The Sixes

4

PLEASE DON’T LET it be her, Phoebe pleaded to herself. Nearly shoving her bike along ahead of her, she followed the yellow tape until she found an empty spot where she could better see. As if on a count of three, several cops hoisted something out of the boat and onto a black tarp lying on the ground. It was a body, and the crowd gasped in unison. Phoebe could view only the lower half, dressed in sodden jeans.

One of the men stepped back from the body, and suddenly Phoebe could see the upper half. Her heart lurched. The face appeared bloated and partially covered with strands of matted long blond hair, but Phoebe knew that it had to be Lily. A photographer began to move around the body, snapping pictures.

Phoebe needed to call Glenda, but she could barely drag her eyes from the scene. She watched for another minute—until the police formed a human barrier around the body, blocking it from view. Leaning her bike against her hip, she quickly dug her phone from her jacket pocket.

“I just heard,” Glenda said after Phoebe had blurted out the news. “I’m headed down there now. Is the body still in the river?”

“No, they’ve brought it to that little park by the bridge.”

“Do you think it’s definitely her?”

“It must be. I can’t really see the face, but she’s got long blond hair.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Phoebe turned her attention back to the grim scene in the park. A woman with a black bag—most likely the coroner—approached the body and crouched down next to it. The crowd was growing, and people strained their necks for a better view. Phoebe felt gripped by an overwhelming sadness. The smart, pretty girl who wanted to be a writer and had waited in the rain to talk to her was dead, her lifeless, bloated body on display for a crowd of strangers. There would be no fresh start now.

While the coroner busied herself with the body, two EMTs rolled a trolley toward the body and stopped, waiting. Phoebe wondered where Lily’s parents were. It would be horrible for them to come upon this scene.

Phoebe glanced back at the people who had gathered around her. Many of them seemed to live in the apartments above the shops and bars across the street or in some of the small old houses that climbed up from the river. There were also a few people in jogging clothes, who, like her, must have come off the river path. At the very fringe of the crowd were four guys in jeans and saggy sweatshirts who Phoebe thought must be Lyle College students. Two of them were talking animatedly on cell phones. It would be only minutes, Phoebe thought, before the entire campus was on fire with the news.

Inside the police tape, the officials mostly milled around, talking to each other or speaking into cell phones and walkie-talkies. The coroner touched her right hand to the ground for leverage and stood up. She nodded, just one flick of the head down and up to the EMTs, who zipped the dead girl into a black body bag and hoisted it onto the trolley. They rolled the trolley to a dark-colored van and lifted it inside. A minute later the van pulled away, with the coroner in the passenger seat, followed shortly afterward by the ambulance. The ambulance was leaving empty.

No sooner had the two vehicles driven away than two cars turned from Bridge Street onto River Street and parked, one behind the other, in front of the hardware store. One was an SUV with “Lyle College Campus Police” on the door. The other was a white Mini Cooper. Phoebe saw that Glenda was sitting hunched over in the passenger seat of the Mini Cooper, as if she’d been shoehorned into the space.

The campus cop in the SUV jumped out first. Phoebe wasn’t sure of his name, but she recognized him. He was the head honcho, one of the two she’d seen in the thick of things outside Curry Hall the night before last. He was about forty, with thick silver hair, and he was oddly tanned for this time of year. She didn’t know the older woman who emerged from the car with Glenda, but she assumed the woman was part of the college administration. The three of them hurried in unison toward the park. Phoebe waved toward Glenda. When her friend caught the gesture, she signaled with a raised finger that she would join Phoebe in a minute.

It turned out to be longer than that. After the campus cop exchanged a few words with one of the town cops inside the cordoned-off area, the yellow tape was lifted and the three delegates from the school were ushered inside. A man in a sports jacket immediately approached them, likely a detective. At several points the detective shook his head back and forth, as if the group from the college kept asking him questions he either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Phoebe shifted from one foot to the other. She hated being on the other side of the tape, not knowing what was going on.

