Chapter 12
“The ICE raid was in the news,” I said to Miguel. We stood side by side in my kitchen. He used tongs to place grilled chicken on two plates, followed by a spoonful of rice, while I tossed the salad I’d made. I thought about the link @MarisasMama had sent me. “I mean it’s definitely there, but it was pretty buried.”
“Sounds like they kept it on the down low.” He carried the plates to the table.
I sliced half a loaf of a baguette I’d picked up from Yeast of Eden on my way home from my visit with Guillermo Cabrera, and brought it, and the salad, to the table. We sat down, but I wasn’t very hungry.
The article @MarisasMama sent me had been from Santa Lucia, a neighboring town. “Why wouldn’t our paper report it?” I mused, referring to the Santa Sofia Daily.
“Maybe it did, Ivy. Maybe we just missed it.”
Or maybe it was because the Daily was notoriously un-journalistic. They didn’t really investigate things; they just reported feel-good pieces that supported the community. There was a place for that, but not at the expense of the actual truth.
Miguel had a forkful of chicken and rice halfway to his mouth when I asked, “How about a scandal at Chavez Elementary School a few years ago? Does that ring a bell?”
He stopped, grains of rice falling back onto his plate. “Oh yeah. That was crazy.”
I tore off a piece of bread and dipped it in a dish of olive oil. God, it was good. A baguette didn’t have a lot of ingredients, but getting the bread right so that it was soft and luscious on the inside and crunchy on the outside could be tricky. Olaya did it perfectly every time. “Tell me,” I said.
“There was a new teacher. Young. Latina. Freshly minted teaching credential. Her first year, I think. It didn’t come out till the spring of that school year, but she’d been bullied for more than half the school year.”
How horrible. “Students bullied the teacher?”
He popped a chunk of bread in his mouth. “No, that’s not what happened. She wasn’t bullied by students. It was teachers.”
I almost poked a finger in my ear. Had I heard him right? “Wait. What?”
“Some of the teachers at the school bullied this new teacher. I don’t remember what they did, exactly, but I remember it was pretty bad.”
“So not the students.”
He shook his head as he tore off another hunk of bread. “Nope. Other teachers.”
I couldn’t even imagine. What if something like that had happened to my mother when she’d taught at Santa Sofia High School? Or to Mrs. Branford. I shook away the very idea. No one would mess with Penelope Branford. “So what happened?”
“It was a few years ago. I think the teachers lost their jobs—”
I couldn’t stomach any more food, but I sipped the Sangiovese red Miguel had poured. “I would hope so.”
“What would that have to do with Sylvia Cabrera or Nessa Renchrik?”
Being a person of interest in a murder hadn’t diminished Miguel’s appetite. He shrugged as he finished up his meal. “Maybe nothing.”
But it wasn’t nothing. Katherine Candelli and Margaret Jenkins-Roe had talked about it. It had to mean something.
Miguel and I finished our dinner, then went for a walk on the beach. A little salt air to clear the mind. At least that’s what I’d hoped for, but my mind was beyond clearing. I kept coming back to the bullied elementary school teacher. Could Sylvia Cabrera and Nessa Renchrik have been involved in some way? And how had Sylvia ended up working for the Renchriks?
Something about the situation and the lack of information about the scandal felt very fishy. I wanted to know more.
* * *
Like all schools these days, the entrance to Chavez Elementary was firmly locked and armed with a buzzer. No one was getting in without being explicitly buzzed in. I pressed my finger against the button, and a moment later the door clicked and I was able to pull it open and enter the vestibule. Glass doors straight ahead led to the interior of the school, but they also were locked. From where I stood, I could see through the glass doors into the school. The walls were covered with student work, and cool bulletin boards celebrating learning.
To the left was the front office. A posted sign read: All visitors must check in at the front office.
I entered, my eyes instantly drawn to the patchwork quilt hanging on one wall. Each block represented a character trait like thoughtfulness, honesty, and honor. At first glance, this was not a place I would have associated with adult bullies masquerading as teachers.
The woman sitting at the front desk looked at me. She had beautiful black skin, long braids with a few pulled back and clasped behind her head, and large hoop earrings. She wore a wraparound cobalt-blue dress that, even from her seated position behind the counter, accentuated her curves. She was the perfect face for the school with her warm smile that extended up to her eyes. The placard on her desk said: Miss Jackson.
