Even odder than their asking me for help was their persistance in asking for it. While I hadn’t met the strict definition of insubordination, I’d been fairly direct and honest, something I’m sure they weren’t used to from usually cowering teachers. Yet I only got fairly mild sparring in return. I didn’t trust these administrators as far as I could throw a curriculum guide, and our curriculum guide was thicker than the yellow pages for New York and Chicago combined.
Teresa Merton, our union president, strode into the room and marched over to where we were standing. Bochka and Towne looked annoyed. Graniento looked superior.
Merton stood about five-foot-two with long blond hair in complex ringlets down to her waist. She might have weighed a hundred pounds if she was wearing heavy winter clothes including a sweater and a parka. Nobody messed with her. Competent and smart as union president, she was also an excellent teacher. She said, “What the hell is going on?”
The administrators hunched a bit closer together. Bochka explained her version of events. When she finished, Merton said, “Nobody’s submitting to DNA testing until they talk to their lawyers. You weren’t thinking of doing anything to these teachers, taking any action against them?”
“No,” Towne said.
“Good. I’d like to speak with Tom alone.”
The administrators left. I introduced Scott.
She said, “If you want him to stay during our conversation that’s fine. Now, what really happened?”
I gave her my version of events, including a description of what Benson and Frecking were doing when I walked in.
“You haven’t told that to the administrators and to the cops? All you said was they were in there?”
“Right.”
“Okay, but be careful about being too cute. Don’t lie to the cops is my saintly advice.”
“I figure it’s their incident to tell about.” “Maybe. They could get their asses fired for that.” “Should I talk to them?”
She repeated one of the great union dictums. “Don’t go looking for business.” The problem with hearing a rumor or assuming someone needed help and going to them first was that then the next person could say, “Why didn’t you come to me when you heard the rumor? It’s your fault I’m in trouble, because you didn’t come to me.” They’ve got to come to you. “And if they do come to me?”
“Send them to me. It’s going to be a mess. Those administrators coming to you for help is kind of a compliment.”
“It’s odd.”
“You do know people in the police department, and administrators like to stick their nose into everything. Although, it’s funny that both factions in the department came to you. What do they expect you to do, wave a magic wand? Walk on water? Murder is not a union issue.”
“They’ll claim we didn’t help.”
“Don’t they always?”
Unless you could alter reality to meet some people’s distortions, they would never be satisfied with what you did as union official. Mostly they had some movie-version notion of unions breaking legs and forcing evil enemies to obey. People watch too many movies. Being unable to alter reality, I was at times at a loss. Explaining reality to them was another problem.
I said, “You know, in the past when I’ve suggested they talk to you, they say they’re afraid of you.”
“Good. They should be. The farther away the stupider ones stay, the better. I hate those suckups, and I’m not even in the same department as you.” She taught physics and calculus to seniors and juniors.
“What if the media calls?” I asked.
“You’ve handled them as much as I have. I have complete faith in you.”
I appreciated the vote of support.
She said, “I’m going to see if any of my other charges need to be protected from errant administrators.”
I thanked her for her help. She left.
Todd Bristol, my attorney, entered the room. He was tall and waspishly thin. He shut his umbrella with a snap. He took off his Burberry overcoat and folded it carefully over a student’s desk. I had only ever seen him in his courtroom attire. His charcoal trousers were held up by black suspenders stretched over a white shirt. He wore a perfectly knotted tie and glasses with thin gold rims.
I told him everything. He said, “Keep your mouth shut. No DNA sample.”
I said, “I want to go home.”
Todd said, “Let’s find the cops.”
The hallways were deserted. It was quiet. The old school smells, chalk and human sweat, permeated the atmosphere. I glanced out a window. Rain continued to pour. The part of the faculty parking lot I could see was nearly empty. I wished Frank Rohde, my friend on the River’s Edge police force, were still in homicide.
10
Scott, Todd Bristol, and I found the cops in a room on the first floor. They had firm, set looks on their faces. I introduced my attorney. Gault’s frown deepened. Vulmea looked pissed.
Gault held a small notebook in his right hand and tapped it on his left wrist. He said, “We’ve got a little problem.”
My attorney said nothing, so I kept my mouth shut. That’s why they created lawyers: so that someone knows what to say when the police come calling.
Gault rested his butt on a student’s desk. I saw a mustard stain in the middle of the wrinkles and creases of his dress pants. Scott would never have let me get out the door with such a sartorial faux pas. Gault said, “You claim Brandon Benson and Steven Frecking were with you when you found the body.”
My attorney said, “That’s what my client told you.”
“Yes, he did. Unfortunately, the two gentleman in question deny they were there.”
Scott moved closer to me and put his hand on my shoulder. My attorney kept his eyes on the cops.
I began, “I–”
My attorney said, “Be silent.”
