Passage

  “I have to be on the other side of town by four,” Joanna said, looking pointedly at her watch.

  “ ‘All you have to do is listen, and we will speak to you,’ Alvin said, and he was right,” Mrs. Davenport said. “Just the other day he told me where my pearl earring that I’d lost was.”

  I wonder if he can tell me how to get away from his niece, Joanna thought. “I wish I could stay, Mrs. Davenport, but I have to go.”

  “And two nights ago, in the middle of the night, I heard him say, ‘Wake up,’ and when I looked at the time, it was 3A.M.”

  Mrs. Davenport was never going to let her go. She was simply going to have to walk around her. She did. Mrs. Davenport followed her, still talking. “And then I heard him say, just like he was there in the room, ‘Turn on the TV,’ and I did, and do you know what was on?”

  A Ronco infomercial? Joanna thought. She hit the elevator “down” button. “A show on paranormal experiences,” Mrs. Davenport said, “which is proof that those who have passed over are in communication with us.”

  The elevator opened and Joanna practically jumped in, praying Mrs. Davenport wouldn’t follow her. “And just this morning I heard Alvin say—”

  The closing elevator door cut her off before she could communicate Alvin’s message. Joanna hit “G” and, as soon as the elevator opened, sprinted over to the ER, praying nobody had coded and Vielle was in the middle of trying to revive him.

  Nobody had, and Vielle wasn’t. She was yelling at an intern. “Who gave you authorization to do that?” she was saying.

  “I . . . I . . . nobody,” the intern stammered. “In medical school . . . ”

  “You’re not in medical school,” Vielle snapped. “You’re in my ER.”

  “I know, but he was—” He stopped and looked hopefully at Joanna as if she might rescue him.

  “Sorry,” Joanna said to Vielle. “Can I borrow your car?”

  “Sure,” Vielle said promptly, and to the intern, “Stay right there. And don’t touch anything.” She started across the ER. “My keys are in my locker. What happened? Died, huh?”

  “Who?” Joanna said, following her into the ER lounge, and realized belatedly that Vielle meant her car. “No. My car’s fine.”

  Wrong answer. Vielle turned, her hand already on the locker combination, and frowned at her. “Then what do you need mine for? This doesn’t have anything to do with the Titanic scene you asked me about, does it?”

  “I just don’t want to go up to my office to get my keys. Mr. Mandrake’s got it staked out,” she said evasively, “and I don’t want to see him.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Vielle said and turned back to the combination. “What time will you be back?” she asked, digging in her purse and coming up with the keys. She dropped them in Joanna’s hand. “I get off at seven.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “North side, second or third row, I don’t remember,” Vielle said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” Joanna said and hurried out to the parking lot.

  Vielle’s car was in the fourth row, at the very end, and it was three-thirty before Joanna located it and headed south to Englewood. He’ll be gone by the time I get there, she thought, but Mr. Briarley had always stayed later than the rest of the teachers, and even if he wasn’t there, she could get a phone number and an address from the people in the office. And places called up all sorts of memories—just standing in her old English classroom might be enough to jog her memory. It was something he said in a lecture, she thought, turning west on Hampden, or read out loud to us.

  It looked like it could snow any minute. Joanna parked as close as possible to the door that led to the English classrooms, and went up to the door. It was locked. A computer-printed sign taped to the glass said, “No visitors allowed in building without authorization. Please check in at main office.” A diagram with arrows indicated how to get there, which entailed tramping all the way around the building.

  They had done a lot of adding on since Joanna had been here. She rounded a long wing with a new auditorium at the end and came, finally, to the front door. Next to it were the words Dry Creek High School, and a pouncing tiger with purple-and-gold stripes.

  Purple and gold, Joanna thought, and suddenly remembered Sarah Dix and Lisa Meinecke in their cheerleader outfits coming in late in the middle of class and Mr. Briarley putting his textbook down on the desk and saying, “Where’s the Assyrian?”

