CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

IF HE HADN’T BEEN SO FURIOUS WITH JESS, WALKING INTO BRADLEY again might have been more emotionally fraught. But now his vision blurred with rage. Why had he trusted her? She was a Bradley teacher. He should have known better. The more he knew about this place, the more he believed it was pure evil.

He sprinted up the curved staircase two steps at a time until he reached Toby’s old classroom. He watched Jess for a moment through a rectangle of glass in the door. He barged in as she was writing equations on the board. “I need to talk to you.”

Jess and the kids all turned to stare at him. Shock was the first thing he saw in her eyes. Then annoyance. “I’m teaching class,” she said, stating the obvious, but he didn’t budge. Then he saw fear. “Is everything okay? Did something happen?”

“I need to talk to you. Now.” She tensed at the coldness in his voice.

She turned to the kids. “Miss Bix will finish the lesson.” The assistant teacher took her place at the board and Jess came into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

“What happened? Is Toby okay?”

“You tell me.” He shoved the papers in her face and she backed away from the force of it. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out?”

“Shh. They can hear everything.” She led him to a dark classroom, flicked on the light and closed the door after them. “Find out what?” She was trying to keep her voice down, even in here. “Why are you acting so weird?”

He shook the papers in front of her until she took them and started to read. “What is this?” She scanned the page and her eyes landed on her signature. “This is not …” She read on. “I never …” She flipped through to the end. “What is this? Where’d you get it?”

Fear twisted through him. “From the doctor.”

“I didn’t write this,” she said. The color had gone out of her face.

“But … what do you mean? It’s your signature.”

“Why would I lie to you?”

She wouldn’t lie to him. He knew it then. “Oh God,” he said. The wall of anger inside him cracked and the room started to reel.

“Look, I’ll prove it.” She grabbed a pencil from a découpaged coffee can on the desk.

“No, you don’t need to—”

But she was already signing her name on a scrap of red construction paper. She held it up against the signature on the bottom of the Conners scale.

The one on the form was too careful, too studied. She hadn’t recommended medication for Toby. “So who signed this? And why?”

“This is a nightmare,” she said, “Do I need a lawyer? I think I need a lawyer.”

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to imagine all the ways something like this could implicate Jess. “Yeah, probably.”

She clenched the forged document and raced out of the room. “Come on.” He ran to keep up as she sped down the stairs to the basement level. They passed the art room, the nurse’s office, and the gym.

“Where are we going?” he asked. But she was already knocking on Shineman’s door.

“Bev,” she said, banging. “Aunt Bev.” When there was no answer, she looked at her watch. “Everyone’s in assembly.”

“So we’ll wait.”

She shook her head. “No, you should go.” She pushed at his chest, but not hard. “It’ll be better.”

“No way.” He wanted to see Shineman, wanted to shake her. Make her explain.

“If I talk to her alone, she might tell me what’s going on. If you’re there …” She grimaced. “It’s not going to work.”

He imagined seeing Shineman and his chest tightened. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. He let Jess walk him toward the staircase. “Call me as soon as you talk to her.”

“Promise,” she said. “And then you can tell me why I should tell my mother’s voice to stop worrying. I got your email.”

“A lot has changed in the past two days. Come over tonight and I’ll tell you everything.”

But Jess was looking past him and he could see her wheels turning. “What’s the matter?” He turned and realized they were standing in front of the nurse’s office. The door was open.

“The nurse,” she said, holding up the Conners scale. “I wonder if she keeps copies of these in her office.”

“We have all the proof we need. It’s in your hand.”

“But what if my signature is forged on other Conners scales, too? What if other parents put their kids on drugs because they thought I told them to?” She wrung her hands, then moved around him toward the nurse’s office. He followed her into the tidy room where Jess was already behind the desk opening and closing drawers.

He looked around and saw an exam table, a few chairs, a desk—but no filing cabinets. “What about in there?” He gestured to the walk-in closet.

