by Kylie Logan
Before Jazz could remind him, Eileen stepped forward. “I know you have questions to ask both of us. Maybe we should start with that resignation letter Jazz told you about. It would be in Jazz’s office, in the personnel files.”
“Yeah, that’s good.” Lindsey tucked his notebook in the breast pocket of the black sport coat that didn’t match his navy-blue pants. “There’s nothing else we can do here.” He led the way back to the stairway and waited for Eileen to go down ahead of him, and Jazz brought up the rear. “So tell me, Sister, you know everyone here at this school. Tell me, who could have had a reason to kill this Bernadette Quinn?”
At the bottom of the stairs, Eileen waited for him and for Jazz to step out in the hallway, too, before she twined her fingers together in front of her and set her mouth in a firm line.
“Well,” she told him, “me for one.”
CHAPTER 4
Detective Lindsey got a phone call just as they were all about to walk into Jazz’s office and he took it out in the hallway.
That was just fine with Jazz; it gave her a chance to sidle up to Eileen and hiss, “Are you crazy? You can’t say things like that to a cop. You had a reason to kill Bernadette? What’s he going to think?”
Eileen brushed her off and went into her own office, where she kicked off the pumps she’d put on in honor of Assembly Day and slid back into her TOMS. By the time she got back, she looked more like herself. More comfortable. More in control. “If he didn’t hear it from me, he was going to hear it from someone else,” she told Jazz. “That would make me look even more suspicious.”
“You’re not suspicious at all.” Jazz didn’t want it, but she poured a cup of coffee for herself from the to-go container the caterers had brought at the start of the day. It seemed like a million years ago. While she was at it, she poured a cup for Eileen, too, added cream and sugar, and handed it to her. “Anybody who thinks you could kill someone would have to be totally nuts.”
“You’ve got to admit…” Eileen took a healthy glug of the coffee. “There were days there at the end of the term when Bernadette gave us all reason.”
“You don’t say.” Detective Lindsey stepped into Jazz’s office. If he was impressed by the leaded glass, the high ceiling, or the rich oak flooring, he didn’t show it. In fact, he settled his weight back against one foot, and when he crossed his arms over his broad chest, the plastic bag he was holding crinkled.
“She was going through a hard time,” Jazz told him, eager to back up Eileen’s assessment. Just as eager to—Jazz hoped—get Lindsey’s mind off what he’d just heard—she crossed over to the filing cabinets, unlocked the proper one, and took out Bernadette’s file. Page by page, she made copies of everything in it, but when she got to the resignation letter—the last thing in Bernadette’s file—she knew better than to touch it. She glanced over it and the words that had seemed so normal, so mundane.
“It is with the greatest regret that I inform you that as of today…”
Rather than go on, Jazz looked over her shoulder at Lindsey, pointed.
He set down the evidence bag he was carrying on Jazz’s desk, and from inside it Bernadette’s big gold cross caught the light and winked at Jazz. All that was left of Bernadette. Cross and bones.
Jazz’s heart clutched, but before she had a chance to give in to the sadness that wrapped around her like a dark cloud, Lindsey closed in on her, slipped on a pair of latex gloves, and dropped the resignation letter into another evidence bag.
“Fingerprints,” he explained. He really didn’t have to. Jazz had seen enough cops shows on TV. She knew the drill.
Jazz glanced at the other evidence bag, the one he’d set on her desk. “What about fingerprints on Bernadette’s cross?”
“If we’re lucky,” he conceded. “Now, you were saying…? About Ms. Quinn being difficult?”
Jazz knew she’d get nothing else from him. Not about the cross. Not about anything else they might have found up in the attic. “I was saying that Bernadette was good at what she did. When she was in front of a class, she was really on, if you know what I mean. But it was her first year teaching and she still had a lot to learn about working with the staff and the other teachers, about keeping that connection going with the girls even when class wasn’t in session. She didn’t think that was a problem. Maybe that’s why it was so frustrating dealing with her.”
