defensive. Smooth as silk, he says he gave Brad Marensky credit for the soccer game. I said, ‘You have a pretty screwed up idea of academic integrity.’ “

Not to mention American foreign policy.

“Perkins told me I was welcome to seek employment elsewhere, in fact, that he already had a superb replacement for me in mind. I know it was some young German man that a friend of his at C.U. was pressuring him to hire. I’d heard that from the secretary too.” Pamela hissed in disgust. “The article in the Post about the lower SAT scores at Elk Park Prep made me feel better for a little while, but it didn’t make me happy. I’m still trying to sell five-thousand-square-foot homes during the worst real estate recession in a decade.”

I murmured sympathetically. Marla rolled her eyes at me.

“Suzanne Ferrell was my friend,” Pamela said with a large, unhappy exhalation of air. “My first thought was, She wouldn’t cave in to them.”

“Them who?” demanded Marla.

“The ones who think education is just grades, class rank, where you go to college.” Pamela Samuelson’s voice thin with anger. “It’s so destructive!”

The high peal of the doorbell cut through her fury. Marla started to lift her cast from the ottoman, but Julian red her.

“I’ll get it,” he said. When he returned, Marla smiled handed the goodies she had ordered all around. Pamela Samuelson announced hesitantly that she couldn’t , and left, still radiating resentment. Clearly, the disgruntled teacher had said all she was going to on the subject of the headmaster, Egon Schlichtmaier, and the altered grades. Marla sweetly asked Julian to retrieve a miniature Sara Lee chocolate cake from one of her capacious freezers. I sliced and we each delved into large, cold pieces.

“Let me tell you what I think the problem is,” Marla matter-of-factly, delicately licking her fingers of chocolate crumbs. “It’s like a family thing.”

“How?” I asked. She shifted her cast on the ottoman to make herself more comfortable and eyed the last piece of cake. “Who are the people you most resent? The people closest to you. My sister got an MG from my parents when she graduated from college. I thought, If I don’t get a car of equal or better value, I’m going to hate my sister forever and my parents too. Did I resent all the other girls my age who might have been out in Oshkosh or Seattle or Miami getting new cars? No. I resented the people close to me. They had the power to give me the car or deny it, I figured, reasonably or unreasonably.” She reached for the piece of cake and bit into it with a contented mmm-mmm. I nodded and conjured up Elk Park Prep. “There could be seven thousand people out there applying for a thousand places in the freshman class at Yale. If you’d kill to get into Yale, do you stalk all seven thousand? No, The killer doesn’t worry about all those people out there who’ might be better than he is. He thinks, I have to remove the people right here who are standing in my way. Then I’ll be guaranteed of getting what I want, Fallacious reasoning, but psychologically sound.”

“You just better be careful,” Marla told me, “Somebody out there is vicious, Goldy. And I have the broken bone to prove it.”

When Julian and I arrived back on our street, I was relieved to see a cop sitting in a regular squad car right outside my house. Schulz had called and left a message that the investigators were working all day Sunday, and that the school would have counselors on Monday to deal with the kids’ reactions to the latest murder. I should not worry, he added. Not worry. Sure, Sleep came with difficulty, and Sunday morning brought weak sunshine and a return of the headache.

Overnight, we’d received ten inches of snow. Not even the brilliant white world outside raised my spirits.

I brought the newspaper in from my icy deck and scanned it for news of Suzanne Ferrell. There was a small article on the front page: PREP SCHOOL SCENE OF SECOND DEATH. I started to tremble as I read of Suzanne Joan Ferrell, 43, native of North Carolina, graduate of Middlebury College, teacher at Elk Park Prep for fifteen years, whose body was found while seniors took their Scholastic Aptitude Tests, . . parents in Chapel Hill notified … her father an architect, mother the chairman of the French Department at the University of North Carolina … police have no explanation, no suspects… death by strangulation… .

I took out a sheet of notepaper and performed that most difficult of tasks, writing to Suzanne’s parents. My note to Keith’s parents had been short, since I had not really been acquainted with the boy. This was different. I knew her. I wrote to the unknown architect and professor, she was a wonderful teacher. She cared deeply about her students … and then the tears came, profusely, unapologetically, so many, many tears for this unexplained loss. I allowed myself to cry until I could not cry anymore. Finally, painfully, I penned a closing. I signed my name, and addressed the note to the Ferrells in care of the French Department at U.N.C. Perversely, I found the university’s address inside one of Julian’s college advisory books. I slammed the book closed and heaved it across the kitchen, where it hit a cabinet with a loud crack.

With shaking hands I measured out espresso. While it brewed, I stared out the kitchen window and watched Stellar’s jays fight for supremacy at my bird feeder.

I turned away. One thing was clear. Suzanne Ferrell had not killed herself. My espresso machine hissed; a fragrant strand of coffee streamed into the small cup. Had Suzanne Ferrell preferred café au lait? Had she been enthusiastic about French food? Did she leave a lover? I would never know.

Let go of it. I wiped a few fresh tears from my face and sipped the espresso. Julian appeared and thankfully said nothing about my appearance or the college; advisory book lying facedown on the floor. When he finished his coffee, he reminded me that we had another Bronco half-time meal to cater for the Dawsons. An Italian feast. I had specified on the appointments calendar. I groaned.

“Let me fix the food,” he offered. When I was about to object, he added, “It’ll help me get my mind off of everything.” I knew how cooking could help with that particular emotional task, so I agreed. Julian rattled around, collecting ingredients. As I watched, he deftly grated Fontina and mozzarella, beat these with eggs, ricotta, Parmesan, and softened butter before blending in chopped fresh basil and pressed garlic. I felt a burst of pride in him as he sizzled onion and garlic in olive oil and added ingredients for a tomato sauce. The rich scents of Italian cooking filled the room. After he had cooked the manicotti noodles, he stuffed in the Fontina-ricotta mixture and ladled thick tomato sauce over it all.

“After it heats, I’m going to garnish it with more Parmesan and some chopped cilantro,” he informed me. “I’ll make it look good, don’t worry.”

Julian’s Cheese Manicotti

Sauce:

1 large onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, pressed (preferable) or chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 6-ounce cans tomato paste, plus water

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh oregano leaves

1 small bay leaf

1 teaspoon salt

˝ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Pasta:

1 teaspoon olive oil

14 manicotti noodles

Filling:

1 ˝ cups ricotta cheese

6 large eggs

ź pound Fontina cheese, grated

ź pound mozzarella cheese, grated

1/3 cup freshly grated best-quality Parmesan cheese

6 tablespoons soft butter (not margarine)

1 teaspoon salt

ž teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil leaves

freshly grated Parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top

Preheat the oven to 350 . To make the sauce, gently sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat until the onion is translucent, about five minutes. Add the tomato paste and stir. Slowly add 4 tomato paste cans of water and stir. Add the seasonings and allow the sauce to simmer while you prepare the manicotti and filling.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the olive oil, and drop in the manicotti. Cook just until al dente, about 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and run cold water over the manicotti in a colander. Set aside.

To make the filling, beat the ricotta with the eggs until combined in the large bowl of an electric mixer. Add the grated cheeses and softened butter; beat until combined. Add the salt, pepper, and basil. Beat on low just until everything is combined.

Gently fill the cooked manicotti with the cheese mixture and arrange in 2 buttered 9-by 13-inch pans. Cover the pasta in each pan with half the sauce; sprinkle on additional Parmesan. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is thoroughly melted and the sauce is bubbling. Makes 7 servings.

Food was the least of my worries. I pulled myself up from my chair, tore fresh greens for the salad, and mixed a lemon vinaigrette. I had made some breadsticks and frozen them the week before. Julian said he would put together a mammoth antipasto platter. I would bake a fudge cake when I returned from church, and that would be that.

Julian did not accompany me to the Sunday service. I came in late, sat in the back, slipped into the bathroom when tears again overcame me during the passing of the peace. I left quietly as soon as communion was over. A couple of curious sidelong glances came my way, but I resolutely averted my eyes. I wasn’t in the mood to discuss murder.

The glumness on Hank Dawson’s ruddy face when he opened the door to let me in that afternoon seemed to emanate more from the prospect of the Broncos having to face the Redskins than from anything to do with Elk Park Prep. The Dawsons had even invited the Marenskys. Bizarrely, Hank and Stan seemed to be friendly, resigned together to weather another tragedy out at the school. Either that, or they were both awfully good actors.

Caroline Dawson was a completely different story, however. Instead of her usual menopause-red outfit, scrupulously made-up face, and stiff composure, Caroline was dressed in an unbecoming cream-colored suit that was made of a fuzzy wool that kept picking up stray watts of static electricity. She looked like a squat, electrically charged ivory post. There was an edginess, too, about her untidily pinned-up hair and too-fussy inspection of the food and the way we were setting the table for her guests.

“We pay a lot of money for Greer to go to that school,” she said angrily during her fifth unexpected appearance in her kitchen. “She shouldn’t have to put up with crime and harassment. It’s not something I expect, if you know what I mean. They never should have started letting riffraff into that school. They wouldn’t be having these problems if they’d just kept their standards up.”

I said nothing. Everybody paid a lot to go to that school, and I didn’t know how Caroline would define riffraff. Julian, maybe?

Rhoda Marensky, dressed in a knitted green and brown suit with matching Italian leather shoes, made one of her tall, elegant appearances. She conspired with Caroline in misery. “First there was that Andrews murder. One of our coats, mind you, was involved, and the police said they found a pen from our store out by the body … and now Ferrell. Poor Brad hasn’t slept in two weeks, and I’m afraid he hasn’t even been able to start his paper on The Tempest. This is not what we’re all paying for,” she exclaimed, eyes blazing. “It’s like someone’s trying to disrupt our lives!”

