Penny Legend Read online

  “I have tried but he won’t talk. My purpose here today is simply to tell you that we may need to hold him back.”

  I could see she was staying on message and wasn’t prepared to engage in solving the problem. Whatever happened to No Child Left Behind? They needed to change the name to “Some Children Left Behind.” How could the school keep this smart kid from advancing to the next grade?

  “I’ll talk to the principal,” I said. The sound of an incoming herd of kids filled the hallway outside the classroom door. I stood to leave.

  “You can make an appointment at the front office on your way out.”

  Desiree was right. Nobody was going out of their way for one little black boy.

  That evening Will and I decided we would eat on Beacon Hill after a walk on the Esplanade along the Charles. It was breezy and the stretch of the river near Community Boating was packed with sailboats.

  We walked down to the docks and sat for a while watching kayaks, sailboats, and sculls. We walked on, holding hands just like those couples I’d watched so enviously on Saturday when Will and I were fighting.

  We stopped at the Stoneman Playground, almost to Mass. Ave. The beautiful weather had brought out a lot of families and we sat to watch kids play.

  “You know,” Will said, “I really loved having you in Madison.”

  Before I could think how to respond, he continued. “Everything seemed complete with us together, and I’ve been thinking. I think this is finally our time. We’ve loved each other through all sorts of changes for almost fifteen years.”

  He’d turned toward me on bench, and I toward him. He was looking at me with such tenderness that my heart sped up a little. I glanced at the children. A little girl was pushing an empty swing, doing a little jump every time she sent it off successfully.

  I looked at Will. He was holding a ring box. He opened it. “This was my grandmother’s diamond. I had it reset in fair trade platinum.”

  The previous winter I’d gotten embroiled with a client whose family was in the jewelry industry. I’d learned too much about violence in mining and production of gems and precious metals. Will was a pretty traditional guy in a lot of ways and I was touched by his solution to my sensitivity.

  I took the ring from the box and looked at it. It was simple and beautiful. Will knew my taste.

  I looked back at the children. The proposal wasn’t a surprise. I hadn’t known when it was coming, but I knew it was. Part of me wanted it, wanted to be wanted. Part of me didn’t want to be faced with the decision because I didn’t know my answer.

  I turned back to Will. “I don’t know. I love you but I don’t know.”

  Disappointment flooded his face. “Help me understand?”

  “I’m not sure I understand myself, but look at my life. Look at the hours I work and just a few months ago I got myself into serious danger. I don’t know if I’m the wife and mother type right now. I’m worried I’d fail at it.”

  “It would be different in Madison. You could work or not work. It’s up to you. It would be safe and stable. I know you want kids and so do I—with you.”

  I felt tears pushing behind my eyes and I wanted time to think. I wanted to enjoy the evening on the esplanade. I wanted to know what I wanted!

  “Think about it,” he said, and took the ring and held it for me to put on.

  I let him slide it onto my finger. “I will. I’m sorry I’m such an idiot, Will. Any woman in her right mind would jump at the chance to marry you. You’re the best man ever and I really do love you.”

  “That sounds promising,” he said. He stood and took my hand and we walked back toward Charles Street.

  I had to visit Desiree because Conner could easily see the visitation record and I had to play along at least a little. But I wasn’t going to try to scare her into telling me anything. I picked up some of Legend’s graded homework sheets from Maggie after calling to ask her to pick out some of the best work he’d done so I could share it with Desiree. I had to turn it in at the visitor center to be approved, which lengthened my wait. The visitors’ waiting area is not an optimism-inspiring place. There was an extremely overweight bedraggled mom rocking the car seat of a screaming infant with her foot, a ratty-looking teenage boy typing on his phone, and a chicken-skinned old man talking to himself and rocking front and back in his chair.

  When they finally called me in they gave me the school papers and I found Desiree waiting at a table.

  “Why you here without Legend?”

  “He’s at school and I wanted to talk to you about school. I brought some of his work to show you. I know you must miss seeing what he brings home and hearing about his day and stuff.”

  “He doing okay?”

  “I think so. Well, his teacher did call. I met with her yesterday.”

  “Oh no.” The corners of her mouth turned down.

  “You were right. I feel like they aren’t putting a lot of effort into supporting him. They’re worried about his assessment since he isn’t talking and said they may need to hold him back because they don’t have the test scores to pass him.”

  “Oh my Lord. You see? You see? They take the first chance to knock a black boy down. I hope you schooled that teacher on how it should be.”

  “I didn’t want to make her too mad, but I made an appointment with the principal because I wasn’t able to get any headway with her. I’ll do everything I can to fix this. Look. His work is good.” I handed her the papers. One was a science worksheet and the other math. He scored perfect on one and eighty percent on the other.

  “He a smart boy! How they overlook him like that!”

  “I know you must feel helpless in here, but I promise I’ll keep advocating for him and I’ll work with him to keep his self-esteem high. He is smart and thoughtful and sweet. He’s a super good kid. I tell him that all the time.”

  “When you meet with the principal?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “You call me.”

