From her perch on the sofa, Bright plants both her feet flat, shoulder-width apart, and leans her elbows on her knees as though she and Rhea are about to talk strategy for the big game. Rhea notices pale white patches of skin on the woman’s hands, the beginnings of vitiligo. “So far during our investigation, we’ve heard nothing but glowing praise about Miss Ollie as a teacher.”
“I’m not surprised,” answers Rhea.
“But I guess that’s not the whole picture,” continues Bright. “Because we understand that on the day she was murdered, you lodged an official complaint with the administration seeking her immediate termination.”
Rhea feels as though the oxygen is being sucked from the room. Of course they know, she tells herself. They were always going to know. There was not going to be a future in which the police didn’t find out. She prepared for this. At least that’s what she thought.
“I did, yes.”
“Why’s that?” Bright cocks her head.
Rhea unglues her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “She wasn’t the right fit for my son, Bodhi, and the school wouldn’t honor my request for a transfer.”
“So you tried to get her fired?” Bright feigns shock. Like that makes Rhea the bad guy.
“It was nothing personal. But there’s a line she didn’t seem to understand existed. She forgot she wasn’t the kids’ mother. Mothers should have the final say over how their children are raised, not teachers.”
Bright nods thoughtfully. “What about fathers?”
“What about them?” The question comes out sharp.
“Should they not get a say?”
“Parents. You know what I mean. Parents should get the final say. I’m a single mom, so that’s the way I think.” She eyes Princep.
Rhea’s mind cycles through her options, trying to decide just how much is prudent to say. The way Mary Beth had looked at her in the café the day that Bodhi was bitten, like she was being rash, too quick to jump to conclusions. But now she doesn’t have much of a choice. She’s got to make a move, now or never. “I found something out about Erin,” she says. “Just before she died.”
Bright gives Rhea the floor, as in great, tell us. In her own goddamn home.
“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.