by Liz Bradbury
The Neon was about two blocks ahead, it made a quick right on 12th. I hung back and watched. In two more blocks the Neon would be in the Mews. It drove along the west end of the Mews on 12th all the way to Liberty, then made a right turn and traced the Mews to 10th street again turning right. It stopped next to a fire hydrant, close to the southeast corner of the square. It idled with lights out, like an animal waiting for prey. Exhaust steam rose from its butt.
I peered into the dark. No one got out. I was stopped with my lights out a block back on 10th, behind a full sized van. Weird. It idled there for a full ten minutes but this wasn’t where I lived. So what was it doing here after following me? I glanced at the rowhouse façades, they were dark. Even the Hampshire Apartment building had no lighted windows. Everyone in the Mews had called it a night.
The Neon started up again and turned right onto Washington Street. I followed it several blocks, back toward Irwin College, past the Administration Building toward the Student Union. Then it turned right onto College Street. College Street is the mid street between 15th and 16th. I followed on College but there were no other cars, so I had to drive with my lights out. The Neon drove slowly past a few buildings that were very dark, and then sped up. I turned on my lights and sped after it.
The Neon cornered onto Liberty and ripped up the street running a red light at 16th. Opposing traffic screeched to a twisting halt. It cornered right and zoomed toward Fen Street. I couldn’t see where it went next. I was stuck behind traffic. The Neon was gone. Damn.
I drove back to my building taking arbitrary turns now and then to be sure nobody was dogging me. I parked in my garage. It’s a huge loading dock area in the back of the first floor. The ten horsepower motor shrieks and groans when it raises the huge garage door. Sorry neighbors, but I felt safer with my minivan inside tonight.
I came into the building through the garage and up the three flights to my loft. I was tired but I forced myself to exercise. I have an extensive workout space on the top floor above my living area. I lifted weights and used the elliptical for an hour. I’ve read fiction where the woman detective runs on the beach or goes to the gym and then extols the joys of exercise. The character insists it makes her feel happy and exhilarated. Well, I’m here to tell you, that’s crap. I hate exercise. I hate it when I’m planning to do it. I hate it when I’m doing it. It never makes me feel exhilarated. It rarely lessens my stress. It never makes me feel happy with the world. That’s a lot of hooey.
Exercising makes you stronger in the long run and tired in the short. I’ll concede that like PF Flyers, exercise makes you able to run faster and jump higher and I’ll admit it makes you sleep better. Being able to lift a lot of weight gives you an edge in a fight, which may elevate your self-esteem, but if you want to do something that makes you happy, I’d suggest eating chocolate or having sex. Probably not in that order.
I took Carl’s Voice Transcription Software Instruction Manual to bed with me. Talk about a non-habit-forming soporific. I was out in seconds.
Chapter 20
Morning came fast. I’d called ahead to make some appointments with people at Hadesville High School and with Carl’s siblings. And, I was aware of the meeting I was scheduled to have with Kathryn Anthony in the evening. So I wore my newest black jeans, my cleanest polo shirt, and my best sweater. It wasn’t as if I was going to have a date with Kathryn. This was business. On the other hand you never know what might happen, so I wore new underwear, too. Needless to say, I’m not a big Boy Scouts fan, but I like the motto: Be Prepared.
After eating a bowl of cereal, I loaded the CD with the Voice Transcription System program and all of Carl’s files right into my laptop. I hoisted my shoulder bag, tucked the laptop under my arm, grabbed an apple and a juice box of OJ, and headed for my garage. It was 7:30 AM.
Once on the road, it would take me about two and a half hours to get to Hadesville, which is on the other side of Harrisburg. Half of Hadesville is actually the campus of St. Bonaventure College, the largest Catholic college in the state. It was where Leo Getty used to be football coach. In fact, as far as I knew the football team at St. Bonnie’s was just about the only thing at the college to write home about. People in PA got as het up about St. Bonnie’s games as they did about Penn State games. The two colleges were in different conferences so they never played each other. Just as well. Riots would ensue.
I wondered why Leo Getty had left his coaching position at St. Bonnie’s when he still seemed so into the game. Of course, many would judge that being the Dean of Students at an old and prestigious private college, is much more impressive than being a football coach. On the flip side, about the same number of folks probably never heard of Irwin college, had no idea what a Dean of Students did, but would kill for a seat at a St. Bonnie’s game, even if they had to sit on a frozen bleacher in 10 degree weather, watching the action during a blizzard. Leo seemed more like the latter kind of guy, but maybe he had just gotten tired of coaching bratty prima donna football stars who felt they shouldn’t have to go to class just to pass a course.
I plugged my computer into the van power source. I prefer to call it a power source rather than a cigarette lighter, because it has never lit a cigarette and never will. My father died of emphysema. I hate smoking. I hate tobacco companies. There is no cigarette lighter in my van. It’s a power source.
The laptop began to read me the tutorial for the voice transcription software. It called itself VTS for short. I told it it could call me Maggie. The VTS introduction began by telling me how wonderful it was. Nothing humble about this program. If it had a horn sound effect, it would blow its own.