“Rhoda, honey,” Stan called from the kitchen doorway, “what was the name of that lacrosse player from a couple of years back who graduated from Elk Park and went to Johns Hopkins? I can’t remember and Hank just asked me if he was National Honor Society.”

In a blur of green and brown, Rhoda brushed past Caroline Dawson, Julian, and me as if she had never even spoken to us. Strands from Caroline Dawson’s hair and beige outfit now stood completely on end. Flaming spots of color stood out on her cheeks. Would we please hurry up? she said. Catering was so expensive, and with all the college expenses they would have next year, they couldn’t afford to go for hours and hours without eating.

As soon as she’d banged out of the kitchen, Julian erupted. “Well, excuse the fuck me!”

“Welcome to catering,” I said as I hoisted a tray. “You always think it’s just going to be about cooking, but . . ” It never is.

We served the manicotti to a few grudgingly bestowed compliments. I felt terrible for Julian, especially since my own taste test had rated them mouth-watering. But what could you expect when the Redskins were smearing the Broncos? There was energetic kibbitzing about why this was happening: The coach had changed the lineup, Elway was worried about his shoulder, a line-backer was the subject of a paternity suit. When Washington won by three touchdowns, I feared we would receive no tip. But Hank Dawson reluctantly handed me twenty dollars as we trucked out the final boxes.

He lamented, “When Greer was in the state volleyball finals, we were going to take a gourmet box lunch. But Caroline said no, we had to have ham sandwiches the way we always did or we’d jinx it!”

“Oh, my,” I said sympathetically. I didn’t quite get the connection with the manicotti.

“Anyway,” he continued morosely, “you should have done the same food you did last week. It would have been luckier.” It’s always the caterer’s fault.

19

“Lucky?” Julian groused on the way home. “Luckier food? What a dork.”

“I keep telling you, people eat for different reasons. If they think eating sausage is going to win them the Super Bowl, then get out your bratwurst recipe and rev up the sausage stuffer. It pays in the long run, kiddo.”

After we’d unloaded, he announced he was going to work on his college application forms. He called over his shoulder that anything was better than the thought of pig intestines. I laughed for the first time in two days.

John Richard left Arch off outside the house late that afternoon, the end of their Halloween skiing weekend. There he was, a strong, athletic father not lifting a finger to help his diminutive twelve-year-old son with skis, boots, poles, high-powered binoculars, and overnight bag. Should I scold him for forcing Arch to struggle halfway up the sidewalk with his loads of stuff? Never mind. This was, after all, the Jerk. If I uttered a word, then the whole neighborhood would rediscover why we were divorced in the first place.

I walked carefully down steps Julian had salted liberally that morning, relieved Arch of his skis and boots, and noticed with dismay that his face was sunburned to a brilliant pink except for the area around his eyes, where his goggles had left the skin eggshell-white. The resulting raccoon effect did not bode well for Monday morning. Then I noticed that what I had taken from him were new Rossignol skis boasting new Marker bindings.

“What is going on?” I asked. Arch kept his eyes cast down as he hauled his overnight bag up the steps. “Dad forgot sunblock,” he muttered.

“So he paid you off with new skis?” I said, incredulous.

“I guess.” His tone was as downcast as his voice. I realized with a pang that I hadn’t even welcomed him home, much less told him about the tragic events of the weekend. Oh, spare me John Richard and his lavish attempts to bribe his way out of misconduct. The fact that I could not even come close to affording these luxurious trinkets didn’t make dealing with them any easier. Not to mention what kind of message Arch was picking up from this kind of behavior.

“I’ll be embarrassed to death if I have to go to school tomorrow looking like this,” my son said with a crack in his voice. “I look like a red giant.”

“A…”

“Oh, never mind, it’s just a kind of star. Big and ugly and red.”

“Oh Arch – “

“Just don’t say anything, please, Mom. Not a word.”

“You can stay home tomorrow,” I told him, giving him a hug. “The police are watching the house, so if I have to go out, you’ll be protected.”

“All right! Cool! Can I invite Todd over to watch the surveillance?”

Give them an inch… “You can invite him over for dinner,” I replied. At least this would give me some more time to lead up to the news of the Ferrell murder. It was my hope that Todd, a seventh-grader at the local junior high, would not be aware yet of the most recent crisis at Elk Park Prep.

Julian, who had fallen asleep working on his college applications, was in the kitchen drinking a Coke when Arch trundled in to greet him. To Julian’s credit, although his eyebrows peaked in surprise upon seeing Arch’s speckled facial condition, he made no comment. Over supper – fettuccine with hearty ladles of leftover tomato sauce – Arch regaled Todd, Julian, and me with stories of how he caught about six feet of air going down a blue and cruised through a totally monstrous mogul field before biffing on top of this guy from Texas. The Texan, one presumed, survived.

Before Arch went to bed I broke the news of Miss Ferrell’s death. There would be counselors at the school the next day, I told him. So if he wasn’t too worried about the sunburn… Arch said Miss Ferrell wasn’t his teacher, but she was so nice… . Was it the same person who had bashed Keith, he asked. I told him I didn’t know. After a few minutes Arch asked if we could pray for the two of them.

“Not out loud,” he said as he turned away from me.

“Not out loud,” I agreed, and after five minutes of silent offering, I turned out his light and went downstairs.

A windstorm kicked up overnight. Pine tree branches whooshed and knocked against the house and cold air slid through all of the uncaulked cracks. I got up to get another blanket. The police car at the end of our drive should have provided soporific assurance, but it did not. I prowled the house at midnight, two-thirty, and four A.M. Each time I checked on the boys, they were sleeping soundly, although Arch had stayed up late with his binoculars, watching for movements in the police car. Around five I finally drifted off into a deep sleep, but was sharply awakened an hour later when the phone rang.

“Goldy.” Audrey Coopersmith sounded panicked. “I need to talk. I’ve been up for hours.”

“Agh,” I gargled.

“Carl’s back,” her voice rushed on, as if she were announcing a nuclear holocaust. “He came over and talked to Heather about his… girlfriend.”

“He came over,” I repeated, my nose deep in my pillow.

“He’s thinking of getting married.”

“Better to her than to you,” I mumbled. “The police were here when he came. He didn’t even ask if I was all right. He didn’t even ask what was going on.”

Sadly, I said, “Audrey, Carl doesn’t care anymore.” I bit back the urge to talk about waking up and smelling the coffee. Mentioning caffeine would make me desire it too deeply.

“I just don’t understand why he’s acting this way, especially after all these years… .”

I pressed my face against my pillow and said nothing. Audrey was determined to recite the lengthy litany of Carl’s wrongs. I said, “I’m sorry, but I need to go.”

“Carl’s upsetting Heather terribly. I don’t know how she’s going to survive this.”

“Please, please, please, Audrey, let me go back to sleep. I promise I’ll call you later.”

She snapped, “You don’t care. Nobody cares.” And with that she banged the phone down before I had a chance to protest. Grudgingly, I got out of bed and went down to smell, as well as make, the coffee. Julian was already up and showering. Audrey had not mentioned Suzanne Ferrell, but that was certainly why the police had visited her. I wondered if they would also be stationed out at the school.

Arch stumbled down to the kitchen at seven. His bright pink raccoon mask had faded somewhat, and I noticed with surprise that he had dressed in a ski sweater and jeans. He pulled a box of cereal out of the cupboard.

“Sure you feel okay about going today?” He stopped sprinkling out Rice Krispies and gave me a solemn look. “Julian says that if you go to school with this kind of sunburn, kids don’t make fun of you. They think you’re cool because you skied all weekend. Besides, I want to listen to the counselors and find out if the French Club is going to do something for Miss Ferrell. You know, send flowers to her parents, write notes.”

Within an hour both boys were out the door. Schulz called and said he was going down to Lakewood again to work on the Kathy Andrews case. He asked how we were, and I said truthfully that I was exhausted.

“I keep trying to figure out what’s going on. Since Miss Ferrell wanted to talk to me about Julian, I need to at least make an attempt to chat with the headmaster about him.”

“Keep at it,” Schulz said. “You inspire great trust, Miss G.”

“Yeah, sure.” He promised he would meet us at the Tattered Cover for the last college advisory affair this coming Friday night. Was it still going to happen, he wanted to know. I said I would call the school to find out if I was still the caterer of record.

“Look at it this way,” Schulz soothed. “It’s your last one of these college advisory things.”

Small comfort. But I smiled anyway. “Getting to see you will be the best part.”

“Ooo, ooo, should have gotten this on tape. The woman likes me.”

I savored his wicked chuckle for the rest of the day.

The school secretary brusquely informed me that Headmaster Perkins was completely tied up with the police, parents, and teachers. He wouldn’t have a free moment to see me for days. Then she put me on hold. In that time I managed to put together a Roquefort ramekin for our vegetarian supper, so I guess I was on hold for a long time. She returned to tell me that yes, they were going ahead Friday night; I should just fix the same menu. And Headmaster Perkins and I could discuss Julian Teller Friday morning at nine if I wanted. If, I thought with indignation.

The week passed in a flurry of meetings with clients, who were already planning Thanksgiving and Christmas parties. I called Marla every day, but that was my closest link to the grapevine around the adults connected with Elk Park Prep. Unable to attend her exercise class with a broken leg, Marla had precious little access to information herself although she did tell me that she’d heard Egon Schlichtmaier was dating somebody else from the athletic club.

“In addition to Suzanne Ferrell? Really?”

