Chapter 57
The Maine Department of Education in Augusta occupied part of the Burton M.
Cross Office Building, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in Nicolae Ceaus,escu’s Communist Romania, right before the dictator and his wife were put up against a wall and shot.
The building dated from the fifties, and despite being renovated in the twenty-first century, still dated from the fifties.
Berrien, when she eventually showed up, turned out to be a tall, platinum-haired woman who, if she’d run track, would probably have wiped out the competition at anything over half a mile.
She apologized for the delay and led me to an office that would have been small for just one and was intimate for two.
I accepted coffee, which she made using a Nespresso machine perched on the windowsill in the absence of any other unoccupied space, the office being a shrine to paperwork.
“We don’t get many private investigators visiting us,” she said, as she worked on the coffee, “or not with your reputation.”
“For charm and good humor?”
“I may not have read that far,” she said. “I might have gotten caught up in all the gunfire.”
“If it’s any consolation, I found waiting for you kind of intimidating. I kept expecting someone to tell me I was suspended for a week.”
“Didn’t like school?”
“Not a lot,” I said, “but the feeling was mutual.”
“I hated it too. I think anyone whose school days were the best days of their life ought to sue God for shortchanging them on the rest.”
“Strange that you ended up in the Department of Education, then.”
“I might have been trying to change the system from within, but those days are coming to a close. I have a few good years left in me, and a hankering to spend them in an advocacy role.”
By now she had two small but admittedly fragrant cups of coffee prepared, in matching maroon cups.
As she handed over one of them, the cuff of her shirt rose to reveal the edge of an intricate sleeve of tattoos on her right arm.
I glimpsed ivy and eyeballs, and what might have been a serpent. She was an interesting woman.
Berrien took the chair behind her desk, tasted her coffee, and said: “So: private schools.”
“Yes.”
“Any private school in particular?”
“Guess.”
“Spero.”
“Got it in one.”
“Color me relieved, since I believe Spero doesn’t fall under our remit beyond a requirement to supply an annual letter to our commissioner stating its intention to operate as an equivalent instruction school, which the commissioner duly acknowledges.”
“Meaning?”
“Spero has satisfied the basic requirements for an approved private school under Title 20-A, Chapter 117, of the Maine Revised Statutes. May I ask who you’re working for?”
“A lawyer named Alcock. His client is Ward Vose. Vose is Scott Theriault’s father.”
“Without wishing to sound judgmental,” said Berrien, “it’s a pity Ward Vose wasn’t more concerned about his son before he sent him to Spero.”
“Vose didn’t send Scott to Spero. He was in prison at the time. Vose happens to be in prison a lot of the time.”
“And I didn’t believe I could pity that boy more. Then you come along to up the ante.”
“Does the department have a problem with Spero?” I asked. “More to the point, do you?”
“Was it my tone?”
“Your tone, expression, and general demeanor.”
“As these places go, Spero is reasonably well run, but ‘as these places go’ is a significant qualifier. Subjectively, I’m not in favor of the model as a way of dealing with troubled or traumatized youths.
My instinct is to blame the parents, not the child, but where a child is unusually difficult, consigning them to the equivalent of an old reform school isn’t the solution.
It’s an abrogation of parental responsibility, hence my comment about your client, whether he was behind bars or not.
That goes the same for Scott Theriault’s mother. ”
“Vose didn’t have much say in the matter,” I said.
“Scott’s mother and stepfather made the decision to put him in Spero, which is not to absolve Vose of responsibility for the boy.
He admits he was never in the running for father of the year, but that doesn’t mean he’s not entitled to ask questions about what befell his son. ”
“Is he going to sue Spero?”
That question was coming up a lot. If I set up a school, my first hire would be a good lawyer.
“The conversation hasn’t arisen,” I said. “What interests him is how and why his boy’s broken body ended up in a river.”
“Scott Theriault ran away from Spero,” said Berrien, “and had an accident. That’s death by misadventure, or whatever the legal equivalent is in this state.”
I didn’t reply, just drank my coffee. It was already almost gone and I’d barely started on it. No wonder the Nespresso people could afford to employ George Clooney as a point man.
“Which is what you’ve been hired to confirm or disprove, right?” Berrien pressed.
“In a nutshell.”
“Well, as I told you, there’s a limit to how much help we can be, given the independence of equivalent instruction schools, which I’ve mentioned. The department hasn’t had significant contact with Spero for some years.”
“But you must have had dealings with it at the start, when it was still in receipt of public funds.”
Berrien’s mouth twitched. I’d touched a pressure point, and pressure points were good. The important thing was knowing when to press, and how hard. Berrien might not be averse to sharing, but she wouldn’t care to be harried. Gently would do it.
“What should I know?” I asked.
“That if I ever write my memoirs,” she said, “I may title them Accounts and Accountability, with apologies to Jane Austen. But I doubt I’ll ever write them.
No one would publish them, no one would read them, and most of all, no one would thank me for the effort.
Some people might be especially ungrateful. ”
I could almost see her finger hovering over the red button, waiting to press self-destruct on what remained of her career.
The Maine Whistleblowers’ Protection Act provided safeguards for employees who reported suspected violations, and Berrien had a strong union behind her, so her pension would be secure if she shared any concerns about financial malfeasance; and this wasn’t an official exchange, so nothing she shared would have any legal consequences.
But Berrien was obviously possessed of a conscience, and something had been bothering her for a while or else she would not have spoken as she had.
“You have suspicions,” I said, “but no proof.”
“That’s right. It’s a difficulty.”
“Not for me. I’m in the suspicion business.”
“I also intensely dislike the person concerned,” said Berrien, “and the feeling is reciprocated.”
I imagined that Berrien could rub a lot of people the wrong way. That might be why I was inclined to trust her: like knows like.
“I assume your antipathy toward each other is recognized within the department,” I said.
“It is.”
“Is this person a superior?”
“No,” said Berrien. “We occupy similar levels, but only in terms of salary. On every other scale, I’d regard him as my significant inferior, and I’m no angel.”
I took out my notebook and uncapped my pen.
“Neither am I,” I said. “Gossip away. I’m all ears.”