One Way Ticket (A Smith and Hughes Mystery Book 1)

by Jay Forman

  Mademoiselle gulped down what was left in her wineglass. “Are you asking me if I think she was there? If she did something to encourage or assist Kayla’s exit through the window?”

  “I honestly don’t know what I’m asking. It’s just that I got the sense that she doesn’t feel any great loss, that losing Kayla was more about losing Kayla’s connections than it was about losing someone she truly cared about.”

  “Lovely!” Mademoiselle clapped her tiny wrinkled hands together with glee when a member of the kitchen staff removed her empty dinner plate and replaced it with a smaller dessert plate that was fully loaded up with a rich custard, whipped cream and shredded sugar-coated pastry dessert. “Thank you so much, Cheryl.” She scooped up a helping of dessert and popped it into her mouth. “Cheryl makes the best ekmek kataifi!” She looked longingly at my dessert. “If you’re not going to eat yours, I will.”

  I was willing to sacrifice my dessert for information. No matter how well the cooks at Berkshire made ekmek kataifi, I knew their version couldn’t possibly come close to triggering the taste bud orgasm I’d experienced when I’d had it at Blue Restaurant in Didim, Turkey. “It’s yours.” I slid my plate along the linen table cloth to her place.

  “I don’t know if Jocelyn had anything to do with Kayla’s death, but it wouldn’t surprise me.” My dessert disappeared in three big spoonfuls. “The girl’s got a temper on her, a nasty temper. If Kayla did something to anger her there’s no telling what she’d be capable of doing. It’s quite possible that she gave Kayla a little shove. I’m positive that she knows more about it than she’s told anyone. The teary performance she gave me was just that – a performance. Of course, Kayla had a temper, too. A nasty one, like her mother. Do you think we’ll be getting any dessert wine?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I overheard Kayla and her father having a rather loud argument in the parking lot one day. I just happened to be walking by. I’d just nipped over to see Margery, she teaches political science. She imports these delicious chocolates from England. The British make the best chocolate in the world, far better than the Swiss in my opinion. I think it’s the cows. But back to Kayla and her father, they were arguing about money. I remember thinking how strange it was. From what I could gather, Kayla was furious with her father because he wouldn’t give her any money and he was equally angry with Kayla, saying that she got too much money from her mother. Kayla screamed some vulgarities at him, saying that her mother was a penny-pinching so-and-so, only she used more powerful words than I, and she claimed that she wasn’t even getting an allowance.”

  Kayla needed money? Why? Because she was being blackmailed?

  “Kayla ran past me in the rotunda and she was crying. Real tears, not dramatic tears. I offered to help in any way I could, but she just brushed me aside, in a fashion very similar to her mother’s style, and said she could handle it herself. She said ‘That’s what Talbot’s do – we take care of business’.”

  “Do you think she was upset enough to kill herself?”

  “Possibly. And there was a suicide note. On the other hand, Kayla wasn’t a quitter. She may have done exactly what she said she’d do – handled her business.” Mademoiselle bent over and picked up her little embroidered handbag. “And if that’s the case, I think Jocelyn knows more than she’s telling about whatever it was that Kayla did to handle that business. I think she brought me that computer stick thing to give the impression that she’d just found out about it.”

  “Could Ethan have known about whatever was going on? Did he mention Kayla when he came to see you?”

  “Good heavens, no! The only thing he wanted to talk to me about was his university choices. And he mentioned something about the Indian boy wanting to go to art school in Toronto, but I explained how impossible that would be.” She stood up and politely laid her napkin on the table beside the two empty dessert plates. “Do you drink coffee?”

  Was she inviting me to her apartment for an after dinner jolt of caffeine? “Not this late in the day.”

  “Well, of course not! It would ruin your sleep. The reason I asked is that you might want to drop by the staff lounge around ten tomorrow morning. Kayla’s English teacher, Liloe, has a spare period then. If you want to get a better picture of Kayla you should read her creative writing assignments. It’s not surprising that she wrote that note using Shakespeare’s words. Liloe has them studying him right now.”

