The Sixes (30 page)

“Well, I didn’t at the time. And I didn’t five minutes ago. I just thought it was, like I said, creepy. But now you’ve got my mind racing.”

“I feel like puking,” Phoebe said.

“Should we tell the police?” Glenda asked.

“
No
,” Phoebe said sharply. “Sorry—I just don’t want to cast any suspicion on him with the cops until I have more information.”

Behind them the crowd noise began to swell from a hum to a light roar and then finally jubilant cheering as a goal was obviously scored. Instinctively the two women turned their heads toward the field. As Phoebe’s eyes ran over the scene, she saw that Rachel, the girl from her class, the one she spotted walking with Jen, was sitting on the players’ bench.

“I’d better be getting back,” Glenda said.

“That girl with the blond hair who’s on the bench,” Phoebe said. “Her name’s Rachel Blunt. Do you know anything about her?”

“Just that she’s out for a few days with an injury. Why?”

“She may be—look, I’ll fill you in later. I’m still in information-gathering mode.”

“Phoebe, please be careful.”

“I will. Before I go, there’s one more thing I need to tell you.” Mentally Phoebe gritted her teeth and described her trip to Glenda’s house yesterday, and what she’d overheard Mark say.

Glenda shook her head in disgust. “Do you think it was a woman?”

“If it was, he didn’t seem all that friendly,” Phoebe said. “I remember you told me that he once had that problem with online gambling. I’ve been wondering if that’s what it is, that what he needed to deliver to the person was money.”

“What a bastard. Of all the times for him to be pulling this.”

Phoebe hugged Glenda with just her left arm. “I’ll call you later. Let me know if I can do anything at all,” she said.

Phoebe headed back toward West Gate, making slow progress over the sodden grass. She tried calling Wesley again. Still nothing. As she dropped her phone into her purse, she glanced around her. The other two playing fields were empty now, though far ahead of her she could see the football players trudging into the gym after practice. She was on the western edge of the Grove, and she realized that there was no one in the immediate vicinity. She pulled her pashmina around her and began to hurry.

When Phoebe stopped to catch her breath, she heard footsteps behind her and spun around. A man was coming towards her. He had on a dark jacket with a scarf obscuring the lower part of his face, but she knew the gait. It was Duncan. He’s been following me, she thought. She froze for a moment, and then took a step awkwardly backward, unsure what to do.

“Phoebe, wait up,” he called to her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked roughly.

“What am I
doing
?” he said. “I saw you at the game, and I wanted to catch up with you. Is something the matter? Why did you cancel tonight?”

“I thought I explained,” Phoebe said. “I need to be with Glenda.”

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “Something’s the matter, I can tell.”

Phoebe glanced over his shoulder. Behind one of the dorms, a bunch of boys was tossing a Frisbee, calling out funny insults to each other as they played. She knew it wasn’t smart to say anything, to confront Duncan, but she couldn’t hold back.

“You lied to me,” Phoebe blurted out. “You
knew
Lily, didn’t you?”

Duncan said nothing for a moment and just looked at her, his eyes wary.

“All right,” he said finally. “I
did
know her. But it’s not what you think.”

30

P
HOEBE HAD BRACED
herself for the fact that Duncan had lied to her about knowing Lily, but the actual words still rocked her.

“Did you have an affair with her?” Phoebe said.

“No, of course not.”

“Really
?
”

“You honestly think I had an affair with a student here?” Duncan said indignantly.

“Lily told at least one person that she was in love with a man she was on a committee with last spring.”

Duncan pressed his lips together, as if holding the words back.

“Okay, something
did
happen,” he said after a moment.

Phoebe’s heart seemed to stop. She glanced over his shoulder again. The boys who’d been tossing the Frisbee had given up and drifted off.

“You slept with her?” Phoebe said.

“No, I told you I didn’t,” Duncan said. His anger was rising, and he swept a hand roughly through his hair. “But she seemed to have a crush on me, and it might have been partially my fault. I’d become friendly with her when we were on a committee in part because I knew she was a wreck about her boyfriend disappearing, but also because I liked that she was so passionate about animal rights. She came by my office a couple of times this term to continue the discussion. Then one day she called and asked me to grab a beer after class. I thought she was including other kids from the committee, but she was alone and I started to pick up this flirtatious undercurrent. So I backed off completely. Even if I’d been interested—and I
wasn’t
—I would have never jeopardized my career here.”

“And that’s it?” Phoebe demanded.

He didn’t say anything for a second, and she saw him take a breath.

“No,” he said, “there’s a bit more than that. About two weeks ago, I bumped into her at a farmer’s market a few miles from here. It seemed odd to find her there, and later I realized she might have overheard me tell someone I was headed there on the weekend, and showed up on purpose. She asked if I wanted to have a cup of coffee with her. There were a few plastic tables set up. I felt backed into a corner, so I said yes. And as we were sitting there, she leaned over and kissed me—totally out of the blue.”

He shook his head as if the memory still bugged him. Was it all an act? Phoebe wondered.

