The Killer's Wife (10 page)

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Authors: Bill Floyd

BOOK: The Killer's Wife
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T
he vice principal of Hayden’s school called me at home. Thomas Beasley managed to sound solemn and officious over the phone, even though I’d met him several times in the past and found him to be something of a pushover. It was a good thing he worked with grades K-5; he would never have succeeded in his role if he were dealing with teenagers.
But a call in the middle of the school day was always a bad sign.
“Ms. Wren,” he said, “Hayden got into a fight with a
couple of children today. We need you to come down here for a conference, if it’s at all possible.”
“Hayden’s never been in trouble, the whole time he’s been there,” I said quickly, defensively, my hackles raised. It was true and Beasley had to know it. Hayden hadn’t ever before been a disciplinary problem, and I couldn’t even imagine him using his fists against another kid unless he’d been seriously pushed, backed into a corner … “He must’ve been provoked.”
“I’ll be glad to share the details with you in person. We have Hayden here in the office right now, so you’ll get to hear his side of the story. When can we expect you?”
I
patted on the bare minimum of makeup, just enough to lessen the shadows beneath my eyes, then tied my hair back and made the ten-minute drive over to the campus of the Cary Elementary Learning Center. It wasn’t the most expensive private school in the community, not by a long shot, but it was a step above the public school, which, thanks to some strangely twisted redistricting, would’ve required Hayden to take a twenty-minute bus ride every morning to the other side of town. The grounds here were nicer than those of most municipally funded schools, too; a testament to the yearly tuition rates. Beige and tan buildings with pebbled facades stood grouped around the central hub of the Admin offices. Classrooms on the left- and righthand sides, a state-of-the-art gymnasium and auditorium extending out behind. A security guard took my name at the entrance. I explained that I was expected, but he made me
wait while he radioed the front office. I understood, as I was clearly intended to, that this little show was supposed to make me feel more secure about my child’s safety while he was on school grounds, but I was in no mood to show the requisite appreciation.
Inside the building, through the glass-wall partitions, I could see the receptionist and a couple of teachers hanging around the main office, along with a single kid who looked like he’d rather be just about anywhere else, sitting in the waiting area and swinging his legs back and forth nervously. I went in and gave my name to the receptionist. She stared at me a moment longer than was necessary, a look I’d become accustomed to seeing anytime I left home during the past week:
Didn’t I see you on TV recently? Oh, yes
… The receptionist said, “It will only be a moment. They’re just about ready for you.”
The principal himself was so often away at various conferences and districtwide functions that many of the parents didn’t know for sure if he actually existed. Most of us dealt—when we had to deal at all—with Thomas Beasley, whose nominative role as vice principal seemed to include everything from disciplinary matters to scheduling parent/teacher conferences to the cafeteria menu. I’d often felt sympathy, if not outright pity, for him in the past; at the moment, I was feeling neither. When his office door opened a few minutes later, I had some choice and blistering words at the ready. It wasn’t Beasley who exited first, though, but an entire nuclear family unit: mama, papa, and child. As soon as I recognized the boy being bustled along by his father, I felt my stomach
lurch; the kid’s face was hidden behind a wad of bloody paper towels, but that curly red hair was familiar to every parent who had a child at the school. I knew the Hale family more by reputation than any real kind of acquaintance, but that reputation alone was enough to make me more certain than ever that my son had not been in the wrong with regards to this altercation. Behind those paper towels smirked one of the only verifiable hellions to walk these hallways. Since the school year had commenced in August, Ashton Hale had been caught uploading porn onto the computers in the library (yes, a seven-year-old), lighting off fireworks in the parking lot, and driving more than one of his teachers to considering another line of work.
