Gregor was standing next to Edith Braxner’s body. It was only a body now. He’d expected it to be nothing else. She was already more than half-dead when she started to fall. She was sprawled out on the floor, her back jammed into arow of chairs that were themselves jammed into the side of a reading table. Marta Coelho was standing just beyond the body, near the door to the foyer, looking sick. She had given Gregor “Edith’s” last name, and then run off to call 911 when he’d asked her to. Everybody else who had been in the library at the time was still there, as far as Gregor knew. They were huddled in little groups around the reading room, staring. Most of them were students. Gregor had no idea what faculty did at this time of night, but they weren’t in the library. Both of the librarians had come in and stopped uncertainly at the edge of the student groups. It was as if Edith Braxner’s body had a magic circle drawn around it that no one could pass.
Alice Makepeace arrived on this scene as if it were any other scene, as if she were entering the cafeteria for lunch or dinner on a perfectly ordinary day, but a day on which she was not in a very good mood. The magic circle didn’t hold her. She strode past the librarians and two little groups of students right up to the body itself. She threw the edges of her cape back over her shoulders. Gregor half expected her to take out a sword and slash an oversized Z into the library carpet.
“Oh, God,” she said, “I’ve been telling Peter for years that those catwalks aren’t safe. I knew this had to happen sometime. Why isn’t anybody giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”
“Because there’s nothing to resuscitate,” Gregor said, “and because it wouldn’t be safe. It’s not very likely that there’s enough cyanide left in her mouth to kill you, but it’s not impossible.”
Alice Makepeace looked him up and down, very slowly. Gregor had the impression that this was a technique she had used before and to good effect on other people. It had no effect on him.
“Who are you?” she said. “You’re not faculty, and you’re not a student. If you’re not a parent, you have no right to be on this campus.”
“I probably don’t. My name is Gregor Demarkian. I was invited here by Mark DeAvecca. Does that count?”
“Of course it doesn’t count. You ought to get out of here. Or maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe we should call the police.”
“If Marta over there did what I asked her to, the police have already been called,” Gregor said.
Alice Makepeace whirled around, looking for Marta. Marta looked frightened and resentful. Gregor was sure this wasn’t the first time Alice had tried to bully her. And bully Alice did. She was good at it.
“Marta, for God’s sake, what were you thinking? You know you aren’t supposed to call the police without permission from President’s House. You’re not supposed to call an ambulance without permission from President’s House. I know you haven’t been here very long, but most faculty do understand the rules of behavior in this school when they’ve been here far less long than you have—”
“I did call President’s House,” Marta said. “I talked to you. That’s why you’re here. And don’t tell me I shouldn’t have called nine-one-one without permission. You gave that lecture to Cherie just this morning because of Mark DeAvecca, and look how that turned out. He could have ended up dead. Poor Edith is dead.”
“We don’t know that,” Alice said.
“We do, in fact, know that,” Gregor said. Alice turned back to him. She had lost none of her arrogance. She was not afraid. That was important for him to remember. “I’ve checked the vital signs myself, Mrs. Makepeace. Ms. Braxner is dead.”
“Alice,” Alice said. “You may not realize it, but we don’t use formal address at Windsor Academy. We find it distancing, and a bar to the spirit of collegiality we are trying to maintain. Learning is most effective when it is carried out among equals.”
“And you’re all equals here, Mrs. Makepeace?”
“Of course.”
“Students and teachers both?”
“Of course.”
“Then I don’t understand how you function,” Gregor said, politely, thinking how bizarre it was having this conversation over the body of a woman who was dead from cyanide or had at least had cyanide before she died. He could feel the groups of students staring at them, tense. “Either your teachers don’t grade your students,” he said, “or they do, and your students grade their teachers in return.”