Chapter 12

Without pause, my door opened. I darted out the room, my arms flailing. I bent over and gasped, inhaling the hall’s nontoxic air.

John Winston stood holding my doorknob and grinning. Teenagers and teachers filled the narrow hall. A few people looked frightened for me, but most of the kids were laughing. Abby came, a big key ring in her hand. “What’s the problem here?”

“They tried to murder me! Somebody locked me in and tried to get me with poisonous fumes.”

She turned to John Winston. “How did you get her door open?”

He shrugged. “I just turned the knob.”

Abby swept in past me, ignoring my warning: “Don’t go in there. That room’s deadly!” She snatched up a shard of beaker glass. On part of its wet label I read sulfide.

“This isn’t toxic,” Abby said, her lower lip folding down, telling me maybe she’d have liked it to be. She ordered her students back to class and sent John to get a janitor with a mop bucket. “The smell won’t kill you,” Abby said, bangs flinging away with her head turn. I saw both of her eyes and they said You’re so stupid.

“They put that stuff in fart rocks,” a grinning boy said to me.

“Fart rocks?” I asked.

Abby ignored the teens’ snickers. “They’re little rocks that some kids throw down in the halls, and they smell like—” She scrunched up her nose.

Teachers beyond the laughing kids grumbled about me interrupting their reviews for final exams. “Some kid pulls the fire alarm and now this,” a well-dressed man griped. I spread my arms and opened my palms. Well what did I know?

A lot, I remembered. I knew much about human nature. Maybe I lacked knowledge about chemicals, but not about people. Someone had opened my door, peered in at me, and then slammed the door hard enough to knock down a picture and the beaker. Who that? And why?

My grandma used to talk about her step-ins. I paid particular heed to mine now, then recalled I wasn’t wearing any. I was pleased to determine that no dribble ran down my pantyhose.

Harry Wren came shouldering through the crowd. He stopped and calmly appraised me. “You had an emergency?”

I shook my head. “Not really.” He’d obviously come because I pulled that string and shouted at the office. He glanced at students standing around, and they started back toward their classrooms. An idea came. I said, “You’re a guidance counselor, Mr. Wren. Do you usually handle problems in the classrooms?”

His eyes looked like pinpricks in his tanned skin. “Tom Reynolds ordinarily takes care of—situations. But he didn’t come to school today.” People returned to classes, and Harry Wren left.

On instinct I questioned a student who was heading toward Abby’s room. “I imagine that I stopped Ms. Jeansonne from teaching your class some important material?”

“When you started yelling, she wasn’t even in the room. But she has a key that opens all the doors in this hall. She would’ve let you out—if you really would’ve been locked in.” The girl gave me a cocky smirk.

I could have given her fat cheek some firm pats. The child was intelligent enough to go away.

What do you do when you believe someone’s just tried to kill you? I considered, standing alone, my arms stopping their quiver and my pulse slowing.

I decided. Eat lunch. My belly made little squeals, and I headed for the cafeteria. Food from Cajun Delights could later become a mid-afternoon snack.

The halls no longer seemed a maze. I knew exactly where to locate the room emitting pepperoni smells. I could eat a good pizza. Would they have mushrooms and black olives?

A sign taped to the door said Closed. I hit the door and tried to shove it open. I’d rustle up at least one slice of pizza, even if it was only plain. But the cafeteria was locked down. I yanked my cell phone from my purse. I’d have a pizza delivered. Lots of black olives. Pile on the mushrooms.

I pressed zero for Information, reconsidered, and clicked off. The school day would soon be over. I’d wait. Then I could go ahead with my plans to eat at Gil’s place. It seemed that I was supposed to do something else right after school, but I couldn’t recall what. I tossed Tic Tacs in my mouth and turned away from the cafeteria.

The auditorium doors stood in front of me. Tension squeezed through my upper abdomen. I didn’t want to look in that room. Grant Labruzzo died in there.

Nobody else was in this hall.

I stepped across, fighting the sudden urge to go to the restroom. I clasped a door handle and yanked. The door opened.

Total darkness swelled. I tiptoed inside, keeping a hand on the door to keep it from closing all the way. I couldn’t see a light switch. It was probably hidden so that students wouldn’t flick the lights off and on. A hollowed quiet reverberated. I could make out a short flight of stairs leading to a landing. A wall flanked an open door there and probably beyond that was a huge space that held many seats. A podium in front. And up above me, a balcony. I could go all the way in and try to determine where Grant Labruzzo fell.

