The Sixes

20

PHOEBE LOOKED QUICKLY left and right and then swung around to face the street behind her. There was absolutely no one in sight. With her heart starting to gallop, she turned back toward the house and stared at the package protruding from the space between the two doors. What have those little brats left me now? she wondered.

She continued to the porch and mounted the front steps. As she inched toward the door, she saw that the pale thing was a manila envelope. Her name was on it, written in thick masculine scrawl with a black marker. Probably not the Sixes, then, she thought. After glancing once more behind her, she stooped down and plucked the package from between the doors. As soon as she had it in her hands, she could tell there was a sheaf of papers inside.

She quickly unlocked the front door and hurried inside. After checking doors and windows, she brought the package to the small table in her living room and tore open the envelope. There were actually two separate batches of papers inside, each set held together with a paper clip. Attached to the first was a note, signed “Hutch.”

“Prof Hall, sorry I missed you,” it read. “I was out with the dogs. Let’s talk as soon as possible on Sunday. I’ll be home most of the day. In the meantime, take a look and tell me what you see.”

The papers felt charged in her hands. Is this where the truth lies? she thought. Am I about to finally figure something out? She plopped down at the table and tugged the note away from the two sets of papers.

The first batch were the notes about Wesley she’d given to Hutch when she’d seen him down by the river. As she thumbed through the pages, she saw that he’d underscored a bunch of lines pertaining to Wesley’s time in Cat Tails—Wesley chatting briefly at the bar with the so-called cougars, the trip to the men’s room after shooting darts, how he’d played a few songs on the jukebox, and the comments from the man asking if the machine gave change and then complimenting Wesley on playing the Stones song. The only other part that was underlined related to Wesley kicking off his loafers and swimming to shore. There wasn’t a single comment in the margins explaining why these details mattered.

Phoebe tossed those pages down and stared at the second batch. It took only a second to realize that these were the photocopies Mindy had given Hutch of the notes he’d made while interviewing Wesley a year ago. They were all in his big scrawl, and portions had been freshly underscored with pencil here, too. As Phoebe scanned the pages, she saw that Hutch had drawn attention to the same details he’d marked in her notes—the cougars, the jukebox, the man asking for change, etc. These were clearly the parts that had made the lightbulb go off in his head.

Next Phoebe spread out both sets of notes, positioning the pages that corresponded to each other side by side. She began to study them, sweeping her eyes back and forth.

Based on her earlier conversation with Hutch, it seemed as if he had figured out a clue about what had happened to Wesley that night. The clue was certainly within one or some of the underlined portions. And it probably registered with Hutch when he had both sets of notes in front of him. But what the hell is it? Phoebe wondered.

She peered more closely at the pages. For the first time she noticed that the detail about the stranger at the jukebox had been underlined, on both sets of notes, more heavily than any other part. Obviously Hutch had found that piece significant. Did he think the man had drugged Wesley?

But then why also underline the part about the cougars? Perhaps Hutch thought that the stranger by the jukebox had worked in tandem with one of the cougars. Maybe the women had slipped the drug in Wesley’s drink, and then a short time later, when Wesley’s thinking had become fuzzy, the stranger had lured him outside.

Phoebe glanced at her watch. She would have liked to call Hutch right then, but it was after ten, and she knew there was a good chance he’d gone to bed. It would have to wait until morning, as he’d suggested. She made a copy of Hutch’s notes on her printer, tucking one set into her purse to study more later and the other into a book for safekeeping, along with the notes she’d taken.

Before going up to bed, she stole into the kitchen and eyed the spoons the Sixes had left her. The card wrapped around them was totally dry now, and Phoebe wondered suddenly if it might contain some sort of message. Using a paper towel as a buffer, she tugged off the rubber band. Then she wiggled the cardboard from around the spoons.

As disgusting as it was to hold the piece of cardboard, she brought it into her office to study under the desk lamp. Slowly she pried it open. There were patches of faded color on the inside, but no message. She left the cardboard there on the table she used as her desk.

