Schooled in Murder (31 page)

I said, “Well, he’s dead.”

“He was an asshole,” Haggerty said. “He tried to come on to me once. He got a big fat rejection. He claimed it didn’t matter to him. Ha!”

I said, “With this information you’ve given me, the double dipping should stop.”

“And all the other unfairness in the PE department? They try to lord it over us …” She ranted for several minutes. The English department wasn’t alone in having divisions. I wasn’t sure that was a comforting thought.

When Haggerty left, I asked Meg, “How did she ever come to confide in you?”

“Ah,” she said, “magic. The same way both sides in the
department come to you. I listen. Then I say some version off, ´How interesting, tell me more.’ It’s amazing how many people just want someone to talk to.”

As we’d arranged yesterday, during my planning time Morgan Adair escorted me to the central office. Georgette said, “They’re in the conference room.” She smiled at me. “Get ’em, tiger,” she whispered as I passed her and entered the room.

The gang was there: Towne, Graniento, Spandrel. Our guys were there: Merton, Luci, me, and the union attorney, Marguerite Seymour. At the far end of the table sat a man and a woman who were introduced as being from the regional education office.

Towne said, “What can we do for you people? This is all very mysterious. We should have been notified about the existence of this meeting and the topic and been given an agenda. The union can’t just decree.”

Spandrel produced an eight and a half by eleven—inch sheet of paper and shoved it across the table. She said, “We’ve had complaints about the union, specifically Tom Mason.”

Seymour, the lawyer, glanced at it and said, “This isn’t signed.”

Spandrel said, “It doesn’t need to be.”

“Who wrote it?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Seymour picked up the paper and ripped it up. She said, “If it’s not signed, it doesn’t exist.”

“We have lots of copies,” Spandrel said.

Seymour said, “You can have a mountain of copies. This union doesn’t deal with unattributed accusations. If you do, you’re a fool.”

Spandrel gaped. I’d seldom felt more pleased at the look of frustration and fury on her face.

Seymour said, “Now that we have that settled, let’s move on. We have evidence of cheating on state tests, grade fixing, and altering of statistics for state and federal reporting.”

That got a round of silence from the assembled administrators.

Seymour went on. “All three of you are implicated.”

“You can’t have proof,” Spandrel said.

Seymour picked up a box next to her chair and placed it on the table. She said, “In here are copies of statements by various teachers, copies of grade books, copies of the grade sheets, copies of just about everything that you people have done.” Bless Georgette.

Towne said, “I’m sure Mr. Graniento has an explanation.”

Graniento rounded on her. “I have an explanation? I have nothing to explain. We’ll need the district’s attorney here.”

Seymour said, “I called him and asked him to be here. He had a schedule conflict. I’m sure he’ll be happy to go over all of this with you. Page by page.”

“We’ll need those,” Graniento said.

“These are copies for you,” Seymour said. She shoved the box toward them. The assembled administrators looked at it like it was a pile of living shit.

Spandrel said, “Those are confidential school documents that you have obtained illegally.”

Seymour said, “You have a law degree? You haven’t even seen the documents. You don’t know precisely what they are. The representatives of the regional education office have copies. Inspectors from the state will be here this week. They will also have copies.”

“How did you get all this?” Spandrel said. “Someone must have broken into the system. Someone is a traitor.”

Seymour said, “Why don’t you wait for your attorney and talk to him?”

After the meeting, Luci, Seymour, Merton, and I met briefly. I told them about the double dipping and the attempted dissolution of the gay student group. The attorney said, “I’ll talk to their lawyer. He’s got sense.”

I thanked her.

“How’s the escorting working?” Merton asked. “Great. Everything’s organized, and Scott’s coming by to pick me up after school.”

44

After school, Spike sauntered into the tutoring session first. His hair was bright yellow with swirls and spikes nearly six inches high. Celebrating, I suppose. He rapped his knuckles on my desk. He said. “I think something’s wrong with Fred. You better talk to him.” Spike had his skateboard with him. Bringing those to school was against the rules, too. I didn’t care. At least it wasn’t his motorcycle. He and his toy took their seat and got to work. Good enough for me.

At five minutes to four, Fred Zileski sidled into the room. He’d never been late before. I had wondered how the after-school-tutoring kids would be on this second day of upset. Until Fred’s appearance, only Spike had showed up. Fred saw the emptiness and shook his head. I remembered parent conferences when his father said, “You’ll go to that tutoring. You’ll go every day. You won’t complain. Or you’re off that football team. Off completely.” Fred’s dad had worked a deal with the coach so the boy could be late for practice. It helped that Fred was one of the best players on the team.

Fred didn’t take his usual seat but plopped into a desk
near the door. He took out his grammar notebook, turned to a page, and started to cry. Getting Fred started on his work was usually pretty easy. The crying was unique.

Spike gaped.

I said, “Something’s wrong.” Pretty obvious, but I’ve found with teenagers it’s usually better to start with the basics.

Fred wore his letterman’s jacket open over a T-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt had the logo and picture of a band I did not recognize. The number of obscure rock bands I didn’t recognize was legion.

I grabbed the box of tissues on my desk, walked over, plopped them on his desk, and leaned my back against the wall.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” I asked. I figured it was a relationship problem, although usually the criers were teenage girls, and usually it was at a dance, and usually they were in the washroom having their teen tragedy. Boys tended to do their crying alone in their rooms.

