The Year of the Gadfly (35 page)

“I'm not like you, Jonah,” she said, her voice even less forgiving than the scene outside. “I couldn't just start my life over like it didn't happen.”

“That's what you think I did?”

Hazel sucked in a breath, but she didn't answer. I couldn't stand this. I needed to make things right. “Let's not judge each other,” I said. “Let's just be happy that we're together.” I nuzzled her neck. She turned and I cupped my palms on either side of her head. She was capable of fierce beauty and even fiercer life. She burned hot at her core. If only she'd let me help her, I could restore her to her natural state.

“You should go,” she said, and led me to the door. I was reluctant to leave at such a tenuous moment, but at least Hazel seemed placated, no longer angry with me. “Happy birthday, Jonah,” she said. “I'm happy you're here.” Then she kissed me a final time.

I'd never be my brother, but I was the closest Hazel would ever get to him. Without me, I wasn't sure she had anything else.

I WAS MAKING
myself a salad in the refectory when Peter sidled up to me carrying a tray with seven glasses of juice. He didn't play any sports, but he drank like a jock. He said nothing, just shadowed me as I piled tomatoes and cucumbers and feta cheese onto my plate. Then he followed me to the other side of the bar, where I added dressing. “Do you want something?” I snapped.

“How's your investigation going?”

“You mean in the last fifteen hours? Half of which I spent sleeping?”

I wasn't pissed at Peter, but the video I'd watched the night before had given me awful dreams and kept me tossing for half the night. Lily was no longer a figment. She was an actual person whose skin was pale as a fish belly-up on the beach. But even though I saw her more clearly, I didn't know her any better. Which side was she on? Was she acting or was she the victim of a cruel prank? And regardless, how could she have declared such vicious things about Justin Kaplan, even in jest?
Sacrificial Lamb
was like absurdist theater, and it had the mark of Prisom's Party all over it. I tried to follow up with Veronica Mercy, but she'd turned off her phone.

“A lot can happen in a night, Iris.” Peter's voice shook me back to the present.

“Is that some kind of innuendo?”

“No.”

Iris Dupont, you are an idiot,
I thought as I headed to my table. It was the one day each month that students were allowed to sit wherever they wanted, and I'd been looking forward to forty-five minutes of uninterrupted reading. But Peter followed me and sat down.

“You're actually on page 623 of this thing?” He pointed to the Mike Wallace bookmark tucked inside
Marvelous Species.

I grabbed the book from him. “I'm supplementing my biology homework.”

“Mr. Kaplan's class.” He nodded. “I see.”

“You see what?”

“You were going through his desk yesterday. You're after something.”

I was trying to get inside Mr. Kaplan's mind, but I couldn't tell Peter that. “There are some people here who are suspicious of Mr. Kaplan,” I said. “But they just don't understand him.”

“And you do?”

I told Peter Hazel's theory about kindred spirits, omitting the details about Dalia and Justin's possible suicide. As he listened, his face changed; his eyes widened like something was welling up inside of him and was about to burst out. “What's going on?” I said. “Are you okay?”

Peter nodded. He looked upset but asked me to continue. Finally I told him about Mr. Kaplan's reaction to the four-eyed demon.

“That kind of behavior is bizarre, Iris. Especially for a teacher.”

Which is precisely why you must keep your friends and your sources separate,
Murrow added, his voice floating down from the refectory's cathedral-like windows.
Your emotions will cloud your judgment. You cannot allow that to happen.

I know!
I thought back.
I'm a woman of action, remember?
I was frustrated with Murrow. It was worrisome how frequently he'd been popping up, whether I wanted him there or not. Was this the anxiety and depression that Dr. Patrick had warned about?

“I'm sure Mr. Kaplan is a good person,” Peter continued. “But you don't know what mental and emotional problems he's suffering from. I mean crying, throwing things . . .”

“You think he's dangerous?”

“Definitely unstable. What do you know about him, really?”

