“I’m glad to hear it. I’m a friend of Dorothy’s.”
The boy was fiddling with the camera. It was one thing waiting for Cecil Beaton or Man Ray to find the right angle, but quite another to wait for this boy, however good his taste. The girl seemed to sense this and lose patience as well.
“Take it, Eddie,” she said.
The boy immediately took the photo.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Leo said, intending to be as rude as he wished, “but I am losing the light.”
“Come on, Eddie, we better get back,” the girl said, smiling at Leo. “Thank you very much, Mr. Nair.”
The two continued on their way, the boy going one direction, and the girl another. Leo’s gaze followed the girl for a moment as she hurried toward the small building called Minerva House. He made a mental note to tell Dorothy about her, which he promptly misplaced on a cluttered side table in his mind. He rubbed between his eyes with his oilcloth. He had lost his vision of the house and its secrets. The moment was gone.
“Now is the cocktail hour,” he said. “That’s quite enough for today.”
2
“I WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW I’M DOING,” STEVIE LIED.
Stevie sat in front of the massive desk that took up a large part of this room, one of the loveliest in the Great House. Originally, it had been Iris Ellingham’s dressing room. The dove-gray silk still hung on the walls. It matched the color of the sky. But instead of a bed and dressing tables, the room was now stuffed with bookcases, floor to ceiling.
She was trying not to look directly at the person behind the desk, the one in the Iron Man T-shirt and fitted sports coat, the one with the stylish glasses and flop of blond-gray hair. So she focused instead on the picture between the windows, the framed print on the wall. She knew it well. It was the illustrated map of Ellingham Academy. It was printed in all the admission materials. You could buy a poster of it. It was one of those things that was always around and you never thought about. It wasn’t super accurate—it was more of an artistic rendering. The buildings were massive, for a start, and highly embellished. She had heard that it had been done by a former student, someone who went on to illustrate children’s books. This was the illusion of Ellingham Academy—the gentle picture painted for the world.
“I’m really glad you came up to talk to me,” Charles said.
Stevie believed this. After all, everything about Charles suggested that he wanted to be fun and relatable, from the signs on his office door that read, QUESTION EVERYTHING; I REJECT YOUR REALITY AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN, and the big, homemade one in the middle that read, CHALLENGE ME. There were also the Funko Pop! figurines that cluttered Iris Ellingham’s windowsills, next to pictures of what Stevie assumed were Charles’s rowing teams at Cambridge and Harvard. Because, no matter how bouncy and earnest Charles was, he was highly qualified. Every faculty member at Ellingham was. They came, dripping degrees and accolades and experience, to teach on the mountain.
The thing was, she had not come here to talk about her feelings. Some people were fine with that—they could open up in front of anyone and pour out their business. Stevie would rather eat bees than share her tender inner being with anyone else—she didn’t even want to share it with herself. So she had to walk the fine line between seeming vulnerable and showing emotion in front of Charles, because displaying real emotion would be gross. Stevie didn’t cry, and she double didn’t cry in front of teachers.
“I’m trying to . . . process,” she said.
Charles nodded. Process was a good word, the kind that someone who administrated as a profession could hook into and work with—and it was clinical enough to keep Stevie from gagging.
“Stevie,” he said. “I hardly know what to say anymore. There’s been so much sadness here this year. So much of it has touched you in some way. You’ve been remarkably strong. You don’t have to be. That’s what you need to remember. There’s no need to be brave.”
The words almost penetrated. She didn’t want to be brave anymore. It was exhausting. Anxiety crawled under her skin all the time, like some alien creature that might burst through at any moment. Stevie became aware of the loud ticking in the room. She turned toward the mantel, where a large green marble clock sat. The clock had formerly been downstairs, in Albert Ellingham’s office. It was a fine, clearly valuable specimen, deep forest in color, with veins of gold. The story was that the clock had belonged to Marie Antoinette. Was it just a story? Or, like so many things here, was it the unlikely truth?
Now that Charles was primed and listening, it was time for Stevie to get the thing she came for—information.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Of course.”
She stared at the green clock as its delicate, ancient hands moved perfectly around its face. “It’s about Albert Ellingham,” she said.
“You probably know more about him than I do.”
“It’s about something in his will. There are rumors that there’s something in there, something that says that if someone found Alice they’d get all the money. Or a lot of money. A reward fund. And if she wasn’t found, the money would come to the school. I always thought this was a rumor . . . but Dr. Fenton believed it. You’re on the board, right? You would know. And isn’t there something about the school getting more money soon?”
Charles tipped back in his chair and set his hand on his head.
“I don’t want to speak ill of anyone,” he said, “especially someone who is recently deceased under such tragic circumstances, but it seems like Dr. Fenton had some issues we weren’t entirely aware of.”
“She had a drinking problem. It doesn’t make her wrong.”
“No,” he said, nodding in acknowledgment of this. “There is nothing in the will about any kind of reward if Alice is found. There are some funds that would have gone to Alice had she been alive. Those funds will be released. That’s how we’re building the art barn and some other new buildings.”
It was so plain and simple. Like that, Fenton’s far-fetched notions seemed to go up in smoke.
