At Risk of Being a Fool (14 page)

Tonio was the mystery. He was on probation of the loosest sort, living with his uncle. He smiled and joked sometimes, and gave Jeanie bits of advice, but she never understood him. He reminded her of the ornaments her boys made for their Christmas tree. Styrofoam balls with glitter and paste and colored ribbons made engaging decorations, but underneath there was only a Styrofoam shell. What hid inside Tonio’s core was beyond knowing. Jeanie joked with him, taught him what she could, and let him keep his privacy. Still waters ran deep.

Then there was Dillon. Hook a wolf onto a five-foot chain, anchor him to a stone wall, and hit him with a club a few times, and you had Dillon. Rage, suspicion, danger, and madness had to be expected. Still, once she’d glimpsed his deep love for his grandmother, Jeanie’s defenses against him withered. Of course, Ted Bundy, the serial killer, seemed to love his mother, too. Dillon’s love for his grandmother didn’t guarantee his morality. Jeanie prayed that Mrs. Otero would live a good, long time, and die an easy, natural death several decades in the future. She typed another line.

Shelley, tell me truly, am I a bleeding heart? Am I blinded by what I want to see?

Love, Jeanie

She reread the words and hit Send. The e-mail soared into cyberspace, and began its dizzying trek across the world to Shelley.

The familiar rumble of the train shook the house. Rita was fast asleep in the middle of the pillow. She always shoved the cat over when she went to sleep, but often as not, Rita got it back again, drowsily purring her contentment. Corrigan slept neatly at the foot, having climbed up the ramp a couple of hours ago. The train didn’t bother them.

She leaned against the windowsill, and watched the engine approach, the huge moving cars shadowed against the trees. Sometimes, if she thought to block the headlights with her hands, she could just make out the engineer in his lighted cab. Most of the time, he was a dim figure guiding the train, carrying who knew what kind of produce and hardware as it connected a line of dots on a map.

It was calming, counting the cars as they passed. Twenty-five, twenty-six. Tankers, boxcars, and plastic-wrapped plywood strapped into flatbeds. Thirty-one, thirty-two. The train slowed, and her thoughts slowed with it. Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one. Forty-one cars, exactly.

The train rumbled down the track and rounded the curve. After a time, the vibrations ceased. With a sigh, she shut down the computer and got into bed.

“Move over, little one.” She tugged Rita down, tucking the warm ball against her stomach. Rita’s purr rattled the bed, a miniature locomotive covered with long gray fur. Amidst the comforting vibrations, Jeanie slept.

~*~

Estelle Torrez turned on her dishwasher. A faint smell of bleach rose from the kitchen counters. She glanced through the window of her downstairs apartment into the tiny fenced yard behind it. Closely packed arbor vitae backed with chain link fence rimmed it on two sides. A six-foot chain link fence separated it from the left-hand neighboring yard. She’d insisted on the chain link when she bought the condo, had bulled her way through the building managers, and they’d yielded. It went against the grain to provide the managers with a key to the single gate between the two yards, but she’d done so. They’d never used it. They had better not.

She checked the window lock, closed the blinds, and moved through the rest of the two-bedroom apartment, securing it for the week. The bedroom, with its twin bed, leather armchair, and reading light; the office, with its shelves of reference works, the solid mahogany desk, and state-of-the-art computer; the bathroom, polished and shining; the living room, with the second leather armchair, small television, magazine rack, and the stereo.

Estelle removed a CD from the stereo and put it in its case, slotting it into the rack with the others. She approved of Bach: calm, orderly, and rarely sentimental. Schubert’s marches, and a few of Tchaikovsky’s dramatics filled out her official music library. A few other CDs, confiscated over the years, lay tucked into a drawer where she didn’t have to look at them. An illicit vice, but at times their savagery appealed to her, demanded that she listen.

The apartment secure for another four days, she set the burglar alarm, left a message on building security’s voice mail, and walked to her car. Her mind shifted gladly from the simmering state of three days’ relaxation to the full boil of complete engagement. Three days with Dolores Cuthbert would have softened the girls, though Estelle’s frequent visits inspired at least a minimal efficiency. Dolores lacked energy and discipline. No adult should require more than six hours’ sleep, and certainly not all in one stretch. A correction supervisor owed her charges full vigilance.

