Old School Bones Read Free Page A

uniformed town cops and a detective move in and out of the bathroom with paper booties on their feet, vinyl gloves on their hands, digital cameras.
    A police radio crackles a garbled question.
    “We’re still waiting for the state boys, the M.E. and the headmaster to show up. But we got the dean of the Academy here.” A cop talking into his radio. “She wants to see what we’re dealing with. Any objection?”
    His eyes shift to this dean, Denise Pasteur. She is a tall woman with a pretty, angular face, bobbed blond hair. Even in her overcoat, turtleneck sweater, and wool slacks her body puts the cop in mind of a pro tennis player. He just can’t remember which one; some Russian maybe. She stands in the middle of the room hugging Tory and Justine to her chest.
    The girls are crying. Choking, shrieking. Tory’s red-and-black school sweatshirt is stained from the latte that spills in small bursts through the hand she holds over her mouth. Justine’s olive skin has turned the color of the snow outside, her lips tremble as if trying to speak. But she can say nothing, just howl between fitful gasps for breath.
    “Shssssh … Shssssh. Just let all the pain go. Let it all go, girls.”
    The dean looks a little shaky herself as her eyes dart around the room to the police, the school security guys. Her gaze settles on her colleague Awasha Patterson. Reads the urgency, the give-me-strength, in Awasha’s eyes. She sits on the couch cuddling Gracie in her arms. The girl’s Red Army fatigues and Doc Martens are soaked with her own pee. Her face red from tears and something else. Terror maybe.
    “Oh, Liberty! Oh, fuck, why? Why?” A litany bubbles from Gracie’s mouth.
    “Did you see, Dr. Patterson? Did you see the blood? The bathtub so full of blood? Not like in the movies. Not delicate swirls and trails of red curling through the bath water. But purple. Purple like a barrel of wine poured out of Liberty. Poured over Liberty. Her body just a shadow beneath blood. Only the side of her head, her black hair, her long braids. Those copper highlights, floating above the … She was sticky with it. Her nose and mouth buried in it … as if in the end she wanted to suck back her life. Did you see it? I saw. I saw. My friend. My dear friend. My Liberty. Our Liberty. Wrists sliced open. Torn envelopes, the letters gone. Help me, Dr. Patterson.”
    The police radio crackling again. Someone outside in the blizzard, the night, looking for clarity. Another plea.
    Awasha hears it, shivers. Holds Gracie to her breast even tighter, to give warmth, feel warmth in this storm. As her own soul unravels.
    “Dr. P …?
    “Are you awake? I really have to tell you something. Something happened …” The larceny of Danny’s tongue …”Liberty, can this possibly wait …?”
    She squeezes her eyes shut. Remembers the giant Maushop, her mother, the red cliffs. Aquinnah. Sees the gulls swooping. Diving on the bait fish that the stripers are driving to the surface. Screeching.
    “Forgive us our trespasses.”

3
    “SIT, Dr. Patterson … Do!”
    She feels a flash of color in her cheeks, the fine black hairs in the small of her back rise as her boss Malcolm Sufridge closes the door to his office behind her. It is barely seven in the morning. The snow plows are gnawing loudly at the drifts outside, cutting paths from the dormitories to the chapel for an all-school meeting in less than two hours. Classes canceled on account of death.
    “We have suffered a terrible loss. Terrible. That poor misguided child. Poor child … Alas, our Juliet is dead!” Sufridge paces the floor of his butternut-paneled office, looking tormented. Hands plowing his wispy gray hair. An actor in what he surely sees as the final scene of a tragedy. His stage this cradle of power, part library/part throne room/part Gothic castle. Domain of headmasters for centuries. A place of reprimands and punishments, private coercions and mysterious pacts.
    To Awasha the room reeks of