RichEisbrouch
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Everything posted by RichEisbrouch
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Also a good thought. Thanks. I'll have to go back and reread.
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They may have been good ideas, but they didn’t lead to anything. Rob found nothing online that connected Henry Chang to Waldron. Ike’s daughter Sienna never heard of him and said her friends didn’t know who he was, either. She wasn’t even interested enough to ask her dad, “Why?” when he mentioned it at dinner. Worst, Liz told Elena that before she started to investigate, Henry Chang was pretty well invisible, “Like maybe three-quarters of our students. We know generally who they are and recogniz
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Yeah, tentative is it. It's amazing how limited this investigation can be. edging around the scandal and Henry Chang's caution. But he seems to be loosening up.
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The next day at lunch, Elena reported. “Henry Chang says he knows a lot about drugs. But it mainly seems to be things he’s heard.” “From who?” Ike asked. “His friends? Family?” “We never talked about either. It didn’t seem important last night.” “Makes sense,” Jae reinforced. “On first contact.” Elena laughed. “If you forget the earlier two.” “What do you want to do next?” Don picked up. “That’s what I wanted to talk w
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Yeah: Henry's smart. But is he smarter than Elena? Again, thanks for reading.
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Henry Chang didn’t seem dangerous when Elena stopped by the Scotts’ house again. This time, she explained who she was and why she was there. Henry Chang looked directly at her and nodded, politely, maybe because Ervin Scott was standing beside him. But he immediately followed, “I really don’t have time right now. I’m studying for a test.” “I may only need five minutes,” Elena assured him. “It doesn’t make sense to put this off.” Ervin Scott smiled at Henry Chang expecta
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Henry Chang certainly seems to be a private guy.
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Elena went into Theo’s fairly confident she’d be able to talk with Henry Chang. She knew the coffee shop well since she’d been in it probably three or four times a week from soon after she began to work in Waldron, almost ten years earlier. Even when the police station had moved out of quick walking distance, all the officers kept their old habits, getting coffee and sandwiches at Theo’s despite the new station having an improved coffee maker. “I know ours is better,” Don admitted t
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Yep, Henry Chang certainly doesn't seem to be helping out. But some teenagers tend to be private and not share much with adults.
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Elena got up early the next the morning and drove out route 10 toward Northampton. She’d probably driven the road thousands of time but not looking for a place to park and not be seen. Soon after leaving Waldron, the road became a two-lane highway with fairly wide unpaved shoulders bordered by low, open fences, telephone poles, and mailboxes. But there wasn’t much near the Scotts’ long gravel driveway to hide behind. The best she could think to do was park as far as she could still see from east
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They're not trying to accuse Henry Chang. Elena begins the lunch meeting by saying, "I don't think this is our student." So they're trying to carefully gather information that will definitely exclude him without adding even the smallest support to the current rumor.
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Yup. We'll just have to see.
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“I don’t think this is our student,” Elena began the meeting at the next day’s lunch. She’d already filled in Owen and Rob. “Why?” Don asked almost immediately, and Elena realized that if he hadn’t, someone else would have. “Is there a better choice?” Jae asked. “Not that we know of – so far,” Rob fielded. “We’ll have to back to checking.” “But I thought the reason you checked him first,” Ike pointed out, “was that everyone else seemed covered.
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Thanks. Always nice to know.
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In that very liberal area of Massachusetts, often referred to as The Happy Valley, the fact that Henry Chang is Chinese might matter less than the thought he's from New York. And there are a lot of New Yorkers in Massachusetts, especially in the summer, since many of them have second homes there, so that doesn't much matter, either. But Henry's being a high school kid and the possible source of drugs that could harm other kids matters a whole lot.
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Fortunately, Owen and whichever Board members gave Maureen Bergen permission agreed, and Elena was off to visit the family Henry Chang’s parents rented his room from. Maureen felt giving Elena their address might be less intrusive than giving her their phone number. Elena didn’t take Rob with her, figuring if she went alone it would make the visit seem more casual, and she didn’t drive a police car for the same reason. She actually very rarely drove a squad car and few of the daytim
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Good. I like to hear things like than. Thanks.
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Yes, so much of this is negotiation -- inching toward the facts or things they think are the facts. But they are going forward, not in a circle. It would be so much easier if there hadn't been that scandal and the lawsuits against the district four years earlier. Because of that, Elena could never go on campus and speak to a student, let alone one who other students or staff members claim is using drugs.
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After Elena and Rob focused on one student, she reported to Owen. “This could have started up to a year ago,” she began, “when he moved here at the beginning of ninth grade. He’s now two months into sophomore year.” “Do we know anything more about him?” Owen asked. “Not yet. Rob and I need to know how far we can go on anything that circumstantial.” “Poke around,” Owen advised. “See how much you can get while causing the least amount of trouble.”
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Not tedious if you enjoy doing it. Meticulous.
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By the next morning, Rob has easily gotten the past five years of graduation lists from online. “It took five minutes of ‘copy and paste,’” he told Elena. “No negotiations.” “Oh, sure,” she told him. “Next time, I get to do that.” He laughed as they started to compare the six lists. Elena had picked up the newest one from Maureen on the way to work. They quickly eliminated duplicate names and sorted likely ones, both girls and boys. “Some first names are ne
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That's good to know. But how does it apply to high school student gossip? I can't quite make the connection.
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Thanks. I'm not sure what the military and the health laws have to do with student gossip in a small suburban, almost rural high school. That's why the Board and the principal are being so careful -- they're covering themselves legally. But they're obviously aware of what's going on and are talking about what to do.
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Perhaps. But it did have that scandal and lawsuits four years earlier, so it's learned to be extremely careful. And it knows the students are mostly smoking pot. They're not stupid and don't want to die young, either.
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Knowing what she needed to do next, Elena went to Waldron High to ask for the enrollment list. She knew this was going to be tricky because of privacy, especially since most of the students were under eighteen so still not considered independent. And, as much as their parents wanted to protect them and their family information, they also wanted to keep their kids safe from drugs. It didn’t matter that many of the parents had probably used the same drugs at their kids’ ages, and some might still
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