Andrew Hale, the father, was a pale, flabby exec from one of the Research Triangle Park companies, the kind of IT guy who’d been troubleshooting network systems since twenty years ago and had fallen ass-backward into a small fortune doing so. He barely met my eyes as he shuffled quickly past. What sounded like a smart comment came from behind the paper towels as his son rolled his eyes at me. It was a good thing I didn’t understand the muffled words, because I was surely in a mood to respond to the little twerp. I made do with the mother, Jerri, a cosmetically perfected suburban prototype Alpha Mom who was clearly in a state of high agitation, and who sent her men on brusquely ahead of her. “You two wait in the car,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I want to have a word with Leigh … well, Nina. I’ll catch up.”
“Hello, Jerri.”
Beasley was now leaning out of his office door, eyes skittish, obviously hoping there wouldn’t be a repeat of what must have been quite a scene in his office. He looked like he’d just been ejected from a roller coaster. He started, “Mrs. Hale, I need to see Ms. Wren and then—”
“We’ll be done in a moment.” Jerri shifted her eyes back in his direction just long enough to flash-fry him.
He sighed and ducked back inside, leaving the office door open.
“The school nurse says my son may need stitches,” Jerri announced, her lips thin, an expression that probably took about two seconds to cow her husband, but to which I was utterly immune.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, trying to maintain my composure and not slap her silly right there in the waiting room. I thought of how scared Hayden must have been, sitting in Beasley’s office while this woman huffed and puffed. “I’m sure Hayden wouldn’t have done anything unless he was protecting himself.”
Her sudden laughter sounded more like a gag reflex. “The very idea. I’ve already spoken with my attorney, and if the school doesn’t take appropriate action, well then he’ll be contacting the administration promptly. Your son could have very seriously injured Ashton. I’m not kidding, Ms … .” She threw up her hands. “I don’t even know what to call you! Perhaps you’d be better off finding Hayden another school until he can deal with all this … trauma he’s being subjected to.”
As though I was the one subjecting him to it.
“That’s enough,” I said, nearly whispering. I took a step forward, close enough that I could smell her perfume. Whew—some people would buy anything if it came packaged in a shapely, postmodern bottle. “I’m going to get my information about what happened from Mr. Beasley, who I’m assuming knows a good deal more about what went on between our boys than you do. If Hayden deserves to be punished, you can rest assured that I’ll punish him. But you’d also best believe that if I find out Ashton was provoking him, you’ll be the one hearing from a lawyer.”
Her affronted laughter sounded much less natural this time, significantly more forced. I savored it. “You’re a piece of work,” was her final comment, and she left the school walking angrily on her tiptoes, like she had to flee quickly before she was levitated by the sheer force of her umbrage.
This was the manner in which twenty-first-century parents worked out fistfights between elementary school boys: by threatening lawsuits.
Beasley’s interior office was cluttered with file cabinets and potted plants. Diplomas hung on the wall, along with a photo of Beasley as a football coach in one of his prior livelihoods. A woman I hadn’t met before was sitting beside Hayden. He wouldn’t even look up to meet my eye. I checked him for bruises and cuts, and didn’t see anything obvious. The woman stood and extended her hand, introducing herself as Rachel Dutton. I shook it quickly and tried to evaluate her presence; a heavy woman in a pantsuit, it was difficult not to be disarmed by her; she put me almost immediately at ease, as though she were a defense attorney inclined to see
my side of things—which I rightly guessed was her role here. She had striking almond eyes, iridescent green, and sharply intuitive. The way her short brown hair was cut to frame her face seemed designed to highlight her aura of intelligent calm.
I took her seat beside Hayden and lifted his chin with my hand. He stared at me defiantly. I said, “It’s okay, buddy, I’m on your side,” then looked up at the two adults. “Let’s hear it.”
Beasley fussed with a stack of papers on his desk, briefly and helplessly eye-fucked me, and then said, “Hayden’s fourth-period teacher, Mr. Drake, said that some of the boys got into a shoving match while they were in the hall on their way to the computer lab. Apparently Hayden got the best of the ensuing fisticuffs. You saw what happened to Ashton. One of the other boys has a swollen ear from where Hayden hit him, but the school nurse says he’ll be all right.”
