by Margot Hunt
“Then why do you keep picking on me? First my hair, now the calendar. The menu planning and shopping list... Is there anything else you’d like to criticize?”
“I’m not criticizing you. I just wonder sometimes what would happen if something in your life went off plan. How you would handle it.”
I let out a humorless bark of laughter. “What are you talking about? I’m a trial attorney. Things go off plan all the time. Every day. Just a few days ago, one of my clients spat at me.”
“But that’s just it—there are bright line rules that determine what happens in court. When your client spit on you, the deputies cuffed her and dragged her away, right? Which is exactly the response you’d expect. It’s probably the reason you were drawn to this profession in the first place.”
“Thank you for that psychoanalysis.”
“I’m not criticizing you. I’m just making an observation. You like rules and order and calendars.” Will waved a hand in the direction of the whiteboard. “It’s your comfort zone. You wouldn’t be happy as a soldier in Fallujah, wondering if you’re about to be ambushed by insurgent forces.”
“And that’s what you think your job as an estate lawyer compares to? A soldier in a war zone?”
“No, of course not. I wasn’t saying anything of the kind. But, yes, I do think that I’m more flexible and easygoing in general.”
“How nice of you to share that sentiment with me,” I said sarcastically.
Will took another swig of his beer, then looked around as if he’d lost something. I wondered why he was suddenly so antsy when I saw that his gaze fell on his phone, sitting facedown on the counter. He grabbed it and typed a pass code to unlock the screen. That was another thing—he never used to have a lock screen on his phone.
“Why do you keep your phone locked?”
“What?” he answered without lifting his head.
“You never used to lock it. You said it irritated you to have to punch in a pass code every time you wanted to listen to a voice mail.”
“It’s supposed to be safer to keep it locked. What if it was stolen? I have clients’ information on here,” he said. “Speaking of which, I need to go send out a few emails before I wind down for the night. I’ll take Rocket for a walk when I’m done.”
Will strode off. A few beats later, I heard the door to our home office close.
I spent a few minutes scrubbing the kitchen counters with more force than necessary, breathing heavily through my nose. So now I was a control freak? Yes, I liked to stay on top of our schedule, but why was that such a bad thing?
I finally gave up trying to get the coffee stain out of the granite countertop and threw the sponge in the sink. I stalked upstairs to our bedroom, where I changed into my favorite soft cotton pajamas. Our master bedroom decor was tranquil and serene, with soft gray walls and a low modern platform bed made up with simple white linens. I had kept clutter to a minimum, to keep it a calming, restful place. Although at the moment I was feeling anything but calm and restful.
I pulled out my laptop and sat down on the bed with it. I had downloaded the photos I’d taken at the beach earlier, but I hadn’t had time to go through them. Photography was a relatively new hobby for me. Will had given me the camera as a Christmas present, which had been a nice surprise. At first. Right up until Will had commented—in an annoyingly condescending tone—that he thought I’d benefit from taking up a new pastime.
Anyway.
I still wasn’t very good. Usually, I just shot a ton of photos and then deleted most of them, which is what I did now. There were a few cute pictures of Charlie riding the waves on his boogie board. One of Charlie and Will grinning at one another. I moved those over to a file to edit later. Then I saw one of just Charlie that stopped me dead. I enlarged it and leaned forward toward the screen.
In the picture, my son was facing away from the camera, looking out toward the ocean, his board tucked under one arm. His slim shoulders set back, the blades resolutely pushed together. His round hands gripping either side of the boogie board. His orange swim shirt, a size too big, pulling up and gathering at around the waist. In front of him, the ocean was swirling darkly. The water looked almost alive, churning angrily.
I had been there, of course. I had taken the picture. But I didn’t remember the water looking so foreboding at the time. Now, blown up on my laptop screen, it looked like Charlie had stopped to consider whether he should take another step forward.
It looked like he was about to walk straight into danger.
And even though I knew my son was in his room, safe and alive, my stomach knotted with fear.
Chapter 2
There were two sheriff’s cars parked in front of Franklin School the next morning—a cruiser and an SUV. I noticed them as soon as I pulled into the parking lot and joined the car drop-off line that snaked around the school.
“Are you having an assembly today?” I asked.
“I hope not,” Charlie replied.
“Why? I used to love assemblies when I was in school. They get you out of class for a while. That always makes the day more interesting, right?”
“But they’re so boring.” Charlie’s shoulders slumped and his head lolled forward as he acted out just how boring they were. “Last week, a policeman came to talk to us about cyberbullying, and it lasted forever.”
“The police were just here for an assembly last week?” I glanced back at the sheriff’s cars again. “I wonder why they’d be back so soon.”
Charlie shrugged. “I just hope we don’t have to listen to any more stories about kids committing suicide because they were bullied online.”
“That’s what they talked to you about? Kids committing suicide?” It sounded like a dark subject for fifth graders.
“Yep. We had to watch this movie where all the kids were ganging up on this one girl. They were sending her mean texts and posting stuff about her on Facebook. So she killed herself.”
“How horrible. What did you think about that?”
