Czytaj książkę: «Tempted By The Badge»

Chapter 1

The noise level in the small classroom rose substantially as the door flung open and students began to parade inside. Joanna Barnes looked up from the papers she’d been grading, a bright smile pulling at her lips. Greetings rang out warmly as one student after the other found their way to a seat for the third-period history class.

“Good morning, Ms. Barnes!”

“Hey, Ms. B!”

“Ms. Barnes! What up?”

She twisted the cap back onto the red pen she was holding and slid it and the test papers from her previous class into her desk drawer. Rising to her feet, she returned the gesture, greeting each student warmly as she moved to stand by the door.

“Mr. Parsons, good morning! Miss Hayes, how are you? Take a seat, please, Mr. Tolliver!”

The energy in the room was palpable, everyone anxious about the test they would soon be taking. This was one of the honors classes, the students all exceptionally bright and especially motivated. Over half had already been notified of their early acceptance into college, with most of them headed to Ivy League institutions. They were considered the elite of their graduating class. They challenged Joanna to insure the curriculum was one that would not only boost their individual class rankings but also kept them interested; boredom was easily the kiss of death for any teacher.

The test they were taking was on the early Industrial Revolution in England and Wales, with the emphasis on the plight of women during that time period. Joanna had no doubts most, if not all, would pass with flying colors. There were one, maybe two exceptions determined to buck the system, no matter where they were in life.

The last student through the door was one of her more challenging pupils. Standing a foot taller than most of the class, Damon Morrow was one of their star athletes, playing varsity football and basketball in the fall and baseball in the spring. Keeping him off academic probation had become a full-time job all on its own and, despite his obvious intellectual genius, his was an issue of effort, or rather lack of. He was smart and talented, but he was lazy as hell. Damon Morrow was content to fly through life on his dashing good looks and the trust fund he would inevitably inherit when he turned twenty-one.

“Mr. Morrow, good morning,” Joanna said warmly. “You studied, I hope.”

The young man shrugged broad shoulders. “Do we have to take this test today, Ms. Barnes?”

“Yes, we do,” she said matter-of-factly. “Everything under your desks, please. And get your pencils ready.”

Damon sat, still scrolling through messages on his cell phone instead.

“Phones away,” Joanna said, tapping her nails lightly against the desktop. “If I see any phones during the exam, I will confiscate them. Your parents will have to come get them from me at the end of the semester, and I mean it.”

Damon shot her a quick look. “Hey, Miss Barnes, did you hear?”

She blew a soft sigh. “Did I hear what, Mr. Morrow?”

“Everyone’s talking about it!” another student interjected.

Joanna looked around the room, her eyes scanning their faces as she mentally took attendance. “Has anyone seen Mr. Locklear?” She gestured toward the only empty seat, going off topic for a brief moment.

There were shrugs and looks of disinterest, no one seeming to care that one of their own was missing.

She shook her head ever so slightly. “So, what is everyone talking about?” she asked, her eyes shifting back to the student staring at her.

“One of the teachers is getting fired,” Damon stated. “Someone’s been giving it to a student on the side,” he said with a snide laugh and an inappropriate hand gesture. He slapped palms with the boy beside him. “I bet it was Coach Peterson. Which one of you girls has been giving it up to him in the locker room?” he quipped.

Laughter rang around the room and the noise level rose slightly. Joanna winced, unable to fathom how any adult could even consider taking advantage of a student’s trust. That her kids were piqued by such an abhorrent rumor didn’t sit well with her. It didn’t sit well with her at all. She shook her head. “That will be enough of that, thank you.”

“He’s serious,” a young woman named Shannon Heigl said. “One of the teachers has been having an affair with a student and the student reported it to the administration.”

Another student added her two cents. “They’re going to press charges and whoever it is plans to sue the teacher and the school district!” she exclaimed.

Joanna’s gaze skated from one face to the other, everyone suddenly looking at her to either confirm or deny the rumors she was hearing for the first time. A string of expletives suddenly rang through the air, Damon cursing as he continued to scroll through his phone. “This is so effed up!” he said with a snide laugh.

“Mr. Morrow! Watch your mouth!” she chastised. She held out her hand for his cell phone. “I said no phones.”

The young man eyed her sheepishly. “I was just shutting it off. I swear,” he said as he shoved the device into the top of his book bag and the book bag under his desk. He dapped the palm of her hand and gave her a wink of his eye.

Joanna met the look he was giving her with a stern stare, her eyes narrowed. She shook her index finger in his direction. “You’re walking a very fine line with me, Mr. Morrow. You do not want to test my patience.”

