2 Death Makes the Cut (27 page)

He laughed. “Yeah, they work. Or rather, the ones on the doors that lead to the parking lots work. Anyone could enter or exit by the courtyard doors, and from there, they wouldn’t necessarily have to pass another camera, not if they were smart and knew about the cameras. Even if they didn’t do that, the school is like Grand Central Station. The cameras caught kids, parents, and teachers coming and going until after eleven o’clock.”

“So even if you caught the right person on tape, you’d never know it because you don’t know if they were in the hallway.”

“Exactly. And the quality of the video is too poor to tell if anyone had wet clothes.”

“Wet clothes?”

Colin hesitated, looking at me. “Ms. Esperanza put up a gallant fight. The killer would have been soaked.”

His words dropped into a pool of silence. A single tear spilled down my cheek, and I wiped it away angrily.

“What time?” I asked when I could control my voice. “Do you know what time it happened?”

“Not exactly. The initial estimate is between eight and midnight.”

“See, that’s wrong. She had no reason to be at the school so late.”

“We’ve spoken with her husband. Apparently, she told him she had to work late and wouldn’t see him that evening. He works the night shift at St. David’s Medical Center—seven to seven. He only noticed she was missing when he got home this morning, and he called it in right away. But you’d already found her by then.”

“She had no reason to be there,” I repeated.

Kyla was thinking hard. “It was a terrible risk for the killer, wasn’t it? A girls’ bathroom. Pretty busy spot.”

“Yeah,” Colin agreed. “We figure it had to have been closer to midnight for that reason. Any earlier and someone would have noticed the water if not the body.”

I swallowed. “It wasn’t flowing that much, though.”

“What?”

“I mean, the amount of water. It wasn’t just pouring out. It was more of a steady trickle. It had only made it to the hall because it had been running for so long.”

“Yeah, the mechanism couldn’t quite close, probably because of her hair. When you pulled her out, it stopped,” said Colin, then winced at my expression. “Sorry.”

I swallowed hard, but kept going. “So, since the stall door was closed, I don’t think anyone would think much of a trickle of water.”

“They’d report it, wouldn’t they?”

“An adult would report it. But a kid? At Bonham? Water and worse on the floors in the bathrooms isn’t anything new. You should ask the drama kids. I’m assuming they were the ones up there until eleven?”

“Yeah. Seriously, you think it’s possible that a kid could have gone into that bathroom and not noticed anything?”

I closed my eyes, not so much to remember, but to get the vision out of my head. “Other than the water, there wasn’t anything to notice. She … she was in the last stall. The door was closed. If you used one of the first two stalls, you wouldn’t see a thing. And why would you go closer to a running toilet?”

“We’ll check,” he said, his face alert, the hunting instinct kicking in. He rose to his feet.

He started to carry his glass to the kitchen, but Kyla stood and took it from his hands. I stood as well, a little stiff from being curled on the sofa so long. Ridiculous or not, his presence was comforting, and a big part of me didn’t want him to leave. It was all I could do not to clutch at him and pull him back.

He must have seen something of my emotion in my face, because he turned back and took me into his arms, holding me close, resting his cheek against my hair. I buried my face against his shirt, feeling his warmth through the thin fabric, aware of how solid and comforting his body felt. I felt him patting my back, soothing me as he might have soothed a child. I could have stayed just like that forever, but it was feeling a little too good. I straightened, sniffing and rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. He released me, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. With a flash of blue from his eyes more intimate than a caress, he turned and left without a word.

Kyla followed him to the door and locked it after him. Then she turned to me.

“Damn,” she said.

Chapter 18

GRIEF AND GUNS

There had been talk of closing the school for a few days, but the massive wheels of the Austin Independent School District turned quickly for once and the powers that be decided that 2,800 kids need their education, and, more importantly, the district needed the federal funding.

Kyla protested, but I sent her home after Colin left and somehow rose the next day and went back to school. I did not, however, cut through Building A, and instead parked in front and walked through the main entrance beside the administration building. A glance through the windows showed the office was overflowing with strangers, all talking at the same time. Larry Gonzales stood in the middle of them, looking harried and grim.

