Mute (32 page)

“Now that everyone knows how much is at stake, I
say we’re putting way too much trust in Moni’s cutesy little plan,” said Sneed,
who ignored the fact that everyone else besides him and Swartzman had already
committed to it. “This woman has messed up every task we’ve given her except
for keeping the girl alive, which hasn’t helped us one bit because she hasn’t
said a damn thing. What makes everybody think she’ll get it right this time?”

Moni
had no answer for him.

Chapter 32

For once, Moni wished she could trade places with
Sneed. While she sat behind the tinted windows of an undercover SUV in the
staff parking lot of
Challenger
7 Elementary, Sneed hung out in the security room of the school’s
administration building and watched the video monitors. She hated waiting
without seeing what was happening. That head-slicer, or one of his foul
creations, could be on their way any moment.

Moni
had done nothing with Mariella for three days besides shuttle her between the
hotel and school. At no time were they out of range of at least six officers.
That didn’t put her at ease. None of those officers, especially Sneed, cared
about Mariella as much as she did. They made their priority catching the
suspect, with the girl’s survival a distant second, Moni thought.

That
Thursday, Sneed had one officer with him. Another two were stationed in a house
facing the playground. One was undercover as a construction worker on the
cafeteria roof and another one—a hefty man with a beer gut and a shaved head
who had been one of the late Harrison’s closest friends—sat beside Moni in the
SUV. Gary DeWitt didn’t even glace at Moni after she told him to stop smoking
in the car with the windows rolled up. He exhaled a puff of smoke into the
windshield so that it rebounded into Moni’s face. She started coughing.

“My
eyes are watering,” Moni said. “I’m supposed to be looking for the suspect, but
I can barely see.”

“Excuse
me, but I smoke when I’m grieving,” DeWitt said. “I’m sorry, you must have
forgotten what grief is.”

Everyone
mistook her relief that Mariella survived the last attack as a sign that she
didn’t care about Harrison’s death. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
She cared, but her sorrow over his loss barely registered when the fear of
losing the girl at any moment constantly hung over her like a black widow
spider suspended on a web above her bed.

Besides
that, the hardest part of the past three days had been ignoring the five calls
a day that Darren, her ex-boyfriend, bombarded her office line with. For that
reason alone, she didn’t miss living in her house all that much. Tropic would
have to make due in the pet “hotel and spa”, otherwise known as a cage and
water dish, until this mess is over.

Too
bad she had another hater stuck with her all day. Sneed must have dumped her in
that car with someone who wished her a miserable death so it would throw her
off her game. He could always use another excuse for demoting her. Moni
wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. She scanned the three rows of brick
classrooms with the metal awnings between them. Mariella’s class was in the
middle one. She also kept an eye on the eight rows of portable classrooms that
had four trailers to a row. The fourth, fifth and sixth graders had the
pleasure of sweating inside those pine boxes.

If
anyone approached the school grounds from the south side through the parking
lot, or from the east side along the classrooms and trailers, Moni would see
them. They had cameras on every hallway and the view covered each door, so,
technically, no one should slip by them. For three days, they had identified
all suspicious people entering schools grounds and had school security
intercept them. All of them had good reasons, such as a parent coming to pick
up their kid early for a medical appointment. It bothered Moni that she
couldn’t watch the encounters with the security guard. The Lagoon Watcher could
have worn a costume and forged a doctor’s note.

Maybe my paranoid head is giving
him too much credit for being clever. But if he could transform the lagoon into
a bacteria-infected, acidic mess I shouldn’t put any stunt past him.

* * * *

Mrs. Mint wondered whether her students noticed
that she glanced out the window more often, and jumped a little every time
someone opened the door unannounced. They couldn’t have known about the police
sting operation, except for Mariella of course, but she couldn’t exactly tell
anyone. From the lingering stares of concern on the faces of more than a few
children, Mrs. Mint saw that the most perceptive students realized things
weren’t quite normal.

