“Did you ever find Kevin’s key?”
Warden reached into his pocket and produced the key. “I found it in my pocket while I waited for you at the gym,” he said.
She squeezed him with relief. “I was so worried that we’d lost Kevin’s key and that some student had found it,” she said. “And I was worried about where you were.”
“I’m sorry to be such an absentminded professor,” said Warden. “I guess the only thing you can count on is that I’ll be undependable.” He tried to sound jocular, though he felt almost drunk with fatigue.
They were nearly back to Stratford House. Warden noted that there were too many dormitory room lights on; he would have to make a patrol through the building before he went to bed. Cynthia wanted to blow her nose.
“Damn,” she said. “Katrina Olson still has my handkerchief.”
“You’ve got others,” said Warden. “Let the girl keep it.”
But Katrina Olson did not have her handkerchief.
The Fourth Act
SCENE 1
On Sunday morning Thomas Boatwright heard someone enter his room. He sat up in his bed in a rush, his heart pushing the speed limit, his breath reduced to one audible inward gasp.
Standing in the doorway, Nathan Somerville laughed. “Sorry to scare you, Boatin’ Shoes,” he said.
Greg rolled over and jerked his head up. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re having a special room search for dead squirrels,” Nathan said.
Greg told him to ask Richard Blackburn about those.
“Do I still have to testify in front of the honor council?” Thomas asked.
“Of course,” said Nathan. “But don’t worry. Nobody wants to hold an honor trial for a corpse.”
Thomas felt relieved, and then he felt guilty for feeling relieved.
Nathan told them there would be a special chapel service this morning at 10:00. Everyone was required to be there. Then he shut the door behind him and went on to the next room.
That was at 8:30. They considered it a duty to stay in their beds for another forty-five minutes; you didn’t waste your one morning to sleep late by getting up too early. They passed the time by commiserating about their respective errors of the night before.
“It was like we were out on the playground again, you know?” Greg said. “I felt like such an idiot.”
“Think of how Ned Wood must have felt. Mr. Senior getting caught with his pants down.”
“They weren’t down yet. But his shirt was off.”
Little boys and their fascination with dark, secret places, Thomas thought. All the pain of last night’s departure from Hesta had returned. He decided he wasn’t ready to call her. But he did get up and join the others in the bathroom down the hall. On the way, he had to pass Robert Staines’s door. It was shut tight.
Throughout the morning the telephones in the halls rang almost nonstop, always with calls from nervous parents. A couple of guys on the hall were talking about going home. Neither Thomas nor Greg spoke with their families, but Greg declared that he was staying at Montpelier as long as the play was still on. Thomas didn’t know what he’d say if his parents called him and offered him a chance to come home. Most of the time being at Montpelier was good, even if it was a lot of work and a lot of pressure. Sometimes, though, Thomas was overwhelmed with the sameness of it all: the same schedule, the same people, the same buildings. Today nothing at all was routine, and yet he wanted desperately to see his family. He wanted to call them. Maybe his dad would even drive down for the day; it wasn’t that far. But there was never a telephone free.
At 9:50 both boys were nearly dressed. Greg put on his blue wool blazer and checked himself in the mirror. “I wish I had a gun,” he said. “If Angus tried to get me, I’d shoot him.”
“You’ve seen Beverly Hills Cop too many times,” Thomas said. He was eating a bag of potato chips for breakfast.
“You’re going to get copped if he finds you,” Greg said.
“I’m not scared of that old pervert,” Thomas said. He brushed off the potato chip crumbs before he picked out his tie. When they left for the chapel, however, he slipped his red-handled Swiss Army knife into his pocket. Just in case, he thought, although he wasn’t sure how much protection you could get from a pocketknife.
Chapel turned out to be not chapel service at all, but a plain old assembly with Dean Kaufman in charge. He told them that Dr. Lane was on his way back from Philadelphia and that they would be holding classes as usual tomorrow. He said that several parents had called the school to express their concerns about recent incidents on the campus and that five boys had even withdrawn from the school.
“But there is no need to panic,” he said. “The school is secure, and you are all perfectly safe.”
Thomas knew his parents would believe it if Kaufman or Dr. Lane told them so. Hell, that’s why they sent him here; they trusted the damn place.
“And now,” said Dean Kaufman, “a few words about the events of yesterday evening.”
He told the students about Robert Staines’s death. Then he said that they were to alert a member of the faculty if they saw Angus Farrier anywhere on campus.
“I do not mean to suggest that Angus is guilty of any crime,” Dean Kaufman said. “In the American system, which I fully endorse, a man is innocent until proven guilty. The police are interested in talking to Angus only. Still, there are indications that he might be somewhat confused, so I insist that you do not talk with him yourselves—”
What followed was the kind of commonsense advice that Thomas thought even
