In the hallway outside my classroom, I ran into Meg Swarth-more. She grasped my elbow and dragged me into my classroom. “I must talk to Detective Inspector Mason,” she said.
I like Meg. We've been friends for years. She's the school librarianâa tiny woman, not over five feet tall, plump in a grandmotherly way. She's in her sixties and could have retired years ago.
Meg's the ultimate clearinghouse for all school gossip. She hears everything. If there were secrets to be known, Meg would have them to tell. She has one cardinal rule: Never reveal a source.
I told her what'd happened so far.
When I finished, she said, “A hell of a mess. I'm glad you're going to help. It might be the only chance that boy has.”
“You're exaggerating, Meg.” I reddened under her praise.
“Don't give me that humble bullshit. You can hide how much
you do for these kids from lots of people around here, but not from me, and not from your friends like Kurt. We know you too well.”
I told her my suspicions about how friendly Montini had been and about my projected talk with Windham.
She harrumphed sarcastically. “The two of them are a waste of good breathable atmosphere. Talking to them is less than useless. They're a couple of losers. I don't see why they're teachers. They hate kids. I've heard them say so in the lounge. The two of them are both horny, nuts, and desperate. I know for a fact they've both cheated on their wives.”
“Come on, Meg.”
“You doubt my veracity?”
“Well, no.”
“Good thing. If you ask me, either one of those two is as likely to be the killer as Jeff Trask.”
“Why?”
“They're a couple of worn-out ex-jocks who haven't gotten beyond the last touchdown they scored in high school. Do you know where they were at the time of the killing?”
“No. But you're being prejudiced.”
She gave me a wicked grin. “You betcha. You want the lowdown on Pete?” I nodded. “This first is opinion. He'd sell his grandmother and his soul for a winning team. He pressures kids on his teams unmercifully. He has no concept of what it does to the kids emotionally. The boys on the team, however, like him in general. No major fights among the faculty. Congenial head of the department. Not the brightest.”
“How about George Windham?”
“Mr. Mystery of the faculty. Been here five years, and as sneaky as they come.”
“You mean he's escaped your usually omnipotent grapevine.” She nodded. “Yeah. That doesn't happen often, and that makes me very suspicious. Around here, if I don't know it, then it shouldn't be there to tell. Sarah, his wife, worked in
the English department years ago. She wasn't around long enough for me to find out anything. But I've got a hunch about George. Drugs and kids. Don't ask me more now. I've had suspicions for a long time. I'll come back with something solid as soon as I can.”
She got up to leave but turned back at the door. “Everything's set for our annual brunch, Saturday.”
Every year, Scott and I spend the first Saturday of my Christmas vacation at Meg's. We exchange presents and share a two-hour lunch.
I have an after-school tutoring group every day except Fridays. After they left, I hurried to the gym to talk to George Windham. I found him in the hall outside the gym, clad in sweat-drenched maroon gym shorts and a T-shirt carefully ripped to show athletic muscles. He held a basketball in one hand. He breathed deeply. The lopsided grin that greeted me showed his perfect teeth and a youthful smile, indication of the goofy good humor he showed on numerous occasions. Over the years, he'd lost his southern Illinois twang. George could be friendly, cheerful, and happy-go-lucky. He could also be one of the greatest bitches in the teachers' lounge. His imitation of the administrators in the district were legendary, and more than once brought me to tears of laughter. He also said some of the dumbest things. On occasion, I thought his whole dumb routine was more an act than real. How he could have an even partly sunny disposition with six kids at home I couldn't imagine. He worked construction jobs in the summer and other odd jobs at night to help make ends meet.
George had been officially reprimanded by the administration five timesâall since he had gotten tenure. Twice he'd been caught walking out of teachers' institutes at noon and not returning. He hadn't mentioned to me when he came crying for help the second time that there'd been a distinct odor of marijuana in his car when the administrator had caught him at the
edge of the parking lot. I found that out through the school gossip vine.
Once, he'd kept a kid after school until eight at night. The kid's frantic parents finally located him. Once, he'd got into a shouting match with one of the administrators in front of an auditorium filled with kids. Another time, he'd failed to complete all the paperwork in his homeroom's folders at the end of the school year. He'd declared that paperwork was beneath him and chose not to do it.
I managed to convince him to break his habit of sneaking in late every day, before he got caught.
George always had a pleasant tease ready for me as a greeting, usually as a preface to a new problem or complaint. I think he viewed me as a necessary curmudgeon who'd gotten him out of numerous tight scrapes with the administration. In all the years and with all the dumb things he's done, they still give him a paycheck. Maybe it's his considerable good looks.
“I've got to stop playing one-on-one with these kids,” he panted. “I'm not getting any younger.”
“I bet they like it. Did you win?”
“Of course; it wouldn't do for a coach to lose to a kid.”
I gave my spiel about Jeff. He glanced in the gym door, called a kid over, and told him to tell Mr. Montini he'd be right back.
We eased into a nearby classroom. The first thing he said was, “My guess is some teenage murderer's on the loose, like in a teenage horror movie. I can think of a whole list of kids I'd like him to start with. I'd even help with some of them.”
When he got serious, he started with Roger Daniels. He was a decent kid. On the team bus, Roger led the chants and songs. He could be a real spark plug on the team. They found him tough to motivate because he wanted to goof around too much. If they were lucky during a game, an opponent would make him mad. Then Roger could devastate the other team on offense or defense.
Another kid with a temper problem.
