Together they got up and walked down the hall to the high school office. There they found a red-faced Kawalski standing in his doorway.
Henry was the first to speak. 'Mr. Kawalski, this is a police investigation. We cannot have you talking to any potential witnesses before we interview them. I am going to have to ask you not to talk to anybody about Mr. Makinen and to give me a list of names of all the people you have already spoken to.'
Kawalski erupted, 'I don't give a damn about your investigation! I fired that little prick last night and he still showed up for work today. He won't leave and I ordered him to.' His eruption sputtered to a stop as he finally realized who he was talking to and what he was saying.
Henry and Al glanced at each other, an opportunity! 'We'll talk to Mr. Makinen. Just remember, don't speak to anyone about him.' Henry took a step closer to Kawalski, making sure he was focused on what he was about to say. 'I will be stopping by after I talk to Makinen. I expect to have that list from you made out by then. Okay?' He waited until he got a nod.
Henry and Al left the office. 'Do you know which room Makinen is in?'
'Yes. My grandson had him a year ago. I picked my grandson up after school a couple of times from Makinen's room.'
'Do you think Kawalski blew our case?'
'We never had one. After this little escapade of his, we've got even less. We still have to go through an investigation, but we'll have nothing when we're finished.'
'What do you mean?'
'I know the girl, Makinen, Kawalski and Shermon. The only one who hasn't lied so far is Makinen and he hasn't said anything.'
'What do you mean?'
'Jenny Rossetti is a 'good time' girl. She never would have met Makinen after school to get help for her schoolwork. I asked my grandson. He doesn't think she is passing a single class. If she met Makinen after school, it was for something totally different. They still could have had sex, which is statutory rape because she is seventeen, but the whole first part of her story is wrong. Kawalski and Shermon are troublemakers. I don't know how they got the jobs they have but they are real bastards. Watch them carefully and you will see what I mean.'
He paused for his next thought. 'Makinen is on the edge. This thing with the girl doesn't sound right with him. He has been just hanging on since his wife left with his kids. Be careful with him. If he goes over the edge, he could be very dangerous.'
Gallea looked at Hakanen in shock. What in the world was he talking about? They continued down the empty hall in silence. When they came to Makinen's room, they found him with his head bowed, sitting at his desk. Henry motioned Gallea to back away from the doorway. Going back a few steps, he said in a loud voice, 'This is Makinen's room.' When they got to the doorway again, James was piling books on the desk. As they stepped into the room, Al seemed to catch a glimpse of something feral and lost in James' eyes. It scared him.
Again Henry started the conversation. 'Hi, Jim. Talked to Kawalski.'
There was a slight break in Makinen's voice, 'I know. I'm leaving. I told him I'm taking everything I own with me. You know he can't fire me. Suspend, yes. Fire, no.'
'I know, Jim. Could I help?'
James looked up in surprise and in gratitude replied, 'Yes.'
The two deputies helped take down posters and pile books. Hakanen asked, while taking down a poster, 'Jim, what are you going to do tonight?'
James paused and looked Henry straight in the face. 'The same thing I've done every night for the last six months, go home. Unless, of course, it is Wednesday or Saturday, sauna night at Dad's.'
It took awhile for Gallea to catch on to what was said. By the time Al caught up with what was happening, Makinen was sitting in front of his computer deleting programs and files. He was telling Henry, 'This school district is so cheap, I had to buy most of the programs I use in class.' James got up and picked up a stack of books with the computer still working in the background.
Gallea had to ask, 'What are you doing now?' nodding at the computer.
Makinen gave him a conspiratorial smile and said, 'I'm defragmenting the hard drive.' Seeing the confused look on Al's face, he continued. 'I deleted the main program files, resident programs, and data I owned on the hard drive, but with a utility you can bring back the files. You see, all that happens when a file is deleted is that the address is erased. The file will stay there until it is written over. Defragmenting a disk rewrites all the information on the disk drive and stores it at the end of the disk. That means all my files will probably be written over and cannot be used again.'
By the way James continued smiling, Gallea knew he had done more than what he said, but he had no idea what. He left the room with an armload of books, feeling that he had participated in something. It was the same feeling he'd had when he was in high school and he and his friends went out during Halloween to soap some doorknobs. Later in the day riding back to the station with Henry, he asked, 'What really happened with the computer files?'
Henry laughed, 'Just what he said. He just didn't tell you that the computer would probably have to have the system reloaded, which is a real pain. You see, a computer program that you buy is really a set of programs.
Jim just erased one of those programs. The remaining programs are just sitting in the machine and will probably start running the next time you turn the computer on, but without the whole set of programs, the computer will lock up and quit working. With what Jim did to the computer, the easiest thing for them to do will be to erase everything on the computer disk and reprogram it as if it was new.'
'Why did you let him do it?'
'He needed a break, a release. Besides, I owed him one. He did tell us where he was Tuesday night.'
* * * *
Kawalski gave the deputies the list of names. He left for home still fuming about the disrespect given him. Nobody had treated him the way the deputies and Makinen had since his first year in college. The rage simmered through the night. He planned his moves for tomorrow and savored the thoughts of what he would force Lori Waithe to do during tomorrow's follow-up review meeting in order to get her tenure. He packed in his briefcase duct tape, sex lubricant, an assortment of drugs, and a Polaroid camera. He had great plans for his meeting after classes with Lori. He knew that there were no meetings scheduled after school hours this Friday and that the janitors would be gone after six o'clock from the wing of the school he planned on bringing her to.
He squirmed uncomfortably in his car seat while driving to school Friday morning. His penis had hardened as he thought about his torturing of the girl. The irritation of the sensitive skin against the fabric of the pant leg and the thoughts of a possible stain caused the squirming.
Kawalski started the morning by visiting every teacher in his or her room. In double talk he'd spent the night rehearsing, he told them he wanted Makinen out and anyone who didn't help him get rid of Makinen would have their lives become a living hell. His years of intimidation and torture had honed his phrasing to an art form. What he didn't realize was that except for the few he was already blackmailing, his intimidation strengthened the resolve to oppose. An impromptu faculty meeting formed of its own accord at noon. A union rep from the State was called and plans were made to force him and Shermon
Kawalski's next stops were to the support staff. Here he met with greater success. All but one of the janitors buckled under his intimidation. When he was finished, he felt he had in place enough slander to easily justify Makinen's dismissal. His power assured, he went next to a personal attack on Makinen. He wanted Makinen to feel pain.
It was noon. Kawalski left the building. He walked down the street toward downtown. Halfway to the business district, he turned down an alley. He worked his way back toward the school building. Only a block and a half from the school behind the Lutheran church next to a dumpster, he found them, Pike Borland and his two strong-arm flunkies, John Whitefeather and Arne Johanson.
Pike was the slick 'pretty boy' who, in some high school classes, becomes the permanent class president. He personally introduced a dozen girls to sex and passed on ten of them to John and Arne before they could pull their panties up after he was done with them. He was never the best athlete but, somehow, always was mentioned first at the pep fests. He always arranged to make the final decision on the prom theme or the homecoming float. He took the credit for everything that worked and accepted none of the blame. If anyone had a problem with that, John and Arne were always there to change their minds.
