When The Bough Breaks

The office reeked of mimeographing fluid. Its sole occupant was a stern, black woman in her forties, ensconced in a fortress of scarred golden oak. I showed her my badge, which didn't interest her, and asked for Raquel Ochoa. The name didn't seem to interest her either.

"She's a teacher here. Fourth grade," I added.

"It's lunchtime. Try the teachers' dining room."

The dining room turned out to be an airless place, twenty feet by fifteen, into which folding tables and chairs had been crammed. A dozen men and women sat hunched over sack lunches and coffee, laughing, smoking, chewing. When I entered the room all activity ceased.

"I'm looking for Ms. Ochoa."

"You won't find her here, honey," said a stout woman with platinum hair.

Several of the teachers laughed. They let me stand there for a while and then a fellow with a young face and old eyes said:

"Room 304. Probably."

"Thanks."

I left. I was halfway down the hall before they started talking again.

The door to 304 was half - open. I went in. Rows of unoccupied school desks filled every square inch of space, with the exception of a few feet at the front that had been cleared for the teacher's desk, a boxy metal rectangle behind which sat a woman busy at work. If she had heard me enter she gave no indication, as she continued to read, make checkmarks, cross out errors.

An unopened brown bag sat at her elbow. Light streamed in through dusty windows in beams that were suffused with dancing, suspended particles. The Vermeer softness was at odds with the utilitarian severity of the room: stark white walls, a blackboard veneered with chalky residue, a soiled American flag.

"Ms. Ochoa?"

The face that looked up was out of a mural by Rivera. Reddish - brown skin stretched tightly over sharply defined but delicately constructed bones; liquid lips and melting black eyes gabled by full, dark brows. Her hair was long and sleek, parted in the middle, hanging down her back. Part Aztec, part Spanish, part unknown.

"Yes?" Her voice was soft in volume but the timbre was defensively hard. Some of the hostility Milo had described was immediately apparent. I wondered if she was one of those people who had turned psychological vigilance into a fine art.

I walked over to her, introduced myself and showed her the badge. She inspected it.

"Ph.D. in what?"

"Psychology."

She looked at me with disdain.

"The police don't get satisfaction, so they send in the shrinks?"

"It's not that simple."

"Spare me the details." She returned her eyes to her paperwork.

"I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. About your friend."

"I told that big detective everything I know."

"This is just a double - check."

"How thorough." She picked up her red pencil and began slashing at the paper. I felt sorry for the students whose work was coming under scrutiny at this particular moment.

"This isn't a psychological interview, if that's what you're worried about. It's - "

"I'm not worried about anything. I told him everything,"

"He doesn't think so."

She slammed the pencil down. The point broke.

"Are you calling me a liar, Mr. Ph.D?" Her speech was crisp and articulate but it still bore a Latin tinge.

I shrugged.

"Labels aren't important. What is, is finding out as much as possible about Elaine Gutierrez."

"Elena," she snapped. "There's nothing to tell. Let the police do their job and stop sending their scientific snoopers around harassing people who are busy."

"Too busy to help find the murderer of your best friend?"

The head shot up. She brushed furiously at a loose strand of hair.

"Please leave," she said between clenched jaws. "I have work to do."

"Yes, I know. You don't even eat lunch with the rest of the teachers. You're very dedicated and serious - that's what it took to get out of the barrio - and that puts you above the laws of common courtesy."

She stood up, all five feet of her. For a moment I thought she was going to slap me, as she drew her hand back. But she stopped herself, and stared.

I could feel the acid heat coming my way but I held my gaze. Jaroslav would have been proud.

"I'm busy," she finally said, but there was a pleading quality to the statement, as if she was trying to convince herself.

"I don't want to take you on a cruise. I just want to ask a few questions about Elena."

She sat down.

"What kind of psychologist are you? You don't talk like one."

I gave her a capsulized, deliberately vague history of my involvement in the case. She listened and I thought I saw her soften.

"A child psychologist. We could use you around here."

I looked around the classroom, counted forty - six desks in a space meant for twenty - eight.

"I don't know what I could do - help you tie them down?"

She laughed, then realized what she was doing and cut it off, like a bad co

"It's no use talking about Elena," she said. "She only got - into trouble because of being involved with that…" She trailed off.

"I know Handler was a creep. Detective Sturgis - the big guy - knows. And you're probably right. She was an i

"You do this a lot? Work for the police?" She evaded me.

"No. I'm retired."

She looked at me with disbelief. "At your age?"

"Post - burnout."

That hit home. She dropped her mask a notch and a bit of humanity peeked through.

"I wish I could afford it. Retirement."

"I know what you mean. It must be crazy working with this kind of bureaucracy." I threw out the lure of empathy - administrators were the object of every teacher's ire. If she didn't go for it I wasn't sure what I'd do to gain rapport.

She looked at me suspiciously, searching for a sign that I was patronizing her.

"You don't work at all?" she asked.

"I do some free - lance investing. It keeps me busy enough."

We chatted for a while about the vagaries of the school system. She carefully avoided mention of anything personal, keeping it all in the realm of pop sociology - how rotten things were when parents weren't willing to get emotionally and intellectually involved with their children, how difficult it was to teach when half the kids came from broken homes and were so upset they could barely concentrate, the frustration of dealing with administrators who'd given up on life and stuck around only for their pensions, anger at the fact that a teacher's starting salary was less than that of a trash collector. She was twenty - nine and she'd lost any shred of idealism that had survived the transition from East L.A. to the world of Anglo bourgeoisie.

She could really talk when she got going, the dark eyes flashing, the hands gesticulating - flying through the air like two brown sparrows.

I sat like the teacher's pet and listened, giving her what everyone wants when they're unloading - empathy, an understanding gesture. Part of it was calculated - I wanted to break through to her in order to find out more about Elena Gutierrez - but some of it was my old therapeutic persona, thoroughly genuine.

I was starting to think I'd gotten through when the bell rang. She became a teacher again, the arbiter of right and wrong.

"You must go now. The children will be coming back."

I stood up and leaned on her desk.

"Can we talk later? About Elena?"

She hesitated, biting her lip. The sound of a stampede began as a faint rumble and grew thunderous. High - pitched voices wailed their way closer.

"All right. I'm off at two - thirty."

An offer to buy her a drink would have been a mistake. Keep it businesslike, Alex.

"Thank you. I'll meet you at the gate."

"No. Meet me in the teachers' parking lot. At the south side of the building." Away from prying eyes.