“But you didn’t know that it was Laporte who sugared, not Phil.”
“Right. When I got up one morning and found Jerry tromping around out there, I was nervous. I was going to move him that night, and then your class showed up.”
Horse thought about all of this.
“So, they can’t identify him because…”
“The fingerprints on file for him are mine, because of my jail time.”
“What if they find Phil has been fingerprinted, but as Dan?”
But Dan only shrugged.
“We don’t have a lot,” Dan said. “I can’t bring Cora or Phil back. I guess you could argue they’re dead because of me, indirectly. But I didn’t do that. I didn’t get behind the wheel of that car. Still, I’ll own it. When I go to meetings I own it.”
“You go to meetings now?”
“I started in prison. I’m working the steps. But that’s them. The past. More directly, Peter’s not right because of me, but he’s a good kid. I feel like I’ve got a second chance here. A chance to make things up.”
Dan looked into his cup of cold coffee. It was morning but he was exhausted, his body limp as it shuffled back to his seat by the table.
“I just want to do what’s best for Peter,” he said at last. “It isn’t perfect, but I think this might be the only decent option.”
Horse knew he had to think about that.
CHAPTER 25
That desk.
That huge, old, metal desk that moved from room to room until it became his, and now it is his and he is its. A generation of locals, depending on how long ago they had graduated Grace Haven, can imagine that old man, a less old man, and, a few, a younger man, sitting bent over a pile of papers, correcting. That battleship gray metal, never fashionable old desk that occasionally moved to different places in the room was iconic, if only because no one else wants it. Even Horse didn’t want it. He had no emotional attachment to it, yet he is bound to it.
“Only a tool,” he had told parents who asked.
“He’ll be found bent over it, dead,” other parents said, leaving their conferences.
Sitting at this desk, red pen out, correcting the horrendous results of his classes’ latest grammar disaster, Horse looks up as Jones enters with some folders from Wells’ office in hand. The other teacher stands by the door and waits.
“Jacob Pueblo,” Jones calmly said. “Astigmatism. Letters look odd shaped and he refuses to wear his glasses. I looked it up.”
“Yes, yes...”
Old Horse didn’t look up; his mind was still on the grammar at hand.
Pen scribbling.
Less, not fewer.
Well, not bad.
At last, the grammar lost its hold after a few solid results. Back against the door frame, Jones stood until his presence finally outweighed the gravity of the assignment.
“It’s why he can’t read,” the old teacher muttered. Putting the cap on his red pen, he laid it down on the stack and looked up. “He can’t see the page.”
“How do you know that?”
“He goes to the nurse for headaches after reading.”
Horse leans back, giving his full attention.
“I thought he was avoiding.”
“No. He would avoid before your boring lesson.” Pause. Then a look comes over his face—Jones can’t decide if its kindness or sadness—before he speaks. “No. His head hurts from trying to focus so much on those annoying little letters in the book.”
“I’ll check with the nurse...”
“The nurse is an idiot. They checked for vision last year and sent him off with a 20/30 diagnosis.”
“You checked already?”
“Watch him on the baseball diamond,” Horse bluntly suggested. “He’s a great infielder, because he can see well enough at twenty feet and he’s quick. A line drive or throw to second is predictable. In the outfield, picking up a small white object against a light blue sky one hundred feet away is impossible.”
“But the nurse...”
“… doesn’t check for astigmatism. And his family won’t take him to the doctor unless he’s bleeding out his eyes. Family values. So, with the nurse’s okay, no one sees the problem.”
“How do I get him to the right doctor?”
“That is not my problem. We’re teachers, not social workers.”
Uncapping his pen, Horse went back to his correcting.
Without looking up he said, “Not social workers. Get it? We are not social workers. That’s a hint. Talk to the school social worker. They’ll sort it out. Oh, and call it astigmatism—one word—not “a stigmatism”; you’ll sound smarter. It’s the official term.”
Jones held out some files to Horse.
“You left your papers in Wells’ office.”
“Did anyone at that meeting care about those scores?”
“I thought you did? Wells did.”
“Wells...” Horse waves his hand. “Education isn’t about numbers.”
“What is it about?”
“Me.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Seriously. I have a curriculum that doesn’t bore me. My methods leave me with free time; no correcting once I leave this classroom and summers free. Teaching is a job. Your problem is that you aren’t honest about that.”
“I thought you were the selfless ideologue that stands by standards! That teaching is a calling.”
“I believe in standards, but in the end I teach because I enjoy reading books, talking about them, and having summers off. I have an English degree and no skills; teaching called me to a paycheck. I stay because I like the books.”
“Even teaching to seventh graders?”
“I can keep ahead of them easily.”
“That’s your reason?”
“And I can’t get a job at the high school. College kids scare me. It’s easier to push around a twelve-year-old.”
“So, you’re a bully.”
“I do my job. Wells lets parents choose which teacher their child gets. No one is a victim.”
“Still, the kids...”
“Are resilient.”
He returns to the latest paper.
