“He gave you a lot of unnecessary trouble,” I said.
“Damn right.”
Before he got launched into a full tirade against Jones, I said, “You know I'm a suspect in the murder.”
He nodded and took another bite.
“I'm trying to find out who was around last night. I know you grade papers in here late some evenings. Maybe you could help me with who you saw, maybe even when they left.”
“Including me.”
I'd avoided saying that. Welman had a temper and a one-track mind, not a good combination. I'd seen a couple of his tantrums with the kids. Years ago they must have been effective in cowing a teenager. Now even the freshmen laughed when he tried it. He'd do an only slightly milder version of a tantrum with the rest of the faculty, but what we really dreaded was his one-track mind. During a departmental meeting, if he got an idea stuck in his head, he never let go. He could hold a wrongheaded notion, a grudge, or simply a whimsical thought for years.
“I want to clear myself and find the killer,” I said. “It's hard for me to imagine anybody I know being a murderer, but it's possible somebody from around here did it.”
Welman took another bite of sandwich, giving himself time to think, or maybe hoping I'd go away. Finally, he
glared at me and said, “I guess I owe you. You saved my butt more than a couple of times.”
I said, “I don't see why you need to do this annoyed-curmudgeon act in the first place. Everybody knows you stay late. Eventually you'd be on any list of suspects. I don't think you killed him, but we all know the problems you were having with him.”
“Don't push me,” he snapped. “Maybe I have my own reasons for being reluctant to talk. Maybe you've saved my ass, but maybe I think you make a good suspect. Maybe I think they might suspect me and why should I try to protect you? They think you did it. What good would it do me to try and help you?”
“You'd say that if you had something to hide.”
“I'd say that even if I didn't have anything to hide. I don't want to be a suspect in a murder. You want to be snotty to me, fine, but then I don't help.”
“I wasn't being snotty. I just don't understand the big problem with talking to me.”
“Oh, don't you? I'll explain so even your young ears can hear properly. See, I know you tell the other teachers what a fool I am in these meetings. You tell them how stupid you think I am.”
I'd only told Scott that, not anyone on the faculty. I began a protest, but he raised a hand to forestall me, and he continued. “I know what you people do to cover for me. I know what contempt you all have for me. I know you all just want me to quit and go away. Not going to happen. I'm going to be here a long time. All I have is my teacher's pension when I retire. That paltry sum is not going to be a lot, so I'm going to be here for years to come. And I didn't kill him. I was up here grading papers. I didn't see anybody else. I didn't move from here until after seven.”
I tried to reason with him. I told him I'd never told what happened in meetings, but he refused to believe me, and no matter what I tried to talk about, he'd come back to my blabbing about his behavior in meetings with Jones. I decided to ask Meg to talk to him. They'd known each other
for years, and she could sometimes get him to see reason when the rest of us couldn't. As I left, he was already back to grading papers.
Next I walked down to the office to try Georgette. She often knew which teachers were in late. She buzzed around me solicitously for a minute or two; then I asked her who might have been in after six yesterday.
“You're investigating,” she said.
“I want to find out the truth,” I said.
“I know. Being the prime suspect must be hard.”
“Is that what people are saying?”
She tittered. “It's what everybody's saying, but when anybody accuses you of murder, I defend you.”
“People are accusing me?”
“Not in so many words, but people wonder, you know. A little aura of trouble around somebody, and you find out who your true friends are real fast. Over the years I've seen it happen to any number of people and for much smaller issues than this. People don't like to be around trouble.” She patted my arm. “I'll help you.”
I leaned toward her across the counter and repeated my question about who'd been in the building late yesterday.
She thought for a minute then said, “I know Marshall Longfellow, the director of building and maintenance, was here. They were trying to fix the heating for the third time this week. He had some man from the electric company with him the last time I saw him, around four.” She leaned over the counter and whispered. “I shouldn't tell you this, but under the circumstances ⦠I know he got yelled at by Mr. Jones yesterday for not getting the heat fixed. They had words around noon. We could hear them out here in the office. They weren't as loud as you were after school, but it was pretty bad.” She lowered her voice even more. “Mr. Jones threatened to fire him.”
