While the coroner busied herself with the body, two EMTs rolled a trolley toward the body and stopped, waiting. Phoebe wondered where Lily’s parents were. It would be horrible for them to come upon this scene.
Phoebe glanced back at the people who had gathered around her. Many of them seemed to live in the apartments above the shops and bars across the street or in some of the small old houses that climbed up from the river. There were also a few people in jogging clothes, who, like her, must have come off the river path. At the very fringe of the crowd were four guys in jeans and saggy sweatshirts who Phoebe thought must be Lyle College students. Two of them were talking animatedly on cell phones. It would be only minutes, Phoebe thought, before the entire campus was on fire with the news.
Inside the police tape, the officials mostly milled around, talking to each other or speaking into cell phones and walkie-talkies. The coroner touched her right hand to the ground for leverage and stood up. She nodded, just one flick of the head down and up to the EMTs, who zipped the dead girl into a black body bag and hoisted it onto the trolley. They rolled the trolley to a dark-colored van and lifted it inside. A minute later the van pulled away, with the coroner in the passenger seat, followed shortly afterward by the ambulance. The ambulance was leaving empty.
No sooner had the two vehicles driven away than two cars turned from Bridge Street onto River Street and parked, one behind the other, in front of the hardware store. One was an SUV with “Lyle College Campus Police” on the door. The other was a white Mini Cooper. Phoebe saw that Glenda was sitting hunched over in the passenger seat of the Mini Cooper, as if she’d been shoehorned into the space.
The campus cop in the SUV jumped out first. Phoebe wasn’t sure of his name, but she recognized him. He was the head honcho, one of the two she’d seen in the thick of things outside Curry Hall the night before last. He was about forty, with thick silver hair, and he was oddly tanned for this time of year. She didn’t know the older woman who emerged from the car with Glenda, but she assumed the woman was part of the college administration. The three of them hurried in unison toward the park. Phoebe waved toward Glenda. When her friend caught the gesture, she signaled with a raised finger that she would join Phoebe in a minute.
It turned out to be longer than that. After the campus cop exchanged a few words with one of the town cops inside the cordoned-off area, the yellow tape was lifted and the three delegates from the school were ushered inside. A man in a sports jacket immediately approached them, likely a detective. At several points the detective shook his head back and forth, as if the group from the college kept asking him questions he either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Phoebe shifted from one foot to the other. She hated being on the other side of the tape, not knowing what was going on.
After about fifteen minutes Glenda and the older woman ducked back out under the yellow tape and, with Glenda in the lead, walked toward Phoebe. The crowd had continued to balloon, and now there were at least a hundred people rimming the park. Phoebe backed her bike up so that she and Glenda would intersect in a more private spot. As soon they reached each other, Phoebe saw that her friend’s eyes were strained with worry.
“It’s definitely her?” Phoebe asked, though she knew the answer.
“Yes. She’s barely recognizable, but the clothes and jewelry match. Phoebe, do you know Madeline Bloom—our VP?”
“Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances,” Madeline said, offering a very firm handshake. She was probably close to sixty, short and shaped like a fireplug. She looked like the kind of person who got the job done, no matter what it was.
“Did the cops use cadaver dogs?” Phoebe asked.
“No, a boater spotted the body a little north of here, bobbing in the water. This was the easiest place to bring it to shore.”
She was floating along the river as I rode my bike, Phoebe thought sadly—maybe just a short distance from me through the trees.
“Do they have any idea what happened?” Phoebe asked. She kept her voice low, aware that they were the focus of attention now. Phoebe realized that even if some Lyle residents had never seen Glenda, they probably knew that a tall, attractive black woman ran the college, and this had to be her.
“They were pretty tight-lipped,” Glenda said. “The only thing they volunteered was that there doesn’t seem to be any obvious sign of foul play—though of course, nothing is certain until they do the autopsy.”
Then what happened? Phoebe wondered. Could Lily have killed herself? That thought was as chilling as the notion that the girl had been murdered.
“I overheard one interesting tidbit when you were talking to the detectives,” Madeline volunteered in a near whisper, and Glenda and Phoebe turned to her in unison. “A couple of the cops were talking about a sweater. I got the feeling Lily was wearing one earlier, but they haven’t been able to find it.”
“That could be a key detail,” Phoebe said. She turned to Glenda. “And what about Lily’s parents?”
“The police are going to break the news, but Tom is planning to head over to the hotel later,” Glenda said. “I need to get back to campus and deal with everything else.” She glanced down at Phoebe’s bike. “You biked down?”
“No, I came by car.”
“Give me a lift back to campus then, will you? That way Madeline can hang here and see if she can pick up any new information.” She turned to the VP. “Stay on top of Craig, okay?”
Madeline snickered. “Oh, that sounds like fun,” she said.
“He’ll want to box you out, but don’t let him,” Glenda said.
“I hear you,” Madeline said, and held Glenda’s eyes knowingly. “I’ll call you with an update in a little while.”
While Glenda slid into the passenger seat of the car, Phoebe loaded her bike into the trunk. Backing out of the parking lot a minute later, Phoebe saw people trailing Glenda with their eyes. Her friend kept her own eyes ahead, her expression neutral, until they were two blocks away. Then she covered her face with her hands.
“What a nightmare,” Glenda said, her voice muffled.
“I know,” Phoebe said. “I just keep wondering how in hell she ended up in that river.”
“No matter what happened, it’s bad for the school, of course,” Glenda said, lowering her hands. “If she got drunk and fell in, that’s bad. If someone killed her, that’s bad. If she killed herself, that’s bad. We’re expecting a record number of applicants this year. Can you imagine what this could do to admissions?”
She looked over at Phoebe. “Sorry, I know I’m sounding selfish. I feel terrible about this poor girl. And I feel sick for her parents. But I have to think of the college, too.”
“Of course,” Phoebe said. “By the way, I talked to Lily’s roommate yesterday. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know a thing about any secret society. But Tom Stockton and I are supposed to meet in a few hours, and once he’s briefed me, I can really dig in.”
Glenda shifted in her seat, and Phoebe could sense her friend studying her with her deep brown eyes.
“You’re okay with this, right? I mean, looking into the Sixes.”
“I told you, I don’t want Stockton thinking I’m stepping on his toes, but I’ll make it work.”
“No, I mean are you okay digging into something like this, considering . . . considering your own experience?”
Phoebe cocked her head and smiled faintly. “Well, isn’t that partly why you asked me to do it?” she said quietly.