Fountain of Death(12)

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Virginia Hanley said.

The young girl standing next to Virginia Hanley turned around. “Excuse me. It’s because of the murder. The fuss they made, I mean. I think they were worried that it might not be an accident, because somebody had already been murdered.”

“He wasn’t murdered,” Virginia Hanley said. “He was mugged.”

Dessa Carter was looking drier and more amused by the minute. “He died,” she pointed out. “Someone killed him. That usually adds up to murder.”

“It adds up to murder legally,” Virginia Hanley said. “This girl was making it sound like Perry Mason or something.”

“This girl” was very thin, thinner than Greta had ever seen anybody except in television documentaries about AIDS, and she looked extremely tired. There were dark circles under her eyes and deep hollows under her cheekbones. Her skin was far too white. Impulsively, Greta stuck out her hand again and said,

“Greta Bellamy.”

“Christie Mulligan,” the thin girl said. She pulled on the arm of the plump girl next to her and went on, “This is my friend, Michelle Dean. We came together.”

“We came as a trio,” Michelle said pleasantly. “The third one is Tara Corcoran. She went to the bathroom.”

“Right before the last dance,” Christie said. “I think she was fed up.”

“I’m fed up,” Michelle said. “I just don’t have the guts to play hooky.”

Christie Mulligan rubbed the top of her left breast reflexively. “It was because of the murder,” she said. “It had to have been. I mean, we live not very far from here—”

“At Jonathan Edwards College. At Yale,” Michelle put in.

“—and the story’s been all over the place for weeks. I don’t think the police are treating it like a normal mugging. For one thing, there are all these rumors. About how he died, I mean. What we heard was that he wasn’t shot or strangled or anything, he was poisoned.”

“That’s why there was never anything about cause of death in the papers,” Michelle said.

“And muggers don’t poison people,” Christie said. “But the other thing is, they’re really going back and checking up on him, on the guy who died, I mean. He worked at Yale one summer at one of the cafeterias and they had police over there asking questions about him. He worked during one of the school years at one of the parking lots and they had police over there, too. I don’t think they’d go back that far if they thought his death was nothing but your usual thing. I don’t think they’d expend the energy.”

“I’d heard they were checking up on him, too,” Dessa said. “One of the women I work with has a brother who’s a cop. She said he said they were really covering this guy’s life, going back over everything he did and everybody who ever knew him.”

“It will turn out to be about drugs, then,” Virginia Hanley said dismissively. “It won’t have anything to do with people like us.”

Greta bent her knees a little, straightened up again, bent again. Her knees were stiff.

“I wish I knew what was going on,” she said. “We’re just standing around again. I wish I knew what was supposed to come next.”

“We’re supposed to go to lunch,” Dessa Carter said. “At twelve-oh-five.”

“Can you just imagine what lunch is going to be like in a place like this?” Michelle said. “Carrot sticks. Bean sprouts. Tofu. Gruesome.”

Up at the front of the room, Nick Bannerman reappeared and surveyed the class.

“We’re going downstairs to the first floor to the dining room now,” he announced in a very loud voice, a kindergarten teacher roping in a class of tantrum-prone toddlers. “After we have lunch, you will all be given a free half hour to shower if you want to or just to rest. On your way downstairs, please be careful on the balcony. We’ve installed some safety board in the place where the railing collapsed, but I wouldn’t want to count on it to keep me from falling. All right. Let’s go.”

“If I were Magda Hale,” Virginia Hanley said, “I’d install a guard out there. I wouldn’t put it past somebody to fall deliberately just to be able to file a lawsuit.”

Virginia Hanley was walking out ahead, toward the door Nick Bannerman had already gone out of. Christie Mulligan caught Greta Bellamy’s eye and winked elaborately. Greta bit her lip, hard, to keep herself from giggling.

“Oh, dear,” she said, as Christie and Michelle came up beside her.