After about fifteen minutes Glenda and the older woman ducked back out under the yellow tape and, with Glenda in the lead, walked toward Phoebe. The crowd had continued to balloon, and now there were at least a hundred people rimming the park. Phoebe backed her bike up so that she and Glenda would intersect in a more private spot. As soon they reached each other, Phoebe saw that her friend’s eyes were strained with worry.

“It’s definitely her?” Phoebe asked, though she knew the answer.

“Yes. She’s barely recognizable, but the clothes and jewelry match. Phoebe, do you know Madeline Bloom—our VP?”

“Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances,” Madeline said, offering a very firm handshake. She was probably close to sixty, short and shaped like a fireplug. She looked like the kind of person who got the job done, no matter what it was.

“Did the cops use cadaver dogs?” Phoebe asked.

“No, a boater spotted the body a little north of here, bobbing in the water. This was the easiest place to bring it to shore.”

She was floating along the river as I rode my bike, Phoebe thought sadly—maybe just a short distance from me through the trees.

“Do they have any idea what happened?” Phoebe asked. She kept her voice low, aware that they were the focus of attention now. Phoebe realized that even if some Lyle residents had never seen Glenda, they probably knew that a tall, attractive black woman ran the college, and this had to be her.

“They were pretty tight-lipped,” Glenda said. “The only thing they volunteered was that there doesn’t seem to be any obvious sign of foul play—though of course, nothing is certain until they do the autopsy.”

Then what happened? Phoebe wondered. Could Lily have killed herself? That thought was as chilling as the notion that the girl had been murdered.

“I overheard one interesting tidbit when you were talking to the detectives,” Madeline volunteered in a near whisper, and Glenda and Phoebe turned to her in unison. “A couple of the cops were talking about a sweater. I got the feeling Lily was wearing one earlier, but they haven’t been able to find it.”

“That could be a key detail,” Phoebe said. She turned to Glenda. “And what about Lily’s parents?”

“The police are going to break the news, but Tom is planning to head over to the hotel later,” Glenda said. “I need to get back to campus and deal with everything else.” She glanced down at Phoebe’s bike. “You biked down?”

“No, I came by car.”

“Give me a lift back to campus then, will you? That way Madeline can hang here and see if she can pick up any new information.” She turned to the VP. “Stay on top of Craig, okay?”

Madeline snickered. “Oh, that sounds like fun,” she said.

“He’ll want to box you out, but don’t let him,” Glenda said.

“I hear you,” Madeline said, and held Glenda’s eyes knowingly. “I’ll call you with an update in a little while.”

While Glenda slid into the passenger seat of the car, Phoebe loaded her bike into the trunk. Backing out of the parking lot a minute later, Phoebe saw people trailing Glenda with their eyes. Her friend kept her own eyes ahead, her expression neutral, until they were two blocks away. Then she covered her face with her hands.

“What a nightmare,” Glenda said, her voice muffled.

“I know,” Phoebe said. “I just keep wondering how in hell she ended up in that river.”

“No matter what happened, it’s bad for the school, of course,” Glenda said, lowering her hands. “If she got drunk and fell in, that’s bad. If someone killed her, that’s bad. If she killed herself, that’s bad. We’re expecting a record number of applicants this year. Can you imagine what this could do to admissions?”

She looked over at Phoebe. “Sorry, I know I’m sounding selfish. I feel terrible about this poor girl. And I feel sick for her parents. But I have to think of the college, too.”

“Of course,” Phoebe said. “By the way, I talked to Lily’s roommate yesterday. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know a thing about any secret society. But Tom Stockton and I are supposed to meet in a few hours, and once he’s briefed me, I can really dig in.”

Glenda shifted in her seat, and Phoebe could sense her friend studying her with her deep brown eyes.

“You’re okay with this, right? I mean, looking into the Sixes.”

“I told you, I don’t want Stockton thinking I’m stepping on his toes, but I’ll make it work.”

“No, I mean are you okay digging into something like this, considering . . . considering your own experience?”

Phoebe cocked her head and smiled faintly. “Well, isn’t that partly why you asked me to do it?” she said quietly.

“Yes,” Glenda admitted. “I thought you would bring an understanding to the task at hand. But you must let me know if it hits too weird of a nerve with you.”

