Keyed in Murder

by Helen Gray

  “I’ll need to pack a bag,” she said, running over in her mind what clothes she and the boys would need.

  “I’m hoping to be back by Thursday, because I have an appointment for a physical that afternoon, and I don’t want to have to reschedule it.”

  Physicals were required once a year for pilots, and his was due. Toni shared his wish for a timely return. “Will you go tell the boys?”

  He nodded and left the room.

  The next morning he followed her to school, blew a kiss at her as she turned into the parking lot, and rolled on past.

  As she drove to a parking spot, Toni spied John waiting at the curb. Jenny had already gone inside. Toni felt bad that her family and friends were devoting so much of their time to insuring her safety, but it was also nice to know they cared so much.

  During third hour she was working at her desk when the door opened and her principal entered the room. “I won’t take but a couple minutes of your time,” he said, coming to the desk and sitting where he was on eye level with her.

  “I’m never too busy for a chat with you,” she returned, putting her pen down. “What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to tell you that Ryan and I are working together on this gang matter. We both made a list of students we think fit the profile of those who might be singled out for recruitment. Since gang activity typically begins around the ages of eleven to thirteen, my list focuses on freshmen.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “We’ve started moving about the cafeteria during breakfast and lunch and unobtrusively collecting items that each student on our list has handled, such as their lunch trays, eating utensils, or milk cartons. We had planned to take them to the police for fingerprinting, but we were discussing it and wondered if you could do that here in your lab.”

  Toni brightened at having something definitive she could do. “I think John would be willing to help me. I’ll talk to him during lunch and we can decide on details. Tell Ryan to bring his items to us with name labels on them. I hope you’re being careful to handle them without smudging fingerprints or leaving your own, and putting them in plastic bags.”

  Ken smiled. “We are. Thanks. I was sure you would want to be included. Oh,” he said as another thought occurred. “Ryan is also arranging for gang resistance skills training through the GREAT program—that’s Gangs Resistance Education and Training. This one is geared toward sixth and seventh grades only, but we’re looking at training for other grades.”

  He stood, waved a hand, and left the room.

  Toni was right about John’s willingness to help. They agreed that they would work in her lab after school once they received items from the principals. Jenny would meet the boys and bring them to John’s room to eat the popsicles he kept on hand for them.

  After school the Zacharys followed Toni’s van to her parents’ little subdivision that was located about a mile outside the city limits. As she drove, the boys chatted about their day, mostly what they had done in their P.E. classes. Toni paid little attention—until the subject changed.

  “Parker Hartman and Davy Ambrose got caught cheating on our math test,” Garrett said.

  Gabe turned in the front seat to look back at him. “What did the teacher do to them?”

  “She gave them both zeros.”

  Gabe shrugged acceptance and faced forward again.

  “But I saw Parker later in P.E., and I asked him if that zero would cause him to flunk. He said no. Then he came up close to me and whispered that it’s a secret, but he gets to take the test again.”

  Gabe turned in the seat again. “What about Davy?”

  “He still gets a zero. That’s why it’s a secret.”

  Toni’s knuckles whitened from tightening on the steering wheel. So one, or both, of the Hartman parents had brought pressure to bear on the teacher and gotten special treatment for their son. She bit her lip to keep from speaking her thoughts about what the son would learn from the experience.

  When she turned into her parents’ driveway, the van crawled slowly up the hill to a comfortable ranch home in a grove of trees. Behind her, the Zachary car made a left, drove past the house, and headed back to the highway.

  Toni parked, and they trooped inside where Faye was beginning supper preparations. Russell informed the boys he had plans for tramping in the woods behind their house with them.

  Two hours later, when they were going to the table to eat, the doorbell rang. Toni was closest to that part of the house, so she answered it. Buck Freeman stood on the step.

  “Come in,” she invited, taken by surprise.

  Russell came striding toward them. “Come on in, Buck. You’re just in time.”

  The police chief removed his hat and placed it on the hearth. “You didn’t tell me when you invited me to supper that Toni would be here.”

  “Kyle’s away on a charter trip,” Russell explained easily. “So she and the boys are staying nights with us until he gets back.”

  “Good,” Buck said, nodding in approval.

  Faye’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes disappeared quickly. While dolloping ice cream over his blackberry cobbler, Russell addressed his old friend. “Are you making progress on finding the killer of our local guys? We’re concerned about our daughter’s safety.”

  Buck put down his fork. “We’re hitting a lot of dead ends, but still following leads. The Ramsey boy was at the bowling alley the night the prowler was out at Toni’s house. Someone apparently borrowed his car off the parking lot and wired it. There are witnesses who insist the boy never left the lanes during that hour.”

  Russell put the ice cream scoop down. “What about drug dealing?”

  The chief drew a deep breath. “We’ve arrested some teens on drug charges, mostly possession. We know it’s a problem, and we’re dealing with it the best we can. They found out where their parents were getting their drugs and started buying from the same sources. We’ve connected a couple of them to dealing, the teens I mean.”

  Toni listened and observed the two men, detecting frustration in each of them.

  “What about Jake Crawford himself?” Russell asked. “Was he dealing?”

