I rushed through the coma-inducing background details. The perp, a sophomore named Lisa Cummings, lived on campus in Halsey House. McCoy’s narrative was composed in a highly personalized shorthand. Though his writing was choppy and clean like his speech (McCoy wouldn’t know an adjective if one jumped up and bit him on the nose), it featured definite upgrades in grammar and diction. And as was the case face-to-face (N.B. that Côte de Nuits burgundy), his tough-guy routine didn’t quite play out in print. He hit several tongue-in-cheek notes which would have gotten him fired on the spot at the AG’s:
SEPTEMBER 20, 2:45 P.M. Met with student, Lisa Cummings, in my office in room B347 at Langley Hall. She shredded a tissue and asked me to hurry because she was late for a meeting. I read her the statement of Bob Miller, cafeteria manager. When I was done, she denied stealing and claimed Bob Miller had been mistaken. She asked what proof we had other than Miller’s word. I enumerated eyewitness reports from food-service employees. She appeared to begin crying, though I saw no actual tears. She continued to deny the thefts. Ms. Cummings alleged that Miller “has a thing” for her and that her rejections might be causing him to retaliate with these lies and accusations. Ms. Cummings kept staring at her watch and fidgeting. She told me to stop looking at her “that way” so I begged her pardon and asked her to excuse my squinting as it was a habit and I was also having a migraine. She suggested I was torturing her and then inquired as to my age. I suggested that she make an appointment with Assistant Dean Becker. Ms. Cummings refused and then asked to be excused. I excused Ms. Cummings at 3:15 p.m.
Rita, returning from lunch, popped her head in my office.
“My first case,” I told her, sighing and indicating the paperwork strewn over my desk like mismatched puzzle pieces. “Double murder-suicide with rat poison.”
“Ooh la la, Miss Melone. Don’t joke like that after Miss Hastings, yes? Seriously though, you have looked up the Cummings girl’s rap sheet and mug shot?” she said.
“Rap sheet? Mug shot? Now you’re joking.”
“You haven’t heard of them before? No? The police use rap sheets—”
“Rita, why do our students have rap sheets?”
“Pardon, mademoiselle. I call them that. They are just general background information, plus curricula vitae on first-degree relatives, and, for the students who are so-called legacies, any important information about their alumni relatives, whether they are on our annual donor list, etc., etc. Nothing really personal there. Savez-vous?”
Rita’s glinting, wide-open eyes made me suspect there were super-private student files the college kept in parallel to the routine records. The use of dual folders, a practice not unknown in the private sector and in covert branches of government, would possess obvious utility for a fancy uptight institution like Holton. Rita now took several minutes showing me how to access the school’s local area network and pinpoint each kid’s administrative and academic file on my office Mac.
“And where can I find the cafeteria manager?” I asked her.
“His office is behind the cafeteria kitchen. But, mein liebchen, he is neither here nor there! I think Mike McCoy is the one who will have the eyes for you.”
“I get the feeling Mike McCoy’s eyes are all over the place. Maybe they should stay on his wife.”
“Wife? No, no. Mike isn’t married. But you are right, Miss Melone. If he didn’t have wandering eyes perhaps he wouldn’t be divorced.”
“That’s weird. Divorced men rarely joke about being married.”
Rita threw her hands up and shook her head. “That man has more mysteries than the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Maybe he is playing games with you. Sometimes men tell women they are married and it makes them more attractive. No?”
“In Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies only, Rita.”
I clicked on the link entitled “Lisa Cummings–Halsey House–2008.” The “rap sheet” data was comprised of SAT scores, a picture and fingerprint of each student, and alumni information. The cafeteria bandit, Lisa Reed Cummings, turned out to be a flaxen-haired, well-heeled girl from New York. Almost a beauty and no dummy academically, at least until recently. Nothing suggested this young girl was short on either cash or a proper, well-scented, pillows-fluffed upbringing.
“Thanks, Rita. I think I can take it from here.”
“Oui, mademoiselle, I won’t be far.”
Rita twirled into her exit and I began reading.
