Page 49 of Poison Wood
She nods toward a door beside us, then leads me out onto a small patch of grass next to an alley.
Low clouds scuttle overhead, and the temperature is dropping here now as well. Or else that’s just the effect this reunion is having on me.
“I’m just going to jump in here,” I say. “Do you know I’m a reporter now?”
She nods.
I pull my phone out. “Are you okay with me recording this?”
She glances down at my phone and nods again.
I press record. I say today’s date and time, then hold it up between Martha and me. “Tandy Higginbottom said Poison Wood should have been shut down long before Heather Hadwick went missing. She suggested I talk to you about why.”
Her eyes narrow, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “So you just show up here at my work, after all these years, and start with that? You think it’s going to be that easy?”
I need to get her to uncross those arms.
“Nothing about that school was easy,” I say.
She nods. “You got that right.”
“And I’ve shown up here because my father had a heart attack two days ago, and now I’ve learned a woman who reached out to me three days ago about a story is dead, and that woman’s name turns out to be Heather Hadwick. And now there’s a skull that has yet to be identified.”
She uncrosses her arms and wrings her hands. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“Thank you.”
She scratches at her gray hair. She looks around at the empty alley, then says, “I didn’t want trouble at that school. I put my head down and did my job. I fed you girls.” She pauses. “I tried to feed you girls. Y’all were a tough group. Anyway, yeah, I saw some things and heard some things I shouldn’t have.”
My pulse kicks up. “Like what?”
“Like the stealing, for one.”
“What else?” I say, my heart rate leveling back off. Stealing at Poison Wood is not a news flash.
“The sneaking around at all hours of the night.”
I nod. “And?”
“And Halloween.”
“And?” I say, not giving her time to elaborate.
“The staff was scared of you girls. I’d hear them whispering about it. Especially that one.”
Goose bumps rise on my arms. Dr. Fontenot’s notes mentioned a girl who possibly needed to be transferred. “Which one?”
“I don’t remember her name.”
Martha touches her face with her left hand and avoids looking at me when she says it.
“Yes, you do,” I say.
The door behind us opens, and the guy with aHaroldname tag looks out. “Martha?”
“I’m coming,” she says.
He gives me a long look, then shuts the door.
