For Your Own Good

by Samantha Downing

It really is just a lounge, albeit a nice one with comfortable furniture, a decent kitchen area, and an extraordinary amount of coffee choices. They do have real cups and plates and silverware, though it’s nothing fancy. A portrait of the school’s founder hangs on the wall, right next to a framed poster that declares education is the key to freedom.

  Fallon makes herself a cup of Prime Bold and heads back down to her classroom. Taking advantage of the quiet, she sits down at her desk to prepare for the day.

  She’s reviewed Sonia’s lesson plans three times. Now that she’s here, working at the school, she feels nervous about teaching. She has no idea how to do it.

  “Good morning.”

  The headmaster stands in the doorway, briefcase in one hand and a travel mug in the other. Fallon is a little stunned. Though she briefly saw him during her initial interview, they didn’t really speak.

  “Good morning,” she says, rising from her chair. “What a surprise.”

  He smiles a little. “It’s not often anyone arrives before I do. When I saw you in here, I had to say hello. And welcome back.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “The circumstances aren’t ideal, of course,” he says. The headmaster takes a deep breath and glances away, into the hall. “But it’s always nice to have a former student return. Belmont students are usually our best teachers.”

  He leaves her feeling even more nervous.

  Maybe this was a mistake.

  When she volunteered to be a teacher, it sounded easy enough in her head. Now that she’s sitting in a real classroom, it doesn’t.

  Coming back to town was one thing. First, because she had nowhere else to go. She’d never be able to get a job teaching anywhere else. This is the only place that will take her at her word, because she’s part of the Belmont family.

  Contrary to what she’d emailed to Teddy and what she’d told the school, Fallon had never graduated from college.

  * * *

  TWO O’CLOCK IN the afternoon. The first thing Teddy hears on the radio, while driving to work, is that the DA will be holding a press conference at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  What an obscure time of day. Nestled right in between lunch and the evening news.

  The news must be bad, though not for Courtney. For the DA.

  Teddy smiles all the way to Belmont, and he continues to smile until he remembers Fallon.

  Always another problem to solve.

  He goes straight to his classroom, avoiding the teachers’ lounge. Plenty of time for Fallon later. Right now, he needs to prepare for class. Last night, even as her return weighed heavily on his mind, he still had a brilliant idea for his students.

  It’s a perfect time to have them read a book about someone falsely accused of a crime.

  For the sophomores, it’s the classic novel A Lesson Before Dying. But for the juniors, he has prepared a special treat. It isn’t often he assigns a modern novel. Not when there are so many classics to read. And how many of these students will read classic literature once they’re out of school? Not many. They’ll be too busy making money.

  However, last night he decided a modern novel is just what his class needs. Atonement by Ian McEwan will be their next book. A bit of a cheat, since it’s set during World War II, but it’s the first book written in the twenty-first century that he’s ever assigned.

  All in anticipation of Courtney’s potential return.

  At least he hopes she returns to Belmont. This would certainly clear up some of the dark clouds hanging over the school.

  The door to his room is shut, but he can hear the students in the hall, starting to arrive. A familiar feeling of anticipation creeps in. The kind he gets when he’s excited about a class or an assignment. Students don’t understand that part of being a teacher. Sometimes, teachers like to see their students happy.

  Or at least Teddy does. One day, maybe he should tell them all of this. Perhaps in the speech he still is due to give at the annual memorial. Whenever that will be.

  But then, as Teacher of the Year, he will also give a speech at commencement. Maybe that would be a good time to explain to the students what teaching is really like. Yes, he should do that. He only has a year to take advantage of the position, though his name will be etched into the master plaque in the main hallway of the school. Teacher of the Year is a title that never really goes away.

  It’s always there, even after his official year is over. A title to let everyone know he is one of the best.

  He looks up from his computer, turning around to see his award on the wall. Such a lovely plaque, engraved with his name and title, along with a picture of himself with the headmaster. Sometimes, he just stares at it, remembering all the hard work that went into achieving such an esteemed honor. The hours he spent at fundraisers and receptions, talking to the board members, convincing them he is one of Belmont’s finest.

  But today is different.

  His Teacher of the Year plaque is gone.

  47

  IT ISN’T OFTEN Teddy goes to see the headmaster. That type of meeting is usually reserved for promotions, firings, or a substantial dispute with a student. His stolen Teacher of the Year plaque ranks right up there.

  First, though, he has to get through Ms. Marsha. The headmaster’s pit bull.

  Today, he is second in line to speak to her. The young woman in front of him is an aide who accidentally put her security card through the wash and needs a replacement.

  He waits, trying hard not to sigh in frustration. Finally, Ms. Marsha gets to him.

  “Teddy,” she says, looking up at him over her glasses. When she’s not wearing them, she keeps them around her neck on a string of pearls.

  “Hello, Ms. Marsha. May I see the headmaster?”

  “He’s in a meeting right now. You can’t see him.”

  “I don’t think you understand how important this is,” Teddy says.

