“What occurred down at the beach, Agatha?”
“Nothing!”
“You know how important the truth is. What happens at home when you don’t tell the truth?”
“I get the strap.”
“As you very well know, I don’t have a strap, and wouldn’t use it if I had. Now you’re not going to cry, are you?”
Aggie was, indeed. Tears spilled out of her eyes and she had to wipe them away with her sleeve. It was when Aggie raised her arm that Miss Barabou noticed the extra bulk under her clothes.
“What on earth have you got stuffed in the front of your blouse? So that’s what you’ve been fidgeting about. You’ve got something hidden in there. What is it, Agatha?”
Aggie shook her head, helplessly.
“You won’t be punished if you tell the truth. That’s a promise. Now stop crying and tell me—no, better still, show me what it is.”
“It’s—nothing. I found it.”
“Nobody finds a nothing,” Miss Barabou said dryly. “It’s impossible factually, as well as grammatically. What did you find?”
“A cap. An old cap somebody left on the beach that didn’t want it any more.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so before? All this fuss and fume about an old cap. Honestly, I sometimes wonder what kind of home life some of you children have that makes you afraid to speak up. Now remove the cap, and we’ll leave it here on the shelf in the cloakroom, and you can take it home with you after school.”
Aggie turned her back, removed the plaid cap from under her waist blouse and handed it to Miss Barabou.
Miss Barabou appeared surprised. “‘What an odd-looking thing. I’ve never seen one like it. Where did you find it, Agatha?”
“Between two rocks, just sitting there. I guess somebody just threw that old cap away.”
“It isn’t old. It’s hardly been worn at all.”
“It looks old to me.”
But Miss Barabou seemed to have lost interest in Aggie. She was examining the inside of the cap, and when she spoke again it was more to herself than to Aggie. “There’s a label. Abercrombie & Fitch, New York City. Funny. There aren’t many Americans around at this time of year. The thing’s new, no doubt about it. Expensive, too. Abercrombie & Fitch, I think they sell sporting goods. I wonder what kind of sport this would be worn for. Curling, perhaps, except that I’ve never seen a curling cap with a sun visor. Or golf. But the golf courses won’t be open for ages. I’m not even sure if it’s a man’s cap or a woman’s.”
“Miss Barabou . . .”
“You may go back to your desk, Agatha.”
“Is it my cap if I found it?”
“I can’t promise you that,” Miss Barabou said thoughtfully. “I better consult with Miss Wayley.”
Miss Barabou escorted Aggie back into the classroom, pronounced her free of disease, assured the pupils they could associate with her without fear and warned them not to start getting symptoms out of the blue. Then, leaving the class in charge of one of the seniors, she made a beeline to Miss Wayley’s room next door.
Social visiting between the two teachers during school hours was forbidden by the school inspector. But the inspector was miles away and not due for another month.
Miss Wayley, upon being apprised of the situation, put her entire class, including those who hadn’t yet learned to write, to work on a composition entitled “How I Will Spend My Summer Vacation.” Then she and Miss Barabou retired to the tiny room at the rear of the school where they ate their lunch and made coffee during recesses and conducted their private business in general. The room was cold and cramped and ugly, but it had two distinct advantages: a lock on the door which had so far resisted even the expert picking of Boris, and a telephone installed the past winter after a bad storm left the school marooned for nearly twenty-four hours.
Miss Wayley lit a cigarette, took three quick, furtive puffs, and butted it before any of the smoke could seep under the door and cause alarm or suspicion among the students. She saved the butt in an empty Band-Aid box inside the first aid kit.
“I think,” Miss Barabou said, “we should phone somebody.”
But Miss Wayley was busy trying on the cap in front of the yellowed, broken mirror hanging on the wall, “Don’t I look sporty, though? Say, this is kind of cute. I wouldn’t mind having one myself. Makes me feels years younger.”
“Be serious.”
“I am.”
“It looks like a man’s cap to me. Have you seen any strange men around town lately?”
“If I had,” Miss Wayley said cheerfully, “I’d be on leave of absence tracking him down, believe you me.”
“Be serious.”
“I can’t. I feel sporty. Here, you try it on, Marie.”
“I wouldn’t dream of . . .”
“Go on. See how it looks. Just for fun.”
Miss Barabou took a quick glance at the door to make sure it was locked, then she, too, tried on the plaid cap. For one instant, in the cracked mirror, she did indeed look sporty, but the instant was overwhelmed by years of common sense. “It’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing such a thing.”
“Well, I would. I can just picture myself whizzing along in some snazzy convertible . . .”
“Why a convertible?”
“Because that’s what the cap’s for, riding in a convertible with the top down. I’ve seen them in the movies.”
“That’s how it happened, then.”
“What did?”
“Someone was riding along the cliff road in a convertible and his cap blew off and landed on the beach where Agatha found it.”
“It couldn’t blow off, easily, anyway. That’s what the elastic band at the back is for, to keep it tight-fitting so the wind won’t blow it off.”
