Consider the Crows Page 15

  Ha. She should have applied a little math. Godel’s theorem. Any closed system, no matter how perfectly closed, always produces facts that are true, yet can’t be proven from the elementary propositions of the system.

  The wind had a sharp sting and nudged along a cluster of fleecy clouds in a faded blue sky. Briefcase in one hand and the other hand in the pocket of her tweed coat, she headed down a slope toward the parking lot and ran into Julie Kalazar and Edie Vogel on the driveway by the administration building.

  Edie, eyes watery and nose red, sneezed into a soggy tissue. “Sorry,” she said and poked the tissue into the pocket of her dark-green coat. “Lousy cold.”

  Carena nodded sympathetically and turned to Julie. “Any word about your mother?”

  Julie, in jeans and blue down jacket, armload of books clutched to her chest, shook her head miserably. The wind tossed a strand of straight brown hair across her face and she tried to brush it aside with a raised shoulder. “Everything is so awful and now—” The books slipped, she grabbed at them, then dropped them all and burst into tears.

  Carena and Edie gathered up the books and stacked them in Julie’s arms. Carena patted her shoulder, wishing she had some words of comfort. Julie wandered off.

  “I think she had a fight with her boyfriend.” Edie sneezed and scrabbled in her pocket for another tissue. “It’s too much on top of Lynnelle and her mother and everything.”

  “Did you know Lynnelle pretty well?”

  “We were good friends. She had troubles and I’ve got troubles and that made—” Edie crushed the tissue in her hand. “Like a bond.”

  “What troubles did Lynnelle have?” Carena shifted the briefcase to her other hand and stuck the cold one in her pocket. She preferred to think Lynnelle had been a longed-for child, cherished and coddled, with a storybook life.

  “Sad things, hard things.” Edie patted her nose with the balled up tissue. “Oh, I wish— I just wish—” She blinked pale lashes wet with tears. “Lynnelle wanted something good to happen, But that’s life, huh? You hope and you plan and you try and what happens? Like she said, a broken pumpkin.” Edie suddenly looked frightened.

  Thinking of her daughter, Carena thought, and sick with worry.

  “I’m rambling,” Edie said angrily. “Don’t pay any attention.” She sneezed again. “It’s just this dumb cold.”

  “You shouldn’t be standing around out here. You need a comforter and hot tea.”

  Edie almost smiled. “You sound just like my mother.”

  “We can’t help it. Mothers are programmed that way.”

  Carena crossed the street and went to the parking lot. A student trudged past with her head down and her shoulders hunched, tears trickling down her cheeks.

  Everybody I run into is crying. As Carena got in the old maroon Volvo and turned the ignition, she felt like crying herself. The starter made a slow ugh, ugh, ugh. Come on. Don’t do this. Please don’t die on me.

  The motor wheezed, coughed, and she fed it more gas. It caught, faltered and, after she held her breath, decided to run. All right. Good reliable Swedes. Well, except for her ex-husband. She let the motor warm up before she backed out and set off for home.

  A black Bronco was parked in front of the house when she got there. Oh no. As she pulled into the driveway, Ben Parkhurst got out of the Bronco. She drove into the garage, cut the motor and, in the rearview mirror, watched his approach. He moved inexorably toward the garage. Like Nemesis. No, that couldn’t be right. Nemesis was female. Like Alastor. What would he do if she slammed into reverse and screeched off with a smoke of rubber? Probably set up roadblocks. She opened the car door and slid out. Inside the house, Alexa set off a clamor of welcome barks.

  “Dr. Egersund,” Parkhurst said with a nod. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  No more questions. Not now. I’m too tired to see the steel traps. “Do I have a choice?” she snapped.

  He smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  By God, the man can smile. She couldn’t have been more startled if a stern rock face on Mount Rushmore had cracked a grin.

  “There are always choices,” he said. “But some are wrong.”

