Time Bomb Read online

  I said, “The newscast said Latch and Massengil were going to debate on camera.”

  “It wasn’t set up that way. Apparently Massengil had a solo press conference in mind. Planned to make some speech about government tampering with family life, use the school as a backdrop, the whole busing thing.”

  “School know of his plans?”

  “Nope. No one here had any idea he was coming down. But Latch’s people found out about it and Latch decided to come down himself and confront him. Impromptu de-bate.”

  “Cameras ended up getting a better show,” I said.

  The doors off the corridor were painted that same pumpkin-orange. All were shut and as we passed, sounds filtered through the wood: muffled voices, the matter-of-fact sonata of a police radio, what could have been crying.

  I said, “Think Latch or Massengil was the real target?”

  “Don’t know yet. The assassination angle brought the anti-terrorist boys zipping over from downtown. They’re interviewing both of the staffs right now. As long as the political angle is a possibility, they’re in charge—meaning I collect info and hand it over to them so they can classify it, then refuse to let me look at it on grounds that it’s classified. Perquisites of power, hoo-ha.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Top of that, the FBI just called from Westwood, wanting to know everything about everything, threatening to assign one of their guys as a consultant.”

  He hummed a few bars of “Send in the Clowns” and lengthened his stride.

  “On the other hand,” he said, “if it’s your everyday, run-of-the-mill SoCal psycho killer gunning for innocent babies, none of the muckamucks will give a shit, ’cause the psycho’s dead—no headline value—and yours truly will catch the paperwork. Good old perquisites of power.”

  He stopped at a door marked PRINCIPAL, turned the knob, and shoved. We entered a front office—two straight-backed oak chairs and a secretary’s desk, untended. To the right of the desk was a door bearing a brown plastic slide-in sign stamped LINDAOVERSTREET, ED. D. in white. Milo knocked and pushed it open without waiting for a reply.

  The desk in the rear office was pushed to the wall, creating an open space that accommodated a sand-colored L-shaped sofa, tile-topped coffee table, and two upholstered chairs. Plants in ceramic pots filled the corners. Next to the desk was a waist-high shelving unit well stocked with books, rag dolls, puzzles, and games. Framed watercolors of irises and lilies hung on the walls.

  A woman got up from the sofa and said, “Detective Sturgis. Hello, again.”

  For some reason I’d expected someone middle-aged. She was no older than thirty. Tall—five eight or nine—leggy, high-waisted, and slim, but with strong shoulders and full hips that flared below a tight waist. Her face was long, lean, very pretty, with a clear, fair complexion, rosy cheeks, and fine features topped by a thick shag of shoulder-length blond hair. Her mouth was wide, the lips a trifle stingy. Her jawline was crisp and angled sharply, as if aiming for a point, but ending in a squared-off cleft chin that granted her a bit of determination. She wore a charcoal cowl-neck sweater tucked into a knee-length denim skirt. No makeup other than a touch of eye shadow. Her only jewelry was a pair of square black costume earrings.

  “As promised,” Milo told her, “Dr. Alex Delaware. Alex, Dr. Overstreet, the boss around here.”

  She gave him a fleeting smile and turned to me. Because of her height and her heels, we were almost eye to eye. Hers were round and large, fringed with long, almost-white lashes. The irises were an unremarkable shade of brown but radiated an intensity that caught my attention and held it.

  “Pleased to meet you, Dr. Delaware.” She had a soft voice mellowed further by some kind of Southern twang. She held out her hand and I took it. Long-fingered and narrow, exerting no pressure. I wondered how someone with hands that submissive, that beauty-contestant voice, would handle a position of authority.

  I said hello. She freed her hand and brushed her bangs.

  “Thanks for coming down on such short notice,” she said. “What a nightmare.”

  She shook her head again.

  Milo said, “S’cuse me, doctors,” and moved toward the door.

  “See you later,” I told him.

  He saluted.

  When he was gone, she said, “That man is kind and gentle,” as if ready to argue the point.

  I nodded. She said, “At first the kids were scared of him, scared to talk to him—his size. But he really handled them well. Like a good father.”

  That made me smile.

  Her color deepened. “Anyway, let’s get to work. Tell me everything I can do to help the kids.”

  She took a pad and pencil from her desk. I sat on the short section of the L-shaped sofa and she settled perpendicular to me, crossing her legs.

  I said, “Are any of them showing signs of overt panic?”

  “Such as?”

  “Hysteria, breathing troubles, hyperventilation, uncontrollable weeping?”

  “No. At first there were tears, but they appeared to have calmed down. At least the last time I looked they seemed settled—amazingly so. We’ve got them back in their classrooms and the teachers have been instructed to let me know if anything comes up. No calls for the last half hour, so I guess no news is good news.”

  “What about physical symptoms—vomiting, urinating, loss of bowel control?”

  “We had a couple of wet pants in the lower grades. The teachers handled it discreetly.”