  Buck shook his head. “He was in a money crunch, probably because of the drugs they were using. But we can’t find anything that connects him to dealing.”

  “Was his marriage solid?”

  Now Buck grimaced. “Bonnie admits they had some problems, but we’ve confirmed her whereabouts for that entire time frame. She seems to be picking up where Jake left off in the business, and doing rather well at it from what I hear and see. I’m more inclined to think the murder was personal, an act of rage, and my gut says it was someone he knew well.”

  Sure it was. Everyone in a town this size knows everyone well.

  Toni kept her thoughts to herself.

  Buck focused his attention on Toni. “Bonnie Crawford came to see me this morning, as I’m sure you know.”

  She shook her head. “I only knew she planned to do it.”

  “Well, she explained to me about her employee problem, and how you helped her figure out the details. I expect you’ll be pleased to hear that we arrested her bookkeeper an hour ago. Stephanie Granger is charged with embezzlement, but she has an alibi for the time of Jake’s murder. In case you were thinking she might have killed her boss,” he added, the tiniest of twitches tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “On another note,” he continued, changing the subject, “We found that the Crawfords own a lake cabin and a rental house. That key you gave me doesn’t fit either of them.”

  “What about storage lockers?”

  He tipped his head to one side and pursed his lips. “Hm. There are several batches of those around, and we’re certainly aware that people use them for a lot more purposes than just storage.” He gave her a meaningful look and pulled a notepad from his pocket to make a note.

  Toni heaved a sigh. “I won’t deny that being in this killer’s sights scares me, but I have t
o work and shop and function in the community. I can’t expect people to guard me every minute.”

  “Yes, you can,” the chief disagreed sternly. “He thinks you saw him. You say you didn’t, but you might have seen something that would help identify him if you can remember it.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t put my life on hold.”

  “You should take some time off from work.”

  “I can’t,” she said with finality. “There are too many suspects and not enough answers. It could take weeks to nail the killer, or maybe never. I can’t abandon my classes indefinitely. There are eight couples we know of in that party clique, but there could be more. And it might not even be one of them.”

  “I’m betting it is,” Buck said, returning his attention to his pie.

  Chapter 17

  After school the next day Toni and John lifted their first batch of fingerprints for the principals. There were about twenty items, so they divided them and went to work with the supplies Toni had laid out right after the final bell rang.

  Wearing gloves and handling each item by the edges, they sprinkled dusting powder—dark or light, depending on which would contrast better with the color of the surfaces—and brushed away the excess until they found a complete print. Then they pressed clear tape over each print, peeled the tape off, and pressed it onto an index card with the corner of the tape pressed down.

  Each print was then labeled with the item from which it was taken, and the name of the student who had handled it. Then they recorded them in a lab notebook.

  “I enjoyed that,” Toni said when they finished.

  “Me too,” John agreed. “It makes me feel I’m part of the investigation.”

  He and Jenny followed Toni to her parents’ house and waved good-bye, Jenny mouthing “see you later” through the passenger door window.

  That evening, being Halloween, they all went to Trunk or Treat at the church. Faye and Russell had prepared bags of candy and popcorn balls earlier that day, and Toni had bought bags of candy earlier in the week.

  The adults spent the evening sitting in lawn or camp chairs next to their cars with their trunks open, while the children and teens distributed goodies from those trunks to the constant flow of trick-or-treaters that continued to arrive at the church parking lot until after eight o’clock.

  As Toni’s family arrived home, her cell phone rang.

  “Let’s go on inside,” Kyle said to the boys as she answered it.

  Toni’s eyes followed their motions as she said, “Hello,” into the phone.

  “Are you interested in a job change?” Bonnie Crawford asked.

  “Uh, I kind of like the one I have,” Toni responded, taken off guard.

  “Flitter,” Bonnie returned flippantly. “I need a bookkeeper.”

  Toni laughed. “I take it the one you had is no longer with you.”

  “That’s right. She’s been arrested by the police and terminated by me. But she has a solid alibi for the time my husband was killed.” Her voice had lost its vibrancy.

  “I was never fully convinced that she was a killer,” Toni admitted, not mentioning that she already knew of the arrest. “But stealing from you and putting cigarettes—and no telling what else—into the hands of youngsters sinks mighty low in my opinion. I’m glad you caught her. The part I hate is how it will impact her family.”

  “I agree,” Bonnie said quietly. “If you know of anyone looking for a job, a recommendation from you would be welcome. Thanks for everything.”

  Toni dropped her phone back in her purse and headed into the house, pleased yet discouraged.

  Thursday morning Russell trailed Toni to school, as he had the day before, and followed her to the curb. He didn’t drive away until she reached the entrance to the building and turned to wave at him.

  Talk circulated throughout the day about how gang members had taken advantage of the holiday to commit an excess of tricks that were more vandalism than tricks.

  After school Toni received a text from Kyle saying he had made it back to town in time for his physical and was now on his way to the house. She told the Zacharys where she was headed, and they followed her home.

  Friday after school, Toni curled up on the sofa while the boys and Kyle watched TV. Restless, she went to the kitchen and got a Coke from the fridge. Then she decided to make potato salad to go with the pork steaks she planned to cook in the oven and smother in barbecue sauce. She put some eggs on to boil.