A supervisor must instill good habits and excise bad ones. The word “reform” meant just that: taking a formless soul and shaping it into one compatible with society. Those girls beyond Estelle’s capacity to repair returned to Corrections. No doubt, they served their full terms and formed the criminal core of the next generation. So be it. Bright Futures was just that, a venue for girls with futures in society.

Last night, Estelle had spent two hours in her car down the street from Bright Futures. She’d recorded vehicle descriptions and license numbers of three cars and one motorcycle, though doing so entailed leaving her car to scrape the mud off two of the licenses. She’d compared them to notes in her journal, marking the dates against the arrivals of her twenty-three current charges. Double-checking her files was a mere formality. She held every detail of every girl’s record in her mind. 

She placed her suitcase in the trunk, mulling over the girls whose adaptability was in question. Lisabet Peters, Francia Millinger, Brynna Gallagher, Tatiana Romero. Tentatively, she’d pulled Sorrel Quintana and Kylie McMurray off the transfer list. She’d seen an encouraging sign or two. But it was time to step up the pressure, to see which of the six would survive firing in the correctional kiln, and which would shatter in the heat.

Estelle turned the key in the ignition, threw the car into reverse, and hit the accelerator.

And her world exploded in shrieks of metal, splintering glass, and pain.

~*~

“The important thing is not to decrease the profit margin so much that we suffer an overall loss. Contain the costs, put out a quality product, and the public will come, even with submarine plumbing fixtures.”

Around the breakfast table, three elderly women agreed. It was nice for them, having a man around. There were only two male residents in the facility. Edward had a lovely speaking voice, kind and compelling.

Jeanie cut his sausages into small pieces, and stirred the Citrucel into his orange juice. “I’m sure you’re right, Edward.”

Kherra, popping by with a plate of toast, joined in effortlessly. “Defense spending is way up these days, good time for sellin’ parts to the Navy. Gotta to keep our soldiers safe and healthy.” Kherra’s slight Southern drawl gave a cinnamon-nutmeg comfort to her most simple remarks. She moved on, joining in the next table’s fantasy with equal ease.

“You raise an excellent point,” said Edward, unaware that his “guest speaker” had departed with the toast. “Perhaps we should consider expanding into ship redesign. I’m sure the plumbing in aircraft carriers could use our attention as well. What do you ladies think?”

By the time breakfast was over, Jeanie’s nerves were frayed. Edward found his bedroom, and shooed her away with a disapproving air. The over-familiarity of the nurses, and even his wife, often troubled his dignity. Jeanie sat in the foyer next to Kherra, who was matching socks from a basket of laundry.

“So tell me something,” Kherra said. Conversations in Oriole’s Nest rarely had a beginning or an end. They were a long-run affair, interrupted constantly. “How long you two been married?”

“Forty years last August.” Jeanie turned a sock over in her hands.

Kherra’s eyes flew wide. “You tell the
truth
, girl. Were you lyin’ to me? Or did you really get married at eighteen?”

“The day after my birthday.”

“Humph. No sense at all, just a baby when you got married.” Kherra wrinkled her nose ruefully. “Welcome to the club. I was seventeen myself. Didn’t last, though.” She matched another pair of socks. “You know, it’s a problem, workin’ a place like this. A lot of people never visit their loved ones, ‘cause it hurts too bad. Others keep expectin’ their folks to get better. Like you. The thing is, honey, that puts a stress not only on you, but on Edward too. He keeps tryin’ not to disappoint you. He’s going to get worse, Jeanie.” Kherra’s voice was soft. “He may know he loves you, but he won’t know why.”

Jeanie sat rigid, restlessly twisting her wedding ring around on her finger. “I know that.”

“I’m not tryin’ to rub it in. What I’m tryin’ to do is show you is, you got to build other resources. You need other friends in your life.”

