Maybe so, Des reflected, but clearly he felt cheated by what had happened to him. It wasn’t in the words he spoke. Dirk Doughty was saying all of the right things. It was in the way he bit off his words. It was in those defeated eyes of his.
“Mostly, I get kids like Ben,” he confessed. “Their parents are looking for an esteem booster. What the hell, I don’t mind. It’s what I know… Okay, Ben! Let’s call it a day!”
“Right, Coach!” The boy promptly laid down his bat and got busy gathering up the balls he’d popped feebly around the diamond, stretching out the belly of his fleece jersey to form a crude sack for them.
“Some of these yuppie parents can really get in my face,” Dirk said, watching him. “They put so much pressure on their kids to succeed that they turn something that’s supposed to be fun into something utterly joyless.”
“Are the Leanses like that?”
Dirk considered this a moment. “Actually, I have to hand it to them-they’re okay. Plenty involved in their own lives. And Ben’s a real nice kid. Super-bright. He’ll end up being a brilliant scientist or something.”
Babette came tromping briskly across the grass toward them now, clutching a cell phone tightly in one hand. “Trooper Mitry, so sorry to keep you waiting. How is our ballplayer doing, Dirk?”
“Doing good,” Dirk responded pleasantly as Ben dumped a shirtload of baseballs into a duffel bag. “C’mon, guy, let’s hit the kitchen for a protein shake.” They headed off toward the house together, Dirk placing a big arm protectively around the boy’s narrow shoulders.
Babette watched them go. There was a fixed brightness to her eyes, an intense sureness that Des found alarming. “We don’t harbor any illusions about Ben’s athletic ability,” she said. “We know he’ll never be another Mike McGuire.”
“I think you mean Mark McGuire,” Des said, observing once again just how imposing this woman seemed in spite of her height. Attila the Hen indeed.
“But he needs to be good at something so he’ll be able to play with the other boys,” she went on. “His teacher, Miss Frye, is in complete accord. It was she who recommended Dirk. There’s a bench out on the rocks overlooking the river. Shall we sit there?”
The bench was sheltered by a rustic gazebo of rough, bark-covered posts and beams. They strolled across the field to it and sat, Babette pulling the shawl collar of her sweater up tighter around her neck. The breeze was really picking up. A sailboat was making impressive speed as it knifed its way toward the old iron bridge up at East Haddam.
“Needless to say,” Babette commented, “the athletic facilities at Center School are as deplorable as everything else is. My God, every time I walk in that place and see those kids wearing their coats in class, I want to cry. This is Connecticut, not Kosovo! My friends in the city keep asking me why we don’t just pull Ben out of there and put him in a private school.”
“And how do you answer them?”
“I believe in our public schools,” she replied firmly. “If people like us abandon them we will create a society of haves and have-nots. That’s just not acceptable. But neither is Center School-over the summer, a state building inspector found over two hundred safety-and fire-code violations. I know the old guard in town thinks it can be fixed. Well, it can’t. I’m telling you it can’t, okay? I’m an architect. I know buildings.”
Des nodded, well aware that this was the lady bragging on herself some. Because if architects really did know buildings, then there would be no need for engineers.
“Plus we need more classrooms,” she went on. “There are new homes going up all over town. More people. People with kids. Where are we going to put them? We must build this new school.”
“The support of the school superintendent wouldn’t hurt, I imagine.”
Babette shifted uncomfortably on the bench, her face tightening. “Look, I am very sorry about what happened this morning. I don’t enjoy seeing anyone suffering. But this is simply another illustration of why it’s time for Colin to go.” She hesitated, her tongue flicking across her lower lip. “As to why I was there to see him… It’s an extremely delicate matter. I can only share this with you in the strictest professional confidence. Because if word were to leak out
…”
“It won’t,” Des promised her. “At least, not from me it won’t.”
Babette took a deep breath, as if to gather herself. “An allegation of gross personal misconduct has been leveled against Colin. I was there to urge him, for everyone’s sake, to offer to resign quietly, thereby avoiding a public airing before the entire school board of his… behavior.”
“Exactly what kind of misconduct are we talking about?”
“It seems he was using his office computer to conduct an online affair.”
“Cyber romance is pretty common these days, isn’t it?”
“It was a homosexual romance, trooper,” she said tightly. “Male-on-male sadomasochism, as I understand it. Very explicit. Very pornographic. And he left it there on his screen while he was away from his desk. Melanie Zide, his secretary, happened upon it during the normal course of her duties. She has informed the school board that she was made to feel very uncomfortable.”
“Sounds like she’s hired herself a lawyer.”
“That she has,” Babette affirmed unhappily. “He’s informed us that she intends to file sexual harassment charges against the Dorset school district unless we remove him. Our own lawyer says she’s well within her rights-by leaving that material on his screen Colin created a hostile work environment. If we don’t remove him we will be condoning inappropriate sexual conduct by a school official. That girl will nail us but good unless we take action. Even if Colin gets the boot she still may have grounds for a financial settlement.” Again, Babette Leanse took a deep breath. “Obviously, you can see why we wish to handle this quietly.”
“I absolutely can,” Des said, her mind racing. Greta Patterson had called this school-bond squabble a war. And she’d said something else: “God help anyone who gets in Babette Leanse’s way.” Colin Falconer had done just that, and now he looked to be a battlefield casualty. Was all of this just his own stupid fault? Or was there something vastly more wicked going on here? “And I appreciate you filling me in. I like to know what’s happening.”
“A real mess is what’s happening,” Babette said sharply. “And I really, really don’t appreciate getting caught in the middle of it. But, damn it, how can we let a man who’s incapable of managing himself be responsible for the well-being of our children? The short answer is we can’t. Colin’s behavior is absolutely shameful. Intolerable. He must resign. I can’t imagine he’d choose to fight us-it would end up in the newspapers that way, and that would not be in anyone’s best interest. Trooper, I hope and pray he will go quietly. Because if he doesn’t, if he decides to stand and fight, well…” Babette Leanse trailed off, shaking her head.
“Well what, Mrs. Leanse?”
“It will tear Dorset into little pieces,” she warned in a voice that was frighteningly cold and quiet. “And no one, but no one, will ever be able to put them back together again.”
CHAPTER 5
Wendell Frye did not have a doorbell, just a giant wolf’s-head knocker that resonated like a clap of thunder when Mitch used it. The door itself creaked ominously as the old man swung it open to greet him.
Mitch had half-expected that the great sculptor would have forgotten all about inviting him to dinner. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. Hangtown seemed genuinely pleased to see him, cheerful and bright-eyed. His flowing white hair and beard were neatly combed. He had red suspenders on over a navy-blue wool shirt, green moleskin trousers that were tucked into a well-worn but polished pair of riding boots. Sam, his German shepherd, followed him, tail wagging, as he led Mitch into the living room, a damp, gloomy room that smelled of mold and genteel decay. There was no wheezing organ, but there may as well have been. Mice skittered in the walls.
“I’ll get us a couple of beers,” Hangtown offered. “Shall I do that?”
“That’ll be great.”
He lumbered slowly off with the dog, leaving Mitch there alone. Upstairs, he could hear Takai shouting into her cell phone about closing dates and engineering inspections, her sharp voice piercing the house’s silence like a
