The Bitterest Pill

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  Wester leaned forward, a strained expression on her face. “Was it—I mean, did she—”

  He understood. “It doesn’t appear to be a suicide, no. There was no note, but there isn’t always a note. I suppose one of the reasons I’m here is to find out if I’m misreading the situation. How was she doing in school?”

  Wester tapped a key on her keyboard. “I thought someone from the police would be here today, so I already had her records for you to look at.” She turned the screen to face Jesse. “As you can see, Heather’s grades had been gradually slumping over the last several marking periods. It began midyear last year and continued. She’d gone from an A-plus student to a B-minus kid, on her way to C.”

  “Did you intercede? Were her parents aware?”

  Wester gathered herself, her whole body seeming to clench. “Even in a relatively small town, a principal can’t afford to know every student’s progress or—”

  Jesse understood her defensiveness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound like an accusation or criticism. I’m just trying to get a picture of Heather. I didn’t want to bother her parents today. I’m sure you understand.”

  “No need to apologize, Chief Stone. I overreacted. Heather’s death, any student’s death, is very upsetting. It has me on edge and causes a ripple effect among the students. Kids think they know how to handle these things, but they don’t. We’ll have grief counselors in, but most of the kids won’t seek their help. As far as Heather goes, I think you would have more luck speaking with her individual teachers. I’ve had Freda print out a list of her teachers from this term and the last term of her sophomore year. She will also supply you with their schedules.”

  Jesse stood, shook her hand again, and turned to go.

  “Chief Stone . . . Jesse.”

  He looked back. “Yeah.”

  “Anything else I can do . . .”

  “Of course.” He shook his head.

  As Jesse walked out to speak to Freda and get the things Wester had promised, he reminded himself how he was far more familiar with premature death, in all its forms, than most people would ever be or want to be. Death, even when it’s expected, even when it comes as a relief, shakes people up. The death of someone so young really does a number on people because it reminds them of just how vulnerable and fragile all life is.

  Six

  Fifty-five, balding, and seemingly reticent, Harvey Spiegel had been Heather Mackey’s math teacher. Jesse thought Spiegel wouldn’t be as in tune with his students as Heather’s other instructors, maybe because he was older and a math teacher. But he was the one with the available free period, so Jesse found himself in the teachers’ lounge, which at that hour was pretty busy, with a few late arrivals grabbing coffee and hurrying out to their classrooms. Some, the ones who probably hadn’t yet heard about Heather, gave Jesse curious looks as they left. What’s that all about?

  “What can I do for you, Chief?”

  Jesse had a lot of people to talk to and didn’t want to go through the whole “Call me Jesse” routine with everyone. Besides enjoying the informality of first names, Jesse often used the “Call me Jesse” thing to throw people off balance. He had no reason to believe he needed to throw Harvey Spiegel a curve.

  “Heather Mackey,” Jesse said, leaving it at that.

  “Lovely girl.” Spiegel wrinkled his nose, reminding Jesse of a rabbit. “A shame.”

  “You had her last term for”—Jesse referred to the papers Freda had given him—“calc and this term for trig.”

  He did that thing with his nose again, then he leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. “I did. Chief, I heard that drugs were involved. Is that the case?”

  Jesse nodded.

  “It wasn’t . . . suicide, was it?” The word stuck in his throat.

  Jesse answered with a question of his own. “You’re the second person to ask me that. Why would you say that?” There was nothing accusatory in Jesse’s tone.

  “Do you have children, Chief?”

  “A son,” he said, still unused to the sound of his voice uttering those words.

  “Well, then you know. I’ve got two of my own and I’ve worked with teenagers for thirty years now. Some of them look like adults, but I assure you they are not. They lack experience and are often ill-equipped to modulate the strength of their emotions. They’re also feeling things like romantic love and jealousy as they have never felt before, and sometimes they just aren’t able to make sense of what it is they are going through. Sometimes they make stupid choices, very stupid choices, from which there is no return.”

  Jesse must have looked dumbfounded, and Spiegel laughed a sad laugh at him.

  “Surprised by a math teacher’s expounding on the emotional lives of teenagers?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m a guidance counselor as well. I imagine I’ll have more kids coming to see me today than usual. Unfortunately, it’s the ones that don’t come who probably need my help more than the ones who do. The ones who come have a self-awareness of their feelings. The ones who don’t come worry me. But I’m going on. Sorry, Chief.”

  “But about Heather, Mr. Spiegel, was there anything specific about her that caused you to mention suicide?”

  Spiegel rubbed his chin as he considered the question. “Nothing I could put my finger on, no. Her grades were steadily declining.” He shrugged. “But that’s not always a sign of anything negative, per se. Maybe she was in love or having trouble at home. Some of these kids are very bright and have been able to navigate their way through school without working at it. That’s less easily done when it comes to subjects like calculus or trigonometry. It wasn’t as if she was in danger of failing.”

  “How about her attendance?”

  “I’d have to check on that, Chief. Is it important?”

  “At this stage, I don’t know what’s important or what isn’t. Let me ask you, Mr. Spiegel, are you aware of a drug problem in the school?”

