Schooled in Murder (15 page)

I could. I said, “Do you have any notion of how Carl Pinyon could have gotten the information about who had gone to out-of-district seminars? He had information going back thirty years.”

“Didn’t he think people would ask that question? That’s kind of bold.”

“If he’s being protected by Graniento, Spandrel, Bochka, and Towne, he’d have nothing to fear.”

“I don’t know where he got it.”

She put the car back in gear and began to drive back to school.

I said, “Do you want me to scoot down in the seat so I won’t be seen?”

“It’s not funny. People have died.”

I said, “Or I could get out a block or two before we get to school.”

“We may have to do that.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Fear. Danger. Everything. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No. No. No. I’m trying to help.” She was near tears. “Just believe me. You need eyes in the back of your head.”

Two blocks from school she pulled to the side of the road. I looked at her. She was shaking.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Because it’s the right thing to do. I wish I could do more.”

“Are you afraid someone is going to try and kill you?” “No. Don’t be absurd.” She looked at me. “They wouldn’t.”

“Spandrel, Graniento, Towne, and Bochka?” “Anyone. I think we’d all better be very careful.” “Do you want me to get out here?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I would.

She looked at me. She looked at the road, the sun, the sky, the grass, the houses, and then me again. She said, “This is madness.” She drove to her parking spot and let me out.

“Thanks,” I said.

She said, “Be careful.” As my hand was on the door, she said, “Don’t worry about missing the first seminar. I’ve fixed it. You were meeting with one of the LD teachers about an emergency staffing for a kid.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I didn’t care about the seminar. I hurried to the library. Meg was behind a stack of books she was beginning to catalogue.

I said, “She told me to beware of Graniento, Bochka, Spandrel, and Towne.”

“Good advice.”

“But she wouldn’t tell me to beware of what.”

“Everything. You should talk to Ludwig Schaven. I saw him earlier. He was in tears.”

“He wasn’t last night.”

“He was upset this morning and claiming that no one would listen to him. You might be the perfect person for him to unburden himself to.”

20

I didn’t see Schaven anywhere. I waited for Carl Pinyon outside the gradebook seminar. When he came out, I said, “Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

He looked uncomfortable.

I said, “It might help with what you guys were asking me about last night.”

He nodded.

We slipped into my classroom.

I said, “I’m curious to know where you got your figures about who went to which seminars going all that far back.”

“How will that help you find out information from the police–and find the killer, for that matter?”

“Maybe someone thought you uncovered something shady in their going to conferences–fraud in submitting travel vouchers, illegal or improper or unethical activity of some kind. Maybe your information was the motive for murder. Cheating on travel vouchers, depending on the amount of money, could be a serious problem for someone.”

“I can’t tell you where I got it.”

I said, “Maybe Eberson and Higden had knowledge that you had. You’re not worried that you could be next?”

And if he wasn’t, maybe I could get the idea planted in his head, get it to fester, and thus get more information out of him. It was worth a try.

“No one kills over that kind of stuff, do they?” He sounded uncertain.

I said, “You couldn’t have asked all the people involved. Some of them are retired and even if you got in touch with them, they would be suspicious and unlikely to answer. From that long ago, a few could even be dead. I’d have heard if you were asking those kinds of questions of people currently on the staff. The information has to have come from their files. Everybody has to submit paperwork when they take a trip somewhere, and a copy is kept in their permanent file. Either the people with legitimate access did all the work for you, or you went through all those files yourself. That would have taken a lot of work for one person. My guess is it would have taken hours and hours for several of you. No one is allowed into the personnel files except administrators.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong. You should be concentrating on who’s been stealing stuff from other teachers. People always accuse the progressives of being spies for the administration. Well, the other faction has been stealing things from our classrooms.”

This was not a new accusation either.

I said, “That is not a union issue.”

“And who went where on what conference is a union issue?”

“Not really.”

“But you’re asking about it. If you ask about one, you should ask about the other.”

Pinyon was short and stout. The way someone who has stopped working out once he got married would look after
about three years of continuing to eat at the rate and in the quantities he did when he exercised.

I said, “Remember, you guys came to me yesterday.”