  “Assyrian?” Lisa and Sarah had said, looking bewilderedly at each other.

  “Your cohort. ‘The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,’ ” Mr. Briarley had said, pointing at their short skirts with the purple-and-gold pleats. “ ‘And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.’ ”

  I knew it had something to do with high school, Joanna thought triumphantly. Richard’s wrong. It isn’t contentless. It means something, and Mr. Briarley knows what it is. She opened one of the double doors and walked through it into a gold-carpeted lobby, with wide wood-and-steel stairs leading up and down to three different levels. And a metal detector.

  A uniformed security guard was standing next to it, reading Clear and Present Danger. He put the paperback down as soon as Joanna came in and switched on the detector. “Can you tell me where I can find the office?” she asked.

  He nodded and indicated her bag. She handed it to him, thinking the ER could use a setup like this, and then tried to imagine the ambulance crew trying to get a metal gurney through it. All right, maybe not a metal detector, but something.

  The guard unzipped the compartments of her bag, poked through them, and handed the bag back to her. “I’m looking for a teacher I had when I went to school here,” she said. “Mr. Briarley?”

  The guard motioned her through the detector. “Up those steps and to the left,” he said, pointing, and picked up his paperback.

  The office of Mr. Briarley? Joanna wondered, going up the stairs, but of course he had meant the office. The wide, glassfronted space wasn’t anything like the cramped cubbyhole of a principal’s office she remembered, but there was a large sign taped to the glass that said, “All visitors must obtain a visitor’s pass upon entering the building.”

  Joanna went in. “Can I help you?” the middle-aged woman seated at a terminal said.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Briarley,” Joanna said, and at the woman’s uncomprehending look, “He teaches here.”

  The woman came over to the counter and consulted a laminated list. “We don’t have any faculty members by that name.”

  Joanna hadn’t even considered that possibility. “Do you know if he moved? Or retired?”

  The woman shook her head. “I’ve only worked here a year. You might check with the administration office.”

  “And where is that?”

  “4522 Bannock Street,” she said. “But they close at four.”

  Joanna looked at the clock on the wall behind the woman’s head. It said five to four. “What about a teacher who would have been here when he was?” Joanna said, wracking her brain trying to think of her other teachers’ names. “Is Mr. Hobert still here? Or Miss Husted?” she asked. What was the name of the PE teacher, the one everybody hated? A color. Mr. Green? Mr. Black? “What about Mr. Black?”

  The woman consulted her list. “No. Sorry.”

  “An English teacher then. Mr. Briarley taught senior English. Who teaches that class now?”

  “Ms. Forrestal, but she’s already left for the day.”

  “Can you give me her home number?”

  “We’re not allowed to give out that information. I’d suggest you contact the administration offices. They open at ten,” she said and walked back over to her terminal.

  “Thank you,” Joanna said and went out into the hall. Now what? she thought, walking back toward the stairs. The administration office was closed till tomorrow at ten, and they would only tell her the same thing, that they weren’t allowed to give out that information
.

  She started down the stairs toward the lobby. The guard, deep in his thriller, didn’t look up. She would have to come back tomorrow, during school, and see Ms. Forrestal-if the office would give her a visitor’s pass. And there was no guarantee that Ms. Forrestal would have Mr. Briarley’s address. Or be willing to give it to her. I need to just go up and down the halls and talk to teachers till I find someone who knew him, Joanna thought.

  She stopped, her hand on the railing, and looked across at the guard. He still hadn’t seen her. She retreated silently back up the stairs, wishing the office didn’t have such a large expanse of window, but the woman she’d talked to was bent over her terminal, typing something in. Joanna sped past the windows and into the stairwell at the far end. This is ridiculous, she thought, racing up the stairs. You’re going to get yourself expelled. Or worse, she amended, remembering the security guard’s shoulder holster.

  But when she paused for breath at the top of the stairs, there was no sound of shouts and cries, or even of following footsteps. She stepped out into the corridor. The English classrooms had been at the north end of the school, on the second floor. She went up to second at the first opportunity and started along the hall, looking for something, anything familiar.

