Cremas, Christmas Cookies, and Crooks

by Harper Lin

  A chill ran down my spine. She’d said almost exactly what I was thinking, but it was still unsettling to hear it said out loud, especially in Rhonda’s matter-of-fact tone.

  She continued, “I’d like to think that’s not the case, but you never can tell, I guess.”

  That answer didn’t exactly give me much reassurance. I decided to move on. “You know the school pretty well. Do you know anyone else who might want to hurt her?”

  She practically snorted. “Want to? Everyone! You met her, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “So you know what I mean. No one liked her.”

  “Did anyone dislike her enough to want her dead?”

  She gave me a pointed look. “I’m going to assume you mean whether someone hated her enough to go out of their way to kill her. Because I think we already know that people aren’t too torn up about her death.”

  “Well, there’s a difference between not being upset about it and actually wanting her dead,” I said, finding myself echoing Matt’s words from the night before.

  “True. But to answer your question, I don’t know. I know more about the school from the parent side than the personnel side. If someone had a grudge against her, I wouldn’t know about it unless it was so bad that the kids found out.”

  I sighed. I’d hoped Rhonda would be a veritable font of information, virtually laying the case out in front of me. But it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

  “You could always call the school, talk to Principal Varros. I don’t know if he’d tell you anything, but it can’t hurt to try, can it?”

  I agreed it couldn’t. And I didn’t really have any other leads to follow. Besides, maybe he could give me some more insight into Brett.

  I let Rhonda get back to work and sat down at the computer to pull up the school’s number. Searching for Cape Bay High School of course returned several articles about the murder, just as searching for Veronica Underwood’s name the night before had. It had been big news over the weekend—teacher found dead in school parking lot. It was the kind of thing local news channels and newspapers lived for.

  I found the number and dialed it on the café’s phone.

  “Thank you for calling Cape Bay High School. This is Marian Bayless. How may I help you this morning?”

  I’d only planned to ask to be transferred to Principal Varros, but hearing Mrs. Bayless’s voice on the line gave me an idea.

  “Hi, Mrs. Bayless, this is Francesca Amaro—”

  “Franny! How are you?”

  “I’m good, Mrs. Bayless. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m getting by. I’m getting by. It was so nice to see you the other day. Terrible about Veronica, though. That was who you were here to see, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Bayless—”

  “It’s horrible for the children to be exposed to such a thing. Although with Veronica’s attitude, she—well, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. So what can I help you with, dear?”

  “Mrs. Bayless, I was wondering if you and Mrs. Crawford would like to come over to Antonia’s after school and have coffee with me. My treat, of course.”

  “Oh, Franny, that would be lovely! We both enjoyed your visit the other day, and it would be so nice to get to spend some more time catching up with you.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that I really just wanted to find out what they knew about Veronica Underwood and who might have had it in for her. As the school secretaries, they would be privy to almost all the goings-on of the school, including any interpersonal conflicts Veronica Underwood might have had with other members of the staff. I couldn’t be sure that they’d be willing to share any of that information, but they seemed to like me, so I had some hope.

  I also hoped to get their impressions of Brett Wallace.

  “So we’ll see you this afternoon then, Franny?”

  “Yes. If I’m not out front, just ask for me.”

  She started to get off the phone, but I remembered that I hadn’t accomplished my main goal in calling the school. “Actually, Mrs. Bayless, I have one more thing.”

  “Oh, of course, Franny. What else can I do for you?”

  “Is Principal Varros in? Could I speak with him?”

  There was a pause that I didn’t know whether to chalk up to her checking on whether he was available or her being suspicious of my question.

  “He’s busy right now, dear, but if you’d like to come in, I can set a meeting up for you tomorrow morning.”

  I didn’t want to wait that long, but unless I was going to go lurk outside the school to wait for him to leave, I didn’t have much choice. “Sure, that’ll be great.”

  “And what would you like to discuss with him, dear?”

  I couldn’t very well tell her I wanted to ply him for information about potential murderers on his staff, so I came up with a quick, plausible lie. “Well, as you know, before her death, Veronica and I had an agreement for Antonia’s to sell some baked goods at the play. Now that she and Ann Crowsdale, um—” Thankfully, Mrs. Bayless cut me off.

  “Oh, Gwen Blarney’s directing the play now. Do you want me to set you up with her instead?”

  A new director! I hadn’t thought about that. I thought fast. “Well, um, it’s a matter of the payment.”

  “Oh! I didn’t realize the food wasn’t being donated!”

  Did I hear judgment in her voice? I couldn’t worry about that now. “It is, but for tax purposes, I need some papers signed. I was supposed to get them to Veronica to have Principal Varros sign, but well—it’ll probably just be easier for me to go straight to him than to have to go over it all with the new director.”

  “Gwen Blarney,” she repeated. “But yes, I suppose you’re right. Gwen has quite a lot on her plate right now, what with jumping into the play right before it opens and all. It probably will just be easier for you to go straight to Marcus.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I had my meeting with Varros. Now I just had to work up some official-looking papers for him to sign so my cover wouldn’t be totally blown.

