The River and the Roses (Veronica Barry Book 1)

by Sophia Martin

  She parked on the curb by her house and turned off the car, sitting for a moment.

  She had never thought about it until now, but it must have been quite a life change for Cybele, to take her in. As a single woman, pursuing her career in dance, Cybele had a dream for her future. That dream ended when her brother, abandoned by his wife and raising his little daughter, had a stroke at the age of thirty-two. Social services might have taken Veronica, but Cybele stepped up and adopted her instead. She raised her as a single parent. She quit professional dance and became a teacher. Cybele taught Veronica to admire teachers, in fact. It was no coincidence that Veronica had become one.

  Grabbing her bag, she exited the car and headed for her front door.

  All this meant one thing: that Veronica was going to be careful about addressing the question of whether Cybele knew about her psychic ability, and whether she might have shamed her about it. She owed Cybele a debt she could never repay. And more than that. She knew Cybele loved her, just as she loved Cybele.

  Unlocking the door and entering her home, she promised herself she would be careful, when the moment came to talk about it. But she knew it would have to come. Veronica had spent enough time keeping herself in the dark. She wasn’t going to do that anymore. She needed to be honest with herself and she needed to know the whole truth. Maybe Cybele could shed some light on where the shame came from. But it would be a while before Veronica was going to have time to go see her. Cybele lived in Santa Fe, and even without murder investigations and pending trials, Veronica had a job and the animals.

  She reached down and stroked Blossom, then scooped up Binky for a cuddle. She could hear Harry barking at the back door.

