Last to Die (8 page)

“I want all your plant toxicity reports turned in by Friday, before most of you leave for the trip to Quebec. And don’t forget we have the mushroom identification quiz on Wednesday. Class dismissed.”

Turning to leave, Julian glimpsed Maura and his face lit up with
a
grin. In two steps he crossed to her, his arms already spreading to give her a hug. But at the last instant, aware that his classmates were watching, he seemed to think better of it and she had to settle instead for a quick peck on the cheek, a clumsy clap on the shoulders.

“You finally got here! I’ve been waiting for you all afternoon.”

“Well, now we have two whole weeks together.” She brushed the dark forelock off his face and her hand lingered on his cheek, where she was startled to feel the first hint of a beard. He was growing up far too fast.

He blushed at her touch, and she realized that some of the students had not left the room but were standing around, watching. Most teenagers ignored the very existence of adults, but Julian’s classmates seemed intrigued by this alien visitor to their world. They ranged from middle school to high school age, and their clothing ran the gamut as well, from a blond girl with torn blue jeans to a boy wearing dress slacks and an oxford shirt. All of them were staring at Maura.

“You’re the medical examiner,” said a girl in a mini skirt. “We heard you were coming.”

Maura smiled. “Julian mentioned me?”

“Like, just about all the time. Are you going to teach a class?”

“A class?” She looked at Julian. “I hadn’t planned to.”

“We wanted to hear about forensic pathology,” piped up an Asian boy. “In biology, we dissected frogs and fetal pigs, but that was just normal anatomy. It’s not like the cool stuff you do with dead people.”

Maura glanced around at the eager faces. Like so much of the public, their imaginations were probably fueled by too many TV cop shows and crime novels. “I’m not sure that topic would be appropriate,” Maura said.

“Because we’re kids?”

“Forensic pathology is a subject usually taught to medical students. Even most adults find the subject disturbing.”

“We wouldn’t,” the Asian boy said. “But maybe Julian didn’t tell you who we are.”

What you are is
odd
, Maura thought as she watched Julian’s classmates exit, their exodus marked by shuffling shoes and creaking floors. In the silence that followed, Bear gave a bored whine and trotted over to lick Julian’s hand.

“
Who we are?
What did he mean by that?” asked Maura.

It was the teacher who answered. “Like far too many of his classmates, young Mr. Chinn often engages his mouth before his brain. There’s little point trying to decode any deeper meaning to adolescent babbling.” The man peered sourly at Maura over his spectacles. “I’m Professor Pasquantonio. Julian told us you would be visiting this week, Dr. Isles.” He glanced at the boy, and his lips twitched in a half smile. “He’s a fine student, by the way. Needs work with his writing skills, hopelessly bad at spelling. But better than anyone at spotting unusual botanical specimens in the woods.”

Laced though it was with criticism, the compliment made Julian grin. “I’ll work on my spelling, Professor.”

“Enjoy your visit with us, Dr. Isles,” said Pasquantonio, gathering his notes and plant specimens from the demonstration table. “Lucky for you, it’s quiet this time of year. Not so many noisy feet clomping up and down the stairs like elephants.”

Maura noticed the clump of purple flowers the man was holding. “Monkshood.”

Pasquantonio nodded. “
Aconitum
. Very good.”

She scanned the other plant specimens he’d laid out on the table. “Foxglove. Purple nightshade. Rhubarb.”

“And this one?” He held up a twig with dried leaves. “Extra credit if you can tell me which flowering shrub this comes from?”

“It’s oleander.”

He looked at her, his pale eyes lit up with interest. “Which doesn’t even grow in this climate, yet you recognize it.” He gave a deferential nod of his bald head. “I am impressed.”

“I grew up in California, where oleander’s common.”

“I suspect you’re also a gardener.”

“Aspiring. But I am a pathologist.” She looked at the botanical specimens arrayed on the table. “These are all poisonous plants.”

He nodded. “And so beautiful, some of them. We grow monkshood and foxglove here, in our flower garden. Rhubarb’s growing in our vegetable garden. And purple nightshade, with such sweet little blossoms and berries, springs up everywhere as a common weed. All around us, so prettily disguised, are the instruments of death.”

“And you’re teaching this to children?”

“They have need of this knowledge as much as anyone else. It reminds them that the natural world is a dangerous place, as you well know.” He set the specimens on a shelf and scooped up pages of notes. “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Isles,” he said before turning to Julian. “Mr. Perkins, your friend’s visit will not serve as an excuse for late homework. Just so we’re clear on that matter.”

“Yes, sir,” said Julian solemnly. He maintained that sober expression until Professor Pasquantonio was well down the hall and out of earshot, then he burst out in a laugh. “Now you know why we call him Poison Pasky.”

“He doesn’t seem like the friendliest of teachers.”

“He’s not. He’d rather talk to his plants.”

“I hope your other teachers aren’t quite as strange.”

“We’re
all
strange here. That’s why it’s such an interesting place. Like Ms. Saul says, normal is so boring.”

She smiled at him. Touched his face again. This time he didn’t shrink away. “You sound happy here, Rat. Do you get along with everyone?”

“Better than I ever did at home.”

Home, in Wyoming, had been a grim place for Julian. In school he’d been a D-minus student, bullied and ridiculed, known not for any academic achievement but for his scrapes with the law and his schoolyard fistfights. At sixteen, he’d seemed bound for a future prison cell.

So there was truth to what Julian had just said, about being strange. He was not normal, and he never would be. Cast out by his own family, thrust alone into the wilderness, he’d learned to rely on himself. He had killed a man. Although that killing was in self-defense, the spilling of another’s blood changes you forever, and she wondered how deeply that memory still haunted him.

He took her hand. “Come on, I want to show you around.”

