The Headmaster's Wife (45 page)

“Sometimes, what people protest most—”

“Please, Mr. Demarkian. I've heard it all before. But I knew Michael Feyre.”

“All right,” Gregor said. “Let's try a couple of nights ago, the night you ended up in here. You fell asleep on the bed in my room. You woke up. Then what?”

“I went back to campus,” Mark said, “and I went to the Student Center to get some coffee because I was tired and I didn't want to go to sleep right away. Oh, wait. I ate the food in your room that room service left you.”

“I noticed that. That's all right. What about when you went back to campus?”

“I went to get coffee,” Mark said, trying to think, “and I wasn't moving too well. I was really tired. I don't get tired like that anymore. Do you think that was the arsenic?”

“Maybe. It could have been the caffeine.”

“But caffeine is supposed to hype you up,” Mark said. “Okay, never mind. I ran into Alice Makepeace, and she got me a cup of coffee. A big one. Don't go jumping to conclusions. I asked her to. A big one with sugar. And she sat down with me for a while and said, well—” Mark had no idea how he was supposed to put this. It was always difficult to tell what adults would take in stride and what would make them go ballistic. “She accused me of being jealous of her, uh, relationship with Michael. She said I brought you here to hurt the school and hurt her because I was jealous.”

“Were you?”

“Hell, no,” Mark said. “I mean, she's gorgeous to look at, you know, I'm not dead; but she doesn't do it for me at all. She makes my skin crawl. She's one of those people who uses ‘inappropriate' all the time. You know what I mean? She finds Johnny and Susie screwing on the dining room table right in the middle of lunchtime and she says it's 'inappropriate.' The word drives me nuts.”

“So you had coffee with her and listened to her lecture,” Gregor said.

“And that was it,” Mark said. “I got really upset. I mean, wouldn't you be? So I got up to get myself another cup of coffee, and she got snide and said in the shape I was in I'd never make it, so she went and got me the second one, too, full of sugar. And then I left the cafeteria and took the coffee up to the lounge to drink it in peace because there isn't ever anybody there at that time at night, and then when I was finished with it I threw the cup away and came back to Hayes House.”

“And?”

Mark got out of his chair. He was not only bored, he was restless. “And,” he said, “I was in trouble again. Welcome to my life at Windsor. You're supposed to stop into the House before dinner and sign in, as a sort of check that they know you're around somewhere. I forgot about it when I went to see you. Actually, I was with you longer than I expected to be and then I fell asleep and
then
I forgot about it when I woke up, but it didn't make a damned bit of difference what had happened because Sheldon was after my hide on any excuse. So I came back in and there was a big fuss, and Cherie took me to her apartment to get me out of Sheldon's way while she tried to calm Sheldon down, which wasn't easy. And I was still hungry, you know, so she let me have one of these prepackaged ice cream sundae things she keeps in her freezer. And then I wanted another cup of coffee and she made me one because Sheldon never lets me use his kitchen. He won't even let me use my electric kettle. He says it's a fire hazard.”

“Is it?”

“I've been using it all year and nothing's happened yet,” Mark said.

“So she gave you the coffee,” Gregor said. “Then what?”

“Then I took the coffee back to Sheldon's apartment. And he started in on me practically immediately. I was going to spill it. I was going to ruin his carpet. It isn't his carpet in the first place. It belongs to the school. I was a big problem to have around. I was invading his privacy. Yada yada yada. So I gulped the coffee down and brought the cup back to Cherie's apartment because Sheldon didn't want it in his sink. Ask him why. I'd stopped listening. Then I went to myroom and closed the door and tried to read. I just sort of sat around for a while. Maybe ten minutes. Then Sheldon came barging in on me to tell me to turn the CD player off, except that it wasn't on. He just needs to think he can hear it even when I have the earphones on. Except this time I didn't even have the earphones on. It was off. He comes barging into my room, and all of a sudden I felt really sick to my stomach. So I jumped up and pushed him out of the way, and he fell against the door. And he yelled at me. And that's all I remember. Really. I started throwing up, I remember that. But I don't remember anything else until I woke up here in the middle of the night and thought I was home because I saw Mom. It was not good.”

