“Which means, I’m sure, that you’re going to dedicate yourself to finding who is responsible.”
“If I could get rid of you, it would be a lot easier.”
“Edwina, did you involve yourself in the school board elections?”
“I didn’t care enough to be involved. I’ve got two years and three days until I can take early retirement.”
The bell rang and the distant murmur of voices and slamming lockers began moments later.
“You can’t teach in here today. The police will have to examine everything.”
I held up the unplugged chord. “Somebody frayed the connection.”
She didn’t even glance at it. She said, “With the new school in operation we have enough empty space here that we can find someplace you can use temporarily.”
“Did you think about getting one of those community service kids to keep watch like I asked you?”
“Little late for that now.”
“Better than nothing. I can’t stand guard.”
She gave a martyr’s sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“When?”
“I’ll do it.” She left.
I wound up in an old art room. The only student behavior I noted as even mildly threatening or different during the morning was almost a nonincident. It happened as the kids were streaming out of fourth-hour class to go to lunch. One student, notable only for his short, baby-fat-covered body, was about to be the last one to exit the room. In a stage whisper he said, “I don’t want to be the last one out. I don’t want to be in the room alone with him.”
And they were gone. A demeaning insult, but what would be the point of making an issue of it? And why is it always the fattest, ugliest, and most unattractive straight, white males who think people are interested in them sexually?
I stopped in the office to call the hospital and find out how Jason was. He was out of danger, but they were keeping him under observation. If he was still in the hospital later, I would try to visit him. I called Scott and told him about what had happened. He promised to keep checking on Jason.
Edwina told me Frank Murphy was waiting to talk to me in my classroom.
Frank got right to the point. “It’s a good thing you were there so early. It narrows down who we have to question.”
“Couldn’t somebody have come in overnight?”
“We’re working on people who had access. Fortunately, it’s a short list.”
“Could it have killed anyone?”
“Very possibly. That kid was really lucky.”
A uniformed cop walked in with a male teenager whose shoulders slumped, acne festered, and head hung.
“Which one is this?” Frank asked.
“David Blake, one of the community service kids. The only one who was working as a custodian this morning.”
“An adult could have done it,” the kid said with a snarl as irritating as a buzz saw.
Frank said, “You were supposed to be polishing floors in the newer wing. Two adults say they saw you come down this corridor this morning.”
“Who? Nobody saw me. I …”
“Just goofed,” Frank finished for him.
“That don’t mean nothing.”
“The kid who plugged in the computer might die,” Frank said.
“I didn’t kill nobody.”
“We don’t know that yet. If you can tell us who’s behind all this, maybe we can go easy on you.”
“Wasn’t nobody behind nothin’. It was just a couple of us messing around. Nobody was gonna get hurt. Wouldn’t have if Mason had kept quiet about who he is. It’s his fault for opening his big mouth.”
Silence equals safety mixed with the “it’s the queer’s fault” defense. I was torn between wanting to punch him and pitying him for how pathetic he was.
Frank’s good at eliciting information from reluctant teens. Before the end of lunch the kid was in tears and had given Frank two more names of the saboteurs—one of whom was a computer expert.
Near the end I asked, “Which one of you put the bloody encyclopedia behind the books?”
The kid gave me a blank look and asked, “What encyclopedia?”
No kid is that good of an actor. If I was any judge after all these years of teaching, his uncomprehending look was genuine.
The next hour was my planning period. First I stopped in the library and counted the Smith’s Comprehensive Encyclopedias. There were now three of them. I wandered down to the office to talk to Georgette.
She smiled at me. “I talked to Meg a few minutes ago. She told me how you’d been so kind. What can I do to help?”
“It looks like they caught the saboteurs from my room, so that’s one less headache. As for the murder, I’m convinced it has something to do with the relationship between all these people years ago.”
“Back when?”
“When all this union business started. It seems to have gotten mixed with all the anger in the community.”
“I can tell you about the union. I was here then.” She looked around. “I can get Adele to answer the phones. It’s time for my lunch anyway.”
We sat in the little room off the office that the secretaries eat lunch in. Georgette took hers after everyone else so we were alone.
“What exactly happened so long ago?”
“I was an assistant secretary in one of the elementary schools back then. We were all petrified about what to do if the union called a strike. We’d been warned that if we didn’t cross the picket line, we would all be fired.”
“There was going to be a strike at the time the union was formed?”
