further back, when people used sundials.” Someone gasped, but Bobby was too involved to notice who or wonder why. “Would it even be possible to use a sundial to organize, say, a field hockey game?
“Then I’d move to the practical module.” Bobby was full of enthusiasm now. “Maybe this is a little unorthodox, but I noticed you have a sundial out there in the quadrangle, and it might be fun to take the class out there, kind of like a…” Bobby noticed suddenly that the chatter in the room had died away and everyone was looking at Miss Craybill and her in consternation. “A little field trip,” Bobby wound up lamely.
Miss Otis wore an expression of helpless horror and Miss Craybill—she no longer looked like a little bird, but a sick woman. Her eyes were not quite focused in her bloodless face, and her hand was to her chest, as if she had difficulty breathing. “I feel unwell,” she said. The housekeeper sprang to Miss Craybill’s side and supported her as she stumbled unsteadily out of the room.
As the flabbergasted gym teacher wondered what was so terrible about timekeeping, Miss Otis yanked her into the shadow of one of the granite gargoyles that flanked the fireplace. “Didn’t Mona explain?” she hissed.
The murmur of conversation had begun again in the rest of the faculty lounge. “Explain what?” said Bobby, bewildered.
“About Miss Froelich!”
“She said she died, that’s all.”
“Oh, my dear.” Miss Otis blew her breath out in exasperation. “Nerissa Froelich fell from Kent Tower this past June. She landed next to the sundial, and that’s where Miss Craybill found her—dead.”
Chapter Four
A Picnic with Elaine
The afternoon sun beat down on the still campus as Bobby emerged from Cornwall and walked swiftly down the road to the big stone gates. No one else seemed to be stirring and that suited her fine; she didn’t want to answer any questions about where she was going.
At the gate she leaned against the cool gray pillar, shaded by a big pine tree, and ran her fingers through her hair. She glanced at her wristwatch. Elaine had said 3:30.
A cold beer in a dim bar with Elaine looking adoringly across the table at her, that’s what Bobby needed. And then later they’d go back to the Ellman mansion—of course, Elaine would drop Bobby off first on a deserted stretch of Glen Valley Road, so she could sneak around the back way and they wouldn’t be seen together. But except for the sneaking around part, it would be almost like that poem Elaine had recited when they’d first strolled on the green lawn in front of the hospital, about thou and I and a jug of wine or something. Bobby couldn’t remember the exact words. But she remembered Elaine wearing her candy striper uniform and reciting it, looking like a younger Nina Foch, a slender brunette with a husky voice.
The smooth purr of Elaine’s little blue Triumph announced her arrival. Bobby slid into the passenger seat. “Hi, honey,” she said, leaning over for a kiss. But Elaine was already wrestling the car into a narrow U-turn, pointing it back toward Adena. “Not here,” she said instantly.
“Afraid the squirrels will tell?” Bobby couldn’t help asking.
“Don’t sulk.” Elaine glanced over at the disappointed gym teacher and demanded, “What on earth are you wearing a skirt for?”
Bobby looked down at her cotton skirt, then back at Elaine. “Aren’t we going to the Flame Inn?”
Elaine shifted gears impatiently. “Bobby, you know I can’t afford to be seen with you in a place like that.”
“Who’s going to notice? Who’s going to care if two girlfriends have a quiet drink together?”
It was an argument they’d had before and Bobby knew how it would play out, like a scene in a movie she’d watched too many times.
“A girl in my position gets gossiped about,” said Elaine on cue. “And we don’t look like we do our nails together.”
Elaine was picky about appearances, and it was hard to predict what would please her. Bobby’s penchant for pants in public always made Elaine uneasy. But when Bobby was forced to forgo her favorite dungarees for a skirt, Elaine complained she “didn’t look like herself.”
“That’s why I wore the darned skirt,” Bobby argued halfheartedly. “And who’s going to know you in a hick town like Adena anyway?”
Elaine arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you notice the Ellman Cycle store on the corner of Main and Mesquakie? It’s one of the top-selling stores in this part of the state. The manager sat at our table at the annual sales dinner. He’s been to our house!”
Bobby was silenced. That was the drawback of being with a girl like Elaine Ellman, daughter of Eddie Ellman, granddaughter of Erwin Ellman, the founder of Ellman’s Bicycles. Ellman bicycles were everywhere. And Elaine was convinced every salesman was reporting her activities back to her overprotective father.
“So where are we going?”
“I thought we’d have a picnic at Mesquakie Point.”
“A picnic,” Bobby repeated.
“Well, where are we supposed to go?” Elaine blew up. “You’re the one who had to take this crazy job out in the sticks! Games Mistress!”
Bobby held her tongue as Elaine turned right onto Mesquakie Point Road. Clearly the young candy striper was in one of her irritable moods, when the littlest thing was liable to set her off. Bobby reminded herself of the pressure Elaine was under—her candy-striping duties kept her on the go three afternoons a week, and innumerable social obligations claimed the rest of her time. It was no wonder she was out of sorts.
“Take that left up ahead,” Bobby suggested after they’d driven a few minutes in silence.
“Why? The picnic grounds are this way.”
“Ole Amundsen, Metamora’s groundskeeper, told me this road goes all the way to the point and no one ever uses it. He says there’s better spots here than the public picnic grounds. It’ll be nice and—private.”
“Oh, you! You only have one thing on your mind.” But Elaine made the turn and Bobby knew she wasn’t really annoyed. At the hospital, Elaine had always been ready to duck into an empty occupational therapy room for some heavy petting.
Several minutes later the Triumph bumped off the road and stopped between two majestic firs. Bobby lifted the picnic basket from the trunk and carried it through a grove of younger trees and brush to the clearing while Elaine followed with a heavy blanket. There was no sound but the wind in the trees and, faint in the distance, the rushing water of the Muskrat River rapids. Bobby set down the picnic basket and helped Elaine spread the blanket. She noticed a faint indentation in the ground, and a ragged line of stones. “Look.” She kicked one of the stones, half buried in the earth. “It’s an old foundation stone. We’re picnicking in someone’s front yard.”
“Whose? This has been a state park forever.”
“One of the massacred settlers, probably. Don’t you know the state park is here because of the massacre?”
“I’d forgotten.” Elaine shivered. “It gives me the willies. Should we look for someplace else?”
“We’re fine here,” said Bobby, dropping to the blanket and lying back. She reached up her hand. “I’ll chase any ghosts away.”
Elaine took her hand and Bobby felt instantly the almost electric charge between them, a current that pulled its power from the sneaking around, their little spats, the famous Ellman name, the innocent candy-striper uniform, even Bobby’s new status as a teacher. She drew Elaine down next to her on the striped blanket. Elaine lay back, her eyes half closed as Bobby pulled Elaine’s blouse out of the waistband of her skirt so she could slide one hand underneath while she undid the buttons with her other hand. Elaine lay passively, a little smile on her lips, doing nothing