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11
THE NEXT MORNING I AM called into Dean Wharton’s office right after morning announcements.
I stand in front of his burnished wooden desk and try not to think of the pictures I saw of him, with Mina’s bare hand parting the collar of his starched white shirt. I guess everyone has a dark side, but I don’t think I was prepared for that to extend to elderly Wallingford faculty.
Wharton’s not a guy that I’ve thought a lot about. He’s the dean of students, probably close to retirement age, with tufts of carefully combed-over silver hair on his head. He’s never much liked me, but I’ve always given him plenty of reasons to feel that way, what with my bookmaking operation, the sleepwalking, and my mother being a convicted criminal.
I feel like I’m looking at him with fresh eyes now, though. I see today’s newspaper, half-hidden in a stack of files, open to the crossword, a few shaky blue pen marks in the margins. I see the cap of a pill case under the desk and a single yellow pill. And perhaps most telling of all, I see the tremble in his left hand, which might be a nervous tic but shows how close he’s playing to the edge. But then maybe I am reading him backward—seeing what I want to see. I know he’s doing something bad, so I expect him to be nervous.
I just wish I knew exactly what he was doing.
“Mr. Sharpe, being in my office twice in as many weeks does not bode well for any student.” His tone is as sternly exasperated as ever.
“I know that, sir,” I say, as contritely as possible.
“You cut your morning classes yesterday, young man. Did you think there wouldn’t be any consequences?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t feeling well, sir.”
“Oh, is that right? And do you have a note from the nurse’s office?”
“I just went back to sleep. Then, when I was feeling better, I went to class.”
“So, no note?” he asks, raising both silver brows.
Okay, so say Mina’s a luck worker. Say he has a gambling problem. Maybe he’s coming up on retirement and realizes—for whatever reason—that he doesn’t have enough socked away. I figure he’s a guy who, at least mostly, stuck to the straight and narrow. But honest people get screwed too. The bottom falls out of the market. A family member gets sick and insurance doesn’t even begin to cover it. For whatever reason, maybe he veers off the path.
My eye is drawn to the single yellow pill on the carpet.
Hiring a luck worker is pretty easy. He wouldn’t need to target a student, although I guess maybe, being so straightlaced, he didn’t know where else to go. But using luck work to win at gambling is a pretty uncertain proposition. Although sometimes people can get around it, most racetracks and casinos have ways to control for luck work.
Of course, he might need luck for some other reason. Maybe Northcutt is leaving and he wants to be the new headmaster.
“No note,” I say.
“You’re going to serve a Saturday detention with me, right here in this office, Cassel. I want you here at ten in the morning. No excuses. Or you’re going to get that third demerit you’re flirting with.”
I nod. “Yes, sir.”
The pill under his desk might be nothing. It could be aspirin or allergy medicine. But I don’t have many clues, and I want this one. I should drop something, but all the little stuff that it would make sense to be holding is in my bag. I don’t have keys or a pen or anything.
“You can go,” he tells me, handing over a hall pass without really looking. I think about dropping that, but I imagine it fluttering to the floor far from where I need it to be. It’s impossible to aim paper.
I stand and take a few steps toward the door before I have an idea. It’s not a very good one. “Uh, excuse me, Dean Wharton?”
He glances up, brows knitted.
“Sorry. I dropped my pen.” I walk over to his desk and bend down, grabbing for the pill. He pushes back his chair so he can look, but I’m up again fast.
“Thanks,” I say, walking to the door before he can think too much about it.
As I start down the stairs, I look at the pill in my hand. There are ways to search online to find out about medication. You can put in details—like the color and shape and markings—and get a whole gallery of pills to compare against. I don’t have to do any of that, because this pill has ARICEPT stamped into the top and 10 on the other side.
I know what it is; I’ve seen the commercials on late-night television.
It’s medication to control Alzheimer’s.
* * *