She pushed open the door, peered in, and looked from left to right with a puzzled expression. As it hit her, her eyes and mouth opened in horror.

“What,” he said. “What is it?” Standing next to her a moment later, he stared into the room, which was lined floor to ceiling with dozens and dozens of shelves filled with prescription bottles. He’d never seen so many pills. He reached for the light switch.

Jess grabbed his hand and shook her head. She opened her cell phone and shined the blue light on the pill bottles. He opened his phone, too, for more light, and started reading the labels. “Ritalin 10 mg. Take two pills by mouth every four hours as needed.” He picked up another: “Metattent Junior, 10 mg.” He grabbed another handful. Almost every vial contained medication for Attention Deficit—Metattent Junior, but also Ritalin and Adderall, Adderall XR, generic methylphenidate and dexadrine. He even found a few bottles of Wellbutrin. “Jesus Christ,” he said. He did a rough count: ten, twenty, thirty, forty per shelf. “There are hundreds of bottles here.”

“It’s way too many,” she said, staring. “I’ve been paying attention, looking for signs that my kids are on this stuff. And they’re there. In a few kids. But this … this makes it look like the entire student body is taking pills.”

He thought he’d feel better knowing he’d been right about Bradley. But he felt sick. His hand trembled as he reached for the bottles on the shelf reserved for Jess’s class. He grabbed a handful and read the labels: they were prescribed for Dylan, Alexis, and Marcus, each by a different doctor. Cheryl had lied to him, but he knew that already. Like so many other parents here, she’d been pressured into giving her child an edge in the competitive arena of the Bradley lower school.

Giving your child Ritalin wasn’t like signing him or her up for tutoring or occupational therapy or sight training. Of course parents would talk to their close friends about it, but for the most part, the topic was still taboo, something Bradley mothers were not going to chitchat about over soy lattes at Le Pain Quotidien. The school had counted on that. He was sure of it. He leaned against the door frame, hit by the enormity of what he was staring at. He reached for more bottles to see who else had been diagnosed.

Jess was reading labels, too, as many as she could grab. “Oh my God,” she gasped. “This is a nightmare. All these kids … all their parents. And if they’re being diagnosed by forged questionnaires …” She had a wild look in her eyes as she started dialing her phone.

“Whoa, wait,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“The police. I’m calling the police.”

“Wait,” he said. “Let me think.”

She glared at him. “Think about what? The school is … this is …” She was shaking, trying to find the words.

“Let’s be smart,” he said. “Think about Debbie Martin. We need evidence.”

“Evidence?” She held her arms open and took it all in again. “What do you call this?”

“Do you know what kind of lawyers a place like Bradley has?”

“We can take the bottles,” she said. “For proof.”

He wondered how many bottles he could shove in his jeans pockets. It wasn’t an efficient plan. “Even if we take some of the pills, it’s still not going to—I’m not sure that will prove …” His mind raced. “The really creepy thing, the thing that will get people’s attention is the pharmacy we’re staring at right now.” He looked at the phone in his hand, switched it to camera mode and snapped a series of photos of the closet. When Jess caught on, she held a few of the bottles up close, so the labels would be legible.

After they’d documented the discovery, she slumped against the wall. “What am I going to do? I can’t … I can’t keep working here.”

“Get out of your contract. Come up with an excuse. Anything—a family crisis, an illness. And I’ll call Nicole, see if there’s anyone she trusts in Child Services. We’ll go through channels. We’ll do this right.”

Footsteps clattered in the hallway and they swiveled toward the sound.

“Assembly’s over,” Jess said, shoving the pills back on the shelf clumsily. He tried to straighten them as best he could. “Let’s get out of here.”

His heart was pounding so loudly he wondered if Jess could hear it. They ducked out of the closet and Sean left the door slightly ajar, hoping it was close to the way they’d found it. Before they had a chance to escape, Astrid lumbered into the room and glared at them. “What are you doing in here?”