“She swears his relationship with Ferrell was just platonic. This other woman is disgustingly thin,” Marla pronounced. “I just know she’s had liposuction.” She asked how Julian was doing, and I assured her he seemed fine. When I asked her why she cared about Julian, she said that she had a strong sympathy for vegetarians. News to me.

On Thursday, both Julian and Arch attended the memorial service for Miss Ferrell at the Catholic church. I had an unbreakable appointment with a client who had booked me for Thanksgiving itself. This client wanted a goose dinner for twenty that I would have to balance with my other commitments. Generally, I limited myself to ten Thanksgiving dinners. I would do most of the cooking Tuesday and Wednesday, deliver fixings for nine of them early Thursday morning, then actually cater one. John Richard habitually took Arch skiing that weekend, and I earned enough during the four-day period to support Arch and me for any sparsely booked spring month. Not only that, but I had learned that clients with relatives visiting over that weekend didn’t want to see turkey Tetrazzini, turkey enchiladas, turkey rolls, or even poultry of any kind until the following week. So it was a great time to showcase any fish recipes I had been working on. Clients were famished for anything without gravy or cranberry jelly.

The windstorm raged all week. Temperatures dropped daily, and a skin of ice formed over the dark depths of Aspen Meadow Lake. Friday’ morning, after I had finished my yoga, I set out at nine o’clock and wished for about six more layers than my turtleneck and faded down coat. The fierce cold and snow had even encouraged the Main Street merchants to bring out their Christmas decorations early. The digital readout on the Bank of Aspen Meadow sign provided the grim reminder that it was November in the mountains: eleven degrees. Uneven ice coated the roads, the result of snow being churned up by the plows and then frozen solid. I drove carefully up Highway 203 toward Elk Park Prep and wondered if you could make a decent living doing catering in Hawaii.

The telltale side spotlights, huge mirrors, and low-to-the-ground chassis announced the fact that the only other vehicle in visitor parking at the school was an unmarked police car. More investigators for the Ferrell homicide? Catching up with me from the faculty parking lot, Egon Schlichtmaier, elegantly sartorial in a new fur-trimmed bomber jacket, held one of the massive doors to the school open wide and bowed low. Someone, I noticed, had finally removed the black crepe paper and Keith’s picture.

“Tardy today?” I asked.

“I do not have a class until ten o’clock,” he replied cheerfully. “I was working out, but did not see you.”

I eyed him and said, “Nice jacket.” He swaggered off.

The headmaster was deeply involved in a conference call, but could see me in a bit, the receptionist informed me. I went down the hall to check on Arch – undetected, this time. To my surprise, he was standing in front of his social studies class, giving a report. Before creeping off to find Julian, I scanned the facial expressions of Arch’s classmates. All listened attentively. Pride lit a small glow in my chest.

A uniformed police officer stood guard outside one of the classrooms of the upper school area of the old hotel. I nodded to him and identified myself. He did not reply, but when I looked through the window into the classroom, he didn’t ask me for ID either. Egon Schlichtmaier’s American history class had just begun: Macguire Perkins was giving an oral report at the front of the room. On the board was written: THE MONROE DOCTRINE. Sad to say, Macguire and the justification for hemispheric intervention were not receiving as much attention as Arch. Greer Dawson was combing her hair; Heather Coopersmith was figuring on a calculator; Julian looked perilously close to slumber. For one brief moment my eyes locked with Macguire’s, and he signaled hello to me with one hand. I shrank back from the door. The last thing I needed was for Egon Schlichtmaier to claim I’d been bothering his class. I slunk back toward the headmaster’s office.

“He’ll see you now,” chirped the secretary without looking up from her computer monitor. I marched into the office, wondering vaguely how she’d known it was me. Did I smell like a caterer?

Headmaster Perkins was once again on the phone – although this must have been less important than the earlier conference call – as he covered the receiver with his hand and waved me over to a side table laden with a tray of baked goods and silver electrified urn.

“Help yourself,” he said in a low voice, “I’ll be right off.”

There must have been an early morning meeting of the board of trustees, I thought vaguely, for all the profiteroles, miniature cheesecakes, chocolate chip bars, and frosted cupcakes on the tray. I poured myself a cup of coffee but decided against the sweets. How come Perkins hadn’t called me to cater an early-morning meeting? Did he save me for the easy stuff like getting up at oh-dark- thirty to make healthful munchies for hordes of seniors? Or was he afraid I might hear how he presented the murder of Suzanne Ferrell to the big contributors?

“Yes,” he was saying now into the phone. “Yes, quite tragic, but we must go on. Still seven P.M. Yes, on stress reduction in test-taking. Ah, no. I will be taking over the college counseling myself.” He took a deep, resigned sniff. “Same caterer, indeed.” But before he could say “ta-ta” again, the person on the other end hung up.

“Tattered Cover,” he explained to me with a shake of his Andy Warhol hair. He looked around his desk, which was cluttered with papers and an enormous basket of fresh flowers. Someone obviously thought he needed sympathy when it was one of his teachers who had been murdered. Gray pouches of wrinkled skin hung under his eyes. He wore a navy sport coat instead of his usual Brideshead Revisited tweeds, and it suddenly occurred to me he hadn’t used a single simile since I’d walked into the office.

“Are you all right, Headmaster Perkins?” He looked straight at me with enormously sad eyes. “No, Ms. Bear, I am not all right.”

He rolled his swivel chair around until he was looking at the painting of Big Ben. “George Albert Turner,” he said thoughtfully. “Great-grandson of Joseph Mallord William Turner. Not exactly ‘Burning of the Houses of Parliament,’ though, is it?” Then he turned toward me again, and weak sunlight from outside illuminated the capillary veins scrawled across his face. His mournful voice intoned, “And so far am I also removed from the real thing.”

“Ah, I’m not quite following you.” “Purity of pursuit, my God, Ms. Bear! Purity of artistry, purity of academic inquiry… all the same.” Perkins rubbed his forehead with both hands. “Unlike” – he gestured to indicate the elegant room – “unlike all this.”

“Mr. Perkins, I know you’re upset. I can talk to you about Julian some other time. You’ve obviously had some meeting – “

“Meeting? What meeting?” A harsh laugh escaped his throat. “The only people I meet with these days are police.”

“But” – I gestured to the urn and trays of baked goods – “I thought – “

Again the sad, ironic look, the voice of distress. “Midterm grades, Ms. Bear! The flowers are a gift! The owners of the flower shop want their son to go to Brown after he graduates next year. They want me to write the recommendation after I change the boy’s French three grade from a C to an A. Miss Ferrell wouldn’t do it, you see.” I stared at the headmaster, incredulous. Was he losing it? He prattled on. “The baked goods are also a gift. One of my teachers has a new fur coat. He asked if it was all right for him to keep it, since it cost more than his entire wardrobe. He swears the donors haven’t asked him to change a grade. I told him, ‘Not yet, they haven’t.’ “

“But these people who wanted Miss Ferrell to …do this for them, could they…”

He shook his head. “They’re in Martinique. With their son. You see, they go every year at the end of October, and the boy gets rather behind in his work.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “They want me to give him credit for going to Martinique! They say he speaks some French there, so why not?”

“Purity of pursuit,” I said softly. “Did you change the grade?”

He stiffened. “That’s not the kind of question I answer. You wouldn’t believe the pressure I’m under.”

“I would believe it,” I said truthfully. “Just look at what’s happened around here the past two weeks; Speaking of gifts, could you tell me any more about this scholarship Julian received? I’m afraid there may be strings attached. Maybe not at this very moment, but as you yourself would say, not yet. Like your teacher with the coat. Maybe next week, or next month, Julian could get some anonymous message saying if he wants to keep his scholarship, he has to flunk a test, not apply to a certain school, something like that.”

Perkins shrugged and looked back at the neo-Turner.

“I know as much as you do, Ms. Bear. We received a call from the bank, period. To the best of my knowledge, nobody at this school knows the donor. Or knew,” he said, to my unanswered question about Miss Ferrell.

“Why do you think someone killed her?”

“We all have a constituency, Ms. Bear. You do, I do, Miss Ferrell did.” He held up his hands in his mannered gesture of helplessness. His voice rose. “As a caterer, you must do what you know is bad for your constituency, because it is what they want. If the obese want fudge rather than oat bran, well, why not? When it comes back to haunt them, you’ll be long gone. Displeased parents make my life a misery with phone calls and letters and all kinds of threats.”

“Yes, but are you saying Miss Ferrell wouldn’t play along? Sort of like Miss Samuelson?”

Anger blazed in his eyes. I felt myself recoil at the unexpected intensity of his obvious distress, his loathing at my bringing up this topic. Perkins had tried to disguise his dislike for me by trying for sympathy in – unprofessionally, I thought – sharing details of his emotional load. But it hadn’t worked. Now he pressed his lips together and did not respond.

I said, “Did you tell the police that Miss Ferrell wouldn’t play along, perhaps?”

His haggard face turned scarlet. “Of course I did,” he snarled. “But they think somebody might have been searching her room that morning. They can’t find her grade book; they don’t know what was going on or who might have been having problems. And I doubt that any parent or student would dare put the pressure on me now.” He leered. “But perhaps I don’t know all she did.”

“What about Egon Schlichtmaier? Have you talked to the police about him?”

He ran his hands impatiently over the cottony mass of hair. “Why are you so interested? Why not just leave it to the authorities?”

“Look, the only person I’m worried about is Julian. I want to know who would give him this scholarship and why.”

He tugged the lapels of his sport coat. “Julian Teller is a fine student.” His lips closed firmly.

I mumbled something noncommittal, and Perkins said he’d see me that night for the last of the college meetings. The bell signaling class change rang, and I made noises about it being time for me to leave. But instead of the usual metaphorical sendoff, Headmaster Perkins merely swiveled back to the painting by Turner’s great-grandson. As I left his office, my mind groped wildly.

