He sat down without being invited. She didn't seem to mind. You've seen what's happening to my daughter online. He said, "Yes, I reported it to the principal Sunday night when a student brought it to my attention. What's the principal going to do? " Foster looked at him steadily, then at the wall, then back at him.
He'll investigate, she said. Which means he'll speak to the students involved who will deny it. He'll document the conversations and send letters home to parents. She paused. And DD Ree is Grady Pierce's stepson.
A stillness moved through her expression, something being carefully measured. "What do you know about Grady Pierce? " she asked. "Some. What do you know? " She looked at him a moment. Then she stood, walked to the office door, looked out into the empty gym, came back, and sat down.
11 years I've been at this school, she said. I've watched six students leave because of sustained social targeting that nobody could pin on a single documentable act. Three families move away because their kids were made miserable and the school couldn't or wouldn't fix it. Two teachers quit because you can't hold any standard in an environment where the most powerful parent in the county can make a phone call. She folded her hands on the desk.
My brother lost his county landscaping contract 8 years ago. He'd testified against a zoning variance Pierce wanted passed. Pierce made a call. The contract was gone inside a month. She looked at Boon and I stayed.
Why Boon said, "Because somebody had to simply no performance in it and because I've been keeping records. " Boon looked at her. What kind? 11 years of incident reports, documentation of what was reported to me, what I passed up the chain, and what happened or didn't happen in response. Dated, signed by me, stored off site. Boon sat with that a moment.
He thought without knowing exactly why, that there might be more people in this town quietly keeping their own accounts than anyone realized, that a man like Pierce, careful and methodical over 12 years, might have left behind him a trail of equally careful and methodical people. Each one holding a piece and waiting for the right moment. My daughter's notebook has three entries. He said, "Tell her to keep going. " Foster said she knows. He stood to leave.
At the door, he stopped. "Coach," he said. "My daughter's good. " "Yes," Foster said. "She is. She's going to keep coming to practice.
I expect her to. " Wednesday morning, Boon heard the bike before he saw it, which almost never happened with his own hearing after 37 years around loud engines. He'd know that particular idol anywhere. An old sportster with a ragged, slightly uneven rhythm its owner had been refusing to fix for three decades because he claimed it gave the bike character. Virgil Sullivan, who had gone by Sully since before Boon had known him, had not changed his position on this in 30 years. Some things about a man were simply immovable.
Boon was in the middle of a timing belt when the bike pulled into the lot. He came out of the bay wiping his hands. Sully was 63, still tall, though the years had pulled him down slightly the way they did, the shoulders not quite as squared as they'd been, the movements more considered and deliberate. His hair had gone completely white, worn long enough to tie back under the half helmet he hung on the mirror when he climbed off. Long weathered face, pale gray eyes, a scar along the jaw that Boon had seen so many times over 37 years, it had become simply part of what Sully's face looked like.