by Tami Hoag
Now his mother was going on about how they would have to take him to a psychiatrist, and how terrible that would be—for her.
“I’m sorry,” Tommy whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Sometimes he was a lot of trouble. He didn’t mean to be. He hadn’t meant to fall on a dead lady.
Very quietly, he stood up and went back to his room and crawled halfway under his bed to get his bear—which he was supposed to have given up by now. People would call him a sissy and worse if anybody knew he still slept with his bear. But tonight he didn’t care.
Tonight, with his parents still fighting in the room beneath him, and visions of a dead lady stuck in his head, he was feeling very alone and very afraid.
Tonight was a night for a bear.
Wendy snuggled next to her mother, listening to her sing a song.
“Hush, little baby, don’t you cry. Mama’s gonna sing you a lullaby ...”
It was a dorky song, but Wendy didn’t say anything. Her mother had sung it to her all her life, whenever she was feeling sick or afraid of the dark. Even if she didn’t like the stupid song, she liked the sound of her mother’s voice. It made her feel safe and loved.
They were cuddled together in her bed, in her pretty yellow-and-white bedroom with all her stuffed animals and dolls looking on. The lamplight was warm and soft. What had happened that day in the woods seemed long ago and far away, like a scary story she might have read once but had started to forget.
Of course, she hadn’t forgotten. Not really. She just didn’t want to think about it, that was all. Not now.
She wondered if Tommy was thinking about it.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” she asked, looking up at her mother. She had asked this question a million times already. She only wanted to hear the answer again.
“All night long, sweetie.”
Wendy sighed. “I wish Daddy was here too.”
Her mother didn’t answer right away. “He’s in Sacramento on business,” she said at last.
“I know,” Wendy said. They had already been over this a million times too. “But I still wish he was here.”
“Me too, baby,” her mother whispered, squeezing her tight. “Me too.”
It was late when Dennis heard his father come in. His stupid sisters were asleep, but his mother was still up. She was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and watching TV. His dad would want supper now—even if it was practically the middle of the night—and she would heat it up and serve it to him because that was her job.
Dennis charged down the stairs, barreled into the kitchen, grabbed the back of a chair, and slid to a stop.
“Dad, Dad, what happened? Did you get to dig up the dead lady?”
“Dennis!” his mother snapped. “You’re supposed to be in bed. Your father had a long night at work.”
Dennis rolled his eyes. His mother was so stupid. His dad said so all the time.
“Yeah, they dug her up,” his father said, pulling a beer out of the refrigerator and popping the top.
“Was she all rotten? Was she a skeleton? Was she all hacked up with an axe?”
“Dennis!” his mother said again, her voice a little higher and a little louder than the last time.
Dennis ignored her, keeping his eyes on his father. His uniform was rumpled, but not dirty. He should have been dirty if he had dug up the dead body himself. He probably supervised. He was too important to have to dig up a dead body himself—even if he probably wanted to.
Dennis would have helped if he had been allowed to stay. But his father had lost his temper at him for being in the way and had sent him home.
Dennis had been really angry about it, but then he got to ride home in a squad car with another deputy, and that had been pretty cool. His dad didn’t let him get into his squad car. He didn’t want Dennis to mess something up, was what he had said the first two thousand times Dennis had begged to play in the car. The two-thousand-first time Dennis had asked, his dad had lost his temper. Dennis hadn’t asked again.
“No, she wasn’t,” his father said, popping a couple of Excedrin from a bottle on the counter. “We put her in the hearse and they took her to the funeral home.”
Dennis’s mother scurried back and forth from the refrigerator to the stove, banging pots and muttering under her breath as she hurried to heat up a pork chop. His father picked up the cigarette his mother had left burning in the ashtray on the table and took a drag on it. The television on the counter was showing a guy spray-painting his bald spot.
“Mendez wants to call in the FBI,” his father said to no one in particular. “Prick.”
His mother said nothing.
“Why don’t you want the FBI, Dad?” Dennis asked.
“Because they’re a bunch of pricks—just like Mendez.”
“He’s a spic prick,” Dennis said, proud of his cleverness.
His father gave him a look. “Watch your mouth.”
His mother wheeled on him. “Dennis, go to bed!”
She looked like her eyes were going to pop out of her head, like in a cartoon when one character had his hands around the throat of another character, choking him.
His dad turned on his mother then. “Cook the damn food! I’m hungry!”
“I am!”
He looked at her like he was just now seeing her for the first time since he had walked in the room. His face twisted with disgust. “You couldn’t wear something better than that?”
Dennis’s mother grabbed her old blue bathrobe together just below her throat. “It’s the middle of the night. Was I supposed to put on a dress and makeup?”
“I’ve been at a murder scene all night. You think I want to come home and look at this?”
Dennis’s mother reached up and shoved a big messy chunk of hair out of her face and behind her ear. “Well, I’m sorry I’m not up to your high standards!”