  “What I understand is that we are five minutes away from the first bell, and you have a class to teach.” She turns away from him, back to her computer monitor. “Why don’t you come back at the break. I can try to squeeze you in then.”

  Teddy clenches his hands into fists. “Ms. Marsha, there’s been a theft. At Belmont, for God’s sake.”

  She raises one penciled eyebrow. “A theft? What was stolen?”

  “My Teacher of the Year plaque is gone.” He throws his hands up. “Yesterday, it was on my wall. This morning, it’s gone.”

  Ms. Marsha does not look nearly shocked enough. “How odd.”

  “A travesty is what it is.”

  “No, Teddy. Murder is a travesty. Your missing plaque is an inconvenience.” She stands up from her desk, straightening her herringbone skirt. “Check with Joe. You know he cleans at night. Maybe he saw something.”

  She gets up and walks away from him.

  Teddy has been dismissed.

  Dismissed.

  The first bell rings before he can find Joe, and now he has to wait. Back to his classroom he goes. He checks the wall as soon as he walks in.

  Still gone.

  The students are filing in, depositing their phones, and getting settled in their seats. Teddy no longer feels very generous toward them. Anyone could be a suspect—even one of the students. Belmont kids are the type who would steal for fun. It isn’t because they need anything.

  They don’t deserve a treat. Not today.

  “Let’s begin,” he says, slamming his laptop shut. “It’s time to start our next assignment. I’ve thought long and hard about this next book, and given that you all have done so well this semester, I feel it’s time for you to tackle something more challenging.” He stops to smile at them. “Which is why I’m assigning you to read Dante’s Divine Comedy. All three parts.”

  Groans. Real, audible groans.

  Good.


  * * *

  AT THE MORNING break, Ms. Marsha isn’t even at her desk. Teddy almost knocks on the headmaster’s door. Almost. Such a thing would be unheard of, a complete breach of Belmont protocol, but for God’s sake, if this doesn’t warrant it, what does?

  Murder. Always back to those damn murders. It’s like he’s never going to get away from them.

  He goes in search of Joe, whose office—if it can be called that—is so far away, it’s a trek just to get there. Maybe Joe knows if any of these cameras are actually working yet. A long shot, given that they’re still being installed. But it would be so nice to have the thief caught on camera.

  Teddy knocks on Joe’s door. He’s an older man now, maybe as old as Ms. Marsha, and he doesn’t move as fast as he used to. Teddy hopes he can get to the door before the four-minute bell rings.

  While waiting, he checks his phone for news about this afternoon’s press conference.

  The door flings open with a surprising amount of force. Joe is standing in front of him, wearing his blue uniform with the Belmont crest on the breast pocket. He’s lost most of his hair; just a few grey tendrils remain. Joe has the look of a man who has lived a manual life.

  “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

  Teddy is a little taken aback by this greeting. “Good morning, Joe.”

  Joe nods.

  “I wanted to ask about your cleaning last night. Did you by chance clean my classroom? Empty the trash, that sort of thing?”

  Another nod.

  “My plaque is missing. My Teacher of the Year plaque was on the wall, and now it’s not.”

  No reaction at all. Joe’s face doesn’t register surprise or shock or even dismay. It’s as if the old man hasn’t heard him.

  “Did you—”

  “I heard you,” Joe says. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Did you happen to notice if it was there when you entered the room to clean it?”

  “Nope.”

  “I see,” Teddy says. “Is the camera system working yet? Perhaps whoever took it was—”

  “Nope.”

  All right. Teddy gets it. Perhaps he did mention Joe to the police when they questioned him about Sonia. And, yes, he did say that Joe probably didn’t like her because of the way she treated him. Then there’s the whole email thing he set up, though it’s unlikely the police have figured that out yet.

  All of which is neither here nor there. Teddy has never treated Joe badly before, and quite frankly, he is stunned by this total lack of interest— or help—from the school’s custodian.

  “Might you have any suggestions for how I can look into this further?” Teddy says. “It was a theft, for God’s sake. On school grounds.”

  For the first time, Joe’s face changes. He smiles, revealing a full set of coffee-stained teeth. “Have you checked the dumpster?” he says. “I know how much you like to root around in the trash.”

  48

  CRUTCHER’S IN A shit mood today. Not that it’s anything new, but today he’s treating the whole class the way he usually treats Zach.

  The Divine Comedy? A punishment—Zach knows that. Or maybe a judgment, given how much he hates everyone.

  “I have allotted four weeks in total for The Divine Comedy,” Crutcher says. “Which means you should finish the first book, Inferno, by next week. Pay particular attention to who ends up in each ring of hell and why. Hypocrites, for example. Or thieves.”

  Maybe that’s it, Zach realizes. Maybe Crutcher thinks of himself as a god, and it’s his job to punish people.

  At lunch, Zach eats in the dining hall with everyone else. He doesn’t bring his own food. Nor does anyone else. Halfway through the break, Zach’s phone buzzes. So does everyone else’s. They all receive the same news alert.

  BREAKING NEWS

  DA cancels afternoon press conference.

  More to come . . .

  “I thought Courtney was getting out today,” Lucas says.

