CHAPTER 20

The Lincoln Police, represented by an aging lieutenant and a patrolman too young to shave, gawked, poked, and nodded, murmuring “roger” and “over and out” into their walkie-talkies while shooting sidelong glances to see if I was trying to eavesdrop. They seemed united by one desire: to avoid calling in the State Police. If it was homicide, what with all the petty larcencies and minor drug deals already on their plate, they’d need to holler for the Staties. Therefore Geoffrey Reardon had committed suicide. Open and shut.

I was the sole fly buzzing in the ointment. If a private cop hadn’t been around, I don’t think they’d have raised a sweat, just called the meat wagon and written the report. I could practically see the thought balloons over the head of the young one: “Drama teacher kills himself. Well, why the hell not? Probably a faggot. Maybe had AIDS, for Christ’s sake.”

The rookie, pursing his lips and looking like he wanted to rush to the patrol car for a pair of rubber gloves, used the tips of two fingers to extract Reardon’s wallet from his pants pocket.

I’d wondered about Reardon’s sexual preference myself. He’d given off conflicting signals. His incredible beauty and the signed photo of the gorgeous guy in his desk drawer pointed one way. His flirtatious manner and his photo collection of scantily clad teenage girls led another.

Now that the adrenaline had quit on me, I could feel the cold in my toes and my knee. I kept rubbing the tip of my nose and thinking about frostbite.

The Emerson had clout. No doubt about it. The cops made a silent approach—no flashing lights or tacky stuff like that. Refraining from blocking campus roads, they maintained a deferential attitude to a Mrs. Filicia Stoner, Vice Principal in Charge of Damage Control, who must have gotten a phone call as soon as I reported Reardon’s death. Mrs. Stoner had been loosed to deal with the matter diplomatically, and it was fun to watch a pro at work.

A dignified woman with a graying bun, she viewed the corpse, said, “He must have been deeply unhappy, poor man,” with just the right tone of pained regret. She declared she knew she could trust Lieutenant Harrison to handle every little detail. As to next-of-kin, she would inform Mr. Reardon’s brother—she believed it was a brother—whose name and address were surely in Mr. Reardon’s personnel file. If, of course, that was all right with the officer in charge?

Harrison, the older cop, beamed.

Then she turned her gaze on me. “And you are here with the police,” she said.

It wasn’t really a question and it wasn’t really a statement. I got the feeling she expected me to wither under her stare and confess to responsibility for Reardon’s death. Or at least for the awful circumstance of his death occurring on hallowed Emerson ground.

Harrison jerked his chin in my direction. “Private investigator,” he said. “Came to talk to Reardon. Found the body.”

“I don’t believe we met when you checked in at the office,” Ms. Stoner said.

“I don’t believe we did,” I replied with my best smile.

“If Mr. Reardon had private business with you, we would, of course, expect him to conduct that business on his own time,” she recited.

“Of course,” I agreed, politely not pointing out that time and Reardon no longer kept company.

She waited for me to elaborate and when I didn’t she said, “I would appreciate it if you’d drop by my office on your way out.” Her voice, warm when it flattered the cop, acquired an edge of frost.

I could tell by her steely eye that the amount of information I could squeeze out of Ms. Stoner wasn’t worth the trip.

“Nice meeting you,” I said.

She did a pivot the nuns must have taught her at school—straight-shouldered, tight-hipped—and snubbed me in dignified silence.

Since the mighty Ms. Stoner had given them the okay to be rude, the cops weren’t concentrating on charm when they questioned me. So I left out the part about searching Reardon’s office. They wanted to see how the hose had been stuffed in the crack of the window and I showed them as best I could, given the shards of glass.

And what was I doing at the Emerson anyway?

I bit back my automatic “free country” response.

I said I’d had an appointment to speak to Reardon concerning a runaway student. On my way, I’d noticed the tire tracks, heard the engine, come down to investigate.

Ah ha! Then how did I know the identity of the victim? Gotcha!

Sorry, boys, but I’d seen the man before—yesterday. Wanted to ask him a few follow-up questions.

Who’s the runaway student?

Really, I didn’t see where that was any of their business, I said, not being dumb enough to speculate about the affairs of a client—or an ex-client—in front of two cops.

They wanted to know if Reardon had seemed depressed when I spoke to him yesterday.

Not noticeably.

Had he said anything odd, anything that might cast some light on subsequent events?

I like that “subsequent events.” It’s standard cop-report-speak. I told them he’d mentioned leaving his teaching job.

Ahhhhh. That was the kind of bilge they wanted to hear. They made it sound like a suicide note. They really wanted a suicide note. They thought somebody ought to read the guy’s play. Maybe, the old cop thought, it was, like, this super-long suicide note. Each of them thought the other guy ought to read it.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and tried to think about warm days on Cape beaches. It didn’t work.

