by Kate Flora
"Hey! Watch yourself," I said. "That was an assault."
"No way. I never touched you!" Another bit of sulky brat behavior. It had pretty much been a whole week full of men behaving badly.
"An assault is creating the apprehension of bodily harm, Cas. Which fits your behavior perfectly. It's battery that involves the actual touching."
I considered, given the mess we were in partly because of him, doing a bit of battery myself. I did not want to dance this dance, though. I hadn't come here to teach manners or be a babysitter. My job was to deal with the here and now. Handle the mess that now existed. There was real work to be done and other people on my to-do list who were willing to pay for my time.
"Let's get those papers to Trish. Then there are people waiting in the conference room. It would be impolite to keep them waiting any longer."
I sheepdogged the sulky fellow back to Trish's office, where the envelope was offered and received. Well, not received, exactly. Trish told him to put it on the desk, but refused to touch it. I guessed she was thinking defensively. About fingerprints. About making the case that she really didn't know about this stuff. That she had never touched that envelope. What a world we lived in.
Cas went on to the conference room. I stayed behind for a moment with Trish.
"I've called Marianne," she said. "She was shocked that Cas had never delivered the documents. She's on her way, and is calling other board members. And I have Larry coming over to fill me in on what he knows."
She lifted her phone. "I've sent the audio recording to Marianne, as well. Some small comfort, I suppose, that he admitted what he's done. But there's the matter of protecting myself, and then there's the larger matter of how, being properly informed, I could have protected the school. Firing Harrington might have been sticky, but nothing compared with the mess we're facing now. It makes me seethe to think that this all could have been prevented."
Not all of it, I thought. If Harrington had been caught some other way, the authorities would still have looked at Blackwell. "Can you send me that audio as well?" I said. Better to have copies in many places. I'd known schools that went to great lengths to sweep things under rugs. Of course, the school was really my client. But I prefer my clients to behave honestly.
"All of that is small comfort now," Trish continued. "This situation was preventable, but it wasn't prevented. We have to deal with that reality."
She waved a hand at the door that led to the adjoining conference room. "Now what are we going to do about that?"
"Sit with them. Listen to them. We've brought counseling in to help us craft some helpful replies for students and faculty. We need to remind our callers not to engage and give them some strategies for disengaging. Assure anxious parents that a letter explaining the situation more fully is coming. Overall, the consistent message has to be that you believe their children are safe. That you've taken every precaution to ensure that and are continuing to do so."
"Wish we could tell them with certainty that there are no current or former students involved."
"You can't be that definitive. Not yet. You can say that his files are being examined and there's no sign any current or former students are involved."
She walked to the window, staring out at the gloomy day. "So far. But what if something turns up?"
"Then we deal with it."
She turned toward me. "Have you ever been in a car crash?"
"Yes."
I had. More than one. They were among the things I didn't like to remember.
"Me, too. That's what this feels like. Like those long, awful moments when you're sliding toward inevitable disaster and there isn't a thing you can do about it."
Crash or no, while our car was careening toward the cliff, we had to keep steering, trying to ward off disaster. We scheduled a meeting with the director of communications and his staff for eleven. We needed a uniform message and a strategy for getting that message out to the press and the public. We also needed their help drafting the definitive message to faculty about not speaking to the press or saying anything except our agreed-upon message. Trish had sent an e-mail, but we wanted a formal sheet with bullet points spelling out the whats and whys and the rules they'd agreed to. We also wanted to keep providing updates and reassuring information to the students.
Her assistant interrupted to tell us that Mrs. Savage's plane was still delayed. Bad news for Mrs. Savage but good news for us. Thinking in bad puns, I believed we had a savage enough situation here already.
I was heading for the door when Trish's phone rang and I saw her start. Before I could ask what was wrong, my phone rang. I said, "Thea Kozak," and the gruff male voice on the other end said, "Detective Furst. You called me?"
"Yesterday," I said.
No response, so I continued, "I'm a consultant working with Dr. Gorham on damage control strategies. Yesterday, we uncovered some information about Dr. Harrington that we thought you ought to know. Specifically, about his propensity for violent outbursts when he's criticized or thwarted in some way. When he was fired, he made some threats to the school. We're concerned there may be an incident..."
Still no response.
"Dr. Gorham can explain it in more detail if you..."
"We're on our way," he said. "Be there at eleven." And that was all.
Conversing with cops. As satisfying as talking to my foot. Normally, I made Andre the exception to this statement. Today, he fell under that umbrella as well. Except we weren't conversing unless texts, mostly one-sided, were a conversation. I hoped Furst would be more responsive in person and that he would have some strategies to keep everyone safe. Better yet, I hoped he would tell us Harrington had been arrested and we could all breathe more easily.
Trish was still on the phone, probably talking to someone about the undisclosed information. I had to go to that meeting. I checked my watch. Roland would be arriving in about fifteen minutes. I texted him I would be in a meeting and asked him to let me know when he arrived. Then I wrote: "Furst on his way, here at eleven, move communications meeting?" and slipped the note onto Trish's desk.
