“Who wouldn’t?”
Anthony shook his head.
“Because it wasn’t him,” he continued, “not really.”
His eyes darted madly.
Elgot looked at Sadlier, who said: “We should take him to the medical center in Bingham.I don’t know how long he was stuck in there, but he’s real cold.I can drive, but I’ll need you to come with me.”
“I can do that.I’ll tell Santopietro, and then roust Renders from his bed.”
Elgot ran to wake the principal while Sadlier carried Anthony to his truck.He put the boy on the back seat, buttoned the overcoat around him, turned the heater up full, and got in the driver’s seat with the doors closed.He glanced at Anthony in the rearview mirror.Anthony stared back at him.
“Who did it, son?”Sadlier asked.
“The dead boy,” said Anthony.“And the ones with him.”
Chapter 38
The sun was streaming through the window when I woke, but it brought only light, not warmth.Beside me, Sharon Macy stirred.She’d come over on Thursday evening for dinner and decided to stay for breakfast on Friday.
“What time is it?”she asked, without opening her eyes.
“After eight.”
“Five more minutes.”
“You’re not working today,” I reminded her.
“Five more hours then.”
“How about splitting the difference?”
“How about going away and letting me sleep?”
I went away and let her sleep.
Downstairs, I made a mug of instant coffee and browned some toast.Out on the marshes, the grass had turned from verdant summer to fall gold.The greenhead flies were gone, so it was safe to leave the kitchen door open and let the salt smell fill the air.Over the water, a flock of shorebirds wheeled left and right, amid them the larger, darker shape of a raptor hunting.I watched until the predator gave up the chase, its instincts warning it to conserve its energy for easier prey.
With my laptop open on the kitchen table and a notebook by my right hand, I considered how best to handle the Scott Theriault case.Having agreed to look into the circumstances surrounding his death, I was now faced with one of the challenges presented by any investigation in Maine that deviated from the I-295/95 corridor, namely the sheer size of the state.The Plains was a good six-hour round trip from Portland, so it wasn’t as if I could just dip in and out of there on a whim.Planning was required.
I would have to talk to the staff at Spero about Scott, assuming they were willing—or permitted—to speak to me.I’d also have welcomed the opportunity to interview Scott’s fellow students, but Spero was under no obligation to provide me with access.Unlike police, private investigators did not have a right to talk to minors without parental consent, and a worst-case scenario would see Spero’s authorities telling me to take a hike.If they did, I’d be close to some good trails.Unfortunately, I didn’t like hiking.I doubted I’d get much from Spero anyway, or not beyond whatever Santopietro had already shared with the media.The school wasn’t going to welcome an unofficial inquiry into the death of a student just weeks after an official investigation had essentially absolved it of blame.More groundwork was needed before I set aside a couple of days for The Plains; a trip up there now would be wasted, because I didn’t know the right questions to ask.
But as soon as I began nosing around, it was possible that word would get back to Spero.Given too much time to think, even honest subjects begin trying to get their stories straight, and nothing is set to make a story more crooked than someone trying to straighten it.As for dishonest subjects, they grab a spade, literal or metaphorical, and get to burying.At least experience had taught me to spot the signs.It was another reason to let Spero stew.
In addition to tackling Spero, I might be interested in speaking to Mallory Norton’s parents.I didn’t think I’d have any difficulty persuading them, because when a child goes missing, the parents will typically open up to anyone who might be prepared to listen or help.If the parents don’t open up, they may be part of the problem, and the search for the child needs to focus on the family’s backyard.I had no proof that Scott and Mallory were an item, and the two occurrences—one death, one disappearance—might have been coincidental, but that was to ignore another fact about Maine: it was simultaneously sprawling and small, which made for improbable correlations.
I turned my attention back to Spero.Alcock’s file didn’t indicate whether the school was in receipt of public funds.If it was,it meant a commissioner from the Maine Board of Education would be required to conduct periodic inspections to ensure compliance with code.In other words, someone in authority, with knowledge of the field, might be able to provide an insight into the running of Spero before I went knocking on its door.A list of Maine private schools approved for public tuition funds was available on the state’s website.What it revealed was that a) sending a kid to a private school in Maine could be injurious to your bank balance; and b) Spero had not received public funds for the current year.
But because I’m nothing if not tenacious, and it had started raining and I didn’t want to go out until it stopped, I worked back through a decade’s worth of previous lists to discover that Spero had received public funding only for its first five years, presumably until it sourced enough students to be able to operate independently.So, during its development, someone at the department was responsible for monitoring Spero.The Maine Department of Education was in Augusta, which was only an hour away.I added “MDE” to my growing register of names.
I heard movement from upstairs.Shortly after, Macy joined me in the kitchen.She made herself a cup of tea, because she often couldn’t stomach coffee first thing, stole the last of my cold toast, and slid my notebook toward her.
“Hey,” I said.“That could be secret stuff.”
“Secret, like what?The names of girls you moon over in biology class?”
“Lucy Bernstein is kind of hot.”
