Текст книги "Boy in the Water"

Автор книги: Stephen Dobyns

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

“Did you see Scott at Thanksgiving dinner?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Everything is so awful. Poor Scott.” The kitten’s orange head was sticking out from the crack in Jessica’s jacket. It kept mewing over and over. “You see how hungry it is? It wants me to feed it.”

Hawthorne told her to go back to her room and take care of the cat. Kate and Alice Beech were talking together, then Kate said, “Scott must have taken the kitten. He must have been going to play some trick.”

“Perhaps,” said Hawthorne.

“But he certainly wouldn’t hurt it,” said the nurse.

At every pause in the conversation, Hawthorne could once again feel the rubbery coldness of the boy’s skin. Early in the fall he had asked Scott if he wanted to join the swim team.

“I don’t like getting wet,” Scott had said.

But that didn’t answer the question of whether or not the boy could swim.

Shortly, Hawthorne left the gym and headed back to Emerson Hall, meaning to talk to Frank LeBrun. It was a little before six and he assumed Frank would be in the kitchen. It was dark and the snow fell heavily, a mass of white flakes caught in the security lights, swirling yellow and white, a vortex of shiny particles. Away from the light the snow became a shadow in the air between Hawthorne and the looming shapes of Adams and Emerson Halls, where most of the windows were dark. Hawthorne buried his hands in the pockets of his coat. He wore no hat. The snow from earlier in the week had been plowed from the paths, but now several more inches had fallen and it shifted and blew around his feet as he scuffed through it. At least a foot covered the ground. He wondered how much more could fall. He had heard that in some winters, the really bad ones, there had been three hundred inches, though surely that wasn’t all at once. But three feet of standing snow wasn’t unusual, and a few times each winter the school would be cut off for a day or two—no phone, no electricity—before the snowplows could get around to clearing the road. Once, two years earlier—so he’d been told—it had snowed so hard that not even Jeeps and cars with four-wheel drive could get through, although usually such conditions didn’t last long, no more than a day.

When Purvis had come to fetch Hawthorne with a garbled story about a boy in the water, Hawthorne had run out without his hat or scarf, even without putting on his boots. Now snow got into his shoes and his socks were wet. More snow got down the collar of his overcoat and fell onto his hair. His ears stung with cold. Having come east from San Diego, he hadn’t seen snow in over three years. Often at Ingram House in the Berkshires there was snow, but never as much as in northern New Hampshire—there were not the great drifts, the roads indistinguishable from the fields around them, the trees under their white cloaks. Hawthorne felt a shiver of claustrophobia as he imagined being unable to get away from Bishop’s Hill, the snow heaped halfway up the windows and the wind pushing its way through the cracks. Then he slipped on the walkway and lost his balance. As he twisted to regain his footing, the bandages pulled on his shoulder and he felt a stab of pain.

Hawthorne had liked Scott. More than liked. He had admired Scott’s energy and rebellion, even when the boy exasperated him. Hawthorne had taken pleasure in the wiry intensity of his body, his tireless curiosity. It seemed impossible that he wouldn’t see Scott in class on Monday or see him in the halls. Three times in the fall Scott had come to Hawthorne to take him up on his offer to go for a drive so Scott could smoke a cigarette. Hawthorne would take one of the dirt roads along the edge of the mountain—the trees changing and full of color the first time, then the leaves brown and falling, then the trees bare and skeletal. Through the trees were the bluffs and cliff faces that attracted climbers from all over New England. Scott would crack jokes and tell Hawthorne the harmless gossip, the gossip that wouldn’t get anyone in trouble: boys and girls with crushes on one another, not who had been drinking or smoking dope. After forty-five minutes or so, Hawthorne would drive back to the school, feeling more content than before he had left, feeling that his work at Bishop’s Hill wasn’t so terrible after all. Now he would have to call Scott’s parents and tell them the boy was dead.

The dishes of food for dinner already stood on the heated serving tables—turkey casserole, green beans and mounds of mashed potatoes, small white pitchers of gravy and, of course, bread. Shiny aluminum pitchers of water stood on a shelf by the entrance to the dining hall and two students were carrying baskets of bread through the swinging doors. The kitchen was warm and smelled of apples and cinnamon from the pies that LeBrun was taking from the oven.

“Only thirty-five tonight,” he called as he saw Hawthorne come through the back door and pause to stamp his feet on the mat and brush the snow from his coat. “A piece of cake. You going to be eating as well? There’s a place set.”

