Page 49 of Wicche Hunt

Sofia took up the explanation. “They throw money at the school for the people here to raise their children. But these people aren’t their parents. They’re teachers and administrators, coaches. This is a job, and then they go home to their own families.”

“They try,” Isabel said. “The teachers work long hours to help any student who needs it, but they’re not parents. And some kids are just…”

“Bad,” Sofia finished.

“Yeah, but everyone coddles them because they don’t want to deal with the rich, powerful parents who put them here. The dean is the one who upholds the rules. He gives the demerits. He calls the parents,” Isabel explained.

Sophia took over again. “He and the headmaster fight a lot. The dean wants students punished for breaking rules. The headmaster wants them given more chances and ways to get out of trouble because he doesn’t want to deal with angry parents. The dean calls to tell them what their child has done and what the consequences will be. Then they call the headmaster to yell and threaten that the consequences better go away or they’ll pull their school funding and get him fired.”

I interrupted. “Hi. I’m Arwyn. I’m a consultant for Detective Hernández. I had a question. When you say they threaten to pull funding, I don’t understand. Don’t they have to pay a tuition to have their student attend this school?”

Even though I’d been standing there the whole time, the women seemed nervous about responding to me.

Hernández must have noticed the same thing because she patted me on the shoulder and said, “Arwyn would never do or say anything to jeopardize your jobs.”

They didn’t look entirely convinced, but Sofia said, “Yes. They all pay tuition, but some parents contribute more for the building fund.”

“The parents of students who get into trouble pay more to keep their kids here?” the detective asked.

Sofia shrugged. “We don’t know who pays extra and who doesn’t. We’ve just heard the threat to stop the extra money.”

Hernández jotted down some notes and then used her pen to gesture up and down the halls. “What about the residences? Who’s here nights and weekends with the students? The headmaster said about sixty percent of the student body boards here.”

“The numbers change,” Isabel said. “When I first started working here—almost twenty years ago—only, maybe, forty percent of the students lived on campus. Now, it’s much more.”

“The housemasters chaperone the students,” Sophia said. “One male, one female. One lives at this end of the third floor. The other is at the far end.”

“Good,” Hernández said. “And their names?”

Sophia looked at Isabel, her brows furrowed. Isabel shrugged.

“In this school, they call each other their job title,” Sophia explained.

“The teachers use names,” Isabel added.

“Downstairs, the teachers and administrators have plaques by their doors,” Sophia said. “Like Headmaster, Mr. Whitmore. We clean those so we get to know everyone’s name and where their rooms are.”

“Up here,” Isabel continued, “it just says Housemaster by the door.”

Isabel tapped a finger over her lip and stared down the far end of the hall. “I think I heard a student call the woman Ms. Collins, but I’m not sure. The man is new. He’s only been here for maybe a month. Mr. Reed, though, he worked here almost as long as me. He just retired, said he wanted out before finals because exam weeks were always crazy in the residence.” She shook her head. “The things the kids get up to, trying to cheat their way into better last-minute grades.”

“Do you remember Mr. Reed’s first name?” the detective asked.

“Harold,” Isabel said.

Hernández made more notes. “Back to the dean. Did you see or hear him argue with anyone in the school beside the headmaster?”

“There’d be too many to count,” Sofia said. “He just ran angry.”

“Not with us,” Isabel clarified.

“No.” Sofia shook her head. “Some can be very high and mighty.”

“Blaming us for dumping the garbage because they’d accidentally thrown something out they needed,” Isabel said. She elbowed Sofia. “Remember Dr. Marcel? He told me to go get in the dumpster to find his computer thing.”

“Thumb drive,” Sofia said. “It was the dean who told him to jump in the dumpster if he needed it so badly, that it wasn’t Isabel’s job to fix his mistakes.”

Isabel nodded. “Then the dean dismissed me and stayed to deal with Dr. Marcel’s screaming. I really appreciated that.”

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