I put my arm around my son, and he squirmed, staring out the window past Beasley’s shoulder. I asked him, “What did they say to you, honey?”
Rachel Dutton, leaning her substantial, comforting rear on Beasley’s desk, cleared her throat and said, “Ms. Wren, we’ve had some talk going around lately about what the news has been saying concerning your family’s history. I realize that none of this is your fault, or Hayden’s, but people do run their mouths. Kids, especially. All the same, Hayden needs to learn some restraint where hitting people is concerned.”
“They were calling you names,” Hayden said quietly, glancing up at me and then quickly back out the window. “They said you should be in jail with Dad. Ashton called you the b-word.”
“Hayden, you just can’t listen to people like him,” I said. I faced Beasley and Dutton. “Why didn’t the teacher do something to stop it before it escalated? Why isn’t Ashton being punished?”
“Apparently, Mr. Drake wasn’t aware of what was going on until the shoving actually started,” Beasley answered. “Now, look, Ms. Wren, usually we’d just have the boys apologize to each other and shake hands. But given that Ashton did get his lip pretty well busted, I’m going to have to take some sort of punitive action.”
I was shaking my head before he’d finished his sentence. “Oh, no, absolutely not. Not unless there’s ‘some sort of punitive action’ taken against the Hale boy, too, and whoever else was verbally abusing my child. I know Hayden got his licks in but you can’t seriously just let the others off scot-free, not after what they were saying.”
“Well, it’s his word against theirs, and there were several of them.”
“What, more than two?”
Beasley sighed. “We think there might have been at least five boys involved in the altercation.”
It was my turn to laugh ruefully. “Five kids ganged up on my son, and yet he’s the one who’s going to be punished?”
Beasley looked admiringly at Hayden for a moment. “Well, he was the one who came out unscathed.”
Unscathed
, I thought. I was about to blow my top, but Rachel Dutton smartly intervened.
“Ms. Wren, Thomas and I were discussing this before you arrived and I think we’ve come up with a workable solution. We suggest keeping Hayden after school for two weeks. It would officially be termed as an in-school suspension, but he wouldn’t miss any of his lessons and he’d be staying in my classroom for the after-school portion of the day. He could use the time as a sort of study hall.”
Beasley’s gratitude was overt. “Rachel has experience working with troubled kids. She often keeps kids after hours …” He saw my face and quickly backtracked. “Not that we’re saying Hayden is troubled. We just think he’s acting out, and might benefit from a little extra attention right now.”
“And it would keep Jerri Hale from calling in her lawyer.”
He shrugged. “She wouldn’t only be coming after us, Ms. Wren. I’d think the last thing you need right now is any kind of legalistic entanglement.”
I wanted to lose it, right then and there. Just tear all the neatly stacked papers off Beasley’s desk, kick over his file cabinets, break that coffee mug with its NC State logo over his bald, officious little head … Rachel Dutton saw what was welling up inside me as clearly as if I’d already risen from my seat, and her kind, understanding expression was almost more than I could handle. I swallowed and ran a hand over Hayden’s hair. “How’s that sound to you, Iron Mike? I could pick you up and you wouldn’t have to ride the bus for a couple of weeks.”
He shrugged miserably. “It won’t stop them from saying bad things. Next time, they just won’t let anyone hear them.”
Beasley leaned across his desk. “Son, I can promise you those boys won’t be giving you any more hard times if I can help it. I’m going to have each of them in here, in this very office, and I’m going to have a serious talk with them about their own behavior. What we need is a commitment from you to tell one of the teachers next time, instead of resorting to blows. Okay?”
Hayden shrugged and I said, “Honey …”
He said, “Okay.”
That pretty much settled it. A bell rang and the hallways filled with chatter as we went out the front doors. It was three o’clock and all the buses were lined up at the curb, idling and lacing the air with that smell that seemed like two parts exhaust, one part rust. When we were in my car, I told him, “You can’t let them get to you. If you do, you’ll have to be fighting all the time.”

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