School Days - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,59
he was making sure there were no drugs or guns or anything."
"You believe that."
She shook her head.
"What do you believe?" I said.
No hurry, plenty of time, ask all the questions, keep the strands straight, one strand at a time.
"He's sick."
"And it excites him to prowl?"
She nodded.
"Did he find this picture in your locker or Jared's?" I said.
"Jared's."
"And what use has he put it to?" I said.
She kept her face in her hands.
"What use?"
"Is that what you see in him?"
"He's a disgusting little prick," she said.
I nodded.
"He makes me . . ." She shook her head.
"If you have sex with him," I said, "he won't tell."
She inhaled audibly. I waited. She exhaled even more audibly, as if she'd been running.
"Yes," she said.
"How long has this been going on?"
"Two years."
"Which makes the photograph more than two years old," I said.
"Yes.
"So Jared was how old when it was taken."
She was silent.
"Fifteen?" I said.
She shook her head.
"How old?" I said.
"Fourteen."
"So tell me about that," I said.
She was silent again, framing her thoughts, no doubt.
"Take your time," I said.
She did. But finally, she raised her face and looked at me. Her eyes were red, but she wasn't crying. The bright sunlight penetrated her makeup, and underneath it she looked haggard and older than she was.
"It's not what you think," she said.
"It rarely is," I said.
"Do you believe in love, Mr. Spenser?"
"I do."
She had full eye contact with me, and she leaned a little toward me when she spoke.
"Jared and I love each other," she said.
"How nice," I said.
"Do you find that so hard to believe that someone like me would love a boy such as he?"
"I do," I said.
She smiled sadly. She was regrouping swiftly.
"I do too," she said. "And yet ... and yet it's true."
"Are you aware that he is retarded?" I said.
"He absolutely is not," she said. "You think I wouldn't know?"
"Yes," I said. "I think you wouldn't know."
"He's reticent perhaps, a kind of dreamy poetic reticence."
"The best kind," I said.
"It began," Beth Ann said, "when he was sent to me by one of his teachers. They felt he was withdrawn. He was so quiet in class."
"To what did you attribute that?"
"Do you understand psychology, Mr. Spenser?"
"I've been in love for a long time with one of the great shrinks in America," I said. "I've absorbed a little."
"So you do believe in love."
"Yes."
"There's a medical condition," Beth Ann said, "called failure to flourish. Have you heard of that?"
"Yes."
"Jared has the emotional and psychological equivalent of that disease," she said.
"Caused by?" I said.
"A lack of mattering. A lack of centrality. No one thought he was important. He lacked self-esteem. He wasn't loved sufficiently."
I had been listening with my hands pressed together and my fingertips against my chin. I pointed at her with my pressed hands.
"And you had a cure," I said.
"You ... however you make it sound," Beth Ann said. "Yes. I felt that if I could love him enough, I could bring him to a fully realized life."
"Worked out good so far," I said.
It was as if she hadn't heard me. And maybe she hadn't. She seemed deeply engaged in spinning her web.
"And in the process," she said, "I came to love him, as I know he loved me."
I nodded.
"Who took the picture?" I said.
"Jared. He had one of those new digital cameras."
"The kind you hook up to a computer?" I said.
"Yes. It had a timer attachment."
"Did you have sex?"
"Then, when the picture was taken?"
"Then," I said, "later. Anytime. Were you having sex with Jared."
"We made love," Beth Ann said with great dignity.
"Did you get to spend time together aside from making love?" I said.
"It was difficult, as you might imagine. The prejudices of the middle class are fearful, as you may know. We took our time, and our passion, when we could."
"And you saw no hint of functional retardation?" I said.
"No. Of course not. His grades were good. He may have seemed slow to some because he talked slowly. But he talked slowly because he thought so deeply."
"As so many fourteen-year-olds do," I said.
"He is unusual far beyond his chronological age," Beth Ann said.
"Good point," I said. "Most kids his age are not in jail for murder."
"You can believe what you wish," she said, and sat back so that her breasts pushed against her sweater.
Whoops.
"Unless your degrees are fraudulent," I said, "you would be in a position better than mine to understand how unlikely it is that a woman like you would fall in love with a boy like Jared."
She pointed her