The Skeleton Takes a Bow Page 18

  “So you admit there’s nothing wrong with your foot?”

  “What are you, a lawyer? I’m not admitting, I’m saying. My foot is fine. Well, not fine—I broke a small bone and sprained things that don’t like being sprained, so it still hurts, but nothing that Advil won’t take care of.”

  “I’m confused. You’re pretending to be more hurt than you are, and I’ve found out, but you aren’t even bothering to deny it.”

  “Why should I? What are you going to do about it? I’ve been teaching in the Pennycross school system for as long as you’ve been alive. So who do you think Dahlgren is going to believe: you or me?”

  “All he’d have to do is talk to your doctor.”

  “And the doctor would tell him that my symptoms are entirely consistent with a man of my age who fell the way I did. That quack thinks everybody over sixty has one foot in the grave already—it would never occur to him that a man who runs every day and works on his feet might recover faster than a couch potato with a desk job. He told me I should stay out of work for eight weeks, and that’s what I’m doing. I’ve got more sick time stored up than I’ll ever use anyway.”

  I honestly didn’t know what to say. My lever was useless, and if Chedworth was the killer, he was too smart for me to catch. Fortunately, he was also curious.

  He said, “Dr. Thackery, I know you’re not stupid enough to come over just to accuse me of malingering when it’s none of your business—you thought you were going to get something out of it. So what do you want?”

  If he could be blunt, so could I. “I’m trying to find out what happened to Robert Irwin. He disappeared after his interview at PHS and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “Never met the man.”

  “Then why do you care?”

  I smiled. “None of your business.”

  He chuckled again. “Tit for tat. I like that. If I knew anything about Irwin, I might even tell you. But I don’t. The first time I met him was when he showed up for that interview, and I’ll be just as happy if it’s the last time.”

  “You’d have seen him a lot if you’d hired him.”

  “What? Did Dahlgren say we were going to hire that idiot?”

  “I don’t know about Mr. Dahlgren, but Irwin told the waitress at a restaurant where he ate that night that he was sure he was going to get the job. In fact, he spent the afternoon looking at apartments here in Pennycross.”

  “He was fooling himself if he thought we’d hire him.”

  “Was he not qualified? He had a lot of experience.”

  “Plenty of experienced teachers are useless. I know people at the last school he’d worked at, and I called them and got the real story, not the pabulum they put in the official record. The man had no feeling at all for literature—he taught the most obvious interpretations to every work he covered, and woe unto any student who dared to utter an original thought in class. And he came into that interview thinking he was God’s gift because he’d taught at universities. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “And here’s the kicker. We’d asked candidates to submit a sample lesson plan for teaching The Crucible, and he told us he was planning a multiple choice test.”

  “For The Crucible? No essay questions? Not even short answers or character descriptions? What kind of teacher would do that?”

  “An inept one,” Chedworth said, nodding approvingly at my reaction. “I wouldn’t have hired that man to run a study hall.”

  “And you’re sure the other committee members wouldn’t have outvoted you?”

  “Ms. Rad thought the same thing I did, and the parents are just advisory.”

  “What about Dahlgren?”

  “He knows better than to hire anybody for my department without my approval.”

  “He hired me.”

  “He talked to me first,” he retorted. “I checked you out with some of the professors at McQuaid, and they said you’re a skilled classroom teacher and your research has been solid. Apparently the main reasons you’re not in a tenure-track position are politics and money.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t get too excited. They also say you need to publish a lot more papers.”

  “Let them try to write papers while teaching five sections of freshman comp every semester!”

  “Don’t bark at me! You want the job, you’ve got to do the work. Which Irwin wasn’t willing to do for PHS, I might add. All he wanted to do was talk perks, and whether he’d be able to proctor standardized tests.”

  “I’ve come to understand that proctoring is a sensitive issue,” I said.

  “Extremely, and Irwin should have known that it would go to teachers with seniority. He wasn’t even applying to teach SAT prep or AP-level classes, so I don’t know why he was going on and on about how having the right person handling testing was so important. He even asked the parents on the committee how their kids had done. Why didn’t he just ask them to lie outright? Parents will tell the truth about their salaries sooner than they will their kids’ test scores. To hear parents tell it, no child in this country ever made less than eightieth percentile.”

  “Unless they’re delicate flowers who don’t test well despite their obvious genius,” I suggested.

  He chuckled. “So is there anything else you want to know about that pitiful excuse for a teacher?”

  I was grasping at straws, but I said, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a group called the Sechrest Foundation, have you?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Then I guess I’m done.”

  “Good enough. Now, why don’t you stop worrying about my foot and missing idiots and make sure you get my kids ready for the SAT.”

  “If you’re that concerned, why don’t you come back and teach them yourself?”

  “No, thanks,” he said with a satisfied grin. “I think you’ve got it covered, and I’ve still got reading to catch up on.”

  Since I was in on the gag, Chedworth walked me to the door without crutches or cane and only the tiniest of limps.

