2 Death Makes the Cut (13 page)

She eyed me narrowly, trying to decide if I was threatening her or just trying to be helpful. I kept my face pleasantly concerned, or at least I tried. I admit, I’ve been advised by friends not to play poker. Apparently, this was one of those times.

Nancy decided to go the intimidation route, and I was reminded sharply of Mr. Richards. What was it with these large angry people? She took a step toward me to make the most of her height and bulk.

“I appreciate your advice, but this isn’t any of your business.”

“I have to disagree. Teachers are responsible for the well-being of students.”

“I run this department, and I decide what the practice schedule is. This show is special, the most ambitious we’ve ever done, and it requires 110% effort from everyone involved. I will not tolerate anything less, not from the kids, not from myself.” Little flecks of spit sprayed out, narrowly missing me.

“You can stay up here 24/7 as far as I’m concerned. The kids can’t.” I glared at her. “And you know they can’t, Nancy. Why are you doing this?” I turned my back on her and returned to the corkboard beside the door where the rehearsal schedule was posted. I yanked it off its thumbtack and read it aloud.

“Monday, four thirty to ten thirty. Tuesday, four thirty to ten thirty. Wednesday, Thursday, the same. Ooh, and look, on Friday, it’s four thirty to eleven thirty and then all day both Saturday and Sunday.” I flapped it at her. “Are you kidding me?”

She tried to snatch it from me, but I put it behind my back and, short of tackling me, she couldn’t reach it.

I said, “You’re not going to need this again. I want to see a new schedule up there. No more than eight hours of practice Monday through Thursday. Total. You know the UIL rules.”

She looked horror-struck. “You can’t do that! You have absolutely no authority over me or this department. I run this theater. It’s mine.” Her own words seemed to enrage her. “Mine. I decide the productions, I decide the casting, I decide the rehearsal schedule. End of story. Now get out!” Her voice rose to a shout.

“Yell all you want. You’ll change the schedule to comply with the guidelines or I will report the violation. And even if Larry doesn’t do anything about it”—which was a likely scenario—“the UIL will. You’ll be barred from competing at Regionals.”

She drew back in shock. “You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. Look,” I pointed to my head, “it’s my serious face.”

She decided on a new tack. “It’s just for the next couple of weeks. We have to get this play in shape by the tenth.” Her voice was almost pleading.

“The tenth? Since when do you put on a play in early September?”

“It’s a special case, it’s…” she struggled to find an explanation.

“Hey, what’s going on?” a deeper voice broke in, and we both turned. Roland Wilding had made his entrance, but neither of us had noticed.

He looked from Nancy to me and back again, handsome face inquiring, golden hair gleaming in the fluorescent light. He was so ridiculously good-looking that his expressions always looked somewhat fake. Even the way he stood, hip cocked, one thumb casually hooked in a belt loop, reminded me of a male underwear model.

Nancy sputtered for a few seconds, trying to find the words. Annoyed, I realized I had just blown my chance to ask Roland about Coach Fred. I was now public enemy number one, or soon would be.

I flapped the practice schedule in the air. “Change it, Nancy. I’ll be checking with the kids to make sure you do.” And I left.

I was ashamed to find my hands were trembling. I hated confrontations, and I was more upset than I would have wanted Nancy to guess, both about having to be a hard-ass and about the way Nancy and Roland were given license to make kids miserable. Why should I have to keep an eye on them? Where was Larry, our fearless principal? This was his job. I considered whether I should take the matter up with him anyway, but I doubted whether he would do anything about it. No, somehow this had become my problem and the only thing I was sure about was that, like the monster in a slasher flick, it would rise from the dead and return to bite me in the ass.

Chapter 8

GLOCKS AND GRIEVANCES

The talk with Nancy made me later than usual getting to my room, and four of my tennis kids were already waiting in the hall. Students who arrived at school early had few places where they could go to finish homework or simply wait for the day to begin, and they often went to their first period classroom if the teacher arrived early enough. Lately the tennis team, even those who did not take a class with me, had taken to meeting in my room, a subtle vote of confidence that I recognized and appreciated. They’d started calling me Coach J, too, which cracked me up. Within the next ten minutes, a good portion of the team arrived, some working on assignments I was sure they should have finished the night before, others sitting together in the back, talking quietly. Right in the center of the group, as always, sat Dillon Andrews, friendly, smart, and popular. The perfect kid. Well, for my purposes anyway.

