The Replacement Child (12 page)

Gerald took a turn too fast and Lucy braced herself against the door. A minute later, he pulled the ambulance up to the scene. Two cars pulled up behind them, the other firefighters coming POV. When Lucy first joined the fire department, she’d had no clue that POV stood for Privately Owned Vehicle. At first she’d thought it referred to some complicated firefighting device. Positive Oxygen Ventilation. Partially Obscure Velocity. Gerald had set her straight without laughing.

In the middle of an intersection sat a semi-trailer and an old Honda Civic. Or at least it looked like a Civic. Lucy was bad with cars, plus this one was barely recognizable as a car.

She saw the driver of the semi gesturing wildly as he talked to a deputy. The man looked unhurt.

As Lucy hopped out of the ambulance, Gerald told her to put on two sets of latex gloves. She had no idea why, but she didn’t question him. Gerald handed her the oxygen bag and the medical pack from the ambulance. As she followed close behind Gerald, she silently reminded herself to keep her mouth shut and just listen, something she’d never been good at.

The front of the semi was slightly dented, but the entire driver’s side of the Civic was crushed in more than two feet. The car had been spun around by the impact of the crash. A sheriff’s deputy was directing traffic away from the scene. Broken glass and plastic crunched under her feet, and somewhere in the distance she heard more sirens.

Gerald got into the passenger seat of the Civic and motioned her into the backseat. She climbed in with a sheriff’s deputy who was trying to keep the driver—a man in his forties—talking. Lucy glanced at the damage to the car’s interior. The metal from the driver’s-side door was crushed over the man’s legs. He would need to be cut out of the car. What did the firefighters call it? Extrication? It was obvious from his injuries that he hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, and the car was too old to have an airbag.

Gerald calmly said, “Hold his neck.” Lucy squeezed past the deputy in the backseat and held the driver’s head and neck in place from behind—keeping his head straight to maintain C-spine, the only thing she remembered from class. Gerald checked the man’s breathing and heart rate.

The man was bleeding heavily from his head. Lucy was glad that Gerald had made her put on two sets of gloves—her first pair was now covered in blood.

The deputy was occasionally calling out, “Sir, sir? How are you doing, sir?” The man let out a groan.

“Do you know what his name is?” Lucy asked the deputy.

“No. He was talking just a minute ago.”

Gerald used a stethoscope to listen to the man’s lungs, as Lucy tried to calm her own breathing.

A firefighter appeared at the back door with a backboard and a C-collar—a medieval-looking contraption that was supposed to fit around the man’s neck. And she was the one who was supposed to know how to work it. She looked around. She had no idea what she was doing. This man needed experienced
emergency medical help, not some stupid girl who had taken a medic class just to get over her boyfriend. She felt the panic rise in her stomach and move up her throat.

G
il waited outside the principal’s office. The chair he sat on felt like it was going to fall apart if he moved. He adjusted himself slowly. Principal Ken Strunk’s secretary had said that he would be right out. That had been fifteen minutes ago.

Strunk appeared about five minutes later. He was about five feet eleven inches and trim, his brown hair graying at the temples. Gil guessed he was about forty-five. His shirtsleeves were carefully rolled up to just below his elbows and his tie was slightly loose. Gil thought that the casual image seemed very practiced.

They went into Strunk’s office. It was nothing like the metal cabinets and linoleum of public schools. Abstract paintings hung on the paneled walls and the rest was done in tones of brown, with the carpeting and drapes in a deep shade of peach. It wasn’t pink but peach. Gil knew the difference. When he and his wife were remodeling their house, she’d made him go to paint stores as far away as Albuquerque looking for the right shade. Twice he’d brought home colors that his wife frowned over—saying that they were light pink, not peach. Gil started to wonder if he was color blind. They’d ended up with a shade called peach-kissed that looked the same as every other shade. Gil wondered whether Strunk or his wife had decorated his office.

Gil sat in one of the fake antique chairs and Strunk sat at his desk.

“It’s a tragedy, what happened to Miss Baca. She was a fine teacher who cared for her students,” Strunk said, looking grave.

Gil wondered if Strunk had prepared that speech during the twenty minutes he had been waiting. “What can you tell me about her, Mr. Strunk?”

