The Word of a Child (8 page)

On the whole, they hadn't changed since his day. Haircuts
and clothing styles were a little different, but not the basic insecurity that
was the hallmark of these young teenagers.

He didn't see a girl hurrying by who would have been as calm
as Tracy Mitchell, talking about the first time her computer teacher exposed
himself to her.

The crowd was thinning out, the next bell about to ring.
Connor shoved away from the post and through the double doors into the tall A
building with its Carnegie-style granite foundation and broad front entrance
steps. Stragglers on their way to class cast him startled looks. He was an
alien in their midst, an adult who wasn't a teacher or a known parent. He
smiled and nodded when they met his eyes.

Tracy
could
be lying, all right. She wouldn't be the first teenager who'd decided an
allegation of sexual molestation was the way to bring down an adult she hated.

But Gerald Tanner was also the classic nerd who had probably
been hunched over his computer when his contemporaries were developing social
skills. Not to mention fashion sense. Even Connor, who didn't give a damn about
clothes, had shuddered at his polyester slacks, belted a little too tight and a
little too high on his waist, and the short-sleeved white dress shirt and tie.
Okay, Tanner didn't have a plastic pocket protector, but the black-framed
glasses made him slightly owl-eyed. Who wore a getup like that these days? Hadn't
he ever heard of contact lenses?

The point was, Gerald Tanner fit the profile of a guy who
felt inadequate with women his own age. Here were all these teenagers, as
awkward as he was with the opposite sex, the girls developing breasts,
experimenting with makeup, learning to flirt and to flaunt what they had. What
could be more natural than the realization that
he
was
more powerful than they were? That he could fulfill his fantasies without
having to bare himself, literally or figuratively, with a real woman?

Connor reached the top floor and paused briefly outside a
classroom with its door ajar. The teacher was talking, but damned if any of the
kids seemed to be paying attention. Some of them were studying, one girl was
French-braiding a friend's hair, a couple of guys were playing a handheld
electronic game, while others drifted around the room. Connor shook his head in
faint incredulity. In his day, you were in deep you-know-what if you were
caught passing a note, never mind openly playing a hand of poker in the back.

The teacher raised her voice. "Everybody got that
assignment on their calendar? Remember, the rough draft is due Tuesday."

One or two students appeared to make notations in open
binders.

Still shaking his head, Connor moved on.

What kind of teacher was Gerald Tanner? Did he wear any
mantle of authority? Or did the kids see him as a computer geek, too?

Connor's stride checked as it occurred to him that maybe
times had changed. This was Microsoft country, after all, and Bill Gates was
the Puget Sound area's biggest celebrity. Hell, maybe jocks weren't the only
object of teenage girls' lust these days. Maybe visions of the next computer
billionaire danced in the heads of thirteen-year-old girls.

He'd have to ask Mariah.

Her door stood ajar, too. She sat behind her desk, papers
spread across the surface, a red pen in her hand. Her concentration seemed
complete. Connor wondered if she'd forgotten he was coming back.

But, although he didn't make a sound, he was no sooner
framed in the doorway than her head shot up. For a moment she stared at him
with the wide-eyed look of a doe frozen in car headlights. Was she afraid of
him?

But then she blinked, her face cleared, and he told himself
he'd imagined the fear.

"Detective. I thought maybe you'd gotten lost."

"Just avoiding the rush."

"Smart." She started stacking the assignments, her
movements precise, the corners all squared. "What can I do for you?"

"Tell me what you know about Tanner."

"Gerald?" Her hands stilled momentarily, then
resumed their task. "Well … not very much, actually. As I said in Mrs.
Patterson's office, I didn't even know whether he was married. We simply
haven't become that personal."

Connor sat as he had that morning on a student desk in the
first row. "Is he shy?"

"Um…" She considered. "No, not really. He's
friendly in the teacher's lounge. He's surprisingly funny."

Okay, Connor thought, torpedo the stereotypes. Horn-rimmed
glasses did not mean a man was humorless; skinny arms did not mean he was
pathologically shy.

"We've sat together to eat lunch several times,
especially since we've started a discussion on doing a joint project coupling
writing skills with Internet research."

"Have you seen him teach?"

She pursed her lips as she thought. Connor was annoyed to
find himself fixated on the soft curve of her mouth. Scowling, he tore his gaze
away.

"Only briefly. Generally, of course, he isn't lecturing
like I might do. The students work on computers, beginning ones on keyboarding
skills, more advanced on computer animation or simple programming. So he tends
to be wandering, looking over their shoulders, responding when they ask for
help." She shrugged. "That kind of thing."

"Do they pay any more attention to him than the students
down the hall—" Connor nodded toward the next classroom "—are to that
young blonde?"

Mariah started to rise to her feet. "Is she having
trouble?"

He waved her back. "If you mean, are they rioting, no.
Are they hanging on her every word? No." He told her about the activities
he'd seen going on.

Sounding rueful, Mariah said, "Karen is a student
teacher. She probably won't be alone with the class for more than a few
minutes. When Rich Sadow pops back in, the cards will vanish."

"Ah. The substitute syndrome."

"Exactly."

"To get back to the point…" he prodded her.

"Gerald? He is new this year, remember. But I'd say the
kids are pretty enthusiastic. He brought some very cool programs with him, I
understand. Stuff that's way beyond the school budget."

