Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead?

by Mark Richard Zubro

  He hesitated, cleared his throat, gave me a pleading look. I said, “Roger, what the hell is going on?”

  Finally, he said, “Mr. Mason, you’ve got to see what’s happening. It’s over the whole school about what happened to your classroom. If they can do that here in school, think what they could do to us.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Come on, Roger. You know I can be trusted.”

  “I know. But all the same, I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Is Becky behind all this?”

  He looked pained and defensive and didn’t answer, but I presumed I was right.

  “Who had a reason to kill Susan?”

  “Nobody. She just hung around with us. I think the girls thought she was kind of okay. She was part of the crowd only because she dated Jeff.”

  I asked him about the possibility of drug or alcohol abuse at the party. I got nowhere with him on that topic. The bell rang for second hour. I could learn nothing more from him at that moment, so I let him go.

  At noon, I called to see whether there’d been any progress in getting Jeff released. Mrs. Trask reported she’d be in court that afternoon. They’d managed to find a judge who would set a reasonable bail.

  I expected Eric at four. In my restored room I spent the time after my tutoring group left wading through a stack of senior essays on Wordsworth and Coleridge. Seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds have amazingly weird notions about English Romantic poetry. I was halfway through the stack when Eric walked in. He arrived precisely on time.

  Exceptionally lean and gawky, Eric was tall enough to be a basketball star, but uncoordinated enough to be stuck on the bench most of the time, when he wasn’t ineligible because of his grades. Since graduation last June, he’d grown a mustache. His hair, more than fashionably long in back, was often gathered into a mini ponytail. On occasion, I’d seen him sporting a diamond stud earring. His thick eyebrows formed a straight line across his face, on which an ocean of zits mixed with scraggly wisps of beard.

  He dumped his winter hat, coat, and gloves on a chair, along with his gym bag. He draped himself into a front-row seat. He wore designer jeans and a tight silk shirt. He’d obviously changed from his mechanic’s work clothes. He moved his ass to the edge of the seat, planted his feet wide apart, and crossed his arms over his bony chest. He’d driven my car over. I offered him a ride home, but he said he’d stop at basketball practice and get a ride with one of the guys.

  That out of the way, he said, “Jeff didn’t kill her.”

  I could understand a brother standing up for his own, but he sounded absolutely definite.

  “Who did?”

  “Beats the hell out of me. Jeff may be a good athlete, tough and all, but he’s got the soul of a nerd and the heart of a wimp. Every time we wanted to do stuff, he’d wimp out. Like if me, Paul, and Roger wanted to go cruising to pick up girls, Jeff wouldn’t go along. Said Susan was his girl and that was it. We were doing it just for fun. Nobody ever got lucky. But you never know, you might.” His grin revealed uneven teeth. “I’d say he was pretty much by himself. He hung around with us, but he said the least.”

  “What about his temper?”

  “We had fights. All brothers do.” He shrugged. “He loses it pretty quick at games, that’s all.”

  “That doesn’t sound wimpy to me.”

  “Yeah, it is. He loses his temper over crybaby stuff. He only makes the refs mad. He sees the college and NBA guys do it on TV, and he thinks it’s okay. It’s bush-league bullshit.”

  “How was he Sunday? His usual self?”

  “All he did was try to get Susan to leave early. We all ragged at him about it. He got kind of mad. He and Paul almost got into it. Nothing came of it. They sort of wrestled for a minute, but they ended up laughing.”

  Eric talked for a few minutes about Jeff’s performance on the basketball court. Jeff was an above-average player except when his father showed up. His dad tended to yell and carry on, causing his son to freeze on the court. Soon after Dad would start, Jeff lost his temper over something in the game. Eric said, “I don’t see the big deal about being yelled at. Montini does it all game every game. On the bench, we used to laugh behind his back. On the court, the starters ignore him. I guess Jeff can tune out the coach, but it’s hard to ignore my dad, he’s such a pig.”

