What she really needed to do, she thought, was to take half an hour and drive out into the country with the radio off. If she could just spend a little time without having to see or talk to people, she knew she would be able to calm down. She was not, really, upset about Chris. She was only upset about the things that were going on around Chris, about the stories, about the hysteria of people like Emma. She had half expected to have a call from the superintendent this morning, suggesting they bring in “grief counselors” for the students who “might need them,” but no call had come from that source, even to offer condolences. She had been reduced to pacing up and down the halls, from one floor to another, from one wing to another, looking into classrooms, listening to the talk in the halls when the bell rang and classes changed.
Nancy looked around the foyer and made a note to herself to get the clubs to change the display cases. She was tired of everything she saw. She went into her office and nodded to Lisa as she passed through the outer room. She passed into her own office and went to the window at the back. The view wasn’t good at the best of times, and today the rain was so hard and the sky was so black that there wasn’t anything to see but water, coming down. She pulled out the chair behind her desk and sat down. There was work she had to do. She ought to do it. She didn’t want to. Lisa Bentkoop came in, and Nancy looked up, relieved.
“I’m having the worst day today,” she said. “It’s not that anything in particular is going wrong, it’s just—” Nancy fluttered her hands in the air.
“I think that’s understandable,” Lisa said. “You’re probably more upset than you realize. She was a friend of yours forever.”
“Well, yes,” Nancy said. “That’s true, I guess, but since we became adults we haven’t been particularly close. Oh, we saw each other. It’s hard not to go on seeing the people you grew up with in a town like this. But there was a divergence, if you know what I mean. Chris was so involved with being a wife, and a wife is the last thing I ever wanted to be.”
“I know what you mean. And I hate to make your day any worse than it already is, but there are a couple of things.”
“Like what?”
“Well.” Lisa took a deep breath. “We got a heads-up from Kyle at the police station, for starters. Apparently, Hollman has been invaded. There were so many reporters out at the Toliver place this morning, the inhabitants had to flee. Those aren’t my words, they’re Kyle’s. ‘The inhabitants had to flee.’ Hundreds of them, from his description—”
“He went out there?”
“No,” Lisa said. “That detective person was out there. Gregor Demarkian.”
“I can’t believe there was that much fuss over Betsy Toliver,” Nancy said. “Yes, she’s sort of famous, but it’s only sort of. Most people don’t even watch those talking heads shows.”
“I don’t think it was about Elizabeth Toliver. Kyle said Jimmy Card was here, he was here last night when they found the body. So I think it’s him they’re after.”
“Yes,” Nancy said.
“And Kyle said they got inundated awhile at the police station, too, with the reporters crowding into the vestibule and the waiting room, but they got that under control. He wanted us to be ready, though, because he thinks—or maybe it’s Mr. Demarkian who thinks—anyway, he thinks that they might come here.”
“Who? Kyle and Mr. Demarkian?”
“No,” Lisa said. “The reporters. Or some of them, at any rate. Remember how that one came down here a couple of months ago, from the Enquirer? Except he didn’t tell us he was from the Enquirer. He wanted to photograph the school.”
Nancy did remember. That was when the stories had first started appearing in the tabloids about the night Michael Houseman was murdered. She drummed her fingers on her desk. “Has anybody actually been here today?”
“If you mean reporters, not that I know about. But you know what they are. They could be waiting in the parking lot for the students to come out. They could just waltz through one of the doors. We talk about making this school secure, but we never do anything about it. And we can’t lock too many doors. The fire regulations—”
“No,” Nancy said. “No, that’s all right. I don’t see that they’d have much to get if they did come here. I can’t see that it would hurt the school anyway. It isn’t even the right building. This wasn’t where we all were when all that stuff happened with Betsy.”