20. Sofia & Isabel

"I'm still investigating. Do either of you remember the last time you saw the award on the table?"

"Two days ago?" Isabel said, turning to Sofia. "Didn't I work on the third floor two days ago?" She shivered and then crossed herself. "Ay, Dios Mio, murdered."

"Yes," Sofia responded. "Rosa was yesterday."

"I cleaned it two days ago," Isabel confirmed.

"Thank you," Hernández said, making a note. She looked up the empty hall and lowered her voice. "I think we all know that some people don't notice the ones who provide services for them. The help, right?"

Both women nodded.

"And because of that, you often hear and see things they don't intend anyone to know about. Secrets they'd rather keep hidden."

The women glanced at each other and reluctantly gave what could be construed as a nod.

"Now, if the dean was in fact helped down those stairs, it would have been by someone who was upset with him. Can you think of anyone who's been upset with Mr. Grimes? Or perhaps a time you saw him very angry himself?"

Sofia glanced over her shoulder and then leaned in to whisper. "The dean is always angry."

Isabel nodded.

"He's the disciplinarian of the school. These children—" Sofia stopped and shook her head.

Isabel patted Sofia's arm.

"Most are good kids," Sofia continued. "They can be bratty, but they're here, not home with their families, so we understand some brattiness." She paused when we heard someone walk by the bottom of the stairs.

"Others," Isabel continued, "I think were sent here because the parents didn't know what to do with them anymore."

Sofia took up the explanation. "They throw money at the school for the people here to raise their children. But these people aren't their parents. They're teachers and administrators, coaches. This is a job, and then they go home to their own families."

"They try," Isabel said. "The teachers work long hours to help any student who needs it, but they're not parents. And some kids are just…"

"Bad," Sofia finished.

"Yeah, but everyone coddles them because they don't want to deal with the rich, powerful parents who put them here. The dean is the one who upholds the rules. He gives the demerits. He calls the parents," Isabel explained.

Sophia took over again. "He and the headmaster fight a lot. The dean wants students punished for breaking rules. The headmaster wants them given more chances and ways to get out of trouble because he doesn't want to deal with angry parents. The dean calls to tell them what their child has done and what the consequences will be. Then they call the headmaster to yell and threaten that the consequences better go away or they'll pull their school funding and get him fired."

I interrupted. "Hi. I'm Arwyn. I'm a consultant for Detective Hernández. I had a question. When you say they threaten to pull funding, I don't understand. Don't they have to pay a tuition to have their student attend this school?"

Even though I'd been standing there the whole time, the women seemed nervous about responding to me.

Hernández must have noticed the same thing because she patted me on the shoulder and said, "Arwyn would never do or say anything to jeopardize your jobs."

They didn't look entirely convinced, but Sofia said, "Yes. They all pay tuition, but some parents contribute more for the building fund."

"The parents of students who get into trouble pay more to keep their kids here?" the detective asked.

Sofia shrugged. "We don't know who pays extra and who doesn't. We've just heard the threat to stop the extra money."

Hernández jotted down some notes and then used her pen to gesture up and down the halls. "What about the residences? Who's here nights and weekends with the students? The headmaster said about sixty percent of the student body boards here."

"The numbers change," Isabel said. "When I first started working here—almost twenty years ago—only, maybe, forty percent of the students lived on campus. Now, it's much more."

"The housemasters chaperone the students," Sophia said. "One male, one female. One lives at this end of the third floor. The other is at the far end."

"Good," Hernández said. "And their names?"

Sophia looked at Isabel, her brows furrowed. Isabel shrugged.

"In this school, they call each other their job title," Sophia explained.

"The teachers use names," Isabel added.

"Downstairs, the teachers and administrators have plaques by their doors," Sophia said. "Like Headmaster, Mr. Whitmore. We clean those so we get to know everyone's name and where their rooms are."

"Up here," Isabel continued, "it just says Housemaster by the door."

Isabel tapped a finger over her lip and stared down the far end of the hall. "I think I heard a student call the woman Ms. Collins, but I'm not sure. The man is new. He's only been here for maybe a month. Mr. Reed, though, he worked here almost as long as me. He just retired, said he wanted out before finals because exam weeks were always crazy in the residence." She shook her head. "The things the kids get up to, trying to cheat their way into better last-minute grades."

"Do you remember Mr. Reed's first name?" the detective asked.

"Harold," Isabel said.

Hernández made more notes. "Back to the dean. Did you see or hear him argue with anyone in the school beside the headmaster?"

"There'd be too many to count," Sofia said. "He just ran angry."

"Not with us," Isabel clarified.

"No." Sofia shook her head. "Some can be very high and mighty."

