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In another moment they were settled in the two armchairs beneath the portrait. Hawthorne had nearly regained his composure, though his mind was full of questions. Still, he had to turn the conversation away from Ambrose Stark and to the reason for his visit. Evings displayed a stiffness that Hawthorne couldn’t explain, as if he were shy or had been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“I wondered if you had any thoughts on the meeting yesterday?” asked Hawthorne.

Evings looked mildly perplexed, as if he had already forgotten the meeting. “Seems the wisest approach—get matters out in the open. Of course, it would be a pity if it became no more than gossip. I’ve always been an enemy of gossip—feelings get hurt, people take dislikes to one another. Nobody would benefit, neither the students nor the faculty. In fact, it might be fair to say that gossip would be no improvement on silence. No, no, I’d hate to see it happen.”

“As would I,” said Hawthorne, somewhat tonelessly, “which is why I feel we could benefit from your psychological expertise.”

Evings seemed both flattered and discouraged by the description. “I try to do what I can.”

They discussed the meetings and what Evings might do. For instance, he might give the faculty some guidance on dealing with certain of the students who seemed especially troubled. Hawthorne mentioned several names but Evings didn’t recognize them. The more Hawthorne said, the more uncertain Evings became. He agreed, however, to read the students’ files and talk to Hawthorne about what might be done.

As Hawthorne stood up to leave, he thought of something else. “The other night I came on a cat hung from a branch of one of the pines near the playing fields. I gather it belonged to the housekeeper, Mrs. Grayson.”

“Dear me,” said Evings, “and who was responsible?”

“I’ve no idea, but I wanted to ask if anything like this ever occurred before or if any of the students might have had any trouble with . . .” Hawthorne let the sentence drift away. Evings was staring fixedly at his bookshelf to his right. Following his gaze, Hawthorne saw row after row of novels and tucked between them on the third shelf the bright yellow spine of a well-thumbed paperbound copy of the
Study Guide to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV.
Hawthorne wondered if Evings meant to take down the guide, turn to the index, and look up “cat” or “hanged cat.” Then he realized the reason for Evings’s stiffness—the man was frightened.

Evings cleared his throat—a sound rather like a bleat—and coughed. “I’m afraid this catches me by surprise. Hanged cat, you say? Absolutely nothing like that has happened here before, at least to my knowledge. Though it could have happened, I suppose, without my knowing about it. Now why should someone hang a cat? Of course, a few students have had difficulties with Mrs. Grayson, especially those she’s reported for smoking in their rooms. Perhaps the motivation lay with Mrs. Grayson and not the cat. At least five or six have spoken ill of her to me. I could give you their names, though two have graduated, or at least haven’t returned. But they might, of course, have returned to hang a cat, as strange as that may be. I’m sure there are stranger cases.”

Again Evings glanced toward the
DSM
study guide as if he wished to search its pages. He took a handkerchief from the pocket of his cardigan and wiped his forehead.

“Are you all right?” asked Hawthorne quietly.

Evings gave Hawthorne a wide-eyed stare; he looked like someone who had tried to swallow something too big for his throat. Then he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. “I know I’m terrible at my job. Nobody knows it better than I. Years ago, I think, I actually had something to offer.” He rubbed his scalp and the pressure of his fingers made white marks on the pink flesh. “But now it gets worse and worse. The students who come here . . . I really have nothing to say to them. Of course it’s simple for me to sit and remain silent. And for some, that’s enough. But do you know that a few have sat there and laughed? I was afraid I’d burst into tears. I know I don’t have much more time at Bishop’s Hill. There’s nothing surprising about that. The moment I laid eyes on you I knew you’d find me out, but I hoped I’d at least have a few months. Then that meeting yesterday—I felt unable to say a word. Others kept looking at me—what an awful humiliation! Believe me, no one feels guiltier than I about taking the school’s money. I fully understand that you’d want me to resign.”

Hawthorne experienced a sinking feeling. “Really, I only meant to ask you about the hanged cat.”

“Well, I didn’t do it,” said Evings fussily, “that’s the one thing I am absolutely positive about. I have never in my entire life hanged a cat.” He laughed suddenly, a high barking noise. “Actually, I knew there would be changes. Can you deny that you’re planning to hire a new psychologist?”

