Adam and Evil (An Amanda Pepper Mystery)

by Gillian Roberts

  Getting into bed is too polite a term for what I did. Think instead of a tree with auburn hair. Imagine that final whack of the axe—and goodbye tree as it topples straight down. Two half ideas flew past my mental screen while I descended, fully clothed. One was to set the alarm clock, and the second was to find out how I could “accidentally” be in the same place as Helena Spurry of the scarves and chains. And then, not even an idea as eyes closed, more an echo inside my skull. The sound of a gravelly voice saying “bitch.” Saying it to Emily Fisher Buttonwood this morning. And then all the script said was fade to black.

  * * *

  “Okay,” I told myself shortly after dawn. I said this and everything out loud, although Mackenzie was still away righting crime. Talking to myself is a habit I like to pretend doesn’t exist. It smacks too closely of my future as a bag lady. But making noise gave the illusion of company. Maybe that’s why bag ladies do it, too.

  “We are starting this day with a positive attitude,” I told me. Instead of thinking about being jobless, out in the cold without an income or professional reputation, I’d make that damned glass be half full. I was about to have thrust upon me the chance to expand my horizons, and if I added my parents’ offer, then this was about the luckiest series of events that could happen to a gal.

  If I’d had enough sleep, if I hadn’t been obliged to live through the previous two days, I wouldn’t have sunk into smarm. But that was all I had left, so I tried to look toward the gorgeous—metaphorical again—sunrise and consider what this lucky person was going to choose to be, given that I had the option of any job in the universe.

  I felt so lousy now, so besieged and put upon. I wanted something that put me more in control of my destiny, but the only job that met my requirements was that of absolute monarch of a docile but wealthy country. I wondered how you applied for that and what master’s program prepared you.

  I poured coffee and took deep breaths, readying myself for Havermeyer’s gobbledygook. Would he, when he reached the you’re-fired part, say it clearly? If not, if he hid the news in a thicket of jargon, I’d pretend I didn’t understand. Only fair, because for a long time I’d been pretending I did understand.

  The phone rang. “Signin’ in,” Mackenzie said. “You din’ expect me last night, did you?”

  The note I’d left was still on the oak table. “Of course not,” I said as I ripped it up. “I knew where you were—well, not where, but why. And by the way, where are you? In the case, that is.”

  “Like I’d tell you of all people.” He was drawling and slurring and being charming. The sleepy smile in his voice made me melt on a cellular level, but I wasn’t going to cave in to this. He’d turned it on for me. I knew he used his roots—pulled sounds out of the primeval mush and covered his messages with them—to con Yankees, make them underrate him.

  But now it was obvious that the troops to be conquered and conned included me, and the knowledge rankled.

  Rankling grew old fast. I reconsidered. Charming and conning included me when he thought I was involved in a case and might impede his work. But I wasn’t going to let him know I understood. “Why not?” I asked briskly. “Afraid I’ll spill my guts to my gang? E-mail my chapter of Murder, Incorporated?”

  “Can’t fool you,” he said. “Not for one single minute, so here goes. No apparent motive. Nobody saw a thing. The kid’s still missin’, though his parents say he checked in, then left again. They say he’s not runnin’ from the law, and they’re not hidin’ him. I take it to mean they’ve either abandoned him to his own devices or they’re lyin’.”

  “Isn’t on the lam the scientific term for what he is?”

  “Oh, but you’re good at this. An’ you? Enjoy a quiet night with the cat?”

  “Mmmrph. Sorry—my coffee’s too hot!” I said. I hate lying to him, but I don’t mind evading the truth.

  “Hope you realize your suspicions were prob’ly accurate. That boy of yours—”

  “What I hope is that my stupid outburst didn’t push you so hard in that direction that you aren’t looking anywhere else.”

  “Meanin’?”

  “She was Beth’s friend—the one with the housewarming party Sunday. The one Beth wanted me to get into my book group, except my group was full and—” I don’t know how somebody can convey exasperation over the phone without making a sound, not even a detectable heavy breath, but Mackenzie did. “Beth’s friend,” I repeated lamely. “So I know stuff now. Like she was going through a really mean divorce—child custody fight and all. She had an affair, and that became his leverage. And her sister—” I stopped myself. How was I going to say that Emily Buttonwood’s sister had been in the library just before Emily was strangled, without having ever—legitimately—met or seen said sister? Did I want to risk Mackenzie’s wrath or at least extreme disapproval by mentioning Beth and my expedition to the dead woman’s condo?

  “What about her sister?”

  “She, uh—” What to say about this woman I theoretically didn’t know about? “She, ah, they didn’t get along.”

  He was silent for a long moment, either despairing of my mind or x-raying what I’d said in search of a modicum of meaning. “Lots of sisters don’ get along,” he finally said. “You mean more than that?”

  My turn to be silent. What else was there to say? We were so out of sync, we could have lived in different states. I felt in danger—of what, I didn’t want to think—and the silence intensified it. I wanted to shout into the phone, to say: Come home now! Let’s stop this sparring, get a routine, commit to it, to us, to anything. Let’s make being together one of the things I’m doing the rest of my life.