“I don’t know. It seemed kind of dumb. Why wouldn’t she just block them so she couldn’t see what they were writing?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. Maybe she didn’t know what to do.”
“But it would be easy to block the people who were bullying her and not have to see what they were posting,” Charlie argued. “And then she wouldn’t have had to kill herself.”
“Life isn’t always that black-and-white,” I replied.
“Well, it should be.”
We reached the front of the car line, where a few of the teacher’s aides stood ready to help the smaller kids out of the cars. I put my SUV in Park so Charlie could climb out. He turned back to grab his backpack and other belongings.
“Do you have everything?” I asked.
“I think so.”
“Have a great day, honey. I love you.”
“Love you, too.” Charlie slammed the door shut and headed toward the group of students waiting to be ushered inside the school. I watched as he reached his best friend, Jack, who grinned at him, and they launched into a conversation that involved a lot of arms waving and wide-eyed excitement.
Someone in one of the cars behind me honked. I looked up in my rearview mirror.
“Seriously?” I said out loud. I shook my head, put my car in gear and pulled forward.
I was just turning out of the school when my phone rang. I checked the caller ID. It was Mandy Breen, my best friend. I hit the accept button on my car interface.
“Someone just honked at me in the car line,” I said by way of greeting.
“I know, I heard,” she said. “I was three cars back from you.”
Mandy’s daughter, Beatrice, was in Charlie’s fifth grade class. She also had another daughter, Amelia, who was a third grader at Franklin.
“Do you know who it was?�
�
“Someone driving a silver Mercedes sedan with one of those annoying Peace Love Happiness magnets on the back.”
“That’s Laura MacMurray’s car. I would have thought she was too evolved to lower herself to honking. She must be late for a hot yoga class.”
Mandy laughed. “Do you have time to go grab a coffee?”
“I wish. I have to be in court in thirty minutes. Rain check?”
“Of course. Hey, do you know why the police are at the school this morning?”
“No idea. I assumed they were doing some sort of safety presentation for the kids, but Charlie said they were just at the school last week.”
“That’s what the girls told me, too. You don’t think it’s anything we should worry about?”
“Like what? Do you think Mrs. Fischer is running a drug ring out of the school office?”
Mrs. Fischer was the school office administrator. She was in her late sixties, had a helmet of steel-gray curls and rarely smiled. She scared the hell out of all the kids and most of the parents.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. I could totally picture her as the head of a drug cartel, cutting up the people who double-crossed her and feeding their body parts to alligators in the Everglades,” Mandy joked.
“That’s quite a vivid imagination you have.”
“I know, it’s a gift, really.” Mandy laughed. “Let me know if you hear anything.”
“Will do. Hey, wait, before you go, I have to ask you a question. But I want you to be honest.”
“I’m always honest. Well, actually, that’s not true. I’m often full of shit. But I’ll do my best.”
“Do you think I’m controlling?”
There was a pause. “Do you want me to tell what you want to hear or do you want me to tell you the truth?”
“Seriously? You really think I’m controlling?”
“Honey, you have an entire walk-in closet in your house dedicated to wrapping presents.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You showed it to me.”
“Okay, I do have a closet set aside to store gifts in that also has a pull-out wrapping station, but it’s not a walk-in. It’s just a regular-sized closet in the guest room, which, I might add, no one has stayed in since my mother-in-law died,” I said. “How exactly does that make me controlling?”
“I don’t even know what a pull-out wrapping station is, and, no, please don’t tell me. But, yes, I would say that having a designated wrapping and gift storage area would put you squarely in the Type A column.”
“Do you know how many birthday parties Charlie was invited to last year? Nineteen. That’s a lot of presents to wrap, and that doesn’t even include Christmas or family birthdays,” I argued.
“Well, in that case, you’re right, it makes perfect sense for you to have an entire area of your house dedicated to gifts and wrapping paper.”
“Really?”
“No, of course not, I think you’re insane. Totally bananas. But I love you, anyway. Talk to you later.”
“Bye,” I said, laughing as I hung up.
* * *
I had a couple of cases on the court docket that morning—two separate drug possessions and one burglary of a commercial premises. None were overly complicated, but they took up most of the morning, especially since I had to go over a proffered plea deal with one of my clients. Happily, no one felt the need to spit on me.
After court, I picked up some coffee to go and drove the short distance to my office. It was an older building that had once been a residential house, but had some time back been sectioned off into four separate suites. I had one of the ground floor units, which consisted of a reception area, my office and a small kitchenette. It was small and pokey, but it had a great view of the Intracoastal Waterway out of the rear windows, which I never tired of.
I balanced the paper coffee cups in one hand while I pushed open the door.
“Hey, Nat,” my receptionist, Stella, said. She was in her late twenties and had lately been sporting a retro look—her dark hair piled high and secured with a scarf, winged eyeliner, matte red lipstick, knee-length floral dresses with big shoulder pads.
“I brought you a coffee,” I said, setting down a latte on her desk.
“Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite boss?”
“I’m your only boss.”
“I meant out of all the bosses I’ve ever had. You’re also the only boss I’ve had that hasn’t sexually harassed me. How was court?”
