I nodded at the security guy and ambled inside the building, a one-story concrete slab and glass structure with classroom wings extending out from the administrative core and, presumably, a cafeteria and gym in the rear. I waltzed past the office—a sign said OFFICE—and turned down a corridor, hoping this was the wing with room 26.
It was. The door was open, and I peered inside. My idea was, if I approached Jennifer Stiver in any number of other situations, she would likely tell me to buzz off, or even run away. If I approached her in her workplace, she might possibly do either of those, but she might also be such a slave to professional decorum that she'd be willing to talk to me.
"Ms. Stiver?"
"Yes?" She looked uncertain. Was I a parent or stepparent or other family member of a student who she wasn't quite remembering?
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"I'm sorry to bother you in your classroom. I'm sure you're up to here with end-of-the-school-year responsibilities. But I know how close you were to your brother Greg, and I'm sure you were devastated by his suicide. I'm Donald Strachey, a private investigator, and I've been hired by other people who cared about Greg to look into the circumstances of Greg's death, and I'm hoping you'll be able to clear up some inconsistencies I've run into about Greg's state of mind in the weeks prior to his death."
She stood next to her desk glaring at me. She was taller than she looked in her Facebook photo, her amber hair was even more meticulously unruly, and her big china-blue eyes were bright with anger.
"You're working for people who cared about Greg? And who exactly would those people be who supposedly cared about Greg? I think you're a fucking liar is what I think you are. Did you by chance call me last night at home?"
"I did. You hung up on me. Can you say fucking in an elementary school? I'm surprised."
"Well, your shock would disappear in a hurry if you spent a day with today's sixth graders."
"Do you wash their mouths out with soap, or how do you handle present-day potty mouthery?"
"No, I do not wash their mouths out with soap, nor do I touch the children in any way whatsoever that could be construed as corporal punishment. What I do is, I explain, without actually saying it, that fuck is a rude word, and life is nicer for everybody if we refrain from using rude words in the same way we should all try to refrain from using rude 84
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behavior. Sometimes this argument makes an impression, although often it doesn't. Back when I was a naive beginning teacher I once asked a boy if he used language like that in front of his parents. He said yeah, he did, and if they didn't like the way he talked, they could go fuck themselves."
"Gee. And you're not allowed to Taser the children?"
"No. Even though electronic zapping would not involve touching a child, it's not permitted. But I am allowed to Taser uninvited classroom intruders such as yourself, or at least to call security. First, though, let me ask you something. Are you by chance working for a life insurance company?"
"No, why?"
She relaxed a little now and looked not so much outraged as merely nettled. "Well, who are you working for, and what's your interest in Greg's death? Greg died more than five years ago. His insurance company, Shenango Life, not only refused to pay out benefits but seemed to be hinting that I had something to do with Greg's suicide. I was the intended beneficiary of his fifty-thousand-dollar policy, and they acted as if I was an accomplice in an attempt to defraud the company. When you called last night, I thought, oh God, it's Shenago Life driving me up the wall all over again."
"I'm not surprised," I said, "that you were Greg's life insurance beneficiary. Greg's relationship with his boyfriend—
if that's the correct term for his friendship with Kenyon Louderbush—was apparently troubled. I guess he wasn't about to leave that violently unstable guy fifty thousand dollars."
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I didn't know what the cold look she gave me meant, but she abruptly walked over and shut the door to the classroom.
"Okay, sit down."
"Thank you."
"If Mrs. Weaver, the principal, drops in, I'll say you're a friend."
"I told the security guy I was your cousin from Minneapolis."
"Fine. Cousin Donald. Just so no one thinks you're a guy I'm dating. If word went around that I was dating an aging kickboxer, I'd be really embarrassed."
"No kickboxing for me, not to worry. If it's my banged-up appearance you're referring to, it's only rugby. My boyfriend thinks I'm getting a little old for that stuff, but I can't seem to give it up."
This fib had the approximate intended effect. "You're gay.
Okay. Now I'm supposed to see you as less threatening than I did two minutes ago. All right, I do. So, did you actually know Greg?"
She was perched on the edge of her desk now, and I eased onto one of the sixth graders' chairs in the front row. Stiver needed to feel as if she was in charge of the situation, and that was fine with me because in all the most important ways she was.
"No," I said, "I didn't know Greg at all. I'm just learning about him. I've met his neighbors on Allen Street, Janie Insinger and Virgil Jackman, and I've met his thesis adviser, Professor Podolski. They all spoke well of Greg and were very sad when he died. The thing is, someone has hired me to look 86
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more closely at Greg's relationship with someone else who was very important in his life: Kenyon Louderbush. You knew about that, I take it."
A tight look. "Of course."
"And you were aware that it was abusive? That Louderbush beat Greg?"
"Yes." She shook her head and looked as if she might cry.
She walked around and plopped onto the chair behind her desk. "Look, here's the thing if you really have to know. I tried to get Greg into therapy so he could put an end to this horrible, masochistic self-destructiveness. But he wouldn't do it. He said he had to finish his thesis, and that was the only thing he had the energy for. Then when the thesis was done, it was some other reason. He was going to be moving away from Albany, and he said there was no point in starting therapy around here and then quitting, and he would do it after he got settled wherever he ended up. My hope, of course, was that he'd move somewhere far away from Kenyon, and he'd be okay at least until he found someone else who would treat him the way he thought he deserved to be treated. That is, really, really badly."
"That had to do with his father? Insinger and Jackman both said Greg had been beaten as a child by his father. Your father."
"Our stepfather actually, Anson Stiver. Our dad, Jim Cutler, died in a car accident when Greg and Hugh and I were one, four and six, and Mom married Anson the next year and he insisted that we all change our last names. I'm glad," she said, nodding approvingly, "that Greg was able to talk to 87
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someone else about how Anson beat him and Hugh almost from the day he moved in. Greg told me he'd opened up about it to a few people, but I never knew who they were.