Schooled in Murder (8 page)

Bochka said, “A dead body! A teacher. This is awful. The papers are going to drag the school district’s reputation through the mud. There are news trucks outside already.”

I said, “The concern should be for Gracie’s family and for trying to find out who killed her.”

“Murder,” Bochka said. “That is just not acceptable in this school.”

I asked, “There’s a school where it would be acceptable?” “Well, no.” She fluttered her hands on her expensive necklace.

Yes, I know, we’re all supposed to tremble and quake when we’re talking to school board members. I don’t. There are a few who are not self-important boobs. When you find those, treasure them. The rare times I’ve spoken to school board members, I’ve found them to be just as human as teachers and all the other common folk. Bochka had been on the wrong side of the DNA question. You start something fatuous with me, you better be ready for something snarky in return.

Bochka didn’t seem to notice my tone. She said, “Could a student have done this? They play so many violent video games. They think violence is acceptable. It’s terrible.”

I gave myself bonus points for not guffawing in her face at this stunning display of excessive inanity.

“Did the police arrest Mabel Spandrel?” I asked.

Towne said, “They’ve taken her down to the station for questioning. They claim they’re keeping an open mind. One of them tried to imply that Mrs. Eberson was having an affair with a student.”

“What exactly did they say?” I asked.

Towne said, “They say they found evidence of sexual activity in the room where she was discovered.”

“Why would that imply a student?”

“Spandrel led them to believe that. She told them Gracie tutored several boys in math. Only boys.”

“Did she tutor them in that room?” I asked.

“Well, no,” Towne replied.

“Why would tutoring imply sexual activity?”

“Well,” Towne said, “it’s odd. Suspicious.”

What a crock. I asked, “How is it suspicious?”

“It just is,” Towne said. “That policeman said they had evidence of sexual activity. Isn’t that why they want DNA samples?”

I asked, “Did they say what kind of evidence they found?”

Towne leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “Fresh semen.”

“In the room?” I asked. “On her body? Was she sexually assaulted?”

“I don’t know,” Towne said. “I heard a couple rumors from different sources, and the police hinted. They must suspect something or someone.”

Graniento said, “Do you think the police believed Pinyon’s notes are part of a murder? Pinyon didn’t die. Gracie did.”

I said, “It was a threat, and it happened here. I have no idea about the connection.”

“We’ve got to find out something,” Bochka said. “We can’t be kept in the dark. I don’t like that older detective, Gault. He was rude to me. I’m going to report him to his superior.”

“How was he rude?” I asked.

“He told me not to interfere in the investigation. I’m president of this school board. I’m responsible to the voters. All I did was try to go into the storeroom to try to see what was going on.”

“He was just doing his job,” Towne said.

Bochka pointed at me. “Haven’t you had experience with this kind of thing before?”

The bodies-plopping-in-my-path reputation had preceded me. I repeated what I’d said to the members of the factions. “I’m sure I don’t have much more insight than anyone else. You’re already annoyed with the cops. You said they were rude. If they knew someone was trying to investigate, they’d be more than rude.”

Bochka said, “You seem to know some of the River’s Edge police. Could you ask them?”

I said, “I have no official standing.”

“Yes, but you know these people,” Towne said.

“The one I know best is not here,” I replied.

Graniento said, “This questioning could go on for hours. They’re demanding to talk to custodians, secretaries, members of other departments. It’s awful. Our reputation will be ruined. The teachers are saying awful things about what’s been going on in the English department.”

Like the truth, I thought.

Graniento was continuing. “They’ve got more questions for everyone. Every petty bit of squabbling is going to come out. Every minor tiff and spat. The police are going to know all of this. It’s all going to get into the papers.”

I said, “Then maybe it will stop. It should have stopped a long time ago.”

“What do you mean?” Graniento’s voice was low and threatening.