  Jesse could see Spiegel was troubled by the question and working hard to formulate an answer.

  “There have always been some problems with drugs,” the math teacher said. “I’m afraid drugs have become another one of the minefields these kids must navigate, along with all the emotional baggage that comes with near-adulthood. It’s been this way since I taught my first year. The drugs change, but their presence has not.”

  “That was a very good, politically correct non-answer,” Jesse said.

  Spiegel did the nose thing again and laughed. “I was afraid you were going to ask me to supply the names of specific students. I would be uncomfortable with that. It would ruin any credibility I have with the kids if word got out.”

  “But there are kids with drug problems.”

  Although Jesse and he were the only two people left in the lounge, Spiegel looked around him to make sure no one was watching or within earshot. He didn’t answer the question with words but nodded yes.

  Jesse didn’t stop there. “Heroin?”

  Spiegel nodded again, hesitated, then added, “Pills, too.”

  Jesse thought about pushing some more but decided he might need Spiegel as an ally if the investigation turned anything up. He didn’t want to alienate him by making him any more ill at ease than he already was. Instead he tried a different tack.

  “Do you know who Heather hung out with?”

  “Sorry, Chief. Heather was my student, but she wasn’t assigned to me as her guidance counselor. You’d have to speak to her homeroom teacher and some of the others about that.”

  Jesse stood, shook Spiegel’s hand. “Thank you. You’ve been helpful.”

  “Have I? I don’t see how.”

  Jesse winked. “It’s only important for me to know how.”

  Seven

  Jesse wasn’t often surprised, but he was when he entered the art room. There was a teacher’s name
listed, Clay Mckee. That wasn’t who he found there seated on the desktop, facing the class. The students were busily rendering the colorful bowl of waxed fruit on a table by the classroom window.

  “Maryglenn, what are you doing here?” Jesse said in a whisper, tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

  She lit up at the sight of him. Maryglenn was a local painter who lived in a loft above an old carriage-house-cum warehouse next to Gayle Pembroke’s art gallery. Maryglenn and Jesse had met a few months back during all the trouble with the white supremacist group that had tried to start a revolution in Paradise.

  “Keep working,” she said to the class. “Remember, this isn’t about getting it right. It’s about getting it.” She turned back to Jesse. “Let’s take it into the hall.”

  Maryglenn, dressed as she always was in a loose-fitting black T-shirt, black jeans, and running shoes, all rainbow-speckled in paint, led him through the door. When the door closed behind them, Maryglenn grabbed Jesse’s right hand. It was the most intimate thing that had ever passed between them.

  “You’re here about the dead girl, Heather,” she said.

  “I am, but that doesn’t explain—”

  “—what I’m doing here. No, it doesn’t.” She let go of Jesse’s hand. “I’m a certified art teacher and I’ve been subbing for the last year. It’s a way for me to get some partial health benefits and I like working with the kids. There’s never enough funding for the creative parts of education. These days it’s worse than ever. All the money gets poured into math and sciences.” She caught herself. “Sorry, Jesse, I’ll get down off the soapbox now.”

  “No problem. So you’re subbing today.”

  “Actually, I’m not.” She smiled a crooked, disarming smile at him. “The regular art teacher, Mr. Mckee, took an unexpected medical leave of absence for the term and I was asked to take his spot.” She shrugged. “I figured, why not? The money is good and I get full benefits and—”

  “—you like working with the kids.”

  Her smile was in full force now. There had always been a low spark of attraction between them, though neither was the other’s type. Jesse was usually drawn to beautiful blondes like his ex-wife, Jenn, and his late fiancée, Diana. Women who were always conscious of their appearance. Maryglenn wasn’t like that at all. Besides her paint-splattered black uniform, she had let gray creep into her short-cut brown hair. She didn’t always wear makeup and didn’t spend much time at the gym. But she always seemed so comfortable with who and what she was that Jesse kind of liked it. There was no pretense about her. And for Maryglenn, an artist and onetime social activist, the idea of being attracted to a cop, even one as ruggedly handsome as Jesse, would normally have been an anathema. But there they were, smiling at each other.

  “Did you know her, Heather Mackey?” Jesse asked, breaking the spell.

  “A little, I guess. She had some talent for line drawing. Would you like to see her work?”

  “Maybe later. What I need to know is did she display any outward signs of depression or . . . I don’t know.”

  “I do. One thing that art class does is give kids a place to express themselves freely . . . well, as freely as they can in this setting.” She nodded at the classroom door. “I know it’s unlikely the next Basquiat or Weiwei is sitting in there. I just try to let them let go and express themselves without judging too harshly. They get enough of that in their other classes.”

  “And.”

  “Look, Jesse, I don’t really know these kids like a teacher who had seen them develop over a period of a few years, but, yes, Heather seemed . . . distracted and a little withdrawn. At least, that’s how she seemed to me. Yet she produced good work, so I’m not sure it means anything.”

  “Did she have any close friends in class?”

  Maryglenn thought about it before answering. “Megan Alford, Darby Cole, and Rich Amitrano.”