I clamped my mouth shut. I was mystified and furious. Those two assholes–who I’d been thinking of checking on, to see if they needed any help–had turned on me. As far as I was concerned, those two shits could fry. I was eager to tell what they’d really been doing and whose DNA the cops should check for, but my attorney had said, “Be silent.”
My attorney said, “Tom has told you what he knows.”
Gault said, “And now we have it contradicted by two people.”
My attorney said, “Why would he add those two to such a scene at such a moment?”
“To divert suspicion from himself,” Vulmea said.
My attorney asked, “How would making two people up who could easily deny it divert any suspicion or make any sense? It might make sense if he made up one person, but not two.”
“Killers do crazy things,” Gault said, “illogical things, irrational things. They’ve just committed murder. They’re out of control.”
“Does my client look out of control to you? Has he looked out of control?”
“Maybe he’s a psychopath who’s plotting and planning every second. Maybe he’ll kill again.”
My attorney said, “You can’t have it both ways. If he’s plotting and planning, then he’s not out of control. If he’s not out of control, then he planned the murder carefully and my question remains, why would he add two people to the scene who were not there? Your question should be, why did they lie?”
Gault said, “Maybe you’re right, but we’ve got two guys’ word against one.”
“Did you talk to them together?” my attorney asked.
Gault said, “I know my job.”
“Did their stories match?”
“Yeah.”
“Where did they claim they were?” my attorney asked.
“In Mr. Benson’s room discussing a kid’s grade. Some athlete who was failing.”
My attorney said, “Tom, it’s okay to tell the police the reason they are lying.”
I hated to rat out my fellow teachers, but this wasn’t some gang or mafia vendetta where the code of silence might be breached and death follow dishonor. That crap mostly exis
ts in the minds of teenage boys when they are attempting to cover their own butts for bullying and doing minor illegal drug offenses. Or in wild imaginations of mindless school administrators when they’ve done something stupid. However, my statement would also out both men, which, on general principles, I opposed. Outing the innocent was wrong. Outing the guilty, however, struck me as a way, in this instance, to get even. Not only were they trying to make me into a liar, but worse, a murder suspect. And my lawyer had given me the go-ahead. What’s not to like? I said, “They were making out.”
“They’re gay?” Vulmea asked.
“I have no idea. What I saw was each of them with their hands on the front of the pants of the other. Their clothes were awry. They were kissing.”
“In school?” Vulmea asked.
My attorney ignored the obviousness of the response to this question and said, “So, you’ll have to talk to them again. Anything else?”
Gault said, “This is bullshit.”
My attorney said, “I couldn’t have put it better.”
I said, “The superintendent told us a rumor that you’d found fresh evidence of sexual activity.”
Vulmea said, “We’re not commenting on that.”
Gault said, “We got a call from Frank Rohde. He said he wouldn’t be able to get here tonight. He said to trust you. Must be nice to have friends high up on the force.”
The cops picked up their coats and notebooks and left.
“Those fuckers,” I said.
My attorney said, “Are you referring to the police or to your colleagues?” “Both,” I said.
Scott said, “They really think they can tell that kind of lie and get away with it?”
My attorney said, “It takes a special kind of stupid to make up that kind of lie. It’s late.” We returned to my classroom where he unfolded his coat with meticulous precision, put it on, and picked up his umbrella. He added, “Don’t talk to the cops without me present.”
We left.
11
The rain fell in sheets. I dashed to the car. The parking lot was as dark and gloomy as usual. One quarter of the overhead lights gave weak illumination to the bleak scene. Some were out as a result of student vandalism. Most didn’t work because the custodians did not put a high priority on replacing burned-out lights in the parking lot. The media trucks and their bright lights were out in front of the school. The teachers’ parking lot was in back. We weren’t permitted to park out front.
Scott would drive his own car back home. Inside mine I set the XM radio to the folk music station. I put the SUV in reverse to pull out. The car wouldn’t move. I shoved it in drive and pulled forward to the bumper block then tried backing out. No luck. I didn’t want to just try and run something over. There shouldn’t have been an obstruction.
I turned off the car and got out.
I didn’t remember running over a dead body as I pulled in that morning. That’s the kind of thing I notice. But that’s what was blocking the rear wheels of my car now.
12
I recognized the corpse. It was Peter Higden, one of the greatest suckups in modern history. He was a fifth-year teacher. You’d see him in the department office in the mornings, bringing in doughnuts. He’d be in the main office before and after school, smiling and using his charm on the secretaries. He was bluff, friendly, and a Nazi. Few dared say anything to him about his prejudice because he was also African American. I heard him make an anti-Semitic remark once. I was appalled that the other six people listening to him said not a word. I did. I told him that it was an unacceptable and rude comment. He did apologize, and he stopped making any kind of slurs around me. Others told me he still made all kinds of slurs about any number of groups. I often asked why they didn’t speak up. They claimed they were afraid.