“Yes, it was a mess. The teachers had demanded the right to have a collective bargaining election. The school board kept putting it off, in hopes of staving off the need to negotiate that year, but the teachers went to court and forced them to have the election. There was a big fight between three factions, the IEA, IFT, and no union at all. Agnes was leading the IFT faction. She seemed to have the most support at the high school. Beatrix was leading the IEA faction and was more popular at some of the elementary schools. After Beatrix won the election, everything around here became chaotic. She can organize a classroom like nobody’s business, but she just cannot handle people. She knows how to complain, but not how to run things. The teachers turned down the settlement that the negotiations team came back with. I remember it was something like a one percent raise. When they went back to the negotiations table, the board laughed at them. The teachers then voted to strike. That lasted half a day. Beatrix had no idea what to do. She wouldn’t listen to the advice she was getting from the IEA. The board was ready for the strike. They had mobs of parents in all the buildings and substitute teachers in half the classrooms. Some teachers crossed the picket line. I called in sick. I know that’s a coward’s way out, but I couldn’t betray my friends. The strike failed. The teachers wound up getting no raise at all. Everyone was furious. The parents who’d gotten involved on the board’s side tried to get some of the teachers fired. The teachers threw out the IEA and got the IFT in. The high school teachers have been in control of the union ever since. Most of the teachers are gone from back then, but people can carry grudges a long time.”
“I never knew most of this.” I also wondered a bit about Agnes Davis’s explanation about what had happened all those years ago. She’d left out a lot of information. I wondered if it had been deliberate.
“You started about ten years after it happened. The old guard was tired of fighting by then. Things were quiet for so long. People quit or retired.”
“Was Jerome involved in that election?”
“I don’t remember specifically, but everyone was involved somehow.”
“Who was in charge of the no-union camp?”
“Carolyn Blackburn.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“She kept trying to make peace between all the factions. She would meet with one side, then the other. Several sides accused her of selling out. I heard rumors that the school b
oard wasn’t all that united either, although I’ve never been able to confirm that. Carolyn did everything she could to make things work. Nobody was willing to listen. The next year she started working on her administrative certificate.”
I thanked Georgette for all the information and returned to class. My room was now free. An odd moment happened when I was unlocking my classroom door. The halls were extremely crowded with the changing of classes. I realized I’d left a plastic container from my lunch in the faculty cafeteria. Instead of proceeding directly into the room, I turned to go back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an elbow swipe past where I would have been. In the swirl and eddy of students, I couldn’t tell who had done it. Perhaps it was nothing.
After school I went in search of Beatrix and found her in her classroom. She gave me a hostile look. Her “What do you want?” came with as good of a snarl as the most accomplished teenager.
“I’m not here to accuse you. I was wondering if you would tell me about the big union fight back when you were all getting the organization started here in the district.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I think it has something to do with the murders.”
“How could it?”
“I don’t know. I do know that you’ve been busily threatening everyone or making duplicitous promises around the district. I know you promised both Seth and Jerome your support, and you’ve been badgering Trevor. Is there nothing you would stop at to get your way or cause trouble?”
“That kind of crack is supposed to make me want to confide in you?”
“I’d like to hear your side of the story.”
Meg walked into the room accompanied by Edwina.
“What are you doing here?” Beatrix snapped at Meg.
“Last night Tom and I talked about events in the past,” Meg said. “It made me do some thinking.”
Beatrix stood up. “What is going on? How can she be in the building?”
“She’s with me,” Edwina said.
Beatrix said, “I want my union rep here.”
“I am your union rep,” I said.
She gave me a nasty look. “If my union rep won’t protect me, maybe he shouldn’t be union rep anymore.”
“I’m not here to accuse you,” Meg said. “I just want information. Who were the administrators back when you were setting up the union?”
“You should know. Old man Quigley was the head of the board of education.”
“Beorn’s dad,” I added.
They ignored me.
“But wasn’t there a religious faction at that time too?” Meg asked. “Not like the vocal and obnoxious one we have now. Back then I recall they were simply in favor of the status quo. But who was it on the board who was in favor of the teachers? I’ve never been able to figure that out.”
“Why is it important?” Beatrix asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“I haven’t the faintest notion.”
Meg said, “But you’ve been making deals left and right during this union election. You were union president back then. You should have known who your friends were. As I recall, you aren’t shy about meeting with people. Who did you try to double-cross then?”
Beatrix spoke to Edwina, “Why are you letting her speak to me like this?”
“It kind of amuses me,” Edwina said.
“What happened in that election that you lost?” Meg asked.
When Beatrix spoke, her voice changed to an icy rasp. I hardly recognized it. “You want to know what happened back then? I’ll tell you what happened back then. I was the one who fought to get the teachers’ representation. I was the one who took a stand. I was the one who stuck her neck out. I was the one who led the fight for teachers’ rights in this district. What did I get for all my hard work? I got shit on. Agnes Davis, Jerome Blenkinsop, the whole crowd betrayed me. They went around this district and told every lie they could about me. I didn’t mind people running against me as union president. They have that right, but they had no right to lie about me to every teacher in this district. I will never forgive them past the day they die. I will hate them forever.” Her eyes glittered with tears, but she did not shed them.
“Hated them enough to kill?” I asked.
