The Morning Of

by S. B. Cody

  An hour had passed since West’s parking lot had been cleared of cars and buses. Kara parked there looking on at the school, not entirely sure why she was there. They had come to a standstill on the case. Clements refused to speak to them and prepared himself for trial, adamant that he was innocent. Meanwhile, they seemed to have exhausted every piece of evidence they could find.

  She stared at the building where so many had died, willing it to tell her who had been behind the mask. Any answers to be found would have to be in there. No matter how cunning someone thought they were, something would get left behind. Always. In her lap sat photos from the security footage. She looked at one of Dennis heading inside the bathroom. The same one he claimed to have climbed out of. Beneath that she looked at a list of victims. She paid particular attention to those who were the last to meet their end.

  Kara looked up again at the building to see it produce the body of Connor Sullivan as he descended the outside stairs. Kara recognized him and remembered that he had raised similar concerns about Clements’s guilt. It seemed validating to know that someone else shared the same uncertainty. And while she may have been quick to dismiss him before, she couldn’t now.

  Kara jumped from her car and sailed across the parking lot, hoping to intercept him. “Mr. Sullivan!” she cried out to him.

  Connor stopped mid-stride. At first glance, he didn’t recognize her. He worried that it was a reporter or someone else who wanted to express their admiration. As she approached, he realized it to be the detective, and now he simply wondered what this could be about. He certainly didn’t have anything else to share. And the last time he did, she didn’t seem all that interested.

  “Yes?” he asked as she strode up to him.

  “Do you remember me?” Kara asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I was wondering if we might have a word.”

  “I don’t know what else you could need from me. I’ve shared all that I know.”

  Kara looked around them, paranoid that someone may be nearby and able to hear every word. “Well…” she began, choosing her words carefully. “There’s a few things that I needed to check out inside, and I was hoping that you might be able to take me through.”

  Connor looked down at his watch, knowing that the time for him to arrive home had come and gone a while back. Still, he felt obliged to go along with her.

  “I suppose I could for a moment,” he answered.

  “Thank you so much,” Kara replied as she followed him back to the doors where his fob granted them access. Right away, Kara could feel a chill as she remembered the last time she’d been through these halls. She could see where the bodies had been laid. She could remember the smears of blood along the walls. Their footsteps echoed through the dark hallways seemingly mocking their loneliness. “So, I need to see the boys’ bathroom on the first floor, if you’d take me there.”

  “What’s in there?” Connor asked, hoping to coax something out of the detective.

  “Can’t get into that.” The two walked on in silence, the darkness following them with every step they took. “So how have things been since you returned?”

  “Strange. Doesn’t feel the same.”

  “Suppose that stands to reason.”

  “Every time someone passes by my classroom, I start to think that it’s happening all over again. Just this time I won’t be so lucky.”

  “I don’t think luck had much to do with it for you. You were damn brave.”

  “Fat load of good it did. Plenty of others didn’t make it out of here.”

  “Well, you did what you could.”

  Connor didn’t respond, beginning to regret having walked back in here. The two made it to the bathroom and headed inside. The vague scent of urine and feces wafted up to them. As stomach turning as the smell was, Connor knew it would be much worse tomorrow after the students had had their way with it. And the clear tiles would be sopping wet with puddles and littered with paper towels. At least that could be cleaned up though. More permanent were the messages carved into the stalls. Such witticisms as “Principle Devin Suks a Fat One.” More than anything Connor felt disappointed that he hadn’t at least taught his students proper spelling.

  Kara didn’t say a word. She simply walked back to the urinals and hoisted herself up towards the window above it.

  “Get down from…” Connor started before cutting himself off. His reflex was to chastise such behavior. Thankfully, she just ignored him, so his embarrassment was short-lived. He watched as she twisted the lock and pushed the window open. She pulled herself further up and slid the upper part of her body through, enough that Connor thought she might be making a run for it.

  Getting out up to her waist, Kara felt assured that Dennis could have conceivably slipped out through this window as he had claimed. So just maybe he could have been telling the truth. Still, this was hardly enough to absolve the kid. She hopped down and walked out of the bathroom without a word of explanation. Connor just whipped his head back and forth, wondering if he had just hallucinated the bizarre scene. Satisfied that he hadn’t, he slipped back into the hall and caught up with Kara.

  “Where to next?” Connor asked.

  “I want to see Room 117,” Kara answered. Connor knew which one she meant. The Slaughter Room as students had come to call it. The one where Ms. Twillman and her ten students all met their end. The one where the shooters made their exit. Since they had come back, that room had been closed off, no one daring to step foot in there. As horrendous as other parts of the school had been, this one had been unspeakable. The two of them walked upstairs and stopped in front of the classroom. Kara looked over at Connor, waiting for him to go ahead and unlock, but all he did was stand there. He wondered if he dared open the door, worried that it would be like opening the Ark of the Covenant. Even though he knew it couldn’t possibly, he imagined the room to still be covered wall to wall in hot, sticky blood.

