by Tim O'Mara
I laughed. ‘That’s good,’ I said.
‘Then she doesn’t need to know what I know,’ Ally said. ‘I’ll even offer to take her to lunch. We can talk about how wonderful her son is.’
‘As long as that’s all you talk about.’
‘Is that a yes?’
I shrugged. ‘What the hell? Yeah, it’s a yes. When do you wanna go out there?’
She took out her phone and opened up her calendar. After pressing a few buttons, she said, ‘Tomorrow works for me.’
‘That’s kinda quick notice, Ally. This is a woman who needs three days’ notice to take a one-hour train ride to visit Rachel in Queens. She doesn’t do spontaneous.’
‘You can call her.’
I had to smile. I just had to. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell and handed it to Allison. ‘Or you can call her.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier if you—’
‘But she loves you, Ally. Just offer to take her to lunch.’ I stood up. ‘Let me know what she says when I get back from the men’s room.’
TWENTY-THREE
The following morning at school, after getting the kids out of the playground and off to homeroom, the first thing I did was check on my two Boys of the Week: Hector Robles and Tommy Avila. Both were absent. I called Hector’s home first – no answer. I tried his mother’s cell and she picked up after one ring.
‘He’s with his father,’ she said to me. She also explained that she was out showing an apartment to prospective renters, but her expectations weren’t that high. If she was thinking at all about my knowledge of her affair with Marty Stover, she did a good job of hiding it. ‘I hope it’s OK that we kept him home today. My husband had to run some errands, and he wanted to spend more time with Hector. I thought they could both use the time together. My husband’s really getting into building this extra room, and it seems to be cheering him up. And Hector, after what happened to Marty …’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘Just make sure Hector’s in on Monday. I don’t want him getting used to four-day weekends.’
She laughed, it sounded like it was her first one in quite a while. ‘Thank you, Mr Donne. I appreciate it.’
After I hung up, I found myself wondering how many box cutters Hector’s father owned. I put that thought out of my head and called the Avila home. Mr Avila picked up.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shoulda called you. We took your advice and made an appointment with a shrink – a psychologist. It took my wife a while to find one who took our insurance, but it turns out there’s one by my work. She had an opening at ten this morning, so it didn’t seem to make sense to send Tommy to school for an hour.’
‘I hear ya,’ I said. ‘You’ll let us know what the psychologist thinks?’
‘Definitely. I went online last night and god damn if this school phobia isn’t a real thing.’ Like I make shit up to suit my needs. ‘Never heard of it. When I was Tommy’s age I had “Daddy phobia.” I didn’t wanna go to school, and Daddy didn’t wanna hear it. That settled that, if you know what I mean.’
I did know what he meant, and I hoped that Mr Avila would prove to be more enlightened than his father. And my own, who sometimes used his hands when he couldn’t find the right words.
‘Why don’t you or your wife bring Tommy in sometime Monday? We can sit down with our school counselor, Ms Stiles, and come up with a game plan for school.’
I waited about ten seconds for his response.
‘Can we do that as early as possible?’ he asked. ‘My boss is letting me off this morning, and he’s not exactly known for his generosity. I lost an hour of work the other day getting Tommy home. I don’t wanna push my luck.’
‘Let’s make it at eight then,’ I said. ‘Before the rest of the kids get in.’
He waited a few beats as if checking his calendar. ‘I guess that’ll have to work, Mr Donne. Thanks.’
‘I’ll see you Monday.’
I went up to my office for another cup of coffee and then down to Elaine Stiles to let her know she now had plans for eight a.m. on Monday. Her door was open, and I found her in a familiar position: phone cradled between her shoulder and ear as she tapped away at her keyboard. She noticed me and waved me in. She was talking to someone about foster care, Children’s Services, and a possible grant for the school. Busy, busy. About a minute later, she wrapped up her call, spun around in her chair, and gave me her full attention.
‘Tommy Avila, right?’ she asked.
‘You’re good, Elaine.’ I told her about my phone call with the father and our plans to meet on Monday. ‘Sorry about the early hour.’
‘I’m here at eight anyway, Ray,’ she said. ‘We still have about ten eighth graders I’m trying to place into a decent high school.’
In New York City, all eighth graders get to apply to high school. Most of them get into their first, second, or third choices. For those who don’t, there are counselors like Elaine who try to get them into a school that doesn’t have a metal detector and does have a graduation rate of at least ninety percent. As if the counselors didn’t have enough to do, like help a kid like Tommy Avila and his school phobia.
‘You ever deal with a kid who’s done something like this before?’ I asked. ‘I mean, school phobias are one thing; staging a crime scene, injuring yourself, and coming up with an almost believable story is another.’
We had one kid a couple of years ago who started out by taking what his mother called a monthly ‘mental health day.’ Well, monthly soon turned into weekly, and it got to the point where the kid refused to come in at all. We tried everything we could at school – late arrival times, early dismissals, counseling – and nothing worked. Finally, I suggested to Mom that she call the cops. Not coming to school is, after all, against the law. It only took one home visit from the youth officers – and an explanation of all the bad stuff that would visit the family if the kid continued to stay home – to scare him enough to start coming to school. That was the hardest case I’d seen. Until Tommy Avila.
