Manipulates secretary

As we walked, I turned to her, and said, “Congratulations on retiring. It'll probably be great to get away from all of this.”

“I'm not retiring!” she snapped. “What made you think that?”

“Well, I heard a couple of teachers say that Blackwell was looking for a replacement, somebody younger maybe, so I just assumed....”

“I'm not going anywhere!” she snapped. Her hand tightened on my shoulder, and I could see that she was stressed.

“Maybe it was the stuff with your husband,” I said.

I'd seen the pictures on her desk. The man looked like a kidnapping victim who was trying to communicate with the camera to send in the marines. He looked hen pecked at the very least, but she still wore the wedding ring.

“What stuff about my husband?” her hand tightened even further.

“Uh...I don't know.,” I said, making sure I looked frightened. “I didn't hear the conversation. I just heard them laughing about it.”

“Who?” she demanded.

“I guess we're here!” I said quickly, pulling away from the woman.

She'd blocked at least half my attempts to get to see Blackwell, and she didn't seem like she cared anything about any of the students. What I'd said would eat at her, and she'd wonder who had been talking about her. It might even cause her to turn against some of the teachers around because of her suspicions.

***

As I stepped out of her office, I saw that the secretary was arguing on the telephone furiously in a low voice. I suspected that she knew a great deal about the way Blackwell had been running things, and that she was going to be happy to throw her under the bus to keep her own job. Blackwell would suspect it was me, but I'd as much as put a gun to her head.

***

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