He pulled out a legal pad and jotted down the names of Jolene’s junior-year teachers. Kent, Hastings, Phelps, Racine, Garcia. No first names, only surnames. He tapped the pen against the file while he thought some more. And then he went to find Rose.
“Do something for me?” he said. “Call this number—” He’d scribbled the school’s phone number across the top of the page. “—and find out which of these teachers are men.”
Rose took the paper from him, glanced at it, and frowned. “What do I tell them?”
“It doesn’t matter. Make something up.”
She spent a moment studying the paper in her hand, then marched to the kitchen phone and dialed the number. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Drusilla Goldwater, and I’m making up a mailing list for a women’s studies conference we’re holding in April. My boss gave me a list of McConaughy faculty she wanted to send flyers to, but she’s a little flaky, and she forgot to give me their first names. Do you think you could help me out?” She paused, listened. “Wonderful! Okay, the first one is Kent.”
Thirty seconds later, she hung up the phone. “Voilà!” she said. “Your list, Mr. Lindstrom.”
The corner of his mouth quirked as he looked at her with new respect. “I had no idea you could be so devious.”
“I’m devious? I’m not the one who stole a student file.”
He glanced at the list. Garcia, Kent, and Hastings were all women. That left Lucas Phelps, who taught math, and Philip Racine, the band director. Jesse called McConaughy High and left a brief and cryptic message for both of them: Call Jesse immediately at 207-555-3738 regarding Jolene. Urgent. He might not have been a psychology major, but he liked to believe that he knew a little bit about human nature. If anything funky had gone on last year between Jolene and one of her teachers, he was almost certain that the man in question would call back.
“Now what?” Rose said when he hung up the phone.
“Now,” he said, “we wait.”
With the cordless phone tucked into his coat pocket, he and Rose walked the property, arm in arm, coats buttoned high against the wind that blew in off the icy surface of the river. And they talked. He told her how difficult it had been when his wife had left him with a ten-year-old son to raise alone. “I should have seen it coming,” he said, “but I was too wrapped up in my own problems to notice how unhappy Colleen was. I was a mess for a while. The writing kept me sane. That and Mikey. I had to keep things as normal as possible for his sake. I was all he had.”
While he held her trembling hand and listened silently, Rose told him how, at the vulnerable age of fifteen, she’d allowed Alan Coughlin to lure her into an illicit love affair that she’d been sure would last until the end of time. “When I found out that I wasn’t the only one,” she said, “that there were other—that there’d always been others—I wanted to die. I really, really believed he loved me.” She hunched her shoulders. “Instead, he took away my innocence and then he tossed me aside, the same way he’d tossed aside a dozen other girls before me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“If it hadn’t been for Eddie…” She paused, shrugged. “For all his faults, there was a time when Eddie loved me. And I loved him. And it all felt so damn normal. Maybe that’s why, when things started going sour, I put on blinders and pretended everything was all right. I wasn’t ready to give up normal, not after what I’d been through with Alan.”
After a time, the cold drove them indoors, where they both wandered aimlessly about the house, waiting for the phone to ring. While Rose kept herself busy watering plants and dusting knick-knacks that didn’t need dusting, he rearranged books in the floor-to-ceiling bookcase in his den. It was nearly noon, and he’d just come into the kitchen for a cup of cocoa, when the phone rang. At the sound of the ringer, they both froze. Their eyes met, and for a moment, they were both perfectly still. And then he went to pick it up. “Jesse Lindstrom,” he said.
The voice at the other end was young, male, and more than a little suspicious. “This is Phil Racine,” it said. “Just who the hell are you, and what do you want?”
Across the room, Rose stood in front of the stove, soup ladle in hand, her eyes questioning. Jesse gave her a quick nod, and she turned away from him and began stirring the cocoa. “Thanks for calling,” he said into the phone. “I teach English at Jackson Falls High School, and I want to talk to you about Jolene Hunter.”
“Why?” the voice demanded. “What’s she been saying about me?”
