“Dude, get this, Oliver just got a text from a friend from home and found out that the teacher that Oscar’s been hanging with is married,” said Andy as they made their way into dinner.
“Fishy,” said Luke. How the hell did everyone else get an update about what Oscar was up to except him? And obviously, there was a lot that Oscar was not sharing with him. “Probably means nothing’s going on.”
Andy laughed. “You are so naïve, Chase. You think Oscar would turn down a hookup?”
“Well, sure. But…older and married?” asked Luke with skepticism. “I doubt it. He told me he’s not into cougars.”
Andy shook his head again. “Ah, my friend, one day you’ll wake up.”
Luke was both distracted and tense when he sat down at his assigned table with Mr. Crawford and the rest of his friends. And to add to the misery, tonight was a sit-down dinner. Not only was it a total drag to don a coat and tie after a long day of sports and classes, but he just wasn’t up for small talk. The thing was, over the past few weeks, Luke had been searching so desperately—even putting himself in danger—to find Mrs. Heckler’s killer. And his main reason for doing that was to exonerate Oscar. But it seemed that lately there had been a slow trickle of revelations about Oscar that made him question his friend. Too many inconsistencies were starting to add up. Luke was confused, and angry, even.
Chicken again, sighed Luke staring down at his plate. You couldn’t avoid seeing chicken almost every other meal. Lemon chicken, chicken in white sauce, chicken in red sauce. Chicken for lunch, and chicken for dinner. And if not chicken, then tofu or some other fake chicken. Luke wished for the good old days, before everything had to be organic, when there was always a loaf of white bread and a tub of peanut butter next to the coffeemaker. At least tonight they were serving some sort of pesto flatbread. Any sort of bread was always a plus.
Luke was on his third piece of flatbread when Mr. Tadeckis approached.
“Hello, Luke,” said Mr. Tadeckis in his brisk manner.
“Hello, Mr. Tadeckis.”
Mr. Tadeckis glanced around the table, then turned his attention back to Luke. “I would be interested in a progress report,” he said in a low voice.
Luke squirmed in his seat. “Yeah, um, not much to report.”
Mr. Tadeckis waved his finger at Luke. “Tsk, tsk. Don’t kid a kidder.”
Mr. Crawford, who was seated a few seats down chimed in. “Hello, Dwight.”
Mr. Tadeckis barely glanced in his direction. “Hello, Skippy,” he said tersely, before returning to Luke.
“Luke, have you forgotten what I told you?”
Luke gave him an imploring look. “What?”
“Are you sure you don’t remember?”
“I remember,” said Luke, gazing up at him. Mr. Tadeckis had told him they were lying, to not trust anyone. Basically, Mr. Tadeckis wanted him to become the same kind of suspicious loner that he was.
“I guess I expected a little more follow-through from you.”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Is that good enough?”
“For me.”
Mr. Tadeckis leaned closer to Luke. “Don’t forget. They are not as they seem. Watch your back. Look at what is right in front of you.”
Luke could tell the guys sitting around him were wondering what the heck was going on. Luke cleared his throat and said a little too loudly. “Sure, Mr. Tadeckis. Watch my back. Yup. I’ll do that.”
Some of the guys started laughing, but stopped when they realized Mr. Tadeckis was not. Mr. Tadeckis stood up very straight and gave Luke a look of outrage. “Very well then. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”
When he walked away, Luke suddenly felt awful. He shouldn’t have spoken to Mr. Tadeckis like that. He was after all, a teacher, of sorts. A grown-up. But in Luke’s mind, he was also a suspect.
“Is Tadeckis your buddy these days?” asked Andy, his mouth full.
“No, please,” said Luke in disgust.
“What’s up with the friendly little chat then?”
“It’s nothing, he’s weird.”
“Come on, you aren’t joining his club, are you?” asked Gupta. “Are your extracurriculars really that light?”
“Seriously, don’t you have enough outdoor stuff to talk about on your apps without having to go on one of those Deliverance trips with his posse of nerds?” asked Andy.
Luke sighed. How could he explain? “I wouldn’t do it just for colleges, but, yes. I’m thinking about it.”
“No way, dude! You’re going to go all Discovery Channel on us?” asked Gupta.
