Chapter 21: Chu and the Chemistry Teacher

The board meeting started at six-thirty. Chu was in his seat at six-twenty-two.

He had chosen the back-left corner of the Jefferson High School auditorium with the same criteria he used for every unfamiliar room: sightlines to both exits, wall at his back, close enough to hear clearly, far enough to remain peripheral. The auditorium held perhaps two hundred seats. Forty-three were occupied. He had counted twice.

The agenda was distributed at the door on a single cream-colored sheet. He read it in the parking lot before going in. Item six, under New Business: Faculty Input — Curriculum Resource Allocation, AP Sciences. He had circled it with his thumb without a pen, an old habit from surveillance work, the body making its notes before the mind gets organized.