The Chatham School Affair

Praise For THE CHATHAM SCHOOL AFFAIR

Winner of the 1996 Edgar Award for Best

Novel! And chosen By The Drood Review,

as one of 1996’s Ten Best Mysteries.

“THOMAS COOK IS AN ARTIST,

A PHILOSOPHER, AND A MAGICIAN;

HIS STORY IS SPELLBINDING.”— The Drood Review of Mystery“Swift, thoughtful and plausible … As in nearly all good crime fiction, the moral and practical complications … expand like ripples in a pond…. The Chatham School Affair is the tragic, lyrically told story of a sordid scandal, the town’s revenge on the perpetrators, and one man’s long-delayed journey toward redemption.”—The Boston Herald“MOODY, ELOQUENT.” —The San Francisco Chronicle Examiner“Cook is one of the most lyrical of today’s novelists. His prose flows effortlessly, yet beneath its rhythm Cook’s characters perform the most shocking and deadly of deeds…. An extraordinary writer.”—Sun, Calgary, Alberta“TRANSFIXING SUSPENSE.”—Booknews from The Poisoned Pen“[Cook’s] portrait of a small—and ultimately small-minded—town is a skillful one. And just when you think the puzzle is complete, Cook artfully presents yet another piece—rearranging all your expectations.”—The Orlando Sentinel

PRAISE FOR THOMAS H. COOK’S

BREAKHEART HILL“Expert storytelling … haunting … gains power and resonance with each twist.”—Publishers Weekly“Haunting, lyrical … a mesmerizing tale of love and betrayal.”—Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine“Intense … Impossible to put down.”—Rendezvous“Cook has crafted a novel of stunning power, with a climax that is so unexpected the reader may think he has cheated. But there is no cheating here, only excellent storytelling.”—Booklist“Cook’s writing is distinguished by finely cadenced prose, superior narrative skills, and the author’s patient love for the doomed characters who are the object of his attention…. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal (starred review)

MORE PRAISE FOR THOMAS H. COOK“Cook’s night visions, seen through a lens darkly, are haunting.”—The New York Times Book Review“A gifted novelist, intelligent and compassionate.”—Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books

MORTAL MEMORY“Cook builds a family portrait in which violence seems both impossible and inevitable. One of [Mortal Memory’s] greatest accomplishments is the way it defies expectations … surprising and devastating.”—Chicago Tribune“Haunting … Don’t pick this up unless you’ve got time to read it through … because you will do so whether you plan to or not.” —Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

EVIDENCE OF BLOOD“In [his] previous novels … Cook has shown himself to be a writer of poetic gifts, constantly pushing against the presumed limits of crime fiction…. In this fine new book, he has gone to the edge, and survived triumphantly.”—Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times Book Review“A highly satisfying story, strong in color and atmosphere, intelligent and exacting.”—The New York Times Book Review

ALSO BY THOMAS H. COOK

FICTIONPeril

The Interrogation

Instruments of Night

Breakheart Hill

Mortal Memory

Evidence of Blood

The City When It Rains

Night Secrets

Streets of Fire

Flesh and Blood

Sacrificial Ground

The Orchids

Tabernacle

Elena

Blood Innocents

NONFICTIONEarly Graves

Blood Echoes

For Kate Miciak

Sine qua non

He sees enough who doth his darkness see.

LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

My father had a favorite line. He’d taken it from Milton, and he loved to quote it to the boys of Chatham School. Standing before them on opening day, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, he’d pause a moment, facing them sternly. “Be careful what you do,” he’d say, “for evil on itself doth back recoil.” In later years he could not have imagined how wrong he was, nor how profoundly I knew him to be so.

Sometimes, particularly on one of those bleak winter days so common to New England, wind tearing at the trees and shrubbery, rain battering the roofs and windows, I feel myself drift back to my father’s world, my own youth, the village he loved and in which I still live. I glance outside my office window and see the main street of Chatham as it once was—a scattering of small shops, a ghostly parade of antique cars with their lights mounted on sloping fenders. In my mind, the dead return to life, assume their earthly shapes. I see Mrs. Albertson delivering a basket of quahogs to Kessler’s Market; Mr. Lawrence lurching forward in his homemade snowmobile, skis on the front, a set of World War I tank tracks on the back, all hooked to the battered chassis of an old roadster pickup. He waves as he goes by, a gloved hand in the timeless air.

Standing once again at the threshold of my past, I feel fifteen again, with a full head of hair and not a single liver spot, heaven far away, no thought of hell. I even sense a certain goodness at the core of life.

Then, from out of nowhere, I think of her again. Not as the young woman I’d known so long ago, but as a little girl, peering out over a glittering blue sea, her father standing beside her in a white linen suit, telling her what fathers have always told their children: that the future is open to them, a field of grass, harboring no dark wood. In my mind I see her as she stood in her cottage that day, hear her voice again, her words like distant bells, sounding the faith she briefly held in life. Take as much as you want, Henry. There is plenty.

In those days, the Congregationalist Church stood at the eastern entrance of Chatham, immaculately white save for its tall, dark spire. There was a bus stop at the southern corner of the church, marked by a stubby white pillar, the site where Boston buses picked up and deposited passengers