I looked down at my salad. The connection between me and Mr. Kaplan was as ephemeral as Murrow's cigarette smoke.

“Do you think . . .” Peter began, then paused and ducked his head. “I mean—I was thinking, I could help you.”

I looked at him, puzzled.

“I don't think you should be on this investigation alone. Not because you can't take care of yourself,” he added quickly. “It just seems . . .”

I waited.

“Well, it seems like you could use a friend.”

I nodded, and Peter looked as though he'd just run a marathon—relieved and a little bit sick to his stomach.

 

I wrote to the Party about the contents of Mr. Kaplan's desk.
We are planning to bring you back soon,
they responded.
Keep the intel coming.

After school I interviewed more Academic League students, slipping in questions about Mr. Kaplan. I learned his favorite food (tuna), his favorite element of the periodic table (lithium), and his favorite extremophile (radiation-resistant, salt-loving halophiles), but no helpful clues about his past. After practice, Peter asked if I wanted to go get some coffee.

“Like a date?” I said.

His face colored. “Maybe.”

“Can we go to the public library instead?”

“Jesus, Iris. You're a workaholic.”

 

I love old libraries. Scrolling through microfilm is like hunting through history, and the clickety-click of the spool is the sound of progress. Also, if I was simply searching the Internet at home, my voicemail recording wouldn't have to say,
You've reached Iris Dupont, reporter for the Mariana Academy
Oracle.
I am out searching for the truth.

Peter and I found a few stories about Mr. Kaplan's dead brother. He was killed in a car crash at approximately 4 a.m. on May 2, 2000, in a “head-on collision due to severe weather conditions.” We found nothing about the location of the accident or what the car had hit.

“I suspect foul play,” Peter joked.

Or suicide,
I thought, remembering my conversation with Veronica Mercy. My gut began doing a salad-spinner maneuver. If Justin had seen
Sacrificial Lamb
or found out about it, might that have caused him to end his life?

While Peter made a phone call, I looked up information for my Charles Prisom story. In my excitement I'd nearly forgotten that this assignment was supposed to be my cover for the Prisom's Party investigation, and my deadline was approaching. Hazel had still not located Charles Prisom's letters, and a microfilm search yielded nothing new. Then I ran a search for Dantes and Rex. Nothing came up. Until I found this:

 

PRESTIGIOUS SCHOOL REOPENS AS DAY ACADEMY

by Charles Collingwood

July 13, 1940

NYE—Seventeen years ago, Mariana Academy, a boarding school for boys, closed its doors amid financial scandal. When it reopens this September, it will do so as a co-ed day school—but its new school board promises to continue the focus on academic achievement that once made Mariana one of New England's most prestigious preparatory institutions.

“Our student body has changed, but the values at the heart of Mariana remain,” said Edward Dumas, chairman of the school board, during yesterday's announcement of the school's reopening. “We expect the best of our students, both in mind and morals. That's what Mariana founder Charles Prisom stood for, and it's what we're committed to.”

Mariana closed at the conclusion of the 1922–23 school year, after its board discovered that then-board president Thaddius Reginald had covered up the school's sinking finances—$1.2 million of debt. Reginald had already shut down most student clubs and athletics in a desperate attempt to save money, and students and faculty grew suspicious. The school board voted to depose its president, and Mariana's headmaster resigned. Lacking leadership and finances, the board closed the school indefinitely.

 

I read the article three times. Each time, the salad-spinner feeling swelled. Edward Dumas and Thaddius Reginald. A budget deficit? The
Oracle
shut down for financial reasons, not to suppress free speech? Was this a joke? The oppressive headmaster, the
Devil's Advocate,
the tussle culminating in Rex's gruesome death—all of it invention. The microfilm article included a picture of Thaddius Reginald, and sure enough, it matched the picture of Thelonius Rex I'd seen in the Party's book. Prisom's Party had promised never to leave me, but these lies felt worse than abandonment.

