The Twisted Thread (23 page)

Vernon began to applaud in slow, heavy claps. “Bravo. Did you mean one word of that?”

“I hope so,” said Matt as he walked toward his car. “We going in mine?” They were off to talk to Porter.

“Sure,” said Vernon. “You have a better CD player.” But he wasn't finished. “That's what those places do,” he went on. “They make you very, very good at sounding like you know what you're talking about. They make you sound like you're in charge.” He opened the passenger side of Matt's car. “What was scary was that you sounded like him. You really did.” And Matt knew that he meant Porter, because that was exactly who had flashed through his mind as he'd been speaking, laying out his version of the case. A man who to all appearances had everything under control. A man people trusted with what was deepest to them.

“What I am having trouble squaring with myself,” Vernon said as he fussed with his seat belt strap, “is if I'm jealous or merely seeing things accurately. I could have used a better education,” he said. “And I wanted to learn to play jazz piano.”

“Jazz piano?” said Matt, and he started the car, then realized he needed sunglasses. Pausing to put them on, he said, “I can see it, Vernon.” And he could. Vernon loved everyone from Charlie Parker to Coltrane, and he had a loose grace and impossibly wide, long-fingered hands.

“They teach that up there?” his partner asked.

“Of course they do,” Matt said, slowly accelerating.

“But even if I had the money, I wouldn't send my kids,” Vernon said. “I don't believe in what they've got. I don't want it. I don't buy it.” He readjusted his seat belt. “Do you? Do you really?”

Matt had braked at a stop sign and paused to look at his partner. What was there to say? What could he tell Vernon now other than he'd tried to take what was best from Armitage and step away from what was less appealing. But could anyone do that? Could you participate in a place like the academy without being of it in some essential way? “Vernon, the short answer is that there isn't one. Privilege exists. It's real. It's unjust. There's no way to reconcile that with poverty or lack of opportunity. And I profited from it.”

Vernon chewed on that for a moment and said, “You're proud of what you got up there.”

Matt considered Vernon's choice of words and said, “Yes, I am.”

Vernon appeared to think about that for a moment, then said, “That authoritative-voice business. Where's it from?”

“It's a WASP thing, I think,” Matt said. “They're masters at it. That and real estate they do really well. Comes from centuries of being the only show in town.”

“I've seen it in movies, but I didn't know it actually happened,” Vernon said and slumped as far as it was possible for someone tall to slump in a bucket seat. “It's goddamn creepy,” he added, and with that, they drove up the hill and through the iron gates, down the light green corridor of maples to begin Porter McLellan's day on a very, very difficult note.

CHAPTER 19

L
ate Friday afternoon, Jim followed Nancy down the tunnels
that led to the main furnace for Nicholson. For some reason, the great black beast had been switching on and off since last Saturday night, sending waves of heat through all the offices, despite the fact that it was almost eighty degrees outside and obviously well past the season for piped-in warmth. Nancy had reached him at Angela's, where he was staying while his mother recovered. She had insisted on being released from the hospital by lunchtime, and her doctors had reluctantly let her go. “I'm sorry to ask, but no one knows Big Bob like you do, Jim. Would you mind?” They'd had a tech look at it, but the problem wasn't resolved. Jim hadn't minded at all; in fact, he was looking forward to seeing Nancy again as soon as possible. And Angela herself looked relieved to have him gone for a time. She'd sleep, she said. She was tired after that inedible food in the hospital. She had almost laughed then and sent him off with a wave of her hand.

Still, Jim had driven with more enthusiasm than he really thought was seemly to go to fix the faulty furnace. They all had names, which was silly but useful. You could say, “Bob's acting up” or “Bertha's at it again,” and everyone knew exactly what you meant. And even though Claire had died, her baby had disappeared, and his mother had suffered a heart attack, the daily work of making the school run smoothly still had to continue. Stop for a moment, and cracks started to run through everything. Jim sometimes wondered if anyone—teachers, kids, staff—had any idea how much time, money, and effort went into keeping those lawns fresh and all those buildings painted. To keep everything looking as prosperous as possible. Porter knew, Jim thought appreciatively, as he followed Nancy's trim self down the tunnel. Last year, at a gathering to thank people for work well done, Porter had said that Armitage could get by without him, deans, and most of the teachers. But what it couldn't function without were employees like them, with solid practical skills and a serious work ethic, people who cared about what they did and didn't shirk the tasks before them. “Thank you,” he had said, “for making us look so good.” It had been moving and it had been genuine and Jim knew it made a difference to everyone he worked with. Porter knew all their names and used them effortlessly. Afterward, Nancy had said, “That Porter is one in a million.” And Jim had agreed.