“How odd,” Miss Barabou said, and for the first time she appeared disturbed by the possibilities. “I know it sounds silly, but—well, you don’t suppose there’s been a crime committed?”
“No such luck.”
“Please be serious.”
“I am. I said no such luck and I mean it. Nothing ever happens around here.”
“There’s always a first time.”
The noise from the two unattended classes was increasing by the minute—thuds, screams, laughter, whistling—but neither of the two teachers paid any attention. Din was a part of their lives and a few decibels one way or another didn’t matter.
“I’d feel like a fool,” Miss Barabou said, “if I called in the police and it turned out to be absolutely nothing.”
“Call anyway.” Miss Wayley selected one of the dozen or so cigarette butts she kept stored in the first aid kit, and lit it with a reckless air. “We might as well whip up a little excitement while the whipping’s good. Here, help yourself to a butt.”
“No thanks. It wouldn’t be sanitary.”
“Sorry I can’t offer you a fresh one. Gee, it’d be wonderful to buy cigarettes cheap the way they do in the States.”
“I’m not sure whom to call.”
“The local constabulary. What a marvelous word, constabulary, isn’t it?”
“The way you chatter, I can’t think.”
“You don’t have to think. Let the local constabulary do the thinking. You and I, we’re teachers, we don’t get paid for thinking, we get paid for teaching, and what a whale of a difference there is.”
“Oh, stop it, Betty.”
Miss Barabou picked up the phone.
Constable Lehman arrived at the school about nine-thirty, a small, droll-faced man in his fifties who took his work, but nothing else, quite seriously. He came in his own private car, an old Buick, a device intended to allay the curiosity of the students. Through no fault of his own the device backfired. A good half of Miss Barabou’s class, and even several members of
Miss Wayley’s lower grades, recognized him immediately and such excitement spread through the school that a recess had to be declared.
The children, with the exception of Aggie Schantz, were herded into the yard like wild ponies, and a conference was held in Miss Barabou’s room with the plaid cap on exhibition on her desk. Instead of being nervous, as Miss Barabou had expected, Aggie luxuriated in the special attention she was receiving. She told her story in full detail, and Lehman, who’d had experience with children of his own, did not interrupt her even when she included such nonessentials as what she had for breakfast and how many robins she saw en route to school.
“We count robins,” Miss Barabou said by way of apology and explanation. “For the bird chart. Natural history, you know.”
Lehman’s nod indicated that he understood perfectly, and was, in fact, an old hand at counting robins himself.
“I see more than anybody,” Aggie said, with becoming modesty, “mostly because I have a longer way to go to school. Boris saw an American eagle.”
Lehman pursed his lips. “Did he, now? Well, they say more and more American people are coming up this way every year, why not eagles, too, eh? Can you show me this special path you take down to the beach, Aggie?”
“I can show you. You can’t go down it, though.”
“I can’t, eh? Why not?”
“You’re too old.”
“You may have something there,” Lehman said, and sighed for Aggie’s benefit, and winked for Miss Barabou’s.
Miss Barabou, who was not accustomed to being winked at, blushed in confusion and turned to Aggie. “Of course you’ll show the Constable the path, Agatha. I’ll excuse you from school for the rest of the morning. You go with Constable Lehman.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Get your coat and galoshes on.”
Aggie didn’t move.
“Agatha, did you hear me?”
“I don’t want to go without you.”
“You know perfectly well I have to stay here and supervise my class.”
“You could send them all home,” Aggie said hopefully. “They wouldn’t mind.”
“No, I’m sure they wouldn’t. Neither would I, until it came time to explain to thirty howling parents. Why on earth don’t you want to go with the Constable?”
“The bad men.”
“What bad men?”
“That do nasty things to little girls on beaches.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Miss Barabou’s blush had spread to the tips of her ears and down her neck to the collar of her jersey dress. “I was only trying to—oh well, it doesn’t matter. I give up. I’ll go along, there’s no point in arguing.”
Miss Barabou sat in the back of the Buick alone, holding herself stiff and resistant to the feeling of adventure that was growing inside her with every turn of the road and every glance at the Constable’s face half visible in the rear-view mirror. He’s really quite a nice man. Humorous, too. Betty said she heard he’s a widower, all his children are grown and he lives by himself. He needs a haircut.
She tried to discipline her thoughts by planning the next eighth grade British History assignment, but she could not seem to concentrate properly. The scarlet pompon on the plaid cap which lay on the seat beside her seemed to be taunting her: Come on, live now. The Magna Carta is very old; King John is very dead. Be sporty.
She looked sternly, ponderously, out of the window, though her head felt quite light and empty, as if giddy little bubbles were whirling around inside, released by some strange alchemy she did not understand.
“We’re almost there.” Aggie’s voice pealed with excitement. “Right around the next corner.”
“Roger,” Lehman said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means right-ho. Roger, dodger, you old codger, I’m a major too.”
“Oh, you make me laugh.”