“Are you having fun on our date?” Peter said, returning. “We could hit the Northern Massachusetts Grammarians' Hall of Fame or the Nye County Historical Society. I hear they have an excellent display of pewter spoons.”

In fact, I was eager to visit Hazel. I needed her help.

“You don't really want to go there?” Peter said in response to my silence.

I shook my head, because the truth was, the thought of taking Peter to see Hazel made me uncomfortable. I didn't want to share Hazel with anyone else, and, I was starting to realize, I didn't want to share Peter either. “I'm going to take a walk,” I said.

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed, like I might be heading to a tryst at the local postage-stamp museum. I was starting to think there were two Peter McCaffreys: one of them awkward, the other confident. But there were multiple versions of me, too. The brazen girl, the shy girl, the good girl, and the grieving girl. Could all of these personalities exist in an integrated whole, or would one ultimately take over? And what if the wrong identity asserted itself?

Peter and I stood on the library steps, our hands thrust into our pockets. “This was the best fake date I've ever been on,” he said.

“Yup,” I said. “Let's do it again.” We looked at each other.

“Will you let me know if you find out anything else about Mr. Kaplan's brother?”

I nodded.

“When I said I wanted to help you . . .” He looked at the muddy library steps, then back into my eyes. “Well, I meant it.”

But if Dantes and Rex were lies, what was I trying to find?

“Iris?”

I looked up and was struck by a terrifying notion: Peter was going to kiss me. “Well,” I heard myself say, “see you in school.” Then I bounded down the steps.
Idiot, idiot, idiot!
I thought as I walked through town.
You fumbled your first kiss. That would have been a story for your grandkids, but you ruined it.

Dejected, I picked my way along the splotchy patches of snow, trying to keep the snow mush off my shoes. Prisom's Party had seemed so serious about their book of historical documents, but it was all an elaborate ruse.

Twenty minutes later, I puffed my way up Hazel's steep, snowy drive. But when I was level with the house I froze. Hazel and Mr. Kaplan stood on the porch, kissing. I slipped behind a couple of trees. Mr. Kaplan buried his face in Hazel's neck and she ruffled his hair. They kissed again. Then she went back inside and he drove away.

I felt like I'd been punched in the chest and my heart had exploded into small bits of muscle and blood. It was just like Veronica Mercy told me.
Don't trust any of those Trench freaks.
I dug my fists into the snow until my knuckles burned. Hazel was allowed to have a boyfriend, and why not Mr. Kaplan? But she'd lied to me too, telling me they hadn't seen each other in years. All the times I'd worried about her, she'd been just fine with Mr. Kaplan for company.

I scooped up a fistful of snow, packed it into a hard ball, and hurled it at the front door. It missed and hit the window. I packed another ball and threw it. I wasn't wearing my gloves, and my fingers were red and raw. I wished the snow was harder and sharper. I wished it could cut my skin and make me bleed. I wished I had enough blood to turn Hazel's front yard red.

I sank into the snow. What had made Dalia slit her wrists? Was it just a side effect of the medication, or did she really believe that letting herself drain away was the better option? The only option. And how would things be different if, at the moment she decided to step into the bathtub, I'd been there?

I wiped the tears from my face. I had no right to cry. Hazel hadn't lied to me; she just hadn't told me the entire truth. Well, I hadn't told her the whole truth either. She had no idea that I was a Prisom's Party operative.

To our Fearless Leader, Garrison Pasternak:

We declare a vote of No Confidence.

Sincerely,
Prisom's Party

 

“It was on my desk when I came in this morning,” Pasternak said, handing me the note. It was currently morning, but Pasternak arrived as early as 7 a.m., and he'd intercepted me when I walked into the building. Now he motioned me to his side of the desk, his expression grave. “I turned on my computer to find this.”

He angled the screen toward me. I saw a grotesque caricature of Pasternak, his rheumy eyes ringed red and his teeth yellowed and rotting. A word bubble from his mouth said,
Come and tour my school.

“It's the Mariana home page,” he said.