She nodded numbly, without looking up. "So ask."
"Do you know anything about what happened to Darwin Ridley?"
Bambi Barker raised her head then and looked at me. "It was just a game," she said.
"A game?" I asked, not comprehending. "What do you mean, a game?"
"A game, a contest."
I felt really lost. "I don't understand what you're talking about. What was a contest?"
She shot a quick glance in the direction of Sister Eunice, who sat with her hands clasped in her lap, nodding encouragingly. "Don't pay any attention to me, Bambi," Sister Eunice said. "You go right ahead and tell the man what he needs to know."
Bambi took a deep breath and looked back at me. "Each year the cheerleaders have a contest to see…" She paused and looked at Sister Eunice again.
"To see what?" I urged impatiently.
"To see who can get one of the teachers in bed. It's, you know, a tradition."
My jaw must have dropped about three feet. At first I didn't think I'd heard her right. But I had. A tradition! The last time I had heard the word tradition, Bob Payson was telling me about the basketball team and Girl Scout cookies. So while the boys were worrying about nice little civilized traditions of the tea and crumpet variety, the cheerleaders were busy balling their favorite teacher. Jesus!
My mother once told me that girls are born knowing what it takes boys fifteen years to figure out. About then I figured fifteen years wasn't nearly long enough.
"The same teacher?" I asked, finding my voice. "Or a different one each year?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes the same. Usually not."
"Somebody keeps track from year to year?"
She nodded. "It's in one of the lockers in the girls' dressing room. Written on the ceiling. But it was just a game. Nothing like this ever…" She broke off and was quiet.
"Now let me get this straight. Each year somebody on the cheerleading squad seduces one of the teachers, and then you write his name down on a list?"
She nodded.
"Was there a prize for this game?"
"At the beginning of the year, everybody puts fifty dollars into a pot. When the winner brings proof, she gets the money."
"Proof? What do you mean, proof?"
"I mean, like you couldn't just say you did it, you know? You had to have proof. A picture, a tape, or something."
Fifteen years? Hell, forty-three years wasn't enough. I glanced at Sister Eunice. She continued sitting with her hands serenely clasped, her eyes never leaving Bambi's face. Maybe living in a convent with high school kids had taught Sister Eunice a whole lot more about the world than I had given her credit for.
It was all I could do to keep from grabbing Bambi Barker by the shoulders and shaking her until the braces flew off her teeth. "I take it you won this year?" I asked dryly.
"Yes." When she answered, her voice dropped almost to a whisper. My question had brought back the reality of the consequences of that nasty little game, as well as a little reticence.
"And the proof?"
"A picture. One of my friends took it."
"So how did your father get it?"
"I don't know, I swear to God."
"And who sent one to Joanna Ridley? Your father?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I've never seen him so mad. He was crazy."
"When did he find out?"
"Friday. Friday morning. He came to school to get me. I thought he was going to kill me right there in the car."
"He threatened you?"
"He hit me." One hand strayed to her lip as if in unconscious remembrance of that slap across the face. Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. Deftly, Sister Eunice reached out and wiped them away with a lacy handkerchief.
"Did he threaten Mr. Ridley?"
"I think so."
"You think?"
"He said he was going to do something, but I didn't know what it was. It sounded bad."
"Do you remember what it was?"
She rubbed her eyes and more mascara flaked off and landed on her face. "It was something like…It ended with ate. Something ate."
You don't have to work The New York Times crossword puzzle every day to be able to figure that one out.
"Castrate?" I asked. "Was that it?"
She nodded. "That's it. What does it mean?"
"Cut his balls off," I growled. I was in no mood to pull any punches or mince any words for Bambi Barker. She didn't deserve it, but I was aware of an uncomfortable shifting in Sister Eunice's otherwise tranquil presence.
Bambi Barker gulped and swallowed hard.
"That didn't happen," I added. "If that's what you're worried about. Somebody just strung Darwin Ridley up on the end of a rope."
Bambi dissolved into tears once again. When Sister Eunice reached out as if to comfort her, I stopped her hand. The nun looked me in the face for a long moment, then nodded in acquiescence and allowed her hand to drop back into her lap.
Suddenly, I realized Sister Eunice and I were coconspirators in the process. She wasn't merely observing. Sister Eunice was actively helping. What her motives were wasn't clear to me at the time, although it occurred to me that maybe she was bent on saving Bambi Barker's immortal soul.
We waited together until Bambi's sobbing quieted and eventually died away altogether. Only then did Sister Eunice reach out again, this time to take Bambi's hand. "Is it possible that your father did this terrible thing?" she asked.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I don't suppose genteel Catholic nuns routinely conduct homicide interrogations, but Sister Eunice was a down-home killer at asking questions. She put the screws to Bambi directly, holding her eyes in an unblinking gaze, offering the girl no opportunity to look away or avoid the issue.
"He could have," Bambi whispered finally.
"All right, then," Sister Eunice said. Her voice was calm and firm. "You must tell Detective Beaumont here everything you know that could possibly be helpful."
"But I don't know for sure," Bambi protested.
"Tell us exactly what went on Friday," Sister Eunice urged quietly.
"After I left school?"
"Where did you go, home?"
Bambi nodded. "We went to the house. Mom was home, waiting."
That prompted a question from me. "Your mother knew about it, before you got there?"
"Everybody knew about it. There was a huge hassle, and Dad locked me in my room."
"How long were you there?"
"Until Saturday morning. Then they woke me up and told me to pack because I was coming here."
"They both brought you down?" I asked.
"We had to bring two cars. Mom drove one. They left it here." Bambi Barker's pout returned.
"For you?"
"No. It was, you know, like a gift to the school."
I get a little ego hit every time one of my hunches turns out to be correct, even when it's not particularly important. It's good for my overall batting average. Sister Marie Regina O'Dea's shiny new Taurus station wagon bribe gave me a little rush of satisfaction.
I said, "How nice. So they drove you down and checked you in. I take it you weren't especially thrilled to come here."
Bambi glanced in Sister Eunice's direction. "I didn't have a choice."
"Why not?"
"He said he'd disown me."
"Would he?"
"He did Faline."
"Who's that?"
"She used to be my sister."
Faline. Bambi. Obviously somebody in the Barker family was a Walt Disney fan. "Used to be your sister?" I asked. "What do you mean by that?"
"He threw her out three years ago. No one's heard from her since."