Glancing around the classroom, Connor muttered, "Is
there a budget?"

She wrinkled her nose. "No, now that you mention it.
But, to get back to Gerald, he seems passionate about computers as tools, and
that kind of enthusiasm almost always gets through to kids. Besides," she
added, "they like computers these days. They're a lot cooler than
books."

"Does he always dress so…" He hesitated.

"Yes." She frowned, as if annoyed at herself.
Firming her mouth, Mariah said, "I don't see what his choice of clothing
has to do with your investigation."

"Just trying to … create a picture. See the whole man,
so to speak."

"I honestly don't know him very well." Ms. Stavig
sounded very businesslike this afternoon. "You're going to have to look
elsewhere for help with your portrait."

Was she unable? Or unwilling? Connor couldn't tell.

"All right," he said agreeably. "On to Tracy. I took a look through her school record."

Some of Mariah's visible tension dissipated as she sighed.
"It's full of ten-inch-tall warnings, isn't it? Here's a girl who needs
lots of attention, who is lacking positive reinforcement at home, who will get
lost if you ignore her. And then what did half her teachers do but ignore
her."

"I noticed that," he agreed. "She yo-yoed—is
that a word?—from year to year. Her sixth-grade teacher downright disliked her,
I'd say, reading between the lines."

Mariah nodded. "Roberta Madison has, um, a reputation
for doing better with boy students. The good little girl who can sit quietly in
class is okay with her, too. A Tracy Mitchell apparently offends her sense of
what's right."

Connor shook his head. "Okay. Let's go back through
your talk with Tracy."

He had Mariah repeat yet again every word as close to
verbatim as she could recall. She had a good memory—perhaps photographic, as
she would pause, gaze into space with those tiny puckers gathering her brow,
and then give a line of dialogue or describe an expression with certainty.

As she thought, Mariah Stavig seemed unaware that he was
watching her. He found his mind drifting more than it should from what she was
saying.

Light didn't play off her hair the way it normally would.
The texture wasn't sleek and smooth, but more … downy, he decided. Connor
imagined her hair loose, a fluffy, soft cloud like cotton candy, but less
sticky.

Or he'd contemplate her long, slender neck, bowed gracefully
when she gazed thoughtfully at her desktop. He liked her carriage, too; her
back was always elegantly straight, her shoulders squared, as though someone in
her childhood had impressed on her the importance of posture.

Mariah Stavig was a fairly tall woman, five-seven or -eight,
he guessed, but slender. She was small-breasted, but he wasn't a man who liked
more than a handful, anyway. Her fingers were long, her wrists narrow, her
legs… Well, with her sitting behind the desk, he couldn't see them, but once,
three years ago, when he had come to her house she'd been wearing jeans and
he'd seen despite himself how long her legs were. A man's fantasy, those legs.

Mariah would have been too tall to be a ballerina, but
that's what she made him think of. Delicacy and strength mixed together, grace
coupled with innocence and unconscious sexuality. That's what he saw when he
looked at her.

Which he had no damn business doing, he thought in
exasperation. Connor moved restlessly and the desk creaked beneath him. Mariah,
pulled from a momentary reverie, cast him a surprised glance with those catlike
eyes, as if she'd forgotten he was still there.

"So you mentioned the possibility of her having to
testify in court," he said gruffly. "And Tracy didn't like the
idea."

"No." Mariah's brow crinkled again. "It
obviously had never occurred to her that her complaint might go that far.
'Can't he just be fired?' she asked."

Mariah went on to tell him what she'd explained to the girl.
Connor tried hard to listen and get his mind above his belt.

What in hell was he thinking? Mariah Stavig hated him! He'd
broken up her marriage. She despised what he did for a living and was
cooperating now only reluctantly, because of a sense of duty and a knowledge of
the law. He hated to imagine how she'd react if she knew how intensely he was
aware of her.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'll be talking to
her again this evening. We'll see whether she's forgotten any of her story, or
decides to embellish it a little."

"Do you think she's lying?" Mariah asked.

"At the moment, I have no idea," Connor admitted.

"Has she, um, been examined by a doctor yet?" She
sounded timid. "I know it's probably not any of my business, but…"

"No, it's okay," he said. "Yeah, she had the
works. Looks like she did lose her virginity in the past few days. No bruising
or obvious signs that force was used. It was probably too long ago to recover
DNA, assuming a condom wasn't used."

"She was afraid of being pregnant."

"She's thirteen years old," he said bluntly.
"When I asked whether he might not have put on a condom before they had
intercourse, she stared at me with complete blankness. In theory she knows what
one is. Unless it was neon-green, I'm not convinced she'd have noticed if he
put one on quickly, with his back to her."

The distaste and even embarrassment on Mariah's face might
have been comical, under other circumstances. "She was probably trying not
to … look." She was being very careful to keep her gaze fixed on his face,
too.

A fact that stirred him uncomfortably.

Frowning, he said, "Exactly." Looking at the bank
of windows, he made himself think about Tracy Mitchell, not the prim teacher
behind the desk. "I need to start talking to kids. Hard to do without
lighting a bonfire of rumors."

"Impossible, I imagine." Mariah looked worried.
"If word gets out to parents, they may want Gerald suspended."

"Unfair as that could be," Connor acknowledged,
"I'm hoping to find answers soon. Dragging this out will only make it
uglier."