Fred shook his head, sobbed, grabbed a tissue, blew his nose. I waited. Giving teenagers time was a trick I’d learned long ago.

Spike walked over. “What the f–”

I glared.

“What’s up?” Spike asked.

Fred just cried. I said to Spike, “Let’s go easy on him.” Finally under some degree of control, Fred spoke in a tone of teenage doom, “I don’t want to be here.” “That’s pretty normal,” I said.

“Not today. Today’s different. I got nobody to talk to. Nobody never asked me to lie.” “Who asked you to lie?”

He snuffled a huge amount and settled his feet flat on the
floor. He stared at the
Lord of the Rings
poster on the wall. He said, “I can’t talk in front of Spike.”

I glanced up at the other teenager. He was unabashedly gazing at Fred and me.

There were only a couple minutes left in the period. I said, “Spike, you can wait in the office for the final bell. Go directly to your locker and then the office. No side trips.”

He muttered, “I know.” Before he left, Spike made a detour to pat Fred on the shoulder.

I turned back to Fred.

“Who told you to lie?”

“My mom.”

“What did she want you to lie about?” “My dad hates her. I do, too. She asked me to lie. Adults aren’t supposed to do that. It’s bull. My dad would kill me if I lied.”

“Must be something pretty important.” Snivel. Wipe.

“I’m supposed to lie about you.”

Alarm bells began to clang in my head. Over the past few days a cardiologist would have had a field day with my heart rate.

“About what?”

“They told me I’d never have to worry about grades again. I dunno. I didn’t want to come here today, but I had to. My dad said I had to come here for tutoring. I dunno what to do. I gotta have that note signed by you every day. I can’t tell my dad.”

“Tell him what?”

“What they told me to say.”

“What did they tell you to say?”

He sniveled and gulped and looked away. His voice was barely audible as he said, “They told me I should say that
you showed me porn on the Internet. That you tried to get me to go home with you. That you talked about sex. You never talk about nothin’ but grammar in here. Grammar sucks. No offense.” He met my eyes for a moment, then glanced away. “And that you tried to do stuff.”

“To whom were you supposed to tell this?” I asked.

“I dunno. They were gonna set it up. I dunno. Reporters. Or the cops. Or somebody. I thought about it, but I ain’t lyin’ for those assholes. I’m supposed to learn somethin’. You taught me stuff I never learned before. I gotta know this stuff. I gotta get a real grade. I’m never gettin’ into college if I don’t know this stuff. It’s probly too late, but I gotta try. Lyin’s for shit. Oh, sorry.”

I ignored the expletive. I was reeling. I eased over to my desk, got the edge behind me, and sat gingerly.

“You said ´they.’ Were there other people besides your mom?”

“Old Lady Towne. Sorry. Mrs. Towne, and Mrs. Spandrel, and a couple others.”

“When did they ask you this?”

“My mom talked to me last night. Today, I got called to the office. This time there were four of them, Spandrel, Towne, Benson, and Graniento. They said they’d talked to my mom. They put a lot of pressure on me. They made a lot of promises. They were going to transfer me to Benson’s class. The kids make fun of him. He doesn’t know stuff. Not like you do. I had him for class as a sophomore. Nobody ever even listened to him. Are you gonna be in trouble?”

I said, “I have nothing to fear from the truth.”

“Am I going to be in trouble?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I said, “Fred, you have nothing to fear from the truth.”

“What do I do?”

I had the same question. I wasn’t sure what I should do next for myself, but Fred had to be helped. That I could take care of.

I asked, “Do you want to leave?”

“No. I’ve got that stupid history paper. It’s due tomorrow. If I don’t get it in I’ll flunk.”

“If you’re uncomfortable, I’ll get someone else to watch you.”

“Uncomfortable about what?”

While he got up to get his work, I called Mr. Zileski. When I finished, he said, “Bullshit. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Do you want me to get someone else to watch him?”

“What the hell for? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

I handed the phone to Fred so he could talk to his dad. Fred gave a series of yeps, then said, “I’ll get it done.” He pushed the button to disconnect and gave the phone back to me. He began writing his paper.

I called Scott. His phone was off, which meant he was still in a meeting. I left a message to call me.

I called my lawyer and left a message on his voice mail.

I tried to call Frank Rohde. He was out. I called Detective Gault, who said, “Doesn’t sound like that has anything to do with murder.”

“It’s another lie about me.”

He assured me he’d check into it. I wanted him to rush over and arrest people.

Then I sat down and stared out the window, drummed my fingers on the desktop, and tried not to begin slamming objects around the room. I didn’t want to leave Fred in this state, or I’d have walked down to Meg. I certainly wasn’t going to talk to Meg about Fred in front of the boy. Fred simply picked up his daily folder and got to work. Habit can be a good thing. He sniffled on occasion and barely looked up at me. My mind raced and swirled. Baseless false accusations.

Lies and shit. I would take care of Fred, and then adults were going to answer questions.

Mr. Zileski worked half an hour away. He was there in less time than that. Fred saw his dad and began to cry.

Mr. Zileski put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, “Tell me the story.”

Fred did.

When he finished, Mr. Zileski said, “I’m so sorry to have brought this on you, Mr. Mason. Is there anything I can do to make things right?”