  The high school had apparently employed the same architects as Mercy General. It was a maze of locker-lined halls and connecting walkways, and they all looked exactly alike except for the posters on the walls. And even the posters had changed radically. No posters with cut-out hearts advertising the Valentine Dance or the Sophomore Class Bake Sale. They all announced rape hot lines or listed the warning signs of anorexia and suicide. “Do you know someone at risk?” several of them asked.

  Most of the classroom doors were shut. She leaned into the ones that were open, but didn’t see anyone inside. The corridor made an abrupt ninety-degree turn, past a drunk-driving poster that proclaimed, “You can save a life!,” went up four steps, and zigzagged again. Joanna had no idea where she was, and there was no one she could ask directions of. The hallways were deserted.

  That’s because they can’t get in, Joanna thought, trying the locked classroom doors, peering in through the squares of glass in the doors. The hallway ended in a stairwell with a pale blue banner that asked, “Need Help?” Joanna flipped a mental coin, went down, and found herself outside what must be the band room. There was a battered-looking upright piano inside, surrounded by a semicircle of chairs and music stands. A tuba stood propped against the wall.

  “Excuse me,” Joanna said to the stout, balding man stacking sheet music on top of the piano. He wasn’t anyone she knew, but he was the right age to have been here when Mr. Briarley was, and he was cheerful-looking. “I’m looking for Mr. Briarley. He used to teach English here. I was wondering if you might know how I can get in touch with him, Mr.—” “Crenshaw. Do you have a visitor’s pass?” he said, looking pointedly at the lapel of her cardigan.

  “No,” Joanna said, and added hastily, “You see, I had Mr. Briarley for senior English. He was my favorite teacher, and I wanted to—”

  “No one is allowed in the building without a visitor’s pass,” Mr. Crenshaw said, still looking sternly at her chest. “It’s school policy.”

  “I only—” Joanna began, but he was already holding the door open.

  “You have no business being here. You need to go back to the office and sign in. Go down this hall,” he said, pointing, “and turn right, down the stairs, and then right again.” He ushered her out the door. “I don’t want to have to call Security.” He watched her all the way to the end of the hall, his arms crossed over his chest, making sure she turned right.

  He was right about one thing. She had no business being here. It was a wild goose chase. Mr. Briarley wasn’t here, and it was becoming obvious why he had left. She could imagine what his response to visitors’ passes and metal detectors would have been.

  She turned right and went down the hall, but there weren’t any stairs, just a hallway that led off at right angles in both directions. Mr. Crenshaw had said right. She went right. It ended in an outside door marked “Emergency Exit Only. Alarm Will Sound.” She went back and took the left-hand fork, wondering what time they locked the front doors.

  The place was a labyrinth, the kind you could get lost in forever. She began to long for another Mr. Crenshaw to order her back to the office. She would ask him to go with her to show her the way. But there was nobody in any of these classrooms. All the doors were locked up tight.

  This hall was deadending, too. There was a glass-fronted room at the end of it. The assistant principal’s office? No, his office had been midway down a hall. The library, she thought, recognizing it even though it had a sign saying “Media Resource Center.” Banks of terminals stood where the study tables had been, and she couldn’t see any books at all, but it was still the same library. And that meant she was at the south end of the building, as far from the English classrooms as it was possible to be.

  But at least it was something familiar, and the doors were open. She took off her cardigan and draped it over her arm with a sleeve showing, so the librarian might conclude her visitor’s badge was pinned to it, and went in.

  The librarian was younger than Joanna, but at least her eyes didn’t dart immediately to Joanna’s chest. “We’re just closing up,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “I doubt it,” Joanna said, thinking, I should just ask for directions back to the office. And a map. “I’m looking for Mr. Briarley. He used to teach senior English here.”

  “Oh, yeah, Mr. Briarley,” the librarian said. “My husband went to school here. He had him. He hated him.”