As she turned, she saw him leaning to whisper to the boy beside him. “The student is male! The teacher’s a woman!” he quipped, the two giving each other a high five as if that was something to celebrate. A titter of laughter and hushed whispers swept through the room.

“All right, that will be enough,” Joanna said as she moved to the front of classroom and began to count off test papers at the head of each row. “Let’s focus on something useful, please. It doesn’t matter who did what to whom, regardless of gender—if such a thing happened, it’s wrong! Let’s not waste any more of our energy on unsubstantiated accusations. Spreading rumors only serves to hurt people unnecessarily. You all should want to be above that.” Her eyes connected with each student, finally coming to rest on Damon Morrow’s face. He was still grinning from ear to ear, his chest pushed forward arrogantly as he and his desk mate whispered one last time.

“Take one and pass it back,” she said to the students at the front of each row.

Minutes later their heads were down, pencils scribbling away as they diligently tackled question after question. Joanna moved back behind her desk and took her seat. She’d been teaching since forever at Riptide High School, the Chicago, Illinois, staple rich with history. She’d also been a student here back in the day, the senior class president of her graduating class and a cheerleader. Her parents had both been graduates, as well, and before them, her maternal grandfather, one of the first to integrate Riptide classrooms before it had been court mandated.

Joanna came from a long line of educators, beginning with her paternal great-great-great grandmother, who’d taught other slaves on a Georgia plantation how to read and write. Her mother had taught English at Riptide’s rival high school for most of her career, only recently retiring from her assistant principal position to tend her beloved gardens. During the spring and summer, she grew the fruits and vegetables she intended to can in jars while catching up on her reading when the weather turned. Joanna’s father was a math professor at the local community college, determined to trek to his day job until they laid him in his casket. Both loved what they did, and so did Joanna.

She had always known she would be a teacher, even preferring to play classroom instead of house as a child. Despite the challenges of students who were self-absorbed, more abrasive and less focused, she enjoyed everything about sharing her love of history with the students who came every September and were gone by June.

And Joanna loved history. She found it fascinating that if you examined the past closely enough you could find a precedent for most current situations. She loved helping her students discover that for themselves. It was thrilling when she could show them a correlation between their own challenging academic environment and the courts of the Italian Renaissance, giving teens philosophies on how to survive in their dog-eat-dog world. When there were questions of integrity they studied Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Thomas More and people who, through the ages, epitomized the fight for what was right. When students bemoaned their home situations, she made them research life in the Middle Ages and its lack of comfort and convenience. There were lessons to be learned from the past and Joanna enjoyed everything about exploring them.

The time passed quickly and when the bell sounded, announcing the end of class, a few of them jumped in surprise. Joanna stood. “Pencils down, please, and leave your tests in the basket on my desk on your way out. There is no homework tonight, so enjoy the break!”

Chairs slid against the concrete floor and the noise level rose as the class marched single-file past her, sliding exam papers into the wicker container on the corner of her desk. As the last student made his exit, they were still spreading gossip, cell phone messages and social media updates being shared. Joanna couldn’t help but wonder if there was any truth to the allegations, but figured she’d learn more before the day ended. She had no doubt there were as many teachers gossiping as there were students trying to dig up information.

As Joanna bound the test papers with a large rubber band and a sticky note detailing the class and time, her friend and associate barged into the room.

“You’re on break now, right?” English teacher Angel Graves gushed, tossing a look over her shoulder.

Joanna nodded. “I’m chaperoning fourth period study hall and grading these test papers. What’s up?”

“Haven’t you heard? The administration is in an uproar and there’s been two police detectives in the principal’s office since this morning. Someone’s in some serious trouble. Mrs. Magee says it’s about to hit the fans!”

Joanna shook her head from side to side. “Mrs. Magee gossips too much! I don’t know why you pay that woman any attention,” she said, referring to the office secretary.

“I pay attention to her because she’s that inside line to everything that goes on in this school. You should give her more credit. Besides, aren’t she and your mother old friends?”

“Which is how I know she gossips too much!”

“Yes, but she always has the best gossip!”

Joanna laughed as they made their way out of the classroom and down the hall toward the other end of the school building. Their conversation was easy and casual as they maneuvered their way through the throng of students hurrying to their next period class before the late bell sounded. “So, who did what this time?” she asked.

“It’s serious. They’re claiming teacher misconduct and inappropriate contact with a student.”

“Are they saying who?”

Angel shrugged. “Only that the student is a senior.”

“I just can’t believe it. I know some of the men around here are slimy, but I can’t imagine any one of them doing such a thing. That would just be horrific!”

