Chapter 30 – Old Ben
School resumed on Monday morning, January 4th. The seventh graders gathered as usual outside the eastern entrance. What the cops had done was clear all the snow from the parking lot and the slopes on both sides of the lot, for their search, and they had, just the day before, moved their “crime scene” ropes and signs back to the edges of the lot, so the teachers could park their cars. The hillside and the path down to Lincoln Street were still off-limits.
There was a lot of talk, naturally, about the murder, but there wasn’t quite as much shock and gloom as I had expected. The thing was, Miss Delisle had only worked in Mrs. Rock’s English classes, so there were three sections of eighth graders and just one section of seventh graders she worked with. The rest of the kids had only seen her, but didn’t know her. Having a murder take place at your school was incredibly exciting, but it was only personal to some of us.
I had spoken briefly with Win the night before, but there wasn’t much I could say on the phone with ten other people in the house. We talked with Kate and Jackie for a few minutes before the bell rang, and I promised to try to catch them up on everything when I could.
Our facial bruises caused quite a bit of comment, and Win and I decided we might as well play it up for what it was worth. Everyone was going to laugh at us anyway, so why not make a show of it? We talked some of the kids in our homeroom into switching seats, and when Mrs. Angolano walked in the two of us were sitting side by side in the front row, each of us striking a pose and our matching cheek bruises boldly displayed.
By all accounts, Mrs. Angolano has never laughed so hard or so long in her life. That wasn’t specifically the reaction we were seeking, but it was a good result, and it paid off in a much more pleasant start to the long second half of our school year than we had any right to expect. It also made it a much easier day, because the other kids, at least the ones in our homeroom, were delighted that we had put Angolano in a good mood, so we didn’t get ridiculed as much as we had expected.
Throughout that first day back, I was trying to catch up with Kate and Jackie to exchange information, grabbing a few minutes here and there between classes, and trying to arrange to have a long, private talk with Old Ben, all while dealing with the frustrating distraction of school work. The teachers all insisted on proceeding with their lesson plans as if nothing had happened. The principal had scheduled an assembly for the first period after lunch to address all of us about the tragedy, and none of the teachers would say anything about it before then.
The four of us were still officially “in trouble,” and the teachers wasted no time reminding us of it. Although we had all made good progress towards catching up, we still had a ways to go. Rollo was actually in the best shape, because he had returned to school two weeks earlier, and because Kate, his next-door neighbor, had been helping him ever since he got back. The rest of us still had a mountain of reading, homework and quizzes to do, but, with the threat of Summer School hanging over us, we were determined to plow through it.
I managed to talk with Ben for a minute on a trip to the basement. He seemed very sad, which was not surprising. He had gone through a lot in the past ten days. He agreed to talk with me after school.
The assembly pre-empted our French class; what a shame. Of course, that meant Mrs. Pratt would be in a foul mood on Tuesday, but what else was new?
We trooped into the gymnasium right after lunch for the assembly. Even though the reason for the assembly was a somber one, all the kids were in a good mood. Anything that broke the monotony of the regular routine was a welcome event. The teachers hated it for the same reason; they were all about the routine.
The big surprise was that Chief Mulrooney was standing on the stage next to Mr. Camp, the Principal. That started the tongues wagging. When everyone was seated and hushed, Mr. Camp addressed the school.
It was an odd speech. He addressed the tragedy, and the shock that we all must be feeling, but in a kind of indirect way. He spoke of a “dreadful crime” taking place on “our very own doorstep,” but he never mentioned Miss Delisle by name, and he never described it as a loss for the school. We needed, he said, to put this tragic event behind us and move forward on our educational journey, secure in the knowledge that the Essex Junction Police Department and the School District would do their utmost to safeguard both our persons and our way of life.
I looked at Kate, who was sitting on my left. She had that knowing smile on her face; she was much better at reading nuance than I was, and I was sure she understood what he was saying better than I did.
