by Ada Madison
“She didn’t even know the weapon the killer used,” I told Virgil.
“That’s what she made you think. She’s a smart girl.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t seem to make Virgil understand. “Maybe when we see the mayor’s replies to these emails, we’ll know for sure whether there was anything real between them.”
“Love how you say ‘we,’” Virgil said.
I wanted to remind Detective Mitchell that he’d come to me with the folder now resting between us, not vice versa. I had the feeling that one of his prime reasons for coming was to scold me for not mentioning Kira’s crush on the mayor.
The sound of a key turning in the lock, signaling the arrival of Virgil’s best buddy, saved me from possible arrest for dissing an officer of the law, which I was ready to do.
Bruce, who’d lovingly arranged for a ride to pick up my car at the shop, set down groceries that smelled good even before they were simmering on the stove, then gave me a kiss. There was nothing like basil to please your olfactory glands and a kiss from your boyfriend to set things right.
“Did you follow me to the market, or do you just have perfect timing?” he asked Virgil, as they knocked knuckles.
Virgil sniffed the air, newly enriched by the presence of fennel and oregano. “Are we having Italian?”
“Love how you say ‘we,’” I said.
“Touché,” Virgil said.
We didn’t bother explaining the repartee to Bruce, who was as busy as a housewife.
“I brought enough for an army,” he said. “I think I must be psychic.”
I knew I was, and I could hardly wait to tell Ariana about my remote sensing of Italian food.
I always enjoyed dinner with Bruce and Virgil, especially when it was prepared by Bruce, an excellent cook, and served by Virgil, who’d do anything not to cook for himself.
Over a dinner of spaghetti with clam sauce, green salad, and Italian bread, I listened to the two buddies swap war stories from their work life. It was a great way to forget my own battles.
Tonight Virgil told us about a new dent on the hood of his car, made by a guy who was resisting arrest. I didn’t want to think about which body part had been shoved into the hard, unforgiving metal. Bruce countered with the wrestling skills required to transport an unwilling senior citizen from one facility to another for treatment.
I was able to contribute a description of my current role as defendant in a trial carried out on Facebook.
Thanks to my long conversation and support from Fran, I managed to downplay the trauma my teaching persona had suffered. The guys had enough to worry about every day as part of their regular jobs, so I kept the Elysse Hutchins matter lighter than it felt to me.
“Kids these days,” I said.
They picked up on my tone.
“Let me know if you need muscle,” Bruce said, showing us his bicep.
“Remember I’m here to protect and serve,” Virgil said. “If it turns nasty, call me.”
I hated to think of those possibilities, but it was nice to know a couple of large men were on my side.
I walked Bruce out to his car, briefing him on Kira’s plight. He was on his way home to grab a nap before starting another twelve-hour shift at nine PM. We’d spent very little dinner time talking about current events, but I wanted Bruce up-to-date on everything.
“There’ll be a huge crowd at the service, or whatever it is, on Tuesday. What I can’t figure out is why Kira wants me to go with her so badly.”
“Other than you’re good company?”
“How sweet.”
“My take on it? She needs you to lend a little status to her visit. She’s not just some kid showing up alone or with other kids; she’s the friend of a professor. It’s like having a date for the prom.”
“Not so sweet.”
Bruce shrugged. “You asked.”
We leaned on his black Mustang, enjoying the perfect chill in the air. Rainstorms were forecast for the next few days, so we were making the most of the friendly weather.
“I just hope Virgil doesn’t arrest her before then,” I said. “I know Kira. She’s innocent.” I shook my head. “She’d never survive even an arrest, let alone anything that might follow.”
“Not that you’re going to do anything about that, right?”
I frowned and shook my head with vigor. “I’m just going to wait patiently to hear what they find in the mayor’s emails, whether he reciprocated or acknowledged her feelings in any way. That’s it.”
“I’d like to believe that,” Bruce said, getting into his car.
I was impressed by the stamina he had, ready to go back to work tonight. He claimed he slept through most of his shifts, but I knew he and his crew were on alert even when their eyes were closed.
“It’s going to be tough going back to my little sedan,” I said, patting the door of his car.
“I’ll bring this muscle car around for a visit tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget I’ll be at Zeeman Academy most of the day.”
“I thought that was a one-hour gig?”
“I might stretch it out a little tomorrow.”
“Because?”
Uh-oh, I hadn’t meant to spill out my intentions like that. “It’s the last week and I’ll have some good-byes to say.”
How handy that Mr. and Mrs. Sampson from two houses down happened to stroll by at that moment.
We chatted, then waved Bruce off together. I could tell that neither of them knew why I thanked them so profusely for the little visit as I turned to walk back to my house.
Early in my college teaching career I committed myself to volunteer in a school every year, in a K through 12 class. Well, maybe not K. I usually worked with high schools, leading advanced math classes for college prep students, but now and then I ventured out into the world of younger children. This was my first experience at a charter school.
“You just want to infiltrate those pliable young minds and brainwash them into being math majors later,” Bruce had accused me.
