by David Chill
"I can imagine," I said, wondering how the invisible boundaries of good taste could be so easily shattered.
"And, of course, all the players are required to pay three hundred dollars to join the team. I mean their parents of course, they pay the fee."
This time I felt my eyebrows going up. "Players need to pay money to be on the team?"
"Oh, it does help out. The scholarship players get an exception, of course. The other parents pitch in to cover those kids if the parents are in need."
"Are a lot of players on scholarship here?"
Mrs. Farsakian pursed her lips for a moment and thought. "Some. Maybe a third."
I did a quick calculation and that most likely included most of the football team's starters. "I guess you have some wealthy parents here."
"Oh, we do! In fact, we had our annual Spirit of St. Dismas Day in June, that's the big one of course. It was so wonderful. We rented out the Gamble House, that Craftsman museum near the Rose Bowl? You're not supposed to do parties or fundraisers there, but well, someone at the school had a connection. You know how that goes. We had a silent auction and raised almost two hundred thousand dollars that night. Some of the parents were extraordinarily generous. A lot of money poured into our foundation."
"I'm impressed," I said. "That's remarkable. Were there some plans for the money? Put in a new field?"
"Oh, well, I'm not really sure. There was talk of putting a Jumbotron in, but I think that might have been too expensive. The coaches were looking into it. They were talking about a lot of things, improvements to the locker room, practice field, equipment, that sort of thing. They have the latitude, you know."
"So Coach Savich directs where the money goes," I said, scratching my head and thinking that a new Jumbotron might cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This wasn't the type of item they stocked at Best Buy.
"Yes, well, of course. Duke's the one in charge. But on the fundraising, I've mostly been working with the assistants on these events. Curly has been very involved this year."
"Curly. He's the one the size of a beer truck, right?"
Skye Farsakian giggled. "Yes. He's quite big, isn't he?"
"All right," I said, sensing the conversation going off on a path I didn't want to go down. I thought of something. "Can you tell me about a Mary Swain?"
"Ms. Swain? Oh, she teaches A-PUSH."
"A-PUSH?"
"Yes, that's right. Oh, it's A.P. U.S. History. Advanced Placement. My son Dashiell was in her class last year."
"Is she a good teacher?"
"Well, now, hmmm. How should I put this?" she frowned.
"You can be honest," I winked. "I won't tell on you."
"Oh," she laughed. "I didn't mean ... well, she's a good teacher, I guess, but maybe a tough teacher, too. She drives the kids hard. I know the coaches don't like her. And you know, she can be a real pain at times."
"How so?
"When the team has an away game and the players need to leave early, she makes a big fuss. Says the kids need to study and that football is a waste of time. She's tried to even shut down the football team. Can you imagine? Says it causes concussions, that football is a diversion, yada, yada. Thinks it's a distraction, and not just for the players, but for all the students. She thinks it takes too much time away from their schooling."
I could see where many coaches would not appreciate that. There is often a level of unease between academics and athletics at many schools, and it continues up through college. It also creates some tension in the student body. The football players are treated differently, they're often the big men on campus. The straight-A students feel left out. Of course, a few years later the tables often get turned, with the athlete sometimes stocking shelves at Home Depot, and the class nerd becoming a respected leader in his profession.
"So there's been some friction," I said.
"You might say. I'm just so glad my son has Jason Fowler this year for History. He teaches A.P. Euro. Jason is such a doll. Wonderful teacher, wonderful person. I wish Dash had Jason as his teacher last year. Instead he was stuck with that ... woman."
I had an idea. "So where might I find this woman, Mary Swain. She's probably gone home by now?"
"Oh, I doubt it. Ms. Swain stays late. She's the Chair of the Social Studies Department. She's often the last person to leave. Doesn't have much of a personal life as I hear it, they used to call women like that spinsters back in the day. But I guess not so much anymore. Mr. Mularkey, the principal, used to joke he's going to give her a key to the school. One that actually works."
I smiled and thanked Mrs. Farsakian. Walking back into the school building, I went down a long corridor connecting the athletic facilities with the main school building. That odd school smell wafted into my nostrils as I strolled through the quiet, empty hallways, passing a large banner promoting Friday night's game against De La Salle, with an encouraging Go Warriors! on it. After a while, I found my way to the social studies wing. Sure enough, there was a light on in the corner office, the one with Social Studies Department engraved on the door. But the person on the inside wasn't who I was expecting.
Instead of a bookish woman, I came upon a handsome young man in his early thirties, lean, with dark, curly brown hair. He wore a checked, short-sleeve dress shirt, and a dark, nondescript tie. He was hunched over a desk and sorting through a mess of papers spread out haphazardly around his desk.
"Hello," I said. "May I interrupt?"
He looked up from a pile of papers. "Yes?"
"The name's Burnside," I said, walking in and handing him my card.
"A detective," he mused, giving it a long look. "Well, that's certainly interesting."
"Technically, I'm a licensed private investigator. But it's easy to confuse the two."
"I suppose."
"I'm looking for Mary Swain," I said.
"Well, she's gone. And she won't be coming back for a while."