The VTS insisted that if I did everything right, I could talk at a rate of 175 word per minute and it would transcribe the words into a text document. Cool. All I would have to do is read five short stories into the mic. The program would record how I said all the words and then it would recognize those words when I said them again and write them down. Even if the words were different from those in the stories, the general word sounds would be about the same and the program would still be able to figure them out.
I listened to the entire tutorial. It described all the separate features that made the program work even better than I could ever imagine. It explained how I could adjust for background noise and voice level. It explained that one must speak slowly and clearly. It said I could set up key word abbreviations called micros or macros. A micro would change my words into an abbreviation. Like if I said, United Nations, the computer would change it to UN. Or if I frequently included an address or contact information at the end of an email for example, I could record a macro key word. When I said the key word, the whole address or all the contact information would appear.
It explained that the computer might hear certain words wrong. If it does, it’s up to the user to find the mistake and then retype the word so the computer would know the word the next time.
Using the speak text program to read text out loud was the easiest of all. All you had to do was copy and paste any text document onto a VTS page. Then hit a key, or even just use your voice to command it, and it would speak the text.
Some of the voice modes sounded like men, some women. One sounded like the robot on Lost in Space. One sounded like a slide guitar. The voice that had been reading this all to me was called Angelica. Even though all the voices were different, they were all flatly electronic. No one could ever mistake them for real people.
I pulled into the Hadesville High parking lot at 10:00 AM. My appointment with the Assistant Principal wasn’t until 11:00 AM. So I tried to enter my voice into the VTS voice recognition file. At first it wouldn’t recognize me at all. As I read a paragraph, each word I said was supposed to be highlighted as the computer heard it. It wasn’t getting anything I said. Finally, I got the hang of it, but certain words were a problem. When I got to the word system, I had to say it 59 times before the computer accepted it. Maybe I have a speech impediment that no one has ever mentioned. I read
two of the stories into it then I shut the computer down, hid it under the van seat, and headed for the entrance to the school.
Boys have baggier pants, shorter hair and more piercings than when I was in High School, girls wear tighter clothes and have more piercings. Otherwise kids all look about the same. Hadesville High was definitely big. There must have been several thousand students. The inside had the odor of industrial cleaner and teen hormones.
These days, people walking around schools without an ID around their necks are considered terrorists or pedophiles. So I went directly to the main office to check in. At a big counter I showed a middle-aged assistant my private investigator license and told her I was investigating the death of a former student.
“Who died?” she asked leaning her large frame over the counter.
“Carl Rasmus. He was blind?” It might be hard to remember even a bright student from that long ago, but a blind student would be rare.
“I saw that on the news.” She was resting her chin on her fist, thinking, “He killed himself, right? I do remember him. Really good at music? He played the piano?”
“Right. That was Carl. I have an appointment.” I gave her one of my cards.
“Well it must be with Mr. Goldenberger, you can’t really see anybody without talking to Vice Principal Goldenberger first. And he’s been here 20 years!” She took my card with her and went back behind her desk into an office with an open door, then came back without the card.
“You can come in.” She pressed a buzzer that unlocked a gate. Whether you’re fifteen or thirty-five or seventy-five, being called into the Vice Principal’s office can strike fear into the heart of anyone who has ever been in High School. I reminded myself I was a tough private eye.
Larry Goldenberger was a short, bald guy with a fringe of gray hair. He was wearing a gray suit and small gold rimmed glasses. I strongly hoped Goldenberger wasn’t going to be a little Napoleon who’d give me a hard time just because he could.
“Mr. Goldenberger, my name is Maggie Gale. I’m a private investigator working for Irwin College.”
He was standing there reading my card. He looked up from it to me, paused and then said emphatically, “A private investigator... cool!”
Whew, that broke the ice.
“What can I do you for?” he asked sitting down behind his desk and motioning me to a chair.
“You’ve probably heard about Carl Rasmus killing himself at Irwin College about ten days ago? I’ve been asked to look into the circumstances of his death. The lady at the desk told me you were here when Carl was a student. Do you remember him?”
“Wait, wait... the news said Carl killed himself by jumping off a building right?”
I nodded.
Goldenberger eyed me for a moment then asked, “Yes, they said that, or yes, that’s what happened to him?” Astute question, but after all this man was a pro; he had to get the truth out of dozens of closed mouthed teenagers, every day.
“Candidly, some evidence may suggest there was more to Dr. Rasmus’s death than a despondent person taking his own life. I don’t know what really happened. That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to figure out what kind of a person Carl Rasmus was.”
“I can’t show you his file...” said Goldenberger more to himself than me. He was thinking it over, then he said decisively, “I’m not supposed to give out confidential information about former students. But let’s face it, the kid’s dead. Let me look at what we have.” He got up and went out to talk with one of the secretaries then came back.
“It’ll take a while to get the file. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you what I remember,” said Goldenberger helpfully. “Carl was a good kid. He played the clarinet in the jazz band. He wrote music too, and the band and orchestra performed it. I wrote him a recommendation for college myself. I think he went to Julliard, and then went on to get a Ph.D. and teach at Irwin. I wrote him a recommendation for that job too because he came back to Hadesville to do presentations now and then and even helped with one of the summer music programs. I think it was Fiddler on the Roof.”
