Chain Reaction (24 page)

‘What’s it to you?’ he said.

Jake whipped out his FBI badge. ‘I think you’d better answer the question.’ Jake saw a bob in the teenager’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed his anxiety.

‘Hey, man, I didn’t do anything wrong. Here’s my hall pass,’ he said, holding out a piece of paper. ‘Mr Welch sent me out to get an ink cartridge for the printer.’

‘Mr Welch?’

‘My journalism teacher.’

‘Is this your truck?’

‘Yes. No. Well, it’s my dad’s.’

‘You drive it often?’

‘No. This is the first time. He only let me use today ’cause he’s working on my car.’

Jake ran a hand across the right front fender. ‘You’ve never driven it before?’

‘Oh, man, don’t touch it,’ the boy said, pulling up the tail on his T-shirt and rubbing on the spot touched by Jake. ‘If I bring it back with even a fingerprint on it, he will never let me use it again.’

‘Let me see your driver’s license.’

‘Gee, FBI doing traffic checks?’ he said as he pulled out his wallet.

‘Gerald Fitzgerald Whiting the third,’ Jake read from the card. ‘Well, Gerald—’

‘Fitz. Everybody calls me Fitz. My dad is Gerald.’

‘What were you doing last Sunday morning?’

‘Trying to fake sick so I wouldn’t have to go to church with my folks.’

‘Did it work?’

‘Nah,’ he said, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the tarmac.

‘You sure your parents didn’t fall for it and go to church without you in your mom’s car and you decided to take the pick-up for a spin without them knowing it.’

‘Yes. We did go in my mom’s car – but I was with them.’

‘You slip the keys to a friend to use during the services?’

‘You crazy? My dad would kill me. Wait, are you saying this truck looks like one that was at the school when the explosion went off?’

‘What if I was?’ Jake asked.

‘Well, somebody else has a truck that looks just like this one.’

‘Here at the school?’

‘Yeah. It’s up in the teachers’ parking lot.’

‘Whose truck is it?’

‘Ms Schaffer. I know ’cause I had her for English last year.’

‘So you think Ms Schaffer had something to do with what happened here Sunday morning?’

‘Ms Schaffer?’ Tom said. ‘You gotta be kidding. Have you seen her?’

‘No.’

‘She’s hot. I mean, she’s a very nice-looking lady.’

‘If you don’t think she was up here at the school, why are you pointing a finger at her, Fitz?’

‘Not at her. At her truck. She loans it out to kids all the time.’

‘She loans it to students?’

‘Yeah. You know – her favorites.’

‘What do you mean by “favorites”? The best students?’

Fitz snorted. ‘Not exactly. I mean some of them are dumb as toothpicks.’

‘Do you think there is something going on outside of the classroom, Fitz?’

‘Somethin’. I just don’t know what. Some guys say they did her. But you know how guys are – the ones that say they did a girl are probably the ones who didn’t.’

‘You think others have had a sexual relationship with her?’ Jake asked as a tight ball of fury formed in his chest.

‘You know, there’s rumors,’ Fitz said. ‘I don’t know anything for sure. It could be all talk. Like I said, she’s hot. That makes guys talk – most of it’s just a pile of crap.’

‘Anyone in particular come to mind, Fitz?’

‘No, man. It’s just talk. Really. She’s a nice lady. Listen, I gotta go or Mr Welch is going to be asking questions.’

‘Give me your cell number and home address, and then you can go.’ Jake jotted down the information with his notes on the truck and watched as Fitz backed out of his space and drove out of the parking lot.

Interesting new wrinkle, Jake thought. It will certainly add another layer of suspicion to Lucinda’s concern about Brittany Schaffer. Was she having intimate relations with some of her students? Or was she just playing the flirt with the kids for the ego gratification she received? Is her inappropriate behavior somehow connected to the case?

Or is this whole pick-up connection just one rolling red herring on four wheels? He needed to talk to Lucinda. Maybe she’d cleared Brittany Schaffer already. He punched her name on his phone, listened to one ring and then heard the sound of her voice.

‘Jake? Want to get together for lunch? I’m starved and I can give you an update on my morning’s progress.’

‘Yeah, sounds perfect. Where are you?’

‘I’m just walking out of one of the temporary trailers at the high school. Where are you?’

‘In the student parking lot.’

