by Kate Flora
"I'm going to see if I can get you the drug counselor from hell," I said.
"We've got our own..."
"LISTEN TO ME, Reeve!"
Everyone for a mile around must have heard that, but I was not having an accident out here to avoid bruising his ego. I gave him a moment to shut up as my wipers slapped clods of mush away and a semblance of visibility returned.
"This guy is former DEA, ex-military. He's big and scary and has the demeanor of a drill instructor. He has a power point that will have them cowering under their chairs, which is what you want right now. You want to come on as compassionate, but righteous. You want to send the message that you understand they're kids and they can make mistakes. You also want to drive home both school policy and the risks these kids are taking—legally and physically. His name is Glen Stryker, and he's guaranteed to scare them silly. Or straight."
Reeve asked the stupid, if predictable, question, "Is he expensive?"
"Yup, and worth every penny of it. Look, I know it's daunting, but the faster you get out ahead of this thing and show the right responses, the better you'll look to your current parents and prospective ones. It may feel kind of fake to you, but showing a firm, adult, compassionate response to this can be good PR."
I prayed my way past a semi and asked another question. "What are you going to do about your two students?"
His silence told me they were still contemplating their choices. I knew that tossing the kids could pull them into a fight bigger than they needed, especially with ultra-rich, ultra-protective parents involved. The administration needed to be firm, but they also needed to remember these were kids, and craft punishments that both acknowledged a breach of the rules and were about learning. I couldn't remember, so I asked, "Do your conduct rules allow for on-campus suspension?"
I should know. I'd probably written them. But I'd done it for dozens of schools and not all had adopted this option. Sending students home—the standard punishment for a serious breach—also allowed those students to avoid dealing with their community and isolated them from the approbation and consequences of their acts. It often also allowed them to sink into the arms of defensive and too-forgiving parents whose lives were devoted to protecting their children from responsibility. An on-campus suspension meant the student didn't go home, where they could move about freely, go to the mall and the movies, and generally forget about the wrong they'd done and the harm they'd caused. On campus, they were allowed to attend class, but banned from all extra-curricular activities. They ate their meals in a supervised setting away from other students, had supervised study halls, and did community service tasks in their free time. They also met with counselors to discuss their choices, and, old-fashioned as it sounded, had to write and deliver to the community a paper on whatever risk they'd taken or rule they'd broken.
"They do," he said. "Is that what you'd suggest?"
Before I could respond, he sighed and answered a question I'd been about to ask. "This really shouldn't be my problem, but the chair of our board of trustees doesn't want Joel making any major decisions until they've had time to meet, and as we both know, there are a number of decisions that just can't wait. So..."
I could feel him pondering right through the phone.
"So you would recommend an on-campus suspension?" he finally said.
"I would. And Glen Stryker. Absolutely get Glen."
Another sigh. It's hard to be in the hot seat when you're used to only sitting near the heater. Oops. That was a thought I instantly regretted. And some people have to ponder instead of making quick decisions. Finally, he said, "Okay. That's what we'll do. Can you put me in touch with Mr. Stryker?"
"I'll take care of it. I'll call him, see when he's available, and have him call you. And I'll call the drug analyst. Now I'm going to drive. When I get there, I will help you draft a uniform contact letter to your parents and help you craft your statement to the press and what to say at the school meeting to bring your students up to date. And you might want to remind faculty about the school's media policy."
His only response was a small moan. He didn't have to say it. I knew he was thinking that this shouldn't be his problem. Too bad for him. There's not much room for 'not my problem' in a crisis.
Speaking of problems, I asked, "So what's going on with Joel? Is the Board going to give him a pass on this?"
"Too soon to tell. They're meeting today."
One other thing I'd forgotten to ask. "What year are your two drug dealers?"
"Alyce Crimmons is a senior. Johnny Gordon is a junior. Minority scholarship student."