  Maybe she would try to make the trip over spring break.

  ~~~

  Tuesday went by uneventfully, especially compared to the Monday she’d had with Detective Felsen’s visit, her experience at the funeral home, and the confrontation at the police station. Veronica had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, she was glad to have a little normalcy, but on the other, she was becoming more and more convinced that Sylvia’s husband must be the one getting away with murder. It made her crazy that she could do nothing about it. She tried to focus on the lesson planning she had to do or the tests she had to create for Friday, but school stuff could not hold her attention. The only thing she did manage to accomplish was to make arrangements with the French teacher at Angie’s school to come and visit her classes the next day, Wednesday.

  So the next morning she dressed a more nicely than usual for her own classes, and headed over to meet Khalilah Jadeed, the woman who taught French and Arabic at St. Patrick’s. Jadeed had a Ph. D. in linguistics and she was National Board certified. Veronica felt a bit intimidated, but she reminded herself that her true purpose was to identify who else helped play the “prank” on Angie that had ended in her nearly drowning in the American River. Still, Jadeed’s credentials impressed her, and it would be a bonus if she did pick up some good techniques from her. The write-up she had to do would look good in her BTSA portfolio, in any case.

  Saint Patrick’s School was in Midtown, close to downtown Sacramento. Its large limestone building towered five stories high. When Veronica walked into the main office on the ground floor, a brunette with an arched nose and an olive complexion waited for her. She looked to be in her late thirties, maybe early forties. “Veronica?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Khalilah,” she said. Her voice was warm and she had a faint accent. She held out her hand. Veronica had expected her to be wearing a headscarf, she realized. She wasn’t. Veronica wondered if it was because she worked in a Catholic school. Come to think of it, how was it that she worked in a Catholic school? Was she Catholic? Perhaps she had converted?

  Veronica shook her hand. She got no impressions off of her, except that her handshake was firm. “Thank you for allowing me to visit your class,” Veronica said.

  “It’s a pleasure to have a guest. It makes the students sit a little straighter and try a little harder when they have an audience.” She led the way down the hall.

  “I hope you won’t mind my asking, but your name sounds Arabic?”

  “Is that a question?” Khalilah smiled. “I am originally from Tunisia. We learn French there at a young age. It was a colony, you know.” Veronica nodded. Khalilah took her up a flight of stairs.

  “Are you Catholic?” Veronica asked as they entered a classroom.

  Khalilah smiled again and shook her head. “I was raised Muslim. I am not much of a practitioner,” she said. She shrugged. “Sometimes. Like many Christians who go to church only on Easter, I suppose.”

  “How is that you work here?”

  “Sometimes it’s who you know,” Khalilah said. “I’m friends with the headmaster’s wife. And I suppose my credentials didn’t hurt.”

  Veronica could see how that was the case. “Yeah, a Ph. D. must open some doors.”

  “The people who send their children to Saint Pat’s are often more concerned about their children being prepared for college than with whether all of their teachers are good Catholics. Although I have had some interesting conversations more than once.”

  Veronica thought about her own fears over being found out as a psychic. “I bet. Has anyone ever made any real trouble for you?”

  “Well, I have had some students pulled from my class. Two, actually, in five years.”

  Veronica nodded. “That doesn’t seem too bad.”

  “No,” Khalilah agreed. “Like I said, most parents—at least at this level—are really more interested in knowing how I intend to see that their children get a six on their AP exam.”

  “APs are out of five—”

  “Exactly.”

  Khalilah looked very serious for a moment, and then she laughed. Veronica laughed with her. Many of the students in her advanced class were studying for the AP, since admin at Eleanor Roosevelt merged French III with the AP class two years before. It was a mess to try to meet their needs and the needs of French III students who had no intention of ever taking the test. Every quarter she had parents breathing down her neck over the looming AP exam… she knew just what Khalilah was talking about.

  “So, I thought you could sit here, on the side. You’ll have a view of the whole room and you can observe me working with individuals as well as at the front. Feel free to get up and walk around once I’m doing the same, though. I just ask that you sit through the lecture portion as the kids will already be aware of you, and if you start walking around I’ll lose them completely.”

  “Of course,” Veronica said. “Thank you again for letting me do this.”

  “It’s my pleasure. I know about BTSA. I taught in a public school for nine years before I came here.”

  “And I bet there were plenty of hoops for the National Board,” Veronica said.

  Khalilah rolled her eyes. “You don’t know the half of it. It was harder than the Ph.D. in some ways.”

  “Well, you go ahead and get ready,” said Veronica. “I’ll just settle in here. Is French I first?”

  “Yes,” Khalilah said. “Then AP, then French II. Then French III, and then Arabic.”

  “You only have the one section of Arabic?”

  “Yes,” said Khalilah. “It’s not a very popular class. Too hard for most teenagers to want to put in the effort. Usually I get seniors who’ve taken three years of either French or Spanish. Which is just as well. I like seniors, even though they start to get flaky in April.”

  “Mine start disappearing in March.”

  “It all depends on when the college acceptance letters start arriving.”

  Veronica smiled and nodded. She liked Khalilah. She was glad. It would make getting through the day a lot more pleasant. She hadn’t forgotten her mission, however. She wondered if she would see anything that might help Melanie and Angie today.

  When the first class filed in, Veronica looked at each face as the students walked past her and to their
seats. Many students looked back, curious, although some were far too wrapped up in conversations or much too cool to acknowledge her. It was the same everywhere. Teenagers. They made her smile.

  As the class progressed Veronica found herself enjoying Khalilah’s teaching. She told stories and invented scenarios to give the new vocabulary a context. She was funny, and it made everything more interesting. Veronica found she had plenty to say for her BTSA write up. But nothing came through about Angie.

  After the first class left, Veronica helped Khalilah tidy the room. “Can I ask you, did you have a student named Grant Slecterson?” Veronica said.

  Khalilah frowned. “No,” she said. “He goes to Saint Pat’s?”

  “He did, but his family pulled him out a little over a week ago.”

  Khalilah shook her head. “He must have taken Spanish.” Her frowned deepened. “I think I have heard the name, though. Grant Slecterson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know him?” Khalilah asked.

  “My friend’s daughter dated him briefly. She’s one of your students—Angie Dukas?”

  “Oh, of course. Angie’s a good student. Nice girl,” Khalilah said. “It’s her class coming in after AP. Did her mother ask you to check out her boyfriend while you were here?” She grinned.

  Veronica smiled. “Something like that, yes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to say he didn’t choose French or Arabic for his language. And didn’t you say he’s not attending, anyway?”

  “Yeah,” said Veronica. “I just thought if you’d had him, you might tell me what you thought of him. You know, her mother worries about her.”

  “What good parent doesn’t worry about their child?” Khalilah said. She shook her head. “If I think of where I heard his name, I’ll let you know.”

