The Word of a Child. Janice Johnson Kay
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a getup like that these days? Hadn’t he ever heard of contact lenses?
The point was, Gerald Tanner fit the profile of a guy who felt inadequate with women his own age. Here were all these teenagers, as awkward as he was with the opposite sex, the girls developing breasts, experimenting with makeup, learning to flirt and to flaunt what they had. What could be more natural than the realization that he was more powerful than they were? That he could fulfill his fantasies without having to bare himself, literally or figuratively, with a real woman?
Connor reached the top floor and paused briefly outside a classroom with its door ajar. The teacher was talking, but damned if any of the kids seemed to be paying attention. Some of them were studying, one girl was French-braiding a friend’s hair, a couple of guys were playing a handheld electronic game, while others drifted around the room. Connor shook his head in faint incredulity. In his day, you were in deep you-know-what if you were caught passing a note, never mind openly playing a hand of poker in the back.
The teacher raised her voice. “Everybody got that assignment on their calendar? Remember, the rough draft is due Tuesday.”
One or two students appeared to make notations in open binders.
Still shaking his head, Connor moved on.
What kind of teacher was Gerald Tanner? Did he wear any mantle of authority? Or did the kids see him as a computer geek, too?
Connor’s stride checked as it occurred to him that maybe times had changed. This was Microsoft country, after all, and Bill Gates was the Puget Sound area’s biggest celebrity. Hell, maybe jocks weren’t the only object of teenage girls’ lust these days. Maybe visions of the next computer billionaire danced in the heads of thirteen-year-old girls.
He’d have to ask Mariah.
Her door stood ajar, too. She sat behind her desk, papers spread across the surface, a red pen in her hand. Her concentration seemed complete. Connor wondered if she’d forgotten he was coming back.
But, although he didn’t make a sound, he was no sooner framed in the doorway than her head shot up. For a moment she stared at him with the wide-eyed look of a doe frozen in car headlights. Was she afraid of him?
But then she blinked, her face cleared, and he told himself he’d imagined the fear.
“Detective. I thought maybe you’d gotten lost.”
“Just avoiding the rush.”
“Smart.” She started stacking the assignments, her movements precise, the corners all squared. “What can I do for you?”
“Tell me what you know about Tanner.”
“Gerald?” Her hands stilled momentarily, then resumed their task. “Well…not very much, actually. As I said in Mrs. Patterson’s office, I didn’t even know whether he was married. We simply haven’t become that personal.”
Connor sat as he had that morning on a student desk in the first row. “Is he shy?”
“Um…” She considered. “No, not really. He’s friendly in the teacher’s lounge. He’s surprisingly funny.”
Okay, Connor thought, torpedo the stereotypes. Horn-rimmed glasses did not mean a man was humorless; skinny arms did not mean he was pathologically shy.
“We’ve sat together to eat lunch several times, especially since we’ve started a discussion on doing a joint project coupling writing skills with Internet research.”
“Have you seen him teach?”
She pursed her lips as she thought. Connor was annoyed to find himself fixated on the soft curve of her mouth. Scowling, he tore his gaze away.
“Only briefly. Generally, of course, he isn’t lecturing like I might do. The students work on computers, beginning ones on keyboarding skills, more advanced on computer animation or simple programming. So he tends to be wandering, looking over their shoulders, responding when they ask for help.” She shrugged. “That kind of thing.”
“Do they pay any more attention to him than the students down the hall—” Connor nodded toward the next classroom “—are to that young blonde?”
Mariah started to rise to her feet. “Is she having trouble?”
He waved her back. “If you mean, are they rioting, no. Are they hanging on her every word? No.” He told her about the activities he’d seen going on.
Sounding rueful, Mariah said, “Karen is a student teacher. She probably won’t be alone with the class for more than a few minutes. When Rich Sadow pops back in, the cards will vanish.”
“Ah. The substitute syndrome.”
“Exactly.”
“To get back to the point…” he prodded her.
“Gerald? He is new this year, remember. But I’d say the kids are pretty enthusiastic. He brought some very cool programs with him, I understand. Stuff that’s way beyond the school budget.”
Glancing around the classroom, Connor muttered, “Is there a budget?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, now that you mention it. But, to get back to Gerald, he seems passionate about computers as tools, and that kind of enthusiasm almost always gets through to kids. Besides,” she added, “they like computers these days. They’re a lot cooler than books.”
“Does he always dress so…” He hesitated.
“Yes.” She frowned, as if annoyed at herself. Firming her mouth, Mariah said, “I don’t see what his choice of clothing has to do with your investigation.”
“Just trying to…create a picture. See the whole man, so to speak.”
“I honestly don’t know him very well.” Ms. Stavig sounded very businesslike this afternoon. “You’re going to have to look elsewhere for help with your portrait.”
Was she unable? Or unwilling? Connor couldn’t tell.
“All right,” he said agreeably. “On to Tracy. I took a look through her school record.”
Some of Mariah’s visible tension dissipated as she sighed. “It’s full of ten-inch-tall warnings, isn’t it? Here’s a girl who needs lots of attention, who is lacking positive reinforcement at home, who will get lost if you ignore her. And then what did half her teachers do but ignore her.”
“I noticed that,” he agreed. “She yo-yoed—is that a word?—from year to year. Her sixth-grade teacher downright disliked her, I’d say, reading between the lines.”
Mariah nodded. “Roberta Madison has, um, a reputation for doing better with boy students. The good little girl who can sit quietly in class is okay with her, too. A Tracy Mitchell apparently offends her sense of what’s right.”
Connor shook his head. “Okay. Let’s go back through your talk with Tracy.”
He had Mariah repeat yet again every word as close to verbatim as she could recall. She had a good memory—perhaps photographic, as she would pause, gaze into space with those tiny puckers gathering her brow, and then give a line of dialogue or describe an expression with certainty.
As she thought, Mariah Stavig seemed unaware that he was watching her. He found his mind drifting more than it should from what she was saying.
Light didn’t play off her hair the way it normally would. The texture wasn’t sleek and smooth, but more…downy, he decided. Connor imagined her hair loose, a fluffy, soft cloud like cotton candy, but less sticky.
Or he’d contemplate her long, slender neck, bowed gracefully when she gazed thoughtfully at her desktop. He liked her carriage, too; her back was always elegantly straight, her shoulders squared, as though someone in her childhood had impressed on her the importance of posture.
Mariah Stavig was a fairly tall woman, five-seven or -eight, he guessed,