by Lisa Gardner
VanderZanden nodded his head with real emotion. “That’s Charlie. About two months ago he started hanging around our school after hours. Teachers would see him lounging outside the fence, talking to kids on the playground. As long as he was on the street side of the fence, however, there was nothing we could do. Then one day Mrs. Lund saw Charlie hand Danny a cigarette through the fence. She immediately took the cigarette away from Danny and wrote him up, but there was nothing she could do about Charlie. He told the boy not to sweat it. ‘Detention is when all the fun stuff happens,’ or something like that. We sent a note home to Danny’s parents, and we never caught him smoking again, but we’d still see Charlie around. I don’t know why he insisted on bothering us at the K-through-eight. You’d think he’d be more interested in the high school.”
“Did Charlie know Miss Avalon?” Quincy asked.
“I don’t think so. She moved to town just last year, when we got the federal grant. Then again …” Principal VanderZanden flushed. He looked at Rainie with something akin to embarrassment.
“She was very pretty,” Rainie filled in for the tongue-tied principal. “Very, very pretty.”
“She’s a very good teacher,” VanderZanden added immediately, but his dark eyes appeared wistful. Melissa Avalon had been beautiful.
“How old was she?” Rainie inquired.
“Twenty-eight.”
“Young enough and pretty enough to attract a nineteen-year-old,” Rainie concluded, and looked at Quincy. He appeared deep in thought.
“Miss Avalon moved to Bakersville recently?”
“Last summer. We hired her in August. Frankly, we’d given up on getting the grant, and then boom. You know the feds. Obviously.”
“Where did Miss Avalon come from?”
“She’d just gotten her master’s from Portland State University.”
“Was this her first job?”
“Her first full-time teaching position. She subbed in Beaverton’s school district before that. That’s one of the reasons we hired her.” VanderZanden gave them the apologetic look of a veteran civil servant. “We have a very tight budget here, and new teachers are cheaper than experienced ones.”
“Do you know anything about her private life?” Rainie asked. “Where her family lives, anything?”
VanderZanden hesitated. He looked self-conscious again and wouldn’t meet Rainie’s gaze. “I believe she has parents in the Portland area.”
“What about past relationships? Maybe an old boyfriend she left behind? A current beau who wanted more of her time?”
“I think … I think you should ask her parents about that sort of thing. It’s not appropriate for me to be commenting on the private lives of my staff.”
“Principal VanderZanden, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Phone calls are fast, Officer,” he said firmly. “It’s the advantage of modern life.”
Rainie frowned, not liking the principal’s sudden lack of cooperation, but before she could push harder, Quincy pissed her off by taking over the interview.
“What about Danny’s relationship with Miss Avalon? Did they get along well? Did he have any problems in her class?”
“Oh no,” VanderZanden said emphatically. “That’s the crazy thing about yesterday. I would’ve sworn Miss Avalon was Danny’s favorite teacher. Certainly he loved being in the computer lab and was one of our most adept students on the Internet. Before school, during lunch, after school. It seemed he was always in the lab. Sometimes Miss Avalon even stayed late just for him.”
“On the Internet?” Rainie jumped in. “Do you know what he’d do on the Web, where he’d go?”
“I’m not sure. Visit Web sites, look things up.”
“Did he go into chat rooms?”
“Probably. Miss Avalon had it set up so students couldn’t access X-rated sites—she had one of those filters installed. Otherwise, students were free to roam. The whole point was to encourage them to be more computer savvy.”
“Did he play computer games?” Quincy asked. “Any specific ones?”
“I don’t know. In all honesty, the only person who would is Miss Avalon.”
Rainie nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. Danny loved the Internet. That put a new spin on things. An adept user could go just about anyplace, learn just about anything. The Springfield shooter, Kip Kinkel, had used the Internet to learn how to build bombs and rig booby traps. Right before they were murdered, his parents had even commented to friends that they were happy to see their troubled son take an interest in computers. Finally, something nonviolent …
It also meant Danny could’ve been exposed to any number of crackpots and loose cannons. Forget just Charlie Kenyon. Danny was a young, troubled boy whose family was going through a hard time. His vulnerability would’ve been boundless.