I needed to go to the restroom. There was no way I was going up near a balcony. And in the dark? Two scares today had been enough for me. I backed out the room, went to the restroom, and took care of my bladder.

Cynthia Petre was the sole person in the office’s outer area when I reached it. She sat at her desk and muttered, staring at her monitor and punching computer keys. Miss Gird hurled herself in from the corridor and ranted to Petre. I passed them and entered the rear administrative hall. A clipping of the death notice was still posted near a door. I stopped to read.

Grant Labruzzo, originally of Coral Gables, Florida, had been only thirty-seven when he died. How horrible to lose someone so young. He was survived by two brothers but neither parent. Gosh, they’d died young, too. Labruzzo’s wake had been brief, from eight until ten in the morning at All Believers’ Church, followed by the service.

He’d lived near Marisa Hernandez, Abby told me. Maybe this evening I could ride by their houses and discern some connection.

I returned to the outer office. Miss Gird was gone, but other secretaries had returned to their computers past Cynthia Petre’s. They carried scents of roasted chicken, which I imagined they’d just eaten. My stomach growled. Petre glanced at it.

“May I use your phone book?” I asked.

I reached for it, but she lifted the book and handed it to me. “Here.”

I turned so no one could see where I looked and searched for a listing for Grant Labruzzo. Bunches of L’s. Not even one Labruzzo. Most staff members here probably had unlisted numbers, and I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t want some of the students I’d met knowing where I lived.

Cynthia Petre stared at me, her wire-bound teeth not showing. She held out a hand.

“Thanks,” I said, shutting the phone book. She snatched it from me and carefully set it down behind the frame holding John Winston’s photo.

I returned to the rear hall and skimmed words on the obituary, then stared at the picture. Such a handsome young man. Sincere eyes and a trace of what his full smile must have looked like. A head of thick dark hair. A lost future.

Cynthia Petre bumped into me. She’d come from the office. “Oh, you backed up when I was passing.” She turned toward where I’d been staring and peered at Grant’s picture. Strangely, moisture coated her eyes.

“Did you know him well?” I asked.

She glanced at me. “Grant was a friend.” She started away, and I walked with her.

“That’s a nice shade on you,” I said, nodding toward her brown blouse. “It highlights your rosy complexion.” Her lips had been tight, but they drew apart, her smile revealing the braces. I returned the keys she had given me. “I won’t need these anymore.”

She slid them into her skirt pocket and brushed at a blue smudge near her waistline. “Somebody left an open pen on the edge of my desk, and I rubbed against it.”

“School must be the place to get lots of smudges,” I said with a grin.

Petre looked at me with no expression. She turned and entered the administrative restroom. Tiny Miss Gird came out.

“My granddaughter is in your class,” I said.

“What’s her name?”

My chest swelled. “Katherine Gunther.”

Miss Gird’s eyes seemed to lose their vision while she apparently did a mental roll call. “Oh yes. Second period, third row.” She strode away.

“Kat’s been a great student,” I told her skinny backside.

“All of my students are.”

Not according to your fury, I wanted to tell her. But I didn’t need to get any of Kat’s teachers angry with her now. What I really wanted was to hear bragging about Kat. I needed to know what would keep her in school these final days. Continuing down the hall, I glanced in Hannah’s office. She was holding a phone, waiting for someone. I poked my head in. “Do you get to see Kat often?”

“Every once in a while.”

“She is a good student, isn’t she?”

“All teachers wish they had classes full of students like Kat.”

I stood, letting pride fill me. Hannah replied to someone on the phone, and I ambled down the hall, glancing in rooms with open doors. Adults worked their computers, with papers and files spilling across their desks. A few unhappy teens filled their extra chairs.

All these inner workings appeared foreign, yet similar to my recollections that these rooms evoked. Ceilings had been higher when I was a child, with dark wooden desks and doors and wall panels. The changing times had brought new schools, modern equipment, and maybe more knowledge. One thing I definitely would’ve wanted to see retained was the respect that all kids showed when I was a student.

“Minnie!” I cried, spying my cactus in an office.