Hawthorne took off his coat and hung it from a hook. The two older women who worked part-time in the kitchen were putting dishes into the dishwasher and scrubbing the pots. There was a small white plastic radio in the corner but it was unplugged.

LeBrun had baked eight apple pies and was setting them on the counter to cool. Hawthorne walked up to him. “Any news about your cousin? Do you have any idea where Larry could have gone?”

LeBrun looked bewildered and his eyebrows went up. “It took me by complete surprise. He’d gotten a call, I don’t know who from, right here in the kitchen on Monday night. It upset him. He said he had problems, but he didn’t say what they were. Hell, I didn’t know he meant to take off. I didn’t even know he was gone till I came in the next morning to make breakfast. I figured he’d overslept. I ran over to his apartment. His drawers were pulled out and there were clothes on the floor. He’d packed a bag and split.”

“And his door was unlocked?”

“Larry never locks anything. He’d even leave the kitchen wide open if I didn’t remind him. Tell you the truth, my feelings were hurt. I thought we were close enough that he’d let me know if anything was bothering him. I don’t know, I’m still feeling down about it.”

“Did you hear that a boy drowned in the pool?” asked Hawthorne.

Now LeBrun appeared shocked. He took a step backward and his eyes widened. “Shit, you’re kidding me. I didn’t even know it was open.”

“It wasn’t. I don’t know how he got in.”

“Who was it?”

“Scott McKinnon. Did you know him?”

LeBrun’s narrow brow wrinkled. “Wasn’t he a tall kid?”

“No, he was quite small.” He described Scott—small for his age, an eighth grader, thirteen years old, red hair, freckles. As he described the boy, Scott’s face came vividly to mind. A nice kid, he thought, a kid who shouldn’t be dead.

“I don’t know,” said LeBrun, “sounds familiar. I’m not sure I can place him. Was he in the chorus?”

“I don’t believe so.” Hawthorne went on to describe what had happened, how Purvis had come running to find him about two hours earlier, and how Scott appeared to have been in the pool for quite a while. He didn’t mention the kitten.

LeBrun’s thin face continued to express dismay. “And you just got back from seeing your friend, right? Damn, what a shame.” He wiped his hands on his white apron.

“Anyway,” said Hawthorne, “the police are here and they’ll probably talk to you. They’ll want to talk to everyone.” It occurred to him that LeBrun had been more upset when Evings had died.

“I don’t know if I want them in here,” said LeBrun, beginning to fidget.

“I expect there’ll be only one man. You can talk to him anywhere you want. The police will probably ask about Larry as well, about his family. They live in Manchester?”

“Sure, I can give them all that stuff. I don’t mind talking to them unless they get rude. I don’t like rude.”

“You need to be patient, in any case.”

“Yeah, well, maybe.”

Hawthorne glanced at the apple pies. They made him hungry. “I’m sorry you’ve got this extra burden. You work hard enough without doing Larry’s job as well. I’ll make some calls tonight and try to get someone to help you.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I just have to move faster, that’s all.” LeBrun appeared pleased. He looked down at the floor and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Then he grinned.

–

Hawthorne had driven down to Concord early on Thanksgiving. It had been a bright, sunny morning but cold, and the sunlight reflecting off the fresh snow sparkled so fiercely that Hawthorne needed his dark glasses. There were few cars on the interstate and no trucks, but the people he passed or who passed him seemed unusually cheerful. One little girl waved and waved to him from the rear window of a red Volvo station wagon. The closer he got to Concord, the less snow there seemed to be.

Driving to see Krueger, Hawthorne found it impossible not to think of other Thanksgivings they had shared in Boston when Meg and Lily were alive. And it was for this reason that Hawthorne had almost refused the invitation. But he told himself that he had to force his life forward even if he didn’t wish to. He knew that part of him wanted to make himself suffer, the part that kept reminding him of how he had been late that night coming back to Wyndham, how he might have run faster down the burning hallway, if only he had been less afraid.

Against this was the memory of putting his hand against Kate’s cheek, just that, the night he’d gone over to her house—he could feel its soft coolness under his palm even still. And Kate had taken his hand and kissed it. As he drove down to Concord the memory gave him a little thrill of pleasure. He knew that if he was going to move beyond the events in his past, then Kate might be able to help him.