‘At the high school?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll be back there in a flash. I’m driving.’

‘Of course you are,’ Jake said.
Sometimes she’s just so predictable
.

O
ver lunch, Jake and Lucinda established their priorities: find Jimmy Van Dyke and bring him in for an interview; find out more about Brittany Schaffer’s relationships with students; and then confront the English teacher with the information they’d gathered.

They drove into a neat neighborhood of small, well-tended 1940s-era bungalows and pulled up in front of a tidy house with a front yard nearly filled with flowerbeds. Early-blooming daffodils and tulips added cheerful color; myriads of fresh green sprouts erupting from the ground promised more.

Ringing the doorbell, Jake and Lucinda were surprised when the door was answered by a dark-skinned, middle-aged woman with traces of a Caribbean lilt in her voice. They presented their badges and Lucinda said, ‘We would like to speak with Jimmy Van Dyke.’

‘My son is not here,’ the woman said.

‘Do you know where he is?’ Lucinda asked.

‘He’s nineteen years old. What do you think?’ the woman replied with a chuckle.

‘Mrs Van Dyke?’ Jake asked.

‘Yes, sah, I’m Charlotte Van Dyke.’

‘May we come in and talk to you for a bit?’

‘Of course,’ she said, pushing open the screen door.

She led them into her living room, where Jake and Lucinda sat down on a dark brown sofa. Mrs Van Dyke chose a tan upholstered chair perpendicular to them.

‘Just before you got here, I started the coffee pot. Would you like to have a cup with me?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Lucinda said, ‘that would be very nice.’

‘I’ll be right back then.’

While she was gone, Lucinda looked around the room. Vivid Caribbean paintings on the walls, multicolored books lined up on shelves and an array of school photos marching across the mantelpiece provided a bright contrast to the neutral tones of the furniture. Not a speck of dust anywhere and every single item in the room seemed to be exactly where it was supposed to be – maybe to an obsessive degree.

Charlotte walked through the archway carrying a large wooden tray with a carafe, sugar bowl, creamer, teaspoons and three cups. Jake jumped up, relieved her of her burden and placed it down on the table.

After pouring coffee for each of them and waiting until Jake and Lucinda had settled back into the sofa, Charlotte said, ‘Now, how can I help you?’

‘We accept your word that you do not know where your son is right now, Mrs Van Dyke, but do you know where he was Sunday morning?’ Lucinda asked.

Charlotte sucked in a quavering breath. ‘Is this about the explosion at the high school? Please tell me you don’t think Jimmy had anything to do with that.’

‘Do you know where he was Sunday morning?’ Lucinda repeated.

Charlotte sighed. ‘No, ma’am. He left here very early that morning before I even got out of bed.’

‘Did he leave the house in his car?’

‘No,’ Charlotte said, shaking her head. ‘He left in that red pick-up truck that he came home in Saturday night.’

Jake and Lucinda exchanged a glance. Jake asked, ‘Whose truck was that?’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Charlotte said. ‘I asked but all he said was that it belonged to a friend. I told him I didn’t think any of his friends could afford a truck like that. He just snapped back that he had more friends than I knew about.’

‘What about Jimmy’s dad? Are they close?’

Charlotte rose up and walked toward the hallway. ‘Just a minute,’ she said, extending an index finger in the air. She returned with the portrait of a couple – a younger version of her and, by her side, a handsome white man in uniform. ‘This is Jimmy’s daddy,’ she said, handing the framed photograph to the investigators.

‘My Terrence was a fine man, a good father. He and Jimmy were very close before he died.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Lucinda said in a hushed voice.

‘Been a long time now. Remember that awful ice storm in January of 1998? Terrence was up in Pennsylvania on business and tried to make it home. He ended up in the middle of a multi-car pile-up. He didn’t survive. Somehow, Jimmy seems to hold me responsible for that and blame me as if I engineered the whole disaster. He’s still carrying that anger, along with the memory of the taunts of his classmates because of the color of my skin. I know of at least one occasion when he told his friends that I was the family maid.’

Lucinda felt bile rise in her throat. The younger generation was supposed to be beyond this superficial appraisal of a person’s value – and yet it persists.

‘And Jimmy’s not just angry at me,’ Charlotte continued. ‘He’s angry at his dad – for dying, for marrying a woman of color, for not being here. That’s why I keep that picture of my husband and me in the bedroom. I used to have some photos of us on the mantle, but Jimmy destroyed them one afternoon.’

