I don’t see him.
The navy-sweatered students are seated in ladder-back chairs at wooden double desks, facing away from me. At the front of the classroom is a curly-haired woman, playing down her obvious attractiveness and dressing for respect in a careful dark blue shirtwaist, camel cardigan tied around her shoulders. I purse my lips, flipping through my mental Rolodex. Did I see her at the Head’s party? Some sort of intern? Teaching assistant? Substitute? Josh never mentioned having anyone like that in his classes.
She’s pointing, one at a time, to some names written carefully in white chalk on a floor-to-ceiling blackboard. Leontes. Perdita. Hermoine. Whoever this is gestures to one student, and then to a pile of books on the teacher’s desk. Josh’s desk. The student gives one book to each of her classmates, then takes a seat.
Someone’s at the front of Josh’s classroom, and she’s teaching Shakespeare. The Winter’s Tale. Who is it? And where is Josh?
By the time I get to Josh’s office, I’ve given up pretending to be casual. I’ve tried his cell phone. No answer. Now I’m calling his office phone. I hear it ringing in my ear and on his desk as I walk up to the door. No answer. I pause, click my cell phone closed and give a quick rap with my knuckles under his brass nameplate. I wait. No answer.
Hesitating ever so briefly, I put my hand on the old-fashioned wooden doorknob, and click open the door. Pause again. Nothing. I push the door wide open. Josh’s office is empty.
I flip my phone open again, checking for a voice mail. Josh probably was leaving a message for me while I was calling Franklin. No. No new messages. With a click of the lock, I close Josh’s office door. I need to find some answers.
Penny. Is she where she’s supposed to be? The nasty phone calls to Dorothy and the Dulleses and the Kindells flash unpleasantly through my mind. “Do you know where your children are?” Can I be sure Penny’s in her class? Josh sure isn’t in his.
By the time I get to the Head’s office, my own head is churning. Maybe Josh is simply taking over someone else’s class this hour. Maybe he’s in a meeting. Maybe he’s conferring with some parents. Maybe he was really in the back of the classroom this whole time and I’ve now panicked myself into believing a dark-and wholly fictional-tale of disaster.
There’s no one at the secretary’s desk. Of course. They still haven’t hired a new Dorothy. The Head’s office door is closed. Reluctant to knock, I stand in the empty anteroom, staring blindly at the glowing green glass of the brass lamp on Dorothy’s desk, trying to decide what to do. If anything.
“Miss McNally? May I help you with something?”
I whirl at the voice behind me.
Harrison Ebling is frowning. The development consultant’s pursed lips push up toward his nose, and his eyes narrow behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He looks like someone who’s caught a wayward student sneaking into the Head’s office without a hall pass or a reasonable excuse.
“Oh, Mr. Ebling,” I say. Finally someone who may know what’s going on. If anything is. “I’m wondering if you could tell me-”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” he says. He takes off his glasses, folds them deliberately, then tucks them into the breast pocket of his corduroy jacket. His ears are beginning to turn red. “And the Head is, well, out.”
“Can’t what?” I’m not asking him about the donor addresses he promised to find for me. “I’m wondering about Josh. I went to his classroom and he’s not there.”
Ebling makes that pursed-lip move again. “I know that, Miss McNally.”
He adjusts his tie, pushing it up even closer around his neck, then makes a raspy sound in his throat.
“We’re all very concerned. I’m sure it’s just procedure. However, the officers instructed us not to discuss it.”
“Officers? What officers?” I search his face, then clench his corduroy arm, insistent, my hand, knuckles white, gripping hard. My engagement ring sparkles against the thick brown fabric. All the blood rushes from my brain, then rushes back in again. I’m sweltering. I’m freezing.
“Mr. Ebling. Where. Is. Josh?” I try to remember to breathe. “And where is Penny?”
Ebling doesn’t answer. He backs away from me, disengaging his arm, and glances around the room. His office door, the Head’s door, out the entryway.
“Mr. Ebling. I don’t care who told you what to say. Or what not to say.” My voice is icy, honed to a demanding whisper. I take two steps closer to him, locking eyes. Giving him my death stare. “Where are Josh and Penny? Tell me. Right now.”
Ebling can’t meet my gaze. “Come with me,” he says, turning away. He waves toward the open door of his office. “We can have some privacy.”
I close my eyes for a fraction of a second as I follow him. I’m desperate to stay calm. If they were hurt, or dead, someone would have called me. No one has called me.
Ebling waves me to a high-backed wing chair, over-stuffed and oversize, upholstered with muted tonal blue stripes. Its twin is positioned conversationally beside it. A round mahogany table, a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums and two Bexter catalogs placed artfully on top, sits between them. The fundraiser’s lair.
I perch on the edge of the one chair, digging in my bag for my phone. I’m ready to run. Or call for help. Or both.
“Mr. Ebling? Please.”
Ebling is at the door. I hear it click closed. He crosses the room and goes to sit behind his desk. He has about one more second or I am going to kill him.
“Miss McNally,” he says. “I’m so sorry to tell you…”
My heart drops.
“Josh is downtown. In Boston. At the district attorney’s office.”
“At the-?” My heart is beating again. But my brain is struggling to understand. “Is he all right?”
“He’s being questioned in the deaths of Dorothy Wirt and Alethia Espinosa.”
“What?” My voice pierces high C. The entire contents of my tote bag spill to the floor as I leap from my chair, glaring at Ebling. He’s fidgeting like a scared ferret. “What on earth are you talking about? Questioned? When did he go? Who took him? Where?”
I crouch to my knees, still wearing my coat, half looking at Ebling while I frantically scoop up pens, pencils, lipstick, change, my phone and my checkbook, scraping my fingernails across the tight weave of the Oriental rug. “Is he charged with something? Why didn’t anyone call me? And you, you knew this?”
I hear Ebling punching buttons on his phone. He leans forward, elbows on his desk, resting his head on two fingers as he apparently waits for someone to answer. He’s put his glasses back on and the receiver is clamped to his ear so hard it’s pushing them cockeyed.
“Miss McNally,” he manages to say, adjusting the glasses back into place on his nose, “in a moment or two, I certainly can determine whether he’ll be back here soon.”
I don’t feel like waiting a moment or two.
“Where’s Penny? Is she in class? She’s supposed to meet her father at lunchtime. What if Josh wasn’t back by then?”
“Miss McNally, please. I’m attempting to help you here.” He looks as if he’s on the verge of tears. Wimp.
If I hadn’t come back to peek into Josh’s classroom, I wouldn’t know anything about this. Whatever this is. Why didn’t Josh call me?
Ebling is murmuring into the receiver, his end of the conversation monosyllabic. I make out “Gelston” and “McNally” and “Soroff.” Jeremiah Soroff is the new district attorney. His predecessor, Oscar Ortega, resigned in ignominy after Franklin and I proved he was in up to his flashy bow ties in evidence tampering and fixing cases. I’d hoped his replacement would be one of the good guys.
I plop back onto the chair and yank the zipper on my bag, closing everything but my phone and car keys inside. The theme from Charlie’s Angels makes Ebling look up, expectant, from his call.