The light was on, the door open, the room vacant. I walked in.

“May I help you?” The man who entered behind me wore a suit. He appraised me when I turned and then said, “Oh, you again.”

“I’m Cealie Gunther. Yes, Mr. Wren, you came to my class when I pulled the string. And we met yesterday when you were on duty in the hall.”

“Guidance counselors don’t pull duty,” he said as though I’d insulted him. “I was just coming from lunch and stopped to talk to the students.”

Or scare them? He’d been carrying that heavy spirit stick.

“I thought this cactus was mine.” I touched the plant with a pink head that sat on a wall shelf lit by spotlights. The cactus stood amid a grouping of others. Clay pots held individual cacti. Bowls held assortments. Some spindly cacti had ridges, short scaly ones had minute flowers, and some plants with circular leaves bore spears.

Harry Wren admired this assemblage.

“But this plant’s not exactly like Minnie,” I said. “I see it has three of these pink poufs around its head. Minnie has five.”

“They might have any number of these tufts.” Wren placed a hand gently on the plant.

“Those things make me think of sponge hair rollers,” I said.

He didn’t seem to hear my words. Harry Wren stroked his cacti, one after the other, almost like a parent might do with a newborn. But he had bunches of them.

“These plants are easy to grow,” I mentioned.

“Yes, but they need the right conditions. The proper soil. Container. Nourishment.”

“But if one of them is already in a pot from the nursery, all you have to do is dump water on it sometimes, right?”

“Oh no! You need the right proportions of everything. And never just dump water. And not often. Too much would kill it.”

Uh-oh. I wouldn’t dare ask what ailment cranberry juice might create.

“And that man killed my perfect Cero,” he said, his tone solemn.

I touched his shoulder and said, “I am so sorry.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but his face had creased with wretchedness.

Wren shook his head. “He knocked her down.”

“Couldn’t you have just put her back up?”

His face snapped toward me.

“Mr. Wren?” A weepy-eyed teenage girl stood at the door. “Can I talk to you?”

He nodded and gave a final glance to his cactus garden.

“Nice plants. You know a lot,” I said, ready to walk away but deciding to touch what looked like hard stickers on some wide leaves. They pricked my finger. I drew my hand away.

Harry Wren stopped walking toward the distraught girl. He stared at me, looking haughty. “I have been an active member of the Cactus-Growers Society for many years. I study the online malls, view all the galleries.”

“Wow,” was all I could say as I strolled out. The girl sulked in, and his door shut.

Since Mr. Wren was a counselor, maybe I should ask him for suggestions about keeping Kat in classes. Possibly after he spoke to that troubled student. And after he got over his misery about somebody killing his plant. I ambled away, wondering whether Minnie got lonesome while she was alone at the condo. Lots of pets became lonely. Did plants?

Harry Wren had made me feel guilty, acutely aware that I needed to learn more about my sidekick, Minnie, if she was going to accompany me on my current journey toward locating myself. Minnie was my acquiescence to keeping loved ones with me. Of course I’d only bought her a few days ago, so we hadn’t yet totally connected. But that was coming. Minnie and I were friends, I mentally asserted, striding to the end of the rear office hall. She listened as well as my dearest neighbor I’d left behind. If I pampered her enough, maybe one day she’d learn to love me as much as Gil had, and all the members of my family.

I stopped, overcome by a tremendous sense of loss.

What price was I paying for my newfound freedom? Was it worth what I gained?

“Yes,” I said, nudging aside the self-doubts. I couldn’t remain around my family members, hoping I could solve each of their troubles, which in turn would make my life feel more meaningful. I had finally begun to discover what made me unique and why Cealie mattered. I’d shrugged off that image of myself as a wounded half of what had once been a happily married couple. Then Gil had added to my joy. But Gil knew exactly what he wanted from his life. I wasn’t certain about mine yet, but I kept learning. If I gave up my independence to stay with him, I’d never get to totally know me.

A burnt-coffee odor inundated my space. Clack-clack-clack came from a room across the way. I headed for it, remembering that my final teaching day was almost over. The last bell would soon ring. I passed four students with a teacher. Even the grimaces they all wore couldn’t stop my smile from appearing. TEACHERS’ LOUNGE said bold letters above the door up ahead. My own instructors used to disappear into mysterious rooms labeled with those words. Clearly, students were never allowed entrance.

