‘Vern said you wanted to see me?’
Andrea Velasquez stepped into Greg’s classroom, her expression sullen. The soles of her shoes squeaked slightly as she walked across the floor. She was wearing the same ratty pair of Converse sneakers as she’d had on the day before. They didn’t seem suitable for the weather. It had snowed overnight. Outside his classroom window the city was shrouded in white. The steep hills and tightly packed houses gave it the appearance of a Christmas decoration. Certainly not the weather for schlepping about in canvas shoes with holes in them.
A truck rumbled by on Joseph Avenue, its tires swishing over unplowed snow.
‘Thanks for coming, Andrea. I wasn’t sure you’d be in today.’
‘Yeah, well I am. I need the paycheck and I didn’t do nothing wrong, so …’ She stared at him defiantly. ‘You want something?’
‘I wanted to apologize,’ Greg began. ‘I thought about what you said yesterday, about needing a friend. I don’t think I was a very good one, and I’m sorry. I’d like to help you. If I can, that is. And if you’ll let me.’
He thought for a moment that Andrea was going to burst into tears. She held it together, though, her dark eyes wide and luminous under the classroom lights. She nodded a mute acceptance of his apology, not trusting herself to speak.
‘Take a seat,’ he offered. Andrea did as suggested, waving away the proffered box of tissues.
‘I’m guessing the police gave you a hard time for lying to them?’
Andrea nodded again.
‘They have anything else on you?’
‘Nah. They already got my prints; then they asked if they could have my freakin’ shoes. They asked a bunch of questions about Lindsay Delcade.’ She frowned then. ‘And they asked if I smoked dope.’
‘And what did you tell them? About the dope, I mean.’
‘Nuthin. Smoking dope is still a crime in this here city, man. I know better than that.’
Greg spared her a wry smile.
‘Do you smoke dope?’
‘Who doesn’t? But not at work, Mr Bimbo. Never. I need the job.’
‘I can’t help you if you lie to me.’
‘I ain’t lying!’ Andrea said, hotly. ‘It’s the god’s-honest truth.’
‘So the dope they found in the custodian’s room isn’t yours?’
‘No way, man. No way.’
‘On Monday, did you see any dope in the custodian’s room?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever seen dope in the custodian’s room?’
Andrea hesitated.
‘No. But …’
‘But what?’
‘I smell it sometimes. When I get in for work. I figure Vern has a prescription for it or something. Man ain’t exactly healthy, know what I’m saying?’
‘You ever talk to him about it?’
‘You kidding? Old coot’s difficult enough to work with as is. Don’t need more trouble prying into his business.’
Greg’s gaze drifted down to Andrea’s feet.
‘The police kept your shoes?’
Andrea glanced at her moth-eaten sneakers and grimaced.
‘They surely did. Only decent pair I got.’
‘They say when you could have them back?’
‘Uh-uh. I do got the receipt, though. But you can’t wear a receipt through the freakin’ snow, man. I been freezing all day. Vern keeps sending me outside every chance he gets. He thinks I killed that lady. Don’t want me near him.’
Andrea looked suddenly and indescribably sad. She fidgeted absent-mindedly, banging the rubber edges of her sneakers against each other.
‘Let’s talk about Monday, eh? Vern persuaded you to fix the furnace?’
‘Yeah. Worst decision of my freakin’ life. Shoulda gone to school like I wanted to.’
‘And when did you start working on the furnace?’
‘Dunno. Maybe four forty-five? Vern knocked off pretty much at five and I’d already gotten started by then.’
‘And when did you finish working on the furnace?’
‘About eight? I’m not really sure.’
‘And while you were down there did you hear or see anybody else?’
Andrea shook her head.
‘No one. There was probably some teachers up here, but you can’t hear them in the basement. Floors are too thick.’
‘And when you left here, where did you go?’
‘Home. I got there maybe ten till nine.’
‘Anyone see you when you got there?’
Andrea giggled.
‘Yeah. Mom, Dad, two sisters and a brother. Home is real crowded, Mr Bimbo.’
Greg had to smile at that. He let her enjoy the moment before pushing on.
‘What I don’t understand,’ he said carefully, ‘is why you lied to the police.’
Andrea’s cheerful expression faded away.
‘I’m trying to get my associate degree, you know?’ Her voice was very soft. ‘Computer Information Science. It’s my ticket outta here. Job with prospects, place of my own. A life. You understand?’
