Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead?

by Mark Richard Zubro

  Kurt finished: “I only coached Roger, but he didn’t strike me as overly bright. The only real intelligent one of the bunch was Conlan. Sorry I can’t help you more. Both Montini and Windham had a lot of these kids in class as well as coaching them on the basketball team. I don’t envy you talking to them.”

  Before I left, we set a tentative Friday-night date for a Christmas visit from Scott and me and for me to pick up more negotiations material.

  At noon, I went to talk to Pete Montini. I found him in his classroom near the gym. Pete is tall, broad, and bald. He has the well-muscled body of a recently in-shape heavyweight wrestler. Rumor says he has the worst breath among any of the faculty. Behind his back, the kids call him “Dragon Mouth.” He also is known for his prodigious ability to consume candy bars. His muscles look a few ounces away from a great deal of fat, with a heart attack soon to follow. The head basketball coach, he also teaches several American government classes.

  Pete is in his mid-forties—a man soured on kids and teaching but with no place else to go. He is the living vision of the cliché “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” He’d wanted to be a pro football player, had the height and weight to play, but, for reasons unknown to me, had never made it. Ten years ago, he’d picked up a kid and thrown him down the school’s front stairs. He barely escaped an assault charge. They’d suspended him for thirty days without pay. He came back a chastened and frightened man.

  When I walked into his room, he and Paul Conlan abruptly stopped talking. I apologized for interrupting and turned to leave. Pete stopped me. He said it was all right—the boy was just leaving.

  As he walked out, I asked Paul whether I could see him after school to discuss Jeff and Sunday’s party. He gave the coach a fearful look. I saw Pete give him a brief nod of permission. I wondered what the connection was there. The kid left.

  “He looks worried,” I said.

  “Grades. Eligibility. He wants me to talk to one of his teachers.”

  Paul Conlan worried about grades? I guessed it was possible. Pete eased into a broken-down swivel chair and invited me to sit. I found a bare spot on his desk and did so. Chicago Bears posters covered the walls. The Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus ones dated back to before the Bears won the Super Bowl. Kids’ shouts seeped into the classroom from the gym next door. Pete pulled out a bottom desk drawer and rested his feet on it. He leaned back in his chair, picked up a tennis racket from the top of his desk, and twirled it in sporadic jerks.

  I gave my little spiel about helping Jeff and asked for anything he could tell me about the kids at the party.

  He said, “I’ve coached Jeff for three years. He’d never hurt her. They were in love.” The racket twirled. “Although,” he said slowly, “Jeff’s got quite a temper. I can see him going out of control.” He told me about a basketball game early in December. A ref had called Jeff for a foul. Montini thought it was a bum call, but Jeff had gone nuts. Before Montini could bench him, Jeff had two technical fouls called against him. Then the kid threw a chair and the ref tossed him out of the game.

  The information I had so far didn’t look good for Jeff. It confirmed that he had a violent temper. I’d seen it myself the night before with his dad. I asked about the other kids.

  He said, “First, I’ve got to add a couple nice things about Jeff. He’s easy to coach. Always does what I tell him. A good athlete. Not great. He’s never going to be in the pros, but he’d be a starter on most high school teams.” He added that Mr. Trask expected Jeff to play in the pros. The father pushed his son really hard for success, but Montini didn’t understand it. Mr. Trask wouldn’t be the first dad disappointed over a son’s career. Jeff played a decent game of basketball but was better at football. His emotion worked for him there.

  “I don’t want you to get the impression I’m down on Jeff or anything. I like the kid. Why, one time, he even stayed overnight at my house.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  “I’ve had kids stay overnight a few times. Mostly if they don’t have anywhere to go, usually had a big fight with their parents. Mostly guys from the team. It’s no big deal.”

