Tess Gerritsen - The Silent Girl

“Excuse me. I’m looking for Mrs. Forsyth, the music director,” said Jane.

The three goddesses responded with passive stares. Even in their plaid 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 enough. That showed up in her entrance exam scores. And the first year she was here, she did fine. But after her parents divorced, everything went downhill for her and she barely passed most of her classes. Of course we felt sorry for her, but half our students come from divorced families. They’re able to adjust and move on. Charlotte never did. She just remained a morose girl. It’s as if, just by her poor-me attitude, she attracted bad luck.”

For a woman who didn’t like to speak ill of the dead, Mrs. Forsyth certainly had no trouble letting loose.

“She can hardly be blamed for losing her mother,” Jane pointed out.

“No, of course not. That was awful, that shooting in Chinatown. But have you ever noticed the way misfortune seems to target certain people? They’ll lose their spouse, their job, and get cancer all in the same year. That was Charlotte, always gloomy, always attracting bad luck. Which may be why she didn’t seem to have a lot of friends.”

This was certainly not the impression of Charlotte that Jane had picked up from talking with Patrick. It surprised her to hear about this side of the girl.

“In the school yearbook, she seemed to have a healthy list of activities,” Jane said. “Music, for instance.”

Mrs. Forsyth nodded. “She was a decent violist, but her heart never seemed to be in it. Only in her junior year did she finally manage to pass the auditions for the Boston summer orchestra workshop. But it helped that she played the viola. They’re always in demand.”

“How many of your students attend that workshop?”

“At least a few every year. It’s the best in New England, taught by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Very selective.” Mrs. Forsyth paused. “I know who you’re going to ask about next. That Chinese girl who disappeared, right?”

Jane nodded. “You read my mind. Her name was Laura Fang.”

“I understand she was a talented girl. That’s what I heard after she vanished. A number of my students attended the workshop with her.”

“But not Charlotte?”

“No. Charlotte didn’t pass the audition until the year after Laura disappeared, so they wouldn’t have met each other. Another question you were about to ask, I’m sure.”

“You remember all these details, even after nineteen years?”

“Because I just went over it again with that detective.”

“Which detective?”

“I can’t remember his name. It was a few weeks ago. I’d have to check my appointment book.”

“I’d appreciate it if you looked up his name right now, ma’am.”

A look of irritation flickered in the woman’s eyes, as if this was more effort than she cared to make. But she crossed to her desk and rummaged through a drawer until she came up with a daily planner. Flipping back through the pages, she gave a nod. “Here. He called me April second to schedule an appointment. I thought he looked a bit old to be a detective, but I guess experience counts for something.”

A bit old. And asking about missing girls . “Was his name Detective Ingersoll?” Jane asked.

Mrs. Forsyth glanced up. “So you do know him.”

“Haven’t you heard the news? Detective Ingersoll is dead. He was shot to death last week.”

The appointment book tumbled from Mrs. Forsyth’s hands and slapped onto her desk. “My God. No, I didn’t know.”

“Why was he here, Mrs. Forsyth? Why was he asking about Charlotte?”

“I assumed it was her father pushing for it, still hoping for answers. I mentioned it to Mark Mallory at the alumni dinner a few weeks ago, but he didn’t know anything about it.”

“Did you ask Mr. Dion?”

She flushed. “The Bolton Academy avoids any contact whatsoever with Mr. Dion. To avoid dredging up… bad feelings.”

“Tell me exactly what Detective Ingersoll said to you.”

The woman sank into the chair behind her desk. Suddenly she looked smaller and less formidable, stunned by this intrusion of the brutal outside world into her sheltered universe of books and orchestral scores. “I’m sorry, give me a moment to think about it…” She swallowed. “He didn’t actually ask very much about Charlotte. It was more about the other girl.”