by Matt Witten
The three of them didn't need any more encouragement to get the heck out of there. They murmured a few lame words to Laura—"Hang in there," "It’ll be okay," and other useless stuff—and headed off.
"But stick around the school so the cops can talk to you," I called after them.
"We'll go check on the kids," Susie called back. They left, and I turned back to Laura. Her face was pasty, like she was about to pass out. Maybe I should find cold water to throw on her or something.
Or maybe the most merciful plan would be to just let her pass out. This was the last moment of peace she was likely to get for a long time—
And now that moment was gone. Police cars suddenly came racing our way, sirens blasting. Laura jumped to attention, sitting bolt upright. We both looked out the window as two cops burst out of their car and dashed into the building.
Oh phooey, I knew these guys. The cop in the lead was a lantern-jawed know-it-all in his early forties named Lieutenant Foxwell. The other one . . . well, I never actually learned his name, we weren't formally introduced. But I remembered his acne-scarred face sneering at me late one night after he spit at my own face. It happened a year and a half ago, in the deep dark recesses of the Saratoga Springs Police Station.
"Listen, Laura, don't tell the cops anything," I said urgently. "Like they say on TV, it can be used against you. And you'll need a lawyer. I recommend Malcolm Dove. He's the best."
"I didn't do it," Laura said. "I swear."
I wanted to believe her, but I'd been fooled before. So all I said was, "You want me to call Malcolm for you?"
Laura blinked, fighting back tears. Then she said, "Jacob? Could you . . . take care of Adam?"
"Of course," I said immediately. God, what an unlucky kid. Adam's dad had exited the planet two years earlier, courtesy of a heroin overdose. He was a momentum trader, and I guess the momentum went the wrong way. Needless to say, Adam was crushed. And now this . . .
I would have tried to say something reassuring to Laura, but just then Lieutenant Foxwell and Acne Scars came crashing into the room.
As soon as I made it onto their radar, they stopped in their tracks. Acne Scars curled his bottom lip like he was dying to spit at me again. Foxwell glowered in angry surprise. "You!" he exclaimed.
"Me," I agreed solemnly. "And him." I pointed at the body behind the desk.
Foxwell and Acne Scars went over and took a look. Sure enough, Sam Meckel was still dead. If there was a heaven, he was probably at the Pearly Gates already, trying to cover his butt with St. Peter.
Acne Scars straightened up and turned to Laura. His nostrils flared slightly, like a dog hot on the scent. "Who are you?"
"Laura . . . Braithwaite," she said, quavering.
"She found the body," I explained.
Foxwell raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really."
Outside more sirens blared, and various ambulances and cop cars pulled up. "Laura, remember what I said," I began—
But Foxwell shut me down. "Why don't you go in one of the classrooms, Mr. Burns. We'll talk to you later."
I stood up. "Don't say a word, Laura. Except 'I want a lawyer.'"
"Why, what does she have to be afraid of?" Acne Scars asked, his beady eyes sparkling with a mean gleam.
I couldn't think of anything clever to say. So I took one last look at Laura's terrified face, gave her a little smile that was meant to be supportive but probably looked ghastly, and left. Acne Scars shut the door behind me.
I started up the hall. Three EMTs and four cops raced past me on their way to the principal's office. Nice to see such a quick response. Too bad Sam Meckel wasn't alive to appreciate it.
I headed for the library to check up on Adam and my sons. Sure enough, they were still there, along with the other kids and their parents. Everybody was shell-shocked, moving in slow motion. Adam eyed me fearfully. It looked like somebody had told the kids what happened. I wasn't so sure that had been a good idea, but I guess they'd have found out soon enough anyway, what with all the screaming sirens. Latree broke out of his daze and ran up to me. "Daddy, is Mr. Meckel really dead?"
"Looks like it," I said, and took him into my arms.
Charizard's face filled with horrified awe. "Did somebody kill him?" It was good to see that, despite their recent, too-frequent exposure to murder, my kids hadn't turned blasé about it.
"The police are taking care of everything," I said. I had zilch desire to go into detail about Adam's spelling bee trophy—especially with him standing right there.
But Adam was already one step ahead of me. "Did my mom kill him?" he asked fearfully.
I opened and closed my mouth like a gasping fish, not sure what to say. From the other side of the library, the other grown-ups and kids were watching. Then I heard a noise behind me and turned. I found myself face-to-face with a cop I knew named Bowles, a young guy with a military crewcut and shrewd eyes. He stood in the doorway drinking in every word like it was some kind of fancy imported beer.
"Of course your mom didn't kill him," I said, for the cop's benefit as much as for Adam's.
"But she said she was gonna go in Mr. Meckel's office and read him the riot act. She was super mad at him," Adam said.
Good grief, kid, shut up. He was so upset he was totally oblivious to the cop. "Adam, let’s not talk about it right now," I said nervously.
"Where is she?"
"With the police. Don't worry. Your mom wants you to stay with us until things get sorted out. Why don't you go play Civilization on the computer?"
