Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

“I guess I need some help fro

m the principal. Extra help with my homework.” That was true enough, I suppose. “I need to talk with you a little about Vernon Wheatley, if that’s possible. I also wanted to get your okay to speak with some of the teachers again, to see if any of them heard anything from the kids after Vernon’s murder. Somebody might have seen something that would help us, even if they don’t think they did. Maybe something the kids heard their parents say.”

“Yes, I figured the same thing,” Mrs. Johnson said. “Somebody here at the school could have a clue, something useful, and might not know it.”

I liked everything I saw about Mrs. Johnson, but as soon as I saw it, I pushed it out of my mind. Wrong time, wrong place, and wrong woman. I’d done some questionable things in my life, and I’m no angel, but trying to fool with a married woman wasn’t going to be one of them.

“There’s not too much new to report, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ve been working a little overtime on your account. I grilled the teachers at lunch today. Interrogated them, actually. I told them that they should tell me if they heard or saw anything suspicious. They talk to me about most things. We have a pretty close-knit group here.”

“Are any of the teachers still here? I could talk to them now if they are. I don’t know this for sure, but I suspect the killer might have watched the school at some point,” I said to her. I didn’t want to frighten Mrs. Johnson or the other teachers, but I did want them on the alert and cautious. I believed that the killer probably had scouted the school.

She shook her head slowly back and forth. Then she cocked it softly to the left. She seemed to be looking at me in a new way. “Almost all of them are long gone by four. They like to leave together, if possible. Safety in numbers.”

“That makes a lot of sense to me. It isn’t a great neighborhood. Well, it is and it isn’t.”

“And being here at five or so, with a lot of unlocked doors, doesn’t make any kind of sense,” she said. It was what I had been thinking ever since I arrived at her office door.

I didn’t say anything, didn’t comment on the unlocked doors. Mrs. Johnson was certainly free to live her life in whatever way she chose. “Thanks for checking with the teachers for us,” I said to her. “Thanks for the overtime work.”

“No, thank you for coming by,” she said. “I’m sure this must be very hard for you and for Damon. For your whole family. It certainly is for all of us at the school.”

She finally took off the wire-rim glasses and slid them into the pocket of her work smock. She looked good with or without glasses.

Intelligent, nice, pretty.

Off-limits, out-of-bounds, off your radar charts, I reminded myself. I could almost feel a ruler rap across my knuckles.

Faster than I would have thought possible, she slid a snubnose .38 Special out of an open drawer on the right side of the desk. She didn’t point it in my direction, but she easily could have. Easily.

“I lived in this neighborhood for a lot of years,” she explained. Then she smiled and put the gun away. “I try to be prepared for whatever might happen,” she said calmly. “And shit does happen around here. I knew you were there in the doorway, Detective. The kids claim I have eyes in the back of my head. Actually, I do.”

She laughed again. I did like her laugh. Anyone with a pulse would. Say goodnight, Alex.

I had mixed feelings about civilians owning guns, but I was sure hers was registered and legal. “You learn to use that revolver in the neighborhood?” I asked.

“No, actually, I learned at the Remington Guns Club out in Fairfax. My husband was, is, worried about my coming to work here, too. You men seem to think alike. Sorry, sorry,” she said and smiled again. “I try to catch myself when even I say outrageous sexist things like that. I don’t like that. No how, no way. Sorry.”

She stood up and flicked off the Mac laptop on her desk. “I’ll walk you to the front door,” she said. “Make sure you get out safely, since it’s well after four.”

“That’s a good idea.” I went along with her little joke. She had me smiling some, anyway. That was pretty good, under the circumstances of the past few days. “Are you always this funny? This loose?”

She tilted her head again. It was something she did often. Then she nodded confidently. “Always. At least this funny. Those were my two vocational choices: comedienne or educator. Obviously, I chose comedienne. More laughs here. Honest laughs. Most days, anyway.”

The two of us walked down the deserted halls of the school together. Our footfalls made clapping sounds that echoed loudly. The “Shoop Shoop” song played inside my head, the tune she’d been humming in her office. There were lots more questions I wanted to ask her, but I knew I shouldn’t be asking some of them. They had nothing to do with the murder case.

When we got to the school’s front door, a husky, middle-aged security guard was there to let me out. He surprised me. I hadn’t seen him on my way in.

He had a thick wooden nightstick and a walkie-talkie. It was the look and feel of D.C. schools that I knew all too well. Guards, metal detectors, steel-mesh screens covering every window. No wonder the people of the neighborhood hate and fear all established institutions, even their own schools.

“Goodnight, sir,” the school guard said with a most congenial smile. “You be leaving soon, Mrs. Johnson?”

“Pretty soon,” she said. “You can go home if you want to, Lionel. I have my Uzi inside.”

Lionel laughed at her joke. She had very good delivery, good timing. I’ll bet she could have done some stand-up work if she’d wanted.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Johnson,” I said. I couldn’t help adding, “Please be careful until this case is over.”

She stood just inside the heavy wooden door. She looked so wise, and she was attractive, in my way of viewing the world. “It’s ‘Christine,’” she said, “and I will be careful. I promise. Thank you for stopping by.”