  Eric laughed. “Montini used to yell at me because I’m six eight, and I think he had visions of state championships with me as a center. But I’m a klutz and stupid. It took him a couple years to get used to that.”

  “Your mom said Coach Windham called.”

  He looked surprised and guilty. “That was to see if he could help Jeff.” All my teacher instincts told me he lied. I wished I knew why.

  I asked how Montini treated the kids, especially Jeff and Paul. Eric said that the ones colleges recruited got special attention and extra practices. Also, Paul, Jeff, and some of these guys hung around after practice to bullshit with Montini. The coach wanted to get kids placed in colleges. Montini told them his dream was to coach at a major university, then the pros. It seemed that the more players he placed in colleges, the better his chances were of moving up.

  The last few losing seasons must have driven him nuts. More loses, less recruiting, I guessed.

  Eric concluded, “I like the guys on the team. That’s why I was there Sunday. I’ve known Paul since grade school. I’m two years older than he is, but he was always on our teams because he was so good.”

  I asked about Susan.

  “She’s quiet. Never bothered me. Seemed to be more with it this year.” He shrugged. “I can’t figure why somebody’d want to kill her.”

  “I’ve been having trouble with the other kids. They won’t talk about what happened Sunday.”

  “They’re worried about Becky. She talked to everybody, me included. She wants us to keep our mouths shut.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s hard to tell with Becky. She’s pretty weird. She threatened to get revenge on anybody who cooperated with you. She lives in a dopey little world of cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys.”

  “How’d she threaten you?”

  “She said she’d tell about the time I ‘borrowed’ a car last month.”

  “You’re not back to stealing cars!” I said.

  When he was a freshman, one of the cars he’d stolen had been mine. I told you he wasn’t too bright. Even back then, my car had a penchant for breaking down at inopportune moments. When it was stolen, it chose to die a block from school. He’d been seen by half the student body either when he’d taken the car, while driving it, or as he kicked at it when it wouldn’t go. Rust now covered most of the places he’d managed to dent in his frustration. I didn’t turn him in to the cops. I wound up talking to him about it. When he got arrested for the same thing several years later, the cops wouldn’t turn him over to his buddies who tried to bail him out. He refused to call his parents, so he’d tried me. I’d shown up, saved his ass. I’ve already mentioned the drug incident, which occurred a few months later. He’d promised to get help.

  Now he shook his head vigorously. “Honest, Mr. Mason, I really borrowed it from a guy. He’s a good friend. You don’t know him. He told me I could use it anytime. I took his word. As soon as he found out it was me, everything was cool.”

  If Becky called the police about it, I didn’t think they could do anything to Eric, but she could cause him some trouble. If he got arrested again, he was due for a trip to Stateville.

  He scratched his head. “Becky is one tough nut. I think she’s dangerous.”

  I waited for him to continue. He tugged on the earring in his left ear, sat up straighter. “I’ve always trusted you, from the first time when you didn’t turn me in for taking your car.” I nodded. “You can’t say anything about what I tell you or where you heard it.”

  I promised.

  “Becky’s the school’s biggest drug pusher. She’s af
raid with all the cops around, she’ll lose business, maybe even get caught. That’s why she called everybody. She runs the whole drug operation. I think she’s afraid the cops’ll uncover the whole thing if they investigate the murder.” He tugged on a wisp of beard. “Rumor has it she sells to teachers.”

  That kids made drug deals in school did not surprise me. I knew faculty members did drugs, George Windham being an obvious example. “Are you sure she’s the main pusher?” I asked.

  “Everybody says it. I’ve seen her deal a lot at our parties, and a couple times in the school parking lot when I came to pick up some buddies.”

  “Which teachers does she sell to?”

  He twisted his fingers together, cracked his knuckles in one jerky motion.

  “You’ve gone this far,” I prompted.

  “Yeah, I guess.” He rattled off a list of seven or eight faculty members, among them Pete Montini and George Windham. Most were younger teachers, new to the district, whom I didn’t know.

