2 Death Makes the Cut (5 page)

Roland began waving to her without waiting for Detective Gallagher to respond. She looked aghast, skittered a little like a nervous horse on the verge of bolting, and then reluctantly approached.

“Hey, Nancy!” Roland called, his actor’s voice easily carrying over the sound of traffic. “Did you see Fred here last night when we were leaving? This officer is trying to find out who spoke to him last.”

She reached us, shaking her head with certainty even before he’d finished speaking. “I park out front. I never come over this way.”

Detective Gallagher asked for their names and made notes in a small notebook. “All right. Well, thank you both.” He handed them each a card. “If you think of something that might be relevant, you can contact me at those numbers.”

Nancy took her dismissal with obvious relief and pattered back toward the school a good deal faster than she had arrived. Roland accompanied her with less alacrity, the top of his golden head scarcely reaching her cheekbone. Detective Gallagher glanced down at me, then walked around the car and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Coach Argus was a good friend of yours?” he asked.

At his kind tone, my eyes again filled with unexpected tears, and I closed them tightly to hold back a flood. “He was a really good guy,” I said finally, my throat tight and dry.

“He have any trouble with anyone around here?”

I sniffed, wishing I had a tissue, but I’d given mine to McKenzie. Detective Gallagher reached across me to open the glove compartment, and I caught a faint scent of soap rising from his body. He pulled out a box of tissues and handed it to me. Gratefully, I took two and began wiping my eyes, hoping my mascara wasn’t turning me into a raccoon. It was bad enough knowing my eyes and nose were probably as red as a baboon’s hiney and twice as attractive.

“He didn’t have real trouble —everybody liked him, and he was a great teacher. He had the usual fusses we all have.”

“What’s a usual fuss?” he asked, eyes crinkling a little with amusement.

“Oh, you know,” I said, and then realized he probably didn’t. “Disagreements with other teachers over the teaching plan, requests for funds for the tennis team that were always turned down. It used to make him so mad.” I smiled a little through my tears, then thought of something else. “Just yesterday he had a parent in his classroom yelling at him about the tennis team. I guess that probably shook him up, but I never thought it was enough to … well, to give him a heart attack.”

“What parent? Do you know what happened? Was it something serious?”

“I was there,” I said. At his inquiring look, I described the argument briefly, and then asked, “Why does it matter?”

“It probably doesn’t. Almost certainly doesn’t. We have to be thorough when there’s an unexpected death, that’s all,” he said with a shrug, making a few more notes on his notepad. “Do you know this parent’s name?”

“Mr. Richards. I don’t know his first name.”

“And the other teachers? The ones he had disagreements with?”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or sob. “Me. I was the worst. He and I used to go round and round over things that don’t seem very important right now. He always won,” I added, remembering. And Fred had enjoyed our discussions, enjoyed showing me why his way was best, enjoyed sharing his long years of experience. He couldn’t stop teaching, even when his student was another teacher.

“Anyone else?”

“Not really. Well, he had an ongoing battle with Nancy Wales. But that wasn’t about lesson plans. He thought she worked the drama kids too hard.”

Detective Gallagher made a few more notes, then glanced out the window. A white Chevy minivan with flashing red lights and the words “Travis County Medical Examiner” in red was just pulling into the school driveway.

“All right, ma’am. And how can I contact you if I have more questions?”

I gave him my cell phone number, then asked, “What kind of questions?”

He smiled. It transformed his face, making him look younger and far more human and making my breath catch in my throat.

“Won’t know until I think of them. You have someone who can give you a ride home? You shouldn’t drive when you’re upset.”

Of course I didn’t have anyone to drive me home. For one thing, I wasn’t going home. It was the first day of school, and I had a classroom that would be filling with thirty confused freshmen by now, and I didn’t even have their names memorized yet. However, it would have taken too much effort to explain all that, so I just nodded and got out of the car. He hurried across the parking lot without looking back, intent on speaking with the medical examiner, and I made my way into the school, taking the shortcut through Building A.

