“Yes,” Zach says. “I searched for information about poisons.”
52
THE NEXT MORNING, Zach goes to school as he always does. He has to, Mom says. No one has convicted him of anything, and his name didn’t appear in the report released to the media. But everyone knows. They always know.
At first, he tries to act normal. Head up, smile on his face, he walks through the hall like everything is fine.
Then he sees the way people react to him. With shocked, distrusting, accusatory looks. By the midmorning break, he walks with his head down.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lucas says. “You’re just the thing of the day. Tomorrow, there’ll be a new thing.”
Zach hopes he’s right. And he should’ve taken Lucas up on his offer to get high before school.
The students aren’t the only ones treating him differently. When he walks into his English class, Crutcher greets him like a long-lost friend.
“Well, if it isn’t Zach Ward,” he says. “So glad you could join us today.”
“Um, thanks?”
“Sit down, sit down. We have a lot to talk about.” Crutcher turns to the class, still smiling. “I hope all of you have been reading Inferno, because today we’re going to talk about the circles of hell.”
A poster of Dante’s vision hangs on the wall, right across the chalkboard. It would be easier to see if Crutcher used a smartboard.
Siobhan raises her hand and says, “Mr. Crutcher, you just assigned this book yesterday.”
“Then consider this a gift,” he says. “Now, the rings are numbered, with one being best—if you can consider it that—and nine being the worst. Dante basically created his own judgment list. As you look over the various rings of hell and who he has placed where, what stands out?”
Zach searches for the word bribery.
“Violence is in the seventh ring,” someone says.
Crutcher says, “That’s right. It is. In our society, murder is one of the most heinous crimes. But according to Dante, others were worse. Look at the eighth circle.” He points to it. “It’s the circle of fraud. Here, he includes those who lie, cheat, and deceive.” Crutcher turns to the class. “This circle also includes thieves. Dante believed thieves were worse than murderers.”
Yesterday, Zach wouldn’t have been stuck on the word fraud, but today he is. Ezekiel told him bribery is a type of fraud.
“In fact,” Crutcher says, “the only thing worse than a thief is a traitor.” He points to the ninth circle of hell. “Interesting, isn’t it? So if any of you have lied, committed fraud, or stolen anything in your lives, this is where you would end up.”
He pauses and looks at the class. A few students squirm in their seats, including Zach. It feels like Crutcher is staring right at him.
Great.
Everyone knows Zach was arrested yesterday. They don’t know it has anything to do with Courtney. Not yet anyway, but they know he’s accused of bribery.
And Crutcher is going out of his way to embarrass him.
* * *
TEDDY SMILES AT his students, because he can’t help himself. Sometimes it’s good to watch these overprivileged kids get a little rattled.
They all are now, especially after Zach’s arrest. He’s not quite so cocky today. Good to see him acting humble, the way he should. He really is coming along quite well, if Teddy does say so himself.
But it’s not just Zach. Any one of his students could be arrested for the same thing. Maybe they’ve bribed someone to do their homework, or write a paper, or bribed their way out of a speeding ticket. Every single one has done something that would land them in the eighth circle of hell.
Possibly theft. Someone stole his plaque. And he still hasn’t ruled anyone out.
Joe is still on the list, but Teddy’s betting on Fallon. She was always a brat, and she’s mad enough to do something that stupid. But beyond those two, it could be any one of his students. They’re all capable of senseless pranks.
Before heading up to the lounge for lunch, Teddy checks the news. Something is going on at the courthouse, though no one is sure what. Lots of lawyers arriving, including Courtney’s.
Good. Maybe they’re finally letting her go. Honestly, if the wheels of justice moved any slower, Courtney might be dead before they figure out she’s innocent.
He shuts the laptop, locks it in his cabinet, and heads up to the teachers’ lounge.
* * *
THIRTY SECONDS. THAT’S all Fallon needs, just thirty seconds.
She’s been around the corner from Teddy’s classroom, waiting for him to leave. When he does, she slips into the bathroom until he is up the stairs.
Fallon walks with purpose. No sneaking, no looking behind her. That’s something all Belmont students learn, and they learn it early: Wherever you are, act like you’re supposed to be there. People will assume it’s true.
She goes right into Teddy’s classroom and straight to the far corner, assessing the best place for the camera. A pile of books are stacked on top of a cabinet behind his desk. She swipes her finger across them. Dust.
Perfect.
The camera fits right between the last book and the wall. She aims it toward Teddy’s desk and takes out her phone to check the angle. One quick adjustment, and she’s done. This camera is even better than the one in front of his house. More expensive, too. She wanted one that not only had a microphone, but could also zoom.
Fallon walks out the door and into the hallway. All clear. Not a single person around. The new security system isn’t working yet. Ms. Marsha told her they weren’t even testing it until this weekend.
Not luck. Fallon doesn’t believe in luck. This is karma. And that bitch is on her side.