Angel shrugged her shoulders. “You’re preaching to the choir! I wholeheartedly agree but you just can’t trust people like you used to.”

Joanna shook her head. “I swear, if it’s not one thing around here, it’s another. Last week it was all about the district wanting to close our doors and sell off the building, and the week before that our accreditation was supposedly in jeopardy. It’s anything that will get the school board up in arms. That last school board meeting lasted an hour longer than necessary. I can just imagine what a scandal like this will have them ranting about.”

“Yes, you can. They’ll revisit the dress code, insist on psychological background checks to detect predatory tendencies, maybe even contemplate a no-touch, no-tell policy. You know the drill.”

“No touch, no tell! Now you’re being funny,” Joanna said with a soft chuckle.

Angel laughed with her. “You have to have a sense of humor if you plan to make tenure.”

“I already have tenure.”

“Retirement, then. Either way, if you don’t laugh at foolishness like this, you’ll go crazy.”

Their banter was suddenly interrupted by someone calling Joanna’s name loudly from the other end of the hallway.

“Ms. Barnes! Ms. Barnes!”

The two women exchanged a quick look before turning in the direction of the high-pitched squeals piercing through the thick chatter of students crowding the hallway. Marion Talley tossed up a slight hand as she stomped her size-eleven heels in their direction. Before reaching their side, she admonished one student for cursing, a second for groping his girlfriend inappropriately and sent a third to the office for the length of her skirt. She herself wore a black knit dress that hugged one curve too many, remaining baby weight from her two middle-school-aged daughters still clinging to her midsection and hips.

Joanna forced a smile to her face, her mouth bending upward as she feigned interest in the woman who chaired the school’s English department. Marion Talley spent every opportunity she could find to make Joanna’s life miserable. The two of them had history that took them both back to their own high school days, resentment harbored over teenage antics that should have been long forgotten.

“Mrs. Talley, what can I do for you?” Joanna asked, mindful of all the ears shuffling past them.

“I was hoping to catch you before you left your classroom. You must have rushed out before the students. You do know leaving early without permission is grounds for disciplinary action. If someone were to tell, of course.”

Joanna bristled slightly, the little hairs against the back of her neck rising.

“Cut the crap, Marion,” Angel snarled under her breath. “You know she left her classroom the same time you left yours. You’re always trying to start something.”

Marion narrowed her gaze on the other woman, her face skewing with irritation. She bit back a comment, turning her attention onto Joanna instead.

“Mrs. Donato would like to see you in her office. I’m headed down to cover your study hall.”

“Did she say what it’s about?” Joanna asked.

Marion smirked. “No. But then there’s so much going on around here today. I’m sure it’s nothing, though.”

Joanna gave her another smile. “I’m sure, too.”

“Humph!” Marion grunted as she turned on her high heels and stomped back in the direction she’d come from.

When Marion was out of earshot, Joanna muttered under her breath, “I really wish she’d fall into a large hole and disappear.”

Angel laughed. “I know two sophomores who would gladly make that happen for you. Just give me the word.”

* * *

Minutes later Joanna sat in a wooden chair across from Valentina Donato, the school principal, and a police detective from the Chicago police department. A uniformed officer stood at the door. Joanna was shaking and on the verge of tears.

“Your union rep will meet you down at the police station, but you might want to consider hiring your own attorney,” Valentina was saying.

Joanna shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding,” Valentina said, “but we have a legal obligation to have the charges levied against you investigated. The allegations are very serious, Joanna! David Locklear claims you had a sexual relationship with him and that you held that relationship over his head and threatened his grades. We can’t just ignore that.”

Joanna turned to the man standing at the edge of the desk. “Am I under arrest? Because I certainly didn’t do what you’re saying I did!”

The detective cleared his throat. The man was short and slightly obese. He wore a gray suit that was ill-fitting. He was sweating profusely, his eyes darting around the room. He was clearly uncomfortable and he refused to look directly at her. His gaze finally rested somewhere on the wall behind her head. “For the moment, we just need to ask you some questions, Ms. Barnes, and under the circumstances we need to do that down at the station.”

Joanna could feel herself nod but everything seemed like an out-of-body experience. Her arms and legs were heavy and she was shaking. Her nerves felt completely fried. The wave of shock that had washed over her was consuming and, for a moment, Joanna wasn’t sure she could keep her emotions in check. She took a deep breath and then a second, filling her lungs with air as she struggled not to cry, or worse, rage aloud.

The detective rose from his seat and gestured for Joanna to do the same.

