by Jade Astor
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about on that score. From what I understand, they released him without charges. There isn’t any evidence for him to hide.”
“Nothing the cops know about, anyway. Or does that mean they don’t think he did it after all?”
“It’s more complex than that. From what I’ve been able to piece together, I mean. I don’t really have many details.”
“Do you think he did it?”
Darian started to reply, or more accurately refuse to reply, but just then Everett strode in. He didn’t bother with a greeting. Instead, he swept past them and deposited his briefcase on the old sofa in the corner.
“I’m sure I don’t have to ask you what you’re talking about. It’s not as though there’s any other topic of conversation this morning.”
“The students were definitely squirmy,” Darian said. “I’ve never seen them quite that distracted.”
“Is it any wonder? One of their friends murdered, and the fuzz dragging off one of their teachers right in front of everyone? Frankly, Jeanette’s lucky the parents haven’t all pulled their sons out of here. This place could be out of business in six months if she doesn’t get a handle on things fast.”
“I hope not,” Patricia said, lines appearing on her forehead. “I doubt Jake and I could survive on what the restaurant brings in.”
“Don’t worry.” Darian regretted his own lack of conviction. “Birchwood has been around a long time. I’m sure it’s weathered scandal before.”
“Like poor Roderick, you mean.” Everett dropped onto the sofa beside his briefcase. “Doubtful the brass will quash this one as easily. The police, not to mention the local reporters, were willing to back off in those days. It’s a whole new world with the internet out there. There’s probably at least one web page detailing the whole sordid mess already.”
Patricia looked interested. “You think so? I’ll have to do some surfing when I get home. Need to be careful what we do on school computers, you know. Jeanette probably has a feed in her office that tells her what we’re looking at every moment.”
Everett motioned for both of them to come closer. They did.
“Aaron called me last night,” he confided, smiling when Patricia gasped. “Don’t ask me what he wanted, because I was busy at the time and the phone went to voice mail. I didn’t hear it until it was far too late to call him back. Poor fellow must have been exhausted after his ordeal. You’re right, though. Don’t want to call from here where I might be overheard. I’ll swing by his condo after school. We’ll hear what he has to say for himself then.”
“I hope the police didn’t ransack it while he was in the jug,” Patricia said. “That would have been a sight to come home to, for sure.”
“I doubt they got a search warrant that fast,” Darian told them. “They released him without charges after only a few hours. They’ll have to release his car, too, though they probably searched that when they towed it.”
“Good grief, how inconvenient.” Everett moaned. “I’d hate to think of a bunch of patrolmen pawing through my trunk and glove compartment. Not that there’s anything controversial for them to find, of course. It’s just the principle of the thing. The loss of privacy. Plus I might have a few personal effects in there I would prefer they didn’t disturb.”
“But it’s entirely justified if he really did kill a young man—your own student, in fact.” Patricia’s cheeks colored with emotion. “And I’m not so sure he isn’t guilty. The police don’t just arrest people for no reason at all. They’ve got something on him, you can be sure.”
“Why did they let him go, then?” Everett shot back.
“I admit I don’t have any answers.” Patricia glanced hopefully at Darian, who shrugged and declined to comment.
Just then the lounge phone rang. Since he was standing closest to it, Darian picked it up and heard Jeanette’s Ivy League voice on the other end.
“Darian, I’m glad I caught you before your next class. Can you come to my office? I need to speak with you at once.”
“Of course. Be right there.” He put down the phone to find Everett and Patricia gazing expectantly at him. He decided to leave them guessing. “Gotta go,” he said on his way out.
“Tomorrow,” Patricia mouthed as he stepped into the hall.
Jeanette’s administrative assistant wasn’t at the outer desk, so Jeanette herself appeared to usher Darian inside. He had an odd feeling as she gestured for him to take a seat and closed the heavy Victorian door behind them.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said as she settled herself opposite him and folded her hands on her spotless leather-edged blotter. Idly Darian wondered why people still used blotters in an age when ink was becoming obsolete. A full-sized mouse pad would have been more practical. “This has been hard enough on me, so I can only imagine what it must be like for you.”
“Uh…thanks. My pleasure.”
Jeanette gave him a pitying, almost maternal look. “Talking about it won’t be easy, but I’m sure you know there’s no way around that.”
“Right.”
“Of course, I’m sure I don’t have to reassure you that I consider myself, as well as this campus on the whole, tolerant and fair. Certainly what you do on your own time is entirely your aff—er, business. On the other hand, what happens on school grounds is, by definition, my concern. And when something is on the verge of becoming public knowledge, I would be remiss in my obligations if I did not step in to address my concerns.”
“I agree.” Darian nodded to hide his confusion. At first he’d thought she had somehow found out about him and Argo, but that hadn’t happened on school grounds. Unless she considered Darian’s cottage, which he had in fact rented through Birchwood channels, under her jurisdiction.
A delicate flush crept up Jeanette’s neck. “I’m willing to believe it was, at worst, a lapse in judgment on your part. I admit I have not known you long, but you have never struck me as someone who blurs the line between his personal and professional life.”
