The Groaning Board

Carlos will collect her at six-thirty at her humble abode. No excuses.
Okay?”
    “Okay.” She dried her eyes after she
hung up. When her private line rang, she reached for it without thinking. Heavy
breathing. The breather was back again. She hissed into the phone, then
followed Metzger’s instructed routine, hang up, press star fifty-seven, hang
up. As soon as she did, the phone rang again. “Yes?” she answered cautiously.
    “Leslie,” Bill Veeder said. He seemed
surrounded by noise. “How are you doing?”
    “Not great. Where are you?”
    “At the Federal Building. Can we have
dinner?”
    “No. I’ll call you at home later.”
She cradled the phone quickly, not giving him a chance to plead his case, which
she knew very well was without foundation.
    “Lunch,” Darlene called cheerily,
coming up the stairs with a brown paper shopping bag.
    “That was fast,” Smith said.
    “I was going out for mine, so I
picked up yours too.“
    “Such a dear, isn’t she, Wetzon?”
    “Oh, yes, absolutely,” Wetzon said.
She smoothed the accordion-pleated message with her palm and dialed the number
Dr. Furgason had left. It was a 516 area code, which meant Long Island. East
Hampton, no doubt, where the parents of Colton scholars congregated of a
summer. A man’s voice answered on the third ring.
    “Dr. Furgason? This is Leslie Wetzon.
Am I disturbing you at home?”
    “Thank you for returning my call, Ms.
Wetzon. The school is closed down for the next three weeks while we’re being
painted. Ms. Wetzon, I was wondering how your investigation was coming along,
particularly in the light of Ms. Devora’s rather shocking death. I want to be
sure that the Colton School is not tainted by this affair in any way.“
    “Thus far, Dr. Furgason, I believe we
are in the clear, although the police may want to talk with you—especially if
they learn of the scene Ms. Devora made about Ellen Moore’s losing the chance
at Hopkins to Stacy Morgenstern.”
    After a rather long and peculiar pause,
Dr. Furgason said, “I’m not following you, Ms. Wetzon.”
    “The anti-Semitic accusations... Dr.
Furgason. You told me about the scene Micklynn Devora—”
    “I’m sorry, Ms. Wetzon. I did tell
you about it, but I must not have made myself clear. The woman involved in the
regrettable incident, the woman who made the accusations, was not Ms. Devora.”
    “Then who—?”
    “My understanding is that it was Ms.
Devora’s partner, a Ms. A. T. Barron.”

Chapter Fifty-One

     
     
     
    A. T. Barron answered her phone on the first ring. “Ellen?” Her
voice quavered.
    “No, it’s Leslie Wetzon. I wonder if
I can come over and talk with you this afternoon.”
    “Really, Leslie...” The chill was on.
“We have nothing to talk about.”
    “It will only take a few minutes.
It’s about Micklynn. How is three-thirty or four?”
    “Oh, very well. Make it four.”
    “How is Ellen doing?”
    “She’s very upset. You and Micklynn
were becoming thick as thieves, so I’m sure she must have told you. First
Ellen’s father, then her mother. Now Micklynn.”
    “It’s very understandable. I’ll see
you at four.”
     
    The entrance to the block-long Beaux
Arts building where A.T. lived was just off Riverside Drive in the Eighties. It
had vaulting frescoed ceilings and a marble lobby that went clear through to
the next block, interrupted only by a courtyard with three marble nymphs
holding a politely gushing fountain.
    In spite of the fact that the
pre-World War I building had been designated a landmark and repairs were costly
within the guidelines set by the Landmarks Commission, when an apartment came
on the market, a rare event, it was the seller’s bonanza. The rooms were
palatial, with wood paneling, mar-ble-manteled working fireplaces, yawning
ceilings and gigantic bathrooms.
    Landmark it might be, Wetzon thought,
but the plumbing was old. How fragile the pipes and how often the leaks?
    From Seventy-second Street to
Ninety-sixth Street, Riverside Drive was a gracious winding road leading up to
the westernmost part of the Upper West Side. Elegant town houses and apartment
buildings looked out on Riverside Park, a rather eccentric boat basin at
Seventy-ninth Street, and the Hudson River, across which could be seen the
cliffs of New Jersey.
    It was an expensive place to live, as
well as hideously cold. In the winter, west winds whipped without mercy across
the frigid Hudson, rattling and at times even breaking windows