The St. Ambrose School for Girls(94)

To avoid the girls who are returning to the dorm in a steady stream, I go around to the rear, and as I arrive at the parking lot, I check the cars, as if their number and alignment means anything. All of them are where they were this morning. Receiving no clues, I continue onto the grass, and I look at the tree I hid behind that night—ground zero for everything that has now happened.

I think of Ms. Crenshaw in the rain. Those panties. The open door she left behind as she went back inside.

I keep going, down to the river’s scratchy woolen scarf of brambles. Breaking through the tangle, I find that the burble over the bed of stones is still quite vigorous, even though it hasn’t rained in a couple of days. Breathing in, I smell fresh dirt and know that the earthy scent is soon going to be something I will miss until spring arrives.

I wonder where all the police are. Four cop cars in front of the dorm mean there have to be at least a quartet of them somewhere. Maybe they’re inside talking to people? Maybe the administration is bringing criminal charges against Nick Hollis for the Greta thing? I suppose there are two ways the school can deal with a crisis like this. Either they cram it under the rug, which was what I assumed the administration would do, or they hit it head-on, which would include prosecuting the teacher involved.

I start to walk along the river, picking my way carefully along the worn path, stepping my boots toe to heel and palming off branches so that I am soundless. I’m not sure why I feel the need to disguise my presence. Perhaps it’s because everything else is so quiet around me, the current of the stream the only chatter within earshot.

This doesn’t last.

I’m almost at the bifurcated tree and the huge smooth rock where Greta and the Brunettes like to meet when I hear the voices. Male ones. The policemen?

I stop, and try to hear what they’re talking about. When I can’t follow the words, I sneak over to the big split trunk and hide in my usual spot. Over on Greta’s stone throne, there is a knot of some six or seven men standing shoulder to shoulder with their backs to me. Most are uniformed, but I recognize the two who are not by the sports coats. They’re the ones who took over with the groundskeeper this morning. Some of the men are smoking. One has a pipe.

Something is on the rocks at their feet, breaking up the dull gray expanse of the stone.

As I shift my weight and try to look between the loose fabric of their slacks—

Is that a bare foot?

Through the forest of the officers’ pant legs, I recognize a single bare foot that is white and immobile. It is tilted out to the side, and from my angle, I can see that the toenails are painted bright pink, and it is a manicured pink, not something sloppy and done by hand in a dorm room. There is a single gold ring on the third toe—

I step back sharply and my boot snaps a stick.

The clutch of men pivot toward the sound I’ve made. That is when I see whose foot it is.

Margaret Stanhope is lying on the boulder faceup, her bright clothes disjointed and stained with blotches of red, her blond hair tangled, her eyes open and staring at the sky in the midst of her colorless face. There is a man on his knees next to her and he’s in the process of laying out a black bag that has a zipper that runs the length of the heavy, tarp-like plastic.

One of the policemen leaps toward me. “Hey! You’re not supposed to be back here—Jesus Christ, Bob, you were supposed to make sure none of them came down here!”

I take off at a panicked run on the path, sure as if Greta’s killer is on my heels, as opposed to the police. I run in terror, every pounding stride sending the image of that foot through my brain again and again, the toe, the toenail polish, the toe ring. The dead white skin. The flecks of dirt on the ankle.

Bushes slap at my face. I slip on some mud and recover my balance as if I am an athlete, instead of a mentally ill shut-in. Something slaps my back repeatedly between my shoulder blades, and I am convinced they’re trying to lasso me like an errant steer. Without any plan other than evading capture, I cross the river, hopping a pattern over the rocks that are big enough to be out of the water. I fly down the other bank. When the smacking on my spine continues, I realize it is just my jacket.

All the while, the policemen following me are shouting, those fifty-year-old, paunch-bellied cops keeping up with my breakneck pace for a time, until I wear them out and their voices grow dimmer. This is going to be the first, and maybe only, race I ever win, and I am grateful that, however out of shape I am, older age is no match for youth.

I press on, heading for the outermost barrier of campus, for the chain-link fence that will become, when it is in view of the lawn and the buildings, the elegant wrought-iron production that unites in an arch over the entry into Ambrose. That expensive upgrade is not wasted on the invisible scruff I find myself in now. When I come up to the links, out of breath and in the weeds, the boundary here where no one sees it is downright ugly.

I collapse against the flexible flank and become aware of an approaching train. No, it is not a train. It is the sawing sounds of the suck and push of my lungs. My legs, weakened by the demands of my escape, give out on me. I slide down the fence until the heels of my boots catch my weight and my knees protest at the compression of my lower limbs.

I put out a hand into ground cover to keep myself from falling over. Mud oozes through my fingers. I do not care.

Every time I blink, I see Greta’s face. Unblinking, unmoving. Never to blink or move again.