  We confirmed the appointment for first thing the next morning and said our goodbyes. I had just hung up the phone when I heard a loud, angry voice coming from the café.

  “Where’s Francesca? I need to talk to her! Now!” The voice was Mike Stanton’s, and if he was using my full name, I knew I was in trouble.

  Chapter 14

  I THOUGHT about running out the back door, but Mike was standing at the door to the café’s back room before I could even get out of my chair. I was pretty sure I’d never seen him so angry.

  “Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing, Francesca?” he yelled.

  Trying to figure out how to escape. I thought it but knew it was probably unwise to say out loud. I took a deep breath and tried to think clearly. “Why don’t you close the door, Mike?”

  “You’re damn right, I’ll close the door!” He slammed the door behind him as he stalked over to me. As loud as he was, I didn’t think the door being closed would make much of a difference, but at least I could pretend it would. “You’re lucky I don’t drag you down to the station!”

  I stood up so I didn’t feel quite so much like he was towering over me. “Now, Mike, just take a deep breath, and we’ll sort out whatever this is like adults.”

  “Sit down! Or I will take you down to the station!”

  I sat.

  “Now what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was entirely dry.

  “Answer me!” He slammed his hand down on the desk so hard I jumped.

  “What do you mean?” My voice came out as barely more than a strangled whisper.

  The door to the café cracked open, and Sammy stuck her head in. “Is everything—”

  “Get out, Sammy!”

  The door quickly closed.

  Mike turned back to me. “Now answer me, dammit! What the hell are you doing?”

  “I really d
on’t know what you mean.” At the moment, I really didn’t. I hadn’t been yelled at since, well, since my old boss found out I had refused to issue a statement on behalf of one of our movie star PR clients about how it wasn’t his fault he’d hit his wife so hard she got a concussion. I hadn’t been able to think clearly that time either.

  “Yes, you do, Francesca.” Mike’s voice dropped to a growl, which was somehow even scarier than him yelling.

  I fought to think clearly.

  “You’re really going to play dumb with me, Francesca?” He loomed over me. “You need me to tell you?”

  I wasn’t sure if I actually managed to nod or just quivered in a way that looked like one, but either way, he seemed to take it as a yes.

  “You’re ruining a kid’s life, Francesca, that’s what you’re doing!”

  I stared at him blankly.

  “You’re so wrapped up in your little game, you don’t even realize it, do you? Well, I do. And my boss does. It would be hard not to when Brett Wallace’s mother is calling his office complaining that you’re going around town slandering her little boy by accusing him of committing a murder that’s already been solved!”

  Brett. Brett, of course. Brett the literal genius. Brett’s mother with the honey-blond hair that had to cost a pretty penny to keep up, who drove around Cape Bay in her shiny new black Mercedes. Of course. Of course she would call the police. Of course.

  “But—but how—” I could barely stammer out the few words.

  “You haven’t been very subtle about it, have you, Francesca?”

  I was starting to wonder if using my full name was some kind of interrogation technique that was meant to try to intimidate me. Or possibly to distance himself from me. If it was the former, it was working. If it was the latter, well, I wasn’t the one who would know.

  “Talking about it openly in the café. Tracking him down on the street and trying to bribe him to talk to you. Did you really think no one would notice?”

  I was starting to regain my composure. And no, I really didn’t think anyone would notice. Becky and I had spoken quietly. Rhonda and I had talked in the back room. No one had been around when I talked to Brett on the street except his mother when she picked him up. And the only way she could have known about the money was if he told her. And of course he did. It was the perfect way to manipulate me into backing off the case. Backing off my investigation into him being the one who actually murdered Veronica Underwood.

  “I—I’m sorry, Mike, I—”

  “Don’t apologize to me, Fran. I don’t want to hear it.” Some of the heat had gone out of his voice, but I could tell he was still angry. “You know what pisses me off maybe even more than you screwing around with the Wallace kid’s life? The fact that you don’t trust my judgment. I told you we had good evidence against Ann Crowsdale, but do you care? No. Why? Because she seems nice. I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life investigating crimes and criminals, but you think she’s nice, so that counts more in your book. Well, you know what counts more in my book? Evidence! Evidence, Fran! Video evidence counts more in my book than any amount of thinking someone is nice!”

  “You have video evidence?”

  “Yeah, we do. But you didn’t know that, did you? No, of course not, because you’re not a cop. You’re a civilian. And do you know who investigates murders? Cops. Not civilians. At least that’s the way it worked until you came waltzing back into town, thinking that you know everything because you spent some time in the big city. Well, you know what, Fran? You don’t know everything. Not about crime, not about murders, and you sure as hell don’t know everything about this case!”

  They had video evidence. I didn’t know that. I couldn’t get it out of my head. They had video evidence. That meant she did it. Of course it did. How could it mean anything but? My mind was reeling.

  And video evidence meant that Brett wasn’t the murderer. He couldn’t be. He wasn’t manipulating me. He really was a scared kid who had gone to his mom for help. There was no ulterior motive. I was an adult bullying a kid about a crime he didn’t commit. I was a bad person.