Ariana had put it differently, something about young souls and old souls, but she’d meant the same thing. They were both right. You couldn’t start too early to instill a love of math.
Zeeman Academy was located about fifty yards back from a busy country road on the western edge of Henley. The housing developments around the property were thought to be tough neighborhoods, but inside the fence, it always seemed safe and secure to me.
The long path to the school building was fronted by a short stubby brick wall with a bright blue and white sign announcing the entrance. A massive front lawn doubled as a playing field, which today hosted a field hockey game involving highly energetic and noisy children I recognized as fourth to sixth graders. The building itself was a modern two-story brick structure with a row of glass doors and a slanted roof.
As soon as I opened one of the front doors, more bedlam met my ears. Bad timing. But at Zeeman, a K through 8 school, it was hard to figure out the schedule. At the non-charter schools I was familiar with, classes changed at ten minutes to the hour, every hour. You could count on it. Here, students worked in groups on projects, at their own pace, and had only a few times during the week when they met in regular classroom settings, and even those comprised multigrade groups. Individual differences were paramount at Zeeman and not every child thrived with his school day divided into fifty-minute periods.
It had taken me a while to get used to the difference in overall noise level at Zeeman, not only compared to our college buildings, but also compared to other schools I’d volunteered in. One Zeeman teacher had explained to me that forcing children to be silent while moving about the hallways, for example, was a bad, stifling idea. A better approach was to replicate the home or work environment as much as possible, with an expected noise level.
“The corridors of an office building or a lab, where the students will work someday, aren’t silent. They have normal noise and chatter,” she’d pointed out, w
ithout specifying how many decibels she considered normal.
I would have preferred a level somewhere between a cloister and the kiddie park at the edge of town, where we’d take Bruce’s niece, Melanie. There was no question in my mind, however, that I would adjust to any environment if it meant I could keep working with pupils. My forte was teaching math skills; I was happy to leave it to others to design the proper environment and to prepare students for the more social aspects of their future career paths.
I arrived at Zeeman at ten, an hour before Rina Flores, the Spanish teacher, would corral twenty fourth, fifth, and sixth graders into a classroom for me, probably calling them in from a fun pickup game on the back lot, or a robot-building project. I had my work cut out for me.
But first I wanted to work on that chat with the school’s principal. I’d had few dealings with Mr. Douglas Richardson, and he’d been very pleasant when we met by chance in the hallway or parking lot. I’d invited him to visit my class at any time, but he had “a lot on his plate,” as he explained.
I knew from newspaper articles that Richardson was my age, but he seemed older. Maybe it was the fact that his suit jacket didn’t quite close around his spare tire. Also, his hair was nearly all white, whereas I was blessed with only one streak of gray, across the front of my forehead, an artifact many thought I paid regularly to have planted there. It was quite possible, too, that I had a warped view of how old I looked to others.
I’d taken a little time before nodding off last night to look over a brochure I’d received at a volunteers’ orientation meeting early in the year. I didn’t remember looking at it since. There was nothing like a murder to refocus one’s attention.
The philosophy as laid out in the booklet seemed forward-looking: “Zeeman Academy unites an imaginative, community-based, academic curriculum with emphasis on hands-on, experiential learning through workshops, projects, and internships.”
Overall I liked the premise of the innovative curricula that charter schools offered. Though ex-military Bruce didn’t approve of the lack of structure that characterized some of them, I saw the advantage of having schools that didn’t follow a strict regimen, helping kids at both ends of the learning spectrum. Whether gifted or challenged, kids could profit from having the freedom to move from one subject to another without a rigid schedule.
My reason for wanting to meet with Richardson now, however, had nothing to do with the philosophy of students’ obtaining work permits versus sitting still for in-class memory drills, or chatter versus silence in the hallways. I wanted to know why he and the mayor were at odds. According to Kira, the issues were grade inflation and test score fraud, but Kira had proven herself unreliable lately, and I needed to gather information at the source.
The intimate language of Kira’s emails to the mayor had come to my mind often since yesterday, edging out Elysse’s inflammatory Facebook posts. I wondered if I could count on Virgil to let me know what the mayor’s emails revealed, especially whether Kira’s affections were reciprocated. Not that I had a plan for what I would do about it, either way, except perhaps help Virgil—and Kira—evaluate the relationship.
As I approached Richardson’s door I mused over how to broach the subject. Plans I’d made last night seemed too flimsy in the light of day. I couldn’t seem to do any better now. “By the way,” I might begin, “did you and the murdered mayor have any bad blood between you?” Or, “Did the mayor, by any chance, catch you cheating on your grade reports so you’d get continued funding?”
I heard voices behind the door now, an argument for sure. Was it me or was there a lot of infighting going on these days? I couldn’t make out the words, but I could tell there wasn’t a party going on. I might have a few minutes to rework my opening after all.
Thwack!
I was stunned by a head-on, or rather head-to-chest, collision. A large mass exited Richardson’s office and plowed into me, knocking my purse and briefcase into the hallway.
“Pardon me,” a gruff voice said.
