Читать книгу Deadly Lessons - David Russell W. - Страница 13

The rest of the day was exactly how it looked on the television news. And television news was everywhere. Unlike many lawyers, I had never developed any special love for cameras and press conferences. My cases had generally been low profile, attracting little interest from the broadcast media. So many of my clients were among the downtrodden that they didn’t present a lovely image on camera. If it ain’t pretty, let’s not put it on air. On the flip side, I had never particularly disliked the media either, as many of my prosecutorial colleagues and many cops did. Reporters just had a job to do, though they often did it in as superficial a manner as they could. But generally if they wanted a quote, I gave them a quote. If they didn’t, I didn’t go looking for them. Today I didn’t have to look far. People often comment about how crass and insensitive it is for television news cameras to show up during a time of grief, particularly when there are kids involved.

It wasn’t a productive day. Many more kids came to school than I thought would. Even those who were most upset could get the comfort they needed by being around the people closest to them in their lives. Often, those people were their friends at school or even their teachers, rather than their families.

Don McFadden had gone on the P.A. system to make the gruesome announcement just after we had finished speaking with him. By then, most of the kids had already heard; dozens had been interviewed by reporters outside the building. If there was any plan of breaking it to them gently, the throngs of police and media personnel greeting them upon arrival pretty much spoiled it.

Classes were limited to “seat work”, having kids do limited brain activity by “read this and answer the question” type assignments. Even at that, big chunks of class time were consumed with me asking how everyone was feeling, which was usually followed by a fresh round of flowing tears. I like to think I’m a terrifically sensitive guy. Apparently either I’m not, or I haven’t figured out how to allow my sensitivity to manifest itself appropriately. New teachers have it drilled into their heads that they need to keep an enormous professional and especially physical chasm between teacher and student. Accusations like Tricia’s are pretty much evidence of the reason why those practices are so drilled into us, but it’s almost impossible when a student collapses into your arms grieving the loss of a friend to step back and say “Whoa! You’re not supposed to make physical contact with me.”

But I tried. I thought it would be best if I could keep my distance and direct my students into working on actual curricular objectives. It just made me come across as cold. As many times as I tried to go over the homework, or assign a new task, I was met with “Mr. Patrick, how can you expect us to think about school?” I couldn’t really. But hanging out all day with grieving kids was making me so uncomfortable and awkward that I felt a need to attempt to redirect their emotions into something productive. It didn’t work.

The staff room was a quiet, numb space at lunch. It wasn’t a place I really wanted to be, but I had an ulterior motive: I wanted to find out if word of Carl’s alleged transgressions had travelled through the school. As his lawyer, I might have to attempt some damage control if rumours had begun to fly. Though conversation was relatively subdued, no one appeared, at least, to be discussing Carl or any other staff member as potential suspects in Tricia’s death.

It took all the energy I could muster to make it through the afternoon. The tears began to dry up somewhat as the day progressed, but the entire school was cloaked in a blanket of emotional exhaustion by the end of the day. The principal commanded a brief meeting at the end of the day to discuss means by which we could attempt to bring the place back to relatively normal operations the next day.

“As much as possible, we need to get kids back into the school routine so they are not focused on these issues,” Don stated to the assembled faculty. “We need to let kids know that we’re still here if they need support, but that school needs to carry on.” Even he didn’t sound very convinced.

At the end of the meeting, I caught up with Carl in the hallway as he headed for the door. “How are you holding up?” I asked him.

“I’m all right, I think,” he replied quietly.

He didn’t seem so. I stopped him and looked him directly in the eye. “Carl? Are you sure you’re okay?”

He looked slowly at me. “I don’t know if I can tell you this.”

“Yes, you can, Carl. You can tell me whatever you want. It’s privileged.”

“No,” he countered. “It’s nothing legally damaging, I don’t think. It’s just that . . .” his voice trailed off.

“What is it?”

“I guess this morning I was so caught up in defending myself against Don’s accusations, that it didn’t really strike me until later.”

“What didn’t strike you?” I asked, worried.