The detective turned a look on Eileen. “So that’s what you meant when you said you could have killed her?”
“I didn’t say I could have killed her,” she reminded him, her voice as even as the look she gave him. “I did say if I was a different sort of person, I might have had reason. The last day Bernadette was here…” She considered her words. “We had an argument. About how the school was trying to help Bernadette adjust and Bernadette didn’t think she needed help. Our talk…” She put a spin on the word that should have told Lindsey exactly how ugly it got. “It was loud and it was long. Maybe if I’d been more patient … Maybe if I’d been more understanding…”
Jazz hated the tremor of remorse that vibrated through Eileen’s words. “It’s not like Bernadette got upset about the argument and committed suicide.”
At which Detective Lindsey gave her a look.
Jazz stopped herself just short of clicking her tongue. “She didn’t kill herself, then wrap herself in plastic and stuff herself up there in the attic,” she told him, although he surely already knew that and was just waiting to gauge her reaction.
Now that she’d given it to him—full-blown and packed with outrage—she turned back to her boss. “You have nothing to feel guilty about,” she told Eileen.
“But you did say you had a reason to kill Ms. Quinn,” Lindsey put in.
“No one who knows Sister Eileen would ever believe she could do such a thing,” Jazz said, adding the Sister designation she hardly ever used when speaking about the principal because she figured it wouldn’t hurt to remind this man that Eileen was religious, devoted, dedicated.
“And someone who does not know you well?” he asked the nun.
A spurt of anger coursing through her veins at the same time her sense of justice demanded they clear up this craziness right there and then, Jazz stepped forward. “Bernadette was committed to her work. Sometimes too committed. She could be stubborn. Sister Eileen tried to reason with her. She tried to work with her.”
“We all did,” Eileen added.
“And Ms. Quinn, how did she respond? Like she didn’t hear you?”
“Oh, no. She heard us, all right,” Eileen told him. “She just made it clear that we were wrong and she was right. That’s why…” The realization still stung. Jazz knew that. There was nothing Eileen liked less than failure. “We finally had no choice. We … the board and I … we decided to put her on probation. She had until Easter to turn herself and her attitude around.”
“And if she didn’t, she was out the door?”
“We offered her another job,” Jazz said. “We created a position, assistant in the library.”
“And how did Ms. Quinn feel about that?”
Eileen inched back her shoulders. “She said her life was all about teaching. She threatened to sue.”
The detective considered this. “Which is why you said you could have killed her.”
More than one girl at St. Catherine’s had been on the wrong end of the look Eileen shot at Detective Lindsey. “A lawsuit would have been … difficult. At the time we were in the middle of adding to the back of the school. A botany lab and other classrooms. The money was earmarked and we couldn’t afford to lose it.”
“So Ms. Quinn disappearing, that was sort of a good thing.”
Jazz hoped the one-sided sneer she sent in Lindsey’s direction sent a clear message. “We thought she’d come to her senses. That she’d lighten up and relax. She never did. That’s why no one was surprised when she resigned,” Jazz put in. “Well, when we thought she resigned.”
Lindsey sucked on the end of hi
s pencil, thinking this over. “You expected her to be what … obedient?”
He couldn’t have known it, but with that single question, Detective Lindsey had pushed one of Eileen’s hot buttons.
An obedient teacher? Robot students? The notion was so far from Eileen’s way of thinking, she actually had to stop for a minute and consider the question. When she finally digested it, she leveled her shoulders.
“I expected her to be professional. It’s exactly what I expect of all my staff.”
“And she was…” He waited for Eileen’s answer.