“I told her I was flattered,” Duncan said, “but that I didn’t believe in dating students. She apologized and said she was just confused about a bunch of things. I felt sorry for her—I could tell she was still troubled about the boyfriend and trying to sort things out. That was the last contact I had with her this semester—though I saw her a couple of times coming out of the science center. If I’m the man she told people about, I had no clue her feelings ran that deep.”

“But why would you lie to me? Why tell me you didn’t know her?”

“A student
drowns
in the river? A student I rebuffed romantically? That’s not information I intended to broadcast on campus. I hadn’t even told Miles.”

He’d misled her so successfully before, she didn’t know how to read whether this was the truth or not.

“Look, Phoebe,” he said when she’d didn’t reply. “That’s why I acted like such a prick this morning when you mentioned her having an affair. Once you and I had become intimate, I was having second thoughts about withholding this information from you. I don’t make a habit of lying.”

“Is that right?” she said. “But you told me a lie just the other day. You said Miles had had an angina attack, but when I talked to Jan today, she claimed he doesn’t have angina.”

“Wait, you spoke to Jan?”

“I asked her if Miles was okay.”

Duncan threw up his hands. “I should have told you. He hasn’t admitted to Jan that he has it. He doesn’t want to alarm her. If you don’t believe me, call him.”

He seemed frustrated with her. But that was what liars often did, she knew. They flipped things, becoming indignant with
you
.

“Then why tell me it was
Bruce
you were going to see?” she said.

“What?”

“You told me at first you were going upstairs to see Bruce.”

“I misspoke, for God’s sake. I work with both of them every day. Where are you going with this, Phoebe, anyway?”

“Well, there are these inconsistencies, but then I’m supposed to believe you when you say that there was really nothing between you and Lily. And then she ends up dead. And so does Hutch.”

“Are you suggesting that I
did
something to her—that I
killed
her?”

Stop right there, Phoebe commanded herself. Don’t go any further. But she couldn’t contain herself.

“
Did
you?” she asked, her voice suddenly hoarse.

Duncan let his arms drop by his side and shook his head in dismay, his mouth pinched together.

“I don’t believe you’re doing this, Phoebe,” he said. “I thought we had something together—something good.”

He turned abruptly and traipsed off along the woods.

I guess that’s it for us, Phoebe thought, regardless of what the truth is. I just ended everything.

She felt overwhelmed—by sadness and grief but also by anger that Duncan had lied to her, and by fear that everything he’d said just now had been lies as well. She wanted to believe him, but she was still nagged by doubt.

She waited a minute until Duncan was out of sight and then made her own way across campus. By the time she reached the gate, her head was pounding and her elbow ached unbearably.

She had just turned onto Hunter Street when her phone rang. Wesley, finally.

“What’s going on?” he said, sounding agitated. “I got all these calls from you.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Phoebe said, sliding into the front seat. “I was just anxious to catch up with you.”

“Is something the matter?”

“No, no. I just need your help. I want to get a bit more info from you about the man at the jukebox in Cat Tails.”

“The man? Why does that matter anymore? They’ve arrested the girls who did it.”

“Uh, maybe not. I’m having doubts that Blair and her friend are the killers.”

“Whoa, really? And you think it was this man I talked to?”

“I don’t know, but I just keep coming back to him. Is there any way you can meet me tonight? I can explain when I see you.”

“Lemme think for a second,” he said. “I’m still at work, and then I’m going out from here—but in the opposite direction from Lyle.” There were a few seconds of silence. “Is there any way you could meet me here? It’s about twenty, twenty-five minutes west of Lyle.”

She didn’t like the idea of driving all that way, especially because it would be completely dark soon, but she was desperate to meet with Wesley. In person she could take notes, prod him better. And even show him a picture.

“Okay,” she said. “How late will you be there?”

“I was planning to leave in half an hour because I need to be at this other place. But if you hurry, I’ll wait.”

Phoebe was worried about how she would pull it off, but she didn’t want to pass up the chance to see him. She scribbled down the address and signed off. Now she needed to hurry home, check on Ginger, and pick up her car. She also had to download a photo.

The little dog seemed overjoyed to see her and nearly leaped in her arms when she walked into the house. Phoebe took a few seconds to pet her and toss her one of the tiny treats from the package Dan had left. Next, with the clock ticking in her head, Phoebe pulled up the college Web site and downloaded the photo of Stockton. There was a remote chance, she thought, that once Lily had been spurned by Duncan—if that were really the case—she had moved on to Stockton, and the story had then morphed slightly in the telling.

Phoebe was in the car in less than ten minutes, but she was now behind schedule. She programmed the address into her GPS and pulled out of the driveway. Fortunately most of the trip turned out to be on backcountry roads, and there was little traffic to contend with. As she drove, the misery she was feeling seemed to balloon with each mile. Her boots were soaked through from walking over soggy ground earlier, her elbow still ached, and her emotions were a battered mess. She
had
had something good with Duncan. And now it was over.