“I hear weird stuff goes down out there,” said Andy. “And not weird in a good way.”
“Hey, some of those camping trips can be fun. When I was a student here, we had some pretty wild times,” interjected Mr. Crawford.
“Really?” asked Luke with surprise.
“Yeah, ’cause in those days, plenty of girls went,” said Mr. Crawford, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
“You’re the man, Mr. C.!” said Andy.
The other boys started to whoop suggestively. Luke rolled his eyes, thinking of what Liz or his sisters would say if they were here.
“Keep it down over there,” said Mr. P., who was seated at the next table.
“Sorry, Robert,” said Mr. Crawford over his shoulder. He turned back to the boys and whispered conspiratorially, “Guys, don’t forget, we’re not allowed to have fun at these dinners.”
All the guys laughed. Luke was surprised that Mr. Crawford would be so brazen in his dismissal of Mr. P. But he recalled that he had once heard that they didn’t like each other. Something happened back in the days when they were both students. Apparently, Mr. P. was kind of a dork, and Mr. Crawford was one of the “cool guys.” Well, at least according to Mr. Crawford. It must be weird now that Palmer was a dean and, in effect, superior to Mr. Crawford. Luke didn’t see teaching in his future, but he tried to imagine himself in Mr. Crawford’s shoes, if he were to fast-forward ten years from now. It would be a bit uncomfortable if he had been passed over to be a dean for someone like, say, Higgins. It would be a strange dynamic. He didn’t think he’d handle it well either. Then again, he doubted he’d act as immature as Mr. Crawford did if he were a teacher.
“Let’s hit Main Hall,” said Andy as soon as dinner was done.
“I don’t know…” began Luke in protest.
“Chase, you’re such a bore these days!”
“Shut up,” said Luke. “I’ll go as far as the vending machines. I want some chips or candy to wash away the taste of whatever that dinner was.”
“I hear ya,” said Andy.
They walked together toward the vending machines where Luke stopped and bought some M&M’s, and Andy got a Kit Kat. Thank God the organic food police hadn’t gotten rid of the vending machines yet, but Luke was willing to bet that when he returned for his first alumni weekend they’d be long gone. It was only a matter of time. The boys continued their stroll down Main Hall. Luke searched for Pippa, but there was no sign of her.
“These security guards are beyond worthless,” Andy said, pointing to three guards clustered outside of Main Hall.
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently, they’re a total joke. They’re all wannabe cops who failed their test. Totally clueless. Fisher snuck out of his dorm the other night to go meet his girlfriend, and they just, like, nodded at him. I mean, they don’t even realize that we have a curfew and aren’t allowed out after lights out!”
“That’s kind of scary when you think of it. Aren’t they supposed to be protecting us?”
“Yeah, right. I heard they all hang out in the bike room downstairs, playing poker. I tell you, no one here is safe.”
Luke frowned. Andy had no idea how right he was.
“Hey, I want to check my mailbox,” said Luke, guiding Andy in that direction.
“What, you waiting for the new J.Crew catalog?”
“Victoria’s Secret.”
“Ha.”
“No, really, I want to get my American lit paper. Mr. Turner said he’d put them in our boxes tonight.”
They went into the area where all the student mailboxes were. As Luke approached the back wall where his was located, he saw Mrs. Palmer shoving something into a box. It was too far away to discern whose it was. She glanced up and quickly slammed the box shut before moving toward them.
“Hello, boys, just returning some papers for Mr. P.,” she said rapidly, before pushing her glasses up her nose. “Have to get back to the twins now.”
“Have a good night,” murmured Luke and Andy.
When she was out of earshot, Andy leaned toward Luke and whispered, “She is one mousy lady.”
“Yeah, but nice.”
“I bet Mr. P. wished he could have had a hottie like Joanna Heckler.”
Luke sighed. “Dude, it’s not all about what chicks look like, you know.”
“What do you mean?” asked Andy, truly perplexed.
He’s beyond help, thought Luke.
Luke walked to his mailbox and bent down to open it. He put his hand in the box and pulled out his paper. He got a ninety-three. Not bad. Now he had a chance of getting an A in this class. He put his hand back in his box and felt a small rectangular slip of paper. He’d probably received a package; that was usually the form they used. He pulled it out and saw that it wasn’t a package form. It was an index card. There, scrawled in black ink, was a message:
You are playing a dangerous game. You think you know better than anyone else. This will end badly for you. Watch your back.
