And he’s right.
While most are sympathetic to the fact that she was poisoned, that doesn’t stop some of them from calling her a media whore. Can’t argue with that.
They also dissect everything about the interview: what she said, what she wore, how her makeup was applied. Teddy finds himself mesmerized by their analysis. With a little editing, it could be a term paper. A rather impressive one at that.
Using his alter ego, Natasha, he adds in a few remarks of his own. They aren’t kind, but they’re true.
When he’s bored with the topic, he searches for particular students to see what they’re saying. Starting with Courtney. She’s been out of jail for a day now—plenty of time to get online.
She hasn’t. Courtney hasn’t made any comments or posts since the day she was arrested.
Probably smart. She’s always been an excellent student.
Next he checks in with Zach. He has been online, though he doesn’t mention Veronica. He also doesn’t mention the school’s new headmaster, which isn’t surprising, given that he is no longer enrolled at Belmont.
Teddy goes back to the conversation about Veronica. She is so lucky to be a senior. Otherwise, he’d have to bring her down a peg or ten.
* * *
HE STOPPED.
Fallon didn’t remember this until much later, because she was too rattled about seeing Zach Ward follow her. The next day, she was rattled again when she heard Teddy had been named new interim headmaster.
Of course he was.
Everything was beginning to make sense. So much sense that Fallon could actually make a spreadsheet detailing the whole story. Well, most of it. There are still holes to fill, beginning with the death of Ingrid Ross. Fallon has no idea what the story behind that is, but there has to be one.
While reviewing her spreadsheet, filling in all the details she can think of, she remembers Zach stopping.
He drove up to Teddy’s house, pulled over to the curb, and turned off his lights. In other words, he parked. Like he was about to go pay Teddy a visit in the middle of the night.
When he saw her, he waved and drove away. Or it looked like he drove away, but really he followed her.
So why did he do that when he saw her? If he really was there to visit Teddy, why would seeing her make a difference?
She researches Zach and his family online. He’s a typical Belmont student with two successful parents and a house on the right side of town. His social media is pretty boring. He’s not a troll. At least not with his real name. Zach Ward had appeared to be a normal kid, right up until he got arrested and left school.
All of which leads Fallon to a couple of possibilities.
The idea that he would show up in the middle of the night, in his own car, no disguise, to do something bad to Teddy seems ridiculous.
But the idea that Teddy has someone helping him is not.
Part
Three
70
AT EXACTLY NOON, Courtney turns on the TV. Zach wants to tell her to stop but can’t bring himself to do it. The midday news blares out, making it impossible for him to study.
“Just coming in now, a three-car crash on the interstate. Let’s go out to the scene with Trevor Harmon for more . . .”
Courtney changes the channel.
“Today, the city council will be holding what should be a contentious meeting about this year’s budget . . .”
Click.
“We have no information yet about injuries from the accident, but we are expecting a statement from the state police at any time.”
Click.
“Still no arrests in the mass poisoning at Belmont Academy. But new interim headmaster Theodore Crutcher has announced that the upcoming memorial will be titled ‘Remembrance and Recovery: A New Beginning.’ As we reported last week, the event was originally scheduled to honor the death of Belmont’s former headmasters as well as all recent victims. It has now been expanded to include a tour of the school, which is currently being renovated with upgraded security.
“Now let’s go to weather. Tom, how’s the lunch hour looking?”
“That’s it?” Courtney says. “That’s the entire news about Belmont?”
Zach grabs the remote and turns the TV off. “It’s because of the FBI. No chance they’re going to talk to reporters.”
“Or maybe they just aren’t doing anything.”
“They aren’t going to let this go,” Zach says. “It’s like a school shooting, but not as violent.”
Courtney grunts.
Homeschooling hasn’t turned out to be a good thing for Courtney, though it might be better if she were away from her phone and the TV.
“What else have you found out about that Fallon woman?” she says.
Another mistake of Zach’s. He shouldn’t have told her about the plant book in Crutcher’s office, or about seeing Fallon Knight outside his house. If he’d known another week would go by without an arrest, he never would’ve mentioned it.
“Nothing. Just that she hates him,” he says.
Courtney stares at him until it feels uncomfortable.
“Seriously,” he says. “I haven’t found anything else.”
She sighs and goes back to her computer. Zach returns to his own work, his head hanging a little lower.
Usually, he doesn’t feel bad about lying. Now, he does. Courtney isn’t someone he hides things from—or she didn’t used to be. She also used to have a mother who was alive, instead of murdered, and everything she knew about jail came from Orange Is the New Black.
Since she came home, she’s become obsessed with TV shows about jail. She rates them according to how realistic they are.
When she’s not doing that, she’s searching online about the Belmont murders. Every article, every message board, every chat. It’s both completely understandable and completely disturbing.
His parents would say she’s trying to process her mother’s murder.
This time, he thinks they’d be right.
