Murder on the Prowl (15 page)

34

Larry Johnson removed his spectacles, rubbing the bridge of his nose where they pinched it. He replaced them, glanced over Jody Miller's file, and then left his office, joining her in an examining room.

“How are you?”

“I'm okay, I think.” She sat on the examining table when he motioned for her to do so.

“You were just here in August for your school physical.”

“I know. I think it's stupid that I have to have a physical before every season. Coach Hallvard insists on it.”

“Every coach insists on it.” He smiled. “Now what seems to be the problem?”

“Well”—Jody swallowed hard—“I, uh, I've missed my period for two months in a row.”

“I see.” He touched his stethoscope. “Have you been eating properly?”

“Uh—I guess.”

“The reason I ask that is often female athletes, especially the ones in endurance sports, put the body under such stress that they go without their period for a time. It's the body's way of protecting itself because they couldn't bring a baby to term. Nature is wise.”

“Oh.” She smiled reflexively. “I don't think field hockey is one of those sports.”

“Next question.” He paused. “Have you had sexual relations?”

“Yes—but I'm not telling.”

“I'm not asking.” He held up his hand like a traffic cop. “But there are a few things I need to know. You're seventeen. Have you discussed this with your parents?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“I see.”

“I don't talk to them. I don't want to talk to them.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don't.”

“Let's start over, Jody. Did you use any form of birth control?”

“No.”

“Well, then”—he exhaled—“let's get going.”

He took blood for a pregnancy test, at the same time pulling a vial of blood to be tested for infectious diseases. He declined to inform Jody of this. If something turned up, he'd tell her then.

“I hate that.” She turned away as the needle was pulled from her arm.

“I do, too.” He held the small cotton ball on her arm. “Did your mother ever talk to you about birth control?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

She shrugged. “Dr. Johnson, it's not as easy as she made it sound.”

“Perhaps not. The truth is, Jody, we don't really understand human sexuality, but we do know that when those hormones start flowing through your body, a fair amount of irrationality seems to flow with them. And sometimes we turn to people for comfort during difficult times, and sex becomes part of the comfort.” He smiled. “Come back on Friday.” He glanced at his calendar. “Umm, make it Monday.”

“All right.” She paled. “You won't tell anyone, will you?”

“No. Will you?”

She shook her head no.

“Jody, if you can't talk to your mother, you ought to talk to another older woman. Whether you're pregnant or not, you might be surprised to learn that you aren't alone. Other people have felt what you're feeling.”

“I'm not feeling much.”

He patted her on the back. “Okay, then. Call me Monday.”

She mischievously winked as she left the examining room.

35

Not wishing to appear pushy, Sandy Brashiers transferred his office to the one next to Roscoe Fletcher's but made no move to occupy the late headmaster's sacred space.

April Shively stayed just this side of rude. If Naomi asked her to perform a chore, retrieve information, or screen calls, April complied. She and Naomi had a cordial, if not warm, relationship. If Sandy asked, she found a variety of ways to drag her heels.

Although the jolt of Roscoe's death affected her every minute of the day, Naomi Fletcher resumed her duties as head of the lower school. She needed the work to keep her mind from constantly returning to the shock, and the lower school needed her guidance during this difficult time.

During lunch hour, Sandy walked to Naomi's office, then both of them walked across the quad to the upper-school administration building—Old Main.

“Becoming the leader is easier than being the teacher, isn't it?” Naomi asked him.

“I guess for these last seven years I've been the loyal opposition.” He tightened the school scarf around his neck. “I'm finding out that no matter what decision I make there's someone to ‘yes' me, someone to ‘no' me, and everyone to second-guess me. It's curious to realize how people want to have their own way without doing the work.”

She smiled. “Monday morning quarterbacks. Roscoe used to say that they never had to take the hits.” She wiggled her fingers in her fur-lined gloves. “He wasn't your favorite person, Sandy, but he was an effective headmaster.”

“Yes. My major disagreement with Roscoe was not over daily operations. You know I respected his administrative skills. My view of St. Elizabeth's curriculum was one hundred eighty degrees from his, though. We must emphasize the basics. Take, for instance, his computer drive. Great. We've got every kid in this school computer literate. So?” He threw up his hands. “They stare into a lighted screen. Knowing how to use the technology is useless if you have nothing to say, and the only way you can have something to say is by studying the great texts of our culture. The computer can't read and comprehend
The Federalist Papers
for them.”

“Teaching people to think is an ancient struggle,” she said. “That's why I love working in the lower school . . . they're so young . . . their minds are open. They soak up everything.”

