Chapter 37
Sadlier got to Spero an hour earlier than usual, which would ordinarily have pained a man who begrudged the school every minute for which he wasn’t being paid—and doubly on this morning, when he was unfueled by coffee.
After what was done with his beans, he’d given the routine a pass.
And while there was much about the incident in his kitchen that justifiably gave him cause to be disquieted, it was the way his name was hyphenated that bothered him most: Sad-lier, or more correctly, Saaaad-lier, with the first syllable drawn out.
Only one person at Spero had given it that emphasis, a person now drowned to death, so either someone was playing a very mean trick, or—
For now, Sadlier didn’t care to dwell on that or.
He was still not sure why he felt compelled to get to Spero.
Neither did he know who he was supposed to help, which brought him back to the or, the one he really preferred not to contemplate.
For the moment, Sadlier was doing the only thing he could: arrive at the school and take a look around, which had the added bonus of getting him out of his violated home.
He’d taken the time to search each of its rooms before he left, even looking in his bedroom closet and under the bed.
He didn’t mind admitting that he’d been on the verge of filling his pants as he opened those closet doors, and again when he went down on his hands and knees to get intimate with the dust bunnies, because all the windows were locked and the doors bolted from the inside—he’d checked those too—so whoever was responsible for spelling out the message with his coffee beans might still be in the house. If they weren’t, then—
Screw you again, or.
But no one had looked back at him from inside the closet or under the bed, which was a relief, if a temporary one.
Sadlier parked his truck in his usual spot.
To the right, behind a low hedge surrounding a neatly tended garden, was the residence of Mr Santopietro, who lived on-site permanently.
To the left were the staff cabins, one of which was currently occupied by Vice Principal Renders as part of the supervisory roster operated by the school.
Staff rotations meant that for three nights in every nine one of the off-site teachers was required to reside on campus, where they were considered “on duty” and available to students.
Santopietro could be called on for backup, but only in the event of an emergency.
When not at the school, most of the teachers lived in rented accommodations in the area.
The school had a full-time teaching staff of just four: Santopietro; Renders; Patrick Elgot, who had arrived shortly before COVID kicked in; and Grady Bessant, though Bessant had been on medical leave since September and, rumor had it, was reluctant to return.
He and Renders had never gotten along, not helped by the fact that Bessant had expected to be appointed assistant principal when Santopietro first announced the role, and it had instead gone to Renders, who had only been a short time at Spero.
Elgot, by contrast, had shown no interest in being promoted, even though it would have meant a salary increase; however, like Bessant and Sadlier, he hadn’t taken to Renders from the off.
Sadlier believed Elgot to be biding his time and banking his money until something better opened up, avoiding any conflict with Renders while he was about it.
Only Santopietro was tight with Renders.
Sadlier didn’t think four full-time teachers was even close to enough to supervise and educate more than four times as many difficult teenagers, even supported by recruits from a pool of retired local educators, each paid by the hour, but the truth was that education was not Spero’s primary function.
The school was a correctional facility in all but name, and education was merely one of the tools available to alter behavior.
Nobody expected Spero to produce geniuses, and few of the students stayed long enough for anyone to be able to try.
The parking lot still bore faint traces of the distancing warnings from the pandemic.
Spero was more fortunate than many schools during COVID since it was already operating in its own bubble.
Most of the students opted to stay—or more correctly, were not given a choice by their parents—so the pandemic caused only minimal interruption to its program.
Spero managed to get through the whole of the first year without a single confirmed case of the virus, and the second with just two.
A lot of that was down to location, but also a concerted effort to protect both students and staff from infection.
Sadlier, too, had played his part. He supposed it was something to be proud of.
Sadlier noticed that Elgot’s Jeep was already in place, which didn’t surprise him; if the weather was good, Elgot liked to get in early for a run before breakfast. Sadlier spotted him warming up over by the main building.
Elgot was lean, like a life-size human model assembled from pipe cleaners and twigs, but Sadlier wished he wouldn’t wear such tight Lycra.
It left little to the imagination, reminding Sadlier of someone trying to smuggle root vegetables in their shorts.
But Elgot’s appointment had resulted in an improvement in the overall physical health of the students, as he was now the phys ed teacher, and whatever helped the kids physically might, with luck, also aid them emotionally and psychologically, although they might not have felt that way while jogging or hiking in the rain.
It surprised Sadlier that Elgot and Santopietro got on so well together, since the latter couldn’t have run more than a few yards without stopping for breath, not even if pursued by wolves.
