?So?? retorted Macguire.
?Ah, there you are,? trilled Headmaster Perkins at me. He approached in the tweed-of-the-day, a somber herringbone. “With Mrs. Marensky’s coat. Won’t she be happy.”
Yes, won’t she. Mr. Perkins escorted me into his office, a high-ceilinged affair that had been painted mauve to match one of the hues in the hand-cut Chinese rug that covered most of the marble floor. A buzz of his intercom distracted him. I sat carefully on one of the burgundy leather sofas profuse with brass buttons. It let out a sigh.
“You and me both,” I said under my breath.
“Well!” said the headmaster with a suddenness that startled me. “Saturday night was indeed tragic.” From behind his horn rimmed glasses, Perkins’ eyes locked mine; we had the abrupt intimacy of strangers thrown together by disaster. There was the mutual, if unwanted, need to come to terms with what had happened. His usually forced joviality had disappeared; his anxiety was barely masked. “Awful, just awful,” he murmured. He jumped up restlessly and paced back and forth in front of the windows. Sunlight shone off his thick mass of prematurely white hair. “It was like a … a …” But for once the complicated similes wouldn’t come. As you can imagine,” he floundered, “our phones have not stopped ringing. Parents calling to find out what happened. The press…” He gestured with his hands and lifted his pale eyebrows expressively. “We had an emergency faculty meeting this morning. I had to tell them you were the one who found the body.”
I groaned. “Does this mean people are going to be calling me to find out what happened?”
Headmaster Perkins brushed a finger over one of the brass wall sconces before moving toward his Queen Anne-style desk chair, where he ceremoniously sat. “Not if you can tell me exactly what you saw, Mrs. Korman. That way, I can deal with those who want all the details.”
Hmm. In a small town, people always wanted all the details, because everyone wanted to be the first one with the complete story. How many stitches did George need when he fell while rock-climbing? Did Edward lose his house when he filed for bankruptcy? Did they take out Tanya’s lymph nodes? And on it went. So the request did not surprise me. On the other hand, this wasn’t the first time I’d had some involvement with a homicide investigation. I had learned from Schulz to talk as little as possible in these situations. Remembered details were for the police, not the gossip network.
“Sorry,” I said with a slight smile, “you know as much as I do. But let me ask you a question. Who would have had the keys to your house to get in before I did that night?”
“Oh.” Perkins didn’t bother to conceal his distaste. “We leave it open. This is an environment of trust.”
Well, you could have fooled me. The receptionist buzzed once more. While Mr. Perkins was again deep in similes, I glanced around his office. The mauve walls held wood-framed degrees and pictures. The Hill School. B.A. from Columbia. M.A., Yale. There was a large crackled-surface oil painting of a fox hunt, with riders in full Pink regalia hurtling over a fence. Another painting was of Big Ben. As if the life of Merrie OIde Englande were available in the Colorado high country. But these hung decorations sent a subliminal message to prospective students and, more important, to their parents. Want these accoutrements and all they imply? Go 10 this school.
The headmaster finished up on the phone and laced his fingers behind his silvery-white hair. “I have a few more things to talk to you about, Mrs. Korman. We need to move the next college advisory meeting off the school grounds. Too much anxiety would be aroused if we held it at my residence again, I fear. Can you stay flexible?”
“As a rubber band,” I said with a straight face. “And you do remember that the SATs are this coming Saturday morning? You’re making a healthful treat, something whole grain?”
I nodded. How could I forget? I would be bringing the Elk Park Prep seniors, as well as the visiting seniors from the local public high school, a buffet of breakfast-type treats, to be served before the test. Better than skiing at Keystone any day, I thought sourly.
“It’s the morning after Halloween,” the headmaster reflected, “although I don’t suppose that will make a difference. But it may spook them,” he added with a grin.
Getting back to his old self. I waited. Perkins pulled off his glasses and polished them carefully.
I said, “Well, if that’s all ??
?It isn?t.?
I squirmed on the sofa. He put on his glasses, narrowed his eyes, and puckered his lips in thought.
Perkins said: “Your son Arch is having some problems.”
Ringing assaulted my ears. Keeping my voice even, I said, “What kind of problems?”
” Academic as well as social, I’m told.” To his credit, a shade of gentleness crept into Perkins’ tone. “Arch is failing social studies. Missing most of the assigned work, is my understanding. He seems quite unhappy… not swimming with the currents of scholastic life. Reading books outside of the curriculum and wanting to report on them.”
“Failing a course? Social studies?” The mother is always the last to know.
“We wanted you to be aware of this before midterm grades come out next week. Parent conferences are scheduled in two weeks. When you come, you can ask Arch’s instructors yourself.”
“Can I talk to his teachers now? Do they know why this is happening?”
He shrugged. His gesture clearly said, This is not my responsibility. “The instructors can see you if it’s convenient. Remember, grades are only an indication of what young Arch is learning. Like the weather forecasts, this may mean a storm, but it may only be dark clouds… a wee disturbance in the stratosphere.” This last was accompanied by a wee, patronizing smile.
“The instructors can see me if it’s convenient?” I repeated. In public school, if you wanted to see a teacher, you got a conference, period. “Grades are like the weather forecasts?” Fury laced my voice. “You know what this school is like? Like… like… bottled water! You pay more for it than the free stuff out of the tap, but there’s a lot less regulation! And the product is awfully unpredictable! “
Perkins drew back. How dare I invade his field of metaphorical expertise? I stood up and bowed slightly, my way of excusing myself without speaking. There was only one comfort in the whole infuriating experience: For the meteorological analysis of Arch’s academic progress it was John Richard, and not I, who was forking over nine grand a year.
5
When I left the headmaster’s office, I noticed that ultra-thin, ultra-chic couple, Stan and Rhoda Marensky, hovering around the receptionist. This day, Rhoda’s fashionably short red hair stood in contrast to a blond-streaked fur jacket, the kind that looked as if the animals had their hair frosted. She stopped reading a framed article on the wall and turned a blank, prim face to me. Either she was angry to learn who had carried off her raccoon coat or she was still stewing about my hemophilia comment.
Stan, less like a clotheshorse than a horse who happened to be wearing clothes (in this case a rumpled green suit), paced nervously. His lined face quivered; his bloodshot eyes flicked nervously about the room. He looked at me, then away. Clearly, I wasn’t worth greeting.
“I brought back your coat,” I announced loudly, not one to endure snubs lightly.
“Hnh,” snorted Rhoda. She tilted her head back so she could look down her long nose at me, literally. “I suspected somebody had taken it. Compound grand theft with murder, why not?”
I could feel rage bubbling up for the second time in ten minutes. Now I really couldn’t wait to tell Schulz whose coat had someone else’s credit card tucked in its pocket. A dead somebody else, no less. We’d see about insinuations. To the Marenskys, I only smiled politely. I had learned the hard way not to respond directly to hostility. Instead, I purred, “How’s the fur store doing?”
Neither answered. The receptionist even stopped tapping on her computer keys for a moment to see if she had missed something. Was it possible that Marensky Furs, a family business that had been a Denver landmark for over thirty years, wasn’t doing so well? The newspapers are always full of doom-and-gloom analyses for the Colorado economy. But Marla, who was a regular Marensky customer, would have told me if the trade in silver fox had taken a hit. Perhaps .I should have asked how Neiman-Marcus was doing.
The bell clanged, signaling the end of the second academic period. I wanted to catch Arch between classes but was determined that if anyone was going to back down, it was going to be the Marenskys. Stan stopped pacing and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He rocked back on the heels of his unpolished Italian loafers and regarded me. “Didn’t I coach your son in soccer?”
