He chuckled. “I don’t think there’s any harm in it. We’ll call it a swan song.”
I sighed. The idea of the killer being caught and justice done was more than I could stand. I wanted this thing finished.
“Your sister’s been playing Nancy Drew for a number of weeks and she isn’t going to sit back and relax now,” Daniel informed him.
Robert chuckled. “True,” he said. “I bet she’s read every one of those books. She could take a job down at the station by now.”
I narrowed my eyes at Daniel. “I’m a better sleuth than Nancy Drew and you know it.”
“Mary, let’s go inside and leave the boys to their tomfoolery,” Beryl suggested.
“Let’s,” I said, and I took her arm as we wove our way through the people milling about.
“You just never know about some people, do you?” Beryl whispered.
“You never do,” I agreed. “I would never have suspected it.”
When we got inside. We headed for a seat in the back and on the end. I didn’t want to have to try to slide past people in their seats if we needed to move quickly. My watch said it was 6:45. The auditorium was filling up fast.
“The boys better get in here,” she said after we’d been seated a few minutes.
“You don’t think Robert will really wait until the end, do you?”
“Knowing him, probably. He won’t want to make a scene if he can avoid it.”
I sighed, keeping my eyes glued to the stage. The red velvet curtain was closed, but there were students and faculty poking their heads out or running around the wings. My nerves were on edge and I hoped something happened soon. I just wanted this over and done with and until it was, I was going to be anxious.
“I’m going to go and see what’s happening backstage,” I whispered to Beryl.
“Do you think you should?” she asked, a worried look on her face.
“I don’t know, but I’m going. I just want to take a look around. Tell Daniel where I am when he gets in here.”
She nodded but looked uncertain. My nerves couldn’t take sitting still and I needed to get up and move. I headed down the side aisle and up the seven steps to the stage. I parted the edge of the curtain and entered backstage.
“Hi, Mrs. Taylor,” Rhonda Green said as I passed her. She was peeking at the crowd through the side of the curtain.
“Hello, Rhonda,” I said. “Nervous about the performance?”
“Yes, lots,” she said, nodding. Her eyes were wide and her face pale. “I hate feeling like this.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll do fine. Don’t worry about a thing. Everyone’s here to cheer you on.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Taylor,” she said, smiling.
I headed back and found Ellen with a group of freshman and sophomore students gathered around her. She was giving them a pep talk about not being nervous. Ellen wore a black dress with ruby earrings and a matching pendant. She looked stunning under the lights and she beamed as she spoke to the choir. She had chosen dark red lipstick and for the first time, I noticed how pretty she was. It was odd that I hadn’t noticed that before.
When Ellen finished with her instructions, the kids took their places and she walked over to where I was. She beamed when she saw me.
“Hello, Mary, it’s good to see you show up for the spring concert. The kids enjoy seeing the other teachers take an interest in their shows.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said. “I love to see them perform.”
She nodded and stood beside me. “I’m so proud of this choir. I’m proud of the senior choir too, of course. They all work so hard. It will be sad to see the seniors go. It always is.”
“I miss my girls when they graduate, too. It feels like I’m losing a part of myself, somehow,” I said. I meant it. It was a necessary part of the job, but it was always hard.
“Makes me wish there was a way to keep them close a while longer,” she agreed.
“It’s been a difficult year, hasn’t it?” I asked.
She turned to me, a puzzled look on her face. “Difficult?”
I nodded. “I guess it’s more accurate to say it’s been a difficult spring. With Darren and Bill dying. Darren always showed up to the student’s shows. One thing you couldn’t deny about Darren—he supported the kids. It’s a shame he isn’t here to enjoy it.”
The smile left her face. “Yes, of course, it has been a difficult spring. I hate that it happened. To both of them.” She turned away, her eyes going to the students.
“In spite of what people said about Darren, he did love the arts. All of it. Music, plays, artwork. He was really a supporter of all artistic endeavors, wasn’t he?”
She nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off the students. We could hear Principal Jefferson take the stage and begin speaking to the audience.
“But you’re an art lover, too, aren’t you?”
She glanced nervously at me. “What?”
“Art. You’re an art lover, aren’t you?”
She glanced at me again, looking confused. “What do you mean?”
“Darren gave you that painting of his. You must really love art. I can’t imagine him giving it to someone that didn’t appreciate avant-garde artwork.”
Her jaw tightened. “Yes, art is nice. I’m probably not what you’d call an enthusiast, but I like it.”
I nodded. “It’s a shame he isn’t here to enjoy this show. I feel bad for him. It must have been terrible when that car bore down on him and he knew he was about to meet his end.”
She swallowed and didn’t turn to me. “It’s a shame.”
“But what about that painting? Do you really love it? It will always remind you of him, won’t it?”
She glanced at me again. “Sure, I guess so.”
“It’s odd that there’s a place on Darren’s wall where a painting was removed. Probably recently from the looks of it.” I had no idea if the painting was removed recently, but I wasn’t going to let on.
She turned to look at me, then her eyes got big. I could sense someone standing behind me and I turned to look. Robert. The look on his face was one of professional detachment and his eyes were on Ellen.
“Hello, Robert,” I said. “Nice to see you here.”
