Death Warmed Over

by Kate Flora

  Maybe I should give up and go to bed so I'd be fresh for my client in the morning. Let the cops handle this. They were very capable. Perhaps this was just stubborn pride on my part, and a waste of my time.

  Good thinking, Kozak, I told myself. I stood and stretched. Got my nightgown and toiletries from my bag and went into the bathroom. The rush of water into the tub was a soothing promise of the delights that lay ahead. I tossed in a handful of lavender bath salts and went back to the bedroom. I took off my boots and clothes and hung up what I'd need for the morning—a creamy cowl neck cashmere sweater and a long cream and black tweed skirt. My last good outfit. The way things seemed to go with me, EDGE ought to build some kind of wardrobe replacement line item into our contracts.

  I put on the plush robe from the closet and headed for the bathroom.

  Turned off the water and went back and checked my phone. Nothing from Andre. My earlier calls had gone to voicemail—the electronic equivalent of he wasn't speaking to me, so I wasn't going to call him again. But I would text him with the names. Yes. He'd be angry that I'd opened the locket. So let him be angry. Angrier. As Popeye says, I yam what I yam. I had to tell him I wouldn't be home anyway, just in case, being a detective, he hadn't already deduced that.

  I sent the text and headed for the bathroom. Turned back to my computer. I wasn't ready to be soothed. My mind was still jumping with possibilities. A few more searches and I'd take that bath. It wasn't just Ginger that was making me restless. Lurking behind those thoughts, like an elusive shadow, was Dr. Harrington. I was troubled that Furst hadn't called me back. That no one had. More deeply troubled, based on my own experiences with angry people, about the potential for something dreadful happening because no one was taking this seriously. It was some comfort that campus security was on top of it. I had no idea, though, how good they were.

  Maybe Furst had called Trish and I didn't have anything to worry about. Maybe Harrington had been arrested. Maybe Andre wasn't calling because they were arresting Ginger's killer. Maybe while I was sitting here in a strange room obsessing in an information void, the world was being set right. Maybe pigs can fly and I'm an optimist. I went back to trying to set the world right myself.

  An hour later, having found nothing, I quit. I warmed the water up, took my bath, swallowed some Advil and crawled into bed.

  It should have been a wonderful night. The sheets were crisp, the mattress was soft, the room was dark and quiet—but my mind was frenzied. I probably slept less than two hours—and even that much sleep was plagued with dark, ugly dreams. So much for being fresh and rested for my client. Maybe the smell of burning was still in my lungs and sinuses, because I kept dreaming I was at a barbeque and waking up thinking the building was on fire.

  Morning came much too soon. Another gloomy, foggy day. The inn's delicious breakfast temporarily pushed back the gloom, but I didn't have time to savor it. Doom and gloom flowed back around me when I checked my phone. A text from Andre. Roland would be here at ten, could I let him know where to find me. Nothing more from my loving husband. There were plenty of messages from other people, though, including one from Trish, saying she'd spoken with the last headmaster and we needed to talk. If voices were printed words We Need to Talk Right Away would be in bold italics.

  Feeling more like a one-armed firefighter than my usual one-armed juggler, I threw things into my suitcase, shoved my laptop and Ginger's stuff in my briefcase, and headed back to Blackwell. I parked, took Ginger's package and shoved it under a coat, and hurried inside.

  Trish was already behind her desk, in the middle of what looked like a long phone call, beautifully dressed in severe charcoal gray, looking like she was about to attend her own funeral. Before she could fill me in, the assistant head, Caswell Brigham, arrived. Cas was middle aged, middle sized and except for some rather lovely, if slightly too-long graying curls—his only sign of vanity—a man who would disappear in a crowd. He had been supervising the faculty and staff members who were contacting the parents, and wanted to give us an update.

