ONLY THE STUDENT LOCKERS THAT LINED THE HALLWAYS HAD REMAINED THE SAME since the 80s. The metal detectors that guarded the entryways certainly didn’t exist twenty-five years ago. Students talking on rhinestone-studded Sidekicks—a new thing. Girls showing lots of leg and even more midriff—definitely new. Pregnant girls waddling down the hallways—wow. In some ways, they could have been my classmates and me—brown faces bright with youth and pimples. But holy moly guacamole, these girls of the new millennium. Curvier. And the boys? Rowdier. Miniskirts. Plain white T-shirts. Sagging khakis and tattoos? Not possible in ye olden days, where a skirt 0.5 centimeters above the knee got you a trip to the principal’s office and a pair of sweatpants to wear until sixth period.
“I’m guessing that locker is Chanita’s,” Colin said, pointing.
Down the eastern corridor, students had taped to the locker’s metal door flowers, notes, and homemade posters that read “We Miss You!”
“Maybe not.” I pointed at a locker down the opposite hallway, also festooned with RIP signs. Farther down still, another locker and more posters.
“Damn,” Colin muttered, “don’t these kids have enough normal shit to worry about?”
“Weird body things, stupid parents, and teenage love affairs?”
He nodded. “But now they gotta deal with their own mortality and mourning dead friends and—?” His face reddened. “Sorry. Forgot that you …”
I waved my hand, my attention now directed at the security cameras bolted to the walls at every corridor intersection. In the best of worlds, those cameras were currently working. In this world, though, I didn’t expect them to.
The administrative office had remained in the same spot, and, since my last year here, not much inside of it had changed. Dingy American flag hanging from the wall. Dusty intercom speaker box covered in cobwebs. More Hispanic mothers than black mothers clutching doctors’ forms and birth certificates—that was the only visible change.
We approached the end of the long Formica counter and the tall black woman consulting a ledger with one hand as the other futzed with her long hair twists. She peered at me with a pair of lies in blue contact lenses.
I badged her, then told her that we were investigating the murder of Chanita Lords.
She told me that her name was Alice and that she’d helped Detective Gwen Zapata back on Monday with the missing-child school notification form, which was now a part of Chanita’s school record.
The other workers heard our conversation, and the office dropped into silence. Those workers soon called waiting parents to the counter just to hear us talk.
“I noticed security cameras,” I said to the clerk. “I’d like to get footage from Friday.”
Alice sucked her teeth. “Those cameras been down for almost two weeks now.”
I scowled at her, sapped of all patience for people and their wack-ass security systems.
“Budget cuts,” she said. “What we supposed to do?”
I pulled the search warrant from the case file. “We’d like to see her locker—that still exists, doesn’t it?”
Alice nodded.
“And then,” I said, “we’d like to pop in on her counselor, Mr. Bishop.”
Alice jotted down Bishop’s office number on a sticky note. Then, she pecked on a computer keyboard to find Chanita’s locker number and combination. “Mr. Bishop also counseled Trina Porter.” She looked at us over her shoulder. “Just so you know.”
“Thanks for the info,” I said, squinting at her.
“Yep. Some of us are plannin’ to attend Nita’s funeral tomorrow. She was an angel. I hope y’all catch … him.”
Locker 336. Bottom row. A stone’s throw from the girls’ restroom. Teddy bears, stuffed unicorns, flowers, and pictures of the smiling and very alive thirteen-year-old Chanita Lords. My pulse thrummed in my ears as we moved the memorials aside. Colin spun the locker’s tumbler and pulled up the latch.
Textbooks and notebooks on pink-carpeted shelves. Tiny magnetic mirror inside the door along with pictures of friends and the singer Drake.
I plucked an appointment card from a pen holder.
WOMEN & CHILDREN MEDICAL GROUP:
Your next appointment is: Tuesday, April 1, with Dr. Fletcher.
We pawed through Chanita’s things and, again, found nothing strange. Still, we took notebooks, the appointment card, and the pictures of Chanita’s friends.
I waited at the school’s main entrance as Colin took our meager findings back to the car. No one had stopped us as we wandered the building.
“Stop frowning,” Colin said, popping up the stairs. “You’re gonna scare the kids.” He followed me down the corridors, northbound this time.
“I’m frowning because I haven’t spotted one security guard roaming the grounds. Any nut can invade a classroom. Any nut can steal a child.”
We walked past closed classroom doors, then stopped at the last office on the first floor. The door was cracked, so I peeked in.
A black man around my age sat on the edge of his desk. He wore a blue dress shirt, no jacket, and no tie. Two girls, both wearing green, black, and white cheerleader uniforms, flanked him. His gaze darted from the girls’ chests down to their hips.
Girl 1, hazel-eyed and thick-legged, was touching his arm. She’d have a stripper’s body in two years.
Girl 2, dark and pretty, doe-eyed and fake-haired, was laughing as though she’d heard the funniest joke ever. Unfortunately, she looked like she already knew her way around the pole.
Anger spiked in my gut, and I pushed open the door, then knocked on the poor wood like it had kidnapped my sister. “Good morning.”
The trio jumped. The girls gasped.