Curious, I went in, sidled past the group, and slipped behind the front desk. At the sight of me, Maria Santos jumped to her feet and rushed to throw her arms around me.

“Oh, Jocelyn, I didn’t think you’d be here today. How are you? How are you holding up?”

I patted her shoulder awkwardly. Over her head I could see Pat Carver sitting stiff and disapproving behind her computer monitor. She gave me a sour look and turned her attention to the screen in front of her.

“I’m fine,” I said, which was precariously close to being an outright lie. However, I was upright, so I thought I could get away with it. “What’s going on? Who are all these people?”

She released me and stepped back, pulling me down into the chair beside her desk. Lowering her voice, she said, “Grief counselors.”

I looked at the group again. “Seriously? There can’t be this many in the entire city. They must have imported some from out of state.”

“Yeah, basically. They figure the kids are going to be really upset. Teachers and staff, too. They’re going to have grief-counseling sessions and then let everyone who wants to sign up for one-on-one meetings.”

“Waste of money and time, if you ask me,” said Pat grimly, continuing to type.

“No one did,” retorted Maria. She leaned closer to me, lowering her voice. “All she cares about is who is getting charged.”

“Someone has to care,” snapped Pat, again proving the efficiency of her hearing.

I looked over at Pat, taking in the large shoulders and grim set of her jaw. A new thought niggled in the back of my mind, nebulous and just out of reach. I thought about the papers Colin and I had found in the clock. Did they mean something? Was Pat cooking the books in some way, maybe embezzling money? And if so, what did that mean regarding Fred? Or Laura? I looked at Pat again. She was taller than I was, a big woman who looked like she was in fairly decent shape. Physically, could she have killed someone? I looked at the hands flying over the keys. Large for a woman, which didn’t mean they had been used to hold Laura’s head under water until she’d drowned. It only meant they could have been.

“I found those receipts you were looking for, Pat,” I said.

She jerked as though I’d given her a jolt with a cattle prod, then said stiffly. “Well, fine. Please turn them in as soon as you can.”

“They were with some of Fred’s things, so I turned them in to the police.”

This time she went absolutely white. “That’s extremely inconvenient. I’ll need to request copies from the merchant now.” With a malevolent glare at me, she rose and walked away.

Well, that touched a nerve anyway, I thought with some satisfaction. I just didn’t know how a few fifty-dollar coolers could be involved with anything criminal.

I realized Maria had said something and was now looking at me with sympathy. I drew myself together. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“Nothing. Are you sure you should be here today? Everyone knows you and Laura were close. Even Larry would give you time off if you needed it.”

I shook my head. “Better to be working than sitting at home doing nothing.”

She considered this, and then nodded. “Okay. But if you do want to talk to one of the counselors, just give me a call. I’ll make sure you get priority.”

I walked to my classroom still wondering about Pat. How did she fit into this mess? And how did Laura’s death relate to Fred’s? Or were they entirely separate things? I didn’t think so. I didn’t see how they could be connected, but the likelihood of two murders in the same small community not being related had to be miniscule.

A small group of kids was sitting on the floor in the hallway outside my door. McKenzie Mills, Dillon Andrews, Eric Richards, and Brittany Smith hopped up as I approached and rushed me, McKenzie and Brittany hugging me in a death grip. Dillon hung back, probably worried that someone else might see them fraternizing with a teacher, then finally managed an awkward pat on my shoulder as though I were a dog. Kids. No one on earth could be more generous, open, and loyal than teenagers. The good ones, anyway. These kids were the reason I loved teaching and the reason I put up with the kids who weren’t so good. I hugged them back and then extricated myself as gently as I could.

“Stop it, you all. You’re going to make me cry.”

“You should cry, Coach J. It’s good for you. It releases endorphins,” said McKenzie earnestly.

That was all I needed. One tear and the flood would start again. I said firmly, “It also releases my mascara, and I don’t want to look like a raccoon all day. Now let me unlock my door.”