  In keeping with the seriousness of the situation, he'd abandoned his everyday corduroy jacket in favor of a severe charcoal suit and the kind of dark striped tie funeral home functionaries wore. His expression was a version of Trish's shell-shocked look. Not surprising. He'd been dealing face-to-face, or at least ear-to-ear, with parents expressing their shock and dismay, or asking their litany of questions about the implications of Harrington's behavior.

  When we'd written a script for the faculty and administrators who were making the calls, we'd also given them answers to the questions we'd anticipated. But these were not people working in a call center in India, barely comprehending the language and unable to deviate from their scripts, these were people who shared the parents' concerns about the students' safety. They'd started the calls last night, gotten part way through, and stopped because, Cas said, they wanted to sit with us, get debriefed, and get some advice on how they should be answering the kinds of questions they were getting.

  Some of the parents had asked to be called back with answers. Others weren't taking it well. The staff and faculty callers were seeing the whole gamut of contemporary parenting—beyond concern and thoughtful questions, there was plenty of yelling, threats to helicopter in, abuse, and unreasonable demands. The same people who tolerated indifference and imperfection in themselves had no tolerance for it in the people they'd hired to raise their children. He said some of his staff were beginning to feel like they might need to talk with a counselor themselves.

  All of that was doable. I suggested we gather in the adjoining conference room as soon as everyone could be assembled and added that he should ask their head of counseling to join us. It sounded like the situation needed more professional help than I was qualified to give.

  He left to do that just as Trish got off the phone. I filled her in on how things were going with Cas, shared my suggestion about counselors, and got a distracted nod. I focused on her puzzled expression. Something had happened in the call. I tried to bring myself up to date and to focus her.

  "Did you hear back from Furst?"

  She shook her head.

  "You said you spoke with your predecessor this morning?"

  She nodded.

  "What did he say about Harrington?"

  She rolled her eyes. "I should have had you call him. He was so damned evasive I wanted to crawl through the phone and throttle him. But there's more..."

  She'd said we needed to talk right away. Now she was being evasive again. I had to find out why.

  Consultants are supposed to present a calm and confident face to the world. I forced myself to be patient, despite my anxious sense of time rushing past while we dealt with everything at a painfully slow pace. I'm a 'take things in stride' type, checking whatever life throws at me off the list. Slay dragon? Check. Leap small building in a single bound? Check. Bring unruly headmaster under control while walking upside down on the ceiling? Check. Defeat bad guys without rumpling my linen? Check. I'd come into this situation in a rattled state. I tried to shove my sense of impending doom into an imaginary locker, but it wouldn't be shoved.

  "And?"

  "In the end, he admitted he'd had a confrontation with Harrington not too different from mine. Right down to the throwing and breaking of a valuable object. In his case, it was an antique vase."

  Trish massaged her forehead like she was trying to rub away bad news.

  "But he didn't warn you?"

  "I felt like I was talking to my clone. He hadn't wanted to make waves. Harrington had a reasonable explanation. It didn't happen again. The whole thing."

  Trish shook her head. "Before I took this job, I asked all the right questions. I specifically asked him if there were any smoldering issues, any situations—or people—I should keep an eye on. I asked straight out about the skeletons in the closet. Every place has some. He never mentioned this."

  She kneaded her forehead like she was trying to kill pain or wipe away cobw
ebs, still talking. "It's worse," she said. "Because, when I pressed him, he admitted he also knew of other instances of Harrington's rage boiling over. He never recorded it for the files or took any other action, because, in his words, Professor Harrington was so popular with the alumni and so good at bringing in contributions, he didn't want to 'look a gift horse in the mouth.'"

  She searched for something in a desk drawer. "Just little things, he said. But when I asked what he meant by that, he backpedaled like crazy. And when I reminded him that I'd specifically asked about things like this before I took the job, he said it was all in the package Cas had given me and that he had another call he had to take and hung up on me."

