Nor did they look upset or depressed because their payoff had been stolen. That bugged me.
As the kids finished packing up, Kaylee and Jared joined Marisa at the north wall, which was dominated by a huge five-door oak cabinet. Trombones, French horns, baritone horns, and a few trumpets went inside, and Marisa and her friends locked the doors with the brand-new padlocks. The tuba went in last. After that, Kaylee and Jared followed the other kids out through the room’s big double doors, and Marisa threaded her way through the folding chairs to pick up her backpack. She paused beside my conductor’s stool on her way to the exit.
“Thanks for babysitting us,” she said. “Will I see you in English class later?”
“Afraid not. I’m a babysitter all day long. But getting a paycheck for doing nothing is …” I swept my hand in a gesture taking in the entire room. “How should I put it in this setting? Doing nothing is … my forte?”
Marisa gave me a sardonic grin. “A musical pun. Very clever, Mr. Marx. But don’t let Ms. Owens hear it.”
She began to step away, and I decided to try something.
“I’m curious,” I said. “How’d you get the thieves to bring back the Gronitz?”
She stopped and frowned. “What makes you think I’d have anything to do with that?”
“You’re the only tubist in the band,” I said. “So if I’d swiped a tuba, you’re who I’d hit up for ransom.”
Marisa took two steps toward the exit. “That wouldn’t work. I’m broke.”
I tried something else. “So who do you think took the horns?”
Marisa looked back at me and she didn’t blink. “There’s no telling. You never know who might be a thief.”
She pivoted, looking more like a ballerina than a tuba player, and was gone.
8. Teeny-Purple-Bikini Good
I went to the doorway and watched until Marisa vanished around the corner toward the cafeteria. Now there was no one else in the annex hallway. I stepped back into the band room and pulled the double doors closed.
Then I tried the door to the band director’s office and found that it was indeed locked. So I pulled two paper clips from my pocket and was inside in twenty seconds, closing the door behind me and relocking it. A switch set into the cinder-block wall turned on a pair of fluorescent bulbs, and they illuminated a jam-packed space that was barely ten by ten. That would have been without the filing cabinets, stacked boxes, desk, and industrial-strength office chair.
I sat in the chair and tried the center desk drawer. It was locked, too, which made me happy.
It took about a minute. Pretty slow for a desk drawer, but I had time. I also wasn’t searching for anything in particular. But if I happened to run across something that would make Garrett look bad, I wouldn’t mind. I had a fantasy that involved anonymously sending Elizabeth proof that she was making a terrible mistake.
At first, I didn’t see anything in the drawer worth locking up. Pens, dimes and pennies, clarinet and saxophone reeds. A pink eraser, a broken conductor’s baton. A few brass-instrument mouthpieces.
But underneath all of that was a spiral notebook. I pulled it out, opened it, and found a jumble of scribbled comments about ranking the woodwind section. It was as thrilling as a driver’s-license test.
Then two business-sized envelopes fell from the notebook’s back pages. They weren’t sealed, so I opened them.
Okay, I would have opened them anyway.
The first envelope contained a stack of five photographs that had been produced on a home printer from digital pictures. They were of Elizabeth, and they were naughty.
Well, not really. But they weren’t safe for school, either. Even Baptists had their limits when it came to how kids saw the principal. Or how much of her. The pictures had been taken on a summer day at the beach in Galveston, and Elizabeth had looked good. Teeny-purple-bikini good. Teenage-boys-would-scan-and-post-these-on-the-Internet good.
I was annoyed. Did Garrett really have to print these out and bring them to work? Couldn’t he last eight hours without glimpsing Elizabeth’s belly button? Hell, I’d been holding out for six years, and I was doing all right. More or less.
I tucked the purple-bikini photos back into their envelope, having decided against scanning them myself. I knew where to find them again.
Then I opened the second envelope. It contained just one photograph, but this one was much older. It had been taken with an actual film camera and developed and printed at an actual photo lab. That was how old it was.
It was of David Garrett at high-school age, standing in front of a large ranch-style house with another dude who was a few years younger. Teenage David was grinning for the camera and holding—or more accurately, wearing—a gleaming brass sousaphone. He’d been handsome then, too, and probably talented and popular despite being a band geek. So I still wanted to reach back in time and slap him.
Except for that urge, though, I was more interested in the other guy.
He was white. He and David were both wearing blue jeans and Jimi Hendrix T-shirts. The T-shirts were different colors, but the boys still looked as if their clothes had been purchased for them by the same person at the same store.
It took me a minute although it shouldn’t have. Maybe the other guy’s dark blond hair threw me since I hadn’t seen it before. But then I recognized him, too. He wasn’t wearing a red jacket or a cowboy hat, but his gray eyes and grim expression hadn’t changed much.
In the photo, he had a fiberglass sousaphone on his shoulders. Maybe, since he didn’t have the shiny brass one, that accounted for his expression.
He was the banda buyer from Saturday night. The dude with the humongous pistol he called the Judge.
He was Carlos.
9. A Weak Embouchure
I was still looking at the photo of Garrett and Carlos when I heard the double doors in the band room open.
I glanced to my right. The office door was closed and locked, and the blinds over the window were drawn. Whoever was out there couldn’t see inside. They might not even be able to see that the light was on. So I just stayed quiet and listened.
“Make it quick, Donny.” It was Marisa. “I don’t want to be too late. I can get away with six or seven minutes, but not ten.”
“So why’d you drag me down here?” Donny asked. “And where’s Mr. Marx? You said he subbed. But we didn’t pass him in the hall.”
“I guess he went to the back lot to smoke a cigarette,” Marisa said. “Or whatever. He’s gone, and so is everyone else. There’s no class in the annex this period, which makes this the safest place to talk. So what do you want? And why couldn’t you just text me?”
To the back lot to smoke a cigarette? That struck me as presumptuous. I didn’t smoke. Not cigarettes, anyway, and not at school.
“What’s my problem?” Donny’s voice cracked. “Are you kidding? You stole Mr. Anthony’s van, you brought back the tuba, and you left the van in a ditch. So I had to drive those dudes back to town. Now Kaylee claims she doesn’t have the money from the Conn. And you haven’t answered my texts since you took off.”
Marisa’s response was cool and steady. “First of all, it isn’t Mr. Anthony’s van. He stole it, and stealing something from someone who stole it himself isn’t really stealing. Second of all, Kaylee warned you guys not to show the buyers anything but the sousaphones. She and I both could have told you they’d lowball the tuba before you even stole it if you’d let us know you were going to do it.”
“I couldn’t say anything before we did it!” Donny said. “Besides, Mr. Anthony didn’t tell us not to get the tuba. But at least the tuba didn’t make Carlos mad. That was a sousaphone. And then running off with the van made Mr. Anthony mad. That was you!”