Jeanie stood up abruptly. “Kherra, I—”

“Jeanie?” Nadezda called. “Telephone. It’s Mackie Sandoval.”

Jeanie escaped Kherra and dashed to the phone. “Hi, Mackie.”

“Jeanie.” Mackie’s voice was distorted by a sharp exhale. “Good, I caught you. Look, I’ve cancelled class today. We’ve had a disaster. Estelle Torrez is in the hospital. She was leaving her condo about an hour ago, and her car exploded when she started it.”

Jeanie gasped. “Another pipe bomb?”

“Hey, you’re a lot faster on the uptake than you were a couple of months ago. Yeah, that’s it, another pipe bomb. The blast knocked her out, but neighbors heard the explosion, and called the police.”

Jeanie sank into a chair. “Will she be okay?”

“Probably. Her feet took the worst of the blast. I think the bomb was under the seat, but I’m guessing. The police won’t say.”

“First Bryce Wogan, and now Estelle,” said Jeanie.

“You’ve got it. And there’s the judge too, don’t forget, I know my security buddy told you about him. Somebody called in a warning, but it would have done a lot of damage.”

“Nobody’s been killed though.” Jeanie knew what Mackie had called to say. Maybe if she kept talking, she could avoid it. “Is that on purpose, do you think?”

“I wondered about that too, but the police say pipe bombs aren’t predictable. Though I guess the amount of stuff in it would at least affect the degree of damage. Our problem, Jeanie, is the connections. There haven’t been pipe bombs in
Salem
in years. Now there’ve been three in less than a month. Bryce and Estelle were both connected to kids in our program. So was the courthouse.”

Jeanie stifled the instinctive teacher’s retort. Not
my
kids.
My
kids wouldn’t do that.
“What about the judge?”

“I don’t know. Except for Rosalie, they all came from
Portland
, and the only judges they faced were there, I think. Jeanie, we’re canceling school for today.”

“Just today,” said Jeanie, half-questioning, half-stating.

“For now. Besides, you’d have a small class. Bright Futures is in lock-down, and Randy’s pulled Dillon in to see the police—pre-emptive strike. Dillon didn’t want the cops to come bug his grandmother.”

A small smile forced its way up, and disappeared again. “Quinto? Rosalie? Tonio?”

“I’m going to call Tonio, and suggest he get his butt over to the station, check in with them before they come find him. I called Esperanza, asked them to keep Rosalie today. They’re going to stick her in group therapy or something. I’ve got to find her another job anyway. Quinto could come, but he’s the only one.”

“Maybe Danny would let him work the whole day. He started there again yesterday, and it seemed to work out all right with the new boss.”

“Good thought. I’ll give him a call. Can you solve my Rosalie problem, too?”

“Actually, I did have an idea. Maybe a dog kennel? She’d still need supervision, but she does love animals. She could clean pens, walk dogs, things like that?”

“Well, well,” said Mackie. “That’s an idea.”

“She likes Corrigan a lot.”

“Everybody likes Corrigan. He’s so—”

“Funny-looking, I know, I know. So, tomorrow, then, for class?”

“I’ll give you a call, but I think either tomorrow or Thursday. God, it’s only Tuesday. I don’t know if I can survive this week.”

“You always do, Mackie.”

“Yeah, but I’m getting older by the minute. Enough of these emergencies, and my brain is going to retire permanently.”

“Join the club. I’ve got just the place for you to move into.” Mackie chuckled, as Jeanie hung up.

A third bomb, definitely connected to her classroom. Brynna and Sorrel hated Estelle, but neither had transportation or any interest in Bryce Wogan. Buses didn’t go near the construction site. Dillon and Tonio lived with family. Tonio had a working car, and a motorbike upside down in the
County
Yard
with its wheels off. Dillon had a bicycle, but his grandmother had a car. Both of them had time to make pipe bombs, and a means of transportation. Any idiot could get the ingredients for a pipe bomb. She’d looked it up on the Internet one night when she couldn’t sleep. It was horrifying, what one could find on the Internet. As soon as authorities closed one site, another popped up.