by Joan Hess
“All a misunderstanding.”
“Isn’t it interesting how you were available to substitute in the midst of the crisis? One would almost be inclined to think that your presence was along the lines of calling in the Mounties..
“As a member of the community and a concerned parent, I was merely helping out by agreeing to substitute,” I said. Lied, actually-but only because he was looking so damned smug. “The students must have supervision. The perpetuity of the physical structure demands it.”
“And you weren’t trying to delve into the accounts?”
Ah, the burden of a reputation for brilliant deduction. I considered my next move as I refilled our wine glasses. I opted to delve into his accounts-of the crime.
“Miss Parchester left the journalism room at ten o’clock, and presumably put the jar in the refrigerator in the lounge,” I commented in a conversational tone. “The jar was unattended for the next half hour, until I arrived. After that, no one came into the lounge.”
“That’s the time period we’re interested in,” Peter said. “The French teacher-ah, Evelyn West, said that she went into the lounge toward the end of second period for a cup of coffee. She saw the jar in the refrigerator, but did not realize that it was the infamous compote until later. That was at ten-fifteen or so.”
“She didn’t see anyone while she was there?”
“Her student teacher came in for a few seconds, but did not enter the kitchenette. Apparently, she comes in to cry on a regular basis.” He gave me a puzzled look. “Does that make sense to you?”
“No, but I’ve witnessed it. Who else came to the lounge?”
“Bernice Dort, the vice-principal, came by for a soda, and our victim came in with her. Mrs. West says that they were unaware of her presence in the ladies room, but refused to elaborate. Miss Dort confirms the time.”
“No one else came into the lounge?”
“According to the statements, no. You arrived at the beginning of the third period at about ten-thirty, right? You and Mrs. West were there until everyone arrived for the potluck, and no one else could have slipped into the kitchen to spike the compote.”
I wrinkled my nose and tried to remember. “I think that’s accurate,” I admitted. “But what about the period from ten to ten-fifteen? Was anyone in the lounge then?”
Peter downed the last drop of wine and stood up. “No one has admitted being there, except for the custodian, who says he came in to clean the rest rooms.
“And he has cyanide in his closet! Pitts is the murderer, Peter; I’m sure of it! He’s the slimiest specimen of reptile I’ve ever seen, and he slinks around the building like a mongrel.”
“But he doesn’t have a motive.”
“Yes, he does. Weiss was getting static from the teachers in the basement. Pitts hasn’t been cleaning the classrooms for quite some time, and the teachers were beginning to get tired of the dirt. I know Miss Platchett was in Weiss’s office earlier to demand that Pitts be terminated, preferably with extreme prejudice.”
“That’s not much of a motive,” he pointed out. “Did Weiss agree to fire him?”
“It didn’t sound like it, from the report I overheard. But that doesn’t mean that Pitts might not be eager to prevent Weiss from taking drastic measures at a later date.”
“By poisoning all the teachers in the lounge?”
“Maybe not. Miss Parchester wouldn’t have risked it, either. Her dearest friends and staunchest supporters were likely to nibble the compote. She’s hardly a Borgia sort.”
I earned a gaze that blew straight from the North Pole. “I wouldn’t know,” he murmured, “since I haven’t been able to locate the woman for a statement. No one seems to know where she is. Her friends don’t know, her neighbors don’t know, and her brother in Boise, Idaho, doesn’t know.”
“Well, don’t look at me.” Not like that, anyway. “You’d best run along and let me do some work on the yearbook layout. We teachers are a dedicated lot.”
“As much as I’d like to stay and discuss the whereabouts of the elusive Miss Parchester, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your obvious dedication. I’m going back to the high school to see if Jorgeson has found another gallon or two of cynaide in the home-economics room.
We parted amiably, if a shade warily. Corpses have always had that effect on our relationship.