  I probed for symptoms of shock. She said, “No, the paramedics already went through that. Said they were okay. Remarkably okay, quote unquote—is that normal? For them to look that good?”

  I said, “What do they understand about what’s happened?”

  She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Has anyone actually sat down and explained to them that there was a sniper?”

  “The teachers are doing that now. But they have to know what happened. They heard the shots, saw the police swarm the campus.” Her face tightened with anger.

  I said, “What is it?”

  She said, “That someone would do that to them. After all they’ve been through. But maybe that’s why they’re handling it okay. They’re used to being hated.”

  “The busing thing?”

  “The busing thing. And all the garbage that resulted from it. It was a match made in hell.”

  “Because of Massengil?”

  More anger.

  “He hasn’t helped. But no doubt he speaks for his constituents. Ocean Heights considers itself the last bastion of Anglo-Saxon respectability. Till recently, the locals’ idea of educational controversy was chocolate-chip or oatmeal cookies at the bake sale. Which is fine, but sometimes reality just has to rear its ugly head.”

  She drummed her fingers and said, “When you came in, did you notice how big the yard was?”

  I hadn’t, but I nodded.

  She said, “It’s a huge campus for such a small neighborhood, because thirty-five years ago, when the school was built, land was cheap, Ocean Heights was supposed to boom, and someone probably landed a juicy construction contract. But the boom never materialized and the school never came close to functioning at capacity. Until the budget crunches back in the seventies, no one paid much attention to that kind of thing. Who’d complain about small classes? But resources started to dry up, the Board began examining head count, efficient allocation of resources, all that good stuff. Most white schools were experiencing a dropping census but Hale was a real ghost town. The kids of the original homeowners were grown. Housing had gotten so expensive that few families with young children were able to move in. Those that could afford to live here could also afford to send their kids to private schools. The result was classroom capacity for nine hundred pupils and only eighty-six kids attending. Meanwhile, on the East Side, things were nuts—fifty, sixty per classroom, kids sitting on the floor. The logical thing seemed to be what the Board so quaintly terms ‘modulated redistribution.’ The B word. Bu
t totally voluntary, and one-way. Inner-city kids brought in, no locals bused out.”

  “How long’s it been going on?”

  “This is our second year. Hundred kids the first semester, hundred more the second. Even with that, the place was still a ghost town. But the locals felt crowded. Sixty of the eighty-six stragglers were transferred immediately to private schools. All the rest left mid semester. You would have thought we were importing the plague.” She shook her head. “I can understand people wanting to be insulated, the whole idea of the neighborhood school. I know they must have felt invaded. But that doesn’t excuse how ugly it got. Alleged grown-ups standing outside the gates waving signs and taunting the kids. Calling them greasers, wetbacks. Vermin.”

  I said, “I saw it on TV. It was ugly.”

  She said, “During summer vacation we got vandalized—racist graffiti, broken windows. I tried to get the Board to send down some mental health people, someone to mediate with the community before the new school year started, but all I got were memos and counter memos. Hale’s a stepchild that they’re obligated to feed but don’t want to acknowledge.”

  “How have the children reacted to all the hostility?”

  “Very well, actually. They’re so darned resilient, bless ’em. And we worked on it. Last year I met regularly with each class, talking to them about tolerance, respecting differences between people, the right to free speech, even if it’s unpleasant. I had the teachers play games and do things to enhance self-esteem. We kept drumming into them how good they were. How brave. I’m no psychologist, but psych was my minor and I think I did at least a passable job.”

  I said, “Sounds like the right approach. Maybe that’s why they’re handling things well right now.”

  She waved off the compliment and her eyes moistened. “That’s not to say everything was perfect—not by a long shot. They felt it—the hatred. Had to. A few families pulled their kids out of the busing program immediately, but most stuck it out, and after a while things seemed to be quieting down. I really thought this semester was going well. Hoped it had finally dawned on the good folks of Ocean Heights that a bunch of little kids weren’t going to rape their daughters and rustle their cattle. Or maybe they just got bored—this place is the capital of Apathy. Only other issues that get them going are offshore oil drilling within a fifty-mile radius and anything that relates to landscaping. So I made sure our shrubs were well trimmed.” Brief, bitter smile. “I was starting to think we could finally concentrate on educating. Then Massengil goes and dredges it all up—he’s always had a special thing for us. Probably ’cause he’s a local. Lives in Sacramento but keeps a house here for legal purposes. Obviously he views us as a personal burr in the butt.”

  She punched her palm. Her eyes were flashing. I altered my assessment about her ability to handle authority.

  “The creep,” she said. “If I’d known he was planning a dog-and-pony show today, I’d...”

  She frowned, tapped her pencil on her wrist.

  I said, “What?”

  She hesitated, then gave another mirthless smile. “I was about to say I’d have met him at the gate with a loaded gun.”

