Body Over Troubled Waters

by Denise Swanson

  Or at least, not fall asleep at the wheel and end up in one of the deep ditches along his route. It would be beyond embarrassing for the chief of police to have to call a tow truck for a one-car accident, and Dante would never let him live it down.

  Last night’s storm had coated the street with a slippery layer of snow, requiring him to concentrate on keeping the vehicle from sliding every time he had to stop at a crossroads or slow down for a deer with a suicide wish.

  According to the car’s thermometer, it was currently below freezing, but it was supposed to get up to near forty by the afternoon and Wally hoped the rise in temperature might help melt some of the accumulation.

  The meteorologists were calling for warmer weather and no precipitation for the near future. If the radio’s predictions could be trusted, Central Illinois might finally get a respite from winter.

  With that positive thought cheering him up, Wally went over his plan for handling the upcoming questioning of the bus drivers. He intended to keep things casual, not wanting any of them to decide they wanted a lawyer present or refuse to talk to him at all.

  Yesterday, when Wally had contacted Sally Anserello, the Scumble River School District director of transportation, who just happened to be one of his officers’ mother, she had told him her people clocked in at six and were usually on the road thirty minutes later.

  Figuring on that half hour being his best bet to find all the drivers in one convenient location, he’d set his alarm for the ungodly hour of five o’clock. With less than his usual eight hours of sleep, he tended to be short-tempered, and he would have to be careful not to alienate the drivers.

  Thank goodness he had an inside source. Sally was a nice lady and she’d given him the scoop about the lesser-known workings of the school district’s transportation department.

  There were twelve drivers and twelve bus monitors, as well as six substitutes. Wally figured the subs wouldn’t be the ones with the biggest beef against Wraige. With no set hours or guarantee of work, they probably drove in order to make a bit of extra cash rather than to provide a living for their families.

  Making the turn into the long asphalt lane that led to the bus barn, Wally studied the facility’s layout. A six-foot-high chain-link fence with a rolling gate surrounded the large property that included two asphalt areas and a large green metal pole building.

  Currently, the gate was wide open and buses were lined up diagonally on the lot in front of the structure. Off to the side, a smaller paved rectangle held employees’ cars. Wally left the Hummer next to a battered Toyota Corolla and walked to the barn.

  As he entered, Sally greeted him with a big smile and asked, “How are those adorable twins of yours?”

  “Cute as two bugs in a rug.” Wally’s Texas expressions tended to come out when he bragged on his children. “They’re growing faster than the bluebonnets in the Hill Country during April.”

  Sally led him toward her desk and sat down with a grunt, rubbing her hip. “Is Skye happy to be back at work? I was wondering if she’d be able to leave the babies and end up quitting.”

  “It was hard for her,” Wally admitted. “But she wouldn’t be happy staying home. Her mind’s too restless and her need to help people is too strong.”

  “Yeah.” Sally nodded. “She’s a real smart woman and has one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen. Good thing you were able to hire Dorothy Snyder. That had to take a load off both your minds.”

  “She’s definitely a treasure.” Wally beamed, then winked. “Especially after Skye’s brother and sister-in-law stole our last nanny.”

  Sally snickered. “The way I heard it, your father and Skye’s mother drove away that babysitter. Besides, you’re better off with Dorothy.”

  “That’s true.” Wally scratched his head. “But what I can’t figure out is how Loretta controls May so much better than the rest of us.”

  “It must be some kind of lawyerly secret.” Sally narrowed her eyes. “Those people are trained to exploit people’s weaknesses.”

  “Could be.” Although Wally liked Loretta as a person, he wasn’t a fan of the legal profession, but being fond of his hide, he kept that opinion to himself.

  “I hope I can control myself and be a bit less obsessed with Anthony’s life than May is with her kids’.” Sally patted her gray ponytail and smiled. “Then again, he and Judy are going to make some beautiful babies, so maybe not.”

  “Are they all set for the wedding?” Wally asked.

  “As far as I know.” Sally frowned. “What does he say to you?”

  “Not much.” Wally shrugged. “I guess most guys aren’t that involved in the preparations. All they have to do is show up in their tux.”

  “On time and with the ring.” Sally pointed a finger at Wally. “No police emergencies.”

  “I promise, no matter what, Anthony won’t be on duty that day,” Wally vowed, then asked, “Are all the drivers here?”

  Sally glanced down at her open laptop, then said, “Everyone’s clocked in.” She waved to the group of men and women seated at picnic-style tables, flipping through bright red binders. “The ones you want to talk to are closest to the coffee urn.”

  Wally had told Sally that he was investigating the superintendent’s murder and wanted to chat with any of her drivers that had a grudge against Wraige. She’d given him the name of the recently fired driver that Dorothy had mentioned but advised him that that guy was probably not who Wally should interview first.

  According to Sally, Libby was the ringleader of the malcontents and if anyone wanted the superintendent dead, it was her. She encouraged the others to do her dirty work for her. She stirred everyone up, then hung back and watched the fireworks from a safe distance, all the while staying under the radar herself.

