DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE by Larissa Reinhart

someone is trying to kill you?”
    He left the bookshelf to do another circuit of the room, plodding the soft carpet
     with his hands behind his back and glasses pointing toward the ceiling. “Metaphorically
     trying to kill me. Kill my career. Which is the essence of me. However, my physical
     body might join the metaphorical if I am left in ruin.”
    I squeezed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index. Didn’t help to stop my
     head from spinning. “Sir, what do you mean?”
    “They’ve been torturing me the past two weeks. The evil texter. Why do you think I
     chose that particular scene in the office? Beneath the bowels of this school, some
     sinister fiend is at work on his computer cum pipe organ. I am his Carlotta.”
    My face must have expressed my what-in-the-hell-are-you-talking-about thoughts.
    “Have you never seen the Phantom of the Opera ?”
    When I shook my head, he waved off my ignorance. “No matter. This is the second year
     in a row that our school has been besieged by a social media hit man. Or woman. Last
     year, it a ffected a few students and an unpopular teacher. This year more of the faculty and
     staff have taken the brunt.”
    “What do the messages say? Can’t they be traced?”
    “Not yet.” Tinsley stopped in front of the mirror to watch himself stroke his goatee.
     “It is my belief that Maranda Pringle was a victim of poisonous messages hinting at
     her illicit doings. The police have confiscated her computer and all her electronic
     equipment.”
    “No shit?” I fell back in my chair. “I mean, really? So she was cyberbullied. I’ll
     be damned. She didn’t sound the type.”
    “You see the seriousness of the situation. I heard she took her life last Friday night and lay in her apartment all weekend. They didn’t find her body
     until this morning when Cleveland stopped by , hoping to give her a ride to school. Pathetic.”
    He glanced over his shoulder. “I mean Cleveland wanting to take her to school, not
     that Maranda was dead. Cleveland was constantly hounding Maranda like a lovesick basset
     hound.”
    “So you’ve been a victim of this texter, too.” I ignored his digs at the principal.
     “That’s why you’re worried about the messages killing your career.”
    I knew exactly how that feltas Shawna Branson had tried some of that poison on me. I wondered what skeletons the
     texter had dug from Tinsley’s closet. But, like in my case, even an innocent mistake
     could be twisted to appear ugly.
    Tinsley gave up the distressed pacer affectation and collapsed back into his chair.
     “The texts,” he moaned. “The texts are torturing us all. Maranda’s must have been
     a doozy.”
    My heart went out to Tinsley and the other Peerless teachers. No matter how odd Tinsley
     acted, he didn’t deserve this stress.
    And no matter how mean or immoral Maranda Pringle had been in her life, she didn’t
     deserve to be driven to suicide by a vicious prankster.
    “So the police have been notified?” I made a quick mental note to question Uncle Will
     and Luke again.
    “The police hadn’t been notified about the texts. The administration took it as some
     cruel prank and told us to ignore them. But with Maranda’s death, the police are now
     involved.”
    “Good . ” I nodded. “The cops’ll trace the bugger.”
    “But these things take time.” Tinsley leaned forward. “I need you now.”
    “I don’t understand what you want me to do. I don’t know anything about electronics.
     I’m a classical artist. I didn’t even take a Photoshop class in school. I use my hands
     for art, not a mouse.”
    Tinsley steepled his hands before his mouth once again , practicing the full dramatic pause. “You can observe.”
    “Observe what?”
    “As an artist, I trust you have strong visual instincts. The perpetrator is obviously
     someone jealous of my success. You’re also an outsider without preconceived ideas
     about the students, staff, or parents. You have