How
can I teach my class when there’s a threat from a child-napping lunatic looming
over it? The officers wouldn’t be blanketing the school if they didn’t expect
that he was coming. What do I do if he gets in this classroom?

Sneed had given Mrs. Mint a pen with a silent
buzzer that would alarm the police. She had his number on speed dial on her
cell phone. But if this psychopath evaded them—as he has been doing quite
effectively since he started this killing spree—and slipped into her classroom,
those toys wouldn’t hold him off. He wouldn’t stop and wait for the police.
He’d hurt her, Mariella and anyone who got in his way.

Her eyes caught sight of Mariella sitting quietly
in the middle of class with a pink bow in her black hair, and a purple pony on
her glittery shirt. As beautiful and benign as the child appeared, Mrs. Mint
couldn’t help letting resentment seep through her stare. The girl had brought
so many complications and troubles into her life since the attack on her
parents. Even with all her years of experience in the classroom, Mrs. Mint
simply couldn’t crack through her armor of silence and help her. If only the
girl would leave, things would be normal.

Mariella’s dark eyes snapped on her. Something
about them didn’t seem very childlike at all. They were more like the eyes of a
hawk sizing up a mouse. She immediately regretted that she had wished that the
girl would leave. Losing her parents had profoundly changed Mariella and the
child in her had died that day as well. She needed the help of a responsible
adult to get her through this and, Lord knows, Officer Williams didn’t seem all
that responsible.

Mariella just wants a home, Mrs. Mint thought. She
wants to fit in and belong, but everything seems so strange now. She had only
started comprehending English when she lost her parents. The girl didn’t have
many friends before, and she was on her own now.

Grieving over her parents, and fighting for her
life, could have completely overshadowed any desire for social acceptance the
girl might have. At first, it did, but Mrs. Mint had noticed subtle changes.
When other kids asked out loud for things, like a green crayon, Mariella would
bring it to them. Sometimes they accepted it from her, but most times they
didn’t. The Buckley twins had declared Mariella a “cootie monster,” and they’d
label any kids that touched her as the same. They said that she got the cootie
bug in Mexico, where Swine Flu came from. That evolved into them oinking at
Mariella and calling her, “cootie swine.”

Mrs. Mint told them to stop, but she couldn’t hear
and see everything. Nor should the class expect her too. She had always
believed that if kids couldn’t defend themselves against bullies in class, they
couldn’t deal with bullies out of class, where they were much more dangerous.
At some point, the child must stop seeking the refuge of adults, and confront
them.

It flared up again at recess as the kids played
soccer. Mariella invited herself to the game, but no one passed to her. When an
errant kick sent the ball astray and Mariella finally caught up with it,
Kyle
Buckley announced: “Cootie Swine’s got the ball. It’s infected. Don’t let it
touch you.”

The
blond-haired boy scampered from the soccer field and his classmates followed.
Mariella dribbled the ball towards the net and kicked it in. She raised her
arms as she swung around with a gleeful smile only to see an empty field. The
girl hung her pouting face, and stomped the grass. Suddenly, she flung her arms
out and stumbled. A red dodge ball had beamed her square in the back.

“Score
one direct hit on the Mexican swine,” Cole Buckley said as his twin brother
tossed him another dodge ball. “I’ll liberate our field.”

While
several kids encouraged the Buckleys to pummel the fragile girl again, Mrs.
Mint shimmied into her sneakers and shouted at them to stop hitting people with
balls. Of course, that’s what dodge balls were designed for, but kids aren’t as
tough as they used to be.

“Cut
it out, boys,” Mrs. Mint hollered from the bench under the shade of a pine
tree. “If I have to go out there, you’re missing recess tomorrow.”

She
hoped that her threat would save her aching feet from walking through the sand,
and her doughy skin from the brutal afternoon sun. Cole Buckley obviously had
none of those considerations in mind when he launched another ball at Mariella.
This time she dashed out of the way—and kept on running. The girl ran south off
the playground and along the edge of the classrooms.