“What’d ya get?” asked Andy.
Luke quickly put the index card on top of his English assignment and folded it in half. “Oh, nothing, I just have a package…”
“No, I mean on the paper.”
“Oh, ninety-three.”
“Nice. Never got that kind of a grade from Turner myself.”
“Thanks,” said Luke. “Listen, I’m going to head back to the dorm. Prep for study hall. Interested?”
“No, man, I’m playing this out until the very end. I just saw Lily and Kira arrive, and I want to let them fight it out over me.”
“Right, that’s gonna happen. Catch you later.”
“You don’t want to be my wingman?” said Andy.
“I’m out of here,” said Luke over his shoulder.
He took a deep breath as he walked down Main Hall back to his dorm. Watch your back. That’s what Mr. Tadeckis had warned him at dinner. He had clearly been offended by Luke’s tone and had taken it a step further. There was no proof at all, of course. The handwriting was indecipherable and probably disguised very well. It was all coming together. Luke felt stupid. All of Mr. Tadeckis’s clues had been to throw him off. Perhaps Mr. Tadeckis had thought Luke had seen him that night, so he had tried to mess with Luke’s mind.
Something flashed in Luke’s head. He remembered when he and Oscar were climbing back into the dorm, and he had looked up at the hill and saw a figure. It had to have been Mr. Tadeckis. He had the same large build. Luke shivered at the memory. Mr. Tadeckis was a trained outdoorsman, a hunter. He knew how to wait for his prey and then attack. There could be no doubt.
Luke headed for Nichols, the dorm where Mr. Tadeckis lived.
* * *
“May I help you?” asked Mr. Tadeckis sharply when he saw Luke at his door.
“Mr. Tadeckis, I was hoping to talk to you.”
“I’m on dorm duty. I have to check in these newbies and make sure they’re glued to their desks and not using their cell phones and are in compliance with all of the rules and regulations.”
“This will only take a minute.”
“A lot can occur in that minute. I could be distracted by you, and one of the first-years could use that opportunity to open their door, retrieve their cell phone, and text someone.” First-years were supposed to leave their cell phones outside their doors in the hallway during study hall. It usually took them until winter break to realize they could leave an old, nonworking phone in the hallway as a dummy.
“But if you’re on dorm duty, aren’t you technically supposed to be available for any academic help? In which case, the same thing could happen. I could be asking you a question about science, and one of the first-years could open their doors and sneak in their phones. Same thing. Or that could also occur when you are doing impromptu room checks. You could have your head in one room, and someone could slip past you…”
Mr. Tadeckis thought a minute. “Touché,” he said. “You may enter.” He moved ever so slightly to the side to allow Luke entrance.
Luke had been surprised by Mr. Tadeckis’s office and was once again surprised by his apartment. It was actually well-decorated. The walls were hunter green, and there were large, framed, poster-sized photographs of all sorts of animals—tigers and bears and lions. He had two leather club chairs and a beige couch with zebra-stripe throw pillows. It felt more like a home than some of the other dorm teachers’ apartments, which felt more like, well, dorm rooms.
“Wow, did you take these pictures?”
“That is correct,” confirmed Mr. Tadeckis.
“They’re awesome. Were you on a safari?” asked Luke, almost forgetting why he was there.
“Yes, one of my many trips to Africa.”
Luke turned back to Mr. Tadeckis. Suddenly he felt nervous. “I know it was wrong for me to be sort of rude to you tonight, but there’s no need for threats,” said Luke, summoning up all of his courage.
“Threats?”
“Yeah, you know, ‘watch your back,’” Luke said.
“That was advice, a warning.”
“Yeah, but I mean, to write me the note—”
“What note?”
“You know, the one in my mailbox.”
“I did not write you a note. Please let me see the evidence.”
Luke handed the index card to Mr. Tadeckis. He adjusted his glasses and read it silently.
“Very interesting.”
“You wrote it, right?”
Mr. Tadeckis stared at Luke. “I did not write this.”
Luke started to feel nervous. “Then who do you think did?”
