The Groaning Board

“Miss Gelber was
I the one who recommended me for Johns Hopkins.” They climbed a flight of
stairs.
    “She was your English teacher?”
    “Yes. She was wonderful.”
    “So I hear.”
    “She was very popular. Everyone
wanted her for junior English. I can’t believe she’s dead. It’s down here at
the end of the hall. Dr. Furgason’s office, I mean.”
    Wetzon hesitated. A detective would
just say it to see what reaction it got. So she said, “Someone murdered Sheila
Gelber.”
    The reaction she got was one she
hadn’t bargained for. Stacy stopped, then looked furtively around the empty
halls.
    “I know,” she said. “It really scares
me.”
    “Scares you? What does Miss Gelber’s
murder have to do with you?”
    Stacy lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Please don’t tell anyone. I’d die if anyone... I mean... I don’t want
anyone...”
    Wetzon took the girl’s hand. It was
ice cold, and it wasn’t from the air conditioning. “Stacy, if you know
something about Miss Gelber’s murder, you must tell the police.”
    “Are you from the police?”
    “No. I’m looking into Miss Gelber’s
death for a client.”
    The girl gnawed her lip, then
blurted, “It was like that thing that happened in Texas. You know, when the
mother hired someone to kill her daughter’s competition. The—”
    “Stacy? What are you doing down
there? Where’s Ms. Wetzon?”
    Stacy and Wetzon moved apart quickly.
A horsey-faced woman in a lemon linen suit and a ponytail of streaked hair
stood braced like a guard dog in the doorway at the end of the hall.
    “I—” Stacy looked as if she’d gotten
caught raiding the cookie jar.
    “She was showing me around,” Wetzon
called.
    “Dr. Furgason is waiting to see you,
Ms. Wetzon,” the guard dog reproved.
    Wetzon slipped Stacy her card.
“What’s your phone number?”
    “We’re in the book. My father’s name
is Stuart.”
    “Thank you for the mini tour, Stacy,”
Wetzon said, raising her voice. “And good luck at Johns Hopkins.”
    Dr. Orson R. Furgason’s hair was long
on one side, parted behind one ear, and combed over the top of his head to
cover his baldness. The face beneath was jowly and self-righteous, the chin
weak. His suit was a well-cut summer-weight wool in a faint herringbone
pattern. He couldn’t have been much older than Wetzon, but he maintained an
aura of ponderous academic gravity just short of pomposity. However, he rose
when she was shown into his office, offered her a dry, firm handshake, and
waited until she was seated before he sat. His nails were manicured.
    A window air conditioner of not
recent vintage maintained a persistent groan. Wetzon handed him her card. “We’re
looking into the death of Sheila Gelber,” she told him, deciding to get
straight to the point.
    “I told the police everything I
know,” the headmaster said, a trifle too quickly. “A tragic event. Particularly
so for our faculty and students. She was a very pleasant woman and an excellent
teacher. What is your interest, Ms. Wetzon?”
    “I’m a management consultant. My firm
looks into potentially damaging situations for our clients.”
    “Your clients?” Furgason picked up a
medallion of some sort and shifted it from one hand to the other, again and
again.
    “Financial institutions, insurance...
with generous funds for donation...“
    “Well, of course, we want to
cooperate.” Little beads of sweat appeared on his upper lip.
    “Was there perhaps a potentially
embarrassing incident or event involving Sheila Gelber at Colton before her
death?” She was on to something: Furgason’s eyes had shifted away from her.
    “Oh,” he said. “Really... it was
nothing. Nothing at all. A misunderstanding, is all.”
    “I think you’d better explain, Dr. Furgason. After
all, we want to be prepared in case of a lawsuit... the family…”
    The
headmaster blanched and jumped up, drew the blinds of his windows as if he was
afraid someone would read their lips. “A lawsuit? We can’t have that. No, it
wasn’t anything, really.”
    “Why not tell me what happened and
let us decide?”
    He sighed, sat down heavily. With the
medallion in his hands again, he said, “The Johns Hopkins summer fellowship. It
goes to the third-year student with the most outstanding record in English.
This year we had two girls who qualified. It was up to Ms. Gelber to make the
final decision. She chose Stacy Morgenstern. The other girl was extremely upset.”
    “That’s understandable.