The Snake Tattoo (7 page)

“Mrs. Mooney, believe me, there's no way to handle this tactfully, no way to handle it at all. I'm not going to take the job, and I won't say anything about it to your son. And, please—promise me—don't try it yourself. You'll just make things worse for him.”

“Worse for him,” she said. “Worse for him? And how do you think things could get worse for him?”

I didn't say anything.

“Go on,” she said. “Get out.”

I thanked her for the lemonade, but she pretended not to hear me, sitting in stony silence like a carved figure of herself. I said good-bye, and almost ran down the steps to the front door. I needed to get the taste of that lemonade out of my mouth, the sick smell of the apartment out of my nostrils.

I drove out to the Emerson School much too fast. The speedometer keep creeping up—ten, twenty, twenty-five miles over the Route 2 limit. I was lucky I didn't get stopped by a cop.

CHAPTER 7

Jerry had vowed money was no problem, but I don't think I believed him until I strolled onto the freshly mown lawn of Emerson. That's what the place is called. They just drop the “School” part, because anybody who is anybody knows that the Emerson is a prep school, a toney private high school.

If this was a high school, what I went to in Detroit was cruel and unusual punishment.

It wasn't just the putting-green grass. Well-pruned bushes, stately firs, and classy red brick buildings contributed to the mini-Harvard effect. But instead of the surrounding bustle of Harvard Square, the Emerson was ringed by acres of landscaped countryside. The admissions committee probably interviewed the squirrels, and only took the ones that would eat out of your hand.

No bell rang, but the quadrangle suddenly flooded with students. The girls all seemed to be wearing skirts—not uniform kilts or anything—but skirts of differing colors and lengths. They giggled, a reassuringly teenaged noise. The boys wore sports jackets with open-collared white shirts.

Must be a dress code, I said so myself. I couldn't believe these kids had deliberately chosen to look like junior execs at IBM. A few signaled their individuality with semi-punk hairdos. Mild by Roz's standards, undoubtedly revolutionary at the Emerson.

They carried books. We did that in Detroit. It gave me a basis for comparison. This probably was a school.

I should have reported directly to the office. That's what the exquisitely lettered notice on the stone front gate said: V
ISITORS
R
EPORT
D
IRECTLY TO
O
FFICE
. I fully intended to until I saw that sign. Once inside a high school, hospital, jail—anyplace they keep you prisoner—I turn ornery. I do whatever they tell you not to do. I'm a truant at heart.

I sought camouflage. No way was I going to meld with the student body. I could maybe pull off a high school student imitation at a normal high school, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but here, in the midst of all this teenage formality, my interviewing-the-client slacks and sweater looked wrong. I assumed a mask of authority. Maybe I could play teacher.

There are things I could teach these kids, believe me. Starting with city smarts. Also self-defense, blues guitar, and volleyball.

I scouted around, entering a couple of the red brick buildings unchallenged. One of them had a framed diagram of the campus on a pale gray wall. Imagine, a campus. My high school was a city square block—eight floors, no elevators—and so overcrowded that classes were held on the roof as well as in the park across the street. Which was worse, no one was sure. Park classes meant the possibility of getting mugged; students on the roof were fair game for stray bullets from the ROTC rifle range.

The Emerson seemed to have plenty of space. Space for a foreign language lab, a student lounge, a cafeteria, a computer center, a school store, a little theater, and stables. Yes, riding stables.

The only horses I saw in Detroit were mounted patrol, brought in to quell riots.

I decided to wander, to soak up the privileged atmosphere Valerie had abandoned. Outside, the grounds were deserted. Everybody was in class, pulled by an invisible magnet. The air smelled like fresh-mown grass. The sun glistened. A thin stoop-shouldered man repaired a goal net on the soccer field.

I was debating a belated trip to the office when I remembered that all high school kids have to take gym. Including Elsie McLintock. In my guise as a freelance volleyball instructor, keeping the diagram of the school in my head, I found the right building and entered inconspicuously through huge double doors.

The gym was enormous, but I expected no less from the Emerson. To my delight, a ragged volleyball game was in progress. I sat in the stands, exhausted by all the elegance, welcoming the familiar smell of sneakers and sweat socks.

I knew Elsie McLintock's name. I didn't know what she looked like or even what class she was in. I assumed she was a freshman because Valerie was a freshman, and years mean so much when you've experienced so few.

A cheer came from the court. One game decided and handslapping all around. Two girls on the winning team—one short, one tall—could play. They roamed the court, poaching at will. Their teammates played like they were scared to sweat.

I play killer volleyball three mornings a week at my local Cambridge YWCA. It's terrific exercise and lacks the pointlessness of, say, stationary bicycling. Somebody gets to win; somebody gets to lose. I love it. I'm an outside hitter—a spiker—but I can play middle blocker if I have to.

One of the girls who didn't mind sweat came out winded, and a replacement ran in for her. She sat two rows in front of me.

“Good game,” I said, moving down beside her.

“Thanks.” She was breathing hard.

“Tired?”

“I had mono, and now I can't move. It's like taking forever to get back.”

Forever at her age was probably two weeks.

I said, “Do you know Elsie McLintock?” I figured I might as well try. It was a small school—in enrollment, not area.

“Elsie?”

“Yeah. McLintock. She's a freshman.”

“I think I've heard the name.”

“You know when she has gym?”

“Nah.” She was watching the game. She had one of those classic WASP profiles with the slightly turned-up nose that makes you look snotty even if you aren't. She brushed her thick blonde hair back off her forehead. I took advantage of the fact that well-bred girls with glossy manes rarely tell an adult to butt out.

“You know where I could find her?”

“Ms. Sutton has the schedule cards,” she said, watching the game intently.

“Ms. Sutton?”