  “How will I know which teacher she is?”

  “You won’t be able to miss her. She’s a darkie, black as tar, the darkest person in the school. Goodness me! I believe that last sip of wine’s doing all my talking.”

  Wine didn’t put words in a person’s mouth. It only loosened tongues and let words that were already there fall out.

  “One more thing,” I said as she turned to leave. One of Ethan’s last acts had been to defend Blaze’s right to go to OCAD. “I think Ethan was right about Blaze. I’ve seen some of his artwork. He’s incredibly talented. I told him he should go to OCAD and I’ve asked Jack to sponsor him.”

  “He is very talented, I agree. But Blaze would be happier back on the reservation with his own people. And he can still paint up there. I’m sure they have brushes and things. Goodnight, dear.”

  She missed the school chaplain’s final blessing.

  The young chaplain stepped down from our platform, walked over to Jeff and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  The hall fell silent. The chaplain’s voice was strong and could be easily heard by everyone, but she was speaking directly to Jeff.

  “Those who are worn out and crushed by this mourning, let your hearts consider this: this is the path that has existed from the time of creation and will exist forever. Many have drunk from it and many will yet drink. As was the first meal, so shall be the last. May the master of comfort, comfort you.” She looked up from Jeff and spoke to the rest of the students the last line of the Jewish Blessing of the Mourners. “Blessed are those who comfort the mourners.”

  I heard a few quiet Amens after she’d finished, and offered a silent one of my own.

  Chapter Eleven

  The hallways were empty after dinner. I found the seniors in pairs, triplets and the occasional larger group in various alcoves, the original library and even in the cafeteria. Some were quietly crying. Most were actually studying. Yet another thing that had changed at Berkshire. Back in my day, studying was the last thing we’d wanted to do. Especially on a night when the temperature outside had shot up to 19˚C for the first time in six months. Maybe Ethan’s death had muted their normal behaviour.

  Jeff and the Muslim girl from the dining hall were studying in an alcove, but the textbook on Jeff’s lap was upside down and I caught a glimpse of their tightly intertwined fingers under the book. Blaze was part of the largest group I saw, working on math problems. He certainly didn’t seem to be having any trouble fitting in with Berkshire people. Glyn was sitting alone in her dorm room, staring at a slideshow of photos of Ethan on her computer screen. Jocelyn, too, was at her computer in her dorm room, but unlike Glyn she was actually working, not just staring.

  I went into my room, but left the door open just in case I was needed. (For what, I couldn’t say.) I checked my phone and saw that fourteen emails had come in, but the only one I opened was from my dive buddy Simon.

  Hey Lee,

  Good to hear from you. No thanks needed – awesome day for me too! The ducks were on Allamanda Cay.

  Dive on!

  S

  I called Jack, but my call went straight through to voicemail, so I just hung up.

  The bell to signal the end of study time rang and the hallway instantly came alive. The students were making a mass exodus, but none of them were talking. It was kind of creepy.

  Grace grabbed me in the hallway. “Come with me.”

  I obediently followed. “Where are we going?”

  “To see what they’re going to do.” She took me to a door that I hadn’
t noticed before. It was near the centre stairwell. She unlocked it and we started going up a tight circular metal staircase that wasn’t well lit.

  “What who’s going to do?”

  “The kids. They’re up to something.”

  I heard feet clanging on the steps below me and looked down through the staircase. Several dark shapes were coming up behind us. Was this some sort of weird nightly ritual?

  Grace unlocked the thick wooden door at the top of the stairwell and we stepped out onto the parapet walk that ran along the edge of all the original exterior walls of Berkshire. It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the night; the moon was still big enough and close enough to brighten everything up. The air was warm and even had a touch of humidity in it. Like Grace had said, it was the time of year when Mother Nature couldn’t make up her mind; we might have a blizzard and sub-Arctic temperatures one day, blazing sun and sweltering humidity the next. The channels across the lake had widened in the hours since Will’s men had been out there. The square they’d cut in the ice to pull out Old Pete’s truck had stretched out to resemble a heptagon. Another day or two of warm temperatures would probably take the ice out completely. Or it might get cold again and freeze the thaw.