Inside the room they hovered around my desk instead of taking their seats as usual and working on the homework that they should have completed the night before. I put my purse inside my desk drawer, locked it, and raised my eyes.

“What?” I asked them.

Brittany asked in a hesitant voice, “We were wondering if we’re still playing today. You know, the match?”

The match. Our first match of the season. I’d completely forgotten about it. Wildly, I went over everything that would have to be done today, and then realized with relief that I couldn’t think of a thing. I’d made all the preparations days ago.

I kept my face calm. “Of course,” I said, then added, “unless you really don’t want to. I think the very best thing all of us can do is continue our normal schedules and stay busy.”

Brittany looked at me so doubtfully I had a hard time suppressing a smile. I knew the teenage mind. She would have been much more comfortable if I’d instructed them to rend their clothes and cover their heads in ashes. Carrying on seemed so … dull.

I gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. If your game is off, well that’s just the way it is. After everything that’s happened, it’s a victory just to show up. I know Senora Esperanza would do the same for me.”

And saying it made me realized that I actually believed it. Which was a tiny, and very cold, drop of comfort.

McKenzie spoke up with a voice that quavered just a little. “Do you think it’s safe to be here? At school, I mean?”

Safe. What did that mean anymore? But I looked into their anxious faces and realized they were only asking what 2,800 other kids and their families were probably asking. Larry Gonzales had made all kinds of statements and promised to increase security, but even if they had listened to his droning, long-winded speech, they hadn’t quite believed him. So they had come to me. A teacher they trusted. I considered my words carefully.

“No one knows why this happened to Señora Esperanza, but I do not believe that we have a madman running through the halls looking for random people to attack. I think we are all safe enough, especially during the school day. Those of us who have after-school activities when there are less people around … well, I think maybe we should go to the bathroom in pairs, at least until the police figure this out. There’s no harm in being cautious for a few days, even if it’s just for our own peace of mind.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever go to the bathroom again,” said McKenzie sadly.

Eric gave a hoot of laughter. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, what are you going to do, wear diapers?” chimed in Dillon.

“Astronaut pants!” agreed Eric.

“Yeah, the PTA could sell them in the Tiger’s Den. They’d make a fortune.”

“Okay, enough,” I broke in. “I think we all know what McKenzie meant.”

“Yeah. You turds,” said McKenzie, glaring at them and turning red.

“It isn’t funny,” chimed in Brittany, although her lips twitched just a little.

Funny or not, the boys had definitely lightened the mood.

My cell phone rang from within the depths of my desk drawer. I normally silenced it while I was in the classroom, but today I’d forgotten. I pulled it out and glanced at the number.

It was Alan. With a glance at the kids, I answered.

“Jocelyn. Are you all right?” his voice came over the phone, tight with anxiety.

“Yes,” I said, moving to the door. Four pairs of eyes, bright and curious, followed me. I walked into the hall, pulling the door closed behind me.

“I just saw on the news. A teacher was killed at your school? They didn’t give a name,” he added, an echo of the desperation he had felt in his voice.

Oh dear Lord. I hadn’t thought about the news. I needed to call my parents to reassure them. I wondered if Kyla had thought to do that yesterday.

“Yes, it was horrible,” I said, the words true enough, but seeming unreal even as I spoke them. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I … wasn’t thinking very clearly.”

“Where are you now?”

“At school,” I answered. “I can’t really talk very well, but everything is fine. Well … no, not fine, but…” I struggled to find words.

“I understand. Well, as long as you’re all right, that’s all I need to know. But Jocelyn, we need to talk. Really talk.”

I swallowed. Here it came. My thoughts flashed to Colin, then back to Alan. I was so confused. I didn’t even know what I wanted. But a really big part of me did not want to let this man out of my life.

He continued, “How about me coming down there on Friday night after work? I’ll leave early, beat the rush hour. I could be at your place by seven o’clock. Maybe we could go to dinner. Someplace nice.”