Escape Artist

two sitting at a baked-bean supper at the Masonic Hall, gabbing with the same three close friends: Miss Holly Hepplewhyte, fearsome school secretary and hall sentry; Miss Mildred Dunne, librarian and Sunday-school moralist; and Mr. Philip McCaslin, English teacher and drama coach, a bachelor who bore an uncanny (and unfortunate) resemblance to Ichabod Crane. The fivesome made cookie-cutter appearances at every civic function. My mother said Mr. Jones, a favorite of hers, was a model of Christian charity for putting up with the imperious Miss Dunne, the strident Miss Hepplewhyte, and the squeaky Mr. McCaslin-and even, lamentably, Mrs. Jones, a woman who never paused to take a breath or to forgive a seeming transgression.

But the picture changed, suddenly, woefully. Muriel Jones died from a heart attack at the end of last summer; and Mr. Jones seemed ready to follow her to the graveyard. Worse, Mildred Dunne, discovered shopping at Pettibone’s by new-to-town Gustave Timm, became his companion and then his betrothed, the two sitting alone at the Masonic Hall dinners and laughing foolishly over nonsense. Miss Dunne seemed transformed from the dour martinet in the library into a fluttering schoolgirl asked to a picnic for a lemon phosphate. She told some folks that her life was ready to start now. Everything up till then-her shopping sprees, her unhappy time as guardian of schoolbooks-was preamble to what she’d always dreamed of…a husband. The extra dollop of happiness came from Gustave’s being so…handsome. My mother, hearing the gossip, remarked, “She’ll learn that marriage is one more hallway without an exit.”

With Mildred Dunne gone from the group, Miss Hepplewhyte and Mr. McCaslin now discovered they didn’t like each other. So by the Christmas dance and supper, Mr. Jones sat with Miss Hepplewhyte and Mr. McCaslin, but no one spoke. My mother said speaking to the principal made her uncomfortable because his loneliness oozed out like sour sap from an aged tree. When the winter carnival supper was held in February, their table was there, but occupied by Mildred Dunne and Gustave Timm, laughing uproariously over a private joke. Gustave’s brother Homer, strolling past with friends, mumbled something to his brother, but Gustave merely laughed louder.

Miss Hepplewhyte, abandoned by her spinster friend Mildred, chose to stay home and, according to some, devote herself to missionary work, though I couldn’t imagine how you can save savage souls by sitting in a small drawing room cluttered with embroidered antimacassars and porcelain Chinese dogs. Worse, she stopped talking to her friend, believing that Mildred Dunne’s betrothal to Gustave was a betrayal. Rather than be happy for her friend, she chose bitterness, fury, silence. They passed each other in the school hallways like women who’d never been introduced. Mildred reached out to her-invitations to the homestead she shared with her parents, invitations to go to Milwaukee for shopping, a proposal to be in her wedding party, but Miss Hepplewhyte refused to reply.

That much had changed in one year at Ryan High School. It was better, I observed to Esther, than the melodramatic histrionics in a Bertha M. Clay romance.

I also watched the interplay of principal and vice-principal. Mr. Jones, a favorite of mine, had been a genial, spirited man whose overflowing girth matched the expansiveness of his personality. Now he seemed to be lost in melancholy. How different he was from Homer Timm, who stood next to him now, a man severe and dark, the moustache on his upper lip twitching, always a little untrimmed; a man comfortable in his broadloom suit but, oddly, uncomfortable among people. You could be telling a story of great sadness and there’d be that smile stuck to his face.

“But,” Mr. Timm went on now, his voice raising, “the door to that classroom was closed. Frana would have had to try it to see whether it was unlatched. She wouldn’t have known.”

“Unless she knew,” Caleb Stone said.

Mr. Timm snapped. “And how would she have known that?”

“I’m only suggesting.”

“But she could have hid in the room until school closed,” said Mr. McCaslin.

“Impossible.” From Miss Hepplewhyte.

“And why is that?” Caleb asked.