"I wanna go see my mom," he said, whimpering.
"Soon, honey. I promise," I lied.
Charizard cut in. "I wanna see Mr. Meckel's body."
"No. Why don't you play Civilization."
"Why can't we see it—"
"I said play Civilization. Now."
They stared at me, thrown by the sharpness in my voice. Then they looked over at the cop. Something finally clicked, and without further argument they headed over to play Civilization. I doubt they got very high scores that day, though.
I walked over to where the other grown-ups stood huddled together. I wanted to ask them all kinds of Columbo-type questions, starting with: "Did you see anybody else wandering around the hall this morning?" and "When was the last time you saw Laura?" But Bowles still loomed in the doorway watching us. It kind of inhibited conversation—especially since I was scared somebody might say something that would incriminate Laura.
So we sat around uncomfortably for twenty minutes. It got so bad, Barry and I had to relieve our tension by talking about the Mets. What would guys ever do without sports?
I was almost glad when Foxwell and Acne Scars—who, I now learned, was more commonly known as Balducci—came and led me away to an empty classroom. Actually, all the classrooms were empty. School had been canceled for the day. The school superintendent showed up and turned all the buses away, sending the kids off to the middle school auditorium to be picked up by their parents. All of the teachers were sent away too.
The cops sat me down at one of the kids' desks and began questioning me. I instantly flashed back to fourth grade, when Mrs. Specter interrogated me mercilessly one morning after somebody hit her in the back of the head with a spitball. I didn't do it, I might add—or at least, that’s my story and I'm sticking to it.
Foxwell started right in. "What exactly did you see when you opened the principal's door?"
I grimaced, remembering. "Laura was just standing there. By Mr. Meckel's desk. Looking totally out of it."
"Where was the trophy?"
I didn't want to answer. But these guys were almost as frightening as Mrs. Specter—no mean feat. She had a way of tapping her palm with a ruler that would strike terror into the heart of the most cold-blooded serial killer.
"Laura was holding it," I said.
"Holding it?" said Balducci.
Almost against my will, I nodded.
"Like she'd just finished using it on Meckel," Balducci went on.
"I never said that."
"What did she say?" Foxwell asked.
"That she didn't kill him."
If I was hoping that would bring them up short, I was sadly mistaken. Foxwell barreled ahead without pausing. "What about the trophy?"
"What about it?"
"Why'd she bring it with her from home?"
Damn, how did Foxwell find out that little tidbit? Laura must not have followed my advice. She'd spilled stuff to the cops.
"I don't know anything about that," I said.
Foxwell drilled holes in me with his eyes. "Laura was pretty angry at Meckel, wasn't she?"
"We all were, not just Laura."
"Why?"
"Well, because our kids aren't being challenged at school. We were trying to get Mr. Meckel to change that."
"And he wasn't changing fast enough for Laura?" Balducci said.
I put up my hands to stop them. "Look, Laura is my wife's best friend."
Foxwell nodded knowingly. "So you're going to protect her."
"Even though you think she killed Meckel," Balducci finished the thought.
I didn't say anything. Unfortunately, my silence said it all.
After the cops finally let me go, I headed back to the library. Susie, Elena, and Barry had already been questioned by other cops, and they and their children were gone. But Adam and my kids were still in evidence, along with Laura and two beefy cops who were "escorting" her.
Adam was hugging his mother and wailing, "But Mom, why can't I go with you?"
"It's okay, sweetheart," said Laura. "I just have to go . . . help the police for a while. You're gonna have a play date with Latree and Charizard. Good-bye, honey."
She hugged him even tighter. Then one of the cops said impatiently, "Ms. Braithwaite."
She forced herself to break away from Adam, then caught my eye. "Take good care of him, Jacob."
"I will."
She gave Adam a brave thumbs-up and a wave and took off. No doubt she fell apart as soon as she was out of his sight.
I turned to Adam and my sons, who stood there with eyes wide. "Okay, guys," I said, trying and failing to make my voice cheerful, "grab your backpacks and let’s go."
"Where are they taking my mom?" Adam asked.
"I guess the police station."
"You mean jail, right?"
"Adam, everything's gonna be fine."
"How do you know?"
Once again I was at a loss for words.
"Maybe your mom just killed Mr. Meckel by accident," Charizard suggested.
"Yeah, that's not really murder, right, Dad?" Latree asked.
"They'll probably make Adam's mom pay some money, like maybe five and nine-tenths dollars," Charizard put in hopefully. "And then go to jail for, like, half a week."
"Sounds good to me," I said.
Now if we could just get a judge to go for it.
3
If anybody could cut a sweetheart deal for Laura it was Malcolm Dove, the three-hundred-pound chess-playing lawyer who represented me the time I was accused of murder. So after I got the kids home, fed them a snack, and sent them out to play croquet in our backyard, hoping to distract them with a normal-seeming activity, I called Malcolm and asked him to take the case. I informed him I'd pay his fee if Laura couldn't afford it.
