by Leigh Perry
From the attic, Sid yelled, “Aim me back in this direction, would you?”
“Sure!” Madison called back. She took the skeleton by the hand, turned him around, and guided him toward the first step. Haltingly, the skeleton climbed up. “Isn’t that great?” she said.
“I guess. It’s just that . . . Sweetie, I’m not sure you should push Sid so hard.”
“How else is he going to know how much he can do? You always taught me to try to exceed expectations or I’d never know what I was capable of.”
“I know, but that’s because you make sense. Sid doesn’t. The only thing—the only thing—keeping him alive is his will to be alive. I’m afraid that if he starts thinking too hard about how he’s able to do what he does, he won’t be able to do anything. He’ll just go away.”
“Huh?”
“You know who Descartes was, right?”
“Sure. ‘I think, therefore I am.’”
“There’s an old joke about him. Descartes walks into a bar, and the bartender says, ‘Can I get you a beer?’ Descartes says, ‘I think not,’ and disappears in a puff of logic.”
“And you’re afraid Sid will disappear in a puff of logic?”
“Yeah, kind of.” I heard Sid coming back down, so I left it at that.
As soon as he was in the room, Sid said, “Madison, are you going to do your homework down here?”
“I was planning to. Why?”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “This is awkward, but I need to talk to your mother.”
“I’m listening,” I said.
“I mean, alone. Just the two of us.”
“Excuse me?” Madison said. “Is this about our investigation? Because I know I haven’t been all that active this past week or so, but I am still involved, aren’t I?”
“Of course you are. Maybe Sid wants to talk about something else.” I looked at him questioningly.
But he shook his head. “It’s murder related, but I really think this is best left to adults.”
“Mom!” Madison said, turning to me.
The joy of having only one child was never having to worry about sibling rivalry, just as the joy of being a single parent meant nobody to second-guess my decisions. So how had I managed to find myself in a situation where I was dealing with both? There was no way that both would be happy.
I carefully said, “Madison, let’s assume that Sid has a good reason for wanting to talk to me without you around. I can fill you in later if it’s appropriate.”
“Fine! I guess I’ll go take Byron for a walk if that’s appropriate for a child like me.” Her footsteps as she got the leash and called Byron may have been louder than was strictly necessary, and the manner in which she closed the door behind them definitely was, but I didn’t really blame her.
“Thanks bunches, Sid,” I said. “Now Madison is mad at me, and I’m not sure if I deserve it or not.”
“You don’t,” he said emphatically. “This is definitely not for her to hear.” He pulled me over to the couch. “You know today was the day that theater troupe came and performed Great Expectations at PHS, right?”
“No, but okay.”
“So just about everybody in the school was in the auditorium all morning long, and I was getting pretty bored.”
“I can imagine.” Actually, I couldn’t imagine being a disembodied skull sitting on a locker shelf all day, but I thought it sounded nicer to say that I could.
“About an hour after the show started, I heard footsteps. A minute later, there was a second set. Somebody said, ‘Just where do you think you’re going?’ It was a male voice.” He looked at me significantly, but I didn’t see any significance yet. He went on. “The other one was a girl. She said, ‘Oh, I just need to get something.’ He goes, ‘You know you’re supposed to be in the auditorium with the other students,’ and he sounds really mad. She apologizes and says it’ll never happen again, but he says, ‘I think we’re just going to have to make sure it doesn’t. You’ve been a very bad girl, and bad girls need to be punished. Isn’t that right?’ And she starts telling him she’ll be good, that he doesn’t have to punish her—and get this—that he doesn’t have to punish her ‘again’! But he says he wants her to come to his room that afternoon after school. She says she can’t because she has cheerleader practice, so he says she can come tomorrow, but she better be there on time. Because she knows what happens to girls who don’t obey!”
“Oh, my gosh! Did you see who it was?”
“I couldn’t see the girl. She had this real babyish kind of voice, but I didn’t recognize it. But I saw the man through the vents in the locker. It was Madison’s algebra teacher.”
I felt sick. “Mr. Neal?”
He nodded.
“No wonder you didn’t want to say anything in front of her.”
“I know!”
Neither of us wanted to have to tell Madison that one of her favorite teachers was sexually abusing one of the school’s cheerleaders.
“What do we do?” Sid asked.
“Well, it has to be reported, but I don’t know how. I mean, you’re a witness, but you can’t exactly go to Mr. Dahlgren and tell him. It’s the same problem we had with the murder.”
“Not to mention the fact that the murder might be connected.”
“Did you hear anything—?”
“No, nothing about the killing, but it just seems like a teacher might go a long way to hide that kind of activity. What if Irwin saw something he wasn’t meant to, and Mr. Neal decided to get rid of him? The girl might not even know about it, or what kind of man she’s dealing with.”
“Okay, then the first thing we have to do is find out who she is, and preferably in a way that will be reportable. Did they set a time for their . . . ? For tomorrow?”