Jeffery Boocher.
Oh, Jeffery….
Standing in the doorway, Jones saw an old man toiling. ‘Bent over a stack of papers, red pen flashing, it could be ten years in the past or ten years in the future,’ he thinks. The papers and comments and mistakes will all be the same. A tinge of fear—a fear of the future—passing through him, followed by anger and sadness that comes in no particular order.
“Wells said Peter was home,” reported the younger man.
“The father has returned,” replied the older.
Still, Horse would not look up.
His pen continued to scratch.
“There’s no parable for the prodigal father,” Jones quipped. “He gets the kid.”
Horse showed nothing, but he heard it in his heart.
“Do you miss him?” Jones asked.
Putting his pen down, the old teacher looked older to Jones.
“I think you made your first joke that made me laugh.”
“That you miss him?”
Horse said nothing.
“You should leave...” Jones suggested. He did this in a kind way, sure that Horse was hurting. Sure that the old man missed the boy, even as the boy should be with the father. “If you want something more.”
He looked down at another paper. To boldly go. He thinks, a split infinitive.
“What more is there?”
Horse opened his arms wide, stretching them out to include everything within the four walls of his classroom.
“We make decisions. They have consequences. I’m here.”
CHAPTER 26
“I thought we were done.”
Laporte was sitting behind his desk, working late. His sweatshirt was one he wore while changing the oil on his truck, and Timberlines stuck out from under the desk.
This is hi
s life, Horse thought, looking at him. This business.
Pulling two coffee mugs—one black, the other white—from the book shelf next to him, the contractor poured out an inch of Five O’Clock brand scotch into each. The bottle had just been sitting, and Horse figured Laporte was a couple glasses gone already.
“We are done,” the old teacher confirmed, taking the drink from him.
“Then, why the visit?” The contractor shifted his girth, putting more weight on his right elbow and the chair’s armrest. He leaned back and smiled, curious.
Taking a drink, Horse said, “The good stuff.”
“I save the good stuff for people I like.”
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”
Standing six feet in front of the desk, Horse’s eyes scanned the walls of the office, all safety posters and work site rosters. Ten o’clock at night, it was quiet except for a radio lightly playing behind Laporte’s desk. A pile of papers that Horse couldn’t read upside down sat on the desk. The contractor’s computer was off, the teacher noted; it sat in a dark corner of the desk, and none of the small LED lights that would still glow while it sat in sleep mode were on. He heard no hum of a fan.
“I didn’t poison it,” Laporte said, nodding to Horse’s mug.
Horse wasn’t so sure, but he took another sip anyway.
“Awful.”
“Do you always criticize the hospitality of others?”
“In fact, I do.”
The contractor was tired, so he got right to it. “What do you want?”
“You killed Dan.”
“Dan’s at home with his son.”
“You killed the man pretending to be Dan.”
“No one killed him.” Laporte looked down at his papers, then back up. “The coroner said he died from inhaling toxic fumes and a broken neck.”
“On a job.”
The contractor quickly responded, defensively. “Not one of my jobs.”
“I’m sure you covered that track well enough.”
Laporte didn’t respond.
“I mean,” Horse continued, “toxic fumes you’d find at a construction site. Broken neck. Dumped where you sugar….”
Horse took another sip.
It burned.
Looking down into his mug as if there was a bug in it he said, “Each sip gets worse.”
“Are we done?” Laporte snapped.
“Why did you send him to that job?”
“I didn’t send the guy anywhere.”
“Then you sent business his way.”
Laporte’s face smiled in concession, as if granting a small wish.
“Why?”
The two men stared at each other.
It was late.
In the silence, Horse realized that no one knew where he was. Laporte was twice his size, and strong. When they had first met and shook hands, Horse had noticed how rough the contractor’s hands had been: the hands of someone who works with concrete and wields tools. He had the body of someone who worked hard labor for a living. On the table by his desk was a pry bar. The teacher was surrounded by nothing but chairs.
‘He could kill me,’ Horse thought. No one would know.
“You blackmailed him.”
If Laporte was going to make a move, it would be now, Horse thought.
The big man didn’t budge.
“Why would I do that?” was all he asked, as if knowing the answer.
“Perhaps he knew about your meth labs.”
Laporte smiled at this.
“The scene had changed since the original Dan took off.”
“Scene?” The contractor snorted. “What year is this?”
“When it got lean a few years back,” Horse continued, ignoring him, “you got into meth. At some point you needed a plumber, but when you floated the idea to the new Dan he made it clear he had no interest. That’s when he stopped being on your payroll and subcontracted instead. Eventually, though, you either needed him or he stumbled into it. So, you blackmailed him.”
“Do you have proof?”
“No.”
“Then what does it matter?”
“I want to know.”
“Why?”
“I’m curious.”
Laporte thought about this.
“That’s the problem with education,” he said. “You get kids to ask questions, but the adults aren’t ready to answer them.”
“They often don’t know the answers?” Horse asked.