“Not much. Just as I said, Miss Baca was a fine teacher.”

“How long had she worked here?”

“About six months. It was her first job after graduating from college in August. She was a dean’s-list student at the University of New Mexico. Her teachers recommended her highly.”

“She came to work on time? Didn’t have a lot of sick days?”

“Miss Baca was very punctual and reliable. She never had a sick day.”

“Do you know that for sure? You don’t want to look it up?” Gil was still wondering what Strunk had been doing during that twenty minutes.

“Actually, I do know that for certain. I checked her records before you came in.”

“What else do her records say?”

“Nothing more.”

“Can I see them?

“No. They are confidential. I believe that since you’re not the official investigating officer, you have no reason to look at them.” Strunk smiled kindly after he’d said it. “I don’t mean to be rude, Detective. I must be very careful in a situation like this to not involve the school in any lawsuits. I hope you understand.”

“Mr. Strunk, I understand completely. You have been very helpful so far,” Gil said as he watched Strunk, who loosened his tie more.

“Oh, I wish you hadn’t said that,” Strunk said with another small smile and a feminine wave of his hand. “I might as well be honest. In those few minutes I made you wait, I called our attorney and he told me exactly what to say. I even wrote the first part of my little speech down.” Strunk held up a sheet of school stationery that was covered with very precise—almost draftmanslike—writing. “But it feels strange not to help the police fully. I guess I can still hear my mother saying to me when I was little, ‘Kenneth, if you ever get lost, go find a police officer.’ So, maybe we can try this again, and I’ll be a little more forthcoming. What other questions do you have?”

Gil studied him for a second before he asked, “Do you allow relationships between teachers?”

“You mean between Melissa and Hammond?” Gil noticed that Strunk called Melissa by her first name and Hammond by his last. “I don’t encourage teachers’ dating.”

“Did you discourage Melissa and Hammond, Mr. Strunk?” Gil asked.

“No. They were professional about it. I would have …” Strunk searched for the word, “prompted them to end the relationship if they had public fights or obvious signs of affection, that sort of thing.”

“As far as you know, they got along fine?”

“Yes. Not that I actually would know.” He smiled again. “The boss is always the last to find out.”

“What did you think about Melissa personally?”

“I thought very highly of her. She was an excellent teacher who cared about her students very much…. Lord, that sounded rehearsed again, but it’s the truth.”

“What do you think about Hammond?”

Strunk considered the question for a moment before he answered carefully, “He is very studious.”

Gil waited for more but nothing came. “Mr. Strunk, I thought you were trying to be more helpful?”

Strunk stared at the abstract painting on the wall behind Gil before he answered. “The truth is, Mr. Hammond has a hard time guiding his students. He doesn’t have Melissa’s natural abilities. When they started dating, I had hoped Melissa could communicate to him a little more about what it means to be a teacher, that it’s not all about studying. Students need emotional guidance as well.”

“Did Mr. Hammond ever do anything inappropriate in the classroom?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. He just thinks we should give the students free rein. Melissa believed in very traditional
mores. For instance, one of the younger girls came to class with quite a bit of makeup on and Melissa made her go wash it off and then sent her to my office. And I sent her to the school counselor.”

“How old was the girl?”

“She was eight. Melissa realized, and rightly so, that it was dangerous for a girl that young to be putting too much emphasis on her looks. At our teachers’ meeting later that day, Mr. Hammond said he thought we had overreacted. He said if the girl had chosen to wear makeup to school, who were we to tell her that it was wrong?”

Gil wondered what else Hammond let the students get away with.

“Did Melissa ever have any problems with students or parents?” Gil asked.

“Just the usual. Nothing untoward.” Gil smiled to himself. That wasn’t a word he heard every day in his line of work.

“How was Melissa the past few days?” Gil asked.

“She seemed normal, very dedicated as always,” Strunk said, as he picked a pen up off his desk and started to play with it. Without looking at Gil, he added, “What you’re really asking is did she seem like she was on drugs. I read the article in the newspaper this morning. I’ve already had three phone calls from parents. They all said things like, ‘How could you let a woman like that work here.’ And the TV stations have started calling. Our attorney told me to say ‘no comment.’ The truth is, she was fine. I didn’t notice anything.”

