Crosby opened a folder to show Anne the letters, obviously copies of the originals. Anne and Holt read them at the same time. The first one began, “Tom, I have been thinking of you every day. I really regret our separation. Please come see me to discuss it? I may have changed my mind by the time you get here, but I beg you to come.”
Each of the three letters had a similar message; they all contained the same contradiction.
“No wonder he slugged me,” Anne said. “These all say, ‘Come here and maybe I’ll take you back or maybe I’ll reject you.’” She shook her head. “Poor guy. But at least you can see that this handwriting is nothing like mine.”
The next day, Anne received a bouquet of black flowers. When the florist carried them into the office and put them down on Christy’s desk, she used the intercom to call Anne, who came out to see them. All the flowers had been dyed black, and a black ribbon encircled the black vase.
“Who sent these?” Anne asked the delivery woman, who’d already turned to leave.
“It was an Internet order, and they paid with PayPal,” the woman said. “You’d have to get a warrant or something to try to track that.”
“Is there a card?” Christy asked, taking the words right out of Anne’s mouth.
“No. We asked, but she didn’t want any kind of acknowledgment.”
“She?”
“Well, something she said in the live chat made me think it was a woman,” The florist clearly wanted to go.
Anne said, “Thanks,” and the woman sped off. Anne took the vase into her office.
An hour later, she knew there wasn’t a bug in the bouquet. There was not a secret message either.
The next day, a young man in a policeman’s uniform arrived at Anne’s office and asked to talk to her. Though Christy noticed he was carrying a CD player, she didn’t think it through, and called Anne out of her office. The “policeman” turned on his music (“Bad Boys”) and began his routine. He’d gotten down to his pants when Anne stopped him with a few well-chosen words that really shocked Christy. Anne told him to sit still until the real police got there.
Detective Crosby arrived in fifteen minutes. In the interim, Anne learned that the young man’s stage name was Randy Rodman, he had a Web site, and he’d never had a problem like this before.
Even Crosby had to smother a snigger.
“We can get a warrant to search his apartment, maybe,” Crosby said. “Though I don’t know why a judge would grant it. After all, sending a stripper to your office isn’t a terrible crime. Mr. Rodman says he was left an envelope with a cash tip in it, in his mailbox. A note in the envelope told him the time and place and recipient, if that’s what you call it, of the... performance. He figured it was for your birthday. I’ll check to see if his apartment complex has any security cameras that might have caught the individual who left the envelope, but Pine Grove is low-end. By the way, Tom Wilson is back in the mental hospital in South Carolina. His mother had him admitted again for observation.”
In the next couple of days, Anne became aware that there were laughs and giggles when she passed students in the hall. It was all too clear that this series of events was doing what it had been designed to do: make her a figure of fun.
Anne didn’t mind being disliked, or even hated. But being an object of ridicule was not only galling, it also threatened Anne’s job. She was furious, especially after she got a call from her superintendent. He asked, in the mildest possible terms, if there was anything he should know? Be concerned about?
It took all of Anne’s formidable self-control to reply calmly that she herself did not understand what was happening, and that she sincerely hoped that these pranks were at an end.
But they weren’t. When Anne got to school the next morning, there was a banner hanging over the front door. It read, “Anne, I love you. Your Booboo.”
Anne called the janitor. He was very lucky he had clocked in on time. Ten minutes later, he had removed the sign and was burning it in the school incinerator. But not before a few early students had taken pictures and sent them to forty of their best friends.
Anne immediately reviewed the security footage from the night before. It showed a figure in sweatpants and a hoodie hanging the banner with the help of a stepladder. There was a knit balaclava further obscuring the person’s head and face. “It’s not even possible to tell if it’s a man or a woman,” she said disgustedly.
Holt watched the few minutes of footage again. “I think it’s a woman,” he said. “There’s something about the way she goes up the ladder that makes me think so.”
“This has to come to an end,” Anne said.
“You’re right.” Holt was as serious as Anne. “We have to figure out who wants to discredit you.”
Anne nodded somberly.
But life didn’t stand still so they could concentrate on the problem. It was baseball season, and Holt was busy until late every afternoon and on some weekends.
Anne used her free time to do some spring cleaning (including her weapons safe: the school board would have been very surprised if they could see inside that) and finally turned her efforts to culling her wardrobe. That didn’t require intensive focus, so her mind ranged free while she sorted and tossed.
This campaign of ridicule was clearly personal. Anne tried to think of anyone local who could have taken offense at something she’d done; someone so angry they would resort to spending money, time, and thought to playing these elaborate pranks.
She couldn’t imagine what she could have done to bring this sly retribution down on herself. If she enlarged the circle to include people who hated her because of incidents in her life as Twyla Burnside, there were any number of people who qualified as candidates. But it was clear that this campaign was against Anne DeWitt.
Then Anne caught at an elusive thought, a shining fish in the water. She stood absolutely still until she grasped the fish and looked at it. She stared into the middle distance, a peach silk blouse clutched in her hands.
What if it’s not me?
What if... “What if it’s for Holt?” she said out loud. She was not just a principal. She was Holt Halsey’s “girlfriend.” Though that bashful word hardly covered their relationship... which was very adult.
“Him, not me,” Anne said, the revelation striking her, giving off the ring of truth. She sat on the edge of the bed, the blouse forgotten in her hands, and examined this new idea. After looking at it from all sides, Anne felt certain she was right.
Holt had come to work at the high school a year after Anne, but he’d only revealed that he knew who she was much later. Holt could have done a lot of things before they’d become lovers. Something stirred in Anne, an alien feeling. She’d never thought about Holt’s previous amours.
She was going to have to pry.
Holt would be tired after the long afternoon practice, and the Panthers had a game the next day. She could tell he was surprised when she insisted that he stop by before he went home. But she told him she’d cook dinner, and a balanced meal during the season was irresistible.
Anne had prepared lemon chicken, rice, and asparagus. Holt was tired, hungry, and preoccupied with his best catcher’s bad knee, so they ate in near silence. Anne didn’t mind: She understood being absorbed in a job.
Holt roused himself after he’d cleaned his plate. “What’s the occasion?” he said. He was rough hewn and large, but he was also clever and ruthless. Abruptly, Anne realized she was fond of him.
“Holt,” Anne said. “I had an idea today about this... series of ludicrous events.”