Chapter 3
The next morning, Hanson pulled up in the school's parking lot, surprised to see two new cars there. Shrugging, he stepped out of the blue Mustang and headed up the front steps, raising a hand in greeting to a couple kids from his English class. They nodded in return, then continued climbing and entered the hallway. Tom followed, heading to his locker before English.
When he entered, he was surprised to find the usual teacher wasn't there. Instead, it was a woman in her mid-twenties, who looked Israeli. Hanson could feel a smirk creeping across his face. Oh, this was gonna be good.
The sub finished writing her name on the whiteboard (Lisa Daniels) and turned to face the AP English class. "As most of you probably know or have guessed by now, I'm your substitute English teacher." Tom could detect a slight Israeli accent, so he'd been correct on her nationality. "Please turn in your homework assignments from last night."
The entire class groaned, but did as she said. After that, they took roll and notes on the reading of The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. When there were ten minutes left in class, Lisa Daniels drew a sentence diagram on the SMART board and filled it in.
"Now, which one of you can tell me why we diagram a sentence?" She scanned the room, her eyes settling on a male student that had fallen asleep. "Mr."—she checked the roster—"Henderson?"
The kid jerked awake with a snort. "Huh?"
"Glad to hear you join us."
"I think you mean 'see'," Hanson corrected, raising his hand. Whose bright idea was it to have an Israeli teaching English?
"Oh, right. Sorry, American idioms drive me up the hall."
"Up the wall," everyone chorused.
Ms. Daniels sighed. "Forget it. Now, Henderson, could you answer the question."
"So you can learn how to draw celery?" the sleepy teen answered uncertainly, voice groggy.
There were a few laughs at that. Even the sub had to smile. "Uh, no. Anyone else?"
The girl sitting diagonally from Hanson took advantage of the momentary distraction to toss him a note. He snagged it in midair and opened it, keeping one eye on the sub. The undercover cop wasn't sure why, but he had a feeling he wasn't the only one now working this case. What he wasn't sure on now was which case to solve: the original murder/rape or the new homicide investigation. Ah, well. For now he'd go with the original case and hold back on the new one, in case they were linked. He didn't have much of a chance to read the note before Daniels noticed. "I'll see that, Mr. Bower."
"Hey, come on, it's personal," he protested, seriously hoping she wouldn't go there.
"Then read it aloud," she said, gesturing around the class. "I'm sure everyone here is—how do you say?—breathless with interest, concerning your liaison."
How did she know about that? Hanson thought. Still, he complied. Ab-libbing, he said, "Tom, I hope you're enjoying her lecture on diagramming sentences as much as I am. If you need any study help, I'll be glad to—"
The Israeli snatched the note and read, "Hi. My name's Amy and I love to party." The class laughed. "If you have a car, meet me after school and show me where it's at."
Hanson was having a serious case of déjà vu, mostly because this had happened when he was over at Emhurst a couple of weeks before. I hate karma.
Meanwhile, the sub had folded up the note and was looking at Amy with amused brown eyes. The girl, who had curly black hair, blue eyes, Caucasian skin, a black T-shirt with Heart scrawled across the front, and jeans, shrugged and glanced around. Ms. Daniels said, "Very well written, but try not to end the sentence with a preposition. Help her out, Bower."
Hanson grinned. "Okay." He leaned over and pointed out the window. "It's in the student lot, a blue '68 Mustang, parked over—"
Again, there was much laughter. The sub frowned slightly. "With the grammatical problem in the sentence, genius. For example, since you're relatively new here, if I were to ask where the cafeteria's at? How would I ask it properly?By the way, I could easily kill you 100 different ways with that pencil there."
Tom gulped. Who is this chick? Still, he smirked and answered, "Where's the cafeteria at . . . schmo?" Much laughter. The sub gave him the evil eye.
Thank God the bell rang just then. Everyone gathered up their textbooks, notebooks, and backpacks and bolted for the door. As Tom left, he could feel the sub's eyes boring into his back. He turned, but she was busy flipping through a three-ring binder. The undercover officer shrugged and went to his next class.
By the time gym rolled around, "Tom Bower" had loads of homework and almost no intel on the rape/homicide case. When he entered the gym via exiting the locker room, he was surprised to find another sub, this one with medium-length brown hair and green eyes. He was dressed in warm-up sweats and running shoes, and had a whistle around his neck. Oh, yeah, he also carried a clipboard.
Now Hanson was starting to become suspicious. Honestly, what were the odds of having two subs in one day? Had another department decided to put a couple of their own in? Then he remembered what Jenko had said about the death of Laura Williams not being their jurisdiction. That didn't necessarily mean this guy was undercover, right?
"Hey, Bower!" the substitute gym coach called. "You awake? I called for everyone to circle up."
"Oh, sorry, man," Hanson said, quickly moving over to join the rest of the class. He sat down and looked up at the new teacher.
"Ok, for those of you who haven't heard, I'm Tommy DiNardo. Your coach has fallen ill and might be out for a couple of weeks. So they put me in here. Don't expect me to be happy about it."
Tom snorted. Considering the looks DiNardo was getting from some of the girls, he was happy about this assignment. The guy was probably too old for them anyway. Then again, so was he.
". . . Today, we're playing soccer. So let's warm up—two laps around the track—no complaining," he added when some kids groaned, "and then stretch. After that, we'll see what I want you to do."
"Coach, this isn't soccer practice," one boy—Hanson thought it was Derek Johnson, Williams's ex-boyfriend—complained.
"Really? From what I've heard, you run two laps for a warm-up in track," the coach retorted. "Now, let's go everyone."
Hanson jogged after everyone, tailing back behind so he could talk to the sub. "Have you heard what happened yesterday?"
"No, what?"
"A girl was murdered. From what the rumor mills have been saying, it was maybe over drugs, a love triangle, I dunno. Some of us have started carrying weapons—as well as a few teachers. Just thought I'd let you know, considering you're new here and all."
The coach looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Aren't you a transfer student?"
"Yeah, Tom Bower. I transferred over from Wilcox three weeks ago. And FYI, I don't play a lot of sports."
"Then why are you in this class?"
Good question. Without replying, he picked up the pace and ran up the slight hill to the track to join his classmates.
After stretching, DiNardo had them run through some basic drills—not that he had a clue about what he was doing. It didn't help that Hanson and a few of the soccer kids kept having to correct him, much to the sub's irritation.
The endless movie quotes were also getting on Hanson's nerves. Finally, he snapped. "You know, this is high school, not one of your dumb movies!"
DiNardo looked offended.
One of "Bower's" classmates whispered, "I don't think he's ever really left high school, man."
"No, really?" he replied sarcastically, aiming a kick at the student across from him. Of course, the ball missed and ended up hitting the sub in the face.
Oops.
"Bower . . ." DiNardo started with an evil look on his face. "Principal's office. Now."
As Hanson sullenly marched back inside, he thought, Jenk is going to love this.
Aw, man, Hanson. And I'm sure we all know who the two new subs are, eh? If not, that's just really sad, people. And as mentioned before, all the trouble Hanson's gonna get into . . . *evil grin* Recognize any scenes from part 2 of the 21 JS pilot? I do not own those scenes, btw.