  “Were Jeff or Susan involved in the drug pushing?”

  “Not that I ever knew.”

  “Do you know anything about how Becky’s system worked or where she got it from?”

  This time, he got up and strolled to the window. He cracked his knuckles several more times as he stared at the snow outside. Finally, he turned back. “I hate that bitch so much. You really can’t say anything to anybody.”

  I renewed my promise of discretion.

  “I mean she can take real revenge. I know one guy who crossed her. He wound up with his dad’s new Mercedes in Lake Michigan. Somebody ran him off Lake Shore Drive. The kids say it was Becky, but nobody could prove anything. He was lucky to get out alive.”

  He sighed and sat back down. He started to crack his knuckles again.

  “Don’t, please,” I said.

  He grinned at me. “Sorry. Anyway, supposedly there’s this farmhouse about an hour or so west of here. It’s like a supply depot or something. Everybody’s heard about it, but nobody’s actually been except Becky.”

  It really wasn’t a lot of help, not terribly specific, and I didn’t see how it hooked in with Susan’s death—unless her murder was connected with some kind of drug war, which made little sense, and for which I had no proof. I’d have to keep asking around. Eric knew no more. After extracting repeated promises to say nothing to anyone, he left.

  Scott had an afternoon engagement at a hospital, visiting AIDS patients and giving out toys to kids, so he wouldn’t be picking me up until six. I didn’t want to leave in my car and miss him. I graded papers for a while, finally finishing last week’s stacks. I began working on my packet of negotiations materials. We had a meeting scheduled during Christmas vacation.

  I’d gotten five pages into it when I felt another presence in the room. It was Carolyn Blackburn. Scott stood behind her.

  “I got done early,” he said. “I wasn’t sure where your room was.”

  “I needed to speak to you, so I came down with him,” Carolyn said.

  Carolyn stood in front of my desk. Her gray eyes looked grim; her mouth was set in a firm line. “I got another call from the superintendent,” she said. “I quote: ‘Inform Mr. Mason he is not to harass any of the students or faculty about the Susan Warren murder. A school board member has complained.’”

  Superintendent Oliver Sandgrace, in office less than a year, I’d never met. I’d seen him at a distance. All I’d noticed was that when he smiled, he had gaps between upper and lower front teeth. I’d heard he was a former physical-education teacher from farm country near Galena, Illinois, on the Mississippi River.

  Scott perched on the window ledge. Carolyn pulled a student’s desk closer to mine and sat down.

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’d be happy to meet with whoever’s complaining and talk it over.”

  “Boards don’t work like that, Tom. You should know that after all these years.”

  “How do they work?” Scott asked.

  She smiled wearily. “People generally get elected to a school board because some faction in the community is mad about one issue. Once on the board, they discover that it’s a lot of meetings about intricate and boring financial responsibilities. Their one issue fades, and they find themselves in the morass of educational silliness involving state mandates, useless reforms, contradictory regulations, and that doesn’t even talk about the federal government’s convolutions.”

  “Why do they stay?” Scott asked.

  “They love to meddle,” I said. I explained that most board members learn to sit at meetings and vote for what the superintendent recommends. They aren’t financial planners or budgetary experts. They’re housewives, mechanics, good people mostly, but they have to rely on those they hire. That’s a simplification, but it sums up the basics. What’s left is their status in the community. Drunk on minuscule power and minimal expertise, they spend time listening to the complaints of their neighbors. They want to be liked and popular and get reelected, so they tell their neighbors they can take care of the problems, like some ward boss in Chicago. It’s a power trip.

  In some districts, board members call and administrators jump. In many schools, the philosophy is give the board members whatever they want, no matter whether the decision is educationally sound or not.

