Jazz hated the tremor of remorse that vibrated through Eileen’s words. “It’s not like Bernadette got upset about the argument and committed suicide.”
At which Detective Lindsey gave her a look.
Jazz stopped herself just short of clicking her tongue. “She didn’t kill herself, then wrap herself in plastic and stuff herself up there in the attic,” she told him, although he surely already knew that and was just waiting to gauge her reaction.
Now that she’d given it to him—full-blown and packed with outrage—she turned back to her boss. “You have nothing to feel guilty about,” she told Eileen.
“But you did say you had a reason to kill Ms. Quinn,” Lindsey put in.
“No one who knows Sister Eileen would ever believe she could do such a thing,” Jazz said, adding the Sister designation she hardly ever used when speaking about the principal because she figured it wouldn’t hurt to remind this man that Eileen was religious, devoted, dedicated.
“And someone who does not know you well?” he asked the nun.
A spurt of anger coursing through her veins at the same time her sense of justice demanded they clear up this craziness right there and then, Jazz stepped forward. “Bernadette was committed to her work. Sometimes too committed. She could be stubborn. Sister Eileen tried to reason with her. She tried to work with her.”
“We all did,” Eileen added.
“And Ms. Quinn, how did she respond? Like she didn’t hear you?”
“Oh, no. She heard us, all right,” Eileen told him. “She just made it clear that we were wrong and she was right. That’s why…” The realization still stung. Jazz knew that. There was nothing Eileen liked less than failure. “We finally had no choice. We … the board and I … we decided to put her on probation. She had until Easter to turn herself and her attitude around.”
“And if she didn’t, she was out the door?”
“We offered her another job,” Jazz said. “We created a position, assistant in the library.”
“And how did Ms. Quinn feel about that?”
Eileen inched back her shoulders. “She said her life was all about teaching. She threatened to sue.”
The detective considered this. “Which is why you said you could have killed her.”
More than one girl at St. Catherine’s had been on the wrong end of the look Eileen shot at Detective Lindsey. “A lawsuit would have been … difficult. At the time we were in the middle of adding to the back of the school. A botany lab and other classrooms. The money was earmarked and we couldn’t afford to lose it.”
“So Ms. Quinn disappearing, that was sort of a good thing.”
Jazz hoped the one-sided sneer she sent in Lindsey’s direction sent a clear message. “We thought she’d come to her senses. That she’d lighten up and relax. She never did. That’s why no one was surprised when she resigned,” Jazz put in. “Well, when we thought she resigned.”
Lindsey sucked on the end of his pencil, thinking this over. “You expected her to be what … obedient?”
He couldn’t have known it, but with that single question, Detective Lindsey had pushed one of Eileen’s hot buttons.
An obedient teacher? Robot students? The notion was so far from Eileen’s way of thinking, she actually had to stop for a minute and consider the question. When she finally digested it, she leveled her shoulders.
“I expected her to be professional. It’s exactly what I expect of all my staff.”
“And she was…” He waited for Eileen’s answer.
Jazz knew Eileen well enough to know she nearly sighed. She also knew Eileen would consider that a sign of weakness. Now that they were removed from the horror on the fourth floor, now that she was in her TOMS and back in command, there was no way Eileen would reveal that much of herself. Not to a stranger. “She was determined that every girl in her class would live up to impossible standards. I’m not just talking about good grades and homework assignments that were turned in on time. Of course we expect that of all our girls, and if they can’t deliver, we work with them so their grades and their habits and their attitudes improve. But Bernadette…” Eileen chose her words wisely. “She wanted to make sure the girls stayed on the straight and narrow in their personal lives, too. She asked them too many questions about dating and boyfriends and—”
“She cared.” Lindsey dared the comment.
“If that was all it was, I wouldn’t have objected. But she offered advice, and most of the advice went along the lines of how the girls shouldn’t date, how they should break up with the guys they were seeing.”
“A man-hater, huh?”
“It wasn’t so much hate as it was…” Jazz searched for the right word. “I think it was more of a distrust.”
“Not a good attitude for young women to have. Not across the board,” Eileen added. “Ms. Quinn was a teacher, not Dear Abby. Some of the girls thought she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. Many of their parents agreed. It’s one thing to have high standards for yourself. It’s another when you think other people need to live up to them, too.”
Eileen took another drink of coffee. “Not that we don’t think high standards are important. One of the things we hope our students take away from St. Catherine’s is the ability to think and make decisions based on logical input. Every girl here knows we have a code of ethics and a certain … let’s call it maturity … that we expect of our young women. But Bernadette taught eighth grade, and eighth graders are … well, they wouldn’t like to hear me say it, but eighth graders are still little girls. We like to ease them into their roles as students and as young women and we all work hard to provide them the proper example. We don’t expect them to be perfect. None of us are. Unfortunately, Bernadette had a hard time understanding that. Her expectations could sometimes be too high. She wanted them to sit a certain way, and walk a certain way, and think a certain way.”
“So she made enemies,” Lindsey said.
“Enemies is a strong word.” As long as she was holding a cup of coffee and had no intention of drinking it, Jazz offered it to Detective Lindsey, and he took it and swallowed it down, hot and black, and while he was doing that, she tried to explain what she thought he’d need to know in terms of his investigation. “Some of the teachers were jealous of Bernadette’s talents. She made teaching look easy and we all know it isn’t. Some of the parents thought Bernadette demanded too much from their kids when it came to homework and special projects, but to Bernadette, that’s what learning was all about. Some of the girls…” It was something Jazz had thought was behind them and she hated bringing it up. “The girls thought Bernadette was too strict. Some of them weren’t very nice to Bernadette.”
Lindsey brightened at the thought and pulled out his notebook. “So … student enemies.”
“Little girls,” Eileen reminded him at the same time Jazz’s phone rang.
She answered it with her usual “St. Catherine’s,” but caught her breath when the caller identified herself as a reporter from a local TV station. She should have expected the media frenzy; she just hadn’t had the time to think about it.