He opened the door for her. They stepped into the administration building, which also had some classrooms on the first floor. A blast of warm radiator heat welcomed them.

They climbed the wide stairs to the second floor, entering Roscoe's office from the direction that did not require them to pass April's office.

She was on her hands and knees putting videotapes into a cardboard box. The tapes had lined a bottom shelf of the bookcase.

“April, I can do that,” Naomi said.

Not rising, April replied, “These are McKinchie's. I thought I'd return them to him this afternoon.” She held up a tape of
Red River
. “He lent us his library for film history week.”

“Yes, he did, and I forgot all about it.” Naomi noticed the girls of the field hockey team leaving the cafeteria together. Karen Jensen, in the lead, was tossing an apple to Brooks Tucker.

“April, I'll be moving into this office next week. I can't conduct meetings in that small temporary office. Will you call Design Interiors for me? I'd like them to come out here.” Sandy's voice was clear.

“What's wrong with keeping things just as they are? It will save money.” She dropped more tapes into the box, avoiding eye contact.

“I need this office to be comfortable—”

“This is comfortable,” she interrupted.

“—for me,” he continued.

“Well, you might not be appointed permanent headmaster. The board will conduct a search. Why spend money?”

“April, that won't happen before this school year is finished.” Naomi stepped in, kind but firm. “Sandy needs our support in order to do the best job he can for St. Elizabeth's. Working in Roscoe's shadow”—she indicated the room, the paintings—“isn't the way to do that.”

April scrambled to her feet. “Why are you helping him? He dogged Roscoe every step of the way!”

Naomi held up her hands, still gloved, in a gesture of peace. “April, Sandy raised issues inside our circle that allowed us to prepare for hard questions from the board. He wasn't my husband's best friend, but he has always had the good of St. Elizabeth's at heart.”

April clamped her lips shut. “I don't want to do it, but I'll do it for you.” She picked up the carton and walked by Sandy, closing the door behind her.

He exhaled, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Naomi, I don't ask that April be fired. She's given long years of service, but there's absolutely no way I can work with her or her with me. I need to find my own secretary—and that will bump up the budget.”

She finally took off her gloves to sit on the edge of Roscoe's massive desk. “We'll have to fire her, Sandy. She'll foment rebellion from wherever she sits.”

“Maybe McKinchie could use her. He has enough money, and she'd be happy in his little home office.”

“She won't be happy anywhere.” Naomi hated this whole subject. “She was so in love with Roscoe—I used to tease him about it. No one will ever measure up to him in her eyes. You know, I believe if he had asked her to walk to hell and back, she would have.” She smiled ruefully. “Of course, she didn't have to live with him.”

“Well, I won't ask her to walk that far, but I guess you're right. She'll have to go.”

“Let's talk to Marilyn Sanburne first. Perhaps she'll have an idea—or Mim.”

“Good God, Mim will run St. Elizabeth's if you let her.”

“The world.” Naomi swung her legs to and fro. “St. Elizabeth's is too small a stage for Mim the Magnificent.”

April opened the door. “I know you two are talking about me.”

“At this precise moment we were talking about Mim.”

Sourly, April shut the door. Sandy and Naomi looked at each other and shrugged.

36

“How did I get roped into this?” Harry complained.

Her furry family said nothing as she fumbled with her hastily improvised costume. Preferring a small group of friends to big parties, Harry had to be dragged to larger affairs. Even though this was a high school dance and she was a chaperon, she still had to unearth something to wear, snag a date, stand on her feet, and chat up crashing bores. She thought of the other chaperons. One such would be Maury McKinchie, fascinating to most people but not to Harry. Since he was a chaperon, she'd have to gab with him. His standard fare, those delicious stories of what star did what and to whom on his various films, filled her with ennui. Had he been a hunting man she might have endured him, but he was not. He also appeared much too interested in her breasts. Maury was one of those men who didn't look you in the eye when he spoke to you—he spoke to your breasts.

Sandy Brashiers she liked until he grew waspish about the other faculty at St. Elizabeth's. With Roscoe dead he would need to find a new whipping boy. Still, he looked her in the eye when he spoke to her, and that was refreshing.

Ed Sugarman collected old cigarette advertisements. He might expound on the chemical properties of nicotine, but if she could steer him toward soccer, he proved knowledgeable and entertaining.

Coach Hallvard could be lively. Harry then remembered that the dreaded Florence Rubicon would be prowling the dance floor. Harry's Latin ebbed away with each year but she remembered enough Catullus to keep the old girl happy.