“We need to search those computers,” Rainie muttered.
“Detective Sanders already has them. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Oh, you know Detective Sanders. He’s such an efficient little—It must have slipped his mind.” Rainie smiled sweetly for VanderZanden, though her sarcasm was not lost on Quincy.
“Did Danny often stay late after school?” Quincy returned to the original line of questioning.
VanderZanden glanced at Rainie. She shrugged. “It’s a murder investigation. Everything is going to come out sooner or later.”
VanderZanden sighed. He appeared tired and worn again. A man due to have many more sleepless nights and ethical struggles over how to best serve his students. He said quietly, “Danny’s parents have been having marital difficulties.”
“Sandy got a new job,” Rainie told Quincy bluntly. “She likes it, but it’s a lot of hours. Shep didn’t want her to work in the first place, let alone if it came in the way of getting dinner ready.”
“Are they separated?”
“Nah. They’re Catholic.”
“Oh, got it.”
“Sandy came in one day to meet with Danny and Becky’s teachers,” VanderZanden explained. “She expressed that there was a great deal of tension at home and she knew it was hard on the children. She wanted their teachers to understand what was going on and keep an eye out for the kids. Becky has certainly been more withdrawn this year. And Danny has had a few … issues.”
“The smoking,” Rainie prompted. “And …”
“Three weeks ago Danny came to school agitated. He couldn’t remember his locker combination, and something in him just went. He started pounding on the door with his fists and yelling how much he hated the locker and the school and how was he supposed to remember anything when everyone knew he was stupid—”
“Stupid?” Quincy interjected. “You heard him say he was stupid?”
“Oh yes, I was there, Agent. It took both myself and Richard Mann to subdue him. Danny was yelling ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid’ over and over again. I was very worried about him.”
Quincy looked at Rainie. She shrugged. She didn’t know where this was coming from either, but Danny seemed to have an issue with his intelligence.
“He was on the honor roll?” Quincy asked the principal again.
“Yes.”
“You considered him a good student? His teachers were pleased with his performance?”
“Yes. He wasn’t the best in some subjects, but, then, when something interested him … I don’t think there was anything he couldn’t do on a computer.”
“Principal VanderZanden, did you ever hear his parents call him stupid?”
“Sandy? Never. She loves those kids. As for Shep?” VanderZanden arched a brow. “Let’s just say he was more concerned about the size of his son’s muscles than the power of his brain.”
“Did Danny do many after-school sports?”
“Shep made him try out for football. He got on the team, but sports aren’t Danny’s forte. He’s small for his age, a bit awkward. Unfortunately, his father can be rather … forceful. He wanted his son to play football, so Danny played football. In all hone
sty, however, Danny mostly warmed the bench. He just wasn’t any good. You know, you really should talk to the school counselor, Richard Mann, about these things. He met with Danny a few times after the locker incident and would know a lot more about his state of mind.”
“We’ll be sure to do that,” Rainie told the principal. She remembered Richard Mann from yesterday. He’d been very efficient in setting up the first-aid station and clearing the parking lot. She also remembered him as being on the young side, and that made her immediately wonder about him and pretty Miss Avalon. More food for thought.
“We’re going to need a copy of Danny’s school records from you,” Rainie told the principal. “His report cards, incident slips, everything.”
“I’m not sure—”
“We can get a subpoena if we have to. I’m just asking you to save us all some time.”
“All right, all right. There’s just so much to do.…” VanderZanden looked at his school building. The front doors were closed, the interior seeming shadowed and foreboding from this distance. Yellow crime-scene tape still roped off the parking lot and wove through the chain-link fence, while dark red stains spotted the school sidewalk—blood from the wounded students who had clutched neighbors’ hands while waiting for the medevac choppers to arrive. It was impossible now to look at the building and not think of death.
