I’d probably need it checking out.
I got walking directions to the Carolina Academy from a polite black guy wearing a green porter’s uniform, and lounging around the front porch of the hotel. The Blue Tick hound was still there, motionless in the sun, but he had turned over on the other side, so I knew he was alive.
Carolina Academy was a cluster of three white frame houses set in a lot of lawn and flower beds, on the other side of Main Street, behind the commercial block that comprised the Alton downtown.
The headmistress was a tall, angular, whitehaired woman with a strong nose and small mouth. She wore a long white gauzy dress with a bright blue sash. Her shoes were bright blue also.
“I’m Dr. Pauline MacCallum,” she said. She was trying, I think, for crisp and efficient, but her South Carolina drawl masked the effect. She gave me a crisp, efficient handshake and gestured toward the straight-back chair with arms in front of her desk.
“My name is Spenser,” I said and gave her one of my cards. “I’m trying to develop a little background on a former student, Olivia Nelson, who would have been a student here during the late fifties-early sixties-I should think.”
The small nameplate on the desk said Pauline MacCallum, Ed.D. The office was oval shaped, with a big bay window that looked out on the tennis courts beyond a bed of patient lucies. On the walls were pictures of white- gowned graduating classes.
“We provide for K through 12,” Dr. MacCallum said. “What year did Miss Nelson start?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “She was born in 1948, and she graduated from college in 1969.”
“So,” Dr. MacCallum said, “if she came for the full matriculation, she would have started in 1953, and graduated in 1966.”
She got up and went to a bookcase to the left of her desk, and scanned the blue leatherbound yearbooks that filled the case. On the tennis courts there was a group of young women in white tennis dresses being instructed. The coach had a good tan and strong legs, and even from here I could see the muscles in her forearms. Each of the young women took a turn returning a gentle serve. Most of them swiped at the ball eagerly, but limply, as if the racket were too heavy. Rarely did the ball get back across the net.
“I hope that’s not your tennis team,” I said.
“Miss Pollard is a fine tennis coach,” Dr. MacCallum said. “But this is a physical education class. All our girls are required to take physical education three hours a week.”
She took the 1966 Carolina Academy Yearbook out from the case and opened it and thumbed through the pictures of graduating seniors.
“Yes,” she said. “Here she is, Olivia Nelson. I remember her now that I see the picture. Fine girl. Very nice family.”
She walked around her desk and offered me the yearbook. I took it and looked at the picture.
There she was, same narrow nose with the dramatic nostrils, same thin mouth, shaped with lipstick even then. Eighteen years old, in profile, with her hair in a long bob, wearing a high-necked white blouse. There was no hint of Vietnam or dope or all-power-to-the-people in her face. It was not the face of someone who’d listened to Jimi Hendrix, nor smoked dope, nor dated guys who chanted, “Hell no, we won’t go.” I nodded my head slowly, looking at it.
The chatter beneath her picture said that her hobby was horses, her favorite place was Canterbury Farms, and her ambition was to be the first girl to ride a Derby winner.
“What’s Canterbury Farms?” I said.
“It’s a racing stable, here in Alton,” Dr. MacCallum said. “Mr. Nelson, Olivia’s father, was very prominent in racing circles, I believe.”
“What can you tell me about her?” I said.
“Why do you wish to know?”
“She was the victim of an unsolved murder,” I said. “In Boston.”
“But you’re not with the police?”
“No, I’m employed by her husband.”
She thought about that for a bit. Outside the girls continued to fail at tennis, though Miss Pollard seemed undaunted.
“I can’t recall a great deal about her,” Dr. MacCallum said. “She was from a prosperous and influential family here in Alton, but, in truth, most of our girls are from families like that. She was a satisfactory student, I think. Her transcript will tell us-I’ll arrange for you to get a copy-but I don’t remember anything special about her.”
She paused for a moment and looked out at the tennis, and smiled.
“Of course, the irony is that I remember the worst students best,” she said. “They are the ones I spend the most time with.”
“You were headmistress then?” I said.
“In 1966? No, I was the head of the modern languages department,” she said. “I do not recall having Olivia Nelson in class.”
“Is there anything you can think of about Olivia Nelson which would shed any light on her death?” I said.
Dr. MacCallum sat quietly for a moment gazing past me, outside. Outside the girls in their white dresses were eagerly hitting tennis balls into the net.
“No,” she said slowly. “I know of nothing. But understand, I don’t have a clear and compelling memory of her. I could put you in touch with our Alumni Secretary, when she comes back from vacation.”
