Haunted (Michael Bennett 10)

Across the street from the building, the elevated train tracks provided shade for people who got in early and found a parking spot. The regular 1 train rattled the front of the building. I still appreciated walking in the doors that early Tuesday morning.

The sergeant let me come back the day after my stitches came out. Although he was usually terse, he met me in the hallway near the front door that day and spent a long time talking with me to make sure my head was screwed on straight. Once he was satisfied, he told me about a recent homicide. A high school kid. Just fifteen years old. The details were horrendous and included torture and decapitation. The crime-scene photos made it worse. Seeing the headless torso wearing a lacrosse jersey put a personal touch on the grisly scene. Two fingers on his left hand were missing, and blood smeared the palm. This was the kind of stuff I never mentioned to Mary Catherine.

I stared at the sergeant and finally said, “How’s this not all over the news?”

“We reported it as a random attack with few details to keep the media quiet and allow us to talk to as many people as possible before something leaked out. That’s one of the things I need you to help us on. I want you to head out to the high school he attended and see what you

can find out. Kids are much more likely to talk about it if they think it was a random attack rather than some kind of targeted brutal slaying. I want us to get a handle on this as quickly as possible.”

“I didn’t know we could fudge the facts to the media.”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

“The truth is usually the best course. Even if it terrifies people.”

“This comes from the mayor’s office. He thinks it could cause an all-out panic. They’re afraid it might even hurt tourism.”

“God forbid.” I shook my head. “It might produce leads, too.”

“Stories like this usually are just a distraction to the investigation.”

He was right. I took the file and got to work. Every detective on the squad seemed to have a piece of it. I wasted no time heading down to the high school, which was north of Holy Name.

The cover story we were using was that the student, Gary Mule, had been the victim of a random knifing. I had to find out what a fifteen-year-old could do to deserve something like this in a psychotic’s mind.

P.S. 419 didn’t resemble Holy Name. It had no playgrounds or anything that felt kidlike. It could’ve been a jail. It could be considered in the same neighborhood as Holy Name, although it was a good walk from my kids’ school. It had the standard New York City public school facade: five-story brick exterior and a lone entrance where parents could drop the kids off and pick them up. My guess was that a lot of the kids at the school were on their own when it came to transportation.

The school bucked the trend—it didn’t have a name like School for Future Leaders. I’d prefer to see honesty in naming schools. Maybe something like School for Disaffected Youth.

Security had certainly changed since I was a kid. I had to show my police ID to a camera before someone in the office buzzed me through a steel gate. There was even a full-time police officer assigned to the school. But that’s not who met me in the hallway before I reached the office.

An officious assistant principal in a surprisingly tight dress and anything but a schoolmarm air approached me.

“Detective Bennett?” the attractive fortysomething woman asked.

“And you are?”

“Toni DiPetro. I’ll be your contact for everything related to this incident.”

“And why wouldn’t Officer Chapman help me?”

“The school board thought it was best if I lead you through the hallway and emphasize that we’re attempting to keep this off the radar for as long as possible.”

As we strolled the hallways, I asked general questions about problems they’d had on campus. I also noticed that none of the kids paid any attention to us. Even when the classes changed, they floated around us like we didn’t exist.

I finally found a quiet area where I could start asking more pointed questions. “Miss DiPetro.”

“Please—call me Toni.”

“Okay, Toni. Has any of the faculty expressed any theories about why something like this would happen to a student? Because I gotta tell you, I’ve been doing this a number of years, and this shocks even me.”

“Do you work much in the public school system?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I think if you did, you might not be shocked by it. Teachers are expected to do more and more, and much of the parenting authority has been ceded to us by the parents. In the media they call it teacher accountability, but really it’s a lack of parent accountability. There’s no respect anymore. I’m afraid I find the violence in this case shocking but not exactly the murder itself. Does that make sense?”

She had a cute way of raising her voice at the end of sentences, like she was asking questions rather than making statements.