Passion Play

by W. Edward Blain

  After about an hour or so of scouring the campus, the faculty members managed to account for everyone. Robert Staines had been the only casualty. Thomas felt as though Hesta were trying to kill by a different method. After the chaperones had started screaming for order, she had gone and sat on her bus with Susie Boardman. She hadn’t even looked at Thomas when he’d said goodbye.

  Part of him said she was overreacting, that he hadn’t even gone all the way with her, that she was just playing the tease. He replayed how far he’d gone, farther than he’d ever been before, and that was exciting, a grim sort of pride, a wonderful, awed glimpse of the mysteries behind the door of adulthood.

  And part of him said he was a selfish, insensitive jerk. Robert Staines might have gotten laid more times than he could count, but he didn’t know everything about women. Thomas had hurt Hesta, hurt her inside, and he hated knowing that.

  He was confused and guilty about everything. When he would stop thinking about Hesta, he would start thinking about Staines, and that would tear him up, too. He tried to explain it to Greg somewhere around 1:00 in the morning.

  “I feel terrible because I don’t feel sad enough,” he said.

  Greg said to try that one again.

  “The guy’s dead. He was my teammate and my neighbor and my classmate, and you’d think I’d feel sorry about it. I don’t, though. With him being dead, my life gets a lot easier. I don’t have to testify against him to the councilmen, I don’t get accused of being a narc.”

  Greg said that was understandable.

  “I even wish I hadn’t turned him in now,” Thomas said. “If I’d just waited, the problem would have taken care of itself.”

  “Then your conscience would have hurt you.”

  “I guess. I just feel like I ought to be reacting differently.”

  “Like what?” Greg said. “Bursting into tears? Starting a memorial fund for him? Dedicating the rest of the basketball season to his name?

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m supposed to be a good Christian,” Greg said, “but I’m glad that bigoted bastard is off my dorm.”

  That helped.

  But Greg had nothing to say about his treatment of Hesta.

  SCENE 36

  Eldridge Lane returned Felix Grayson’s long-distance call at 11:05 P.M. and reviled Carol Scott on the telephone five minutes later.

  “Angus Farrier has been an employee of this school for forty-eight years,” said Lane. “He started working here when he was fifteen years old. Do you realize how many alumni know him? Are you absolutely certain he’s your man?”

  Carol Scott told Lane to judge for himself.

  “I’ve heard from the police in New York,” she said. “They have matched the cash register receipt with the sample from your school store. We’re not talking about coincidence anymore.” The psychologist she’d consulted had told her the behavior they were witnessing was impossible to predict, but that it appeared someone was on a random killing spree. She wanted to ask Mr. Farrier about the so-called hunting trip he went on over the holidays.

  Eldridge Lane declared he trusted Angus Farrier unconditionally.

  “We searched the desk down in that lair of his,” said Carol Scott. “We found a used ticket from an Amtrak Metroliner, New York to Washington, for Sunday, November 28. That puts Angus Farrier in New York on the day the kid died in the movie theater.”

  Lane shifted gears immediately.

  “Then why haven’t you found him?” he said. “We can’t have a lunatic roaming free throughout the campus or the surrounding countryside.”

  She said they were looking.

  “You should have the state police here, the FBI, anybody who can help,” said Lane.

  She said he’d be surprised to know who was working on it. And then she hung up.

  SCENE 37

  Benjamin and Cynthia Warden walked back together from the gymnasium. It was long past midnight. The rain had stopped, but the weather was colder. Two police cars remained on the campus. All the buses had left, and the van carrying the body of Robert Staines, as well.

  “Angus. I still can’t believe it,” said Cynthia.

  “Nothing’s definite yet. They still have to find him.”

  They walked in silence for a way.

  “He could have killed me,” she said. “He could have strangled me in that very room.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” said Warden.

  “How do you know?”

  “Obviously he was only interested in killing boys.”

  Cynthia wept for the fifth time that night. “So he killed the first boy, the Phillips boy, too,” she said.

  “Apparently.”

  “He’s been here forever and ever,” she said. “Why would he suddenly crack? Why now?”

  “Who knows?” said Warden. “Some little blood vessel in his brain broke open. Some little gland produced too much of its chemical. It could be anything.”

  “So if he’s crazy, then how is he smart enough to get away? If his car’s in the parking lot, how did he get off campus?”

  “He could have called a cab. There were plenty of cabs going back and forth taking students to dinner in town. Or he could hitch a ride.”

  “Why would he hitch a ride? Why not just drive himself?”

  “I can’t answer that, Cynthia. The man is insane, if he’s the one who’s guilty.”

  “He’s the one,” said Cynthia. “He sneaked up on me in the wrestling room. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t turned around and seen him.” The more she considered the implications, the more horrified she became. It was as though the truth were being revealed to her gradually, like a photograph slowly developing.

  “What if he’s still on campus?” she said.

  “Then they’ll find him.”

  “What if he’s hiding somewhere? He knows the school better than anyone. What if he’s here on campus in some obscure cubbyhole?”

  Warden reminded her that the police were efficient. “Don’t start rumors about obscure cubbyholes,” he said. “The boys could panic.”

