“Gosh, Goldy, from whom do you think? Do I have to spell it out for you, like, like, uh” ? he cast his eyes heavenward in imitation of the headmaster ? “
“But Perkins, the son, I mean, isn’t an academic type. He can hardly be expected to follow in his father’s footsteps.”
Julian got up and carefully covered his cappuccino with waxed paper before placing it in the microwave. When the timer beeped, he took it out, Then he shook his head. “You’re not getting it.”
“Okay, okay. Macguire excels in athletics. But that doesn’t mean he needs to do a dangerous drug, does it? What happens if he gets caught?”
“He isn’t going to get caught. Besides, he’s not selling anything, so what’s the penalty? Everybody feels sorry for him.” He carefully sipped the heated cappuccino. Then he added darkly, ?Almost everybody.?
Wait a minute. “Was this what Keith Andrews was going to expose in the Mountain Journal?”
Julian, exasperated, snapped, “When are you going to believe that none of us knew what Keith was writing for the newspaper?’” He ran the fingers of one hand through the blond mohawk. “That was the whole problem. I tried to get Keith to tell me what he was working on, and he said it would all come out. He made such a big deal about his secrecy, tapping away in the computer lab when no one was there. The CIA, man.”
The front doorbell rang. I told Julian it was probably Marla, then cursed the fact that I’d forgotten to sand the front steps.
He said, “Oh, that reminds me, I forgot, you got a call ? “
“Hold that thought.” Marla had safely navigated the steps and now stood in our doorway in her usual seasonal colors. This morning, three days before Halloween, the outfit consisted of an extra-large orange and black suede patchwork skirt and mat thing jacket. She held a brown grocery sack. “You didn’t have to bring anything,” I said. “Don’t presume,” she announced haughtily as her plump body breezed past me. “It’s a hot melt glue gun, Styrofoam cone, and bag of baby Three Musketeers for Arch. Even sick people can do a craft project with candy. Especially sick people. And by the way, your front porch steps are covered with ice. Absolutely treacherous. Better put some salt on them.” So saying, she dropped the bag at the bottom of the stairs, then yodeled a greeting to Julian, whom she passed on her way into the kitchen.
“You see, about this call-” Julian attempted. “Just a sec.” I turned back to slam the front door against the cold. Before I could close it, though, a small foreign car arrived on the street directly in front of my house. A young woman whom I vaguely recognized as being from the Mountain Journal delicately stepped out and peered up at me.
Julian came up beside me. “This is it, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you. This woman called from the newspaper around 6:45. She asked if it would be okay to come by and interview you this morning. I thought you’d want it for free publicity. For the business. It wasn’t until I was about to hang up that she said it was about that night out at the headmaster’s house.” He added lamely, “I’m really sorry.”
“Just take care of Marla, will you?” I said under my breath. “And check the doughnut dough.” Then I shouted gaily to the intruder, “Come on in!” as if I were accustomed to having open house at nine o’clock every morning. “Just avoid the ice on the steps.” After lifting weights, the last thing I needed was to lug a bag of road salt up from the basement to make my steps safe for the world of journalism.
The reporter tiptoed gingerly up the far side of my front steps. Frances Markasian was in her early twenties, wore no makeup, and had straggly black hair that fell limply to the shoulders of her denim jacket. An ominously large black bag dangled from her right arm and banged against the knees of her tight jeans.
“You don’t have a camera in there, do you?” I asked once she was safely inside. I couldn’t bear the thought of photographs.
“I won’t use it if you don’t want me to.” Her voice was pure Chicago.
“Well, I’d really rather you wouldn’t,” I said sweetly, leading her out to the kitchen. Marla was already sipping cappuccino that Julian had made for her. Frances Markasian was introduced all around, and I asked her if it was okay if my friends stayed while she talked to me. She shrugged, which I took as consent. I offered her some coffee.
“No thanks.” She dipped into her bag, brought out a diet Pepsi, popped the top, and then dropped two Vivarin through the opening.
Marla watched her, open-mouthed. When Frances Markasian took a long swig from the can, Marla said, “Mission control, we have ignition. Stand by.”
Frances ignored her and pulled a pen and pad out of the voluminous bag. “I understand you were the caterer the night of the Andrews murder?”
“Well, er, yes.” I had a sinking feeling she was not going to be asking about the menu.
Julian must have felt the reporter’s eyes on him, because he got up, punched down the risen dough, and began to roll it out to cut doughnuts with a star cookie cutter.
“You want to tell me what happened?” she said.
“Well…” I began, then gave her the briefest possible account of the evening’s events. Her pen made scritching noises as she took notes.
“They’ve been having some other problems out at that school,” she said when I had finished and was checking on the doughnuts, which had almost finished their brief rising.
“Really?” I inquired innocently. “Like what?” I wasn’t going to give her anything. My previous experience with the Mountain Journal had been negative. They’d hired a food critic, who had viciously trashed me. The critic had been conducting a private vendetta in print. By the time I got the mess exposed, the unapologetic Mountain Journal had moved on to reports of elk herds moving through mountain neighborhoods.
“Problems like snakes in lockers,” Frances said. I waved my hand dismissively. “Seventh grade.”
“Problems like a headmaster who might be having trouble raising money if bad news got out about the school,” Frances continued matter-of-factly. “Take this dropping-SAT-score thing ? ?
“Oh, Ms. Markasian, sweetheart,” Marla interrupted, “that news is so old, it has mold on it. Besides, if you were worried about your academic reputation, you wouldn’t kill your top student, now, would you?” Marla rolled her eyes at me. “Those goodies ready?”
I turned to Julian, who wordlessly slid the risen doughnuts into the heated oven. “Fifteen minutes,” he announced.
“Know anything about that headmaster?” Frances persisted. She tapped her pen on the pad.
“I know as much as you do,” I told her. “Why don’t you tell us about the story Keith Andrews was working on for your paper?”
“We didn’t know what it was,” she protested, “although he had been working on it for some time, and he’d promised something big.” She tilted her Pepsi can back to drain the last few drops. “We were going to read it when he was done and then decide whether to run it or not. If it was a timely story. You know, truthful.”
“You have such a good reputation for fact-checking,” I said with a lying smile.
Without a shred of self-consciousness she tossed her can across the room into one of the two trash bags resting against my back door. Arch was supposed to take them out, but he was incapacitated.
“Three points,” I said. “Except we recycle.” I retrieved the can and dropped it into the aluminum bin in the pantry. I hoped she would take the hint and decide it was time to wrap things up. But no.
“How about the headmaster’s son? Macguire Perkins? He drove his father’s car through a guard rail on Highway 203 over the summer. Blood alcohol level 2.0.?
I shrugged. “You know as much as I do.” Frances Markasian looked around my kitchen, her shallow black eyes impassive. The smell of the baking doughnuts was excruciating. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. “I understand some of the Elk Park Prep students and parents are pretty competitive. Would do anything to get into the right college.”
I crossed my arms. “Yeah? Like what?”
She tapped her mouth with her pen but gave no answer. “Keith Andrews was the valedictorian. Who was next in line?”
Before I could answer, Arch came limping into the kitchen. I was thankful for the distraction. Julian asked Arch to join him out in the living room to make a sculpture out of the Three Musketeers.
“Wow,” said Arch. “At nine-fifteen in the morning?”
“We’re going to build a fire too. Is that all right? It is kind of cold.” When I gave him the go-ahead, he said, “Can you handle getting the doughnuts out of the oven?”