“Ms. Saul showed me the library.”

“Have you been to your room yet?”

“No.”

“It’s in the old wing, where all the important guests go. That’s where Mr. Sansone stays whenever he visits. Your room has a big old stone fireplace. When Briana’s aunt visited, she forgot to open the flue, and the room filled with smoke. They had to evacuate the whole building. So you’ll remember that, right? About the flue?”
And you won’t embarrass me
was the unspoken message.

“I’ll remember. Who’s Briana?”

“Just a girl here.”

“
Just
a girl?” With his dark hair and piercing eyes, Julian was growing into a handsome young man who’d one day catch many a woman’s eye. “Details, please.”

“She’s no one special.”

“Did I just see her in class?”

“Yeah. She had long black hair. A
really
short skirt.”

“Oh. You mean the pretty one.”

“I guess.”

She laughed. “Come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“Well, yeah. But I think she’s kind of a jerk. Even if I do feel sorry for her.”

“Sorry for her? Why?”

He looked at her. “She’s here because her mom got murdered.”

Suddenly Maura regretted how blithely she’d pried into his friendships. Teenage boys were a mystery to her, hulking creatures with big feet and simmering hormones, vulnerable one moment,
cold
and remote the next. As much as she wanted to be a mother to him, she would never be good at it, would never have a mother’s instincts.

She was silent as she followed him down the third-floor hallway, where the walls were hung with paintings of medieval villages and banqueting tables and an ivory-skinned Madonna with child. Her guest room was near the end of the hall; when she stepped inside she saw that her suitcase had already been delivered and was resting on a cherrywood luggage rack. From the arched window, she could see a walled garden adorned with stone statues. Beyond that wall the forest pressed in, like an invading army.

“You’re facing east, so you’ll get a nice view of the sunrise tomorrow.”

“All the views are beautiful in this place.”

“Mr. Sansone thought you’d like this room. It’s the quietest.”

She remained at the window, her back turned to him as she asked: “Has he been here lately?”

“He came about a month ago. He always comes for meetings of the Evensong school board.”

“When is the next one?”

“Not till next month.” He paused. “You really like him. Don’t you?”

Her silence was far too revealing. She said, matter-of-factly, “He’s been a generous man.” She turned to face Julian. “We both owe him a great deal.”

“Is that really all you have to say about him?”

“What else would there be?”

“Well, you asked me about Briana. I figured I’d ask about Mr. Sansone.”

“Point taken,” she admitted.

But his question hung in the air, and she didn’t know how to answer it.
You really like him, don’t you?

She turned to look at the elaborately carved four-poster bed, at the oak wardrobe. Perhaps they were more antiques from Sansone’s
home
. Though the man himself was not here, she saw his influence everywhere, from the priceless art on the walls to the leather-bound books in the library. The isolation of this castle, the locked gate and private road, reflected his obsession with privacy. The one jarring note in the room hung above the mantelpiece. It was an oil portrait of an arrogant-looking gentleman in a huntsman’s coat, a rifle propped over his shoulder, one boot resting on a fallen stag.

“That’s Cyril Magnus,” said Julian.

“The man who built this castle?”

“He was really into hunting. Up in the attic, there’s a ton of mounted animal trophies that he brought back from all over the world. They used to hang in the dining hall until Dr. Welliver said all those stuffed heads ruined her appetite, and she told Mr. Roman to take them down. They got into this big fight about whether the trophies glorified violence. Finally Headmaster Baum had us all vote on it, even the students. That’s when the heads got taken down.”

She didn’t know any of these people he was talking about, a sad reminder that she was not part of his world here, that he now had his own life far away and independent of her. Already she felt left behind.

“… and now Dr. Welliver and Mr. Roman are fighting about whether students should learn to hunt. Mr. Roman said yes, because it’s an ancient skill, but Dr. Welliver says it’s barbaric. Then Mr. Roman pointed out that Dr. Welliver eats meat, so that qualifies her as a barbarian, too. Boy, did that get her mad!”

As Maura unpacked jeans and hiking boots, hung up blouses and a dress in the wardrobe, Julian chattered about his classmates and teachers, about the catapult they’d built in Ms. Saul’s class, about their wilderness trip when a black bear had sauntered into their camp.

“And I’ll bet you were the one who chased that bear away,” she said with a smile.

“No, Mr. Roman scared him off. No bear wants to tangle with
him
.”

“Then he must be a seriously scary man.”

“He’s the forester. You’ll meet him at dinner tonight. If he shows up.”

“Doesn’t he have to eat?”

“He’s avoiding Dr. Welliver, because of the argument I told you about.”

Maura closed the dresser drawer. “And who’s this Dr. Welliver, who hates hunting so much?”

“She’s our psychologist. I see her every other Thursday.”

She turned and frowned at him. “Why?”

“Because I have issues. Like everyone here.”

“What issues are you talking about?”

He looked at her in puzzlement. “I thought you knew. That’s the reason I’m here, the reason all the students were chosen for Evensong. Because we’re different from regular kids.”

She thought of the class she’d just visited, the two dozen students gathered around Poison Pasky’s demonstration table. They’d seemed like any other cross section of American teenagers.

“What, exactly, is different about you?” she asked.

“The way I lost my mom. It’s the same thing that makes all the kids here different.”

“The other students have lost parents as well?”

“Some of them. Or they’ve lost sisters or brothers. Dr. Welliver helps us deal with the anger. The nightmares. And Evensong teaches us how to fight back.”

She thought of how Julian’s mother had died. Thought of how violent crime ripples through families, through neighborhoods, through generations.
Evensong teaches us how to fight back
.

“When you say the other kids have lost their parents or sisters or brothers,” said Maura. “Do you mean …”

“Murder,” said Julian. “That’s what we all have in common.”