The Sixes

7

PHOEBE WOKE JUST after three with a jolt, her heartbeats tripping over each other. A sound, it seemed, had punctured her dream, but she could hear nothing now. She struggled up in bed, listening, straining to see with only the dim glow of the night-light.

Then she heard it again. Something was scampering over the roof. It’s just a squirrel, she told herself, one of the groups she sometimes saw in the tiny backyard. Just don’t let the damn things find their way into the attic, she prayed. She switched on her bedside lamp and let her eyes adjust. For some reason she felt unbearably thirsty. She threw off the covers and padded downstairs.

She flicked on the kitchen switch. Bright light burst into the room from the overhead fixture, like a flash going off. She poured a glass of water from the jug in the fridge and sat down at the small wooden table. Outside, the night pressed against the kitchen windows. She felt exposed suddenly, discomfited by all that darkness out there, so she took the water upstairs with her. As she settled herself in bed again, her back against the headboard, she replayed the evening in her mind.

The revelation Duncan had made toward the end of dinner had thrown her. She’d figured that he must have been married at some point and was now divorced, that he might even have older kids somewhere. The last thing she’d expected was a wife found dead in a bathtub.

“I’m so sorry,” she’d said. “These past couple of years must have been very hard.”

He pulled his mouth to one side. “Yes,” he said. “And yet not exactly in the way you’d expect. Allison and I had agreed to get a divorce just days before she was diagnosed with cancer. The marriage had become a disaster. But I wanted to stay with her during the last year of her life. Plus, I was the one with the health insurance.”

“That was good of you to do,” Phoebe said.

“Part of me actually thought that things might get better between us given the new set of circumstances, but I’m afraid that never happened.” He offered a small smile. “And as you can imagine, my experience as a widower has been pretty strange. People look at me with pity because they think I lost the woman I loved. That’s not to say I didn’t grieve, but my experience hasn’t been what people assume.”

“How much . . . sooner did she die than she would have from the cancer?”

The question was probably going farther than she should have, but Phoebe felt compelled to know. And he’d opened the door.

“A couple of months, maybe a bit longer,” he said. “Ordinarily someone might wake if they were taking in water while sleeping, but because she was so ill, her systems weren’t functioning right. I had warned her about falling asleep in the tub, but sometimes I wonder if she almost let it happen that night. I’d gone out to a school event—and remembered she’d seemed very down. When I came home two hours later, she was dead.”

He set down his espresso cup and leaned back. “So is this what always happens with you? People confess things they generally never tell a soul?”

Later, at the door, as he was leaving, Duncan let his brown eyes roam over Phoebe’s face, discombobulating her slightly; she wondered if he was going to kiss her.

“Thank you for dinner,” he said instead. “You’ll have to let me return the favor at some point.”

Now in bed, Phoebe thought about what it would have been like if Duncan had kissed her. She imagined that soft, full mouth on hers, his hand on the back of her neck. This is crazy, she thought. During the past seven nightmarish months, her libido had left the building, and she couldn’t believe it was finally showing its face here in little old Lyle, Pennsylvania. And yet she couldn’t deny her attraction to Duncan. She’d liked his inquisitiveness, his easy laugh, the slight air of mystery. And she liked that face and body.

She tried to shake Duncan from her mind in time for her eight o’clock class the next day. It didn’t help that her students seemed so glum. She was sure it had to do with Lily’s death. Last week she had sent the twenty students jpegs of several articles from magazines like Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, and today they were to discuss what made each story compelling. But Phoebe ended up doing most of the talking.

She then had an hour before her eleven o’clock class, the one with Jen Imbibio, and she decided to use the time to stop by Blair’s apartment again.

The house on Ash Street seemed even more dejected than the day before. The dark, junk-strewn foyer was absolutely silent, and this time no one answered the door to the upstairs apartment. It was going to take forever to connect with Blair if Phoebe resorted to just popping in now and then. She scrolled through her e-mail for the information Glenda had sent about the girl. A cell phone number had been included. Phoebe would have preferred her first conversation with Blair be face-to-face, but she needed to speed the process along. While walking back down Ash Street, she punched in Blair’s number on her phone.