“With your implicit consent, this infighting has escalated tenfold since you’ve been here. You may or may not have encouraged it, but you did nothing to stop it. You took no action. Other administrators have been around longer, and they’ve done nothing to stop it. One could lay some of the guilt for this murder on yourselves, if the motive for the killing turns out to have been driven by the interdepartmental war.”

Graniento said, “We’ve done nothing.”

I said, “We must have a different definition of nothing.”

Among other things, Graniento and Spandrel had rammed a new curriculum and new pedagogy down the throats of the members of the English department. They’d modified and ordered implemented what’s called the “workshop model.” It’s a methodology that makes some sense. Students learn by doing rather than passively listening to lecture after lecture. However, there is an emphasis on group work often to the exclusion of individual achievement. It also demands a level of attention to individual students that is difficult for some teachers to attain while still controlling a class. Graniento and Spandrel had demanded the model be used but that the kids work silently. They never fully explained how group work was supposed to be done silently or, if it was silent, how it was group work. They’d insisted on teachers’ having at least thirty individual contacts with students during each class period, and they’d showed up in people’s classrooms with charts and ledgers, keeping track. They’d stopped counting mine after fifty in one class period. Well, that day the kids needed help writing correct openings for essays. What was I supposed to do?

The administrators had soon tired of the onerous duty of being in so many classrooms. Fortunately for the teaching staff, the administrators have tons of paperwork to shuffle.

Towne said, “All schools have problems.”

Bochka said, “No one told the school board about any problems.”

“Bull,” I said. “One rumor I heard is that you met with one of the factions in the department and were openly supporting them.”

“That is absolutely not true.”

I said, “It was just a rumor.” Which I had from an impeccable source.

Graniento said, “I let my department heads have a free rein. They make the choices.”

Scott and I sat on the tops of school desks that were next to each other. He watched each of them intently. Occasionally, one of them would glance at him, but none addressed themselves to him. I took great comfort from his presence.

Towne said, “The police seem very impatient.”

I said, “Cops often are.”

Towne said, “We want to seem cooperative.”

Graniento said, “They were talking about fights among the faculty. What they said about today’s meeting was a disgrace. Adults shouting at each other? In a school?”

I said, “You encouraged it.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said.

I said, “At the meeting with the new teachers this year, on the opening day of school, you told them to speak up, to challenge the way things have been done.”

“You were there?” Towne said.

I said, “The union building rep talks to the new teachers on the first day every year. We give them contracts and some dos and don’ts. One of them told us what you’d said. The others confirmed it.”

“Who told?” Graniento asked.

I said, “I’m not going to tell you.”

“That’s insubordination,” Graniento said.

“No, actually, it’s not. I’ve heard you use that term to attempt to frighten, bully, demean, and silence those who oppose or disagree with you, but insubordination is very clearly delineated in the school code. I suggest you peruse it.”

“You encourage rudeness?” Towne asked Graniento. Graniento said, “I didn’t mean for them to be rude at meetings.”

I said, “You’ve encouraged them to come to you. I’ve got
ten rumors all year that they run to you with departmental problems. That you encourage them. That you’ve been undercutting the heads of one, some, or all of the departments since the day you showed up.”

Graniento said, “Mrs. Spandrel and I speak every day. I have no problems with her.”

“She’ll be glad to hear that,” I said. “So will the rest of the heads of the departments.”

Graniento said, “I have most certainly not encouraged dissent.”

“I’m just telling you the rumors,” I said. “You know the truth of them. Who knows how many of them will get into the media?”

Bochka said, “That’s one thing we’re concerned about, the media.”

“And the Internet,” Towne added.

Bochka said, “You’re the union person in the building. Reporters might call you.”

This was getting down to it. Police. Media. Containment. Cover your ass. Control publicity.

I said, “Are you asking me to lie? And nobody’s going to be able to control the Internet.”

Bochka said, “I’m not stupid. I know I can’t control what someone puts on the Internet, but nobody believes what’s on the Internet, do they? No, it’s the regular media.”

“Or the police,” Graniento said. “Couldn’t you get them to not say things to the media?”

