The principal leaned forward, clasping her hands together. “Now, tell me, how can we be of help to you?”
Faith waited for Will to speak, but he just sat ramrod straight in the chair beside her. She took over, asking, “Could you give us an impression of Emma and Kayla—socially, academically?”
Matthew Levy, the math teacher, took the lead. “I spoke to your colleague about this yesterday, but I suppose I need to say it again. The girls didn’t really fit into any one social group. I had both Kayla and Emma in my classroom. They tended to keep to themselves.”
Faith asked, “Did they have enemies?”
There was a series of exchanged looks. Levy replied, “They were picked on. I know the first question that comes to mind is how we could be aware of that and still let it continue, but you have to understand the dynamics of the school situation.”
Faith let them know that she did. “Kids don’t tend to report bullies for fear of reprisal. Teachers can’t punish activity they don’t see.”
Levy shook his head. “It’s more than that.” He paused, as if to gather his thoughts. “I taught Emma for two years. Her aptitude wasn’t math, but she was a good student—really, a lovely girl. She worked hard, she didn’t make trouble. She was on the fringe of one of our popular groups. She seemed to get along well with other kids.”
One of the Asian women, Daniella Park, added, “Until Kayla showed up.”
Faith was startled by the teacher’s sharp tone of voice. Park seemed unfazed by the fact that the girl had been savagely murdered. “Why is that?”
Park explained, “We see it all the time. Kayla was a bad influence.” Confirming nods rippled around the room. “For a long time, Emma was friends with a girl named Sheila Gill. They were very close, but Sheila’s father was transferred to Saudi Arabia at the beginning of term last year. He works for one of those soulless multinational oil companies.” She dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “Anyway, Emma didn’t have anyone else in her group to turn to. There are some girls who gravitate toward one particular person rather than a group, and without Sheila, she didn’t have a group. Emma became more introverted, less likely to participate in class. Her grades didn’t slip, they actually improved slightly, but you could tell that she was lonely.”
“Enter Kayla Alexander,” Levy interjected with the same rueful tone of voice as Park. “Smack in the middle of the school year. She’s the type who needs an audience, and she knew precisely who to pick.”
“Emma Campano,” Faith supplied. “Why did Kayla transfer in during the middle of term?”
McFaden chimed in, “She came to us through another school. Kayla was a challenge, but at Westfield, we meet challenges head-on.”
Faith deciphered the code. She directed her next question toward Levy, who seemed to have no problem criticizing the dead girl. “Kayla was kicked out of her last school?”
McFaden tried to keep spinning. “I believe she was asked to leave. Her old school was not equipped to meet her special needs.” She straightened her shoulders. “Here at Westfield, we pride ourselves on nurturing the special needs of what society labels more difficult children.”
For the second time that day, Faith fought the urge to roll her eyes. Jeremy had been on the cusp of the disorder movement: ADD, ADHD, social disorder, personality disorder. It was getting to be so ridiculous, she was surprised there weren’t special schools for the boring, average children. “Can you tell us what she was being treated for?”
“ADHD,” McFaden supplied. “Kayla has—had, I’m sorry—a very hard time concentrating on her schoolwork. She was more focused on socializing than studying.”
That must have made her stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the teenagers. “What about Emma?”
Park spoke again, none of the earlier sharpness in her tone. “Emma is a wonderful girl.”
More nods came, and she could feel the sadness sweeping through the room. Faith wondered what exactly Kayla Alexander had done that made these teachers choose sides against her.
The door opened, and a man wearing a wrinkled sports jacket and holding an armful of papers came into the room. He looked up at the crowd, seemingly surprised they were all there.
“Mr. Bernard,” McFaden began, “let me introduce you to Detectives Mitchell and Trent.” She turned to Faith and Will. “This is Evan Bernard, English department.”
He nodded, blinking behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Bernard was a nice-looking man, probably in his mid-forties. Faith supposed he could easily fit a stereotype with his scruffy beard and generally disheveled appearance, but something about the wariness in his eyes made her think that there was more to him than that.
Bernard said, “I’m sorry I’m late. I had a parent meeting.” He pulled a chair up beside McFaden and sat down, a stack of papers in his lap. “Do you have any news?”
Faith realized that he was the first person to ask the question. “No,” she said. “We’re following all investigative leads. Anything you could tell us about the two girls will help.”
Underneath his beard, he bit his bottom lip, and she could tell that he had seen right through her bullshit as easily as Faith had seen through McFaden’s.
Will picked this moment to speak up. He directed his words toward Bernard. “We’re doing everything we can to find out who killed Kayla and to bring Emma home safely. I know that doesn’t sound like much of a comfort, but please know that this case has the full focus of every member of the Atlanta Police Department and every agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”
Bernard nodded, gripping the papers in his lap. “What can I do to help?”
Will didn’t answer. Faith gathered she was to take the lead again. “We were just talking about Kayla Alexander’s influence over Emma.”
“I can’t tell you anything about Kayla. I only had Emma, but not for class. I’m the reading tutor at Westfield.”