“Riveting as always,” I said dryly. “Although I think Dex Walker is going to take the plea deal.”
“What are they offering?”
“Eight months. They were originally offering him thirteen, but that would have meant state time. I talked them down to eight so he can stay at the county jail.”
“Which is just like staying at the Ritz,” Stella joked.
“Compared to the state penitentiary, it practically is. Anything going on here?”
“Actually, you got a flurry of phone calls starting about a half an hour ago.” Stella handed me a stack of messages on thin yellow paper. “It was weird. Three different women called you and all of them said they knew you through Charlie’s school.”
“From school?” I set down my coffee cup on the counter and flipped through the message. Ellie Jones. Keiko Bae. Sarah Forrester. I recognized the names—they were all moms of kids who went to Franklin School—but I didn’t know any of them very well. Presumably that’s why they were calling me at my office, since I doubted if any of the three had my cell phone number. “Did any of them say what they were calling about?”
“No. Maybe they’re all dying to have you on the bake sale committee.”
“Somehow I doubt that, considering I don’t bake,” I said. “Are you going to lunch?”
“Soon. I just want to finish getting these bills out first, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, go whenever you like,” I said, picking my coffee back up.
Which was certainly not the response of someone who was a control freak, I thought, as I headed to my office. I closed the door behind me and settled behind my desk with my coffee. I considered returning the mysterious phone calls, but something stopped me. I didn’t want to get sucked into some sort of school intrigue without knowing what was going on.
I pulled out my mobile phone and saw that I’d missed a text from Mandy:
OMG Where r u? Call me ASAP!!!
Something was definitely up. I wondered if it had anything to do with the police cars parked in front of the school. I called Mandy, who picked up immediately.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Robert Gibbons was arrested! Or, at least, I think he was,” Mandy said, her voice high and her words tumbling out over one another.
“What?” I exclaimed. “Robert? No, that can’t be right.”
Robert Gibbons was the principal of Franklin School. I’d known him for years. Will and I had first met him and his then-wife Venetia when we moved to Shoreham fourteen years earlier. We rented an apartment in the same building where the Gibbonses lived. Most of the other tenants at the Harbor Bay complex were retired snowbirds, so as the only two couples under the age of sixty, we naturally gravitated toward one another. Will and I were newlyweds at the time, but Robert and Venetia had been married for a bit longer. We’d struck up a casual though convivial friendship, getting together for pizza and beers or going to see a movie on the weekend. We eventually bought houses in different parts of town, and as a result saw each other less frequently. Then Will and I had Charlie, while the Gibbonses remained childless. I was never sure if that was a choice or if they’d struggled with infertility. In any event, by the time they decided to divorce three years earlier, we hadn’t all gotten together in a while.
Ro
bert was a kind man who truly loved his job and was dedicated to Franklin School. A large part of the reason we’d decided to enroll Charlie at the school was that Robert had already been the principal there for a few years. He was an old soul who collected antique coins and read history books for fun. He certainly wasn’t a criminal.
“I know, it is crazy. But I’m telling you, that’s what I heard. Sarah Forrester saw the police leading him out of the school,” Mandy exclaimed.
“Sarah called my office a little while ago. A few of the other school moms did, too.”
“They all think you’ll have the dirt on what’s going on.”
“I don’t. This is the first I’ve heard anything about it. Are you sure he was arrested? Maybe he witnessed something, and they were just bringing him in to make a statement,” I suggested. That seemed far more likely than Robert committing an actual crime.
“A witness to what? Has anything happened in the past few days?”
There was enough crime in Shoreham to keep me and a half-dozen other criminal lawyers relatively busy, but the town was hardly the crime wave capital of Florida. Almost all the crimes that did occur had to do with drugs or alcohol or, on the more serious side, assaults and child abuse. But I hadn’t heard of anything noteworthy happening in the past forty-eight hours.
“Nothing,” I said. “And I was in court all morning. If something big was going on, I probably would have heard about it.”
“Maybe it has to do with something that happened at the school. Stolen tablets or something like that. And Robert had to go in and give a statement.”
“That’s probably the most likely explanation.”
Actually, in my experience, when middle-aged people with no prior criminal records were arrested, there were usually only two likely possibilities—a DUI or a domestic assault charge. The DUI seemed the more likely option, as I didn’t think Robert was seeing anyone. And I’d never gotten the impression that his and Venetia’s relationship had been volatile. Then again, it was impossible to ever fully know what went on inside someone else’s marriage.
Mandy ran down the wild speculations flying around the school mom gossip chain to explain why the police had been at the school. One theory was that an eighth grade boy had gotten in trouble for forwarding a naked selfie taken by a female classmate. Another was that the science teacher had been caught growing pot in her apartment. And yet another speculated that they finally discovered who had set the fire in the boys’ locker room the previous year, causing quite a bit of damage to the gym. While she talked, I pulled up the Calusa County arrest report on my laptop and scanned through the names and booking photos. Robert wasn’t included on the list, nor did any of the arrestees seem connected to the school.