  “So did I.” Zach reads through the whole article, which is just a recap of the story so far. “This is weird.”

  Courtney’s friend, Daria, appears at their table. “Did you see this?” she says, holding up her phone.

  “We saw it,” Zach says.

  “I talked to her dad last night,” Daria says. “He said they were going to drop the charges today.”

  “Maybe they still are.”

  She frowns, staring at her phone. Daria is one of those girls with white-blond hair and alabaster skin. Red lipstick is her signature thing. “Maybe,” she says. “But this doesn’t seem right.”

  Daria walks away, moving on to another table.

  It doesn’t seem right to Zach, either. He considers texting Kay, but a jail guard probably wouldn’t have a clue what the DA is doing.

  All afternoon, he continues to check the news. Nothing else is announced. No press conference, no mention of Courtney. It makes him wonder if that news alert was wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  When he walks out of his last class, there’s still nothing. No word at all. He gets a text message from Lucas, asking if Zach wants to go to his house. That means get high. Zach stands in the hall, trying to decide if he should go home and start reading or go to Lucas’s.

  “Zach.”

  He looks up from his phone to see Ms. Marsha. She has always reminded him of his grandmother. The way she speaks makes him do whatever she says. “Hi, Ms. Marsha.”

  “Would you come with me please?” She starts walking away, no doubt assuming he will follow.

  He does.

  She leads him down the hall and around the corner, away from the classrooms. Ms. Marsha doesn’t stop until they reach the last door. She opens it without knocking.

  The room is tiny, with no windows and barely enough room to fit a metal desk and a few chairs. Like a closet that’s been turned into an office. Two men Zach has never seen before sit on the same side of the desk. Neither one looks like the type to work at Belmont.

  “These are Detectives Tate and Oliver,” Ms. Marsha says. “They’d like to ask you some questions about Mrs. Benjamin.”

  Zach looks at them and then at Ms. Marsha.

  “If you’d prefer to have one of your parents here, I can call them,” she says. “It’s up to you.”

  Holy Jesus, no. He’d rather talk to a hundred detectives alone than have his parents in the room. “This is fine,” he says. “I’m good.”

  She nods and shuts the door. Zach introduces himself, shaking hands with both men before sitting down.

  “Thank for you agreeing to talk to us,” says Tate. He’s the older of the two, with that same grizzled look detectives always have in the movies.

  Thinking about movie detectives reminds Zach that he shouldn’t talk to them without a lawyer. His mom has said that a thousand times. It’s practically her own Ward-ism. “Ms. Marsha said this is about Mrs. Benjamin?” Zach says.

  “That’s right,” says Oliver. He’s not as old or grizzled as Tate, but he’s getting there. “We were told you edit the school paper, and she was the faculty advisor.”

  Zach nods. He almost says he took over after Courtney was arrested, but that seems like too much information.

  “How well did you know Mrs. Benjamin?” Tate says.

  “About as well as any teacher, I guess.” Zach shrugs.

  Oliver has a notebook, and he writes that down.

  “What did you think of Mrs. Benjamin?” Tate says. He looks bored.

  “She was a good teacher,” Zach says. “I learned a lot from her.”

  “What kinds of things did you learn?”

  Zach groans inside, knowing he’d opened himself up to that one. His mom would be disappointed. “How to lay out the paper, how to make the articles fit. That kind of thing.”

  Tate nods. Oliver
writes.

  Zach has an urge to ask them what this is about, and what’s going on with Courtney, but he knows better.

  “Did you see her the day she died?” Tate says.

  “Yes. I saw her at school.”

  “Do you remember when?”

  Zach does remember. He met with Mrs. B in the Bugle’s office at lunchtime to talk about the paper. “It was either in the halls or in the Bugle’s office. Maybe both.”

  “But on that day,” Tate says, “do you remember when?”

  “Not really. I saw her every day.”

  Oliver writes that down.

  “Is there anyone who didn’t like her?” Tate asks.

  Zach is surprised by the question but knows he shouldn’t be. She was murdered, after all. “Not that I know of.”

  “You never heard anyone speak badly about her?”

  “Not to me,” Zach says.

  Oliver writes that down.

  “All right,” Tate says. “I think that’s about it. Thank you for talking to us.”

  “No problem.” He stands up and shakes both their hands, then slings his backpack over his shoulder. Just as he turns to open the door, Tate becomes a full-blown TV detective.

  “Sorry, I do have one more question,” he says.

  Zach turns back. “Yes?”

  “Did you bribe a county employee in order to see Courtney Ross?”

  49

  FALLON DIDN’T SEE Teddy once today. Not even in the halls. He must be avoiding her.

  It’s almost flattering.

  Up until she started working at Belmont, she’d been following him. Teddy doesn’t do a whole lot. He never goes out to dinner, out for drinks, or even to a movie. Over the past several months, the only interesting thing he did was clear his yard. The rest of the time, he stayed inside that run-down house, probably dreaming up new ways to ruin his students’ lives.

  Now, it’s more difficult to follow him, because he knows she’s in town. She has to get a little more creative.