The Consultant

by Sean Oliver

  “Dad?” Deanna’s tone softened. “Are you okay?”

  He looked up. “Yes.”

  She let everything sit for the moment. When she looked across the desk at George, she still saw her father. She saw the man that encouraged her and made her laugh. He may not have been big on life lessons or sermons on responsibility, but throughout her life he made her comfortable enough to grow into whoever she wanted to be. He never tried to bend her road, and didn’t fill it with signage. It bred in her a confidence in her own direction.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said to her, much quieter than during the initial interrogation. He sat down at his desk and opened his laptop.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” She watched as he began working, business as usual. He seemed calmer, like he’d fought off whatever made him close his eyes a moment ago.

  “This is exactly where I should be.” He pecked at his keyboard.

  “Why did you come back last year? Your retirement papers were already turned in after the heart issue. They even let me transfer here because you were done. Why did you pull your papers?”

  He looked up at her. “You really cannot be here while you’re on a leave of absence.” They locked eyes. Any words settling on Deanna tongue, ready to fly, were knocked out.

  “A leave?”

  “From your car accident. You requested a leave, and it was granted.” His face was stone. “So you should go.”

  “I didn’t request—”

  She didn’t move. Her jaw slacked as she kept looking at this man she didn’t know. She fought breaking down right there. Her father’s unfeeling eyes joined Trisha’s smile and everything else that was taking control of her mind. She took a breath and regrouped enough to avoid a breakdown and erect a front.

  “I did not request a leave,” she said.

  “Well, you’re on one,” he said through his work. “You don’t believe me, check the computer. Or have Jared do it.”

  She stood to leave. She didn’t stomp out and slam the door. This is what a free fall without a parachute felt like, falling in the dark. She didn’t know where she was going or to whom she should turn.

  Deanna put her head down and walked from the room and out of the office. She was out of the building, prohibited from reentry until her leave was officially finished. She’d never seen the paperwork she supposedly filed, so she didn’t know the term of her leave. For a while, possibly a great while, she would be shielded from answers. George had seen to that.

  As she walked down the front steps to the street, she was pelted by the snow, now traveling sideways, riding a chilling wind. That massive institution behind her, the one with all the secrets, rolled on. She felt the energy of a thousand people at her back, and eventually further and further away.

  FIFTY-THREE

  ANY TEACHER HIT with a crisp spring breeze, the first without the bite of winter, would swear they could smell it. It was even more evocative if there was some sunlight around to shine on your face while optimistic spring blew in and caressed your cheeks. Daydreams went to the final marking period, final report cards, and the finality of that school year. Didn’t even have to specifically think about Point Pleasant, Long Beach Island, or any other shore town. The scorch of summer was yet to come, and that was okay.

  But spring—that air that allowed you to drop down from puffer to windbreaker, was magic. It remade you the moment it kissed you.

  One way to snuff out some of that spring air was to spend an hour or so in an arid basement library. Jared had been to every workshop thus far, but today just felt like something different. He felt like everything should be different, from the smell of the building to the smell of the students in the classroom. Those first days of the season are a true masquerade.

  Every teacher in the workshop had a student on their mind. Albrecht looked at each of them individually. Some had that certainty in their eyes. Others were thinking, going over their roster in their head, looking for the right one.

  “Trust yourself,” Albrecht said as he wandered the circle. “Lift that pressure off and free yourself to make a decision. It’s nothing you have to say aloud, nothing you have to share now.”

  Jared fought the Smoke. He was trying to stay outwardly calm. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, drawing in steady breaths. To anyone looking, he could be mediating. He could be deep in thought. He could be making his selection.

  Amir. Every time the kid came to his mind, Jared pushed it away, resisting that thing rolling up his spine. They were told to think of a student—someone who embodied the qualities needed for leading tomorrow’s world. One student each, who could excel in a sparser environment, in a world that rewarded independence and self-reliance.

  “Trust your instincts, because you are right,” Albrecht said. “What you are doing every day, whether you realize it or not, is right. You are preparing for tomorrow. We are preparing for our tomorrow. And theirs.”

  Yes, Amir. He was so self-sufficient, coming in at eight in the morning, a half hour before classes began. Jared would often leave him alone in his classroom before school while running to meetings. The boy was a self-starter, too, bringing in code he’d written on his own the night before, from cool animations to data miners like “Glitchy.exe.”

  Why were they being asked to choose a student? What project would they now be asked to do? Jared would certainly recommend Amir for a school award—he was definitely the star programming student in his grade level, probably the school. He was a thinker, a leader.

  But why was the Smoke attached to those thoughts of Amir? Jared would continue to fight it, breathe through it, and think about something else.

  “Our goals are nothing without the children,” Albrecht continued. “It’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?” He gestured to the space around him.

  Jared opened his eyes. The faces around him were a combination of catatonic peacefulness and intense thought. Almost no one looked normal.

  Doris Calhoun did. She was across the room, actually out of the circle, standing near her desk and looking right at Jared. Glaring, actually. He looked away, then back. Still looking. He couldn’t hold her stare but it became too uncomfortable knowing she was still on him. The other faces were looking around the room, at each other, or had their eyes closed altogether. Dino Mirabelli, a physical education teacher, looked like he was asleep, though he appeared to be mouthing something.