Lisa Cummings, Halsey House, 2008 (no partner listed)
929 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10028
PARENTS/GUARDIAN:
Margaret B. Cummings, mother (father deceased)
FAMILY ALUMNI/AE:
Charles Cummings, Halsey House, 1958
(father—deceased)
Chester Cummings, Halsey House, 2004 (brother)
Kent Cummings, Halsey House, 1932
(grandfather—deceased)
James Cummings, Halsey House, 1954 (uncle)
HIGH SCHOOL:
Chapin School for Girls, 2004
No infractions came up on her administrative sheet. Academically, her GPA had fallen from a 3.5 to a 2.7 as of the previous spring semester. Lisa Cummings was a C-plus student with an A-list background. Rita had told me that most personal information was stripped out of the network versions of the student files (sensibly so, since modern colleges were lousy with brainy young techies fluent in hacking abilities). I sent Ms. Cummings an e-mail requesting a meeting at ten the next morning. She was stealing like a third-world refugee, which seemed nonsensical. I had to sit back a moment and wonder: Was this perhaps some kind of rigged test case? Was Carlyle going to pop up out of a Trojan horse?
I took the opportunity to do some online snooping, and scrolled through and past the C’s, until I got to the H’s, where Melinda Hastings’s name should have been. It apparently had already been deleted from the student roster. I checked every available Holton database for any mention of her, or anything else of murder-related relevance, until, at about half past three, I heard the familiar sound of a police scanner/walkie-talkie in the hallway and my girlish heart quickened. I walked to the wall mirror in my office—next to the door—and pretended to be brushing my hair. Mike McCoy was speaking with Rita at her desk. I struggled to make out their words but then McCoy’s scanner got louder and I hustled breathlessly back to my chair, composing myself for a knock that never came. McCoy and his walkie-talkie faded away down the hall.
I leaned back in my chair wistfully. Or maybe I was getting bored. Boredom was not something I was familiar or comfortable with, so I got on the wire to the AG’s office to see if the girls would meet me after work for a quick dinner. I was missing them already and eating alone seemed distinctly depressing.
It was Laurie who grabbed the phone. “Forget it. Too busy. And Shannon’s on trial. You could try Beth, but the poor girl’s fingers are bleeding from all the trial motions we’ve got her doing. I hate giving her typing to do. We’ve got to work on the law school route for her.”
“Yeah, know what you mean. But, Laur, I’ve got trouble to a much greater degree than a JD right now.”
“We’re multitasking over here, Mari. Stay calm. They got that cool gym over there. It’s one of your perks, so you should check it out. Pig claims it never should have passed zoning.”
“When in hell did Piganno tell you this?”
“Today. We bombarded his office this morning to try to talk some sense into him but he just started lashing out at us. He’s been tearing into everyone’s hide all day. I actually think he misses you. The man’s going to have a heart attack he’s so steamed. And Shannon keeps shoveling coal into his fire, so the Pig should be dead and on a spit by Easter and then we’ll get the new AG to hire you back.”
“Cut him a break, Laurie.”
“What’s this I hear? Spare the Pig? The same guy who keeps telling us to keep an eye on you?”
“You’re freaking me out. He wants you to spy on me?”
; “Fuck if I know what’s in his mucked-up brain. I just smile at him and bob my head. Shannon, on the other hand, has been towering over him and ranting in gutter slang. I don’t think even she knows what she’s saying half the time.”
“Any new threats from Jeff?”
“Quiet as the mouse that he is. The cops haven’t come up with much new on Hastings either. So far, we’re still clean. Well, except for you . . .”
“I’ll call you if I get any scoops re Hastings from this end.”
“Hey, wait, what about the drug in her? GHB. No tie-in with that to Holton? Check it out campus-wise.”
“Laurie, Vince isn’t going to get a warrant to comb the entire campus based on GHB use. It’s as easy to come by as hootch. Lots of oversexed bad little boys use that drug.”
“Go take a cold shower. See you soon.”
