Читать книгу The Jinx - Jennifer Sturman - Страница 14

I rushed up JFK Street to Mount Auburn, hung a right and sprinted the remaining block to Holyoke Center, which housed University Health Services. The run on the uneven brick sidewalks was no easy feat, dressed as I was in a skirted suit and heels, and the mere act of passing through the building’s entrance instantly brought back unpleasant memories of the times I’d gone there as an undergrad, nursing a bladder infection or something equally embarrassing, but these concerns were eclipsed by my concern for Sara.

Flu season was in full gear, and the clerk at reception was busy with other visitors, but I guessed that Sara would be in the Stillman Infirmary on the fifth floor, so I headed for the elevator bank, punching the call button impatiently. Nobody ever seemed to stop you when you gave off the air of knowing exactly where you were going.

The elevator arrived, and I jabbed at the button for the fifth floor, and then the button to close the doors. The elevator rose at a glacial pace, ticking off each floor with a beep. When the doors finally parted, I strode to the nurses’ station. “I’m here to see Sara Grenthaler,” I announced in my most authoritative tone. While UHS was probably less strict than a normal hospital, I worried that visitors would be restricted to family, of which Sara didn’t have much.

“And you are?” asked the nurse behind the desk.

“I’m Rachel Benjamin. Sara’s cousin.” If you were going to lie, I knew that the only way to do it was simply and with confidence. And there was, after all, a small chance that we were distantly related—her father’s family and my father’s family could have lived in the same Russian shtetl, many generations back, being persecuted by the same Cossacks. It wasn’t a complete lie.

My bluff seemed to work, or it may have been completely unnecessary, because the nurse consulted her computer terminal. “She’s in five-oh-six, ma’am.” I ignored being ma’amed—now was not the time to get hung up on concerns that I’d become prematurely matronly. Instead I hurried off in the direction she’d indicated, counting off the room numbers on either side. The door to Sara’s room was ajar, and I gave it a gentle knock before going in.

She was lying in one of the two hospital beds, and she looked awful. Her head was wrapped in white gauze, and she was hooked up to a variety of tubes and monitors. Her eyes were shut, and her skin was nearly as white as the gauze that framed her face. I let out an involuntary gasp.

“It’s okay. The doctor said she’s going to be all right.” I turned, startled, to the corner, where a young woman rose from a chair. “I’m Edie Michaels,” she said, proffering her hand.

“The roommate,” I answered, putting the name to the face.

“Well, one of them.”

“I’m Rachel Benjamin. From Winslow, Brown.”

“Oh, sure. You had dinner with Sara last night.”

“Yes. So what happened?”

Edie sank back into the chair, running a hand through her mass of curly black hair. Her big dark eyes were worried in her olive-skinned face. “Well, you know how Sara rows every morning?”

I nodded, perching myself on the second, unoccupied bed. “We were just talking about it.” The previous evening suddenly seemed very far away.

“Apparently, she did her workout, and she was putting her scull away when somebody hit her over the head with an oar. A homeless man saw the whole thing—he’d come in to use the bathroom in the boathouse.”

“Did they catch the guy who did it?”

“No, he ran out when he realized he’d been seen. And the homeless guy was too busy checking that Sara was all right to follow him. He’s the one who called the ambulance and the police. All he saw was somebody wearing a ski mask and a big coat with a hood—it was still pretty dark out, and he wasn’t even sure if it was a man or woman.”

“And what did the doctors say?” I asked anxiously.

“They think she’s going to be fine. She has a bad cut on her scalp, and she had to have stitches. They did X-rays and everything, and there’s some swelling, and they said she might have a slight concussion, but they didn’t think too much damage had been done. She was conscious when they brought her in, but she didn’t remember seeing anyone. They gave her a sedative after the stitches, and it knocked her right out.”

“So she really was attacked,” I said in disbelief.

“I know. I can’t imagine who would have done such a thing. It’s so…gritty.”

“Maybe it was a vagrant of some sort? Maybe she surprised somebody who was hiding out there?” There was a pretty sizable and less than mentally stable homeless population in Harvard Square, and I could easily imagine one of them using the boathouse as a temporary shelter and freaking out that his space had been invaded.

Edie shook her head. “I thought that, too, at first. But I’ve been sitting here, trying to figure it out, and I don’t think that makes sense.”

“Why not?”