  “I will.”

  Gloria and I went to the local wine bar for drink and a bite early that evening while Will was at a Red Sox game. I caught her up on what was happening with Legend.

  “Do they know who killed the guy?”

  “Nah. I don’t think they have a clue. They’re more interested in chasing the drug dealing than the murder anyway.”

  “What did he deal?”

  I explained about the prescription drugs and what Conner had told me about the different ways dealers get their hands on them.

  “So if I had a prescription for Xanax or something I could sell it?”

  “You could, although I guess you’d need to know who to sell it to. Would you know who to sell it to?” I chuckled. Gloria the queen of aromatherapy selling drugs was a bizarre notion.

  “You know I don’t. So, okay, I sell my little bottle of Xanax to that guy…”

  “James.”

  “To James. So I probably paid a twenty-dollar copay for the prescription and maybe there are twenty pills in there so if I’m selling it I’ll want at least forty bucks. Now the pills are worth two dollars each.”

  I sipped my wine and watched Gloria proceed down the path. I’d done a little internet research out of my own curiosity.

  “So James can sell them for what, five bucks each? His profit comes three dollars at a time in illicit sales? And he’d need a lot of people like me to get the inventory!”

  “I don’t get the business model,” I said, “but there are other ways to get more inventory—working with a corrupt doctor or a med tech or someone with access to prescription pads.”

  “Prescription pads. Yeah.”

  “So James’s extra girlfriend, Tasha, works in some sort of medical facility and the Detective—Conner—is interested in her as a suspect. But you know, I keep thinking about this doctor, a guy I took Legend to see about his asthma. He clearly knew James, and he seemed really nervous when I told him James had been killed.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

>   Conner was working on tracking the drugs. He was convinced that James was getting them from multiple small sources, because he couldn’t make any link to a bigger dealer and the drugs recovered from Desiree’s apartment suggested that they were coming from multiple places: small quantities of a few different things, different potencies, etc.

  He told me all this in my office on another uninvited visit.

  “I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” I said. “I’m just here to support Legend, remember?” I was getting really irritated with him. He showed up unannounced, tried to get me to do his bidding, and didn’t take no for an answer. Plus he was cute, and had tiny moments when he seemed to care about more than making an arrest, and that confused me. I was happy disliking him and that was easier when he wasn’t in my office.

  “Because you’ve met Tasha and Gabe and Desiree and they know your job is to support Legend. And yes, I do know that too.”

  “Look, I’ve helped you enough.” I told him about my visit to Desiree. He was clearly less than satisfied.

  “Well, I need more help. I’ve interviewed everyone, but they just bullshit me.”

  “Yeah.” Duh.

  “I want you to talk to Tasha. Tell her you think Martel might have been involved in James’s death and you want to know what she knows.”

  “What?”

  “I need to see if she’ll give anything away by trying to make Martel look bad. You’ll just give her the opening to do that. I’ll have you wired to record your conversation.”

  “That’s stupid. I’m not doing it. Why would I be snooping around into how James died?”

  “Because you want Legend to be safe. She doesn’t know Legend still doesn’t talk. You could imply he said something, and you are trying to figure out how to help him but he’s confused, and you want to understand the real story.”

  “No.” I stood. He didn’t. I shifted my weight side to side. He stared at me. I felt stupid standing there so I walked to the window. He watched me. “No,” I repeated.

  I stood at the window, arms folded across my chest, biting my tongue. But not for long. “No. No I won’t, no you won’t. Now leave.” I turned to find him close and stepping in. He reached one hand around the small of my back, pulled me to him, and kissed me hard but not too hard. He wrapped the other arm around me. I realized I was kissing back. I felt my body slacken in the support of his arms. He smelled like clean sweat and redwood forest. I pulled back, put my hands on his chest. Oh, there was a lot of nice solid chest there for my hands—and I pushed him away. When he stepped back he looked a little surprised but put on the wry smile to cover.

  “Talk soon,” was all he said, and he left.

  I had a five o’clock appointment with the school principal on Thursday. Parents were parking and double parking at odd angles, jumping out of cars to grab their kids before they passed the hour mark and were charged for another half hour of after-care. They were towing kids out the front door, parent on cell phone, dragging kid, dragging backpack.

  Mr. Towers was thin and young. He was dressed in what struck me as Silicon Valley office casual: dressy jeans with a lavender button-down shirt and a blue windowpane plaid vest. His desk was completely clear save for his MacBook and a picture of his smiling family facing out.

  “Jason Towers,” he said, rounding his desk and jutting out his hand. “I understand that you’re the case worker for Legend Harris, and I’ve cleared all the hurdles to be able to speak with you about his situation.”

  “Great.”

  “I understand you spoke with Mrs. Horton already. You see our teachers do an enormous amount with a very small amount of bandwidth.”

  The small bandwidth part seemed true at least. I waited. I was dying to see what all would come out of this guy’s mouth. I was still standing near the doorway and he perched on the front of his desk. He didn’t ask me to sit.