We began planning, and though we were fully engaged when Madison came back in with Byron, we stopped immediately before she could hear anything. She was going to find out eventually, but there was still the barest chance that Sid had misconstrued what he’d heard. So it was really for her own good that we stopped talking.
I don’t think she saw it that way. She sniffed disdainfully and said, “Come on, Byron. We’re not wanted here.”
She was still a little distant at dinner, but I didn’t blame her for resenting being kept in the dark. I remembered plenty of times when my parents had kept things from me when I was a kid, and at the time, I’d thought it was rank unfairness. Things looked different from the parent’s side.
Sid had heard Mr. Neal tell his cheerleader victim to be at his room at three, which was forty-five minutes after the end of the school day, meaning the halls would be deserted. Neal’s classroom was on the second floor, the same as mine, but it was down at the far end of the hall, separated from other rooms by a storage room and a stairwell. Fortunately, since that area was out of the way, there were some empty, unused lockers. I got Madison to put Sid, his hand, and his phone in one of them first thing in the morning, and though she was still grumpy about not knowing what was going on, she went along when I promised to tell her the story as soon as I could verify it. She even left the other piece of equipment Sid needed, though she was clearly mystified.
Of course, I still had my morning class at McQuaid to tend to and then I had to teach my SAT prep classes at PHS, but they went by quickly. Finally the bell rang, and we could put our plan into motion.
Sid and I had speculated that the girl might not show if she thought there was still anybody around, so when I was sure nobody was looking, I turned out the lights in my classroom, locked the door, and sat in a chair where I couldn’t be seen from outside the room. I checked my phone and found a text from Sid.
Waiting . . .
I responded in kind and watched the minutes tick by, resisting the impulse to try to catch a glimpse of the girl myself.
At thre
e, my phone vibrated with another text.
She was right on time.
Couldn’t see her face.
Blonde ponytail & jacket over cheerleader outfit.
Ew.
I responded:
We’ll give them 10 minutes.
Nine and a half minutes later, which was as long as I could make myself wait, I texted:
Getting into position now.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the classroom door and faux-casually ambled down to the water fountain near Mr. Neal’s classroom. Then I leaned up against the locker where Sid was hiding and pretended to take a phone call, knowing Sid could hear me. I couldn’t hear anything from the classroom, but my imagination was lurid enough.
Just as I was about to text Sid to get on with it, a voice boomed through the hall. “Come out of there right away. Leave that girl alone!”
It was so startlingly loud that I didn’t have to pretend my shock. Sid had taken a megaphone with him, and the empty halls, the locker, and Sid yelling as loud as he could combined to create a tumult on the Richter scale.
I heard scrambling from Mr. Neal’s classroom, and a minute later, he came out looking angry and frustrated. I felt smug at having interrupted him until his partner came out.
She was wearing a letter jacket with her hair pulled back into a ponytail with a bright ribbon around it, but it wasn’t a student. Nor even a girl, really. It was a woman, a grown woman. One I knew. It was Ms. Zale, the SAT math teacher.
Sid and I hadn’t interrupted a sexual predator—we’d interrupted a bit of role-play.
Mr. Neal and Ms. Zale looked around furiously, but of course there was nobody to be seen but me and obviously I wasn’t the one who’d spoken.
I quickly stammered, “What in the world was that racket?”
“Did you see anybody near here?” Mr. Neal demanded.
“Not a soul,” I said, which was true. I knew where Sid was, but I couldn’t see him. “Maybe somebody was messing with the intercom. What did they say, anyway? I couldn’t understand it.”
They looked slightly relieved at my pretended ignorance. “I’ve got no idea,” Ms. Zale said. “You’re probably right. Some joker messing with the intercom.”
“Teenagers!” I said ruefully. “You two are brave to deal with them all day long. Well, I better be going. You two have a good rest of the day.”
I walked away as quickly as I could, hoping that I hadn’t betrayed any knowledge of anything they were doing, which I really wished I didn’t know about anyway. I could feel my cell phone vibrating in my hand, but didn’t dare look at it for fear of not being able to keep a straight face. Instead I waited until I was out the door and in my car with the doors firmly locked.
After all that, all Sid had texted was:
Never mind.
That summed it up for me, too.
27
Madison was still at rehearsal, and I’d promised her a ride home, but I didn’t want to go home only to have to turn around again and come back an hour later. Nor did I want to hang out in my classroom, where I might see—or hear—Mr. Neal and Ms. Zale again. Instead I went to see how the play was shaping up.
I paused as I stepped inside the auditorium. Normally I sit way in the back during a rehearsal so as not to disrupt anything, but I just didn’t like the idea of sitting so close to where a murder had taken place. So I went about halfway down the aisle before sliding into a row of seats.
My timing was good. I recognized the scene being enacted onstage as the conversation between Polonius and Ophelia that comes just before the first appearance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I resisted the impulse to pull out my phone so I could video the kids, even though it went against my maternal instincts.
Once Polonius and Ophelia finished their discussion of Hamlet’s inexplicable behavior, Becca the director called a halt and started to give the actors in that scene notes about their performances. I was impressed by her technique, which had the proper ratio of positive to negative comments.
