A Grave Talent by Laurie R. King

Author:Laurie R. King [King, Laurie R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780553573992
Google: j2ZQPwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0553573993
Publisher: Crimeline
Published: 1993-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

At the high school the final bell had just rung, and Kate steered toward the visitor's parking against a surge of yellow buses, overladen cars, and clusters of long-legged students with the bodies of adults and the clamor of second-graders. Nothing like a high school to make a person feel short, clumsy, staid, and totally conspicuous. It seemed to affect Hawkin the same way.

"I never feel so much a cop as when I come to a high school," he muttered.

"Flat feet and a truncheon," Kate agreed.

"Just the facts, ma'am." He raised his voice. "Pardon me, ladies, can you tell me where I'd find the principal's office?"

The answer came as multiple giggles and a flurry of vague waves as the collective of females fluttered away. At the next junction he directed the same question to a group of males, and got vague thumb gestures and deeper guffaws, and the same mass sideways movement. He was drawing breath for a third inquiry when Kate nudged him and pointed to a sign saying Office. They pushed slowly inside to the desk.

The harassed secretary gradually realized that Hawkin was not a student and turned her stubby nose and small eyes in their direction. Her piercing voice cut across the din and caused it to slip several notches as the student bodies took note of the nature of these two intruders.

"Are you Detective Hawking? Mr. Zawalski said that you and Officer Martini would be here and that he'd be back in ten minutes if you'd like to wait in his office."

The waters parted and the two of them moved meekly under the speculative eyes and the beginning of whispers into the inner sanctum marked Principal. A burst of voices was set off by the closing of the door, and Kate grinned at Hawkin.

"Well, Detective Hawking, what do you bet there's a scramble for lockers and many flushings of toilets in about two minutes?"

"Sorry for the janitor tomorrow when they're all backed up."

The office was large and cluttered, the lair of a proponent of hearty camaraderie and school spirit. Plaques and group photographs of bulky young men in shoulder pads, cheerful young men in baseball hats, and unnaturally tall young men in basketball shorts crowded every inch of wall space. Bookshelves held trophies, a dusty, much autographed football on a stand, a shelf and a half of multicolored and multisized yearbooks, and several generations of the school mascot, a bear. On the wall behind the door was a yellowed list of scholarship students, three years old. Three small photos of a women's basketball team huddled together in the corner.

Hawkin moved directly to the bookshelves, pulled out an old yearbook, and took it to the cluttered table. After flipping through it for a moment he opened it flat at the formal portraits of the senior class.

The third photograph was of Vaun. To her left smirked a pair of sun-bleached twins named Aaronson; to her right another blond face looked out, a chubby boy with the euphonic name of Alexander Alarzo.

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