“Nothing. I’m just following a hunch here. She had two male teachers last year. I left the same message for both of you. You’re the one who called back.”
The silence on the other end of the line wasn’t promising. “Look,” Jesse said, “I’m in danger of losing my job because Jolene told the school we had an inappropriate relationship. It’s not true, but I have no way of proving it. It’s her word against mine. I’m hoping there might be something you can tell me that will help me out of this mess. If I’m wrong, I apologize for bothering you.”
At the other end, Racine sighed. “Oh, hell,” he said. “I was hoping I’d never have to hear her name again.”
His heartbeat quickened. “Then something did happen.”
“Oh, yeah. Or maybe I should say that Jolene tried her damnedest to make something happen. I went through four months of hell because of that girl, four months I’m not about to forget anytime soon.”
“Pretty intense, was it?”
“Intense?” Racine snorted. “Man, you don’t know the half of it. I made the mistake of eating lunch with her once, out on the playground. I was just being friendly, you know? I mean, hell, she’s a personable kid. Easy to talk to. After that, it was love notes tucked into my saxophone. Phone calls to my apartment at all hours. She and her friends even started showing up at my gigs on Friday nights. God only knows how they got in, every damn one of them was underage. Jolene was unbelievably persistent, wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’s smart, and she knows just which buttons to push, and how hard to push them. She kept threatening to run her mouth to anybody who’d listen if I didn’t do what she wanted.”
“What did you do?”
“You have to understand,” Racine said. “I’m low man on the totem pole here, the most junior member of the faculty in an elite private school where people spend thirty grand a year to send their kids. It was my first year of teaching. If either one of us had gone to the administration with this, it would have been her word against mine, and with her parents’ money, who do you think the school would have believed? The Hunters would have steamrolled right over me, and old Phil would’ve been out on the street without a day job. So I decided that two could play at her little game.” Racine paused. “I blackmailed her.”
Jesse let out a hard breath. “Blackmail?”
“It was during the spring band trip to New York. She came to my hotel room, declaring her undying love, and I couldn’t get rid of her. She was being bratty and obnoxious, and I was at the end of my rope. I have one of those little mini-recorders. I mostly use it to tape my private lesson students so they can hear what they sound like, gauge their progress. I spied it sitting on the desk, and when she wasn’t looking, I turned it on. I taped the whole conversation, everything she said to me, everything I said back to her. When I figured I had enough, I rewound it and played it back to her.”
“And that worked?”
“It worked. I told her that if she ever bothered me again, I’d play it for her parents, the principal, the school board…”
“Tell me you still have the tape.”
“I’ve still got it.”
Excitement raced through his bloodstream. “My lawyer and I are meeting with the Hunters and the school administration tomorrow morning. Can I borrow it? I’ll pay for overnight delivery.”
“That girl,” Racine said, “made my life a living hell. I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand by and watch her put the screws to somebody else. I’ll go you one better. You pa
y my airfare, I’ll hand-deliver it to you. I want to see her face when you play it for her.”
***
Gathered in the high school conference room, they were a somber-looking crew: Paula in her lawyer clothes, Henry Lamoreau, looking as if he’d rather be having a root canal; a hard-eyed and defiant Jolene; the Hunters and Terry Johnson, their attorney, all three of them wearing identical expressions of smug disapproval; Leslie Higgins from the Department of Human Services Child Protective Unit, and of course, Jesse and Rose, hands clasped beneath the table, both of them surviving solely on gallons of Maeve’s hi-test coffee and three hours of sleep.
Seated in the chair to Jesse’s right, Paula stood up. “Thank you all for coming this morning,” she said. “As I’m about to show you, the charges against my client are totally unfounded.”
“That remains to be seen,” Terry Johnson said smugly.
Paula smiled cryptically and made a production of setting her briefcase on the table, unsnapping it, and pulling out a small tape recorder. “Excuse me,” she said. Every eye in the room followed her as she walked to the door and opened it. “You can come in now.”