“I try not to.”
“However, I admit that can sometimes be difficult when one’s emotions run rampant.”
A light began to dawn. “Uh…I’m sorry, but could we be a little more specific?”
“Very well. I have received a rather shocking report that you and Mr. Macklin were spotted by the pond yesterday afternoon. And that your actions toward one another were…shall we say…overly familiar?”
“Ah.” So someone had witnessed Aaron’s little declaration. Or maybe the school had installed a surveillance camera given recent events. To judge from the students’ behavior that morning, Jeanette wasn’t the only one who had heard the lurid tale. “Well, I won’t deny it. I did run into Aaron there yesterday. We talked.”
“Would you be offended if I asked you a direct question?” The headmistress cleared her throat delicately. “Are you and Aaron Macklin…ah…seeing one another?”
“No. I promise you we’re not.” This time it was Darian’s turn to feel heat surging up from his collar. “I had no idea he was going to be at the pond when I wandered down there. And I never imagined he was going to…er…do what he did.”
“I suspected as much,” Jeanette said with apparent relief. “I do want you to know, Darian, that this has nothing to do with the fact that you are both male. If he had taken the same actions with a female staff member, I can assure you I would be talking to her in your place.”
“All this time, I never even knew…that is, we all thought he had a fiancée. It never occurred to me that he had these other feelings.”
“Unfortunately, I have come to believe that Aaron is a troubled young man. Frankly, nothing he would do, either on or off school grounds, surprises me too much anymore.”
“I’m beginning to think the same thing.”
“And the fact remains that he has now been implicated in a murder. One that possibly involved certain unsavory liaisons. That makes the matter much more serious than it might
otherwise be.”
“Are you going to suspend me like you did Aaron?”
“No. That would send the wrong message entirely. I wondered if you wanted to go home early today, though. It seems a fair compromise under the circumstances. It’s entirely up to you, however.”
A day at home, perhaps going over this new wrinkle in the case with Argo, held its appeal. Yet he decided against it. “If I did that, wouldn’t my absence only fuel the rumors?”
“I can see how it might, yes. So I take it you prefer to soldier on?”
“That’s probably too heroic a way of putting it. I plan to continue as though nothing happened. The truth is, I don’t feel I have anything to hide or be ashamed of. Do you?”
“No, no, certainly not.” Jeanette averted her eyes only for a second. “As you say, this was mostly Aaron’s doing.”
“And the person who invaded our privacy decided to spread this information around. We can’t undo that, so in my opinion it’s best to move forward openly and honestly. If any students ask me what happened, I intend to answer them without shame or apology. I take it you wouldn’t have a problem with that?”
Jeanette appeared far from thrilled, but she didn’t argue the point. “No. I don’t see how I could.”
“As far as Timothy’s death goes, I’m not at all sure Aaron had anything to do with it. The case against him is almost totally circumstantial. From what I understand, the sheriff still can’t rule out suicide or accidental death.”
“Is that so.” Jeanette didn’t phrase her response as a question.
“That’s my understanding, yes. And as you’re well aware, sometimes it’s hard to tell exactly how a drowning victim got into the water. He might have slipped and become entangled in the reeds, for example. Or he might have walked in of his own accord.”
“You’re referring to Roderick Talbott’s death twenty years ago, of course.”
“I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed the similarities. You were on the faculty then, weren’t you?”
“How did you know that?”
“I saw a news article in the archives. And a couple of old yearbooks. You were in them.”
“Yes. I was a new hire then, just as you are now. I didn’t know Mr. Talbott well, since I didn’t teach in the English department. His death was a shock to everyone.”
“I’m sure.” Darian had the sense she would say more if he simply waited for her to go on. He was right.
“He made the mistake of walking along the edge of the pond early in the morning, when the banks were still slippery with dew. Lost his footing and went into the water. Because of the early hour, no one was around to hear his cries for help. Tragic, really.”
“What you’ve just told me is the official story. I’ve heard some other versions, though. You probably know about the alternate theory of his death.”
He saw Jeanette’s fingers tense against the blotter. She twisted them together, though her face didn’t betray the slightest twitch. “There were rumors at the time,” she said carefully. “I’m not surprised they still persist. It’s safe to say that Mr. Talbott was a troubled man. Whatever really happened to him, we can all agree on that much, at least.”
“I’ve heard those stories, too. Something about inappropriate relationships with students. Did you know about that at the time?”
“Nothing but gossip, and as you know, there is always plenty of that around Birchwood. There was apparently an untoward incident…right by the pond, as it happens, in the same spot where he later drowned. As did Timothy.”
“An incident involving a student,” Darian pressed.
“No,” Jeanette corrected him quickly. “Not a student. A young man who was…peripherally associated with the campus.”
Darian raised a brow. That changed the situation a little, or at least it would as far as the Birchwood authorities were concerned. A maintenance worker, maybe? Some kid from town, doing landscaping by the water? It sounded like something out of an E.M. Forster novel. The stodgy professor and the strapping young gamekeeper.