  “Let it happen,” Albrecht said.

  Damn it, no. The feeling was fighting up Jared’s spine again. Calhoun was still looking at him, like she was supervising the chemical process at war with Jared’s body. But just looking, doing nothing abnormal if viewed by a third person. Jared could sometimes use an intense focus on something else to stifle the Smoke. But when this group was together it was near impossible.

  “Everything you do is right.”

  Amir was his best student and someone people could count on someday. It would be an honor to recognize him in a formal capacity. He could lead people.

  Calhoun, still looking.

  The Smoke reached Jared’s shoulders and it was always too far along when it got there. It smoothed out across his back, up the base of his neck. He wasn’t fighting anything anymore, he was empty.

  His train of thought became singular, free of distraction. Judgment was absent. Calhoun was looking elsewhere. Jared chose Amir.

  Carmen sat alone in the empty room. She should have been moving some more furniture in, but her back was in knots again. It was hurting nearly all the time now, being that she was just a couple of weeks away. Andy hadn’t even finished painting the nursery. She supposed that should’ve been stressing her out. But it wasn’t.

  She knew herself well enough know she was not a master of coping skills—quite the opposite. She’d been called a “hotheaded bitch” enough in her lifetime, certainly while working in the Carson public school security department. She never backed down from anything.

  Andy handled the passivity in the relatio
nship, giving her the stage to rant and rave while he pondered solutions or shrugged the issue off. Baby’s room wasn’t painted yet? It’s okay. It will be. That was Andy.

  A cream-colored crib was assembled and sitting in the corner. A couple of baskets filled with blankets sat beside a pink box with ornate embroidery, all under a window that was still lacking drapes. The room was carpeted, but that was about it as far as adornments. Andy still had to get the changing table and accompanying dresser built. Had to finish painting the trim along the ceiling, and the window frame still needed to be painted.

  It’s okay. It will be.

  Carmen smiled as she sat dead center in the room, holding her belly. There was a baby’s room assembling around her. But it was mostly empty. There was once a Carmen who would have been taking daily inventory of what had yet to be done before the due date, bludgeoning Andy with that checklist. But this Carmen sat in a half-pink room, joint compound, electric drill, and blue painter’s tape on the floor, and was wholly at peace. Andy falling behind schedule didn’t really stay on her mind.

  That tickling thing that ran up her back was soothing her. What wonderful and mysterious things a woman’s body could do. As she got closer to the due date, that feeling came more frequently—no doubt the “glow” of which so many mothers spoke. But that feeling was so much more frequent now, and had begun reaching her head, as it had while she sat in the nursery-to-be and thought about having her child.

  Carmen pushed herself off the floor and went into her bedroom. Before she knew it she was pulling pairs of pants out of her drawer—one maternity and a couple of pre-baby sets. She carried them back to the nursery. One thing that smoky, tickling feeling did was make some of her back pain go away. She didn’t fight that.

  One weird thing was the date that kept showing up in her head, usually around the same time as that smoky feeling. For months all she could think about was her February due date, but as it got closer, that random April 5th kept showing up in her mind.

  Carmen leaned down with a groan and lifted a few blankets off the pink, embroidered box in the nursery. She opened the lid and placed the pants in the box, on top of some shirts and a pair of boots already inside. Seemed like there was room for at least another couple of shirts, maybe sandals, too. She would need to fill it as high as she could. She stood in the incomplete nursery knowing that the room was okay in its current state. But that box needed to be ready.

  She placed the lid back on and then piled the blankets atop the box.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  DETECTIVE O’MALLEY AND Arthur Moore stood bundled against the breezy, frigid night. O’Malley had his black North Face ski jacket zipped to his chin and wool skullcap around his dome. If the bottom of his gun holster weren’t sticking out from below the coat, there would be no evidence he was a cop. He looked more like a hoodlum.

  “I think I should wait in the car?” Moore said.

  “Nah, come up,” O’Malley said.

  O’Malley hit the buzzer again. Moore pulled half his face down into the top of his puffer coat. The townhouse complex was right along the Hackensack River, and that row of units put the wind coming off the water right at their backs. The intercom fluttered with static momentarily.

  “Yes, gentlemen?” it blared. O’Malley looked above them, around the alcove where they stood and found the camera at the corner of the entryway. Thus, the gentlemen.

  “Mr. Albrecht, I’m Detective O’Malley of the Carson police. May we come up and speak with you for a moment?”

  “Carson?”

  “Yeah, a little out of town right now. Took me twenty minutes to find Discovery Road back there.”

  “Ironically enough.”

  “True.” There was an awkward silence. Then the buzzer.

  O’Malley grabbed the door and held it open for Moore who walked through and to a short, carpeted staircase.

  “Hey, listen,” Moore began, “he knows me from the school. He’ll know I ain’t a cop.”