Yet how could she not despise him? Here he professed to love his wife and daughter and yet he’d had sex with another woman in a parked car. Looking back, Hawthorne felt amazed by his hubris. He had been director of one of the most prestigious treatment centers in the country. His articles were taught in clinical psychology classes in dozens of universities. Specialists from around the world had come to Wyndham to see how well the school worked. Give the kids responsibility, he had said, give them things to care about. Let them earn their independence. Help them feel connected to their surroundings, feel a sense of belonging, obligation, and love. And it worked. Kids left Wyndham to lead successful lives. And when Claire had turned to him in the car, she was just one more gift that the world was giving him. Then came the fire that would destroy Hawthorne’s theories and end his life.

Kevin Krueger and his wife lived in a small white Victorian with a wraparound front porch, the corner house on a quiet street a mile west of the capitol building. Hawthorne had arrived around eleven and already the house smelled rich with spices and cooking. Although Hawthorne wanted to ask Krueger’s advice about Bishop’s Hill and describe what had happened, he didn’t wish to burden Krueger’s Thanksgiving. And he told himself that he needed to live entirely within this day, with no grieving over the past and no worrying about the future. He knew he wouldn’t succeed, or not completely—after all, he had brooded about Wyndham all the way down from Bishop’s Hill—but he had to try, if only out of courtesy to his friend. Krueger’s daughter, Betsy, was six and his son, James, was four. Hawthorne wanted to engage himself with these children, to be close to them without also thinking of Lily and how much he had loved her and how responsible he felt for her death.

Hawthorne managed not to talk to Krueger and his wife, Deborah, about the past and he said little about Bishop’s Hill. He helped his namesake build a snowman in the backyard and duly admired the daughter’s collection of Barbie dolls. Yet the past tugged at him ferociously and he kept having to jerk his mind away from its grip. Two other couples with whom Krueger worked in the Department of Education came to dinner in the afternoon and one brought their ten-year-old daughter, who Hawthorne couldn’t stop looking at, her hair was so blond. As they ate they discussed education and psychology, even movies, staying away from sensitive subjects. Hawthorne realized that Krueger had warned them—don’t talk about California or Bishop’s Hill, remain in the plain vanilla of conversational material. They were careful not to look at the scar on his hand. Even the girl tried not to look at it, although she wasn’t as successful as her parents. Partly everyone’s efforts made Hawthorne feel like a cripple and partly he felt grateful.

The only difficult moment was when they were discussing people they knew in common. “Claire Sunderlin is a friend of ours,” the man named Beatty said to Hawthorne. “I gather she used to be a student of yours.”

“Yes, long ago at BU. She was very smart, very energetic. I haven’t seen her for some time.”

Twice during dinner Hawthorne caught Krueger glancing at him with concern. Krueger’s wife kept urging him to eat more and he realized they both thought he was too thin. And his nerves were bad. When Krueger’s small son overturned his milk, Hawthorne jumped and pushed back his chair. Even the Beattys looked at him curiously. He retired early to the upstairs guest room, then read until past midnight—an Agatha Christie mystery with Miss Marple that he had found on his bedside table. He envied a world where simple reasoning and analysis could bring about such successes.

The next morning after breakfast Krueger and Hawthorne retired to Krueger’s study off the sunporch with a pot of black coffee. Hawthorne told him all that had happened since Krueger’s visit—Jessica’s drunken visit, the clarinet playing “Satin Doll,” the grinning portrait of Ambrose Stark, the continued phone calls. Krueger already knew about Evings’s suicide, but Hawthorne described the memorial service and how Bobby Newland had accused the school of murder. He recounted his conversation with Mrs. Hayes and how Bennett and Chip Campbell and others had convinced her that she was about to be fired. He talked about the girl, Gail Jensen, who had hemorrhaged to death after an abortion. And he talked about Lloyd Pendergast and what Mrs. Hayes had said about him. Deborah brought in a fresh pot of coffee. In the backyard, Krueger’s children played in their red and blue snowsuits, throwing snowballs and sledding down a small hill. Their shouts were muted through the picture window.

Then Hawthorne talked about Wyndham, telling Krueger that he felt he was making himself accept these events at Bishop’s Hill because he considered them a just punishment for what had occurred in San Diego—the hubris that had led him to be inattentive. He responded to the gossip and attacks by trying to endure them, doing little to stop them, and part of him wanted the attacks to get worse until they destroyed him. But Hawthorne didn’t mention Claire and his adultery. He was afraid Krueger would hate him and he didn’t think he could survive Krueger’s hate. Through it all Krueger listened without interruption, drinking cup after cup of coffee, hardly changing his position on the couch as the morning sun moved across the snow-covered backyard.