“Payton Bishop?” I asked.
He nodded, then told the girls, “You two should get to class.”
“Do we got to?” Hazel Eyes asked.
“Yes, Nikki,” he said. “Go.”
The counselor’s broad, lanky frame suggested that he had played tennis or basketball once upon a time. Graying stubble dusted his chin, and a scar peeked from beneath his bottom lip. A gold band hugged his ring finger.
“Aren’t they precious?” Colin said, fake smiling at Bishop. “They grow up so fast nowadays. Really, where does the time go?”
“Who are you?” Bishop asked, arms crossed. “And why are you standing in my office?”
Colin handled the introductions, then handed his card to the counselor.
Bishop went rigid. “Have a seat,” he said with forced calm.
Payton Bishop had an Eiffel Tower addiction—there were pictures of the famous monument on every wall. Night at the Tower. Fog at the Tower. Spring at the Tower. Snow globes and wrought-iron sculptures of the Tower sat on every flat surface. Framed postcards and restaurant menus hung on the walls.
The counselor noticed my looking as he moved around to his chair. “Have you been?”
“Not my kind of place,” Colin said, dropping into one of the two visitor chairs.
“I went back in 2001,” I said, taking the other seat. “Rainy but beautiful.”
Bishop smiled at me. “We know each other.”
“Oh?” I scanned his desk: a personal calendar, a hardcover journal, and a framed picture of a familiar-looking blonde wearing a pink ski suit.
“We were in most of the same honors classes here. Payton Bishop. That doesn’t sound a little familiar?”
I would’ve immediately remembered the names “Myron Englund” or “Billy Stevens.” Talk about your unrequited love of boys who didn’t know you existed. Still, my mind flipped through my ninth-grade yearbook and … Ah! There he was! Very skinny. Very short. Eyes as big as a kinkajou’s. “You’re a Superlative Boy,” I said.
“A what?”
“A superlative. ‘Most’ this. ‘Best’ that. You were ‘Most Shy.’”
“Yep,” he said. “Remember Dana Laramie? She won ‘Best Figure.’ Saw her last week at Target. Weighs close to three hundred pounds, no lie.”
“Stuck up,” I said, remembering, “after she got that tiny part in Boyz n the Hood.”
“Yep. I asked her out in high school,” Bishop said, smiling, “and she told me that she didn’t date boys who drove their mom’s—”
“Driver’s Ed cars,” I said, nodding. “She’s ‘Ho Number Two’ in a movie, and all of a sudden she’s Miss Cicely Tyson.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Our honors English teacher, Mrs. Cruz? She died last month. Breast cancer. Remember how—?”
“We should really get to why we’re here,” Colin interrupted.
“Wow,” the counselor said, grinning at me. “You’re a detective now?”
“Yep. Let’s talk about Chanita and Trina. You counseled both of them.”
“Trina for only a year,” he said. “Then, Liz Porter put her in the parochial school over on Santa Rosalia.”
I nodded. “Chanita’s mom, Regina, says you two were always together. She told me that Nita also had a crush on you.”
He snorted. “I wouldn’t put stock into things Regina says.”
“She is the girl’s mother. She would know who her daughter—”
“No, she wouldn’t,” the counselor interrupted. “Sorry, but Regina was never around to know who Chanita hung out with or who the girl liked.”
He was correct, of course, especially since I personally knew the family terrain. But it just felt wrong not to trust a mother in mourning.
“And can I be totally honest,” he asked, “since we go back?”
I nodded. “Be as candid as you want.”
Payton leaned forward. “You know Regina: she ain’t about shit. Her sisters and brothers ain’t about shit. Miss Alberta found Jesus and wants to make it all right, but the Savior’s blood can only repair so much.” Payton’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Just wanted to remind Detective Norton here of who we’re dealing with.”
I nodded as I wrote the first line of the Emancipation Proclamation—my new go-to sentence to make people think what they’ve said was important enough to be written. Everything Payton Bishop had just spouted was true—but it offered nothing new.
I stopped writing and said, “I’ve been told that Chanita was seen with an adult on the day she disappeared.”
He held my gaze. “Who was the adult?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “But that adult drove a dark SUV.”
“What do you drive?” Colin asked.
“A gray Prius.”
After a rushed knock on the door, a girl charged into Bishop’s office. Rust-colored freckles dusted across her nose and beneath her eyes. She’d be nicknamed “Tiny” or “L’il Tee” in a junior high school clique. She held a cupcake thick with pink frosting, and her smile dimmed seeing Colin and me seated there. She whispered, “Sorry,” then leaned past us to drop the treat on Payton Bishop’s desk.
The counselor said, “Thank you, Destiny,” as she backed out of the office. To us, he said, “As I was saying—”
“So where were you on Friday?” Colin asked.
“Sitting right here.” Bishop gave me a quizzical, What’s going on here? look.
“When did you find out Chanita was missing?” Colin asked.
“Friday evening. Miss Alberta called me. And that night I helped look for her.”
“When did you find out that she was dead?” I asked.
Bishop’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yesterday morning. The principal told us.”
