“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dean Rice from the podium, “scholars and distinguished guests of Jasper College, we are gathered here today to remember the life of Dr. Michael Tanner.”
A cold, ugly morning. On the walkways a few students made their way to class, craning their necks to watch the service with morbid curiosity. One of Tanner’s former students sobbed; a reporter snapped a photograph. Alex had spent the morning thinking of what to say about her murdered friend, and the more she thought, the more ill she became. There was no question now: they were gathered here because of her. Because of what she had discovered in Iowa; because she had finished the night class and put all of this in motion.
She wriggled at the thought. Her stomach churned.
As the dean continued with his introduction, Alex scanned the faces on the makeshift stage beside her. Christian Kane sat in his chair looking nervous, fidgeting like a child in church. Melissa Lee was beside him, her posture prim and straight, girlish ovoid sunglasses hiding her thoughts. Next was Frank Marsden, who had arrived late and now looked lost without his lady friend. Alex glanced out at the crowd but she could not see Lucy Wiggins anywhere. She forgot about the actress and focused again on the stage. Sally Tanner was dressed in black, a lace veil hanging over her eyes and her jaw tight with sorrow. Last was Jacob Keller, who had just slipped into his seat and was trying to look as if he’d been right on time. He appeared solemn and calm now, his head canted as if in prayer. Finally, at the end of the stage were two more chairs. The first was Lewis Prine’s; the other was meant for Dr. Richard Aldiss. Both remained empty.
Dean Rice said her name, and Alex stepped up to the microphone and gazed out at the quad. The people there had pressed in, reporters flashing a volley of photos from the back row. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Come on, Alex, she told herself. You do this every day at Harvard.
It was then that she felt a heavy arm around her. Keller had joined her at the podium. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I’m here.”
This emboldened her.
Alex leaned close to the mic and said, “A good friend of mine told me once that death allows us to focus more deeply on life. If we focus on Dr. Michael Tanner’s life, we see a man who was indebted to scholarship. We see a family man”—she cast a look at Sally, who glanced away—“who truly loved his wife and daughter. We see a professor who believed in the theories and the practice of good literature. A man who’d given up years of his life for this college, and who died here trying to make a difference.”
She paused. Keller pulled her closer.
“I met Michael Tanner fifteen years ago. We took a class together, a class that would change all of us forever. Even then, I knew Michael was a brilliant man, but it was more than that: he was kind. He believed in righteousness and . . .” The crowd shifted. They were not paying attention to her as much as they were searching her: looking at her as if they might tease something out of her. A group of students stood in the front row, their faces wolfish in the patchy sunlight. We know who you are, they said silently. We know, we know, we—
Alex balled up the eulogy she had written in her room the night before. Then she gathered herself again and said, “The Procedure is a dangerous game.” There was a look of confusion in the crowd, murmurs of uncertainty. “If anyone is playing it, then you must stop immediately. Michael knew this as well as anyone. If not for the Procedure, he might still be—”
At that moment someone cried out in the distance. The sound had come from the steep hill that led up to the Fisk mansion. The mourners turned and searched the fringe of campus, looking for the voice.
It was Detective Black. He was running toward them.
All Alex could do was simply watch the man approach. He ran across the east quad and entered the crowd, pushed his way to the stage.
“What is the meaning of this, Detective?” Dean Fisk said. He had rolled his chair forward. His blind eyes scanned the crowd madly.
“There’s been another murder,” Black said breathlessly. “The body was found in your home just a few moments ago. Everyone needs to return there immediately.”
* * *
There was a group of policemen standing on either side of the armchair, looking down at the body of Lewis Prine. He sat stiffly, his hands clasped over his trenchcoat. The fire had gone out and the room smelled of ash. On the tables, glasses and bottles from the night before made a lonely cluster, some of them smeared with lipstick, others toppled on their sides. And in the middle of the room was the dead man, looking as if he were nothing but a bystander to it all.
So he decided to come after all, Alex thought. He just got to campus too late.
Prine’s head was cocked back as if he had fallen asleep sitting up, and draped across his face was a book, a paperback that was stained now with dark blood. It was Christian Kane’s Barker at Night.
“I swear to God,” Christian was saying somewhere in the midst of people in the room. “I swear I had nothing to do with this. I’m being framed. I’m being framed, goddamn it!” His voice was tinged with hysteria, and the others regarded him coldly. Sally Tanner had fallen limply into Frank Marsden’s arms, and in her face was a breathless shock. No, she mouthed soundlessly. No, no, no. Beyond her Lucy Wiggins stood by the fire, her arms cradled around herself, trembling in fear. And Keller stood beside Alex, his eyes jumping from the dead man to the wall and back again. Like Alex, he couldn’t look at Lewis without remembering Iowa.
“A bullet wound,” Black was saying, “just behind the right ear.”
“I have no guns in my house,” Fisk said defensively. “If you find the weapon, then it was brought here by the killer.”
“My men are searching,” Black said, and Alex thought of the book she had hidden in her room. The object within and the place where she’d left it that morning. Black caught her eyes and she looked quickly away. “What we need to do now is get everyone who was in the mansion this morning back here. Prine was murdered then, either just before or just after everyone left.”
“But someone would have seen him,” the dean pleaded. “We would have surely run into—”
“Which way did you leave the house, Dr. Fisk?” Black asked.
The dean gestured to Matthew Owen. “Through the kitchen,” the nurse said.
“So it is possible,” deduced Black, “that when you left you simply did not encounter Lewis Prine. The man was running late, and when he arrived, someone here, someone who was staying in this house, murdered him.”
Fisk scoffed. “Impossible.”
“After the murder of Michael Tanner,” Black said, “we have to examine every possibility.” The detective looked at Alex and said, “You visited Aldiss last night.”
“He hasn’t been here,” she said. It was too quick, too defensive. “He wouldn’t come to a memorial service. It isn’t his style.”
“Every possibility,” Black repeated.
Then the man backed into the hallway and said something to Dean Rice, who looked pale and shaken. The dean nodded and left the house.
“Is everyone back from the service?” one of Black’s lieutenants asked.
Alex looked around. The great room was a swarm of activity now, cops and technicians working within the wide space cordoned off to preserve the crime scene; it had taken the former students nearly an hour to work their way free of the people at the service, past the crush of reporters pushing forward against the stage. Through the grimy window she could see a clutch of reporters. Rice was giving them some sort of statement.
Aldiss was right, she thought. He was exactly right about all of this.
“Is that everyone?” Black asked again.
“Everyone,” said Keller, still fixed firmly at her side, “except for one.”
Alex scanned the room and noticed that someone had indeed not returned from the service. When she saw who it was, a mix of anger and confusion swept through her.
“Melissa Lee,” she said aloud.
Black nodded and motioned to the lieutenant. “Find Lee and bring her back here,” he said. “Everyone who stayed in this house last night is a possible target—and a suspect.”