“Mr. Andrews,” I said. “Could you come with me, please?”

He looked up, startled. One of the best things about being a teacher is the power to give orders without explanation. I could see him wondering what he had done, thinking back over all the pranks—and I was sure there were several—for which he might be called to account. He assumed an angelic expression of innocence, which immediately made me suspicious that he actually did have something to feel guilty about.

We stepped into the hall, and I closed the door behind us. There were several ways I could play this, but I decided on the most direct approach possible. After all, these kids had liked Coach Fred.

“Dillon, you know everyone on the team, right?”

“Well … yeah, I do,” he admitted cautiously.

“Pretty good kids, right?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, more confident at this.

“I have a question for you that might be hard to answer. Actually, it’s hard to ask, so let me start by giving you the background. In confidence. Do you know what that means?”

“Um, yeah, I’m not three. You don’t want me to tell anyone else.”

“Except your parents. You can always tell your parents anything.”

He blinked with surprise. “What?”

“I’m serious. Nothing happens in this school that you shouldn’t be able to tell your parents. Anyway, where was I?” I’d lost the thread. “Oh yeah. Look, Dillon, you know the kids on the team pretty well, right?”

He nodded again.

“The police found some items”—that sounded vague enough—“that I think Coach Fred must have confiscated from some kids, but which the police think might be his.”

“What kind of items?” he asked, eyes brightening with curiosity.

“Just … items.” This was harder than I thought, especially with him looking at me like a squirrel spotting an acorn. “Okay, fine. Joints.”

He gave a shout of laughter, loud enough to make me jump. “Coach Fred? You’ve got to be kidding.” He looked in my face and realized I wasn’t, adding firmly, “No way, no how. The police must be ar-tards.”

I grinned at him. “Yeah, well, they aren’t stupid, but they didn’t know Coach Fred like we did. Anyway, what I’m asking you is, do you think they belonged to someone on the team?”

He stopped laughing and assumed a thoughtful expression. A group of girls came up the steps, long tan legs bare under very short skirts, ankles wobbling on platform shoes. Dillon’s expression became decidedly less focused.

I snapped my fingers near his head to regain his attention. “I don’t care about the joints. I’m not looking to get anyone into trouble. But if we could show that they weren’t Fred’s…”

“Yeah, I get you. But the thing is, I don’t think they belong to anyone on the team either. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but as far as I know we’re all clean. And believe me, if Coach Fred had found a joint on someone, he would have kicked that someone off the team. He told us that on the first day of practice. Every year. Repeated it about once a week. He hated drugs.”

“I know he hated drugs. But if it really came down to it, would he really have kicked one of you off the team? Or would he have tried to work with that person?”

Dillon shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he would have kicked us off. He sounded serious.”

“Okay, so where did the joints come from?” I asked, more to myself than to Dillon.

He gave me a jaded look. “He probably took them from some kid in a bathroom. All he’d have to do was hide in a stall for about three minutes to overhear a deal going down.”

I made a mental note to go into the kids’ bathrooms more often, something I usually avoided because they were disgusting. For some reason, the floors were always wet and at least one toilet in every one of them was more or less permanently stopped up. And I didn’t even want to think what the boys’ bathrooms must be like.

“Great,” I said. “Well, if you think of something that might help, let me know. And Dillon, don’t tell the other kids about the joints. I don’t want anyone thinking of Fred that way.”

