Джеффри Дивер - Transgressions

Skatskill Day students, their faces blurred to disguise their identities, voices eerily slurred, telling a sympathetic female broadcaster their opinions of Mikal Zallman.

Mr. Zallman, he’s cool. I liked him okay.

Mr. Zallman is kind of sarcastic I guess. He’s okay with the smart kids but the rest of us it’s like he’s trying real hard and wants us to know.

I was so surprised! Mr. Zallman never acted like that, you know — weird. Not in computer lab.

Mr. Zallman has, like, these laser eyes? I always knew he was scary.

Mr. Zallman looks at us sometimes! It makes you shiver.

Some kids are saying he had, like, a hairbrush? To brush the girls’ hair? I never saw it.

This hairbrush Mr. Zallman had, it was so weird! He never used it on me, guess I’m not pretty-pretty enough for him.

He’d help you in the lab after school if you asked. He was real nice to me. All this stuff about Marissa, I don’t know. It makes me want to cry.

And there was Dr. Adrienne Cory, principal of Skatskill Day, grimly explaining to a skeptical interviewer that Mikal Zallman whom she had hired two and a half years previously had excellent credentials, had come highly recommended, was a conscientious and reliable staff member of whom there had been no complaints.

No complaints! What of the students who’d just been on the program?

Dr. Cory said, twisting her mouth in a semblance of a placating smile, “Well. We never knew.”

And would Zallman continue to teach at Skatskill Day?

“Mr. Zallman has been suspended with pay for the time being.”

His first, furious thought was I will sue.

His second, more reasonable thought was I must plead my case.

He had friends at Skatskill Day, he believed. The young woman who thought herself less-than-happily married, and who’d several times invited Zallman to dinner; a male math teacher, whom he often met at the gym; the school psychologist, whose sense of humor dovetailed with his own; and Dr. Cory herself, who was quite an intelligent woman, and a kindly woman, who had always seemed to like Zallman.

He would appeal to them. They must believe him!

Zallman insisted upon a meeting with Dr. Cory, face to face. He insisted upon being allowed to present his side of the case. He was informed that his presence at the school was “out of the question” at the present time; a mere glimpse of Zallman, and faculty members as well as students would be “distracted.”

If he tried to enter the school building on Monday morning, Zallman was warned, security guards would turn him away.

“But why? What have I done? What have I done that is anything more than rumor?”

Not what Zallman had done but what the public perceived he might have done, that was the issue. Surely Zallman understood?

He compromised, he would meet Dr. Cory on neutral territory, 8 A.M. Monday in the Trahern Square office of the school’s legal counsel. He was told to bring his own legal counsel but Zallman declined.

Another mistake, probably. But he couldn’t wait for Neuberger, this was an emergency.

“I need to work! I need to return to school as if nothing is wrong, in fact nothing is wrong. I insist upon returning.”

Dr. Cory murmured something vaguely supportive, sympathetic. She was a kind person, Zallman wanted to believe. She was decent, well-intentioned, she liked him. She’d always laughed at his jokes!

Though sometimes wincing, as if Zallman’s humor was a little too abrasive for her. At least publicly.

Zallman was protesting the decision to suspend him from teaching without “due process.” He demanded to be allowed to meet with the school board. How could he be suspended from teaching for no reason — wasn’t that unethical, and illegal? Wouldn’t Skatskill Day be liable, if he chose to sue?

“I swear I did not — do it. I am not involved. I scarcely know Marissa Bantry, I’ve had virtually no contact with the girl. Dr. Cory — Adrienne — these ‘eyewitnesses’ are lying. This ‘barrette’ that was allegedly found by police behind my building — someone must have placed it there. Someone who hates me, who wants to destroy me! This has been a nightmare for me but I’m confident it will turn out well. I mean, it can’t be proven that I’m involved with... with... whatever has happened to the girl — because I am not involved! I need to come back to work, Adrienne, I need you to demonstrate that you have faith in me. I’m sure that my colleagues have faith in me. Please reconsider! I’m prepared to return to work this morning. I can explain to the students — something! Give me a chance, will you? Even if I’d been arrested — which I am not, Adrienne — under the law I am innocent until proven guilty and I can’t be possibly be proven guilty because I–I did not — I did not do anything wrong.”

He was struck by a sudden stab of pain, as if someone had driven an ice pick into his skull. He whimpered and slumped forward gripping his hand in his hands.

A woman was asking him, in a frightened voice, “Mr. Zallman? Do you want us to call a doctor? — an ambulance?”

He needed to speak with her. He needed to console her.

On the fifth day of the vigil it became an overwhelming need.

For in his misery he’d begun to realize how much worse it was for the mother of Marissa Bantry, than for him who was merely the suspect.

It was Tuesday. Of course, he had not been allowed to return to teach. He had not slept for days except fitfully, in his clothes. He ate standing before the opened refrigerator, grabbing at whatever was inside. He lived on Tylenols. Obsessively he watched TV, switching from channel to channel in pursuit of the latest news of the missing girl and steeling himself for a glimpse of his own face, haggard and hollow-eyed and disfigured by guilt as by acne. There he is! Zallman! The only suspect in the case whom police had actually brought into custody, paraded before a phalanx of photographers and TV cameramen to arouse the excited loathing of hundreds of thousands of spectators who would not have the opportunity to see Zallman, and to revile him, in the flesh.

In fact, the Skatskill police had other suspects. They were following other “leads.” Neuberger had told him he’d heard that they had sent men to California, to track down the elusive father of Marissa Bantry who had emerged as a “serious suspect” in the abduction.

Yet, in the Skatskill area, the search continued. In the Bear Mountain State Park, and in the Blue Mountain Reserve south of Peekskill. Along the edge of the Hudson River between Peekskill and Skatskill. In parkland and wooded areas east of Skatskill in the Rockefeller State Park. These were search and rescue teams comprised of both professionals and volunteers. Zallman had wanted to volunteer to help with the search for he was desperate to do something but Neuberger had fixed him with a look of incredulity. “Mikal, that is not a good idea. Trust me.”

There had been reports of men seen “dumping” mysterious objects from bridges into rivers and streams and there had been further “sightings” of the living girl in the company of her captor or captors at various points along the New York State Thruway and the New England Expressway. Very blond fair-skinned girls between the ages of eight and thirteen resembling Marissa Bantry were being seen everywhere.

Police had received more than one thousand calls and Web site messages and in the media it was announced that all leads will be followed hut Zallman wondered at this. All leads?

He himself called the Skatskill detectives, often. He’d memorized their numbers. Often, they failed to return his calls. He was made to understand that Zallman was no longer their prime suspect — maybe. Neuberger had told him that the girl’s barrette, so conspicuously dropped by Zallman’s parking space, had been wiped clean of fingerprints: “An obvious plant.”