  “You know the state takes the issue of testing very seriously and there has been a lot of progress on tracking performance over recent years. For a child Legend’s age we use a variety of assessment methodologies, many of which rely on verbal performance. Test results are most accurate if we can triangulate across these assessments.”

  He looked at me like he was trying to figure out if I knew all the words he was using.

  I said, “Uh-huh.”

  “Legend has been a solid student; however, we don’t have a lot of flexibility about reporting scores and with a child this age we can’t rely any more heavily on written work than we already do. It’s simply impossible to assess his knowledge acquisition given that he is completely nonverbal.” He paused and regarded me with a little geek squint. “I’m sure you understand.”

  I smiled a mild little smile. I was getting into my role as the dumb social worker who would be enlightened by the smart young principal. “I’m not sure I do,” I said, holding the smile and cocking my head demurely.

  “Well, in order for us to pass a student to the next grade we need to be able to accurately document progress. I understand that Legend has been through some significant trauma and we have reason to suspect that it may have tied up a lot of cognitive capacity for him, which, of course, would be completely understandable under the circumstances.”

  “You think he hasn’t been learning?”

  “We can’t know for certain, Ms. Wade, that’s what I’m trying to say. We need to be certain.” He stood from his desk perch and walked around his desk and took a file out of a standing file holder on the credenza behind the desk. He set it on the desk and flipped it open. “We are missing significant portions of three of Legend’s subject assessments.”

  “May I please see his report card from last semester and his midterm assessment from this semester?”

  He handed me both. Legend had all A’s the previous semester and his midterm report showed him on track to do the same this semester.

  “What would it take for Legend to get these midterm A’s down to F’s in the weeks since midterm?”

  “Well, I’m afraid that question is a bit granular for me in terms of the proportion of the assessed work that falls into each portion of the semester.”

  “Ballpark it.”

  “Probably failing grades in the lion’s share of the work.”

  “Please show me the grades for the assessment portions that have been completed.”

  He handed me another sheet, this one with some grades and some handwritten notes about incomplete tests. His grades on the assessed work were A’s and B’s.

  “Is this not sufficient evidence that he is acquiring knowledge, sir? Does it not indicate that his cognitive capacity, or at least the lions’s share of it, is intact?”

  “Well—”

  “No.” It was my turn to talk. “I don’t want to hear about the evidence you don’t have. I want this conversation to turn to the evidence you do have and the resources you plan to provide to support this child. You haven’t told me a single thing about what this school has done to try to support Legend. Why isn’t he receiving learning support? A specialist could help your teacher figure out how to assess Legend if these test scores are so critical to the future of mankind. But more importantly, someone should be helping him to demonstrate his learning so that his self-esteem can be preserved during a difficult emotional time. He is smart. He has always been smart and you all have failed to see it or failed to value it.” He’d retreated to the credenza and was leaning there now.

  “I told his mother I would look out for his education and make sure he wasn’t being ignored or treated as a second-class citizen. That’s what I’m here to do. If you fail to provide him with learning support, I will make sure my agency and the foster agency both communicate with the superintendent on the issue.”

  “Ms. Wade, there are only fifteen school days remaining in the academic year.”

  “So you really need to hurry, Mr. Towers.” I turned and left.

  I practically ran out of the school. I wished I had worn stompier shoes
because it would feel good to kick and scuff and stomp my way down the sidewalk. I stomped a little anyway because if I didn’t send the anger out through my feet, it might come out through my mouth. I kicked a chunk of gravel down the sidewalk and looked up only when I bumped into a heavyish woman with bright orange hair.

  “Oh!” she yelped in a complaining tone, as if I’d actually flattened her substantial self. I’d regained my balance and was about to move on when it hit me. Tasha.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I replied, irritation dripping from my voice.

  “I’m picking up my daughter.” She moved her head side to side and put a hand on her hip, certain she’d one-upped my right to walk across a school sidewalk.

  “Well, I’m leaving,” I said.

  “Hang on.” Her tone softened just a little. “I heard Legend isn’t talking. Is that true?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss a client,” I said. Why did she care? Unless…

  “Is there something you’re glad he’s not saying?” I asked.

  “Oh, I can’t care about the kid? You have a problem with me asking about the kid? I’m a mother, you know, something you don’t seem to know anything about.”

  Goddamn self-righteous mothers. What, failing with birth control somehow means you get holier-than-thou status? “I know about how to create healthy environments for kids and I know they don’t involve sleeping with drug dealers who are cheating on their live-in girlfriends.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, you are one nosy judgmental bitch and you should shut the fuck up.”

  “Nice language. Is that what you’re teaching your daughter? You’re some kind of role model for her, huh?”

  Her eyes went wide and before I knew what was happening she slapped me across the face. I gaped at her, shocked, and it was clear from her smug expression that she was thrilled.

  I took a step forward and shoved her. She fell backwards and was caught by a dad who had been trying to hustle his two little kids past our scene. Once righted she lunged for me. I dodged, but she still grazed me, bumping my right shoulder hard. Damn little girly shoes.