“If somebody were hiding out there, she would have surprised him when she went into the boathouse in the first place, to get her scull. And if he were going to attack her, why wouldn’t he have attacked her then? But she was attacked when she was leaving.”

“Sort of like someone was waiting for her when she came back from her row?”

“Exactly. Especially when you think about the ski mask. I mean, what sort of random attacker would come equipped with a mask? That sort of thing just screams premeditation.” I recalled Sara mentioning that Edie planned on finding a job in entertainment, and going by her dramatic choice of words, it seemed that she would be well-suited to it.

“And you’re sure it wasn’t the guy who said he witnessed the entire thing?”

“I don’t think so. George, the homeless man, is sort of a fixture around Harvard Square. There’s a shelter at the University Lutheran Church, and both Sara and I have volunteered there. He knew Sara and had talked to her—I mean, it’s not like he’s the most sane person you’ll ever meet—in fact, he’s a total nutcase—but he has no history of violence. If he’d run into Sara, he would have just tried to engage her in conversation of some sort. He thinks he’s a real intellectual, and he’s always trying to debate philosophy or literary theory or whatever with students. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. Bore them to death, maybe, but that’s as bad as he gets.”

“That’s funny. I think I might remember him from my college days.” I hazily recalled a shabby man who would sit in on my English lectures, occasionally posing an interesting and clearly well-informed question.

“Yeah. He’s a bit of a legend around here. Anyhow, the hospital called our room, and I picked up the call and came right over.”

“So it probably wasn’t George.”

“No. I’d be really surprised if it were.”

“Then I wonder who. And why.”

Edie was quiet for a moment. I had the sense that she was taking my measure, wondering if she could confide in me.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” I asked.

She nodded. “Look, I feel sort of uncomfortable talking about this, but I know that Sara trusts you. And looks up to you.”

The idea of anyone viewing me as a role model was a bizarre one, and coming so soon after being ma’amed, it made me wonder if the time had come to ask my doctor about Botox. “Well, I don’t know about the looking up part, but she can definitely trust me. And you can, too.”

“Okay.” She seemed to make up her mind. “Sara’s been getting these strange letters.”

“Letters?”

“Yes. Like love letters, but sort of sinister. I mean, they’re all flowery and gushy and go on and on about how beautiful she is. But they’re never signed, and there’s no return address or even a stamp or postmark on the envelopes, and they show up in the weirdest places—not just her mailbox at school, but slipped into her bag or a notebook. She once even found one on her bed.”

“Creepy,” I said.

“And invasive. I mean, the letters seem harmless enough—really badly written, but harmless. But when they show up in her personal space, it’s really disturbing. I know it sounds like a cliché, but it’s like she’s being stalked.”

“Does she have any idea who might be sending them?”

“No. Not a clue. We’ve been over and over it, but we just can’t come up with any likely suspects. It would be hard to imagine any of the guys at school writing anything like them, much less giving them to her.”

“But it must be someone who has access to the school—otherwise, how could he get the letters to her? How could he get into your dorm?”

“Well, it’s not like security is that tight. Anyone who looked like he could belong on campus could probably walk around without too much difficulty. And people are always letting people into the dorm, even though they shouldn’t.”

“What about Grant Crocker?” I asked, remembering the odd, proprietary way in which he’d spoken of Sara earlier that morning.

“Sara told you about Grant?”

“Yes. And I knew him from when he worked at Winslow, Brown. He was at the memorial service this morning, and he was asking me if I had seen Sara.” It would be a great way to deflect suspicion from himself, I thought—acting like he was perplexed not to see her at the church, even if he knew exactly why she wasn’t there. My distaste for him made me more than willing to cast him as a creepy violent stalker.

“We talked about it maybe being Grant, but it’s hard to picture. If you could see the letters—they’re not a Grant Crocker type production. I mean, he’s an ex-marine and a fanatical weight lifter—he even takes those weird supplements that build muscle or whatever. But this stuff is really lovey-dovey, and also sort of pretentious with all of these esoteric quotes from various poets. We just couldn’t imagine that Grant had it in him. He’s been a total pain since Sara broke things off with him—he still calls all the time. In fact, he called last night when you guys were having dinner, and he practically had a jealous fit on the phone. But these letters—they’re just not his style.”

“Do the police know about the letters? Did you tell anyone about them? Did Sara?”

“Actually, she did. Just yesterday. I’d been urging her to go to campus security, but she was worried that she’d be overreacting. And the letters weren’t threatening, really, except for being anonymous and showing up in strange places. So she decided to show them to her section leader and get his advice.”

