Silent City: A Claire Codella Mystery

by Carrie Smith

  “Tell me what you did today,” she asked him perfunctorily.

  “I painted a banner for the lunch room.”

  “What does the banner say?”

  “‘No Bullying Zone.’”

  She nodded. “That’s a very good message for everyone in this school to remember. What else did you do?”

  “My math and my history reading. Oh, and I helped Mrs. Broner reshelve books, and I finished the novel I been reading.”

  “What novel?”

  “Maniac Magee.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Miguel shrugged. “He’s this homeless kid.”

  “What happens to him?” She knew the plot, of course.

  “Lots of stuff.”

  “Specifics, Miguel. And speak in complete sentences.”

  “He runs away from his aunt and uncle. He meets up with this white girl, Amanda, and she’s real nice to him but then he leaves her ’cause the neighbors don’t want some black kid in their hood. So then he bunks in with this old dude who used to play ball. Oh, and Maniac is a pretty cool dude who can run and throw and hit a ball and catch a football, and he always be helping a lot of people and things turn out okay for him in the end.”

  Marva asked, “Did you identify with anyone in the story?”

  Miguel looked at her as if she’d spoken Attic Greek. “Huh?”

  “Did anyone in the novel remind you of yourself?”

  He thought about it. “Maybe Mars Bar. He acts mean to Amanda.”

  “What about Maniac? Is Maniac like you?”

  Miguel shook his head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “How’d he be like me?”

  “Think about it,” she said. “Think about it tonight, and come here tomorrow and tell me three ways you’re like Maniac Magee. That’s one of your homework assignments.”

  “And the other?”

  “On your way home from school today, you’re going to do at least one nice thing for somebody.”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy. “What I s’pose to do?”

  “You figure it out, Miguel. Think about what Maniac Magee would do. And you tell me tomorrow. Don’t come to school tomorrow unless you’ve completed both assignments. Remember, that’s the rule.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  Marva said, “And don’t roll those eyes at me again. It’s offensive, and I don’t deserve it. If you do that to someone you work for, you won’t get very far. Now you can apologize to me and then go back upstairs and keep working on your class assignments.”

  When he left, she walked the halls. She looked into the bathroom stalls. She checked the auditorium to make sure no one was hiding there. She went upstairs and made sure Miguel had gone directly back to the library. She came back downstairs and found Mr. Jancek waiting in front of her office. “Can I help you, Milosz?”

  He stared at her for several seconds. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “Don’t be silly. You’re no bother.” She smiled.

  He continued to stare at her, and then it occurred to her what was about to happen. He had come in here to take a risk—the risk. He planned to make the unspoken spoken, right now, and she held her breath and waited.

  But just then there was a knock at the door, and Janisa stuck her head in. “Sorry, Ms. Thomas, but Dr. Barton is on the phone for you.”

  Marva Thomas looked apologetically at Jancek. He ducked out of the office quickly. Marva picked up the phone and said, “This is Marva Thomas.”

  “Marva, we need to talk,” came the familiar deep voice. “I’ve been thinking about you since this morning.”

  “You have?”

  “I think I’ve treated you unfairly in all this. I think I’ve underestimated you.”

  Marva sat. She didn’t know how to respond so she said nothing.

  “I always think it’s best to admit my mistakes, and you’re one of my mistakes. I want to correct it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I should have chosen you to run PS 777. I made the wrong decision. What’s more, if I’m honest, I knew it was the wrong decision almost immediately. Hector wasn’t an effective school leader, and he never would have become one, and you know why?”

  “Why?” Marva was too stunned to say any more.

  “He didn’t have a teacher’s sensibilities. He hadn’t spent enough time in the classroom. You, on the other hand, you do understand the teacher’s perspective. You know the challenges. How many years were you in the classroom, Marva? I’ve forgotten.”

  “Fourteen.”

  “You see? You know how teachers think. Hector only put two years in the classroom before he went for his supervision certification. Yes, he’s tougher than you, and he probably could have handled yesterday’s crisis better than you did, but you can learn to be tough, whereas he could never have learned your natural empathy. You know what hubris is, Marva? Well, I’m afraid to say that Hector suffered from a lot of hubris. I made the wrong call with him, and I’m sure you suffered as much as everyone else as a result.”

  Marva was almost too shocked by Barton’s words to think straight. “He was a difficult man to please,” she managed to say.

  “Well, I suspect the teachers won’t find you so difficult to please. I am recommending that you be the new principal of PS 777.”

  Chapter 50

  The bookshelves in Jane Martin’s living room held no books. Instead, they provided the stage for carefully arranged bowls, goblets, vases, and sculptures fired in vibrant textured glazes. The objects looked like luxury merchandise in the display window of a high-end gift shop in Soho. They were so beautiful that Codella almost complimented Martin. Instead, she cut to the chase. “I need answers, and I need them right now, so no more deception. Did you take photos of your partner in front of Sanchez’s apartment?”

