Schooled In Lies

by Angela Henry

  “Well, I didn’t ask you and I’m seeing a side of you that I’m not liking much,” he said in disgust. “You shouldn’t take so much pleasure in Vanessa’s problems. I didn’t know you were like this,” he spat out at me before I had a chance to respond. I stared at him in shocked silence, willing the tears not to come. How dare he say that to me?

  “And I didn’t know what a big fool you were.” I was so angry I could barely get the words out. “Vanessa must have spent all that money her daddy left her and is just lining up another sucker to take care of her and her baby in case her husband bounces. I cannot believe you’re stupid enough to fall for her shit. And if you don’t like this side of me.” I stood up and turned around, “then you can kiss this side of me.” I smacked my ass and stormed out of the café.

  I was still furious with Carl when I arrived back at class an hour later. Even a lunch consisting of a double portion of hot fudge cake hadn’t lifted my foul mood. I was on the first floor, getting ready to head up the steps to my classroom, when I spotted Audrey Grant about to head into the room where the summer day camp program was held. She must be there to pick up her kids. I called out to her and she turned and gave me a tight smile when she saw it was me. She still looked a little tired and her black sundress emphasized her paleness but she still looked better than she had in the hospital.

  “Are you feeling better?” I asked, walking over to her.

  “A lot better, thanks,” she acknowledged with a genuine smile this time.

  “I didn’t realize you had kids old enough to attend summer day camp.”

  “My oldest daughter, Cassidy, turned five this summer. She starts kindergarten this fall and I thought it would be a good idea to get her used to being around other kids besides her brothers and sisters. Plus, I really needed the break.”

  “It’s a great program. She’ll have lots of fun.”

  Just then a slightly chubby little girl with long curly blonde hair and big blue eyes dressed in denim shorts and a pink Barney tank top ran up and grabbed Audrey’s hand tugging her towards the day camp room.

  “Come see my picture, Mommy,” she said, lisping excitedly. Her two front teeth were missing and she sounded precious, though I wondered how cute I’d think it was if I had to listen to her all day long.

  “You’re being rude, Cassidy. Say hi to Kendra.” Audrey tousled her daughter’s curls affectionately. Cassidy stared up at me shyly and started sucking her finger. I knew all of Audrey’s kid’s names started with C. She’d shown us all pictures of them at the first reunion meeting.

  “Hi, Cassidy. That’s a pretty name.” The little girl just ignored me and started pulling on her mother’s hand again.

  “Mommy is talking right now, sweetie. Go on back into the classroom and I’ll be there in a minute, okay.” Audrey gave her daughter a gentle nudge in the right direction. Cassidy poked her bottom lip out and then ran back the way she came.

  “She’s adorable,” I commented and could tell Audrey was pleased.

  “I’m not supposed to pick her up for two more hours. She was really scared when I was in the hospital all weekend,” she said, expressing the kind of guilt that only a mother can feel. “I thought I’d come get her early so we can get some ice cream, just the two of us.”

  “So did you ever figure out about the alcohol?” I asked.

  “It’s still a mystery to me. All I drink is Diet Coke. But if you ask my husband, I’m just a big liar,” she said bitterly. “I don’t know. I’m honestly beginning to wonder if maybe I did have a drink and just don’t remember.” She shrugged

  “I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself.” I quickly filled her in on what had happened to Dennis, Gerald, Cherisse, and Ms. Flack.

  Just like with Gerald, I didn’t quite get the reaction I’d been hoping for. Audrey just gave me a blank stare.

  “Don’t you think all these accidents are strange?” I asked in exasperation.

  “Maybe a little,” she admitted slowly, looking at me like I didn’t have good sense.

  “I think someone is behind them. I think someone spiked something you drank with alcohol, tampered with Dennis’s vacuum, set Gerald’s kitchen curtains on fire, tried to run down Charisse, and put baby oil at the top of the cafeteria steps so Ms. Flack would fall.”

  Audrey looked alarmed then asked me anxiously, “Have you had an accident?”

  “Well, no. Not yet,” I admitted, which made her relax and let out a relieved laugh.

  “I think you’re being a little paranoid. Why would anyone want to hurt us?”

  I hesitated then asked, “Have you gotten any weird messages lately?” That got her attention.

  “You know, there was a weird message on my cell phone’s voice mail when I checked it on Saturday. I just thought it was a prank call or a wrong number. Are you telling me everyone else got the same message?”

  “Can I hear it?” I asked, ignoring her question. I wasn’t exactly ready to admit how I knew about the other messages. But she shook her head.

  “Sorry, I erased it. I didn’t take it seriously.” The sound of children’s laughter caused her to turn and look over at the door to the day camp classroom, and I knew I was losing her interest.

  “What do you think about the missing money?” I asked and she swung back round to face me.

  “Oh, that’s easy. I didn’t want to say anything at the meeting in front of everyone, but I’d bet anything that Julian used that money to help out some friend in need. Julian was like that. He probably borrowed the money and then died before he had a chance to replace it.”

  “Any idea who the friend could have been?”

