Angel in the Snow

By Glen Ebisch

Charles Wood is a new kid at North Hill Academy, and expects to have all the usual newcomer problems. What he doesn’t expect is to rescue a beautiful girl from a crazy motorcycle gang, and to find a fellow student lying on her back in the snow—dead!

• Language: English
• Publisher: TheFictionWorks
• Release date: Jan 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781581244113

Glen Ebisch

Glen has been a professor of philosophy for over thirty years. Most recently he retired from teaching at a small university in western Massachusetts.  For much of that time he has also written mystery and suspense fiction, starting with books for young adults and moving on to writing for adults.  He has had over thirty published. All are cozy in nature and suitable for any reader. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife. His hobbies include reading (of course) and going to the gym. He and his wife also look forward to traveling to Maine and Cape May, New Jersey for their needed dose of the beach.

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Author

Chapter 1

There was no fourth floor!

After I had trudged up three flights of stairs with a steamer trunk hoisted up on my right shoulder and an overstuffed suitcase balanced on my left—there was no fourth floor! I dropped the trunk on the top step. The stairway just ended and I faced a blank wall. Pretty mysterious.

Even more mysterious was the way my advisor, Mr. Hawthorne, had acted about fifteen minutes ago when he saw my room assignment.

You’ve been assigned to room with Maxwell Templeton in Stoneham Hall, room 401, he’d said.

Okay.

You’ve been assigned there only because you transferred into the school in January, and there is no other room available, he’d explained apologetically.

It doesn’t matter.

He’d given me a superior smile as though he knew something I didn’t. You may change your mind on that before long. If you do, we’ll try to make arrangements for you somewhere else, just as we have for others.

Others? What others? I’d wondered. But I’d decided to keep quiet. When you’re starting at a new school it pays not to ask a lot of questions right away. You stand out too much from the crowd.

* * *

So I had climbed up three flights of stairs in Stoneham Hall carrying almost all of my worldly possessions on my back. Fortunately it was a strong back. As my mother always says, You’re a big boy who got his full growth early. At 6’2" and 180 pounds, I do stand out from most seventeen-year-olds. Coaches at schools all over this country and a few others have been sorry to see me leave, as my family picked up to move yet one more time.

But even I was starting to puff a little by now, and despite the cold January weather, a trickle of sweat was meandering down my spine. I put the suitcase down next to the trunk and took a deep breath. To be fair to myself, this was my second trip in an hour up several flights of stairs playing packhorse. The taxi from the airport had dropped me off in front of the administration building, which was where my acceptance letter from North Hill Academy told me to report. I was supposed to see my advisor, this Mr. Hawthorne, whose office turned out to be on the third floor of that building. So I’d carried everything up there.

When I’d finally reached the third floor, a secretary with a face like a prune had stared at me as though I were living proof that human beings had evolved from the apes—and pretty recently.

Hi, I’d said, I’m Charles Wood. I’m a new transfer student.

You could have left your things in the lobby downstairs, she’d said, skipping the formalities.

Yeah, well I was afraid someone might borrow them.

We don’t do things like that here. She’d said here as though it was somewhere special, like heaven maybe, and everywhere else was down below.

She’d knocked on a door across the room, said a few words to someone inside, then had turned and announced that Mr. Hawthorne would see me. I’d dropped my gear next to her desk, which earned me another disgusted look, and gone into the small office.

Mr. Hawthorne had turned out to be sort of a youngish guy wearing a blue blazer, and chino pants that were probably right out of an L.L. Bean catalog. We shook hands and I sat down. He crossed his right leg over his left, and I noticed he was wearing docksiders. I wondered how they held up in the snow that covered the campus.

He’d glanced through my file and asked all the usual questions about hobbies and sports that seem to make counselors feel like they’re doing their jobs; then he got down to the serious stuff and looked over the transcripts of my ninth, tenth, and first half of eleventh grades.

