Chapter 16
The sun chased away any semblance of shade from the parking lot by the time they made it back to the El Camino.
Careful not to blister himself on the seat-belt clasp, Cutter started the car and circled behind the building to pop back out on South Main, heading north toward Weatherford High School.
He drove with the window down—no way his air conditioner could catch up during the two-minute drive.
Lafayette Johnson groused the entire time, making the journey feel much longer.
“My English teacher hated me,” he said as he climbed out of the car and snugged down his hat. “Pretty sure she figured I’d end up in prison. What if I see her in the hallway? She teaches summer school every year.”
“What’s her name?”
“Charlotte Blake,” Johnson said, shuddering.
“You say to her, Ms. Blake, my partner and I are hunting brazen killers. We could use your assistance. I expect that’ll be enough to demonstrate you’re not a kid anymore.”
“You’re right.” Johnson hitched up his gun belt. “I am a grown man—”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself there, sport.” Cutter chuckled. “There’s a hell of a lot of ground to cover between high school and manhood.” He added, “But you’ll be just fine if we happen to run into Ms. Blake. Grown or not, you are a bona fide lawman. That is no small endeavor.”
Johnson began to breathe rapidly as he pulled open the hefty metal doors of the high school.
“Right,” he whispered, trying to convince himself. “That’s true. I got nothing to be afraid of.”
Cutter signed both himself and Johnson in at the main office, leaving his business card for the principal, who happened to be out on patrol according to the attendance secretary. Elbows on the counter, she peered over the top of her glasses at the sketch of Man Cub.
“Looks kind of familiar,” she said. “Was he supposed to be a student here?”
“That’s what we’d like to find out,” Cutter said.
“He kinda sorta looks like Clint Walker. You know, that actor.”
Cutter nodded. “Cheyenne.”
“He’s a suspect in the armored car robbery on Sunday,” Johnson said.
“A murderer, then …”
“A murder suspect,” Cutter said. “Investigation’s still early days.”
The woman took off her reading glasses and then shook her head. “I wish I could help you, hon.” A puzzled look crossed her face when her eyes fell on Johnson. “Oh my goodness. Is this LJ?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“How long has … When did you graduate, hon?”
“Coming on four years ago next month,” Johnson said. “How are you, Ms. Tyson?”
“Well, just look at you. A deputy sheriff. I never would have guessed that young Lafayette Johnson would …” She shook her head, as if to clear the rest of her thought before it left her mouth.
“Anyway, good on you, LJ. Good. On. You!” She tapped the sketch with the tip of her index finger, addressing Cutter now.
“I’ve been here eleven years, and I’ve never seen this person.
” She leaned forward, resting on the counter again.
“Only a handful of teachers in the building for summer school, but you’re free to talk to them.
” She brightened. “You know who might know? Our guidance counselor, Mrs. Shoemake. She’s got an encyclopedia brain when it comes to students.
Came over from the middle school, but she was there for ages and ages.
There’s a good chance she’s dealt with your mystery murder suspect. ”
Cutter shot a glance toward the hallway. “And her office is located … ?”
Ms. Tyson looked at the wall clock. “Lemme see … Day’s all but over. … She’ll be in the teachers’ lounge about now, smoking her afternoon cigarettes.”
Summer school ran on a much looser schedule than the regular academic year.
Lockers slammed. Kids whistled and laughed.
Johnson stuck close to Cutter like he didn’t want to get left behind.
Even with fewer kids than usual, the air was filled with the smell of Love’s Baby Soft and Hai Karate aftershave.
Ursula wore Love’s Baby Soft. That alone was enough to make it turn Cutter’s stomach.
“I didn’t know you were part of the Mighty Mob,” Cutter said, noting the spirit posters of blue kangaroos, the Weatherford High School mascot.
“This brings back a lot of memories,” Johnson whispered. “And not the good kind. You might not be able to tell it looking at me now, but I was kind of a—”
“Forget about what you were,” Cutter said, a little harsher that he’d intended. “It’s what you are that matters.”
“Right,” Johnson said, hyperventilating again.
The teachers’ lounge was a short walk down a long hall that passed more kangaroo murals and a set of floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlooked an outdoor courtyard.
Several students stood around a long sandpit having their own afternoon cigarettes.
Johnson didn’t look a day older than most of them.