‘Not this bad, no,’ Elaine said. ‘Most kids with school phobia are quite skilled at actually making themselves sick. They buy into it to the point where they can give themselves fevers, hives, and other real ailments. What Tommy did was above and beyond. It was good you caught on to it when you did.’ She took a sip of her coffee. I did the same. ‘What are you going to recommend at Monday’s meeting?’
‘That’s funny,’ I said. ‘I was going to ask you the same thing. You’re the school counselor, I’m just a dean.’
‘But you know Tommy better than I do. What’s a good first move?’
‘Not giving him what he thinks he wants. There’s no way I’m going to recommend a transfer to another school. That just pushes the problem on to a set of people who don’t know him.’
Elaine smiled at me. ‘It would also remove him from your Special Project list.’
‘Yes, it would.’
I had shared that concept with Elaine last year. My Special Projects – when it came right down to it – were a group of kids who really interested me. The non-boring students, if you will. They had clear issues, were intelligent beyond what they showed at school, and were workable. Funny how Elaine knew Tommy Avila had made my list the day before.
‘He says he doesn’t like coming to this school,’ I said. ‘I think a good first step would be to make this school more to his liking.’
That was cause for thought. ‘And just how do you hope to do that, Ray?’
‘Let’s change his class.’
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Who’s our best teacher dealing with troubled kids?’ I asked. ‘Besides me.’
‘Besides you?’ she laughed. ‘Josephine Levine.’
‘Let’s put him in her class.’
‘That’s a great idea, Ray, but she’s special education. Tommy’s a general ed kid.’
‘We convince the parents to place him in the class “at risk.”’
‘At ris
k’ meant we could provide the student with special education services without making it official. Kind of a trial run.
‘You think they’d go for it?’ Elaine asked. ‘More importantly, do you think Tommy would? Going from gen ed to special ed is not something most kids would look at as a step up.’
‘Jo’s got a great group of kids this year,’ I said. ‘There’re only ten in there.’ She was legally allowed a maximum of twelve. ‘The small group and the idea of not moving from class to class each period would probably help Tommy with his … anxiety. There are only three months left in the school year. If he doesn’t like it, we put him back in the mainstream in the fall. We’ll sell it as a trial run in a calmer environment.’
‘I already see most of Jo’s students for counseling. I can put him in one of those groups.’
‘Then that’s where we start.’
‘And we cross our fingers.’
‘Couldn’t hurt.’
Right as I got back to my office, my cell phone rang. It was Allison.
‘Miss me already?’ I asked as I sat down behind my desk.
‘Desperately,’ she answered. ‘Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep my mind on my work. Which is why I’m calling, by the way.’
‘What’s up?’
‘How does a trip out to Jones Beach sound, tough guy?’
‘In late March? Cold. Why?’
‘I just got a call from Chris Miller, Melissa’s brother. She’s agreed to talk to me off the record, then see if she wants to be interviewed for the story.’
‘You’re on a roll. Where do I come in?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘Chris’s going to be there, too. I figured I might have a better chance of getting her alone if you come along and take Big Brother for a walk.’
‘When is all this happening?’
‘This afternoon. Your mother said I can come by before lunch and go through your dad’s stuff. Chris said he and Melissa will be available after four. If you ditch work a little early, I can pick you up at the Freeport station at three forty-five. How’s your afternoon looking?’
‘Nothing scheduled. I guess I’m meeting you in Freeport. Did Chris say why Melissa wants to meet at the beach?’
‘After I asked, he did,’ Ally said. ‘She’s still trying to put things back together. After the attack, she wouldn’t go near the beach. Nowadays it’s one of her favorite things to do, just not during the summer months. This time of year the beach’ll be pretty empty. I think it’s going to be a big part of my story. It’s been over twenty years and she’s still working stuff like this out. And, at the risk of getting a lecture from you, it’ll make a great photo op.’
‘You’re not thinking of putting her picture in the paper, are you?’
‘Not her face, no. Give me some credit, Ray. I’m thinking a shot from behind as she’s walking the boardwalk with her brother.’
‘Sounds like you got it all planned out.’
‘It’s what I do, Ray. Don’t you think things through before meeting with a kid in crisis, or do you just go in and wing it?’
I thought of Monday’s meeting with Tommy and his folks. Ally had a point.
‘I’ll check the train schedule to Freeport and get back to you,’ I said.
‘Already did. The two-forty-five out of Penn gets you into Freeport just after three-thirty. I went on the LIRR website in hopes you’d say yes.’
I could almost feel her hand on my leg.
‘I’ll see you at three-thirty then. Where’d you get a car, by the way?’
‘The paper still has some perks,’ she said. ‘Remind me to get a receipt for gas.’ She paused for effect. ‘And dinner later.’
‘Dinner?’
‘I don’t expect you to work for free, Raymond.’
Maybe she was learning.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘So you told them I was coming, and they were both OK with it?’