“No,” Gregor said. “I can see that it wasn't good. Do you mind if I ask why it is you want to continue the year in this place? I know you somewhat. I remember you very well from that time in Holman. You've got a lot more going for you than anybody here seems to recognize. Why put up with this nonsense?”

“Because,” Mark said, “if I don't, they win.”

Gregor Demarkian sighed. Mark could tell Gregor had no idea what he was talking about, but in a way that was all right. His own mother didn't get it exactly either. Sometime during their conversation, Gregor had shrugged off his coat and left it on the bed. Now he stood up, picked it up, and put it on.

“I've got to go,” he said. “Your mother and stepfather are supposed to be on their way here, but it may take them a little time. The media have discovered Windsor.”

“It must be a zoo,” Mark said.

“Let's just say that there isn't any actual moving traffic on Main Street,” Gregor said. “That's why you're getting all those wonderful pictures of Hayes House on CNN. Just sit around and rest some more, Mark, will you? It won't be all that much longer before we get this cleared up. Then you can work things out with your mother any way you want. In the meantime, it isn't safe for you on that campus, and you should know it.”

“Of course I know it,” Mark said politely; but he was lying, and he knew that if his mother could have heard the sound of his voice, she would have known he was lying.

Gregor went out. Mark waited for a while, hearing his footsteps in the hall. Then he started thinking. He would have to be very careful. His mother was supposed to be on her way here; and even with the mess caused by a full-blown media blitz, it wasn't impossible that she was already down in the lobby. It would be just his luck to come flying out of the elevators only to come face-to-face with Jimmy, who would sympathize but not be much help. It would be almost as bad, if not worse, if he made it out of the hospital and started hitchhiking back to school, only to be spotted by both Mom and Jimmy as they drove in the other direction on their way to see him. Then he'd be subjected not only to capture, but to capture in full view of the American television public, who'd probably just love the sight of a pampered rich kid being hauled off to purgatory by his very own mother He just wanted to get out, that's all. He just wanted to be out in the open air, walking around in the real world, instead of cooped up in a place where they treated french fries as lethal weapons.

Besides, he had this terrible feeling that if he didn't get back to school, he'd end up missing the whole tiling. There he would be, the only living star of this drama, and he wouldn't know anything about it because he wouldn't have had a part in it. He didn't believe what Mr. Demarkian said about the murderer trying to get at him a second time. He knew that somebody must have tried to kill him once—otherwise, he wouldn't have been full of arsenic—but since it seemed to him to be self-evident that he was both completely harmless and completely clueless about whatever had been going on with Michael Feyre, he had trouble taking it seriously. And he would be careful this time. He wouldn't eat anything on campus except stuff from vending machines or in secure packaging, and he'd check the seals. He wouldn't drink coffee at all.

What he couldn't do was sit around here any longer. He'dbeen feeling awful for months, and worse than awful ever since he'd gotten back from Christmas break. Now that he felt like himself again, he saw no reason at all to watch life pass him by as a badly reported fifteen-second clip on
Headline News.

Gregor didn't see Liz or Jimmy on his way out of the hospital and didn't spot them from the cab as he was making his way back to Main Street, although he did look out for them. He didn't trust Mark on this particular thing. He'd have trusted him to keep his mouth shut and to back him up in a fight—not that he ever got into physical fights these days; the popular culture image of law enforcement in the United States was ridiculous to tell the truth, but Gregor had been sixteen once himself. He knew that gleam in the eye when he saw it. Mark was bored, and there was nothing more dangerous on this planet than a sixteen-year-old boy who is bored.