  “Are they in that class now?”

  She nodded at the door. “Those are sophomores, Jesse. Heather’s class doesn’t meet today, and my guess is they wouldn’t be in class today anyway.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I should get back in there.”

  “Okay,” Jesse said. “Thank you.”

  “I don’t know how much of a help I was.”

  “You were honest.”

  She looked perplexed. “What does that mean, ‘I was honest’?”

  “I was a Robbery Homicide detective in L.A. for ten years. People are hesitant to speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead person is a pretty young girl. People don’t mean to hurt investigations. I know it’s not malicious. Anything but. Still, I can’t tell you how many times we were hindered in getting to what really happened. Sometimes, by the time the truth came out, it was too late. There was this one case I worked, a housewife, a very attractive former actress, rich husband, two kids. Her body was found in a shallow grave in the hills. She’d been raped, her body brutalized. But to hear it from her friends and family, she was a saint. No one is a saint, Maryglenn. After weeks of getting nowhere, her best friend came to us and told us that the victim had been working as a high-end escort two afternoons a week because the whole Suzy Homemaker thing was boring her to distraction. The case is still unsolved. If the friend had told us the truth to begin with, we might have caught the guy. When we asked the friend why she hadn’t come forward sooner, she said she didn’t want a woman she loved to be remembered as a whore.”

  Maryglenn nodded in understanding. With her hand on the door, she turned back to Jesse. “I’m not very good at this . . . but can I buy you a drink sometime? I mean, we’ve been dancing around each other for months and I don’t enjoy this kind of dancing very much.”

  “Not a drink. I don’t drink anymore.” He felt both silly and proud saying it.

  That didn’t scare her off. “Dinner, then?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “What’s your phone number?”

  He smiled. “Nine-one-one.”

  “A wiseass, huh?”

  He handed her one of his cards with his cell number on it. “If you hear anything else about Heather, anything at all, call me about that, too.”

  After Maryglenn disappeared behind the classroom door, he stood in the hallway, remembering that long-ago case and how hesitant people were to speak ill of the dead.

  Eight

  When he got off the bus and saw the police chief’s Explorer parked out in front of Paradise High, he decided to ditch school and walked around to the athletic field. He’d heard about Heather but hadn’t expected the cops to already be sniffing around. He knew they would come eventually. Where else are the cops going to look?

  Under the stands of the stadium, he punched in a number on that week’s new burner phone. New phone every week. Sometimes two a week. That was how it worked. No one picked up on the other end and he didn’t leave a message. That was how that worked, too. In five minutes or so, he’d get a call back.

  In the meantime, he lit a cigarette, blew the smoke out the other side of his mouth, and peered through the empty spaces in the aluminum bleachers. One gangly, pimply-faced kid in a PARADISE HIGH PANTHERS JV track shirt ran a slow lap around the dark red track. As he puffed on his cigarette, watching the kid’s awkward, loping strides, he remembered his own freshman year, sitting in the stands under which he now stood. He recalled those stupid pep rallies. He hated all that school spirit, rah-rah bullshit. But he didn’t hate looking at the cheerleaders and the majorettes. No, sir, he did not. He remembered the first time he ever saw Heather, how he thought she was looking up into the stands right at him, but when she waved, he realized she was waving at the junior sitting directly behind him. He heard the junior lean over to his buddies and call him a dork. As if any girl as hot as Heather Mackey would wave at him. Doofus. Still hurt him to think about it. He crushed the cigarette out beneath his foot.


  Heather had always been nice to him, though. She wasn’t stuck up or anything, in spite of being so pretty and popular. He’d always wanted to ask her out but never had the nerve. He knew he wasn’t bad-looking and that he wasn’t anything like his freshman self, the doofus in the stands. The braces were gone, his voice was deep, no longer cracking when he got worked up. He’d grown into his body and a few girls in school had said he had the most beautiful deep blue eyes.

  He remembered the first day of school this year, when she came over to him at his locker. She put her hand on his wrist and stared right into his eyes. And he thought, stupidly, Is she looking at me or the guy behind me? But she wasn’t. She couldn’t have been, because the only thing behind him was his open locker door. Then she brushed her hand across his cheek.

  “We can’t talk now,” Heather had said, “but can we meet later, after school? Please.”

  His heart was beating so hard, the sound of blood rushing so loudly in his ears, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. And then, when he convinced himself that he had heard her, he could barely speak.

  “Sure.” It was the best he could manage.

  “Where?”

  “Come to my house,” she said. “My folks won’t be home and we can, you know, talk.”

  Even as he was celebrating in his head, fighting the desire to click his heels and scream or to run to tell his friends that he would finally be with the girl he had dreamed about since his first day as a freshman, he knew there was something in her eyes besides wanting him. It was a very different kind of wanting. He knew what it was. Since he’d begun working for Arakel, he’d seen it many times: desperation. With some of the others, he hadn’t even bothered to pretend and had slept with them. He had never forced himself on anyone or made it conditional. He had learned at an earlier age than most what desperation does to people. But with Heather, he wanted to pretend it was something more than that.