“You told the police this?”
“Oh, yes, but I don't know what they decided to do about it. And”âshe leaned even closerâ“I know Mr.
Longfellow drinks on the job, but I didn't tell the police that. Should I have?”
“I don't know.” I thought a minute, then asked, “Who else was here?”
“The football team and all the coaches, of course, but they were out in the field. You could ask them if anybody came into the building.” She tapped a well-manicured finger on the Formica countertop while muttering to herself, “Let me think. Let me see.” She reached back to her desk, grabbed a clipboard, and riffled through the stack of papers attached to it. “Here,” she said. Her finger pointed to a brief list of afterschool clubs.
I saw the chess club, the debate team, and the cheerleaders. Fortunately yesterday had not been an exceptionally busy after-school time.
“Of course,” she said, “this doesn't include teachers who may have been staying after school on their own, or who may have kept kids after.”
“Thanks, Georgette. At least it's a start.”
She smiled at me and patted my arm again. “I'll help you any way I can,” she said. And I knew she would.
I didn't have time to talk to anybody then because lunch was almost over. In my room I checked my master schedule and found that Fiona Wilson, faculty sponsor of the chess club, had a planning period at the same time I did.
I knew Fiona Wilson from last year, when I was working on the discipline committee with her; she was the most organized and competent person on the committee. She taught all the advanced physics and chemistry courses. I found her in the science department offices. She wore a gray skirt and a crisply starched white cotton blouse, plus a pair of tiny diamond earrings but no other jewelry. She sat at one of the three desks in the room. Masses of paper overwhelmed their tops, except for brief spaces in the center where a teacher could grade more tests and add to the clutter.
She looked up from grading papers and gave me a brief
smile. We exchanged greetings. Then I said, “I understand there was a chess club meeting last night.”
“And you're checking on possible suspects other than yourself.”
I nodded.
We hadn't become friends while working on the committee, but we had been on the same side in most of the disputes, and the final report came close to most of what she or I proposed. A few of the teachers had wanted to move us back to the Stone Age in discipline; a few even came close to the idea of torturing the students for misbehavior. I hoped Fiona Wilson remembered the committee work fondly enough to help me out.
Without further preliminary she said, “The meeting ended at five-thirty, before the murder took place. I stayed in my classroom. I wanted to work on the computer with a chess problem one of the students brought in. I played with it for an hour and a half. I told this to the police. I have no witnesses that I stayed here all that time, but no one saw me wandering the halls toting a lethal weapon.”
Somebody totally forthcoming. I could be suspicious about that at my leisure.
She said, “We've all heard you're the star suspect. Did you kill him?”
I detected humor in her voice as she talked, but a certain wariness as well. I said, “I didn't kill Jones,” then asked, “You talk to him much? He have a lot to do with your programs?”
“Rarely saw him. If he had anything to do with the science department he saw Andy.” Andrew Buchman, head of the department. Out sick yesterday; I'd checked the list of absent faculty with Georgette earlier. I'd managed to eliminate six out of the 258 faculty members.
I couldn't think of a nonthreatening way to ask the next question, so I plunged ahead. “You ever fight with Jones?”
Her answer was cold and distant. “I've been very helpful, but I don't want to be involved in this. I answered the questions the police asked. I'd rather not go through this
with you, if you don't mind. No, I never fought with him.” She turned back to her desk, looking at me over her shoulder. “I have papers to grade before eighth hour.”
That helpful conversation left me with enough time to hunt for Marshall Longfellow, head custodian. Janitors have had strange reputations since the book
Up the Down Staircase
was published in the mid-sixties, and probably before. Nothing the custodial staff did at Grover Cleveland would change that.
I tried Longfellow's office, and the main storage rooms. I found most of the custodial staff clustered in a small lounge on the third floor in the oldest section of the school. One of them saw me and immediately said they were on their afternoon break. The stack of doughnuts on the table looked big enough to last them through the next ice age. Their lethargy led me to the supposition that they'd been sitting there eating them since the last ice age. I asked for Longfellow and got a lot of shrugs. With ten minutes left to go before class started, I gave it up and walked back toward the stairs.