Like Fenton’s house.
“Now can I ask you about something?” he said. “David Eastman went to Burlington and didn’t come back to campus. I didn’t want to get you involved in this. You’ve been through enough. But David’s father . . .”
“Is Senator King.”
“I assumed you knew,” he said, nodding soberly. “It’s something we keep very quiet around here. There are security reasons—a senator’s son requires a certain level of protection. And this senator . . .”
“Is a monster,” Stevie said.
“Is someone with very polarizing political beliefs that not all of us agree with. But you said it better.”
Stevie and Charles shared a half smile.
“I’m confiding in you, Stevie. I know Senator King was involved in your return to the school. I can’t imagine you enjoyed that very much.”
“He came to my house.”
“You are close to David?” he asked.
“We’re . . .”
She could picture every moment of it. The way they had first kissed. Rolling on the floor of her room. The time the two of them had been in the tunnel. The feel of his curls between her fingers. His body, lean and strong and warm and . . .
“He’s my housemate,” she said.
“And you have no idea where he is?”
“No,” she said. Which was true. She had no idea. He had not returned her texts. “He’s not . . . chatty.”
“I’ll tell you honestly, we’re on the edge here, Stevie. If one more thing happens, I don’t know how we keep the doors open. So if he does contact you, would you consider telling me?”
It was a fair request, reasonably made. She nodded.
“Thanks,” he said. “You know that Dr. Fenton had a nephew? He’s a student at the university, and he lived with her.”
“Hunter,” Stevie replied.
“Well, he has no home now. So admin
has decided that, since Dr. Fenton was advising one of our students and had such an interest in Ellingham, he can stay here until he gets a new place to live. And since your house is emptier than normal . . .”
This was true. The place rattled and creaked at night now that half its residents were missing or dead.
“He’ll drive to campus when he needs to. But it seemed like the least we could do as a school. We made the offer, and he accepted. I think, like his aunt, he has an interest in this place.”
“When is he coming?”
“Tomorrow, when he’s discharged from the hospital. He’s doing fine, but they kept him for observation and so the police could speak to him. He lost all his things in the fire, so the school is helping out to get him some basics. I’ve had to cancel trips to Burlington because of David, but I could authorize a trip to have you get him some things he’ll need? I imagine you might be better at picking out things he might like than someone old like me.”
He opened up his wallet and removed a credit card, which he passed over to her.
“He needs a new coat, some boots, and some warm things, like fleeces and socks and slippers. Try to keep it under a thousand. I can have someone from security take you to L.L. Bean, and you can have an hour in town. Do you think a trip to town might help you?”
“Definitely,” Stevie said. This was an unexpected and very welcome turn of events. Maybe opening up was the way to go.
The moment Stevie was outside, she pulled out her phone and texted a message.
Coming to Burlington. Can you come meet me?
The reply came quickly.
Where and when?
It was time to get some real information.
3
BURLINGTON, VERMONT, IS A SMALL CITY, PERCHED ABOVE LAKE Champlain, a body of water that stretches between Vermont and New York. The lake is picturesque and vast, flowing up toward Canada. In better weather, there is sailing. Indeed, it was on this body of water that Albert Ellingham had taken his fatal sailing trip. The city around it was once serious and industrial; in recent years, it had a more artistic bent. There were studios, lots of yoga and new age shops. Everywhere there were hints of winter sports. This was especially true at the massive L.L. Bean, and its stock of snow shoes, snow-poking sticks, massive jackets, skis, and big boots radiated the message: “Vermont! You won’t believe how cold it gets here! It’s messed up!”
Stevie was deposited in front of the store, clutching the credit card she had been handed an hour or so before. It was more than a bit weird to be shopping for a guy she only sort of knew. Hunter was nice enough. He lived with his aunt while he went to college. He studied environmental science. He was fair-haired and freckled and was actually interested in the Ellingham case. Maybe not as much as Stevie or his aunt, but enough. He had even allowed Stevie to look through some of his aunt’s files. Stevie hadn’t seen that much, but she had gotten the hint about the wire recording from them.
The rest, now, were literally up in smoke. All of Fenton’s work, whatever she had gathered, whatever she knew.
Anyway, Stevie had to quickly buy some stuff for a guy she barely knew. Charles had given her a short list with sizes, leading with a coat. There was no shortage of black coats, all of them costing way more than Stevie had ever spent on anything. After a confused moment of going from rack to rack, looking at the prices and fills and temperature ratings, she grabbed the first one on the end. Slippers always seemed like kind of a nonsense item until she came to Ellingham and felt the bathroom floor on the first proper day of wintry weather. Once skin touched tile and part of her soul died, she knew what slippers were for. She grabbed some fuzzy-lined ones that sort of looked like shoes and had nonslip bottoms—Hunter used walking aids sometimes because of his arthritis, so having traction would be safer. She took the whole pile to the register, where a friendly clerk tried to talk to her about skiing and the weather, and Stevie stared blankly until the transaction was over. Fifteen minutes and several hundred dollars later, she walked out the door with an oversized bag that banged against her knees as she walked. She had little time to do what she had come to do.