Wesley’s feed company was at the edge of a small town called Springville, and Phoebe reached it fifteen minutes later than she’d promised. She prayed that Wesley was still waiting. As she pulled off the road into the parking lot, she saw a sign out front that read, “Closed,” but there was one car still in the parking lot.

She stepped from her car into the cold. She was at the far right end of the large brick building, and peering through the twilight, she saw a stream running near the back. It was the one Wesley had mentioned, she realized, the one that once moved the paddle wheel that then turned the grist stones. In the air was the smell of something sweet but unidentifiable.

As she hurried toward the main door, she saw that she was actually looking at two buildings—the big old gristmill with a drive-through on one end—probably for trucks and vans making pickups—and a newer, less impressive structure on the far side that appeared to be devoted to the lawn care business. There was a light on just inside the main building, so she tried that door first. Entering, she spotted Wesley standing behind a counter in the two-story-high space, dressed in his standard-issue khaki pants, button-down shirt, and pullover. The smell she’d picked up outside was even stronger in here.

“Thanks so much for waiting,” Phoebe told him. The front of the large room, she saw, had been set up as a store, with shelves of feed and supplies. It opened at the back onto an area with industrial-looking equipment and huge container bags. That was clearly where the feed was ground and bagged.

“Not a problem,” Wesley said. “What’d you do to your arm?”

“Broke my elbow—but just a minor fracture.”

He smoothed an eyebrow with his hand, a gesture she interpreted as impatience. He was being polite, but he was clearly eager to leave.

“This should only take a second,” Phoebe said. “What’s that smell, by the way?”

“Oh, that’s probably the molasses you’re smelling. We sweeten the animal feed with it. We have vats of it in the basement, and it’s piped up to the back room.”

As she drew a notebook from her purse, the store phone rang.

“Lemme just grab this, okay?” he said. “It’s a guy calling back about a lawn issue.”

Wesley answered, “Springville Feed Company,” and ended up in a conversation about crabgrass. As he talked, Phoebe’s eyes wandered over the space. In the middle of the first floor was an open area protected by a waist-high wooden fence; beyond it was the top of a large, weathered paddle wheel, at least twelve feet in diameter. She moved closer and stared down into a pit large enough to hold the wheel and several wooden gears. At one point the stream had run through there, she realized, making the wheel turn, but now it was totally dry.

Across the room she heard Wesley say good-bye, and she returned to where she’d been standing.

“Pretty interesting, isn’t it?” he said, coming from behind the counter. “The water churned the paddle wheel around, and that moved the gears that in turn activated the grist stones.” He pointed to an area to her left, and she swiveled her head in that direction. There was a large circular stone resting on the floor.

“Yes, fascinating,” she said, though she hadn’t a lick of interest at the moment. “Anyway, as I said on the phone, I’d love a better description of the man at the jukebox. You said he was in his late thirties, perhaps early forties, not dressed as a townie. Anything else you recall?”

Wesley slowly shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “I mean, he seemed sure of himself, confident. That much I remember.”

Phoebe pulled the photo of Stockton out of her purse. It was a long shot, but it was all she had.

“This wasn’t the guy by any chance, was it?”

“He looks vaguely familiar, but no,” Wesley said. “The guy I talked to was darker. Dark hair, dark eyes.”

Phoebe stuffed the photo back in her purse and, after hesitating for a second, pulled out her phone. I can’t believe I’m doing this, she thought.

“What about him?” she asked. She opened up the photo she had taken of Duncan in his kitchen last Friday.

“Oh, wow,” Wesley said after a couple of seconds.

Phoebe caught her breath. “What?” she asked. It came out as barely a whisper.

“This is a professor from Lyle. I’ve seen him.”

“What do you mean? He’s the man you saw that night?”

“No, no, definitely not,” Wesley said. He narrowed his gray eyes. “I just recognized him from school.”

Thank God for small favors, Phoebe thought.

“So now you’re thinking a guy did it, huh?” Wesley said as Phoebe dropped the phone back in her purse.

“Yes. Someone familiar with the area who knew about the Sixes and figured it would be easy to frame them. And very possibly someone connected to Lyle College. It might be the man you talked to that night, but maybe not. Can I ask you one more favor?”

“Is it going to take long?” Wesley asked. He sounded a little testy, as if he were starting to run out of patience.

“No, just a few minutes, I swear.” She reached into her purse again and pulled out a copy of Hutch’s notes.

“These are the notes Ed Hutchinson took after talking to you last fall. He told me that when he’d reread them, he’d found something significant in them, but he never had a chance to tell me what it was. Can you look and see if anything jumps out for you?”

Wesley shrugged his shoulders before he’d even looked but then glanced down and moved his eyes along the page.

“Sorry, nope,” he said after not more than a cursory glance. “I mean, it’s all just the stuff I told him.”

“There must be something significant in the underlined parts,” Phoebe said. “Mr. Hutchinson looked over a set of notes I took after
my
first meeting with you, and he highlighted the exact same things. It’s uncanny, but the two sets of notes are almost identical. All the details are the same—nearly word for word. It’s, well—”