  “Only one I know who’s needed money in the last year is Gerald. He got into some trouble on his last job over some missing money and I heard he was told to either resign and make restitution or be prosecuted for theft. Julian may have given the money to Gerald to help him out. But Gerald would never admit it.”

  I guess I wasn’t surprised that Julian would help out a friend financially, even when the money wasn’t his to give. However, though Julian wasn’t quite as bad as the rest of his friends in high school, I certainly wouldn’t have thought he was so generous. He must have changed in the decade before his death.

  “Kendra,” Audrey said tentatively making me look up. “I really want to apologize to you for the way I treated you senior year. I was desperate to get my hands on that test because if I failed science, I wouldn’t have graduated. I thought I had a job lined up. But it didn’t work out. I’m so sorry for what happened. I’m a different person now than I was back then.”

  I was too stunned to speak and just nodded my head. Cassidy ran back out of the classroom and grabbed her mother’s hand.

  “Come on, Mommy,” she whined, pulling Audrey towards the classroom. This time Audrey allowed herself to be pulled and waved good-bye to me over her shoulder.

  Later that evening, I was at Kingford College in the computer lab at Floyd Library typing up my paper on the Montessori Method. After I printed my paper, which was a five-page monument to my ability to bullshit, I pulled up an Internet browser and logged into my e-mail account. For the hell of it I typed, “I know who you are,” and sent it to the vengence1986 e-mail address. I was bluffing and wanted to see if I’d get a response. I’d been thinking about the e-mail address ever since I saw the message in Gerald’s trash folder. Nineteen Eighty-Six was the year we’d all graduated but it was the reference to vengeance that really had me worried. Was someone seeking revenge for something that happened in 1986? Was it something that someone on the 1986 reunion committee had done? The round table gang had been the cause of many bad high school memories. But what in the world had Ms. Flack or Cherisse done?

  Before I gathered up my stuff to head home, I checked my e-mail to see if I had a response from vengence1986. No such luck. My e-mail had been returned as undeliverable. The vengence1986 e-mail account had been cancelled. Disappointed, I headed out of the library. I was at the bottom of the
library’s wide front steps, rifling through my tote bag for my car keys, when I heard a loud voice yell, “Look out!” I looked up to see a large stone planter hurtling down towards my head. I dove out of the way as the planter landed mere inches from me, showering me with dirt and debris. Several people ran over to see if I was okay. One knee was scraped and I had a tiny cut on my cheek from the flying debris, but I was okay. I had to fill out an accident report with the campus police before they’d let me go home.

  I was still shaking when I walked into my apartment. I was so rattled over almost being killed that I didn’t notice that my living room window was broken until I turned on the lights and saw the broken glass. Lying amongst the glass on my living room floor was a large rock. I carefully picked it up. There was writing on it. Of course, I already knew what it said. The message was written in bright red magic marker and screamed, “You Will Pay For What You Did.”

  Chapter Seven

  DETECTIVE TRISH HARMON WAS in a meeting when I arrived at the Willow Police Department the next morning. I had to wait almost an hour on a hard wooden bench in the hallway before she could see me. When I was finally able to go back to her cubicle, I could tell by her cynical expression that she was waiting for me to waste her time yet again with my overactive imagination. Trish Harmon doesn’t like me. I can think of a few reasons for her dislike, namely me getting myself involved in some of her murder investigations, but mostly I think it’s because she thinks in a straight line and has little or no use for the detours I try to put in her path. She only sees situations in black and white, while I can distinguish the shades of gray. Whatever the reason, her dislike of me was very much reciprocated.

  I placed the rock on her desk and told her all about the strange near fatal accidents that me and the other reunion committee members had had. She tucked a loose strand of graying hair behind her ear before picking the rock up and reading it. She’d been letting her short hair grow out since the last time I’d seen her and it was now past her ears and made her look a little younger. To her credit, she actually listened intently to what I had to say, and I had hope that for once she wouldn’t dismiss my concerns. When she finally spoke, I was surprised that she agreed with me…sort of.

  “I have to admit that if all of these incidents are connected, then this does sound pretty strange,” she said making me sit up excitedly in my chair. “Although, I have to wonder why you seem to be the only one who has reported these so-called accidents and threatening messages,” she concluded with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

  I sighed and sat back in my chair. If we ever actually saw eye-to-eye it would most likely be because our foreheads were superglued together. But at least she agreed that something weird was going on and for her that was saying something.

  “I can’t speak for the others. I don’t know why they haven’t reported what happened to them. All I want is for you to look into this before someone gets hurt or killed.”

  “And why do you think this is about something that happened back in nineteen eighty-six?”

  I wasn’t going to tell her about vengence1986 because then I’d have to admit to snooping through Gerald Tate’s e-mail. I felt a little tongue-tied. “Uh, well, since members of the reunion committee are involved, I thought maybe someone is holding the class of eighty-six responsible for something—” My voice trailed off as I realized I had no idea why anyone would be targeting us.