"Blaming us for dumping the garbage because they'd accidentally thrown something out they needed," Isabel said. She elbowed Sofia. "Remember Dr. Marcel? He told me to go get in the dumpster to find his computer thing."

"Thumb drive," Sofia said. "It was the dean who told him to jump in the dumpster if he needed it so badly, that it wasn't Isabel's job to fix his mistakes."

Isabel nodded. "Then the dean dismissed me and stayed to deal with Dr. Marcel's screaming. I really appreciated that."

"Like you said before," Sofia said to Hernández, "a lot of them ignore us. We go in, clean, and leave, and they never look up from their work. Others, though, will stop what they're doing to ask how my day's been, how my kids are doing, what my plans are for break. There are a lot of good people who work here, but not all."

"That sounds like just about any job," Hernández said, and both women nodded.

There was a buzz and they both looked at the bands around their left wrists. "Sorry," Sofia said. "It's the headmaster. We need to get back to work."

"Of course," Hernández said, pulling business cards out of the inside pocket of her blazer. "I don't want to get either of you in trouble. Thank you so much for speaking with me. If you think of anything—anything at all—that might help my investigation, please contact me. Okay?"

They both studied the cards, nodded, and slipped them into their pockets.

"It was nice meeting you," I said.

Sofia smiled but Isabel gave me a wary look before they both hurried off down the long hall.

"Let's head out. I've already kept you longer than I intended," Hernández said, letting me go first down the stairs while she tied together the ends of the police tape I'd snapped.

On the drive home, I rolled down the window. It was a beautiful warm day, and I was very happy to be out of that building. "So, do you think you'll get to handcuff the headmaster after all?"

The corner of her mouth kicked up. "I'll look into it, but he doesn't strike me as someone who wants to invite scandal into his precious school. Firing the dean gets the job done."

"If he's allowed to fire him," I said. "Schools like this have boards or trustees or something. It may not be his call to can the dean."

"I'll look into that too. I also really want to talk to Mr. Reed. He's no longer affiliated with the school and worked there going on twenty years. Hopefully, he can tell me about the power dynamics in the school: grudges, scandals, affairs, bribes. All the things that make people kill."

"And that building fund," I added. "What were they really paying for? In the vision, the killer was arguing on behalf of a student the dean was suspending for plagiarism."

Hernández shook her head. "I've got so much bouncing around up there, I forgot to ask you what you saw. Can you run through it for me?"

I did and she pulled over to take a few more notes.

"The dean said, You should know that better than anyone. Is that right?"

"Yup." I checked the time on my phone and groaned internally. This was taking way too much of the day. I also had a missed call from my mother. Maybe she had the fingerprints for me.

"Odd phrasing, don't you think?" she asked.

"Yes. He was dismissive of the person—who feels male—that he was talking to. But from what Sofia and Isabel said, he was a pretty cranky guy. The fact that he wasn't rude to the cleaning staff, and instead defended them, makes me think well of him."

Hernández nodded. "Can you imagine working at a place where every time you busted a kid for doing stupid kid stuff, instead of saying sorry, they hit you with, Do you know who my father is? You could not pay me enough. If I had that job, I'd be pretty cranky too."

She turned off the long road from the school and buildings began to pop up again. "Tutoring. Do teachers tutor on the side to make extra money or was this not a teacher? I need to find out who the new housemaster is, see if he also tutors. You keep seeing that corridor and they said the male housemaster's room was down there."

"In the vision, the killer attacked when the dean refused to listen. He was on his way to call parents. So, was the point of the killing to keep the dean from talking to a parent? To keep the kid from getting in trouble? The dean might be gone, but the teacher who discovered the plagiarism is still there. Killing the dean doesn't make the cheating disappear." I had a horrible thought. "Then again, we have a dead teacher too."

"We do. I'll talk with Arthur, see if we can find a connection beyond working at the same school." Hernández tapped a finger on the steering wheel, thinking. "These places are seen as a pipeline to the Ivy League. We hear about parents and schools doing shady stuff to make sure junior gets into his school of choice. Grease the right palms, do well on the right tests, their future is set."

I nodded, considering. "And paying people to take those tests and ace them for you is not unheard of. Maybe that was what the tutor was freaking out about. He wasn't tutoring. He was writing the paper, for a fee, and he screwed up and plagiarized. Can't have Daddy know the money he spent for an A ended up getting the kid an F. That's going to screw up his transcript."

"Hmm." She put on her sunglasses. "I like that. Another avenue to investigate."

"Will they let you, or will they shut it down?"

"I have enough. I can convince my captain to keep working. After I drop you off, I'll head to the coroner. I need them to confirm blunt force trauma that's inconsistent with a fall. We'll see."