  3

  She looked down at her pad, realized she’d written nothing, and said, “Enough talk. What’s your plan?”

  “The first step will be to establish rapport with the kids. And the teachers. Your introducing me and explaining who I am will help that. Second, I’ll focus on getting them to express their feelings about what happened—talking, playing, drawing.”

  “Individually or in groups?”

  “Groups. Class by class. It’s more efficient and more therapeutic—opening up will be easier if there’s peer support. I’ll also be looking for the high-risk kids—those who are especially high-strung, have had previous anxiety problems or experienced loss or an unusual amount of stress within the last year. Some of them may need one-on-one attention. The teachers can help by identifying them.”

  “No problem,” she said. “I know most of them myself.”

  “The other important thing—maybe the toughest—will be to convince parents not to keep their children out of school for extended periods.”

  “What’s extended?”

  “More than a day or two. The sooner they get back, the easier it will be for them to adjust.”

  She sighed. “All right, we’ll get on it. What do you need in the way of equipment?”

  “Nothing much. Some toys—blocks, figurines. Paper and pencil, clay, scissors, glue.”

  “We’ve got all of that.”

  “Will I need a translator?”

  “No. Most of the kids—about ninety percent—are Latino but all of them understand English. We’ve worked hard at that. The rest are Asian, including some pretty recent immigrants, but we don’t have anyone on staff who speaks Cambodian or Vietnamese or Laotian or Tagalog or whatever, so they’ve come along pretty fast.”

  “Ye olde melting pot.”

  “Uh-uh, forbidden phrase,” she said. “The memo god commands us to use salad bowl.” She raised a finger and recited: “Every ingredient maintains its integrity, no matter how much you toss it around.”

  We left her office and stepped out into the hall. Only one cop remained, patrolling idly.

  She said, “Okay. Now what about your fee.”

  I said, “We can talk about that later.”

  “No. I want things straight from the beginning—for your sake. The School Board has to approve private consultants. That takes time, going through channels. If I put in a voucher without prior approval, they can use that as an excuse not to pay you.”

  I said, “We can’t wait for approval. The key is to get to the kids as soon as possible.”

  “I realize that, but I just want you to know what you’re dealing with. Also, even if we go through channels, there’re bound to be hassles getting you compensated. The Board will probably claim it has the resources to do the job itself; therefore there’s no justification for bringing in anyone from the outside.”

  I nodded. “Same song and dance they pull with the parents of handicapped kids.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I worry about everything. It’s my job,” she said. Most of the softness in her eyes had melted away.

  I said, “It’s okay. Really.”

  “You realize we’re talking potential freebie?”

  “I realize. That’s fine.”

  She looked at me. “Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s what I went to school to learn how to do.”

  There was distrust in her eyes. But she shrugged and said, “Who am I to look a gift horse?”

  We walked toward the first classroom. A door at the end of the corridor swung open. A tight cluster of nine or ten people poured out and barreled in our direction.

  At the group’s nucleus was a tall white-haired man in his sixties wearing a gray sharkskin suit that could have been purchased for Eisenhower’s victory party. His face was stringy and hawkish above a long, wattled neck—beak nose, white toothbrush mustache, pursed mouth, eyes buried in an angry squint. He kept up a vigorous pace, leading with his head, pumping his elbows like a speed-walker. His minions were whispering at him, but he didn’t seem to be listening. The group ignored us and blew by.

  I said, “Looks like the esteemed assemblyman’s run out of words.”

  She closed her eyes and exhaled. We continued walking.

  I said, “What do you know about the sniper?”

  “Just that he’s dead.”

  “It’s a start.”

  She turned sharply. “A start at what?”

  “Dealing with the kids’ fears. The fact that he’s dead will help.”

  “You’re going to get into gory details with them right away?”

  “I’m going to be truthful with them. When they’re ready for it.”

  She looked doubtful.

  I said, “The key is for them to ma
ke some kind of sense out of a crazy situation. In order to do that they’ll need as much accurate information as possible. Facts. About the bad guy—presented at their level, as soon as possible. The mind abhors a vacuum. Without facts, they’ll fill their heads with fantasies of him that could be much worse than reality.”

  “Just how much reality do you think they need to absorb?”

  “Nothing gory. Basics. The sniper’s name, age, what he looks... looked like. It’s crucial that they see him as human. Destructible. Gone forever. Even with facts, some of the youngest ones will be incapable of understanding the permanence of his death—they’re not mature enough, developmentally. And some of the older ones may regress because of the trauma—temporarily ‘forget’ that dead people don’t come back to life. So they’re all vulnerable to fantasies of the bad guy returning. Of his coming back to get them again. Adult crime victims go through it—after the initial shock’s worn off. It can lead to nightmares, phobias, all kinds of post-traumatic reactions. In children the risk is higher because kids don’t draw a clear line between reality and fantasy. You can’t eliminate the risk of problems, but by dealing with misconceptions right away, you minimize it.”