  She gave up and slammed the drawer shut. "But I never got any package. I have no idea what he was talking about. Now I'm wondering who else knew about Harrington and why I wasn't informed. Cas? Some of our trustees? Other faculty? I feel like I'm embroiled in a conspiracy I knew nothing about, one that other people covered up until it landed on my plate. Now I've protected a man unworthy of protection and it's going to look like I did it for the same reasons everyone else did—because he helped our bottom line and no one wanted to rock the boat. Something I would never do. Thea, I am so pissed!"

  She opened the drawer and slammed it again. Women like Trish—elegant, serene, authoritative—did not slam drawers. Nor did they say 'pissed.'

  I fished around in my briefcase, found the Advil, and handed it across the desk. I consider it one of the basic food groups.

  She shook out two, grabbed her cut glass tumbler of water, and swallowed them.

  I watched as she regained control. Head up. Shoulders squared. She took a moment to put her desk in order and then picked up her phone and asked her assistant to find Cas and send him back in.

  Cas had barely landed on his chair before launching into an account of the issues they were having with their calls to the parents. The parents of girls wanted to know if Harrington had targeted girls as well as boys. The parents of boys demanded to know whether there were any photos of their sons on Harrington's computer. Our carefully worded script hadn't gone into that kind of detail. We didn't have those answers yet—except, perhaps, to be able to say with some certainty that Harrington's preference ran to boys.

  Trish cut him off. She hadn't called him in for that. That was next on our agenda. First, there was a mysterious package. "Before we get to that, Cas, I have some questions about Dr. Harrington. And what I am supposed to have known."

  She took out a tiny recorder, ostentatiously pressed some buttons, and set it on the desk. "I'm going to record this conversation. I think it is in all of our interests to have a record of what is discussed here. I assume you don't have a problem with that?"

  Professionals who read body language can tell a lot about a person without hearing a single word. I wasn't even a professional, but Cas's whole body said he knew he was screwed. Even before his first precatory words, "I don't know what you mean," Trish and I both knew that there was plenty he could tell us, and his hesitation following that declaration said he was going through an internal analysis of how much he would disclose and how likely he was to be able to get away with an abbreviated version of the truth.

  He also looked from her to the little silver recorder and then to the door, like a prisoner assessing his chances of escape.

  "The truth, Cas. The whole truth. Don't waste your time or mine trying to figure out the best way to cover your ass, because if I think you're lying or holding back on me, you are going to be cleaning out your desk and being escorted off this campus even faster than Charles."

  Trish gave that half a beat and said, in a calm and pleasant voice, "Are we clear?"

  Beads of nervous sweat were appearing on his forehead, and he fumbled out a monogrammed white handkerchief to mop them up. That done, he opted for the offensive. "Look, Trish. I don't like the way you're..."

  Her voice cracked like a whip. "You don't like the way I'm doing what, Cas? Trying to save this school and all of our jobs? Trying to do my job because it looks like you and my predecessor and I don't know who else failed to do theirs? A failure that has landed this awful situation on my watch and exposed who knows how many children to harm?"

  She lowered her voice until it was almost a growl. "Maybe you don't appreciate how serious this is. We are in a situation that could destroy this school. At the least, do it terrible damage. I'm trying to keep that from happening. So sure, instead of helping with that, why don't we talk about how my approach bothers you?"

  "What I meant was..." He squirmed on his chair and made another attempt at belligerence. "We didn't know anything about this... uh... the pictures. And I don't see how rehashing that other..."

  "It's not rehashing if I've never heard any of it, Caswell. Is it?"

  He mopped again. Swallowed. Studied his hands, his feet, and the floor like they were fascinating objects he'd just discovered. Finally, grudgingly, he gave up a sentence. "We thought we had it under control."

  Her body stiffened, and for a moment I thought Trish was going to come right over the desk and strangle him, but she had more class than that. She just poised her pen over a pad of paper and said, very softly and very slowly, enunciating every word, "What is it? Did you know Dr. Harrington collected, traded, and probably created child pornography?"