At the end, Krueger said, “You’ve got to get out of there.”

“That’s what they want me to do.”

“It doesn’t matter. Your life and sanity are more important.”

Hawthorne sat in a sprawling brown armchair that he had turned to face Krueger. “There are good people there. And there are the students. Nothing would be gained by forcing the school to close. Because that’s what would happen. If I quit, the school will shut down. They might not even make it to May.”

“I thought you said you were there to punish yourself, not to make the place work.”

“I’m there for both.”

“It’s a piece of property. The board of trustees would most likely sell it to pay off the debts.” Krueger drank the last of his cold coffee and made a face. He wiped his mustache. “It’s private. It’s got a physical plant. It’s in a beautiful location.”

“Who’d buy it?”

“Lots of people. A religious group, for instance. Didn’t the Moonies buy a chunk of Farrington College? Or it could be turned into another sort of institution. Think of the money in for-profits. At least a dozen companies have bought up schools or hospitals around the country. The Galileo Corporation, Health International, even Holiday Inn and Sheraton have gotten into nursing homes and care for the elderly.”

Hawthorne pictured Bishop’s Hill full of the dazed and semicomatose, the classrooms turned into bedrooms or wards, the library sold, the marble panels with the names of young men from Bishop’s Hill who had fought in half a dozen wars taken to the dump. Then a fence would be erected around the property—high, but not so high that the place looked like a prison.

“I know some people in that industry,” said Krueger, returning to the couch. “Let’s say Bishop’s Hill became a home for the elderly or for men and women with Down’s syndrome, or a detox for alcoholics and addicts, or even a residential treatment center—the place would still need personnel: ward attendants, secretaries, kitchen and grounds people, housekeepers. I bet a bunch of people now at the school could find jobs. And at higher pay.”

“But they wouldn’t be teaching,” said Hawthorne.

“Why should they care? You’re looking in the wrong direction. The people spreading gossip and holding up the painting and playing the clarinet, they probably have nothing against you. You’re simply in their way. My guess is that they want to sell off the school. They’re greedy, that’s all. It’s too bad about Evings, but whoever wrecked his office can blame it on the kids. Wasn’t he gay? They can say he was hitting on someone, that certain students objected to his homosexuality. The fact that he committed suicide—it was all for the best. The same thing with Mrs. Hayes quitting. Each of these things weakens the school, and if you resign, then that will be that. The place will open next year as a subsidiary of Holiday Inn and this guy Bennett will be a director or manager and making twice the money. You really think he’s going to miss teaching algebra?”

Hawthorne laughed. “So it’s all just progress.”

“Bigger and better into the millennium. Fat profits, that’s what life is all about. You should feel ashamed for standing in their way.”

“But the vandalism and getting that girl drunk . . .” Hawthorne walked to the window. Krueger’s children were making a snow fort, rolling balls of snow and stacking them on top of one another. “I want to talk to Lloyd Pendergast but I’ve no idea where he is. Do you think you can find out?”

“I expect so. What do you intend to do?”

Hawthorne continued to look out at the snow. “I don’t want the school to close.”

“And what if it gets more violent?”

“Then I’ll have to deal with it. I like that policeman in Brewster who’s investigating the vandalism. Perhaps I can count on him if things get bad.”

“I still think you should leave.”

Hawthorne turned around. “I can’t.”

“If you fail, will you take responsibility for that as well? Because, believe me, you’re setting yourself up to fail. Will you go to some new place to seek a new punishment?”

Hawthorne had thought of nothing past Bishop’s Hill. “I don’t know.”

Krueger cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. “I’ve got a pistol. I wish you’d take it.”

The thought of packing a gun struck Hawthorne as immensely funny. He began to laugh. “The only guns I’ve ever fired have been in penny arcades.”

“I’m serious. I’ll show you how it works.”

“I’m not that kind of person. I’m a talker. What would I do with a gun?” He paused, then asked, “Do you think a specific company is interested in Bishop’s Hill?”

They went on to discuss possible interested parties. Krueger didn’t mention Wyndham and Hawthorne didn’t bring it up again. Nor did Krueger say anything else about Hawthorne’s need for punishment. But Hawthorne felt better for having told his friend about Bishop’s Hill. Krueger now knew what Hawthorne knew. He had become a witness and it made Hawthorne feel less isolated.