Mr. Camp introduced Chief Mulrooney, and the Chief, in a jovial mood, said how happy he was to see so many bright, cheery faces, so eager to learn. It was the kind of sickeningly patronizing tone that so many adults, especially authority figures, adopted when talking to kids. People like him never seemed to figure out that all the kids hated being talked to like that, and that it always undermined whatever they were trying to accomplish.
He wanted to reassure us, he said, that we were all safe. The tragic event was an isolated incident involving people not native to the village, or the state, and there was no reason to believe it affected our long-term safety at Prospect Street School. We should also feel reassured that no negative cultural influences would be allowed to infect our way of life.
That was a very puzzling statement, and Kate and I looked at each other, both frowning. What did he really mean by that?
The Chief then talked about the crime scene for a few minutes, asking for our cooperation in staying out of the areas the Police had roped off until further notice. He then turned it over to Principal Camp, who thanked the Chief for taking time out of his busy schedule to come and talk to us.
“Any time. You boys and girls are the future of the village, and I’m always happy to talk to you.”
Hmm. He hadn’t seemed that happy when he called me a lying little hoodlum and ordered me out of his office.
I was trying to talk to Kate as we walked out of the gym, but the teachers had clamped down tight; no talking allowed. Jackie was a little way behind us, and she was angry. Jackie could be very defiant and outspoken when she was angry.
“He wouldn’t even say her name!” she called out so everyone could hear it.
“Quiet!” one of the teachers yelled. “Walk quietly to your next class with no talking!”
Some of the eighth grade girls, who were close to Miss Delisle as well, were murmuring and grumbling, and one of them, who obviously didn’t care if she got in trouble, called out “They’re trying to make her look like a criminal, not a victim!”
That got an immediate response from the teachers, one of whom grabbed the girl by the arm and dragged her away while the others repeated the order to keep quiet. Kate looked at me and nodded, and whispered, “That’s exactly what they’re doing.”
We had a few minutes in Mrs. Rock’s room before she came in, and we gathered around to talk about it. I knew Kate had it figured out better than anyone, so I asked everyone to let her speak.
“What that girl said was right. They want us to feel like Sally was an outsider – not part of ‘the family’ at all. And they don’t want us to forget her connection to Roger Warren, as if that makes her a criminal.”
“But,” one of the boys asked, “Mr. Camp never mentioned him. Neither did the Chief.”
“Not by name. But what do you think ‘negative cultural influence’ meant? And ‘our way of life?’ They’re painting both of them as outsiders who are threatening the village.” She looked towards the door, expecting Rock to walk in at any moment. “They’re terrified. The whole ‘California culture’ - the music, the cars, the surfing - the whole thing is a threat, and now, there’s marijuana in Burlington, and they’re afraid it will be in Essex. That’s why they want us to see both Sally and Roger as enemies.”
In the silence that followed, we could all hear the footsteps, and we dispersed to our seats as Mrs. Rock walked in.
Well, Mrs. Rock played it superbly. Being the autocrat that she was, she launched right into her lesson plan as if we had been in class the day before. She laid out what we were going to accomplish during the week, reminded us of our upcoming term paper deadlines, and went right into a review of diagramming sentences. There was no mention of Miss Delisle, no emotion shown, and no opportunity given for us to interrupt the flow.
Almost any other teacher would have faltered in the face of the sullen, somber mood in the room, but not Rock. She moved forward without flinching, and she pulled it off.
We all felt a little deflated, and defeated, as we left English class, and the rest of the afternoon was pretty gloomy. I chatted briefly with Kate and Jackie at the end of the day. They had both been questioned again by Junior over the weekend, about the missing portfolio, mostly, and I had had my long conversation with Jane. The bits and pieces we had been able to communicate here and there between classes were filled in, and I left them as fully informed as I could before I headed to the basement to find Old Ben.