  “Mr. Sullivan, would you please?” Kara requested.

  With a small frown, Connor withdrew his key and slipped it into the lock. The click of the tumblers sounded like a sledgehammer to him. The door creaked open with a crying screech. The room didn’t still contain pools of blood, but the copious amounts had soaked in, giving the whole room a pink hue. Kara stepped inside while Connor stood still, worried that the blood might seep into him as well. Kara flipped through her files and produced a sheet with the list of students on it.

  “There were only ten kids in here. That’s not a normal class size, is it?” she asked without even looking out into the hall at Connor.

  “This was a class for gifted students. Those are always pretty small.”

  “Take a look at this,” Kara said, passing the sheet to him. “Did you know any of the kids?” Connor leaned in, not daring to step a toe into the room and grabbed the sheet with the tips of his fingers. He looked it over, studying the names and the corresponding pictures. His eyes stopped for a moment at a picture of Natalie Leonard. Brown hair, round face. She did seem familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her.

  “I’m sorry. Can’t help you there,” he said as he handed the sheet of paper back. Kara headed further into the room, taking all of it in. They had chosen this room. They went out of their way to come here. And they made sure that not a single person had been left standing before they fled. Did one of them know something? Did one of them see something? Connor simply watched her circle the room, wondering what she saw there that he couldn’t.

  The two of them locked up the room and headed back outside. With nothing but perfunctory goodbyes, they each headed to their cars and left the school behind. That night Connor sat awake in bed. He watched the steady rise and fall of Brandy’s chest accompanied by her calm breathing. Most nights she would snore like she had a lawnmower up her nose. If she happened to fall asleep before him, he would need to head out to the couch just to get some rest. Thankfully, tonight it wasn’t like that and the rhythmic nature of her inhales and exhales actually so
othed him, helping him reflect on his little tour of the school with Detective Smalls.

  For some reason, he couldn’t get the image of Natalie Leonard out of his head. Her picture hung in front of his mind’s eye, swinging back and forth so he couldn’t get focused on it. He yelled at himself to knock it off. He had to wake up in three hours, and the last thing he needed was to agonize over some student he had probably never even spoken a word to. Connor forced his head deep into his pillow, ready to let sleep wash over him, but right as he closed his eyes, Natalie’s image stopped swinging and it all came into focus. That was Richard’s girlfriend. He had seen her talking to him the morning of the shooting. Richard had said that she’d died in the shooting. So as it turned out, she was one of the last people to meet their end that morning. And that detective seemed convinced that someone in that room held the key to figuring the rest of this out. And if he really was innocent, they held the key to absolving Dennis.

  37

  As Connor’s class worked away at their assignment for the day, Connor typed away at his computer. He went on the district’s online database and looked up Natalie Leonard. Chances are that this wouldn’t lead anywhere, but taking a quick look would be no skin off his ass. Besides, if he was actually going to do this, he had to start somewhere.

  Looking over her grades, he saw that they went up and down like a yo-yo. Mid-first quarter, she had almost all F’s. Then they had all swung up to A’s by the time she died. Looking at the past years, this roller coaster seemed to have been a trend with her. From there, he looked at her discipline records, not expecting to see anything. Kids in the gifted program rarely ended up in the discipline office. But looking her over, it seemed that she usually had a couple every year. This year she’d gotten busted for vandalism back in August. He read the record over:

  Natalie, along with several other students, was witnessed dumping trash and spray-painting the walls of the gymnasium. Natalie will serve ten days of out of school suspension and be required to compensate for damage to the school.

  He remembered this happening. Going over the parent contact records only made the story stranger for her. Around the same time that her grades would plummet, teachers would email her parents saying how she’d come into class, put her head down, and do nothing. Even a few things about her snapping at them. Then as time went on, teachers did nothing but provide glowing praise. What went on with this girl? Depending on the time of the year, she seemed to be an angel or a devil.

  Connor recalled that morning when she beckoned to Richard. He remembered that she looked like she may crack if you bumped into her. Looked like she may cry, but was too afraid to. So what did she talk to Richard about? Could she have seen something? Had she known something? Could she be the reason that her class ended up in the killing fields?

  Later in the day, Connor stood in the hall, watching the students march up and down on their way to class. Richard appeared in the corner of his eye. The usually clean-shaven boy had become grizzled, a full beard on his face. And one that he seemed to have little interest in maintaining. His hair, which usually didn’t have a strand out of place, now flopped all over the place. Looking in his eyes, the kid barely seemed to know where he was.

  “Richard,” Connor heard himself calling out. Richard’s head jerked over. He stared at Connor as though he had never seen him before.

  “Hey,” he uttered. It almost sounded like a question coming out of his mouth.

  “Can you come talk to me for a minute?” Connor asked.

  Richard just shambled past Connor into the room.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Connor asked.