  His light tone confused her. Wrong choices? Story of my life. I schemed and planned to have a baby adopted, married the wrong man, came back to Hampstead, where I spent the first part of my life trying to get away from, withheld information and now I stand here, like “the man in the synagogue with an unclean devil, in front of authority and power who commandeth the unclean spirits to come out.”

  A giggle rose in her throat. Oh my God, I probably look an obvious mass of quivering guilt. “What questions?” She raked fingers through her short blond hair and then wished she hadn’t. It probably stood on end, making her look like a guilty madwoman.

  “Could we go inside?” he asked mildly.

  “No.”

  Somewhere behind his dark eyes there lurked a detached amusement. She felt foolish, but like a recalcitrant child, having taken a stance was forced to stick with it and shiver in the cold. The dog continued to bark.

  Parkhurst leaned against the rear fender of the Volvo, relaxed and apparently unaffected by the cold. “Last Saturday night,” he said. “Your son was here?”

  She waited. You’re not going to bring Michael into this.

  “What time did he arrive?”

  “About eleven, I think.”

  “You’re not sure.”

  “About eleven,” she repeated.

  “You were at home when he got here?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “You got home at what time?”

  “Close to twelve.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I already told you that too. Several times. Driving. Just driving.”

  He stared at her impassively, reeking disbelief.

  “I often do that when I want to think.” Oh hell, stupid thing to say. His intent was to goad her into saying something and she had obliged.

  “What were you thinking about?”

  When she didn’t respond, he said, “Rainy night, cold. The thinking must have been important to keep you out in that kind of weather.”

  Her mind scurried around for an apt quotation. Stop it. Pay attention.

  “Thinking about Lynnelle? Wondering what to do about her?”

  Bang on, she thought and tried to stare just as impassively as he did. “I teach, Lieutenant. Sometimes it’s a difficult job.”

  “I see. Maybe you were thinking about your argument with Dr. Kalazar.”

  That wasn’t a question she expected, or even worried about a whole lot. She relaxed a little.

  “What was that about?”

  “Actually, I’m not quite sure.”

  “I see,” he said again and seemed to imply a wealth of seeing.

  “It was about Julie.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s in my calculus class, bright young lady. She started out doing very well. In the last four or five weeks, she’s slipped way down.”

  “Dr. Kalazar blamed you?”

  “I expect she blamed Julie.”

  “What was Dr. Kalazar angry about?”

  Carena took a breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been a teacher for a long time and I know when a student has a problem he or she can’t handle. They have a lot of pressure; from peers, from parents, from school, from all sorts of directions. Julie wasn’t able to concentrate. I suggested talking with a counselor might help.”

  “Dr. Kalazar was upset about that?” he said with skepticism.

  “Yes, Lieutenant, she was upset. I had no right to interfere. She knew what was best for her daughter. If Julie had a problem Julie could come to her.”

  “Dr. Kalazar threatened to have you dismissed.”

  “She couldn’t. Not for that.”

  “What could she have you dismissed for?”

  “Nothing,” Carena said.

  “You’re not worried about yo
ur job?”

  “No.” Well, maybe a little. She might see to it that I’m not on the staff next year.

  “Where did all this driving on Saturday night take you?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Out to Lynnelle’s house?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t remember where you went, but you remember where you didn’t go?”

  Her fingers strayed to her temple where a little throb meant the start of a headache. “I didn’t go out there. I went— I don’t know where I went. I just drove, through town and around the campus and—west. I drove west. In the country. Just around.”

  “Did you see anybody?”

  “I maybe did. It was late. Nobody I knew. Only another car or two. I wasn’t paying attention.” I didn’t know I was going to need an alibi.

  His flat eyes held hers in a steady gaze. Like jacking a deer, she thought. And I’m just as paralyzed and just as scared.

  Parkhurst nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Egersund. You’ve been very helpful.” He pushed himself away from the fender and drifted toward the driveway, as silent and deadly as a predator.

  Have I, indeed, and what does that mean? At least he’s leaving.