“I’m okay. I made a vow a long time ago to never let what happened control my life. If anything, it only makes me more determined to help out here. I know just how evil girls can be.”

“Do you think if the Sixes really do exist, they could be connected to Lily’s death?”

“It’s possible. A prank gone wrong. Or maybe she wanted out and they were tormenting and bullying her the way they’d done to that other girl. That could be the mess she was referring to. And she decided to ‘escape’ by drowning herself.” She told Glenda about finding the flyer with the number 6 scrawled across Lily’s face.

Glenda sighed loudly. “It would hardly be the first time a student killed themselves because of bullying.” Her voice hardened. “If the Sixes really are tormenting students, we need to shut them down. We’ve got to use every possible resource the college has.”

“What’s the deal with the campus cop?” Phoebe said. “You seemed a little wary of him.”

“Craig Ball. He’s fairly new in the top job, and so far his performance has been good—he’s been able to make a dent in the drug problem on campus. But he’s a bit of a glory hog. Plus, he seems to like to hoard info. I’m not a hundred percent sure I can trust him.”

“I’d have a hard time trusting anyone that orangey-looking,” Phoebe said. “The guy looks like he’s starting to rust.”

Glenda scoffed. “I think he’s a regular at the local tanning bed. And he seems to take every vacation in Miami Beach.”

“Was he hired on your watch?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t some conscious decision of mine. There was an older guy in charge when I started here—Hutch Hutchinson. Kind of crusty, but a real gem. Craig was his number two, hired a couple of years ago. We’ve got mandatory retirement here, but we’d found a way to ignore it with Hutch because he was so good at his job. Then word started getting around about it, and people were asking why I was playing favorites. The next thing I knew, Hutch was bowing out late last fall, and we had no legit reason not to give the top job to Craig. Later I came to realize Craig was the one who stirred the pot about Hutch and helped push him out.”

“Too bad.” Phoebe couldn’t imagine the headaches Glenda had to deal with. “So what’s next for you today?”

“Devising a press strategy. And trying to figure out how to inform the students. Feels weird to put news like this in an e-mail blast, but that’s how it’s generally done these days.” They’d reached East Gate, and Glenda pointed toward the curb. “Just let me off here, okay? I want to walk around campus and take the pulse.”

“Call me if you hear anything,” Phoebe said as Glenda stepped out of the car. “I’ll do the same.”

As soon as she was home, Phoebe phoned Stockton on her cell. She wondered if he’d try to blow her off again, using the latest news as an excuse.

“My, you’ve had a busy morning,” he said as soon as she’d identified herself. “Glenda just filled me in.”

“Yes, pretty harrowing,” Phoebe admitted.

“You can tell me more when we meet today.”

So he wasn’t blowing her off after all.

“Noon still good?” she asked.

“Yes, see you then.”

She stripped off her bike clothes and showered. As hot water streamed over her, the image of Lily’s dead body fought its way into Phoebe’s brain—the sodden jeans, the long, wet hair clinging to the bloated face. And then she could see Lily underwater, submerged, terrified. Don’t go there, she told herself, fighting back tears. Stay focused.

Thirty minutes later, she was headed toward campus. Berta’s was to the east of the college, but Phoebe first wanted to check the mood on campus, just as Glenda had. Passing through the western gate, she saw that the Lily flyers were still up—though some had come partly unstapled and now flapped forlornly in the wind.

How many people know by now? Phoebe wondered. The campus seemed busier than she expected. Bunches of students, dressed in jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers, stood gathered together at various spots, talking. Phoebe guessed, from the troubled expressions they wore, that the talk was of Lily.

It was a relief to enter Berta’s. Something about the atmosphere there—the raffia-wrapped dried herb bouquets and the countless rooster tchotchkes—seemed to repel anyone under twenty-five, giving the town at least one student-free zone besides Tony’s. The crowd was generally a mix of faculty and administration, as well as locals, who sat for hours drinking lattes and eating muffins the size of cantaloupes. She surveyed the half-filled room, first for Tom, and then, when she didn’t see him, for a table with a little privacy. There was an empty one against the back wall, and Phoebe snaked her way toward it. Though not even crowded, the place seemed to be oddly energized. People surely had heard about the body pulled from the river and were buzzing about it.

