Toni Donovan Mysteries- Books 1-3

by Helen Gray

  After the abrupt dismissal, Toni was more troubled than ever, but reluctant to share her misgivings. She got to her feet with the rest of the staff.

  Jordan grimaced. “Ken’s in a tough situation.”

  Toni’s sense of well-being, already at an all-time low, dropped another notch. She liked Ken Douglas and had a lot of sympathy for him. He was only thirty-two, intelligent, and in his second year as a principal. He worked hard at his job, but she knew he faced some stressful issues. “I know the board doesn’t always support decisions he makes, largely due to Mrs. Carter’s influence. Her disappearance has to have him uneasy about who’s in charge around here.”

  “She tried more than once to get the board to fire him,” John reminded them. “They refused to go that far, but they can’t block everything she proposes. Ken has to be worried that she’s going to eventually succeed.”

  Toni took heart at John’s reference to their superintendent in the present tense.

  “Ken’s wife quit teaching last year to have their baby and stay home with it, and I heard recently that she’s pregnant again,” Lisa interjected. “That makes his job more essential to him than ever.”

  “Well, I hope the tyrant is gone for good,” Jordan said with open animosity. “Ken isn’t the only one who would be better off.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta run.”

  “Me too. See you two tomorrow.” Lisa followed Jordan toward the north exit.

  As she watched them leave, Toni’s gut wrenched.

  What was happening? She didn’t understand. And she was scared.

  Toni walked beside John back to their classrooms, her low-heeled red pumps clicking on the concrete floor. “As much as I hate working for our superintendent, I’m worried about her,” she admitted quietly.

  He stopped at the little alcove where their classroom doors faced one another. “My feelings are mixed, too. I can’t stand the woman, but I never wished for anything bad to happen to her.”

  “Maybe it hasn’t,” Toni said, her voice laced with doubt as they parted ways.

  With the efficiency of long practice, Toni tidied her desk and prepared for the next day. On a worktable she laid out a supply of plastic bags, extra pencils, and other supplies necessary for tomorrow’s DNA fingerprinting lab. She was gathering her purse and book satchel to leave when John appeared in the doorway.

  “I can’t find my scientific calculator. It’s not all that valuable, but my parents gave it to me as a gift several years ago, and I hate to lose it. Do you, uh ... have your boys gone home yet?”

  Toni read his mind. “They should be waiting for me in the front lobby by now.”

  “I have Popsicles in my refrigerator.”

  Toni rolled her eyes. “You want Garrett.”

  John nodded and gave her a wry grin. “Can’t hurt to try, can it? I’d really like to find it.”

  Toni sighed in mock exasperation. “All right. Get out your bribes, and I’ll be right back.” She tossed her bags back onto the desk and took off down the hall.

  “Hey, guys,” she called as she reached the lobby where Gabe sat against the wall near the door, his backpack stuffed behind his spine and his trombone standing upright beside him. Garrett stood in front of the display case, studying the athletic trophies. “How would you like to come up to John’s room for a Popsicle?”

  “Sure.” Gabe gathered his things while Garrett grabbed his backpack. As they darted up the hall, Toni had to hustle to keep up with them. Her boys were adventurous and kept her on her toes, but she loved them dearly. Gabe, about seventy-five pounds and four foot six, was a fifth grader with a love and aptitude for athletics. His hair tended to curl around the edges just like his dad if not kept trimmed. Garrett, a third grader, was about three inches shorter, had darker hair, and weighed about sixty pounds. He liked to fix things. If Toni had a small gadget that quit working, she would let him tinker with it. If he got it to work—which he sometimes did—that was great. If he didn’t, it was no loss.

  “Hi, Dr. Z,” they greeted in unison as they entered John’s room ahead of her.