  Eleven years was a long time to hold a grudge for something that happened back in high school. I’d gotten my fair share of grief from Audrey and her crew back in the day and, yes, I’d wanted to cause them bodily harm back then. Now, I could at least look back on my high school days without cringing and like Audrey said, she was a different person back then. Weren’t we all?

  Skepticism clouded Harmon’s face before it went blank with disinterest. I watched her put the rock into a plastic bag from her desk drawer. “I’ve already gotten your statement. The other committee members will need to come to me personally and report what happened to them. However, my guess is that no one else but you sees this as anything more than series of a coincidences.”

  She was back to talking like the Harmon I knew and loathed. I wasn’t going to waste more time trying to convince her. I’d reported what had had happened to me and for now that was the best I could do.

  I called into work to let them know I’d be a little late and headed over to Springmont High to talk to the one person I’d yet to discuss all this madness with, Ms. Flack. She’d suffered an accident too. In the times that I’d seen her afterwards, she hadn’t mentioned receiving a threatening note. But why would she?

  The parking lot was only partially full when I arrived. Summer school was in session and I could see a few students socializing at the tables near the gym’s outside entrance. I went inside and headed to the office. Ms. Flack’s secretary, Mavis Green, who’d been the school’s secretary back when I was in high school, was filing papers in one of the office’s large filing cabinets and turned to greet me as I walked in. Mavis hadn’t changed much in the eleven years since I’d attended Springmont High. She still exuded the same nervous energy that had always unnerved me back then. With her prissy looking ruffled blouses, perfectly styled fluffy white hair, and manicured nails, she’d always reminded me of a high strung show poodle.

  “Can I help you?” She eagerly rushed over to the counter. It suddenly hit me that I didn’t think I ever remembered seeing Mavis sitting down. She was always up doing something.

  “Is Ms. Flack in?” I looked past her at the principal’s closed office door.

  “Is she expecting you?” Mavis leaned forward and whispered, “She’s been in her office all morning and asked me not to disturb her. I don’t want to bother her unless I have to.”

  I started to ask if I could leave her a message when the door of Ms. Flack’s office opened and she stuck out her head.

  “Mavis,” she began, then stopped when she saw me. I could see that her eyes were red-rimmed. It could have been from allergies, but she looked like she’d been crying. It also looked like she wasn’t up for company. “Kendra?” She opened her door all the way.

  “I’m sorry to bother you. I know you’re probably busy. I just needed to talk to you about something.” I walked around the counter assuming she was going to invite me into her office. She didn’t.

  “This is kind of a bad time right now. Is it very important?”

  I looked past her into her office and saw that her desk was piled with books and magazines. She noticed me looking and stepped outside her office and pulled the door partially shut behind her. Is that what she’d been doing all morning, reading? Hell, even I could do that for sixty grand a year.

  “Actually, it is important,” I replied. We stared at each other until she finally sighed and looked away.

  “I’m in the middle of something. How about we meet later for lunch?”

  I could tell it was an effort for her to be pleasant and decided not to push my luck. I agreed and she told me she’d meet me at Frisch’s at noon.

  On the way back to my car, my cell phone rang. It was Carl. I didn’t answer. I was still upset over our argument and wasn’t ready to talk to him. By the time I got into my car, my cell phone beeped indicating that he’d left me a voice mail message. I got in my car and listened to his message.

  “Kendra, I’m really sorry about what I said yesterday. Please let me make it up to you. I hate it when we fight. This isn’t like us at all. Please give me a call, okay.”

  I listened to the message two more times before erasing it. But I didn’t call him back because while I was sitting in my car, Ms. Flack came rushing out of the building and hurried across the parking lot. She was in such a rush she didn’t even notice me sitting in my car a few spaces down from where she was parked. I sat and watched her as she fumbled around in her purse. I figured she was hunting for her car keys. Instead, she pulled out a crumbled sheet of paper. She sagged against the driver’s side door of her c
ar, unfolded it, and read it. Then she angrily ripped the paper in half, stuffed it in her purse, hopped in her car, and drove away.

  What in the world had that been about? Had she gotten one of the threatening messages claiming “You Will Pay For What You Did”? I looked over at the empty space where Ms. Flack’s car had been parked and saw something white on the ground. It looked like part of the paper she’d ripped in half. I quickly got out to go pick it up but someone else beat me to it. It was the custodian, Lewis Watts. I almost didn’t recognize him without his usual attire, which consisted of a three-piece suit in some bright rainbow color with shoes and a hat dyed to match. When he saw me he grinned like a Cheshire cat.

  “Damn, I know I got a powerful affect on the ladies, Kelly. But, if I didn’t know betta I’d swear you was stalkin’ me, girl.”

  “That’s mine,” I said, ignoring his ridiculous comment and reaching for the piece of paper. He held it out of my reach.

  “Now, hold up. I just saw that fine ass Ms. Flack drop this. Why you so hot to get yo hands on it?”

  He was shorter than me, and I should have been able to grab the paper from him. But he was holding it behind his back and kept jumping back every time I reached for it.

  “Come on, Lewis. I don’t have time for this. I need that paper. It’s important,” I pleaded.