  While this Libby woman didn’t sound like the kind of person who would commit murder herself, she did sound like the kind of person who might have pushed someone else into it. And Wally wanted to know whom among her colleagues Libby had been provoking lately.

  Thanking Sally and promising to show her some recent pictures of the twins once he’d talked to the drivers, Wally left her by her desk and walked toward the table she’d indicated. He took his time, sizing up the group before he got to them.

  There were three women and two men varying in age from early twenties to late fifties. Four of the five wore jeans and sweatshirts, but one woman, an older brunette with shoulder length hair and glasses, had on neatly pressed khakis, a white button-down shirt, and a navy blazer. She was also the only one wearing makeup.

  Wally would bet his bottom dollar that was Libby Jenson. And although she was the one that he wanted to talk with the most, he changed course to approach the man sitting to her right. From Sally’s description, Wally reckoned that someone like Libby would never be able to stand that he’d chosen another driver to question rather than her.

  Wally held out his hand to the man he’d selected and said, “May I have a few minutes of your time, sir?”

  The guy blinked, then tilted his head and asked, “What can I do for you, Chief?” He shook Wally’s hand and added, “I’m Gene Ringkamp.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Wally wasn’t surprised Gene had known who he was. His picture had been in the paper often enough that most Scumble River citizens recognized him without an introduction. Especially in uniform. “Have you heard that Dr. Wraige was killed yesterday?”

  “Of course we did,” Libby piped up. “It was in the Star yesterday.”

  Wally hid his smile. It hadn’t taken her long to nibble at his bait. Now he had to reel her in and make her want to tell him everything.

  Ignoring Libby, Wally turned to the three others at the table and asked, “I was hoping one of you could explain to me the superintendent’s role in the transportation department?”

  Even though the question hadn’t been directed at her, on
ce again, Libby answered, “His role was to treat us like dirt and make sure we couldn’t make a living wage by keeping our hours just below full-time.”

  Evidently, Dorothy had been right about the situation. Wally made a metal note to slip a few extra bucks into the housekeeper’s pay envelope. He wouldn’t have thought of the bus drivers as possible suspects, and he doubted that Skye would have considered them, either.

  “Doesn’t your union protect you from that?” Wally egged Libby on.

  “Wraige pretty much destroyed every attempt the drivers made to unionize.” Libby’s attractive face reddened and her voice rose.

  “How could he do that?” Wally asked. “It’s against the law to interfere with a union being organized.”

  “There are ways around everything,” Libby muttered, then shot a look of loathing at some of the drivers at the other tables.

  Gene finally spoke up. “The thing is, like everybody else, Dr. Wraige had the right of free speech. He made his disapproval clear and insinuated that if we organized a union, he would then outsource the bussing to one of the big companies that handle transportation in the Laurel and Clay Center school districts.”

  “I see.” Wally shoved his hands in his pockets, the better to subliminally convey that this was a casual conversation, not an interrogation. “I suppose quite a few employees were pretty upset by those tactics.”

  “Some more than others.” Gene glanced at Libby, then added, “But most were afraid of losing their jobs and backed off. A lot of the drivers like the work because the hours are good for their families.”

  “I think I heard that a man was fired recently?” Wally glanced around the table. “Did he do something wrong on the job? Or was it because he objected to the way Dr. Wraige operated?”

  “Keith Makowski was a great driver.” Libby crossed her arms. “The kids and parents loved him and I…uh, I mean he thought that would protect him against any of Wraige’s reprisals.”

  “But I take it his popularity didn’t save him?” Wally asked, and when Libby shook her head, he continued, “What got Mr. Makowski fired?”

  Gene gave Libby the side-eye and said, “Some people thought that since Keith seemed to be bulletproof, he was the ideal person to publicly confront Dr. Wraige at a school board meeting.”

  “And that didn’t go over very well?” Wally hazarded a guess.

  Gene sighed. “At the meeting, the superintendent placated Keith by saying that he and the board would look into the drivers’ grievances. Particularly the lack of full-time hours and the absence of support when disciplinary issues were raised on the buses.”

  “Of course, that never happened,” Libby snapped. Adjusting her glasses to stare at Wally, she gritted her teeth and continued, “As soon as the parents’ interest died down, and they forgot about Keith’s presentation, Dr. Wraige made his move.”

  “Which was?” Wally asked, shifting to look at the angry women.

  “Our contract forbids us from posting anything on social media about our students,” Libby began, and Wally nodded his understanding.

  “Most of us follow that rule, but occasionally we’ll post something about a kid. We won’t use his or her name, but we’ll mention what they told us,” Gene explained.

  “Okay.” Wally made a mental note to ask Skye if that kind of contractual clause was common for employees of school districts.

  “I’ve been driving here for ten years and no one has ever gotten in trouble for one of those posts about an anonymous student,” Libby added.

  “I see.” Wally had a good idea where this was going. “What happened?”

  “Keith loved social media.” Gene shook his head. “I don’t see the attraction myself, but he’s a lot more friendly and outgoing than me.”