She climbed up the stairs to bed. But though she felt frayed from exhaustion, she soon saw that sleep wasn’t going to happen. Handling the spoons had spooked her all over again. She just lay there, listening, trying to guess whether the creaks and groans she heard were cause for alarm or just the old house settling. Finally she dragged her pillow and duvet downstairs and plopped down on the couch with them. At least there, she thought, she’d be more apt to hear anyone prowling outside the house. The last time she squinted at her watch, it was just after three. Finally she drifted off.

She was awake by 5:45, feeling hungover with fatigue. She forced herself to wait until eight to call Hutch. When she reached him, however, his chipper voice suggested that he’d been up for hours.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a detective,” she told him.

“And why is that, lovely lady?”

“Because I studied your notes last night and again this morning, and I didn’t find a single clue hidden in there.”

Hutch chuckled. “I should have been clearer. What I discovered is not hidden at all. It’s right in front of your eyes.”

Phoebe conjured up the pages in her mind, trying to figure out what he meant.

“You’ve got me,” she said after a moment.

“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to give you a little lesson in detective work. Hold on a second. Ginger, get out of there. That’s not for you.” He returned his attention to Phoebe. “You up for that?”

“Absolutely. How soon can instruction begin?”

“I need to run up and see my nephew Dan in Allentown for a few hours. Ever since Becky died they’ve been good about having me over for Sunday lunch—or ‘brunch,’ as they call it. Why don’t we plan on getting together at my place around three this afternoon? But let me call first to let you know I’m home.”

“That sounds good,” Phoebe said. “Two twenty-one B Baker Street, right?”

Confused, Hutch started to ask what she meant and then got the joke. He chuckled again in his deep, husky voice.

“Exactly.”

She had a little time to kill before meeting Wesley, and she used it to review some of the notes she’d made for her classes on Monday. But she was anxious and ended up leaving earlier than she needed to. The day was raw and overcast, with a sky that looked like it had been smeared with soot. She found the diner that Wesley mentioned easily enough, its parking lot already jammed with cars. After locking up, she crossed the lot behind three beefy men dressed head-to-toe in camo, obviously planning to carbo-load for hunting down deer. In unison they flicked their cigarette butts to the ground before swinging open the door to the diner.

Inside, the place was overripe with the smell of eggs, bacon, French toast, and pancakes. Rather than increase her appetite, the aroma made her queasy. After she’d been shown to a booth, Phoebe ordered coffee and waited.

Wesley arrived fifteen minutes later, exactly on time. Despite the fact that it was Sunday, a day off for him, he looked as buttoned up as he had when she’d ambushed him after work: pressed khaki pants, an open-neck dress shirt in pale yellow, and a short, baseball-style wool jacket. His skin seemed freshly scrubbed, and his hair was spiked at the front of his massive scalp. Movie stars, she’d discovered over the years, often had heads slightly too big for their bodies, which worked brilliantly for them in films. But unfortunately she didn’t see this as a plus for poor Wesley.

“Thanks for meeting with me, Professor Hall,” he said, sliding in across the booth seat from her. He unzipped his jacket and folded it next to him.

“Please, call me Phoebe,” she said, smiling. “You’re not in school anymore, and I’m not even a real professor.”

He cocked his head and smiled back. “Got it,” he said.

“What would you like for breakfast?” Phoebe said. She wanted to quickly take care of ordering so they could get down to business. “I’m probably just going to stick with coffee myself.”

“Actually, coffee’s good for me, too,” he said. “My dad’s getting ready to head to Florida, and I promised I’d go over a few things with him at the mill later this morning.”

“I thought it was a feed business,” Phoebe said.

“Yeah, but we operate out of an old gristmill. It’s a neat place, and my dad bought it cheap about thirty years ago when he outgrew his old building. They actually used to make feed there, too.”

“Is there still water pumping through it?” Phoebe asked.

“Nah. We keep the sluice gate closed. But you can see the old water paddle and the gears and the millstones. Sometimes people come in just to take a look.”

Phoebe signaled for the waitress to bring another coffee.