“I’m just . . . as the day went on, I realized how upset I am at Tricia’s murder. I just, I can’t believe it. I didn’t want to say anything in case it aroused more suspicion of me.” Carl’s eyes were actually welling up with tears.

I took him by the arm. “No, Carl. It doesn’t. It tells me you’re a hell of a teacher. Go home. Don’t do any marking. Don’t do any work. Just take an evening to look after yourself.”

“All right,” he replied glumly.

“Are you going to be all right? Do you want some company?”

“No,” he smiled lightly. “I’ll be all right. My wife’s at home. Thanks, Win, for everything.”

“It’s okay. Everything will be okay. We’ll look after this. Just call me if you need anything, even just to talk, okay?”

“Okay. Goodnight.” Carl turned and walked out the door.

A weird thing about my chronic insomnia is that I sometimes have the ability to sleep in the afternoon. Not always, but just enough to screw up my ability to sleep again at night. Since it had been a particularly bad week for sleep, I could not wait to get home to my comfortable Kitsilano condo and crash on the couch for a couple of hours. I knew I would pay for it in the middle of the night, but my body was giving me the signal that the sleep deficit was getting bigger than I could expect to cope with.

I was so tired that I approached my apartment building as though I were approaching the gates of Heaven. Unfortunately, St. Peter was at the gates: my ex-wife stood guard outside the front entrance to the building. After having my car broken into on numerous occasions, I had abandoned parking in the building’s underground “secure” parking garage and now parked on the street. Since that necessitated my entering through the building’s front door—currently blocked by my ex-wife—I sensed a need to rethink that decision.

Sandi Cuffling, formerly Patrick, is a very attractive woman. Not the cover of Glamour magazine kind of attractive, but a woman who has the ability to turn heads when she walks into a room. Over our years together, she had come to cherish that ability and wore it like a merit badge. Some days I still missed her. Today wasn’t one of those days.

“Look who’s here. Did we change the shape of future generations today?” Sandi was fluent in a different dialect of the English language. Sarcasm. In the past four years, I’m not sure I’d heard her speak without it.

“Hello, Sands,” I said, doing my best to seem relatively interested to see her. In Sandi’s world, the fact we were divorced was no reason we ought not to be part of each other’s lives. Hostility between ex’s was so nineties. It’s much more sophisticated to still be friends. I was about as interested in continuing a friendship with my ex-wife as I was in re-marrying her, but I was raised as a polite gentleman and couldn’t bring myself to tell her to go piss up a rope.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. Her tone held just a hint of accusation.

“And here I am.”

She looked at her expensive watch. “It’s almost four thirty.”

“You and the general population are under the mistaken impression that the working day of a teacher ends when the three o’clock bell rings. There is slightly more to it than that, but until such time as you become a teacher, which would entail mixing with the rabble that is the teenagers of the world, you would not understand.”

“You are a bitter one today.”

“It’s been one of those days.” I opened the front door and headed into the lobby. It was tempting to close the door, knowing Sandi didn’t have a key to the building. But again, I was raised polite. Sandi followed me into the artificially ornate entrance hallway, looking over my shoulder as I checked my mail box. Sandi could never stand it when I received mail addressed only to me. I thought she would be over it now that we were not living together any more, but apparently not. Not satisfied simply with reviewing the contents of my mailbox, she proceeded to follow me up to my apartment.

“So how have you been?” she asked as we travelled down the hall.

“Fine.”

“That’s it? Fine?”

“What were you looking for?”

“A little detail about how your life is going. Do you know how long it’s been since you called me just to chat and say hi?”

“No.” Reaching the door to my suite, I unlocked it and paused long enough to throw Sandi a question with my eyes. My question was: what the hell do you want? She interpreted the look as: do you want to come in?

“It’s been a long time,” she informed me, following me into my apartment.

“I’m not sure. Do you think it could have anything to do with the fact we’re divorced?”

“You know I still care about you, Win.” She stopped and looked at a painting I had recently hung on the wall. “Hey! That’s new.”