  She returned to the living room to finish her Coke, and noticed the newspaper Kyle had laid on the coffee table. It had arrived yesterday, but it was a weekly. Patsy had been shot a week ago, on the day that the paper arrived in mailboxes, so the shooting was old news by the time the story about it appeared in the paper. But Toni picked it up and read the story anyway.

  The Clearmount Police Department is investigating the shooting of Patsy Brower, a local resident who was shot Thursday afternoon while at the home of Kyle and Toni Donovan. The shooting victim works in the office of the middle school and was reportedly visiting with Mrs. Donovan, who teaches at the high school. According to Mrs. Donovan, Mrs. Brower had stepped outside to leave when a bullet struck her in the upper arm. She was taken to a local clinic, where she was treated and released.

  As of this writing the police have been unable to make an arrest or determine why Mrs. Brower was shot. There is some speculation that whoever shot her thought he was shooting Mrs. Donovan. They are of similar height and build, and they were both wearing red sweatshirts at the time, a mere coincidence that may have led to a case of mistaken identity.

  Mrs. Donovan has been the victim of other criminal acts recently. According to police reports and confidential sources, she reported an intruder at her home less than a week before the Fall Festival, and then her purse was forcibly taken from her during the festival. She has indicated that she does not know who is trying to harm her.

  Toni crushed the paper in frustration and started to toss it back onto the coffee table, but she hesitated and flipped the page. Before her was a quarter of a page of mug shots and accompanying arrest records. She scanned over them, and halted on the face of Butch Downing. He had been arrested for stealing from his employer.

  Toni couldn’t help but wonder if, or how, this might affect Levi’s ex—and in turn, him. She read the article, folded the paper, and slapped it back onto the coffee table. There were so many arrests happening—but none of them for the killing of Jake Crawford.

  She forced her attention to the TV documentary Kyle was watching. Feeling antsy and caged, she focused on it in an effort to clear her mind of everything related to criminal cases.

  Suddenly there was a series of loud pops from the kitchen. Toni jumped up and ran to the stove, to find that the forgotten eggs had boiled dry and exploded. Bits of egg yolks and whites spattered the entire stove and everything around it. She moaned in dismay.

  Kyle and the boys had followed her and stood gaping at the mess.

  “All right, guys. Let’s help Mom clean this up,” Kyle said. “Gabe, you mop the floor. Garrett, you wipe the cabinets. Mom and I will clean the stove, hood, and upper cabinets.”

  “Aw, Dad, do we have …” Garrett stopped in mid-complaint when he read Kyle’s expression.

  They went to work and soon had the kitchen clean, but Toni was disgusted with herself. “I can’t believe I did that,” she snapped, tossing her cleaning rag into the sink.

  Kyle put his arms around her shoulders and hugged her to him. “Is my perfect wife feeling less than perfect?”

  “Yes,” she declared angrily. “I’m less than perfect, and I can’t keep my mind on business.”

  He turned her face up to look into it. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Would you like to get out of the house, run some errands, do something different?”

  She considered the offer. “Would you like to take me out to eat?”

  “That sounds good. Where would you like to go?”

  She produced a meek grin.
“I’d like to try that fancy restaurant at Striker Lanes.”

  His eyebrows rose, but then he shrugged. “Okay. Should we take the boys?”

  “No, let’s leave them with my parents—and have the Zacharys meet us for the meal.”

  *

  It was eleven-thirty when Kyle and Toni left the boys with her parents Saturday morning. Traffic in town was light as they drove across Main Street. Outside the city limits they turned onto a private lane and drove up to a large building that featured a window-lined façade and ornate moldings at the entrance.

  There were several cars on the parking lot, including John and Jenny’s SUV. The couple climbed out and came to meet Toni and Kyle.

  The tall brunette who greeted their foursome with a smile inside the door wore a name tag that said Hostess. “Good morning. It’s nice to see you. I assume you’ve come for a meal.”

  “Yes,” Kyle answered for them.

  “Follow me.” She led them to a table near the wall that separated the restaurant from the lounge and bowling lanes, and placed menus in front of them. The interior was as ornate as the outside, with high-beamed ceilings and tasteful artwork on the walls. “A waitress will be right with you.”

  Toni acknowledged her with a nod and glanced past her. She did a double take when she recognized the four men seated around a table near the large plate glass window.

  She shifted her attention back to her menu and was studying it when a waitress approached and set a tray of water glasses before them. “What other drinks may I get you?” she asked.

  All four of them ordered iced tea, and the waitress left them to continue studying their menu options. The hefty prices matched the expensive décor.

  Once Toni had decided on the smoked salmon, she studied their surroundings in more detail. The restaurant portion of the building was pleasant and accommodated ten tables without seeming crowded. An air of understated elegance was produced from the dark walls and wood. The tables were covered with linen tablecloths and napkins, and there were fresh flowers in vases on small decorative shelves. Tasteful artwork graced the wall, and they were favored with the view of a flower garden through the large window panes. It was clearly a place designed for the more affluent residents.