Someone searching her room … they can’t find her grade book…

In the hallway I saw several seniors I recognized. All avoided me by looking away or starting to talk animatedly to the person nearest to them. Discovering two dead bodies can get you ostracized, I guessed. Except by Macguire Perkins, who came lumbering down the hall and nodded when I said hello. I pulled his sleeve.

“Macguire,” I said, “I need to talk to you.”

“Oh well, okay.” He led me out the school’s front door.

I looked up. For that was where he was, this lanky, painfully acne-faced basketball star – way up. A blue plaid lumberjack shirt hung out over jeans that ended in weathered hiking boots. No preppie outfit for the headmaster’s son.

“I want to talk to you about Miss Ferrell.”

“I, uh, I’m real sorry about Miss Ferrell.”

“So am I.”

“You know, I know she was mad about my college visit, and… other stuff, but I think she liked me.”

“What other stuff?”

“Just,” he said, “stuff.”

“Like having your driver’s license suspended for drinking and driving? Or stuff like your use of steroids to muscle yourself up?”

His scarred face turned acutely red. “Yeah. Anyway, I stopped the steroids. Last week, I swear. Ferrell was talking to me about it, said I could be strong without them, like that.”

“She was right.” I hesitated. “There’s something I need, Macguire. Something she might have feared would get stolen.”

“What?”

“Miss Ferrell’s classroom might have been searched last Saturday. It was a mess when the police got to it. I’ve just had a talk with your father and it made me think… . Listen, I need her grade book. You of all people know your way around this school. Is there any chance she could have hidden it somewhere?”

Macguire looked around the snowy parking lot before replying. Was paranoia a side effect of his brand of drug abuse?

“As a matter of fact,” he said reluctantly, “I may know where it is. You know, being tall, I see things other folks don’t see.”

“Tell me.”

“Remember when I read my essay about I.U. at the front of the class?” I nodded. “She has those big posters up there by the blackboard. Behind that framed one of that arch in Paris, I saw something. Like a brown notebook. I could go look…”

“Please do.” He trundled off, and within two minutes he was back, grinning triumphantly. He shrugged his backpack off his shoulder and unzipped it. Another quick visual scan of the parking lot. “Luck,” he said simply. He pulled out a brown fake-leather spiral grade book and handed it to me. I hadn’t brought a purse, so I just held on to it.

“Give that to the cops,” he said. “Maybe it’ll tell them something.”

My heart ached for this sad, loose-limbed boy. “Thank you, Macguire. I was so worried about you Saturday morning. You seemed so nervous about the test.”

“What, me?” He backed away and held up his hands in protest. “Your cookies were great. I thought later, why should I have been so worried about the SATs? I’m not going to be somebody by going to Harvard. What the hell, I’m never going to be anybody.”

20

I phoned Tom Schulz when I got home in the hope that he might have returned from Lakewood. No luck. I told his machine I had Suzanne Ferrell’s roll book with the class grades, and where was he? The evening’s event loomed and I knew I had food to prepare. Still, I was getting close to the answers to a lot of questions; I could feel it. Cooking could wait. I sat down at my kitchen table and opened Suzanne Ferrell’s grade book.

It was larger than most grade books I had seen, about eight by eleven instead of four by six, and with many more pages. The notebook was divided into three parts: French III, French IV; and CC. When I flipped to it, CC proved to be college counseling. There I saw an inked list of the top-ranked seniors: I. Keith Andrews, 2. Julian Teller, 3. Heather Coopersmith, 4. Greer Dawson, 5. Brad Marensky… . A quick check showed that Brad Marensky and Greer Dawson were in French III; Julian and Heather Coopersmith were in French IV. Keith Andrews had also been in French IV. They were all, including Macguire Perkins, in college counseling.

In French III, Brad Marensky had a solid stream of C’s and B’s; his midterm grade was due to be a B minus. Greer Dawson’s showed wide swings: two F’s early on, the rest B’s. Her grade: C. Julian had made A’s at the beginning of the quarter, then a B and an F on a quiz last week. He had also received a B minus for the midterm. Heather Coopersmith had B’s punctuated by two A’s, and was due to receive a B plus. Keith Andrews had received all A’s and one B. There was a line through his name.

Well, that didn’t tell me much. Or if it did, I hadn’t a clue how to interpret it. Would this finally all come down to mathematical calculations of grades? Is that what people would kill for?

With some trepidation I turned to the college counseling section. In addition to the class rank, the students were listed alphabetically. Reactions and conferences with the students, headmaster, and parents had been duly noted in careful handwriting.

KEITH ANDREWS-Disillusioned by recent trips to universities. Parents in Europe. Wishes he could join them, visit Oxford, etc. Says someone should start a college made up of all the winners of Distinguished Teachers awards who didn’t get tenure. H. says K. can’t be trusted; writing something for paper. I said probably harmless. RECOMMENDED: STANFORD, PRINCETON, COLUMBIA.

HEATHER COOPERSMITH-Mother worried. Sat next to her at dinner. H. says mother obsessing on college thing because father dumped. Wants control of life. Jealous of K. Claims others have $$ they can spend to help their kids get into college. H. dreamy and distant. Wants less structure, less pressure in academic life. H. says mother a pain. RECOMMENDED: BENNINGTON, ANTIOCH.

BRAD MARENSKY-Parents brought in media rankings. Wanted to know Dawson list! They think B. “deserves” top-ranked school. Says stories about them offering fur coat to admissions director at Wiliams untrue. But do I think it would be a good idea? (Said no.) Unpleasantness from last year apparently resolved. B. indifferent to schools, but seemed to be watching me. Told me he wanted to be ‘far away from parents.” Asked, “Did I know?” I said, about what? No response. H. doesn’t have a clue. RECCOMMENDED: WASHINGTON AND LEE, COLBY.

GREER DAWSON-Very difficult. Wants Ivy League or Stanford, but SATs not high enough; grades erratic. Parents offered me a year’s free meals if I’d recommend her. Not amused. H. warned, “trouble if the school doesn’t get Greer into Princeton. RECOMMENDED: OCCIDENTAL, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA.

MACGUIRE PERKINS-Asked about drinking record, drugs. Said he has talent for drama, but he thinks not; says he’s depressed. Recommended psychotherapy. H. opposed, looks bad. RECOMMENDED SCHOOLS FOR BASKETBALL: INDIANA, N.C. STATE, UNLV.

Uneasily, I turned to the dead woman’s comments about Julian.

JULIAN TELLER-Vulnerable. Wants to study food science. Not covered in Rugg’s. Will phone around for help. J. knows Cornell has a program (Jane Brody alum); would fit with his academic bent. Meet with foster mother (caterer) morning of 11/1. RECOMMENDED: CORNELL, MINNESOTA (?).

None of this made a whole lot of sense to me, except to confirm my suspicions about these people. Miss Ferrell was one smart cookie, except that she had not fathomed Brad Marensky’s question: Did Miss Ferrell know about his stealing? Apparently she had not.

I also remembered vaguely about Rugg’s – a reference book that rated colleges and universities by departments. If food science wasn’t in there, perhaps I could check the cookbook section when I went to the Tattered Cover that evening to see where the most recent culinary writers had gone to school. It was something I could do to help, anyway. Even though Julian now had the funds to go anywhere he wanted, he might as well get the most his money could buy.

I tried to let go of academic worries while I put together more biscotti, some fruit and cheese trays, and started in on a recipe I was testing for Valentine’s Day: Sweetheart Sandwiches. A Sweetheart Sandwich consisted of a pair of fudgelike cookies separated by a slide of buttercream filling. Serving these rich little cookies was inspired by the subject for the evening’s lecture: “Stress Reduction in Test-taking.” My prescription for stress was simple: Take chocolate and call me when it’s over.

Audrey called, contrite over her early-morning explosion, and assured me she wanted to help tonight. Could she have a ride to the bookstore? Heather was doing some calculations for her classmates on their new class rank, and she had to deliver the results to her friends on their way down to Denver. Heather didn’t want Audrey to embarrass her, Audrey told me sadly. Were we wearing white uniforms, aprons, what? I told her black skirt, white blouse, and her apron that said GOLDILOCKS’ CATERING. She promised she’d come over at five-thirty. Julian called. He said he would be eating over at Neil’s; he would catch a ride with Neil and meet me at the bookstore. Unless I needed help? I assured him I had everything under control. Arch came home and announced he had to pack for an overnight with a friend. But first he would have some of the new cookies.

“If you’ll pour me a glass of milk,” he negotiated as he pushed his glasses up his nose and methodically placed three freshly baked cookies on his plate. With eyes closed, he tasted the first one.

“Well?” He let me suffer a moment. Then he said very seriously, “Excellent, Mom. Any teacher would give you an A plus.”

I grinned. “Are you feeling better in school?”

He swallowed, took a sip of milk, and wiped off the liquid white mustache. “Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“Seventh grade is like…” Headmaster Perkins’ mannerisms were contagious. Arch popped another cookie in his mouth and chewed pensively. “Seventh grade is like half happiness, half totalitarianism.”

“Totalitananism?”

“Oh, Mom.” He adjusted his glasses. “Julian taught me that word for social studies.” He paused. “Are they still working on finding out who killed Keith Andrews and Miss Ferrell?”

When I nodded, he said, “You know, I just want to be in a safe place. It is scary in school, I have to admit.”

“But nothing else has happened, right?”

“Mom, the police are there. How safe do you think it’s going to be when they pull off their investigators and the surveillance?”

I didn’t answer that question. “Don’t worry,” I said tensely, “we, or they, or somebody, is going to figure out what happened.”