“Hi Blair, this is Phoebe Hall,” she said, after being greeted by an automated message. “I stopped by yesterday to see you. Would you give me a call? I’d like to arrange a time to talk.”

Her eleven o’clock class turned out to be like the first. Students were listless and morose. As Phoebe offered her own comments on the articles she’d sent the class, she studied Jen closely for the first time. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, with long, slightly curly brunette hair and blue eyes in a heart-shaped face. She looked like someone out of a fairy tale, Phoebe thought, the kind of girl you’d expect to find riding a deer in the Romanian forest. Yet she also had a very modern air of entitlement about her. Interestingly, Jen had less to say than anyone else today.

At the end of class, Phoebe announced that she’d be passing graded papers back on Wednesday. Students filed out of the room quietly, with no one stopping at Phoebe’s desk to ask a question as they normally did. Before Jen could reach the door, Phoebe called out her name.

“Me?” the girl said, surprised.

“Yes. Do you have a minute?”

“Um, okay,” she said, looking slightly put out.

“Why don’t we go to my office? It’ll be easier to talk there.”

They made their way to the second floor of the building. One of the hall lights was out and the corridor was gloomy, like everything else that day. After slipping into her office, with Jen following without enthusiasm behind her, Phoebe switched on two lamps and scooped the papers off the guest chair facing her desk.

“Here, have a seat,” she told Jen. Phoebe wondered if she should close the door but decided against it; Jen already looked ready to jump out of her skin.

“Okay,” Jen said, sitting down with her backpack still on. “Just so you know, though, I’m supposed to meet someone in a few minutes.”

“This will only take a sec,” Phoebe said, smiling. “I wanted to talk about the assignment I’m handing back on Wednesday.”

Jen twitched in her seat. Her expression morphed into mild alarm.

“There’s nothing to be concerned about,” Phoebe said quickly. “I just wanted to tell you that I liked your blog. It’s really terrific.”

“Oh, wow,” the girl said, breaking into a smile. “I—wow.”

“You’re doing something much stronger in your blog than in your regular magazine pieces, and I think we should figure out how to bring that quality to your other stuff. I see your next magazine assignment is going to be on childhood obesity. But how about picking a topic that allows you to use the same sassy voice that you used in your blog writing?”

“But isn’t the next assignment a reporting piece?” Jen asked.

“Yes. But you can still add attitude if the topic allows for it.”

“Um, wow, okay,” the girl said. “So it would probably have to be something I have a strong opinion about?”

“That’s right. Take a day to rethink your topic. . . . Of course, I know this is a hard time to focus right now.”

Jen knitted her tiny brows, not sure at first what Phoebe meant. Then she got it. “Right,” she said quietly.

“Were you friends with Lily?” Phoebe asked.

The girl took a breath before answering.

“Sort of,” she said. “I mean, we used to be friendly last year. Lately, though, we didn’t see very much of each other.”

“From what I know, they’re still not sure what caused her death,” Phoebe said. “Do you think she may have been depressed?”

“I wouldn’t have any idea,” Jen said. “Even if I’d seen her, she wouldn’t have confided in me. We were never that close.”

“I happened to speak to Lily myself—a week or so ago.”

“Really?” the girl said.

“Yes, just briefly. I got the sense she was struggling with some things.”

Jen said nothing this time. She just bit her lip, and shifted in the chair.

So, Phoebe thought, the easy-does-it strategy was going nowhere; time for a bolder approach.

“I feel so bad that I wasn’t able to help Lily,” Phoebe said. “I’ve thought a lot since then about what might have been troubling her. I wondered if she might have gotten caught up in something she regretted . . . like the Sixes.”

Jen’s whole body froze, except her blue eyes, which danced around anxiously. “I—um, I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“The Sixes,” Phoebe said, glancing surreptitiously toward the door to make sure no one was outside. “The secret society on campus.”

