Janice Kay - The Word of a Child

“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I suppose it does.”

He stood before the window for a moment, looking out. “This town doesn’t change.”

“The strip malls and Target and Home Depot weren’t here when you went to Port Dare Middle School.”

He gave himself a shake, as though ridding himself of memories she wasn’t so sure were good. “No, or the developments in the outskirts. But the view from here hasn’t changed an iota.”

“Unless we tear down all the Victorian houses or allow new development on the waterfront, it never will.”

Detective McLean turned abruptly, his gaze focusing intensely on her. “You didn’t grow up in Port Dare, did you?”

She wasn’t sure what business it was of his, or why he cared, but answering seemed harmless. “No. I’m actually from California. Sacramento. I came to college up here, met my husband and stayed.”

“Where did you go?”

Was he going to check her college transcripts? “Gonzaga, in Spokane. Then Washington State University for a masters degree.”

He made an interested sound as he strolled to the front of the room. “Why Port Dare?”

She looked at him steadily. “Simon found work here.”

“You’re still married?” He sounded casual, as if he didn’t care. And why should he?

“No.” Acid corroded her voice and her heart. “You did manage to destroy my marriage. Is that what you wanted to know?”

A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he didn’t look away. “I hoped you were divorced. For your little girl’s sake.”

Mariah tasted bile. “Now Zofie gets to spend weekends with her daddy. Without Mommy around at all.”

A frown gathered his brow. “He gets unsupervised visitation?”

“Of course he does!” She stared at him with dislike. “You never even arrested Simon. You never proved a thing.”

“It’s almost impossible when the victim is a child that young.”

She clutched the edge of the desk for support, listened to her voice shake. “Then what’s the good of making accusations you can never substantiate? If there is no sperm, no witnesses, why start something you can’t finish?”

His mouth twisted. “How can we not? He might have given something away. You might have been able to prove your husband was never alone with the child and her identification of him was wrong. You and he had a right to know he had been named. Would you really have wanted to go on with your marriage in ignorance? Maybe have had more children with him?”

The sound that came from her was nearly a sob. “I don’t know! How can I even remember life before you came and spread doubts like…like salt in a field?” Mariah drew a shuddering breath and fought for composure. “I hate what you did to Simon and me and Zofie. I had to say that once. Now let’s do what you came for and not talk about the past again.”

“It’s my job.” Did he sound hoarse?

“We all choose how we spend our lives.” She, in turn, was cold, unforgiving.

“Someone has to stop child molesters and rapists.”

“Just know that you do bad along with the good.”

He gestured toward the rows of empty desks and said scathingly, “Don’t you ever let down a student? Maybe not connect, because you don’t want to change how you present your material? Could it be you’re so sure everyone should appreciate Shakespeare, you ignore those kids who can’t read well enough. Or, hell, maybe you don’t listen, because you’re too busy or you don’t like that student anyway?” He stalked toward her, predator toward prey. “Fail her on a test, when she needed you to understand that her mom walked out last week and she’s cleaning house and doing the laundry and putting dinner on the table and taking care of her little brothers and crying when she should be sleeping? Maybe just failed to reach a kid, period, no matter how hard you tried? You’ve never done any of that?”

She winced inside. What teacher didn’t have regrets? Who was perfect? But she hadn’t chosen a profession where she destroyed more often than she built.

Chin high, face frozen, she asked, “Are you admitting that you ‘failed’ my family?”

That betraying muscle beneath his eye jerked, but he said quietly, “If I failed anyone, it was Lily Thalberg.”

Now Mariah did flinch. Sometimes she almost forgot Zofie’s small playmate, the child who had started so much when she whispered, “Zofie’s daddy.”

“You believed her.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever question her identification of my husband? I mean, seriously question it?”

“Did I consider that she might be transferring the terror from her own daddy to someone else’s? Is that what you’re asking?”

“I…” She swallowed. “Yes. Or from her grand-daddy, or…”

“Or someone. Anyone but your husband.”

Her mouth worked. Put that way, she sounded childish. Blame anyone but Simon. “He didn’t…he couldn’t…”

Harshly, Detective McLean said, “And yet, you left him.”

“Yes.” Now she froze inside as well as out. “To my eternal shame.”

He let out a ragged breath. “Ms. Stavig…”

“No.” She straightened behind the desk. “It is far, far too late for recriminations.” Not for guilt. Never for guilt. “I shouldn’t have started this. I’m going to ask you to leave if this is what you came to talk about.”

He moved his shoulders as though to ease tension. “You know it isn’t.”

“Then tell me what you need to know.”

“So you can ask me to leave?”

“So that my students don’t still find you here when they arrive for class in—” she glanced at the clock “—twenty-five minutes.”

His gaze followed hers to the clock and he muttered an incredulous oath. “That’s not long enough.”

Although he would loom over her, Mariah pulled out her chair behind the large teacher’s desk and sat. “I suggest you take advantage of that time,” she said crisply.

Frustration and something else showed in his gray eyes. “All right,” he said abruptly. His tone took on an edge, a sneer. “Here’s a question, Ms. Stavig. Why do you think, when Tracy Mitchell decided to tell her story, she chose you of all teachers to hear it?”

MARIAH STAVIG’S FACE was gently rounded, far from classically beautiful. She lacked the dramatic cheekbones or lush mouth that were currently in vogue. Her extraordinary eyes, gold and brown with flecks of green, framed by thick dark lashes, more than compensated, in Connor’s opinion. She had delicate features, pale, creamy skin and thick, dark hair worn in a loose knot on her nape.

Her face of all others had haunted him for years.

Now she stared at him with the intense dislike he had seen in his dreams. “Precisely what does that mean?” she asked sharply.

Still dogged with frustration and the bone-deep knowledge of wrongdoing, because he had played a part in destroying her marriage, Connor said, “It was a question. Nothing more. Why you?”

“My students trust me,” she said stiffly.

He half sat on a student desk in front of hers, letting one leg swing. “Tracy Mitchell is a seventh-grader. Right? You’ve had her now for…what?” He pretended to think. “Seven, eight weeks? I gather she’s not a top-notch student. How many students come through here a day? Be honest. How well can you even know the girl in that length of time?”

“Not as well as I do some of my eighth-and ninth-graders, of course. But Tracy is…noticeable. She dresses and acts older than her age. She’s smart but not a good student. She tends to talk back, speak out of turn, exchange loud comments with friends at inopportune moments. But sometimes there’s also something a little…sad about her. Do I know her well?” Ms. Stavig tilted her head. “Not yet. Do I know why she’s the way she is? No, but I can guess, having talked to her mother several times.”