On the second-floor landing I noticed a door slightly ajar. I pushed it open; it led outside to the roof of the gym. I stepped out and looked around. I heard clangs from a room-sized heating unit twenty feet in front of me. I approached quietly. This had to be the housing for one of the many heating and air-conditioning units scattered throughout the complex. The view was glorious. You could see half the south suburbs of Chicago, with the forest preserves and all the trees in their full autumn glory. I wanted to admire the view longer, but I had to go to class soon.
I had to walk to the other side of the structure before I found a door. It was open and I walked in. Marshall Longfellow stood next to a large engine. My mechanical training is even less than that of a bored cow so I couldn't possibly recognize its function or what he might be trying to accomplish in fixing it. He hadn't heard me enter, and the doorway was in shadow, so I hadn't cut off much light. Inside
was mostly gloom. Near Longfellow a single bare light bulb glared at his work.
Filth-enshrouded work clothes covered a corpulent body. Nearly seventy years old, refusing to retire, he had a snow-white beard flowing onto his chest, and long white hair forming a bushy halo around his head. His red face and the grease streaks he got from scratching his beard were the only color variations in the mass of white. Think of a demented Santa Claus and you've about got it.
Longfellow alternately stared at the machine in front of him, whapped it with a foot-long gleaming metal wrench, and sipped from a can of beer.
“Mr. Longfellow?” I asked.
He spun toward me. The beer can was gone before he turned fully around. I hadn't seen what he'd done with it. He must have been practiced at sneaking a snort or three on the job.
He squinted toward me. “What the fuck do you want?”
I explained that I wanted to talk to him about what happened after school yesterday.
He said, “I already talked to the police. I got nothing to say. Aren't you the English teacher that they think did it?”
“I was here yesterday, just as you were,” I said.
He reached behind him and came back with his beer. He took a sip. “I got work to do, and I don't want to talk to you.”
I heard the bell ring in the distance. I left the roof and walked back to class.
After school I found Meg. I needed to talk to an adult. In class most of the kids had talked more softly than usual when answering questions. Very few of them volunteered answers today. I wasn't sure whether it was because of what I did to Dan Bluefield or what happened to Robert Jones. On top of that, I was depressed because of the lack of cooperation I'd gotten in asking questions. I needed a friendly face and some information. I got both in Meg.
In her office she moved stacks of books from two beige imitation-leather chairs. We sat.
She said, “I hear you've tried questioning a few people.”
“Without much success. I thought they'd want to help out a fellow teacher with a problem.”
“Rats deserting a sinking ship, my dear. You're in trouble and they don't want to be bothered. Besides, some of them are genuinely upset that Jones is dead. Many administrators are hated. He did some good things that a lot of people liked. He streamlined the supply-ordering system, so you didn't have to wait half a year for a piece of chalk. He cut down on the number of after-school meetings. He tried a lot of new ideas that many of the younger teachers really liked him for, but he kept many of the older ones happy, too. Most of the time he let them alone.”
“Not Al Welman.”
“The man should have retired a century ago, and we all know it. Even Al knows it, I suspect.”
“Did Al hate him enough to kill him?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Tell me what you've found out. I got a little bit from the gossip grapevine. We can compare notes.”
I told her which other teachers had been around the night before and asked what she knew about them.
“The football coaches, the team, the cheerleaders, and their teacher sponsors, I don't know much about,” she said. “It should be easy enough to see who went into the building from the practice field. You could check after school.
“Now, Fiona is a strange case. She attended Grover Cleveland as a kid, went away to school, and came back elegant and above us all.”
“I didn't know that.”
“That's why you asked for my help. I find things out.” She poured some diet soda into a mug with bright red letters that said, LET'S PARTY.
“Ever notice how the way she dresses?” Meg asked.
“I thought she wore nice clothes,” I said.
Meg sighed. “I forgot. You have the fashion sense of a dead buffalo. Her outfits are perfect. She doesn't wear spike heels or see-through blouses. No gobs of makeup or tons of jewelry. That's passé. It's the way she leans over a bit more than necessary, so that you can see a bit of cleavage, or that one extra button is undone on a blouse or skirt. Subtle things that say, âI'm available.'”
