Chapter 34
Sabrina Devin taught nine-year-olds in a public school on the Southeast Side. It was another couple of weeks before the start of the fall term, but it looked like the school was open and running some kind of summer event in the playground. Kids were clustered around a tall white guy directing a lively word game involving letter tiles laid out on a giant game board on the ground. The kids appeared completely enthralled by the game play, laughing, cheering, working the tiles. It was still technically summer, but no one looked like they minded throwing in a little learning early.
I’d found a photo of Sabrina Devin by Googling, so I recognized her standing off to the side, watching the kids play. She was heavily pregnant, at least six or seven months, and she looked hot and uncomfortable in a sleeveless maternity dress, her long, curly hair pulled back into a ponytail. I walked up to her and introduced myself, told her what I needed, watching as her friendly smile disappeared and the walls went up.
“Fun game,” I said, hoping to get her back.
She glanced over at the kids. “They love it. They don’t even care they’re learning.”
“Mind if we talk inside?”
Reluctantly, she signaled to another teacher to watch the kids, and then led me inside. We walked up two flights in silence, slowly for Devin’s benefit, and into an empty classroom that smelled of fresh paint, chalk, and disinfectant. Devin took a seat at the desk at the head of the room and pulled a lunch bag out of the drawer.
“You don’t mind if I eat while we talk?”
I didn’t and told her so. There was a full-size chair next to the desk. I sat there, thankful I didn’t have to try to squeeze into one of the tiny kid chairs lined up in rows behind me. While she got herself situated food-wise, I looked around at all the clean metal desks with pressed-wood tops and the empty cubbyholes, which in just a few weeks would be crammed with backpacks, sweaters, and superhero lunch boxes.
Devin unwrapped her lunch. “I would offer you some of my sandwich, but it’s a little unusual—ham, cheese, sweet pickles, mustard, and chunky peanut butter.”
I made a face. Couldn’t help it.
Devin chuckled. “That’s what I thought. Second trimester. It’s weird what I’ll eat these days . . . and at what hour. So, what’s she done now?”
I wasn’t sure if she was referring to Allen or Chandler. “And by she, you mean . . . ?”
“Vonda. She obviously crossed someone.”
“Any idea who?”
She shrugged. “Haven’t seen her since my father died. It could be anyone, really. She’s not a very nice person.”
“Not close, then?”
“She had an affair with my father while he was still married to my mother, so, no, we weren’t close. When the divorce went through, things quieted down, but then he died.”
“A heart attack,” I said.
“No one saw it coming. He was healthy, or so we thought. You’re never ready to lose a parent. At least, I wasn’t.”
“It’s your impression of Allen that I’m trying to get a sense of.”
She bit into her sandwich, thought about it. “She’s cold, distant, cruel. Self-absorbed . . . polar opposite of my father. I don’t know what drew them together, except that I think she really wanted to be a senator’s wife. He died before she could pull that off. Up until then, they both seemed to be getting what they wanted. My father got a trophy on his arm. Vonda got a free pass into a very exclusive club—celebrities, politicians, power brokers. They photographed well. They were both very vain.”
“And after he died?”
“Vonda got a lot of mileage out of their relationship, which by then was no big secret. She started Strive with connections he had helped her cultivate. The rest, I don’t know about. There was no reason for me to pay attention to her after that. The last time I laid eyes on her was at my father’s funeral. She cried more than I did, but believe me, it wasn’t genuine.”
“What about Kaye Chandler?”
Devin hesitated, fiddled with her sandwich. “Yes . . . very efficient.”
“Devoted,” I said, watching her closely, noting the change in her body language, but Devin wouldn’t look at me. “You don’t want to talk about Chandler. Why?”
“You wanted to know about Vonda.”
“I’m quickly learning you can’t discuss one without including the other. She seems oddly devoted and hangs on Allen’s every word. But I found out just today, surprisingly, that it’s Chandler who drives the bus. I’d like to know what you think. Is she stable? Prone to lies? Capable of violence?”
Devin put her sandwich down, wiped her hands on a paper napkin, glanced down at her stomach. “I didn’t know her that well. I can’t say.”
“I think you can say but won’t.”
She looked up at me. “She is prone to lies, and she’s more than capable of violence. I don’t think she’s completely stable. I’d rather you didn’t tell her I said so.”
I sat back. “Okay then.”
Devin exhaled, placed a gentle hand on her middle. “In a crowded room, you wouldn’t even notice her. Chandler. She’s like a lamp, a coffee table, and who notices a lamp? But come too close to Vonda, and she’ll sure notice you. For a while, when all those deaths began to happen, I thought maybe Chandler. . . but when I read in the paper that she was shot, too . . .”
“What’d you think?”
“It sounds crazy. It is crazy. My senior year of college, during school break, I came home with a new puppy, Mimi. At my father’s place, Vonda had all but moved in, and of course Chandler was always with her. This time, they were all working on a speech my father was to give to some women’s group somewhere. Vonda didn’t like dogs. She wasn’t allergic to them or anything. She just didn’t like them, so I tried to keep Mimi away from her. Somehow, she got to the speech, chewed it to pieces. There was no backup, apparently. To this day, I don’t know how she got into the study.”
I smiled. She couldn’t be serious. “So, Chandler killed your dog?”
“Yes.”
I looked for signs that she might be putting me on, but she wasn’t joking.
“I found Mimi on her bed, under a blanket. Her neck had been broken. I don’t have any proof that she did it, but I know she did. Vonda didn’t like the puppy. Vonda was furious with the puppy. Chandler got rid of the puppy. I never stayed at my father’s house again.”
“Ms. Devin—”
She interrupted me. “I know it sounds crazy, but after, when I was cleaning up, I found Mimi’s food and collar in the kitchen trash bin. The things had been thrown away before I found her. Chandler knew I wouldn’t be needing any of that stuff anymore, so she just tossed it away, but she left Mimi for me to find. How sick is that?”