Free Cold Case by Linda Barnes Page A

wished I’d dressed better. Still, it was hot and old money doesn’t flaunt its presence.
    I touched my fingertips to my forehead and breathed a deep sigh. “It’s only that my sister, Helen, called last night and begged me to take a look around. She’s raising two children in Colombia, South America, you know. Political unrest. She hates letting them go, but lately she’s been thinking of sending them to school in the States.”
    â€œWe have quite a few foreign students,” the woman said, her eyes brightening as I dangled two hefty tuition fees.
    â€œHelen, my sister, was planning to do the rounds herself. B, B, and N, Southfield, Phillips-Andover, but she had to go in for minor surgery, and the recovery period just stretched and stretched.”
    â€œYou’re not talking about a fall placement?”
    â€œI know it’s late. You’re probably full.” I tried to look apologetic and contrite.
    â€œWe do have a waiting list.”
    â€œI told my sister it was too late,” I said, turning away, accepting defeat graciously.
    â€œWe might have an opening or two for next September,” the woman said.
    I paused, feigning reluctance, checking my wristwatch as though I had a tight schedule.
    â€œNext September,” I said, summoning up a sigh of regret. “Those kids need someplace now.”
    â€œSince you’re already here, it wouldn’t do any harm to look around,” the headmaster’s wife said, as though suddenly remembering her sales pitch. “What age are the children?”
    Good thing I’d scanned the brochure.
    â€œPaolina’s thirteen,” I said without having to lie. I quickly gave my little sister an imaginary sibling and christened her Cecilia. “And Cecilia’s fourteen, fourteen and a half.”
    The woman turned and snagged a set of keys from a nearby hook. Her voice became animated, brisk.
    â€œLet’s start with the main building. The school was founded in 1898. We maintain a tradition of excellence.”
    She’d done this routine before. The mansion door creaked when she put her shoulder to it.
    The entry hall was filled with glass cases. Elaborately framed photos hung everywhere, as though someone had banged nails into the molding at random. Classes, sports teams, rowers on the Charles. Shelves and glass cases were devoted to trophies. Silver Paul Revere bowls, some tarnished, some shiny. Aged sepia photographs, lying on their backs. Blue, red, and gold ribbons, some mounted, some piled.
    Oil paintings of founders, headmasters, and headmistresses lined the other wall. Talk about gloomy. The entire corridor must have been lit by a sixty-watt bulb.
    â€œWho are some of your famous alumni?” I inquired when she came to a halt. “That’s the kind of thing my sister would want to know.”
    She quickly rattled off a U.S. senator, a popular national news anchor, a rock singer, a woman who’d won the Alaskan Iditarod three years running, an attorney who regularly appeared before the Supreme Court, and several hotshot businessmen, including a software billionaire who could have made all future fund-raising moot with a grant.
    â€œAnyone in the arts? Actors? Writers? My sister’s very big on arts education.”
    She stuck her tongue firmly between her teeth and furrowed her brow. Extreme thought.
    â€œWe had a poet, I think,” she said.
    â€œWould you mind if I looked at a few of the photos?”
    â€œNot at all. You really ought to come back when my husband’s here. He knows so much more about the arts offerings. We do have a cooperative program with the Boston Ballet School.”
    â€œDoes that mean there’s no ballet teacher on campus? What about music? Cecilia plays the cello beautifully.”
    Damn, I find it so easy to lie to people it scares me sometimes.
    She tucked her tongue into the corner of her mouth and furrowed her brow again. “What you