Cutting Teeth(50)

“Erin’s name wasn’t really Erin Ollie. It was Erin Nierling. She changed it a year ago. No marriage, no divorce, no reason.”

Rhea waits.

“We know,” Bright says at last.

“You do?” Not that Rhea is altogether surprised. She wasn’t entirely sure whether it was common practice to run a background check on a victim; the internet seemed to give two different stories, especially about a victim like Erin Ollie. After all, Erin wasn’t the one being accused of a crime. But then, if they knew, shouldn’t they be following that lead, tracking down the reason why a twentysomething preschool teacher who looked like a former pageant queen would up and change her entire identity?

“We had to contact the family and we pulled her application at the school. The name change was listed. She handled the whole thing by the book, Rhea. To the letter. There’ve been no indications of domestic abuse or a stalker or anything of the sort in her past. She may just not have liked the name Nierling. We’ve been down that road. The question I have is, why have you?”

“I told you. I didn’t think she was a good teacher for Bodhi and the school wasn’t listening to me. I’m sure she was a kind, well-meaning young lady, but maybe she wasn’t meant to be a teacher at all, or not at this school.”

“Bad timing, though, wasn’t it?” Princep tuts.

“Terrible,” Rhea agrees.

“Especially,” Bright continues, “because Erin had already put in her notice.”

“What?” Rhea’s heart is wide-awake now, thumping around her insides.

“Erin informed the school that she’d be quitting,” Detective Bright lays out the facts in simple words that don’t make any sense to Rhea. “She wasn’t planning to finish out the school year.”

“You think that had something to do with me? I had no idea she was thinking about leaving. We didn’t have some big blowup. I never yelled at her; it wasn’t like that. I can promise you, if she were thinking about quitting, it wouldn’t have been because of anything I said.”

Would it? Rhea has replayed that day over and over again and now she’s learning she was missing one of the most crucial pieces of the puzzle this entire time. It’s unnerving to think of herself blowing into the school administration office—Mrs. Parker’s with a student right now—feeling like she was being given the runaround, feeling like she was being treated as less than. Would they have kept Darby waiting? How about Mary Beth? Do you want to leave a message with me? I can give it to her as soon as she’s finished, or you can wait?

You can tell her I want to meet with her about having Miss Ollie fired, by tomorrow, Rhea told her. And then because she’s a real woman who handles her own affairs, she left to tell Miss Ollie the same.

“I didn’t know she had one foot out the door.” Rhea tries to regain her equilibrium, but her mouth’s got other ideas. “I mean, obviously. Or else I never would have—”

“Do you have a history of violence, Ms. Anderson?” She watches Princep pinch his mouth around the question. And she fears the tendrils of heat that have begun to claw their way up her neck. White, hot, familiar.

Detective Bright clears her throat. “Rhea, we ran our own background check. On you.”





TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW OF WITNESS, ZEKE TOLBERT


APPEARANCES:


Detective Wanda Bright





PROCEEDINGS


DET. BRIGHT: Zeke, I’m curious, what kinds of activities do you do at school?

ZEKE TOLBERT: Wash hands, journal, playground, wash hands, snack, centers, clean up, circle time, lunch, activities, then the mommies come.

DET. BRIGHT: Is that the order that you do your activities every day?

ZEKE TOLBERT: What’s order mean?

DET. BRIGHT: Like a schedule. Do you always do wash hands then journal then playground or do you sometimes do playground then journal?

ZEKE TOLBERT: We always do wash hands first and then journal then playground. But I wasn’t the calendar helper.

DET. BRIGHT: Okay, so, then, let me make sure I get this straight. You washed hands, then did journal, then went to the playground, then washed your hands again, had a snack, did centers, cleaned up, circle time, lunch, activities.

ZEKE TOLBERT: No.

DET. BRIGHT: No what?

ZEKE TOLBERT: No, it was picture day. That’s different.

DET. BRIGHT: Oh, picture day. When was that?

ZEKE TOLBERT: Before chapel.

DET. BRIGHT: I’m sorry, so that day, you had picture day and chapel?

ZEKE TOLBERT: Yes.

DET. BRIGHT: Okay, got it. And during that busy day, when was the last time you remember seeing Miss Ollie?

ZEKE TOLBERT: When she took Lola to see Mrs. Parker.

DET. BRIGHT: Who is Mrs. Parker?

ZEKE TOLBERT: She’s the boss of us.

DET. BRIGHT: Why did Miss Ollie take Lola to see Mrs. Parker?

ZEKE TOLBERT: Because that’s where you go when you get in trouble.





TWENTY-ONE




The parents of Little Academy four-year-olds are completely fine. As in, they couldn’t be more fine. And that’s on the record.

Yes, this year is presenting a new set of challenges, but that’s also fine. Because isn’t the primary role of a parent to equip a child to deal with new challenges? To model appropriate emotional responses? To label their feelings in order to better deal with them?