  Sid didn’t say a word when I got into the car and started the drive home, but about the time we got into our driveway, he said, “You know, now that I’ve had a chance to listen to more of his voice, I’m pretty sure that Chedworth isn’t the killer.”

  35

  Madison had Byron out for a walk when we got home, and as soon as they got back, she said, “Mom, can I go out tonight?”

  “Where, when, and with whom?”

  “Over to Chelsea’s house, whenever, with a bunch of people.”

  I waited.

  “Okay, yes, Chelsea’s parents will be there. Samantha, Liam, Colleen, Nikko, and Serena are definitely coming, and I think Tristan might come over, too.”

  “And that supplies the why,” Sid said with a smirk.

  “That’s fine,” I said. We negotiated drop-off and pick-up times, and since I hate the idea of any other parent having to feed six teenagers without outside help, I let her have a package of Oreos that I’d been saving for a gloomy day.

  After making and eating grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner, I delivered Madison and the Oreos and came back feeling a bit disgruntled. After the afternoon I’d had, I could really have used those cookies.

  Sid was waiting for me. While I’d been gone, he scrounged some Hershey’s Kisses, arranged them on a plate, and put them out on the coffee table along with a frosty glass of Coke. Strictly Ballroom was already in the DVD player, and I’m pretty sure he’d fluffed the sofa cushions. He’d even given Byron a chew stick. It added up to an amazingly welcoming picture.

  I said, “Well, I was planning to grade papers responding to a reading on the appeal of reality TV and be depressed, but now you’ve blown that.”

  “Eat your choc
olate and watch your movie.”

  “Only if you’ll watch with me.”

  It’s really hard to stay discouraged with a skeleton like that around.

  By the time Paul Mercurio and Tara Morice had paso-dobled across the ballroom floor and into each other’s hearts, I was willing to view the day’s events in a more positive light.

  “You know, talking to Mr. Chedworth wasn’t a total loss. He gave me all that information on the students in my classes, so now I’m all set for parent-teacher night.”

  “True,” Sid agreed.

  “And there was that bit about Robert Irwin having zero chance of being hired, even though he thought he had it in the bag. That’s interesting, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And we got so distracted by Chedworth that we’ve never really talked about what I found out from Ms. Rad about how the SATs are administered.” I told him about the procedures, ending with, “I’ve been trying to think about how the Sechrest people can get around all that, but it’s got to be possible. The impostors must be taking the tests at different schools from the ones the real students attend.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “So maybe they’re bribing proctors to look the other way when they show up with the wrong IDs. Not Ms. Rad, of course, and I don’t think Mr. Chedworth would be susceptible to bribery, either, but I don’t know the other teachers at PHS well enough to say.”

  “Good thought.”

  “Or maybe they’re doing something with the photos. It’s supposed to be fairly easy to fake an ID, and if the kids are using school IDs instead of something like driver’s licenses, that’s even easier.”

  “Wow, you’re right.”

  I looked at him. “Sid, you’ve given me chocolate, you showed me one of my favorite movies, and now you’re agreeing with everything I say. Stop it! It’s making me nervous.”

  “Just making sure you’re not giving up.”

  “Don’t be a bonehead!”

  “Hey, it’s not like I have a lot of choices here.” He rapped his hand against his skull, making a surprisingly loud noise.

  “Granted.”

  “So what do we do next?”

  “Well, we’ve linked Patty Craft’s death to Robert Irwin’s and connected both of those murders to the Sechrest Foundation. And . . . And that’s where we’re stuck. It all goes back to them, and we don’t have an in there.”

  “Could we get Yo or one of the adjuncts to take a job with them?”

  “No, I couldn’t put anybody in that kind of situation. Not only could it be dangerous, but it could also damage somebody’s career if it were to come out. And make no mistake, the Sechrest Foundation is going down. I know we’re not absolutely sure they had anything to do with the murders—”

  “Of course they did!”

  “I think there’s some connection, but even if there isn’t, I’m going to make sure that the people who run the SAT find out exactly what Frisenda and company are up to.”

  “Really? As much as you hate the SAT? Wouldn’t it be satisfying to see them get conned?”

  “It’s not that simple. The SAT is flawed, and I can’t stand the fact that somebody’s future can be so influenced by a single test, but cheating just makes things worse. I mean, there are kids who are good at taking tests, and if it gives them an advantage for scholarships or whatever, they should be able to benefit from that. Those scholarships shouldn’t be given to kids who are bad at tests just because their parents can afford to pay somebody to take the tests for them.”

  Sid reached over and gently slugged my arm. “I love it when you get all idealistic and stuff.”

  “Bonehead!”

  “Meat puppet!”

  We went on in that affectionate way for an interval until I said, “Fun times aside, we still need a way into the foundation.”

  “I know what we can do. Mail me to their office, and put a box cutter in the box with me. Then I cut my way out and search the office for clues.”