M
axine Baca was kneeling in front of Daniel’s shrine, just starting on the second Sorrowful Mystery of the rosary. The Scourging at the Pillar. In her mind, she recited what she’d been taught in grade school:
Jesus is bound to a pillar and cruelly scourged until his whole body is covered with deep wounds.
Maxine’s
eyes were closed and she held her blue-beaded rosary tightly. She imagined herself at the pillar, being scourged. She thought of a leather whip. Then a stick like the one her mother had used. She bowed and crossed herself as she said, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

She finished the tenth Hail Mary and then the Glory Be to the Father before opening her eyes. She shifted on her knees in front of Daniel’s shrine and stared at his graduation picture before closing her eyes again and starting the next Mystery. The Crowning with Thorns. She said the Our Father while she imagined a Roman solider in front of her, pushing the crown of thorns down on her head. She imagined the blood running down her face. She started the Hail Marys again.

She finished her last Hail Mary and immediately started on the Carrying of the Cross. She didn’t like this mystery. She imagined herself carrying the heavy cross down a dusty street. When the Roman soldiers told Simon of Cyrene to take the cross from her, she pushed him out of the way and continued up the hill. She recited the tenth Hail Mary in a rush, excited to get to the last Sorrowful Mystery, the one she liked the best. The Crucifixion.

She closed her eyes tighter and straightened her back as she knelt. She said the Our Father and thought of herself being nailed to the cross. She imagined the hand of the Roman solider touching hers as he positioned the nail and pounded it in. Sometimes when she had the visions, she would feel a sharp pain in her hands and feet. On those days, she was closest to God. Today she felt only a dull ache. She started on the first Hail Mary and imagined herself being nailed to the cross over and over. By the time she reached the last Hail Mary she was sweating. Next she was supposed to say the First Glorious Mystery, but instead Maxine said a Glory Be to the Father and a last Our Father.

She tried to stand up but had to put her hand out on her bed to pull herself up. She smoothed the bed as she stood up
stiffly. It was the bed that had been in Daniel’s nursery. The one she had nursed him in when he was a baby. She had slept in Daniel’s room until he was almost eight. Ron had stayed in Ernesto’s room in a crib until he was three. Ernesto had never complained about it. But one day, when she came back from the store, Ernesto had moved her bed back into their bedroom and pulled Ron’s crib into Daniel’s room. She had had insomnia since then, but hadn’t moved the beds back until Melissa was born.

Maxine stood up the rest of the way and kissed the feet on the crucifix on the wall above her, crossing herself.

Veronica Cordova stood in the doorway of Maxine’s bedroom, her hands folded in prayer. Maxine didn’t know how long her friend had been standing there.

“I prayed a rosary for Melissa this morning, too,” Veronica said. “Maybe we can pray one together for her later.”

Maxine just nodded and walked past Veronica, who had been with Maxine since she’d fainted earlier that morning. The two women went into the kitchen. Veronica busied herself making coffee. Maxine stared at the cold toast and coffee, still on the table, that Detective Montoya had made her.

Her box of newspaper clippings was also on the table. She sat down and pulled it over, stopping to read a few highlighted words.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I called the funeral home,” Veronica was saying. “I hope that was all right. I thought you’d want to use the same one that we had for Daniel and Ernesto.”

Maxine looked up at Veronica, who had finished making the coffee and was starting to clear off the table. They had met when Veronica and her husband had built a house three doors down. That had been so long ago. Almost forty years. That’s how long Veronica had been coming over to her house every morning for coffee. They would talk about planting their gardens and share news about the neighbors. Ron and Manny had played on her kitchen floor together since they were babies.

Ron had called a little while ago, asking her how she was doing and wondering if he should come home. She had told him that she would be fine with Veronica.

She pulled another clipping out of the box and smoothed it on the table. This one was about a new study that promised a cure for drug addiction. She found a pen in the box and used it to underline the words
vaccine
and
dopamine.
The last line of the article was a quote from a scientist: “We are five to ten years away from a cure.” Maxine started to underline the quote, but the pen poked through the paper, ripping into the words. She stopped, surprised, then pushed the pen harder, digging into the table and scribbling furiously.