“What can I do for you today?” she asked.
I’d come up with a story on the drive over and now I launched into it. “My name’s Ivy Culpepper. I work at Yeast of Eden, the bread shop downtown? We’re one of the sponsors for the Spring Fling this weekend.”
Miss Jackson brought her hands together and her smile, unbelievably, grew bigger. “Of course! We’re so excited you all are sponsoring one of the booths this weekend.”
I did a mental head slap. Of course! The Miss Jackson before me had to be the same woman who’d tapped Olaya to sponsor a booth at the Spring Fling.
“I adore Yeast of Eden!” she continued. “When you have challah? And with the poppy seeds? Oh man, that stuff is dangerous.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said with a smile. “Dangerously good, though.”
She laughed. “You got that right.”
The door from the school’s hallway opened and a young woman came in. She was petite, with a short pixie haircut, olive skin, and a tentative smile. Her body was stick straight with no hint of a waist or curves. From the back, she looked like she could be one of the sixth-grade students. “Miss Jackson?” she said, her voice as tentative as her demeanor.
The receptionist turned her full-wattage smile to the young woman. “Whatcha need, Miss Betancourt?”
At Miss Jackson’s warmth, the woman, Miss Betancourt, visibly relaxed. “Julian Krazinski’s mother is coming to pick up some work for him.”
“Is that boy out sick again?” Miss Jackson rolled her eyes heavenward.
Miss Betancourt answered by stepping closer to the counter Miss Jackson sat behind. She held out a thick goldenrod envelope. “There’s enough work in there for today and tomorrow. If she asks.”
Miss Jackson took it and set it next to her keyboard. “You got it.”
Miss Betancourt thanked the receptionist and scurried back out into the hallways of the school.
Miss Jackson looked back at me with arched pencil-thin brows. “I had to be on my deathbed for my mama to excuse me from school. Nowadays, all it takes is a fake cough or a tiny little sniffle. Good lord, kids today.”
“Parents today,” I added, because it was the permissive parents who let the kids get away with their shenanigans.
Miss Jackson chuckled and grinned at me. “Snap! You are right about that.”
I looked toward the hallway Miss Betancourt had disappeared into, as if she’d left a trail of stardust and I could trace it with my eyes. “She seemed very nervous. . . .”
“Who?” She followed my gaze to the empty hallway. “Oh, you mean Miss Betancourt?”
“Yes. A little bit scared of her own shadow.”
Miss Jackson frowned. “There was an incident a few years back. It, um, really affected her.”
Oh wow. Was she referring to the bullying scandal? Was Miss Betancourt the victim?
“You mean the bullying scandal?” I asked, my eyes wide and innocent. “That was horrible.”
“That doesn’t even begin to describe it. Poor thing’s still as skittish as can be.”
“So that was the teacher that was bullied by other teachers? That is such a crazy story. I think about it sometimes and I still can’t get over how bizarre it was.”
Miss Jackson picked up a thick-walled stainless-steel tumbler and sipped from the rubber straw sticking out of the top. “You got that right. Those teachers were something else.” She leaned toward me a little bit, though the raised level of the desk was still between us. “You never woulda suspected that group of the horrible things they did, either. Low-down and dirty.”
I laid my forearms on the top level of the desk and clasped my hands together. “How did they get away with it?” I asked.
Miss Jackson lowered her voice to a whisper. “There was a group of ’em, and they convinced her that they were just a snapshot of the rest of the staff. Poor thing was so scared, she didn’t know if she was comin’ or goin’. She almost quit teaching for good. That woulda been sad, too, ’cause she’s a good teacher. In the classroom with those kids, she comes alive. I wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“What about the teachers who did the bullying? What happened to them?”
“That lot? They lost their jobs and their teaching credentials. Miss Betancourt didn’t press charges, although personally, I think she should’ve.”
I did, too, but maybe she just wanted to put it all behind her. Couldn’t fault her for that. Now that I had Miss Jackson talking, I hoped she’d keep going. “Sylvia Cabrera was here around then, wasn’t she?”