I stepped back, struggling to regain my footing. I looked up and saw my attacker—Superintendent Patrick Collins. His face was red, most likely from his argument with Principal Richardson. I doubted my short, small frame could have caused him to blush or made a dent in his massive front.
“Mr. Collins,” I said. How awkward.
“I’m so sorry, Miss…?” He looked perplexed, as if he wanted to ask how I knew him and why he didn’t know me. We’d shared a cocktail party and a stage only two days ago. Clearly I hadn’t made an impression. Or I simply looked different without my cap and gown.
I sprang to attention while he bent over, at considerable cost to his respiratory system, and picked up my purse and briefcase.
As he righted himself, I zeroed in on his bald head and his glasses, which nearly fell off in his struggle to retrieve my belongings.
I had a crazy thought and decided to run with it. I started with, “Did you enjoy our graduation ceremony on Saturday?”
The superintendent looked confused for a moment, perhaps surprised that I knew his whereabouts on the weekend. He recovered quickly with, “Oh, at Henley. At the college. Yes, of course, very nice. Always good to cheer on the next generation, isn’t it?”
I gave him an enthusiastic nod, as if I were agreeing with a deeply philosophical and insightful statement. Perhaps we should have invited him to give the graduation speech. “I was glad you could make it. And didn’t I see you in Franklin Hall afterward?” I counted on the fact that Collins wouldn’t know I was still on the stage at the time, having stuck it out until the last mortarboard reached its peak in the sky, stopped, and made its way down.
“The science building?” he asked.
“Math and science,” I said, with a smile. “The first floor is for the Math Department.”
He managed a chuckle while still catching his breath from the deep knee bend. “Yes, I needed a fax machine and someone pointed me in that direction. You know, we’re always on call these days, aren’t we?” He patted his pocket, where a cell phone might be. “Wired in,” he said. Grass wasn’t growing under his feet, my mother would have said.
I gave him a sympathetic, “Yes, we certainly are,” and added, “Too bad you had to trudge all the way over there. There’s a copy center in the Administration Building and also one in the library, both of which would have been a much shorter walk for you.”
“I guess I asked the wrong person.”
Or you were looking for someone, I thought.
The superintendent stuffed my purse and briefcase into my arms without ceremony. “I’d better run to my next meeting,” he said, adjusting his suit jacket and tie. He made off down the hallway as fast as his bulk could carry him, which no one would have called running.
Like principals’ offices in every school I’d ever been to, including my own K through 12 schools, this one had a bench outside. I took a moment to sit down and rearrange my things, making sure nothing escaped from the outside pockets of my purse. While I straightened myself out, I mulled over Superintendent Collins’s claim that he’d been looking for a fax machine. Woody, who had no reason to lie, told me he’d asked for the restroom. Maybe Collins was too embarrassed now to tell a lady, especially one he hardly recognized, that he’d needed a bathroom.
More likely, he was looking for the mayor. Since I hadn’t been paying attention to him, I didn’t see when Collins left the stage on Saturday. He could easily have slipped away during the exodus from the back rows right after Mayor Graves walked off, just before degrees were announced. I had an image of the bulky Superintendent Collins following the young mayor across campus, entering the building after the mayor had ducked into my office. It would have been too suspicious for him to ask Woody where the mayor was.
I regretted that I could think of no way to find out if the two met in or outside of Franklin. Or later that evening.
It occurred to me that the three times I’d seen the superintendent, he’d been irritated for
one reason or another. I’d seen him arguing with the mayor at the college president’s pre-graduation reception. Later, it was clear that he’d been disgruntled during the mayor’s commencement address, and most recently he’d nearly knocked me over after an argument with Zeeman’s Principal Richardson. An unhappy man. I wondered if he and Woody had gotten along during their brief interaction in Franklin Hall.
I stood and nearly got whacked again as Principal Richardson’s door opened and he rushed out.
“’Scuse me,” he said, and hurried down the hall without meeting my eyes. I doubted he knew whom he’d almost knocked over.
Two administrators, two near misses for injury.
I decided it would be safer in my classroom with the younger set.
At Zeeman, teachers were always happy to have guests drop in to their classrooms. We were welcome, as long as we walked around and interacted with the various groups of students and their projects.
I still had a half hour before my students would gather, so I stopped by Dan Sachs’s class. Dan, a passionate third-year teacher, had applied for and won a grant to outfit several rooms as technology-centric classrooms, which meant a laptop for every student, large interactive screens, and enough educational software to support a space mission.
Today, Dan’s students were working on a special curriculum he’d developed for teaching Shakespeare to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Fifteen small heads were bent over laptops, some of them lifting their eyes and moving their hands away from the keyboard long enough to say, “Hey, Dr. Knowles.” One of the groups was building Facebook pages for each of the characters in As You Like It; another was creating a song list from the Internet that expressed the emotions of the lovelorn Silvius; a third was writing code geared to constructing a concordance of Shakespeare’s comedies.
I wandered around among the groups, but participating more as a student than a teacher. I hadn’t written code since the clunky days of the mid-nineties. It was a pleasure to see how far programming had come and how accessible it was to these students.