She was working with Ophelia as Adam McDaniel the elder came down the center aisle of the auditorium, and when he saw me, he raised his eyebrows at an empty seat beside me. I nodded for him to join me.
“You’re just in time,” I said quietly. “Madison and Tristan will be making their entrance in the next scene.”
“Wonderful. How are you doing with your classes?”
“Pretty well. Mr. Chedworth left things really well organized for me, which makes it easy.”
“Nothing gets past Chedworth.”
It looked as if the actors were about to get started again, so we quieted down. Unfortunately, a young man I didn’t recognize picked that moment to come traipsing through the auditorium, talking on his cell phone. Since he bore a striking resemblance to McDaniel as well as to Tristan, I felt safe in assuming that he was Adam Jr., still living up to his jerky reputation.
Becca turned to glare at him, but before she could say anything, McDaniel gestured sharply at his son and said, “Hang up right now!”
The boy gave him a look of annoyed disbelief, but said a few words and obeyed. Then he slung himself into a chair on the opposite side of the aisle from us, making his displeasure plain, and immediately switched to texting. McDaniel mouthed, “Sorry!” at Becca, who nodded curtly and got her actors started again.
“Teenagers,” McDaniel whispered to me, and I nodded sympathetically. Tristan seemed nice enough and McDaniel himself was perfectly pleasant, so maybe Adam Jr. took after his mother. I glanced at the ring finger on McDaniel’s left hand. It was bare.
Before I could speculate further, Madison came onstage, and while her appearance was brief and light on dialogue, I thought it was arguably the best rendition of Guildenstern I’d ever seen. Admittedly, I might have been biased.
The scene was a long one, and Becca stopped the actors about halfway through to work on blocking, which McDaniel took as permission for us to continue our conversation. “The play seems to be going well.”
“Don’t say that,” I said in mock horror. “Actors are notoriously superstitious. You might jinx them.”
He chuckled. “I suppose Shakespeare is old hat to you in your line of work.”
“Only as a fan. My specialty is contemporary American literature, but mostly I teach writing.”
That led to a discussion of the College Board’s recent decision to make the essay portion of the SAT optional, which carried us through until the kids continued with their scene.
Madison once again gave a remarkable interpretation of Guildenstern, though I was willing to admit that Tristan made a fair to middling Rosencrantz, too.
At the end of the scene, Becca had more notes, so McDaniel and I went back to our conversation.
“Is Madison’s father in academia, too?” he asked, and I knew he’d checked out my bare finger, too.
“Yes, but he’s not in the picture.”
He nodded and did not seem displeased.
“So how did you get into pharmaceuticals?” I asked.
“By accident. I started out majoring in biology, but when I looked at the job prospects, switched to business. It turned out to be just the background I needed. And I can work anywhere, which is a big plus. The boys and I really needed a change of scenery after my wife and I split up, which is how we ended up here.”
Interesting how he’d smoothly managed to both ask about my marital status and establish his own.
I said, “So you don’t have to travel?”
“Not much. There are plenty of nearby hospitals, clinics, and doctors to deal with.” He went on a little too long about how great it was to meet people, sell miracle drugs that would save the world, and enjoy perks like bonuses and vacations when he exceeded his quota, which he did frequently. He must have sensed that he was losing me, because he dialed it back and added, “Of co
urse, there are downsides, too. Every time I go to a party, people have to ask if I have any free samples. Just joking, of course, but still, it gets old.”
“The one I always get is, ‘You teach at a college? You must be really smart.’”
“But you are really smart,” he said with a winning smile.
“Now, don’t you start.”
We chuckled companionably until there was a loud snort of derision from Adam Jr., who was apparently unimpressed by our playful banter.
McDaniel shot him an angry look, but fortunately the actors onstage began to run through the scene again, from the beginning, so we were suitably distracted. After that, Becca let everybody go and, after telling me how nice it had been to talk to me, McDaniel went to collect his younger, more polite son. I called out to Madison that I’d meet her at our car and headed for the parking lot.
28
A few minutes later, Madison banged impatiently on the passenger-side window of my minivan and I unlocked the door for her.
“Great rehearsal.”
She grunted, and I wondered if she was still upset with Sid and me. “Did you get—”
She waved the bowling bag at me. “He’s right here.”
“Good.” I started the car and began driving.
“So do I get to know what you were doing now or not?”
Okay, she was still peeved. I opened my mouth to answer just as Sid mumbled something from inside the bag. “Unzip the bag, will you? Then we can explain.”
Looking slightly mollified, she did so.
“I have never been so embarrassed in my entire lack of life,” Sid said. “Except for that time I was hiding in the armoire when Deborah brought a date home, and she didn’t know I was there, and—”
“Ahem!” I said.
That reminded Sid that Deborah might not appreciate him sharing her past exploits with Madison, so he switched to, “And they started kissing. Just kissing.”
“Oh, that’s convincing,” Madison said. “Just as well you’re only a prop in Hamlet with those kind of acting chops.”