“Laura, the one with the French braids.”

One of the girls who played hard and well was really the teacher.

“Thanks,” I said.

A small office opened off the right-hand side of a basketball court. I figured Ms. Sutton was not going to make a sudden appearance because the game was tight and her team needed her. She was a well-organized teacher, with four index card files on her desk, neatly marked by class. I snitched Elsie's card from the freshman file, and I'm sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused Ms. Sutton. I wish she played on my team at the Y. She was short, even for a setter, but spunky. She made a couple of fairly impossible digs, and even spiked a few, which is tough for a shorty.

I checked my wristwatch. In half an hour Elsie McLintock would pass from English block to Social Studies block. That gave me thirty minutes to find out whether a block was a building or a unit of time, and what Elsie looked like.

The block business was easy. I went back to the building with the diagram and found English block listed in the legend at the bottom of the map. Identifying Elsie was trickier. They didn't have student photos posted. It looked pretty futile until I realized every classroom had a phone.

I located Elsie's English class, room 121, with little trouble. All English classes were in the English block, all language classes were in the Language block, all math classes were in another red brick house, and so on. I found an empty room across the hall, took the receiver off the hook, and punched 121, wondering who I'd reach. Sometimes internal phone systems have a code. You know, you have to dial nine first or something. The buzz in Elsie's classroom was so loud it startled me.

Elsie's teacher, a chubby, balding man, crossed the room and I ducked behind the door.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said quickly. “Elsie McLintock to the office, please.”

“Sarah?” the deep voice said.

I made a monosyllabic neutral response. It's so easy to lie on the phone.

“I really can't have these interruptions.”

“I'm sorry,” I said very sincerely. “Please send her right away. It's urgent.”

As the girl left the room I followed her.

She was small. Tidy. Light brown hair fell in a well-cut curve to her shoulders. She wore a gray denim knee-length skirt and a pastel flower-patterned shirt. Two gold bracelets clinked on her wrist.

“Elsie,” I called.

She turned. At least I'd gotten the right one.

“You don't need to go to the office.”

“But Mr. Chesney said—Who are you?”

“Jerry Toland hired me to find Valerie.”

“Humph,” she said, or something like it.

“Can we go someplace and talk?” I asked.

“I'll be late for American Studies.”

“Do you know where Valerie is?”

“No.”

“Do you care?”

She gave me a look. “Well, of course. She's my friend.”

“Then we need to talk.”

“There's the lounge,” she said reluctantly.

“Fine,” I said.

She led the way to this immense multileveled cushioned room, done in soothing blues. I didn't see why any of the kids went to class when they could snooze on deep blue velvet couches. We sat on one of them. I ran my hand over the smooth plush.

“What did you say your name was?” Elsie's folks must have told her not to talk to strangers. I passed over one of my business cards. They seem to have a calming effect, although for eighteen bucks you can get three hundred printed to say you're the President.

The girl gave me the once over and I felt like she was estimating the cost of my clothes. “Why did Jerry go to you? I mean, did he look in the Yellow Pages?”

I kept my temper in check. “Well, I suppose he's worried about Valerie.”

“I'll bet.”

“Is that supposed to be sarcastic?”

She didn't reply.

“Did Valerie say anything to you about going away?” I asked. “Running away?”

She shook her head no. The brown hair bounced. She used too much makeup, too pale a foundation. Dark liner encircled her narrow eyes, and her lips were pale purple. If I had to choose a word to sum her up, “sullen” would be a leading contender.

“Did you get the feeling Valerie was unhappy?” I said.

“In this dump? You kidding?”

“This is a dump?”

“School is awful, you know.”

With that off her chest, she pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims and lit up. I resisted the impulse to slap her hand. I'm an ex-smoker myself—started before her age—but it startles me when I see kids light up. I mean, these days they know what they're doing to their lungs. They can read it right on the box.

“Want one?” she said.

“No thanks,” I said mildly, refraining from pointing out the Surgeon General's warning and trying not to gulp down the second-hand smoke too eagerly. “Are Valerie's folks worried about her?”

“Probably frantic,” she said as if she were enjoying the idea. “That is, if they even know.”

She was so unconcerned, I wanted to shake her.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Maybe I'm not understanding something. Does Valerie live here? Board here?”

“She lives at home. I board.”

“So Valerie's parents would notice if she didn't turn up for the night, right?”

“She's not a child, Ms., uh, Carlyle. They'd probably assume she was staying with somebody here.”

“With you?”

“Maybe. But she isn't with me.”

“Did you call her parents to ask if she's sick or something?”

“Look, Valerie's not dumb. She's not going to hop in a car with some rapist, you know. She's got judgment. She's been to New York.”

I didn't see where the last two statements jibed.

“You know,” Elsie said in a further attempt to convince me, “she's almost fifteen. She can quit school next year, and they can't do a damn thing about it.” She made “fifteen” sound like “forty-five.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think she ran away?”

She stared at the top textbook in her pile of three—
Analytic Chemistry
. “I can't say.”

“Can't or won't?”

“Can't.” she said.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“I didn't write it down,” she said.

“Think,” I said.

“I'm gonna be late,” she said.

“Right,” I said.

“Monday, and then she called me Monday night.”

“From home?”

“I guess.”

“Was she upset?”

“No.”

“Anything unusual about the conversation?”

“No.” She looked pointedly at her wristwatch, and said, “I'm going to get a detention.”

“Is there somebody else I should talk to, another friend?”

“I'm Valerie's best friend. Nobody else would tell you anything.”

“A teacher?”

She gave a deep sigh, probably at the impossibility of getting rid of me. “You could talk to Geoff, I guess.”

“And Geoff is …”

“A teacher. We call a lot of the teachers by their first names. It encourages closeness.”

Bullshit, I almost said.