Jess froze for what seemed like an eternity. There had to be a believable excuse. His mind was blank. He swallowed hard.

Then he realized that not only was he still a parent at the school, he was the parent of a kid who’d been sick. Very sick. It suddenly occurred to him that it was weird that he hadn’t been in before. He turned to Jess as casually as he could. “Thanks for bringing me down here,” he said. “I always get lost in the basement.”

Jess tried to smile. “Sure,” she said stiffly.

“I know you probably need to get back to the kids.”

“Right, I …” Jess turned to leave. “I hope … Toby feels better,” she said, and darted down the hall.

He focused his attention on Astrid again. Her face was stone. “I wanted to talk to you about Toby,” he started. “You know, about his condition. And what I should do.”

If Astrid was buying any of this, her expression wasn’t showing it. All he could do was keep going. “So … the doctors say Toby should rest,” he said. “For now. They … they want to monitor his heart periodically.” He swallowed. He was not doing well. “I … value your professional opinion. I mean, you know kids … and the school … better than anyone at that hospital. You might know better … about, you know, when would be right for him to come back.” He would never in a million years let Toby set foot in this place again. He hoped she couldn’t see it in his eyes. He looked away.

She looked him up and down suspiciously, and then, miraculously, softened. She nodded slowly, which made her chins jiggle. “You were smart to come by,” she said. “Parents don’t usually talk to me, and I do have insights to this place that the doctors don’t have.” She gestured for him to sit. He sat on a wooden chair and she waddled around behind her desk. “Here’s what I’d tell you. Give Toby some time. Don’t rush it. Once he comes back, it’s hard to take it easy. He’ll be swept up into the daily routine and he won’t want to slow down. I’d keep him home until after spring break, at the very least.”

He pretended to listen, to care what this crazy drug-pushing nurse had to say.

“Just make sure his teacher sends the homework home every week so he doesn’t fall behind.”

“Okay,” he said, getting up. “Thanks. Thanks for your suggestion. I think it’s a good one.” He looked at his watch. “Wow, it’s late. I better … I better get to work.” He waved and made a quick exit.

Outside, he raced down the street, his mind reeling, when his foot slid on a patch of ice. He flailed, frictionless, for what seemed like an eternity, before he finally, miraculously, regained his footing. Being out of control for a few moments had been terrifying, but, he realized, not at all unfamiliar. He startled at his phone vibrating in his back pocket.

“Where the hell are you?” Rick shouted in his ear a moment later.

“I’m … I had an emergency.”

“Jesus,” he said, losing the bluster. “Is it Toby? What happened?

“No, it’s … Toby’s okay. I’m just getting in the subway. I’ll be there in—”

“I’m in a meeting,” Rick bellowed. “One you’re supposed to be running.”

“Ten minutes,” he said, hanging up and waving down a taxi. As he hopped inside, his phone rang again and he flipped it open. “I’m in a cab now.”

“Sean.” He knew the voice, but it took a second to register. Walt. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“I’m just on my way to work.”

“Go, go. I was just calling to tell you I heard about what happened to Toby. I’m glad he’s okay. You must be … Jesus, I can’t even imagine.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“Hey,” he said. “If you’re free Sunday we could use you in the game.”

Basketball was the last thing he wanted to think about. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m probably not going to make it this week.”

“I know you’ve got a lot on your plate. I bet you’ll be happy when your son’s back at school.”

The sound that came out of his mouth started as a laugh but ended up more of an accusatory groan.

“What?” Walt sounded legitimately baffled.

“Nothing,” he said. He was furious, but there was no reason to be taking it out on Walt. “I should … I’ve got to go.”

“Sure. Don’t want to keep you.”

“Hold on—” he said, realizing that he had a Bradley Board member—and probably soon-to-be Chairman of the Board of Trustees—on the phone. “Walt?”

“Holding on,” he said.

“I just came from Bradley,” he blurted. “The nurse’s office.” He didn’t know how to start. “It’s filled with prescription bottles. Tons of kids at Bradley are taking drugs for ADD.”