  “Poor boys. And poor Angus, I suppose.”

  “Poor Montpelier School,” said Warden. “This is going to be a tough one to weather.”

  He reached over and wiped her tears with his gloved fingers.

  “I don’t feel safe,” said Cynthia. “I’m assaulted from within and from without.”

  Warden took her hand.

  “If Angus can go mad, then anybody can,” she said. “There’s nothing reliable anywhere anymore.”

  “Calm down,” said Warden. “It will seem better in the morning.”

  “I can’t calm down,” she said. “Nothing is stable. I can’t count on anything to be the way I left it.”

  “You can count on me,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she said. The tears resurfaced. “I needed you tonight, and I came home to get you, and you weren’t there.”

  “When?” said Warden. “I was at home writing. You know that.”

  “You weren’t home at 9:15,” she said. “And you weren’t home at 10:00 when I tried to phone you.”

  “No?” he said. “I did go out for a walk, didn’t I?” He paused. “I remember saying goodbye to you after dinner. Then I remember hearing sirens and walking over to the gym. I might have been out for a stroll when the police arrived on campus.”

  “Did you ever find Kevin’s key?”

  Warden reached into his pocket and produced the key. “I found it in my pocket while I waited for you at the gym,” he said.

  She squeezed him with relief. “I was so worried that we’d lost Kevin’s key and that some student had found it,” she said. “And I was worried about where you were.”

  “I’m sorry to be such an absentminded professor,” said Warden. “I guess the only thing you can count on is that I’ll be undependable.” He tried to sound jocular, though he felt almost drunk with fatigue.

  They were nearly back to Stratford Hous
e. Warden noted that there were too many dormitory room lights on; he would have to make a patrol through the building before he went to bed. Cynthia wanted to blow her nose.

  “Damn,” she said. “Katrina Olson still has my handkerchief.”

  “You’ve got others,” said Warden. “Let the girl keep it.”

  But Katrina Olson did not have her handkerchief.

  The Fourth Act

  SCENE 1

  On Sunday morning Thomas Boatwright heard someone enter his room. He sat up in his bed in a rush, his heart pushing the speed limit, his breath reduced to one audible inward gasp.

  Standing in the doorway, Nathan Somerville laughed. “Sorry to scare you, Boatin’ Shoes,” he said.

  Greg rolled over and jerked his head up. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re having a special room search for dead squirrels,” Nathan said.

  Greg told him to ask Richard Blackburn about those.

  “Do I still have to testify in front of the honor council?” Thomas asked.

  “Of course,” said Nathan. “But don’t worry. Nobody wants to hold an honor trial for a corpse.”

  Thomas felt relieved, and then he felt guilty for feeling relieved.

  Nathan told them there would be a special chapel service this morning at 10:00. Everyone was required to be there. Then he shut the door behind him and went on to the next room.

  That was at 8:30. They considered it a duty to stay in their beds for another forty-five minutes; you didn’t waste your one morning to sleep late by getting up too early. They passed the time by commiserating about their respective errors of the night before.

  “It was like we were out on the playground again, you know?” Greg said. “I felt like such an idiot.”

  “Think of how Ned Wood must have felt. Mr. Senior getting caught with his pants down.”

  “They weren’t down yet. But his shirt was off.”

  Little boys and their fascination with dark, secret places, Thomas thought. All the pain of last night’s departure from Hesta had returned. He decided he wasn’t ready to call her. But he did get up and join the others in the bathroom down the hall. On the way, he had to pass Robert Staines’s door. It was shut tight.

  Throughout the morning the telephones in the halls rang almost nonstop, always with calls from nervous parents. A couple of guys on the hall were talking about going home. Neither Thomas nor Greg spoke with their families, but Greg declared that he was staying at Montpelier as long as the play was still on. Thomas didn’t know what he’d say if his parents called him and offered him a chance to come home. Most of the time being at Montpelier was good, even if it was a lot of work and a lot of pressure. Sometimes, though, Thomas was overwhelmed with the sameness of it all: the same schedule, the same people, the same buildings. Today nothing at all was routine, and yet he wanted desperately to see his family. He wanted to call them. Maybe his dad would even drive down for the day; it wasn’t that far. But there was never a telephone free.

  At 9:50 both boys were nearly dressed. Greg put on his blue wool blazer and checked himself in the mirror. “I wish I had a gun,” he said. “If Angus tried to get me, I’d shoot him.”

  “You’ve seen Beverly Hills Cop too many times,” Thomas said. He was eating a bag of potato chips for breakfast.

  “You’re going to get copped if he finds you,” Greg said.

  “I’m not scared of that old pervert,” Thomas said. He brushed off the potato chip crumbs before he picked out his tie. When they left for the chapel, however, he slipped his red-handled Swiss Army knife into his pocket. Just in case, he thought, although he wasn’t sure how much protection you could get from a pocketknife.

  Chapel turned out to be not chapel service at all, but a plain old assembly with Dean Kaufman in charge. He told them that Dr. Lane was on his way back from Philadelphia and that they would be holding classes as usual tomorrow. He said that several parents had called the school to express their concerns about recent incidents on the campus and that five boys had even withdrawn from the school.