All eyes were still focused on the door when Phil Racine walked into the room. Jesse shot a quick glance at Jolene. At the sight of her former band instructor, all the color drained from her face. “Hello, Jolene,” Racine said, and nodded his head at her parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Hunter.”
The Hunters looked confused. “Who are you?” Terry Johnson said.
Racine leaned over the table, cool as the proverbial cucumber. “Phil Racine.” He shook the attorney’s hand. “I was Jolene’s band instructor last year.”
Paula popped open the door on the cassette player. “Phil?”
“Oops. Almost forgot.” Racine patted his pockets, found what he sought in the breast pocket of his navy blazer. With a flourish, he handed the tape to Paula, and she popped it into the machine.
“This tape,” she said, “will prove that my client is not the first teacher to whom Jolene Hunter has formed an obsessive attachment.” And she pushed the button on the recorder.
“How many times do I have to say it, Jolene?” Racine’s voice said. “How many different ways? I’m not interested. Go play with somebody your own age.”
“I don’t believe you!” Jolene said. “I haven’t forgotten the way you looked at me the day we had lunch together. Like you wanted to eat me up.”
“It’s all in your head.”
“And we agree on so many things. We even have the same tastes in music. Early Motown and Tchaikovsky. Don’t you see? We were meant to be together.”
“Jolene, you have to stop this. It’s not healthy. I’m your teacher. I’m not interested in little girls.”
“Are you worried about getting caught? That’s it, isn’t it? I’d never tell.”
“That’s not it. Damn it, I’m not interested in you! Period. You’re sixteen years old. I’m twenty-six. You’re smart enough to put the numbers together and come up with a big, fat zero. Give it up, for Christ’s sake.”
“You know what, Phil? I could make your life hell if I really wanted to. All I’d have to do is tell my parents that you made a move on me. How long do you think you’d have your job then?”
“Is that a threat?”
“All you have to do is be nice to me, and I won’t tell.”
“There’s nothing to tell! It’s not the truth!”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? If I went crying to my parents, who do you think they’d believe?”
When Paula stopped the tape, there was absolute silence in the room. She looked from stunned face to stunned face. “Heard enough, folks?”
Mrs. Hunter turned to her daughter. “Jolene?” she said weakly.
The girl’s face might have gone white, but the defiance was still there. “It’s all your fault,” she told her mother.
Behind her silk and pearls, Mrs. Hunter gasped. “My fault? How dare you say such a thing?”
“Because it’s the truth, Mother! When have you ever looked at me? You pay more attention to your precious poodle than you do to me!”
Her mother turned bright red, whether from fury or embarrassment, it was impossible for Jesse to determine. “Jolene!”
“But when I came home the other night,” Jolene said, “crying because I’d made such a fool of myself with Mr. Lindstrom, you asked me what was wrong, and you actually seemed to care. I lied about what happened because you finally looked at me. You really, truly looked at me.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she swatted furiously at them. “It’s the first time I can remember you ever listening to anything I said!”
Her father winced and closed his eyes. Her mother’s mouth fell open. “Excuse us a moment,” Terry Johnson said. “I need to confer with my clients.” He and the Hunters huddled in a corner of the room while Jesse clung to Rose’s hand.
Paula squeezed his shoulder. Across the table, Henry Lamoreau’s color was rapidly improving. The grayish pallor had left his face, and he was once again looking his customary chipper self.
Terry Johnson returned to the table. Cleared his throat. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “my clients are withdrawing all charges. And they’d like to offer Mr. Lindstrom an apology.” He looked abashed. “As well as Mr. Racine.”
Leslie Higgins from DHS leaned back in her chair and closed the appointment book she’d been scribbling in. “Might I suggest, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter, that you consider family counseling? It sounds like there are some serious issues that need to be resolved.”
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Hunter said grimly. “We’ll be giving it serious consideration.”