I had a friend who killed himself. End of October, eight years ago. He didn’t leave a note either. For a long time I used to see him—imagine I’d seen him—in a group of people waiting for a bus, or driving by in a strange new car. I still scream at him in my dreams, incoherent pleas to stop. Talk to me. Let me help.

My ex-husband’s trying to kill himself—slowly, with cocaine. He says it helps his music. I say it helps him deal with the fact that his music doesn’t get the attention he thinks it deserves, but then I’m a cold bitch—or so he said when we split.

According to my mom my grandmother always used to say: A mensh zol lebn nor fun naygerikeyt vegn, which, translated from the Yiddish, means: “A person should live, if only for curiosity’s sake” and sums up my thoughts on suicide pretty well.

Neither my ex nor my friend would see a shrink. God forbid. That might be admitting something was wrong. It seems to me killing yourself is one hell of a way to admit something’s wrong.

Nobody’s ever accused me of being a Pollyanna, but I mean, what if the damn thing could be fixed?

Face it, I have trouble with suicide. I think to myself, okay, you’re dying of a fatal disease and it’s painful as hell—well, maybe. Maybe if I couldn’t move and I couldn’t see and I hurt all the time … but don’t turn off the damn machine if I can still hear music. Put on some fine wailing blues. Hit me with Willie Brown or Mississippi John Hurt and I might surprise you yet.

Geoffrey Reardon’s death looked like suicide, smelled like suicide, tasted like suicide. And maybe what I was refusing to believe was that a man could be in that much pain—physical, psychic, whatever—and I could spend half an hour talking to him and never get a hint. But then I never got a hint with my friend.

What the hell do I know about people? Even the ones I think I know.

On the phone Preston Haslam sounded delighted that his little girl was home again. He didn’t react one way or another to the news about Reardon’s death, except to say he hoped it wouldn’t upset Valerie. Jerry Toland sounded troubled, but thought my work was done.

I hesitated about sending a bill. That’s unusual. Normally I send them quick and they pay them slow. So something must have seemed wrong before I realized it was wrong.

I waited for the autopsy report. I wrote Paolina a long letter. I played a lot of guitar, toughening the calluses on my fingers. And I buried myself in my other case.

Mooney’s hearing was speedily approaching and as far as I knew nobody but me had laid eyes on Janine. Joanne hadn’t returned my calls about the license plate. Sunday, I dialed her from the phone in the kitchen while finishing off a late lunch I’d culled from foil-wrapped bundles of suspicious leftovers. Busy signal. Always busy or take a message or nothing. You’d think the whole damn police department had moved out of town.

A thud from upstairs made me jump. Twin Brothers at work. I mean, I should be used to it by now, right? I took a deep breath and climbed the stairs.

I’m glad to report that the weird blue toilet had disappeared, replaced by a quite respectable tan number the Twin Bros informed me was “almond,” in tones that let me know I had proved my hitherto only suspected total ignorance of the plumbing world. The Day-Glo orange sink had come back and I could hardly wait to see what they’d hook up in the way of a tub.

Roz and the guys were all in the bathroom, which made my entrance almost impossible.

“I thought the tile was out,” I said. They seemed to be busily gluing the chocolate stuff in place.

“This tile is terrific,” Roz said. She was wearing a deep blue T-shirt with scarlet letters on the front: “Time flies like an arrow.” On the back it said: “Fruit flies like a banana.” It’s tough to argue with someone wearing a truly stupid shirt.

“I hate it,” I said.

“You can’t get the full effect until it’s done, Carlotta.”

“I don’t want the full effect.”

“Look,” Roz drew me aside, no mean feat in the four-by-ten environs, “with the dark tile, the tub and the toilet and the sink, they’re, like, gonna be floating in the room. Wait till you see the mural on the ceiling.”

“Mural?”

“Like a fresco, you know. Like the Sistine Chapel.”

“Make no mistake, Roz. This is not the Sistine Chapel.”

“Well, what about a desert scene on the tile around the bathtub?” she said earnestly. “I mean, wouldn’t it be great to be in the middle of this desert and, like, sopping wet?”

I had choices. I could strangle Roz. I could make her move out immediately and find somebody else to clean my house. I could fire the Twin Bros, and hire other incompetents to finish my bathroom. I could stop clenching my jaw before my teeth broke.

The doorbell rang while I was simmering. Roz looked relieved.

“Later,” I said menacingly.

“Later,” she agreed.

“No desert scene,” I said.

The bell rang again. I clattered downstairs and stuck my right eye to the peephole. I always check.

Even with the distortion I recognized the face. The man was blond, square-jawed, blue-eyed. He was the original of the “movie star” photo I’d admired in Geoffrey Reardon’s desk.