Around noon Krueger’s wife had knocked on the door of the sun porch and brought in a plate of turkey sandwiches. The rest of the day was relaxed. They helped the kids with their snow fort, read, and went for a walk. At times Krueger would ask a question about one or another of the faculty—Herb Frankfurter, Ted Wrigley, Fritz Skander. Hawthorne talked somewhat vaguely about his friendship with Kate. That Friday evening they went to a movie. It was about a couple, each with their own children, trying to begin a romance. Hawthorne thought of Kate and tried not to think of Meg and Lily. He and Krueger were comfortable with each other, almost as they had been years before. Saturday morning they went to the YMCA and shot baskets for several hours. After lunch Hawthorne had driven back up to Bishop’s Hill. The closer he had gotten, the more he had felt the old chill settling around him. Where things had seemed clear, they now began to seem confused again.

It was nearly dark when Hawthorne got back to his quarters in Adams Hall. The lights were out. He paused to stamp the snow from his feet and suddenly, inexplicably, he heard the frantic flapping of wings. Turning on the light, he saw that two birds had gotten into his living room: a mourning dove and a chickadee. The rug was spotted with feathers and bird droppings. At first he wondered how they had gotten in. All the windows were closed. Perhaps they had come down the chimney. Then he realized how unlikely that was. Someone had put them there.

Moving slowly, Hawthorne crossed the room and opened the French windows. The birds flew back and forth, frightened and unaware of the open door. The chickadee settled on a curtain rod. It was cold and the wind blew snow into the room. Hawthorne crossed to the door and tried to drive the birds toward the terrace. What was the point? What was he meant to think? Hawthorne felt only anger.

After a few minutes the chickadee found its way out into the snowy evening. The dove took longer and Hawthorne had to pursue it with a towel as the bird flew from one side of the room to the other and small gray feathers floated down to the rug. But at last it flew out through the French windows as well. Hawthorne closed them and put several sheets of newspaper over the snow that had blown onto the rug. He had just begun to clean up the bird droppings when Floyd Purvis had appeared, hammering on his door. He had found a boy drowned in the swimming pool and Hawthorne had to come right away.

–

Sunday morning, shortly after breakfast, Jessica walked over to the kitchen to talk to LeBrun. The day was sunny and the snow was beginning to melt, even though it was cold. As she walked along the path from her dormitory cottage to Emerson Hall, Jessica kept her eyes squinched against the glare. The mountains seemed to shine and the trees were all snow-covered, although now and then the pines on campus would shed their mantle of snow with a rush. The paths had been plowed and made curving black lines across the whiteness. Jessica wore a red down parka and her boots were bright purple.

She didn’t want to see LeBrun, she was growing increasingly afraid of him, but that morning when she woke there had been a note under her door. She had thought they were about to go down to Exeter and rescue her brother. She had even begun to pack some of her clothes. But the note said it couldn’t be Monday after all. It would have to be Friday. Jessica didn’t like that and she wanted LeBrun to reconsider. If they changed the date, she’d have to call Jason. There wouldn’t be time to write him. And if she called, there was the danger of reaching Tremblay or even her mother, though her mother wouldn’t be so bad because she’d probably be drunk, and it was easy to put Dolly off if she was drunk.

But there was another matter bothering Jessica and that was her kitten, Lucky, which had recovered from its experience in the pool. What worried her was how Lucky had gotten into the water in the first place. She knew that LeBrun disliked cats and she knew he had a passkey, so he could easily have taken the kitten from her room. The implications of that were dreadful, however, because it suggested that LeBrun had thrown the kitten into the pool. And Scott had probably gone into the pool to rescue Lucky and had drowned. But how had Scott gotten into the pool unless LeBrun had let him in? Perhaps Scott had snuck in after him. But whatever the case, Scott’s death and the kitten seemed inextricably entwined.

She felt awful about Scott—everybody did—and there was no way that she would get into that pool ever again. His death was still in the water. At dinner the night before, some kids had been crying and the rest had been somber. Although Jessica hadn’t cried, she felt she should cry. Some kids had suggested that Scott had drowned himself on purpose, even that there was some connection between Scott and old Evings. And one girl, not a very bright one, had suggested that Bobby Newland had drowned Scott, getting even for Evings’s death, and that Newland meant to kill them all one by one. That had been creepy even if it had been stupid. Jessica had liked Scott. He had been especially nice to her, even though he was younger, and he always offered her cigarettes when he had them. So she felt very much that she should cry and that perhaps there was something wrong with her—perhaps she really was a bad person after all—because she couldn’t.