“I’ve already announced that fact, but I’m not getting someone to replace you.”

“Yes, that’s how it begins, a little innocuous levering. The new person settles in and suddenly I disappear.”

“Has anyone told you that your position’s in jeopardy?” asked Hawthorne. He felt a trifle guilty about his question, since he had been considering replacing Evings even before he had entered the stuffy office. He guessed that the temperature in the room was nearly ninety and he felt a drop of sweat roll down his rib cage until it was blotted by his shirt.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” said Evings. “I’m not that sort of person. By the way, I hope there really was a hanged cat and you’re not just using this as a pretext to—”

“Oh, stop it, Clifford.” Although Hawthorne had known he would have difficulties at Bishop’s Hill, he hadn’t expected people to be frightened of him. “You’re the school psychologist and I thought you could help me with a problem that, after all, would seem to approach your area of expertise. Can’t hanging a cat be considered aberrant behavior?”

“And I tell you I know nothing about it.”

“Well,” said Hawthorne, “keep me informed. Perhaps you’ll hear something from one of the students.”

Evings was taller than Hawthorne by at least an inch. “I’ll keep my antennae out.”

The men shook hands. As Hawthorne left the office, he thought of the cluster of anxieties that at any moment filled a person’s mind. How could objectivity be more than a dream? Most likely, Evings still doubted that a cat had been hung and thought it all a trick Hawthorne was playing. Now the sum of Evings’s anxieties had been substantially increased to no purpose. But what did he do here? A little counseling and monitoring in his dormitory cottage. For the rest, he probably read novels all day long. Yet Hawthorne knew that his own objectivity was suspect. The portrait of Ambrose Stark had given him a shock and it surely affected the filter through which he had been trying to understand Clifford Evings. And what had been the degree of malice? The portrait and laughing teeth—had they been a practical joke or something more alarming?

Hawthorne glanced down the hall and saw the boy who had shown him the dead cat strolling toward him. Seeing the headmaster, the boy stopped and Hawthorne had the distinct impression that Scott was considering the possibility of flight.

“Don’t you have class now?” Hawthorne asked. Over the weekend he had read the boy’s file to make certain he had no record of torturing animals or something else that might suggest that he himself had killed the cat. Instead, he found a history of Scott’s being shunted from one stepparent to another. Alcoholism, violence, sexual abuse—whatever Bishop’s Hill’s failings, the school was a clear improvement over the so-called home environment of Scott’s past.

“Mr. Campbell got a telephone call and I had to use the bathroom.”

Approaching Scott, Hawthorne detected the odor of cigarettes. “And you thought it best to use a bathroom on the far side of the building. Have you learned anything about the cat?”

“I asked some kids but they didn’t know anything. Mrs. Grayson thought a fisher caught it. She said it happens all the time. But a fisher wouldn’t string it up.”

“Was she upset?”

“Not particularly. She sighed a lot, though.” A wing of hair fell across the boy’s right eye and he tossed his head to resettle it back where it belonged.

“What class do you have with Mr. Campbell?”

“Ancient and medieval history. We’re just finishing the Egyptians.”

It was on the tip of Hawthorne’s tongue to ask what Campbell was like as a teacher, but he didn’t. Whatever Campbell was like, Hawthorne would find out soon enough.

“You’d better air out your sweater before you return to class. It will give you away.”

“Thanks,” said Scott, and he began hurrying down the hall.

“And no running,” Hawthorne called after him, then grinned as the boy came to a sudden halt and proceeded to tiptoe forward.

Hawthorne opened the door to the dining hall; the kitchen, his destination, lay on the far side. The room had dark wainscoting under tall windows looking out on an expanse of lawn called the Common. The polished floorboards creaked as he walked across them. Twenty long oak tables stood in two rows with a twenty-first at the head of the room for the headmaster and his guests. So far Hawthorne had eaten at the students’ tables, trying to engage them in conversation on subjects other than food. At the moment the chairs were up on the table-tops as two students mopped the floor. The ceiling had thick beams lined with plaques displaying the names of graduating seniors, going back year by year to the first class in 1854. Paintings hung on all the walls—old headmasters and chaplains. And there at the far end was another portrait of Ambrose Stark, sitting at a desk and looking censorious. Hawthorne couldn’t remember seeing it before, but most likely he had let his eyes drift across it. Stark glared down as if he still had the school under his special protection. It gave Hawthorne a chill, but it seemed obvious that the thing at the window had been a picture. Presumably, one or two of the students had been trying to give him a scare.