SIX
Nothing much happened over the weekend. Peter called Sunday evening to say the CID was making little progress, but they had confiscated enough poison from the school to wipe out the country, if not the continent. The lab results were not yet in, so they had no theories as to the origin and composition of the cyanide compound. All of the teachers and staff had been questioned again, as had a few students who admitted they’d been in the halls during the second period. I mentioned that I hadn’t been questioned again and was informed that I was not a suspect-or a particularly important witness. What charm the man possessed. The freshman class took me more seriously than he did, even if they overestimated the depth of my desire to avoid the yearbook.
Peter was not especially amused when I asked if he had found Miss Parchester, and his response does not bear repeating. Nor does mine when he inquired about my progress on the layout. The conversation ended on a slightly testy note when he reiterated his order about interference in the official investigation and I laughed. The man requires deflation to keep his head from ploding. It falls in the category of public service.
His utile jibe did, however, remind me of earlier questions about the school newspaper’s most infamous columnist. Said columnist was doing homework on her bed, a bag of potato chips within reach should malnutrition threaten to impair her intellectual skills. The radio blared in one ear, and the telephone receiver was affixed to the other.
I suggested she turn off, hang up, and cease stuffing potato chips in her mouth. After a nominal amount of dissension, we achieved an ambiance more conducive to conversation, albeit temporary and at great personal sacrifice on one party’s part.
“When did you take over the Miss Demeanor column?” I asked.
“Last week. That’s what makes all this So Irritating, Mother. If you don’t do something about this mess, I’ll never get to actually write the column. Bambi said-”
“So you didn’t write any of the previous columns?”
“I intended to do the next one, but then Miss Parchester Absolutely Ruined Things by getting herself accused of embezzlement. This whole mess is incredible.” And her mother’s fault, although the sentiment remained unspoken.
“I’m sure Mr. Weiss agreed with you, as do his widow and daughter.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about Cheryl Anne,” Caron sniffed. “She hated her father because of what he did to Thud. Inez’s sister said that Thud told one of the junior varsity linebackers that he wished he could meet Weiss in a dark alley some night.”
“Does this have something to do with eligibility?” I remembered the discussion in the teachers’ meeting, but not with any clarity. It hadn’t made much sense.
“Thud’s furious,” Caron said solemnly. “So is Cheryl Anne. In fact, she’s reputedly livid.”
“What precisely is he ineligible to do? Produce an intelligible remark? Walk and count at the same time? Marry Cheryl Anne?”
Her expression resembled that of a martyr facing slings and arrows from a herd of drooling tribesmen. “Football, Mother. Thud is a big football jock, the captain of the team and all that, and plans to get a college scholarship for next year. Mr. Weiss pulled his eligibility, which means he won’t get to play in the Homecoming game.”
“Merely because he’s flunking all his classes? How unkind of Mr. Weiss. After all, what’s a mere education when it interferes with football?”
“It’s our Homecoming game, Mother. If Starley City wins, it will be too humiliating for words. The dance will be a wake. Cheryl Anne is this year’s Homecoming queen-naturally-and she’s told everyone she’ll literally die if the team loses on
the most important night of her life.” She eyed the telephone. “I really do need to work on my algebra. Big test on Wednesday.”
“Your devotion to your education is admirable, but it will have to wait another minute or two. Has anyone suggested that Cheryl Anne or Thud might have-r-done something drastic because of the ineligibility problem and the impending ruination of Cheryl Anne’s life?”
“It sounds rather farfetched, Mother, but I could call Inez and ask her if her sister’s heard anything,” Caron said with a flicker of enthusiasm. “Inez’s sister hears Absolutely Everything. She’s a cheerleader.”
Caron was right; it did seem farfetched to poison daddy to ensure a football victory and subsequent festive celebration. Daddy’s demise wouldn’t guarantee that the eligibility would be reinstated nor would Thud’s presence on the field guarantee a victory. Neither of the two had access to the lounge, although it seemed as if cyanide in some form or other was accessible to all. I put the theory (which wasn’t much good, anyway) aside and went on to a more promising line before my daughter commenced a full-scale rebellion.