  John had attended dental school, but by the end of his second year had realized he wanted to drop out. He had finished, but never took the board exams—and was still paying off his school loans. After a series of dead-end jobs, he had gone back to school and earned his teaching certification. Friends for years, he and Toni joked about how he had twisted things around, getting his Ph.D. first, then his bachelor’s, and then a master’s in biology. John taught physical sciences, chemistry and physics classes, while Toni had the life science classes.

  Tables were organized for group study, but everything was arranged in a mirror image of Toni’s room. The one thing identical was a work counter across the rear of the room.

  The boys pulled out chairs at the first table and sat in them, their backpacks tossed on top of it. Gabe leaned his trombone case against the tabletop.

  “Here we go.” John emerged from the supply closet at the corner of the room, a half sized can of soda in each hand. “How about a Coke?” he asked Toni.

  She gave him a you-know-I-never-turn-down-a-Coke eye roll.

  He placed the ones for the boys on their table and went back to the closet. This time he returned with two Cokes, plus two Popsicles that he handed to the boys.

  They thanked him, and Gabe stuck his Popsicle in his mouth. But Garrett didn’t immediately unwrap his. He sat quietly, his eyes sweeping the room. “Where’s your computer?”

  “I had problems with it, and the technology director came and got it.” John’s fondness for the boys was evident in the warmth of his voice. “But my scientific calculator is missing.”

  Garrett’s small brow wrinkled. “What kind of calculator is that?”

  “It looks like this.” John reached inside a desk drawer and pulled out the box in which the instrument was usually stored. He handed it to Garrett.

  Garrett studied the picture. “That’s neat. You lost it, huh?”

  “Sure did. And I use it a lot. I’ve turned this room upside down hunting for it.”

  Grinning, Garrett looked down at the floor, and then up the ceiling. “Looks right side up to me.”

  “Okay, smarty pants.” John gave him a fake punch in the arm.

  Toni pretended to ignore them and sipped from her Coke as John perched on a lab stool near the desk. She drew a long breath. “Days like this make me wonder why I ever went into teaching.”

  John shook his head. “I hear you. What is it you’ve got in now, ten years?”

  She nodded. “If I live through this one it’ll be eleven.”

  One disadvantage for both of them could be those very years of experience. There was less earning disparity in teaching than many professions, men and women starting at the same base pay and advancing on the same salary schedule. But districts experiencing tight budgets had a tendency to hire less experienced teachers because they could get them for less money. Some set a limit on how many years of experience they would recognize, meaning that she and John might sign on at another district and have to start on the salary schedule at less than their actual experience. The idea of taking a pay cut, while adding the expense of a long commute, held no appeal.

  “I’m only a couple ahead of you,” John said. “My first two years were at Poplar Bluff, and then I came back here.” His family owned the local Ford dealership, and he had grown up in Clearmount and attended the local schools.

  “I hate the thought of making that hour drive to Poplar Bluff every day, but I’m thinking seriously about applying for a position down there for next year,” Toni said, rotating the Coke can in her palms.

  “Well, this is about the time for positions to start being listed. I’m wrestling with the same thought.” John darted a glance over at Garrett.

  Her youngest son had quietly risen from his chair, still clutching the calculator box and sucking on his Popsicle, and walked slowly around the room. He stopped near a window, paused a moment, and then moved on. Wh
en he reached the corner of the room near the supply closet he stopped again and studied the heat and air conditioning controls. Then he squatted on the floor and placed the calculator box on the floor beside him. He put his Popsicle on it.

  “Don’t bother him,” John whispered, anticipating Toni’s intent of avoiding a potential mess in the floor. “He’s okay.”

  Garrett lay on his stomach and peered into the small space under the wall-heating unit. Then he reached under with his right hand and swept it back and forth. Suddenly he grunted and pulled the hand out. He turned and faced John, the missing calculator in his hand. “Is this what you were looking for?”

  “How does he do that?” John muttered.

  Toni shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s happened several times now. I don’t know what it means, but I appreciate you keeping it between us.”

  “What about Kyle?”

  “It’s happened a few times at home, and we’ve talked about it. It’s pretty amazing, and baffling, but we don’t want to make a big deal of it.” She considered mentioning the dreams, but decided against it.