I shrugged. “I never really noticed.”
“Well, anyway, Fiona makes the term âclotheshorse' obsolete. She's a whole herd dressed to stampede. She's dating a young man she met in Tahiti. They live together.”
“Nothing there to make her a suspect in a murder.”
“I uncover gossip, but I don't know all the secrets about people's grubby little lives like I used to.”
I asked her about Al Welman.
“As his union rep you've gone through the worst with
him in the past couple of years. I know he just got divorced a year or so ago after forty years of marriage.”
I gave her a surprised look. “I never knew that.”
“Most people don't. My source didn't know anything beyond the fact of the divorce. I don't know what happened. Only met her once or twice.”
I told Meg about Al's reaction to my questions.
“You aren't surprised, are you?”
“Not really.”
“You've got to remember, besides what I said earlier about rats deserting a sinking ship, Jones was generally well liked. He was one of the few good administrators in the recent past, not counting Carolyn Blackburn, who I think is dynamite. She's the first competent superintendent we've had in over twenty years. But Jones ⦠Sure the guy made tough decisions. He had visions and ideas. He was young and idealistic. He wanted to make a difference, and quite often he showed he knew what he was doing. Sure a few old dragons who've taught here from the year one didn't like him, but most everybody else did.”
“Tell me about Marshall Longfellow,” I said.
“An alcoholic. Couldn't find the right end of a hammer even if you held a gun to his head. Been around for thirty years. One of the ones your buddy Jones wanted to fire. Might have been able to make that one stick. You've got a good suspect there. He and Welman were good friends.”
“You get anything on Dan Bluefield?” I asked.
“Only a little, and it was strange. This year you're the only one who's reported trouble with him. His past record is atrocious, but if you just looked at this year, you'd think he was a little saint.”
“Hard to believe,” I said.
We talked a short while longer, but I learned nothing new about possible suspects.
I wanted to talk to people from the football team and the cheerleaders. I made my way through the hallways to the gym. As it did yesterday, gloom infested the corridors. Fewer lights than usual beamed from inside classrooms:
Teachers were clearing out early in case a murderer still lurked in the halls. I decided to check in the locker room first for any coaches who might be around. I could save myself a trek out to the practice fields.
To get from the gym to the locker room you passed through a tiled passage crammed with racks filled with footballs, basketballs, and volleyballs. Mounded in corners and scattered on the floor, other gym paraphernalia provided dark shadows to the already underlit hall.
Inside the close and humid locker room I heard faucets dripping while I stumbled over loose tiles in the floor. The gym was part of the original school complex and needed repair more than anyplace else. The smell of rotting jockstraps brought me back to my own high-school and college days, when I played football. I hunted for a few minutes, but the locker room was empty. As I stepped out the door back into the darkened hallway between the gym and the locker room, a sixth sense warned me of danger. I thought of retreating to the locker room, but this was the only exit. I inched carefully into the hallway. In the darkness, I thought I saw a dimness I hadn't noted on the way in. An instant later something flew toward me.
I flinched and heard an object race an inch past my right ear. I faced my attacker while I backed slowly toward the gym doors and more light.
Seconds later I recognized the permed hair: Dan Bluefield. Despite being suspended, he must have sneaked into the school. He wore a nasty smile along with a large cast on his right arm.
“I don't want to hurt you, Dan,” I said quietly.
“Fuck you, faggot,” he said.
I prattled to him with the usual “This isn't going to get you anywhere” clichés. My arm still ached from being stabbed, and I didn't want another encounter. His cast actually gave him more leverage.
I backed away slowly and he followed. My shoulder brushed against a metallic shelf. Quickly I swept my arm
along a row of basketballs. They tumbled between us. I leaped through the doors into the gym.
He followed after me moments later. Facing him in the this light, I could clearly see he didn't have a weapon. His initial swipe at me must have come from the hand with the cast. He'd counted on surprise for his attack to work.
“Did you kill Mr. Jones?” I asked.
“I wouldn't tell you shit.” He moved closer and I backed away.
“You don't want to try anything, Dan, do you?”