Eric Trask, when he'd worked with him two years ago, had been too dumb to be a real asset on the basketball team, but he was too tall to be cut. “He still hangs around with some of the guys,” he said. “They seem to like him. Susan and Doris never said much in class and I only had them one semester, so I don't really know them. Even with the kids on the team, you've got to remember, I don't know them all that well. I'm only an assistant coach. I'm not in love with these kids the way Montini is.”
“I heard your name mentioned concerning kids and drugs,” I said. “I'm not accusing, just checking out everything.”
His face turned beet red under his light blond hair. “Who told?” he asked.
“It's true?”
He gave a disgusted sigh. He walked to the windows and turned to face me. The December gloom gathered behind him. “You ever go home to a houseful of squalling kids and a nagging wife? I swear that woman keeps a chart of all my movements. She remembers everything: how long it takes to get home from work; what time practices end. She has it down to the minute. Sometimes I need something to calm me down so I can face all that. I mean the goddamn house is one vast dirty diaper. Half-dressed kids run around screaming and yelling. I'm only twenty-eight and I feel like ninety-eight. I've got to have some diversion. And don't tell me you haven't at least tried a little dope, not after having been a Marine in Vietnam.”
I ignored his comment and said, “Alcohol, I could maybe understand, but drugs and kids?”
“That was an accident. It only happened a couple times. My supplier from Carbondale used to get me stuff sent up here. He got busted a few months back. I was desperate. Finally, an old buddy put me in touch with some people here. A couple turned out to be connected with Grover Cleveland. Once or twice, it
was just easier to pick the stuff up from the kids, and some of them happened to be current students.”
“George, that's stupid,” I said. “They could turn on you at some point. You could lose your job, career, go to jail. Buying drugs from kids is dumb.”
“I've got my old supplier back,” he assured me. His boyish smile lit his face. “He got paroled two weeks ago. I'm safe.”
I gave him a disgusted look, then asked, “What about the other kids?”
“Paul Conlan is great. Tops in school, tops on the basketball court. Always polite. Self-assured. Going places.
“Now, Becky Twitchell is poison. I had her as a freshman. Caught a note she was trying to pass. I started to read it in front of the class. She screamed and got abusive. The note was more pornographic than anything I'd ever read, offering to perform specific lascivious acts for some boy.”
Lots of teachers found reading notes out loud a useful tactic. I found it an intrusive waste of time. I took the notes and deposited them in the nearest trash can. What was the point of humiliating the kids? Probably, they've been passing notes since people first scrawled on stone tablets. There may be times to embarrass kids as an effective teaching tool, but I'm not aware of them. As an adult, I don't know anybody who enjoys being embarrassed, so I don't think kids do, either.
George continued: “Becky grabbed at the note. It ripped. She managed to get the part that contained her signature and most of the obscene stuff. Before I could get hold of it, she tore her part into a thousand pieces and pitched them out the third-floor window.”
He shrugged ruefully, picked up a pencil, and tapped it on the desk. He explained that he'd bellowed at her for five minutes. She took it all with a sneer on her face. When he got done, all she said was, “Don't ever try that again, you son of a bitch.” Right in front of the whole class, she'd said this. He'd sent her
to the office. He said, “You know how they are with most kids, but especially board-member kids. She got a hug and a âDon't do it again, dear.'”
“That the end of it?”
“No. The next morning, I went out to start my car. Radiator fluid covered the driveway. Later, the mechanic told me somebody deliberately had punched holes in it. Cost me five hundred and fifty dollars to get it repaired.”
“And you couldn't prove who did it?”
“Of course not. But Becky wore her shit-eating grin for a week in my class. I'm sure it was her. You hear about her taking revenge on teachers.”
Jeff was one of the best dumb kids he'd ever had on the team. Sometimes, you could see him on the court thinking about what they'd taught him and what he was supposed to do next. Unfortunately, by that time, the play had passed him by. But you knew he wanted to do it right. With his height and natural ability, they couldn't keep him off the team.
That was all he could tell me. He knew nothing of the kids' activities that Sunday.
I wanted to talk to Paul Conlan, but it was only five and practice wouldn't be over for a half hour. I decided to try the office. I could look up the files on these kids and see whether they revealed anything in any of their pasts that might be helpful. I found Georgette Constantine, the school's beloved secretary, in the office. A major ditz, always befuddled, but willing to bend over backward to help youâin her limited way.
As I walked in, she slapped the intercom machine twice. “Please work,” she whispered at it. An electronic squawk followed by a pleasing hum brought a smile to her face. I'd hate to have to rely on the system to call for help if crazed students or parents attacked me while in a classroom.
I cleared my throat. She noticed me and fluttered over.
“Mr. Mason, you're here late.”
I explained what I was after.
“The police did the same thing earlier. I made them put everything back exactly where they found it.”
“Is Mrs. Blackburn in?” I asked.
Carolyn Blackburn was our new principal. A gray-haired woman in her mid-fifties, she'd fought with tact and efficiency to turn around a floundering school. She patrolled the halls personally, insisting on discipline and order. She made the usual promises new principals do: that she wanted to be a true part of the education process; that she'd try to be in our classrooms not to observe or be threatening but so that we could all sit down together to make education a better experience for the children. I'd heard that bullshit from every administrator for whom I'd ever worked. A few of the newer teachers get all upset because they feel threatened when an administrator comes to observe them. We veterans know better. Administrators try it for a month, then the trivia, paperwork, ass kissing, and other vital functions of a school principal overwhelm them and we're left alone. That's the way it worked out with Blackburn. I guess she isn't a bad person. I'd spoken to her on a number of occasions. I trusted her as much as you can trust any administrator.