Ray Elkins mystery - 02 - Color Tour

by Aaron Stander

  “His driver’s license gives an Ann Arbor address. Do you know if he was in school?”

  “He was a doctoral student, social psychology, I think.”

  “When did you last see Ashleigh?”

  “Let me think about that.” He stroked his chin with a thin, bony hand. “I see her every day when school is in session. We all have lunch together, the faculty. People chat in the halls between classes, and they pop in to say hi and ask questions.”

  “Did you see Ashleigh yesterday, Saturday?”

  Warrington moved to and fro in his chair a few moments before he answered. “I don’t think so. We had a home soccer game, lots of things going on, parents and visitors on campus. I remember seeing her on Friday, at lunch. Ashleigh was very animated. On Thursday she’d taken her environmental biology class on a field trip to that swampy area near the mouth of Otter Creek. She had a funny story about one of the kids, a rather large girl, wandering away from the group and getting mired in the mud up to her waist. It took the rest of the class to pull her out.”

  “And David Dowd. When did you last see him?”

  “Can’t remember for sure. Probably some weeks ago. He occasionally visited her on weekends.”

  “Was this a serious relationship?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think it was exclusive, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Ray noted an edge to Warrington’s tone. “Exclusive?”

  “Ashleigh was a very attractive, engaging young woman. I don’t think she was interested in an exclusive relationship. She wasn’t ready to settle down.”

  “Can you identify any of her other male friends?”

  “By sight, possibly. I wasn’t always introduced. None of my business, really. Maybe others here can help you. I just know she dated several men.”

  “Living in this,” Ray hesitated as he reached for words, “this almost cloistered community, her dating, was that a problem?”

  “No, not really. She was discreet. Not that a few of the students weren’t watching; they seem to keep tabs on their favorite teachers.” He stopped briefly. “But faculty housing, it’s off in its own area. And Ashleigh’s cottage is the most remote of the group. I think she could come and go without anyone… ”

  “Didn’t you say she lived in a duplex?”

  “Yes, Janet Medford lives in the other half. But Medford is in her own world. I doubt she’d have noticed much. She has a drinking problem, after her teaching day is over she disappears into a bottle.”

  “Might Ashleigh have been involved with one of the students?”

  “Impossible,” Warrington shot back. “She was a real professional.”

  “Could one of Ashleigh’s students been involved with her, at a fantasy level?”

  “It’s possible,” he responded. “I don’t think any of us adults can accurately speculate on what goes on in the heads of teenagers. But Ashleigh would not have reciprocated. Ashleigh was an adult. They’re kids. She always made it clear to them that she wasn’t one of them. And they knew the difference.” Warrington’s pitch rose, and he was making a jabbing motion with his forefinger to stress his point.

  “Did she date anyone here at the school?”

  “Well, no.” Warrington moved back in his chair and looked ill at ease.

  “Meaning what? Did she or didn’t she, Dr. Warrington?”

  “There was some speculation that she was involved with Tony Davis her first year. He had been her mathematics instructor when she was a student here.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. He was married, and it was getting a bit sticky. Fortunately he decided to go back for his Ph.D. Enrolled at Stanford. Sometimes you get lucky and HR problems go away, far away,” he said.

  “And this Tony Davis hasn’t been in the area?”

  “No. Haven’t seen him or heard from him in more than a year.”

  “Here at the school, how do you keep track of the students, how do you know where people are?”

  “It’s pretty much a closed campus. They can’t have cars, and they must be with a responsible adult if they go off campus in a car. During their free time they can sign out to go to the village or ride their bikes through the national park. Everyone has to be in their dorms by ten during the week, midnight on Friday and Saturday. The house parents do an informal check.”

  “Informal. You often don’t know where students are?”

  “We do, and we don’t,” Warrington answered in an irritated tone. “We’re not a military school. We don’t line them up in formations every hour or two and count heads. One of the goals of Leiston School is to teach personal responsibility. We expect students to follow the rules, they must sign the school’s code of conduct when they matriculate.”

  “And there are few violations of the code of conduct?”

  “Very few, very few indeed. Our students quickly realize how special this place is. They don’t want to do anything that would hurt the school or get themselves kicked out.”

  “So, no one is ever asked to leave?” Ray pursued.

  “Very seldom, I can think of only one case since I’ve been here.”

  “What kind of security measures do you have in place?” Ray asked, taking the conversation in another direction.

  “You don’t think anyone is in danger, do you?” Warrington asked, a tone of alarm in his voice.

  “I’m trying to get a sense of how the school operates.”

  “Gary Zatanski heads campus security. He’s a retired ATF officer. He’s got three assistants. His men also do some emergency maintenance. They carry cell phones so we can always reach them. The 11-7 guy stays at the entrance at the main gate. He monitors the security cameras on the perimeters of the dorms and at their entrances and calls the house parents if the natives are getting restless.”

  “Does that happen often?

  “No, perhaps once or twice a year, usually in the spring when the kids are feeling frisky or sometimes the night before a vacation. Like we’ve had late-night snowball fights before Christmas break. Pretty innocent stuff for the most part. We have quality students here, and we work them very hard. By ten or eleven they’re ready to crash.” Warrington paused. “But why focus the investigation on Leiston?”