Lucinda felt the woman’s pain pressing on her. She didn’t want to add to it but it appeared to be the direction the investigation was going. ‘Mrs Van Dyke, can you give me the names of Jimmy’s friends?’

‘I can’t say I know any of their last names and not all of their first names. He’s been hiding a lot from me since that English teacher broke his heart.’

‘What English teacher?’ Jake and Lucinda asked together.

‘Ms Schaffer. I told him he was being foolish. But somehow he thought that once he graduated from high school, she was going to marry him. It was the craziest thing. After he proposed, she cut him off. Blocked him from sending her texts, “unfriended” him on Facebook and never answered his email. But I think she started talking to him again just recently. I think she’s back in his life. In fact, I wondered if she loaned him that truck last weekend.’

‘Ma’am, I hate to ask this but do you think Jimmy was sexually involved with Ms Schaffer?’ Jake asked.

‘I know he wanted to be, sir, but I would think a school teacher would have more sense than that. Wouldn’t you?’

Lucinda and Jake looked at each other, and Charlotte read their faces. ‘You do think that’s possible, don’t you? Not just now but back when he was still in school?’

‘We don’t know,’ Lucinda said with a shake of her head. ‘It is a question that has crossed our minds, ma’am, but, honestly, we do not know the answer.’

‘Well, you’d better find the answer. If she did that to my son, she’ll do it to someone else’s son. Who knows how many boys she has manipulated? If that was her truck Jimmy was driving and that truck was up at the high school, she was behind it.’

‘Ma’am, could we have a look in Jimmy’s room?’

Charlotte stared at them and folded her arms across her chest. ‘No. Not now. This is getting too serious, too fast. I need to talk to an attorney before I do anything or say anything else. I would appreciate it if you would leave now. I apologize for closing the door to the hospitality of my home but I have to think of my son’s best interests right now. Obviously, no one else is.’

Jake and Lucinda mumbled appreciation for the coffee and apologized for upending her day but left without objection. Lucinda dropped Jake off at his car in the high school parking lot and returned to the Justice Center to file a Be-On-the-Look-Out for Jimmy Van Dyke and his car.

A
fter taking care of the BOLO, Lucinda checked for messages on her desk phone. One was from Leticia Fletcher, the CASA attorney handling Amber and Andy’s case. Lucinda returned the call.

‘Amber’s abuser was denied bail for the time being. However, the judge did set a low bail for Amber’s mother. As soon as she was released, her attorney took her over to family court where they filed a petition for an emergency hearing for custody. In the document, she stated that the abuse allegations were a misunderstanding,’ Leticia said.

‘You’re fighting this, aren’t you?’

‘You think I should?’

‘I can’t believe you asked that,’ Lucinda snapped. ‘That woman wants to get her hands on those children to intimidate them into recanting their statements. She doesn’t care what happened to Amber or she would have done something about it as soon as her daughter told her what was happening.’

Leticia laughed. ‘I was hoping you’d feel that way. So I can expect you at court for the hearing tomorrow morning?’

In that moment, Lucinda felt overwhelmed, unable to meet all the demands on her, but she could not ignore this responsibility to a young girl. ‘Yes,’ she said, exhaling a deep breath to punctuate the answer.

‘Good. And it might even get better. CPS located the family of the children’s father in Maryland. He has absolutely no interest in Amber or Andy—’

‘I thought you said this was good news.’

‘Give me a minute. It gets better. His parents and his siblings are interested in these children. They are willing to step forward to assume permanent custody. In fact, they expressed interest in adopting the kids. Maryland CPS has started an inquiry into their fitness as foster parents. They all have decided that whichever family member does best in that analysis will be the custodial parents. As soon as that’s determined, that couple will come down here and hire an attorney.’

‘Can I share that with Dr Spencer?’

‘Yes, but tell him that it wouldn’t be wise for Amber and Andy to know just yet until we can be more certain of the likely outcome.’

‘You got it. I’ll see you in family court in the morning.’ She hung up under the assumption that, while she was in court, Jake could follow up with Jimmy if he’d been located or bring Brittany Schaffer in for an interview if not. Or maybe he should go talk to Principal Rose Johnson about the possibility of sexual misconduct.