I stilled, gaze ping-ponging between both entrances, exits. “Who?”
“Roberto. The day the principal called him into his office regarding the inappropriate photo. As guidance counselor, I talked to Roberto first. He was all attitude, nothing to say. In the end, we were both just sitting there, waiting for the principal, when I got a call on my personal cell. I opened up my lower desk drawer to fetch it from my purse. I happened to look up just in time to see Roberto fiddling with his cell phone. He slid something into his palm. I couldn’t see what.
“I demanded for him to show me his phone. He smiled. Snapped the back on, held it out. The phone fired up, but I knew he’d done something to it. Why else had he removed the back? I told him that was it. Fess up now, show me what he’d pocketed, or I’d call the school security officer to pat him down.”
I nodded. Movement out the rear door again. A tree branch moving in the wind? Except what wind? It had been calm just moments ago. I tightened my grip on the chair.
“Roberto got up. He placed both hands on my desk and, staring down at me, he stated, very calmly, my address. What time I got home from work. The color of my bedroom walls.”
This news caught my attention. I momentarily stopped peering out the back door, glancing at the counselor instead. No doubt about it. She was pale and shaky, with a sheen of tears in her eyes.
“He said maybe he was an even better photographer than I realized. And a pretty young counselor like me . . . He insinuated—” She took a deep breath, soldiered on. “He insinuated the demand for such a photo around the high school would be very high. And he hated to disappoint his audience.”
“He intimidated you. Bullied you into submission.” Just like he had everyone at Mother Del’s.
Tricia nodded once, wiped at her eyes. Took another settling breath.
“I’m twenty-seven,” she whispered. “This is my first job as a guidance counselor. I was warned in training to expect some harassment from male students. Comes with the territory. You have to stay in control. Remember you are an authority figure. But the way Roberto spoke . . .
“He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t acting out. He was serious. And so confident as he rattled off my personal information. I couldn’t act. I couldn’t move. Then there was a knock on my door. The principal was ready to see him.
“Roberto walked out. I just sat there. I never moved. I never called for the security guard. Later, when the principal said he’d found nothing on Roberto’s phone, I didn’t know what to say. Not without confessing that I’d let a student get the best of me.”
“You covered for him,” I said coldly.
“Kind of.”
“There’s no ‘kind of.’ He probably replaced the SIM card on his phone. Meaning the principal basically saw a brand-new cell, devoid of all content. Roberto had publicly shamed one of your students. He’d posted child porn on a student-frequented social media site. And you helped him get away with it.”
“But I wasn’t done yet!”
I arched a brow.
“Seriously! I knew I screwed up. But I was working on it. Roberto was definitely a threat and he needed to be stopped. We can seize cell phones in the classroom. Anyone caught actively texting during class violates school rules and automatically loses their phone for the rest of the day. I put out an alert to Roberto’s teachers. If we could surprise him, snatch the phone without him having time to prepare . . .”
“What happened?”
“He died.” She said it so flatly it took me a moment to process. “This was late May. We had only a few more weeks to grab the phone before the school year ended. I didn’t think it would take that long, except clearly the visit with the principal had made Roberto more careful. I still figured he’d forget sooner or later. Teens are such phone addicts. But then . . . Roberto committed suicide. It was over, just like that.”
“What about his phone?”
“I never heard what happened to it. But no more photos ever appeared. The matter seemed resolved. Maybe not how I’d been expecting, but resolved.”
“Except Anya started publicly blaming Lola and Las Ni?as.”
“She confronted Roxanna the last day of school. Screamed, called her a murderer, as well as some other less-than-complimentary names. But then Anya always had a dramatic streak, and Roberto’s death had devastated her. She told anyone and everyone he was the great love of her life.”
“You think she went after the Baez family to avenge Roberto’s death? You think, if you had only spoken up that day, gotten Roberto caught by the principal and Lola and Roxy real justice—”
“Lola and her gang wouldn’t have gone after him.”
“According to Las Ni?as, they didn’t kill Roberto. It really was a suicide.”
Tricia frowned at me, appearing genuinely perplexed. “I never heard of Roberto being depressed or suicidal. And as guidance counselor, it’s my job to be familiar with those members of our student population. Frankly, Roberto was a classic bully. Cruel, clever, controlling. But self-destructive? I can’t picture it. Plus . . .”
The hesitation was back, her left hand pressed against her stomach.
“What?” I demanded. More movement beyond the rear door. An entire bush shaking. No way that was the wind.
“The note,” she said.
“The note?” I didn’t know where to look, where to focus. Her. The door. Her. Backing up another step. Feeling the press of the countertop behind me. Reducing the field of possible attack to the tiny kitchen in front of me. But also boxing myself into a corner.
“I found it in my office, the day after we heard of Roberto’s death. It said, You’re safe now. The note was typed. Unsigned. But I understood the message. Someone knew about Roberto’s threat. And was taking credit for resolving the matter.”
“Did you tell anyone about what Roberto said?”
“No. But . . .”
Her. The door. Her. “For the love of God, spit it out!”
“Roxanna was sitting outside my office that day. The principal wanted to see her, as well. So she and her friend Mike Davis were waiting out in the hall. The school isn’t exactly soundproof. It’s possible they heard something.”
“So Roxy might have gone after Roberto?”
“I don’t know! Roxy was always protective of her family and Lola in particular—”
“Get down!”
I saw it coming out of the corner of my eye. A projectile flying at the rear door. I was already dropping to the floor, while Tricia, who’d not been shot at that morning, threw up her arms to cover her face.
Clunk.
Then, in quick succession, thump, thump.
Not bullets. Nothing with enough velocity to shatter glass. Which meant . . .
Gingerly I made my way to the door. The dogs were up. What they couldn’t see, they could still hear, and both whined low in their throats. I peered out the bottom edge of the door’s windowed top.
Rocks. Three of them, now resting on the back step. They’d been thrown to get my attention. By a kid who was trying to hide behind an overgrown lilac, but kept giving away his location because he couldn’t stop bouncing.
“Excuse me,” I said to Tricia. “But I believe this is for me.”
Chapter 35
D.D. SAT IN THE PARKING lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts, one of the chain’s dozens of locations in Boston. Like most locals, she came for the coffee, not the donuts. This morning, she’d ordered it regular, which meant heavy on the cream and sugar. Normally, she took her coffee black, but having gotten up at the crack of dawn to play ball with a hyperactive canine, she needed all the help she could get.