“Whoa, slow down. Start from the beginning and tell me what happened.”

“Okay.” He tried to slow down. Walt didn’t know any of this, he reminded himself. He needed to walk him through. “I ended up giving Toby Metattent,” he said. “It gave him an arrhythmia, which sent him into the coma.” The more clinically he described it, the easier it was to say out loud, as if he were talking about someone else’s horror story.

“Jesus, Sean.” Walt exhaled into the receiver. “Jesus.”

“I was just in the nurse’s office at school. She has a closet packed with bottles of ADD medication.”

Walt was listening, waiting. “That’s where it would be, I’m assuming.”

“Walt, Toby’s teacher questionnaire was forged; the one that helped diagnose him.”

“Forged?” Walt sounded dubious. “Sean, my heart goes out to you. But who would do that? Really. Who?”

“That’s where I thought you could help. If the school is trying to get parents to put their kids on these drugs … I mean if it happened to Toby, then why wouldn’t it have happened with other kids too?”

“If what you’re saying is true …” He stopped. “Well, we need to find out if it’s true. That’s the first step. I hope you’re wrong, Sean—that it’s just a misunderstanding. Because if you’re not …”

“What would your first step be? If you were me?”

He listened to Walt thinking. “Come to lunch today at the Yale Club,” he said, finally. “I’m meeting Bruce Daniels there at one. I can give him the basics of what you told me, if you’re okay with that. Maybe he can do some digging this morning and the three of us can sit down and figure out what the hell is going on.”

He took a minute to try to imagine Headmaster Daniels eating lunch anywhere other than the Bradley dining room. He considered Walt’s proposal. The headmaster ran the school. He could push Bradley to stop medicating kids. Unless he was the one who pushed for medication. Unless he was the one forging the documents. “I don’t know.”

“We’ve got to nail this thing head-on,” Walt said. “I’ve known Bruce twenty years. He’s a good guy. He’ll know better than anyone what’s going on over there—and if he doesn’t, he’s in the best position to figure it out.”

The Yale Club wasn’t far from the Buzz offices, and Sean slipped out at lunch unnoticed. He’d passed the blue and white banner countless times, but he’d never given the Yale Club any thought until the moment he turned into the revolving door and stood in the lobby, face to face with two uniformed doormen.

“Sir, may I help you?” one of them asked from behind a podium.

“I’m meeting someone, thanks,” he said, checking out the somber portraits of old white men in academic robes.

“The Yale Club has a no-jeans policy.” He said. “I’m sorry.”

“Seriously?” He couldn’t help the smirk. “They’re just pants.”

“House rule.” The apologetic tone meant he wasn’t budging. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“I have an important meeting.” A few captains of industry seated in upholstered armchairs pulled their heads out of their Wall Street Journals to see what the ruckus was about. “I don’t see what my pants have to do with anything.”

“Please keep your voice down, sir,” scolded the first doorman. “We didn’t make the rule.”

Walt jogged down the staircase, his slate blue suit pants rising and falling, exposing tactful black socks and dress shoes. It was the first time he’d seen Walt in anything but jeans.

“It’s all right, Alberto. We can make an exception this time.” He flashed his winning smile. “Won’t happen again.”

Alberto cowed. “Yes Mr. Renard,” he said and stepped down.

Walt placed a hand on Sean’s back and led him up to the fifth floor dining room. They navigated a sea of more white men with white hair sitting at tables covered with white tablecloths. Bruce Daniels was already seated at a table and stood when he saw them. He shook Sean’s hand and held his gaze to show he understood this was serious. “I’m glad you brought me in on this.”

Walt gestured to a buffet at the far end of the room. “Why don’t we grab some food, then we can get down to business.”

Food was the last thing on Sean’s mind, but he trailed Walt, piling lamb chops and asparagus and fettucini carbonara onto his plate.

