Sgar and Spice - Chapter 8

 

Chapter Eight

October 17 Friday Morning

Before the interviews

Howard James Private School

Cambridge, Massachusetts 

 ELISE HANSON LEFT her office, which resembled an English boys’ school headmaster office with its heavy Victorian desk, book-filled shelves and green velvet drapes. A touch of the same green was in the Persian rug, frayed enough to be considered very, very old and valuable.

Glancing out a hallway window she saw the television crews outside the campus gates. Cameras rested on the hood of their cars marked with their station’s call letters and numbers. There were more than there had been earlier. How in hell had they picked up the story?

Who let the damned police in?

The two police persons from last night, Lee and Bunker, were waiting for her arrival at 7:55 before she had a chance for her second cup of coffee. They asked if they could search the girls’ lockers.

“Do you have a warrant?”

“Because of the girls’ ages, we don’t want to make this a court matter,” Lee said.

“Let me check something.” On her computer, Elise brought up the agreement that all the parents had signed giving the school the right to investigate anything having to do with their children. Most had a note to notify the parents if that were the case.

Elise made a decision. She could contact the parents after the police did their search. “Go ahead.”

“That makes it easier for all of us,” Bunker said.

Elise walked the detectives to the lockers outside the girls’ fourth grade classroom in the Hawthorne building. Her master key opened each in turn.

Rita Young, the girls’ teacher, saw them and came out. “What’s going on?”

“Police business,” Bunker said, causing Lee and Hanson to frown.

“It’s confidential,” Hanson said.

“Gloria, Amanda, Juliana and Emma aren’t in class today. Has something happened to them?”

“They’re fine. After Elise said the girls were fine, Rita went back to her class.

They found a suicide note allegedly from Clay Franklin in Emma’s locker, an apron and surgical gloves in Juliana’s and a kitchen knife in Gloria’s. Amanda’s locker only had watercolors and pastels besides her gym clothes. The detectives used rubber gloves and plastic bags to take the items away.

No sooner had the police left than Elise headed to her office, avoiding where the news hounds could see her.

Nothing in her training or experience could have prepared her for this. She still had to face the board and the parents. Her windows looked out to the entrance gate. A CBS News truck had been added to the locals.

Her secretary buzzed her. “The police. Lieutenant, I think his rank is, Bill Reardon wants to talk to you.” Would the problems of this day never end, she asked herself.