It must have been frightening to sit down on a bus and not move in Montgomery, Alabama, in the mid-1950s. Speaking up about a slur in a school in 2007? Courage? Can they say adult? Cowards needed to die as badly as the suckups. That’s what the bullies want: silence in the face of their unpardonable behavior. And when their behavior gets thrown back at them, they act all stunned and innocent. The world had changed since the 1950s. Obviously not enough.
Higden’s bushy, throwback-to-the-seventies hair was caught under my left rear tire. His jacket was slightly awry. Rain flowed into his lifeless eyes and beaded down his cheeks. I felt for the pulse in his neck. Nothing. He was dead.
Two deaths in less than eight hours.
I leaned against the side of the car. I don’t remember if I felt the rain pelting down on me. I shook my head and bent over. Death in unexpected places was always a shock. For a few moments I thought I might be ill. Marine training or not, all this was not easy to take.
I saw Scott pulling around. He drove up to see what the delay was. He peered out his windows at me. His windshield wipers swished back and forth. I opened the passenger door of his Porsche and climbed in.
He said, “What’s wrong?”
“Peter Higden is dead.”
He looked out the windows. “Who is he? Somebody on the radio?”
“No. One of the teachers.”
“Where?”
“About three feet from here. Just this side of the back wheels of my car.”
“Did you hit him?”
“I haven’t moved from my parking space. I tried to go backwards. He was wedged behind the rear wheels. I couldn’t move the car.” I shuddered. “At least I didn’t try and use the four-wheel drive to climb over him.”
Scott said, “Nor did he plop in your path.”
“Close enough.”
He touched my arm and asked, “Are you okay?” “I’ve been better.”
He pressed the OnStar system button. In a few seconds a voice came through the radio speakers. He told them to send the police. They didn’t need to ask where we were. The satellite system would pinpoint our location.
Scott took out his cell phone and dialed our attorney. Todd had gotten to the interstate but promised to come back immediately.
Scott turned off the windshield wipers and then the engine. He left the headlights on so the police would be able to spot us more easily. The rain thudded on the roof. I pulled my jacket tighter around me. It was a warm, furry one I’d purchased when we were in Provincetown last summer.
“Cold?” he asked.
I nodded. He turned the engine back on and turned up the heater.
“Did you know him?” Scott asked.
“A leader of the suckups. I didn’t know him all that well.
“I think I remember you talking about him. The African American Nazi?”
“Yep.” I sighed. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“He was a leader?” Scott asked.
“He went out drinking with the gang every Friday night. That was their criterion for letting you into the group’s secrets.”
Scott said, “Did they have a secret handshake?”
“Only if it involved fewer than two steps.”
“You used to go out with the staff, didn’t you? I remember stories of mild escapades.”
“Years ago. Not with these people, and mild is the operative word. We were young. We went out. We were enjoying the world. We weren’t trying to shove our crap down everyone else’s throats.”
“Which does seem to be the operative problem tonight,” he said.
“It was, until this guy decided to nap under my tires.”
Twirling red and blue lights interrupted our morbid repartee.
It was the same two detectives. Gault said, “You again.” “I found another one,” I said.
Half an hour later, I was being interviewed. We stood under umbrellas in the pouring rain. Scott always kept an extra one in the car. He made sure we had one in both cars, along with a first-aid kit, flares, the OnStar system, and every other crisis-management equipment devised for auto travel. He used to keep a full gas can in the back of his car. I had put my foot down about that, but the likelihoo
d was that he stopped only because carrying extra gas had been ruled hazardous.
Cars’ headlights, more rotating Mars lights, and cop floodlights illumined the scene.
“You know this guy?” Gault asked.
“Yep.”
“Colleague.”
“Yep.”
“This guy know the other corpse?” Gault asked.
“We were in the same department.”
“They friends or enemies?”
“They were on the same side in the fights.”
“They get along?”
“As far as I know.”
“You fight with him?”
“Never directly.”
“What does that mean?”
“We had differing views on some issues, but we never disagreed in public. I never had a private discussion of educational philosophy with him.” I added the bit about the anti-Semitic remark.
Scott asked, “How did he die?”
Gault said, “We’re waiting for the medical examiner.”
“Did he die here?” I asked.
Gault said, “When we can tell you something, we’ll let you know. For now, stick around.” My attorney said, “No.” Gault glared at him.
I said, “I’m tired. I’m hungry. I didn’t kill him. I’m going home. Unless you’re going to charge me, I’m not staying. You have my address. My car hasn’t moved. Scott will drive me home.”
My attorney nodded.
Then Vulmea asked, “Mr. Carpenter, may I have your autograph? For my kids.”
They always added “for my kids.” I sighed. Scott is unfailingly polite. The cop held out a scrap of paper. Scott signed.
13
At home I changed into jeans, thick white socks, and a heavy sweatshirt. I checked our messages while Scott began putting dinner together. I had a call from Meg Swarthmore. She wanted to know if I was all right and if I needed to cancel our usual Friday-morning breakfast. The message said that no call from me meant that breakfast was on. I didn’t call.
Schooled in Murder Page 6