“I need to speak to the girl who wrote the column before she caught mononucleosis,” I said, raising one eyebrow sternly in case she made a grab for the telephone.
Caron produced the information. I razed her dreams by telling her to stay off the telephone until I was finished, then ducked out the door before her lower lip could extend far enough to endanger me.
Rosie’s mother was reluctant to allow me to speak to her, but I finally persuaded her that I was not a girlfriend with a weekly gossip report. Rosie came on the line with a timid, “Yes?”
I gave her a hasty explanation of my current position at the high school, then asked how she chose the letters to answer in her column.
“There’s a box in the main office,” she told me. “I emptied the box every week and answered all the letters. I made a pledge in the first issue, so it was vital to my journalistic integrity.”
I had rather hoped Caron would mellow with age, but it seemed we might have a few more years of tribulation if this was the norm. “I found your column very a musing, Rosie. Some of it rather puzzled me, though. What did you think about the Xanadu Motel letters?”
“I thought somebody was bonkers, but I felt obligated to answer as best I could. It was vital to my- “Of course it was,” I said quickly. “Did you have any idea who wrote those letters? Any clues from the handwriting?” “The letters were confidential, Mrs. Malloy,” she said, sounding scandalized. “Even if I had been able to guess the identity of the correspondents, I would never divulge the names. That would compromise my-”
“Indeed,” I said. I wished her a speedy recovery and a good night’s rest, then retreated to my bedroom. There wasn’t any reason to link the peculiar letters in the Falcon Crier with Weiss s murder, or even with the accusations against Miss Parchester. It was just a nagging detail, a petty and obscure campaign being waged by an anonymous general against an equally anonymous enemy. Who, according to the letters, spent many a Thursday afternoon at the Xanadu indulging in activities that required little speculation. After a few minutes of idle thought, I dismissed it and spent the rest of the night dreaming of bell schedules, lounge visitors armed with lethal jars, and the prevalence of Tupperware. Monday morning arrived. I arrived at dear old FHS and scurried down to the cavern just as the bell shrieked its warning to dilatory debutantes and lingering lockerites. As I stepped through the door, the intercom box crackled to life for the daily homeroom announcements. Miss Doff rattled off a brief acknowledgment of our beloved principal’s sad demise and extended all of our collective sympathy to the bereaved family. School would be closed the following day so that we could, if we desired, evince the above-mentioned sympathy by our appearance at the funeral. Date and location were announced.
She then swung into a more familiar routine of club meetings, unsigned tardy slips, and illicit behavior in halls and rest between classes, all of which made her tidy little world go round.
I went to the teachers’ lounge for a shot of caffeine. As I entered, Evelyn caught me by the arm and pulled me back into the hallway. “I need your help,” she whispered. “We’re going to get Pius. The filthy slime has gone too far, and I’m going to expose his nastiness once and for all. Now that Weiss is no longer around to protect him, Pitts will get exactly what he deserves.”
It was mystifying, but certainly more interesting than Miss Dort’s announcements or the watery coffee in the lounge. Evelyn was flushed with anger; her dark eyes sparkled with an expectancy that bordered on mayhem. Once I had nodded my acquiescence to whatever she had in mind, she hurried into her classroom and returned with her student teacher. The quivering girl was told to go into the ladies room in the lounge and make a production of checking her lipstick and hair in the mirror.
“Is Pitts in the ladies room?” I asked.
“Worse. I’ll show you where the beast is-and what he’s doing.”
She led the way around the corner into the dark area of the hallway where I’d had the conversation with the Latin pedant. We entered the custodian’s door and tiptoed through a labyrinth of paper towels, murky mops and buckets, odoriferous boxes of disinfectants, and the other paraphernalia necessary to combat youthful slovenliness.
Beyond the storage mom was Pitts’s private domain, a dismal room with a chair, a coffee table, and a sagging cot covered with a tattered blanket. Yellowed pinup girls gaped over their exposed anatomies, pretending astonishment at having been snapped in such undignified poses. The calendars below were from former decades, but I supposed Pitts hadn’t noticed.
