by Shawn James
“And Kyle would have been in the middle of that class when the stalker left their note.” Marilyn says.
“That’s what eliminated him as a suspect.” I continue.
“So why didn’t you come to the security office and give us the note when you got it?” One of the guards asks.
“Because you said you couldn’t do anything for me until someone did something to me.” Marilyn snarls.
“And I had to wait for them to make their move. And while I was waiting I was gathering together the evidence to put them away.” I say. “Like this Casteline they got out of the cabinet. It leaves a nice oily residue on the exit doors they wedged it into.”
“Oily residue that probably has fingerprints in it.” Chris says.”
“NYPD forensics should pick those up when they dust the locks on those exit doors this afternoon. “I continue. “Anyway, after figuring out that they put the Casteline into the door locks, I went up to the computer lab to see if they were printing their notes on the computers there.”
“So were they?” Chris asks.
“Probably. All the fonts for the notes were in the computers up there, but when I went to print a picture there, I noticed that the ink patterns for the notes and the picture I printed weren’t matching. And the notes were warm off leaving the printer up there.”
“So? Paper out of a laser printer is always warm.” The guard snarls.
“But the notes I received in the dressing room were warm like they just came fresh off a printer.” I continue. “And if the lab is on the third floor and the studio is on the first floor-”
“The notes would be ice cold by the time they delivered them.” Marilyn says. “So how were they printing them?”
“The answer to that question stumped me for the longest until I ran into Jessica here.”
Jessica’s eyes grow wide on the accusation. “Are you saying I’m the stalker?”
I smile at the anxious girl and calm her fears. “No sweetie, you definitely aren’t.” I comfort.
Jessica falls back into her seat on the sofa and continues to fill out her application. I continue to make my case against the stalker. “Jessica here was working on a term paper in the lounge. And she brought her portable printer with her. And she told me that she printed her paper wirelessly with Bluetooth from her iPad. So the way I saw it the stalker was using a portable printer to make their notes and using a cell phone to upload the files.”
“That’s crazy.” The guard snarls again.
“Is it?” I say I tapping settings on my iPhone. I click Bluetooth and start picking up the signal of a printer besides the ones on the Next School network. “Because the printer is right in this room.”
I bring up the picture of Marilyn and I in the lobby again as I tap device on my iPhone and connect to the printer, then push print. When I hear the hum of a printer starting up in the room, I follow my ears to the reception desk. Amy sweats bullets across the room as I fish under it and pull out a Black North Face backpack half opened with a printer sticking out of it and put it on the counter of the reception desk. As it finishes printing up the picture of Marilyn and me in the lobby. I notice the ink patterns from this printer match the ones on notes. Looks like I’ve found Marilyn’s stalker.
“That’s not mine!” Amy denies.
“Amy, that’s your bag.” Marilyn insists.
She would know, she works with her every day. “That’s not my printer though-”
“Not your printer, but it’s on top of your bag. Let’s see what other goodies you have in here.”
Amy has an anxious look on her face as I place the printer on the counter of the reception desk next to the notes. I fish inside the bag and find something that definitely isn’t a textbook. “Are you a janitor in your spare time?” I ask holding up the can of drain cleaner.
“That’s for a science project-” Amy says.
“Only you’re an Art History major.” Marilyn says.
“And bomb making 101 isn’t one of the courses they teach here.” I jab.
“You can’t prove I was there!” Amy barks. “I’ve been working here since 10:30!”
And she wasn’t at the desk around 11:55 when Marilyn called me. The defensive response tells me she’s cracking. The girl will break in a few more seconds if I apply a bit more pressure. I look down at her green canvas sneakers and smile as I make eye contact with her. “Studio D’s exit is right around the corner.” I continue. “You could have gone there and back in less than a minute.”
“I can’t leave the desk. There’s no one here.”
And because no one is here, that gives her the time and opportunity to implement her plan to hurt Marilyn. “Of course you can’t leave the desk.” I say. “No one would answer the phone that would be ringing out here. Unless they were put on voicemail.”
Marilyn walks over to the reception desk and looks down at the phone. “The Night Service button is on.”
That takes care of the phone. “Maybe you forgot it was on.” Amy defends.
“Er…I wasn’t working the desk today remember?” Marilyn says. “And it was off when Kyle was answering the phones this morning.”
“So? I could have hit it accidentally when I was transferring someone-”
I look around the room at everyone dressed in short sleeves, boatneck shirts, and tank tops and glance at Amy’s button down oxford blouse that’s buttoned up all the way to the top. I know the air conditioning in these offices gives you a chill, but no teenage girl is wearing a long sleeved button down blouse in the summertime. If anything, chicks usually carry a cardigan with them in their bags when they have to work in a cold office.
“You have a point there Amy.” I say dropping her bag and approaching her. “Come to think of it, I don’t think it was you. My attacker was so stylish they were wearing a green T-shirt, a black ball cap, and a black hoodie. “They wouldn’t be caught dead in a homely looking long-sleeved shirt like yours. Aren’t you hot?”
“I’m comfortable.” Amy says.