I glanced at his loafers. Definitely not worn for hiking. But a man with an Eiffel Tower addiction and a blond wife probably owned more than one pair of shoes.
“Wednesday morning,” Colin said, “between ten thirty and one thirty, where were you?”
Bishop rubbed his index finger beneath his nose. “Running some errands.”
“What type of errands?”
He cleared his throat, then sat back in his chair. “Well … School-related things. Going to Staples. Picking up a few supplies. A few other things.”
“That it?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes. “Is that a problem?”
“It wasn’t in-service back on Wednesday?”
He frowned. “No. That was earlier this month.”
Colin smiled at me. “Shocker: the Meanest One lied to us.”
I smiled as I considered the pink cupcake on Bishop’s desk.
But Colin asked the question. “Were Trina and Chanita into you as much as the girls we’ve seen this morning?”
“Into me?” he said. “You’re referring to my students?”
“You’re right,” Colin said. “They are your students. I forgot. Silly me.” He tapped the picture frame. “So is lucky Mrs. Bishop as into you as …?”
Bishop lifted the corners of his mouth, but that smile didn’t reach his eyes. “She is, indeed, lucky. And she is, indeed, ‘into me.’ We’ve been married for almost three years.”
Another knock on the door. Another student—a girl with long blond braids and a box of donuts. She, too, slipped her offering on his desk. “I got an A on my chemistry test,” she said.
Bishop smiled. “Good for you. All things are possible—even an A in chemistry.”
She blushed, then backed out of the office that now smelled of sugar and vanilla lotion.
We sat in silence for a moment.
Finally, Colin said, “You’re a popular teacher.”
Payton shrugged and stared at the pink box.
“It’s damn sad about Chanita and Trina,” Colin continued. “Two of your students—”
“One is no longer my student—”
“Two of your students have either disappeared or been found dead,” Colin said.
Bishop said nothing, but he’d become blinky as though his contact lenses were scratched.
Colin said, “Tragic coincidences.”
“Yes,” Bishop said.
“You counsel any boys?” Colin asked. “No boys have stopped in with bro food like nachos or crullers.”
“Most students in our gifted and talented program are girls,” Bishop shared. To me, he said, “The school environment has changed drastically since we were students. You may not be aware of it, but the boys—”
“You serious?” I asked, laughing. “I’m very much aware of it. I see it every day, all day. Dead and alive and in between. What do you think I do for a living, Counselor?”
Bishop nodded. “Yes, of course. So I’m sure you understand my meaning: there aren’t enough of our boys in the GAT program.”
“So where were you working before Madison?” Colin asked.
“Lincoln Middle School in Mount Washington.”
“Why did you leave?”
Bishop’s hand drifted up to his head. “The administration and I didn’t see eye to eye. They wanted me to approach each student’s education the same way. But everyone learns differently—some by rote, some by application. Not everyone’s cut out for college.”
“And our alma mater is so enlightened here?” I asked, head cocked.
“Enlightened enough.” He sighed. “My problem is this: I’m a truth teller, and so that means I’m always a target.”
“Tell me about Chanita,” I said.
“She was a sweetheart,” he said. “One of my favorites. She had a bright future.”
“I’ve seen some of her pictures,” I said. “Very talented.”
Bishop slumped in his chair. “I worked hard trying to get her out of here. She had two choices: she could’ve accepted a full scholarship to Thacher School in Ojai or a partial at Stevenson up in Pebble Beach. I didn’t care which she chose; I just wanted her away from these kids and out of Los Angeles.”
“Why didn’t she take the money and run?” Colin asked.
“She was scared what would happen if she left her mother. Without Nita around, Regina would get into more trouble.”
“Chanita confided in you a lot,” I said.
Steel returned to the counselor’s spine, and he sat back up in his seat. “No, not really—”
“But you knew about her life with her mother.”
“I only asked why,” he said, shaking his head. “Why, after all the trouble I went through in the application process, why she decided not to attend either school. Chanita and I always talked school and almost always talked photography.”
“When was the last time you were with Nita?” I asked. “Just you and her?”
Bishop opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
Colin leaned forward, hand to his ear. “Sorry. Didn’t catch that.”
Bishop’s nostrils flared. “I took her to Starbucks back on Monday.”
“To take pictures?” I asked.
“No. To talk. That’s when she told me about not going away to school.”
I squinted at him. “And that required an off-campus trip?”
Bishop didn’t respond—not with a grunt, a head shake, or a blink.
“I’ll need your DNA,” I said.
He nodded. “I understand.”
“You’ll come down to the station?” I asked.
“Of course. I have nothing to hide.” He exhaled, then folded his hands atop his desk.
“What about the girls who bullied her?” Colin asked. “Treasure …”
“ShaQuan and Imunique?” Bishop shook his head. “I got them suspended after they jumped Chanita.” He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s weird how they just focus on some girls. Chanita didn’t call attention to herself—she’s a photographer. She observes.”
“You think the girls had something to do with her murder?” I asked.
Bishop stared at the photo of his wife. As he thought, he twisted the wedding band on his finger. “I don’t know who would’ve wanted to kill Chanita. I only know this: I didn’t do it.”