Living Witness(41)

“No,” Gregor said.

“She was a WAVE, in World War II,” Gary said. “She was a prisoner of war for a while, with the Japanese. Not for long. There’s people who say that she was proposed to by an admiral.”

“They could have gotten that wrong.” In Gregor’s opinion, small towns got most things wrong. They also got most things in their worst possible light.

“Maybe,” Gary admitted. “But there was a guy in town, a guy I knew, died a couple of years ago. He was a judge before he retired. He asked her to marry him, and she turned him down. She said she didn’t want to give up her independence. Do you understand that?”

“I don’t know that I do. I do know there are a lot of women who say they feel that way.”

“In her case it wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” Gary Albright said. “She had a lot of brothers, so she’s got a lot of nieces and nephews and grandnieces and nephews. They come up to visit a couple of times a year. She has them all up to that place of hers, dozens of them, so many there’re people sleeping on her floors. I still don’t understand it.”

“Maybe she was hard to get along with.”

“Miss Hadley?” Gary considered it. “I don’t think so. I mean, she wasn’t exactly easy. She wanted her own way and she tended to get it. It’s kind of funny. There’s somebody else like that, right in town, and she isn’t married either. Miss Marbledale.”

“Who’s Miss Marbledale?”

“She runs the school, pretty much,” Gary said. “You’ll meet her. She’s on the suspect list for the case. Not that I think she killed anybody, mind you, or even tried, as it is, and really if she killed anyone, it’d be Franklin Hale. Or maybe Alice McGuffie. But, here’s the thing. She’s a lot like Miss Hadley. Only—I’m not sure I know how to put this—only with less of a spirit of adventure, I guess.”

“No stint in the Waves,” Gregor suggeted.

“And no running around on foreign trips,” Gary said. “Miss Hadley went to Mongolia and lived in a tent for a couple of weeks. That was only last year. Miss Marbledale’s only been foreign maybe two or three times that I remember, and it’s always been to regular places like, you know, Rome or England. With a tour with other schoolteachers. And then she brings back slides. You know how that goes?”

“Yes,” Gregor said. He did, too. He knew exactly. He had had teachers like that when he had been in school.

“I was out of the country when I was in the Marines,” Gary said. “But I haven’t been except for that. I don’t see the point. I belong here. I can’t see they have anything that we don’t have. Art, you know, but I’m not that big on art. I like Beethoven.”

“That’s good,” Gregor said.

“It was Miss Marbledale who turned me on to Beethoven,” Gary said. “Now I’ve got the beginning of the Fifth Symphony as my ring tone. But she doesn’t teach much anymore, if you know what I mean. She’s an administrator.”

“Why is she on the suspect list?” Gregor asked. “You said you didn’t think she’d kill Ann-Victoria Hadley. There must be a reason.”

“Oh, there is,” Gary said. “And maybe you’ll change the suspect list when you get your hands on it, but I put everybody involved in the suit on it if they were in the position to have done the battery. If they were in the vicinity, you know. Miss Marbledale used to be a science teacher. She presented the science teachers’ case when the policy was being debated before the school board. As if the science teachers’ side was the official side of the school.”

“Not in favor of Intelligent Design, I take it.”

“No,” Gary said. He looked suddenly unsure of himself. The moment passed and was gone. He looked impassive again. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “It was the first thing that made me think there might be something to it. To Darwin’s theory, I mean. Miss Marbledale is the smartest person I’ve ever known. And she’s not like Miss Hadley in one way that’s important. She doesn’t create a fuss just to create a fuss. I could see Miss Hadley being all insistent on evolution because she thought it would make people upset, but I can’t see Miss Marbledale doing that. If Miss Marbledale says she thinks evolution is true, then she really thinks evolution is true. And I’d bet anything she’s really looked into it.”

“And you don’t think evolution is true?” Gregor asked.

Gary Albright made a face. “I’m not a scientist,” he said, “but I wasn’t bad at science in school, and I’ve tried to read this stuff. And it makes no sense to me. The people who want Intelligent Design say things that do make sense to me. Think of all the things there are. Your spleen, you know, and that kind of thing. All that stuff works together, and if one of the parts is gone it doesn’t work. I mean, everybody knows that. They can’t just take your pancreas out and have the rest of the parts go on working. That’s why you die of pancreatic cancer in the first place. I think I’m making a mess of this explanation.”