Since there wasn't anything he could do about it, and since he had more to do to finish up here than he liked, Gregor put it out of his mind as soon as he got out of the cab in front of Barrett House. He would have gotten out in front of Hayes, but although the worst of the traffic jam had been cleared, there were still vans parked there. They came accompanied by little knots of men and women standing around with nothing to do. They were here only on the hope that, this close to the crime, something else would happen. Gregor always wondered what these people wanted to happen. Didn't they think one murder was enough? Maybe they expected the perpetrator to reveal himself in a dramatic on-air surrender and the case to be cleared on the spot. Probably they were just hoping for an arrest, Gregor thought. Arrests played well on air. So did perp walks. At least it was something to show and not tell on the evening news.

He walked through East Gate and looked around. This House immediately to his left was Barrett. To his right and a little ahead of him was Ridenour Library. That made the House immediately across the quad Doyle, and the one to the left of that on the same side Martinson. It was Martinson he was looking for. He took his notebook out of the inside pocket of his jacket and checked it again. Last night, when he'd finally had time to sit and think after the mess of Edith Braxner's death, he'd written down everything he needed to know and everyone he needed to talk to. He'd come to the same conclusion he'd come to many hours before, and that had only been reinforced since: there was only one person in this cast of characters who
could
have done all the things that needed to be done to kill Michael Feyre and poison Mark DeAvecca, and in the end it was the death of Michael Feyre that was the key to understanding what had happened here. Unfortunately, he didn't know the why of any of it, and without the why he knew he couldn't get Brian Sheehy to agree to an arrest.

He crossed to the center of the quad and then down the parallel walk to Martinson. He tried opening Martinson's front door and found it locked.
Well,
he thought,
it would be.
There was nothing to stop anybody who wanted to from coming in from Main Street. He found the button for the bell and rang.

It was the middle of a weekday. If nobody had answered the door, Gregor would have put the lack of response down to everyone being out, although he found that rather odd for a day with no classes and a lot of boarding students. He rang the bell again, just for good measure, and was surprised to hear the sound of footsteps and shuffling behind the door. A moment later it was opened, and he was standing face-to-face with a tall man in chinos, a black T-shirt, and a good tweed blazer. The wire-rimmed glasses were, he thought, theperfect touch. Whoever this man was, he could pose for the cover of
Esquire
in the role of Hip Urban Intellectual.

The man stood very still, watching him. He had steady blue eyes and an expression of bemusement on his face. Gregor couldn't get past the feeling that he had seen this man before, somewhere, and that the where had not been a pleasant place.

The man stepped back and said, “Mr. Demarkian, I was wondering when you'd show up here. I expect Mark told you about our conversation on the night Michael died.”

“You're Philip Candor, then?” Gregor said.

“I'm Philip Candor.” Philip smiled, very slightly, and that wave of conviction passed over Gregor again. He
had
seen this man before. He just couldn't remember when.

“My apartment's this way,” Philip said.

Gregor followed him down a narrow hall to the right, thinking as he went that the school Houses had been similarly designed to accommodate faculty and students. Philip opened a door at the end of the hall and ushered Gregor through. This apartment was like the one belonging to Sheldon in Hayes, but far less pretentious, and because of it far more masculine. There were hundreds of books, stacked two deep in all the bookcases and littering all the tables and surfaces. They reminded Gregor of Tibor back on Cavanaugh Street, especially because the books looked read. There was a CD player and a tall stack of CDs in a cheap, plastic revolving case. The CDs included everything from Mozart to Johnny Cash to Lynyrd Skynyrd to Miles Davis.

Gregor took a seat in a club chair without waiting to be asked. Philip Candor stayed standing.

“Would you like me to get you some coffee? I always seem to be offering coffee to people who come here.”

“Thank you, but no,” Gregor said. “Have some yourself, if you'd like, of course.”

“I would, if I liked,” Philip said. Then he came around and sat down on the couch, close enough so that his knees would have touched Gregor's if he leaned only a little forward. He leaned back instead. “Mark's all right from what I've heard. That's a relief.”

“Yes, it is,” Gregor agreed. He took his coat off. He reached into his jacket and took out his notebook again. He knew what questions he needed to ask. He couldn't get started because he couldn't get past the increasingly intense conviction that he knew this man's face. He looked at his notes again. He looked at the face again. Philip Candor was still smiling.