Read Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) for Free Online Page A

she thought of the party tonight, and of the huge banner, and of Penelope’s obscene and wonderful speech.
    She looked up at bedroom window. Furl was laughing too.
    “No. No, Paul, it’s a little too late for that. So. What’s this woman’s name?”
    “Dr. April van Osdale.”
    “What?”
    “I said her name is Dr. April van Osdale. Apparently she’s from…”
    “I know where she’s from.”
    “You do?”
    “Yes. I know her from The University of Mississippi. About fifteen years ago, I’m sure you know, I went back there one summer to do the course work I needed to become principal. April and I had several education classes together, and we worked on group projects. She was in her early twenties and I in my mid-forties. I haven’t seen her in years. But, yes, I know her.”
    “Well. I had no idea. That’s good then. You have a history together. Maybe that will be easier for you to work together.”
    “Maybe.”
    She opened her car door and stepped outside.
    A light rain had begun to fall.
    “I’m going up now. Thanks for telling me about this. And thanks for everything else.”
    “Sure thing. By ten o’clock tomorrow morning Macy and I and the moving van will be half way to Jackson. But you’ve got my phone number, and you know that, well, if there’s anything I can do––”
    “Sure, Paul.”
    “All right. Good luck then!”
    And, so saying, he pulled away.
    She stood for a time in the cool rain.
    Then she walked up her stairway, pausing to take the key out of her purse.
    “April van Osdale,” she whispered to the doorknob.
    It did not answer.
    Yes, she knew April van Osdale.
    She knew her quite well.
    She had never, in her entire life, detested another human being so completely.

 
    CHAPTER 4: FIRST DAY BACK

    “...I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire.”
    –– William Faulkner , The Sound and the Fury

    “I don’t think anybody can teach anybody anything.”             –– William Faulkner

    Ten years retired, ten years retired…
    So much had changed. Not the students, for students are always the same. They behaved and misbehaved just as they always had in class, and they rampaged down the hallways between periods in precisely the same breakneck manner, the football players hurling themselves against the rattling locker doors, their coaches joining in the horseplay, the young girls gibbering and gossiping, somehow immune to being pinned against the lockers themselves, and always pretending to be oblivious to the mayhem.
    Not the building, for it was just as it had always been.  
    Mid-sixties style, low and sprawling, wall of windows, lockers along the corridors, hospital lighting…
    …no, the building certainly had not changed.
    But many other things had.
    Everything was done by email now. People could no longer talk to each other. When the server was down—and what in heavens’ name was a ‘server,’ anyway?—well, whatever it was, when it was down, the entire chain of communications broke down with it, and people simply wandered around the hallways, unable to fix meeting times or plan luncheons or even gripe with each other about whatever latest outrage had taken place in class.
    Cell phones.
    Although there were large signs posted along the corridors saying “Do not Bring Your Cell Phones to Class!”, the strange glowing things always appeared anyway, held furtively beneath desk tops, making their faint music at inopportune times, saving the students from the horrors of even momentary isolation, and allowing every boy and girl the reassuring knowledge that another human voice was whispering, at all times, if not into their ears, then at least into their palms.
    And, of course, there were the tests now.
    The Mississippi Academic Certification Evaluation.
    The M.A.C.E.
    Everything now depended on these examinations, and how well the students fared on them.
    Reputation.
    Prestige.
    And above all, funding.
    One good thing: Paul Cox had always hated