“You said on the phone that you had something else to share,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s a detail I never thought to mention to anyone,” he said, “but something you said made me realize it might be important.”

“It’s about the night in Cat Tails?”

“Yeah. I think I mentioned to you that there were a few girls from Lyle College that night. At one point I could tell they were staring at me. And then it looked like they were saying something to each other about me—something kind of catty. I know it sounds stupid, but I felt so flustered I didn’t even hit the board one time.”

Jeez, Phoebe thought, why didn’t he say anything about this earlier?

“Was there a reason you didn’t mention this to the campus police?” she asked, her voice neutral.

“Maybe I should have,” Wesley said. “But it didn’t seem to matter at the time. They were the kind of girls who always looked down their noses at me, and they never came that close to me in the bar—at least that I noticed. When I talked to the campus cops back then, I was concentrating on people who were right near me—like that man by the jukebox.

“I wouldn’t have even remembered it,” he added, shrugging his shoulders, “if you hadn’t mentioned that freaky girl group.”

“Did you know any of the girls by name?” Phoebe asked.

“No, not at the time,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that’s the most important thing I wanted to tell you. Like I said, I didn’t know the girls personally, but I’d seen one of them around. She was really pretty—in a different kind of way—and super stuck up. After you and I talked, I looked for her in my old student handbook, and guess what? It was the name you mentioned to me. Blair Usher.”

Phoebe’s brain was already on alert as soon as he’d said “pretty—in a different kind of way.” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“And none of these girls ever came close to you that night?”

“Like I said, I didn’t notice. But they might have without me being aware. It got pretty crowded in there after a while.”

Phoebe let out a breath slowly. Could Blair have spiked Wesley’s drink that night? she thought. But why? Because he’d been targeted as a loser guy? She wondered if there was any way to find out if Blair had been in Cat Tails the night Scott Macus had died.

She sipped her coffee. She could feel an odd disquietude taking hold, but it didn’t seem to be about the Sixes this time. Something was bugging her, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

“This is all very good to know, Wesley,” Phoebe said, setting down her cup. “Did you tell this to the police when you talked to them this week?”

“No, I didn’t. I wanted to speak to you first.”

“Well, this is something you need to share with them, okay?”

“Do you think I’m in danger? Do you think those girls did it?”

“I don’t know, but as I said, it’s key to talk to the police. Will you do me a favor and not tell them we spoke? They generally don’t like civilians intruding on their turf.”

Wesley nodded soberly.

Phoebe picked up the saltshaker at the end of the table and ran her thumb over it, thinking. Something was gnawing at her.

“Is there anything else, Wesley?” she asked. “Anything else you remember from that night?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s it. I’m surprised I even remembered about that girl. Like I said, if I hadn’t talked to you, I probably never would have.”

Phoebe thought of the material Hutch had left for her. She knew she shouldn’t mention it to Wesley—at least until Hutch gave her the okay—but there was no harm in an indirect approach.

“One last question,” Phoebe said. “Do you think there could have been anything significant about that stranger asking you for change?” That was the part Hutch had underlined most heavily.

“Well, if he’s the guy who dumped me in the river, he would have needed to get close enough to me to slip something in my beer.”

“But why that line?”

“I’m not following,” he said.

“Why ask about change?”

“I guess he had to start someplace.”

Phoebe wasn’t getting anywhere. She signaled for the check and, after paying, walked with Wesley out to the parking lot. They promised to keep each other posted.

She wasn’t due at Glenda’s for an hour. On her way there, Phoebe stopped to buy a few supplies and groceries at the massive Walmart outside of Lyle—though the idea of cooking anything in her kitchen made her stomach turn. As she passed the boxes of pasta in the store, she thought of how exactly a week ago she’d served Duncan the spaghetti carbonara. Why hasn’t he checked up on me today? she wondered suddenly. It seemed like the right thing to do, considering what had happened to her. Maybe what was really going on in the car was a realization on his part that he wasn’t as attracted to her as he’d first assumed. Well, she thought ruefully, that solves the Where-is-this-thing-headed? problem.