“Not here. Not right now.” He moved closer and this time I didn't back off. I smelled alcohol on his breath. He said, “You're going to be sorry, faggot. I know where you live and I'm going to make your life miserable. You will be so sorry you ever fucked with me.”
I gazed into his dark brown eyes. I said, “I wish I knew how to help you.”
He said, “Fuck you,” and began walking away. By the time he got to the other side of the gym, he was running.
I decided to delay my trip to the field outside and detoured for a stop at Donna Dalrymple's office. She might have some insight into the kid's behavior. I didn't like her, but maybe there was something she could tell me that could help. Our encounter yesterday had been a disaster, but I couldn't believe that I was the only one having trouble with the kid. I'd give talking to her another try.
I found Donna on the phone in the counseling office. She nodded for me to sit down, spoke briefly into the phone, and then hung up.
Donna had been at Grover Cleveland for three years, and until yesterday, I'd had minimal contact with her. The counselors, social workers, and psychologist at Grover Cleveland divided up the kids by grade level and type of assistance needed. Most were college counselors or helped kids with schedules. A few concentrated on the problem kids, who, if they didn't drop out by senior year, were almost invariably in my Life Skills English class.
Donna had her ponytail swept into a bun on the back of
her head. She wore a brown blazer with a yellow blouse and slacks that combined the two colors. She glared at me.
First, I tried to make peace. “I'd like to do what I can to help Dan Bluefield,” I said. “I think the family is in trouble. I'd like to work with you to help them. Yesterday everybody was under a lot of strain.”
Her response was to continue staring at me angrily. I explained my most recent encounter with Dan Bluefield.
Finally she spoke, “Half an hour ago, before this attack you claim happened, he told me you tried to molest him yesterday, and that's why he attacked you. I've been on the phone since then to find out what I can get done to you legally.”
“What Dan says occurred and what
did
happen are two very different things,” I said. “Did you think to come and ask me about it?”
I got a haughty stare for such a ridiculous suggestion.
I said, “It would seem to be a logical thing to do. Why would you take a kid's word without consulting the teacher?”
For a moment I thought she got a guilty look on her face, but a second later she spoke angrily. “I would thank you not to tell me how to do my job. I've already spoken with Carolyn Blackburn. She refused to take any action. You are lucky she trusts you. She told me I had to come up with some concrete proof. Don't think I won't try.”
I realized how lucky I was to have a solid relationship with Carolyn Blackburn, but Dalrymple was still talking, “Beyond that, I've spoken with Dan's parents. You had the older sister in class five years ago. You picked on her too.”
“I caught her selling drugs in school,” I said. “I turned her in. Maybe I shouldn't have, but she had Dan's same basic attitude, which is âScrew you and stay away from me.' She gave me little choice.”
“Nevertheless, the father told me you've been unfair and after his kids for years.”
“The father has attended numerous court proceedings with both kids, and he continues to excuse them and
blame everyone else. He's out of his depth in dealing with kids who are out of control. You ever met the mother?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Neither has anyone else, although she's listed as living in the home. I know they aren't divorced. Why is she never brought into these situations? You and the father have been bamboozled by some kid. I blame both parents, one who doesn't seem to care and the other who can't control his kid.”
“You can blame everyone else for your own failures to cope with him.”
“I admit I failed with him in class. I'm sorry I hurt him last night, but I know the good I can do with difficult kids. If you don't know that, you should.”
“I've talked with one or two of the other support staff. They say you're wonderful. I have yet to see any evidence of it. The point is, Dan hates you and it's your fault.”
“Did you ever ask him why he hated me?”
“Yes.”
“And he said?”
“You pick on him.”
“Try again,” I said. “He walked into that classroom at the end of August hating me. I didn't even remember his sister. It'd been five years. I've been teaching so long that once they graduate most of the kids begin to blur in my memory. If they don't do something astonishingly memorable, I forget them.”
“And turning a kid in for drugs isn't memorable?” she demanded.
“Do you have any idea how many busts we have here? Can you guess how many kids are selling drugs, much less doing them? If you don't, you should, especially someone in your position.”
Her face hardened into a nasty sneer and she said, “You are harmful to children.”