McFaden provided, “Mr. Bernard does one-on-one sessions with our reading-challenged students. Emma is mildly dyslexic.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me—”
“How so?” Will interrupted. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to look at Bernard.
Bernard sounded puzzled. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“I mean …” Will seemed at a loss for words. “I don’t quite understand what you mean by mild dyslexia.”
“ ‘Mild’ isn’t really a term that I would use,” Bernard countered. “Generally speaking, it’s a reading disorder. As with autism, dyslexia has a full spectrum of symptoms. To classify someone as mild would be to put them at the top level, which is more commonly called high functioning. Most of the kids I see tend to be at either one end or the other. There are various symptomatical iterations, but the key identifier is an inability to read, write or spell at grade level.”
Will nodded, and Faith saw him put his hand in his jacket pocket. She heard a click, and had to struggle to keep her expression neutral. She’d seen him transfer the digital recorder to that same pocket in the car. While it was perfectly legal in the state of Georgia for a person to secretly record a conversation, it was highly illegal for a cop to do so.
Will asked Bernard, “Would you characterize Emma as slow or …” He seemed hesitant to use the word. “Retarded?”
Bernard appeared as shocked as Faith felt. “Of course not,” the man replied. “As a matter of fact, Emma has an exceptionally high IQ. A lot of dyslexics are incredibly gifted.”
“Gifted in what ways?”
He rambled off some examples. “Keen observational skills, highly organized, exceptional memory for details, athletically talented, mechanically inclined. I don’t doubt Emma will make a fine architect one day. She has an amazing aptitude with building structures. I’ve taught here at Westfield for twelve years and never seen anyone quite like her.”
Will sounded a little skeptical. “But she still had problems.”
“I wouldn’t call them problems. Ch
allenges, maybe, but all kids have challenges.”
“It’s still a disease, though.”
“A disorder,” he corrected.
Will took a breath, and Faith realized that he was getting irritated with the runaround. Still, he pressed, “So, what are some of the problems associated with the disorder?”
The teacher ticked them off. “Deficiencies in math, reading, spelling and comprehension, immaturity, spatial problems, stuttering, poor motor skills, an inability to grasp rhyming meter … It’s a mixed bag, really, and every child is different. You might have a math whiz, or you might have someone who can’t perform simple addition; hyper-athletic or a total klutz. Emma was lucky enough to be diagnosed early. Dyslexics are very adept at hiding the disorder. Unfortunately, computers make it much easier for them to fool people. Reading is such a fundamental skill, and they tend to be ashamed when they can’t grasp the basics. Most dyslexics don’t test well unless it’s orally, so they tend to do very poorly at school. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that some teachers misconstrue this as laziness or behavioral related.” Bernard let his words hang in the air, as if they were directed at a specific teacher in the room. “Adding to the problem is that Emma is extremely shy. She doesn’t like attention. She’s willing to put up with a lot of bullshit in order to fly under the radar. She’s certainly had her moments of immaturity, but mostly, she’s just a naturally introverted kid who has to try extra hard to fit in.”
Will was leaning so far forward he was practically off his chair. “How did her parents react to this information?”
“I’ve never met the father, but the mother’s very proactive.”
“Is there a cure for it?”
“As I said before, dyslexia is not a disease, Mr. Trent. It’s a wiring problem in the brain. You would just as soon expect a diabetic to spontaneously produce insulin as you would a dyslexic to wake up and suddenly be able to tell you the difference between left and right and over and under.”
Finally, Faith thought she understood where Will was going with his questions. She asked, “So, if someone like Emma was being chased, would she be likely to take the wrong route—go up the stairs instead of down, where she could get away?”
“It doesn’t work like that. She would probably be more likely than you or I to intuitively know the best route, but if you asked her, ‘How did you get out of there?’ she wouldn’t be able to tell you, ‘I hid under the coffee table, then I took a left down the stairway.’ She would simply say, ‘I ran away.’ The most fascinating thing about this disorder is the mind seems to recognize the deficit and create new thinking pathways that result in coping mechanisms that the typical child would not otherwise consider.”
Will cleared his throat. “You said that she would be more observant than a normal person.”
“We don’t really use the word ‘normal’ around here,” Bernard told him. “But, yes. In Emma’s case, I would think that she would have better observational skills.” He took it a step farther. “You know, in my experience, dyslexics are far more keyed in than most people. We see this with abused children sometimes, where, as a form of self-defense, they’ve learned to read mood and nuance better than the typical child. They absorb an incredible amount of blame to keep the peace. They are the ultimate survivors.”
Faith took some comfort in his words. A glance around the room told her that she wasn’t alone in this feeling.
Will stood up. “I’m sorry,” he told the group. “I’ve got another meeting. Detective Mitchell has a few more questions for you.” He reached into his pocket, she assumed to turn off the recorder. “Faith, call me when you get to city hall.” He meant the morgue. “I want to sit in with you.”
“Okay.”
