I jumped. Dwight Shales had emerged from his inner office and he stood now in the door. The weeping girl was gone, and I could hear the tramp of footsteps as the students passed between classes. “You scared me,” I said, patting myself on the chest. “Sorry. Come into the office. I’ve got a conference scheduled at two, but we can talk till then. Bring the file.”
I gathered up Jean’s records and followed him in.
“Have a seat,” he said.
His manner had changed. The easygoing man I’d seen earlier had disappeared. Now he seemed guarded, careful of his words, all business-slightly curt, as if twenty years of dealing with unruly teenagers had soured him on everyone. I suspected his manner tended toward the autocratic anyway, his tone edged with combativeness. He was used to being in charge. On the surface, he was attractive, but his good looks were posted with warning signs. His body was trim. He had the build and carriage of a former military type, accustomed to operating under fire. If he was a sportsman, I’d peg him as an expert in trap and skeet shooting. His games would be handball, poker, and chess. If he ran, he’d feel compelled to lower his finish by a few seconds each time out. Maybe once he’d been open, vulnerable or soft, but he was shut down now, and the only evidence I’d seen of any warmth at all was in his dealings with Joleen. Apparently his wife’s death had ruptured the bounds of his self-control. In matters of mourning, he could still reach out.
I took a seat, placing the fat, dog-eared ma-nila folder on the desk in front of me. I hadn’t found anything startling, but I’d made a few notes. Her former address. Birth date, social security number, the bare bones of data made meaningless by her death. “What did you think of her?” I asked him.
“She was a tough little nut. I’ll tell you that.”
“So I gathered. It looks like she spent half her time in detention.”
“At least that. What made it frustrating-for me, at any rate, and you’re welcome to talk to some of the other teachers about this-is that she was a very appealing kid. Smart, soft-spoken, friendly-with adults, at any rate. I can’t say she was well liked among her classmates, but she was pleasant to the staff. You’d sit her down to have a chat and you’d think you were getting through. She’d nod and agree with you, make all the proper noises, and then she’d turn around and do exactly what she’d been reprimanded for in the first place.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Anything you name. She’d ditch school, show up late, fail to turn in assignments, refuse to take tests. She smoked on campus, which was strictly against the rules back then, kept booze in her locker. Drove everybody up the wall. It’s not like what she did was worse than anybody else. She simply had no conscience about it and no intention whatever of cleaning up her act. How do you deal with someone like that? She’d say anything that got her off the hook. This girl was convincing. She could make you believe anything she said, but then it would evaporate the minute she left the room.”
“Did she have any girlfriends?”
“Not that I ever saw.”
“Did she have a rapport with any teacher in particular?”
“I doubt it. You can ask some of the faculty if you like.”
“What about the promiscuity?” He shifted uncomfortably. “I heard rumors about that, but I never had any concrete information. Wouldn’t surprise me. She had some problems with self-esteem.”
“I talked with a classmate who implied that it was pretty steamy stuff.”
Shales wagged his head reluctantly. “There wasn’t much we could do. We referred her two or three times for professional counseling, but of course she never went.”
“I take it the school counselors didn’t make much progress.”
“I’m afraid not. I don’t think you could fault us for the sincerity of our concern, but we couldn’t force her to do anything. And her mother didn’t help. I wish I had a nickel for every note we sent home. The truth is, we liked Jean and thought she had a chance. At a certain point, Mrs. Timberlake seemed to throw up her hands. Maybe we did, too. I don’t know. Looking back on the situation, I don’t feel good, but I don’t know how we could have done it any differently. She’s just one of those kids who fell between the cracks. It’s a pity, but there it is.”
“How well do you know Mrs. Timberlake at this point?”
“What makes you ask?”
“I’m being paid to ask.”
“She’s a friend,” he said, after the barest hesitancy.
I waited, but he didn’t amplify. “What about the guy Jean was allegedly involved with?”
“You’ve got me on that. A lot of stories started circulating right after she died, but I never heard a name attached.”
“Can you think of anything else that might help? Someone she might have taken into her confidence?”
“Not that I recall.” A look crossed his face. “Well, actually, there was one thing that always struck me as odd. A couple times that fall, I saw her at church, which seemed out of character.”
“Church?”
“Bob Haws’s congregation. I forget who told me, but the word was she had the hots for the kid who headed up the youth group over there. Now what the hell was his name? Hang on.” He got up and went to the door to the main office. “Kathy, what was the name of the boy who was treasurer of the senior class the year Jean Timberlake was killed? You remember him?”
There was a pause and a murmured response that I couldn’t quite hear.
“Yeah, he’s the one. Thanks.” Dwight Shales turned back to me. “John Clemson. His dad’s the attorney representing Fowler, isn’t he?”
I parked in the little lot behind Jack Clemson’s office, taking the flagstone path around the cottage to the front. The sun was out, but the breeze was cool and the pittosporum shading the side yard were being -hedged up by a man in a landscape
company uniform. The Little Wonder electric trimmer in his hands made a chirping sound as he passed it across the face of the shrub, which was raining down leaves.
I went up on the porch, pausing for a moment before I let myself in. All the way over, I’d been rehearsing what I’d say, feeling not a little annoyed that he’d withheld information. Maybe it would turn out to be insignificant, but that was mine to decide. The door was ajar and I stepped into the foyer. The woman who glanced up must have been his regular secretary. She was in her forties, petite-nay, toy-sized-hair hennaed to an auburn shade, with piercing gray eyes and a silver bracelet, in a snake shape, coiled around her wrist.
“Is Mr. Clemson in?”
“Is he expecting you?”
“I stopped by to bring him up to date on a case,” I said. “The name is Kinsey Millhone.”
She took in my outfit, gaze traveling from turtleneck to jeans to boots with an almost imperceptible flicker of distaste. I probably looked like someone he might represent on a charge of welfare fraud. “Just a moment, I’ll check.” Her look said, Not bloody likely.
Instead of buzzing through, she got up from her desk and tippy-tapped her way down the hall to his office, flared skirt twitching on her little hips as she walked. She had the body of a ten-year-old. Idly, I surveyed her desk while she was gone, scanning the document that she was working from. Reading upside down is only one of several obscure talents I’ve developed working as a private eye. “… And he is enjoined and restrained from annoying, molesting, threatening, or harming petitioner …” Given the average marriage these days, this sounded like pre-nups.
“Kinsey? Hey, nice to see you! Come on back.”
Clemson was standing in the door to his office. He had his suit jacket off, shirt collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, and tie askew. The gabardine pants looked like the same ones he’d had on two days ago, bunched up in the seat, pleated with wrinkles across the lap. I followed him into his office in the wake of cigarette smoke. His secretary tippy-tapped back to her desk out front, radiating disapproval.
Both chairs were crowded with law books, tongues of scrap paper hanging out where he’d marked passages. I stood while he cleared a space for me to sit down. He moved around to his side of the desk, breathing audibly. He stubbed out his cigarette with a shake of his head.
“Out of shape,” he remarked. He sat down, tipping back in his swivel chair. “What are we going to do with that Bailey, huh? Guy’s a fuckin’ lunatic, taking off like that.”