  Just outside the garage, he turned. “Oh yes, one other thing. What kind of a car does your son drive?”

  Maternal instincts raised their hackles. “Why?”

  “Simple question. If you won’t tell me I’ll find out another way.”

  “An old Mustang. ’Sixty-five. Metallic green.”

  “Thank you. Good evening.”

  She watched him go down the driveway, get in the Bronco and pull away. Why had he asked about Michael’s car?

  Alexa kept up her little woo woo woo cries of joy when Carena came into the screened back porch. “Okay, okay, I’m coming.” Juggling purse and briefcase, she found her key and stuck it in the lock. Alexa sniffled and scratched along the inside of the door. As soon as it started to open, the dog plunged out and stood on her hind legs with an elephantine wiggle. Carena knelt and hugged her. “Oh dear, Lexi, it’s all getting worse and worse.” The radio clock on the cabinet read four-thirty. She found aspirin and swallowed two and wondered if Michael would be in yet.

  She tried his number and was a little surprised when he answered. “Hi, sweetie, this is your momma.”

  “Ah. Guten nachmittag, Mutter.”

  “And a good afternoon to you too, sohn. How’s everything?”

  “Gross.”

  She laughed. “Is that German or English?”

  “Half and half. German is gross. And that’s English. You okay, Mom?”

  “Oh, fine. What are you up to besides German?”

  “Oh, this and that.” There was a pause and then he said, “I’m going to have dinner with Dad.”

  “That’s nice, honey.” She was sorry she’d asked. Michael always felt uncomfortable mentioning his father and she didn’t quite know how to make him feel easy with it, let him know it was fine with her that he loved his father.

  “Michael, last weekend when you were here?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You tried to see that young woman Lynnelle Hames.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You said you went to her house.”

  “I drove around, finally found the place. She wasn’t home. Why?”

  “Did anything happen? Did you see anybody?”

  “Huh-uh. What’s up, Mom?”

  “Tell me about going out there. What happened?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Could you just do it? Indulge your old mother.”

  “Well, I guess, but—”

  “Just do it.”

  “Okay,” he said, drawing the word out. “It was raining. Windshield wipers, swipe-swipe, swipe-swipe. Long driveway with potholes full of water. I was thinking, wrong again, and then I came to the house. Looked abandoned. Dilapidated. Porch light on, though, and a light on inside. I knocked on the front door. Nobody came. I was leaving when this monster came rushing around from the back. I thought, this is it. The end. Slavering beast rips apart brilliant student.”

  “Big white dog?”

  “Yeah. Wet and bedraggled. The thing barked at me and raced back and forth like it wanted me to follow. Lassie, you know? So I did.”

  “You followed the dog?”

  “Not very far. Around to the back of the house. Big old tree. Creepy. I mean we’re talking Halloween III here.” He hummed an ominous da da da da. “I mean the rain and the dark. Owl going who who. Then there was this clap of thunder, like a cannon. I went straight up about six feet.”

  He was silent a moment, then said, “I did see something.”

  “What?” she asked with a sharp intake of breath.

  “Nothing dangerous, Mom. Don’t worry. Big flash of lightning. Okay? Can you picture it? Rain, trees, owl, thunder, then this lightning. Whole world got bright for just an instant. About fifty yards away, a bunch of trees.” He paused. “I thought I saw somebody standing there.”

  “Who was it?” She felt a pulse beat in her temple.

  “It was only for a second, you know, and I sort of thought—Well, I thought it was you. Dumb, huh? Then I figured I imagined it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “Unheroically, I scarpered, as my Brit mate would say. Why you want to know all this?”

  “Well, Michael, she was— Oh, honey, something awful happened.”

  She told him about Lynnelle’s death but said nothing about being a suspect or the police asking about his car.

  “God, Mom. I don’t get it. I mean, why? She—” His voice was strained and suddenly sounded much younger. “She kind of reminded me of Timmy. Remember Timmy?”