So he doesn’t talk about Fallon anymore. Or Crutcher. He doesn’t tell her that he has followed Fallon on several occasions, and that she stops by Crutcher’s house once a day. Every day. Never gets out of her car, though. She just drives up, stops, gets on her phone for a minute, and then drives away.
It makes zero sense to him, but it must mean something to her. She keeps doing it.
Fallon keeps following him, too. Zach has seen that run-down little car a few times. Once, a block from his house. Another time, a few cars back at a stoplight.
He doesn’t know why Fallon has been following him, but does have fun with her. The first time he saw her, he drove to a maternity store. The second time, to a dog park. With no dog.
But Zach hasn’t told Courtney any of this.
He has to lie to her. It’s for the best.
* * *
THE CONFERENCE ROOM is ten stories up, with a view of the town. In the distance, Teddy can see Belmont.
“We need to decide on the speakers,” Winnie says.
Teddy smiles as he turns to her. It’s cute that she uses the word we. As the new head of the Parents’ Collaborative, she has embraced the power she thinks comes with it. Winnie still isn’t a board member, but that takes time. And a lot of schmoozing.
He sits back down at the head of the table. Ms. Marsha is on his left; Winnie is on the right. Everyone else in the room is irrelevant.
“Run down the list,” he says to Winnie.
She recites the names of potential speakers for the Remembrance & Recovery ceremony. It’s a pointless task, because he has already decided who will speak, but it gives him something to do since he’s not teaching.
Beyond the walls of the conference room, people are busy doing office things. Typing or inputting or downloading. Paper shuffling. Whatever cubicle peo
ple do. The business is owned by a Belmont parent who offered a conference room to the school while Belmont is closed. Teddy was quick to take that offer, adding that he preferred to have lots of windows in his work space.
Ask, and he receives.
Winnie finishes the list and looks at him, waiting for an answer. She’s not quite as strong or opinionated as Ingrid was. That should make his life a little easier.
“All of the victims should be introduced and brought onstage,” Teddy says. “It would take too long to have each one speak. Unfortunately, we have quite a few victims.”
“Yes. It’s very unfortunate,” Winnie says.
“Perhaps one of the student victims should speak,” Ms. Marsha says. “For representation.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Teddy says. “I was just about to suggest that.”
Winnie nods a little too hard. It’s annoying. “Great idea. Which student?”
The names run through his mind until he lands on the obvious. “It has to be Veronica, don’t you think?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” Winnie says.
“Or has she had enough attention?” Teddy says. “Perhaps she has already become too synonymous with this tragedy?” He glances over at Ms. Marsha, trying to gauge which way she is leaning. She gives nothing away, and it’s more annoying than Winnie’s enthusiasm. “I was thinking of Damien. He would make a good speaker,” he says.
Damien Harcourt is a junior, and his parents are among the top ten wealthiest couples in the area.
Now that Teddy is the headmaster, he has to think about donations.
At first, he had resisted. He talked about the school’s mission, the high quality of education, the importance of what they were teaching the kids. He wasn’t concerned with the parents. Not unless they got in his way.
Then Ms. Marsha showed him the accounts. And the lawsuits. A number of parents are suing the school because of the poisonings. As if it’s the school’s fault.
So, yes, Damien Harcourt will be the one to speak at the memorial. The wealthiest students may be the most annoying, but at least they’re good for something.
Teddy glances up at the clock. “What else do we have?” he says. “I’ve got an appointment at three.”
He doesn’t mention that the appointment is with the FBI. They want to talk to him again.
71
EVERY DAY, FALLON’S apartment feels a little smaller. Every day, her bed loses a little more air. Every day, her noisy neighbors become more unbearable. She never imagined she would be here so long. Finishing off Teddy has taken much longer than she thought it would.
Deep breath.
Again.
Again.
She flips open her laptop and checks the news. Checks social media. Checks the news a second time. She watches the video from Teddy’s mailbox camera. She’s already watched it twice.
Nothing.
If Fallon thought she could get away with it, she would put a camera outside Zach’s home. But she used to live in a house like that, and they all have security systems. She can’t get close without getting caught.
She knows he is helping Teddy. It has to be him.
She’s watched the video from Teddy’s classes—before Zach withdrew from Belmont—and she can see it. The way he talks to Zach. Half disdain, half admiration. As if he’s pretending not to like Zach.
It’s so obvious. It’s also circumstantial.
So is everything she’s found online. It didn’t take long for the hive mind to figure out what kind of poison was used. One of the #HomicideHigh Massacre group chats already googled it to death—pun intended—and came up with a bizarre plant called doll’s-eyes, which grows right in this area.
She went straight back to all the videos she recorded outside Teddy’s house. How very convenient that he cleared his yard just days after Ingrid Ross was murdered. But does she have footage of a doll’s-eyes plant? Nope. The camera wasn’t angled to catch those kinds of details.