A woman came in with a print-out. Goldenberger thanked her, looked it over then said, “Here’s the short version. He got good grades. Took a lot of music classes. He was in musical productions and everyone seemed to like him.”
“I was told he was thrown out of Hadesville High School for bad behavior...”
Goldenberger frowned at that, “He wasn’t thrown out of here. He was... he left a different high school in the second semester of his sophomore year and came here.”
“He was thrown out of a different school and ended up here?” I asked. Now I was surprised.
“I’m not supposed to say thrown out, but yeah, that’s what happened.”
“Why?”
“Doesn’t say why in the file. His transcript from the previous school was fine, excellent in fact. It wasn’t grades.”
“What was the previous school?”
“St. Bonaventure High School, it’s adjacent to the College.” Goldenberger leaned back in his chair drumming his fingers on his desk. “OK look, I’ll be honest. I knew Carl as a student fairly well. I remember the whole thing. Bit of a scandal... would have been nothing in a public school, today. Really didn’t mean much to us then... You probably already know that Carl was gay...” I nodded for Goldenberger to continue, “and, St. Bonnie’s High School is mighty conservative, and well, Carl got thrown out because he...” Goldenberger gave a short laugh, then shook his head, “I’m sorry, it just seems so stupid now... he got caught kissing a boy under the bleachers in the field house.”
“Really!?!” Now I was laughing, but then I realized it probably wasn’t funny for Carl.
“Yeah,” Goldenberger went on, “see, private schools can expel a student without explanation. In fact, a private school could even deny matriculation to a blind student by requiring the student do something he wouldn’t be able to do. Like read something from a paper. Religious schools have all sorts of rules that could never be applied to public school. As I remember it, I think Carl could probably have calmed things down if he’d just said it was a mistake and that he wasn’t gay, but he wasn’t that kind of kid. And I think he really cared about the other boy.”
“What happened to him?”
“The other boy? I don’t know anything about him.”
I typed the information into my laptop. “Do you think Carl might have killed himself because he hated being gay?”
“Nope,” said Goldenberger emphatically shaking his head. “Not unless Carl changed a lot. When he was a student here, Carl was out... the first out gay kid we had... he wasn’t depressed that he was gay and he wasn’t depressed because he was blind. He was what he was.”
I told Goldenberger there would be a memorial service for Carl on Sunday morning at the Irwin Chapel. He said he’d try to come, and then he shook my hand.
So Carl got tossed out of Catholic School for kissing a boy. It sounded like the kind of thing gay characters on a sitcom would brag about, but it must have been very painful in real life.
Next stop, Carl’s siblings. My appointments with them weren’t for an hour, so I tried to amuse myself by reading some more stories into the VTS program, but I kept thinking about Carl being thrown out of Catholic High School. I was glad my family hadn’t tried to force an anti-gay religion on me. Life is hard enough for teens.
Chapter 21
“Mrs. Crenshaw, thank you for letting me talk to you about your brother Carl,” I said as I waded through wall-to-wall plastic toys, to perch on the arm of a pine frame easy chair. Its Revolutionary War theme upholstered seat was covered with Duplo blocks. If you think about it, bloody battle scenes on the easy chairs are kind of an odd choice for suburban living room furniture.
Eileen Crenshaw was in her early 30s. She was wearing a pink sweat suit with Care Bears on it. Mrs. Crenshaw’s light brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was my height but had a few pounds on me. A little kid also dressed in pink, 3-
years-old, clung to the back of her leg. I figured it was a girl because its been my experience that while parents seem to have no qualms about occasionally dressing a little girl in blue, they would rather dip a boy in mud than dare dress him in pink.
A little peek-shihtz-oodle-eeze style dog, that had been yapping since I’d rung the Avon Calling doorbell, skidded around the living room. I wondered why anyone who had a three-year-old would want that kind of animal. Both like to run the house. The dog was probably there first.
“Carl’s dead,” said Eileen Crenshaw flatly.
“I know,” I said sympathetically, “I’ve been hired by Irwin College to look into his death.”
“Why? ... Buttons, shut up!” said Eileen Crenshaw, except she pronounced the dog’s name Bah-ins. “The house is kind of a mess,” she said looking at the living room floor as though seeing it for the first time. In the corner was a huge Christmas tree decorated with every Precious Moments ornament ever made. There were a few presents under it. The rest of the haul was no doubt stashed in a closet to be spread out after the kid hit the sheets on Christmas Eve.
Eileen Crenshaw plopped down on the couch and put her feet up on a heavy pine coffee table.
“Mrs. Crenshaw...”
“Cindy, you stop that! Stop that right now, or I’ll tell Santa not to bring you anything!” The little girl ignored her mother and continued taking ornaments off the tree and carrying them to a plastic dollhouse in another corner of the room. There was no way in heck that Santa wasn’t going to fork over that closet full of presents. Mommy knew it and somehow, so did the kid. At the tender age of three, little Cindy had already learned the meaning of the term idle threat.