  Jane Martin’s eyes registered instantaneous surprise and confusion. “What photos?”

  “I’m asking the questions.”

  “Why would I take photos?”

  “Maybe you thought you could bribe him into ending the affair. Maybe you threatened to expose him, ruin his holier-than-thou image.”

  “Maybe, but it didn’t happen that way, Detective.” Martin said this matter-of-factly. There was not even a hint of anger in her voice.

  “You said you drove to Red Hook on Monday night, but your car never left the garage, so where were you really?”

  Martin moved past the bookshelves to the window. She turned her back to Codella and stared down at her view of Broadway and the blocks between Broadway and the river. Did she look out that window and see her old building, her old life with Drew? Had she stood in front of that window and brooded about Drew’s infidelity and plotted revenge?

  “Where were you?” Codella repeated.

  Martin turned back. “The truth? I was looking for answers. And last time I checked, that’s not against the law.”

  “That depends. Where did you go for those answers—and I’m warning you, if you lie this time, I’m going to charge you with obstructing my investigation.”

  “Save your threats, Detective.” Martin slipped her hands into her pockets. Her forearms were thick and veined. Apparently pushing and poking at clay gave your arms definition. “I stood in the Wash and Wear Laundromat from three o’clock on. I saw her driver turn onto his street. I got my answer. I had to know. I had to know so that I could let it go, since she wasn’t going to tell me the truth.”

  Codella took several seconds to process the words. “So you’re the face in the laundromat window. You’re the one we’re looking for, the potential witness to it all.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Dana Drew left his apartment before five, but you stayed there. You stayed there for almost three more hours. Why?”

  Martin shrugged. “Haven’t you ever been betrayed by someone? Don’t you know how paralyzing that feels?”

  “This isn’t about me,” said Codella. “What were you doing there?” />
  “Staring into space.”

  “For three hours?”

  “I was thinking about Dana. When I met her. We met in Provincetown.” Martin smiled to herself. “On different sides of the aisle at a crappy drag show at this little venue called the Post Office Café.” She pulled her hands out of her pockets and combed her fingers through her hair. “The drag queen recognized Dana, and he went after her in that drag-queen way. He asked her who she’d come with, and she said she’d come alone, and he said, ‘Oh, but you should never come alone,’ which of course made everyone howl with laughter, and then he told her he would help her find some Provincetown pussy, and he pulled me out of the audience and sat me next to her, and said, ‘How about her?’”

  Codella nodded. She could sense that Martin wanted to tell her the rest of the story.

  “Dana was a good sport about it. We shook hands. She bought me a drink. We left the performance together and went to the Mews for a late dinner. Then she took me to the West End condo where she was staying. She had a breathtaking view of the bay and the ocean, and that’s where we made love for the first time.” Her eyes dropped to the floor and she exhaled a deep sigh.

  “I know this must be very hard for you,” Codella said, “but—”

  “You have no idea,” Martin interrupted with unchecked anger. “You want to know what I was doing in that laundromat? I was thinking about how I would never be with her again. I was asking myself if I would ever trust anyone again. And finally I walked home.”

  Codella gave the woman a moment to calm down. Then she said, “You were staring into your past, but what did you see as you looked out that window? Think! Who passed you? Someone went by that window in a red baseball cap, and he may have killed Hector Sanchez, and whether or not you liked the man, his murder needs to get solved, so help me, please.”

  “There were so many people,” she said. “They were all just a blur.”

  “You didn’t recognize anyone?”

  “I might as well have been blindfolded. That’s the truth. I’m sorry, Detective.”

  Codella just nodded. Sometimes you had to accept that people couldn’t supply what you needed. “I would very much appreciate your keeping what you’ve told me to yourself,” she said. “Tell no one else you were in that laundromat. As far as the rest of the world goes, we still don’t know who was in that window.”

  Chapter 51

  Haggerty sipped his Poland Springs. “I still don’t understand why you went to his apartment. Is that standard operating procedure when you’ve got a principal who doesn’t like your product?” He stared into the one-way mirror to his left. He wondered what Muñoz, Portino, and Ragavan were thinking on the other side. He stretched his arms over his head. “You want some water or something?”

  “I want to get out of here.” Dressler looked at his watch. “I have to call the airline. My bags were on that plane.”

  Haggerty pretended not to have heard. “What were you going to say to him if he’d answered the bell?”

  “We already went over this. I was going to show him the research,” said Dressler. “I thought if he saw the research, he might open his mind a little. We did a full-year pilot of iAchieve in four schools. An independent, university-based research company certified the pilot results. They were staggeringly positive.”

  “If they were that good, why do you suppose Sanchez was opposed to the program?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself. I wondered if it was a personality issue.”

  “You mean between him and Barton?”

  He nodded. “I thought maybe I could reason with him man to man.”

  Haggerty pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He took one out and put it in his mouth but didn’t light it. “I don’t know. I still find it hard to believe you’d go all the way up town like that without knowing he was there.”

