Mary Jane, can you tell me why you spit on Mrs. Thacker?”
“I didn’t actually spit on her.” Mary Jane’s voice, though somewhat subdued as she stared her principal in the eye, was her usual peculiar combination of childhood lisp and adultlike delivery.
Mrs. Cummings sat up straighter, her lips pinched with disapproval. “We have witnesses, several of them.”
“I did spit and it did get on her,” Mary Jane explained, eyes sincere. “I just didn’t mean it to get on her. She walked around the corner and I couldn’t make it stop coming out.”
God, Juliet loved this child. “Why did you spit at all?” she asked.
Mary Jane glanced down, moving her boots back and forth against each other. “Jeff Turner said that I was backward because there were lots of things I don’t know how to do ’cause I don’t have a dad to teach me.”
She and Mary Jane were happy together. Why couldn’t the world just let them be?
“Things like spitting?” Juliet asked.
Mary Jane nodded. “So I told him I could too spit, as good as anyone with a dad. And he told me to prove it, so that’s what I was doing when Mrs. Thacker came to call us in from recess.”
Trying not to smile at that image, or to think about the hurtful things kids did to each other, Juliet looked back at the principal. And waited. This was her call.
“The point is—” Mrs. Cummings, hands together, leaned toward Juliet “—that your daughter, whether she meant to or not, spit on her teacher in front of all the other children. We can’t just ignore that fact. Maintaining the discipline required to prevent mayhem with six hundred students all in one building for six hours every day takes diligence and carefully protected boundaries.”
“I understand, but—”
“I was quite willing to sign the necessary forms to allow Mary Jane to attend this institution even though she lives outside our boundaries, but she has not lived up to her side of the agreement. I’m going to—”
She couldn’t bear to see Mary Jane become the outsider again as a new kid in yet another school. “Please, Mrs. Cummings.” Juliet sat forward. She’d beg if she had to. She was just beginning jury selection on the biggest trial of her career—opposing Paul Schuster, a prosecutor who put far much more value on winning than on truth.
“She’s explained that the spitting wasn’t intentional,” Juliet said quietly.
The frown on the principal’s plain face was not encouraging. Even if Juliet won this one, they lost. She couldn’t feel good about sending Mary Jane to a school that didn’t want her.
The child was uncharacteristically still beside her as Mrs. Cummings sat back, eyes lowered. Silent.
There was a time to speak, and a time to let the facts speak for themselves. Watching her imp of a daughter sitting so solemnly beside her, chin sliding lower on her chest as the seconds passed, Juliet willed the facts to speak quickly.
“I don’t know how I could explain this to a classroom full of third-graders.” The principal finally looked up, her gaze pinned on Juliet. “If I let Mary Jane back into class, they’re going to think that what she did was okay.”
“I don’t work with kids all day long like you do,” Juliet said, “but it seems to me that they’ll think what you tell them to think. Couldn’t this be a lesson in how things are not always what they seem? Or an example of how telling the truth can get you out of trouble?”
“Spitting at all is against school rules.”
Filling with desperation, Juliet spoke urgently. “I know, ma’am, and I’m sure no one’s sorrier than Mary Jane. But spitting on the playground can’t be a reason for expulsion, can it?”
“No,” Mrs. Cummings said, eyebrows raised. “Not by itself. But this isn’t Mary Jane’s first infraction.” She looked over at the girl. “And I’m sorry Jeff Turner was bothering you. I’ll have another talk with his father, but I just don’t see how I can overlook the fact that you’re in this office more frequently than anyone else in your class.”
Juliet leaned forward. “The other incidents are in the past,” she said, finding it difficult to breathe around the tightness in her chest. “Mary Jane accepted her punishment and made all necessary reparations. All we have on the table today is spitting and, judging by your own words, that’s not punishable by expulsion.”
The principal sat for a long time, and then her face softened slightly. “All right, I’ll give her one more chance. But if there’s a next time…”
Thank you, God. Juliet didn’t hear the rest of the warning. The bottom line was that Mary Jane couldn’t make any more mistakes.
“But you’re going to have to stay after school for a week, young lady, and clean Mrs. Thacker’s blackboards for her as punishment.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And apologize to her in front of your classmates.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With that, Mrs. Cummings nodded.
Juliet gave her daughter a hug and a whispered “I love you,” and hurried back to her office at Truman and Associates, one of the city’s leading law firms. They’d had a narrow escape.
“MR. RAMSDEN, I’m Paul Schuster. Thank you for seeing me.”
Blake took the older man’s hand, was surprised by his weak grip, and indicated one of the two lush navy leather chairs in front of his desk.
“It’s not often I get a call from an assistant attorney general,” he said, curious. He’d read about Schuster; the man was one of the state’s “winningest” prosecutors, according to the papers.
There were some who said innocent people were rotting away in prison because of that.
“As a matter of fact,” Blake added, taking the man’s business card, “this is a first.”
“It’s the first time I’ve been in the Ramsden Building, too,” Schuster said, lifting the back of his black-and-white tweed jacket as he set down his soft-sided leather briefcase and sat. “Like everyone else in San Diego, I’ve driven by it countless times.”
Blake nodded. The building was one of the first things he’d done after his return to the States—and the family business—five years before. One thing he’d learned during his four-year sojourn abroad was that image was everything. Show them you’re big and impressive, and you will be. He’d also gained an almost spiritual appreciation for the artistry of the architecture he’d spent five years in college analyzing.
“It’s as interesting inside as it is out. The spirals and columns are fascinating,” the prosecutor added.
“You’ve never been to Barcelona, I take it?”
Schuster’s frown held more question than anything. “No, why?”
“They’re based on the Sagrada Familia, a famous Gaudi church.” He could bore the man with all the other architectural details represented in the new home of Ramsden Enterprises, one of the state’s oldest and most elite custom-home builders—and now its leading commercial builder as well—but he wouldn’t. “Gaudi was an innovator, part of the art nouveau movement. He created fairy tales out of rubbish. And this particular project is one he never finished.”
To his credit, Schuster appeared interested.
Rocking back in his chair, Blake placed his hands on his thighs. After five years, he still wasn’t used to the creased dress slacks he wore.
“You’re a busy man, Schuster. I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss architecture. Unless you’re in the market for a new one-of-a-kind