His father swore under his breath. “Have you been drinking?”
“No!” she exclaimed, looking shocked. “Absolutely not!”
She yanked the frying pan off the burner, dumped the pork chop on a plate, and all but flung it at the table. “There. There’s your fucking dinner!”
His father’s face turned purple.
His mother’s face turned white.
Dennis turned and ran for the stairs. Halfway up, he stopped and sat down, grabbing the balusters and peering through them like he was behind bars. He couldn’t see much of the kitchen, but he didn’t need to. A chair scraped across the floor and thudded as it tipped over. A pan slammed against the top of the stove. A glass broke.
“Here’s my fucking dinner?”
“I’m sorry, Frank. It’s late. I’m tired.”
“You’re tired? I’m the one that’s been working all night. I finally get home and all I want is a little dinner, and you can’t manage that?”
His mother started to cry. “I’m sorry!”
There was a silence then that made Dennis more nervous than the yelling. He jumped a little when his father emerged from the kitchen, his expression dark, his hands on his hips. He turned and looked straight up at Dennis.
“What are you looking at?”
Dennis turned and ran up the stairs, stumbling twice, trying to go faster than his legs could possibly manage. He ran into his room and into his closet, pulling the door shut behind him and hiding himself under a pile of dirty clothes.
He lay there for a long time, trying not to breathe too loud, trying to hear over the pounding of his pulse in his ears, waiting for the door to fly open. But a minute went by and nothing happened. Then another minute . . . then another. . . until finally he fell asleep.
8
Wednesday, October 9, 1985
“I can’t believe there was a murder and you didn’t call me!”
“I had a few other things on my mind,” Anne said.
They stood outside the door to the kindergarten room, on the patio near the sandbox where half a dozen of Franny’s charges were busy with toy dump
trucks and shovels and buckets.
Fran Goodsell, her best friend. Thirty-nine, cute as a button, irreverent as he could be. She should have called him, she thought now.
Franny had a way of turning situations upside down. He would have somehow found a way to distract her from the horror of what had happened. He would have said something outrageous, made a completely inappropriate remark, found a way to give her a lighter moment.
That would have beat the hell out of lying awake all night, seeing every detail when she closed her eyes: the mangled hand reaching out of the ground, quietly begging assistance to rise up from the shallow grave.
“Don’t you watch the news?” she asked.
“Of course not,” he said, offended by the very idea. “There’s nothing good on the news.” His eyes went wide as he was struck suddenly with a possibility. “Did they interview you? Oh my God. I hope you weren’t still wearing that outfit you wore to school yesterday. You looked like a novice nun.”
True to form.
Anne gave him a look. “No, I wasn’t on the news, and thanks for the fashion advice, Mr. Blackwell.”
“Well, honestly, how do you expect to attract a man, Sister Anne Marie? Image is everything.” Fran’s image: preppie with a twist. Today he wore khaki pants and Top-Siders, and an orange bandana at the throat of his blue buttondown oxford.
“I don’t expect to attract a man at school. Who is there to attract? Arnie the janitor?”
“Mr. Garnett.”
“I’m not interested in having an affair with our married principal.”
“His wife is sleeping with her yoga instructor. He’s as good as divorced, that’s all’s I’m saying,” which he said with an extra-thick Long Island accent.
Franny was originally from Boston. Number fourteen of fifteen Goodsell children. Irish Catholic to the tenth power. “Eight girls, seven boys; two fags, one dyke; six married and divorced, six got it right the first time,” was his standard description of the Goodsell siblings.
He had spent a number of years in New York City and the Hamptons, teaching brats of the rich and famous—his words, of course.
“You’re horrible,” Anne said without meaning it. “A woman was murdered. Three of my kids were there. I was there. It was terrible.”
Franny put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I know, honey. I’m sorry.”
“And what now?” she asked. “Am I supposed to say something about it to my class, then just carry on with the day’s lessons? They never prepared us for this in college.”
“No,” he said. “But they also never told me teaching kindergarten would make me sterile.”
Anne managed to find a chuckle at Franny’s famous line. He professed on-the-job experience had driven him to drink and had brought him a better understanding of why some species eat their young.
In truth, he was an excellent, award-winning teacher, and his kids and their parents loved him.
Anne glanced at her watch. “I’d better go. My kids will be coming in.”
“Come tell me if any of them get arrested.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Principal Garnett and the good-looking detective (she assumed) from the news coverage were waiting for her outside her classroom.
“Miss Navarre.” Garnett spoke first. He was a neat-and-tidy kind of guy—starched shirt, stylish tie tied just so. It had always been Anne’s suspicion that he would be more likely to fall for Franny than herself, wife or no wife. “This is Detective Mendez from the sheriff’s office.”
The detective offered his hand politely. Square-jawed, stocky build, dark complexion, macho mustache. His expression was guarded in a way she would come to recognize as being common to his profession. His grip was firm, but not trying to prove anything.