Like Reeve Barrows at Stafford, Caswell Brigham was usually an effective assistant headmaster. Also like Reeve, this morning he was playing passive and helpless and waiting for direction. Passive and sulking. What is it with people who bring things down on themselves and then look for someone to blame? I thought the two of them could start a club, the "please don't put me on first 'cuz I'm a wuss" club, unless it was the "this isn't really my job" or the "don't blame me for screw-ups" club. They could meet in their secret clubhouse and whine about how put upon they were and let the rest of us get on about the business of the day. Or they could found a law firm—Barrows and Brigham lent itself to that—and sit around being pompous and important all day when they weren't sweeping things under carpets or singing lusty choruses of "Not my Job."
People who know me understand I don't suffer fools gladly. I try to be patient and kind, but when the situation calls for action, I'm likely to knock the ditherer off the podium and take over. What the assembled faculty and administrators needed was someone to reassure them and give them guidance. What Cas was doing—to the extent that he was doing anything at all—was getting them more upset. So I knocked him off the platform and took over the meeting. I acknowledged their dilemma. Described some strategies for handling difficult conversations, promised them a revised script and a written version of my strategies, and then drew the head of counseling into the meeting.
From the corner of my eye, I watched Cas seethe. Another attribute common to members of the club—not wanting to do the job, but resenting it when someone else did.
Lucky for all of us, the head of counseling was a gem. Though we'd given him little notice, he'd thought this through and was prepared. He was comforting, assured, and informative. He gave a quick outline of the students' dilemmas, then of the parents', and then identified some of the dilemmas the people in the room were experiencing, validating them and assurin
g them it was normal, expected, and okay. He was relatively new to the school—one of Trish's hires—and I watched them go from being unsure whether they could trust him to being totally in his camp.
Roland's fifteen minutes came and went, then half an hour. It worried me. Roland wasn't usually late. If something had come up, he would have let me know. Now I was worried he'd been in an accident. Or something else bad had happened. I could too easily imagine the possibilities. For a cop's wife, both phone calls and the absence of them can be bad news.
It was almost time for Furst and company to appear in Trish's office. Faculty and administrators needed to get to their classes and offices. We wrapped it up with my confirmation that they'd have revised call packets on their desks by noon. Normally, in a situation like this, I'd have Bobby or Lisa with me to help out, so I could delegate jobs like the call sheet to them. Today, I was on my own and feeling frantic about how I would get things done.
Calm down, I told myself. Take it one step at a time. Things would get done. I went back to Trish's office to check in and ask for a place where I could work.
She shook her head when I appeared. "Larry is delayed. Minor problem he had to deal with. Marianne had a flat and is waiting for roadside assistance. Furst will be here soon. I've got all these things I want to deal with and hand off and I can't get anything off my desk. I've rescheduled communications for eleven-thirty. How's your morning going?"
"About the same. Until they get here, I could use a place to work. I've got to write some things up and print them out for the team that's making phone calls."
She nodded. "There's an empty office upstairs. Andrew will show you."
We both stared at the unopened envelope, a plain brown wrapper that held so much mystery, intrigue, misjudgment, and trouble.
"I'm not touching it," she said.
Before I could reply, a man appeared in the office door.
I'd never met Charles Harrington, but the tweedy jacket and tortoise-rimmed glasses looked distinctly academic, despite his unshaven face and uncombed hair, and the unsteady gun in his hand was as good as a calling card.
Chapter 28
He was so focused on Trish I don't think he knew I was in the room. "You've ruined my life," he said.
She stood, gathering her authority around her like a cloak, her severe dark gray cardigan and skirt and buttoned up white blouse seeming almost like a nun's habit. "Charles. You do not want to do this. Shooting me will not make anything better and it will make your situation far worse."
"You're wrong," he said. He was using his professor's voice, large and resonant and meant to fill, and control, a room. "It can't get worse. I've lost my job. I've lost my stature. You've ruined my reputation. For twenty years... more than twenty years... I've been a part of this institution and this community. People call me Mr. Blackwell or Dr. Blackwell because I'm so well known and so closely affiliated with the school."
He gesticulated wildly with the gun, then steadied it so it was aimed at her.
Her eyes followed the gun through every swing but whatever fear she was feeling didn't show on her face.
"And now you. YOU! Some newcomer, some feminist affirmative action hire with no sense of history and connection, no respect for this institution, have the audacity to accuse me of a crime I didn't commit and suddenly I'm thrown out of my home, I'm barred from my classroom and my campus and my students... Correction. You've thrown me out of my home and barred me from my classroom. You! With no respect for my service or my dedication."
The more he talked, the louder he got. Please, I thought. Somebody hear him and send for help.
This was not the moment to remind him that he'd ruined his own life, never mind damaging hundreds of others—the children he'd victimized by creating a market for the vile stuff he collected. Children he'd victimized by taking and sharing their pictures. This was the moment to keep him talking, keep him from pulling the trigger, and hope that Furst and company were close. Or Larry from security. Or the missing Roland. Someone who knew how to handle situations like this.