  Brigham stared at her, shocked. "Of course not. Of course not! We never would have condoned anything like that. I had no idea. No one had any idea."

  He flicked at some invisible lint on his pants like he could brush the awful suggestion away.

  "So what is it that you did condone?"

  Some might think it cruel to reduce a man who prides himself on his dignity to the status of a worm, but if you act like a worm, you may find yourself trying to wriggle off a hook. Trish wasn't doing this to him. He'd brought this on himself by not being honest. A lack of honesty that had contributed to this whole terrible situation. I was curious, though, about how they thought they had Harrington contained. Or even what they thought they had contained. Also who "they" were. I was on the edge of my chair, waiting to see what he would say.

  "His temper. Those destructive, irrational outbursts."

  "They happened often?"

  "No. Well. Often enough."

  "How did you think you had him contained? What steps had you taken that made you believe that Dr. Harrington would control himself?"

  "We had written reports. Even a couple of videos. He was told that they had been given to you, and if there was one more outburst, he would be fired."

  Trish looked at me as she said, with both astonishment and disbelief, "So that was the package I never got. The one that would have gotten him fired and off the campus long before this."

  The outburst where he threw the pottery at her had been a test. He'd used a moment of pique to see if she had the goods on him. He'd called her bluff and she hadn't even known it because the responsible parties had failed to clue her in. Then, reassured, he had continued with his self-indulgent ways and his life of predation.

  She turned back to Brigham. "This wasn't your call. So who knew about his outbursts? Who compiled these records?"

  "Bill Dormont, of course. And Larry Delmonico. And Marianne Hazelton. Bill compiled the records with Larry's help."

  The last headmaster. The head of security. And the chair of the Board of Trustees. An across-the-board betrayal. Unless they all thought Cas had given her the records and it was her failure to act that had led to this debacle.

  "Who has these records that were supposed to be given to me, Caswell?"

  His long silence was answer enough.

  "But you never gave them to me?"

  He shook his head.

  "I need a verbal answer, for the recorder," she said, sounding like my dad the trial lawyer.

  His "no" was so shaky it barely got past his lips.

  "And you didn't give them to me because?"

  A silence so long I felt my hair go gray and started to think abo
ut retirement homes.

  "I knew you'd fire him."

  Chapter 27

  If we're lucky, there are not many moments in our lives that provoke the contemplation of justifiable homicide. Trish was having one of them right now. It's a cliché to talk about looks that can kill, but she was giving Cas one. For a moment, as his hand went to his chest and a panicked look crossed his face, I thought that's what might have been happening.

  "You still have those documents?" she said.

  He nodded.

  "Get them. Right now. And bring them to me."

  Before he reached the door, she added, "Thea, go with him and make sure he comes back."

  Like an obedient sheepdog, I followed. Cas stopped a few steps down the hall and glared at me. "I'm going to the men's room. Are you going to follow me in there, too?"

  "Let's get those materials first," I suggested. "Then I won't have to."

  The rest of the way down to hall to his office, he slammed his feet down like a sulky kid. His behavior reinforced a thought I'd been having for a while—that before people are hired for high stress or high visibility jobs, or for jobs that require tact and grace under pressure, regardless of their excellent resumes, references, and presentation, there ought to be a stress test of some sort. In our world, that might mean navigating an obstacle course under fire, while wearing a business suit, and then having to give a coherent speech to a room full of prospective parents. I'd had numerous stress tests over the past few days and passed. Cas was having one right now and flunking.

  He pulled a black duffle off the shelf in his office closet, unzipped it, and pulled out a thick padded envelope. He briefly checked the contents, then thrust it at me. "Here."

  I wanted to tell him to stop acting like a child, to man up and deal. As my mother was fond of telling me, you make a mess, you clean it up. Instead I put on my friendly consultant's smile. "I think Trish wanted you to deliver this yourself."

  He swung around suddenly and kicked his desk chair, barely missing my leg and sending it crashing to the floor.