I’d always wondered what was in such forbidden rooms and what our adored teachers did inside. Did they plan all the marvelous lessons they’d teach us? My child-mind had imagined them sharing stories of all our splendid deeds. When I taught, we did speak kindly about our students while we took breaks in the lounge that was nicely decorated with pictures of landscapes and new comfortable furnishings. Now, as I opened the door and entered this teachers’ private space, I hoped to find adults who might lead me to understand more about Kat’s behavior and any connection to the dead man.

A slim woman in a long purple dress hunched over a noisy copy machine, running off papers. Her snarled hair needed washing. Another woman with a double chin and a black lightweight jacket sat at a round table, using a red pen to grade papers. Her opposite hand held a sandwich. She absently ate and purposefully graded.

The coffee stench came from an empty carafe sitting on a burner, the red light still on. Another copy machine stood near the one being used. Two long tables resembled dumping grounds for unwanted cups and magazines. Mail cubbyholes flanked a far wall. A bulletin board posted notices from earlier in the year. Mismatched stuffed chairs and a pair of old sofas cluttered the room. A hand reached up from the sofa I stood behind. The hairy-knuckled hand waved back at me.

I rounded the sofa and found a large man with sparse graying hair stretched across it. “You’re new,” he said. I introduced myself, and he scooted over, flinging a hand out to shake mine. “Brad McClellen.” His twang said he wasn’t from around this area. “That’s Millie at the machine and Deidre at the table.”

The ladies gave me an unenthusiastic hi, barely missing a beat with their papers.

“Everybody always seems so busy here,” I said, settling down beside Brad. At the machine Millie nodded, her moving lips indicating she was counting pages. “Have you been at Sidmore High long?” I asked Brad.

“Much too long, mainly teaching some math classes.”

“Do you happen to know my granddaughter, Katherine Gunther?”

“Absolutely. But never had the pleasure of teaching her.”

“I did.” At the table, Deidre smiled. “I had Kat for American history. Wonderful girl.”

Millie’s mouth recited silent numbers. Apparently the counter was broken.

“Did Kat get close to any of the staff?” I asked, hoping to bait anyone who might give me more information than I’d been able to glean thus far.

Millie glanced toward me, her pale eyes widening. I looked at Brad. He was giving away nothing. “Marisa,” Deidre said, her lips tightening.

“Marisa Hernandez,” I said. “Yes, I met her. She seems like a pleasant person.”

The women’s heads swiveled toward each other. The copier stopped. It started clicking again. Deidre’s red pen made angry marks. Brad McClellen smoothed his thin hair and looked at me. “Have the police talked to you?”

“Should they?”

His noncommittal gaze held on me. “Brad,” Millie called. “This damn thing is stuck again.”

“Patience, Millie.” Brad sauntered to her silent machine and opened a side panel. “Just another paper jam.”

“That’s all we do around here,” Millie snapped, “try to be patient. With the office. With the kids and the cops—” She noticed me staring and then hurled around to her papers. Muttering curses, she dared the machine not to work again.

“Some people get frustrated,” Brad said, joining me on the sofa. He repositioned himself, spreading his arms and legs.

“But you don’t,” I observed.

“No use. Nobody’d listen anyway.”

“You can say that again,” Deidre uttered. Millie’s harrumph, I figured, was a ditto.

“What can the administrators do?” I asked. “Do they have enough clout to make much difference?”

Brad shook his head. “Not much they can change.”

“Not much,” Deidre commented, red ink smearing those papers.

“And the police,” I said, determined to turn this talk back around. “About the dead man.”

“Aw, him.” Brad shifted on the sofa. “That was bad.”

“But that was one guy who couldn’t even empty a trash can,” Millie said.

“Oh now, Millie.” Brad’s drawl made this almost one word.

“It’s true, Grant did a crappy job of cleaning up around here.” Millie turned from the machine. “He left spitballs between desks and paper on the floor. And all he had to do was push a dust mop.”

“And empty our trash cans,” Deidre said. “And half the time, he missed that.”

Millie stomped over to Brad McClellen. “You tell me, did he always get your can empty?”

“Maybe he missed it a time or two, but we all forget some things.”