He shook his head. “I could get on the PA and announce it to the entire school, and no one who had ever met Coach Fred would believe it for even one minute. But don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

*   *   *

After wolfing down a turkey sandwich I’d brought from home, I spent the remainder of my lunch period asking questions, starting with Stan the Parking Nazi. Stan’s official title was school monitor, which gave him the dignity and authority of a roaming mall guard. Among his many mostly self-imposed duties was the chore of verifying that kids who left the campus for lunch were actually seniors, which was a school policy. I found him on a grass island near the front entrance, stopping each car as it went out to demand to see IDs. Red-haired, with freckles on top of his freckles and a pear-shaped body that had never seen the inside of a gym, Stan was an impressive specimen of manhood. He had the raw intelligence of a piece of broccoli, but he was cheerful, and he loved his job. The kids called him the Parking Nazi more on principle than out of animosity, and it was a favorite campus pastime to slip one over on him.

I waited as he finished with one carload of giggling senior girls. “Stan, you got a minute? I need to ask you about that day Fred was killed.”

He glanced up at me, face breaking into a grimace. A trickle of sweat rolled down his cheek, and he lifted the collar of his official James Bonham High School polo shirt to wipe it off. I caught a glimpse of a white undershirt and a sprinkling of red chest hair in the gap before I could avert my eyes.

“That was awful. Poor Coach. He was a real gentleman.” Stan waved the next car by, obviously recognizing the driver, then held up a hand to stop a red Mustang. The driver rolled his eyes, but obediently slowed to a halt.

“Yeah, he was,” I agreed. “Anyway, I want to know if you noticed anyone around that day who didn’t belong. Maybe a car that was in the lot late that night?”

Stan snapped his fingers to demand ID from the kid driving the car. I glanced in the back window and saw a blue blanket spilling off the seat and over a large kid-sized lump on the floor. The lump quivered a little as though suppressing snorts of laughter.

“Don’t really remember anything. Nothing that stands out.” He waved the car on without noticing anything untoward and turned his attention to the next.

Across the parking lot, a group of boys headed toward a big Chevy Impala. A few of them clustered casually around the trunk, which opened and then quickly closed behind them. The number of boys remaining to climb into the car had been reduced by at least two. I glanced over at Stan to see if he’d noticed. He hadn’t.

“What about visitors? There was at least one parent who came to the school because he was mad at Fred. Did you see him or anyone else like that?”

Stan tilted his head and looked up as though there might be an answer in the cloudless blue sky. I could feel the sun soaking into the concrete at my feet, feel the warmth settling into my hair and skin. The air carried the summer scent of warm grass and earth, overlaid by waves of exhaust and melting asphalt. Two cars slipped by without stopping while he pondered.

“There were lots of visitors. Kids, parents, teachers, workmen. I think that film crew was stomping around that day, measuring stuff around the back of the school. I wish I’d seen something!” he added, voice suddenly intense. “I wish I’d been there that night with Fred!”

The last statement was so heartfelt that I reached out and patted his shoulder, something I instantly regretted. It was like touching a sweat sock.

“Thanks anyway, Stan.” I said, then decided that kindness in Fred’s memory deserved to be rewarded. “Hey, just a suggestion—check the trunk of that Impala.”

He looked surprised, then his eyes narrowed, predator instinct kicking in. He shot me a look of gratitude and triumph, and I left with a wave.

*   *   *

I stopped in at the administration office, welcoming the blast of icy air that spilled over me as I opened the door. This was the only building on campus that was properly air-conditioned. Or improperly, depending on your point of view. The two women working behind the large front counter were both wearing sweaters, and I could hear the hum of a space heater behind one of the eight desks that filled the large open area.

Maria Santos, secretary to Principal Larry Gonzales, looked up as I walked in and waved me over eagerly.

“Look!” she said, holding up both hands. “Blue. The tips of my fingers are actually blue. I beg Larry to turn up the temperature, but he tells me that women are always cold. Yeah, I tell him. When it’s forty below zero, we are always cold. He just laughed.”

I laughed, too. I couldn’t help it, she looked so indignant. She glared at me for a moment, then relaxed into a giggle, her dark eyes crinkling with amusement. She spoke English perfectly, but with a rich Hispanic accent that lent her words an exotic flavor.

I sat down on the orange plastic chair beside her desk, looking around with some interest. I didn’t often come back here, and the view was somewhat different. For one thing, there was a large portrait of Larry, looking very dignified and grim, hanging on the wall to the right.