Ben was alone in his subterranean den. It was really just a utility room, with storage space for the janitorial supplies, but he had made it into a reasonably comfortable space, and he actually had a second chair so we both could sit while we talked.
I had gotten along with Ben right from the start of sixth grade, and we were always able to talk to each other. He wasn’t exactly outgoing, but there were some kids, and I was one, that he was less close-mouthed with. He also knew already that I was the one who had found the body.
In fact, it was Ben who started the conversation; he wanted to know all about what happened Sunday afternoon, and how I ended up sliding into the body. So I told him everything – the whole sliding day, who was there, what we did, and how the final challenge on the “Trail of Death” ended in that shocking way.
Ben, of course, had been the first one suspected of killing Miss Delisle, at least by Sergeant Slingerland, so he was interested in exactly how the police had arrived at their conclusions. We went over it until there was nothing more to be gleaned from that day’s happenings, then he proceeded to tell me about Saturday.
“Well, I was here pretty early. I had stripped the floor in the main office – Mrs. Ayala’s office - the day before Christmas. I stayed home with the family on Christmas Day, then I came back in the day after; ‘Boxing Day,” the Anglos call it in Canada, although I don’t know why. I always do some of the rooms on Christmas break, some on winter break, you know. I have so much to do over the summer, that I try to get a few rooms stripped and waxed each time we have a week off. So I waxed Mrs. Ayala’s on Saturday morning and started on the Principal’s office. When that nice girl came in, I had moved all the furniture aside and I was stripping with my buffer.
“You know, I don’t hear so well anyway, and I don’t hear nothing when the buffer is running, but I saw something, her reflection, I guess, when she came to the door and I turned off the machine and there she was. Such a sweet, pretty girl. It was just after one o’clock; I remember noticing the time on Mr. Camp’s clock when she came in.
“She was smiling that sweet smile of hers, and she had her winter coat on and she was carrying a leather case and a purse. Now, I wasn’t surprised to see her, because she had asked me on Wednesday if I would be here. She had to bring some papers in and leave them for Mrs. Rock. That ‘cochon’ of a Sergeant, he asked me over and over why she was here and why I was here, and I told him over and over. It was no surprise and no mystery; we both knew the other would be here.
“Anyway, she asked me if she could get into the teachers’ room, and I said ‘Yes, of course’ and we walked down the stairs and across and up the other stairs and I unlocked the door for her. We talked for a few minutes. She told me she was going to Hawaii on Tuesday; her father had sent her a ticket. Well, I don’t know nothing about Hawaii, except what I read in the travel books – a beautiful place, I guess. She was very happy about that, but she was nervous, I think. I’ve heard all the bad things about that boyfriend of hers since then, but I didn’t know nothing then. Maybe she was worried about him, or scared; I don’t know.
“She said she would only be fifteen or twenty minutes, so I asked her to please be sure the door was closed and locked when she left. She said she would, and then she thanked me for helping her out and for being so nice to her all the time she was here at the school. Well, she didn’t have to thank me, you know. It’s easy to be nice to someone like that. A lot of these teachers could learn something from someone like her, but they won’t. They won’t learn.
“So, I went back to Mr. Camp’s office and worked for about fifteen minutes, then I stopped to have a drink of water, which I had left on Mr. Camp’s desk, pushed over against the wall. When I picked up the glass of water, I noticed Miss Delisle’s purse on the chair behind the desk. She must have set it down when she came in and she forgot it. So I picked up the purse and I walked back to the teachers’ room, hoping she hadn’t left. She was still there, sat at the desk and writing something. She thanked me again; she hadn’t realized she’d forgotten it. So we said goodbye again and I went back to the office. That was the last time I saw her.”
He stopped and reached for his cup of coffee, which I thought must be very cold by now. He gulped some coffee and sat there, shaking his head sadly.
“You must have told them,” I said, “about the purse. Didn’t you?”
