Chain Reaction (34 page)

‘So Jimmy drove them over there Sunday morning, dropped David and Todd at the back of the building. Jimmy told him he couldn’t go inside to steal the photos of his sister because he would be the first one suspected. Todd told him that he’d been dating Tamara so he’d be second on the list and, since David didn’t know Tamara, no one would ever think he did it. So Todd showed David how to get inside and then ran around to the front and got in the cab of Jimmy’s truck. Todd kind of freaked out when Jimmy started leaving without David, but Jimmy joked him out of it. Made funny remarks about David being stuck at the school and caught in the act with vandalized file cabinets. When Jimmy dropped Todd off at home, Todd was laughing, too. Thought it was all a big joke. Then Todd heard the news.’

‘Did Jimmy’s explanation Sunday night calm Todd down?’

‘Sort of – but more like it made him really depressed. When he left, he was mumbling about the blood on his hands – David’s blood, Mr Fred’s blood. I swear if I’d thought he was going to commit suicide, I would have done something about it that night. But it never crossed my mind. I was kind of in shock just knowing what Jimmy did and not really wanting to believe it.’ Julie’s lower lip quivered and tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I know I should have said something before now but I felt so guilty about Todd, I just pretended like it didn’t happen.’ She let her arms hang limp and silently sobbed, her shoulders heaving with effort.

Lucinda put an arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘I’m going to need your written statement, Ms Troutman. I do have this interview on tape so it can wait until tomorrow after your test. Can I trust you to come in then?’

Julie nodded.

‘And are you going to be OK?’

Julie pulled a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. ‘Probably never again. But I’m not going to do anything stupid, like kill myself.’

Lucinda pulled out a business card and scribbled on the back. She handed it to Julie and said, ‘I wrote my personal cell number on the back. You get any stupid ideas, you call me before you do anything, OK?’

Julie nodded her head and whispered, ‘Yes.’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t be alone tonight.’

‘Hey, I’ll be OK. Honest. In fact, I didn’t really expect this but I think I feel a little better now that I’ve told somebody.’

L
ucinda called Rita Younger. ‘I need to speak with Brittany Schaffer. You can make the arrangements or I can pick her up. If I pick her up, handcuffs will be involved. Your choice.’

‘You are such a drama queen, Lieutenant. I will be delighted to make my client available in my office in an hour and a half if you will tell me what is on your mind.’

‘I need clarity on a few items. I have had one young man tell me of his sexual experiences with Brittany Schaffer while he was one of her students. I’ve had a young woman tell me about her boyfriend’s escapades with your client. And I’ve also had a statement that she knew the boys were building a bomb in her garage and did nothing to stop them or alert the authorities, making her a suspect in a terrorist attack.’

‘My, my, my! You do dredge up the strangest things. I’ll tell you right now, without talking to my client, a few things that everyone knows. First of all, teenage boys brag about conquests that only happened in their minds. Second, teenage girls whose boyfriends develop a crush on a teacher tend to feel inadequate in comparison and therefore they are jealous and will stop at nothing. Third, quite often when someone points a finger at someone else it is done to divert attention from their culpability. Nonetheless, I will have my client here in one and a half hours to dispel your odd notions.’

Lucinda showed up a few minutes early and had to wait. When the door to the office opened, Lucinda entered, shut it behind her and turned on the tape recorder. She walked out forty-five minutes later with exactly what she wanted – an audiotape of Brittany ripping Jimmy to shreds.

When she arrived at the jail, Jimmy was waiting for her in an interview room. ‘Jimmy, you have admitted to the murder of David Baynes, correct?’

‘Yes, I have. Do I need to do that again?’

‘No, not just now at any rate. Matt Halgorn told me you could describe the tramp stamp on Brittany Schaffer’s back.’

‘Matt is a liar.’

‘Julie Troutman told me that you killed David for Brittany Schaffer.’

‘Julie is a liar.’

‘Supposedly, Todd Matthews said that you were just playing a joke on David Baynes and he wouldn’t get hurt.’

‘Todd’s dead.’

‘Yes, he is. Does that bother you?’

‘It was stupid. I wouldn’t have given him up.’

‘Maybe he felt guilty,’ Lucinda suggested.

‘Well, boo hoo.’

‘I heard that David was sharing Brittany’s bed and that’s what this was all about.’

‘You were misinformed. Brittany had nothing to do with this.’