She shoved her cart through the store, only half paying attention. As she reached the checkout, she spotted a depleted display of candy for trick-or-treaters and grabbed two bags of miniature chocolate bars.

She arrived at Glenda’s at exactly noon. Though she knew she was going to have to do some fancy footwork to convince Glenda to let her stick with her research, she was determined to make it happen. The housekeeper answered the door, unsmiling, and led Phoebe into the wood-paneled study off the far end of the living room. Glenda was standing there, but to Phoebe’s surprise, the expression on her face registered consternation, not welcome.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” Phoebe asked. The words were barely out of her mouth when she sensed the presence of someone else, and she snapped her head to the right. Tom Stockton and Craig Ball were standing over by the weathered antique desk, both looking stern. Clearly, there’d been some new development, and it was not a good one. Phoebe looked back toward Glenda for an explanation.

“Phoebe, we need to talk to you,” Glenda said solemnly. “Something’s happened.”

Phoebe didn’t like the tone of Glenda’s voice any more than she liked the expression on her face.

“What’s going on?” she asked bluntly.

“A student has accused you of plagiarism.”

“That’s—that’s impossible,” Phoebe exclaimed, and even as she spoke, she realized they were the same words she’d used last spring about her book. Her legs suddenly felt like liquid, as if they were about to dissolve. “I mean, I haven’t even published anything since I’ve been here, for God’s sake.”

“Take a look at this,” Glenda said, gesturing toward the desk.

A laptop had been set up there, and Stockton and Ball had clearly been studying something on it. Phoebe crossed the room, forcing herself to breathe slowly. I’ve got to stay calm, she told herself. It’s all some dreadful mistake, and I can’t lose control now.

“This is what the student brought to our attention,” Glenda said, pointing to the screen. “It’s on the blog you do for writers.”

Phoebe leaned forward and stared at the page that was up on the screen. It was titled “On Words and Writing,” fairly crudely designed, and there was a photo of Phoebe in the upper right-hand corner. She could tell from the dress she was wearing that the picture had been taken at a movie premiere in New York about a year ago. There was a short bio, which oddly stated that she had once edited a poetry journal. The most recent blog entry was titled, “Is Shorter Better?” It took only a moment of scanning the article for Phoebe to realize that though her byline was on the piece, it was actually an essay that one of the male students in her class had handed in as an assignment several weeks ago.

Phoebe reached a hand toward the keyboard, and as she did, Ball jerked forward slightly, as if his first instinct had been to stop her.

“Do you mind?” she said. “I’d like to see what else is here.”

Ball nodded curtly, and Phoebe studied the site. There were just two other entries, and both were pieces she’d written as a guest blogger for Huffington Post within the last two years—one on memoirists making things up, and the other on unnamed sources.

Phoebe turned back to Glenda, who looked ashen. “So the guy from my class came across this,” Phoebe said, “and reported it to you?”

“To me, actually,” Stockton interjected. Phoebe thought she could detect a little excitement in his eyes, like a hound that’s just picked up the scent of a fox.

“I hope you don’t honestly believe that I put this site together?”

“But who else could have done it?” Ball said.

“Anyone could have,” Phoebe said. She could feel her anger begin to boil, and she warned herself again to simmer down. “All anyone would have to do is go to a site like blogger.com and set up a blog in my name. They could drag a picture of me onto it from another site. And they could add on material I’d written for other sites. The two other pieces here are things I did write. As for the essay here that my student wrote, I shared it with everyone in class.”

“Are you saying it’s a hoax, then?” Stockton said. “That someone created this to make you look bad?”

“Of course it’s a hoax,” Phoebe said. “Can’t you see how crude and amateurish this site is? Trust me, if I was putting together my own blog site, I’d do a hell of a better job than this.”

“See what I said, Tom?” Glenda interjected. She turned to Phoebe. “I never thought you had done this.”

“Then why call in the cavalry?” Phoebe asked sarcastically. Glenda flinched, and Phoebe turned back to Stockton and Ball.

