Paper Doll by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

that’s not your tennis team,” I said.
    “Miss Pollard is a fine tennis coach,” Dr. MacCallum said. “But this is a physical education class. All our girls are required to take physical education three hours a week.”
    She took the 1966 Carolina Academy Yearbook out from the case and opened it and thumbed through the pictures of graduating seniors.
    “Yes,” she said. “Here she is, Olivia Nelson. I remember her now that I see the picture. Fine girl. Very nice family.”
    She walked around her desk and offered me the yearbook. I took it and looked at the picture.
    There she was, same narrow nose with the dramatic nostrils, same thin mouth, shaped with lipstick even then. Eighteen years old, in profile, with her hair in a long bob, wearing a high-necked white blouse. There was no hint of Vietnam or dope or all-power-to-the-people in her face. It was not the face of someone who’d listened to Jimi Hendrix, nor smoked dope, nor dated guys who chanted, “Hell no, we won’t go.” I nodded my head slowly, looking at it.
    The chatter beneath her picture said that her hobby was horses, her favorite place was Canterbury Farms, and her ambition was to be the first girl to ride a Derby winner.
    “What’s Canterbury Farms?” I said.
    “It’s a racing stable, here in Alton,” Dr. MacCallum said. “Mr. Nelson, Olivia’s father, was very prominent in racing circles, I believe.”
    “What can you tell me about her?” I said.
    “Why do you wish to know?”
    “She was the victim of an unsolved murder,” I said. “In Boston.”
    “But you’re not with the police?”
    “No, I’m employed by her husband.”
    She thought about that for a bit. Outside the girls continued to fail at tennis, though Miss Pollard seemed undaunted.
    “I can’t recall a great deal about her,” Dr. MacCallum said. “She was from a prosperous and influential family here in Alton, but, in truth, most of our girls are from families like that. She was a satisfactory student, I think. Her transcript will tell us-I’ll arrange for you to get a copy-but I don’t remember anything special about her.”
    She paused for a moment and looked out at the tennis, and smiled.
    “Of course, the irony is that I remember the worst students best,” she said. “They are the ones I spend the most time with.”
    “You were headmistress then?” I said.
    “In 1966? No, I was the head of the modern languages department,” she said. “I do not recall having Olivia Nelson in class.”
    “Is there anything you can think of about Olivia Nelson which would shed any light on her death?” I said.
    Dr. MacCallum sat quietly for a moment gazing past me, outside. Outside the girls in their white dresses were eagerly hitting tennis balls into the net.
    “No,” she said slowly. “I know of nothing. But understand, I don’t have a clear and compelling memory of her. I could put you in touch with our Alumni Secretary, when she comes back from vacation.”
    I accepted the offer, and got a name and phone number. We talked a little longer, but there was nothing there. I stood, we shook hands, and I left. As I walked down the curving walk I could hear the futile bonk of the tennis rackets.
    “You and me. Miss Pollard.”

chapter thirteen
    OUTSIDE THE CAROLINA Academy I paused at the curb to let a dark blue Buick sedan cruise past me, then I crossed the street and went up the low hill past the Alton Free Library toward the Alton Arms.
    The white-haired desk clerk with the young face looked at me curiously as I came in through the lobby, and then looked quickly away as I glanced at her, and was suddenly very busy arranging something on a shelf below the counter. I glanced around the lobby. There was no one else in it. I went past the elevator and walked up the stairs and went in my room.
    It had been tossed. Not carefully either. The bedspread hung down longer than it had before. The pillows were disordered. The drawers were partly opened. The window shades were