I figured that meant Alyce was the VC guy's daughter. It was good that she was senior. It gave the school more leverage with the parents. There wasn't time to look for a new school, and plenty of pressure to resolve things so the girl could graduate. "And her parents are coming in with lawyers in tow?"
"They're already here. On the schedule for this morning's meeting."
"And the boy's parents?"
"Parent. Single working mom. She can't take the time off." He sighed. "That's one fewer person to deal with."
And one unprotected kid for the other family to throw the blame on, I thought. "This is awfully hard on you," I said. "Feel free to call me if you need more help. I should be there before nine, road conditions permitting."
There was a pause while I listened to him breathe. Then he said, "I'm feeling better already."
"One more thought. It might garner you some good press if you invite reporters to Stryker's talk. Let them see first-hand what you're doing to inform your students about the risks they're taking."
I left him with that first set of marching orders, finally free to concentrate on my driving. Which was good. It was a nightmare out here. I had one more thing to take care of—something I hoped wouldn't come back to bite me—before I gave myself fully to the insanity of driving. No minority student should have to go up against an arrogant VC daddy and his staff, and I didn't think Reeve would have someone in the kid's corner, so I called my friend Jonetta Williamson, who ran a school for disadvantaged black girls in New York, and described the situation. Jonetta might have some ideas about who could help Johnny Gordon.
Chapter 10
Dealing with Reeve's crisis first meant dealing not only with treacherous roads and poor visibility, it meant doing that surrounded by other drivers who seemed oblivious to both. It meant a couple hours in traffic conditions so scary I was clutching the wheel in a death grip and bathed in cold sweat. I can drive. I grew up with New England winters and I've had lessons from the guy who can drive backwards accurately at sixty miles an hour down a dark, curvy road. But the people out here with me hadn't been to Detective Lemieux's driving school. Nor, it seemed, to any other driving school.
It always amazes me how stupid people can be. It's like people believe that turnpikes are magic places where the realities of winter and weather don't apply. Why do they believe that just because they have all-wheel drive, they can stop a huge SUV on a dime? Doesn't it have something to do with basic physics? And fog. Fog is just as treacherous and unpredictable when you have fog lights even if there are three travel lanes. Ice is still ice. Slush is slush, and it can throw a car into another lane just for the damned fun of seeing the driver's panicked face.
Okay. So I was doing—what's it called? anthropomorphizing? Assigning human characteristics to puddles. Anything to get me safely to Connecticut. I took this as a sign that as soon as we got the current batch of crises under control, it might be time for a vacation. Maybe paddle boards and mai tais were in my future. I had a really rocking bikini, a beach cover-up, and a pair of flip flops. I had my arm candy guy who looked so good in a bathing suit women sighed as he walked past. What more could I need?
Time, an evil voice in my head whispered. By the time I'd slain the many-headed hydra, Suzanne would have had this baby and be on maternity leave. I uttered a string of obscenities—hanging around cops is good for enriching my vocabulary, at least�
��and shifted my thoughts from dreams to reality.
The way the brain makes connections can be so odd. I thought about the slushy puddles pooling into lakes in every depression that was making my driving miserable and somehow the idea of those slush lakes led to swimming pools. From swimming pools, the missing thought about Ginger that I'd been chasing suddenly surfaced. We'd been looking at a house with a postage-stamp sized pool, and she'd said, "I hate pools. I like swimming in ponds. I was a lifeguard one summer at a pond, and I loved it."
I instructed Siri to call Roland as I steered around a puddle and a passing truck threw a wave of opaque mush onto my windshield. As my wipers slapped it away, I got a brusque, "Proffit," with lots of noise in the background. Maybe he was in an airport.
"It's Thea."
"How are you?"
"Muddling along. You?"
"On my way to Florida."
"Nice time of year for it."
"Right. You bet. That's why I packed my board shorts. Got something for me?"