‘Not at first,’ Allison said, as we pulled into one of the hundreds of empty spots in the Jones Beach parking lot. I counted five other cars in the entire place. ‘Chris thought it’d be fine, but it took some convincing to get Melissa on board. I explained that anything she told me – after our initial talk – would be in private. Just the two of us.’
‘She knows who my father was?’
‘She said she remembered him being there when Billy gave his plea allocution in court. She has a vivid memory of Billy standing between the two lawyers as he admitted to what he had done. Your dad, she said, spent most of the time with his head down writing in his legal pad.’
‘Sounds like my father,’ I said. ‘Shit, that reminds me. Did you find out anything at my mother’s house?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Your dad was a lot more organized than you.’
‘Remind me to laugh at that later. Did he keep any notes on the case?’
‘I got one legal pad from the case that was in the box marked for that year. It was barely half-filled. Your dad kept one or two pads for each case he was even marginally involved in. You’re going to have to decipher some of his handwriting for me. It reminds me of yours. Your mom also gave me his old desktop computer, which I think I’m gonna need Edgar’s help accessing.’
‘He’s gonna love that.’
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the time. The little bell went off telling us she’d just received a text.
‘They’re here,’ she said. ‘They’re meeting us in front of the West Bathhouse.’
We got out of the car and I had to zip up my jacket. I wished I’d brought a hat as well, but it hadn’t been this chilly in Brooklyn that morning when I left the apartment. I shoved my hands into my pockets and followed Ally.
‘How do you know where you’re going?’ I asked.
‘I Googled it before I left the city,’ she said. ‘You come here a lot as a kid?’
‘Yeah. When we weren’t playing baseball or some form thereof. We could get here by bus or ride our bikes along the parkway.’
‘Nice. I never saw a real beach until I was sixteen and we went on a family trip to Florida.’
Ally had grown up in the Midwest, but I tried not to hold that against her.
‘We should come here when it gets a little warmer,’ I said. ‘I’m not much of a swimmer, but I like it here.’
She held out her hand for me. ‘Sounds like a date,’ she said.
I recognized Chris Miller right away. He was the only man standing on the beachside of the bathhouse. Next to him was, I assumed, his sister. She was dressed as if ready for snow: winter jacket, ski cap, and gloves. Ally’s pace slowed as we approached. We were about twenty feet away when she said, above the crashing of the waves, ‘Hello. I’m Allison Rogers.’
As we got closer, I could better make out the details of Melissa Miller’s face. If I didn’t know better, I would have pegged her for a recent high school graduate. Her fair skin was rosy in the brisk sea air, and she wore her brown hair long and pulled back into a ponytail. Only her eyes gave her away. They were strikingly blue, but not so far behind them was a far away look. I wondered how difficult this visit to the beach was for her.
Chris stepped forward and shook our hands. ‘Ms Rogers,’ he said. ‘Mr Donne. This is my sister, Melissa.’
Allison stuck her hand out. ‘Hi, Melissa. It’s Allison. And this is Raymond.’
Melissa shook Allison’s hand. I wasn’t sure if she’d want to shake mine, so I kept them where they were, but nodded. ‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Thank you again,’ Allison said, ‘both of you, for agreeing to talk with me.’
‘Just so long as we agree that’s all this is for now,’ Chris said. ‘A talk. My sister and I will let you know if she’ll go on the record.’
Part big brother, part lawyer. I liked this guy.
‘I told her that, Chris,’ Melissa said, speaking for the first time. Even her voice sounded young.
‘I’m just making it clear, Melissa. I don’t want any misunderstandings.’
She reached over and patted his arm, sensing that her brother needed some support, too. If they were all the other had in the world, they were in good company.
‘So,’ Allison said, ‘as I explained to both of you over the phone, I believe that Melissa has a story to tell that will help other women in her situation. I told Chris the other day I have an old friend from high school who went through a sexual assault. She’s still recovering but leading a productive life.’
A little bell went off in the back of my mind. I wasn’t sure why, but it’d probably come to me later. My little bells are usually trying to tell me something.
‘Are you interviewing her?’ Melissa asked.
That question seemed to take Ally by surprise. She recovered quickly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t usually use friends in my pieces.’
‘Just strangers?’
‘I was hoping by the end of our … talk that we wouldn’t be strangers anymore, Melissa. But I do need to keep my objectivity. Interviewing someone I have a previous relationship with would make that difficult.’
Melissa gave that some thought and said, ‘That makes sense, I guess. What’s the first thing you want to know, Allison?’
‘Tell me about your day.’
The same question she had asked Billy Taylor.
‘Today?’ Melissa asked. ‘Or any day?’
‘Whichever you’d like.’
Melissa took a deep breath. ‘Today I got up at eight. That’s my usual time. I made breakfast for Chris and me, and he was out of the house by nine. I took a shower, got dressed, and put on my work clothes.’
‘Sweats, a T-shirt, and a pair of slippers,’ her brother chided.
She gave his arm a playful slap.
‘When you work from home,’ Melissa said, ‘you don’t need to spend much on clothes. I went to my computer and finished an editing project I started yesterday. That took me all the way to lunch.’
‘Who was your client?’ Ally asked.