There was a tense, hunted air in the faculty lounge. No one was talking. Someone had drawn the shades against the street outside, protecting the interior from the prying lenses of photographers and the TV news crews. No one had been much interested in the murder of a private-school soccer mom, but a college admissions scandal was something else entirely. The New York Post had run a color triptych of Principal Ellis, with her gray-flecked auburn hair; Lindsay Delcade, beneath her ginger mane; and Emily Pasquarelli, her strawberry blonde hair coppery in the sunlight; all over the headline: ‘Varsity Reds’. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had settled for the more prosaic ‘College Admissions Scam Leads to Murder’. Either way, the school was the subject of an uncomfortable amount of media attention.
Greg, concerned that he might be caught on camera and identified by his former colleagues, had taken to wearing a hastily purchased snorkel parka with the hood fully zipped up. He looked ridiculous, but it was impossible for anyone to capture his face on film.
Of course, continuing to go to school was a problem entirely of his own making. Deputy Werner and Dianna Aldis had pointed out in no uncertain terms that his location had been compromised. If Morosov had found him today, someone else from GRU would be there tomorrow. It was time, they said, to move on: right this minute, in fact. Calderhill Academy would have to find a new foreign language teacher.
Greg had refused. Even now, he wasn’t quite sure why. It was a reasonable supposition that Morosov, greedy for the money and distrustful of his paymasters, had refused to give them Greg’s location. But it was only supposition. What if Morosov had been upfront and told them where he was? And even if he hadn’t, was it such a stretch to imagine that GRU, or even FSB, had followed Morosov anyway, and tracked him into Appalachia’s crumpled foothills? Worse yet, Morosov would be spending the rest of his life in a supermax prison. It was not beyond the ability of someone with Morosov’s training to get the word out to Russian intelligence somehow. Choosing to stay behind was, as Aldis had said, ‘ill advised’, or, in Werner’s more colorful vernacular, ‘goddamn fucking insane’.
But here he was, sitting in a slightly threadbare armchair, on the opposite side of a coffee table from Demetrius Freedman. The chemistry teacher was assiduously reading the faculty’s hard-copy version of the Post-Gazette and saying nothing to anybody.
Greg had balked at his handlers’ instructions for much the same reasons he’d decided to deal with Morosov on his own. If GRU found him, GRU found him. Maybe next time, he would be man enough, honorable enough, to pay the debt owed. Whatever God willed.
And there was another factor, too. One that had caught him completely by surprise. The more Werner and Aldis had talked about leaving Pittsburgh, the more he realized he would miss it. Dull though it was, he had a life here, a chance to be a normal person for as long as God allowed. His whole adult life he’d moved from station to station, never settling anywhere for more than a year or two, never making friends, severing and re-severing connections. He didn’t want to move again. He’d grown to not dislike the so-called Steel City, with its ridiculous hills, and claustrophobic neighborhoods, and dark, slow-moving rivers. If life ever allowed him to put down roots, it might as well be here. There were far worse places in the world – and he’d no desire to see any more of them.
I must be getting old.
‘Who do you think will replace Principal Ellis?’ he asked Demetrius, trying to make conversation. The chemistry teacher lowered his newspaper just enough to give Greg a slightly wary look. Greg didn’t blame him. After the grilling he’d received at Greg’s hands, it would be a long time before Demetrius Freedman invited him to watch football.
‘No one from the school, that’s for sure. Governors were right to fire Ellis on the spot, even though I’ll bet you most of them knew what was going on. They’ll want someone from outside, who isn’t tainted with this whole Stayard admissions mess.’ Demetrius could not resist a knowing smile. ‘This whole thing is so white, man. They go on and on about everyone playing by the rules – so long as the rules are slanted in their favor. And when the rules aren’t slanted enough, they done go pull shit like this.’
Greg chose not to reply. Demetrius cast most of the newspaper aside, deciding to concentrate on the sports pages. The rejected sections landed on the coffee table with a hiss of friction.
Almost against his will, Greg leaned over and picked up the local news section, drawn by a small headline from below the fold.
‘PITTSBURGH, PA – Officials are working to identify a man’s body that was found on the north bank of the Allegheny River late Thursday night.
According to officials at the scene, the body of a roughly 45-year-old Caucasian man was found floating in shallow water near the Rachel Carson Bridge. He had apparently been shot multiple times.
A passerby walking his dog discovered the body.
The case is being investigated by Pittsburgh homicide detectives. According to sources, no one has been reported missing in that area, and for reasons that have not been disclosed, the as yet unidentified body is believed to be that of a foreign national, perhaps British, or Russian.
The body was turned over to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office for further inquiries.’
There was no picture.
A small knot formed in the pit of Greg’s stomach. He had little doubt the body in question was Morosov’s. But American intelligence was not in the business of summary executions. And even if they were, they would know better than to dump a corpse into the nearest river carrying clues about its identity.
So …
He wandered across the lounge to the kitchen area and poured himself a coffee. He stood quietly by the sink, staring unseeingly over the seated heads of his colleagues.
The bell rang for lessons.