“Huh. That’s not right. I expressly told him to keep out everyone but the two of you. I tried to send him back to Mr. Marks and install school security—but Mr. Marks insisted, and the board of trustees backed him. I’ll keep pushing.”
“Were you able to find out why the hut is there?” asked Frank, clearly frustrated.
“Or maybe something about the Brothers of Erebus?” I chimed in. “I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a connection between the two, but I don’t know what it is.”
Dr. Darity sighed. “No. That hut doesn’t even appear on the maps of the school grounds. And don’t even ask about the Brothers of Erebus or whatever they’re called. Everyone clammed up when I asked them, and according to all the records I have, they don’t exist.”
“Don’t worry Dr. Darity, we’ll figure it out.” Frank assured him.
“Do you think there’s any chance you can figure it out before the Annual Blair-Firth Soccer Championship and Benevolence Weekend?”
“The what?” That was a lot of words that just came out of Dr. Darity’s mouth, and I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I remembered—it was that thing everyone was talking about that was happening this weekend.
“The big game,” Frank translated for me. “The Hallie Blair School is the Firth Academy’s big rival.”
“That’s right,” said Dr. Darity. “And the entire Blair school will be coming here on Friday. There’ll be a formal dinner, a concert by some student band, and, of course, the big game itself on Saturday.”
“It’s Lee’s band that’s performing, right? Devoured by Bears?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Darity. “That’s them.”
“Maybe I’ll offer to do their sounding board,” I suggested. “I’ve got some experience and they might need some help with a big event like this. I overheard them talking about a rehearsal this afternoon. Maybe I’ll drop by.”
It didn’t hurt that Lee played drums, and I wanted to keep an eye on him. And the lead singer was a senior by the name of Millhouse Templeton—a.k.a. the obnoxious blond who had been so excited to watch the mannequin of Destiny burn.
“They rehearse in the music building, if that helps. Every night, five o’clock. It’s when I take my daily dose of aspirin.” Dr. Darity grimaced.
“Good idea,” said Frank. “I’m going to tackle the Firth archives in the library—there has to be some kind of clue about a secret society on campus somewhere.”
Frank was actually volunteering to do library time while I got to hang with the band. He really did love the boring stuff.
“Works for me,” I said.
“Thank you boys,” said Dr. Darity. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Frank and I left his office. Frank headed off to class. I headed off to take a nap. This mission was pretty sweet.
A few hours later, refreshed and bolstered by some coffee, I headed out to Alexandra Hall, the Firth Academy music building. It felt nice to be walking around without Killer—for once I didn’t have to stop at every interesting tree or bush. It made walking a lot faster.
Lee and Millhouse were already there when I showed up.
“Call me Mill,” Millhouse said with a smirk. I could tell right away that I didn’t like him, but I offered my help anyway, being sure to add that I knew my way around a sound system.
Millhouse’s expression made it clear that he’d be surprised if I knew how to operate a cell phone, let alone a sound system. “Are you sure? It might be a little more . . . sophisticated than what you’re used to.”
“Don’t mind him,” said Lee. “He’s just nervous around anyone who wasn’t born with a silver iPod in their mouth.”
Millhouse laughed.
“Very funny, scholarship boy.”
It was a genuine laugh. He might have been an elitist jerk, but at least he was conscious of it.
Just then, the other three members of the band walked in—Albert, Aloysius, and Alastair Alpert. Albert and Aloysius were juniors (and twins), and Alastair was their older brother. Apparently, they’d started the band as a trio, but had opened it up when Lee came to the school, after finding out that he had almost as big a vinyl collection as they did. Albert played keyboard, Aloysius was on bass, and Alastair was guitar. Mill did the vocals and Lee played drums.
After a few minutes of set up, in which I impressed Mill by fixing one of the microphones he’d broken during a recent performance, the band got down to business. After a few warm-up scales, they got going with “Apocalypse the Unicorn,” which Lee had told me was their “signature track.” They sounded pretty tight.
Or at least, they did for the first two minutes. Then the door to the practice space flew open and Destiny stormed in, a cup of something in her hand. Behind her came a student I’d seen around but didn’t know—brown hair, medium build, nondescript.
I could tell from the look on her face and the way her mouth was moving that Destiny was screaming, but it wasn’t until the music cut off that I could make out the words.
“. . . think it’s very funny don’t you? I hate you!”
She threw the cup at Mill, and steaming brown liquid ran all down his shirt and pants. Mill started screaming back at her, and I could barely make out a word they were saying. Destiny’s friend looked embarrassed. The rest of the band just looked bored.
“I wonder what it’s about this time,” Aloysius said to Albert. Or was it Alastair? They were hard to tell apart.
“Do they do this a lot?” I asked one of the three. He rolled his eyes and nodded his head.
“This! This is what I’m talking about.” Destiny pulled out a bunch of papers from her bag. Someone had written all over them in marker—crude drawings of Destiny on fire, with the words “Drop out of the game and drop out of the skool!!!!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mill responded. “You’re so crazy, you probably did that yourself. Just like last time.”
Just like last time? I wonder what he meant by that.