The receptionist drummed her fingers against the envelope Miss Betancourt had given her. Her voice returned to full volume. “Sylvia Cabrera. Sylvia Cabrera. Sylvi—” She slapped her open palm down on the envelope. “Of course! I remember her! She’s the one that got Miss Betancourt to finally say something about what was going on.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said, playing it off as if that little tidbit had been buried in my mind somewhere.
“If I’m remembering right, her daughter was in Miss Betancourt’s class? I think? Anyway, she heard about the bullying through the grapevine, or, I don’t know, maybe she saw it firsthand. I really don’t know about that. But when it didn’t stop, she marched right on in here, met with Miss Betancourt, and reported what was happening to the principal and to one of the school board members.” She raised her pencil-thin eyebrows again. “The one that just died. Nessa Renchrik. Now that’s another sad situation. She was just here last week.” She lowered her voice. “The day before she died, if you can believe it. She stood right where you are.”
My eyes popped wide. A second connection between Sylvia and Nessa, and another person who’d seen Nessa the day before she’d died. “That’s crazy. Why was she here?”
At this question, Miss Jackson rolled her eyes. “Trying to make it look like she cared about this school. Playing the part, you know?”
“She didn’t? Care, I mean?”
Miss Jackson shook her head. “Not the constituency she cared about, if you get my meaning.”
I wasn’t sure I did.
“A lot of the parents here can’t vote.”
Ah. I understood. Nessa Renchrik didn’t care about Chavez Elementary School because it didn’t benefit her career. “Have you heard anything about the murder?” I asked.
“Only what the news is saying, and I think they’re trying to keep it on the down low. She was a piece of work, though. That, uh, situation with Miss Betancourt? Ms. Renchrik tried to control it. She somehow did manage to keep it out of the papers. I still don’t know how she did that, you know? The district, too. They managed to hush it up.”
Nessa must have called in some favors to keep it quiet. “So, Sylvia was kind of like the whistle-blower?”
“That’s exactly what she was. Ms. Renchrik, she was not a happy camper, let me tell you. If she could have unblown that whistle, she would have.”
“Guess it didn’t look good for her, since the school’s in her district?” I asked, but really, I didn’t understand. It wasn’t like Nessa had been one of the bullies. If the school district and the board dealt with the situation, I’d think that would make them all look good in the end. And Sylvia was gone, so she couldn’t have killed Nessa, even if she’d had a motive. Which, if she had, I couldn’t see it.
I kept spreading the gossip to see what other information Miss Jackson would cough up. “Ms. Renchrik must have got over it. I heard Sylvia worked for her.”
From the way she reacted, though, Miss Jackson hadn’t heard that. “No, really?!”
An explanation suddenly popped into my head. What if Sylvia had asked for a better job—one other than the labor-intensive housekeeping—and Nessa gave her one . . . in return for her silence? To keep the story about the bullying from spreading too far and wide? “I think she became her personal assistant. That’s what I heard anyway.”
A buzzer sounded. Miss Jackson looked past me to the entrance of the school, then pressed a button. A moment later, a delivery driver wheeling a stack of boxes on a dolly came in.
Miss Jackson flipped a braid behind her shoulder and batted her long eyelashes. “How you doing, Kyron?”
“Doing great, Misty. How you?”
Before she could answer, a door to one of the interior offices opened and a man dressed in a suit, his tie snug around his neck and his ash-blond hair brushed to one side, came up to the reception desk.
Kyron, the delivery guy, deposited the boxes against one wall. He gave Misty Jackson a smile, then turned to leave. “See ya next time.”
She wiggled her fingers at him. “You sure will, baby.”
“Misty,” the man in the suit said. “Would you give me a hand? We’ve got to get the Spring Fling notices out to teachers before two thirty. They need to be counted and distributed.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Davies.” She stood to follow him but stopped suddenly and turned back to me. “You needed somethin’. About the Spring Fling?”
I waved her off. “Oh no. It’s okay. I’m good.”
She tilted her head and this time, instead of going up, her eyebrows pulled together as her brow furrowed. “You sure?”
“Nah. I’m good. I’ll see you there, though?”
“You better believe it! My little boy? He’ll be the one zipping around like a banshee. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I laughed. “I’ll be on the lookout for him.”
“Okay, Miss . . . Ivy, was it?”
I nodded.
“Okay then, Miss Ivy. See you Saturday.”
I hoped so, because I liked Misty Jackson. And she’d given me food for thought.