“Yes.”

“That’s weird. You buying art.”

“I like art.”

“Well, I know, but it’s just strange, you know? It was the kind of thing we used to do together.”

I gave her a sideways glance as I kicked off my shoes. “Actually, it was the kind of thing you did for us. My job was to hang up what you purchased.” Sandi walked slowly around my apartment, stopping in front of the large glass patio door to take in the view. Admittedly, it was a good view, but Sandi seemed out of sorts, even for her, and it was clear she wanted to talk to me about something but didn’t seem to know how to begin. I decided not to say anything and see what would happen. In the classroom, we call it “wait time”, the period between when the teacher asks a question and someone volunteers an answer. It’s often awkward, but sooner or later someone will speak just to break the uncomfortable silence.

Sandi continued to stare out at the rain beating down against the patio door. Her long blonde hair, dampened by the rain, hung past her shoulders. Her strong shoulders, sculpted in the gym through dedication bordering on fanaticism, sagged with the weight of whatever she wanted to tell me. In fact, it wasn’t like her to allow rain to affect her appearance. I’m not proud to admit that a large part of the power Sandi held over me for so long was her physical strength and strong beauty.

“Aren’t you going to ask how I am?” she finally asked.

“How are you?” I supplied her with what she apparently wanted to hear.

“Fine,” she answered coolly.

“Good. I’m glad we cleared that up.” Sandi’s sarcasm could be contagious.

Another of Sandi’s amazing arsenal of talents was her ability to pout, which she did in the classic “stick out your lower lip” fashion often favoured by ramp-walking fashion models. To be fair, Sandi had, in fact, worked as a model, principally when she was twelve years old, displaying training bras and adolescent undergarments for the Eaton’s catalogue. Somehow, Sandi’s modelling career had stalled at the ripe old age of fourteen. But she could pout. She was putting it into use now as the unwritten signal I remembered from the tumultuous end to our marriage. It still worked on me now as it did then. I’m nothing if not pathetic.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Sandi, I’m sorry. Obviously something is upsetting you and you want to talk to me about it. Although why you continue to choose me as your confessor in lieu of one of your numerous confidants at the spa never ceases to baffle me.”

“Because I know I can always count on you to listen to me. You don’t judge me.”

“Sands, I always judge you. Often disparagingly, sometimes even to your face. Do you not remember our marriage at all?” Sandi waited patiently for the signal that I would be quiet and let her speak. Eventually, I always did. It’s part of her charm and her power that she manages to wield over me to this day. “I’m sorry. Carry on.”

Sandi finally turned from her post at the window to face me. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“I generally find things go best when you just blurt out whatever’s on your mind,” I offered helpfully.

“I’m pregnant.” Her admission hit me in the solar plexus, which I’ve been led to believe is a fancy way of saying my stomach. I tried to keep a poker face, though historically I’ve always been a terrible poker player. Sandi looked at me and nearly laughed. I guess I wasn’t so good at hiding my shock.

Finally, I managed what I often do when I’m faced with a socially uncomfortable situation: I made an inappropriate joke. “I was thinking you looked a little heavy.”

Sandi’s smile dropped dead away. “That was cruel even by your standards,” she informed me frostily.

“I’m sorry,” I said for the third time in as many minutes. My ex-wife always brought the apologies out in me. “Reflex reaction to shocking news, I guess. I’ve had that kind of a week.” We stood across a five foot divide and stared silently at each other a while more. We communicated about this well during our marriage too. “Why are you telling me this?” I finally asked her.

“I thought it was important that you know,” she replied, returning to her business-like disposition.

“Why? It’s not mine.”

“Winston! Why would you even say such a thing?” she demanded.

“Because it’s been nearly two years since we separated, in case you’ve forgotten.”

She smiled coyly. “But it hasn’t been two years since we’ve been together. You may never be able to resist me.”

She had me there. But I wasn’t about to allow her the upper hand in this conversation, whatever this conversation was about. “It doesn’t count when you’re drunk. Besides, it’s been long enough that medically I know my original proclamation is true.”