  He told the story about Jeff between tosses and twirls of the tennis racket. After the last home football game in October, Montini had walked out to his car. Jeff and his dad had been standing nose to nose in the middle of the parking lot, screaming at each other. The argument centered around what Mr. Trask thought Jeff should have done in the game. The old man pointed out every fault the boy had, including the way he sat on the bench. His dad stormed off. Montini’d thought father and son had similar tempers. Jeff had planned to stay at his dad’s that night. He told Montini that he and his dad didn’t get along, even though they didn’t see each other that much. The boy didn’t want to hassle with his mom. It was after eleven, so Montini let him stay over at his place.

  “I never met the father before last night,” I said.

  “The man is a son of a bitch. When he comes to the games, he screams at his boy in front of everybody. The kid has a hard time concentrating on the game with his damn dad bellowing at him.”

  I’d known that type of parent—living through the sports achievements of their kids. I’d seen them at games, torturing their sons and daughters with bellowed advice while the poor kids tried to master a few skills their coach had taught them. The idiot parents expected all-pro play from high school kids. Once I’d seen a parent get his comeuppance. At a basketball game in front of four thousand people, a kid turned to his dad, who from ten rows up in the bleachers had been screaming at his son. The boy stood still while the rest of the players ran down the court. Then he came to the edge of the stands, looked up to where his dad sat, pointed at his dad, and yelled, “Shut up, you stupid motherfucker.” The crowd around the father cheered the son. Instead of suspending him for the season, they should have given the kid a medal. I appreciated the impulse and wished I could see it more often. My parents came to most of my games in high school, and once or twice in college. My dad got excited sometimes, but he never embarrassed me in front of packed bleachers—an important consideration for a teenager.

  Montini twirled the tennis racket in his left hand, then tossed it to his right. “Now your Susan Warren, she got friends because she dated Jeff. Unfortunately, they weren’t the greatest girls. Susan was a follower. She was closest to Conlan’s girl, Becky Twitchell.”

  He hated Becky Twitchell. He had her in class two years ago. He hadn’t dared turn his back on the class the whole semester. He was sure she was the one behind the vandalism in the boys’ locker room. Every football and basketball had been slashed to ribbons, along with several thousand dollars’ damage to the room itself. “It all happened after I gave her an F for the first quarter. I’m sure it was that bitch.”

  “Why would a guy go out with a creep like Becky?” I asked.

  “Why not? She’s hot-looking. If she was older, I’d be interested. Or maybe she’s easy.” He gave me a leer, then continued. “She’s pretty and a cheerleader. Susan, being a quiet kid, would fall in with Becky pretty easily. Susan was a nice kid. Sometimes she would wait for Jeff after practice. It was kind of cute. They were pretty serious about each other.” He didn’t know of any problems they might have been having.

  Pete didn’t know Roger and Doris. Paul, of course, was God. “The kid has everything. He’s going places. He’s got half the recruiters in the country breathing down his neck. He’s good-natured, polite, cooperative, mature, a leader. I can’t say enough good things about him. We’d have a state-championship team if I had only one more kid half as good as he is.”

  Pete knew of no one who might have a motive for killing Susan.

  The odd thing I thought about as I left the room was that Pete Montini had been friendly and more cooperative than I’d ever dreamed. I’d known him for twelve years and every single conversation with him until then had contained at least one complaint, plus sarcasm and nasty digs. As building rep, I’d dealt with all the griev
ances he’d filed with the union. He didn’t particularly like me, I didn’t think. I had a tendency to tell him when his complaints were silly bullshit. I guess a good union representative is supposed to smile quietly and go along with whatever inanities the complainer brings. Somehow, I can’t go along with that. He hasn’t complained about the quality of representation I’ve given him. I shrugged it off for the moment. Maybe murder was enough to make him a little cooperative.

  In the hallway outside my classroom, I ran into Meg Swarth-more. She grasped my elbow and dragged me into my classroom. “I must talk to Detective Inspector Mason,” she said.

  I like Meg. We’ve been friends for years. She’s the school librarian—a tiny woman, not over five feet tall, plump in a grandmotherly way. She’s in her sixties and could have retired years ago.