In one corner was Pitts himself He failed to notice our entrance, in that he had one eye and all of his attention glued to a hole in the wall. Evelyn glanced back at me to confirm my perspicacity as a witness, then crossed the room and tapped his shoulder.
He spun around, his lips shining moistly in the dim light. “Why, Miz West! What’re you all doing in here?”
“The more important question is: What are you doing, Mr. Pitts?”
“Nothing. Gitting ready to mop the hall like I always do on Monday morning. Then I got to repair a broken window in Mr. Weiss’s office and see about the thermostat in the girls’ gym. Don’t want those girls to get cold in them skimpy gym suits, do we?”
“Imagine all that work. Wouldn’t it be more entertaining to peek at the women teachers in the ladies room?”
“Now, Miz West,” he began in an awful whine, “I don’t know why you’d say something like that. I wouldn’t never-”
Evelyn brushed him aside with one finger and put her eye to the hole. “What a delightful view, Pitts. I’d always presumed you received your jollies smoking dope with the sophomore boys, but now I see you’ve branched out into visual amusements as well. I am going upstairs to report this to Miss Doff, the superintendent of schools, the head of custodial maintenance, the school board, and anyone else who will listen.”
“Now, Miz West-”
“You will be dismissed, Pius, and it will be a day of celebration for the entire school. A holiday, with dancing in the halls, followed by a touching ceremony in which you will be literally booted through the back door, never to be seen here again.”
“I didn’t make this hole. I jest found it and was trying to see where it went is all I was doing, Miz West. That’s the honest-to-gawd truth-I swear it.” He ducked his head and shuffled his feet in a cloud of dust. I waited to see if he actually tugged his forelock in classic obsequiousness, although it would have had to be unglued first. He settled for the expression of a basset hound put outside on a cold night.
Evelyn gave him a cold look as she joined me in the doorway. We left the room and made our way back to the hall, Pitts’s sputters and whines drifting after us like a breeze from a chicken house.
“Brava,” I murmured. It had been impressive.
She was shaking with anger, but her expression held a hint of satisfaction. “I meant every word of it. That filthy
man is finished at this school and at every other school in the system. He can go clean sewers, which is what he deserves. On the other hand, I deserve a medal, a bouquet of long-stemmed roses presented by a lispy, angelic child, and a year’s sabbatical to Paris to brush up on my vocabulary.”
“When did you notice the hole?”
“This morning, but I have no idea how long it’s been there. It almost makes me ill. Not only could he watch us adjust panty hose and hike our skirts, he could probably hear every word said in the lounge when the door was ajar. Lord, I feel the need of a shower, or at least a rubdown with disinfectant.”
I was in the midst of agreeing with her when the bell rang and students exploded into the halls. I retreated to the journalism room to meet my first-period class. Said group was silent and soberly watchful as I entered the room and sat down behind the desk. It took me a moment to recall that they were freshmen- and we all knew whom the freshmen had chosen as their candidate for Weiss’s murderer.
After some deliberation, I decided to let things stand as they were, It did keep the class under control, in that they seemed to feel it necessary to watch me for signs of imminent attack upon their persons. I tossed over the roster book and leaned back to think about the murder, since I, armed with the wisdom of age and the inside track, knew the freshman class was mistaken.
I had reached no significant conclusions when the bell rang and the class galloped away. The second-period class came, milled around quietly, and left at the bell, as did I. The lounge was empty, which suited me well, and I was dozing on the mauve and green when the sound of water in the kitchenette roused me.
A Fury entered the main room, a porcelain cup and saucer in hand, and offered me a timid smile. Tessa Zuckerman had not been seen since her collapse during the distasteful events of the potluck, and Mrs. Platchett was difficult to confuse with anything except, perhaps, a bulldozer. Therefore, I deduced that it had to be Mae Bagby. And Caron swears my mental capacity is changing in inverse proportion to my age.
