“A faculty member who hops from school to school. Schools are like businesses. They like to keep a stable workforce as much as possible. And most teachers like to find a congenial place and stay in it. Some teachers get restless and move from school to school. They want different areas of the country or different educational philosophies or different people to talk to. It’s a way of relieving boredom, mostly. With Cherie, I think Peter Makepeace thought that since she’d be able to share faculty housing with Melissa, which wasn’t the case in most schools, she’d be more likely to stay here. It might be true. It also might be that it is Melissa who wants to move and not Cherie. Cherie’s got a good degree in biology and a good teaching record. She could probably finda job anywhere except a religious school that wouldn’t tolerate her sexual orientation.”
“And any other school would?”
“She may just not have mentioned it,” Philip said. “She’d have been living in faculty housing, and Melissa would have been living on her own. They could have kept it a secret if they wanted to. But they don’t need to keep it secret here. So that couldn’t be a reason for Michael Feyre to blackmail her.”
“What about Edith Braxner?” Gregor asked. “Could Michael have been blackmailing her?”
“Not likely. Edith was our resident saint. She’s the only person in the history of Windsor Academy ever to turn in house accounts that actually balanced.”
“House accounts?”
“The houseparents have to turn in house accounts,” Philip said. “We’ve got operating budgets for the Houses for things like Christmas parties and birthday parties for the boarding students and that kind of thing. They’re not large and they’re not important, but Edith kept them down to the penny. The student accounts, too. That’s what our boarding students do for money. They have House accounts they can draw from. The houseparents act as bankers, and we’re always shelling out cash and forgetting who we shelled it out to and having to backtrack. There’s a memo from administration every month, but Edith never got one. Her student accounts were perfect. And she was a demon about maintaining the heirlooms.”
“What are the heirlooms?”
“Go into the common room here and see,” Philip said. “We’ve got at least four pieces of seriously expensive furniture, art furniture, really. Lytton, where Edith lived, has a table that belonged to Henry David Thoreau. It’s worth thousands of dollars. All the Houses have antiques. The insurance company must have a cow knowing they’re around where students can get to them. But Edith’s House always has the best ones because she’s the only one of us who really is diligent about caring for them. Was. I’ll admit it, she’s one of the few people I know here I’m sorry to see gone.”
Gregor stood up. “You’ve been very helpful,” he said. “I need to know where to find Doyle House. That should be the next one closer to the library from here, yes?”
“Yes,” Philip said.
“I will have to tell the police where you are and who you are.”
“I know,” Philip said, “I didn’t expect anything else. But you’ve got no way of holding me here against my will, Mr. Demarkian. I’m younger than you are and stronger than you are, and if it ever came down to a fight, I’d win. So I suggest that you leave here and make your call from next door. And I’ll do what I have to do.”
“If you’re thinking of staging some kind of confrontation, it would be very foolish.”
“I gave up staging confrontations years ago.”
“If you’re thinking of running, that would be very foolish, too.”
“Would it? Well, it probably would be. Good-bye, Mr. Demarkian. I hope you found it interesting.”
Gregor was about to say he had when he found himself deposited unceremoniously onto the porch. Philip Candor had ushered him out of the apartment and out of Martinson House so adeptly that he’d hardly noticed he was moving.
2
Gregor made the call to Brian Sheehy and then to the federal fugitive hotline from his cell phone, but what Philip Candor had said was true. He had no way of holding him against his will, and not much he could do to keep Philip from leaving if he wanted to leave. Even if he stood here in the quad and watched the door he’d just come out of, Philip could probably go through a different door or out a window or a fire escape. He stood for a moment or two, looking at Martinson House, but in the end he felt silly. He thought it mattered enormously that Philip Candor be returned to his identity as Leland Beech and sent back to prison. He just didn’t see that there was anything else he could do to make it happen.