Hawthorne pushed open the door to the kitchen. The only person in evidence was the new cook, who was in the process of looking inside the oven. The smell of baking bread filled the air.

LeBrun glanced up and saw Hawthorne. “The boss,” he said.

“In a manner of speaking. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the bread you’ve been making. A lot of people have been worrying about what changes might occur at the school and your bread has been a treat for everyone. It makes it easier to be here.”

LeBrun shut the oven door. His face was narrow and his eyes close together, as if someone in the distant past had tried to squeeze his head. “Hey, I’m glad to do it. But thanks for the compliment. I’ve been getting a lot of visitors. A couple of kids tried to bum cigarettes, then Mr. Skander came in about the bread as well. He said he was glad there wasn’t any mold on it. I guess the bread last year was mostly moldy.” LeBrun laughed.

“Was Jessica Weaver in here by any chance?” It had occurred to Hawthorne that she’d been coming from this direction.

“That cute little kid with the pigtails? Yeah, she was.”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted me to call her Misty.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Misty, she wants to be called Misty. You like jokes?”

“Some jokes. Why does she want to be called Misty?”

“I guess she thinks it’s cooler than Jessica. She said it was the name of her soul.” LeBrun chuckled. “If my soul had a name, it’d be Black Spot. You know what they call a female clone?”

“I have a feeling that’s not the kind of joke I particularly like.” Hawthorne was struck by the man’s energy; he seemed to be moving all the time. Even when he stood still, his hands twitched at his sides.

“I guess it’s too raw for a guy with a suit and tie. What would the teachers say if they heard the cook telling dirty jokes to the boss? You know what the bartender said to the horse that came into the bar?”

“Why the long face.” Hawthorne grinned.

“You’re quick,” said LeBrun, grinning back, “you know all the answers.”

“That’s why I’m headmaster.” Hawthorne couldn’t calculate LeBrun’s degree of seriousness. At least he didn’t seem scared, like Evings. “How’d you get to know her?”

“We both got here the same day. You know, new kids on the block. And you too, you got here the day before us. We should form a club.”

“Where were you before coming here?”

“I was doing odds and ends around Boston. Pizza, burgers, greasy French fries, the usual gut busters.” LeBrun chuckled. “Being here is like reaching civilization.”

“I’m glad you like it. You’re a pretty jolly guy, aren’t you?”

“Hey, if you can’t laugh, you might as well put a bullet in your head.”

Hawthorne considered pursuing that, then decided to ask about the cat instead. “You know anything about a cat that was hung on Friday night?”

“I heard some kids talking about it. Crazy days, you know what I’m saying?”

“How do you feel about cats?”

“Can’t stand them. Remember what that guy used to say, that comic? ‘Cats? I prefer rats.’ That’s me, all right. ‘Cats? I prefer rats.’” LeBrun leaned back against a metal table and laughed. Hawthorne could see the fillings in his teeth. He began to laugh as well.

“You mind if I ask a favor?” said LeBrun, growing serious. “Can I look at that scar on your wrist? I caught a glimpse the other day but I couldn’t see it very well. I don’t mean to be rude.”

There was something so childlike about the request that it didn’t occur to Hawthorne to take offense. He took off his sport coat and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt.

LeBrun leaned over the scar. “That’s a beaut. How far up does it go?”

“To the elbow.”

LeBrun reached out and touched the skin. “Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore. The skin’s a little tender in places.”

“It must have been some fire.” LeBrun gently turned the wrist to see the scar from all sides.

“It was.”

“Anybody hurt other than yourself?”

Hawthorne had a momentary recollection of the screaming and the ceiling falling. “Yes, others were hurt.”

LeBrun released the wrist. “Fuckin’ great-lookin’ scar.” He laughed. “I got a bunch of them too, but they’re all on the inside.”