Pain Management

“Why should you, when you don’t like where I’m going? Look, Mr. Powell, this is a big school. And you’ve been here a while. You don’t seem like the kind of man who spends all his time pushing paper. You’ve got your ear to the ground. On top of that, the kids trust you. Some of them, anyway.”

“And you know all that how, exactly? Instinct?”

“More like experience. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years.”

“That’s just another way of spelling ‘generalization.’ “

“I’m a hunter. It’s no generalization to say that lions prefer crippled antelopes. They’re easier.”

“And you hunt teachers?”

“You know, I did hunt one, once,” I told him, keeping my tone conversational. “I knew he was a freak. I knew what he liked. I knew where he’d been, so I figured out where he’d be going.”

“I’m not sure I’m following . . .”

“This teacher, he never had a single complaint lodged against him in thirty years. But he quit three jobs. Pretty good jobs, near as I could tell. And moved on. Nobody at any of his old jobs had a bad word to say about him. So I took a look. My kind of look: a hard one. And what all the schools he left had in common was this: each one had banned corporal punishment. You understand what I’m saying, Mr. Powell?”

“I believe so.”

“Yeah? Well, let me spell it out for you, just in case. This guy was a child molester, but he never had sex with any of the kids. No, what he did was ‘punish’ them. That’s how he got his rocks off, paddling kids. Nothing illegal about it, in some schools. And every time one of the schools changed their policy, he’d just go someplace else. Where he could have his fun.”

“That’s sick.”

“I’m sure that’s what the teachers’ union would have said, if he’d ever gotten busted for what he was doing.”

“You don’t like teachers much, Mr. . . . Grange?”

“I like teachers fine. I don’t like freaks who hide behind authority to fuck with kids. Do you?”

“Look! I told you—”

“Hey, that’s all right,” I reassured him. “I’m sure, no matter who I ask around here, nobody tells me about one single teacher in the whole history of this school who ever had a thing for students. Not even a whisper of a rumor.”

“Rumors are pernicious,” he huffed, still offended.

“Thanks for your time,” I told him, getting to my feet.

“Sit down a minute,” he said. He got up, walked over to the door, and closed it. “You want me to level with you, that’s a two-way street.”

“The girl is missing,” I told him, flat out, no preamble. “Not a trace, not a clue. Disappeared. The cops have it marked as a runaway. The parents don’t think so. They hired me to see what I could find out.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what Principal McDuffy told me. That and to keep it quiet. There’s been nothing in the papers. . . .”

“And there’s not going to be, not for a while. The parents don’t want to . . . put on any pressure. If she was snatched, they’ll hear from the kidnappers. If she ran away of her own accord, they don’t want her to think they’re . . . hunting her. And if she’s already dead . . .”

“Dead? Where did that come from?”

“She’s gone, okay? When you work one of these cases and you’ve got a blank piece of paper in front of you for possibilities, ‘dead’ is one of the things you write on it.”

He leaned back in his chair, as if to put some distance between us. “What if there was the kind of teacher you were talking about here? Not the . . . one who liked to beat children . . . the . . . For the sake of argument, an English teacher who picked out a new girl—a budding poet—every year. Say everybody knew about it, but nobody ever said anything, because it doesn’t seem as if he ever got . . . sexual with students.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t want to argue abstractions with you. Especially since we’re only speaking theoretically here. But what if, say, you knew about this particular teacher, but you also knew he couldn’t possibly be connected to Rosebud?”

“And how would I . . . theoretically . . . know that?”

“Because he . . . this hypothetical individual . . . has a pattern. One a year, right through the next summer. And he’s still involved with someone. A graduated senior. Over eighteen.”

“Yeah. What if?”

“I’m trying to help out here. To the extent I feel comfortable doing so.”

“Much appreciated,” I said, getting up again. This time, he didn’t make any attempt to stop me. Or to shake hands.

“She was more studious than she was a student, if you understand my meaning,” the English teacher told me in the front room of his charming little cottage. I could hear sounds of another person coming from the kitchen, but nothing more specific.

“I’m a little slow, doc. Help me out.”

Reference to his Ph.D. seemed to transform him from nervous interviewee to pontificator. “Rosebud was very interested in the subject of creative writing, but not always so interested in the individual assignments.”

“Typical of a kid her age, right?”

“Not really,” he said, condescension hovering just above his voice. “Young people her age are much more mature in their decisions than a layman would expect.”

“Uh-huh. Well, is there anything you can tell me?”

“I think not,” he said, carefully. “I doubt I had a single conversation alone with her during the entire year.”

I sat silently, listening to the sounds from the kitchen. A drawer closing, a dish rattling against a counter, refrigerator opening . . . Whoever was in there wanted me to be certain I knew someone was.

“I know she was a vegan . . .” he finally said, once he realized I was too thick to know when I’d been dismissed.

“A . . . ?”

“A vegetarian, only more intense about it. And she loved old Jimmy Cagney movies.”

“Thanks. That could be a big help.”

I stood up to leave, then turned to him and said: “Tell me, who’s a friend of hers. Any friend.”

“I have no idea.”

“Sure you do,” I told him. “You never spoke to her, but you spoke to someone who knew her well enough to tell you about that vegan thing and the movies.”

“I . . .”

“You know what you said before? About some kids being a lot more mature than people would think? That’s especially true for girls, isn’t it?”

We both listened to the sounds coming from his kitchen. I looked in that direction, making sure he saw me do it.

Then he told me the friend’s name.

“I heard she took off,” the tall, rangy girl said, bouncing a basketball absently. We were standing together at the end of her driveway, the hoop on a stanchion nearer the garage.

“That’s what it seems like, Charmaine.”

“Well, if she did, I’m not going to help you find her.”

“If she took off for a good reason, I won’t bring her back,” I said.

The girl looked at me as if she was thinking about taking me to the hoop off her dribble. “I don’t know,” she said, thoughtfully.

“I’m not asking you to tell me anything,” I said softly. “Just to give her a message if”—I held up my hand to stop her from interrupting—“if she gets in touch. Okay?” When