“Right. I’m crazy, that’s what it is. You couldn’t possibly just be angry that I dumped you!”
“You dumped me? That’s a joke. Everyone in school knows that I kicked you to the curb.”
Destiny shoved the papers back in her bag.
“Come on, Casey!” she said. She turned to leave, the other student following close behind her. Right as she got to the door, Mill hurled his microphone at her head. She ducked and it exploded against the wall. It seems Millhouse had quite the temper, and a grudge against Destiny.
After a few seconds of silence, Mill kicked a speaker and took off at a run. Alastair, Aloysius, and Albert all packed up their things and headed out quickly. Soon it was just Lee and me left in the space.
“So . . .” I said. “I guess practice is over?”
Lee laughed. “Seems that way.”
“What was all that about?”
“Oh—Destiny and Mill dated earlier in the year, and they’ve been at each other’s throats ever since.”
“Do they always fight like that?”
“That was actually pretty easy going, for them. After they broke up, Mill slashed Destiny’s tires, and Destiny broke into his dorm room and trashed all of his music.”
“And they weren’t arrested?”
“Destiny’s dad is the headmaster and Millhouse is loaded. The two of them could get away with anything.”
Lee started breaking down his drum kit and getting ready to leave. But there was one more thing I wanted to ask him about.
“Who was that other kid? Is he Destiny’s new boyfriend?”
“Casey? No, he’s another new student. I guess he and Destiny were friends at the Blair School or something.”
“It must be hard for him to be here—isn’t Blair, like, Firth’s big rival?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. He seemed pretty standoffish at the beginning of the year, but then he and Destiny became friends, and he’s been rooting for the Firth soccer team ever since. Which
is good, because we’re totally going to destroy them in the game this weekend.”
Lee smiled and packed up the last of his stuff. Soon I was alone in the room, with a lot to think about. Could Mill be Destiny’s stalker? He was certainly violent. And he had a good reason to go after Destiny.
SUSPECT PROFILE
Suspect: Millhouse “Mill” Templeton
Hometown: Cape Cod, Maine
Physical Description: 6’1”, 180 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, could be male model
Occupation: Senior at Firth; lead singer of Devoured by Bears
Suspected Of: Trying to threaten, harass, hurt, and possibly kill Destiny Darity
Possible Motives: Destiny and Mill had a bad breakup a few months back—maybe he’d decided that the best way to get over her was to get rid of her?
FRANK
8
No Screaming in the Library
Wow.” The Firth Library was like something out of a movie. It was ridiculous. It was an old stone building at the center of campus, four stories high, with a bell tower at the top. The main door was built like a castle gate: thick wooden planks wrapped in iron bars to keep them together. It was more than a little intimidating.
Inside, it was all dark wood and marble, with high arched ceilings and giant windows. The students sat at long rectangular tables with little lamps on them, or at smaller circular tables hidden in the nooks and crannies of the stacks. There were more books than I’d ever seen in a private library. You could easily fit two or three of the Bayport High School library in the same space. It was like paradise. Except for the abundance of laptops and MP3 players, you could barely tell you were in the twenty-first century.
It was also utterly silent. I could hear my footsteps, and the sounds of pages turning. It was almost creepy. I saw Patton Gage at one of the long tables, hunched over a calculus text book. His face was looking better every day. He waved hello, then went back to working.
I wasn’t sure where to get started. I could easily lose myself in here for days. I had to stay on mission. I decided the best bet was to go talk to one of the librarians. Hopefully they’d know where to find everything I needed. I wondered how they found their way around—did they have maps? That’s how huge this place was.
At the center of the library I found the reference desk, where an old man sat flipping through a card catalog. I was shocked to see that they still had a card catalog—they hadn’t gone digital. No wonder Dr. Darity had a hard time finding any information about the Brothers of Erebus. The man looked to be as old as the library itself, with a wrinkled up face, white hair, and a thick pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
“Hi!” I said.
The man looked up, obviously startled. He glared at me.
“Shhh!” he responded. Then he went back to flipping through the cards. I waited for a minute, but it quickly became clear that he considered our conversation over.
“I was wondering if you could help me,” I said in my best “good student” voice.
He peered at me through a thick set of glasses, and made a sound deep in his throat. “Hrmph!” Then he pointed to his left. There was a small sign on top of the counter. It read PLEASE SUBMIT ALL RESEARCH REQUESTS IN WRITING. THEY WILL BE ANSWERED IN THE ORDER THEY ARE RECEIVED. YOU ARE NUMBER: 7. The number was written on a small tear-away card, and beneath it were a few lines on which to write requests. There was a mason jar filled with golf pencils next to the sign.
I tore off the slip with the number 7 on it and began to fill in my request. I needed to check out as many histories of Firth Academy as they had—the older, the better. On a whim, I asked to see any old campus maps they might have as well. Maybe I could find out something interesting about that hut while I was at it.
Once I was done, I added my request to a pile of other slips. I watched as the old man pulled a number of cards from catalog. After a few minutes, a young student came to the desk bearing a tall pile of books. He put them down quietly on the counter. The old man stared at them for a second, then dinged a small bell. Another student came and took them away.