“Right,” Millie said, “nobody’s perfect. But that man missed his profession. It certainly wasn’t being a janitor.” She returned to the machine, slapped a button, and pages spit from the copier. Some flew to the floor. “Damn machine,” Millie sputtered. She must’ve had on one of those shove-up bras because when she leaned forward, her cleavage shoved up to her throat.

“That fellow hadn’t been around here long,” Brad said to me. “He was friendly, a nice-looking youngster.”

Millie scooped up her papers. “But all those people from that warehouse church are crazy.”

I wondered what she meant and surmised something else. “Grant Labruzzo must have been the person who knocked down Harry Wren’s plant,” I said.

“Harry Wren. The man’s nuts about his stupid cactuses,” Deidre said.

A fighting instinct surprised me. How dare she call cactuses stupid? I forced myself to calm and addressed Brad. “Do you know why the plant died?”

“Yeah, everybody heard about it. We were out for spring break. Grant passed his mop in Harry’s office, and the handle knocked that thing over. Grant scooped up the dirt and the plant, and he threw ’em away. The damned thing just looked like a bunch of vines anyway.”

Deidre snorted. “It was the one time Grant really cleaned.”

“How could anyone just throw away a cactus?” I said, considering Minnie.

Brad peered at me as though I were weird. He faced the women. “Wonder why Tom’s not here today. He’s never absent.”

Neither woman responded, and I recalled the curious reaction I’d seen moments ago in the rear hall. “Brad,” I said, “was Cynthia Petre a close friend of Grant Labruzzo’s?”

Millie snickered. “Didn’t she wish?”

The bell rang, and Millie cursed in response. Deidre muttered oaths of her own. She dumped papers into her book sack. I said, “We’re done now?”

Brad shoved himself up. “One class left to go.”

“Dammit, another class,” I said without thinking. I calmed myself. I had one other question to ask. “Do the doors to any of your classrooms ever get stuck?”

“Nope,” Brad said. The women only scowled while dealing with their papers.

I walked out. Pausing to glance back, I sadly realized that disillusionment had replaced my earlier nostalgia. It seemed that as teens had changed, so had teachers. Surely some, like Brad McClellen, would still say positive things about their students. And maybe their co-workers would, too, when they weren’t harried like those I saw. But everyone in this place constantly seemed to be going at a hectic pace, all except McClellen. And maybe Harry Wren.

I made my way back through halls, my belly making little yowls. I sucked on a peppermint and stood outside my classroom, noticing Abby’s door was shut, the slit beneath it dark. Annoying questions filled my mind. Where had Abby been when someone opened my door, peered in on me, and slammed my door hard enough to make a vial break? Had that person known it would happen? Was my room safe now?

Gingerly, I opened my door.

Fresh air rushed in behind flapping mini-blinds. A wide area of floor in front of the room looked damp. The glass shards were gone. Einstein’s picture that had fallen again hung on the wall. No foul odors remained. No poisons to choke students. No signs of what had transpired.

Apprehension registered in my brain. I couldn’t hear any students or their noises approaching.

Surely I wasn’t lucky enough to have two conference periods. Where were all of the students and other teachers?

Loud voices resounded from a distance. I rushed down the hall toward them and careened around a corner to the main corridor, running smack into a mob. I shrank back. Riot?

“Get back!” a man yelled. The thick wall of students didn’t budge. Teens crowded together, facing a room that stank. I tried nudging through the young adults, and the voices surrounding me swelled. Between people’s heads, I could make out emergency workers backing from a small room.

“Everybody get to class!” Hannah called.

Anne Little motioned with her arms. “Back up! Give them room!”

Students shifted when someone forced a path to let the others get through. I’d been on tiptoe but began making small jumps so I could see above shoulders of those who’d abruptly grown quiet. Policemen and women forced spectators further away. People in uniform moved into the room that was emitting chemical smells. A strong odor of bleach filled my nostrils. “Let her through,” a cop hollered.

“Clear this hall!” others ordered, moving the crowd. I was pulled away with the wall of kids. Tears stung my eyes, and my nose ran. I was reacting to the foul smells the room gave off.

“Will she be all right?” a whimpering girl asked.

I spied the stretcher. What my limited view let me see made my whole body tremble. A blanket partially covered a woman who wasn’t moving. Her blond hair reached denim-clad shoulder.

Marisa Hernandez!