Bread Upon the Waters (43 page)

Hitz got into the car with the policeman, and Strand and Babcock followed in Babcock’s car. “What a dreadful night,” Babcock said wearily, at the wheel. “Nothing like this has ever happened at Dunberry before. We’ve had some petty pilfering, of course, but violence like this…” He shuddered. “It’s a mercy you and your wife came along when you did. Otherwise, the good Lord alone knows what might have happened. I hope Leslie wasn’t too upset, although I must say she seemed admirably calm when she called me on the phone.”

“She rises to the occasion,” Strand said.

“What do you really think are the rights and wrongs of all this?” Babcock said. “I don’t mean the knife part. With all the charity in the world I can’t forgive a boy using a weapon against a classmate. But what do you think—was it a hideous misunderstanding or what? Did Romero tell you why he thought that it was Hitz who stole the money? Did you ask him?”

“I asked him,” Strand said.

“What did he say?”

“He said it was confidential. Whatever that may mean.”

“You must be terribly disappointed,” Babcock said. “Romero was coming along so well.”

“I don’t feel disappointed,” Strand said flatly. “I feel guilty. Guilty as hell. It was a case of faith overcoming judgment, I’m afraid. He belongs on the streets, not at a school like this. I confused raw intelligence with civilized behavior.”

“You mustn’t take it on yourself. Or Mr. Hazen, either.” Babcock took a hand off the wheel to touch Strand gently on the arm. “It was just an unfortunate combination of circumstances. Nobody could have foreseen it. Frankly, when the term began I didn’t think the boy would last out the year. But not for anything like this. I thought he might be bored, maybe insubordinate, unable to respond to discipline…Never anything like this. Do you think they’ll put him in jail?”

“I hope so,” Strand said bitterly. “I would, if I were the judge.”

“There, there, Allen,” Babcock said softly. “Why don’t we suspend judgment until we know all the facts in the case?”

“I stopped suspending judgment when I saw Romero running after Hitz with a knife in his hand.”

They drove in silence for a few moments and then Strand said, “The trustees are bound to give you a rough time. If they demand a sacrificial offering, you can put the blame on me and you’ll have my resignation the same day.”

“I doubt that it will go that far,” Babcock said, but he didn’t sound convincing as he said it.

The policeman was waiting in his car with Hitz in front of the Malson house as they drove up. They all went through the empty common room and up the stairs to the first floor together. Strand was surprised that none of the other boys were up. The struggle in Hitz’s room and his flight downstairs and out onto the campus must have been silent, deadly silent. Hitz had the room to himself. Whether it was due to his father’s influence or to the fact that none of the boys would share quarters with him, Strand didn’t know.

The room was small and, aside from the blood on the rug and the unmade bed, eerily neat. Strand and Babcock stood at the door because there wasn’t enough space in the room for them all as the policeman methodically opened drawers, looked under the bed, threw back the blanket, turned over the rug, went through the pockets of Hitz’s clothes hanging in the closet.

“Nothing,” he said, after ten minutes.

“I told you,” Hitz said. He had been ashen in the infirmary and at the police station, except for the streaks of blood on his cheek and along his neck, but now the color had returned to his face. “You could’ve saved yourself the trip. I told you I didn’t take his money.”

“I think you better get into bed and get some rest, sonny,” the policeman said. “I’ll be going now.”

They left Hitz in his room, calm now and triumphant, and descended the stairs together. Strand said good night to the policeman and Babcock in the common room. Alone, he let himself drop into a chair for a few minutes. He felt too exhausted to face Leslie without some interval of quiet.

He closed his eyes and tried to recall the exact movements of the policeman as he searched Hitz’s room, going over the possibilities that the man might have overlooked just the one place that the money could be hidden. If he had found it, it would not have proven that Romero was innocent of a crime, but it would have been a mitigating circumstance, would have made Romero’s attack on Hitz less senseless, less savage and inexcusable. But as he ticked off from memory the places the policeman had looked, Strand could think of no corner that had been missed. He sighed, opened his eyes, stood up, looked for a long time at the bloodstain on the common room couch where Hitz had lain with Strand’s handkerchief pressed against his cheek. The handkerchief was still on the floor where the doctor had dropped it to look at the wound. The blood was dry now, a dark rust color, the cloth stiff. Strand bent and picked it up.