Sadlier figured that, as opposites, they complemented each other.
He’d heard of marriages that worked in a similar fashion.
Noticing Sadlier, Elgot detoured to say hello and make sure nothing was amiss.
“You’re up with the dawn,” said Elgot. “It’s not like you to be here before you have to.”
This was said with a grin, but there was an edge nonetheless. Elgot could be patronizing, but Sadlier forgave him because it was unintentional, a product of social awkwardness more than rudeness.
“Couldn’t sleep,” said Sadlier. “Thought I’d make myself useful, and if I couldn’t do that, I’d make myself breakfast.”
Spero employed a cohort of local women to look after cooking, cleaning, and laundry, but the pair on duty today wouldn’t start for another hour.
In reality, Sadlier wasn’t hungry in the least, not with the morning he’d been having, but he wasn’t about to share with Elgot a tale of words spelled out in coffee beans, or a fruitless search for an intruder in a house that was all locked up.
“Wait a little longer and someone will make it for you,” said Elgot. “Yum. All that good stuff.”
None of which Elgot would touch, of course, preferring to stick to a protein shake, nuts, and two poached eggs if he felt like spoiling himself. Sadlier knew Jews more likely to eat a couple of slices of bacon for breakfast than Patrick Elgot.
“Any sign of Mr Renders?” Sadlier asked.
“His drapes are still drawn,” said Elgot. “And you know how—”
But Sadlier was no longer listening. The door to the main dormitory building was ajar, which meant one of the students might be up.
That in itself was unusual, since the boys, like Renders, never got out of bed until they had to.
One of them could have gone down to use the facilities in the ablution block—Sadlier made a mental note to remind Santopietro about chasing up the plumber—but whoever it was should have had the sense to close the door behind him, because it was a cool morning.
If Elgot spotted the lapse, he’d take time out from his run to do some shouting.
Now Elgot had seen it too, because he said: “Who left that damn door open?”
Together, the two men went to investigate, but it was Sadlier who spotted the length of two-by-four rammed against the door of the ablution block.
He felt his stomach sink. He broke away from Elgot and was already freeing the wood from under the doorknob by the time the teacher joined him.
Yet even when the lumber was set aside, the door still wouldn’t budge.
The lock had been sticking for a while, but the wood had been jammed against the knob with enough force to knock the whole mechanism out of true.
After a few minutes of jiggling, Sadlier was about to give up and fetch a crowbar when the knob finally turned and the door opened.
Anthony Marshall was sitting half-naked under one of the sinks. His eyes were squeezed shut and his face was so pale that had he not been shivering uncontrollably, Sadlier might have taken him for dead.
“Go fetch a blanket to cover him,” he told Elgot, and to his credit, the teacher didn’t hesitate or argue. Meanwhile, Sadlier removed his overcoat, eased the boy from beneath the sink, and placed the coat around his shoulders. All the time, Anthony kept his eyes closed.
“Can you stand, son?”
Anthony didn’t answer. Sadlier tried to lift him, but Anthony’s legs had cramped up and he would have fallen had Sadlier not put an arm around him.
Not wishing to set him down again on the tile floor, Sadlier gathered him up and carried him from the block toward the dorm.
By then Elgot was emerging with a blanket, as well as a pair of jeans, underwear, socks, sneakers, and a sweatshirt that he must have found in the boy’s locker.
Behind him stood two of Anthony’s roommates, who’d been woken by the commotion and come to see what the fuss was about.
Elgot unfolded the blanket and draped it awkwardly over the boy’s lower body.
“Anthony,” he said, “who did this? Who locked you in?”
Anthony Marshall opened his eyes and blinked against the early-morning light.
“It’s not my fault,” he said.
“I know that. Nobody is blaming you. We just want to—”
“I tried to tell him,” said Anthony, “but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
Anthony shook his head.
“Because it wasn’t him,” he continued, “not really.”
His eyes darted madly.
Elgot looked at Sadlier, who said: “We should take him to the medical center in Bingham. I don’t know how long he was stuck in there, but he’s real cold. I can drive, but I’ll need you to come with me.”
“I can do that. I’ll tell Santopietro, and then roust Renders from his bed.”
Elgot ran to wake the principal while Sadlier carried Anthony to his truck. He put the boy on the back seat, buttoned the overcoat around him, turned the heater up full, and got in the driver’s seat with the doors closed. He glanced at Anthony in the rearview mirror. Anthony stared back at him.
“Who did it, son?” Sadlier asked.
“The dead boy,” said Anthony. “And the ones with him.”