With little else to do on my first day of this cushy job, I closed up shop early and headed for the famed Holton gymnasium to pedal and sweat the demons away. As I walked toward the monstrously ugly orange steel building, I pondered to its gnawing depths the question of whether Vince Piganno would ever be ready for the call in which I would offer up my firstborn to him for a chance to come home. Every now and then, when I was growing up, my father, apropos of really nothing, would screw up his face and tilt his head at me and say, “Marianna, watch out for the Sicilians. They’re known for their grudges.”
On to the treadmill.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bathing Suits Required
THE GYM WAS A fat ugly duck of a building, squatting amid a flock of elegant brick Georgians whose owners, God bless them, had objected strongly and loudly to the groundbreaking. The interior was another story. This high-tech gymnasium was fairy-tale lavish. White marble and Roman columns were visible through fifteen-foot glass front doors. Beams of midday sunlight cascading from the domed glass ceiling turned the highly polished marble floor a brilliant, dazzling white. Over at the dreamy equipment counter, hundreds and hundreds of fluffy white towels were stacked in flawless columns against the wall, a sort of white-cloud backdrop for the most amazing array of exercise accoutrements and athletic footwear I had ever seen.
“May I see your ID, please?”
About a foot above the Carrera marble counter perched a shiny pair of hard white breasts covered just barely to the nipple in a tight, white cotton muscle shirt. A human being was also attached. What she really looked like was some six-foot super-specimen of a genetically engineered species from a gorgeous planet in a victorious galaxy far, far away.
“Hello, Miss Melone,” she read from my ID. “I’m Denise. Your first time here?”
Her voice—straight out of one of those Japanese bishoujo games my sister and her friends liked to play—was as beautiful as it was artificial. Her oversized white teeth peeked out from behind contoured Bobbi-Browned lips.
I nodded, ashamed to go up against the high-tenored silkiness of her voice. My voice was deeper, rough around the edges, a type of street jive learned after so many years of communicating with derelicts and criminal defense attorneys. My words sliced like a machete through thick vegetation, while Denise’s trailed sentences like wisps of smoke.
She pushed a towel and locker key across the counter toward me.
“The entrance to the gym is through the women’s locker room right over there. Have a nice workout. If you need anything, let me know.”
Soft, thirsty, dove gray carpeting—probably replaced every six months—and immaculate white walls greeted me on the far side of the door. Every mirror was equipped with its own box of tissues, chrome receptacle, and hair dryer. On the counters were sleek trays filled with individual bottles of shampoo, soap, and tampons. Most of the mirrored stations were occupied by slender young bodies attired in either skimpy bikini underwear or thongs. Some of the girls were naked. They were all chatting over the hum of hair dryers, breasts bouncing freely as they alternately lifted and lowered their arms to fluff up hair or flip a brush.
These girls had probably been weaned on grilled chicken, asparagus, and dry white wine. Under a microscope their DNA was linear and sleek like a high-speed Acela train gliding through life on a cushion of air. And then there were . . . well, my genes . . . curved and sultry, meandering down a circuitous road that would take me only as far as age forty-five before they conked out and insisted I cut back on carbs before they’d take me home again.
Thinking such psychotic little thoughts, I found a locker and opened my trusty duffel bag—the one I stored in the trunk of my Jeep in the off chance I was suddenly inspired to exercise. I donned my musty sneakers, gym shorts, and an old T-shirt of my dad’s and had almost made it to the exercise room when a Jacuzzi the size of a Boca Raton swimming pool slowed me down. None of the six naked women in it was talking. Nipples of varying shades and in some cases alarming sizes looked to be afloat right at the surface of the rippling water. The attached women relaxed with their heads thrown back against the tiles. Directly above was a large sign that read BATHING SUITS REQUIRED IN THE WHIRLPOOL.
I jaunted up the stairs.
The weight room itself was sterile, white, and unadorned, crammed with Nautiluses, treadmills, Stairmasters, and stationary bikes. A station of free weights against the far wall, its dumbbells and barbells neatly stacked, looked like a torture contraption. All the bodies in the room were lean and tightly spandexed, with the exception of—
McCoy’s.