“If you track the e-mail that set up this site, you’ll see it has no relation to me. I’ll bet it leads right back to the Sixes.”

Then Phoebe stormed out of the room without looking back. As she hurried toward the front door, she nearly collided with Mark, coming out of the conservatory. He gave her a withering glance.

“You’re more than welcome to bring yourself down, Phoebe,” he said scathingly. “But please don’t do the same to Glenda.”

Shocked, she just stared back at him. So she’d been dead right about the source of his recent coolness. She started to speak, but bit her tongue. It would only make things worse.

She barely remembered the drive home. She was livid. Evidently the Sixes had created the blog, and Glenda, despite her comment to the contrary, had clearly indulged Stockton and Ball in their investigation. Was that the price that she was always going to have to pay because of the plagiarism charges? Would people always doubt her integrity?

And then there had been the odd reference to the poetry magazine. That was something she’d done in boarding school. Had the Sixes dug up info about her past?

As she entered the house, her heart sank even more. If the Sixes had gone to the trouble of creating the fake blog, they surely would want the word to leak out. Phoebe hurried to her office, shrugged off her coat, and brought up the New York Post Web site on her laptop. And there, to her utter dismay, was a short item by Pete Tobias, “Is Phoebe Hall Up to Her Old Tricks?” He stated that a student had accused her of posting his blog as her own and that the school was investigating.

Completely ruffled now, Phoebe called her agent and left a message asking her to call ASAP. I have to fix this fast, she told herself, before it explodes. She also sent an email to the student who’d written the essay, explaining the situation. By the time three o’clock rolled around, she realized that she’d been so distressed she’d forgotten about Hutch. But he hadn’t called, so he probably wasn’t back yet.

When her phone finally rang at four, it was her agent, Miranda. “What’s going on?” Miranda asked bluntly. Phoebe gave her the broad outlines of the situation.

“Why would students do such a thing to you?” Miranda asked.

“I’m caught up in a bit of a mess, which I’ll explain later, but you’ve got to trust me—I’ve done nothing wrong in this whole thing.” Phoebe knew she sounded defensive—guilty even.

“I think we need to marshal the PR team again,” Miranda announced. “Let me try to reach them, though it’s going to be tough on a Sunday.”

By five Phoebe still hadn’t heard from Hutch. She called his number, thinking he might have forgotten that he’d promised to call first, but she reached his answering machine.

The doorbell rang shortly after, throwing her off guard. As she pulled the front window curtain aside, she saw four young trick-or-treaters standing outside. “Just a minute,” she called. She opened a bag of the miniature candy bars, dumped them into a wicker basket, and headed outside. After the kids trooped away, she left the basket on the porch and turned off the lights in the living room.

By eight thirty she still hadn’t heard from Hutch. She felt a small wave of worry, but let it pass. Maybe, she thought, he’s been out in his work shed all afternoon and hasn’t heard the phone. He might have been thinking she would just come over. She decided to do just that. Not only was she anxious to see him, but also it would be a relief to be out of the house.

She threw on her coat and tore out to the car. As she drove to Hutch’s house, she passed bunch after bunch of trick-or-treaters. She felt entirely detached from the world around her, as if she was living in an alternate reality.

As soon as she turned from the road into Hutch’s driveway, she smiled in relief. Even through the dense trees, she could see that there were lights on in the cabin, and as she drove closer she spotted both of Hutch’s vehicles. He was definitely home.

As Phoebe slammed her car door shut, Ginger shot out from the dark of the yard, making Phoebe jump.

“Hey, little girl. What are you doing out all by yourself?”

Ginger whimpered and leaped into Phoebe’s arms. Her body was wet, as if she’d been prancing around in a puddle of water.

“Oh, I hope you haven’t been a bad girl,” Phoebe said. “Does your daddy know you’re out?”

With Ginger still in her arms, Phoebe mounted the porch steps. The dog was wetter than Phoebe had first realized, and she set her down.

Before knocking, Phoebe brushed at the large wet mark now on her coat. It felt sticky, and she pulled her hand away to look. In the porch light, she saw that her palm was smeared with blood.