Greg nodded.
‘Yeah, well, it’s tough to make the tuition without working overtime. But if I work overtime, I can’t make it to class, see? And I’ve missed a lot of classes. So the school has me on what they call academic watch. I miss any more classes without a good reason, and they’re going to flunk me out. Then I have to sit the semester again and pay more tuition, which means more overtime, which means missing more classes. I can’t keep doing that, Mr Bimbo. I ain’t got the money, and I’m already in debt up to my eyeballs with student loans. My mom and dad don’t got the money neither. If I get flunked out now, I’m like totally screwed. Forever.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to grow old here, man. I don’t want to be some fat Mexican cleaning lady that wipes up other people’s shit for the rest of my life. But that’s where I’m headed if the school flunks me.’
Greg looked away for a moment, touched by Andrea’s predicament. He didn’t turn back again until he was good and ready.
‘But you didn’t go to class on Monday, right? So wouldn’t the school flunk you out anyway?’
‘No, man. I told them my abuela was sick and I needed to see her before she passed. They let you miss class for that, see?’
Greg did see. Andrea had lied to Pittsburgh Community College so she could stay on track, and had then lied to the police, thinking, somehow, that if she told them the truth it would get back to the school and they’d flunk her out. Of course, the police had gone to PCC to check out her story, anyway. They’d discovered she’d lied to them, and no doubt let slip that, wherever Andrea Velasquez had been that Monday night, it hadn’t been at the side of a terminally ill grandmother.
The door to his classroom burst open. Startled, Greg looked up to see Lieutenant Cassidy and Sergeant Lev striding across the threshold, followed by a uniformed officer. Flakes of snow were slowly melting on the officer’s cap.
‘Maybelline Velasquez?’ Cassidy intoned, without preamble. ‘You’re under arrest for the murder of Lindsay Delcade. You do not have to say anything …’
The words flowed by in a blur, accompanied by the clicking of handcuffs.
‘I didn’t do nothing,’ Andrea protested, her voice low and cracked.
Cassidy was having none of it.
‘Sure you didn’t, chica. That’s why your prints are all over the murder weapon.’
‘You’re making a mistake,’ Greg said.
‘You keep out of this, boy, or I’ll have you arrested for obstruction.’
Greg stepped back, arms wide.
‘I’m not obstructing anything, officer.’ He was careful to enunciate every word, the Englishness of his accent his best defense against an impulsive exercise of authority. ‘I’m just trying to remind you that Ms Velasquez’s shoes don’t match the crime scene.’
‘This is your last warning. Shut it. Or—’
‘What do you mean?’ Sergeant Lev interrupted. She withstood a withering stare from her boss with apparent equanimity.
‘Ms Velasquez wears Doc Marten boots.’ Greg looked pointedly at Andrea’s poorly shod feet. ‘They’re the only decent pair she has, and you have them in your custody.’
‘So?’
‘So … Doc Martens have a tread. The footprints in your crime scene are smooth. Whoever stepped in Ms Delcade’s blood on the way out had smooth-soled shoes.’
‘How do you know that?’ Cassidy asked, his voice dangerous. He stepped across the room and thrust his nose pugnaciously into the teacher’s face. ‘You been interfering with my crime scene?’
Greg fought to keep his voice calm, and reasonable, and English. The temptation to incapacitate the man was almost overwhelming.
‘Not at all, officer. I was simply chatting with the school custodian while he cleaned up the mess. After you’d all finished, obviously.’ A smile of studied insincerity. ‘I just happened to notice.’
‘Yeah, well, they’re only partial footprints,’ Cassidy said, goaded into what, by police standards, was a shocking indiscretion. ‘And the fingerprints are solid.’
‘Well of course they are. They’re on a screwdriver. I daresay Ms Velasquez used it all the time. Doesn’t mean she was the one holding it when Ms Delcade got stabbed.’
He hoped to God Andrea was switched on enough to take the hint. If she tried to get off by claiming she’d never touched the bloody thing, she was finished.
‘Goddammit, who do you think you are?’ Cassidy fumed. ‘This is a police matter. For trained officers, with years of experience. Stick to teaching Swahili or whatever it is they pay you to do.’ He pointed at the uniformed officer. ‘Get her out of here.’ He followed Andrea and the officer into the corridor. Sergeant Lev went too.
But she raked him with a thoughtful glance on the way out.