It took her a second to remember the brochures. "They're not boarding."
"Private school for Jem?"
She scowled, began gathering up the brochures. "I want the best."
"These places have scholarships?"
"Stop changing the subject."
"Most people still do public, Erainya. Kids turn out fine."
"You're telling me Jem is most kids?"
I looked back at Jem, who was now trying to explain to Kelly Arguello how the gears for his Tinkertoy motion machine worked.
"All right," I admitted. "He's exceptional. Still - "
"You worry about your college classes. Let me worry about kindergarten."
"And the Brandon case?"
"Let George take care of that."
"SAPD give you anything?"
"I just told you - wait a - "
I leaned toward the morass of papers on her desk and did my own dowsing job, plucked a phone message slip that was sticking out of a stack of reports. "Put that back," Erainya demanded.
I read the message. "Ozzie Gerson. Deputy Ozzie Gerson?"
"I'm not talking to you."
"Ozzie's about as low in the sheriffs department as you can get without crawling under one of their patrol cars. You're asking him for information. On a city homicide case, no less."
Erainya tapped her fingers. "Look, honey, I know you."
"Meaning what, exactly?"
"Meaning if I tell you details, you're going to decide it's your case. You're going to go poking around when what I really need for you to do is stay safe and make UTSA happy."
"Is this connected with that thing a few years ago?"
"That thing."
"Yeah. You know. That other guy named Brandon. Pow, pow."
Erainya folded her arms. Her black hair stuck out wiry free-style, not unlike Medusa's. "Just do your teaching, honey. Give George a week and he'll have a full report for UTSA. You got an advanced degree. You can read it."
"Gosh, thanks."
"And what I said about the sheriffs department - just because Ozzie's a mutual friend, don't get any bright ideas."
"You know I'll ask him."
"Let me pretend, honey. For my pride, all right?"
"Anything else?"
Erainya picked up the private school brochures again. She shuffled through them, contemplating each, then carefully dealt out three in front of me. "If you were choosing between those, which would you pick?"
I frowned at the brochures. Maroon, green, blue. All very slick. All sported pictures of venerable school facades and happy honors students, grinning and hugging their textbooks like old friends.
I looked up at Erainya. "I know nothing about schools."
"You know Jem?"
"I have that pleasure."
"All right, then. I'm asking you."
I picked up the brochures reluctantly. A weird memory came to me from thirteen years ago, when I'd looked through brochures for graduate schools. The forms, the spiel, the tuitions. These were about the same. "Eighty-five hundred a year? "
Erainya nodded. "Cheap."
"For New York, maybe."
"I want the best," Erainya insisted. "I'm not asking you about the finances, honey. I'm asking you about those three choices."
Hesitantly, I held up the green brochure. "This one. I've heard it's a nice place. Small. Got an arts program. It isn't Catholic."
"I thought you were Catholic."
"I rest my case."
Erainya took back the brochure. "I'll get Jem a visiting date. He'll want you to take him."
"Me?"
"You don't know Jem adores you, honey? You blind?"
"We need to work on the kid's taste."
"No argument." Erainya collected the brochures. "Now get out of here and rest. You got class tomorrow. And no poking around in George's case." "Suggestion noted."
Erainya shook her head sourly. She gazed at the gilded icon of Saint Sophia hanging on the wall next to her desk and muttered something, probably a Greek prayer to deliver the Manos clan from wicked, disrespectful employees. As I was going out, George Berton was fielding another call. He covered the receiver long enough to say, "See you tonight."
Kelly looked up from Jem's Tinkertoys. "I'll see you Thursday." I agreed that he would and she would.
Then I ruffled Jem's hair and told him to keep at it with the perpetual motion engine. I anticipated needing one.
Chapter 5-6
Chapter 5
By the time I got home the painkillers had started to wear off. The delayed shock of the morning's explosion was starting to do funny things to my brain. As I walked up the sidewalk of 90 Queen Anne, the backward-leaning facade of the old two-story craftsman looked even more precarious than usual. The purple bougainvillea around the awnings seemed fluid and sinister. When I got around the side of the building to the screen door of my in-law apartment, I had trouble making myself touch the latch.