  Rather than argue with the logistics of the plan, I said, “I don’t have a street address for them. Just the e-mail and Web site.”

  “Yeah, and you know what they say. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

  “Say that again.”

  “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. It means that—”

  “I know what it means. It’s given me an idea.”

  “We’re going to send Byron after them?”

  That I just ignored. “Instead of hoping for them to approach me, I’m going to approach them.”

  “How?”

  “Get me my laptop, and I’ll show you.”

  After nearly an hour of careful writing and rewriting, which would have gone faster without Sid’s help, I had what I hoped would be a tempting letter to send to Ethan Frisenda.

  Dear Mr. Frisenda:

  It has come to my attention that the Sandra Sechrest Foundation is actively recruiting specialists in testing strategies. Though I am not within the ideal demographic for test specialists, I do have special expertise and access that would add value to your organization.

  I’ve been an adjunct faculty member for almost two decades, and have worked in eight different institutions, which has helped me form an extensive network of contacts.

  I work part-time tutoring high school students in taking standardized tests such as the PSAT and SAT, so I would be able to identify studants who might benefit from hiring a test specialist and whose parents would have the financial assets to afford such a service.

  I would very much like to discuss opportunities within the Sechrest Foundation.

  Regards,

  Jean Schulz

  “I think that’s got it,” I said with more than a little satisfaction. “It’s both pompous and slimy—perfect for the Sechrest Foundation.”

  “I still think you could shorten that second bullet item if you—”

  “English is my department!”

  “You misspelled ‘students.’”

  “Coccyx!” I fixed it. “Now for your part. You’re sure you can create an e-mail address that they won’t be able to trace back to us?”

  “Of course. I’ve read a dozen articles about how it’s done and what services to use. It’s simple if you know how.”

  “Okay, then, if you’re sure.”

  “Sure as sacrum.”

  Since it was late Friday night, we didn’t expect an answer until the next morning at the earliest, and we weren’t even surprised at not hearing anything over the weekend. Still I had high hopes of getting a response on Monday.

  I did, but it wasn’t what I’d been hoping for. Despite Sid’s best efforts, by lunchtime the Sechrest Foundation had tracked the letter back to me.

  36

  I’d finished up with my morning classes at McQuaid and was reading while eating a ham sandwich, which is undeniably rude but since I was alone, I figured it wasn’t going to offend anybody. Unfortunately, it meant that I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings at the Campus Deli and didn’t notice that I had company until a man slid into the other side of the booth. I looked up and was suddenly glad I’d already swallowed or I might have choked.

  Ethan Frisenda, the man from the Sechrest Foundation, was sitting across from me.

  Logically, I should have realized that there was nothing he could do to me in public, but I couldn’t stop myself from stiffening as if he’d pulled a gun on me.

  “Ms. Schulz?” he said politely. “Or should I say Dr. Thackery?”

  I nodded.

  “We received your note this weekend and found it extremely interesting.” He smiled thinly. “I thought it might save us all a great deal of time and effort if I were to come talk to you. I can be difficult to find, whereas you were easily located.”

  “Is that a t
hreat?”

  “No, of course not,” he said. “Merely an observation.”

  I wasn’t convinced. He clasped his hands on the table between us, which also seemed vaguely threatening. Admittedly, at that point I’d have been alarmed by a sneeze.

  “At any rate, now we have a chance to talk,” he said. “We were very surprised to find out how much you know about the business of the Sechrest Foundation. I’m hoping to find out how that came to be.”

  I suddenly realized that Frisenda must have seen too many movies and TV shows, because he sounded just like a Hollywood villain, with his euphemisms and vague warnings. Having seen those same movies and TV shows, I knew exactly how I was supposed to respond: “How did you find me?” And in an ominous tone he’d say he had his ways, and I’d point out that I wasn’t without resources myself, and he’d say that he hoped unpleasantness could be avoided, and I’d say . . . Screw it. I’d been asking people discreet questions for weeks, and I was tired of it.

  In a clear voice, I said, “You mean how did I find out about you guys committing fraud? Arranging for parents to hire people to take the SAT and other tests on behalf of their kids? Is that the business you’re talking about?”

  I saw his knuckles whiten, as if he was squeezing his hands too tightly, but he tried to stick to his script. “I have my ways of learning these things.”

  “Well, obviously, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  Frisenda blinked. “Then you have been taking an interest in the foundation?”

  “Duh!”

  He blinked harder, and I knew he was trying to remember his next line. “I do hope we can avoid—”

  I held up one hand to stop him. “Why don’t we cut to the chase? I despise your business. It’s dishonest and immoral and more than a little tacky. I wouldn’t work for you guys if I was starving.” Okay, I’d do it if Madison was starving, but that was a moot point.

  “You seem to know a lot . . . You have a great deal of knowledge . . .” He paused, then triumphantly added, “For a disinterested party.”

  “I said I’m not interested in working for your crummy business. I am interested in what happened to Patty Craft.”