The Silent Girl

ANE LEFT B ROOKLINE and drove west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, the afternoon sun was in her eyes. She made good time to Worcester, but the drive north from that point was slow, on secondary roads where traffic funneled into a single lane because of repaving work. By the time she reached the Bolton Academy, it was nearly five PM. She drove through the front gate, onto a curving drive shaded by ancient oak trees. At the main hall, three girls sat chatting on the stone steps. They did not even bother to look up as Jane parked and climbed out of her car. They appeared to be fifteen or sixteen, all of them slim and pretty, perfectly designed by Mother Nature to fulfill their biological purpose on earth and attract young men.
    “Excuse me. I’m looking for Mrs. Forsyth, the music director,” said Jane.
    The three goddesses responded with passive stares. Even in theirplaid skirts and white cotton blouses, they managed to make Jane feel hopelessly unfashionable.
    “She’s in Bennett Hall,” one of the girls finally said.
    “Where’s that?”
    The girl extended a graceful arm to point at the stately building across the lawn. “There.”
    “Thanks.” As Jane walked across the lawn, she felt their eyes following her, the alien specimen from the world of merely ordinary people. So this was what boarding school was like, not a fun place like Hogwarts at all. More like sorority hell. She came to the steps of Bennett Hall and gazed up at the white columns, the elaborately carved pediment. It’s like scaling Mount Olympus, she thought as she climbed the stairs into the central hall.
    The sound of a scratchy violin drifted from the corridor to her left. She followed it to a classroom where a teenage girl sat bowing with fierce concentration while a silver-haired woman frowned at her.
    “For heaven’s sake, Amanda, your vibrato sounds like a high-tension wire! It makes me nervous just listening to it. And you’re practically strangling the neck. Relax your wrist.” The woman tugged at the girl’s left hand and gave it a hard shake. “Come on, loosen up!”
    The student suddenly noticed Jane and froze. The woman turned and said: “Yes?”
    “Mrs. Forsyth? I called earlier. I’m Detective Rizzoli.”
    “We’re just finishing up here.” The teacher turned to her student and sighed. “You’re all tensed up today, so there’s no point continuing the lesson. Go back to the dorm and practice shaking your wrists. Both hands. Above all, a violinist must have flexible wrists.”
    Resignedly the girl packed up her instrument. She was about to walk out of the room when she abruptly stopped and said to Jane: “You said you’re a detective. Are you, like, with the police?”
    Jane nodded. “Boston PD.”
    “That is
so
cool! I want to be an FBI agent someday.”
    “Then you should go for it. The Bureau could use more women.”
    “Yeah, tell that to my parents. They say police work is for
other
people,” she muttered and slouched out of the room.
    “I’m afraid that girl is never going to be much of a musician,” said Mrs. Forsyth.
    “The last I heard,” said Jane, “playing the violin isn’t a requirement for the FBI.”
    That sarcastic remark did not win Jane any points with this woman. Mrs. Forsyth eyed her coolly. “You said you had questions, Detective?”
    “About one of your students from nineteen years ago. She was in the school orchestra. Played the viola.”
    “You’re here about Charlotte Dion, aren’t you?” Seeing Jane’s nod, the woman sighed. “Of course it
would
be about Charlotte. The one student no one ever lets us forget. Even all these years later, Mr. Dion still blames us, doesn’t he? For losing his daughter.”
    “It would be hard for any parent to accept. You can understand that.”
    “Boston PD thoroughly investigated her disappearance, and they never considered our school negligent. We had more than enough chaperones on that excursion, a ratio of one to six. And these weren’t toddlers on the outing, these were teenagers. We shouldn’t have to babysit them.” She added under her breath, “But with Charlotte, maybe we should have.”
    “Why?”
    Mrs. Forsyth paused. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “Was Charlotte difficult?”
    “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.”
    “I think the dead would want justice served.”
    After a moment the woman nodded. “I’ll just say this about her: She was not one of our academic stars. Oh, she was bright