“I aim to please.”
He stopped the car on the side of the road and all three of them got out, Aggie still giggling behind her hand, Miss Barabou very sober and dignified as if to make up for the levity of the others. Looking down at the water a hundred feet below, and the path by which she was expected to descend, she offered up a short silent prayer.
Lehman said to Aggie, who was impatient to start down the path, “Hold your horses a minute, lass. Now when you found the plaid cap, was it directly below here?”
“No sir. I walked along a piece first until I got tired and sat down and then I found it.”
“About how far did you walk?”
“I don’t know. I can show you down there.”
“Show me up here first.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Try. Start walking.”
They began walking single file up the road with Aggie in the lead like a general with delusions of troops.
The road was not a main one, and though it was marked on maps as “improved,” the improvements had long since disappeared in the throes of winter. The surface had buckled in places and some of the potholes were as large as Aggie’s head.
Lehman appeared to be watching his footing very carefully, paying no attention to Miss Barabou struggling along in the rear. Aggie was skipping on ahead, not looking down at the road at all but avoiding every bump and hole as if she had made a complete mental map of the route and knew its every pitfall.
“I’m beginning to get tired,” Aggie said, “so I guess it was right about here.”
She looked up expectantly, as if awaiting Lehman’s commendation, but he seemed too preoccupied to notice her. He was staring down at the mud along the side of the road, his eyes narrowed against the morning sun.
“Well?” Miss Barabou said when, out of sorts and breath, she finally caught up with the others.
“Look here, ma’am.”
“I can’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
“No?”
“Some tire marks, that’s all. It’s a road, you’d expect to find tire marks.”
“Not ones leading over the top of the cliff.” Lehman turned to Aggie, who was bouncing all over the place. “Be a good lass and stay out of the way. In fact, how about you going back and waiting in the car?”
“But I haven’t showed you anything yet.”
“You’ve shown me quite a lot more than I expected.”
“Tell me what.”
“Well, stand still a minute. See these marks here? They were made by the tires of an automobile, a new one and a heavy one, my guess is a Lincoln or a Cadillac. Now where do they lead?”
“Nowhere. They just stop.”
“Exactly. They just stop.”
Lehman walked to the edge of the cliff and Miss Barabou followed him, wide-eyed and nervous. “What does it all mean?”
“It means there’s a car down there, perhaps with people in it.”
“People. But we’ve got to do something right away, help them . . .”
“I’m afraid it would be too late. The marks aren’t fresh and the water’s deep.”
“Perhaps you’re being too pessimistic. It could be that some people just stopped here for a look at the view and went on again. That’s more likely than . . .”
“There’s no sign that the car turned around.”
Miss Barabou’s hand moved to her throat. “I’ll—I’d better take Aggie back to the car.”
But she stood peering down at the water below, as if she hoped to distinguish the outlines of a car, the contours of people. The glare of sun on water dazzled her eyes and she stumbled back half-blinded.
Lehman caught her by the arm. “Watch it. That’s a long fall.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a city car, I’ll bet you that.”
“How can you tell?”
“Around these parts a person
driving an expensive car would still be using snow tires at this time of year. The kind of winters we have up here, we need them. But in a city where the roads are kept clear, snow tires wouldn’t be necessary.” He paused. “I wonder.”
“You wonder what?”
“What makes a person drive over a cliff.”
Lehman drove Miss Barabou and Aggie back to school and left them there with instructions to say nothing to anyone. Then he called the Provincial Police and returned to the cliff. Three police cars were waiting for him when he arrived, as well as the resuscitation squad of the local fire station, all ready to go into action.
No action was necessary.
Two barges, sent down from Meaford with winches and dredging equipment, located the car in twenty feet of water just below the cliff where Lehman had found the tire tracks. The car was barely damaged, the windows and windshield were unbroken, and Ron Galloway was still inside, fastened snugly to the driver’s seat by his safety belt.
FOURTEEN
Ralph Turee returned to his office from his eleven o’clock seminar feeling hungry and exhausted. He had got up too early for sufficient rest and too late for breakfast. Harry had spent the night at his house and the two men had talked until after three in the morning. Talked and talked and settled nothing beyond what was already settled—Galloway was missing, and Thelma was waiting for him to come back and claim her as his future wife.
He sat down at his desk and was unpacking the lunch Nancy had made for him when the door opened and Nancy herself appeared.
Turee looked up in surprise. It was not a rule that Nancy should stay away from his office during working hours, but her visits were so infrequent that she looked strange in the surroundings, like a new graduate student perhaps, or someone who’d lost her way in the corridors and merely stopped by for directions. She was a small pretty woman with a round cherubic face and rather short sturdy legs—“practical” legs, Turee called them, in contrast to what he considered her impractical mind. She was wearing her new violet-colored Easter suit, which meant that the occasion, whatever it might be, was important.
He rose and kissed her briefly on the forehead by way of greeting. “How did you get here?”
An Air That Kills Page 13