In the corner lifting weights, he was shirtless, tattooed, and thickly muscled. Rivers of sweat coursed down dense dark chest hair. There was no reason for me to look away. He was in an exercise-induced spell.
I mounted a bike and began to pedal. Within seconds a voice snuck up behind me.
“I’ve never seen you in the gym before. You must be a first-year.”
I glanced back at two young men, both about twenty, and then faced forward again and continued pedaling as I answered. “I’m not a student.”
“You work here?” The one who’d spoken to me had walked up to the side of the bike close enough that I could hear his breathing, still rapid from exercise or swimming. His wet, blond hair was slicked back.
“They shouldn’t hire babes. I mean how are we supposed to defer to authority when the authority looks like you?”
“Why don’t you two boys go take a cold shower?”
He laughed.
“Come on, Cory,” his friend said.
Piqued by my rudeness, Blondie wasn’t going away easily. “What office do you work in? Maybe you could type papers for me after hours.”
In front of my bike now, he placed his hands on the bars, his face inches from mine. I blanched inwardly at his naked sexual aggression. As if my pedaling were driving me closer to him, I stopped and sat up, racking my brain for some pithy feminist ammunition to spit into that smooth little mug of his, when Mike McCoy appeared, as if he’d rappelled in by helicopter.
“Hey, Cory. I see you’ve met Miss Melone, the new Assistant Dean of Student Ethics.”
McCoy and the brat exchanged gorilla stares. McCoy wouldn’t budge an inch. After no more than a second’s hesitation Cory leaned toward McCoy and they shook hands. Smart boy.
“Mike. Thanks for saving the day. I was on the verge of becoming this woman’s slave for life. Or making her mine. But—Student Ethics—that would look untoward, wouldn’t it? Like a prisoner currying favor with the warden.”
“There you go, Cory.” Mike turned to me. “Young Sherman here is the president of the Reese House membership, Marianna,” he said.
“How wonderful.”
Sherman thrust his cold hand at me, taking hold of mine in a firm grasp. I read the words that were embroidered in a small crest on his T-shirt: Reese House, 2008. Holton.
“We’ve met before,” he said to me. “That Danish film at the Avon Cinema. You were in front of me in line. I never forget the rear view of a beautiful woman. Are you a dancer?”
“You really should practice your pickup lines.
”
“Pickup? That’s presumptuous of you, ma’am. I was merely complimenting you.”
I got down off the bike, grabbing the towel I’d slung over its handlebars. “I’ve had enough of you, buddy.” My voice had gone uncontrollably low and raspy. “I am the Assistant Dean of—”
McCoy stepped in front of me. “All right, kids. Enough fun. No rumbles in the gym.”
Sherman lowered his head in a respectful bow. “You’re overly sensitive, Ms. Melone.”
“Let’s go, Cory,” said his friend, who had the bright gray eyes of a wolf pup. The friend’s tone was plaintive, not demanding. He held his hand out to me, tentatively and solicitously. “I’m Rod Lipton.”
I shook his clammy hand reluctantly. He smiled at me, but the grin lasted an agonizing moment too long. Lipton was taller, lankier than his friend. He was obviously used to playing the peacemaker, the good cop to Sherman’s bad, the one who took the punches so Cory could walk away with no bruises and a preserved ego. Everyone should have a friend like Lipton, I thought.
“You’re spunky for a California girl.” Cory still wasn’t going to lay off.
Lipton let go of my hand. “No, no,” Lipton interrupted, “she’s from around here. Come on, Cory, let’s go.”
I looked at Lipton. “How do you know where I’m from?”
“I heard it somewhere. It’s a small school. You’re from the AG’s office, right?”
Sherman jumped back in. “AG, huh? Are you here because of Melinda? A bit of bad luck for the old girl, I’d say.”
“Bad luck is when you slip in a pothole,” I said, muzzling the fouler retorts stomping through my brain. This wasn’t the AG’s office, where a “fuck you” would have been more than enough response to bullshit.
“No,” he had the audacity to answer back, “that’s just stupidity for not looking where you’re going. But maybe you’re right, Melinda was a clumsy kind of girl now that I think of it.”
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