The old man gave the first student the cards he had pulled from the catalog, and off he went to fetch them. He must have been a student worker or volunteer. What a great job, I thought. Not as great as being in ATAC, but still cool. Then the old man pulled the next slip from the pile of requests. I could tell this was going to take a while.
After half an hour of waiting, I finally had a stack of heavy old books, the kind that were bound in leather and covered in dust. I’d bet they hadn’t been opened in decades. I made my way to the back of the library, on the first floor, to one of the more secluded areas. Although it was already quiet, I didn’t need any curious eyes wondering what I was researching.
I flipped through a biography entitled Willis Firth: The Man Who Became Rich on Rabbits. While it was a thrilling history of fur trapping in the nineteenth century, it didn’t quite have what I was looking for. The pictorial collection The Boys’ Schools of New England yielded little other than an interesting show of uniforms throughout the ages.
Willis Firth’s autobiography and a book on the alumni of Firth Academy’s early years also proved similarly useless. I checked the index of each for “Erebus” or “Brotherhood of Erebus,” but found nothing. I flipped through the texts, but nothing jumped out at me. This was beginning to seem like a useless exercise.
Then, in a book entitled An Early History of Firth Academy and Its Natural Environs, I found a series of survey maps taken of Firth Academy throughout its first one hundred years. In 1932, the campus was expanded to make room for new dormitories, including the Gamma Theta Theta house. In 1934, a small new building appeared on the map. It was labeled GAMMA THETA THETA HUNTING SHED AND TACK ROOM. Five years later, it disappeared from the maps, never to return.
Although I couldn’t be certain, I was fairly sure that was the same shed in which we found the blood! It was in the right place—and it was owned by GTT. Which meant it was probably connected to the Brothers of Erebus, somehow. Which would explain why Mr. Marks had put his bodyguard on it, and why the board of trustees was giving Dr. Darity the run around.
I was about to close the book, when I noticed a small note on the last map that had the shed on it. It marked the closing of a series of tunnels that had been planned to connect the various school buildings, allowing students “easy transit during the harsh New England winters.” Apparently students had been injured when one of the tunnels collapsed, and in the outcry that followed, all of the tunnels had been boarded up. I felt a tingling in my chest. I had a hunch. . . .
Sure enough, when I finally located a list of the buildings connected by the tunnels, the hunting shed was on it! As were the GTT house, the library, the upper-class dorm, the main student center, and a number of the other older buildings. I had a feeling I knew why Spencer had been in that shed for so long. Had he somehow used the underground tunnels to hide the evidence of starting the fire? Or was he doing something else GTT-related?
I suddenly realized that two other students were near me in the stacks. I could hear them quietly whispering to each other, but I hadn’t been paying any attention until I heard one of them say something about “the plan.” The other said something I couldn’t make out, but it ended with “bring the masks—and the torches.”
Plan? Masks? Torches? What were they talking about—and who were they? I stood up quietly and crept closer to the stacks.
“Yeah,” whispered one. “We’ll make sure this is the most memorable Benevolence Weekend ever.”
The other person laughed. “Right. At least for the Brothers of Erebus it will be.”
The Brothers of Erebus! I had to find out who these students were. I carefully began to push the books aside in the stacks, hoping I could peek through the cracks and see them. A smaller book must have been balanced on top of the books I was moving, though, because it fell to the ground. The thump sounded like a gunshot in the quiet of the library. The voices cut off s
uddenly, and I heard foot steps running off toward the very back of the stacks.
I raced around the side, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of the students, but all I saw was the door to the emergency stairs slamming behind them.
Darn! I ran toward the stairs, hoping I could catch up with them before they’d blended in with the rest of the students studying in the library. But as I grabbed the door handle, I heard screaming coming from behind me!
The screams were high-pitched and sharp. It sounded like someone in terrible pain. I hesitated for a moment, and then turned away from the stairs. I had to help whoever was screaming, and those two were probably long gone anyway.
I ran back to the entrance of the library. Destiny and Casey, a student from my history class, were at one of the private tables. Destiny was on her feet, screaming.
“My hands! My hands! They’re burning!”
Her hands were red and blistered, and she was waving them in a desperate attempt to cool them off. There was no sign of a fire, so it had to be some sort of chemical burn. Whatever it was, we had to get it off Destiny’s hands, and make sure no one else touched it.
“Casey!” I yelled. “Keep everyone away from Destiny’s stuff.” Casey stopped staring at Destiny and turned to me. He nodded, and moved to stand between their table and the students who had started to come running over. I grabbed Destiny by the shoulders.
“Listen to me!” I said. “You’ve got something on your hands. We have to get it off.”
I looked her in the eye. Tears were streaming down her face. She bit her lip, but she nodded.
Destiny followed me toward the bathroom, where I had her run her hands under cold water until the burning stopped. They still hurt, but they weren’t the throbbing, red mess they’d been a few minutes before.
“Did you touch anything strange? Are you allergic to anything?” Maybe, I thought, it’s just a coincidence.
“Those stupid threats! I’m going to kill Mill for this.”
“What threats?” So much for it being a coincidence.
Private Killer Page 5