“I don’t know, you’re making me feel kind of warm in that stuffy shirt. You don’t mind undoing the top button of that blouse for me?”
“I-I don’t want to.”
“You’re telling me you work around people who get naked for a living and you can’t open up a few buttons on a shirt if someone asks you?”
“I’m really cold.”
“I don’t think you’re cold. I think you’re hiding something.”
Amy is shocked when I grab the placket of her blouse and rip it open. I smile on seeing a green T-shirt underneath her blouse and meet her scared blue eyes with my intense brown ones. Now to find out why she did it.
“Well, what do you know. A green T-shirt just like my attacker wore. So why did you do it?” I bark.
Tears stream down the girl’s face on being caught. “I didn’t do anything! She cries.
That sweet and innocent act isn’t going to work with me. “It’s your Drano, your printer, and you had access to the schedules and the cabinet with the art supplies. What’s your beef with Marilyn?”
I can feel Marilyn’s anticipation as she waits for the answer to that question. “I don’t hate Marilyn-”
“Then why’d you try to kill her?”
“I didn’t want to kill her-”
“Your bomb had enough destructive force to break all the mirrors and blow the doors off the hinges in the dressing room.” Lenore snarls. “You’re lucky Isis wasn’t killed in the explosion.”
“I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, just Marilyn-”
“Why would you want to hurt me?”
“Everyone treats you like you’re some sort of celebrity!” Amy rants. “All they talk about are your shows in the art studio! Kids spend all night waiting in line to be first in line on registration day so they can sign up for art classes just because you’re in them!”
Someone is jealous. “You’re not a fan of Marilyn like the other kids-”
�
�No, I’m not a fan of this washed up old loser!” Amy rants. “Thanks to her celebrity status, all the art classes here are becoming a joke! No one cares about learning about technique and skill, all they care about is seeing her!”
“But many more students are learning about artistic technique thanks to Marilyn being here.” Chris says.”
“And they’re learning about the historical contributions classical art has to society.” Lenore says.”
“She makes people think art is fun! That’s not what art is supposed to be about!” Amy rants. “Art isn’t supposed to entertain! It’s supposed to make you think! It’s supposed to come from a place of torment! A place of pain and misery and suffering-”
“Sounds like you still have a lot to learn about art.” Marilyn says.
“She’ll have more time to learn about it in the Supermax.” I say.
Amy’s eyes grow wide on hearing that she’ll do prison time. “Supermax? That’s federal prison-”
“Consider it suffering for your art.”I jab.
Tears rain down Amy’s face as police officers handcuff her and escort her out of the Fine Arts office. As they read her rights in the hall, one of the Next School’s safety officers approaches me. “Pretty savvy detective work there kid. How’d you figure it out all by yourself?”
“Er…I didn’t figure it out all by myself.”
“So who helped you?”
I look over at Jessica and smile. “Oh, just some meddling kids.”
Final Chapter
I sip on a latte while I take one last look at the kids in the lounge. I have to admit I’ll miss being here on the Next School campus. I haven’t had this much fun working in a school in years.
Even though I had to get naked in front of a roomful of people, I learned a lot about them. I had no idea kids had changed so much over the past 40 years. If I walked into a classroom I’d be totally clueless on how to relate to them and their connection to all these computers, smartphones, and all this technology. Perhaps me being here was a blessing in disguise.
Marilyn saunters into the lounge with a smile on her face. When she sees me, she smiles and hurries over to my table and has a seat. “Are the police done taking your statement?”
“Yep.” Marilyn replies. “And I learned some disturbing things from them about Amy.”
“Like…”
“The extent of her depravity. She thought if she disfigured me again I’d leave school like I left L.A.”
“I hope you’re not changing schools.”
“Dude, I’m on my way to a 4.00 GPA this semester. The only place I’m going is to register for more classes.”
I smile on hearing that. She’s worked too hard and come too far to stop now. “I just hope the media circus doesn’t disrupt your life too much.”
“I doubt I’d have anything to worry about. No one has mentioned my name or yours in the news.”
Maybe those Apex Studio executives are squashing the story again. “But I thought they’d mention a celebrity like you to get people talking-”
“Most of the reports I’ve seen online and on the TVs in the office are focusing on how Amy is a crazy artist trying to make a statement through violence and how destructive Drano bombs are.”
Trying to spin her into an innocent little White girl like Tabatha. I just hope they aren’t as sympathetic when they take her to court. She needs to be punished to the full extent of the law for her actions.
“Kids on campus are talking about you though.”
“Me?”
“Dude, you got up from a bomb blast. People think you’re like some sort of superhero.”
“Yeah, I’m a regular Majestra-”
“You saw Brody’s comic?”
“He showed it to me right before I had my own superhero adventure.”
“They say the destructive force of that bomb was equal to a hand grenade. It’s a miracle you survived it in one piece.”
That’s why I was glad I was there. If she was in that room, they’d be scraping pieces of her off the walls for a closed casket funeral. “God was with me.”
“I’m glad He was.” Marilyn continues. “I’d hate to go to the funeral of a friend.”
“Would a friend mind going to the movies this Saturday?”