  “I’m fine,” Richard replied, sounding as though he’d just smoked an entire carton of cigarettes.

  “It doesn’t look like it.”

  “What do you need, Mr. Sullivan?”

  “I wanted to ask you about Natalie.”

  “What about her?”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “Why so interested?” Richard’s dazed look changed into one of curiosity.

  “Well, I was looking into her a bit, and it seemed like she had a bit of trouble.”

  Richard’s indifference vanished, and his eyes widened in anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Connor didn’t flinch, knowing that Richard was liable to break his hand if he ever tried to throw a punch. “Well, she got suspended earlier this year, and she seemed to struggle with her grades sometimes.”

  Richard’s rage subsided, and with a gentle shrug of his shoulders, he answered, “She came down with a virus earlier this year. Missed a bunch of school is all. Couldn’t keep up with the work.”

  “What about the suspension?”

  “That was a misunderstanding. She happened to be in the gym when everyone got caught. But she didn’t do anything.”

  “I see,” Connor said, Richard’s explanation not making much sense. None of that explained the familiar pattern she seemed to follow every year. “What about the morning of the… you know? How was she that morning?” Connor continued.

  “I don’t know. What kind of question is that?”

  “So she didn’t say anything to you or…?”

  “I don’t remember. All I remember of that day is her not getting out of here alive. Now, is there a point to all this?”

  “I’m sorry,” Connor said, knowing that he’d crossed a line. “Forget it.”

  “I gotta get to class. I’ll see ya around.” Connor watched him go, feeling more confused now than he had been.

  38

  Connor looked on at the small house, curtains drawn and not an ounce of light slipping through. The white siding of the house standing out from the dull gray of the sky. The sun hadn’t ventured out from behind the clouds for over a week now. A few different bouquets of flowers sat at the front door, the petals wilted and falling off. The grass of the front lawn had died as the temperatures dropped, but the fact that it stood at a foot tall made it clear that no one had bothered to cut it in quite some time.

  What the hell am I doing here? Connor thought to himself. Natalie Leonard had occupied his mind for the past couple days. She was one of more than two dozen people killed that day. But he had dared to peek into the rabbit hole, and now he couldn’t shake the feeling that Wonderland awaited. Richard hadn’t told him the truth about her. Nothing about what he had seen of her record suggested that she had been sick, and a quick chat with Dr. Leland made it clear that she had hardly been some innocent bystander when it came to her referral. He told him that he had caught her with the spray paint can in hand. Why would he lie? Connor kept wondering to himself. He was probably just trying to protect her image, a part of him would insist. After all, what would it benefit to dredge up some of her lesser qualities? And to bring them up to her parents, it seemed to him like the work of a sociopath. But nonetheless, he was here. He tried to disregard it, but even while dead, Natalie called to him like a siren.

  He emerged from his car and hauled himself towards the quiet house. Every couple steps he would stop and yell at himself to head back to the car. What the hell am I going to say? I want to ask why your dead daughter seemed to be a bit of a screw-up. He felt like an asshole even thinking about it. He kept telling himself that he wouldn’t actually go through with this, but the house only got closer to him. He could begin to see the small imperfections in the vinyl siding. Bits of dirt staining the pure white. Small cracks running along, twisting like a valley. He had become so enveloped in it that he almost ran into the front door. A disembodied hand appeared in front of him and began knocking. He felt like he was back in high school and was about to pick up his prom date, he sweated so much.

  The door swung open a couple inches at a time revealing a dark cave behind it with a woman with wiry hair tied back in a ponytail and shrouded in a robe at the entrance. The daze in her eyes suggested that the knock at the door may have woken her up.

  “Can I help you?” she said, attempting to sound friendly and
inviting, but seemingly choking on the words.

  “Are you Ms. Leonard?” Connor asked, as inside he insisted that he make a run for it.

  “Yes. What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “My name is Connor Sullivan. I teach at West.” Connor didn’t know what he would say from one word to the next.

  Ms. Leonard’s eyes snapped shut at this with the realization that this strange man had come to discuss her daughter. A small nod and a step aside welcomed him in. He didn’t move a muscle. Like a vampire he felt as though he needed to be invited.

  “Please come in,” she said.

  Connor tiptoed in. Off to the right was a small sitting room with a couch facing two chairs that flanked a window. He walked to the couch and began to sit, hesitating every step of the way as though he was convinced it wouldn’t be there to catch him. Ms. Leonard came and took a seat in one of the chairs.

  “So what would you like to discuss?” she said with a sense of familiarity. She’d obviously been through a number of conversations about Natalie.

  “Well, Ms. Leonard,” Connor said, hoping the words would come.

  “Brenda,” she said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Call me Brenda, please.”

  “Of course. Well, I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Natalie if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Were you one of her teachers? I don’t recognize you.”

  “No. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of having her in class myself.”

  “So what is this concerning exactly?”

  “I just hoped to get a better sense of who she was.”