He didn’t seem to want to talk anymore, so I went back to my cooking. By the time the friend’s mother arrived at five o’clock, Arch had run through half a dozen cookies and declared he didn’t want any dinner.

Neither did I, I decided after he left, but not because I was full of anything but dread. My stomach was churning in anticipation of yet another college advisory event. I wondered how many guidance counselors had ulcers. Perhaps when this final ordeal was over, Audrey could get a ride home with her daughter and Schulz and I could go out for a late supper.

Audrey arrived. We packed the trays into the van, hightailed it to Denver, and arrived at the Tattered Cover promptly at six. Driving up to the third-floor entrance, where I had parked before, I remembered my resolve to check the cookbooks for names of schools for Julian. I also suddenly remembered Miss Ferrell’s grade book, which I had packed in one of my boxes in the hope that I could give it to Schulz after the program. With all the stealing going on among Elk Park preppies, I was going to make certain I personally handed this valuable volume to him for analysis. But I had learned my lesson with Keith’s computer disks: I wasn’t about to leave the grade book unprotected in the kitchen during the confusion of the catering. When Audrey was preoccupied with folding up box lids, I grabbed the grade book, wrapped it in a spare business apron, and headed briskly through the third-floor door and down two flights on the interior staircase. I wanted to put it in the secret closet Audrey had shown me

Sweetheart Sandwiches

Cookies: ź pound (1 stick) unsalted butter 1 ź cups sugar 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ˝ cup unsweetened cocoa (recommended brands: Hershey’s Premium European-style, Droste, Ghirardelli) 2 cups flour ˝ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder ˝ teaspoon baking soda

Filling: 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 4 cups confectioners’ sugar whipping cream

To make the cookies, cream the butter with the sugar in a large bowl until light. Beat in eggs and vanilla; set aside. Sift the cocoa powder, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together. Stir the dry ingredients thoroughly into the butter mixture. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 or 3 hours. Preheat the oven to 375 and butter 2 cookie sheets. Using a teaspoon measure, roll level teaspoons of the dough into galls and place them 2 inches apart on the sheets. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until cookies are puffed and surfaces slightly dry and cracked. Cool on racks.

To make the filling, cream the butter until light. Beat in the vanilla and confectioners’ sugar, adding whipping cream and continuing to beat until the consistency is like creamy frosting.

When the cookies are completely cool, spread about ˝ tablespoon of filling on the bottom of one cookie, then top with the bottom side of another cookie. Makes about 3 dozen sandwiches.

Variation: For half a batch of vanilla-filled and half a batch of peppermint-filled cookies, add 1/8 teaspoon peppermint extract to half the filling. Tint the peppermint filling pink or green before filling half the sandwiches.

in Business, but there was a cadre of people in front of the shelf, reading up on making millions in utilities stocks. I tried for a safer area.

The staffperson in Cookbooks recognized me from the previous week. She was delighted at my request to see the latest in culinary writing.

“Oh, but you have to go see our window display!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “It’s a new display Audrey and I put together: ‘What’s new in food and cooking’! You must go admire what she did.”

She directed me out the door to First Avenue, where I turned right and then faced a stage set behind plate glass that was designed to make people run – not walk – to the nearest restaurant. From every cranny of the big display window, photographs of food jumped out: splashy posters of Jarlsberg, Gorgonzola, and Gouda rounds vied with brilliant photos of jewelred peppers, beets, and squashes, tangles of colored pasta, blackened fish and thick succulent steaks, loaves of shiny bread, creamy cheesecakes, gleaming raspberry tarts, dark chocolate souffles. Stacked on tables placed in the visual display were at least a hundred cookbooks, thick and thin – Julia Child, Jane Brody, the Silver Palate people, the Cajun crowd, you-name-it. Hanging like flags here and there above the small stage were aprons, kitchen towels, and tablecloths. Hmm. I wondered if the woman could be persuaded to put a Goldilocks’ Catering apron in there? The worst that could happen was that a negative response would be accompanied by the judgment that I was crassly, irredeemably commercial. Which I was. It was worth a try. None of us, I reflected as I trudged inside, is above bribery.

She would be happy to put the apron in, she told me cheerily. I accompanied her to the interior side of the window. There she slid expertly between the photographs, took down a red and white apron, and hung up my spare, the GOLDILOCKS’ CATERING facing the street. Inspired, I sidled up to the front of the window and surreptitiously slipped the grade book underneath the latest Paul Prudhomme. It was, after all, hot.

“Watch your step,” the woman warned as I accidentally backed into a pile of cookbooks.

“Not to worry,” I assured her. I scooted off the platform in front of the window, where several street-side onlookers stood salivating over the photo display, thanked the cookbook person, and ran up the stairs to the third floor. The store staff was already setting up chairs, and Audrey had made the coffee and concocted the apple juice from concentrate. Her face was set in a studied frown.

“Carl bothering you again?” I ventured. “No,” she said after a moment. “It’s Heather. She’s having some problems with her classmates. Now she wants me to drive her home after this. And she said Carl called, just had to talk to me about some new crisis.”

What else was new, I wanted to ask her. I refrained. However, after spending a few silent minutes stacking plastic cups in the tiny kitchenette, Audrey faced me gloomily. “Heather’s classmates told her they wanted her to figure the class rank because she’s so marvelous with numbers. They were going to supply her with their midterm grades, which supposedly came out Tuesday. But she’s tried for the past three days and she can’t get some of the top people, like Brad Marensky or Greer Dawson, to give her their grades in French. Now, I know they both have team practices, but why not answer Heather’s messages? I mean, they all said they wanted her to do this.”

“I certainly don’t know, Audrey. If you send Heather to Bennington, she won’t have any grades.”

Audrey tsked and shouldered a fruit and cheese tray. In the outer room, Miss Kaplan’s microphone-enhanced voice introduced the evening’s speaker, a Mr. Rathgore. I carried out the first tray of cups, returned to pick up the wine and apple juice, and scuttled back in time to see the troubled Heather deep in intense conversation with her mother, whose eyebrows were raised in perplexity.

Julian sat between Egon Schlichtmaier and Macguire Perkins. The three were chuckling over some private joke as Mr. Rathgore, a bald fellow in a shiny rayon suit, launched into his opening.

“We all hate to be tested,” he said. A chorus of groans greeted this.

I stole a glance at the headmaster, who was nodding absentmindedly. Perkins appeared even more exhausted than he had that morning. The Marenskys and Dawsons had prudently decided to sit on opposite sides of the room. Brad Marensky wore a Johns Hopkins sweatshirt; Greer Dawson was again swathed in forest-green watered silk. A steely-eyed staring contest seemed to be taking place between the Dawsons and Audrey, who was seated in a couch to the side of the speaker. But after a moment Heather touched her mother’s arm and Audrey looked away from the Dawsons.

“Worse, we can get caught up in the nerve-racking process of identifying with our children as they are tested,” continued Mr. Rathgore. “Old patterns recapitulate. Parents take their children’s poor performance much more seriously than the children themselves do… .”

No kidding. People began to shift uncomfortably in their seats, which I put down to the speech hitting a little too close to home. As I was setting out the paper cups one by one, I could see out of the corner of my eye that a few folks were standing up, stretching, milling about. Maybe they just couldn’t take any more reminders of their last chance at success. I turned an attentive face to Mr. Rathgore, but instead met with the gray visage of Headmaster Perkins, who had crossed the room to me.

“Goldy,” he stage-whispered, “I’m more exhausted than Perry when he finished traversing Antarctica.” He favored me with a chilly half-grin. Apparently he’d forgiven me for bringing up the mess with Pamela Samuelson and her grading. “Please tell me this isn’t decaf.”

“It isn’t,” I assured him as I poured the dark liquid into the first cup. “Unadulterated caffeine, I promise. And have a Valentine’s Day cookie, they’re called Sweetheart Sandwiches.”

His expressive brow furrowed. “Valentine’s Day cookies? We haven’t even endured Thanksgiving! Somewhat too early, wouldn’t you say?”

Before I could answer, Tom Schulz appeared on the other side of the table and greeted me with a huge smile. “Got some of those for me?”

“Finally,” I said with a smile I couldn’t suppress. “You’re back.” And I handed him a steaming cup of fragrant black stuff and a plate of Sweetheart Sandwiches. The headmaster attempted a jovial greeting for Schulz, but it caught in his throat. He reddened.

“You have something else for me?” Schulz whispered in my direction, ignoring Perkins’ discomfort. Mr. Rathgore paused in his talk to furrow his brow at the coffee-serving table. Several parents turned to see what was distracting the speaker’s attention, and I drew back in embarrassment. Headmaster Perkins’ too-bright smile froze on his face.

Alfred Perkins took a bite of his Valentine’s Day cookie that was too early. There were too many snoopy folks around to give Schulz the grade book now, I decided.

“Have some cookies first, they’re – ” But before I could hand him the platter, another parental squabble erupted in the audience. This time it was between Caroline Dawson and Audrey Coopersmith.

“What is the matter with you?” Caroline shrieked. She jumped to her feet and glowered down at Audrey Coopersmith. Audrey closed her eyes and raised her pointy chin in defiance. Caroline was as scarlet as her suit. “Do you think Heather is the only one with talent? Do you think she’s the only one who can do math? Do you have any idea how tired we all get of your boasting?”

That shattered Audrey’s calm. She blazed, “Oh, excuse me, but it was Hank and Stan who started this – “

Mr. Rathgore turned puzzled eyes to Miss Kaplan, who seemed at a loss for dealing with a civil disturbance during an author presentation.