“I don’t know about any societies,” Jen said hoarsely. “I’m really focused on my own stuff. Gymnastics. And dance.”

“And you’ve never heard about a group that might be bullying or threatening other students?”

Jen shook her head back and forth slowly.

“No,” she said. “I can’t imagine the girls here doing something like that.”

“Maybe it’s just one of those urban legends then,” Phoebe said, smiling, trying to break the tension. “When I was in college this crazy rumor went around, claiming that a psychic had predicted a guy was going to kill six coeds at a school that began with the letter W. Guess what school I went to? Wisconsin. As you can imagine, all the girls were hysterical.”

There was no response. Phoebe could see that bold hadn’t worked either, and if she kept at it, she was going to make the girl’s tiny heart stop in her chest. She needed to drop the subject and establish some trust, which she could possibly tap into later.

“I should let you get to your appointment,” Phoebe said. “But there’s a book I’d love to loan you.”

The girl’s face relaxed just a hair. Just then, a noise from the hall caught Phoebe’s attention. It sounded like the soft scuff of a shoe. Phoebe waited for the person to pass by the door, but no one did. She had the sense that someone was standing on the other side of the doorway, listening. But Jen, distracted, had clearly not heard anything.

Phoebe rose quickly but quietly from her desk and stepped over to the other side of the office. She leaned her head out into the hallway. There was no one there. When she pulled her head back in, Jen was standing up, waiting eagerly to be dismissed.

“Here it is,” Phoebe said, tugging a book from the shelf. “It’s a collection of articles by a terrific writer named Ron Rosenbaum, who first made his mark in the 1970s and ’80s. There’s a lot of attitude in his reporting pieces. I think you’ll be inspired.”

“Thanks,” Jen said, smiling weakly.

After the girl had departed, Phoebe stepped into the hallway. She could hear Jen nearly tripping down the steps in her hurry to leave, but otherwise it was quiet. Phoebe walked down the hall to the department reception area. Four or five offices fanned off it, all belonging to senior members of the English faculty. The receptionist, Bev, was sitting at her desk, staring at her computer screen, while the department chair Dr. Carr stood nearby, thumbing through a stack of mail.

“Why hello, Phoebe,” he said, looking up. He was about sixty, built like a bear, and surprisingly gracious to her, considering she’d been foisted on him by Glenda. She suspected he was slightly intrigued by her, as if he’d been asked to employ a parolee who’d served time for murdering her husband years ago. “What can we do for you?”

“I was just wondering if anyone was looking for me. I thought I heard someone come by my door.”

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said. “Bev, do you know?”

“I think most people are at lunch,” the receptionist said.

“Okay, thanks,” Phoebe said. She turned to leave.

“Oh wait,” Bev said, finally taking her eyes from the computer screen. “Maybe Dr. Porter.”

“Pardon?”

“Dr. Val Porter. I don’t know if she was looking for you, but she was up here a few minutes ago. I saw her at the copy machine.”

Phoebe headed back down the hall and on her way glanced into Val’s office, which was on the other side of hers. But it was empty. She wondered if it had been Val outside her door. It wouldn’t surprise her. She sensed that Val kept a close eye on her, curious as to what Phoebe was up to.

Back in her office, Phoebe unwrapped a sandwich she’d brought from home and considered the conversation she’d had with Jen. She’d scored nothing of real note, but there’d been that one interesting slip on the girl’s part. She’d told Phoebe, “I can’t imagine the girls here doing something like that,” even though Phoebe had never said the Sixes was a secret society of girls. It was another clue that the group actually existed and that Jen might be a member.

For the next few hours Phoebe read through material in her office and mapped out plans for future classes. But she had trouble keeping her mind on her work. She kept coming back to Lily and the Sixes. So far she hadn’t made a lick of progress.

It was almost six and already dusk when Phoebe decided to call it a day. Before long the clocks would have to be set back, and it would be even darker by now. Something to look forward to, Phoebe thought grimly.