  “Never said you were one. I only introduced myself.” They started up the stairs. Atop the landing there was a unit door to the left, and one to the right. The entryway split the two townhouses. The foyer was bare and basic. Seemed like a good spot for newlyweds or commuters. There wasn’t much in the area except Route 46 and the units seemed small from the outside, most likely one and two bedrooms with no yard space.

  “I’ll wait in the hallway. I can hear through the door. It’s quiet here.”

  “Come inside. I want him to see you.” They reached the landing and the door was already opening. Elias Albrecht stood with a smile, still dressed in what was likely his work outfit for the day—V-neck sweater over a button-down dress shirt and khakis. He extended his hand.

  “Elias Albrecht,” he said. The detective shook his hand.

  “Detective O’Malley. This is Officer Moore.”

  Albrecht shook Moore’s hand and looked at him for an extra second.

  “A familiar face,” Albrecht said. “You check me in at P.S. 21.”

  “Good evening,” Moore said.

  “Come in.” Albrecht held the door open and the two men walked inside. “You said Officer Moore, I didn’t realize you meant security officer.” The door closed behind them. After a few steps through an entranceway adequate only for a small table and coat closet, they all found themselves in the white kitchen. It was sparse, with nothing on the counter tops, no cereal boxes visible. The refrigerator was free of magnets, papers, or any announcements. There was a round table with four chairs in the corner. The table was empty with the exception of a fat three-ring binder. No one sat.

  “Mr. Albrecht, we’re here concerning P.S. 21, where you’ve been visiting as a consultant.”

  “About the missing teacher?” Albrecht asked.

  “Well, sure,” O’Malley said. “We can start there.”

  “Very unfortunate. I’ve been reading about it. Everyone is so concerned at the school. I hope it all works out. It’s a perplexing case.”

  “Why do you say that?” O’Malley asked.

  “Well, each time I read a new article, there are no new developments. They all kind of read like the same article, repeated.” O’Malley nodded at Albrecht. “That’s what they report anyway. I’m sure you guys don’t tell the press everything. I’ll help in any way I can.”

  “Great,” O’Malley said as he took his iPhone out of his pocket and held it up. “I hate writing notes and my fingers are frozen anyway. Do you mind if I record what we discuss?”

  “Not at all.”

  O’Malley opened an app and tapped a round, red button on the display. A digital counter began accruing seconds. O’Malley reached over and placed the phone on the thick, blue binder sitting on the kitchen table. Albrecht shifted, then looked up at the cop’s face and smiled.

  “Okay,” O’Malley began. They all stood around the room—O’Malley beside the table, Albrecht a few feet across next to the fridge. Moore leaned on the counter, arms folded, looking around.

  “Do you remember her at all? Trisha McAllister?” O’Malley asked.

  “A little,” Albrecht said. “Nothing really stands out.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Just that she was there at the school. Only for a session or two. Very quiet, from what I recall.”

  “She ever talk with you outside your classes?”

  “No. Just in the workshops, and I don’t even recall her talking then.”

  “What is the topic of your workshops?”

  “Test preparation.”

  “What kind of tests? What subjects?”

  “The state standardized tests for New Jersey currently test language arts and math. Though I do share strategies for helping with both, I specialize in language arts.”

  “Seems like you’re there a lot for just reading workshops.”

  Albrecht firmed up his stance a bit, rolling up his sleeves and leaning into the conversation, talking with his hands.

  “Reading and writi
ng is the foundation of the rest of these kids’ lives. Communication is their superhighway.”

  “What about technology?”

  A pause from Albrecht. “What about it?”

  “Well, you were saying reading and writing is the future, but I cannot sit with my daughter for fifteen minutes without her needing her phone for something vital. Vital to her, anyway.”

  “Detective,” Albrecht began, deadpan, “with all due respect, that thinking is everything that’s wrong with the world—children following destructive trends just because society has devolved to the point where it has reframed basic values.”

  “Yikes,” O’Malley said, looking over to Moore and pointing to his iPhone, still displaying the recording time. “Arthur, I should have taken out my pad and pencil and gone old school with this interview.”

  Moore pursed his lips and nodded, a hint of a smile. O’Malley was having fun with the discussion and he believed Albrecht was sincere. But more interesting than the philosophical discussion about the direction of education was Albrecht’s change in mood. His big face had gone flush in the few seconds after O’Malley’s comment about his daughter’s phone.

  “Mr. Albrecht,” O’Malley began, smiling, “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sure your classes are great and, yes, those tests are pretty important.”

  Albrecht just nodded, acknowledging the apology, but staying tight-lipped.

  “Fuck that,” Moore said from across the room, arms still folded. “They should probably have the kids spend the whole day in computer classes. They ain’t going to be doing much reading and writing down the road.”

  “That’s absurd,” Albrecht said.

  “Last weekend I needed to change a belt in my dryer,” Moore said. “I was looking for my home repairs book I use for everything from electric to plumbing. Couldn’t find that thing anywhere. Best damn book I ever got. Old as the hills, but the information is tight. Great black-and-white photos. Thing must’ve been a textbook back in the day.”

  “Can I borrow it?” O’Malley asked, failing to entertain the host.