He turned off the light and went down the dark hall toward the door to the apartment. He remembered that Leslie had locked the door and fumbled in his pocket for the key. But when he put it in the door he found that the lock was open. He pushed open the door and went into the living room. All the lights were on.

“Leslie,” he called. “Leslie!” He went into her bedroom. The lights were on there, too. The door to her closet was wide open. He saw that most of her clothes were missing. Then he saw the note on her dressing table.

He picked it up, his hand trembling, stared at it. The handwriting was hasty, not like Leslie’s usual fine script at all.

Dearest,

Forgive me. I just couldn’t stand staying here another night. I’ve called Linda and asked her if she really meant that she would take me along with her to Paris. She said she did and I told her I’d drive into New York right away and be ready to leave with her tomorrow. Please don’t worry about me, my darling. And please, please take care of yourself. And above all, don’t blame yourself for anything. I love you with all my heart,

Leslie

He put the note down carefully, smoothed it out with his hand. Then he closed the closet door, put out the lights, and went into his room, undressed and got into bed. He did not set the alarm. Babcock would understand that he could not face a class that day.

“Of course, the whole school is talking about it,” Babcock was saying. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and they were driving in Babcock’s car toward the courthouse. Strand had awakened early, but had stayed in the apartment, disregarding the bell for breakfast and the ringing for the change of classes. He had tried to call Linda’s apartment, but the line had been busy each time he had dialed and he had finally given up. Leslie had not called him and he had sent a telegram to Linda asking her to phone him. He knew it was foolish to worry that Leslie might have had an accident on the way into the city. If anything had happened, somebody would have gotten in touch with him. But he could not get over the vision of Leslie, agitated and distraught, wandering off the road and crashing into a tree and lying bleeding in a ditch. He had also called Hazen’s office but had been told by a secretary that Mr. Hazen had left early that morning for Washington. Conroy had driven him to the airport, the secretary had said, and she did not know where Mr. Hazen could be reached or when he would be back. “Naturally,” Babcock said, driving slowly and carefully, “the Hitz boy spread the news as soon as he woke up this morning. With some lurid exaggerations, I would imagine, from what has come back to me. And he telephoned his father and his father got me on the phone and was most—ah—emphatic with me. What he actually said was that if I tried to whitewash the scandal—that’s the word he used, scandal—he’d have my job. He also threatened to sue the school for criminal negligence for ignoring a known danger—that’s Romero, of course—and to close us down. And to make sure that I knew that he was not—ah—absolutely happy, he said that if his son was forced to answer to a charge of theft he would name us as codefendants in a criminal libel suit. It’s not the most obliging of families.” Babcock smiled wanly. His face was gray and strained, his eyes red-rimmed and watery. His hands clenched the wheel so tightly that his knuckles showed white.

“You’ve had a busy morning,” Strand said.

“I’ve had worse,” Babcock said. “There was the morning eighty boys woke up vomiting and with extreme cases of diarrhea. We thought it was typhoid. It turned out to be the pastry we had for dessert the night before. The theory is that schoolmasters live to a ripe old age.” He laughed softly. “Outdated wisdom.”

“What do you expect you’ll have to do?” Strand asked.

“I’m afraid the first thing we’ll have to do is expel the boy. Romero. If we don’t we’ll probably lose half the enrollment of the school.”

Strand nodded. “He brought it on himself.”

“It’s a tragedy just the same,” Babcock said. “The next thing I hope to do is keep him out of jail some way. Try for a probationary period, at least. I’ve called the school lawyer and he’s already seen Romero and is meeting us at the courthouse. I had hoped to avoid it. That’s why I tried to get in touch with Mr. Hazen to see if he knew somebody else around here. If the parents—especially the ones like Mr. Hitz—get wind of the fact that we’re paying the school’s money for Romero’s defense…” He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished. “How is Leslie taking it all?”

Strand had been waiting for the question, although he had hoped it wouldn’t be asked. “Rather hard, I’m afraid. She’s taken advantage of your kind offer of a sick leave and will be gone for a couple of weeks.”