He made his excuses and quickly left. Faith glanced at her watch, wondering where he was going. He didn’t have to be at the Campanos for another hour.
Faith looked around the room, all the eyes that were on her. She decided to get it over with. “I’m wondering if there was something specific that happened with Kayla Alexander. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of sympathy for her considering what happened.”
There were some shrugs. Most of them looked at their hands or the floor. Even Daniella Park didn’t have a response.
The principal took over. “As I said, Detective Mitchell, Kayla was a challenge.”
Bernard let out a heavy sigh, as if he resented having to be the one to clarify. “Kayla liked to cause trouble.”
“In what way?”
“The way girls do,” he said, though that was hardly an explanation.
“She picked fights?” Faith guessed.
“She spread rumors,” Bernard provided. “She got the other girls into a tizzy. I’m sure you remember what it was like to be that age.”
Faith had tried her damndest to forget. Being the only pregnant fourteen-year-old in your school was not exactly a walk in the park.
Bernard’s tone turned dismissive. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Matthew Levy agreed. “These spats are always cyclical. They tear into each other one week, then the next week they’re best friends and they hate someone else. You see it all the time.”
All the women in the room seemed to think otherwise. Park spoke for them. “It was bad,” she said. “I’d say that within a month of enrolling, Kayla Alexander had crossed just about everybody here. She split the school in two.”
“Was she popular with the boys?”
“And how,” Park said. “She used them like toilet paper.”
“Was there anyone in particular?”
There was a series of shrugs and head shaking.
“The list is probably endless,” Bernard supplied. “But the boys didn’t rile up. They knew what they were getting.”
Faith addressed Daniella Park. “Earlier, you made it sound like Emma was her only friend.”
Park answered, “Kayla was Emma’s friend. Emma was all Kayla had left.”
The distinction was an important one. “Why did Emma stick by her?”
“Only Emma knows the answer to that, but I would guess that she understood what it meant to be an outsider. The more things turned against Kayla, the closer they seemed to get.”
“You said the school was divided in two. What exactly happened?”
Silence filled the room. No one seemed to want to volunteer the information. Faith was about to ask the question again when Paolo Wolf, an economics teacher who had been quiet until this point, said, “Mary Clark would know more about that.”
The silence became more pronounced until Evan Bernard mumbled something under his breath.
Faith asked, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bernard, I didn’t catch what you said.”
His eyes darted around the room, as if to dare anyone to challenge him. “Mary Clark barely knows the time of day.”
“Is Mary a student here?”
McFaden, the principal, explained, “Mrs. Clark is one of our English teachers. She had Kayla in her class last year.”
Faith didn’t bother to ask why the woman wasn’t here. She would find out for herself in person. “Can I speak with her?”
McFaden opened her mouth to respond, but the bell rang. The principal waited until the ringing had stopped. “That’s the assembly bell,” she told Faith. “We should head over to the auditorium.”
“I really need to talk to Mary Clark.”
There was just a second of equivocation before McFaden gave a bright smile that would rival the world record for fakeness. “I’d be happy to point her out to you.”
Faith walked across the courtyard behind the main school building, following Olivia McFaden and the other teachers to the auditorium. Oddly, they were all in a single line, as were all the students following their respective teachers to the assembly. The building was the most modern looking of all the structures on the Westfield campus, probably built on the backs of hapless parents shilling candy bars, magazine subscriptions and wrapping paper to unsuspecting neighbors and grand
parents.
One line of students in particular was getting a bit too rowdy. McFaden’s head swiveled around as if it was on a turret, her gaze pinpointing the loudest culprits. The noise quickly drained like water down a sink.
Faith should not have been surprised by the auditorium, which was really more like what you would find housing a small community theater in a wealthy suburb. Rows of plush velvet red seats led to a large stage with state-of-the-art lighting hanging overhead. The barrel-vaulted ceiling was painted in a very convincing homage to the Sistine Chapel. Intricate bas-relief around the stage depicted the gods in various states of excitement. The carpet underfoot was thick enough to make Faith glance down every few steps for fear of falling.
McFaden gave the tour as she walked, students hushing in her wake. “We built the auditorium in 1995 with an eye toward hosting overflow events during the Olympics.”
So, the parents had hustled their candy, then the school had charged the state to rent the auditorium.
“Daphne, no gum,” McFaden told one of the girls as she passed. She directed her words back to Faith. “Our art director, Mrs. Meyers, suggested the ceiling motif.”
Faith glanced up, mumbling, “Nice.”
There was more about the building, but Faith tuned out McFaden’s voice as she walked down the steps toward the stage. There was a certain frisson that overtook the auditorium as it began filling with students. Some were crying, some were simply staring at the stage, a look of expectancy in their eyes. A handful were with their parents, which somehow made the situation even more tense. Faith saw more than one child with a mother’s arm around his or her shoulders. She could not help but think about Abigail Campano when she saw them, remember the way the mother had so fiercely fought the man she assumed had killed her daughter. The hair on the back of her neck rose, an ancient genetic response to the sense of collective fear that permeated the room.
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