None of what she has would convince the police or the FBI that Teddy is behind everything. And certainly not if it came from her.
She never should’ve sent those emails to Teddy, calling him an asshole and a piece of shit. Repeatedly. It makes her look like she’s out to get him.
Which she is.
She’s not getting anything useful from the mailbox video. She’s not getting anything useful from Teddy himself, who appears to be the most boring person on the planet. And she’s not getting anything from Zach. She can’t even get a picture of Zach and Teddy together, much less talking.
All of which brings her right back to where she is now. In her shoebox apartment.
Maybe today she’ll get lucky. Maybe she’ll find something. She grabs her bag and walks out. If nothing else, she’ll find Zach. He’s easy to locate. If he’s not at home, he’s at the Grove. Or at Courtney’s house.
That’s where she finds him today, leaving his friend Courtney’s house. Or is she a girlfriend? Maybe they just hook up. Hard to know, but they certainly spend a lot of time together.
Another interesting connection. They’re everywhere, these little tidbits of information, yet no smoking gun, no bloody knife. No poison in hand.
So Fallon keeps going, keeps following Zach in his fancy car. He drives out of Courtney’s neighborhood and into downtown. Good. It’s easier for Fallon to hide among other cars on the road. She stays three or four cars behind him. More if she can manage it.
He takes a left, away from all the little shops and restaurants, and heads toward an industrial park filled with office buildings. They’re ugly and square, tucked away and far from the expensive houses like the one Courtney lives in.
Fallon hangs back, circling through a parking lot while keeping an eye on Zach. He pulls into a spot right outside a flat one-story building with very few windows. He’s sitting in his car. Maybe waiting for someone, maybe on his phone.
The sign out front is too far away to read, so she drives around the back of the building. A middle-aged woman wearing all black is getting out of her car, and Fallon pulls up alongside her.
“Excuse me. I think I’m lost,” she says. “Can you tell me what building this is?”
The woman looks irritated, as if Fallon had just interrupted something important. “It’s the sperm bank.”
The sperm bank. Of course.
Zach has spotted her again, and he’s playing with her. Not the first time, either.
Yes, he’s a smart kid. She gets that. But she can outthink a high school kid.
She just can’t follow him without being seen.
With a sigh, she drives out of the industrial park and heads toward a Starbucks. Maybe she needs to go back to following Teddy. But he knows her car from seeing it at school. He might alter his route if he spots her, though he would never be as obvious as Zach. Not because he’s smarter, but because he’s not seventeen.
Teddy isn’t easy to ruin.
Unlike the headmaster who killed himself.
72
TEDDY CONSIDERED BRINGING a lawyer with him to the FBI meeting. At first. After thinking about it, he decided the worst thing he could do was assume he’s a suspect. Several faculty members said they had been interviewed, so it seemed they were talking to everyone. And, as a victim, it only makes sense that they want to speak to him again.
The FBI is working out of the sheriff’s headquarters. Teddy walks into a chaotic scene, a blend of FBI jackets and brown uniforms. The man at the front desk looks irritated. Teddy already feels the same.
“I’m Teddy Crutcher,” he says.
The man blinks at him.
“I’m here for an interview with the FBI.”
With a sigh, the man points. “Over there.”
Halfway to “over there,” Teddy is greeted by Agent Roland, the bald agent from the hospital.
The same female agent is with him.
“Thank you for coming in,” Roland says, gesturing to a chair.
“Of course.” Teddy takes a seat. He hasn’t smiled yet, nor does he intend to. “This whole tragedy has been very difficult for everyone. I want to do anything I can to help find whoever did this.”
“I’m sure you do.”
That’s from the other agent, Pruitt. She looks no-nonsense and speaks the same way.
“I guess I should congratulate you,” Roland says. “Now that you’re the headmaster.”
Teddy nods a little. “I wish it wasn’t necessary, yet here we are.”
“Yes,” Pruitt says. “Here we are.”
No, Teddy doesn’t like her.
“I’d like to go all the way back to the day Ingrid Ross died,” Roland says. “What do you remember from that day?”
Teddy talks about Sonia’s anniversary party, describing how these events are always a cause for celebration. “Because we’re a family at Belmont. That’s how it works,” he says. “That’s also why this is so . . . unbelievable.”
He lists everyone he can remember from the party, including the headmaster, Ms. Marsha, Frank, Louella, Nari, a number of parents from the Collaborative, as well as several students. Agent Pruitt writes everything down.
“And what about the day Sonia Benjamin died?” Roland says. “Do you remember seeing her or speaking to her that day?”
“Of course. I saw her every day, even if it was just in the lounge,” Teddy says. “I’m sure we exchanged a hello or said good morning. But, no, I apologize for not remembering exactly what happened on that day.”
Agent Pruitt opens a file and flips through the pages. “In an earlier interview with the local police, you mentioned that she didn’t treat Joe very well. The custodian.”
For Your Own Good Page 24