  We weren’t alone on the parapet. Teachers and dorm dons were streaming out of doors just like the one we’d just come out of. We congregated at the lake side of Berkshire and I looked down to see what had to be the entire student body gathering at the shore.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered, even though there was no need to.

  “We think they’re going to do some sort of memorial for Ethan. Somebody stole all the electric candles that we’d ordered for the graduation ceremony from the stores room during dinner.”

  Sure enough, the flicker of candles being lit began to spread through the large crowd at the shore.

  “Was Ethan that well-liked by everybody?”

  “He was family,” Grace said without any hesitation.

  No one at Berkshire would have blinked twice if I’d tipped my kayak over in the ice. No. That wasn’t true. Jack would have. But there definitely wouldn’t have been a school-wide showing of mourning. For the second time that night, I was witnessing a family coming together in grief.

  If I’d tipped my kayak over ... Whenever I was sitting in my kayak, as far out on the lake as a channel would allow, and thought about what would happen if I tipped over, the one image that always came to my mind was of my kayak floating empty. It would be the only physical evidence of me ever being out there. So where was Ethan’s kayak?

  A delicate piano solo started playing somewhere.

  “I’ll be damned; they’re piping it through the school’s speaker system.” A male teacher behind me said.

  “That has to be Erol’s handiwork, he’s a whizz at electronics.” Another man suggested.

  A man’s falsetto singing voice gently filled the air and echoed around the quad behind us and the grounds in front of us. He sang about a long day without his friend, wondering when he’d see him again. I didn’t recognise the song, but the lyrics definitely matched the events of the day.

  The beat got meatier, pumping so loudly that I could feel it even through the thick stones of Berkshire. A second male voice started rapping, talking through the music to a lost friend, saying he’d see him again in a better place.

  The students raised their candles and slowly waved them back and forth in the air in time to the music, like cellphones at a rock concert.

  I overheard a teacher tell a co-worker that the song was from the memorial to Paul Walker at the end of Fast & Furious 7.

  I looked over to the boathouse and saw the outline of a small little woman standing on the front balcony. Even Mem C was holding a candle.

  I could have been happy at this Berkshire.

  It wasn’t until we were walking back down to the dorm level that a question occurred to me. “Grace?”

  She stopped on the stair below me and turned around. “Yeah?”

  “What did the kids do for Kayla?”

  “That was different. Ethan’s death was an accident.”

  Maybe. Or maybe Kayla had been different from Ethan.

  Jack’s cha-ching ring tone sounded just as I was walking back into my room.

  What’s going on over there? Hear music. Party?

  Memorial for Ethan. It was beautiful.

  He was a really good kid. Any news on what happened to him?

  He went kayaking.

  Don’t you DARE think of blaming yourself!!!! I shouldn’t have said that stuff ...fuck this

  My phone rang while I was reading his last text message.

  “I was a complete ass to say what I did about you being responsible for kids being stupid. Teenagers are always stupid!”

  “You’re not the only one to remind me of that.”

  “Is someone trying to blame you? Who the fuck is it?!” Jack wasn’t the strongest, meatiest man, in fact he looked quite geeky when he wore his old thick framed glasses, but when he got angry he was pure undiluted testosterone.

  “She didn’t say I was stupid.”

  “She? She who?”

  “Mademoiselle. She was talking about Ethan, saying that going kayaking in the ice channels was a stupid thing to do. And she’s right.”

  “Don’t you dare let her make you feel somehow guilty for Ethan’s death!”

  “That isn’t what she was...,”

  Jack was on a roll. “The only reason she’s got that apartment over the boathouse is because of me! I am so tempted to evict her ass right out of there.”

