Front Page Teaser

“I found this on the floor in Veronica’s room,” she said, lifting the copy of Charlotte’s Web. “The rest were on Ellen’s night table,” she added, pointing to the others. “Take them if you like. For now, I need to go home and collect myself.” Her tone was steely.

“Please help me just a bit more,” Liz begged.

But Mrs. Swenson shook her head

“Think of Ellen . . . ,” Liz pleaded.

“What do you think I’m doing, every minute of every day?” Olga snapped. She stood up and extended her arm to indicate that Liz should lead the way out of the house.

“I hope you believe I mean to find your daughter.”

“Please!” Olga said, slamming Ellen’s front door. Striding down her daughter’s front walk, she fumbled her car’s lock, muttered a curse, got into her car, and drove off without a backward glance.

Standing on the sidewalk, Liz folded the list of books and tucked it into her purse. Then she stood still for a moment, regarding the piece of wallpaper in her hands. Damp and torn, it depicted twelve little girls in two perfect lines, and the last of them all was Madeline. The troublemaker. Liz knew it was time to find the Wharton Alternative School’s equivalent of Miss Clavel.

It was just a few minutes past two o’clock when Liz rang the doorbell of Dr. Mayhew’s Brookline home. Standing across the street from a park graced with leafless weeping willow trees, the brown-stained, wood frame house appeared to have been built during the first years of the twentieth century. Its furnishings dated from the middle of that same time period, Liz noticed, as the former headmaster ushered her through his living room into his den.

“Bachelor housekeeping,” he said apologetically, as the pair passed stacks of books and papers in the living room. He spoke in the booming tones of a man who is hard of hearing.

“Looks more like scholarly housekeeping to me,” Liz said, matching his volume.

“You’re too kind. I wish I could call myself a scholar. When I retired from Wharton, I had great hopes of writing a truly worthwhile study, but I suppose that was just another case of ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men.’ Please sit down, Miss Higgs.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t speak clearly enough on my phone message. It’s Higgins, Liz Higgins.”

“Nonsense! If I’m going to be of any use to you, let’s be honest. I didn’t get your name right because I couldn’t hear it! Now, how can I help you?”

“All right, I will be honest, then, too. I’m here for two reasons. One is to get some background for a story I’m writing on New Year’s Resolutions. Later today I shall be interviewing DYS-incarcerated girls about their resolutions and how likely they think they are to see them through.”

“And, I take it, you want me to tell you what I’ve learned along these lines with my students. It’s a dull question, but I’ll help you. Nevertheless, I’m no fool. You’re really more excited about learning something else from me aren’t you? So why don’t we begin with that?” Dr. Mayhew said, smiling.

“You’re right. I’m looking for a past student of yours, sir. His name is Al Leigh.”

“Say again?”

Liz raised her voice and enunciated carefully. “Al Leigh. L, E, I, G, H.”

“I could hear you all right. But I can’t call to mind anyone named Leigh, Al or otherwise.”

“I’m told he was perhaps Hispanic, despite the surname. Perhaps his full first name was Alberto or Alfredo? He would have been a student in 1973.”

“No. No Albertos or Alfredos come to mind. Hmm, 1973. Just before the school closed. Al Leigh.” Dr. Mayhew shook his head and said again, “Al Leigh.” Then he exclaimed, “Ali! Of course you must mean Ali. Olive-skinned Ali. Oh, what was his last name? He didn’t belong in the company of those troublemakers. His only problem was his tongue.”

“He was outspoken, foul mouthed?”

Dr. Mayhew wore a wistful expression. “No, no, not at all. While the other lads turned the air blue with cussing if they were angry or agitated, Ali clammed up. He was tongue-tied, you see. And English was not his first language.” The headmaster paused, then exclaimed, “Abdulhazar. That’s it. Ali Abdulhazar. The name was enough to make him the butt of the boys’ jokes. With his speech impediment and his accent, when he did manage to speak, he was the center of far too much negative attention from the other boys.”

“He was bullied?”

“I tried to keep them from bullying him, but there was only so much I could do, I’m afraid. When my back was turned, they circled him for the kill—figuratively, of course—like a school of sharks around a juicy tidbit. Most of those boys had been mistreated themselves, you see, so it rather came naturally to them to behave like that. Mind if I . . . ?” Dr. Mayhew said, picking up a pipe.

“Not at all.”

Dr. Mayhew made much of filling, tamping, and lighting his pipe. Finally, he went on: “It was no wonder he courted detention so often, usually by straying off school grounds. The other boys hated having to sit still in my office, but I think Ali rather liked it. First, he got away from the others by wandering off. Then, once he was rounded up, he had my protection for an hour or two. Even if watching me do paperwork had to be deadly dull, it beat being teased by the other boys. I hate to say it, but he may even have built his status by running off so much. The others saw him as devil-may-care, a quality they admired.”

Dr. Mayhew fussed with his pipe some more. “Ali finally got them off his back when he was caught with that girl. What was her name? Of course the incident meant his days were numbered at Wharton, so he couldn’t enjoy the boys’ newfound esteem for him.”

“What incident?”

“In the Pinetum across the way, he was caught in some kind of compromising position with a young girl. The girl’s father was livid. He insisted Ali was masturbating while watching the girl dancing. Pretty girl, I remember, a strawberry blonde, dressed in some kind of scarves. Like that dancer, Isadora Duncan.” Dr. Mayhew paused to reignite his pipe. “The outfit was more unusual than revealing. Innocent-looking, I thought, not sexy. But the girl’s father was beside himself. Absolutely beside himself. The more he cursed and demanded explanations, the more tongue-tied Ali became.”

“Did you observe this, or did the father tell you about it? And what happened to the girl?”

“Oh, I was there, all right. But not before the father was laying into Ali verbally. It was his shouting that helped me locate the boy, who had been missing for about an hour. The girl was crying, but I had the impression she was more cowed by her father’s shouting than by Ali. The mother came running and whisked the girl away. The father was a big man. I remember thinking he was a big Swede when he told me his name. What was it?”

“Swenson, Karl Swenson.”

“That’s it! How did you know? And the girl’s name was Olga.”

“No, that’s the wife. The girl was called Ellen.”

“Yes, yes. You’ve got it! What makes you ask about this?”

“I’ve been trying to find Ellen ever since she went missing a week ago, leaving behind her own little girl, a child called Veronica.”

“Has this been in the papers? I’m afraid I only take the Times now. For the crossword puzzle. Don’t read the local papers much anymore.”

“Yes, Dr. Mayhew, we’ve been covering it. And what you are telling me now is extremely helpful. May I ask, was Arabic Ali’s first language? And what brought him to your school?”

“Right, on the Arabic. His mother brought him to the school, literally and, I suspect, figuratively, too. That is, her inability to handle him—his learning disabilities and speech impediment—and perhaps some over-severe discipline in her household administered by her or, more likely, by her husband—had made the boy unmanageable. Like all of our boys, he could not thrive in a typical public school. But his was a need for less rather than more discipline, along with lots of speech therapy and ESL.”

“You mean English as a Second Language?”

“Right again. We didn’t have those kinds of specialists on hand, unfortunately. And even if we had, it’s