“Here it is.” Johnson nodded at a solid wooden door to his left.
Cutter knocked twice and then pulled it open without an invitation.
A hushed chatter, like the buzz of nervous insects, rolled out on a blue wall of cigarette smoke. Office chairs creaked and clattered as five teachers pushed away from a long conference table to turn and see who dared invade their private sanctum.
Cutter tipped his hat at the nearest teacher, a young man with a wide clip-on necktie and a Bobby Sherman haircut.
“Sheriff’s Office,” he said. “Wayne Cutter and this is—”
“LJ?” Clip-on Tie said.
Johnson gave a shy nod. “Mr. Stockwell.”
“Lord have mercy, it is you,” a woman in cat-eyed glasses looked up from a crossword puzzle at the far end of the room.
The conference table was piled with gradebooks, well-worn copies of the Reader’s Digest, and two glass ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts.
As far as Cutter could tell, the woman with the crossword was the only one without a cigarette in her hand.
Johnson snatched off his hat at the sight of her and held it to his chest. He shot Cutter a side-eye, as if to say, This is the one I was telling you about.
“Mrs. Blake,” he stammered.
“A deputy sheriff!” Charlotte Blake had the timeless look of a seasoned high school teacher. Thirty or fifty—it was impossible to tell. She pointed her pencil at Johnson and gave a little nod. “I always knew you’d amount to something good, Lafayette.”
Johnson’s face flushed. This was obviously not what he’d expected. Cutter stepped in before the kid got all weepy.
“We were told we could find Mrs. Shoemake here.”
A tallish woman in a beige polyester pantsuit spoke up from the other side of the long table.
Cutter guessed she was forty-five, maybe a little older, but that could have been the stress of her job.
A More cigarette bobbed in her mouth as she talked, the lipstick stain barely visible against the brown paper. “I’m Nancy Shoemake.”
During surprise contact with law enforcement, even the most civil folks often jokingly raised their hands in surrender or acted as if they were about to be handcuffed.
At the very least, the peanut gallery would titter and giggle with whispers of Oh, what did you do now, Nancy?
or Take her away, Sheriff.” These teachers were a sober lot, beaten down from a long day after a long year of more long days—and now robbed of their summer to be back in school.
The entire room fell quiet enough that Cutter imagined he could hear them blink.
He gave a nod to Johnson, who opened the case file and spun the folder around so Shoemake could study the sketch of Man Cub.
She hardly looked at it before she pushed it away. “He’s not a student at WHS.”
“Worth a try,” Johnson said,
“Oh, I know exactly who it is.” Shoemake parked the dark brown cigarette in the corner of her mouth and then snatched the folder back from Johnson as if she’d had second thoughts.
She opened it back to the sketch. “I’m new to Weatherford High, but I started as a counselor at the middle school in ’68.
This has to be Richard Pink.” She took a drag of her cigarette before folding her arms tight across her chest and blowing a jet of smoke through pursed lips toward the ceiling.
“He goes by Ricky Lee. Repeated the eighth grade—part of it, at least. Never made it to high school.”
Johnson glanced at Cutter, then back to the counselor. “I didn’t know dropping out of middle school was an option.”
“Richard Pink didn’t drop out of anything,” Shoemake said.
“We kicked him out. He was expelled. Last year, as a matter of fact.” She pulled back her hair and pointed to a four-inch scar that ran from her forehead down to her ear.
Her tone switched from detached to disgusted.
“I committed the unpardonable sin of asking the boy to tuck in his shirttail. For that he grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and beat the hell out of me. I’m damned lucky there was no axe or he would have hacked me to pieces.
I have never seen eyes packed so full of hate.
” She stubbed out her cigarette, grinding it hard, like she planned to drive it through the ashtray.
“Juvenile courts are a joke. That boy put me in the hospital, and the judge just turned him loose with a slap on the wrist.” She shook another cigarette out of her pack and lit it while she spoke, looking down the paper barrel at Cutter as if he were part of the problem.
“He was free before I was out of the hospital! Ricky Pink hits like a grown man, but he was only fourteen.”
Johnson said, “That means he’s only fifteen now?”
“Correct,” Shoemake said. “But I’m warning you, do not underestimate that boy just because he’s young.”
“This is extremely helpful,” Cutter said. “Would you be able to get us his contact information?”