  “Do you know where I could find him?”

  “Gosh, no,” she said. “He wasn’t here when I came. I think I remember somebody saying that he’d died.”

  Died. That had somehow never occurred to her, which was ridiculous, considering she spent her whole life dealing with death. “Are you sure?”

  “Just a minute,” the librarian said, walking toward the stacks. “Myra? Didn’t you tell me Mr. Briarley had died? The English teacher?”

  A gray-haired woman emerged from the stacks, a pile of books pressed against her chest. “Mr. Briarley? No. He retired.”

  “Do you know how I could get in touch with him?” Joanna asked. “Is there anybody who might know his address?” but the old woman was already shaking her head.

  “Everybody who would have known him’s gone, too. The district offered an early-retirement bonus three years ago, and everybody who had over twenty years took it.”

  “And that was when Mr. Briarley retired? Three years ago?”

  “No, longer than that. I don’t know when.”

  “Well, thank you,” Joanna said. She reached in her bag for her card and handed it to the woman. “If you think of anybody who might know how I could find him, I can be reached at this number.”

  “I doubt if there’s anybody,” Myra said, pocketing the card without even looking at it.

  Joanna went over to the door. The young librarian was already locking up. She turned the key to let Joanna out. “Any luck?”

  Joanna shook her head.

  “He used to live over by DU. My husband pointed out his house to me one time.”

  Joanna’s pager began to beep. Not now, she thought, digging in her bag for it. She scrambled to turn it off. “Your husband showed you where Mr. Briarley’s house was?”

  She nodded, grinning. “He and a bunch of his friends had egged it the night before graduation.”

  “Do you remember the address?” Joanna said eagerly.

  “No. I don’t remember the name of the street either. It was next to the park with the observatory.”

  “Do you remember what the house looked like?”

  “Green,” the librarian said, squinting in thought. “Or white with green trim, I don’t remember. There was a weeping willow in the front yard. It was on the west side, I think.”

  “Thank you,”
Joanna said and went out the door. The librarian started to shut it behind her. “Oh, wait,” she said, putting her hand on the doorjamb. “One more quick question. Does an alarm go off if you open the outside doors?”

  “No,” the librarian said, bewildered, and Joanna took off down the hall and went out the first door she came to. It was still snowing, and she was, of course, on the opposite side of the building from her car, but she didn’t care. She knew where Mr. Briarley lived. Over by DU. The park with the observatory. She didn’t know the name of the street either, but she knew the park, and the observatory could be seen from Evans.

  She drove to University and turned north. A house with green on it and a weeping willow in front. Unless they had painted the house. Or the willow had died. Or Mr. Briarley had. “I remember somebody saying he had died,” the librarian had said, and just because Myra hadn’t told her that, didn’t mean she hadn’t heard it from somebody else. He had been middle-aged when Joanna had him, and more than ten years had gone by. And he might have retired early because he was ill. Or he could have gotten ill and died in the years since.

  Or moved away, she thought, turning east onto Evans and looking down side streets for the park. This area had been upper middle class a few years ago, but now a lot of the houses had been turned into apartments. There were “Apt. for Rent” signs in nearly every yard. For all she knew, the park wasn’t even there anymore.

  No, there it was, and the domed observatory still stood at the end of it, but the house on the corner had a “To Let” sign and parked out in front was a rusted Cadillac.

  She hadn’t seen the park in time to turn. She drove on to the next street, turned south, and drove back, looking for a willow tree and wishing she’d asked the librarian whether the house had been on the end of the block or in the middle.

  A green house with a willow tree. That meant it was probably a one-story brick with a crab apple out front. Or had belonged to some other teacher. “My husband hated him!” the librarian had said, which didn’t sound like Mr. Briarley. He could be sarcastic, and his tests had been notoriously difficult, but nobody had hated him. Even Ricky Inman, whose smart mouth had gotten him in trouble at least twice per class period, had loved him. It was Mr. Brown they’d hated.