  “Simple, Mr. Warrington, victims usually know their killers. This was her home, her community, if you will. So, Leiston will be an important part of our investigation.”

  “But couldn’t it have been some crazed… I don’t know.”

  “We will be looking at all possibilities.”

  There was a break in the conversation. Finally Warrington asked, “How else can I help?”

  “I would like to become familiar with the layout of the school. And we will also want to search Ashleigh’s apartment. You’ll have to sign off on some paperwork.”

  “I would be happy to, but you can imagine how busy I am. Perhaps Sarah can show you around.”

  “That would be fine,” answered Ray, interested in the way he was being handed off, but glad to have someone else’s view of Leiston.

  5

  On Ray’s second trip of the day to Leiston, an anxious Ian Warrington met him soon after he pulled into a parking place near the front of the mansion. Warrington quickly escorted the sheriff to his office. “I’d appreciate it if you would stay here until we are ready to start,” he said. “Otherwise some of our more inquisitive staff members will be demanding to know why you’re here. I’ll have Sarah fetch you when we’re ready to begin.”

  After offering Ray coffee, Warrington excused himself and slipped out of the office.

  Ray began exploring the bookshelves again, opening the doors and searching the shelves for something familiar. He pulled a leather-bound volume of Tennyson from a row of dusty books and held it in his hand, examining the cover. He opened the book, looked for the publication date, and found the string of Roman numerals in an archaic typeface near the bottom on the back of the title page. He paged through the book, pausing to read the
beginning of Ulysses, lines he had memorized in college. He stopped a second time at the opening lines of a familiar stanza from “In Memorium.”

  If Sleep and Death be truly one,

  And every spirit’s folded bloom

  Thro’ all its intervital gloom

  In some long trance should slumber on;

  Unconscious of the sliding hour,

  Bare of the body, might it last,

  And silent traces of the past

  Be all the color of the flower:

  So then were nothing lost to man;

  So that still garden of the souls

  In many a figured leaf enrolls

  The total world since life began:

  And love will last as pure and whole

  As when he loved me here in

  Time, And at the spiritual prime

  Rewaken with the dawning soul.

  Ray’s attention was pulled from the page by the sound of the office door opening.

  “What a perfect place for you, surrounded by books,” said Deputy Sue Lawrence, catching Ray lost in a print world. “What are you reading?”

  “A poem by Tennyson,” Ray responded, “that I haven’t read since I was an undergraduate. Makes a lot more sense now than it did then. I probably hadn’t lived enough.” He closed the book and returned it to the bookcase.

  “Amazing,” Sue said looking around. “I’ve only seen rooms like this in movies. The people who built this place must have been serious readers, all these sets of books.”

  Ray admired Sue’s enthusiasm for new experiences. He worried that the brutal side of police work would dull her joie de vivre. “Just decorations, I’m afraid.”

  “Decorations,” she repeated in an incredulous tone.

  He pulled several volumes from the case, explaining the printing process and showing her that the signatures were uncut, indicating that the books had never been read. As he closed the door to the case he asked, “Did you find the weapon?”

  “No. We’ve worked the scene, no hint of a knife or anything like that. We’ve also gone up and down the beach for more than a mile in each direction and checked along the hiking trail that runs above. Nothing. But, you know, it would be so easy to bury it a foot deep in sand. It would only take a couple of minutes.” She paused briefly. “Given the rain and wind, I’m not sure there’s much left to preserve at the scene, but we’ve covered the immediate area with tarps. As soon as the weather breaks, I’ll go over it again and see if there is anything we’ve missed.”

  Ray caught her eyes; she suddenly looked much older than her twenty-four years. “How are you doing?” he asked gently.

  “When I’m there working—you know how it is—your mind is engaged. But when I was driving over here, the horror of it all… ” Her eyes glistened. She looked toward the ceiling and blinked to clear the tears. “She was about my age.”

  Sue paused, breathed deeply and started again. “We’ve closed off the access road to the park. And I’ve got an officer assigned to stay above the scene in case a curious soul decides to hike in over the dunes.”

  “Let’s try to get this completed tomorrow, early in the day if possible,” Ray said. “And have someone go over the area with a metal detector.”

  “I thought you’d be ordering me into the lake,” Sue offered with a wry smile.

  “That’s not a bad idea. Bring your suit.”

  “Too cold, let the scuba guys do it.”

  “Nora is still swimming.”

  “She’s a lot tougher than me. The greatest generation and all that,” she retorted, her tone lightened momentarily. “One more thing, we’ve gotten confirmation from the Shaker Heights Police that they met with David Dowd’s parents.”

  Ray nodded, “Always a painful duty.”

  Sarah James interrupted their conversation. “Mr. Warrington says he is ready to begin.” She led them to the school’s cafeteria, a large, joyless addition tacked on the back of the mansion. Its terrazzo floors, fluorescent lights, and ceramic tile walls had a cheerless quality. The visual impression was reinforced by the smell of institutional cooking.

