“That’s right. It might be he decided back then, well fuck her, I never really wanted her anyway. Or figured if he ever wanted her again, he could just pick up where they left off. But the engagement, and the splash, the prominence of the fiancé’s family? Slap in the face.”
“I see, yes. She doesn’t just do well without him.” Roarke studied Hayward’s ID shot. “She doesn’t give him a thought. She’s successful in her own right, but then, to add insult, she’s suddenly a media darling, engaged to the successful in his own right, son of a political powerhouse.”
“Big-ass wedding to follow, you can bet,” Eve added, “and more media attention.”
“Which all should have been his,” Roarke added, nodding. “The golden egg makes perfect sense. Gold Academy,” Roarke continued. “He had everything he wanted his way there, and envisioned it would only continue. But Rufty and those like him killed the goose.”
She frowned. “There’s that goose again.”
“The one that laid the golden egg, darling. Kill the goose, end the supply of golden eggs.”
“Yeah, right, right.” She circled around it, hit the point. “Okay, yeah, that’s his little smart-ass symbolism.”
“It only makes the delivery system uglier.”
“I guarantee he’s had some good laughs over his goddamn cleverness. But he’d need somebody, Roarke, somebody to cook up the agent, to figure out how to—distill it or whatever it’s called. That had to cost.”
“I’ll look into it. And what will you do?”
“I’m going to see if I can dig up more teachers, more students who’ll talk to me. Especially the one who walked in on a fellow teacher bumping uglies with Grange on school property. The one who banged her died in a car accident.”
“Suspicious?” Roarke asked.
“No. Five years ago last winter. Michigan, icy roads, multicar wreck with two fatalities.” She shook her head. “So I have to hope others I talk to remember. Then I’m going to start digging into Whitt, the college years. There may be some threads to pull there.”
“Then we should both be well entertained for the evening.”
“Nice how that works, huh?” Since he’d gotten dinner, she walked over to clear the table. “You know what else? I actually liked planting that tree.”
“So did I.”
“Not that I want to take up gardening.”
“I think, though we did well, we’ve both chosen the right career path.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and carted plates into the kitchen.
20
Using Rufty’s notes of meetings with staff during the transition, and Peabody’s notes from her first pass, Eve compiled a list. She arranged it by priority for face-to-face interviews the next day. After that, she culled out the handful who’d transferred out of state, and opted to try to contact them before digging into Whitt.
She considered the forty minutes or so that took time well spent. Expanding her own notes, she combed through the prevarications, the Grange cheerleaders, the hesitations, the Grange blasters.
Darcie Finn-Powell, an elementary-level teacher who now worked in the public school system upstate, hesitated, lowballed, then spewed.
And became Eve’s favorite.
“She hit on my husband!”
While inwardly, Eve did a quick happy dance, she responded with a carefully neutral, “I see. Can you explain that?”
“Thad’s a firefighter, and he came in to talk to my class. Third graders. They just love firefighters. He came in with his turnout gear, helmet, the works. It was great. Headmaster Grange observed part of the presentation, and then she asked Thad to come to her office. She said she wanted to talk to him about other visits, a field trip, and that sort of thing.”
“Okay.”
“Then she moved on him. Got, you know, handsy, suggested they should meet for drinks, discuss how to start a fire. He was mortified.”
“I assume he told you all this.”
“That same night. He said at first he thought she was sort of joking, saying things like she found risk takers so attractive, how he must be able to tolerate a lot of heat. I mean, really? And you know what else? I was pregnant with our first. She knew it!”
“Can you tell me how you handled it?”
“Yes, why not? I’ll say up to that point I tried to keep my head down. I taught third graders, and did what I could to stay out of school politics and drama. I knew some of the other teachers had issues with the headmaster, especially in the upper grades, but I just wanted to teach. It was a good position, and we had a baby coming.”
She paused, blew out a breath. “But I wasn’t going to look the other way when she went after my husband. I went to her office the next morning, and laid into her. And you know what she did?”
Oh yeah, still pissed, Eve thought, and added some high kicks to that internal happy dance. Pissed enough she’d likely give a written statement.
“What did she do?”
“She laughed at me! Laughed right in my face. She said since my husband had obviously misconstrued her remarks, he must be dissatisfied at home. She claimed he’d flirted with her, which she considered harmless enough. And if I wanted to keep my job, I’d keep my marital issues out of the school. She was lying about Thad flirting with her. You have to understand—”
“I believe you.”
“Good.” Darcie drew air in through her nose, visibly relaxed on the exhale. “Okay, good. In any case, I stopped keeping my head down. I just couldn’t. I signed complaints with the others who went to the board. I stuck it out, even though it got stressful. It got better, so much better, when Headmaster Rufty came on to replace her. But I was only there, with him in charge, for a short time, as I went on parental leave to have our first. Thad and I decided to move, to get out of the city, so I never went back.”
“Let me ask you this. Do you know of any other instances where Headmaster Grange acted inappropriately, with another spouse, a parent, another teacher?”
Darcie went back into hesitation mode. “I’d rather only speak about what I know, personally.”
“I get that. You’re an educator. As an educator, given your knowledge of and experience with Lotte Grange, do you consider her qualified to serve as headmaster of an educational facility?”
“No, I don’t. At all.”
Eve let the silence hang.
“Damn it. Damn it.” Darcie shut her eyes a moment. “I can only tell you what I heard or was told. I can’t absolutely swear to it even though I believe it.”
“We’re not in court. I’m not going to hold you to anything.”
Blowing out air, Darcie dragged a hand through short, nut-brown hair. “Boy, this is bringing it all back. I’m pouring myself a glass of wine. Okay?”
“It’s okay with me.”
Eve caught glimpses of a kitchen—a friggie covered with kid art, a kind of bulletin board holding photos and notes.
Darcie poured straw-colored wine, took one bracing sip.
“She was caught having sex, at school, with Van Pierson. He taught history, middle grades. Wyatt—Wyatt Yin, computer science, also middle grades, walked right in on them. Van was the last, I think, before she left. He wasn’t the first, not according to others.”