  I’ve known board members who’ve used their position simply to keep their quite average students in honors classes; and they blame the teachers of those same groups when their C + children inevitably fail. Of course, some teachers have caught on to this game, too. A few toady up to board members, give their kids A’s, and tell the parents what they want to hear. We’ve got one elderly teacher, in the district since day one, who’s made a career out of giving easy grades. The parents love her. As Mark Twain said, “In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards.”

  I concluded, saying, “Some administrators let parents walk all over the teachers and themselves.”

  “Tom’s being overly dramatic and a little harsh, but not all that inaccurate. They like to meddle, to show off their power, and to be anonymous and mysterious.”

  “They prefer to frighten the accused into compliance,” I said, “rather than openly confront those who may have displeased them.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Scott said.

  “That’s life in the educational system,” I said. “Witness the current situation with Mrs. Twitchell as president of the school board.”

  “Yes, that’s the immediate problem,” Carolyn said. “I presume Mrs. Twitchell called. The superintendent talked to me. He asked me to meet with you. You’re supposed to stop.”

  “The board voted?” I asked.

  “Can they do that?” Scott asked.

  Carolyn drummed her fingers on the desktop. “They couldn’t have voted. They don’t meet until next month. Can they do it? I don’t know. The message is to stop.”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “It’s not my decision.”

  “Should I meet with Sandgrace? Try to work it out with him?”

  “You can try. I doubt if it would do any good.”

  “It’s a cover-up,” Scott declared. “It’s got to be Twitchell and her goddamn daughter.”

  Carolyn cleared her throat. “I’d say that’s a shrewd guess. But the superintendent didn’t tell me. I won’t hinder you. I can’t promise any help, and I can’t guarantee that you won’t be in deep trouble if you continue.”

  On the way out, we stopped in the teachers’ lounge. I called Frank Murphy to see how bail had gone. The lawyers had done a great job. Jeff had been released to his mom around four.

  As I put on my coat, I told Scott what I’d learned that day. “Practice should be just about over,” I concluded. “I want to confront Windham and Montini here tonight.”

  The empty corridors echoed our footsteps as we strode to the gym. It was empty. No lights shone. We made our way to the locker room. We heard random bangings. A few kids remained, combing
their hair or bundling into winter coats. In Montini’s office, Paul Conlan and a couple others remained talking to the coaches. I presumed these were the ones Eric referred to as the ones who hung around Montini. Scott’s presence caused a minor stir among the kids. He signed a few autographs. I thought our presence seemed to disturb Montini greatly. George sat coolly, thumping a basketball while he rested his ass on the top of a desk. Montini rushed the kids out and told us he was in a hurry.

  Dimly lit and oppressively humid, the locker room gloomed around us. This section of Grover Cleveland had been built during the Depression. Rows of gray metal lockers muted the distant sound of dripping, ancient showers. The smell of rotting jockstraps oozed into your nostrils. Trophies, charts, and old, dirty brown basketballs cluttered most of the flat surfaces in Montini’s tiny cubicle of an office.

  Montini wore a T-shirt cut off at the midriff, with an ubiquitous cartoon cat on the front. The shirt revealed a quarter-sized mole with hair growing out of it an inch above his navel. He said, “I really have to leave, you guys.” He whiped off the T-shirt. The hair on the mole was the only hair he had on his chest. He threw on a sweat shirt and grabbed his coat from the top of a filing cabinet.

  Windham watched this performance with an amused smirk on his face. He wore a bright yellow warm-up suit.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” George Windham said very softly.

  “My wife expects me home,” Pete Montini said.

  “You guys can’t hide what’s wrong forever,” I said.

  “There’s nothing wrong, and we’re not hiding anything,” George said smoothly. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

  “Drugs and kids,” I said.

  George laughed and said, “Don’t be absurd.

  Pete’s face turned beet red. “You motherfuckers,” he said.

  George stopped him. “We have nothing to say.” He reached for his coat, leaned past my head, and flicked off a row of light switches. Now only the emergency lights gave a soft glow. The natural dimness became eerie and tinged with danger. George began ushering Pete out the door.