Phoebe ordered coffee and waited. Finally, nearly twenty minutes late, Stockton arrived, ducking his six-something length under the upper doorframe as he entered. He was good-looking in an uptight, Waspy way, and probably in his late thirties. Catching Phoebe’s hand wave, he wove through the tables to the back of the café.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, pulling a chair out. “It’s been perfectly crazy.”

“I can only imagine,” Phoebe said.

“Nice to officially meet you, by the way,” he said, reaching across the table to shake her hand. His grip was so hard it pinched her fingers. He shrugged off his navy barn jacket, letting it sag behind him. He was wearing pressed khaki pants with a crisp blue cotton shirt and a belt of buttery brown leather. His dark blond hair was short, worn in a classic side-part style, and his skin was smooth and clear, except for a tiny razor cut on his strong chin. He looked like the kind of guy who should be working at a distinguished college like Williams or Middlebury; she wondered how he’d ended up at Lyle.

“Same here,” she said, forcing a smile. There was a snootiness to the guy that was already rubbing her the wrong way.

“How are you liking teaching?” he asked. “It’s a whole different ball game for you, isn’t it?”

“Completely different ball game,” Phoebe said. “But I’m enjoying it.”

Enjoying was a stretch, but Phoebe was hardly going to be candid with Stockton.

“And I hear you and Glenda go way back,” Stockton said, his slate-colored eyes curious. “You went to boarding school together.”

“Yes, that’s right,” she said, hurriedly. She was anxious to abandon that topic and get on to what mattered. Thankfully the waitress came by to take Stockton’s order.

“So, tell me about this morning,” he said, turning his attention back to Phoebe. “You just happened to be downtown in the park when they found the body?”

What the heck was he implying, she wondered. That she was some sort of ambulance chaser?

“Actually I was coming off the bike path after a ride,” Phoebe said. “I saw the commotion in the park and headed over.”

“Was there any bruising on the body? Any indication that she’d been attacked?”

“I never got that close.”

“Did you have any sense of what might have happened?”

“No, just that she’d clearly been in the water for a while. Are there surveillance cameras downtown, do you know? I’ve been wondering if one of them picked up something the night Lily disappeared.”

Stockton scoffed. “I’m afraid we local yokels in Lyle haven’t quite caught up with New York and London in that regard,” he said. Was that a dig? she wondered. Regardless, she wasn’t going to snipe back and risk pissing him off.

“At least more eyewitnesses may come forward now that they’ve found her body,” Phoebe said. “Glenda says Lily was last seen going up Bridge Street—after she’d left the Cat Tails bar. For some reason she turned around and ended up back down at the river.”

“Don’t you think it’s obvious that someone intercepted her walk home?” Stockton said.

“And convinced her to go back down along the river?”

“Convinced isn’t the word I had in mind,” he said.

“What about the possibility of suicide?” Phoebe asked.

“Why start up the hill if you were planning to drown yourself ?”

The waitress arrived with a mug of black coffee for Stockton and slid it in front of him.

“Do you mind if we switch gears for a minute?” Phoebe said. “As you know, Glenda wants me to look into this secret society—the Sixes.”

“I’m more than willing to discuss it, though I must admit it’s fairly low on my list right now.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Lily Mack’s death is one through ten on that list.” His voice sounded impatient. “Don’t get me wrong. We don’t want any kind of secret society on our campus. But the death of a student takes precedence over everything.”

“But don’t you think there’s a small chance that Lily’s death might be related to the Sixes somehow?”

Stockton leaned back in his chair and pinched his lips together.

“As I said, I’m concerned about the Sixes,” he said. “But even if they do exist—and that’s still an if—I don’t think they had anything to do with what happened to Lily.”

“What do you think, then?” she asked, because it was clear to her now that he had a theory. She took a sip of her coffee.

Stockton narrowed his eyes and stared intensely at Phoebe.

“I think we may have a serial killer on our hands.”