  “Well, you’ve never had a six-million-dollar sale on the line.”

  “No, I guess I haven’t.”

  “You know what I think, Detective? I think you and that other detective, the woman, just want to pin this on someone. You don’t even care if you have the right person.”

  Haggerty leaned forward with his eyes narrowed. “That’s what you think, huh?”

  Dressler looked at his watch again.

  “Who else knew you went to his apartment?”

  “No one.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t say a word about your plans the whole time you were nailing Barton at the Mandarin?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t strategize this with anyone at McFlieger-Walsh?”

  “No. I told you.”

  “You just took it upon yourself to try to save the sale?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it benefits me.” Dressler’s fists were clenched.

  It was the first statement Haggerty actually believed. “Benefits you how?”

  “Fifteen percent. My commission on the sale. Nine hundred thousand.”

  “Not bad.”

  “And a lot more to come. Once Margery’s district buys, so will others.”

  “Then you could make yourself millions.”

  “And I’ve got a son with autism. Care costs a lot of money. My only crime is wanting to take care of my family.”

  “And fucking around on the side. Don’t forget that.”

  “There’s no crime in that,” Dressler snapped.

  Haggerty crossed his arms. “Did you photograph Sanchez with Dana Drew?”

  “Of course not. I live in Dallas. I’ve only been to his school twice, yesterday and one other time. And as for Dana Drew, the closest I’ve ever come to her was in a movie theater.” Small beads of sweat had formed on Dressler’s forehead.

  Haggerty stared at those glistening beads of perspiration just below his hairline. “Still, you must not be sad he’s dead.”

  Dressler shrugged. “You said that, not me.”

  Haggerty watched him carefully. He noted the set of his jaw, the angle of his neck, the tapping of his fingers on the table between them. “I hope you’re telling the truth, Mr. Dressler, because we’re bound to find that witness in the laundromat. And we’re already sifting through all kinds of footage from people who were in that neighborhood Monday night. It’s just a matter of time before we put an end to this mystery. And we’re not going to look too kindly on anyone who gave us false statements.”

  “Are we done now?” Dressler asked.

  Chapter 52

  She sat in her car outside Martin’s apartment and considered all the crisscrossing lies. Hector Sanchez had pretended to visit truant students in public housing projects when he was really sneaking off campus to crawl into bed with an actress. Drew had disguised her affair with good works and generous donations. Margery Barton had concocted false alibis to cover her affair with a Department of Education vendor, and Jane Martin had stood in a laundromat in a bulky hooded parka for almost three hours to discover the truth. Had Chip Dressler really rung Sanchez’s buzzer three times and walked home? And what about all the teachers at PS 777 who had hated Sanchez and Reyes? What lies were they telling? Codella closed her eyes and tried to make the facts adhere into a solid evidence-based conclusion in her brain, but they wouldn’t, and so she gave up and followed her instincts.

  Ten minutes later, she was back in the closet at MS 174 where Eugene Bosco was sitting at the table correcting multiple-choice tests.

  “I see you’ve moved up a notch from counting toilet paper rolls,” she observed.

  “Very funny.” He set down his red pencil and leaned back. “I don’t suppose this is a social call, Detective, so what do you want?”

  “Tell me about your friendship with Christine Donohue.”

  “What friendship? We’re colleagues.”

  Codella shook her head. “You’re more than that, and we both know it.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You call her Chris. She
calls you Gene. You confide in each other. You dine together.”

  He laughed. “And that’s your big tip-off?”

  “Tip-offs are rarely big,” she said. “Don’t waste my time.”

  “Okay, so we go back. So what?”

  “How far?”

  “Twenty glorious years at PS 777. We share the same frustrations—like you and your fellow cops must share now that you can’t stop and frisk anymore.” He smirked.

  “Did you share enough frustrations to plan his character assassination?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You tell me.”

  Bosco crossed his arms defiantly. “I never said anything about him that wasn’t true—in my humble opinion, anyway. Neither did Chris. We just spoke our minds. We exercised our rights.”

  “Is that what you were doing when you signed up for the iAchieve sneak preview, even though neither one of you give a flying fuck about technology implementation?”

  He grinned. “Chris is on the adoption committee. It’s her job to find out as much as she can about the programs she will vote on. She’s moving up in the world. She completes her course work for the principal’s certification next month. She’s got an exit strategy. But you must know that by now since you’re such a thorough detective. I Googled you.”

  Codella registered no surprise at this new piece of information. “And you? What’s your exit strategy?”

  “Retirement.” He shrugged. “As soon as possible.”

  “So you signed up for the meeting why?”

  “I’d do anything to piss off Sanchez.”

  “No one put you up to it?”

  “Like who?”

  “Like Barton, maybe, or someone from McFlieger-Walsh who wanted some teachers to embrace the program publicly?”

  Bosco shook his head. “I’ve never talked to Barton in my life, and she’s probably just as bad as Sanchez. I spoke my mind because I always speak my mind.”