If Looks Could Kill

To those of us who didn’t know her story, Edna Wright was a schoolteacher. A 5-foot, 1-inch, no-nonsense, steely-grey-eyed schoolteacher in a flowered skirt and cardigan sweater. She was good at her job: Teaching history to ungrateful eighth graders. We knew she didn’t put up with “attitude,” so we mostly kept our heads down and did our best to stay on her good side and pass her course. As far as I could tell, Mrs. Wright had no concept of diversity or inclusion. Her job, as she explained it to the principal, was to be equally demanding of all her students. My more self-aware classmates sometimes described her as, “tough, but fair.” Those who ran afoul of her “fairness” used a certain b-word from time to time. On the first day of school, I was told she was an old battleaxe, but I decided to keep an open mind, which for an eighth grader is no easy task.

Years later, I heard an apocryphal story. Mrs. Wright told the principal that when she finally retired and left the building, the last shred of discipline would walk out the door with her. Now that I am a retired teacher myself, I understand the sentiment. Some of us need to hold the line. Maybe if more teachers were “tough, but fair,” and more principals backed them up, the field of education would be better off today. But that’s a story for another day.

Mrs. Wright’s story, as I was later able to piece it together, started long before I was in her class. Her husband, Charlie, died suddenly. According to the newspaper, it was somewhat of a mysterious death. Charlie was young and had been in excellent health. The report I read said one evening he just keeled over of a heart attack – at the dinner table. Charlie’s death must have hit Edna like a one-two punch. She lost her husband and her dream of having children in one horrible moment. A teaching colleague remarked that in her first couple of years as a teacher, before Charlie died, Edna was a different person. “Not so strict. More carefree, more open, more willing to have fun. Charlie’s death changed her.”

About a year after Charlie passed, Edna went out on a date. Back then it was an open secret that the guy tried to rape her. She resisted his attack – some said she kicked him where it hurt – and ran home. A few days later he was found dead in his living room. The coroner reported he had a massive embolism and probably died before he hit the floor. The police questioned Edna, because she had reported the assault. And a neighbor said she thought she saw Edna looking in through his window the night before he was found dead. Edna simply said the neighbor was “mistaken.” There was no evidence of foul play, so the police closed the case.

Two months later, there was the untimely death of a banker in our town. He was suspected of embezzlement and was under investigation. It seems many people, including Edna and some of her friends, had money missing from their accounts. Edna came to the bank to confront him. Before she could say a word to him, he collapsed on the floor of the bank. It was a heart attack. Some said the stress of being found out caught up with him. Eventually, the bank was able to restore the funds to the customers’ accounts, and there was nothing more to investigate.

All was quiet for three months – until a fourth man died. He taught in the same school as Edna. After he died, a girl who was in Mrs. Wright’s class told the police he had assaulted her. She also told them she already told Mrs. Wright about it and she said, “I’ll have a word with him. He’ll never lay a hand on you again.” A day later the man had a stroke and died before the ambulance could reach him. Edna admitted she was at his house. She even called the ambulance. She said she told him to leave the girl alone, but other than that she seemed as shocked as anyone that he “fell down in a heap.” There was no evidence that Mrs. Wright had done anything wrong.

It was odd that Edna was close by when four men died suddenly. For a while, there was gossip that she was a “black widow,” somehow responsible for their deaths. But there was no proof it was any more than bad luck. By the time I was in her class, this was all ancient history, pardon the pun, and I had to research it decades later. Coincidence doesn’t mean guilt though, so I’m not trying to say my eighth-grade history teacher was a serial killer, just that it all seems so…odd.

I was able to talk with Edna’s niece not long before she died. She told me Aunt Edna confided in her that the night Charlie died, they had a big fight at the dinner table. “A real shouting contest.” Edna told her the fight ended when she fell silent and just glared at Charlie. He also stopped talking, except to sigh, “Well, if looks could kill, I’d be dead.” According to Edna’s niece, those were his last words. He was gone in a literal heartbeat. Was this how Edna killed those men? I wondered if there were any other unexplained deaths.

Then I came across a story from a large city several miles away. Five gang members were found dead in a warehouse. Some were clutching their chests, others their heads. The coroner listed heart attack and stroke as the causes of death. The article said they were all known drug dealers and had bullied kids from my town. The only witness said he saw a short figure in a hoodie hiding in the shadows. He said two of the guys started to reach for their guns, but there wasn’t time. They died on the spot. He ran away before he could get a good look at the person in the shadows. Again, there was no evidence connecting Edna to the deaths of these young men. In less than two years, nine men had died suddenly with no logical explanation. It seems impossible that someone killed them just by staring them down.

I’ve searched my memories of my time in her class for anything that might lead me to believe she had anything to do with these deaths. Edna was a private person. She never spoke of her husband, which is not unusual. Sometimes it’s too painful to talk about lost loved ones. The only thing I can recall is that sometimes she would start to give one of us a “dirty look” and then hastily turn away. Otherwise, she was always precisely matter of fact in her dealings with us. I could tell stories.

Imagine being able to kill someone with a look. It would be a terrifying power to possess. A power like that is best reserved for God alone. I have no idea if Mrs. Wright gave anyone a death stare or whether they might have “deserved” their fate. Maybe it’s best that I don’t. All I can say is that I lack the ability to control such power. And I can’t think of anyone who could. If this power exists, I must give credit where credit is due. To my knowledge, Mrs. Wright never used it against any eighth-graders, even though I’m sure many of them might have tempted her. Indeed, that kind of discipline is in a class by itself.