39

The principal’s office of Jack’s Creek High School was a square box, the walls concrete block, the floor overwaxed linoleum. The yellow pinewood desk was cluttered, and one of the filing cabinets hung open. The chair behind the desk was undoubtedly the most comfortable in the room, but it was empty.

Sonora sat in a straight-back wood chair next to Sam, waiting for the next teacher.

“Get the feeling she wasn’t much liked?” Sam was saying.

Sonora nodded. The principal had been new and young, and did not know Selma Yorke, but he had lent them his office and instigated a parade of teachers who did.

Someone knocked at the door.

Sam looked at his watch. “Last one.”

The woman was past retirement age, tall and broad shouldered, with well-rounded hips but no extra weight. She wore a blue print dress that hung loosely to mid-calf, thick cotton socks, and scuffed deck shoes. Reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck. Her hair, gray and white, was thickly plaited and hung down her back.

“I’m Ms. Armstead, the art teacher.”

Sam stood up and shook her hand. “Specialist Delarosa, and this is Specialist Blair.”

Armstead nodded at Sonora and sat down. She inclined her head toward Sonora’s recorder. “Are you taping this?”

Sam smiled at her. “We record all our interviews, it’s standard procedure.”

Sonora leaned forward. “Ms. Armstead, the principal talked to you already, didn’t he, about a student named Selma Yorke?”

“I don’t remember all of my students, Detective, and this was over eleven years ago. But the fact is, I do remember Selma, very well.”

Sonora and Sam exchanged looks.

“Why very well?” Sam asked.

“I’m an art teacher, and Selma was very talented. Talented and … tortured.”

Sonora settled back in her chair. “Why do you say that—tortured?”

“I’m speaking internally. Let me give you a for instance. We always do a unit on portraiture—one student models and the others sketch. Selma couldn’t do it, she could not draw another human being. Sometimes she would sketch a number, instead of a face. It was weird, it made the other children uncomfortable. She was not well liked. She tried, I’ll give her that. I saw the child sit there, time after time, pencil in hand. She would break the lead, tear the paper. One particularly bad day she went to the restroom and … and cut off her bangs.” Armstead’s voice went breathless. “I went to her. I took her aside, but she was a difficult child to get close to. I will tell you honestly that I did not like her. But I did respect her talent. I haven’t had another student like Selma.”

Good, Sonora thought. But Armstead looked bereft.

“Had she done anything like that before? Gotten mad and cut her bangs?” Sam asked.

“When I gave them the self-portrait assignment, Selma couldn’t even begin. She got very angry, then came in the next day, bangs chopped right off, the same thing. She was very apathetic. Said she’d take a failing grade for the project, moped around the room while the others were working. Then she came to me and asked if she could draw Danny instead.”

Sonora looked at Sam. “She mentioned a Danny. A couple of times.”

“Tell us about him,” Sam said.

“Daniel Markum: He was older than she was, twenty-two, twenty-three. His brother went to school with Selma, and he worked the family farm and ran a repair shop from the house. Some of the teachers thought he shouldn’t have been fooling with a girl as young as Selma, but she was crazy about him.”

Sonora leaned forward in her chair. “Did she do it? Draw him?”

Armstead nodded. “A very credible job; she was talented. She did him, but never anyone else.”

“Have you seen her since she left? Heard from her?”

Armstead shook her head. “I did what I could when she was my student, but we were not close. I kept things, some of her work, locked away in my private cabinet. Would you like to see?”

A bell rang just as they left the principal’s office, and the hallways flooded with kids in blue jeans. Armstead led them past a thinly populated trophy case, through double doors into 101-A—the art room.

The walls were covered with vibrant masks of papier-mâché, bright greens, yellows, blues. Armstead went past a paint-streaked sink and opened a locked cabinet. Her head disappeared, and Sonora heard rustling noises.

A girl peered in the doorway and looked at Sam. She grinned and left.

“Here we are.” Armstead brought out a fabric case and unzipped it over her desk, took out a canvas, and held it up.

It was thickly painted with throbbing, dark color.

“Selma loved to paint. Disturbing things, hot hard colors as you see here, very abstract. The other students, the other teachers, thought it was just splatters on canvas. Ignorance.” Her voice sounded clipped and irritable. She rummaged in the satchel and pulled out a square of canvas paper. “This is the sketch she did. Danny Markum. The likeness is good.”

Sonora held the sketch by the edges. It had been done in charcoal, by a hurried, almost frantic hand, and something about it disturbed her. The likeness to Keaton Daniels was superficial, but marked. She passed it on to Sam.

He looked up and caught Armstead’s eye. “What happened with her and Danny?”

Armstead winced. “She did this just before the … that business at the river.”

“What business at the river?” Sonora asked.

“You don’t know?”

Sam shook his head.

Armstead settled slowly into the chair behind the small square desk. “Nobody really knows for sure what happened that night, and there were a lot of versions flying at the time, let me tell you.” She looked out the window, seeming far away. “I told you Danny had a brother, Roger, and he was in Selma’s class. Selma was jealous of Roger. She was jealous of anybody that went near Daniel, but Roger in particular.

“The two of them, the brothers, had a habit of going night fishing once a week. It was a sore point with Selma. She had a thing about the river. Anyway, Selma was always agitating to tag along, but Roger usually talked Daniel out of letting her go. This one night, Roger said Selma came anyway, fought with Danny, then stormed off. The story goes that after Selma left, Roger went back to the car for more beer. And when he came back, Danny was gone. Nothing there but his fishing pole and bait, and a half-empty beer can.”

“They doing a lot of drinking?” Sam asked.

“Probably. More than they should, no doubt. They dragged the river and found Daniel’s body. The official ruling was that he waded out over his head and drowned. He couldn’t swim. Most of the kids around here can’t.”

“Then the rumors started,” Sonora said.

Armstead propped her chin on her elbow. “More than just rumors. Roger made a big fuss. He said Selma came back and pushed Danny in. But the sheriff let it go. He said that Selma loved Danny and, after all, she was a little thing, and Danny was a solid six foot. But they … they found one of Selma’s earrings in the mud. Selma said she lost it the first time, when they had words.”

Sam looked at Armstead. “The first time? She said that?”

Armstead nodded. “I heard her say it, here in class.”

“You tell the sheriff?”

“I … yes.” Armstead traced a finger across the desk. “Roger wouldn’t let it be.”

“Is that when she left?” Sonora asked.

“Not exactly. Not long after that, Roger had an accident. He was working late in the family tobacco barn, and a fire started. He didn’t make it out.”

Sam spoke gently. “Any ruling on how the fire started?”

Armstead spoke through clenched teeth. “Someone emptied a gas can that was there for the tractor, and then dropped a match. Roger never had a chance.” She looked up at Sam. “Everyone said Selma did it. And that was when she left.”

Sonora and Sam exchanged looks.

Armstead took the canvas paper from Sam. “It’s a very focused sketch, don’t you think?”

Sonora thought obsessed would be a better word. “Ms. Armstead, do you think Selma killed Roger? Do you think she killed Danny?”

Armstead raised a hand in a gesture that looked hopeless and tired. “I wouldn’t—I couldn’t know. I will tell you that after Danny died … she tried to draw him, but she couldn’t.”