F Is for Fugitive

errand to run and then I'll pop by."
    "Good. Meanwhile, I'll check and see if any of the staff have information to contribute."
    "Thanks," I said.
    As he took off, I turned to find Ann right behind me. She seemed surprised to see him pull away. "He's not coming in?"
    "I think he had to get back to the school. I just ran into him over at Joleen Granger's. How's your father?"
    Reluctantly, Ann's gaze flicked back to my face. "About what you'd expect. Cancer's spread to his lungs, liver, and spleen. They're saying now he probably has less than a month."
    "How's he taking it?"
    "Poorly. I thought he'd made his peace, but he seemed real upset. He wants to talk to you."
    My heart sank. It was the last thing I needed, a conversation with the doomed. "I'll try to get up there sometime this afternoon."

Chapter 15
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    I sat in the vestibule outside Dwight Shales's office, variously picking my way through the papers in Jean Timberlake's school file and eavesdropping on an outraged senior girl who'd been caught in the restroom shampooing her hair. Apparently the drill in disciplinary matters was for the culprit to use the pay phone in the school office to notify the appropriate parent about the nature of the offense.
    "... Well, guy, Mom. How was I to know? I mean, big fuckin' deal," she said. "... Because I didn't have time! Guuuyyy... Well, nobody ever told me... It's a fuckin' free country. All I did was wash my hair!... I did noooot... I'm not smarting off! Yeah, well, you have a big mouth, too." Her tone shifted here from exasperation to extreme martyrdom, voice sliding up and down the scale. "Okaaay! I said, okay. Oh, right, Mom. God... Why'n't you ground me for life. Right. Oh, rilly, I'm sure. Fuck you, okay? You are such an asshole! I just hate you!!" She slammed the phone down resoundingly and burst noisily into tears.
    I suppressed a temptation to peer around the corner at her. I could hear the low murmur of a fellow conspirator.
    "God, Jennifer, that is just so unfair," the second girl said.
    Jennifer was sobbing inconsolably. "She is such a bitch. I hate her fuckin' guts..."
    I tried to picture myself at her age, talking to my aunt like that. I'd have had to take out a loan for the ensuing dental work.
    I leafed through Jean's Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, attendance records, the written comments her teachers had added from time to time. With the weeping in the background, it was almost like having Jean Timberlake's ghost looking on. She certainly seemed to have had her share of grief in high school. Tardiness, demerits, detention, parent-teacher conferences scheduled and then canceled when Mrs. Timberlake failed to show. There were repeated notes from sessions with first one and then another of the four school counselors, Ann Fowler being one. Jean had spent a large part of her junior year consigned to Mr. Shales's office, sitting on the bench, perhaps sullenly, perhaps with the total self-possession she seemed to display in the few yearbook photographs I'd seen. Maybe she'd sat there and recollected, in tranquility, the lewd sexual experiments she'd conducted with the boys in the privacy of parked cars. Or maybe she'd flirted with one of the senior honors students manning the main desk. From the moment she reached puberty, her grade point average had slid steadily downward despite the contradictory evidence of her IQ and past grades. I could practically feel the heat of noxious hormones seeping through the pages, the drama, confusion, finally the secrecy. Her confidences in the school nurse ceased abruptly. Where Mrs. Berringer had jotted down folksy notes about cramps and heavy periods, advising a consultation with the family physician, there was suddenly concern about the girl's mounting absenteeism. Jean's problems didn't go unnoticed or unremarked. To the credit of the faculty, a general alarm seemed to sound. From the paper trail left behind, it looked as if every effort had been made to bring her back from the brink. Then, on November 5, someone had noted in dark blue angular ink that the girl was deceased. The word was underlined once, and after that, the page was blank. "Is that going to help?"
    I jumped. Dwight Shales had emerged from his inner office and he stood now in the door. The weeping girl was gone, and I could hear the tramp of footsteps as the students passed between classes. "You scared me," I said, patting myself on the chest. "Sorry. Come into the office. I've got a conference scheduled