The Word of a Child. Janice Kay Johnson

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      She avoided the faculty room during her break to be sure she didn’t run into Gerald Tanner, the computer teacher. He was likely to seek her out, as they’d talked about doing a joint project that involved Internet research in his class and a paper in hers.

      She liked Gerald, who was new at the middle school this year. A tall bony man who made her think of Ichabod Crane, he was in his late thirties and had been teaching at a community college before he’d decided to “get ’em young,” as he’d put it.

      Sexually? she wondered now in distaste.

      But what if Tracy was lying for some reason? She might be afraid of her mother’s current boyfriend who had raped her, or mad at Gerald because he was flunking her, or… The possibilities were endless. She had seemed genuinely distraught, but Mariah had thought before that Tracy, who was in her beginning drama class, had real talent on the stage.

      The accusation alone could be enough to ruin Gerald’s career as a teacher; such stories tended to follow a man.

      She had reason to know.

      Simon had lost his job after rumors got around, even though the accusation was never substantiated and he was never taken to trial. The excuse for firing him was trumped up, and he had known the real reason, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Now, three years later, he lived in Bremerton, where nobody whispered, but he’d had to take a job working at the Navy shipyard that wasn’t as good as the one he’d lost.

      He’d lost his wife, too, but she didn’t want to think about that. Not today.

      This was different, Mariah told herself; the victim was old enough to speak for herself, and it might not be too late for doctors to recover sperm and therefore DNA. This wasn’t anything like a child’s perhaps wild—or perhaps not—accusation.

      Zofie’s daddy.

      She would hear the quiet accusation until the day she died. Not in the little girl’s voice, because she’d never seen Lily Thalberg again. After the notoriety, after the investigation had stalled, the Thalbergs had moved away, wanting a fresh start, a friend of a friend had told Mariah. No, Mariah heard her husband named as a molester in the deep, certain voice of that police officer. Detective Connor McLean. He’d believed Lily Thalberg, she could tell. It was partly his certainty that had eaten at Mariah in the days and weeks following his initial visit, when Simon became furious at her smallest, meekest question and when she began to look at Zofie and worry.

      She hated remembering. Second-guessing herself, feeling guilt again because she hadn’t stood behind her husband.

      Why did Tracy have to come to her? she wondered wretchedly.

      Her last student was barely out of the classroom when Mariah followed, locking the door behind her. In the office, the secretary said, “Mrs. Patterson is expecting you,” and waved her down the hall where the counselors and the principal and vice principal had their offices.

      Both Mrs. Patterson and Mr. Lamarr, the vice principal, were in the office, she saw as she opened the door. But they weren’t alone. A second man who had been standing by the window turned as Mariah entered.

      Her breath escaped in a gasp and she stopped halfway inside, clutching the doorknob.

      As the big man with short, reddish-brown hair faced her, his light gray eyes widened briefly just before his expression became utterly impassive.

      Anyone but him, she thought wildly. His voice would live forever in her nightmares and as the kernel of her guilt. If it had occurred to her he might be sent… But it hadn’t.

      She heard herself say hoarsely, “I’m sorry, I can’t…” as she began to back up.

      Noreen Patterson half rose from her chair behind the desk. “Mariah, what is it?”

      Her wild gaze touched on him. She was breathing like an untamed creature caught in a trap. “I…I just can’t…” she said again, her voice high and panicky.

      He said nothing, only waited at the far end of the office. A nerve spasmed under one eye, the only visible sign he understood her distress or felt it.

      The vice principal had reached her. Gripping her arm, he said, “What is it? Are you sick, Mariah?”

      Sick. She seized on an excuse no one would dispute.

      “Yes.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling very well.”

      Detective Connor McLean abruptly turned his back so that he looked out the window rather than at her.

      “The flu is going around,” Ed Lamarr said. “Here. Why don’t you come in and sit down.”

      In? She couldn’t.

      But it seemed she could, because she allowed herself to be led to the chairs facing Noreen’s desk. Sinking into one, she tried not to look at the broad, powerful back of the man gazing out the window.

      The principal sank back into her seat. “Do you feel well enough to talk about Tracy for a minute?”

      Mariah breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Slowly, carefully. She could be strong. He had never threatened her, never raised his voice.

      He had only destroyed her marriage and her belief in both her husband and herself.

      No. Her fingernails bit into her thighs. Be fair. It was childish to hold him responsible. He was not the accuser. If he had not come, it would have been someone else. He was only the messenger. The arm of the law.

      Lily Thalberg’s voice.

      As now he would be Tracy Mitchell’s.

      “Yes.” Miraculously Mariah heard herself sound calm, if far away to her own ears. “I’m fine.”

      “Ah. Well, let us know if it gets the best of you.”

      Mariah sat with her knees and ankles together, her spine regally straight. Poised. A lady, who would never let anything get the best of her. “Of course,” she agreed.

      “Then I want you to meet Detective Connor McLean of the Port Dare Police Department.”

      Had he recognized her, or only seen that the sight of him upset her?

      He turned.

      She said stiffly, “How do you do.”

      He nodded. “Ms. Stavig.”

      Noreen smiled at Mariah. “Tracy Mitchell chose to come to Mariah. She tells me ‘everyone’ says you can be trusted.”

      Mariah focused fiercely on the principal, blocking out her awareness of the police officer.

      “In this case, of course, I couldn’t keep what she told me confidential. In the future, students may not think I can be trusted.”

      “She understands that you did what you have to do.”

      “Did she ask you to keep what she told you confidential, Ms. Stavig?” asked Detective McLean.

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