“It’s great to be here. I’m sore the kids are so talented, thanks to Ellen’s work with them,” he said and stepped closer to her. “If we’re all good and behave ourselves, the show can go on, and the kids can have good memories of this night.”
Ellen nodded without looking at him. The curtain went up, and the students began to sing Sentimental Journey.
Chapter Thirty
I set the coffee cake next to the coffee pot and took a seat between Peggy and Daniel. I had found the recipe for the coffee cake in Better Homes and Gardens. Spring was in full bloom, the birds were singing, and the sun was bright. We had uncovered the outdoor furniture and we were having breakfast outside.
“You suspected me,” Peggy accused, her eyes on Robert.
He shrugged. “I suspected everyone. Don’t take it personally.”
“I bet you didn’t suspect Mary,” she grumbled and poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Well, no one would suspect Mary,” he pointed out. “She’s not the murdering kind.”
She set the coffee pot down with a thud and narrowed her eyes at him. “And I am the murdering kind?”
He chuckled. “Peggy, I was just doing my job. I can’t overlook details and one of the details was that you went out with both of them and then you weren’t completely honest about how many times you’d gone out with them. And then there were those muffins.”
“I am not a killer,” she said evenly.
He grinned at her. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“Anymore,” she said.
I cut the coffee cake and put a plate with a piece of it in front of her. I didn’t blame her for being angry, but she’d get over it. She wasn’t much on holding grudges.
Unless you were talking about the grudge she still held against her ex-husband for cheating on her. I could understand that one.
“Did she confess?” I asked him.
“Sort of. When we found Bill’s shoes in her closet, she didn’t really have to confess much of anything.”
“She took his shoes?” Daniel asked.
“Apparently. And the painting. A souvenir, I guess,” Robert said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“Did she say why she did it?” I asked and cut him a piece of coffee cake.
“She kept talking in circles, recanting one story only to repeat parts of it with the next. Seems she was in love with Darren and he didn’t feel the same way.”
“I didn’t make those blueberry muffins,” Peggy volunteered.
“She did. She brought them to him and asked him out. When he laughed at her, she threw the basket of muffins at him and got in her car and ran him down,” Robert said and took a bite of the coffee cake. “This is good.”
“A scorned woman,” Daniel said. “Never scorn a blueberry muffin baking woman.”
“That’s why you’re nice to me?” I asked him.
“Absolutely. I’m not an idiot. Look what happens when you aren’t nice to baking women.”
“What about Bill?” Peggy asked, sounding nicer now.
“He loved Ellen. We served a search warrant on her house and found a letter Bill wrote to her. It was in her bureau drawer.”
“Oh, that’s just sad,” I said. “He loved her?” I was horrified. How does loving someone cause you to be murdered?
Robert nodded. “He wanted to marry her, but he said in the letter that he knew she was in love with Darren. Apparently, they’d had some discussion before the letter, and he knew she wanted to be with Darren.”
“Why would she kill him over it?” I asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“He’d noticed her following Darren around at school, and when Darren turned up dead, he put it together from what he knew, and he said that in the letter.”
“That’s just sad. Did he say what all he knew about Darren’s death?” I asked.
“She apparently mentioned to Bill that she was angry at Darren for not going out with her the first time she asked. The night she killed him must have been the second time she asked him out, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer this time. Bill also said that he knew she didn’t love him, and he pointed out that now that Darren was gone, they could be together. After all, there wasn’t anyone else in her life anymore.”
“Wow. Seriously?” I said. “He thought she killed Darren, but he wanted to be with her anyway?”
He chuckled. “Some people aren’t picky.”
“It’s sad that he wanted her so badly he didn’t care if she had killed someone.” I sighed and sat back in my chair, taking this in. The morning sun shone down on us and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t imagine killing someone, no matter the reason. But loving someone so much that it didn’t matter if I thought they had killed someone? I couldn’t get over it.
“So then she had to kill Bill because he knew she killed Darren,” Peggy said with a sigh.
“You got it,” Robert said.
Daniel cut into his coffee cake with the side of his fork. “I guess Ellen will be in prison for a long time.”
“That’s up to the judge, but I can’t imagine anything less,” Robert said.
“I’m glad you weren’t the killer, Peggy,” I teased. “But if you were, I’d bake some blueberry muffins and bring them to you at the jail.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Thanks a million. You’re a peach of a friend. But if you were going to bake something for me, I would have appreciated a cake with a file in it. I don’t think I’d like jail and trying to escape would give me something to do.”
I laughed. “I’d definitely bake you a cake with a file in it. I’d hate to see you in prison stripes.”
“Horizontal stripes make me look fat. You better put two files in it.”
I was sorry Ellen had killed Darren and Bill. Sorry that she loved Darren so much she’d rather kill him than go out with Bill instead. She could have been happy with Bill. Or she could have stayed by herself and been happy that way. At any rate, we’d lost three teachers and when school started next year, things would feel off. Eventually, we would adjust and move on, with the events of this year becoming just a memory.
Author’s Note
I enjoyed getting to know Mary, and her family, and friends. They were a lot of fun to write. I’ve always felt an affinity for anything historical and I thought writing a series set in the 1950s would be fun. Besides, I had to put all my years of high school home economics classes to good use, and what better way than to build a fictional world around it?
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