Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  “Yeah, well,” Caitlin shrugged, “we all messed around with Miss Stone, but who doesn’t with a sub? I never wished her dead, and I figured I should come. To pray, you know.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  People drifted away from the casket to snatch up the few remaining seats. Dan and Willie, Jason noticed, were perched in the second row behind the minister’s wife, while Edna Wallis, having forgotten her offer to reserve Jason’s chair, was facing forward with her eyes closed in prayer as Debra French sat behind her looking bored. Those unable to find seats congregated in the back as the funeral home director worked feverishly to bring in extra chairs.

  “Gosh, there’s a lot of people here,” Caitlin noted as Jason guided her toward the back corner. “Are those all teachers? I guess they came from the other schools where she worked.”

  “Could be.” Jason was clueless. Everybody looked alike to him, garbed in serious attire with their faces straight lines. Was the killer among them, he wondered suddenly, come to bask in the fruits of his evil? How many people here knew Bailey solely from the videos in which she starred, for that matter?

  He shook his head. That could not be, he decided. Surely Bailey used a pseudonym for those films, a tongue-in-cheek nom de plume suited to the industry.

  “Why do you want me to pretend you’re my date?” Jason asked Caitlin. “Who brings a date to a funeral home?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. Let’s stand over here.” Caitlin moved toward the back wall so that she was pinned between him and an end table supporting a large decorative plant. Stepping shyly behind his left shoulder, Caitlin glanced nervously toward the door. Both watched a hysterical Alise Allen stumble inside, her face raw and puffy from crying. A gentleman neither of them recognized offered his aisle chair, and Alise thanked him with a handshake shining with tears and snot.

  Jason winced at the scene, admiring the gentleman’s restraint and discretion as he silently balled his sticky hand into a fist and slipped away to the restrooms. Lawrence Brantley, unmistakable in his plaid brown jacket, passed the man coming inside, and Jason sensed Caitlin stiffen.

  “What? What is it, Cait?”

  Caitlin shrank father back until she was completely behind Jason, pressing against the rippled partition wall and causing it to wobble. “Don’t let him see me,” she pleaded.

  “Who? Brantley?” Jason watched the drama teacher cross up the aisle and turn back toward them, looking for something or someone. He felt Caitlin using him as a shield and drew his hands behind his back for her to hold. “Why are you hiding from Mr. Brantley?”

  “I-I can’t say here, it’s too embarrassing.”

  “Cait, if it’s that bad, say so now.” He watched Brantley leaning against the book stand as Reverend Johnson took to the podium to begin the brief service. “He can’t hurt you here. Not with me and my dad and everybody else around.”

  “Let’s just talk about it later, okay?” Caitlin hissed. “The minister is about to speak.”

  Reverend Johnson thanked those in attendance for coming not only to say goodbye to Bailey Stone but to celebrate the left she led. Jason stifled the few uncharitable thoughts rising in his mind, praying for forgiveness. It was not his place to judge Bailey, and if he was going to pursue the priesthood he would have to learn to think before speaking and before thinking, and pray.

  Caitlin’s fingers curled into his. Brantley was rather attentive to her on prom night, too, but Jason thought nothing of it. Caitlin was a three-year drama student and the lame duck president of Drama Club, so naturally Brantley might have wanted to discuss something with her like new officer elections or what Caitlin was planning to do with the drama major she planned on pursuing at William and Mary. Being so egotistical where the department was concerned, Jason figured that some pride for his students would expand to Colley High alumni as well. Were she to succeed on stage or screen, Brantley would no doubt clamor for credit.

  Caitlin, however, did not appear to relish Brantley’s attention, an oddity considering how she thrived on praise from other teachers. Then again, Mrs. Wallis and his father did not hover over favored students, their eyes wide with some kind of delirious desire.

  Jason tuned out the minister’s eulogy, focusing entirely on Brantley, who stood with his feet apart and arms folded, a disgruntled look coloring his face. It suddenly occurred to him: why did the man come? Brantley’s dislike for Bailey was not uncommon knowledge around school, so why bother taking the trouble to pay respects, if only to impress a school principal? That excuse sounded flimsy at best to Jason. The vacancy left by Mrs. Wallis’s retirement would be posted publicly and teachers all over Hampton Roads would apply, with interviews to be scheduled over the summer. What made Brantley think that Rockwell would take into consideration an appearance at the memorial for a substitute teacher whose work performance he gladly dismissed?

  “...her very well, but I guarantee you that she was an easily recognizable figure in our church,” Jason heard in the corner of his consciousness. Reverend Johnson spoke animatedly with controlled gestures, his voice filling the small room. “I recall one particular Sunday our church hosted a spring bazaar. Bailey volunteered to operate a face-painting booth for the children, and it was such a joy to see how naturally Bailey took to those kids. She reminded me of one of those people on Sesame Street, singing songs and laughing. Looking back upon it, I’m not surprised Bailey chose teaching as a career. Her willingness to help children was so genuine. Either that, or she could have ended up on Sesame Street. She certainly possessed a flair for the dramatic.”

  That she did, Jason thought. Her Friday the 13th-style victim impersonation certainly convinced him of her acting talent.