“So this young man came forward?” he asked. “Because I understood there had never been a formal complaint against Talbott.”
“There wasn’t. As it happened, another faculty member reported the matter. Rather than confront his accuser, Mr. Talbott took the drastic step of ending his own life.” Jeanette seemed to catch herself, her tone becoming more guarded. “At least, that was what I heard at the time. The headmaster, Mr. Fisher, dealt with it.”
Much like someone reported Aaron and him, Darian thought sourly. Apparently there had never been a shortage of informants on campus. “So Mr. Fisher made sure the death was classified as an accident, and not a suicide. Everett told me Talbott left a note, though.”
“He did. The police took it during their investigation. Fortunately, the content was ambiguous enough that we could explain it away as a draft for his retirement speech. Calling it an accident was much better for everyone, including Mr. Talbott’s family.”
“He had a family?” Darian straightened up in surprise. “I hadn’t realized that.”
“Not the sort of family you’re imagining. There was a niece and her two children. We thought it best not to upset them and deprive them of any insurance money they might have been entitled to. They lived some distance from here. In reduced circumstances.”
“I see.” Darian stopped himself from smirking at the quaint Victorian terminology.
“Yes. Father not in the picture. An unfortunate situation for them. For everyone, actually.”
She fell silent, and Darian took that as his cue to leave. He stood. “Thanks again for understanding. I’d better get ready for my next class.”
He caught a look in her eye that told him her support was conditional. For now, she seemed willing to believe Darian was Aaron’s victim, and possibly not the first one. If that changed, he suspected, her attitude toward him might very well change as well.
The rest of the day proved uneventful. Darian kept to himself outside of class and assumed a distant, authoritative persona at the podium. Aside from the random smirk or giggle, the students seemed content to let the matter rest, at least in his presence. For once, their short attention spans worked in his favor.
That afternoon, he endured a few pitying looks from the colleagues he passed on the way to his car. He didn’t see Everett, and assumed he had already left to visit Aaron at his condo. Darian planned to call both of them as soon as he got home, right after he talked to Argo. Pleasant memories of the night before were already papering over the stressful school day. He looked forward to creating some more.
When he got home, he changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and surveyed the contents of his fridge with disappointment. Maybe Argo would like to grab dinner in town.
He was about to dial his phone when it trilled.
“Darian, thank goodness you picked up,” a familiar voice panted.
Instant dread washed over him.
“Everett? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“You’ve got to come to Aaron’s right now.” Everett sounded as though he’d run all the way from Birchwood to the condo. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can find it. What’s going on?”
“I got here and found the door standing open. I’ve already called Argo.”
“Everett, slow down. Argo’s coming over?”
“Isn’t that what I just said? He’s on his way, and that’s why I want you here.” Everett let out a wail. “He’s going to suspect me! I just know it!”
“Suspect you of what? Wait. You mean someone broke into Aaron’s place?”
“You could put it that way.” Everett barked out a harsh laugh. “But it’s much, much worse than that. Whoever was here left poor Aaron dead.”
Chapter 13
“Guilt killed him, plain and simple.” Calmer now, Everett raised his foam coffee cup and waved it around. “Aaron killed Timothy and couldn’t live with himself. Makes perfect sense w
hen you consider it logically.” He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Darian. “Closeted types are prone to this kind of thing. Too much pressure. Destroys them from within.”
Quin, seated beside Darian, gazed down into his own coffee cup and sloshed around the dregs. “Whatever way you look at it, it’s a damn shame. Two lives lost, and for what? A sleazy hookup by the campus pond.”
“Oh, I think it was much more than that,” Everett said. “Secrets. Lies. Hidden, seething passions. Pretty much the stuff of opera, though not staged as aesthetically.”
“You always were too dramatic,” Quin grumbled.
The three of them were sitting in a small, shabby lounge at the police station, waiting for Argo to emerge from his office. Now and then, the uniformed woman at the front desk turned to eye them suspiciously. Yet the situation Everett had phoned in presented little ambiguity. Aaron Macklin, apparently distraught and hopeless after his release from jail, had taken a handful of sleeping pills and covered his head in plastic wrap. By the time Everett arrived at his condo, his breathing had stopped. His end had been quiet, solitary, and apparently painless.
After Darian and Everett had each given a separate statement, Argo had left them in the waiting area and gone to consult with his medical officials. Quin, whom Everett had summoned right after he’d called Darian, had soon appeared to offer his support. By now, the news was crackling through the Birchwood grapevine. Already Quin had excused himself three times and stepped into the hall to take calls from his fellow trustees and other interested parties. Now his phone started jingling a fourth time.
“Sorry,” he said, getting up again. “Last one, I promise. I’m turning it off after this one.” He headed back to the hall.
“If only I’d answered Aaron’s call last night,” Everett lamented when he and Darian were alone. “He was probably already planning the whole thing. Maybe I could have talked him out of it.”
“His death wasn’t your fault,” Darian comforted him, though privately he wondered if Everett might be right. “For all we know, he did it on the spur of the moment. And there’s no guarantee he would have confided in you.”