LeBrun was in the kitchen cutting up potatoes for lunch. He wore a white jacket, blue jeans, and a white cap. A student was helping him, a fat boy by the name of Phelps. One of the older women who worked in the kitchen was at the large metal sink, finishing up the pots from breakfast. The kitchen was bright with sunlight and the metal surfaces gleamed. There was the smell of garlic and tomato sauce. When the door swung shut behind Jessica, LeBrun stopped what he was doing and turned. He wrinkled his nose at her, then he came over, the knife still in his hand. Even his walk seemed crooked, as if he couldn’t walk in a straight line. Jessica took off her cap, stuck it in the pocket of her parka, then shook out her hair.

“Hey, Misty, you want to help make lunch? We got a ton of work.”

When LeBrun was about three feet away, Jessica said, “Did you throw Lucky in the pool?” She tried to keep her voice down, but the combination of anger and fear made it waver.

LeBrun raised his hands, as if in surrender, though he still held the knife. As he frowned, his dark eyebrows drew together. “You kidding? Why should I do a dumb thing like that?”

“Please, Frank, don’t hurt my cat. I love it. I saved it and I want to take it away.”

“You mean it’s alive?” LeBrun shook his head in surprise.

“Dr. Hawthorne rescued it.”

“For shit’s sake, one life down, eight more to go.”

“You did throw it in the water, didn’t you?”

“What’d I just say?” LeBrun tapped the knife against his pant leg. They stood by two of the large refrigerators with stainless steel doors. Jessica’s red jacket was reflected as a pink smudge on the bright metal.

“I want to take it with us when we get Jason.”

LeBrun took a step closer, lowering his voice. “I sure as hell am not going to have a cat in the truck when we’re driving down to Exeter, I can tell you that for damn straight.”

“Please, Frank, I want to take Lucky.”

“No way. The cat stays here. If you take the cat, I’ll throw it out the window. I can’t drive with a cat in the truck. Get serious.”

Now Jessica felt like crying, even though she hadn’t cried about Scott, but she wasn’t going to cry and have LeBrun make fun of her. She swallowed and looked up at him crossly. “Why aren’t we going tomorrow like we planned?”

“I got too much work. Larry took off, I don’t know if you heard, and I’m in charge of the kitchen. If we go tomorrow, who’ll make dinner? If we go later in the week, I’ll get the chance to cook something ahead of time that can just be warmed up. I don’t want to make trouble for Hawthorne. I’ll be getting some more help in a day or so. And who knows, maybe Larry’ll come back.” LeBrun laughed abruptly, then stopped.

Jessica didn’t like it but it made a kind of sense. The best plan would be for LeBrun to drive her to Exeter, help rescue Jason, then drive them to Boston, drop them off, and return to Bishop’s Hill. That was a lot of driving, maybe seven hours all told. But LeBrun could come back in the night and nobody would know he’d been gone. But if he took off tomorrow and missed dinner, then everybody would know and they’d see she was gone as well. They probably wouldn’t even get as far as Exeter before the police were called.

“Okay,” said Jessica, “but don’t do anything to Lucky. Promise me.”

LeBrun reached out with the kitchen knife and slowly drew it a few inches down the red fabric of Jessica’s parka. The fabric separated and white feathers pushed through the opening. “Don’t tell me what to do. You hear what I’m saying? You don’t want to make me upset.”

–

Most of the students began coming back to Bishop’s Hill from Thanksgiving break on Sunday afternoon, arriving by car with their parents or taking buses to Plymouth and getting picked up. A few flew into the small airport in Lebanon, then were driven to the school in a hired van. The snow made everyone late, though by evening most of the roads had been plowed. When the students arrived, they heard that Scott McKinnon had been found drowned in the pool on Saturday. A dozen or so had been friends with Scott, many liked him, all had known him. Coming so close after Evings’s suicide, his death was especially upsetting and there was the question whether Scott hadn’t committed suicide as well. Many theories went around and the students were agitated and disturbed. The homework that had been put off to the last minute didn’t get done and students stayed up late talking. Those who had remained at school over the break couldn’t remember exactly when they had seen Scott last, maybe Wednesday or maybe Thursday morning, but he had cut his math and English classes on Tuesday and he hadn’t trailed anyone around trying to bum a cigarette.