  John walked over and took the calculator Garrett held out to him. “I know what must have happened now. It was in my coat pocket yesterday. I remember dropping my coat when I took it off to hang it in the closet. This must have fallen out of my pocket and slid under there. Thanks, pal. I owe you.” He shook Garrett’s hand, the one without the Popsicle.

  Garrett grinned and held up the Popsicle. “You paid in advance.”

  They both laughed.

  Toni picked up her purse and satchel. “How about we all go home now.”

  “What time’s Dad supposed to be home?” Gabe asked when they reached her red van.

  Toni slid behind the wheel. “He said he should be there in time for supper.”

  She turned left out of the school parking lot, drove up the highway about a quarter of a mile, and turned right onto a paved road that wound back to the Country Club and golf course. About a mile back, she turned into the estates and drove to a ranch style home that sat in front of a wooded hillside. She and Kyle had bought it two years earlier. She parked in the garage.

  An hour and a half later, freshly showered and padding around in her fleecy blue robe and house slippers, Toni donned potholder mitts and pulled a steaming chicken casserole from the oven.

  “Smells great,” Kyle announced from the kitchen doorway. He stepped inside, tossed his hat on the dryer, and crossed the floor to give Toni a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Be careful,” she cautioned, balancing the dish carefully. “This is hot.”

  “So are you,” he returned, his brown eyes dancing.

  “Get washed up and it’ll be on the table,” she ordered, sidling past him.

  After the meal the boys went to their room, and Kyle helped Toni clean up the kitchen. “How was your day?” he asked as he shoved the clean casserole dish into the cabinet.

  “Tiring. My classes went fine, but the faculty meeting afterward wasn’t really informative. Marsha still hasn’t been found, but her car has.” She flexed her aching shoulder muscles.

  “She’ll show up.” Kyle put down his dishtowel and came up behind Toni at the sink. When he began to knead her tired shoulder and neck muscles she silently purred.

  “How can the board tolerate her?” he continued. “It’s bad enough that she treats you teachers so badly, but to brazenly break up the board president’s marriage is too much. She’s probably getting tired of him and playing hide and seek.”

  Toni tipped her head to the side as his hands did their magic. “I don’t understand how Jack could leave his wife and kids for her.”

  Jack Rayford and Marsha Carter’s affair was believed to have started soon after Marsha’s appointment to the position of superintendent. When Jack’s wife found out about it a few months later and evicted him, he had moved in with Marsha, who was already divorced. He was now in the process of a bitter divorce of his own. His son, Josh, was a college student, and his daughter, Sidney, was in Toni’s forensics class. Toni hoped the girl didn’t divulge her role as perpetrator of the simulated classroom crime in which Toni had asked her to participate.

  “Do you really think you want to change jobs?” Kyle worked his fingers up and down her neck. “Would you like to just take a year off? You can, you know. Or we could try for a little female rug rat.”

  Toni gave an elongated sigh. “I know. But I don’t think I would be content not teaching.” She knew they both spent too much time and energy in their jobs, but they liked what they did. “I’ll give your suggestions some more thought and make a decision soon. Thanks for understanding.”

  *

  A sound woke Toni during the night. Instantly alert, she detected that it came from the boys’ room. She slipped out of bed, went down the hall, and eased their door open. Peering inside, she could make out Garrett’s form tossing restlessly on his bed. Again she tiptoed to his side and eased onto the mattress beside him.

  “Harry Rabbit,” he mumbled, followed by more sounds she couldn’t decipher.

  Very gently she reached over and drew him into her arms, moving her hand over his brow in a soothing caress. “It’s all right, son. Everything’s all right. Go back to sleep.”

  Toni held him that way until she was certain he was asleep. Then she eased him back down onto his pillow and crept from the room. She crawled back into bed, but lay there wide-awake, tossing and turning. She reached no conclusions about her job, but did make up her mind to talk to John Zachary first thing tomorrow. That decision made, she fell asleep.