The idea of stork-like Roland in board shorts made me smile. "Just another tidbit. But if I come up with enough of them, they may lead somewhere. At one point, Ginger said that she'd been a lifeguard. At a lake. She said she didn't like pools. I don't know how it helps, but I thought I'd better pass it along."
"Thanks," he said. There was a sigh in his voice, like he'd hoped for more and was grateful for anything. "Keep your thinking cap on."
"I will."
I wanted to throw my thinking cap—my remembering cap—into that black, mushy puddle just beyond the travel lane and go eat donuts. Instead, I left him to the joys of interacting with the TSA and went to deal with my own crisis.
My immediate crisis, that is, which was a humongous black Suburban driving too fast in the slow lane by a driver obviously too young, and too stupid, to have been allowed out in such a vehicle, or out at all on a day like this. She'd gone whipping past me moments earlier, cell phone to her ear, and now, having come upon a driver driving slowly and carefully in the slow and careful lane, had discovered she couldn't shove herself into my lane because it was already occupied by a truck. She'd stomped on her brakes and the resulting chaos was ensuing.
Ah. ABS brakes. The responsive shudder, the car's pulsing attempts to stop. They are good, but not miraculous, and the black babe-mobile fishtailed, swung into the breakdown lane, caught a wheel in a wave of slush, and flew back across the lane, heading straight toward me.
Lucky for me, the lane to my left was open, and I steered carefully over the slush ridge and into it, while she squiggled and swirled, missing me by inches and sending drivers careening desperately in all directions. It all happened with stunning speed and passed just as quickly when the black SUV flew back across two lanes and spun out in the snow beyond the breakdown lane. The rest of us, grateful to be alive and undamaged, were not minded to stop and help.
There was a rest area half a mile ahead, and I pulled in and stopped to let my heart rate slow and to unclench my poor burned hands from the steering wheel. My hands were better today. I'm a fast healer. But they sure hadn't needed this. I thought maybe I'd buy myself a nice café mocha, but getting calm took a while. I noticed a few other cars from the same almost pile-up pulling in to decompress. I was getting out to get my coffee when the black SUV pulled into the parking space beside me and stopped. The stupid young driver got out of the car, still on her phone, laughing as she said to whoever was on the other end, "And I like, spun out and almost ran into like six cars. It was so funny!"
It wasn't funny. She had caused major fear and misery and put a blight on many people's days. I very ostentatiously pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of her—yoga pants, Uggs, elaborate model hair that she must have gotten up at four a.m. to style, and a wholly impractical puffy white jacket—and then of her license plate. To the person on the other end, she said, "Hold on," and then, to me, "Hey, like what do you think you're doing?"
She couldn't, like, tell?
"Taking a picture of your license, and of you. To go with my report to the state police about your reckless driving."
"Oh, right, lady. Sure you will. Like you really think they'll care?"
She said into her bejeweled pink phone, "Hey, Shy, I gotta go. Some old bitch is giving me a hard time about my driving."
Old bitch? I knew this job was aging me, but was it really that bad?
She shoved the pink phone into an oversized red purse. "Look, lady," she said, all chin-jutting, butt-twitching attitude, "what's your problem?"
"My problem? I like people to pay attention when they're driving. You came close to causing a multi-car pile-up. You could have killed someone. You should be ashamed and apologetic, not proud of yourself."
She waggled her yoga-panted butt and tossed her hair. "You're like not really going to tell the police, are you?"
"I absolutely am." I like, really already had.
By this time, two other people had gotten out of their cars and were standing behind me. One of them said, "Honey, you nearly ran me off the road, and I've got a baby in the back." There was a tremble in her voice that said the terror of the experience hadn't left her. "And I did call the police."
Another, an older man, said, "Girlie, don't you get it? You can't drive like that on winter roads."
"Oh, honestly." She drew the word honestly out to about six syllables. "It's no big deal." A flounce of her hips. Another toss of her hair. "The cops aren't going to care anyway."
"Oh, I think they might," I said. "My husband is a state trooper."