  “But there is no need to panic,” he said. “The school is secure, and you are all perfectly safe.”

  Thomas knew his parents would believe it if Kaufman or Dr. Lane told them so. Hell, that’s why they sent him here; they trusted the damn place.

  “And now,” said Dean Kaufman, “a few words about the events of yesterday evening.”

  He told the students about Robert Staines’s death. Then he said that they were to alert a member of the faculty if they saw Angus Farrier anywhere on campus.

  “I do not mean to suggest that Angus is guilty of any crime,” Dean Kaufman said. “In the American system, which I fully endorse, a man is innocent until proven guilty. The police are interested in talking to Angus only. Still, there are indications that he might be somewhat confused, so I insist that you do not talk with him yourselves—”

  What followed was the kind of commonsense advice that Thomas thought even an inanimate object could have figured out. Kaufman had obviously written the speech down on paper because he finished every sentence.

  “—and, of course,” he concluded, “you must continue to use prudence when you roam the campus after dark. No boy—I repeat, no boy—is to be off dorm alone after 5:30 P.M. A violation of that policy will be considered a major disciplinary offense.”

  Richard approached Thomas and Greg after the assembly was over. “Which altar is it they use to sacrifice the virgins?” he said.

  Thomas told him to shut up.

  “Come on, let’s have a full report,” Richard said.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “This whole fiasco is funny as hell,” Richard said. “They’re too cheap to close down the school and find the guy, so they’re asking us to pair up like Little Men.”

  Thomas reminded him that they had seen policemen all over the campus all morning. “It’s not like they’ve lost interest in us,” he said. The three boys were walking back to Stringfellow in a crowd of students, Thomas in the middle between Greg and Richard. The weather was clear and cold.

  “The cops haven’t found diddly,” Richard said.

  ‘’That means Angus is off campus,” Greg had said. “If he were here, they’d find him.”

  “Bull,” Richard said. “He’s hiding in the secret tunnel.”

  Greg said there was no secret tunnel. “The cops looked all over the basement of Stringfellow Hall and the gym and the Homestead, and they found nothing,” he said.

  Richard asked how they could ignore the blueprint that showed a passageway.

  “I figure somebody messed with that diagram,” Greg said. “They must have drawn the tunnel in as a place it might have gone, not where it was.”

  “You’ve changed your mind?” Richard said. “No more search for the road to Shangri-La?”

  Greg said the blueprint had been in the library for years. “If it had been legitimate,” he said, “somebody would have found out before now.”

  “So,” said Thomas, “you ended up with a sackful of squirrel.”

  “While you ended up with a handful of heaven,” Richard said. “Now tell us about how you knocked back McCorkindale in the chapel last night.”

  Thomas could not tolerate Richard any longer. “Go away,” he said, and he pushed ahead to enter the building alone. Up on his dorm, he tried his home number in Georgetown. No answer. He tortured himself by picturing his parents and Jeff out for brunch somewhere, forking in the eggs Benedict and the fresh melon. It was more likely his mom was catering a brunch and his dad was down at the newspaper, writing. He wished they had invested in an answering machine.

  Maybe he could call his sister, Barbara, at Mason.

  Or maybe Hesta.

  Okay, practice. She gets on the phone and you say Don’t hang up. I have to apologize and she says something like Make it fast, and you say I don’t know what got into me last night but all I know is I love you and I wish you wouldn’t be mad, and there’ll be a long pause, and t
hen she’ll sigh and say Oh, Thomas, of course I love you, too.

  But when he called, he spoke to a very unsympathetic Susie Boardman, who told him Hesta was not available to talk.

  “Would you tell her to call me?” He was trying hard to be cool.

  “I’ll tell her you called. Got to go,” she said.

  Thomas hung up the telephone and wished he could push the reset button, delete the file, erase the disk, and boot up the computer to start his life all over again. He returned to the room ready to crawl into bed forever.

  Then Greg asked him if he was ready for play practice.

  “Hell,” said Thomas. He had forgotten about his 3:00 play rehearsal. “I’m not going,” he said. “I’ll quit.”

  Greg pulled a chair over to the bed where Thomas was lying on his back.

  “Everybody says you were good at the audition,” said Greg.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I was hoping you’d help me with my lines,” said Greg. “I’m having the hardest kind of time with them.”

  “Get Farnham to help you. He’s the pro.”

  Greg said Thomas was more convenient. Thomas would not oblige any attempts at cheering him up.

  “You just say it the way Othello would say it,” said Thomas. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Show me.” Greg had the white paperback in his hand. “There’s a hard place in Act IV.”

  Thomas snatched the book away from him and started to flip through the pages. “Do something we’ve covered in class,” he said. “I haven’t even read the whole play yet. We just finished Act III.”

  “Okay. There’s a tough place in Act III, too.”

  “Where?” Thomas was sick of school.

  “Scene 3.” Greg explained that he didn’t understand whether or not Othello was angry at Desdemona at the beginning of the scene. Desdemona keeps asking Othello to invite Michael Cassio for dinner, and Othello keeps putting her off.