“I understand that Columbine had to completely refurbish the inside of the high school,” the principal murmured. “After the shooting they ripped out the carpet, repainted the walls, redid the lockers. They even changed the tone of their fire alarm, which had sounded for hours that day. And their library—that poor, tragic library—simply doesn’t exist anymore. They covered up the entrance with a new bank of lockers and brought in a trailer to house the books.”
He looked at Rainie and Quincy. There were no twinkling lights in his eyes. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here,” he said honestly. “The damage isn’t that extensive, and yet it is. I want the children to feel safe again, but in this day and age, schools can be scary places. I want the building to be welcoming, but I don’t want to pretend nothing happened. I want us to move on, but I don’t want us to forget.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do all that. When I was training to be a principal, the biggest threat we could imagine was an earthquake. They certainly hadn’t started the duck-and-run drills in the L.A. schools for drive-by shootings. Nor had they ever envisioned that schools would become war zones for rival gangs and street disputes. Now we have teachers and students dying in the halls. Small towns, big towns, black, white, upper class, lower class—it doesn’t seem to matter. And the human in me wants to rail against that, wants to live in denial, while the principal in me knows I can’t do that. I have an obligation to my students. If this is the world we live in, then this is the world I must prepare them for. But how do I do that? I’m not sure I’m prepared for this world. I know Miss Avalon wasn’t.”
“Have you arranged for grief counseling?” Quincy asked gently.
“Of course. Several child psychologists are coming into town.”
“I didn’t mean just for the students. I meant also for you and your staff.”
“Of course, of course.” Principal VanderZanden’s attention drifted back to the memorial. It rested on the poster that said, We love you, Miss Avalon.
His figure swayed. He suddenly looked small to Rainie. A slight, vulnerable man growing old in front of her eyes.
“She really was trying to help him,” VanderZanden said to no one in particular. “She really cared for her students, especially Danny. If you could’ve seen the time she spent with him, all those hours after school because she knew he didn’t want to go home. She helped him learn basic programming, she laughed with him over Internet jokes. She was so patient, so caring.… Sometimes I hate Danny O’Grady. And that makes me feel worse. What kind of principal hates a student? What kind of man fears a child?”
Principal VanderZanden obviously didn’t expect any answers. He squared his shoulders. He walked back to his car while clouds finally moved over the sun and the first drops of spring rain began to fall.
After a moment Rainie said, “I think he needs some help.”
“You would, too, if you’d just lost the woman you loved.”
“Principal VanderZanden is a happily married man!”
And Quincy said, “Not when he was with Melissa Avalon.”
ELEVEN
Wednesday, May 16, 4:46 P.M.
Sandy O’Grady kept thinking that Danny was dead.
Small communities had their rituals, their established ways of dealing with the major passages of life. Almost all involved food. Someone was getting married—bake the bride’s favorite bread and tape the recipe card to the baking tin for her future kitchen. Someone was having her first child—pile up the homemade sugar cookies cut into the shape of little booties. A graduation barbecue—bring Mama’s award-winning three-bean salad. The yearly race to bale hay before the Oregon rains ruined the crop—bring fresh corn and tomatoes from the garden, plus bags of sugar and rock salt for the ice cream maker. Maybe include a package of chocolate chips.
Someone died—bring out the casseroles. Dad’s ham and potato surprise. Grandma’s seven-layer taco supreme. Bake a ham, baste a turkey. Make it big, hearty, and rich. And deliver it with plenty of Kleenex and a shoulder for the widow to lean upon. Then return two days later with a pan of brownies or a couple of apple pies. Sooner or later even the most stoic survivors turned to sugar for solace. It’s simply a way of life.