  “You’re overreacting.” Even so, it felt good to have someone offer to come to my defense, but it was a slippery slope. I’d never let myself count on it because I knew it could disappear in half a heartbeat. And I didn’t need Jack to race in on his trusty credit card charger to defend my honour with Mademoiselle. “I repeat – she wasn’t talking about me. She’s probably forgotten that I used to do that.”

  “Did she say anything else?” He wasn’t going to leave it, I could tell by the anger that was still simmering in his voice.

  “She thinks Jocelyn was somehow involved in whatever Kayla was doing and -” My phone vibrated to tell me that a text had come in. “Hang on.” I read the text, it was from Will.

  Meet me tomorrow?

  Sure. When/where?

  NOT at Berkshire.

  I put the phone next to my ear again. “Will just texted, he wants to meet me tomorrow. What time’s your appointment at the hospital?”

  “Ten-thirty.”

  “Okay, be right back.”

  Taking Jack to hospital for 10:30. Want me to swing by station?

  Don’t come here. I’ll find you.

  “That was weird. Will doesn’t want to me to come to the station, he said he’d find me.”

  “Maybe you should get out of there? I don’t want you there if it puts you in jeopardy.”

  Oh, pull-ease! The macho defender thing was getting a bit annoying. “I’m not in jeopardy. Stop being melodramatic.” Hearing myself say that reminded me of how often I’d heard it applied to Jocelyn. It wouldn’t be long before the hall lights would be shut off and the students told to shut down all their equipment and go to bed. “I have to go. I want to talk to Jocelyn before lights out.”

  “Be careful, Lee. Please?”

  “Stop worrying! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  *

  Jocelyn was talking to someone over Skype so I leaned against the wall across the hallway from her open door. I wanted her to know I was waiting.

  “I already did, Dad! I emailed it to you a couple of hours ago!”

  “Sorry, but it’s not even six in the morning here. I just woke up. I’ll look for it right after we finish. How’s the editing going?”

  “Okay, but I have to redo all my timing again. Another kid died.”

  “What!? What’s going on over there? I’m calling Dr. Campbell...,”

  “It was just an ac
cident and it was his fault. He went out in his kayak in the ice channels. Like, how stupid was that?”

  Great. Even Jocelyn knew it was a dumb thing to do. How stupid was I as a teenager? Who was I kidding, I was still stupid; I still loved going out in my kayak before it was even remotely safe.

  If Jocelyn’s father was any example Dr. Campbell’s phone would be ringing off the hook with calls from concerned parents. Marcy had been right to worry about the school’s bottom line when she mentioned it to Dick, Andre and Lang at our meeting. Two dead students in less than a month would destroy the scandal-free reputation that Dr. Campbell had so proudly boasted of.

  “Are you okay? First Kayla and now this. It must be so hard on you to have to look at their pictures...,”

  “I’m fine!” Jocelyn yelled with exasperation.

  “Okay, okay! I worry about you, that’s all.”

  Jocelyn didn’t say anything. She left it to her father to break the awkward silence.

  “I booked my flights yesterday. I can’t wait to see you in person. I’ll be getting in a couple of days before your graduation so we can spend some time together before you head off to Granny’s.”

  “I don’t want to go to her place. She’s old. And I hate Saguenay. It’s a dump! Why can’t I come with you?”

  “Jocelyn, honey, we’ve been over this. You’d be bored out of your mind here; it’s not the place for a teenage girl to be running around alone. And we’d barely see each other, what with the hours I’ll be working. You’ll have your cousins to hang out with in Saguenay.”

  “It’s going to suck! I was looking forward to spending the summer in the Bahamas. It’s not fair! You promised!”

  “I’m sorry, really I am, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The contract fell through. It happens. And your cousins aren’t old. You’ll have fun together.” Jocelyn’s father was doing his best to remain cheerful against Jocelyn’s insurmountable negativity.

  “They’re stupid and boring. And it rains like all the time in Saguenay. At least it’s hot and sunny in Abu Dhabi.” She looked over her shoulder and saw me. “I have to go. One of the dons wants to talk to me. Bye.” She clicked her mouse and her computer screen changed to show a Word document. “What do you want?”