  I wanted bedrock. I wanted him, but not this circling existence. I didn’t want him forever elsewhere and otherwise preoccupied when I was most confused and his being elsewhere only added to my confusion.

  “Gotta run,” I said. I didn’t want to say stupid things like that when so much more was on my mind. “I’m about to be fired for my little session with the Evanses”—not that he’d understand what I was saying. We still hadn’t had time to discuss it. And would he listen, anyway? “Don’t want to be late for that, do I?”

  “Don’ let them fire you unless you’re tired of that job anyway,” he said. “Not even then. Exit on your own terms. Whenever you want. You acted from conscience, tried to protect a kid, be a Good Samaritan. That’s noways wrong. Stick up for yourself. Hire a lawyer if you have to. You’re in the right.”

  He’d been listening. He’d heard things I hadn’t even said. He’d thought about it. He understood. He was speaking directly. He was helping me be who I wanted to be.

  I hate it when that happens. Hate it when I decide I don’t need him because of his failings and he proves me a liar and does the right thing.

  * * *

  There was no escaping Havermeyer. The note was in my mailbox. Helga the Office Witch watched with malicious satisfaction as I retrieved and read it. In fact, she made sure I was aware of her watching me. She didn’t like a single faculty member: We wanted too much, like paper, markers, the copy machine, roll sheets, and sticky tape, and we interrupted her day with questions. In short, we necessitated her actually doing her job. So why was that woman gloating? Did she think she’d like my replacement any more than she liked me? Miss Pepper, it said on a sheet ripped from a pad headed by FROM THE DESK OF MAURICE HAVERMEYER, PH.D., I would like the opportunity of discussing certain urgent matters with you at your earliest convenience, such as before classes begin. The office aide can cover your homeroom and roll-taking.

  Extremely ominous. Although the note could be cut and tightened (e.g., Miss Pepper, I’m pissed, you’re fired, goodbye), it was, for Maurice Havermeyer, the essence of brevity and directness, which suggested a seriously perturbed headmaster.

  And he was. “Anyone with your seniority at this position and comprehension of the unique requirements of this institution surely fathoms that establishments such as this, not underwritten by government
or long-standing trusts, at the mercy of mercurial marketplaces and fluctuating economics, must have the support and confidence of its patrons.”

  Translation: You know this school needs money. Why are you such a jerk as to queer it with a big donor?

  “And the irony at this particular juncture, when the school is enjoying a surge in individual and collective achievement and our student body is getting its just due, the recognition of academic progress as shown by increasingly prestigious college acceptances. Our image has been considerably enhanced of late, and our endowment fund’s prospects have never been brighter.”

  Was he happy or upset? Yes, more of our seniors had been accepted to good colleges. The staff, myself included, took that as a sign of lowered admission standards, but still and all, it would warm any headmaster’s heart. And bring in the bucks, as he’d said. Happy news. Sure, therefore, to be followed by a mighty powerful however. The muscles in the small of my back spasmed in anticipation.

  He hadn’t asked me to sit down. I bet he’d asked Mr. and Mrs. Evans to sit down. Sure, the school needed their money, but it needed teachers, too. And the students needed teachers who cared about their problems. So there. I sat down without being so invited. I had a long day ahead—unless he was going to march me off and shoot me immediately.

  “Hmmm,” he said when I seated myself. “Indeed. And so…” He contemplated me for a long moment, then sighed and sat down himself behind his oversized burl desk. “We are presented with something of a conundrum.”

  I said nothing. It made Havermeyer nervous as hell to have his flow of words greeted with silence.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Evans, as you undoubtedly know, have been exemplary in their support of this institution, and now they are understandably distraught in the light of your hasty assumptions and your unfortunate decision to use corporal punishment—”

  “I never—”

  “Ah, but I believe they have proof that—”

  “They can’t. He was—”

  Havermeyer ground on. “While a perusal of his records does indicate Adam’s increasing nonconformity and a lamentable recent pattern of noncompliance with official school requirements, given the realities of understandable parental concern and the seriousness of the suggested deviations from the norm and psychomedical impairments you have raised, I must assume your actions were less than fully considered. These were rash accusations—”

  “Not accusations. I thought—I still think—Adam needs attention. I think he may be in danger. I’m a teacher.” It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to shame him into a thought about social responsibility. “It’s a teacher’s role to help a child in danger.” Refute that one. I dare you.

  Havermeyer blinked.

  “I could never forgive myself if I thought something was wrong and I said nothing, and then the child—something happened to the child.”

  “Well, of course, yes, one shares your sentiments, although surely the parents are the first line of defense, the people most familiar with their own child’s—”

  “In my professional judgment, not in this case.”

  He fish-mouthed, glubbing dry air, sucking more words out of the atmosphere.

  “In my opinion,” I continued, “the Evanses’ serious denial is putting their son in danger.” I had never before enjoyed “talking” with Havermeyer, but things were different when the pillow of possibility was there to cushion the fall. Go ahead. Fire me. See if I care. I’ll become something else—I have other options.