‘Do you call all your teachers by their first name?’

‘She hasn’t been my teacher for nine months.’

‘Did she promise to marry you?’

‘Do you want me to take back my decision to waive my right to an attorney?’

‘Wouldn’t blame you if you did, Jimmy. But before you do that, I’d like to play you a recording I made just a little while ago.’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

Lucinda pressed the button and Brittany’s voice filled the room. ‘Jimmy is a troubled boy. I knew he needed help. And putting him in prison was not a place he’d get that help.’ Lucinda stopped the tape. ‘Do you recognize that voice, Jimmy?’

‘Should I?’ Jimmy said.

‘I would think you would, if for no other reason than the fact that you sat in her classroom for all of the last school year. Who is it, Jimmy?’

‘Ms Schaffer. Brittany Schaffer. English, third period.’

‘Very good, Jimmy. Now, I’d like you to listen a little longer.’

Brittany’s voice continued, ‘That’s why I didn’t report what happened. I told his mother he needed counseling. I wished she’d listened to me.’

Lucinda’s voice said, ‘Exactly what happened, Ms Schaffer?’

‘It was the middle of the night. About two months ago. I was sleeping – very deeply. I didn’t hear a thing but suddenly felt a heavy weight on top of me. It was Jimmy Van Dyke. He was tearing off my clothes. I fought him. I screamed. But you’ve seen where I live – with the windows shut on a cold March night, the people in all the other houses were too far away to hear a thing.’

Lucinda stopped the tape and asked, ‘Do you remember that night, Jimmy?’

Jimmy’s jaw was slack, his eyes unfocused and his hands shook. He looked at Lucinda with an expression that screamed, ‘Why?’

‘Jimmy, answer me. Do you remember that night?’

Jimmy’s head slowly moved from one side to another.

‘Maybe a little more will freshen your memory,’ Lucinda said and pressed the button.

Brittany’s story started again. ‘He punched me in the face. He pounded on my body. And then he raped me. Cruelly, savagely. He called me a bitch and a whore. He told me I belonged to him and I had no right to speak to any other man. Then he left. I took a long shower and cried myself to sleep.’

‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t,’ Jimmy said, his voice sounding weak and far away.

‘Why did you kill David, Jimmy? Was it because he was sleeping with Brittany?’

‘No, no.’

‘You want to know what she said when I asked her about why she allowed you to use her workbench in the garage?’

Jimmy shook his head.

Lucinda cued it up to the right spot and pressed play anyway.

Brittany said, ‘He came to my house with a drawing of a tattoo that I have in a private place. He said that if I didn’t let him use my garage to work on his project, he would pass copies of it all over the school.’

Lucinda’s voice spoke from the recorder. ‘I thought you said you were facing him when he raped you. So, how did he see your tramp stamp?’

‘That is such vulgar slang, Lieutenant,’ Rita remonstrated.

‘Everybody calls it that,’ Brittany said with a sigh. ‘I just didn’t tell it all. It was too embarrassing. But after Jimmy Van Dyke raped me vaginally the first time, he flipped me over and took me the other way. It was so horrible.’

‘No, no, no!’ Jimmy shouted and pounded on the table.

Brittany continued. ‘If he distributed that at the school, my career would be over. I couldn’t explain it away. So I let him and that other boy work in the garage. I didn’t know what he was doing. And poor little David Baynes. I was trying to help him with composition because he’d fallen behind in class and somehow, in his sick little mind, Jimmy decided that David and I were lovers. I think that’s why he killed him. I should have reported Jimmy to the authorities immediately. But I didn’t want to ruin his life.’

Lucinda stopped the tape again. ‘She’s throwing you under the bus, feeding you to the lions, sacrificing you on the altar – whatever cliché you want to use, Jimmy. Are you going to let her get away with it? Are you going to let her use and manipulate more boys? Or are you going to tell me the whole story? All of it?’

For a long time, Lucinda sat and waited while Jimmy sat stone-faced, staring at the wall.

Lucinda interrupted his contemplation once. ‘Jimmy, you killed David and there will be consequences for that. Brittany Schaffer’s manipulation will provide your attorney with a strong mitigation case and I will do everything I can to get your sentence minimized, maybe down to as little as twenty years. But I need to know everything and I will need you to testify against her in court when she goes to trial.’

Jimmy sighed. ‘If I tell you everything, do you promise she’ll be charged?’

