“You are?” Christy, the doughy, fiftyish school secretary, couldn’t hide her astonishment. “You’re sick? Oh, I hope you haven’t had an accident?”
Anne said, “My car wouldn’t start. It’s running now, but I’m behind.”
“No problem,” said Christy reassuringly.
Anne tried not to snarl at the phone. Of course the disruption of her routine was no problem for Christy; but it certainly was to Anne. “I’ll be in as soon as I can. The Meachams aren’t due for another forty-five minutes.”
“Right,” Christy said. “Oh, and Coach Halsey is in here. I’ll tell him to come back.”
The baseball coach had never come to her office for a one-on-one before. Anne almost asked what Holt Halsey wanted, but it was hardly Christy’s job to find out, if the information hadn’t been volunteered. “Do that,” Anne said pleasantly and evenly.
She went into the bedroom to put on her underwear and went back to the bathroom to check her shoulder-length hair, stepping over the corpse on her way. Then Anne put on the outfit she’d laid out the night before: gray trouser suit, well-cut, with a darker gray silk blouse. Garnet earrings and a necklace with a garnet pendant, small and tasteful. But then she put on sneakers, grabbing the black pumps she’d selected to go with the outfit.
Anne bounded down the stairs, passed through the gleaming kitchen with its block of sharp knives and opened the door to the garage. After placing her high heels on the floorboard of the passenger-side front, Anne opened her trunk, spreading out another plastic sheet (just in case). There was a cheap yellow rain slicker, the kind you could buy in a hanging pouch from the rack of any dollar store, hanging on a hook by the back door. Anne pulled it on, carefully drawing the hood over her chestnut hair. She went back up the stairs to her bathroom to grab the ankles of the plastic-shrouded corpse. Tugging carefully, steadily, digging in her feet, Anne dragged the body down the stairs.
Bert Sawyer’s head bumped against each wooden step. Anne, who’d heard much worse noises, ignored the sound.
Getting Bert into the trunk was tricky, but nothing Anne hadn’t done before. When the body was completely inside, she pulled off the cheap slicker and stuffed it in with the body. She went into the house one final time to grab her purse and give her hair a once-over look in the mirror. Finally – finally! – she was on her way to work. She’d been thinking while she stuffed Bert in the trunk, and she’d thought of a good spot to dispose of him.
The winding roads and pleasantly rolling hills relaxed Anne, as always. The four-lane was moderately busy, but due to Anne’s unwilling delay, there were fewer cars than usual. When she got close to the spot she’d chosen, she drove in the slow lane until the road was clear. Then she whipped right and went down a gravel road just wide enough for her car. Luckily, it hadn’t rained recently, or she would have had to make a different choice. But Bert would molder nicely out here. It would only get warmer and damper every week now that spring had arrived in North Carolina.
At the end of this service road was some sort of electrical relay tower, surrounded by a high gated fence liberally posted with warnings. The gate was heavily padlocked, which was fine with Anne, since she had no interest in gaining entrance. Her car was far enough into the woods to be invisible from the four-lane, and she maneuvered Bert’s body out of the trunk with the facility of experience. As a bonus, the gravel road was slightly raised for drainage, so she was able to roll the plastic bundle into the forest and then drag it through the pines until it could not be seen from the gravel track. After leaving the body behind a copse, Anne grabbed a fallen branch. On her way back to the car, she swept away the swath the passage of the corpse had cut through the winter leaves and pine needles. She was glad the temperature this morning was in the high fifties; she didn’t want to work up a sweat.
Good enough, Anne thought, as she stood by her car brushing her jacket and her pants. She swung the car around on the apron before the fence, and when she returned to the four-lane she stayed back in the tree line until the road was clear.
It was less than two miles to Travis High School, where Anne had worked for four years; two as assistant principal, two as principal. After she’d parked in her designated parking space, she exchanged her sneakers for the high heels.
She looked up at the big wall clock as she entered the school lobby. She was now fifty minutes late. Damn Bert Sawyer, and whoever had recruited him. Anne shoved the anger aside. She would have to think seriously about Bert and his garrote later. No one had tried to kill her for three years.
For now, her head should be in its proper place. This school was her kingdom; she was its ultimate ruler. She relaxed because she was within the walls of her domain.
She got her second surprise for the day when she opened the door to the outer office, Christy Strunk’s domain. Coach Holt Halsey was still waiting for her. This surprise wasn’t exactly either good or bad; but it was unprecedented. Her respect for the baseball coach, who’d come on board two years ago, was not only based on Halsey’s winning record, but also on the fact that Halsey seemed to solve his own problems in a rational way.
Christy looked at her with some apology, and Anne understood that she’d tried to get the coach to return later, with no success. Anne said, “Good morning, Christy.”
A few brisk steps took her abreast of Halsey, who’d risen from his chair. It didn’t bother Anne at all to look up at him. She was not intimidated by large men. But she hesitated before using his first name, since she’d never done so. “Holt, how long do you need? I have less than ten minutes, if that’ll do the job.”
The coach nodded. “I only need a few minutes,” he said. She walked over to the inner door, the door to her office, with her name on it. She loved the sight of it, no matter how many times she passed it. That she’d been born neither “Anne” nor “DeWitt” made no difference to her pleasure.
“I’ll hold your calls, Ms. DeWitt,” Christy said unnecessarily. That was SOP in this office.
“Come in,” Anne said. Christy had been in to turn on the light and deposit her messages, but everything was as Anne had left it the evening before. She checked automatically as she moved behind the desk to put her purse in its drawer. She’d carefully arranged the office to make it seem as though she’d led a complete life. There were two pictures of her parents, one of her sister, and one of her deceased husband.
None of these people existed. Of course, she had had parents, but she’d never met them. She’d never been married. To the best of her knowledge, she didn’t have a sister. “Have a seat, Holt,” Anne said, pulling out her own chair and sitting. There was a handful of call slips lined up beside her mouse pad. It had taken her two weeks to break Christy of the habit of telling her about each call as she entered the office. She allowed the fearful idea that she might have to leave, that there might be another attempt – who had the would-be assassin alerted when he’d tracked her down? With grim determination, she shoved this conjecture back to the corner of her mind.
Coach Halsey was sitting, elbows on knees, in one of the lightly padded chairs positioned in front of Anne’s neat desk. Holt Halsey was a broad-shouldered man, a couple of inches over six feet, and he had a face that might have been chiseled out of granite. He wasn’t unattractive in a rough-hewn way, but he didn’t work that attraction, and he didn’t show a lot of emotion. Anne liked both qualities.
“Clay Meacham is a problem,” Holt Halsey said, without further ado.
“Odd you should bring him up. His parents are coming in right after I finish talking to you.”