When they were seated again, an ancient waiter teetered over. “We have a lovely new Bordeaux in the cellar. Should I have Marco bring it up?”

“Not today,” Walt said. “Thanks Bobby.”

When the waiter had moved on, Daniels put down his knife and wiped his mouth. “Walt’s filled me in,” he started. “And I can imagine how upset you must be. Especially after everything you’ve been through the past few months.” He placed his napkin back in his lap. “How is Toby? I’ve heard he’s making excellent progress.”

“He is. Thanks.” Thanking Daniels was the opposite of what he wanted to do. “Bruce, I saw the pill bottles in the nurse’s office.”

“When you say pill bottles—”

“Hundreds of them. And the kids are being diagnosed by forged teacher evaluations. Why would the school want all their students on speed?”

“Obviously that’s the last thing any school would want. Medication is an extremely serious thing and needs to be treated as such. I understand why you’re upset. What you saw …” Daniels nodded, like he really did understand. “And bottom line is, you’re right. There are a lot of kids at Bradley who are taking medication. First, you have to realize that the national average is up to—”

He felt his blood pressure rising. “Do not try to explain this away with national statistics. I know the statistics. And I know what saw.”

“Look, all I’m saying is 10 percent is a big number,” Daniels said. “Not necessarily because more children have ADD than they used to—although you do know that television, advertising, and video games have all been proven to lower the attention span of children—but because doctors have better tools to diagnose them.”

“And I’m telling you in Toby’s case, and probably in the case of a lot of the other kids, those tools are forged,” Sean said. “It looked like every kid in the school was on something.”

“Let me give you everything I’ve got, Sean, then we can have this conversation.” He tapped the table with both hands at once, to make a point. “I brought some reports I think you’ll find interesting.” He reached into his bag, which sat on the floor next to him and pulled out a packet. “There have been a number of studies done in Switzerland on the correlation between gifted children and Attention Deficit. Which would explain why Toby—and a high percentage of our students—suffer from it.”

Daniels was the first person at Bradley to ever refer to Toby as gifted. Struggling, challenged, behind, but never gifted. Unless gifted was taken for granted for all Bradley students. “I’ve never heard about that study.”

Daniels shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s all out there for public consumption. This one’s for you.” Sean read out the title on the report: “The Correlation between ADD and Giftedness, Geneva, January, 2008.”

Daniels sorted through some more papers until he found what he was looking for. “This is another interesting one that looks at how stress can trigger ADD symptoms. A death in the family, separation, or divorce.” He paused for a guilt-inducing moment. “All kinds of factors figure in.”

Sean took a copy of that report as well. He would read them front to back later, but simply holding them in his hand calmed him. Then he remembered Jess’s signature. “So what about the signature on the Conners scale?”

“I have to ask why you believe the signature on that document didn’t belong to Toby’s teacher.”

“I’ve … I’ve seen the teacher’s signature,” he said, lamely. “It was obviously not hers.”

“And which of the three teacher signatures looked wrong to you?”

“You know, I’d rather not say.”

He considered this and thankfully let it go. “I agree that if the signature does not belong to Toby’s teacher, then we have a serious problem to deal with. Or, I should say, I have a serious problem to deal with.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll begin an investigation. Today. You have my word.”

“You’ve been through the ringer this year,” Walt said.

“How are Toby’s spirits?” Daniels asked. “Is his teacher sending work home?”

“Honestly,” Sean said, “it’s been the last thing on my mind.”

“The last thing I want is for Toby to fall behind because of this,” Daniels stated. “What about a tutor? Is there someone who can work with him while he’s home?”

“I—” He’d thought about having Noah come by the apartment, but he was already hemorrhaging money. “I’ll work with him a little, help him along.”

“I hope you’ll allow Bradley to provide a tutor—or at least cover those expenses. We’re behind Toby. Behind you. We want to make this as easy for you as possible.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “We’re fine.”

“Take me up on it.” He leaned in with an expression of empathy on his face, his voice barely a whisper. “I insist.”