They heard the overactive machine before they found it, and in the small room where it was clanking away, it must have been 110 degrees. Sweat sprouted instantly on his forehead, and he noticed that Nancy was turning a bright and pleasing shade of pink. Jim opened a box of tools and got out a wrench. He suspected the problem was a faulty temperature gauge; something had fooled Bob into believing it was actually close to freezing upstairs. Nancy watched him open up the main workings. He and she were in accord that, even though these old systems took some coddling and maintenance, they were still better made than most of the new stuff on the market and worth every cent of extra work it took to keep them going.

There it was. The gauge had gotten stripped and was exposed to the air. No wonder it had gone wonky. He'd need some other supplies to replace the actual wiring, but for now, a few layers of duct tape, a resetting of the system, and a little luck were all that was necessary to make the whole system function properly. Poor secretaries. They were probably worried about what the unusual heat would do to their computers up there.

Jim turned around then and saw Nancy looking at him. “What?” he said, thinking he'd done something wrong.

She shrugged. “It's just that you do your work well. I appreciate it.” But there was something else. It was that she'd been looking at him with another, far less abstract sort of appreciation. She turned to go, but he said, “Nancy?” and before he was quite aware of what he was doing, he walked over to her and gently put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her.

In the boiler room. What a place for a first kiss. Which was exactly what she said when he stopped kissing her. “The boiler room? What are you, some die-hard romantic? Couldn't you just wait until Saturday night like everybody else?”

“No,” said Jim, “I couldn't,” and he kissed her again. His boss. But at the moment, none of it—their professional relationship, his dirty hands, the impossible heat—seemed to matter much at all.

Out in the clear light of the afternoon, they had grown shy as teenagers and found excuses to hightail it off in opposite directions, both of them, Jim suspected, grinning madly. That was what was wonderful about a kiss. It was terribly revealing about compatibility, and this one had been quite confirming.

He went to the workshop and got the tools he needed for a more conclusive repair to Big Bob, finished the job quickly, and made it back to Angela's by six. She was fast asleep, and he surprised himself by turning on her computer and doing a search of graduate schools in management. Maybe Angela had been right. Maybe it was time to set his sights higher and do something other than labor with his hands. He was good with people, he felt. It was something Nancy told him all the time.

Around seven, he started cooking dinner: sautéed chicken, peas, even fresh baked rolls, whose smell he hoped would arouse his mother's appetite. But Angela only nibbled at the food before her. He found himself watching her hands: when she got too lean, her rings rolled right off the joints. Briefly, he felt some chagrin at his own buoyant mood and experienced instead the return of worry over his mother. Angela continued to push around the peas on her plate as if arranging them in a geometric puzzle. Spearing one now, she sighed and said, “I know I should eat. But I can't stop thinking about that poor girl.”

Poor girl? Who was Angela talking about? “Do you mean the girl who was killed? Claire?” Jim asked. In a tone that was a little blunter than he usually allowed himself to be with his mother, he said, “I'm surprised, Ma. I didn't think what happened up there mattered to you.”

Angela acknowledged his skepticism with a flutter of her fingers. Usually, his mother could be counted on to rant about Armitage. She was unconscionably proud of the achievements of (most of) her children, all of whom had gone to public schools. Two lawyers, a doctor, a banker, and then Jim. A handyman, a divorced handyman. And the only one left in the area and probably the best parent among them, he said in his own silent defense. He wondered, a bit sharply and, he knew, inaccurately, if Angela could even name all her grandchildren; it was the graduate degrees and the colleges, all attended on scholarship, that she committed most firmly to memory. This concern of hers about Claire, a girl of what she would be sure to consider disgusting privilege, was decidedly unlike her. “I know, Jimmie. I don't like that place and I think it's time you found another job. But she was very young and she died. That's different. And then there's the baby. What do you think has happened to the baby?” His mother was indeed worried. She slowly spun her three gold bangles, something she did only when agitated.

“They're not saying.” Ever since the murder and the baby's disappearance, he had barely mentioned the whole mess, fearing it would draw Angela's scorn. She had referred to the events rather obliquely and with her familiar disdain for the doings of the rich. They'd mostly skirted the topic, for which Jim was grateful. He hadn't wanted to recount the feeling of invasion and shock, how the students and faculty were skittering around the campus. If his mother was following what was going in the papers or on television, she was doing so privately, and after a brief mention at dinner each night, they'd stowed the topic as if it were something unsightly. And then she had gotten ill. But suddenly, fresh from the hospital, she was taut with concern.

“They've released some statements, all about ongoing investigations,” Jim said carefully. He himself had been a little disappointed at the terseness of Armitage's response. All Porter had said to the staff was that Claire had died and that they were searching for a newborn who had disappeared in “suspicious circumstances.” Jim had thought that the head would handle it with a little more finesse, but he wasn't going to give his mother anything else to fuel her long-nourished resentment of the academy.

