Роберт Паркер - The Bitterest Pill

Freda Bellows had been a fixture at Paradise High School for nearly forty years. In her time as a secretary to the principal, she’d seen five principals come and go. Freda, a thin, jovial woman, loved being around the kids and was the unofficial institutional memory of the school. A few years beyond retirement age, she had been granted special dispensation by the Board of Selectmen, allowing her to stay on until she decided she’d had enough. That was one of the things Jesse liked about small-town life. In L.A. or Boston, exceptions were frowned upon. If you do it for one, you’ll have to do it for all, and you know how much that will cost. In a place like Paradise, exceptions weren’t seen as calamities but as kindnesses. Freda usually had a smile for everyone. Not today. Today she greeted Jesse with red eyes and choked-back sobs.

“Oh my God, Jesse,” she said, a mascaraed tear running down her wrinkled cheek. “I can’t believe it. Heather was such a wonderful girl. Was it an overdose? They’re saying it was heroin. I can’t believe it. Was it heroin?”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “I can’t talk about it, Freda.”

“I’m sorry, Jesse. I understand. Would you like to see Principal Wester?”

“I would.”

“Go on in.”

Virginia Wester was the new principal at Paradise High. Ten years Jesse’s junior, she was a handsome woman with dark blond hair, worn-penny eyes, and a perpetually stern look on her face. Smiles seemed to come at a premium for her. That was fine with Jesse. He wasn’t exactly a backslapping good-time Charlie himself. They had never exchanged much more than perfunctory hellos at town functions, but that was about to change.

“Chief Stone,” Wester said, extending her hand as she came around the desk to greet him. “Sad day. Terrible day.”

He shook her hand. “Jesse.”

“Excuse me.” She was confused.

“Please call me Jesse.”

She didn’t know what to do with that. Should she smile and make a similar gesture or tell him that such informality made her uncomfortable. She opted for saying “Please, sit.”

He sat.

“Obviously, we’ve heard the news,” she said. “We would like to help any way we can, but unless I know what we’re—”

“I usually can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, but if it will help you to help me... It looks like a heroin overdose. We don’t have the tox screen back yet, but we’re pretty sure.”

Wester leaned forward, a strained expression on her face. “Was it — I mean, did she—”

He understood. “It doesn’t appear to be a suicide, no. There was no note, but there isn’t always a note. I suppose one of the reasons I’m here is to find out if I’m misreading the situation. How was she doing in school?”

Wester tapped a key on her keyboard. “I thought someone from the police would be here today, so I already had her records for you to look at.” She turned the screen to face Jesse. “As you can see, Heather’s grades had been gradually slumping over the last several marking periods. It began midyear last year and continued. She’d gone from an A-plus student to a B-minus kid, on her way to C.”

“Did you intercede? Were her parents aware?”

Wester gathered herself, her whole body seeming to clench. “Even in a relatively small town, a principal can’t afford to know every student’s progress or—”

Jesse understood her defensiveness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound like an accusation or criticism. I’m just trying to get a picture of Heather. I didn’t want to bother her parents today. I’m sure you understand.”

“No need to apologize, Chief Stone. I overreacted. Heather’s death, any student’s death, is very upsetting. It has me on edge and causes a ripple effect among the students. Kids think they know how to handle these things, but they don’t. We’ll have grief counselors in, but most of the kids won’t seek their help. As far as Heather goes, I think you would have more luck speaking with her individual teachers. I’ve had Freda print out a list of her teachers from this term and the last term of her sophomore year. She will also supply you with their schedules.”

Jesse stood, shook her hand again, and turned to go.

“Chief Stone... Jesse.”

He looked back. “Yeah.”

“Anything else I can do...”

“Of course.” He shook his head.

As Jesse walked out to speak to Freda and get the things Wester had promised, he reminded himself how he was far more familiar with premature death, in all its forms, than most people would ever be or want to be. Death, even when it’s expected, even when it comes as a relief, shakes people up. The death of someone so young really does a number on people because it reminds them of just how vulnerable and fragile all life is.

Fifty-five, balding, and seemingly reticent, Harvey Spiegel had been Heather Mackey’s math teacher. Jesse thought Spiegel wouldn’t be as in tune with his students as Heather’s other instructors, maybe because he was older and a math teacher. But he was the one with the available free period, so Jesse found himself in the teachers’ lounge, which at that hour was pretty busy, with a few late arrivals grabbing coffee and hurrying out to their classrooms. Some, the ones who probably hadn’t yet heard about Heather, gave Jesse curious looks as they left. What’s that all about?

“What can I do for you, Chief?”

Jesse had a lot of people to talk to and didn’t want to go through the whole “Call me Jesse” routine with everyone. Besides enjoying the informality of first names, Jesse often used the “Call me Jesse” thing to throw people off balance. He had no reason to believe he needed to throw Harvey Spiegel a curve.

“Heather Mackey,” Jesse said, leaving it at that.

“Lovely girl.” Spiegel wrinkled his nose, reminding Jesse of a rabbit. “A shame.”

“You had her last term for” — Jesse referred to the papers Freda had given him — “calc and this term for trig.”

He did that thing with his nose again, then he leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. “I did. Chief, I heard that drugs were involved. Is that the case?”

Jesse nodded.

“It wasn’t... suicide, was it?” The word stuck in his throat.

Jesse answered with a question of his own. “You’re the second person to ask me that. Why would you say that?” There was nothing accusatory in Jesse’s tone.

“Do you have children, Chief?”

“A son,” he said, still unused to the sound of his voice uttering those words.

“Well, then you know. I’ve got two of my own and I’ve worked with teenagers for thirty years now. Some of them look like adults, but I assure you they are not. They lack experience and are often ill-equipped to modulate the strength of their emotions. They’re also feeling things like romantic love and jealousy as they have never felt before, and sometimes they just aren’t able to make sense of what it is they are going through. Sometimes they make stupid choices, very stupid choices, from which there is no return.”

Jesse must have looked dumbfounded, and Spiegel laughed a sad laugh at him.

“Surprised by a math teacher’s expounding on the emotional lives of teenagers?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m a guidance counselor as well. I imagine I’ll have more kids coming to see me today than usual. Unfortunately, it’s the ones that don’t come who probably need my help more than the ones who do. The ones who come have a self-awareness of their feelings. The ones who don’t come worry me. But I’m going on. Sorry, Chief.”

“But about Heather, Mr. Spiegel, was there anything specific about her that caused you to mention suicide?”