“Don’t be stupid. Of course not. I have nothing more to say. I’m leaving.”
And she did.
The three of us looked at each other, then at the door Beatrix had slammed.
“Was she angry enough to kill?” I asked.
“I don’t want to be involved,” Edwina said.
“Thought I had something there,” Meg said.
“I’ll keep checking it out,” I said.
Meg turned to Edwina. “As my keeper, you may lead me out the door.”
“Uh?” I said.
“I was told I can’t be in the building without an escort.”
“Are you okay?”
“I talked to Todd. For a taciturn, distant, formal man, I find him very reassuring.” I watched them walk down the corridor. I returned to my classroom. Everything I’d planned to do today now had to be set up for Monday. I wanted to give out books, syllabi, pretests. I also wanted to go over first-day-of-school writing assignments. I don’t use “my summer vacation” as a topic, but I do like to have a sample of their writing so that I am aware of their skill level. For my classes of slower students this is especially important so I can design individual programs. It doesn’t hurt for the bright kids either. Their essays aren’t up to the level of Montaigne yet, and I can get some idea of what items to cover to make them better writers. Ever since some idiotic bureaucrat in the state of Illinois enshrined the five-paragraph essay as the norm for proving the ability to write, I’ve had to work twice as hard to teach the bright kids the elements of real writing. To any dopey bureaucrat reading this—I’ve never written a five-paragraph essay about anything. In the real world neither has anyone else.
I’d long since given up bringing papers home to grade. Which meant spending extra time at school on a Friday going over them. Today, I made sure at least one other faculty member knew where I was, and I notified the custodians of my intention to stay late. The new security officers hadn’t been hired yet, but I wanted to make sure my presence was recorded by as many people as possible.
Half an hour into the essays and I was ready to go nuts. Not from their length or general content, which wasn’t actually all that bad. It’s the little things that teenagers have been doing wrong for years that cause me to see double. I’d just noted the fourteenth use of alot as one word. We aren’t talking “pet peeve” here, we’re talking “driving me bonkers.”
Just after four o’clock my classroom door opened. Lydia Marquez walked in. She was dressed in a conservative business suit. She seemed almost hesitant as she walked about halfway toward the desk.
“May I disturb you?” she asked. Not a hint of demeaning nastiness. I nodded at her. “I heard what happened in here today. I’m terribly sorry. No one should have to be worried about that kind of attack on their job.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You told Belutha and the police everything I told you. She called me that night and the police talked to me today.”
“Did you expect me to keep silent?”
“No, I guess not.” She sighed deeply. “You know, you and I aren’t so different. We both believe very strongly. We both refuse to compromise our essential principles.”
Was she here to make peace? I said, “I wish it wasn’t necessary to fight.”
“With me?”
“I wasn’t actually thinking of that, but that too. No, I meant, I get tired, as must you, of always having to rush to the barricades to defend against an attack from another direction.”
She leaned against a desk. “You got that part right. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to win every battle in the worst way, but there does always seem to be a new one each time you get to the horizon. Just once, I’d like to reach a new dawn and realize there we
re no more fights to be fought.”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you stay this late all the time?”
“Not usually. Because the day was hectic, I needed to go over a few things to be ready for Monday.”
“You’re a dedicated teacher.”
“I’m not unusual. Most of the staff in the district is very hardworking.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I’m curious,” I said. “Why is it so important to you to try and lead the charge to get Meg fired?”
“But I’m not leading that. I’ve had nothing to do with it. As far as I know, that’s coming from Carolyn Blackburn.”
Carolyn must have been more hurt by Meg’s words than I thought.
I said, “What do you know about the elections way back, when they were setting up the union?”
“That was before my time. I only heard about them secondhand. I’m not even sure I remember much of that. Our church was a little dinky thing back then. The old pastor used to tell tales from years ago. At the time they only had ten adult members of the congregation. Now we have nearly a thousand.”
“What did the old pastor used to say?”
“Oh, dear, well, I’m not sure. He’s been dead for five years. Did you know he was on the school board at the time they voted in the union?”
“Really?”
She nodded. “He was a good and kindly man. He always tried to get people to work together. On the school board he told us he tried to produce a compromise among all the factions. That was before we realized the power of the family and the word of God.”
“Somebody said Carolyn Blackburn was working extremely hard at that time to get the sides to reach a compromise.”
“I believe I heard that she was. She’s been helpful so many times. Why in the recent election—” Lydia stopped abruptly.
I stood up. “In the recent election what?”
“Nothing.” She began to fidget.
“Carolyn was on your side?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“She was trying to influence the election? Are school superintendents supposed to do that?”
“I can’t believe you would be so naive not to think anyone in a district who is going to be affected by an outcome wouldn’t be doing all he or she could to affect that outcome. Carolyn was always working to make this a better place.”
Are You Nuts? Page 19