Even though it was only late afternoon, the streetlights of Burlington winked to life. There were holiday lights strung over the pedestrianized Church Street. Street vendors sold hot cider and maple popcorn. There were dogs everywhere, pulling their owners along. Stevie cut a path through the crowds to her destination—a cheerful little coffee shop next to one of the street’s many yoga and outdoor shops. Larry was already there when she arrived, sitting by himself at a table in his red-and-black-checked flannel coat, his expression like stone.
Larry, or to use his full name, Security Larry, was the former head of security at Ellingham Academy. He had been let go following the discovery of Ellie’s body in the basement of the Great House. What happened to Ellie was certainly no fault of Larry’s, but someone had to pay. In his previous life, before Ellingham, Larry had been a homicide detective. Now he was unemployed but looking stern and sharp. He had no drink in front of him. Larry, Stevie surmised, was a man who had never paid over two dollars for a cup of coffee and wasn’t about to start now. Stevie felt self-conscious taking up the table and not buying anything, so she went to the counter and got the cheapest coffee they had—plain black in a plain mug, no foams or nonsense.
“So,” he said as she sat down. “Dr. Fenton.”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
Stevie didn’t like black coffee, but she sipped it anyway. Occasions like this called for bitter, hot drinks you didn’t necessarily like. You just had to be awake.
“I didn’t know her well,” she said after a moment. “We only met a few times. What happened? I know you have to know something.”
Larry inhaled loudly and rubbed at his chin.
“Fire started in the kitchen,” he said. “It seems that one of the gas burners on the stove was partially turned. The room was full of gas, she lights a cigarette . . . they said the kitchen went up in a fireball. It was bad.”
Larry did not soft-pedal anything.
“It would have been hard not to notice a thing like that,” he said, “but Dr. Fenton had a known problem with alcohol. From the amount of empty bottles found on the front porch, this was still an issue.”
“Hunter told me that,” Stevie said. “And I saw the bottles. Plus, she said the smoking killed her sense of smell. Her house stank. She couldn’t smell it.”
“The nephew was lucky. He was upstairs, on the other side of the house. He came down when he smelled smoke. The flames were spreading through the first floor. He tried to get into the kitchen, but it wasn’t possible. He got some burns, inhaled some smoke. He stumbled outside and collapsed. Poor kid. Could have been worse, but . . .”
They sat in silence for a moment, the awfulness settling in.
“She had cats,” Stevie said. “Are they okay?”
“The cats were found. They went out through a flap.”
“That’s good,” Stevie said, nodding. “It’s . . . not good. I mean . . . it’s good about the cats. It’s not . . .”
“I know what you meant,” Larry said. He leaned back in the booth, folded his arms, and regarded her with the icy stare that must have freaked out suspects for two decades.
“Luck only holds out for so long,” he finally said. “Three people are now dead—Hayes Major and Element Walker up at the school, and now Dr. Fenton. Three people associated with Ellingham. Three people you know. Three people in as many months. That’s a lot of death, Stevie. I’m going to ask you something again: Would you consider leaving Ellingham?”
Stevie stared down at the oily, swirly sheen on the top of her coffee. The people a few tables over were laughing too loudly. The words were there, on the tip of her tongue. I solved it. I solved the crime of the century. I know who did it. The words came close to the opening of her mouth, touched the back of her teeth, then . . . they retreated.
Because this was not something you said ou
t loud. You didn’t tell someone in law enforcement that you knew who committed one of the most infamous murders in American history because you found an old recording and had some strong hunches. That’s how you blew your credibility.
“What is it?” he asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Since she was going to keep her biggest piece of information to herself, she looked around for the next available offering, something worthwhile. Her mind seized on the closest bit of information and shoved it forward before she could consider whether she wanted to share.
“David,” she said. “He got himself beat up. He left.”
“I saw the video,” he said.
“You did?”
“I have a phone,” he replied. “I’m old but follow along with things related to Ellingham. What do you mean got himself beaten up? And left?”
“I mean,” she said, “he paid some skaters to do it. He filmed it. He uploaded it himself, right there and then. I was there. I saw it happen.”
Larry pinched his nose thoughtfully.
“So you’re telling me he got himself beaten up and uploaded the video right then?”
“Yes.”
“And took off into Burlington.”
“Yes.”
“You mean just as Dr. Fenton’s house burned down.”
“Those things don’t go together,” she said. “He didn’t even know Dr. Fenton.”
Even as she said the words, something occurred to her. Had she not been so preoccupied, she would have put it together before. While David did not know Dr. Fenton, he had just met her nephew, Hunter. Hunter and Stevie were walking together. You work fast, he’d said. Your new buddy. I’m very happy for you both. When will you be announcing the big day?
Was David jealous? Enough to . . . burn down Hunter’s house?
No. The way he’d said it was so flat, like he felt like he had to be sarcastic. Right?
Larry put on his reading glasses and got out his phone. He watched the video of David, freezing it at the end.
“Stevie,” Larry said, holding up a shot of David’s bleeding face, “someone willing—as you’re telling me—to pay someone to do this to him and then put the footage up online is capable of lots of things. The King . . .”
The Hand on the Wall Page 3