"Oh?"
"I'm Jason Fowler. Yes, Ms. Swain went out on a sabbatical. Just filed today. Odd that it happened right at the start of fall classes. I'm trying to scramble and get things together."
"May I?" I asked and pointed to one of two hard yellow wood chairs facing him. The office was bare bones, a standard gray metal desk, a file cabinet, and a few uncomfortable chairs. Some beige paint on the far wall had developed cracks. A small window overlooked a courtyard. It was September, so it wasn't close to getting dark yet, but a few soft gray shadows had begun to creep up against the stone exterior. He motioned for me to sit.
"How long have you been at St. Dismas?" I asked.
"Most of my life it seems," he smiled widely, revealing some big white teeth. "I graduated from here almost fifteen years ago. Went to college and came back. Prodigal son returns."
"Sounds like Welcome Back Kotter."
He laughed. "Maybe a bit. I love teaching here. But it was disturbing to see Ms. Swain leave so suddenly. She was my social studies teacher when I was a student. I decided to follow her into education. After I had a career detour that is. First, I had to spend a year in law school. Worst year of my life."
"It takes a special person to be a lawyer," I said, thinking of my wife Gail, and her job as a prosecutor with the City Attorney's office. "But great teachers are special, too."
"Yes. Mary was one of them. When I went here, the school was in transition. The don't-spare-the-rod theory wasn't working, I saw it up close. Kids who misbehaved were practically tortured."
"How so?"
"Well, there was one kid I went to school with who was disrespectful, so the teacher taped the kid's hands to his desk. Periodically the teacher would walk over and smack his knuckles with a ruler."
"I don't imagine that worked so well," I said, thinking this technique was not unlike the punishment I observed some coaches doling out to players who didn't work hard at practice. I never saw a player beaten, but coaches would sometimes require certain ones to run wind sprints until they collapsed. Or repeatedly go through
the Oklahoma drill, which was a brutal one-on-one blocking drill, forcing a player to do it until they couldn't defend themselves any longer and would get repeatedly knocked to the ground.
"No, it didn't work at all," he said. "At best it created an angry kid who had to hide his emotions. Trust me, none of those kids who were disciplined in that manner turned out okay. But that was then. Tail end of an era. The old guard was shunted off and they began bringing in real teachers. Things are a lot better. It's a more nurturing environment now."
"All right."
"So how can I help you?" he asked.
"Well, I was hoping to speak with Ms. Swain. One of the parents asked me to look into some fundraising irregularities."
"Oh?"
"Apparently there are allegations that some of the money raised for the football team hasn't been dispersed properly."
"How much money?"
"I'm afraid it goes into six figures."
Fowler whistled softly and thought about this for a minute. "I'm surprised," he said. "And maybe a little shocked. What you're telling me is extremely disturbing. This is not something that looks good for a school. Especially one with a religious affiliation."
"I can imagine," I said, although my experience with religious schools was mixed. They did some wonderful things. But in high school, we played a number of football games at parochial schools. In a few instances, the clock was stopped for no reason when our opponent was trailing late in the game. Time outs were not always recorded properly. Referee calls were curiously changed by a more senior official. One of our coaches was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for politely questioning a referee's interpretation of the rules. Even in college, the running joke at USC was that when we visited South Bend, Indiana, to play Notre Dame, we needed to beat them by two touchdowns just to get out of there with a three-point victory.
"How well do the football coaches get on with the teachers here?" I asked.
"Oh, it's fine," he responded with a wave of the hand. "We all want what's best for the school. And the kids, of course."
"You never had any disagreements with the coaches?"
"Oh, we've butted heads a few times, sure. But the football team brings a lot of publicity to the school. Without it, most people would never have even heard of St. Dismas."
"Have you had many football players in your classes?"
"Sure."
"Mind if I ask you about them?"
"I guess not. If you think it will help."
I wasn't entirely sure it would help, but I figured the more I learned, the closer I might get inside of this fundraising issue. I didn't know a lot, so there was no great place to start.
"Noah Greenland?"
He smiled. "Ah, Noah. Everyone's hero. The captain of the ship."
"What do you think of him? I mean away from football."
Fowler stopped smiling and his face briefly revealed a grimace. "He's doing the best he can," he said slowly. "Noah's extremely bright. But he's never struck me as being very happy. Kid like that, you'd expect him to be the big man on campus. Everyone wants to be his friend. But for Noah, it always struck me as a burden."
"How about Austin Bainbridge?"
Jason Fowler sighed. "Wow. Polar opposite of Noah. Wild child, not a care in the world. He just floats through school. Austin was in my American History class last year. I don't think he handed in a single assignment he wrote on his own. Intellectually lazy. He was fine with letting girlfriends do his homework, or copying things straight from an Internet site. He didn't even bother to change a word, that's how uncreative this kid is."
"A few people might call that plagiarism. At some schools, that's justification for expulsion. Did you confront him?"
"Of course," Fowler said. "And he had the temerity to insist the Internet site copied from him. And when I saw one of his girlfriends hand him the homework assignment, he insisted she was only reading it out of curiosity."
