I Wrote This While You Slept - 5. Chapter 5

DALTON

Two weeks after the accident Dalton overheard a curious exchange between Principal Jones and Professor Hearst, as he was on his way to the man’s office.

"I just had a student tell me that he saw you with Noelle the night she died. You told the police you hadn't seen her that day."

"I forgot. She came to return a book," Professor Hearst replied, cool and collected as always.

"At midnight?" The Professor remained silent. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't call the detectives and fill them in on this."

"Whatever it is you're implying, which I take great offense to by the way, you're wrong. They’ve already determined her cause of death as a traumatic head injury caused by a fall, and they found drugs and alcohol in her system, so unless you want to make a fool of yourself and further embarrass the school, I suggest you keep this information to yourself." This was news to Dalton, and he wondered if the school planned on telling the students how Noelle died.

Principal Jones kept the conversation to himself, but Dalton couldn't stop thinking about it. Later that day he walked over to speak to Professor Hearst, ready to ask him about what was going on, and have him shed some light on the whole mess of a situation. But just a minute into his visit the door burst open, and a distraught Mrs. Miller yelled out, "You slithering snake! I just spoke with Archie. How could you!?"

Professor Hearst sighed and clasped his palms together on his lap. "What is it now, Katherine?"

"It's Mrs. Miller to you. And you know very well what I'm talking about. After all my years of service to this school and you think you can just turn everyone against me? Make me out to look crazy?"

"I don't think I need to do that at all, you do a pretty good job of it yourself," he answered, humoring her.

"How dare you," she began, emotional.

"What did you think would happen after the slanderous things you've said, did you really believe you'd suffer no consequences?"

"Consequences…a word that you'll soon know the real meaning of," she warned. He stared at her more seriously now.

"Please, illuminate me on what exactly it is you think I did."

She stared at him with malice for a few seconds, then began a reconstruction that made Dalton’s skin prickle.

"I think you had an illicit affair with a student, and I bet if I ask around, I'll find that it wasn't the first one. I can also bet it won't be the last. I think she fell in love, like teenage girls are prone to, and you got scared. And when she came to your room that night—because I bet that’s where it all started—you decided to end things because it was getting too risky. I think a fight ensued, and she threatened to tell someone—probably the priest—about the affair." Dalton’s skin was growing hotter and hotter, it was as if he was transformed in time and watching Noelle run from Professor Hearst’s room towards the church.

"You stalked after her as she ran to Father John's room, you grabbed the solid brass candle snuffer, which Father John tells me has mysteriously gone missing, and which the police detectives informed me could very well be responsible for the lacerations on her head. And you hit her, *WHAM*," she said so loudly that Dalton jumped up in his seat. She thrust her arm in the air and made a violent hitting motion, "and hit her, *WHAM*," another violent motion, "and hit her, *WHAM*," she struck again, faster now, "and hit her, *WHAM*," a complete frenzy, "and hit her again, *WHAM*...until she tumbled down those stairs." She was almost out of breath from the motions. "Then you carefully walked down, making sure you avoided her blood, to see if she was dead. She wasn't. Not yet. She started coughing blood and got it on your shoe. Now you were screwed. She attempted to get back up, blood pouring from her head onto the floor, she stepped in it, slipped down, got up on her knees again, begged you to help, which is when you kicked her torso so hard she fell backwards and hit her head one last time against that stoop. You ran away, got rid of the murder weapon, which took some time, and then got back to your room. You knew she would be found soon, and you knew your shoes had blood on them, and you also knew they were custom made and if they suddenly went missing it could be seen as suspicious if anyone noticed. So you put yourself in the position to go back to the crime scene and dip your foot in her blood, to legitimize its presence on your shoe, in front of two teenage witnesses. Am I close?"

Professor Hearst started clapping slowly, a slight smirk stretching across his handsome face, "That's...that's colorful, Katherine," he replied, almost as if he was placating a small child. "You should have been a creative writer, your true talents for fiction are wasted teaching history."

This only riled her further, "You son of a bitch, you don't fool me. I know what you are. You're not special. You're a predator, and there are thousands of you out there in the world. Exactly the same as you. Parading around pretending to be normal, but rotten to the core inside. Praying on the innocent. You're disgusting," Professor Hearst laughed out loud now.

"Katherine, you're old, a drunk, and that barren womb of yours is the reality you truly need to face. Preferably with a good therapist now that you have all the time in the world."

She wobbled on her feet, unsteady. He struck below the belt. Tears drowned her tired blue eyes. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She was a woman with a noose around her neck, and he had just kicked the chair out from under her.

"Please escort Mrs. Miller to her room," Professor Hearst requested looking at Dalton. The boy obeyed.

She held on to his arm as if she might fall over dead any minute. He led her silently down the corridor, but suddenly she tugged him in the wrong direction.

"But your room..." he began.

"Take me to my office, dear," she said. He nodded.

He had never been to her office, having zero interest in history. It was a homey place, with an array of sweet little succulents disbursed all over, a Ficus in the corner, and a violet orchid on her desk. To her right there was an African mahogany bookcase. In the middle of the room lay a round Persian rug.

"Pass me those boxes, dear," she asked pointing to a stack of flat packing boxes perched next to the door. She assembled one and then began clearing her desk.

"Mrs. Miller, what are you doing?"

"I've been let go. Will you be a dear and start packing those books over on that shelf?" she replied casually. Dalton assembled a second box and started putting the books away. From under her desk she took out a bottle of tequila and poured herself a shot. He watched with unease; the woman was unraveling in front of him. Before the first shot even had a chance of reaching her stomach, she poured another one and drank it.

"Mrs. Miller, I don't mean to upset you but I really don't think Professor Hearst is capable of the things you accused him of." He didn’t know why he said it, what gave him the right. She looked at him, eagle-eyed. Still sober.

"Why, because he wears nice suits? Because he has a sophisticated vocabulary? Because you like the movies he picks for film club? Because...he's not an alcoholic?"

"Because he's a good person," he replied softly, trying to talk sense into her. If she just stopped acting crazy, perhaps she could get her job back.

"Let me fill you in on a little secret, dear," she said approaching him. Her voice low and hazy, the liquid now entering her blood stream. "Just because he is a perfectly composed shell on the outside, doesn't mean he's not a raging demon on the inside." She stared at him in silence until the desk behind her creaked ominously.

"Here, take this. For your help," she said back in her normal tone now, handing him a small blue elf succulent.

He got back to his room and put the succulent on a window edge. The only thing he felt bad about was the fact that he wasn't even conflicted, he knew for a fact that Mrs. Miller was a delusional alcoholic who, in a desperate hour, after abusing her body and brain with liquor for a year, invented a horrific explanation for a very tragic accident. Professor Hearst didn't have anything to do with Noelle’s death, the priest didn't have anything to do with it, Sophie, India, Henry and Curtis didn't have anything to do with it. It was an accident, and the simple lesson of it all was: drugs and alcohol were not a good mixture. Which is the message the school ran with, using Noelle’s death to make a point. In the next months the students were blasted with assemblies about the dangers of drugs and drinking. They had guest AA speakers discussing how alcohol and other substances had ravaged their lives, and how they managed to overcome the disease with the help of the 10 Step Program.

In the end, Noelle’s death was ruled a tragic accident. She was drunk and high and she fell down the stairs, hit her head multiple times, and bled to death.