  “Yes, darling, I do.” Timmy and Michael were fast friends when the boys were twelve.

  “Like she needed looking after, you know? Just like Timmy, stumbling over stuff and losing his lunch money and nobody paying attention and always being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, if you’re friends, you’re friends and you stick up for ’em.”

  “Yes,” she said. She let him talk as long as he wanted and when he ran down she told him she loved him.

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  She listened for the click, then hung up. Chickens coming home to roost. She stared into the refrigerator for a time, then abruptly took out the bottle of white wine, poured a glass and sat at the table. Alexa squeezed underneath and flopped across her feet.

  Guilt, that old shrunken deformed devil guilt, hissed in her ear. Ssinsss. “Ye have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sins shall find you out.” You thought adoption was the end of it? What happened to that child? You never thought to find out.

  When I thought of her at all, I pictured birthday parties, loving mother tucking her in at night, doting father taking her for pony rides. Troubles, Edie said, Lynnelle had troubles—bad things, hard things. Carena shook her head and trickled more wine in the glass. Every child thinks she—or he—has troubles. Lynnelle was adopted by good people who wanted a child. She was cared for, loved.

  The old devil shook with wheezy laughter. You took care of a problem and then washed your hands of it. Swirling the glass, she held it toward the light and watched the pale liquid circle. “Pontius Pilate took water and washed his hands.”

  She banged the glass down on the table. When I start quoting scripture it’s time to take steps. She squinted at her watch; five-fifteen. Steps better wait until tomorrow. I can either find something to eat or sit here and get drunk. “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine.” Or maybe I could get the mail.

  Pushing herself away from the table, she stood up, took another sip of wine, then went through to the living room and opened the front door. The dog snaked past and bounded off.

  “No! Alexa!” Carena raced down the steps. “Alexa! Come back here!”

  The dog was already out of sight. Goddamn it. How would you like
to stay out there? She stomped back inside for her car keys.

  She parked at the rear of the malevolent-looking house, black against the slate sky with a pale moon rising behind it half-hidden by a trail of clouds. Shivering, she got out of the car. What if it didn’t start when she got back in? That didn’t bear thinking about. Michael was right, this place was creepy.

  Don’t get spooked by your own imagination. Get the dog and get out of here.

  “I knew you would come.”

  Carena’s hair stood on end. Pale moonlight filtered through the branches of the oak tree. A figure in a raincoat sat in the rope swing, hands gripping the rope on each side. Carena thumbed on the flashlight.

  “Caitlin!”

  Caitlin turned her head away from the light.

  Carena knelt in front of her, looking up at her face. “What are you doing here?”

  “I belong here.”

  “You certainly do not.” Carena rose. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “It’s quiet here. Can you hear the quiet?”

  “You’re freezing. We have to go.” She tried to pry Caitlin’s cold fingers from around the ropes.

  “It’s warmer inside. There’s a sleeping bag.”

  Carena could not get Caitlin’s hands to release their grip. Stay calm. She stopped pulling at Caitlin’s fingers, took a breath and spoke normally. “How long have you been here?”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “Nothing is your fault. Caitlin, listen to me. We have to go.”

  “Nothing can hurt her anymore.”

  “Caitlin, give me your hands.”

  She stared over Carena’s shoulder. “They’re coming.”

  Heart pounding, Carena swung the flash around. Glassy eyes glittered in the light. Alexa bounded toward them from the woods, pranced up to Caitlin and scrubbed her face with a wet tongue.

  “Oh, Carrie, isn’t she beautiful?” Caitlin’s voice lost the eerie, distant tone and with tears running down her face, she slid from the swing and threw her arms around the dog.

  “Caitlin, how did you get here?”

  “I can’t remember. It scares me when I can’t remember. It’s going to be bad again.”

  “No, Caitlin.” With a hand under one elbow, she urged Caitlin to her feet, brushed the tangled hair from her face and rubbed a thumb across the tears.