Gayle Wilson - The Suicide Club

“Of what?”

“Of interest. If you weren’t interested, you’d be telling me what was wrong with him. You aren’t, so I figure there must be a degree of interest there.”

Lindsey shook her head, eyes focused on her cup. “There’s nothing to tell. Nothing happened. That’s it.”

“End of story.”

“Maybe.”

“He ask you out again?”

Déjà vu all over again. Shannon seemed to be channeling cheerleaders.

“Nope.”

“Shit.”

Lindsey laughed. “Hey, I managed to survive life pre-Jace Nolan. I’ll survive post-Jace Nolan, too.”

“What kind of name is that? Jace.”

“He was J.C. as a kid. Some kind of family thing. It got shortened to Jace.” Lindsey shrugged again.

“He tell you all that?”

“I asked about his name.”

“Polite conversation 101.”

“Something like that.”

“Anything else interesting?”

“We talked about the fires.”

“He tell you who it is they suspect?”

“I told you. My kids. I swear, Shannon, I’ve thought about everybody in my program since he told me that, and I just don’t see it. I can’t see any of them being involved in setting fire to those churches. Most of them grew up attending ones very much like those. Burning any church would be an act of blasphemy to them. And they’re too smart, for another thing. They have too much at stake to risk it all on something so mindlessly stupid, for another.

“My juniors and seniors have worked hard to raise their test scores. The seniors are already filling out college applications and applying for scholarships. They’ve taken every AP class we offer. Why would they take a chance on blowing all that to burn a couple of tiny black churches? These kids didn’t grow up during the Jim Crow years.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t know about them. Or that they couldn’t be racist.”

It didn’t, of course. There was still the occasional undercurrent of black/white tension in the school, despite forty years of integration.

“Do you think that’s why those churches were burned?” Lindsey asked. “Race? You think they were hate crimes?”

Although most of the staff would have jumped to deny the possibility, Shannon seemed to be thinking about the question.

Finally she shook her head. “I don’t. I didn’t from the beginning. I don’t think it has one thing to do with those congregations being black. Except maybe they knew the act would get more attention.”

“More bang for the buck.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way, but…Yeah. More exposure. More distress.”

“More danger,” Lindsey said, remembering Jace’s comment about thrill seekers.

“More danger?”

“A higher-profile crime. More people want them caught and are willing to work to bring that about. It ups the odds they will be caught. If they’d vandalized a car or burned a vacant house, do you think someone like Jace Nolan would have been assigned to the case?”

“Do you?”

Lindsey shook her head. “He thinks he’s put a stop to that particular brand of mischief.”

She hesitated, unsure she wanted to articulate the conclusion she’d come to some time in the middle of a nearly sleepless Friday night. But this was Shannon. And there were few secrets between them.

Like how attracted you are to Jace Nolan?

“He says they’re going to find something else to do,” she went on. “Something that will give them that same rush. That scares me.”

“Because you think he may be right?” Shannon asked. “About it being your kids, I mean.”

“It terrifies me that he might be. He seems so damn certain.”

“Then in all likelihood, he knows something he hasn’t told you.”

“Like what?”

“Something that brought him straight to you.”

“I’ve thought about this for almost a week. I still can’t fathom any of them being involved.”

“None of them?”

“What does that mean?”

Shannon shrugged. “I guess I just don’t believe they’re all as lily-white and innocent as you do.”

“Pun intended?” Lindsey’s sarcasm didn’t faze her friend.

“Maybe.”

“Who? If you’ve decided it’s possible, then you have to have thought about who might be involved.”

Shannon shook her head.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Shannon, you can’t say something like that and then clam up. Who do you believe would be capable of doing that?”

“If I tell you, you’ll never think about that person again without remembering my suspicion. That’s like accusing them. I don’t have any reason to do that. It’s just…” She shook her head again. “I don’t know. Gut reaction.”

“Female intuition,” Lindsey mocked.

“Maybe. Whatever I’m feeling is academic. I know what’s at stake. So I’m not going to tell you. Or Nolan. Or anybody else. As your friend, I’ll just tell you that you shouldn’t completely discount what he’s told you.”

“Has Dave talked to you?” That seemed to be the only explanation for Shannon’s willingness to embrace the detective’s theory. That she knew more than Lindsey.

“Dave? No. What made you think that?” There was the slightest bit of defensiveness in Shannon’s answer.

“I thought maybe the two of you had discussed possible suspects.”

“The only person I’ve talked to about this is you. And you’re the only one I will talk to about it.”

“Unless the police ask your opinion.”

“Even if they did, I’ve told you how I feel. I would never want to accuse someone—especially a kid—based on a hunch that he might be capable of doing something.”

“So it is a he?” Just as the FBI profile had indicated.

“I would think that’s a given. Arson doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a girl would do.”

It didn’t, Lindsey admitted. “It also doesn’t seem like the kind of thing any of my kids would do.”

Shannon shrugged, her expression saying as clearly as the gesture that she didn’t necessarily agree. For the first time in Lindsey’s memory the silence between them wasn’t relaxed.

“Well,” Shannon said, finally breaking it, “I’ve got a ton of stuff to do to get ready for PTA tomorrow night and the usual flood of parents we won’t see the rest of the year.”

“You’re not complaining about that, I hope.”

It was the kind of remark that would have normally provoked Shannon’s ready laugh. Instead, as the counselor got to her feet, her expression was serious.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but…don’t be too trusting. You see them an hour a day. And some of them are adept at hiding whatever they’re thinking or doing during the other twenty-three.”

“You know, that sounds like a warning.”

“It’s meant to be. You said that Nolan believes they’ll find something else to give them the rush he’s cheated them out of. He’s probably right. And frankly, I don’t even want to imagine what that might be.”

The turnout for the PTA meeting and the Open House following it had been one of the largest Lindsey could remember. The main attraction was the new field house, of course, which brought in people who hadn’t darkened the door of the school as long as their kids had been in attendance.

As usual, most of her tenth grade parents showed up and almost half of the upper class parents as well. Since many were accompanied by their children, she’d found herself thinking about the kinds of homes the kids Nolan was accusing of arson came from. Homes very much like the one where she’d grown up—loving, religious, with intact families. Because of that, she was still having a hard time reconciling the crime with the so-called criminals.