“We did not!” Hank Dawson, irate, protested with his meaty hands. “Stan just said Heather wanted grades from Brad, but he’s been busy all week, and Greer couldn’t get her number in either, and all I said was that with the time it was taking, maybe the government should hire Heather to compute the deficit… really, let’s just all calm down!”

“I will not calm down!” Audrey fumed. Now she rose to her feet and yanked at the strings of her apron. After she had flung it off, she wagged a finger at the Dawsons. “Hank, you don’t know anything! How dare you make fun of Heather? To compute the deficit! Since when are you the economics expert? I’m so tired of you! You act like a know-it-all, and you know nothing! You – you think you buy a government bond to get out of jail!”

Not this routine again. Parents murmured and I coughed; Schulz gave me one raised eyebrow. The Marenskys spoke to each other excitedly. They were probably bond investors.

“I’d like to know what business Hank Dawson has making snide remarks about computing the deficit,” Aujdrey’s shrill voice demanded of the stunned audience. “He thinks the Federal Reserve is where all the Indians live!”

Audrey did not wait for a response. True to form, she stomped out. Heather slithered out after her. So much for my post-catering cleaning help.

Miss Kaplan tried to restore order. “Why don’t we all just… have some refreshments, and if you have questions for Mr. Rathgore …” Her voice trailed off amid the noise of people scooping up their coats and scrunching shopping bags. A couple of parents lined up to buy Mr. Rathgore’s book: The True Test.

“Don’t worry.” Julian appeared at my side, holding a tray of biscotti. “I’ll give you a hand. You know, Heather’s mom is always stressed. Stressed major.”

Schulz helped himself to two biscotti. “As you were saying, Miss G., about my having cookies – “

But before I could try any thoughts out on him, there was a distant explosion of crashing glass.

Macguire, who’d been leaning against a bookcase, was so startled he almost fell down. Julian’s tray dropped with a bang. Headmaster Perkins looked appalled.

“Don’t move, anyone!” cried Tom Schulz. He loped out the nearby exit to the adjoining garage. Bewildered’ parents turned to one another; an anxious buzz filled the air. The unfortunate Mr. Rathgore turned to the trade buyer.. He had forgotten he was wearing a microphone.

“What the hell is going on?” his voice boomed out. Miss Kaplan steepled her hands and pressed them to her lips. First a parental argument, then a glass-breaking disruption. Unlikely Mr. Rathgore would agree to another signing anytime soon.

Schulz returned. “It’s your van,” he announced laconically.

“Whose?” the ill-fated Mr. Rathgore screeched into his microphone.

Julian cried, “Somebody’s broken the windshield! Just like…” But he didn’t have to say just like which windshield.

Schulz quickly crossed the room to me, ignoring the confusion. “Goldy, I’m taking you to my car. I’ll notify surveillance. I want you out of here and with me,” he finished abruptly.

“I can t … have to clean up.”

“You have to go.” Julian echoed Schulz. “It’s what I keep telling you. You’re not safe around these people. Go, go now. I’ll clean up.”

Schulz had taken me by the arm to lead me out. I stood firm.

“And how will you get home?” I demanded of Julian, refusing to budge.

“I’ll get a ride or something. Now, go on, go.”

I felt dazed. I took one long look at the assembled group of students, parents, school and bookstore staff. All stood immobile, as if suspended in a snapshot, watching the caterer make her unexpected exit under police guard. I wondered how many decided I was under arrest.

21

Tom Schulz’s wheels shrieked as we rounded the parking lot’s hairpin curves. Within moments he was gunning the car up First Avenue. “Where’s Arch?” he demanded.

“Spending the night with a friend. I still don’t understand why I should leave because of a broken windshield. I feel ridiculous.”

“Come on, Goldy. You know you can’t stay,” was all he said.

When we arrived in Aspen Meadow forty-five minutes later, stillness enveloped my neighborhood. The only sounds were a dog barking in the distance and the murmurs between Schulz and the surveillance policeman.

Schulz shook his head as he walked back to me. “Nothing suspicious.” He escorted me up the steps. At the door I hesitated.

“Had the surveillance fellow received any radio messages about who trashed my car?”

“Nope. Look, I’ve had another call, unrelated. But I’ll come in and look around if you want.”

“No need. The bookstore closed at nine. Julian’ll be home by ten.”

“I’ll call you then.” I snapped on lights in each room, then checked the clock: 9:30. Every creak, every moan of breeze, every stray sound, made me jump. Finally, I made a mug of steaming hot chocolate, slipped on my down coat, and settled into a snowy lawn chair out front. Keeping the surveillance car in sight seemed like the best idea.

The hot chocolate was deliciously comforting. I leaned back to look at the expanse of stars glittering overhead. Because there was no moon, Arch was probably outside with his friend, wielding his high-powered binoculars and enthusiastically pointing out Sirius and Cassiopeia. I could find the Big Dipper and Orion, but that was about it.

At ten o’clock I went inside, checked my answering machine – no messages – and made more hot cocoa. Chocolate always tastes best with more chocolate, and I lamented that the windshield disruption had necessitated leaving the Sweetheart Sandwiches down at the bookstore. Actually, it was getting so that any Elk Park Prep catered event was likely to be disrupted.

Back on my lawn chair, I stared again at the sky. And then, it was as if a hole opened up in the sparkling firmament. Through it I could see Rhoda Marensky in the Dawsons’ kitchen, exclaiming: It’s as if someone’s trying to disrupt our lives. I remembered Hank Dawson’s different spin on that sentiment: You should have done the same food you did last week. /t would have been luckier. Rhoda and Hank seemed to believe that if you ate the right things, got enough sleep, followed all the same routines, you’d do well.

But if someone disrupted your life, you wouldn’t do well.

Someone had deliberately smashed Keith Andrews’ windshield the day of the Princeton rep’s visit. Not long after, that same person had probably killed him.

Someone had broken a window in our house, hung a snake in Arch’s locker, and perhaps planted a deadly spider in a drawer. Our steps had been booby trapped, our chimney stopped up, and one of our car windshields broken. The result had been police surveillance, worry, conflict, lack of sleep, quizzes failed, homework and college applications left undone.

The person who had suffered most had been a highly emotional person, someone who cared deeply about those around him, someone who was terribly vulnerable to criticism and cruelty.

Could it be that neither Arch nor I was at the heart of this campaign of harassment?

Excuse the fuck me. And then another time: This stuff at the school is getting to me.

I pictured Julian, who knew so many things that he was unwilling to discuss – the steroids, bitter conflicts between his classmates, perhaps even blackmail. He was also ranked number two in the Elk Park Prep senior class. Keith Andrews, the top student, was now dead.

I sat up straight, splashing cocoa down the front of my coat. I didn’t have time to wipe it off or even curse it because I was running toward the house. The windshield incident was probably meant to lure me away. Dammit, I had never been in danger at the bookstore.

I fumbled with the front doorknob. My mind raced. Whoever had smashed my van knew who would be affected. Who stood in the way of a higher class rank? Who was vulnerable to a campaign of harassment of his employer and her son, whom he held so dear? Who would volunteer to clean up in my absence?

Julian had been the true target all along.

I called Julian’s friend, Neil Mansfield. Had Julian asked him for a ride? No, Julian said someone else volunteered to drive him back to Aspen Meadow. Who? Neil didn’t know. But, Neil added, he himself had been home for an hour, so Julian should be home by now. Great. Did Neil have any idea who else might know who offered this ride? No clue.

I tried to reach Schulz. No answer at his home. The Sheriff’s Department dispatcher said he couldn’t raise the homicide investigator on his cell phone. I glanced at the clock: 10:30.

I had no ideas, no plan, nothing but panic. I grabbed I the keys to the Rover. If I called the police, I would not know what to tell them or where to send them. I willed the mental picture of Keith Andrews’ bloody head out of my mind.

The bookstore. That was the last place I had seen Julian; that was where I would start. Maybe I could call Miss Kaplan, or some of the staff, maybe someone had seen him leave… but how would I get phone numbers for these people? Reluctantly, I dialed Audrey Coopersmith, but got only a sleepy Heather.

“Mom’s not here. She went out with Dad.”

“What?”

“She said they were trying to work things out.”

“Look, Heather, I have to talk to her. I … left something in the store… and I need to know how to reach somebody there now.”

“Why? The bookstore’s closed.”

“You didn’t see Julian, did you? At the end of the evening?”

“Ms. Bear, you’re confusing me. Did you leave a thing or a person in the bookstore?”

Oh, God, the grade book. I had left something in the bookstore. If Julian was still alive, if somebody wanted the evidence of that grade book enough… maybe I could do a swap. But I didn’t know who I was dealing with, what that person would want or when.

“Heather, look, I have a big problem. Julian’s life may be in danger… and I do have something. I have Miss Ferrell’s grade book.”

A sharp intake of breath from Heather. “You? But we’ve been looking for it; I can’t do the class rank without it.”

“Listen up. I need you to call every senior’s family. Be sure you talk to the senior and the parents – “

“But it’s late –“

“Please! Tell every single person I have Miss Ferrell’s grade book and that I’ll swap it for Julian, at Elk Park Prep in” – I hastily consulted my watch – “two hours. No questions asked.”

“Does that include my mother? Because I don’t know where she is. And you still don’t have a way of getting into the store.”

“Find her. I’ll figure out the store situation. Your mother and Carl must have a favorite restaurant or something. Find them. Please, Heather, find everybody.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Trust me.” I hung up before she could continue to analyze my mental status.

I ran out to the Rover. I shifted into first gear and thought, Audrey out with Carl? Unbelievable. But that was the least of my concerns.

The Rover engine roared as I sped down Interstate 70 to Denver. At the First Avenue light I turned left on Milwaukee and pulled up to the parking garage entrance. The first thing I had to figure out was whether Julian had taken my van anywhere.