“Sure, I told them. I told that fat Sergeant and everybody else. I told them every damn thing that happened that day, and what did they do? They took me down to the jail in Burlington and locked me up overnight, on suspicion of murder.” He was bitter, and angry, and who could blame him?
“Ben,” I asked, “I’m sorry to bring this all up again, but, do you mind telling me the rest?”
“It’s okay, Denny. I’ll tell you. I don’t mind talking to you, or even to the police, if it’s someone civilized like the other Sergeant, the one everybody calls Junior. He’s okay, but not that other one.” He muttered something under his breath that sounded like “mode-zee.”
“Thanks, Ben. You said that was the last time you saw her. So you didn’t actually see her leave, and you didn’t see her come back, right?”
“That’s right. She must have left; at least she must have left the building. When I finished and went home, the teachers’ room was empty. I opened the door just to be sure; she had left a stack of papers on the desk with an envelope on top, with ‘Mrs. Rock’ written on it. I closed the door again and made sure it was locked, then I went home.”
“Did you notice if she left her portfolio case, that leather case she was carrying, in the teachers’ room?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t see that.” He shrugged. “I can’t be sure, because I wasn’t looking for it, but I didn’t notice it.”
“Alright, so then you went home.”
“Right, I went home; it was about quarter past three, and that should have been the end of it. But later, about four o’clock, my wife heard a car horn blowing across the street at the school. You know we live right across the street, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Well, like I said, I don’t hear so good, but my wife heard someone blowing their horn, then, a minute later, she heard it again. The second time, she looked out the window, and she said there was a little bus parked at the school. Well, I looked then, and it was that Volkswagen, that same one that boy was driving the day he came to the school.”
“Roger Warren?”
“Yes, that young man Miss Delisle was going with.” He frowned and shook his head back and forth. “I didn’t like that boy; she deserved better than him. I put on my coat and boots and I walked back over to the school. He was parked right out there by the east entrance, the same place as on the day he came to the school. But before I got there, he drove around behind the building and out the other side. When I reached the east entrance, he was driving out of the front lot, and I watched him go up the street and turn on to Hillcrest, and he was gone.”
“This was about four o’clock, you said?”
“That’s right; maybe a little after by the time I got over here. It was snowing hard by that time. I came in the east door just to check. He couldn’t get in unless someone let him in, but, you know, I had to just check, anyway. The building was empty. I went up to the teachers’ room again, just because it was him, and he was her boyfriend, but everything was just as I left it; the papers were on the desk, with the envelope on top. But the door was unlocked. I was sure I had locked it, but, you know, I forget more things every day. I must have forgotten to lock it. Then I went back home again. I didn’t go in Sunday; we came right home after church and stayed in.”
I was puzzling this through. “So,” I said, hesitantly, “if Miss Delisle came back, she wouldn’t have been able to get in the building; she didn’t have keys.”
“Right. Unless she came back while I was still here. I left the east door unlocked while I was working, so she could have come in. And if I forgot to lock the door to the teachers’ room, she could have gotten in there. But why would she come back?”
“Well, she told my friends that she was unsure about the note she left for Mrs. Rock, and we think she went back to re-write it.”
“Hmm. Well, as I said, she could have come right in, if it was before I left, and I probably wouldn’t have heard her. If the door to the teachers’ room was unlocked, she wouldn’t have had to find me to unlock it.”
It was so much to figure out. I put my hands on my head and just tried to concentrate on it, but it just wasn’t working. I heard Old Ben laugh, and I looked up at him.
“You know, Denny, you don’t have to figure all this out; it’s not your job.”
“I know, I know. It’s just, well, I want to figure it out. I want to know who did this, and how it happened.”
“The cops; they think it was that boy from California who they say was selling drugs. They know he was at the school. But why was he blowing his horn? It seemed like he was looking for her.”
“What do you think, Ben?”
“I don’t know, Denny. Comme ci, comme ca, you know?” He gestured with both his hands, as if weighing the alternatives.