“She’s left already?” Babcock’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

“Yes.”

“I don’t blame her. If I could, I’d leave too.” Babcock smiled wearily. He maneuvered the car into a parking place in front of the pillared, white clapboard courthouse. “A handsome building,” he said. “Built in 1820. What woe has paraded through its corridors.”

The lawyer for the school was named Hollingsbee. He was waiting for them at the door to the courtroom. He was fat and florid, in a beautiful dark suit. His voice matched his appearance, round and actorish. “They’ll be bringing the boy in shortly,” he said after acknowledging Babcock’s introduction to Strand with a courtly nod. “I’ve spoken to him and I fear we have a difficult case on our hands. Romero won’t cooperate at all. He’s not going to testify. He told me he won’t open his mouth. In court he says he won’t even say why he did what he did, even though he told the police Hitz stole his money. Let ’em do their worst, he told me, what good would it do to talk? He says I’m the talker in the operation, I can say whatever I want. He seems to know more than is good for him about the law. He says he can’t be forced to incriminate himself and he’s not going to do it. He’s sorry he talked as much as he did to the police. His attitude is sullen—perhaps understandably so—but it won’t win sympathy in court. A little sign of contrition would be useful.” The lawyer shrugged. “But that doesn’t seem to be within his range. He says Mr. Strand here saw him running after Hitz with a knife and that he admitted both to Mr. Strand and the police that he used the knife on Hitz. He says everybody in the courtroom would laugh at him if he pretended he didn’t cut Hitz. In fact, if you want to know what I think, he’s proud of it and wants everybody to know he did it. He refuses to tell me why he suspects Hitz of being the thief. He says he’s always known he’d wind up in jail one day and he has lots of friends who’ve been there and he’s not afraid of it. His attitude, I have to tell you, will not sit kindly with the judge. Or with the jury, if it comes to that. He’s over eighteen and he’ll be tried as an adult. And we’re pleading in a small town in Connecticut, not New York or Chicago, where knifings of this kind, obviously not with the intent to kill, are considered an almost normal part of everyday life. I’ll do my best, of course…” The lawyer’s voice sank to a melancholy register. “But I’m not optimistic.”

“What are you able to do?” Babcock asked.

“Play on the boy’s background. Brought up in a slum, with a broken and poverty-stricken family, etcetera, etcetera. The usual. Destruction of a promising career in a moment of emotional imbalance, that sort of thing. Not much.”

“What can we do to help?” Babcock asked.

The lawyer made a small, helpless gesture with his hands. “Act as character witnesses for the accused. Bring up whatever you think might be useful. Remember you will be under oath.”

Whatever he said about Romero’s character, Strand knew, would never be the truth. Would he mention the stolen volumes of
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?
Not if he wanted to keep the boy out of jail.

As they were standing there, Hitz came down the hall. The big bandage on his cheek made a dramatic pattern on one side of his face. He bulged out of his clothes. Strand saw that his fly was open. Hitz looked at the three men resentfully, but stopped and said, “Good morning, Mr. Babcock.” He ostentatiously ignored Strand. “My father said he was going to get in touch with you, sir. Did he reach you?”

“He reached me,” Babcock said.

“He was very upset when I told him what happened,” Hitz said.

“So it seemed,” Babcock said. “Well, shall we go in?”

“Don’t think I’m going to make things easy for Romero,” Hitz said. “Or you, Mr. Strand.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Strand said. “And zip up your fly. You don’t want to be held in contempt of court, do you?”

Hitz’s face went red and he was struggling with the zipper as Strand led the way into the courtroom, where Sergeant Leary was waiting to testify. Among the few spectators Strand noticed a young woman whom he recognized as a reporter for the town newspaper seated in the first row, a writing pad on her lap and a pencil in her hand. Babcock saw her, too, and whispered, “The news has spread fast, I’m afraid. She’s not here to watch the judge handle parking tickets.”

Romero came in with the policeman who had arrested him. At least, Strand thought, he’s not in handcuffs. He looked small and frail in the dark sweater Strand had bought him at Brooks Brothers. He smiled as he passed Hitz and said good morning to the headmaster and Strand. The lawyer accompanied him to a table set in front of the judge’s bench.