The Bitterest Pill

Sixteen

Molly was right. She usually was. The high school wasn’t quite a ghost town, but it wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been the other day. Once again he found himself in Principal Wester’s office.

“It’s a bad day for this, Chief Stone.”

“There’s never a good day for it.”

She thought about it for a second and realized he was right. “No, there isn’t, is there? Never a good day to bury a seventeen-year-old girl. So, what is it you think I can help you with?”

“Chris Grimm.”

The principal’s face remained neutral. That meant that the kid wasn’t a constant problem or a real troublemaker. The administration always knows the kids at either end of the behavior spectrum — the superstars and the disruptive ones.

“What about him?”

“Can I see him?”

“I have no problem with you talking to the faculty, but I’d prefer you not do interrogations on school grounds,” she said.

“I just want to talk to the kid. This isn’t an interrogation.”

“If you say so. Let me get him up to the office. You can use one of our meeting rooms, but I want to be present. We can’t have the school liable.”

Jesse didn’t object.

Principal Wester picked up her phone, punched in two numbers. “Freda, please locate a student named Chris Grimm—” She covered the mouthpiece and asked Jesse what grade Grimm was in. “He’s a junior... That’s right. Please have him come up to the office.”

“Thank you.”

Wester’s phone rang almost immediately. She picked up, made some unreadable sounds, and hung up.

“Sorry, Chief. Christopher Grimm’s been absent for the last several days.”

“Can you give me his contact information?”

Wester frowned but didn’t put up a fight. “I’ll have Freda get that for you. Will there be anything else?”

“No. Thank you for your help.”

As Jesse was heading out of the building, he bumped shoulders with Brandy Lawton, the head of the girls’ physical education department and coach of the cheerleading squad. Brandy and Jesse were friendly if not exactly friends. They had known each other for many years. Brandy had had Jesse in to give some instruction to the girls’ softball team and to talk about the life of a professional athlete. Brandy was cute, compact, and athletic, with short brown hair, hazel eyes, and a winning smile. Her eyes were red. There was an epidemic of red eyes in Paradise since Heather’s death. She also seemed nervous and distracted. There was a lot of that in town, too. Brandy was usually dressed in a warm-up suit and running shoes. Not that day. Jesse barely recognized her in black slacks, a black jacket, a gray blouse, and gray flats. He smiled at her and then realized why the change in dress.

“The funeral,” he said.

“Will you be there, Jesse?”

“I will.”

“It’s terrible.”

“Can we talk for a minute?”

She looked at the hallway clock. “Five minutes?”

“Sure.”

He followed Lawton into a dark classroom. She flicked on the lights and sat on the edge of the teacher’s desk. Jesse stood.

“What can I do for you, Jesse?”

“Tell me about Heather.”

“She was a great kid. Enthusiastic, dedicated, a good teammate...”

Jesse gave Brandy a hard stare. He was tired of making no progress. “She’s dead, Brandy. She ODed. You don’t start with drugs the way she died. You move up to it. So if you want this not to happen to some other kid in the school, tell me what’s really been going on with Heather.”

Lawton’s face turned down. “It wasn’t like she became a different person, Jesse, but she hadn’t been as into it as she used to be. She missed a few practices, made some slip-ups in the routines, and, frankly, was in danger of losing her spot.”

“Did you talk to her about it?”

“Of course. She seemed to understand and promised to do better, but she was also distracted. Look, Jesse, I was a seventeen-year-old girl once, too. Things can get confusing when you start growing into your body and you notice boys, and you’re thinking about college, and your parents get on your nerves.”

“Were her parents getting on her nerves?”

“Something was, but she didn’t want to talk about it. I was her coach, not her confessor.”

“Relax, Brandy, I’m not accusing you of anything. This is helpful. Can you remember when Heather’s attitude changed?”

Lawton didn’t answer immediately. “I guess it was a gradual thing. I didn’t notice anything different until late last spring. I thought that she’d straighten out after the summer.”

“Were there any incidents with Heather last year? Something that might have signaled a change?”

She shrugged. “The only thing I can remember with Heather was an injury. She hurt her back during a routine at the Holiday Show in December. She slipped going into a jump and missed the landing, but she finished the routine. I got a note from her doctor the following week, saying that Heather would be out of action for at least a month. By March, she was back at it.” Brandy looked at her watch. “Sorry, Jesse, I’ve got to move. I still have classes.”

“Just one more thing. Did you ever see Heather with Chris G.?”

Unlike Principal Wester, Brandy Lawton made a decidedly un-neutral face at the mention of that name.

“I’d see him with Heather after practice occasionally.”

“You didn’t like him?”

“I didn’t know him, but he looked like one of those kids who’d come to school with an AR-15 one day.”

“Did you talk to anyone about that?”

She laughed a laugh that had nothing to do with joy. “Half the boys in school look that way.”

“But what was it about him in particular?”

“I guess I just didn’t like him with Heather.”

Old story, Jesse thought, good girls and bad boys. “Thanks, Brandy.”

Jesse watched Lawton leave. He stayed behind to consider what Brandy had said. On the surface, she hadn’t said a lot, but Jesse knew by instinct alone she had given him his first real opening.