Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn (Spenser, #44)(47)

I stared at him and I saw fear in his narrow eyes. But he just shook his head and looked away from me, unable to keep contact. “I can ask around,” Teehan said. “You got a card or something?”

“You know, Kevin,” I said. “For you, I just might.”

I pulled one from my wallet and handed it to him. This time I wished I really had the one with the skull-and-crossbones logo.





41


Yes, I know Johnny Donovan,” said a guy named Mark Schultze. “Wish to God I could say I didn’t. My experience with him wasn’t pleasant.”

We sat in his office at a very tony private school in Watertown called Oak Grove. Outside his window, children were conducting some type of summer science camp in a marsh. A table had been set along a boardwalk with microscopes. I imagined summer camp at Oak Grove cost as much as yachting at Martha’s Vineyard.

“How long did you know him?” I said.

“He was here when I took the job four years ago,” Schultze said. He was a smallish guy with brown hair and an expanding belly. He wore a red gingham shirt that looked like a tablecloth at an Italian restaurant and blocky black eyeglasses. “His official title was security, but he turned out to be more of a fix-it guy. He took care of the heating and cooling, basic maintenance of the property.”

“Tell me about the problems you had with him,” I said.

“Should I speak to my lawyer before I do?”

“Do you wish to look out for Donovan’s interests?”

“Of course not.”

I smiled big. “Well, then.”

“Six months after I got here,” he said. “A few computers disappeared, an iPad or two, and then a large-screen television.”

“Did you confront him?”

“Oh, yes,” Schultze said. “He was incredulous. Donovan claimed he was part of some witch hunt and blamed some of our landscapers who did not speak English nor had access to the classrooms. He kept on saying it was those rotten Mexicans.”

“Did you fire him?”

“Not at first,” Schultze said. “He threatened us with a lawsuit if he was reprimanded. That’s how the whole adventure started. I should have followed my instincts. I should gotten rid of him immediately.”

I raised my eyebrows. I sometimes did this in place of saying “Please continue.”

“Are you in contact with anyone in the media, Mr. Spenser?” Schultze said.

“If you’re concerned about school privacy, this conversation is between us,” I said. “I’m doing a background check on Mr. Donovan. He’s a suspect in some other crimes.”

“More thefts and bullying?”

“Of a sort,” I said. “Let’s just say his behavior has warranted my attention.”

Outside the windows, the day campers were dipping gallon buckets into the marsh and sorting through the muck. Some of the children carried long nets. They wore rubber boots and sloshed about, seeming to have a great time. All in all, I would have invested in sailing at Martha’s Vineyard. You could have cocktails while the kids frolicked.

“My relationship with Mr. Donovan remained icy,” Schultze said. “We didn’t speak for almost a year. He did his job. And then he had an altercation with one of our tenth-graders. He accused a boy of breaking into the maintenance shed and took matters into his own hands.”

“What did he do?”

“He pushed the boy and slapped him hard across the face,” Schultze said. Schultze’s own face colored a bit as he spoke. “We fired him immediately. The parents, rightly so, were horrified. As were we.”

“How’d Donovan take being fired?”

“Not well,” Schultze said. He rocked back in his padded leather chair and folded his hands across his belly. “He blamed several young boys of plotting against him, even saying they’d been the ones who’d stolen the electronics. He threatened to sue the school when the parents of the boy filed charges. And he threatened me with violence. We had to have the police escort him from campus.”

“What exactly did he say to you?”

“He claimed I’d ruined his name,” Schultze said. He removed the stylish eyeglasses. He blew a warm breath on a lens and cleaned it with a tissue. “And that he wished to kick the crap out of me.”

“Subtle.”

“He’s a sick man,” Schultze said. “There’s an aura of meanness about him. He wouldn’t speak to you or look you in the eye. The only time I ever saw him animated was when he’d talk to some of the instructors about firefighting. He claimed to have been a volunteer firefighter.”

“Which is not true.”

“He said a lot of things that turned out not to be true.”

“What else?”

“He said he was a decorated Marine.”

“Did he have a military record?”

“None,” he said. “Were you in the service, Mr. Spenser?”

“Army,” I said. “For a few years.”

“I was in the Air Force,” he said. “You and I probably have similar feelings about those who lie about their service.”

I nodded. I didn’t do much in the Army, but I wasn’t overly fond of liars of any type.