The Word of a Child. Janice Kay Johnson

she and her reaction to him were symbolic; he’d walked into too many living rooms to spread distrust, bewilderment, even fear, then walked away without a backward glance, much less resolution.

      Mariah Stavig was the face that represented all the others who had been left to pick up the pieces after he shrugged and said, “I don’t have enough evidence to take to the prosecutor.”

      Connor wanted to know what he had done to her life, and he wanted her forgiveness. It was ridiculously important to Connor that he somehow make her understand that he’d only been doing his job.

      Suddenly the face his memory flashed like a slide in a projector wasn’t Mariah Stavig’s. The hatred and terror that blazed at him weren’t hers, but rather a teenage girl’s.

      How could you do this to me? I trusted you, the girl in his memory had cried.

      He could still hear his own stumbling response. I thought it was the right thing to do.

      There it was in a nutshell, his credo: Do the right thing. Black and white. Right in this column, wrong in that. He understood the agonized choices and tragedy that lay between, but had never let those deter him from pursuing justice.

      Trouble was, what did a man do when he began to wonder whether the credo he lived by was a simplistic piece of crap?

      Making a sound, Connor got to his feet. “I’ll see you, okay?”

      John stood, too, a frown gathering on his brow. “Are you all right?”

      “I’m fine.” To convince his brothers, Connor set up for a shot, released the empty beer can and crowed when it dropped with a clank into the brown paper bag by John’s chair. With their good-nights following him, he paused only long enough to stick his head in the kitchen, thank Natalie for dinner and say good-night to her and his mother before heading out to his car.

      He was thirty years old. Almost thirty-one. Hell of a time to discover he had spent most of his adult life trying to vindicate a decision he’d made when he was seventeen.

      I trusted you.

      Connor revved the engine as he started his car. Swearing under his breath, he backed out of the driveway, then drove away just under the speed limit. He knew better than to think he could outrun a ghost.

      MARIAH WAS UNSURPRISED to find a pink message slip in her mail cubby in the school office.

      Please call Detective McLean.

      Did he remember her? She’d bet on it. Did he feel any guilt about making accusations he could never prove, about leaving her family to live with doubt and whispers and questions? Or did he believe complacently that he held no blame for the disruption left in his wake?

      She stared with burning eyes for another moment at his name, then crumpled the slip in her fist. It would be a cold day in hell before she would ever call him.

      On a shuddering breath, she turned blindly and left the office, hoping nobody had noticed her distress. She was glad she’d come early, so she had half an hour to compose herself before her first class poured into her room.

      The pink slip still crumpled in her fist, Mariah exchanged greetings with other teachers and aides as she made her way through the halls. Port Dare Middle School was badly in need of being bulldozed and replaced. Timber played a big role in the local economy, however, which meant luxuries like new schools were no more than dreams these days. This building was the original high school, now housed in an equally inadequate campus built in the fifties. Until a new industry could be coaxed to this isolated small city to replace the dying business of logging the Olympic rain forest, Port Dare School District would have a tough time passing bond issues. In the meantime, middle-schoolers—and their teachers—coped with a four-story Depression-era building with wonderful murals painted by WPA workers, decrepit bathrooms and insufficient classroom and locker space.

      Mariah’s room was on the fourth floor, which kept her in shape. The English teachers didn’t complain, because they stayed the warmest in winter when the inadequate heat the ancient furnace pumped out all rose to their floor, making it comfortable while the math classrooms in the basement were icy.

      A student, then a senior at the high school, had come back several years before to paint a minimural of Shakespeare surrounded by actors costuming themselves on the wall outside her classroom. Today she paused, her key in the classroom door, and stared at the lovingly created mural.

      Her students liked her. Remembered her. Trusted her.

      Tracy Mitchell had trusted her. Had come to her for help.

      How could she let one of her students down because her own scars weren’t fully healed?

      She turned the key and went into the classroom, for once locking the door behind her. Empty or full, this room was a refuge. Bright posters and glorious words decorated the walls. Old-fashioned desks formed ragged rows. Mariah absently traced with her fingers one of the long-ago carved notes that scarred them: JB+RS. Morning sunlight streamed in the wall of windows. She even loved the old blackboard and the smell of chalk and the uneasy squeak of it writing on the dusty surface.

      Her meandering course between desks brought her to the one where Tracy Mitchell sat from 10:10 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. every day. Sometimes she whispered with friends or used her superdeluxe calculator to write notes for them to read. But once in a while, she actually heard the magic in words, saw the wonderful, subtle hues they conjured, and she would sit up straight and listen with her head cocked to one side, or she would read her part in a play with vivacity and passion if not great skill.

      Mariah stood, head bent, looking at the desk. Tracy had a spark. She had promise she would likely never fulfill, given her family background and her tight skirts and her sidelong glances at boys. But it was there, and teachers were sometimes wrong about who would succeed or fail. She did not deserve to be blackmailed, to have her budding sexuality exploited, to have to feel that this, of all things, was her fault.

      With another sigh, Mariah went to her desk and dug in her tote for her cell phone. Apparently, despite the sunlight, warm for October, it was really a cold day. A very, very cold day.

      Somewhere.

      She picked the wadded-up message from the otherwise empty waste can, smoothed it out on the desk and dialed the number.

      “Detective McLean.”

      “This is Mariah Stavig. You asked me to call.”

      His voice was calm, easy, deep, and agonizingly familiar. “I wondered when you have a break today so that we could talk.”

      “I take lunch just after eleven. Or I have a planning period toward the end of the school day.”

      “Eleven?”

      “School starts at 7:20.” Why did he think she was returning his call so early?

      He made a heartfelt comment on the hour, with which she privately agreed; students would learn better with another hour of sleep. But Mariah said nothing except, “You must start work early, too.”

      “Actually I just got up.” He yawned as if to punctuate his admission. “This is my cell phone number.”

      “Oh.” Oh, dear, was more like it. Obviously he wasn’t at the moment wearing one of those well-cut suits he favored. More likely, pajama bottoms sagged low on his hips, if he slept in anything at all. An image of Connor McLean bare-chested tried to form in her mind, but she refused to let it.

      “Eleven, then,” he said. “Where do I find you?”

      She hesitated for the first time, hating the idea of him in here. But the teacher’s lounge was obviously out, late October days, however sunny, were too chilly to sit outside, and short of borrowing another teacher’s classroom—and how would she explain that?—Mariah couldn’t think of another place as private as this.

      “I’m on the top floor of the A building. Room 411.”

      “Can I bring you a take-out lunch?”