  The crowd hushed as the two uniformed police officers entered the room. Warrington, looking very strained, stood at a lectern, waiting. Ray and Sue moved to his side. Ray gazed at the faces of the teachers and staff gathered around tables near the lectern; expressions of concern and apprehension met his eyes. The two police vehicles at the entrance had not gone unnoticed.

  “I’m afraid I have some very bad news,” Warrington started, his voice breaking, “some very bad news, indeed.” All eyes were fixed on him. “This morning the bodies of Ashleigh Allen and David Dowd were found on the beach at… ”

  A sorrowful moan reverberated through the room and hung for several long moments.

  “Drowned?” came a voice from the group.

  “No. They were… they… were,” Warrington struggled to say the word and couldn’t. “This is Sheriff Elkins, many of you know him, and Deputy Lawrence. They will tell you more about… about the… deaths. He is asking for your help. Sheriff.” Warrington moved to the side of the lectern.

  Elkins looked out at the stunned, lamenting faces. “The bodies of Ms. Ashleigh Allen and Mr. David Dowd were found this morning at a Lake Michigan beach. They had been murdered,” he paused to allow his words to sink in. “We are in the early stages of a homicide investigation, and we need your help. Mr. Warrington has given us the use of the staff conference room. We’re interested in talking with anyone who saw Ms. Allen or Mr. Dowd yesterday or in the last few days, especially Saturday. Do you know anyone who might want to hurt either one of these individuals? If you have any information, please see us immediately.”

  “Certainly it must have been a stranger who did this,” a frail woman with thin gray hair offered.

  “It’s too early in the investigation to know,” Ray answered. “We will be checking all leads. But again, if you can, help us establish where Allen and Dowd were on Saturday. We’re attempting to track their movements, trying to determine who they were with, and who they might have encountered. And we would appreciate hearing anything else you think might be helpful to the investigation.”

  A tall, sixtyish man in a red cardigan said, “Bob Kamm, sheriff. I’m one of the house parents. You don’t think there’s any danger to the students, do you?”

  “We have no reason to believe they are in danger; but obviously, until we get to the bottom of this, every precaution should be taken.”

  “How did they die?” asked a solid woman, whose youthful face contrasted with her steel gray hair.

  “We should probably follow Bob’s example and identify ourselves,” said Warrington. “This is Ms. McAndless, an English teacher.”

  “We’re not ready to discuss that yet.”

  “And there’s no possibility that… ” McAndless stopped.

  “Possibility?” Ray prompted her.

  “… that this was an accident?”

  “I’m sorry. There is no possibility. Are there other questions?” Ray waited, looking at the stunned gathering.

  The teachers and staff members were quiet. Finally McAndless asked, “Could you tell us again where they were found?”

  “At South Dune, north of the park.”

  “That was one of Ashleigh’s favorite places,” McAndless responded in a soft voice. “She liked to take her students there. She liked to picnic there. Who would have imagined that… ” Her voice trailed off as she struggled with the information.

  “Do any of you remember seeing her yesterday?” Ray asked the crowd.

  “Yesterday was a free day,” Warrington answered. “We usually have classes on Saturday morning. But because of the home soccer game and other activities, the students were given the morning off. We announced it at dinner on Friday.” He looked at Ray as he continued his explanation. “We do this occasionally. It takes the pressure off the kids, I think most of them sleep till noon.”

  “I warned you,” a small man f
rom the back of the room cried out suddenly, his face crimson. All heads turned in his direction. “This tragedy was waiting to happen and none of you knee-jerk liberals could deal with it. We all knew something like this would take place. It’s time to face the music.”

  There was a long silence and an uneasy stirring in the room after the outburst. Finally Warrington addressed the group. “Thank you for being here. The school community will meet at six o’clock. I urge you to attend. The students will need help from all of us to get through this difficult time.”

  Sue Lawrence and Ray Elkins stood with Sarah James as the faculty and staff wandered out of the room.

  “The angry man,” said Ray, “what was that all about?”

  “That was Alan Quertermous, and it’s impossible to say for sure what he was railing about,” Sarah said. “There’s seldom a logical connection between his outbursts and the facts.”

  “Give me your best guess.”

  “He might have been talking about something that happened a few weeks ago. We had a young man working here in the kitchen, a social services client. The poor kid just didn’t seem to catch on. When his supervisor told him that he no longer had a job, the kid blew up, yelled something silly like he would come back with a gun and shoot a lot of people and burn the school down. The students who were working in the kitchen saw the confrontation and heard his threats. It was the talk of the school for an hour or two. You know how kids are.”

  “What is his name, the person who was fired?”

  “Arnie Vedder. Do you know him?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes,” Ray said. “So no one treated Vedder’s threat… ”

  “Of course not. He was just an angry, hurt kid. He probably weighs less than ninety pounds, and he’s physically and mentally handicapped. What kind of threat is he?”

  “So why would this Alan… ”

  “Quertermous.”

  “Quertermous, thank you. Why would he, according to your theory, bring Arnie Vedder’s threat into the discussion?”

  “He was just looking for a way to get at Ian Warrington,” explained Sarah. “At the time, he said we should have Vedder arrested.”