Jazz knew Eileen well enough to know she nearly sighed. She also knew Eileen would consider that a sign of weakness. Now that they were removed from the horror on the fourth floor, now that she was in her TOMS and back in command, there was no way Eileen would reveal that much of herself. Not to a stranger. “She was determined that every girl in her class would live up to impossible standards. I’m not just talking about good grades and homework assignments that were turned in on time. Of course we expect that of all our girls, and if they can’t deliver, we work with them so their grades and their habits and their attitudes improve. But Bernadette…” Eileen chose her words wisely. “She wanted to make sure the girls stayed on the straight and narrow in their personal lives, too. She asked them too many questions about dating and boyfriends and—”
“She cared.” Lindsey dared the comment.
“If that was all it was, I wouldn’t have objected. But she offered advice, and most of the advice went along the lines of how the girls shouldn’t date, how they should break up with the guys they were seeing.”
“A man-hater, huh?”
“It wasn’t so much hate as it was…” Jazz searched for the right word. “I think it was more of a distrust.”
“Not a good attitude for young women to have. Not across the board,” Eileen added. “Ms. Quinn was a teacher, not Dear Abby. Some of the girls thought she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. Many of their parents agreed. It’s one thing to have high standards for yourself. It’s another when you think other people need to live up to them, too.”
Eileen took another drink of coffee. “Not that we don’t think high standards are important. One of the things we hope our students take away from St. Catherine’s is the ability to think and make decisions based on logical input. Every girl here knows we have a code of ethics and a certain … let’s call it maturity … that we expect of our young women. But Bernadette taught eighth grade, and eighth graders are … well, they wouldn’t like to hear me say it, but eighth graders are still little girls. We like to ease them into their roles as students and as young women and we all work hard to provide them the proper example. We don’t expect them to be perfect. None of us are. Unfortunately, Bernadette had a hard time understanding that. Her expectations could sometimes be too high. She wanted them to sit a certain way, and walk a certain way, and think a certain way.”
“So she made enemies,” Lindsey said.
“Enemies is a strong word.” As long as she was holding a cup of coffee and had no intention of drinking it, Jazz offered it to Detective Lindsey, and he took it and swallowed it down, hot and black, and while he was doing that, she tried to explain what she thought he’d need to know in terms of his investigation. “Some of the teachers were jealous of Bernadette’s talents. She made teaching look easy and we all know it isn’t. Some of the parents thought Bernadette demanded too much from their kids when it came to homework and special projects, but to Bernadette, that’s what learning was all about. Some of the girls…” It was something Jazz had thought was behind them and she hated bringing it up. “The girls thought Bernadette was too strict. Some of them weren’t very nice to Bernadette.”
Lindsey brightened at the thought and pulled out his notebook. “So … student enemies.”
“Little girls,” Eileen reminded him at the same time Jazz’s phone rang.
She answered it with her usual “St. Catherine’s,” but caught her breath when the caller identified herself as a reporter from a local TV station. She should have expected the media frenzy; she just hadn’t had the time to think about it.
“We have no comment at this time,” Jazz told the reporter, and looked at Eileen to make sure that was the right thing to say.
The principal nodded and Jazz hung up.
Detective Lindsey tapped his pencil against his notebook. “You’re going to need to talk to the press sooner or later,” he said. “And I’m going to have to talk to them, too.”
“I’d appreciate it if you waited until we’ve spoken with our board members,” Eileen told him. “We need to—”
“Get your story straight?” he wanted to know.
Eileen’s lips pinched and Jazz held her breath. If ever there was a time for Eileen to bring out of the big guns of her intellect and her outrage and her iron will, this was it.
Instead, the principal smiled, her voice as smooth as melted butter, but her look stony. “I’m sure you understand, Detective, that we need to let our girls know what’s going on before we release any information to the media. Jazz…” She looked her way. “If you could start making those calls to the board now, we’ll have a statement prepared for the girls before the end of the day. Then, Detective…” She swung back his way. “You can tell the media anything you like. I’m hoping that will include the fact that you’re conducting an expedient investigation and are expecting a quick wrap-up and the arrest of whoever did this terrible thing.”
He was a middle-aged man.
He was an officer of the law.