You’ve done very well. Especially for someone who’s moved from school to school so much, he’d said in an almost disappointed tone. Maybe he’d wanted to stay in practice and was disappointed I didn’t need more advice? Then he’d made that odd remark about this Templeton kid, and, after the usual words of encouragement, sent me over here.

* * *

So here I was on the third floor with nowhere to go. Each floor I’d seen so far had a wide hall running down the middle with doors off to each side. The stairs were on either side of a small balcony from which you could look down on the fancy lobby. But as I stood there, working a kink out of my right shoulder, I tried to come to grips with the fact that the stairs had ended. There was no way up.

I wondered if this was some sort of bizarre initiation: Let the new guy find the nonexistent room, that sort of thing. But somehow Hawthorne hadn’t seemed like much of a kidder. I checked the numbers in the hall, they all started with three. And since it was a Monday morning and classes had begun last week, there was no one around to ask. I’d certainly feel like a fool if this wasn’t a joke, and I went back to tell Hawthorne that a floor was missing. I was about to go down the hall knocking on every door in the hope of finding someone who was sick or playing hooky, when a guy wearing a bow tie, striped shirt, and fancy loafers trotted out of one of the rooms.

You must be Charles Wood, he said cheerfully, as if meeting me were the highlight of his day. I’m Randy Anderson, third floor monitor. I’ll bet you’re wondering how to get up to the fourth floor—everybody does. As monitor for the third floor, my responsibilities technically include the fourth, but with him up there . . . he sighed. You know how it is, no one wants to rock the boat.

Yeah, sure. How do I get to the fourth floor?

Oh, yes, just follow me. He walked over to a large wooden book case right across from the third floor landing. With a gentle shove, he slid it to one side on some kind of metal track and revealed a door. He seemed a little disappointed when I didn’t ask about the peculiar furniture, but right now all I wanted to do was find my mythical room.

He slowly turned the doorknob, and acted surprised when the door swung open.

My, my, I guess Templeton was actually listening to me for a change. I told him to leave it unlocked when he went to class because his new roommate was coming, and he actually did. I know he’s not to blame for what’s happened in his life, but it would be easier to have sympathy for him if he’d just be more cooperative.

Yeah, well thanks for the help, I said, heaving the trunk back up on my shoulder.

He started to ask me if I needed a hand but thought better of it.

You’re welcome. I only transferred here last year myself so I know how hard changing schools can be. If you need any help learning the ropes, my door is the third down the hall on the right. I am your floor monitor and also work in the headmaster’s office, so if you have any question about the rules, give me a call. If I don’t know the answer, I can find out.

I nodded, thinking floor monitor and headmaster’s office—this guy is ambitious, and started up the stairs. The staircase was a surprisingly wide one of polished wood, with a small landing halfway up. As I turned to go up the final stretch, I realized I was being watched. Shifting the trunk back on my shoulder, I managed to twist my head and see to the top of the stairs.

He was tall, maybe even taller than I am, but thin—very thin. In one hand he held a large mallet, in the other a chisel. A sculptor? He certainly stood there still as a statue, staring at me as though he was a hawk and I was a helpless mouse about to be welcomed as dinner. He even looked like a bird of prey with his narrow face, dark piercing eyes, and a nose that hooked down at the end as though it might once have been broken and not reset.

We didn’t say anything to each other as I continued to climb slowly to the top. When I was about five steps away, he said in a surprisingly deep voice, A little on the heavy side, aren’t you?

I didn’t bother to answer him until I’d reached the top of the stairs and put down the trunk, purposely controlling my breathing to impress him.

It’s all muscle.

His eyes stared down into mine from perhaps an inch more height, something I wasn’t used to, and the slightest hint of a smile played around the corners of his mouth.

Yes, I can see that, he said, and stuck out a thin hand with amazingly long fingers with wide ends, almost like spatulas. I’m Templeton, Maxwell Templeton.

Charles Wood, I responded, giving his hand a firm shake. My friends call me Charlie.

Yes, I suppose they do. If I had any friends, they would call me Templeton, as I expect you to do.

Any way you want it,