Yesterday evening, on the O’Grady front doorstep, the first casserole had appeared. It was accompanied by a note that said Deepest sympathies. No name attached. Sandy realized then how bad the days would be. Neighbors understood their torment. Some even sympathized. But in these circumstances no one knew what to do.
When Danny had been transported to Cabot County’s juvenile detention hall, he’d been wearing a bulletproof vest.
The police had spent the evening in the O’Gradys’ home. Men Sandy and Shep had never seen before, wearing grim expressions and navy blue windbreakers emblazoned with the letters CSU, cordoned off Danny’s room. They pulled apart his bed, disemboweled his closet. They tore into his desk, dismantled his furniture, and boxed up everything he had ever touched. They shredded Danny O’Grady’s bedroom, dusted it down with fingerprint powder, then left as somberly as they came.
Becky hid in the coat closet.
Sandy’s parents came over. They hugged Sandy and wept. They pulled Becky from the closet and cried harder. They looked at Shep stonily, so he would know that whatever had happened, it was his fault. Then Sandy’s mother moved into the kitchen and started baking. Her father sat on the couch and did his best to look strong.
The parish priest had paid a visit. He sat with Sandy and Shep. He reminded them that the Lord gave no burdens that could not be borne. He assured them faith would get them through this time of sorrow. He took to speaking of Danny in the past tense, which at once seemed natural and nearly drove Sandy out of her mind.
Danny was not dead. Danny was not a burden. He was a confused and frightened boy, lying now in an institutionally gray juvenile hall with bars on the windows. He was in a state of shock, the doctors told Sandy and Shep when they tried to visit this morning. Curled up tight with his arms wrapped around his knees, as if he was so exhausted by life he was trying to return to the womb.
No, they couldn’t see him yet. He needed more time and more sleep. Maybe tomorrow.
Sandy didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to return to a house that magically produced casseroles and to a mother who was turning out row after row of pies as if a properly fluted crust was the secret to managing life. She didn’t want to spend another minute with the priest who had married her and Shep and who now looked at them with the solemn compassion usually reserved for lepers. She didn’t want to stare at her garage, where early this morning someone had scrawled Baby Killer with dripp
ing red paint.
Danny was not a stone-cold killer. He was a child. He was her child, and she wanted her family back! She wanted to be a warrior mom, slayer of all dragons for her children.
Except no one could tell her which dragon to slay. No one could tell her what had happened yesterday afternoon to turn her eight-year-old daughter into a silent ghost and her thirteen-year-old son into a mass murderer.
Now their lawyer, Avery Johnson, was speaking with them in their kitchen. They had just returned from the preliminary hearing in front of the juvenile-court judge, where Sandy had been shocked by the informality of the proceedings. The room had looked little different from a high school classroom, with its plain white walls and linoleum-tiled floor. The judge, wearing a dark robe, clearly was surprised to see two lawyers in suits. His opening comment had been “You guys don’t come here often, do you?”
In this very simple room with very simple proceedings, the county DA, Charles Rodriguez—a man Shep had worked with for years, a man Sandy had invited to her house for dinner on numerous occasions—formally filed a petition for waiver to adult court given the “heinous nature of Daniel O’Grady’s crimes against the community.”
He’d charged their son with five counts of aggravated murder, one count for the first victim and two counts for each additional victim as they were part of a multiple homicide. If found guilty in adult court, Danny could receive five consecutive thirty-year-to-life sentences. He had gone into the care of the county yesterday evening. He would never come home again.
Sandy kept thinking that Danny was dead.
“Now, you have to look on the bright side,” Avery Johnson was saying. “Danny’s only thirteen years old. He has statistics on his side.”
“Statistics?” Sandy asked weakly. She was mangling a piece of freshly baked apple pie. Her mother had served it with a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream just ten minutes ago. Sandy watched the ice cream melt into little flowing rivers, then she formed dams with bits of baked apple. After a moment Shep took her plate and ate the pie himself. In times of crisis, he always gained an appetite while she lost hers.