But that wasn't why I thought the police might take an interest. Out of the corner of my eye I'd spotted one of those stealth unmarkeds the police were using. A mean-looking gray Camaro. The staties were already here.
I really didn't have time for that coffee. I walked away from her sputtering, got in my car, and headed back to the turnpike, my fog lights painting the tunnel made by my headlights an eerie yellow. Proving what an old fart I was becoming by wondering how we could turn the world over to her generation, a kid who didn't even have the decency to apologize to the woman who'd experienced terrible fear for her baby's life. Before I got to the exit, the ignorant babe sped by me like she was being chased. And behind her, poised for the right moment to stop her, was a state trooper in a mean gray muscle car.
Sometimes the gods are good.
* * *
As I continued to navigate the game of almost-bumper-cars that driving entailed, I was suddenly hit by another thought about Ginger. Ginger had been strange about cars. She was obsessive, even though it had been fall and then winter, about making sure the car windows were always slightly open.
She'd been deprecating about it, describing it as just a funny quirk she had, but I'd wondered, once or twice, whether she'd had some kind of an incident involving being trapped in a car. Maybe even a time when she'd driven into the water? I'd noticed that she carried one of those multipurpose tools they advertised that could be used to cut a seatbelt and smash a window. Something else to share with Roland. I couldn't see how it might be useful, but I was just giving him the pieces. Putting the puzzle together was his problem.
Because he was getting on a plane right now, and I might be in a meeting when he called back, I asked Siri to text the new information to his cell phone. I desperately hoped he would learn things in Florida that would let them solve this case. I wanted to stop having these fragments coming at me and wanted the pressure of needing to remember gone. This was like I imagined having malaria might be—the sudden onset of overwhelming symptoms that would come and go, leaving me drained and wretched. Each little memory fragment about Ginger came with images and scents. Ginger in the chair. Ginger on fire. Ginger's terrified eyes begging me to save her.
I spent the rest of the drive on the phone. Catching Bobby up on the report I was handing off, and what was still missing. Like me, he was an early bird seeking that elusive worm. He'd checked his computer, my desktop computer, and the fax. Nothing had come in
overnight. That meant another phone call. A stern phone call.
Then I tracked down Glen Stryker. When Glen answered, I said, "I hope it's not too early?"
"Never too early for the most gorgeous girl in the world."
True confession moment here. I love my husband beyond all imagining, but if I didn't know Andre, I would have a totally mad crush on Glen. I must have a thing for manly men or something. I love the fact that his voice alone contains so many qualities—authority, certainty, patience, depth, kindness—that just listening to him makes me feel like the world will be okay if Glen is on the case.
"I've got a problem I need your help with."
"Marital difficulties?" he said. "You finally going to leave that tear ass statie?"
"In your dreams, Glen. We're still newlyweds."
"They're nice dreams though, Thea. So what's the problem?"
I told him my problem. MDMA. Entitled children. The hyperthermic, hypothermic user. Reeve's dilemma. "Sooner is better than later if we're to get out ahead of this thing. So what do your today and tomorrow look like?" Glen was in New York, just a hop, skip, and jump from Connecticut, where it might not even be snowing.
"Gotta go scare a bunch of kids today, but tomorrow is good."
It was a small thing, but with so much going wrong or giving me problems, getting ready agreement sent relief pouring through me. I gave him the details.
"They know they're gonna pay me big bucks for this?"
"They know."
"I should hire you as my publicist," he said.
"A kickback is fine."
"You're gonna get the stuff analyzed, right? You know where to go?" A pause, and he added, "I always feel like a rat when I suggest that."
"You're private sector now, Glen. This is how we pay the bills."
I steered around a terrified man in the middle lane who was going about forty-five. Sometimes slow can be more dangerous than fast, and for some inexplicable reason, slow drivers favor the middle lane. "And yes, we'll get it analyzed. I believe you're the one who taught me about that."