Glitch: the lot was closed. Worse, the horizontal bar was down.

What was a barricade to the rhino guard of a desert vehicle? I backed up, gunned the engine forward, and crashed through the horizontal bar.

The growl of the car engine echoed off the concrete walls and through the cavernous space of the deserted garage. Up, up, I went to the third-floor level. And there was my van, parked ominously, alone, next to the entrance. Glass sparkled at its tires.

My heartbeat banged in my ears. How was I going to get back into the store? Could Audrey, in stomping out of the bookstore in a rage, have forgotten her purse in my van? I desperately hoped she had left her security entrance card behind. Unless she had manufactured her tantrum …

Best not to speculate until I had the grade book in my hands. I hopped out of the Rover and slid open the van door. The sound reverberated eerily.

“Julian?” I whispered into the van’s cold depths. Silence. And then I looked in shock at the mess of papers, boxes, and cups that the overhead light illuminated. The vehicle had been trashed.

I was so angry, I almost slammed the door. But then I saw Audrey Coopersmith’s overturned purse on the floor. I searched desperately for the magnetic-striped security card. It was not there. Now what?

An explosion cracked the stillness. A gunshot. I fell forward.

The sound had come from inside the store. I ran up to the back entrance security post. The light was green: Whoever had ransacked my van had probably used Audrey’s card to open the electronic lock. I wrenched open the first glass door and then the second. I cursed wildly to overcome fear as I stepped into the dark depths of the bookstore.

The air was black, tarlike. The silence was absolute. I stepped carefully out onto the soft carpet. The smell of the bookstore was rich: paper, carpet, bindings, books, chairs, wood, dust. The odor of humans still lingered. I was near the kitchenette but could see nothing. The desk was close by; Audrey had shown it to me… .

The flashlights.. One under each desk. I walked through the darkness, not knowing whether I was going in a straight or crooked path, but heading in my mind’s eye toward where that desk must be. My foot thumped the side of a chair. It squeaked forward on tiny, unseen wheels. Damn. I groped underneath the desk until I found the cold metal clips holding the flashlight. My fingers closed around it. When I turned it on, I heard another shot. Louder, this time. Closer.

“Julian!” I shouted into the darkness. The phone. Call Schulz. I extricated myself from underneath the desk, stood, and directed the light to the phone. I dialed 911, begged them to come to the Tattered Cover right away, and hung up. The silence pressed down on me.

“Julian!” I shrieked again. My flashlight beam washed across the carpet to the steps.

And then I saw something out of place that made my heart freeze. Near the steps there was a large, dark splotch on the carpet. I dashed toward it, then stopped and swayed backward. Blood in a bookstore. But wait.

What had I just said to myself? Something out of place.

My mind reeled.

What had the woman in Lakewood said? Something it was too late for, something that was out of place… What had Arch said? You can’t see Andromeda in the summer… and, of course, I couldn’t buy a Good Humor bar from the ice cream man in the winter, now, could I? And I wouldn’t see a spider in an immaculate kitchen, would I? Tom Schulz had always told me: If you see anything that’s out of place…

And now I knew. The crimes, the perpetrator, even the methods… I knew. I sank against a bookshelf, sickened.

Move, I ordered myself. Down the wide, carpeted stairs I went, flashing the light ahead of me, until I reached the second floor. The scents were different on this level – more people had been here, more sweat hung in the air. There had been no sound since the two shots.

“Julian?”

“Goldy!” came a bloodcurdling call from somewhere below me. “Goldy! Help!” Julian’s voice.

“Where are you?” I yelled, but heard only shuffling, someone running, thudding footsteps. I nearly tripped running down the last flight of stairs.

Here, on the first floor, there was more light. It poured through the first-floor windows from the street lamps on First Avenue and Milwaukee Street.

“Agh!” came Julian’s muffled voice again. And then there was a scuffling sound from… where? From over by Business books.

I ran through the shadows to where I thought he was, near the exit to Milwaukee Street. I swept the flashlight across the rug… nothing. When I was almost to the first-floor cash registers, something slammed against me. I fell forward with a great crash, sending the flashlight skittering across the carpet. I came to my knees and leapt for it just as the body hit me again. I grabbed the flashlight and whirled around. The light shone on the furious, leathery face of Hank Dawson.

“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, and swung wildly with my flashlight. “Where’s Julian?”

He leapt for me, but I sidestepped him. With a curse, he drew back, then lunged for me again. Frantically, I grabbed for a wire display of oversize paperbacks and tipped it over in front of him. Hank tripped and fell hard. Desperately, I reached for books, any books, on nearby shelves and flung them on top of him.

To my amazement, his sprawled body remained motionless. I scuttled around the corner to Business books.

“Julian,” I called into the shelves, “it’s me! You have to come out quickly.” Which one of these godforsaken shelves was the one that opened outward? I couldn’t remember. But slowly, absurdly, as if I were in a horror movie, I saw a shelf begin to move. Books wobbled, then toppled out to the floor. A face peeked out of the vacant shelf.

“Is Mr. Dawson… dead?” It was Julian.

“Down but not out,” I said when I had caught my breath. “Oh, God, Julian, is that blood on your face? I’m so glad you’re alive. The police are on their way, but we’ve got to get out.”

“I can t move, he whimpered. He shot me … “

Hank Dawson groaned and moved under the pile of books.

“Go!” Julian whispered desperately. “Get out!”

“Scoot back in there,” I ordered. He groaned, then inched back into the tiny space. I shoved the wall of books back in place just as Hank Dawson came around the corner of shelves.

“Hi, Goldy,” he said absurdly. I might have been there, in a darkened bookstore, to cater a Bronco brunch.

“Hank?”

“I want what I came for,” he told me with enormous, terrifying calm. “I want the kid.”

“Hank – “

“Should I just start shooting into these shelves? I know he’s in here somewhere.”

“Wait!” I yelled. “There’s something else you’re going to need. Something you wanted before.”

He shone his flashlight into my face. The light blinded me. “What?”

“Miss Ferrell’s grade book. You were looking for it in her room, weren’t you? And… in my van? I have it here in the store.” I added fiercely, “You’ll never be able to prove Greer’s high class rank without it.” I had to get him away from Julian. Julian was the key.

Hank was breathing hard. “The book,” he said. “Where is it?”

“Here in the store. I hid it, I was going to … to give it to the police,” I sputtered. I was afraid. I was also passionately, blindly angry. Hank glanced at the unmoving bookshelves. Satisfied that Julian was immobilized, he growled, “All right, let’s go get it.” He shifted to one side of the shelves; I pushed past him. He stank of sweat.

My feet shuffled across the carpet. Hank clomped close behind. Where was my damn flashlight? I wanted to look at him. I wanted to look into the eyes of a man who had murdered a teenager, a teacher, and a woman in Lakewood all to get his daughter into a top school.

“Don’t stall!” He swung his flashlight up and caught me under the chin. Pain flashed up through my skull. I staggered, and Hank shoved me into the cash register counter.

I reeled away from him. Damn you, damn you, damn you. I had to find a way to get him. But for now I had to think, to walk, to do what he wanted until I could figure out how to escape. “I’m not going to be able to find the grade book unless I get my light. Okay if I get it?” I said to the stinking form behind me.

“Walk ahead of me with it. You so much as move an inch out of line and I’ll put a bullet through your back.”

I did as directed, walking slowly and trying not to think of Julian. Or of Hank’s gun.

I bent and slowly, very slowly, picked up my flashlight. “Why did you kill Keith Andrews?” I asked, straightening slowly.

“He was in the way,” Hank muttered. “Pompous little creep.”

“You sure planned it out. Break his windshield so he’ll mess up with the Princeton rep. Psych him out. Just like in the NFL. But Keith didn’t psych easily. So you looked up someone with the same initial and last name and stole her credit card so you could plant it in one of the Marenskys’ coats and try to psych them out. But Kathy Andrews caught you stealing her mail, so you had to kill her.”

“I didn’t care about that Lakewood woman. You haven’t had to listen to the Marenskys brag for eighteen years. Getting them arrested for Keith Andrews’ murder would have killed two birds with one stone.” He chuckled. “Too bad it didn’t work out that way.”

“Someone saw the van you used, Greer Dawson the Hammer’s van, down in Lakewood, with the initials GD HMR,” I ventured. “All the person who saw it could think of was, too early, something out of place in October. That person thought the initials stood for Good Humor, but I didn’t figure that out until tonight. I saw” – I gritted my teeth – “something out of place, and I thought how out of place an ice cream truck was in the fall.”

“Brilliant,” he snapped. “Put you in the fucking Ivy League.”

We were half a room away from the window display. “And then you tried to intimidate Julian. Number two kid in the class, you figured if you scared Arch and me, you could get to Julian, right? Shake him up badly enough so that he’d blow his aptitude tests. And you almost succeeded, throwing a rock through our window, putting a snake in Arch’s locker, stopping up our chimney, planting a spider in your own immaculate drawer, manufacturing a conflict with Audrey tonight to get rid of me – “

“Shut up!” Again he chuckled horribly. “You know what they always say, Goldy. You gotta make the other team sweat, make them think they’re going to lose. It was going well until the cops started watching your house.”

“Yes, they scared you off.” I hesitated. “And then Miss Ferrell. She wouldn’t give Greer an A in French, but you figured you could go to Perkins about that. After all, it had been done before at that school.”

“Don’t I know. Now, I told you to shut up.” I stopped by the magazines. “Why did you have to kill Miss Ferrell?” I persisted.

