Read Online Switch by William Bayer - Free Book Online

school. She thought we'd be interested, I guess, since her mother and I are both schoolteachers, too. Actually I think she was very content living the way she did. We didn't pry, because there were areas she didn't seem to want to talk about."
    "Such as?"
    "Her love life. Her social life. Things like that."
    "But you just told us you didn't think she had any kind of love life."
    "That's what we thought, but how do we know for sure? We took what she said at face value. She never tried to deceive us, but if either my wife or I pressed too hard she'd just shake her head and laugh. 'Come on, Mom. Come off it, Daddy,' she'd say, and then we'd let it go because clearly she didn't want to talk about it. That was her privilege and we respected her feelings, of course."
    "What about this art teacher?"
    "Gary Pierson. She mentioned him. They went out a few times, and then became close friends. She told us he was gay."
    "Did you meet him?"
    "Yesterday. That was the only time. Up at Weston, in the headmistress's office. They told us he found her and he wanted to meet us if we came. He is a very nice young man. I felt he was pretty broken up. He took my wife in his arms and sobbed. I'm happy Mandy had a friend like that. He seemed like a person who really cared."
    "What about the other people at Weston?"
    "They were very nice to us, but frankly I thought they were more concerned about the reputation of the school, and finding a new French teacher in time for their opening next week. They're going to hold a memorial for Mandy and they asked us to stay for it, or else come down again. I doubt we will. My wife wants to go back to Buffalo this afternoon, so that's what we're going to do. Gary's going to clean out the apartment when you people say he can. The body will be shipped to us and we'll bury her at home."
    He paused, smiled, then his mouth turned bitter. "Mandy was an old-fashioned kind of girl and I guess what happened to her is what happens to an old-fashioned girl these days. The papers call her 'socialite' and 'debutante.' She wasn't either one. She happened to teach at a school where some socialites send their children and where some of the students become debutantes, so when she was killed all of a sudden it was 'East Side Society Girl Murdered in Her Bed,' and then, when nothing happened, and there weren't any sensational revelations, the powers that be decided she was boring and dropped the story and that's the end of it as far as New York City is concerned. In a month the landlord will paint up the apartment, double the rent, and there won't even be a trace that she was here. The city will absorb her death as it absorbs so many things and we'll be left upstate with all our grief and pain."
    Janek met his eyes. Ireland was angry, and he was showing his anger the only way he could. He wasn't the kind of man who spoke bitterly very often, but now, Janek saw, he would begin to speak bitterly more and more. His friends would notice and say his daughter's death had marked him. They'd point to Ireland's bitterness and his wife's lament and whisper cautiously of tragedy.
    "We take this case very seriously, Mr. Ireland. We're not going to forget about it even if the papers do. There are five of us, detectives, and we're working on it very hard. We'll continue to work until we find who did it and bring him in with proof."
    "And then what? He plea bargains, goes to a mental hospital or makes a deal with the prosecutors and gets six to eight in Attica? We know what goes on and I tell you now it won't make one iota of difference to me. I have personally resolved never to inquire into your investigation. I don't want to know about it, because however it comes out it's not going to satisfy me at all. Now I don't want to be rude, but I don't think there's anything else I have to say. She came down here of her own free choice and lived her life and ended up getting killed. Some succeed down here and some fail and some find love and happiness