"You speak to his parents?"
"Oh, boy. They're another story," he sighed. "One of the downsides to private schools is that some kids get by because of their family. Austin's father donates to the school. His parents are divorced, the mother is uninvolved. I've never seen his father come to school for anything besides football games. Can you believe that?"
Knowing Earl Bainbridge, I could believe anything. "So Austin gets away with things."
"At most, Austin gets a slap on the wrist. I know Ms. Swain was very upset about all this. She felt the whole emphasis on sports demeaned the school."
"What do you think?" I asked.
"Look, this was something Mary and I disagreed about. She thought football was evil. I thought it added to the high school experience. Maybe it had to do with my going here a few years back. St. Dismas wasn't always such a football powerhouse."
"What changed here?"
Jason Fowler peered at me. "It was after I left. We got a new coach. Very aggressive guy, recruited some good athletes. Turned the program around. I'm surprised you didn't know this."
I frowned. I hadn't paid much attention to high school football until a little over three years ago, when all of a sudden it became my whole world. I knew St. Dismas was a big-name football factory, and I had merely assumed it always had been.
"I'll guess that's not Duke Savich you're referring to."
"No, he came in about four years ago."
"Did that other coach move on to a bigger program? Coaching in college?"
"No, in fact he's been prohibited from coaching for a number of years. That was part of the terms of the settlement with the school."
"Settlement?"
"Yes," Fowler said. "There was an altercation and a big lawsuit that followed. Some dad was angry that his kid wasn't getting enough playing time so he confronted the coach. Words were spoken, and well, the parent left the coach's office head first. The coach literally tossed him through the door."
"And the name of this coach...?"
"Yes, that's what's so interesting. It's Bob Greenland. Noah's dad. Sorry. I thought you knew about it."
*
The drive back to West L.A. was long, and in rush hour, there are few clear arteries. Whether crossing the valley floor through Burbank or driving into the nightmarish four-level interchange above downtown, getting home from Pasadena was a nuisance. I consoled myself by thinking of the check I had finally received this morning for an eight-year-old case, as well as the fact that I was layering an extra premium onto Earl Bainbridge. When someone makes a six-figure donation and doesn't know where the money has gone, it struck me that I could put his money to more practical use, like making some mortgage payments. It certainly wouldn't be going toward a Jumbotron.
Our house was located in Mar Vista, a few miles from the ocean, and a few blocks off of Venice Boulevard. Gail and I liked that we were close to freeways, but nestled in a nice, secluded tree-lined street. The area was developed during the 1950s, so there was mature landscaping and we had a large maple tree towering over our front yard. Back East, when the cool weather set in during late September, the maple leaves would begin turning into beautiful shades of red, orange and gold. In L.A., these leaves might start to change colors around Christmas. Right now, our maple looked like any other shade tree, except this one had a gaggle of plastic balls strewn about the trunk. Few things could surpass the joy of knowing children had been playing there. I walked into my house, and it didn't take long for me to be showered with my favorite sound of the day.
"Daddy's home!"
Marcus raced over to hug my leg, and I ruffled his hair with one hand, the other hand working overtime to prevent a pie box from tipping over. This was my new life and I loved it. I had no idea I would become a father in my 40s, but my path in life had been altered by so many twists and turns, I had finally stopped planning and surrendered to the winds of fate. At USC, I had been a four-year starter at free safety on the football team, and I cultivated dreams of playing in the NFL. Those dreams came crashing down in an instant,
when a freak knee injury sidelined me, and I was unable to perform for pro scouts at the Combine or at USC's Pro Day. My coach, Bulldog Martin, arranged for a tryout with the Rams, but they were well-stocked at safety, and I was waived after the first preseason game. Little did I know I would go on to have a career as an LAPD officer, or that my departure from the force thirteen years later would be even more unexpected and painful than the knee injury.
"How was preschool today?" I asked. "Your first day at Grand View."
"Um. Okay."
"That's good."
"Well, maybe not," he managed as I peered at him. "Oh. I don't know."
"That covers most of the options," I said as Gail walked into the living room and gave me a kiss. I looked at her beautiful face and said, "I hope your day had more clarity."
"It was fine. I'm working on a new burglary case at the office," she said, smoothing her long, chestnut brown hair away from her face. "Say, what's in the box? Looks like a treat."
"A treat indeed," I said and turned to Marcus. "You think you'd like to sample some strawberry pie for dessert?"
"Oh, wow!" he exclaimed as his eyes grew wide. "I didn't know they made that!"
"Errr ... Marcus," Gail said, bending down and giving him a stern look. "Is there something you'd like to tell your dad?"
Marcus looked forlornly down at the carpet. "Do I have to?"
"Yes," she said. "We don't keep secrets from each other in this household."
"What happened?" I asked, sitting down on our couch. Marcus climbed into my lap.
"We were playing this new game I learned. Bumper tag."
"What's that?" I asked.
"It's like tag, you're it. But you have to bump them to tag them."
"Okay," I said, not sure I liked where this was going.
"So this kid named Ricky bumped me hard. And I bumped him back."
"And?"
"That's it," he said.