“Miss Navarre, I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to speak to you yesterday. I wasn’t informed until later that you had been there at the scene.”
“Just to ask Frank Farman if I could take the children home to their parents.”
“Detective Mendez has asked to use my office to interview the children who found the body,” Garnett said. “He would like you to be there.”
“I think they’ll be more at ease with you there,” Mendez said.
“I think they’ll be more at ease if we aren’t in the principal’s office,” Anne said. “Going to the principal’s office is never a good thing for a fifth grader.”
“This is serious business,” Mendez said. “They should take it seriously.”
“I’m not going to let you bully ten-year-old kids,” Anne said, unconsciously standing up taller. “They’re upset enough as it is.”
Mendez looked a cross between perplexed and amused. “Don’t worry, Miss Navarre. I left my rubber hose at the office.”
Anne refused to be embarrassed. She turned to Garnett. “Could we use the conference room instead?
“It appears equally serious,” she said to the detective. “But less intimidating.”
“That’s fine,” Mendez said.
“I don’t know that those kids are even coming to school today,” Anne said. “I told their parents last night that if they needed to take some time—”
“The parents have all been contacted,” Garnett said. “They’re to bring their children here for the interviews. If they choose to take them home after that, that’s up to them.”
“What about the rest of my class?”
“I’ve called a substitute for the morning.”
“What about a counselor? Someone who can help them cope with what happened. I’m sure they’ve all heard about it by now.”
“I’m relying on you for that, Anne,” Garnett said. “You have some training in child psychology.”
“I know how to boil water. That doesn’t make me a gourmet chef.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Mendez looked pointedly at his watch. “The Morgan family should be here soon. I need to get set up.”
Setting up consisted of Mendez making sure his cassette recorder was working and that he had his notebook and pen ready.
Nothing would come of this, he was sure. The woman was already dead and buried when the kids found her. Unless one of them saw the killer leaving the scene, there wasn’t much they could tell him. But he would interview them, nevertheless, because that was the routine, and he prided himself on being thorough.
As he shuffled his stuff around, he glanced down the conference table at the teacher. Pretty and petite, she looked late twenties and very serious. She was uncomfortable, arms crossed defensively, pacing a little, frowning. Twice she reached up and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear.
“You have training in child psychology?” he asked.
She flinched ever so slightly at the sudden sound of his voice. “I took some courses in college. That’s not even close to having a degree.”
“But you know your kids. You can read them pretty well?”
“The school year just started. I’ve known them six weeks.”
“I don’t know them at all. Have you met the parents?”
“At conference time. An hour. One evening.”
“So tell me about . . .” He consulted his notes. “Wendy Morgan. What’s she like?”
That coaxed a little smile out of her—for Wendy, not for him. “Wendy is very self-assured. She has opinions and she won’t hesitate to tell you what they are. She’s the class feminist.”
“She’ll be an easy interview, then. Good. And the mom?”
“Sara. She seems like a very nice woman. Very caring of her daughter. She teaches community ed classes in art.”
“And the father?”
“Nice guy. He’s an attorney. Very busy. He does a lot of pro bono work in family court for the women’s center. I think he even does some lobbying for women’s issues in Sacramento.”
She huffed a quick sigh. “What is it you want me to do here, Detective?”
“Reassure them. Make sure I don’t br
eak out the billy club.”
Anne Navarre scowled at him, unimpressed with his sense of humor. Looking back on it, his fifth-grade teacher hadn’t been impressed with him, either.
“When did you arrive on the scene?” he asked, hitting the Record button on the cassette player.
“The scene was already taped off,” she said. “There were deputies everywhere. Are you taping this?”
“Just making sure the machine is working,” he said, turning the thing off, rewinding, playing back the sound of Anne Navarre’s voice. She sounded highly suspicious of him.
“And where were the kids then?”
“Tommy and Wendy were away from the scene. Dennis Farman was right there, trying to see what was going on. His father was there. You know him, I suppose. Frank Farman.”
“Did any of the kids say they had seen anyone else in the woods?”
“No,” she said. “They talked about a dog.”
“I don’t think a dog buried her there.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“I didn’t mean for it to be. I was being sarcastic.”
“Nothing about this is funny,” she snapped. “And you weren’t being sarcastic, you were being facetious.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking away from him, crossing and uncrossing her arms. She reached up and tucked that strand of brown hair behind her ear again. “This situation . . . I’m a little rattled.”
“I understand. It’s okay.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She probably didn’t mean for him to see it, but she was wary of him. He got that a lot. Even the most innocent people could become nervous around cops. It went with the territory.
“You’re not a suspect,” he announced.
The eyebrows snapped downward again. “Of course I’m not.”
She sighed again and looked at the ceiling, turning her head as if she was trying to get a kink out of her neck.
“Do you know who she is—was?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