  *

  Driven with purpose, Toni bypassed the workroom the next morning and went to find John. Almost certain she remembered his name on the breakfast duty roster for the week, she entered the cafeteria. He stood to one side of the room, monitoring the students.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as she approached, his eyes moving over her hot pink jacket that she had hoped would camouflage the worry on her face and the loss of sleep in her eyes. It obviously hadn’t helped.

  “I need to talk to you. Can we eat lunch together in your room?”

  “Sure,” he said, grasping her need for privacy.

  Toni went on to class. As soon as the lunch bell rang, she grabbed her sandwich and green grapes and made a beeline for John’s room. He sat at his desk, already eating a lunch that made her sandwich look unappetizing in comparison.

  A bachelor until last year when he met and married Jenny, his life had changed dramatically. Because of the short, twenty minute lunch break, he had been a “brown bagger” and brought an apple and ham sandwich every day. Since his marriage he brought sealed lunch plates of leftovers and delicious munchies that Jenny prepared for him to pop into the small microwave in his storage room.

  “I have the most awful thing in my head that I need to put to rest,” she began without preliminaries, sinking into a student desk. “You’re the only person besides Kyle who would understand.”

  John placed his elbows on his desk and leaned forward. “Does this have anything to do with our missing superintendent?”

  Toni nodded. “All the talk …and some other things, have caused me to wonder if…if…”

  “Something has really happened to Marsha?” John prompted. “What are you thinking?”

  Toni took a deep breath. “Before I run my thoughts by you, I need to back up and explain about Garrett’s dream.”

  “Garrett who finds lost things. Someone is lost,” John mused. “What did he dream?”

  Toni met his eyes across the desk. “He dreamed about Harry Rabbit. When I tried to comfort him he said that Harry was dead. He said he saw Harry Rabbit …and something big and black next to him.”

  John listened in silence, absorbing every word.

  “The dream was the night after the sheep ran away from the living nativity, so I thought something big and black must be the sheep in the dark, or something like that. Then he found your calculator.” Toni paused to catch her breath.
“Last night he dreamed about Harry Rabbit again.”

  “We both know that Harry Rabbit is buried in your body farm,” John finished for her, a fateful tone entering his voice.

  “I know all this has to sound crazy,” Toni said quietly, her hands so unsteady she could hardly hang onto her uneaten sandwich. “But I have to check.”

  “Would you like me to go with you?”

  “I was hoping you would,” she admitted with a whoosh of relief.

  “If it’s any comfort, I don’t think you sound crazy. Abraham Lincoln dreamed two weeks before his assassination that there was a funeral at the White House. When he asked a soldier in the dream who was in the casket, the soldier told him the president of the United States. Mr. Lincoln told his wife about the dream later, and her response was that he would die in office.”

  Toni found herself being thankful for John’s obsession with history.

  “Mark Twain had a vivid dream where he saw his brother in a casket,” he continued. “Less than a week later his brother was killed in an explosion on a boat.”

  “Those men dreamed that something was going to happen,” Toni pointed out, finally biting into her sandwich. “That’s not what Garrett does.”

  “No, his dreams remind me more of some in the Bible. Joseph is probably the best known dreamer, but there were plenty of others. Jacob. Solomon. Abraham. Daniel and Nebuchadnezzer.”

  She nodded and pressed her fingers over her eyes as he enumerated examples. “But Garrett’s dreams are surely just coincidences.”

  John shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t discount them. I heard a minister say once that God used dreams for various reasons, like to reveal prophecy, or to encourage and to give warnings. An example of that is how the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod.”

  Toni considered each of them. “Garrett only finds things that are missing. And he’s just a kid. He wouldn’t …”

  John swallowed his last bite and began to tidy his desk. “Let’s stop trying to analyze and go check the farm anyhow, just reassure ourselves as to whether your youngster has found something else that’s lost.”