“I didn’t pay over a hundred thousand dollars for Greer to go to that school so she could end up at some podunk place in the Midwest. Now, quit talking and move.” Some podunk place in the Midwest? You went to a school in the Midwest, didn’t you? Only, as Stan Marensky had pointed out so cruelly, you flunked out of Michigan before you could ever end up anywhere, Hank. Macguire’s words haunted me: I’m nobody. And who was nobody most of all in his own eyes? A flunk-out with a restaurant whose two pastimes in life were lifting weights and expressing his violent hostilities on Sunday afternoons in front of a televised playing field. But he was a nobody who would become somebody if his offspring went to PrInceton. I should have known.

One last section of magazines loomed before we got to the window displays. I tried to think of how I would shove him into the door, try to knock him out the way I had before with the wire display.

He poked my shoulder hard. “Where is this damn grade book?”

“It’s less than twenty feet away. If you don’t let me get it, all your plans will fall through… .”

Apparently satisfied, Hank poked me again. “Go get it.”

Actually, I wanted to tell him, you don’t need it anymore. In that streetfront display, no one would find it for weeks. Even then, it probably would be discarded. To bookstore workers, who was Suzanne Ferrell? How could she have had anything to do with Goldy the caterer and her assistant, Julian Teller, found murdered in their bookstore?

Stop thinking like this

“We have to squeeze into a display,” I warned Hank.

“If you are lying, I’ll kill you right now, I swear it.”

“We’re close. Good old Hank,” I said grimly, “it’s like your final goal line, isn’t it? My one Bronco buddy, turned on me.”

“Shut up.”

I played my flashlight over the last shelf of magazines. I couldn’t hear a thing from Julian. There were no sirens or flashing lights. Desperation gripped me. We arrived at the narrow entrance to the platform.

“Now what?” demanded Hank.

“It’s in here. Underneath a pile of cookbooks.”

“Is this a joke?” he demanded. “Get in there and get it for me. No, wait. I don’t want you going out some door on the other side. Get in there, then you tell me where it is.”

“All right, all right,” I said. I put down my flashlight.

“Flash your beam over on this pile.” I motioned to the small table between the window and where I stood. “It’s right under the first book.”

In my mind’s eye I saw Arch. Adrenaline surged through my body as I moved laboriously across the platform.

“Move over,” Hank ordered impatiently. Obediently, I moved a few inches to my right and spread my feet to steady myself. There was about a foot of space between Hank and me, and then another eighteen inches between him and the window. He tucked his gun in his pants and reached greedily for the pile of cookbooks. One chance.

I bent over and shoved into Hank Dawson with all my might. I heard a startled oomph! as my head sank into his belly. He hurtled into the glass with an explosive crack. I felt the plate glass breaking. The window broke into monstrous falling shards. I pulled back. Hank Dawson screamed wildly as his body crashed through the shattered glass. The heavy blades fell like a guillotine.

“Agh! Agh!” he screamed. He writhed on the pavement, howling.

Shaking uncontrollably, I crept to the broken window. Beneath me, Hank Dawson lay sprawled on the snowy sidewalk. His face stared up at mine.

“Agh … argh …” He was reaching desperately for words.

I started to say, “I’m sorry – “

“Listen,” he rasped. “Listen… she… she could read when… she was… only four… .”

Then he died.

22

“I swear, Goldy,” said Tom Schulz an hour later, shaking his head, “you get into more damned trouble.”

The ambulance carrying Julian pulled away from the curb. He had been shot in the calf, but would be all right. I had several bumps, none of which were life-threatening, according to the paramedics. ‘”I swear also,” Schulz went on grimly, “that’s the last time I leave you or Julian in a potentially dangerous situation.”

I looked around at the police cars and fire engines. Clouds had moved in again, and snow was falling in a gauzy, unhurried way from a sky tinted pink by urban streetlights. Audrey had shown me some of the Tattered Cover’s charms. But it was great to be out of the bookstore and into the sweet, cold air, especially at one o’clock in the morning.

“You didn’t know. And I did try to call you,” I told him.

Tom Schulz grunted.

The Denver police officers who had answered my 911 call had questioned me repeatedly: the same story over and over. “For college?” they said, bewildered and disbelieving. “Because of class rank?”

Indeed. I wondered vaguely if Headmaster Perkins would face any charges. Altering grades was probably not illegal, even if you had the damning evidence of a teacher’s grade book. The only crimes I knew of besides Hank’s had been Macguire Perkins’ drug use and Brad Marensky’s thefts. I was hardly going to turn the boys in. Sadly, both teens had merely followed the example, both implicit and explicit, of their purported mentors – their parents

“This was over who was first in the class?” a bewildered Denver sergeant had asked me at least six times.

Yep. With Keith Andrews gone, with an A in French and an uncooperative college counselor out of the way, with Julian incapacitated or dead, Greer Dawson would have passed Heather, been at the top of her class and on her way to the Ivy League, to all the things Hank coveted for his daughter – and for himself.

But this was not really over who headed the class. It was – heartbreakingly – about trying to make your child the kind of success you never were yourself. I felt a terrible pity for Greer Dawson. I knew she would never be able to measure up.

“How can you buy grades?” the cop kept asking.

“Same way you buy drugs,” I answered.

“Huh,” Schulz grunted under his breath. “Cynical, Miss G.”

I asked the Denver police officer to phone Elk Park Prep, to alert the headmaster to some strange inquiries he might get from parents who might have been worried by Heather Coopersmith’s calls. How Alfred Perkins would react to this last event in the saga of collegial competition I could not imagine. Nor did I really care.

Now the picture takers were done. Hank Dawson’s corpse was being removed. I did not look. The sergeant said I could go.

Schulz suggested that we exit through the brick walkway between the Tattered Cover and the Janus Building. His car, he told me, was on Second Avenue. He took my hand. His was warm and rough, entirely welcome.

“You were brave,” he said. “Damn.” The memory of Hank Dawson, sprawled bloody and dead on the pavement, made my legs wobble. I stopped and tilted my head back to catch a few icy snowflakes in my mouth. The air was cool, fresh, sharp. Sweet. I drew it deep into my lungs.

“There’s just one thing I never figured out,” I said. We were standing on the pink-lit brick breezeway between the two buildings. Several late-night passersby had been halted by the police activity. I could hear their engines humming; music lilted from a car radio.

“One thing you haven’t figured out,” repeated, Schulz. “Like how to get on with your life.”

“Yes, that…” A breeze chilled my skin, and I shivered. Schulz pulled me into his warm chest.

“What else doesn’t Miss G. understand?”

“I know it sounds petty after all that’s happened, but … the scholarship for Julian. What was Hank hoping to gain from that?”

“Ah, nothing.” Tom Schulz kissed my cheek, then hugged me very gently, as if I were breakable. The tune on the car radio changed: “Moon River.” The bittersweet notes filtered through the snowy air.

I said, “You seem pretty sure of that.”

Schulz sighed. “I’m just so happy to have you and Julian alive – “

“Yes, but… is the money gone now, or what? Julian will need to know.”

He let go of me. Snowflakes drifted down onto my face and shoulders.

“The money is not gone,” Schulz said. “It is not gone because I donated it, and I got your friend Marla to go in halvsies with me.”

“What?”

He cupped my hand in his, then said, “Smart detective like Miss G., I should have thought you’d figure that out. I told you I didn’t know what to do with my money. Good for Julian I’m a saver. Without kids of my own, this felt like a great thing to do. Marla likes Julian too, and God knows she has enough money. She said”– and here he drew his voice into an astonishingly accurate imitation of Marla’s husky voice – ” ‘Oh, oh, I’ll never be able to keep a secret from Goldy!’ And now look at who told.”

“Aah, God…” I said, faltering. I was losing consciousness. My body was falling, falling, to the pavement, and I could feel Schulz’s hands gently easing me down. It was all too much – Keith Andrews, Suzanne Ferrell, Hank Dawson.… death everywhere.

“You’re going to need counseling,” Schulz warned. “You’ve been through a lot.” He stroked my cheek.

The pavement was cold. Yes, counseling. I had witnessed too much. After all the death, my own mortality again loomed large. What really kept me going? What was I going to have faith in? I had Arch, Julian. I had … An ache filled me. What else?

Hank Dawson had wanted desperately to have a successful family. So had Audrey. The Marenskys. Headmaster Perkins with hapless Macguire. And so, too, had I. We had all reached out for success – or the image of success , we had in our minds. I’d had a picture of John Richard, Arch, and me, a happy family, and that had certainly failed. What had gone so wrong?

This was what was wrong: my idea, Hank’s idea, Caroline’s, Brad’s, Macguire’s … that if you have this educational pedigree, this money, this fill-in-the-blank, you will be successful.

But really, I thought as I lay on the cold pavement and looked up into Schulz’s concerned face, success was something else. Success was more a matter of finding the best people and then going through life with them… it was finding rewarding work and sticking with it, through thick and thin, as if life were a succession of cream sauces… .

Suddenly my head hurt, my stomach hurt, everything hurt. Schulz made patient murmuring noises, then helped me up.

I was shivering. “I’m so embarrassed,” I said without looking at him.

“Aah, forget about it.”

I tilted my head and again tasted a few blessed flakes of snow. Schulz motioned at the sky.

“Too bad Arch won’t be able to look for galaxies tonight.”

“Oh, well. You know how he’s always complaining to me about the clouds obscuring the stars. The way all my troubles have obscured my appreciating you,” I added.

“Listen to this woman. She’s using metaphors like some headmaster I know. And it sounds as if she’s gone soft – “

“Tom, there’s something I have to tell you.”

He took my hand and waited. Finally he said, “Go ahead.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” said Tom Schulz.

“Yes,” I said, firmly, with no hesitation. “Yes, I will marry you.”