“I have my car...” Joanna started. “I can meet you—”

The detective shook his head. “I need you to ride to the station with me, Ms. Barnes.”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t... I can’t... I need to...” she stammered, suddenly unable to complete a coherent sentence.

“It’s not an option,” the detective added. “Right now, this is just a formal questioning and I’m willing to spare you the embarrassment of handcuffs as long as you cooperate.”

Joanna stood. She took another deep breath. “I need to make a call,” she said, her voice a loud whisper. She reached into her handbag for her cell phone. “Please? I need to call my attorney to meet us there.”

The detective nodded. “That is your right.”

* * *

Mingus Black rolled his eyes skyward, not at all amused by his sister Simone. The sixth child and the youngest girl in his family, Simone Black was being a proverbial pain in the ass as she pranced around his office, giving orders to his staff like she paid the bills. Despite him being older, his attorney sister was notorious for bossing him around, wielding control when it was least wanted. She got that from their sister Vaughan. He was grateful when her cell phone rang, announcing an incoming call, because he was just seconds from throwing her out the door on the heels of her Manolo Blahniks.

“I need to take this,” she said with a light laugh. “But when I’m finished, we need to talk about you incorporating this business. You can’t keep running it all willy-nilly like you’re doing.” Mingus rolled his eyes a second time as she depressed the talk button on her phone. He went back to signing the checks his secretary had dropped on his desk earlier that morning.

Simone’s lighthearted expression suddenly deflated like air being sucked from a balloon. Her brow furrowed, shock and concern flooding her face. She was listening intently and from where he sat he could sense the anxiety of the person on the other end of the phone line.

Mingus met his sister’s stare as he shifted forward, lifting himself upright. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice a loud whisper.

Simone held up her index finger, still listening attentively to the party on the other end. Rising, Mingus rounded the desk and moved to stand beside her. He brushed a large hand against her back and shoulder when he realized she was shaking, something having moved her to distress.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Simone said, clearly fighting to contain the worry in her voice. “I will meet you at the police station. Don’t say anything to anyone. Don’t answer any questions until I get there. I’m on my way.” There was a moment of pause, the other person speaking, and then Simone said, “It’s going to be okay. I promise,” before she disconnected the call. “Mingus, I need you to come to the police station with me.”

Mingus eyed her with a raised brow. “What’s going on?”

“Do you remember my friend Joanna Barnes? She and I went to Western Illinois for undergrad. Joanna is one of my sorority sisters. She went to the Center for Teaching at the University of Chicago for her graduate studies.”

Mingus shrugged, having no real interest in putting a face to the name. “Sorry, it doesn’t ring any bells,” he said as he moved back behind his desk and sat.

Simone frowned. “Well, she’s been picked up for questioning. They’re alleging she had a sexual relationship with one of her students.”

Mingus shot his sister a look. “She’s a teacher?”

“High school, and she didn’t do it,” Simone said matter-of-factly.

“How do you know that?”

Simone scowled. “I know her. Joanna is not that kind of woman.”

“Are you sure you know...” he started.

Simone waved her index finger at him a second time. “I know.” She reached into her purse and pulled a dollar bill from inside, dropping it onto his desk. “I need to hire you to help prove she’s innocent.”

Mingus laughed as he picked up the currency, smoothing it between his fingers. “You really don’t expect me to work for free, do you?”

“Of course not. That is just an unofficial retainer. We’ll work out the details later.”

He laughed again. “I’m not an attorney, Simone. I’m a private investigator. There’s no privilege that needs to be established.”

“I know that,” she answered, irritation rising in her tone. “I just need you to come to the station with me. Please.”

Mingus blew out a heavy sigh. He had a lengthy list of things he needed to complete and taking on another case was not something he had planned to do. He watched as Simone headed for the door.

Simone tossed him one last look over her shoulder. “So, are you coming?”

Mingus tossed up his hands in frustration, knowing that if he were honest with himself, he really didn’t have any other options. His sister knew there wasn’t anything he would not do for her. Even when she irritated him. She had already banked on him saying yes. He’d follow her to the station and he would work whatever case she needed him to work. She had him wrapped tightly around her little finger and, despite his best efforts, he had yet to unravel the string to set himself free.

“I’ll meet you there,” he said, reaching into the desk drawer for his keys. “I need to drive my own car.”

Despite his reservations, Mingus was at least willing to show up. He didn’t know Simone’s friend, but her relationship with the woman was already a cause for concern. He always kept his distance when dealing with people he knew personally in a professional capacity and knew that friends weren’t always truthful if there was something they didn’t want you to know. He didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news if Simone’s friend wasn’t everything she believed her to be.