  Meg’s the ultimate clearinghouse for all school gossip. She hears everything. If there were secrets to be known, Meg would have them to tell. She has one cardinal rule: Never reveal a source.

  I told her what’d happened so far.

  When I finished, she said, “A hell of a mess. I’m glad you’re going to help. It might be the only chance that boy has.”

  “You’re exaggerating, Meg.” I reddened under her praise.

  “Don’t give me that humble bullshit. You can hide how much you do for these kids from lots of people around here, but not from me, and not from your friends like Kurt. We know you too well.”

  I told her my suspicions about how friendly Montini had been and about my projected talk with Windham.

  She harrumphed sarcastically. “The two of them are a waste of good breathable atmosphere. Talking to them is less than useless. They’re a couple of losers. I don’t see why they’re teachers. They hate kids. I’ve heard them say so in the lounge. The two of them are both horny, nuts, and desperate. I know for a fact they’ve both cheated on their wives.”

  “Come on, Meg.”

  “You doubt my veracity?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Good thing. If you ask me, either one of those two is as likely to be the killer as Jeff Trask.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re a couple of worn-out ex-jocks who haven’t gotten beyond the last touchdown they scored in high school. Do you know where they were at the time of the killing?”

  “No. But you’re being prejudiced.”

  She gave me a wicked grin. “You betcha. You want the lowdown on Pete?” I nodded. “This first is opinion. He’d sell his grandmother and his soul for a winning team. He pressures kids on his teams unmercifully. He has no concept of what it does to the kids emotionally. The boys on the team, however, like him in general. No major fights among the faculty. Congenial head of the department. Not the brightest.”

  “How about George Windham?”

  “Mr. Mystery of the faculty. Been here five years, and as sneaky as they come.”

  “You mean he’s escaped your usually omnipotent grapevine.” She nodded. “Yeah. That doesn’t happen often, and that makes me very suspicious. Around here, if I don’t know it, then it shouldn’t be there to tell. Sarah, his wife, worked in the English department years ago. She wasn’t around long enough for me to find out anything. But I’ve got a hunch about George. Drugs and kids. Don’t ask me more now. I’ve had suspicions for a long time. I’ll come back with something solid as soon as I can.”

  She got up to leave but turned back at the door. “Everything’s set for our annual brunch, Saturday.”

  Every year, Scott and I spend the first Saturday of my Christmas vacation at Meg’s. We exchange presents and share a two-hour lunch.

  I have an after-school tutoring group every day except Fridays. After they left, I hurried to the gym to talk to George Windham. I found him in the hall outside the gym, clad in sweat-drenched maroon gym shorts and a T-shirt carefully ripped to show athletic muscles. He held a basketball in one hand. He breathed deeply. The lopsided grin that greeted me showed his perfect teeth and a youthful smile, indication of the goofy good humor he showed on numerous occasions. Over the years, he’d lost his southern Illinois twang. George could be friendly, cheerful, and happy-go-lucky. He could also be one of the greatest bitches in the teachers’ lounge. His imitation of the administrators in the district were legendary, and more than once brought me to tears of laughter. He also said some of the dumbest things. On occasion, I thought his whole dumb routine was more an act than real. How he could have an even partly sunny disposition with six kids at home I couldn’t imagine. He worked construction jobs in the summer and other odd jobs at night to help make ends meet.

  George had been officially reprimanded by the administration five times—all since he had gotten tenure. Twice he’d been caught walking out of teachers’ institutes at noon and not returning. He hadn’t mentioned to me when he came crying for help the second time that there’d been a distinct odor of marijuana in his car when the administrator had caught him at the edge of the parking lot. I found that out through the school gossip vine.

  Once, he’d kept a kid after school until eight at night. The kid’s frantic parents finally located him. Once, he’d got into a shouting match with one of the administrators in front of an auditorium filled with kids. Another time, he’d failed to complete all the paperwork in his homeroom’s folders at the end of the school year. He’d declared that paperwork was beneath him and chose not to do it.

  I managed to convince him to break his habit of sneaking in late every day, before he got caught.