Angela glanced at the clock and said, “It's time for the news.” She watched the show on the public station that aired at 8:00 and not the blond bobbleheads on the major networks. She went in to seat herself in her armchair, and instead of staying in the kitchen to wash dishes and listen to music, avoiding the day's events, Jim joined her. As she listened to reports of carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan, he watched her. Her face had grown veiled and tired. But then a repeat of the local segment of the broadcast came on, and there was Armitage displayed across the screen. It struck Jim how alien it must look to outsiders. The beauty of the grounds. The grandeur of the buildings. How gorgeous it was. You might do anything to be part of it, and you might feel terribly small if you weren't. Then Jim sat up even straighter. The earnest reporter had managed to get on campus with his crew, and he was standing in front of Greaves. Jim wished he had Nancy's list of repairs for the next day right in front of him. He could have sworn that the window he was supposed to fix was on the second floor, to the right of the main corridor. But the cracked pane he spied on the screen was on the third floor and to the left. He said nothing to his mother, who was staring at the television, though clearly not paying attention to the story unfolding in front of her.

She snapped the set off and announced she was going to bed. “These drugs make me tired. I'm going to turn in early.” She rose stiffly but refused help with a cross look and slowly walked upstairs. Jim did the dishes and was mopping the floor when the phone rang. It was Kayla, obviously startled at hearing his voice. She had hoped, he realized, only to speak to Angela. But she gathered herself and told Jim she was sorry but she wouldn't be able to come by for the next few days. She hoped Mrs. French would understand, and she was looking forward to seeing her soon. Jim thought about mentioning Angela's heart attack and his mother's desire to talk to Kayla, but he decided not to. The girl sounded so tired. Instead, he said he understood and thanked her for calling, knowing that the news would disappoint his mother.

Angela called from her bedroom, “Who was that, Jimmie?” and when he went upstairs to tell her that Kayla wouldn't be coming back until at least next week, his mother's face crumpled. But when Jim asked if she wanted to talk to Kayla herself, Angela said no. “She's got her reasons, I'm sure of that,” his mother said, making much of polishing the lenses of her already spotless glasses. Jim came close to offering to take her to the nail salon and Starbucks himself, but Angela would have refused. It was Kayla's company and the atmosphere of serious fun she brought with her that made all the difference. It was having a girl around and not her fussy old son. It was a friendship where none had been expected. “I want to sleep now, Jimmie,” his mother said and sat on the smooth white coverlet of her bed.

Dismissed, Jim returned to the kitchen and started to pace. There was nothing left to clean, and he was too restless to sit down. He realized that the person he actually wanted to talk to was Nancy. It was just nine fifteen and not too late to call; he could check with her about that crack he'd seen in the window of the dorm. She answered on the first ring and was clearly happy to hear from him. Listening to her voice, he thought instantly of the boiler room's steamy warmth.

“Where am I catching you?” he asked, and she confessed that she was still at work. There was so much to do, what with graduation so close and Claire's memorial service coming up on Sunday. It was getting harder and harder to get home at a reasonable hour. “Sorry, Jim. I don't want to complain. How's your mom?”

Despite their encounter in the basement, they settled easily into conversation. About Angela and her testy frame of mind. About the impending visit from Jim's sister Andrea, who would be driving up this weekend. She would come, Jim told Nancy, to make sure he still knew he was the youngest in the family, though given that he was fifty, it was news she didn't really need to reinforce. Two years ago, Angela had broken her ankle, and Andrea had made the same trip. Within moments of her arrival, his sister had looked askance at the steep stairs and glanced suspiciously at Angela's car keys hanging on a kitchen hook. By the end of her visit, she had arranged a conference call with two other siblings and everyone had started to mention assisted living with not such studied casualness. Angela and Jim had fended her off, but this time it might be different.

“My brother tried the same thing with my dad,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “But Dad was as stubborn as your mom sounds, and he died eight years later in his own bed.”

“And my mother is not only stubborn, she's competent,” Jim said.

“Like you,” Nancy said, laughing, and even though she was his boss, even though their school was in the midst of a crisis, he stopped, gathered his courage, and asked her out to dinner. “Yes,” she said with obvious enthusiasm. “Absolutely,” and despite their kiss, they both seemed to get terribly shy and he switched the topic to work, ostensibly the reason he had called in the first place.

He told her then what he'd seen on the TV. “Oh, you saw that,” Nancy said. “No one knows how the reporter got in, but security whisked him off pretty quick.” She paused and then said, “You sure it was the third floor? I'll go check it out and call you back.”

To pass time until Nancy rang him, Jim settled in to watch a
Nova
show about Ernest Shackleton and his miraculous feat of rescue on Antarctica. He vaguely recognized the narrator's voice and knew that when he read the credits at the end he'd be disgusted with himself for not realizing who it was. When Nancy called back, ten minutes later, he switched the sound to mute and watched the grainy photographs of Shackleton's crew roll steadily across the screen. “You're right, Jim,” she said. “It's the third and the second. The one on the second comes from a Frisbee. The kid who did it was really sorry and offered to pay. The one on the third looks different, like someone threw something at it, a rock or stone. And it's Scotty Johnston's room.”