Julian shrugged. “I think it’s supposed to help people feel okay about going to college.”
“In what way?”
“Oh, you know, like everybody’s going through the same process. Have to figure out what you want, have to look around for the right place, have to get all your papers and stuff together. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Have to write your essays. Be tested.” He groaned. “SATs are Saturday. We had ‘em last year, but this is the big one. These are the scores the colleges look at. The teachers always say it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, which makes you know that it matters. It matters, man.” There was a savagery in his voice I had never heard before.
“Was Keith Andrews nervous about all this? First big step to becoming a neurosurgeon?”
Julian shook his head. “Nah.” He paused. “At least he didn’t seem to be. We called him Saint Andrews.”
“Saint Andrews? Why?”
A hint of frown wrinkled Julian’s cheek. “Well. Keith didn’t really want to be a doctor. He wanted to grow up and be Bob Woodward. He wanted to be such a famous investigative reporter that whenever there was a scandal, they’d say, ‘Better give Andrews a call.’ Like he was the Red Adair of the world of journalism or something.”
Schulz pursed his lips. “Know anybody he was investigating? Anybody he offended?”
Julian shrugged, avoiding Schulz’s eyes. “I heard some stuff. But it was just gossip.”
“Care to share that? It might help.”
“Nah. It was just… stuff.”
“Big J. We’re talking about a death here.”
Julian sighed bleakly, “I think he was having his share of problems. Like everybody.”
“His share of problems with whom?”
“I don’t know. Everybody, nobody.”
Schulz made another note. “I need some specifics on that. You tell me, I won’t tell anybody. Sometimes gossip can help a lot, You’d be surprised.” He waited a beat, then clicked the pencil and tucked it in his pocket. “So the lights came back on, the girl said no to you. Then what?”
“I don’t know, I guess I like, talked to some people ? “
“Who?”
“Well, jeez, I don’t remember ? “
“Keith?”
Julian reflected, then said, “I don’t remember seeing Keith around. You know, everyone was talking about the lights, and saying, see you Monday, and stuff like that. Then I came out to check if Goldy needed help.”
?Time, Miss G?”
I looked at my watch: eleven o’clock. Schulz cocked his thumb over his shoulder. When had Julian come out to the kitchen? I said, “I don’t know. Nine-thirtyish.”
“Did anyone go into the kitchen looking for Keith? This girl you mentioned, for example?”
We both said no.
“Okay, now, Julian,” Schulz said impassively, “tell me who Keith’s enemies were.”
“God, I told you, I don’t know! You know, he was kind of holier-than-thou. Smarter-than-thou too. You, know. Like, we watched an Ingmar Bergman film in English class, and the film’s over for like two seconds and Keith’s talking about the internal structure. I mean, huh? The rest of us are going, okay, but what was it about?” He grimaced. “That kind of smart attitude can lose you some friends.”
“Who, specifically?”
“I don’t know, you know, people just get pissed off. They talk.”
“What about the National Merit Scholarship?” I said before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to talk.
“What about it?” Julian turned a puzzled face to me. “It’s not like they’re going to give it to somebody else now… . Keith was number one in our class, president of the French Club. He did after-school work for the Mountain Journal. People can hate you just for that.”
Schulz said, “Why?”
“Because it makes them feel bad that they’re not doing it too.” Julian said this in a way that made it clear any fool would reach the same conclusion.
Schulz sighed, then rose. “Okay, go home, the two of you. I’ll be talking to the rest of the guests over the weekend, then I might get back to you depending on ? “
“Schulz!” boomed an excited voice from down the hall. “Hey!” It was the deputy.
We found him looking at the coffeepot that had fallen out of the front hall closet.
“Oh, that’s my ? ” I began. I stopped.
“Your what?” demanded the deputy.
“‘Coffeepot,” I answered inanely.
The deputy regarded me with deepening skepticism. “Y’had a couple of extension cords on it?”
“Yes, three, actually. You see, they have a problem with fuses ? “
But the deputy was holding up the machine’s naked plug. Belatedly, I realized where the extension cords had ended up.
3
Julian led the way out of the parking lot in his four-wheel-drive, a white Range Rover inherited from wealthy former employers. I could see him checking his rearview mirror for me. My van crawled and skidded down the prep school’s precarious driveway. Overhead, cloud edges glinted like knives. The moon slipped out and silvered the snowy mountains. As I thought about the events of the past few hours, my stomach knotted.
At some point in the evening the tortuous road between Elk Park and Aspen Meadow had been plowed. Still, we skirted the banked curves with great care. My mind wandered back to that upturned sled in the snow.
To the look of horror on Keith Andrews’ young face. I shook my head and focused on the driving.
Gripping the steering wheel hard, I accelerated up a slight incline. I hoped Arch was okay. The rock thrown through one of our windows was worrisome. Halloween was coming up, and pranksters had to be expected. I should have told Schulz about the rock, though. I’d forgotten.
Schulz was going to call us. He would tell us what had happened to Keith, wouldn’t he? I had plodded through the headmaster’s snowy yard, found the lifeless form, touched the icy extension cord. It was like a personal affront. I had to know what had happened. Like it or not, I was involved. .
Resolutely, I veered off this thought pattern and reflected on Schulz. Somehow, his behavior this evening indicated a sea change in our relationship, from a growing intimacy back to the distance of business. I turned the steering wheel slowly while negotiating a switchback. For one breathtaking moment on this curve, all that was visible out the window was air.
Tom Schulz. We had been dating off and on, mostly I off, for the past year. Recently, however, we had been more frequently and more seriously on. This summer had brought a rapprochement, a French word for getting back together that Arch now dropped into conversation the way he sprinkled sugar on his Rice Krispies.
Schulz and I had not really become a couple. But he and I, along with Julian and Arch, had become a unit: the four of us hiked, we fished, we cooked out, we took turns choosing movies. Schulz’s light caseload lately had consisted mostly of investigating mail thefts and forgeries. giving him time to spend with us.
Insulated by the presence of the two boys, my postdivorce ambivalence toward relationships had begun to melt. I had found myself thinking of reasons to call Tom Schulz, inventing occasions to get together, looking forward to talking and laughing about all the daily details of life.
And then there had been the issue of the name change. What had started out as a small problem had developed into a symbolic issue between Schulz and me. Over the summer I’d learned of the existence of a catering outfit in Denver with the unfortunate name Three Bears Catering. They had threatened me with a suit over trademark infringement. On one of our jovial moments, Tom had suddenly asked if I would like to change my last name to Schulz. With all that that implied, I had immediately demurred. But you know what they say about parties: It was awfully nice to be asked.
Only now we had a catastrophe out at Elk Park Prep. Involving me, involving Julian, involving homicide. Something told me the future of my relationship with Tom Schulz was once again a question mark.
The brake lights of the Range Rover sparked like rectangular rubies as Julian and I continued the steep descent into town. We rounded the flat black surface of Aspen Meadow Lake, where one patch of shining ripples reflected elusive moonlight. Part of me wanted Schulz to say, Come back to my place. But another, saner, inner