  The AP class impressed Veronica by the serious focus of the students. Khalilah had a list of four assignments on the board, and they did each one after the other with almost no prodding from her. Veronica felt a sharp twinge of jealousy. So this is private school, she mused. Maybe someday she would seek out a job here.

  Khalilah set about preparing for her next class by erasing the AP assignments from the board and writing up translations again. Veronica sat back down and doodled in her notes, drawing little simple versions of her angel. Two or three minutes later the bell rang and students started coming in again. She saw Angie, who came in with her head down and didn’t see Veronica. She went to her seat in the middle row and sat without talking to anyone. She got out her notebook and only when she raised her face to look at the board did she catch sight of Veronica. She did a double take.

  Veronica gave her a tiny wave. Angie looked around and then started sucking on her lips. Veronica could see the wheels turning in her mind. Did she risk getting in trouble to get up and come over to her? What would the other students think if she did? Should she wait until later? Would Veronica be offended? Veronica smiled and gestured for her to stay where she was. She pointed to the clock and mouthed “break.” Angie nodded and turned back to the translations. Veronica gave her attention back to the rest of the class.

  As she did, a feeling of uneasiness crept over her. She got the distinct sense that Angie was like an island, with everyone else moving like water around her. Students whispered to each other, passed notes, giggled. Khalilah shot more than one disapproving glance at them. But no one tried to talk to Angie. No one passed her a note. It didn’t seem normal.

  Then Veronica noticed two girls who sat next to each other in the right corner of the classroom. They looked familiar. They were whispering, too, but they would look over at Angie. Veronica focused her attention on them. Then she heard it: the sound of the rushing water. It was faint, far away. But it was there. When she looked away from those two girls it stopped. When she looked back at them it resumed. They had been there.

  With that realization, she remembered where she knew them from. They were the popular girls in the cafeteria who called Grant away from Angie.

  Chapter 13

  Veronica eyed the two teenagers she’d seen in her vision. From what Veronica had gleaned, these two lived at the top of the popularity hierarchy at Saint Patrick’s. One of the girls let out a loud laugh. Angie’s head shot around and she gave them a cold glare. The girls met her look with grimaces.

  “Eh-oh, les filles,” Khalilah said. “Au travail. Allez.” She walked over to them and tapped their notebooks.

  “Pardon, Madame,” each girl said. They exchanged a look and then returned to their work.

  When the class ended, Angie came over to Veronica. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just observing Doctor Jadeed’s way of teaching. It’s something you do when you’re still a new teacher.”

  “You’ve been teaching for three years.”

  “When you’re a part-time teacher, my district considers you new for longer than full-time teachers.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Hey, I noticed that those two girls over there… they didn’t look like they were very nice to you.”

  Angie glanced over, her face clouding over. “Don’t worry about it. They’re just stupid.”

  Veronica reached out and took Angie’s hand. Suddenly the classroom fell away. She was riding in a car. It sped down the freeway. She could barely see anything—someone sat on her lap. The person on her lap turned around and she caught sight of her face. It was one of the whispering girls. When she looked to her right she saw that she was sitting next to the other. The girl on her lap let out a whoop. “Oh my god, did you see that guy’s face when we passed him?” A light pierced the window as a car whizzed by on the other side. “How far is this place, Grant?” the girl called.

  Angie pulled her hand away. Veronica was back in the classroom in Saint Patrick’s. “They were there,” she whispered.

  “What?” Angie said, her cheeks going pink.

  “Angie, they were there, when you went to the river, weren’t they?”

  “What? No,” Angie said, turning her face away.

  “Angie, you don’t have to protect them,” Veronica whispered. “They obviously aren’t your friends—”

  “Just leave it alone, Veronica. Leave me alone.” Angie’s voice broke and she scrunched up her eyes for a moment, then hurried out of the class.

  Khalilah, who was standing on the far side of the classroom, cleared her voice. “That doesn’t look like it went well.”

  Veronica sighed.

  “There’s been something troubling her,” Khalilah continued. “Do you know what it is?”

  Veronica gazed after Angie. “Something happened to her on Friday night. A vicious prank, as best we can tell.”

  “Involving that Grant boy?”

  “Yes, and other students.”

  Khalilah made her way over to Veronica’s side. “Look, I don’t mean to pry, but I like Angie, and I care about all of my students. You know how it is. And I can tell you she’s been acting strangely for longer than this week.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s been at least three weeks. She’s been subdued. She was always a good student, but chatty just like most of them. But not lately. It seems like she’s become a loner. What kind of prank did they pull?”

  “She went to that dance on Friday.”

  “The Valentine’s Ball?”

  “Yes,” said Veronica. “And several of them went with this Grant boy to the river. And somehow she fell in. And they left her there.”

  “Oh my god,” said Khalilah. “Was she hurt?”

  “No, thank heaven,” said Veronica. “Just very cold. We spent the night in the hospital with her. Her mother is beside herself, as you can imagine.”

  “Who was there?”

  “That’s actually something I’d like to figure out. Can you tell me the names of the two girls who were sitting over there?” Veronica asked. She indicated their seats. “You had to tell them to get to work at the beginnin
g. They were laughing about something.”

  “Oh, that’s Mary Elizabeth Owieczka and Antonia Pecore. But they couldn’t have been there,” Khalilah said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, those girls aren’t friends with Angie, and there’s no way Angie would have gotten into a car with them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “All I can tell you is I’ve purposefully seated them so they can’t interact very easily with Angie, and some of the other students. They’re like that movie, ‘Mean Girls.’” Khalilah’s eyes widened. “I remember where I heard the name! Grant Slecterson. A colleague of mine had an S.I. meeting—”

  “S.I.?”

  “Student Intervention. Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t discuss it. It’s confidential, what goes on in those meetings,” she said. She looked genuinely sorry. “But I will say this. Students that get discussed in those meetings have usually done some things that really put them on people’s radar. Not your run of the mill class cutting or disruptive behavior. Bad things. Danger to self or others kinds of things.”

  “So you’re telling me my friend is right to think Grant tried to hurt Angie on purpose.”

  Khalilah sighed. “Let’s just say I think it’s best for the students at this school that the boy no longer goes here. And if Angie had any plans to keep seeing him, I’d strongly discourage her.”

  Veronica blew air out of her mouth in frustration. She knew that Khalilah had already told her more than she was supposed to, ethically. But it seemed like there were a lot of pieces of this puzzle. The picture that it made if you put them all together might very well show a boy who was a serious danger to others. But how could she explain that to Khalilah without going into all of it? He might have drowned a girl, if she was right about the vision she’d had in Angie’s room, and that was the puzzle piece that really had her worried.

  “Okay,” Veronica said. “Thank you for telling me this.” She stood up. “I’m sorry, I’m going to cut out early. Do you mind? I’ll let my office know about the hours.”