Yes, why was that?

Miss Hepplewhyte harrumphed, a very Dickensian sound. “Until when? Classes were over? Sir, Mr. Lempke”-again the furtive glance to the unhappy man against the wall-“showed up before the last bell and was standing on the top step, hat in hand. I thought to myself-well, someone’s plans have indeed changed and no one had the courtesy to inform me. So be it. And I watched as students streamed down that corridor toward the door, as I always do-I feel it my duty to remind a few of after-school obligations-and Frana was not among that crowd. As Mr. Lempke can testify.”

Christ Lempke was nodding furiously.

Miss Hepplewhyte added, “I was surprised, in fact, because Mr. Lempke was actually early today.”

Christ Lempke stormed, “I am not a clock.”

“Perhaps she climbed out the window,” Amos Moss said, and everyone looked at him.

Principal Jones was shaking his head. “No, Zeke Puttman was pruning the bushes at the front of the school, was there all afternoon. I already talked to him. I think he’d have mentioned the sight of a young girl climbing out of the window, don’t you think? It was the first thing I thought of when I found the unlocked classroom.”

Caleb Stone actually yawned. I could read his mind. This was a lot of pettifogging about a wanton, hell-bent youngster who’d obviously schemed her way out of the school to rendezvous with some surreptitious lover. Doubtless she’d be back home by nightfall, punished by her stern father and whipped by the unrelenting Christ Lempke. At this point, the chief was going through the motions of being the marshal in town. It was either this curiously anemic incident or a walk to Lawe Road to warn Farmer Burnett-for the umpteenth time-to keep his sheep from bothering the grazing cattle of the widow Peters, who inhabited the hell-to-ruin cabin by the river.

“Well,” he drawled out the word, “she ain’t disappeared into thin air.”

So we’d come full circle: Frana, the ghost in the sky.

Mr. Timm decided to speak. “I might add that I was in that corridor at half-past the hour, more or less; and I did glance at my pocket watch”-he extracted the elaborate gold timepiece and flashed it to the onlookers-“and all was quiet. The empty classroom door was closed. Of course.”

“But not locked,” Chief Stone said.

“I didn’t check.” Suddenly Mr. Timm seemed flustered, as though he’d said too much. “I mean, why would I?”

“Of course.” The words escaped from the mouth of Mildred Dunne, who suddenly looked sheepish. “I only mean, well, we all were where we supposed to be. It’s a school. It must function…”

Mr. Timm showed a sliver of a smile. “Of course, Miss Dunne. Thank you, but I need no defense.”

Miss Dunne’s cheeks reddened.

Mr. McCaslin made a whistling noise, but a withering glance from Miss Hepplewhyte seemed to elicit an unintentional snicker from him. Mr. Jones looked none too happy with his staff. In fact, for a moment he looked teary-eyed, shaky.

Caleb Stone stuck the phony note into a breast pocket. “Seems to me this Frana girl is pretty clever. Somehow she worked her way out of the building, unseen. Someone batted an eyelid”-a sidelong glance at Miss Hepplewhyte, who was decidedly not happy-“and slipped out. Young children do those things. We can’t keep an eye on them all the time, you know. My own children, well…” He trailed off. “There is no other explanation. People don’t move through walls like Houdini.”

Outside, Esther stopped by the willow tree that brushed the building. “Why did Kathe Schmidt tell everybody about someone seeing Frana hopping a train with some drummer from the Sherman House?”

“I’ll tell you. Because she wanted that to be the truth. She’d like to see Frana really disappear from town.”

“Because of Jake Smuddie?”

“What else? Maybe Kathe told people that story because she knew Frana was up to something. Maybe Frana confided in her. Maybe, in fact, Frana did get on that train with a drummer. Maybe it’s not a rumor. But Chief Stone doubts she’s left town. Maybe Frana actually told her fair-weather friend that she planned on being on that train with a certain drummer. So Kathe just assumed it happened.”

Esther was wide-eyed. “And plans changed?”