As she crossed the wind-swept quad, she caught a glimpse of Jen Imbibio, walking with another student from her eleven o’clock class—Rachel, a tall, very athletic-looking blonde. Jen’s face was pinched, and her tiny hands moved animatedly as she spoke. Phoebe wondered if Jen was filling Rachel in on the grilling she’d been subjected to earlier, which could mean Rachel was a member of the Sixes, too. It’s like that movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, she thought. You know the bad people are in your midst, but you aren’t certain who they are.

As she continued down the path, she spotted Craig Ball, head of campus police security, coming from the opposite direction. With his silver hair and tanned, crinkly skin, he looked like he should be flying planes for Delta, Phoebe thought. When he was closer, he nodded at Phoebe and ran his eyes over her face but said nothing. She was pretty sure he recognized her from the park yesterday morning. For all she knew, she thought sardonically, he had her on a list of security risks because of the plagiarism charges.

“Mr. Ball?” Phoebe called out just as he started to pass her. “We haven’t met yet.” She gave him her name and explained she was a friend of Glenda’s.

“Right, good to put a face to the name,” he said. “Can I be of some assistance?” His tone was brisk, suggesting that the offer was only perfunctory.

“I just wanted to introduce myself. Glenda asked me to talk to some of the female students here about the Sixes. I’d love to speak to you at some point and learn what you know.”

“Tom Stockton’s probably the better person to talk to right now. I get involved when there’s vandalism, of course, but so far there’s been only a minimal amount.”

“All right, thanks. If you do think of anything, will you let me know?”

“Sure.”

As she started to head on her way again, Ball reached out and touched her sleeve.

“By the way,” he said. “Did that guy ever find you?”

“What guy?” she asked.

“Mid-thirties, maybe. Dark hair. Came by our office asking for you this morning. I looked up your office phone for him, but said I wasn’t at liberty to give out anything else.”

“No one’s contacted me,” she said. “Did he leave his name?”

“Nope. Just said he knew you from Manhattan.”

Who in the world could it be? Phoebe wondered. She had a number of male friends in the city, but she’d been out of touch with most of them recently and could hardly imagine one of them just showing up on campus.

When Phoebe unlocked her front door ten minutes later, she was greeted by the scent of fresh laundry and Lemon Pledge. The cleaning lady, Margaret, had come and gone. For the first time since Phoebe had been living there, she felt a sense of comfort coming home. She changed into jeans and headed for the kitchen. To her surprise she saw that Margaret, a grouchy, taciturn woman, had left a bowl of Granny Smith apples for her. A scribbled note lay near them on the table.

Maybe I’ve begun to charm the old bat, Phoebe thought.

She picked up the note. “Please call me,” it read. “I need to talk to you.”

Oh, I get it, Phoebe thought. She’s damaged something, and the apples are her way of priming me for the conversation. Phoebe dug her phone from her purse to call.

“We need to discuss Thanksgiving,” Margaret said abruptly once Phoebe had identified herself. “I’m gone that whole week—at my daughter’s. If you’re goin’ away yourself, you may not need me. But I have a friend who can fill in if necessary.”

Thanksgiving, Phoebe thought. She hadn’t even noticed it looming on the horizon. After her mother died several years ago, she had stopped traveling to Massachusetts for the holiday weekend, and she and Alec had generally ended up going to his brother’s apartment in the city for dinner. She couldn’t imagine what she’d do this year.

“Actually, I haven’t thought that far ahead,” said Phoebe. “I’ll have to let you know.”

“As soon as possible then,” Margaret said brusquely. “If you want my friend, I’ll have to give her advance notice.”

“Of course.”

“Good night then.”

“Good night. Oh, and thank you very much for the apples.”

“Apples?”

Phoebe hesitated, confused.

“The bowl of apples on my table. You didn’t leave them?”

“Nope, wasn’t me.”

Then who? Phoebe thought, hanging up. She had no friends in Lyle who would have just popped by. Besides, the house had been locked.

She glanced back at the apples, and unconsciously her brain began to count. There were six of them.