I was so scared I had to remind myself to breathe, the downside of knowing about this man's propensity for violence. He absolutely felt entitled to harm people. I wanted to run. I was close to the door. I could probably escape before he could turn and shoot me, but I couldn't leave Trish alone with this.
If she was scared, she didn't show it. She remained calm, speaking to him in a steady, quiet voice. Affirming his connections to the school, the many students he'd taught who looked up him. The minds he'd shaped, the legacy of excellent teaching he'd created. All of that, she said, would be forever tainted if he shot someone on the campus. She went on, eerily calm, as she spoke of his love for the Blackwell School, and how he would irrevocably damage the school if he were to carry out his threat and shoot her. She kept it not about her but about the school, something he cared for. A place, as he had said, that he was so deeply linked with.
"This is not about whether you shoot me, Charles. It's about whether you shoot the headmaster of Blackwell School and how that will reverberate through the independent school community. This is about the many parents who will then view this as a dangerous place and withdraw their children. The many students who care for you who will now see you in a different light."
She leaned toward him like she was trying to draw him into the conversation, a slow, stately bending. She understood that abrupt movements might spook him. "Then your legacy won't be that you were an inspiring professor who influenced generations of Blackwell graduates. It will be that you were a selfish, vengeful man who destroyed a wonderful institution. I don't believe that's how you want to be remembered."
I was slightly behind him, standing very still, my briefcase in my hand, hoping his monofocus was so strong he wasn't aware I was there. Or didn't care. He'd come for Trish.
I couldn't get out my phone and call for help. Or turn it off. Any movement would draw his attention and might startle him into firing. I wracked my brain, trying to remember whether I'd left it on vibrate. The last thing we needed was for Roland to call or text me and my ringtone to spook Harrington into shooting us.
I listened, holding my breath, hoping for the sound of approaching footsteps. The building was so quiet it might have been deserted. No ringing phones. No bustle. No doors opened or shut. Could that unnatural silence be a sign that help was on the way? Was it wishful thinking that made me hope this meant cops were in the building and making their stealthy way toward this room?
I beamed the mental message to Trish: Keep him talking. She couldn't look at me or nod, of course, but I saw her take a breath and get ready to go on.
She almost had him. For a moment, that gun waivered, paused, and started toward the floor.
Then it came up again.
"Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no. You're not sucking me in with that legacy bullshit. This isn't about the school. This is personal. This is about you and those pathetic cowards on the Board of Trustees. About how they hired you with specific instructions to get rid of me. That's been your agenda all along. You're Marianne's hit woman. You're the toady the board was looking for when they got rid of Bill. Bill was my friend. He would never have fired me. Couldn't have. I had the goods on Bill and that affair he had. So they canned him and brought you in."
It was all about him. Pretty common with bad guys. Their actions are always okay, always justified, because the world has treated them unfairly. They are only doing what they have to do.
"Oh no," he repeated. "This community knows me. They know who I am and what I've done for them. They'll know this is about you and not about me. That you hounded me until this became inevitable. They'll understand this was a set-up. How you had that student plant incriminating evidence on my computer and then used it as an excuse to fire me."
The words got out before Trish could stop herself. "Charles, there were hundreds of images on that computer, including pictures taken years ago. Pictures that were recognized. Some of them taken when
the student who checked out your computer was only six years old. No one... not me, not Marianne... not the board... set you up. You..."
She grabbed a breath to go on. I knew the next thing she said was likely to be the trigger. No matter what it was. Her last statements were a mistake, but despite the wavering gun, what she said probably didn't matter. In the end, words might give him pause, but Harrington wasn't going to be talked out of his revenge. He hadn't come here to have a dialogue. He'd come here to kill. In his mind, he needed to destroy the thing—Trish—that was questioning who he was. That was not respecting him. Trish had taken away all the things he believed he was entitled to.
The silent building stayed silent. No one appeared in the doorway and said, "Police! Drop your weapon."
The cavalry wasn't coming and we were running out of time. I swung up my briefcase, stepped forward, and slammed it into the side of Harriman's head. As he staggered sideways, I dove past him and went right over the desk, grabbing Trish and pulling her onto the floor as an explosion of bullets slammed into the desk, the chair, and the wall above us. I heard glass on a painting shatter, the antique porcelain lamp on the desk explode.
In moments of extreme stress, our minds can behave strangely. Even as I pulled Trish down and heard the bullets thudding into the wall and the desk, and felt something stab into my arm, I was hoping that after he finished with us, he wouldn't turn the gun on the cabinet full of Cantonware. The stuff was so very gorgeous.
I thought about how I might never get a chance to make things right with Andre. How silly our fighting was in the large scheme of things. Two people sulking over a misstep when they might never see each other again.
Another part of my brain—the closet accountant perhaps—was counting bullets. I thought I'd heard about a dozen shots and wondered how many he might have left. I've deliberately failed to be diligent in my firearms education. I learned to shoot because Andre wanted me to, and that turned out to be a useful skill. A lifesaving skill at one point. But I hate guns. I won't carry one. And I resist learning much about them other than the necessary information about how to make them work. I can load a magazine, put it in the gun, pull back the slide, and fire. I can't tell you how many bullets a magazine holds. Still, I counted.