Sandi smiled again. She had a way of pre-emptive smiling that told me she was about to deliver an “I told you so” moment. I really didn’t need her to say it; I knew exactly what it would be. She said anyway. “See? You never should have given up law. You instinctively went into paternity suit protection mode.” Throughout most of our marriage, particularly the latter half, Sandi had generally proved herself the stronger advocate of our union. Why she hadn’t entered the practice of law herself is a puzzle. It might have been the requirement to show up at work each day which would have interfered with her spa exercise and facials.

“Is that why you’re here?” I tossed out desperately. “Are you trying to find some warped means of obtaining child support?” It did not appear there was any way I could restore my dignity in whatever this debate was about. With most people I didn’t care. I’m a gracious loser with plenty of practice. But somehow with Sandi I could never bring myself to concede.

“I thought you might want to know. That’s all.” She put on her genuine hurt look. I knew how contrived it was, but I fell for it every time.

“I’m sorry.” I restated my “talking with my ex-wife” mantra, deciding to play nice for the remainder of our chat. “That was thoughtful of you.” I paused momentarily. “Do you know who the father is?” Whoops.

She brushed past me towards the door. “That’s it. We’re done.” This was the part of the conversation I knew I didn’t have to respond to. Sandi never left the room without a parting shot. Sure enough, she got as far as having her hand on the doorknob when she turned around to face me. “You are a little, little man,” she proclaimed, staring obviously below my waist as she pronounced the second “little.” It was almost disappointing. I’d heard that one before, but it still left a new scar each time.

“Thanks for stopping by,” I threw in the last word as she headed out the door. “I’m sure you’ll let me know where you’re registered for shower gifts.” Not bad, considering how little time for prep I’d had.

“Prick,” she hissed, sticking her head back in the doorway. With that, she turned and left. Always the last insult.

With Sandi out of my life—at least for the evening—I took to the task that I spent most of my evenings on: marking and preparing for class. After last night’s failed attempt to complete my marking, I knew I had some catching up to do. If there’s one thing I had learned in my long teaching career, it was the necessity of keeping up to date with marking student work. If you turn your back on it for a moment, it multiplies and grows at an alarming rate. As a rule of thumb, I believed it was good practice not to collect any new work from students until I had returned the previous assignment. However, in my nearly three months of teaching, it was one of the first rules of thumb that had fallen by the wayside. Besides, I had other issues clouding my mind. As if Carl’s situation wasn’t enough, I could not yet quite digest the load Sandi had just dumped on me. I didn’t think I was upset per se; I had harboured no real desire for children before, during or since our marriage, but her obvious entrance to the next chapter of her life was discomfiting to say the least.

But one of the biggest obstacles to productive marking was the fact that it was November. For those who aren’t couch potatoes, November is sweeps month on American network television, which means that is when all of the best TV shows have on all of their best episodes. It really got in the way of my marking: I didn’t care how much I needed this job to pay the mortgage—and my alimony to Sandi—nothing stood in the way of watching CSI.

Around ten fifteen, I was well into a strong episode of Without a Trace, and partially into ninth grade discussions of the French Revolution’s impact on the development of democratic systems when the phone rang. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even answer the phone on a Thursday night. All of my friends know better than to interrupt the most important night of TV viewing. So far though, nothing about the week had been normal, so I felt like I’d better answer. I found Carl on the other end of the line.

“Hey,” I answered his greeting. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” he answered, “not really.” Carl sounded not only down but also afraid.

“Carl,” I implored him, “what’s wrong? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt,” Carl returned uncomfortably. “It’s just that . . . I didn’t know who else to call. I’m really sorry to call you so late, Win.”

“It’s okay. I’m here for you. Do you want to get together and talk? We could meet someplace.”

“Umm, no,” he countered. “I don’t think they’ll let me.”

Suddenly I realized what he was trying to tell me. “You don’t think who will let you?” I demanded sternly.

“The police,” Carl finally admitted. “They’ve picked me up.”