Harry laughed to herself. Every Latin teacher and subsequent professor she had ever studied under had been an odd duck, but there was something so endearing about them all. She kept reading Latin partly to bask in the full bloom of eccentricity.

“I can't wear this!” Harry winced, throwing off a tight pump. The patent leather shoe scuttled across the floor. She checked the clock, groaning anew.

“There's time,”
Mrs. Murphy said.
“Can the tuxedo. It isn't you.”

“I fed you.”

“Don't be obtuse. Get out of the tuxedo.”
Murphy spoke louder, a habit of hers when humans proved dense.
“You need something with imagination.”

“Harry doesn't have imagination,”
Tucker declared honestly.

“She has good legs,”
Pewter replied.

“What does that have to do with imagination?”
Tucker wanted to know.

“Nothing, but she should wear something that shows off her legs.”

Mrs. Murphy padded into the closet.
“There's one sorry skirt hanging in here.”

“I didn't even know Mom owned a skirt.”

“This has to be a leftover from college.”
The tiger inspected the brown skirt.

Pewter joined her.
“I thought she was going to clean out her closet.”

“She organized her chest of drawers; that's a start.”

The two cats peered upward at the skirt, then at each other.

“Shall we?”

“Let's.”
Pewter's eyes widened.

They reached up, claws unsheathed, and shredded the skirt.

“Wheee!”
They dug in.

Harry, hearing the sound of cloth shredding, poked her head in the closet, the single light bulb swaying overhead. “Hey!”

With one last mighty yank, Mrs. Murphy scooted out of the closet. Pewter, a trifle slower, followed.

Harry, aghast, took out the skirt. “I could brain you two. I've had this skirt since my sophomore year at Crozet High.”

“We know,”
came the titters from under the bed.

“Cats can be so destructive.”
Tucker's soulful eyes brimmed with sympathy.

“Brownnoser!”
Murphy accused.

“I am a mighty cat. What wondrous claws have I. I can rip and tear and even shred the sky,”
Pewter sang.

“Great. Ruin my skirt and now caterwaul underneath the bed.” Harry knelt down to behold four luminous chartreuse eyes peeking at her. “Bad kitties.”

“Hee hee.”

“I mean it. No treats for you.”

Pewter leaned into Murphy.
“This is your fault.”

“Sell me out for a treatie.”
Mrs. Murphy bumped her.

Harry dropped the dust ruffle back down. She stared at the ruined skirt.

Murphy called out from her place of safety,
“Go as a vagabond. You know, go as one of those poor characters from a Victor Hugo novel.”

“Wonder if I could make a costume out of this?”

“She got it!”
Pewter was amazed.

“Don't count your chickens.”
Mrs. Murphy slithered out from under the bed.
“I'll make sure she puts two and two together.”

With that she launched herself onto the bed and from the bed she hurtled toward the closet, catching the clothes. She hung there, swaying, then found the tattiest shirt she could find. She sank her claws in and slid down to the floor, the intoxicating sound of rent fabric heralding her descent.

“You're crazy!” Harry dashed after her, but Murphy blasted into the living room, jumped on a chair arm, then wiggled her rear end as though she was going to leap into the bookshelves filled not only with books but with Harry's ribbons and trophies. “Don't you dare.”

“Then leave me alone,”
Murphy sassed,
“and put together your vagabond costume. Time's a-wasting.”

The human and the cat squared off, eye to eye. “You're in a mood, pussycat.”

Tucker tiptoed out. Pewter remained under the bed, straining to hear.

“What's got into you?”

“It's Halloween,”
Murphy screeched.

Harry reached over to grab the insouciant feline, but Mrs. Murphy easily avoided her. She hopped to the other side of the chair, then ran back into the bedroom where she leapt into the clothes and tore them up some more.

“Yahoo! Banzai! Death to the Emperor!”

“Have you been watching those World War Two movies again?”
Tucker laughed.

“Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.”
Murphy leapt in the air, turning full circle and landing in the middle of the clothes.

“She's on a military kick.”
Pewter snuck out from under the bed.
“If you get us both punished, Murphy, I will be really upset.”

Murphy catapulted off the bed right onto Pewter. The two rolled across the bedroom floor, entertaining Harry with their catfight.

Finally Pewter, put out, extricated herself from the grasp of Murphy. She stalked off to the kitchen.

“Fraidycat.”

“Mental case,”
Pewter shot back.

“Anything that happens tonight will be dull after this,” Harry said with a sigh.

Boy, did she have a wrong number.