  “He also couldn’t stand to see a kid upset.” Libby picked up the story. “So one day after school, this student gets on the bus and tells Keith that he’s hungry. Keith asks him if he ate his lunch.”

  Wally raised a brow.

  At his inquiring look, Libby explained, “He asked because sometimes students throw away the cafeteria meal if they don’t like it. The kid says he couldn’t buy a hot lunch because he was twenty-five cents short and the cafeteria lady said that he already owed too much and according to board policy, she couldn’t give him any more credit.”

  “And Keith was angry and posted it online?” Wally guessed.

  “Yep.” Gene pulled out his phone, found what he was looking for, and handed it to Wally. “Here’s Keith’s post. I got a screen shot before the superintendent ordered him to take it down.”

  Wally squinted and read the tiny print:

  How in the world is it okay to deny a child who is already on reduced lunch something to eat? Wouldn’t we all rather feed a child than throw leftover food away?

  Giving Gene back his phone, Wally said, “Dr. Wraige fired him over that?”

  “Normally, only Keith’s social media friends would have seen his post and the superintendent would have never even known that it was out there.” Libby tapped her neatly trimmed nails on the Formica tabletop and the subtle pink polish gleamed in the overhead lights. “But he didn’t have his settings as private, and the post got shared and reshared, and then it was everywhere.”

  “And as more and more people saw the post, they called the superintendent to complain.” Gene shrugged. “Keith was summoned to the administration building and told that he had violated the terms of his contract, and he was terminated without severance pay.”

  Wally glanced at the big clock on the wall behind the drivers and saw that he had less than five minutes before they’d need to leave on their routes, so he quickly asked, “How did he take that?”

  “About like you’d expect.” Gene stood up and walked toward the exit.

  Libby got to her feet too, but paused to add, “If Keith hadn’t spoken out at the board meeting about our poor working conditions, Dr. Wraige would have probably just ordered him to delete the post and made him take a week off work without pay.” She frowned. “But because Keith had publicly outed the superintendent’s poor treatment of us bus drivers, Dr. Wraige used his infraction of the rules to get rid of what he considered a troublemaker.”

  Wally followed the woman as she headed to the lot. “Do you know of anyone else that Wraige fired under those circumstances?”

  “No.” Libby opened the bus’s door and climbed aboard, then leaned down and said, “But that’s because everyone else was too afraid to go against him.” She got behind the wheel. “The cowards.”

  Wally watched the woman drive off, then returned and got Keith Makowski’s address from Sally. The man sounded like a wonderful person and not someone who would commit murder. But even a nice guy can be pushed beyond his limits and get in a shoving match with someone who ends up accidently dead.

  Chapter 19

  Cat’s in the Cradle

  At precisely six fifty-nine a.m., Skye walked out of the house and into the garage. She had a seven-thirty PPS meeting at the elementary, then planned to spend the rest of the day at the high school.

  Although normally she was at the grade school on Thursday mornings and the junior high in the afternoons, between the lockdown on Monday and the superintendent’s murder on Tuesday, she’d had to rearrange her schedule. It wasn’t uncommon for her to have to make changes, but it was still a pain in the butt to have to notify the principals and demonstrate that their schools weren’t being shortchanged of her time.

  Sliding behind the wheel of the Mercedes, Skye placed her thermal lunch bag, tote, and purse on the passenger seat, then hit the button underneath the review mirror and waited for the garage door to open. While it rose, she fastened her safety belt and started the SUV.

  As she reversed onto the driveway and drove around the half circle in front of the house until the Mercedes was heading toward the road, she glanced f
rom side to side until she spotted the black Escalade backed into a position between some trees. It had a clear view of the entire property, as well as the street running in front of the acreage.

  When the babies were born, Carson had talked Wally and Skye into allowing him to put a security team on his grandchildren. This was in addition to the top-of-the-line home security system that he’d already installed in the RV that he’d provided for them to live in while they built their new home.

  Skye’s father-in-law had claimed that his men were among the best in the country and that most of the time she wouldn’t even be aware of their presence. But he was wrong. Even when she couldn’t see them, she could feel them watching her. And she could almost always spot them.

  Even now, although she couldn’t see the man, she knew there was a guard stationed at the rear of their property. Considering that the house’s backyard abutted the river, she wondered if Carson thought they might be attacked via submarine or destroyer.

  During their negotiations with her father-in-law about the babies’ security, Skye had asked Wally why he didn’t have guards keeping an eye on him. She’d pointed out that Carson’s son was just as likely to be abducted as his grandchildren.

  Wally had said that he had had security until he graduated from college, but chose not to once he was out of his father’s limelight. He had added that the twins were much easier targets than he would be because they wouldn’t put up a fight, which was why he agreed with his dad that they needed protection.

  It was one of the few drawbacks of having a billionaire father-in-law. And since the pluses were so many more than the minuses, Skye had been willing to live with the guards to keep her babies safe.

  She’d been afraid that Dorothy would resent both the electronic and live surveillance, but the housekeeper had taken it in stride. She even regularly provided the men on duty with home-baked treats.