The Principal Cause of Death (Stonewall Inn Mysteries) - Softcover

1

Outside my classroom windows, red and gold autumn leaves danced and swayed against the backdrop of magically clear blue skies. Even the aged panes, unwashed by countless janitors, couldn't keep out the glory of the afternoon. Water seeped around the warped and sagging sashes whenever it rained. After each blast of a storm, I expected to find glass strewn across the floor, but over the years they'd held. The day outside sparkled through them.

Fifth period, lunch just over, the quiet murmurs of education drifted through the hallways of Grover Cleveland High School. I leaned over Dennis Olsen's desk, for the fifteenth attempt since school began to convince him that capital letters did indeed come at the beginning of every sentence. I dipped deep into my reservoir of teacher patience and began to explain again.

This was Life Skills English class, which means, Make sure they can sign their name and count their change but don't expect much more. I had higher expectations. I wanted them to be able to read and fill out forms, balance a checkbook, and perhaps acquire another skill or two. I knew I couldn't turn them into nuclear scientists, but I wanted more than bare literacy.

Dan Bluefield banged open the classroom door, pushed his way down the aisle toward me, and thrust his pass in my direction. "Here, Mr. Mason," he said.

An inch before my fingers touched it, he let the piece of paper drop to the floor. He turned on his heel, shoved a kid out of a desk, and sat down.

Grover Cleveland High School has had problem kids over the years, and eventually I got most of them in this class.

Dan Bluefield was the toughest kid I'd tried to teach since Dennis Rogers fourteen years ago. Among Dennis's many achievements at Grover Cleveland: biting off the tip of a kid's finger; attempting to set fire to the gym; and attacking and wounding three teachers. Dennis earned straight F's in my class, managing to be disruptive, abusive, and rude. He'd made my days a living hell. I sighed with relief every time I saw his name on the absence list. I cheered for joy whenever they announced an assembly during the period I was supposed to have him in class. Last I heard, he was serving eight to ten years for armed robbery somewhere in Texas.

Dan Bluefield made Dennis look like an angelic first-grader. Parents, teachers, police, and a variety of state agencies had been trying to cope with him for years.

To his dubious credit, Steve Bailey, the kid who Dan shoved out of the chair, tried to punch back. Dan was six feet tall, thin, and wiry. Steve only came up to his shoulder. Without standing up, Dan gave Steve a powerful shove. Steve tumbled over several desks and fell to his knees. I got between them and restrained an enraged Steve.

"Dean's office," I said to Dan.

"Just came from there," he sneered.

At that moment I hated him more than anything in the universe. Hassling me was one thing; hurting other kids in my class was not going to happen as long as I was able to stop it. If I had wizard's powers, I'd have fried Dan on the spot. I wanted to take his sneers, smirks, and stupidity and beat the living shit out of him, but eighteen years of patience and training won out, and I said, "Dan, you have to go to the dean's office. You know you can't assault students."

He smirked, "I didn't assault him. He was in the way. I just asked him to move."

The other kids in the class watched the confrontation. For them this was great entertainment. No matter what happened, I knew they'd be on Dan's side. Didn't make any difference who was right or how many times Dan had made them miserable. One of the verities of the teaching world is that the students will take the kid's side versus the teacher. You cannot win a confrontation with kids. You can flatter your ego that you got the best of them, but you can't beat them.

The snotty little creep still sat in the desk he'd evicted Steve from. With both hands I grabbed the top of the desk. My knuckles turned white and I felt the desktop wobble. The desks were forty years old and years of seating teenagers made them treacherous at times. Last year one had collapsed under the minuscule weight of a scrawny freshman.

With my face an inch from his, I said, "Get out. Now. I, for one, am sick to death of putting up with you."

He laughed at me. He knew I wouldn't hit him. All the rules forbade hitting students, and ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, I agreed with those rules.

I put more pressure on the old wooden desktop. It gave a groan and snapped in two. Dan jumped up and eyed me warily, edging toward the door. Grasping a piece of desk top in each hand, I advanced toward him. Dan snarled and spat, sent another kid and desk sprawling, and stormed toward the exit. His parting shot just before he slammed the door was "Fuck you, faggot."

I strode to the intercom and called the office to let them know they had to be on the lookout for Dan.

Very little education got done for the fifteen minutes left in the period. I'd surprised myself with the towering anger I'd felt and how much I'd wanted to hurt the kid.

Class ended, the kids left, and I sat at my desk, staring out the window. I watched the breeze play with the undropped leaves as dappled sunlight created shifting patternson desktops, chalkboard, and floor. In two weeks Scott and I would be among the glorious fall colors in the woods in our cabin on Lake Superior. I gazed at a group of kids, dressed for PE class, trotting under the trees on their way to the athletic fields beyond.

The perfect weather couldn't prevent me from getting angrier and more frustrated. Fifteen minutes of planning-period time passed before I gave up trying to get any work done. I walked down the ancient and worn halls to the library. Small knots of students worked silently at the tables. I found Meg Swarthmore, the librarian, at the front desk.

"What's wrong, Tom?" she said as soon as she saw me.

I motioned her into the office behind the desk. We could talk in privacy, but she could still keep an eye on her charges through the glass in the door.

At sixty-six Meg is semiretired, working flexible hours, setting her own schedule. She used to be the ultimate clearinghouse for all school gossip, but she's given that up as well. "Too many hassles with the younger teachers" is the way she put it to me. She's a tiny woman, not much over five feet tall, and plump in a grandmotherly way.

I told her what just happened, including how badly I wanted to hurt Bluefield.

"You're human," she said. "You've done wonders with some of these kids in the past. You will in the future. Why should you be immune from wanting to flatten the little creep into tiny pieces? Every teacher he's had since the first grade has wanted to do the same." She told me about an episode when Dan was in the fifth grade. Meg'd been working for a few days in the elementary-school library, filling in for a sick coworker.

"Bluefield tried to glue a stack of books together. I told him to stop. He wouldn't. When I reached to take the books away from him, he tried to slap me. I was too quick for him. I held his arm, and when he couldn't get away, he tried to throw a fit. You know how sympathetic I am to that kind of nonsense."

Meg was tough. I'd seen her cow the 250-pound starting center on the football team. She never touched the kid, but she backed him up against his locker and let him have it, all in a calm near-whisper. The boy was in tears before she let him go.

She sighed. "Must have been seven years ago that I had my run-in with him. I almost got in trouble for restraining the little monster."

"You never told...