Under Eileen’s withering look, he turned into a seventh grader.
“Yes, ma’am, I am certainly going to do my best,” he told her, and he backed out of the office.
Jazz didn’t even realize she was holding her breath through their entire encounter with the detective. Not until it gushed out of her and her spine accordioned and her shoulders sagged.
“No time for that now.” Eileen gave her a pat on the shoulder. “You make the phone calls; I’ll start working on that statement. If any of the board members want to be here for the news conference—”
Jazz’s head had been spinning since they made the discovery on the fourth floor, but she thought she would have remembered. “News conference? When did we schedule—”
“We didn’t. Not yet. But of course there will be a news conference,” Eileen said.
“And what will we tell the media?” Jazz wanted to know.
Eileen settled her mouth into a thin line. “Exactly what they want to hear. Bernadette was brilliant and dedicated.”
“True,” Jazz conceded.
“She loved being a teacher. She did her best every single day. We are shocked and we are saddened and we will have counseling available to the girls. We offer our sympathies to her friends and to her family.”
“Do you think she had any friends?” Jazz asked.
Eileen didn’t have an answer. She steepled her fingers and tapped her nose. “I think we have to be careful. I don’t want to keep anything from the police that might help with their investigation, but St. Catherine’s has a reputation and we can’t let this turn into a sideshow. I’d rather manage our side of the story than handle damage control.” She checked the time on the computer on Jazz’s desk. “The girls will switch classrooms in another fifteen minutes. As soon as they do, let’s leave them with our guests and have all the teachers in here for a quick meeting. They need to know what’s going on.”
“And you’ll tell them not to talk to the media?”
“I can’t tell them what to do,” Eileen admitted. “But I can make the suggestion.”
“They don’t all know. Not the whole story.”
“No, but enough of them know bits and pieces and it wouldn’t take a smart reporter too long to put two and two together.”
“What about Maddie?”
Eileen considered the question, but only for a moment. “There’s nothing to tell. Bernadette was a tea
cher; Maddie was one of her students. No way anyone should glom onto that, but even if they do, it’s all they need to know.”
“So we’re not going to tell them the truth?”
“Oh, we’re going to tell them the truth, all right,” Eileen said. “But not the whole truth. Not unless we absolutely have to.”
* * *
Jazz made the phone calls and five out of the six board members said they were jumping right into their cars and heading to St. Catherine’s to offer their support. The sixth board member was out of town, but when she spoke to him he told Jazz to let Eileen know he’d be back first thing in the morning and would talk to her before then.
That done, Jazz took care of getting all the teachers into her office during the next period and Eileen delivered the news.
Their shock dulled into grief and their grief morphed into grim expressions and shared hugs, and some of the more sensitive teachers cried, even though they hadn’t known Bernadette well. Eileen explained about scheduling a news conference, read a copy of the statement she’d written up for the media, and told the assembled teaching staff—much to their relief—they would be spared telling their students the news. At the next break, all the girls would be ushered into the gym and Eileen would make the announcement herself. There would be a short prayer service, a moment of silence, a chance for the girls to ask questions. While all that was going on, Jazz would trigger the school’s emergency notification system and each girl’s parents would get a call along with a recorded message about Bernadette’s death and the promise of updates as they became available.
It took Jazz two tries to record the statement without sounding either too dramatic or too uncaring, but she made herself do it, finally, because she knew Eileen was counting on her to be the face (or at least the voice) of St. Catherine’s in this instance and it was a duty she took seriously.
Finished, she sat back, wondering what was going on in the gym and glad she wasn’t there to witness it. In her experience, there was nothing more devastating than young people coming to grips with death, especially when it was the death of someone they knew. As she knew from the recent death of a former student, as she certainly learned when her dad died, the aftershock of today’s news would continue to rock their worlds. She also knew that over the next weeks, she’d be asked plenty of questions and have plenty of opportunities to talk to the girls, listen to their concerns, try to allay their fears.