Johnson and Higgins left the room, chatting amiably, followed by the Hunters, silent and stoic as they escorted their weeping daughter from the room. They were barely out the door before their raised voices drifted back, in battle or reprimand, Jesse couldn’t tell. He let go of Rose’s hand and watched the color return to her fingers. “Henry?” he said.
“Um? Oh, yes, of course. I’m expecting you to come back to work tomorrow morning. And it won’t be a minute too soon.” Henry pulled out a handkerchief and patted his bald head. “The kids are really working over the substitute.”
“One more thing,” Paula said. “I think the school owes Mr. Lindstrom a big apology.”
“Certainly. Certainly.” Henry bobbed his head like one of those little dogs in the rear window of an old Ford. Squaring his shoulders and puffing out his chest, he said, “I’ll have Hazel type up a memo immediately. Put it in writing.” Looking self-important, he added vaguely, “Of course, I knew all along that you were innocent.” Still sweating profusely, he scurried from the room.
Behind his back, Paula stuck out her tongue, and Jesse held back the grin that was tiptoeing around the corners of his mouth. She ejected the tape from the recorder and handed it to Phil Racine. “Yours, I believe. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful we are for what you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome,” Racine said, “but I think I benefited as much as Jesse did.” He looked at the tape in his hand, shrugged, and tossed it into the trash. Rubbing his hands together, he said, “It doesn’t look like I’ll be needing it any more.”
Jesse put an arm around Rose’s waist and she turned into his arms. Burying his face in her hair, he inhaled deeply and said, “Now, can we go home?”
Her hand was cool against the nape of his neck as she turned her face up to his. “Now,” she said, “we can go home.”
epilogue
“Read it to me?” Rose said. “I have to work fast, the light’s changing.”
The late-afternoon sun cast elongated shadows, reflecting sixteen-month-old Beth Lindstrom in primary colors in the river that flowed past her ankles. Beth continued the weighty job of filling her plastic bucket with sand, blissfully unaware that a few feet away, her mother was rushing to capture her likeness on canvas while the afternoon light still cast a shimmering halo around her blond head.
Bes
ide Rose, Jesse sat upright in his lawn chair and carefully tore open Devon’s letter. “Dear Mom and Dad,” he read, and glanced up at his wife. “Did you hear that? She called me Dad.”
“Mmn. I noticed. She should be calling you Dad after the bundle you dropped to send her to Stanford. Keep reading.”
“Sorry I haven’t written, summer classes have kept me busy. But it will be worth it in the end. I know I made the right decision to do my undergraduate work in three years. I still have law school ahead of me, and at some point before I’m too old, I’d like to have a life again.”
“It would be nice,” Rose said, frowning as she concentrated on blurring Beth’s watery reflection in the background of her canvas, “if she could find the time to come home and visit once in a while.”
“She’ll come home for Thanksgiving.”
“By then, I’ll have forgotten what she looks like.”
“Mikey arrived in one piece, and I’ve been introducing him to all my friends. They’re already all crushing on him—” He paused, looked up at Rose. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I imagine just what it sounds like.”
“—and telling me how lucky I am to have such a hottie for a stepbrother. If they only knew what I know. Anyway, don’t worry about him. Big sister is watching out for him, and once the semester starts in a couple of weeks, he’ll be too busy with classes to get into any trouble.”
“That’s a comforting thought,” Rose said.
“Isn’t it?” Jesse gave her a quick smile, then turned back to the letter. “Congratulations, Dad, on the new job. Mr. Lamoreau was way overdue for retirement, and I know you’ll make a kick-ass principal. Mom, thanks for the painting you sent for my birthday. My roommate says Jackson Falls looks quaint and picturesque, and she’s dying to visit. I told her it’s not true, that it’s just a trick of light, but I don’t think she believes me. Give a big kiss to the squirt for me, and send more pictures! All the kids think my baby sister is way cool. Oh, and say hi to the dweeb for me, but don’t make it sound like I miss him or anything. Love, Devon.”
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