  A flair for the dramatic...Jason pondered the statement. Bailey as an actress, shot on video. What sort of video equipment did one need to produce a feature, aside from the camera? How cheaply could an adult film be made?

  Slowly his gaze returned to Lawrence Brantley, rolling his head around in an effort to stay alert. Jason’s body went numb as another, more terrifying thought occurred to him.

  “To lose somebody before her time is, of course, tragic,” rambled the minister, the enthusiasm in his voice intact. “I like to think the Lord takes certain people from us so early because He is too eager to take them home. God’s Will is prevalent in society today; perhaps there is comfort in believing Bailey’s death was an accident—”

  “It wasn’t,” came a bold declaration from the back of the room. Heads turned in shock, and voices rippled across the crowd, but nobody was more surprised than Jason, who did not think he had it in him to interrupt the minister’s eulogy.

  He felt Caitlin’s long, sharp fingernails bite into his palms. “What are you doing?” she seethed.

  Jason did not hear her. All eyes were now on him, expectant, astonished and somewhat irritated. Reverend Johnson’s hands posed in mid-air as if somebody had pushed a pause button on his speech. Dan, barely visible up front, cradled his head in one hand. He was one of the few, if not the only one, not staring at Jason.

  “Er...” Jason felt suddenly naked and cold. His heart hammered against his chest. “That is to say,” he said, his voice feebler this time, “I don’t believe Bailey’s death was an accident. I believe Bailey Stone was murdered, in cold blood,” he announced, growing bolder and checking various faces around the room for their reactions. His father reddened while Willie’s jaw dropped. Alise Allen bawled and snorted into a paper tissue as others in the chairs frowned, baffled at the accusation.

  Lawrence Brantley, however, was a stone statue, his gaze cast down at his shoes. He did not even twitch, Jason noted to himself. Perhaps he was just as good an actor as the students he taught.

  Unable to think of anything else to say, and well aware that Bailey’s service could not continue at its original pace, Jason bolted quietly from his spot out the door. Caitlin hurried after him.

  She found him leaning against his father’s car, doubled over an
d panting, despite the short distance from the funeral home. “Look at me,” he said as Caitlin cautiously approached. Jason held up his trembling fingers. “Look at me shaking.”

  “Jason.” Caitlin’s voice cracked and gave way to quiet tears. She leaped forward and tackled Jason in a hug. “I feel so bad,” she whispered. “So bad.”

  Jason shushed her gently, keeping an eye out for movement within the funeral home. He half-expected his father to come barreling outside, close to apoplectic seizure, demanding an explanation for his outburst.

  “Jason.” Caitlin’s cheek pressed against Jason’s collarbone, her breathing slowing in time so their bodies rocked from side to side against the car door. “I wanted to tell you...Mr. Brantley. He...he...”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said, squeezing her tightly as she sniffled. I already know, he thought to himself. I know quite a bit now, the trick is trying to prove it and connecting the other puzzle pieces from the past few weeks.

  A grim figure slipped out of the building and charged toward them. Dan looked angry enough to shoot steam from his ears, and Jason’s heart beat even faster. He felt nauseous and dizzy in the chill of the evening and maintained his embrace with Caitlin, clinging to her like she was his only source of life support. Surely his father would not explode in her presence, he thought, rather he prayed.

  Dan, thankfully for Jason, only scowled and let out an exhausted sigh. “I’m taking you home,” he said with a finality that loosened the couple’s grip on each other. “Caitlin, do you need a ride? You don’t look fit to drive.”

  “N-no, sir.” Caitlin fished a set of keys from her beaded clutch. “I can manage it, thanks.” An awkward pause, then, “I-I should be getting home myself. ’Bye, Jason.”

  Neither man returned the farewell. Dan unlocked the car and the two lumbered inside, with Jason bracing himself against the door handle in case his father decided to deliver a tirade in the compact isolation of the cab. But Dan simply gunned the engine and drove, eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

  “I’m sorry,” Jason began meekly, “for what I did. It was rude, and very disrespectful to Miss Stone.”

  “Yes, it was,” agreed Dan with no emotion in his voice. Jason twisted in his seat. “All the same, Dad, I know what I said is the truth. Miss Stone—”

  “Miss Stone,” Dan broke in, “died as a result of hospital error. Somebody, thinking that her wounds were genuine, neglected to change her chart when her deception was discovered.” He turned sharply onto Llewellyn Avenue. “Why can’t you accept that? Why does everything have to be related? What’s happened that you’ve become so paranoid?”

  “Gee, Dad,” Jason retorted, “it’s kind of hard not to feel paranoid when you’re getting death threats—”

  “Bailey sent the picture, son. The cops proved that. She probably made the phone calls, too.”

  “They couldn’t prove the phone calls, Dad. Besides,” his voice trailed away into the purr of the engine as Dan tore down Princess Anne toward home, nearly scraping cars parked along the curb. It was completely dark outside now, and a feeling of dread washed over him as the car eased into the driveway. The house was dark; they had forgotten to leave a lamp burning in the living room, Jason realized. Poor Ringo, a bundle of nerves when left alone in a blackened house, was probably howling his way to a sore throat.