First, she ruined Teddy’s marriage. Now, she’s going to get him fired.
53
TEDDY IS IN the lounge, eating his sandwich, when Louella comes in screaming. Well, she’s always screaming, but today her voice has an unbearably high pitch.
“Press conference!” she says. “The DA is having a press conference right now.”
Most of the teachers immediately follow her to the Porter Room, where the TV is still set up. Teddy takes his time. Finishes his lunch and makes himself a cup of coffee before he strolls down the hall, too.
He hopes the DA does what’s right and lets Courtney go.
One more problem solved.
Then he could concentrate on his other problems: Fallon and his missing plaque.
At first, Joe seemed like the likeliest one to steal the plaque. He has access, he has time, and he even has motive, given what Teddy told the police. But would an old man like Joe really risk his job stealing from a teacher? After all these years?
Silly. That would just be silly.
He’s still thinking about this as he walks into the Porter Room. The DA is on TV, his big stupid face filling up the whole screen.
“Late last night, we filed an emergency motion with the court in the case of Ingrid Ross’s murder. This morning, the judge heard our motion and ruled to postpone the trial for one month.
“I can’t say too much at this point. What I can say is that it no longer appears as if the defendant was working alone. We have a second person of interest in this case, as well as in the murder of Sonia Benjamin.”
Zach. He has to be the second person.
The DA actually thinks Zach and Courtney are in it together.
Another problem to fix.
If the world wasn’t filled with so many incompetent people, Teddy would have so much more time to concentrate on the important things. Like teaching.
* * *
EVERYTHING IS THE same. Zach sits on the couch, and Ezekiel is by the fireplace, flanked by his parents.
Exactly the same as last night. Zach feels like his life is running in a loop.
“The press confere
nce was strategic,” Ezekiel says. “The DA is trying to put pressure on Zach. By now, they probably have your phone records. Maybe even your internet searches. And they want us to know they have them.”
“Are they offering anything yet?” Mom says.
Zach tries to say something, but he’s cut off by Ezekiel. He and Mom continue talking like Zach isn’t there. “They want to talk,” Ezekiel says.
“So they’re fishing.”
“It appears that way.”
Dad makes an angry noise and looks at his phone.
“He’s not going to talk,” Mom says.
“That’s one option,” Ezekiel says. “But then they’ll move ahead with the felony bribery charge. They probably won’t make a deal.”
“Right, right,” Mom says.
Zach stands up from the couch. Finally, everyone looks at him. “Explain to me what’s happening,” he says to Ezekiel. “You’re my lawyer.”
“You’re right. I am,” he says.
“In private. I want to talk about this alone,” Zach says.
His parents exchange a look, but they agree. Once again, Zach and his lawyer go into his mom’s office. When they’re settled, Ezekiel starts to talk.
“The police and the DA want to know why you bribed a guard in order to see Courtney. Not once, but twice,” Ezekiel says. He holds up his hand, stopping Zach from answering that question. “They think—or rather, they hope that you can confirm she’s guilty. Further, if you did have something to do with Sonia Benjamin’s death, in all likelihood they are willing to believe Courtney convinced you to do it. That she is the ringleader, so to speak.”
Zach fights the urge to say this is all a lie. Every word of it. Instead, he tries to see it the way the police do. “So they’re willing to offer me a deal in exchange for testifying against her.”
“Exactly.”
“And what if I don’t know anything? What if they have it all wrong?”
“They’ll still move forward with the bribery charge,” he says.
“What about Courtney?”
“That I don’t know. Since Sonia Benjamin was killed the same way . . . I don’t know how they can proceed,” Ezekiel says.
Zach turns this over in his mind. Either way, he’s screwed. So is Courtney.
“Do you know what kind of evidence they have against Courtney?” he says.
“Not all of it, no, though I’ve heard some things. They found the poison at her house, in the yard. A lot of text messages about how much she hated her mom.”
“Do you know what kind of poison was used?”
“You don’t know?” Ezekiel looks surprised. He thinks Zach was involved.
“I have no idea.”
Ezekiel thinks about this for a minute, maybe trying to decide if Zach is lying. “I don’t know exactly. Only that it came from a plant.”
“A plant? Like . . . hemlock or something?”
“I suppose. I don’t know which one.”
Zach nods, thinking he’s going to have to search the internet again. Before, he was just looking up poisons in general. Now that he knows it’s a plant, he can narrow down the search.
Not that it will help him.
“Realistically,” he says. “What will happen to me if they go ahead with the bribery thing?”
“Under normal circumstances, given how young you are and given that it didn’t involve political corruption, I could plead it down to a misdemeanor. You probably would have to do some community service.” Ezekiel pauses. “But with this Courtney thing . . . I suspect they aren’t motivated to make that deal.”
“I’ll go to jail?” Zach says.
“Possibly. And you may end up with a felony on your record.”
