Janice Kay - The Word of a Child

“Already?” He hoped he didn’t sound as surprised as he was. “She a real troublemaker?”

“No. Simply an underachiever. I find it best to ride herd on kids from the beginning.” Her mouth firmed. “Now tell me what you meant to imply. What possible bearing does Tracy’s choice of me as the teacher to tell have on anything?”

“I thought maybe rumor told her you had escaped marriage to a sexual molester. That she assumed you would be sympathetic and not question her motivations or the…details of her story.”

Emotions flashed across Mariah Stavig’s expressive face before she narrowed her eyes. “But, you see, most people at school didn’t know Simon. I have no reason whatsoever to think Tracy Mitchell was aware that my ex-husband was accused of sexual molestation. And if she did know, she would also know that I supported him when he said he was innocent.”

“Did you?”

She ignored the question, although anger flared in her eyes.

“In fact, she would know that I think this kind of accusation rather resembles a witch hunt. Too often, it’s all emotion and little truth. If she were smart, she would have chosen another teacher. When I realized what she wanted to talk to me about, I almost asked her to do so.”

“And yet,” he mused, “you did listen and you went to your principal.”

Her face became expressionless. “I am legally obligated to report Tracy’s story.”

“If you weren’t?” He leaned forward. “Would you have told her to forget it? Maybe suggested she just ask to change classes? Chalk up the sex to experience? How would you have handled it, Ms. Stavig?”

She bent her head as if in rapt contemplation of her hands, flattened on her desk blotter. “Tracy’s situation is…different.” She spoke very quietly. “Of course I would have taken action.”

He didn’t say, Just as I had to take action. He didn’t have to. She looked up, shame staining her cheeks.

“I do realize that you had to do your job.” Now her hands knotted on the desk before she seemed to notice and moved them to her lap, out of sight. Her voice was low, halting. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It’s not your fault Lily accused Simon or that you couldn’t prove either his guilt or innocence. I do know that.”

Now he felt like crud. This whole interview had been about him. He’d desperately wanted her to say just this, and manipulated her until she did. If he had never seen Mariah Stavig before, he would have approached her very differently.

“No,” he said abruptly. “I’m sorry. You have every reason to harbor…bitterness toward me. Probably I should have bowed out of this investigation because I knew that. Instead I’ve been making little jabs, just to see a reaction.”

She stared, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “Why?” she whispered finally.

Connor closed his eyes for a moment. “Because I couldn’t take the way you looked at me yesterday. As if I were another kind of monster.”

“Why did you care?”

He could barely make himself meet her gaze. “Because I do have a conscience, believe it or not. I knew what I’d done to you, the decisions I’d left you to make. Every day I leave people to make those decisions. You were…symbolic, I suppose.”

“You wanted me to say it wasn’t your fault.”

His grunt was meant to be a laugh. “Yes. How small we can be.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “We can be, can’t we? My decision to leave Simon was mine alone. But I wanted to blame somebody so I didn’t have to take responsibility. The funny part is, I can hardly remember the social worker from CPS.” She made a ragged sound. “Not even her name. That is funny. I chose you to hate.”

Brows together, Connor studied her in genuine perplexity. “Why?”

Her gaze skittered from his. “I don’t know. I didn’t even realize…” Her breath escaped. “No, I do know. You dominated. Compared to you, she was a shadow. And then there was the way you said it. ‘Even in a whisper, Zofie’s daddy, was clear as a bell.’ You see, I remember that, word for word.”

He swore.

Mariah gave a crooked, sad smile. “That’s why I hated you. Because you were Lily’s voice.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, inadequately.

“No. You did what you had to do.” Visibly composing herself, she glanced at the clock. “My next period students will start arriving in just a few minutes. I’m afraid we’ve wasted our time.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. We had to get past this.”

She gave him a brief, almost vague smile. Class dismissed. “I’m going to eat my lunch, very quickly, if you don’t mind.”

“No. Listen. Can I come back later? After your last class, maybe? Or do you have to pick up Zofie right away?”

Pulling a sandwich out of her brown paper bag, Mariah shook her head. “I do have that planning period, remember.”

“Oh, right. One o’clock?”

She agreed.

He stood. “I’ll get out of here, then, so I don’t start whispers.”

Mariah looked surprised and as innocent as he suspected at heart she was. “Nobody is talking about Tracy yet.”

What he’d meant was that they might whisper about her. He didn’t say so. “Good. I want to get to her friends before she can. Her mother promised she wouldn’t let her call any of them until I say it’s okay. I’ll do some interviews here at school, others tonight in the kids’ homes.”

Her brow creased. “I’m not sure I know who her best friends are. Her crowd, sure, but if she had a really close friend…”

“I’m sticking around school today to talk to some of her other teachers, too.”

“Oh. Of course.” She tried to smile. “Poor Gerald.”

“Maybe.” Connor hadn’t made up his mind yet.

He left, then, to hit up the next teacher on his list.

The consensus among the faculty, he found, was in agreement with Mariah’s brief sketch of the girl. “A smart mouth,” the math instructor said. All equivocated when asked about her academic potential. “She’s got the ability,” conceded the social studies teacher grudgingly. “If she’d ever pay attention.”

Several had also had meetings with her mother. They were guarded in their assessment, but having met Sandy Mitchell, Connor could read between the lines. She was apparently still married to the long-missing husband, which didn’t stop her from replacing him with a rotating succession of men. She claimed to want the best for her daughter, but she let Tracy baby-sit until the wee hours on school nights, wrote excuses for skipped classes and apparently paid more attention to her current boyfriend than she did to whether her daughter had missed assignments or flunked tests.

When asked how truthful they thought Tracy was, each and every teacher hesitated. But once again, there was general agreement. “Hard to say,” the social studies instructor said at last. “She’s darned good at making up excuses for late assignments. I bought a few of them before she tried one too many.”

Her art teacher was a standout. This was the one class where Tracy excelled. Even Connor could see real talent in the sketches Jennifer Lawson showed off. “Look at her clay project compared to the other kids’,” she said, leading him back to a worktable beside a kiln.

He studied the rows of squat pots, as yet unglazed, constructed with coils. Only one had character and unexpected grace; it was both taller and narrower than the others, the neck taking an intriguing curve. Connor indicated it, and Ms. Lawson nodded.

“She’s very focused in here. I don’t get the excuses from her I know the other teachers do.” She added simply, “Tracy Mitchell really has artistic ability. I hope she chooses to use it.”