  I sat in the chair, stunned.

  “You don’t have anything to say for yourself?” Mike asked.

  For a few seconds, I opened and closed my mouth like a fish out of water as I tried to figure out what to say.

  “We were friends, Fran. Before you left, after you came back. We were friends. You know my wife, my kids. I stood here in this café not even twenty-four hours ago and told you that the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Ann Crowsdale, and you still went behind my back, looking for someone else, anyone else who could have done it. And who did you pick? A kid! You can’t even pick on someone your own size.” He stared down at me and shook his head. I didn’t recognize the look in his eyes. He didn’t look at me like a friend. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  He turned on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him.

  I sat in my chair, unmoving.

  The door opened again. I braced for Mike to yell at me some more. But it wasn’t Mike.

  “Franny?” Sammy slipped in and closed the door behind her. “Oh my God, Franny! Are you okay?”

  I looked up at her concern-filled face.

  “You’re crying!”

  Was I? I swiped at one of my cheeks and looked at my hand. It was wet. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Oh, Franny—” Sammy leaned down and gave me a hug. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded and swiped at my other cheek then ran my fingers under my eyes to get rid of the mascara I knew was pooled there. Sure enough, my fingers came away with black smudges on them.

  Sammy smiled.

  “It didn’t help,” I said.

  “No. It’s sort of worse. It’s all—” She gestured broadly across her cheeks. “You look like a baseball player with that black stuff under their eyes.”

  I tried to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a sob. Sammy hugged me again.

  The door opened, and Rhonda poked her head in. “I’m sorry, but Sammy, could you come help me? The book club just got here.”

  “Of course, I’ll be right there.”

  “Are you okay, Fran?” Rhonda asked.

  I nodded. She gave me a sympathetic smile and disappeared back out into the café.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Sammy asked.

  I nodded again. “I just need a few minutes.”

  “Of course,” Sammy said. She went back out into the café to help deal with rearranging the tables and chairs and filling the food and drink orders for the book club. It was always an ordeal. Not that I complained, because they were good regular customers, and they spent a lot. I knew I should be out there to help, but I needed a minute.

  I felt awful. About Brett, yes, but more than that, about Mike. The way he looked at me—as if I were someone he didn’t know but didn’t particularly think he liked. And he had been my friend.

  I sat there for a few more minutes then got up and pulled out a makeup mirror to try and make myself presentable. When I was satisfied that I looked more presentable than not, I went back out into the café to make myself useful.

  It turned out they didn’t really need me. Sammy and Rhonda had gotten the book clubbers all arranged and settled with their fancy, foamy, highly sweetened drinks and a pile of cookies in the middle of the table.

  I looked around for something that needed to be done, and my eyes landed on a large to-go cup. “Whose is this?” I asked. I wanted to think that whomever they’d prepared it for had just gone to the restroom, but I was afraid it had been sitting there for a while and they’d forgotten to deliver it. Rhonda and Sammy exchanged a look that made me think it was the latter. I picked it up to feel the temperature. It was cool enough that it was clearly not fresh. I opened my mouth to say that they needed to make whoever it was another cup, but Rhonda stopped me.

  “It was for Mike. He said he didn’t want it.”

  Chapter 15

  I
STOOD THERE, holding Mike’s abandoned coffee cup, and tried to process the fact that my coffee-mainlining friend had, for the first time ever, left without a cup of coffee in his hand. I had screwed up worse than I thought.

  I was so absorbed in my mistake that I didn’t even hear the bell over the café door jingle.

  “Sammy! Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  I looked up to see Ryan practically running over to Sammy.

  “I’m fine. It’s okay. It’s over,” she said as he pulled her into his arms. I had never seen them so openly affectionate before.

  “What happened?” he asked, holding onto her shoulders but stepping back a little from her so he could see her face. “You didn’t get robbed, did you?”

  She shook her head then looked over at me.

  I suddenly had a feeling I knew why Ryan was there. So then I was embarrassed on top of feeling bad about Brett and Mike.

  Sammy must have taken my lack of protest as agreement, because she turned back to Ryan. “Mike was here, and he was yelling at Fran. I didn’t know what to do, so I called you to see if you could come calm him down.”

  Ryan exhaled a sigh of relief and closed his eyes for just a second. Opening them again, he said, “Yeah, I heard that he was on the warpath.” He turned to me. “You all right, Fran? You know Mike’s bark is worse than his bite.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t Mike’s bark or his bite that I was afraid of, although I would be pretty scared if he actually tried to bite me for some reason. What I was actually afraid of was losing him as a friend. And that ship might have already sailed.

  “The chief was pretty mad when that lady called in. He tore into Mike about it, and I guess that’s why Mike tore into you. Crap rolls downhill, you know?”

  I knew. What I didn’t know was whether to feel honored or offended that I was apparently at the bottom of the police department’s hierarchy of yelling.

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean to make you upset or anything.”

  I begged to differ, but it didn’t seem worth getting into a whole conversation with Ryan about it.