  “Miss Pepper.” I could tell he was leaving behind the issue of whether Adam was mentally ill or needed testing. Could see him puffing out of that station into the wilds where my real sins lay. “Mr. and Mrs. Evans are eager to involve the media in this dilemma. They feel you are relentlessly pursuing their child, abusing him both physically and emotionally and destroying his future. It is possible they are motivated by psychological stress, a sense of guilt, since they are going through a difficult time themselves, but nonetheless, they perceive themselves as Good Samaritans who must alert the community to your offenses and, alas, to what they see as a failure on my part to adequately monitor and supervise my staff. This is most awkward.”

  Entirely too many Samaritans in town, and were we all misguided? “But—”

  He put a beefy hand up. “We conferred at length and I was able to delay any such public exposure, although not indefinitely. I trust you comprehend how devastating such negative publicity could be to our entire endeavor. We are still in the enrollment process for the coming year, not to mention the possibility of current enrollees withdrawing. And with graduation approaching, the traditional time of special giving, I wish this moratorium on media involvement to continue. Although, of course, immediately after the agreement with the Evans parents, given yesterday’s events, that has already not been the case.”

  “But—”

  The hand again. “You’ve had an unconventional…well, let me say this. I’m not casting stones or blaming you necessarily, but I haven’t otherwise encountered a teacher who—I have never even heard of one in the professional annals. I would doubt that among all secondary-school instructors…”

  If only he were my student, we’d work on his communication skills. Of course, he’d fail, because Maurice Havermeyer, Ph.D., did not want to communicate clearly. If he did, his listeners might be able to see how pathetic and petty his ideas were.

  “…my observations lead me to believe you apparently have a predilection for nonacademic adventures of a counterproductive and oftentimes hazardous nature. This trait is potentially incompatible with, I believe you’ll agree, and has a deleterious effect upon one’s pedagogical duties.”

  I wasn’t sure what his precise grievance was, but none of this sounded good for me. Did he mean that I got into too much trouble, created too much trouble, or what?

  “Repeated instances cannot help but lead me to the opinion that you have a tendency to find yourself involved with law enforcement officials more often than—”

  Than what? Than salamanders? Than normal people? Than he would prefer? I didn’t feel like letting him think I understood him, and I didn’t feel like letting him complete the sentence. “You’re right,” I said. “I am involved with a law enforcement official. I have been for several years now. Are you saying he is interfering with my teaching?”

  “I never… I didn’t… I’m afraid you’re misinterpreting…” Once again I saw his engines rev up and leave another unsatisfactory stop en route. “Miss Pepper, yesterday your professional inattention allowed a child in your care to wander off. This is a serious problem fraught with both educational and legal ramifications, and although he was unharmed and reached home intact, we are gravely concerned, and of course the media—despite my earnest and previously successful attempts to prevent their presence here—the media has seized upon this.”

  I’d had it, whatever it might be. “Dr. Havermeyer, unless Adam is seriously disturbed and in need of special attention, as I suggested, and in which case he should not be mainstreamed in the manner he was, he should instead be under a doctor’s care, and his parents’ refusal to look at the situation should not be tolerated—” I not only was copying his verbosity and lack of breaks for breath, but as he started to interrupt, I put my hand up to prevent it, Havermeyer-style.

  But the anger was all mine. “Unless you agree with me that he needs attention and probably medications to help him function more normally, then let’s be honest. Adam is a seventeen-year-old city boy who gets himself around on his own all the time. He left the library before he was supposed to. That is all. And that is hardly a child who wanders away. We have a problem here—but with Adam Evans. Not with me.”

  I’m not sure anybody has ever spoken that directly or assertively to Maurice Havermeyer. Certainly not anybody who kept his job. But it felt great. Cleansing. I’d use the word empowering if it didn’t embarrass me. I was tempted to plow on, keep the advantage and ask him questions that had been troubling me
for years. Precisely what field was his Ph.D. in? How the hell had he earned it? Could I see his dissertation? I envisioned it as roughly the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, with about a paragraph’s worth of meaning buried alive in it.

  “The police are already here,” Havermeyer said abruptly. “Extremely disruptive of classrooms and routine, although of course there is a civic duty to cooperate in such situations, still—” He looked at me accusingly. This was my fault, too. The cops were here, and I was to blame because I was a cop magnet.

  “Today?” I answered stupidly. “This morning? Already?”

  He nodded. “In search of Adam.”

  “Who is not here, I take it. Is he home? Do Mr. and Mrs. Evans know where he is?”

  “May I remind you we are educators and we are not supposed to be privy to police business, despite your own predilection for such matters? I believe, in fact, that in this particular instance, the circumstance that directed official attention to our school is that Adam’s name was cried out in such a public and incriminating manner as to throw him under the shadow of suspicion, to implicate him in the regrettable events in the library yesterday. Furthermore, I have been led to believe, until otherwise contraindicated, that you were said person who did the crying out, Miss Pepper.”

  “I couldn’t find him. I was trying to find him.” I didn’t think that was the whole truth, but it would have to do.