The business school class was divided into sections of about ninety students each. During the first year, students took all of their classes with their sections. It was an interesting arrangement. On the one hand, it allowed students to become comfortable with their peers and thus, in theory at least, more willing to put forth unconventional opinions. On the other hand, by the end of the first year you could pretty much guess what any one of your section-mates would say in answer to any question before he opened his mouth, and you spent a lot of time hoping he wouldn’t open his mouth. A professor was assigned to each section as its leader, acting as an ombudsman of sorts.

“That’s good. What did he say?”

“Professor Beasley said he would take a look and help her figure out whether she should report the letters to campus security.”

“Professor Beasley? Is he new?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember a Professor Beasley.

“I think he’s been around for a couple of years.”

“Well, given what happened this morning, it seems like he should definitely tell the police.”

“I think so, too. I was going to go see him later, but I don’t want to leave Sara right now. I called and left a message but he was in class.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t I go talk to Professor Beasley?”

“Would you do that? I’d feel so much better if I knew somebody was looking into it, but for all I know, he doesn’t even know what’s happened to Sara yet.”

“Well, I’ll make sure he knows.”

“That would be great,” Edie said, visibly relieved. “I’d just hate to leave before Sara wakes up.”

We exchanged cell-phone numbers so I could call her after I’d spoken to Professor Beasley and she could let me know when Sara awakened.

I called Cecelia back at the hotel as I left UHS, explaining what had happened. It was just after noon, and interviews wouldn’t resume until two o’clock. I hoped that I could get to Professor Beasley’s office, talk to him and make it back to the Charles in time for the afternoon’s interview schedule. I also tried Peter’s cell phone again.

He picked up this time, but he sounded harried.

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Oh, hi, Rachel. What’s up?” His greeting was warm but rushed.

Just as I was about to relate the morning’s events, it occurred to me that given how busy he was, and how stressed, unloading on him right now was probably not the most considerate thing a supportive girlfriend could do. “Nothing,” I said lamely. “Just wanted to say hello.”

“Great. Hi.” I heard a voice in the background, and a trill of female laughter. “Listen, I’m sort of in the middle of something right now. Abigail and I are at her hotel, refining our proposal for this pitch. Things are really heating up. Could I give you a call back later?”

“Um, sure,” I said.

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

I started to ask him about our dinner plans, but he’d already hung up.

I know it was irrational, but I felt annoyed, even while recognizing that there were plenty of times when Peter called me and I couldn’t talk. But the laughter I heard tapped into some well of insecurity in my heart, and the thought of Peter and Abigail working closely together in a hotel room wasn’t a particularly welcome one.

Stop it, I told myself. It’s Peter. You have nothing to worry about. He’s just busy.

With his gazellelike business associate, a mean little voice in my head reminded me. In a private place with a big bed. I shushed the voice, but not before registering a flash of jealousy so intense it made my stomach churn.

I’d reached the river and was passing the boathouse once more. There were only a couple of police cars left now, but the yellow crime-scene tape was still up. I crossed the bridge, leaning into the wind coming off the water and burrowing my hands in my pockets. I tried to take my mind off Peter and Abigail, and instead imagined what Professor Beasley would be like.

Old, I decided. Very old. With a walking stick, bow tie and lockjaw, like the professor in The Paper Chase. But imagining the decrepit Professor Beasley did little to quell the anxiety that my truncated conversation with Peter had stirred. I crossed Storrow Drive to Harvard Street and then took a left onto the business school campus, still wrapped in insecurity and fretting about Peter’s strangely distant tone.

The grounds of the business school looked more Harvard than the college campus on the other side of the river. Here there was even more red brick, and more ivy, with patches of green grass broken by stone paths. A large endowment from corporate donors and successful alumni ensured that everything was maintained beautifully, and every time I came here a new building had risen, doubtless graced with the name of one of those donors. A couple of students walked by me, dressed in suits and overcoats. Judging by their clothes and serious expressions, they were on their way to interviews at the Charles.

I mounted the stone stairs to Morgan Hall, which housed most of the faculty offices, checking the directory in the foyer for Professor Beasley’s office and quickly finding the listing—Beasley, J.—on the third floor. I heard the swoosh of the elevator doors opening behind me and dashed to catch it.

And collided, head-on, with the love of my life.