“Great.”
“There’s something else to consider,” Ezekiel says. “The court of public opinion can be more important than a court of law. Meaning it won’t be long before everyone figures out the DA is talking about you. Especially after they arrested you at school.” He looks a bit angry about that. “Again, a strategic move on their part. They wanted people to see it.”
It’s not hard for Zach to imagine what the media will be like. He’s already seen what they’ve done to Courtney. He’s also seen how many people assume she’s guilty.
He and Courtney will be just a couple of rich, entitled kids who think they can get away with murder.
Hell, if it were anyone else, he’d believe it.
“No deal,” he says to Ezekiel. “I’m not talking to anyone.”
54
WHILE EZEKIEL GOES out to talk to his parents, Zach slips out the side door and leaves the house. He turns off the GPS in his car, takes the chip out of his new phone, and drives straight to Target to pick up a cheap tablet. For cash. He won’t keep it in his room, either, just in case the police search it, so he’ll put it in the pool house. No one’s using it this time of year anyway.
Half an hour later, he’s at Starbucks to do some research that can’t be connected back to him.
As he waits for his triple-shot Venti Americano, Zach realizes that no one knows where he is and no one can find him. It might be the first time in his life that’s happened. Strange. No one peering over his shoulder. No one watching him. No one checking to see what he’s up to.
He likes it. For the first time, he feels free.
That reminds him of another Ward-ism, something he always thought was stupid. It was the kind of saying that belonged on a poster.
Money isn’t the point. Freedom is the point.
His dad was right about so many things. If only Zach had believed him from the start, he wouldn’t be stuck between a felony and a betrayal. Thinking about that doesn’t make him feel very free anymore.
When his coffee is ready, he sits down and goes to work on the internet search:
Poisonous plants that cause instant or near-instant death
* * *
A SECOND PERSON.
Teddy can’t believe this is happening. He especially can’t believe everyone is saying the second person is Zach Ward.
Has to be, they say.
He was just arrested the other day, they say.
Who else would it be, they say.
Teddy is sitting out on his back porch, in the freezing cold. Although he’s wearing a jacket, hat, and gloves, he can still feel it.
He takes a deep breath of frigid air and can see it as he exhales. Again. Again. He watches his cold breath, and it’s almost comfortable. As a kid, he used to do the same thing, when he stood out in the cold, waiting for the bus. One winter, when he was nine, the furnace in the house broke and there was no money to fix it. He could see his breath inside. Sometimes, he’d pretended to hold a cigarette like he was smoking.
He can hear his mom, telling him being cold is just a state of mind. She used to wrap him up in blankets and tell him to pretend he was on a beach, basking in the sun. Sometimes, he was so cold, it hurt.
Now that he’s an adult and all bundled up, the cold no longer hurts. It feels good. And hopefully, it will kill the worms rumbling in his stomach.
That’s how sick he is about this. How awful he feels. All he wanted to do was help Courtney get out, and now two students are implicated in the murders.
How can an entire police department screw up so badly?
More importantly, why does Teddy have to fix everything?
Unbelievable.
There’s a way out of this, because there’s always a way. He just has to figure out what it is. It would help if he were surrounded by people who were a little more intelligent. Since they aren’t, he’s going to have to be very clear about what he does and how he does it.
Kindergarten clear, as teachers like to say.
It’s going to take some work. Good thing Teddy’s not afraid of that, not like some people. Fallon, for
example. If she put more work into herself, she might not be so angry at him.
Her time will come, though. For the moment, the Fallon problem has to come second. Right now, he’s got to save his current students.
But it won’t be easy with all those new cameras at the school.
* * *
LATE AT NIGHT, Fallon sits on her blow-up bed, watching Teddy’s last two classes of the day. So far, that’s all she has. The disadvantage of using a camera with a microphone is that Fallon has to hear Crutcher’s voice. Listening to him talk about Dante—Dante!—brings her right back to high school, when she was one of the students sitting in that classroom.
His voice was annoying then, too.
And arrogant. That’s what she notices now, how arrogant he is. Every single word he says is patronizing, even to the students he seems to like. Though there aren’t many of those.
The camera doesn’t move, so she can only see him when he’s in front of the class, along with a few students sitting in the front row.
When he walks too far away, she can’t see anything but his desk.
Which is the point.
She fast-forwards through his last class, unable to listen any longer, and waits until the students are leaving. When the room is empty, Teddy opens his laptop.
He types in his password.
This is why she needed the zoom feature.
She watches him check his email, though the camera is still too far away to see any details. He opens the Belmont website, easy to recognize from the logo on the screen, but again she can’t read anything.
She slams the laptop closed and throws her one pillow across the room. It knocks over the lamp, pulling the cord out of the wall, and the room goes dark.
Now she’s going to have to get back in his classroom and adjust the camera.
As always, Teddy is a pain in her ass.
For Your Own Good Page 18