“Mariella!”
Mrs. Mint shouted, as she reluctantly hiked up her jeans so she wouldn’t scuff
the cuffs on her sneakers as she ran. Pain stabbed through her left ankle as
she stepped on a tree root jutting out of the ground. She could barely keep up
with the eight-year-old, much less gain ground on her.

*
* * *

“The
girl is moving south from the playground, and around the classrooms,” the
officer watching the playground from its north side said over the secure police
line. “I’ve lost sight of her.”

“I
got her,” said the officer playing construction worker on the cafeteria roof.
“She’s passing the classrooms. She’s in between the trailers. I can’t see her
anymore. I think she’s headed for you Moni. Does she know where you are?”

Moni
sighed. She knew that Sneed must have that question in mind as well.

“I
told her I’d be in the parking lot in case anything scary happened,” Moni said
over the line.

“Real
smart move,” DeWitt said. His pudgy hips nearly spilled out of his seat. “Now
she’ll reveal our position. If the suspect is watching, he’ll know this is a
trap. Mission over.”

She
rolled her eyes dramatically enough so he wouldn’t miss the gesture and then
got back on the line. “I think I better go out there and meet her. We can’t
have her running around campus unsupervised.”

“Do
you want to catch the Lagoon Watcher, or play mommy?” Sneed asked over the
line. “If he recognizes that we’re baiting him, the Lagoon Watcher will grow
wise to our set up. Even a deer ain’t stupid enough to walk into the same trap
twice. This may be the only shot we have at corralling him.”

“Our
first priority must be to keep Mariella safe,” Moni said as she tugged at the
door handle. It didn’t budge. Officer DeWitt wagged his finger at her with his
other finger pressing down the master lock.

“Don’t
you worry about the girl. She’s in good hands,” Sneed said. Moni nearly puked
down her shirt at the thought of that fat turd holding Mariella in his hairy
mitts. “I’ve got cameras covering every row of the kiddie trailer park. Even
now I see her running for her mommy. Just do me a favor—stay in the car.”

“Then
who will…”

“Mrs.
Mint is right behind her,” Sneed said. “She’s a teacher. She can handle a sassy
little brat playing hooky.”

*
* * *

Mrs. Mint hobbled across the pavement around the
“temporary” trailers, which had been at the school for nearly four years. Her
knees and ankles jolted like misfiring pistons, as they were unwillingly
pressed into service chasing the girl. She wished teaching didn’t have to be so
physical. If she spent all day behind her desk, she’d have no complaints.

The teacher reared over with her hands on her knees
and gasped for air as she finally cleared the eight rows of portables. After
composing herself, she straightened up and surveyed the parking lot. She didn’t
see Mariella. She spotted the “undercover” Lincoln Navigator with tinted
windows, but she didn’t see any girl pounding on the windows, demanding her new
mommy.

Maybe she erred in thinking that Mariella would run
straight through the trailers on the same path she had entered. The girl might
have made a detour or two. For a small kid, it wouldn’t be hard to get lost
amid the massive rectangles. Overruling the strenuous protests of her throbbing
ankles and knees, Mrs. Mint spun around and jogged back to trailer city.

This time she paced herself and paused as she
passed each row so she could have a good look down both ways. She completed the
entire length, and didn’t see anyone besides students making goofy faces at her
from the windows of their wooden classrooms. No sign of Mariella.

Mrs. Mint’s heart pounded as fear of the worst
crept through her arteries like a scorpion. She reached into her pocket and
fingered the pen that would alert the police. Then she looked around and saw
the cameras. They were watching every row of the portables, but they hadn’t
called her with the girl’s location. If Mariella had found a hiding place from
them, it must be between the short sides of the trailers, not the long sides
that were under surveillance, she thought. The girl did have a thing for
privacy. Mrs. Mint wouldn’t mind leaving her alone to cry off her frustration.
But, with a whole police force and the girl’s supposed mother watching, she
figured she better console the poor thing.