“Definitely.”
I look over at Kyle sitting in the corner still working on his action figure. All this chaos is going on and he’s still working diligently on his piece. He must be totally in the zone. Before I go, I’ll see if I can get Marilyn to help him finish his action figure.
“Are you headed back into the studio?”
“Tomorrow morning at nine sharp.”
“Have you ever thought about doing a sculpting class?”
Marilyn gives me a look. “You’ve been talking to Kyle-”
Kyle’s ears perk up on hearing his name. I smile at him before making my pitch to Marilyn. “Come on he’s making an action figure of you and I don’t think the sketches of you are gonna allow him to effectively capture who you are in three dimensions.”
“Dude, those classes are like marathon pose sessions. It’s like cramp city-”
“I think he’d let you have a copy once he casted it-”
Kyle nods his head yes when he hears my suggestion. Marilyn sees him and smirks at him. “I’ll do one class next week. And I want two copies of whatever figure he makes.”
“Deal.” Kyle says across the room.
Kyle smiles about having Marilyn participating in his Sculpting class. I smile thinking about how I made a difference in the lives of these kids. One of these days I’ll be back in the classroom. Until then I’ll go where God needs me.
All About A Guest Spot
“We go where we’re needed.”
E’steem said that in the story before this one, Isis: My Sister, My Frenemy. And that statement is the inspiration for this story.
For centuries Isis had been dedicated her life to being a teacher, providing her guidance and support to generations of young women. But for this story I decided to flip that on its ear. What if the teacher needed to learn some lessons from the students?
While Isis had centuries of experience teaching, she’d been gone from the modern world for 40 years. In goddess years that may not seem like a long time, but I realized that was long enough to for her become disconnected and out-of-touch from people today.
No matter how old you are, you’re never too old to learn something new. And I realized it was time for Isis to learn a thing or two about people in the 21st Century.
Way back in Isis: The Ultimate Fight I was eager to put Isis on the campus of Columbia University. But I soon realized that was a mistake. Isis would never grow as a character if I put her on that Ivy League campus. She’d be teaching the same outdated Black History lessons to a generation of kids who would never relate to them and take them to heart the way Millicent Anderson did 40 years ago in Isis: Death of a Theta.
One of the things I learned working at STRIVE 13 years ago is that pain leads to growth. And growth leads to change. The places where we learn the most valuable lessons about ourselves are where we have to take the detours in life. Over the last 40 years Isis had grown disconnected from people. She wanted to return to teaching not for the students, but for herself. Her getting the job at Columbia University was about sating her human ego, not doing the work of a goddess. She felt she was getting lazy, She felt she was getting rusty. She wanted to prove to herself that she still had it. She really needed to get her priorities straight before she resumed her work serving the people.
Isis needed a kick in the kilt. And the loss of her dream job was the thing to get her to re-think her priorities. With the object of her human desires gone, she had to focus on doing God’s work. Serving the people. Going where she was needed.
And I had just the place to send her.
Way back in 2009 I published the screenplay All About Marilyn. Near the end of the story, 35-year-old former child star Marilyn
Marie had begun working and taking classes at The Next School, a fictional version of The New School here in New York. The Next School like the real life New School prides itself as being a college that explores new ideas and new concepts and teaching new approaches. And I felt this was the perfect place for Isis to learn some valuable life lessons that would allow her to reconnect with the people she served.
At the Next School, Marilyn worked job as an art model to pay for her tuition and pay her bills. It’s not the greatest job in the world; she has to stand naked in a classroom full of students every day. But working in the studio and attending classes on campus was an opportunity for her to connect with the people she worked with and form a relationship with them.
Before Isis returned to the classroom to teach, I felt she needed to learn how to form a relationship with her students. Her posing nude in the art studio wasn’t just a plot point; it was a metaphor about Isis allowing herself to be vulnerable. Standing nude in that studio there was no suit of clothes to hide behind to cover up who she was. The students were going to see the real her, not the façade she put up through an alias.
And over the course of the story they like what they see. As Isis makes new friends on campus they soon start sharing their experiences with her. It’s the students teaching her about their way of doing things that enables her to stop the stalker before they get a chance to harm Marilyn.
This story was a real challenge to write. This was my first attempt at writing a mystery. I had never written a mystery before, and after writing one I see how challenging it is. Writing a mystery is like making a cheesecake; all the ingredients have to be put together precisely or else you have a mess. An author has to build up the structure of the story just right, add just the right of red herrings, and twist and turn the plot at just the exact moment for the story to build the suspense and tension.
It was also my first attempt at writing a team-up story. In comic books, a team-up is a story featuring two characters from two different books in a brand new story. With Marilyn coming from a screenplay and Isis coming from a fantasy novel it was a challenge to make sure that both characters and both their worlds flowed seamlessly and organically into the new story.
I was very hesitant about writing an Isis story where Marilyn guest starred; she was also a reader favorite with her own legion of fans. And I didn’t want to put her in a bad story that disappointed them. But I felt a brief follow-up would do no harm to the character long-term. A quick peek would show readers what happened to Marilyn while maintaining the integrity of her story.