As I crossed the open courtyard on my way to class, Larry Gonzales sprang out of the administrative building like a sweaty jack-in-the-box. He was now wearing his suit jacket, which he normally kept hanging on a hook in his office, probably so that he’d look good for the news reporters who were sure to show up any minute. I tried pretending I hadn’t seen him and kept walking.

“Jocelyn!” he called, and I had no choice but to stop and let him catch up.

Around us, dozens of students, happily oblivious to the death in their midst, were talking and laughing, calling greetings to friends whom they hadn’t seen for weeks, comparing class schedules and lunch periods. First-day excitement, new clothes, new supplies, new backpacks. The whole year starting fresh with limitless possibilities. This should have been a very good day, I thought sadly.

Larry hurried to my side, still moving at unwonted speed, things on his mind and loose ends to tie up. He drew close enough to speak in low, private tones, and I noticed his comb-over was lower than ever this year and gleamed with a fresh application of gel.

“Jocelyn, I want to apologize to you for suggesting that you should have called me sooner. The children on the tennis team let me know how efficient you really were. All of us here appreciate that very much.”

“Thank you,” I said, looking at him with some alarm. What did he want? Larry seldom gave out compliments, and never without an ulterior motive.

“Obviously, we’re all upset by the tragedy of Coach Fred’s death,” he went on. “He was a fine man, and will be sorely missed. Of course, at this point in the day, we can hardly cancel school.”

“No,” I agreed. Besides the fact that 2,200 kids were already pouring onto the campus, the school’s government funding depended on attendance, and Larry wouldn’t have canceled a day of classes unless two or more buildings were on fire, and even then he would have tried to get a roll call first.

“We will be arranging for a substitute teacher for Mr. Argus’s history classes.” He paused, as though waiting for me to say something.

“I’ll be glad to go over the lesson plan with whomever you get,” I offered.

“Ah, yes. Good. Thank you.” He paused again, waiting for me to continue, but I had no idea what else he could want. We stared at each other for an awkward moment.

He cleared his throat. “The tennis team seemed to think quite highly of you.”

“That’s nice of them.” I wondered where he got that idea.

“Yes, well.” He floundered for a moment, then finally bit the bullet. “I would like you to take over as the tennis coach.”

Tennis coach? I almost laughed out loud, but suddenly realized he was serious. Was he out of his mind? I wasn’t a coach.

He must have read my thoughts in my face because he quickly continued, “And you know the game. You were outstanding in the faculty tournament last year. You played in college, didn’t you? And it would be temporary, of course. Just until we can find a suitable replacement.”

“Why not just cancel practice for a few days?” I asked.

“Tennis is run as an eighth-period class as well as an extracurricular activity. At least half the team is taking it for credit, with the other half then joining them directly after school. I looked at your schedule. Eighth period is your planning period.”

Yes, it was. Something I’d pulled strings to achieve. Like most teachers, I put in far more than a forty hours week, arriving early, staying late, working into the night grading papers. But there was nothing better than leaving school at three thirty on a Friday afternoon, and I’d planned my schedule around that one goal. I definitely did not want to give that up to teach tennis. Still, Larry was in a bind, and I probably was his best candidate. And at least he had the tact to ask rather than order me to do it, which he probably could have done.

With reluctance, and feeling I would surely regret it, I said, “Okay. Sure, yes, I can do that for a few days. But seriously, you need to find someone else. I don’t know enough about coaching to be a good choice long term.”

He looked relieved. “Of course,” he said, and hurried away before I could change my mind.

*   *   *

At twelve thirty, my AP World History class filed out noisily, leaving me feeling very pleased. I could tell already it was going to be a good class, full of bright kids with good attitudes. I’d already spotted the two I’d have to keep my eye on and the three quiet ones who would never volunteer an answer, but who would always know them. The best part was that the group dynamic had felt right, and I could tell we were going to have a good time of it.

I was just pulling my lunch out of my desk drawer when Laura Esperanza poked her head in the door.

“
O-la, señorita,
” she called. “
Quieres almorzar
?”

