“Seniority?” Mark said.
“That he’s been here longer than Cherie Wardrop.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mark said, “a lot longer. He’s sort of like the school Grinch. I don’t know why they don’t fire him. They’re so big on the ethos of the school. Maybe he’s got money though. They’ll put up with a lot of things in this place if you’ve got money.”
“Let’s go see the upstairs,” Gregor said.
A few moments later, Gregor was almost sorry he’d insisted. There were not only two flights of stairs, but two long and steep flights of stairs. He was breathless by the time they reached the second floor and only too happy to have a chance to stop and look around. The hallway and landing were narrow. The stairs climbed along one wall. There were at least a dozen doors, most of them now open, with students packing inside them.
“Hey, Mark,” people called.
Mark called “Hey” back. Gregor was happy that he didn’t seem inclined to stop and give his dorm mates a play-byplay of his last few days.
They went up the next flight, which was thankfully the final one. It was the same scene here as it had been below, with the exception of the door just opposite the top of the stairs, which was not only closed, but sealed by yellow police tape.
“That was your room?” Gregor asked.
“Yes,” Mark said.
“We can go in it if you want,” Brian said. “I’ve told the Detective Division that you might want to break the seal.”
“It isn’t necessary,” Gregor said. “It’s the way the door is situated that I wanted to see. Mark, tell me something. When students are in their rooms, do they usually leave their doors open or closed?”
“Open,” Mark said, “unless they’re sleeping. Or, you know.”
“No,” Gregor said. “What?”
Brian cleared his throat again. “Unless they’re engaged in self-abuse,” he said helpfully.
“Michael used to keep the door closed most of the time,” Mark said, “when I wasn’t there. When I was, you know, I’dget to feeling hemmed in. But he didn’t talk to people around here if he could help it.”
“But the other doors would have been open, is that right?” Gregor said. “And would people have been home?”
“It was a Friday night,” Mark said, “so most of them wouldn’t have been. But some of them might have been. Kim Jun, for one. He’s from Korea. He studies more than most people breathe.”
“Good,” Gregor said. “Exactly what I needed to hear. Timing is everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brian said.
“Just what I said. Timing is everything. Let’s go downstairs. There’s one last thing to do. And then I’m going somewhere and getting something serious to eat. I’ve spent this whole trip living on crackers, soup, and a vegetarian omelet.”
“It’s not a bad omelet,” Brian said.
Gregor ignored him, and they all trooped downstairs again. The trip down was a lot easier than the trip up, although it, too, required them to dodge students with boxes. The whole place was humming like bees on the wires in summer; and in spite of what was happening and why, everybody seemed to be almost unnaturally cheerful. He would not want to listen in to teenagers of his acquaintance if he ever came to a sticky end himself. He wouldn’t want to hear some nice young person he’d known for years saying, “He was decapitated? Cool!”
They got to the ground floor and Gregor led them toward the backdoor again and the narrow corridors leading to the faculty apartments. He was still having a hard time keeping straight in his mind what part of the House was the front and what was the back. Mark said hello to seven or eight more people and stopped to talk to two, but he didn’t linger. Gregor thought Mark must actually be interested in what the grown-ups were going to do. If somebody had tried to kill him, Gregor thought, he’d be interested, but he no longer understood much about people Mark’s age. Except for notwanting to miss out on the action, Mark seemed to be taking the whole thing as a matter of course.
They got to Cherie and Melissa’s apartment and knocked. They didn’t have to wait long before the door was open and Cherie poked her head out.
“Oh, Mr. Demarkian,” she said, “I thought it was one of the parents. I should leave the door open, I know I should. They do need to talk to me some of the time, or to talk to a houseparent at any rate, and Sheldon is, well, he’s busy—”
“He’s a son of a bitch,” Melissa called from inside the apartment.