“The murderer, no doubt,” said Mr. Tadeckis matter-of-factly.
Luke couldn’t believe he was being so cavalier. It was as if he were discussing the weather. “Really? You think?” said Luke, his voice rising to a squeak.
“Most likely.”
Luke sat down with a thud in the chair. He felt weak. The murderer was now threatening him? “But why would he say ‘watch your back’? That’s what you said.”
“Maybe he overheard me.”
Luke sat in a daze. Then something occurred to him. “How do I know you’re not the murderer? I know that you followed the dean and his first wife into the copy room and saw the picture they copied of Mrs. Heckler.”
“True. And does that make me a murderer?”
“Well, why were you following them? Why were you in the woods?”
“Curiosity.”
“Maybe you had some sick obsession with Mrs. Heckler too! Maybe you were her boyfriend!”
Mr. Tadeckis went and sat down across from Luke. It seemed as if his body relaxed, and he leaned back in his chair. “I was not her boyfriend.”
“How do I know?”
“Because I am a socially awkward oaf that could only dream of being with a woman like Joanna Heckler.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what she told me, anyway,” said Mr. Tadeckis, his eyes shining under his glasses.
“She said that? When?”
“I will be straightforward with you, in order to put your mind at ease that I would never commit homicide or engage in threatening index card correspondence,” said Mr. Tadeckis, clearing his throat. “Joanna Heckler was a very wily woman. Cunning. I am usually very good at reading people, but she had me fooled.”
“How?”
“She came down to my office last month, just before school started. As you know, it’s rare that I receive visits, particularly from adults. She turned on all of her feminine charm and told me she admired my work, my trips, that she’d been watching me from afar. She was very good. I’m really impressed, in retrospect, by her acting ability. She asked for my help in teaching her some rock-climbing skills. I took her out a few times, taught her the fundamentals.”
“Rock climbing?”
“Yes. Several times she made allusions that rock climbing was the best way to get a man you had your eye on. I took that to mean me. Later when I tried to address her infatuation, she laughed and inquired as to whether I really thought, and I quote, that ‘a socially awkward oaf like myself would enamor a woman like her?’ She told me she was out of my league.”
Luke didn’t know what to say. “Oh. So, um, then what?”
“She had used me to get the skills she needed to impress someone. Then she moved on. I imagine it wasn’t the first time.”
“Was it to get the guy in the woods?”
A small smile flickered across Mr. Tadeckis’s face. “No. She was using him as well. That became clear. And he didn’t like that very much. Sometimes you pick the wrong person to mess with.”
“Why won’t you tell me who it was? Why won’t you tell me who murdered her?”
“You already know.”
“Is it Mr. Hamaguchi?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, he seems pretty broken up about her death.”
“Flimsy,” interjected Mr. Tadeckis.
“And he got really mad when people talked about the murder. And then he said they don’t know what it’s like to kill someone. He sounded like he knew what it was like.”
“What it’s like to murder? Or witness a murder?”
“I don’t know. Murder, I think.”
Mr. Tadeckis wiped an imaginary dust line off the side of his table with his index finger and blew it away. “I think Mr. Hamaguchi has great fantasies about murder. I think he is consumed by it. Actually, I don’t just think, I know.”
“Then you think he’s the one who killed Mrs. Heckler?” asked Luke hopefully.
“No.”
“But that doesn’t make sense…”
Mr. Tadeckis stood up. “I will have to terminate our conversation now. It’s been exactly seventeen minutes since I checked on the first-years, and my routine is to check on them every fifteen. You need to return to your dorm for study hall.”
“Please, Mr. Tadeckis. Give me a hint.”
“Nothing was ever handed to me, Luke. I had to learn survival skills. The boys here are soft. None of them could take a killer down. But you could, Luke. We both know that. That’s why I gave you the knife. Don’t forget about it.”
Luke’s mind raced to the knife. He had decided to move it from his desk drawer and had hidden it in the radiator in the stairwell in his dorm. It was probably time to remove it now that he was getting threats. Luke followed Mr. Tadeckis out the door with frustration. Sometimes he just didn’t know what Mr. Tadeckis was talking about.
“But what if he tries to kill me?”
Mr. Tadeckis turned toward him. “It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Defend yourself. It worked before.”