‘Yes, Jimmy, with everything I can think of.’

He stared back at the wall for another couple of minutes. Then he turned to her and said, ‘OK. Where do you want me to start?’

‘At the beginning, Jimmy. Tell me how it all began.’

L
ucinda left her interview with Jimmy Van Dyke stunned by his revelations. On the one hand, it was nothing more than the age-old story of a lovers’ triangle but, on the other, it was flat-out bizarre.

Brittany Schaffer was a garden-variety sexual predator, using and discarding the adolescent boys who gratified her ego and did her dirty work. Unlike any similar case of an authority figure taking advantage of their position to manipulate their charges, Brittany set off a chain reaction that led to homicide, suicide and a federal terrorism investigation.

The time was now here for the climactic closing of the law enforcement case. After the next step was accomplished, she would turn the responsibility for justice over to the prosecutor’s office – always a bittersweet moment.

Lucinda spent the rest of the day meeting and making plans with Lieutenant Barry Washington of the sex crimes division. They decided to serve the arrest warrant on Brittany Schaffer and execute the search warrant for her home at the same time, but they did not want her in the house when they did it. They decided upon ten a.m. the next morning and arranged for two uniformed back-up teams and a team of techs led by Marguerite Spellman.

‘You want me to take care of the house?’ Lucinda asked.

‘Absolutely not,’ Barry said. ‘It may not be a homicide but this is your collar. I would not think of depriving you of handcuffing that Schaffer woman.’

‘Are you sure?’ Lucinda asked as she felt a jolt of adrenaline speeding through her system at the excitement of publicly arresting a woman who had lied to her and violated the public trust.

‘I should be at the house, anyway. I have more experience with evidence collection in sex crimes. It makes sense.’

The next morning, Lucinda drove up to Woodrow Wilson High School, followed by two marked patrol cars containing four uniformed officers. She stopped first in the main office and requested that Principal Rose Johnson accompany her.

Rose was full of questions but Lucinda didn’t say a word. She just handed her the arrest warrant to read as they walked the halls to Brittany Schaffer’s classroom. At the door, Rose raised her hand to knock. Lucinda wrapped her fingers around Rose’s fist and pulled it away with a shake of her head.

Lucinda opened the door and entered the classroom followed by the patrolmen.

‘Well, class,’ Brittany said, ‘It appears as if we have visitors this morning.’ Turning to Lucinda, she added, ‘There are a few seats in the back of the room. Feel free to join in our discussion.’

Lucinda was not amused. ‘Brittany Schaffer, you are under arrest for the sexual exploitation of minor students and for your involvement in the bombing at this school. Please face the wall and put your hands behind your back.’

‘I will not,’ Brittany said. ‘I’m not going anywhere without my attorney.’ She pulled out her cell.

Lucinda plucked the phone from Brittany’s hand. One of the uniformed men grabbed Brittany’s shoulder, spun her around and pressed her face into the wall. It took two officers to secure her flailing arms and make them accessible for Lucinda to snap on the cuffs.

A man on either side of Brittany grabbed her elbows and led her out of the room. As Brittany passed Rose, she shouted, ‘Ms Johnson, you need to call my attorney. Rita Younger. Tell her what happened here. Hurry.’

‘I don’t think so, Ms Schaffer,’ Rose said.

Lucinda walked into the hallway realizing the classroom behind her was in uproar. Students were standing, shouting questions, sending texts, making calls and milling in clumps for whispered conversations. She heard Rose raise her voice to speak over the hubbub, ‘Class, everyone, please take your seats and I will answer your questions the best I can.’

T
he following Sunday, at Evan’s invitation and Charley’s insistence, Lucinda and Jake went to the Spencer home to say goodbye to Amber and Andy Culvert and meet their new guardians, Aunt Livie and Uncle Zach, and their two children. As she drove, her mind wandered to the resolution of the mystery behind the explosion at the high school.

The aftermath of a case always left Lucinda in a pensive mood. She was pleased that Brittany’s predation and manipulation of high school boys was at an end and that, unlike many other cases, Brittany couldn’t use her good looks and gender stereotypes to squeak out of the situation with a mild rebuke from a judge. The cost of that, however, was high. Two people – David Baynes and Fred Garcia – were dead as a direct result of her instigation. Another boy – Todd Matthews – died by his own hand, indirectly driven to his suicide by Brittany Schaffer.