Good Girl, Bad Girl(78)

“Be alone with them.”

“But you ignored the rules.”

“We were only talking.”

“Alone in your car.”

“I know it’s frowned upon, but Jodie was different. She’d come along to our church a few times.”

“At your invitation?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He takes a moment to collect his thoughts. “I knew Jodie was struggling with things. She was exhausted, what with her training, traveling, and competing. She wasn’t allowed to go to parties or to have a boyfriend.”

“She told you this?”

Hendricks nods. “I thought that maybe she might find some answers, if she talked to Jesus.”

“You were trying to convert her.”

“We don’t convert people—we embrace them.”

“Did you embrace Jodie?”

“Not like that. I don’t appreciate what you’re insinuating.”

“Did Jodie ever write notes to you?” I ask, remembering the Valentine’s card we discovered in her school locker.

“No.”

“Did she send you a valentine?”

He falls silent.

“Did you give her one?”

“No, of course not.”

“I can see how these schoolgirl crushes can happen. “You’re young and good-looking. It must have been flattering.”

“Nothing happened!”

“You took an interest in her. You listened.”

“I was tutoring her.”

“Because she fell behind?”

“Yes.”

“You gave her more attention in class—called on her first.”

Hendricks is shaking his head.

“Soon you were sharing private jokes and secret smiles and stray touches. You told her she was special. You found excuses to be alone with her. If only you were ten years younger, you thought.”

“Stop it!” the teacher whispers. “I’m a Christian.”

“So was Myra Hindley,” Lenny says, “and the Yorkshire Ripper.”

“I can’t help it if she had a crush on me,” says Hendricks. “I gave her spiritual advice, that’s all. As God is my witness.”

“Do you need God as a witness?” I ask.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

He drops his head into his hands. I can see the top of his scalp, where faint traces of dandruff cling to the parting in his hair.

“Were you sleeping with her?”

“Never! I wouldn’t.” His voice has risen in pitch.

“Did Jodie tell you she was pregnant?”

The teacher’s head snaps up and fear sparks in his eyes. “What? No!”

Lenny reaches into her jacket pocket and retrieves a small sealed plastic tube with a cotton bud inside. At the same time, she takes out a pair of latex gloves.

“Have you ever heard of Locard’s exchange principle, Mr. Hendricks?”

Hendricks shakes his head.

“It holds that every perpetrator of a crime will leave something at the crime scene and take something away from it. It could be soil, fibers, semen, skin cells, or a single strand of hair. Wherever they step, or whatever they touch, they cross-contaminate.”

Lenny unscrews the lid of the plastic container.

“What are you doing?” asks Hendricks.

“Collecting a DNA sample. Science is going to put Jodie in your car. Science may also find your semen on her body and your baby in her womb.”

“That’s crazy! I’m a happily married man. A father. I would never . . . I didn’t . . . We talked that’s all. Nothing happened.” His voice has a wheedling, pathetic quality.

“Open your mouth.”

“No.”

“Are you refusing to cooperate?”

“I want a lawyer.”

Lenny sighs in disgust. “In my experience, conscientious teachers don’t ask for lawyers and refuse DNA tests. Conscientious teachers rarely lose their jobs—unless they’re sleeping with a student.”

Hendricks takes a moment to weigh up his choices, before allowing Lenny to swab the inside of his mouth.

His wife has returned from the school drop-off. Her toddler is rugged up in a colorful coat that makes her look like a beach ball with limbs. Outside two men in overalls are winching a rust-streaked Peugeot 207 up the sloping ramp of a truck with a police insignia on the doors.

“That’s my car!” she exclaims.

“It’s all right, Cathy, they have a warrant,” says Hendricks.

“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” she says.

“Did you know Jodie Sheehan?” I ask.

“She came to our church.”

“Did you see her at the fireworks?”

“No.”

“Your husband has told us that he borrowed your car that night and picked up Jodie Sheehan,” says Lenny.

Cathy Hendricks glances coldly at her husband and something passes between them.

“What time did he get home?” asks Lenny.

“I can’t remember.”

“I thought he was getting fish and chips for dinner.”

She struggles to find an answer. “Tristan had a temperature. I put him into our bed and fell asleep.”