Towne said, “Nobody wants you to lie, but maybe if we all said the same thing.”

I said, “I don’t have the power to stop what the cops say to the press. I doubt reporters are going to call me. If they do, I will handle them as I always do.”

“How’s that?” Bochka said.

“With professionalism and respect.”

Bochka said, “I guess I may have heard rumors about the English department. That the teachers are out of control.”

I said, “How is that a concern of the school board?”

“Everything that happens in this school district is a concern of mine.”

“It is and it isn’t,” I said. “If you’re micromanaging the place, it might be. My understanding is that school board members are supposed to take care of the budget and set policy.”

Bochka said, “Any parent can be concerned.”

I said, “And parents can be out of control.”

Towne said, “Mr. Mason, we’re serious. There may have been flaws in the system, problems in the school, but we need your help. Can’t you call someone?”

“The main person I know is no longer in homicide. The others I know are in the juvenile youth services department, not homicide.”

“But they must speak to their friends. Don’t you still talk to your friend?”

“What is it that you think he’d tell me?”

“We’d like to get inside information,” Towne said. “We’re hoping you’ll help.”

We went around and around on handling cops and finding out what was going on and about not telling reporters what was going on. Reluctantly, I agreed to do what I could. I didn’t say precisely what I’d do, or when I’d do it, or how vigorously I’d pursue it, but that I’d give it a shot.

Even odder than their asking me for help was their persistance in asking for it. While I hadn’t met the strict definition of insubordination, I’d been fairly direct and honest, something I’m sure they weren’t used to from usually cowering teachers. Yet I only got fairly mild sparring in return. I didn’t trust these administrators as far as I could throw a
curriculum guide, and our curriculum guide was thicker than the yellow pages for New York and Chicago combined.

Teresa Merton, our union president, strode into the room and marched over to where we were standing. Bochka and Towne looked annoyed. Graniento looked superior.

Merton stood about five-foot-two with long blond hair in complex ringlets down to her waist. She might have weighed a hundred pounds if she was wearing heavy winter clothes including a sweater and a parka. Nobody messed with her. Competent and smart as union president, she was also an excellent teacher. She said, “What the hell is going on?”

The administrators hunched a bit closer together. Bochka explained her version of events. When she finished, Merton said, “Nobody’s submitting to DNA testing until they talk to their lawyers. You weren’t thinking of doing anything to these teachers, taking any action against them?”

“No,” Towne said.

“Good. I’d like to speak with Tom alone.”

The administrators left. I introduced Scott.

She said, “If you want him to stay during our conversation that’s fine. Now, what really happened?”

I gave her my version of events, including a description of what Benson and Frecking were doing when I walked in.

“You haven’t told that to the administrators and to the cops? All you said was they were in there?”

“Right.”

“Okay, but be careful about being too cute. Don’t lie to the cops is my saintly advice.”

“I figure it’s their incident to tell about.” “Maybe. They could get their asses fired for that.” “Should I talk to them?”

She repeated one of the great union dictums. “Don’t go looking for business.” The problem with hearing a rumor or
assuming someone needed help and going to them first was that then the next person could say, “Why didn’t you come to me when you heard the rumor? It’s your fault I’m in trouble, because you didn’t come to me.” They’ve got to come to you. “And if they do come to me?”

“Send them to me. It’s going to be a mess. Those administrators coming to you for help is kind of a compliment.”

“It’s odd.”

“You do know people in the police department, and administrators like to stick their nose into everything. Although, it’s funny that both factions in the department came to you. What do they expect you to do, wave a magic wand? Walk on water? Murder is not a union issue.”

“They’ll claim we didn’t help.”

“Don’t they always?”

Unless you could alter reality to meet some people’s distortions, they would never be satisfied with what you did as union official. Mostly they had some movie-version notion of unions breaking legs and forcing evil enemies to obey. People watch too many movies. Being unable to alter reality, I was at times at a loss. Explaining reality to them was another problem.