  George always had a pleasant tease ready for me as a greeting, usually as a preface to a new problem or complaint. I think he viewed me as a necessary curmudgeon who’d gotten him out of numerous tight scrapes with the administration. In all the years and with all the dumb things he’s done, they still give him a paycheck. Maybe it’s his considerable good looks.

  “I’ve got to stop playing one-on-one with these kids,” he panted. “I’m not getting any younger.”

  “I bet they like it. Did you win?”

  “Of course; it wouldn’t do for a coach to lose to a kid.”

  I gave my spiel about Jeff. He glanced in the gym door, called a kid over, and told him to tell Mr. Montini he’d be right back.

  We eased into a nearby classroom. The first thing he said was, “My guess is some teenage murderer’s on the loose, like in a teenage horror movie. I can think of a whole list of kids I’d like him to start with. I’d even help with some of them.”

  When he got serious, he started with Roger Daniels. He was a decent kid. On the team bus, Roger led the chants and songs. He could be a real spark plug on the team. They found him tough to motivate because he wanted to goof around too much. If they were lucky during a game, an opponent would make him mad. Then Roger could devastate the other team on offense or defense.

  Another kid with a temper problem.

  Eric Trask, when he’d worked with him two years ago, had been too dumb to be a real asset on the basketball team, but he was too tall to be cut. “He still hangs around with some of the guys,” he said. “They seem to like him. Susan and Doris never said much in class and I only had them one semester, so I don’t really know them. Even with the kids on the team, you’ve got to remember, I don’t know them all that well. I’m only an assistant coach. I’m not in love with these kids the way Montini is.”

  “I heard your name mentioned concerning kids and drugs,” I said. “I’m not accusing, just checking out everything.”

  His face turned beet red under his light blond hair. “Who told?” he asked.

  “It’s true?”

  He gave a disgusted sigh. He walked to the windows and turned to face me. The December gloom gathered behind him. “You ever go home to a houseful of squalling kids and a nagging wife? I swear that woman keeps a chart of all my movements. She remembers everything: how long it takes to get home from work; what time practices end. She has it down to the minute. Sometimes I need something to calm me down so I can face all that. I mean the goddamn house is
one vast dirty diaper. Half-dressed kids run around screaming and yelling. I’m only twenty-eight and I feel like ninety-eight. I’ve got to have some diversion. And don’t tell me you haven’t at least tried a little dope, not after having been a Marine in Vietnam.”

  I ignored his comment and said, “Alcohol, I could maybe understand, but drugs and kids?”

  “That was an accident. It only happened a couple times. My supplier from Carbondale used to get me stuff sent up here. He got busted a few months back. I was desperate. Finally, an old buddy put me in touch with some people here. A couple turned out to be connected with Grover Cleveland. Once or twice, it was just easier to pick the stuff up from the kids, and some of them happened to be current students.”

  “George, that’s stupid,” I said. “They could turn on you at some point. You could lose your job, career, go to jail. Buying drugs from kids is dumb.”

  “I’ve got my old supplier back,” he assured me. His boyish smile lit his face. “He got paroled two weeks ago. I’m safe.”

  I gave him a disgusted look, then asked, “What about the other kids?”

  “Paul Conlan is great. Tops in school, tops on the basketball court. Always polite. Self-assured. Going places.

  “Now, Becky Twitchell is poison. I had her as a freshman. Caught a note she was trying to pass. I started to read it in front of the class. She screamed and got abusive. The note was more pornographic than anything I’d ever read, offering to perform specific lascivious acts for some boy.”

  Lots of teachers found reading notes out loud a useful tactic. I found it an intrusive waste of time. I took the notes and deposited them in the nearest trash can. What was the point of humiliating the kids? Probably, they’ve been passing notes since people first scrawled on stone tablets. There may be times to embarrass kids as an effective teaching tool, but I’m not aware of them. As an adult, I don’t know anybody who enjoys being embarrassed, so I don’t think kids do, either.