“To find out what happened to Gracie–and now Peter, I guess. That means someone from that ancient faction must have been angry enough to kill.”

“They’d be angry at whoever got that information. Maybe you’re next. Did Peter and Gracie help you get it?”

“Ah … no.”

If a teenager had spoken with that hesitation and look away, I would have said he lied.

I switched to a different track of questions. “Did Peter have enemies?”

“No. He was a real friendly guy. He was always ready to go out and party. He was great. Knew all the best places for drink specials. He knew how to throw a party. I don’t guess anybody would be really angry with him.”

“Maybe he made an anti-Semitic remark in front of someone who didn’t like it.”

“Hey, he didn’t mean those things. He was just trying to be funny.”

“Were other people laughing?”

“Sure.”

“No one stood up and said, ´Stop that, I find it offensive’?”

“He was just being funny. He made comments about all ethnic groups. Arabs, Jews. Everybody. He’s got free-speech rights.”

The good old First Amendment defense reared its head. I said, “Because he has First Amendment rights doesn’t put him above criticism. It doesn’t mean somebody else isn’t offended. I assume you also think the offended person has free-speech rights to say they are offended? Did you hear him make those kinds of remarks?”

“I guess. Sure.”

“And it didn’t offend you?”

“Everybody was laughing. It was a joke. Look, I’m not here to be criticized by you.”

I said, “Did he fight with anyone in the young teachers’ faction?”

“No. Never.”

“Was he always that overbearingly friendly with everyone?”

“Sure.”

There had to be people besides Benson and the old guard who found him offensive. If Benson was annoyed, maybe others in his faction were, too.

21

I hustled to the second seminar and arrived on time. It was a group-dynamic seminar presented by someone who lectured the entire time. So much for her belief in group work. At least it wasn’t another one of those ninnies with their multicolored Post-it notes, replacing product with process. Yes, yes, paying attention to process is vital, and you need to do the basics every time, but when process-is-the-product becomes a style of work, nothing ever gets done. At least she didn’t pitch the fifty-third revision of our mission statement at us. Mission statement for schoolteachers–let’s think about that, it’s a tough one: to teach children? You might think that, but that would be wrong. Or at least, that simple statement doesn’t involve enough process to justify some ninny’s five-thousand-dollar fee for a seminar. I stayed awake throughout. I considered that a triumph. Mostly I stewed and brooded about factions and murder. Not so good.

Tammy Choate, the head of the GLSEN chapter at the school, found me as we were breaking for lunch. GLSEN is the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network and does wonderful work with gay and lesbian teenagers. She and I had
traded off duties running the group for a couple of years until she took it over completely. It was a relief for me to have one less responsibility.

She motioned me into an empty classroom. Tammy was an out lesbian, a slender attractive woman in her early forties. During the month before school ended during her first year, a student, who was a spy for the religious right, attended one of the GLSEN meetings. Tammy had mentioned the importance of safe sex. She hadn’t asked if anyone was having sex or suggested that they do or do not engage in intimate activity, just that safe sex was important. She’d been warned about talking to kids inappropriately. A few parents had gone nuts. Bochka, the notorious school board president, had led the charge to get her fired. Tammy chose to take a warning letter in her file rather than fight. She was grateful for the job I’d done of stepping in and helping her out. She taught French to freshmen and sophomores.

She said, “You’ve heard all the rumors about Gracie and Mabel? That they’re lesbians.”

“Yeah. Do you know if it’s true?”

She took a deep breath. “It’s true,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s going to come out, and there’s going to be a scandal. And it might reflect on the GLSEN teen group. Or me. I don’t know if I can go through a fight.”

“How would them being lesbians affect the group or you?”

“Anything that makes us look bad can have a negative effect.”

“But the kids aren’t involved.”

“It can hurt.”

“Are you sure the rumor is true?”

“Yes, they used my apartment in the city for their trysts.”

Well, there was confirmation in trumps and spades.

“You mean they stayed overnight.”

“They couldn’t stay overnight. They were both married. A lot of those supposed shopping trips and dinner and drinks at trendy north side bars?”

I nodded.

“Not happening.”

“Did you go out with them?”

“A few times. They were fun to go drinking with. Mabel could be hysterically funny.”