Did I want to have lunch? I burst out laughing and waved her in. Laura was born in Midland, Texas and, despite her last name, was no more Spanish than I was. Not only did she have what was possibly the worst Spanish accent in the history of Spanish accents, she also had a hard time understanding spoken Spanish. Which was a little ironic considering she was one of two Spanish teachers at Bonham High. However, she was completely fluent when it came to the written word, and her students consistently aced their standardized tests.

“
Con mucho gusto. Adelante,
” I responded.

She paused. “What? I mean,
qué
?”

“Come on in,” I repeated in English, setting my sack lunch on the desktop.

“You’re never going to believe this,” she said without preamble.

“Try me.”

“That bitch Nancy Wales is at it already.”

I started laughing. Laura never referred to Nancy as anything other than “that bitch Nancy Wales,” at least not in private. It sounded especially funny coming from someone who barely topped five feet and weighed about as much as my poodle.

We pulled a couple of desks to the side of the classroom where we couldn’t be seen through the window in the door and popped the tops on the two cans of Dr Pepper she’d brought. Laura proceeded to unload her lunch sack, pulling out a huge roast beef sandwich, a pack of Fritos, a banana, a pudding cup, and three cookies wrapped in plastic. As usual, I could only wonder where someone so tiny put it all. Hardly larger than your average twelve-year-old, Laura’s head barely reached my chin, and her arms and legs looked like knobby twigs. Maybe she needed it to grow all that hair, I thought, admiring the long brown tresses that flowed straight and shiny from the crown of her head to her waist. I wondered how on earth she washed it and how she managed to go to the bathroom without dunking it in the toilet.

“What has she done this time?” I asked.

“Tried to block the FLS cultural recital. She thinks she owns that theater, the stupid whore.”

The Foreign Language Studies cultural recital was Laura’s special project and dear to her heart. Each year, she cajoled, pleaded, and threatened the other language teachers into rounding up various groups of kids who were more or less willing to go onstage and do something, anything relating to a foreign country. The tango club was always the headliner, and the German club could be counted on to find a couple of boys willing to put on lederhosen and clop around with eight to ten girls. Very occasionally, a kid with real talent would pop up. One year, a skinny boy with a battered twelve-string guitar had perched on a rickety stool and played “Malagueña” so well that he got a standing ovation from the audience, who had been almost comatose by that point in the proceedings.

“What do you mean, block it? She can’t stop us from having a recital.”

“No, but she wants us to use the cafeteria. Or the gym. Anywhere but her precious theater. She says the set of the musical will be too big to be moved this year, the stupid
vaca
.” Laura’s face was getting red as she spoke.

“That’s ridiculous. She can’t commandeer the theater for the entire semester. Lots of groups use it.” I thought for a moment. “And don’t you mean
vaca
?”

“Cow. I mean cow. She’s a stupid cow.”

“True,” I agreed soothingly.

“Anyway, that’s what she’s trying to do. I’ve already set up an appointment with Larry for this afternoon. And if he doesn’t have the balls to stand up to her, I’ll get the parents’ groups involved,” she added grimly, taking a savage bite of her sandwich. “I’d like to see her take on Candy Wells.”

Candy Wells, the president of the PTA, ate teachers for breakfast.

“It would be like
Alien vs. Predator,
” I said with awe.

She paused to process this, and then burst out laughing.

A knock sounded on the door, and we turned to see Ed Jones, the ninth-grade algebra teacher. I hadn’t seen him all summer, and he’d obviously been busy with his personal grooming regimen. This fall, he was sporting a snappy mustache-goatee combo in a lemon-cream-pie color at least two shades lighter than his hair. He looked a little like Colonel Sanders, but with less animal magnetism. Definitely the kind of guy who took the sting out of being single.

He bustled in, ignoring Laura. “So I heard you’re going to be the tennis coach,” he said pointedly.

Laura gave me a surprised glance. “Really? That’s great.”

Ed snorted. “No, it’s not great. She doesn’t know anything about tennis. Or coaching.”