  “Besides what?” Dan demanded. “You have evidence?” He fumbled with the ignition, nearly breaking the key off in the plug as he yanked it away; the engine sputtered to a halt. “Those detectives aren’t anywhere close to breaking those two murder cases.”

  “Dad?”

  Dan was too deep into his ranting to care that his son had something to say. “My seventeen-year-old son, who wants to be a priest, thinks he’s cracked the case. Found a serial killer, done what an entire precinct full of cops couldn’t do!”

  “Dad!”

  “I suppose you’ll be taking the name Father Dowling at your ordination...”

  “DAD!”

  “What?!” Dan hollered.

  “Look!” Jason shouted at equal volume, pointing toward the house. Dan followed the finger to the side screen door that led to the kitchen. Normally locked whenever the house was empty, the door was swinging wide on its hinges. From the light shining from the headlights, both men saw a huge gash in the wire netting that was not there before.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You’re sure we’re not keeping you up?” Dan asked Father Ben as the priest poured hot water into four ceramic mugs for tea. Father Ben brought the tea tray into the rectory living room, where Dan and Jason were seated on the couch. Detective Simons, having arrived not long after the officers who responded to Dan’s 911 call, paced the length of the fireplace.

  “Of course not, Dan,” the priest replied. “You did right to come here. You’re welcome to stay overnight, too, if you think that’s necessary.”

  “I doubt it will come to that, Father,” Simons interjected, steeping the bag of Darjeeling in the mug handed to him. “If it’s been determined that nobody got inside, the Greeveys can return to their house soon.”

  Ringo, eager to explore the new surroundings, lurched and whined in Jason’s arms. “Easy, boy,” he cooed. To Simons he said, “If you ask me, I don’t think whoever did this managed to get inside. Everything on the first floor looked fine to me, and my stuff wasn’t disturbed.”

  Simons studied the dog’s twitching head. “How good of a watchdog is your beagle? Are you suggesting he scared the burglar away?”

  “Not really,” Dan snorted. “Ringo loves everybody. He’d have followed the guy around the house with his tail wagging.”

  A quick inspection of the outside of the house revealed, Simons explained, that not only had somebody attempted to pick their front and back locks, but blurred footprints found in the dirt suggested the unwelcome visitor had thought of climbing the wooden lattice leading up to Dan’s bedroom window. “Two of the lower diagonal slats were ripped away and lying on the ground, I don’t know if you noticed. Had they been like that?”

  Dan shook his head, while the priest bowed his.

  “Perhaps Ringo did scare the prowler away with his barking,” Father Ben suggested. “That being the case, you should be safe at home with such a brave dog.” He rewarded the beagle with a gentle scratch behind the ears.

  “I’d feel safer in a hotel or Gooch’s house, or even Grandma’s,” Jason admitted. “Sleeping in a bus terminal would be ideal if nobody knows I’m there.”

  “Hey, stop it, okay? You don’t even know this is related to the murders. Just like Bailey’s death, which I still believe was an accident,” Dan countered. “My name was listed in Bailey’s obituary in the paper this morning as a contact. You don’t know that some punk saw the notice and decided to rob us when he knew we’d be away.”

  He turned to Simons for confirmation and received a silent shrug as an answer. “It wouldn’t be the first time. My partner might agree with you.” Detective Gross, who had arrived with Simons, was checking on the progress at the crime scene.

  “By that logic, Dad, the killer would have known we were gone, too.” Jason said.

  “Exactly. If you’re so certain you’re going to be killed, son, then why would he come to the house knowing we were gone? Trust me, it was probably a burglar taking advantage of our absence.”

  Or taking advantage of his paranoia, Jason thought. Would he have waited for them in the living room, he wondered, fanning himself with Bart’s folder with one hand while the other cocked a pistol? Perhaps they were just being played for fools. Jason tightened his grip around Ringo’s muzzle, thanking God that the pooch’s life was spared, that Ringo had not been left dead as a warning.

  Jason swallowed a lump in his throat and thought again of the folder from Bart’s house and the videos from Bailey’s apartment. Did the killer know he had them? How could he have known, unless a tail was put on them when they cleaned out Bailey’s apartment? A killer could no
t be convicted if evidence did not exist, and in an empty house there are no witnesses to theft...

  He watched Father Ben offer his father and the detective refills on tea, thinking of the “evidence,” tucked away in the backpack sitting at his feet. His father would have to be let in on the folder’s existence, he realized, if he was to convince Dan that Bailey’s death was indeed connected to those of Bart and Gordon.

  There was one thing that bothered him, however: whether or not the person who had been snooping around the house would return. Had he come back already, hidden behind a lamppost and spied father and son trekking the two blocks to the rectory? Jason glanced at the living room’s only window, which offered a glimpse of Princess Anne Road. Despite the heavy traffic around Ghent, it did not look safe to him; the killer could always smash the glass of a window in the back which bordered the parking lot and try to get him if he went to use the bathroom. With the church obstructing the view from the road, anyone could slip around the lot unseen.