“No.” The contractor leaned forward, tired. “They want to know why there’s injustice in the world. Philosophical questions. Really good questions. And, as an adult, I know the answer. But I also know the next question: why not change it? Of course, I know the answer to that, too. It costs too much. You have to give up a lot—more than money—to stop injustice. To tackle the big questions.”
“Is that an answer?” Horse asked.
“It’s the best you’re going to get.”
Horse took a step forward. He put the mug on the desk in front of Laporte. “Can I have a refill?”
CHAPTER 27
Horse and Wells were sitting in Horse’s classroom; the teacher behind his desk, the administrator in a plastic chair made for the young adolescents who populate the room by day.
Wells was exhausted. “You left your data sheet behind.”
“Philippa Holmes.” Horse put his feet up on his desk. “Absence seizures. She just seems like a space cadet, but she’s literally out of it for huge blocks of time. Not there. And not aware she’s not there. So, she misses lessons. But she doesn’t know it.”
“Well, doctor, did you tell the parents.”
“I’m not a doctor.”
Slumped in the chair that was too small for him, Wells looked at his feet.
“You left the meeting.”
“I left politely. Besides, you were tired.”
“You spoke with Jones?”
“I’m always civil.”
Thinking about the meeting earlier in the week, Wells looked up at Horse. “You left your files on purpose?”
“Why can’t I just be absent minded?”
“Did you feed him the line about teaching being just a job?”
“Why do you have to be so reflective about everything?”
“Absence seizures?”
“Or female ADHD. Or she’s just stupid.”
“Do you believe that?”
“She may be, but the absence seizures sure don’t help.”
“And your other students we didn’t get to.”
“Lazy. Privileged. Lazy and privileged. They’ll be fine.”
“I trust that they will be.”
“Our culture encourages those types of behavior. The kid I’m worried about is Salvatore, with his parents refusing to let him play games or eat meat.”
“Well…”
“Have you seen the homemade bread he pulls out at lunch? I fear for his future.”
“I’m sure you can solve that problem by June.”
“I’m already giving him beef jerky.”
“With that problem solved, I think I’m going to go home, open a beer, and watch a movie.”
“Dead Poets Society or Goodbye, Mr. Chips?”
Horse takes from his desk a bottle of scotch and two coffee mugs. It is a nice single malt. He pours a drink for each and hands one to Wells.
“Loch Lomond,” Wells notes.
“It’s what Captain Haddock drinks.”
“Of course.” On the mug in Wells’ hands is printed World’s Greatest Administrator, which Horse had bought personally for him but had forgotten to give officially. “As long as it’s related to literature, having it is okay.”
“Exactly my thought.” Horse smiled and downed an inch. “Of course, I don’t know if I’d classify Tintin as literature.”
“A classic.”
“Racist.”
“Don’t argue with me.” Wells’ mind drifted to the evening. “I’m thinking Mr. Chips"
>
“I’m only coming over if you watch the Robert Donat version.”
“I don’t remember asking you over.”
“You’re watching the Peter O’Toole version, I take it.”
“I don’t know.”
“By the way, I figured out the Jeffery Boocher organization issue.”
“Oh? What is it? He’s disorganized? Brilliant.”
“No. He’s not disorganized. I was right.”
Wells smiled and took a sip from his mug. “What a surprise,” he said, sarcastically.
“He does not have an organization problem. No. Just the opposite. He’s so well organized he uses his organization issue to cheat. Each assignment he feigns having lost his work. The teacher corrects the others papers and passes them back. Mr. Boocher then takes someone else’s paper from the recycling bin, copies the answers, and passes it in as his own.”
“And you know this...”
“I threw incorrect work into the recycling bin. He didn’t even read what he was copying.”
“So, he’s a master organizer and cheat, but lousy at the details of cheating.”
“No. He can’t read.”
“What?”
“I spoke with his previous teachers, and his organization issues started when they started doing reading work. He’s a nice kid, so everyone excused his disorganization enough and he moved on. No one thought he simply couldn’t read.”
“How did he get past our testing? We put a lot into those tests.”
“Oh, a combination of being sick and looking at neighbors’ tests.”
Wells laughed. “Well, that’s something, I guess.”
“The real thing beats a movie about teaching.”
“That almost sounds like sentimentality.” Wells got up and poured himself another glass. “Do you know why I’m watching an education movie? Why, I’m watching Mr. Chips?”
“You like Robert Dunat?”
“True, but no.” Wells walks away from Horse to the window. Looking out, he turns his back to the outside and sits on the table top. Horse leaves his own desk and sits in the chair Wells vacated, turning it towards his principal. “In every feel-good education movie, the first thing that happens is they gather all of the no-good-nics and dismiss them. Gone.”
Wells takes a drink.
“In Lean on Me Morgan Freeman has the punks on stage before dismissing them. Then, the learning starts. In Stand and Deliver Hector Alanzo drives the losers out with hard work, leaving him with an AP Calculus class of like ten kids.”
Absentee List_An Old Horse Mystery Page 20