And that seemed likely. She was still recovering financially from her husband's death, to say nothing of his stock trades. Her parents were both dead too, and her younger sister was an impoverished member of some misbegotten New Age commune in Arizona. That left Andrea and me as Laura's safety net. The restaurant where she waitressed, at the Golf and Polo Club, was where the Saratoga elite meet to eat; but I seriously doubted her lunch tips would cover a high-priced lawyer's nut.
I could cover it, though. I was rich—by my standards, at least. I had three hundred grand socked away in mutual funds.
I should probably explain where all that cash came from, and why I was free to take care of the boys on a Tuesday morning instead of trudging off to some j.o.b. somewhere. What happened was, I got the loot two years ago with one stroke of a Hollywood pen.
It still amazed me sometimes, how a project that took me only five weeks to write could have such a huge impact on my life. The project in question was a screenplay called The Gas That Ate San Francisco, about poisonous gas seeping out of the ground after an earthquake and threatening to wipe out the entire Bay Area.
As you can probably tell from this description, it was not exactly an A movie. More like a double Z. But it sure was lucrative. The Gas movie put an end to my almost two decades of doing the starving artist thing, writing poignant, socially meaningful screenplays that never got produced and avant garde stage plays that did get produced—off off Broadway, for audiences of about four people, including myself.
You'd think that after selling a screenplay for a million bucks—which is what I got, before the agents, managers, producers, lawyers, IRS, and other bloodsuckers whittled it down to 300 K—my career would have taken off. And it almost did.
But somewhere along the way, a strange thing happened. I mysteriously misplaced my urge to write. I thought about churning out another hack screenplay, but I never quite got around to it.
The truth was this: even though the gas movie was a big hit, especially overseas, I never really liked it much. But on the other hand, I couldn't quite motivate myself to write any of the artsy-fartsy, hopelessly uncommercial stuff I used to write.
I guess you could call it writer's block. But that makes it sound like I was unhappy, and I wasn't. In fact, the last two years had been the best years of my life. I enjoyed being an at-home dad. I also enjoyed having lots of time to play handball at the Y and chess at Malcolm Dove's Monday night chess club, as well as pursue my latest hobby: renovating two houses that I bought as HUD foreclosures, and then renting them out.
Okay, every once in a while at three in the morning I'd wake up and wonder what was the purpose of my existence here on this earth. But everybody does that sometimes, right?
After I hung up with Malcolm, I was all set to call Andrea and let her know about the morning's excitement when Charizard ran in, crying.
"Daddy," he squalled, "Adam keeps hitting my ball in the bushes. It's not fair."
I rolled my eyes. "Look, give the kid a break. He's having a tough day."
Charizard mulled that over. "You mean 'cause his mom got arrested?"
"Yeah, that would kind of bum you out a little, don't you think?"
Charizard looked worried. "But they'd never arrest my mom, right? 'Cause she wouldn't kill anybody."
"True."
"Hey, maybe Adam's mom didn't do it. Maybe a robber killed Mr. Meckel. Or a mean space alien."
I tried not to smile. "It’s possible."
He gazed at me earnestly. "Daddy? You'll find the real killer, right? Just like you did the other times?"
I sighed. I guess I'd known all along, ever since I first stumbled on Sam Meckel's body, that it would come to this. I'd be expected to work some magic. But the truth was, I'm really no magician; and anyway, I didn't think there was any magic to be worked here. I felt pretty sure the cops already had the real killer. I mean, I was very fond of Laura, but all the evidence certainly pointed straight at her.
"Daddy?" Charizard said again.
I sighed. "Sure," I said. "I'll take the case."
He clapped his hands. "Goodie! I'll go tell Adam you're gonna save his mom."
Charizard's confidence was touching. Too bad I didn't share it. As he ran back outside, I picked up the phone again to call Andrea. Then I hesitated.
Of all the possible days to get Andrea upset, this was the worst. She needed to do a good job today in front of her department head. If I informed her about her best friend's incarceration for homicide, she might screw up her classes—and her tenure chances.
So I held off on calling her. Instead I called the other gifted and talented parents—or to put it more accurately, the othe
r parents of gifted and talented kids. Sometimes we tend to forget the distinction.
Susie Powell was the first parent I got through to. "I figured you'd be calling me," she said as soon as she heard my hello. "So you're gonna help Laura with this?"
"I'm gonna try."
"That’s really great. 'Cause there's no way Laura could've killed Meckel, don't you think?"
I was pretty sure that was uncertainty I detected in Susie's voice. "I agree," I said, even though I felt uncertain too. Then I proceeded to ask Susie about this morning.
But she wasn't much help. Try though she might, she couldn't recall any evil strangers lurking in the school hallways when she came in that morning. Nor had she heard anything suspicious. She couldn't think of anybody who hated Meckel—"or not enough to kill him, anyway."
"When did you get to school?" I asked.
"Early, like seven-fifteen, seven-twenty. The front door was unlocked."
"What about Meckel's door?"
"It was closed. I went past there to the library. Adam was in there already, hanging out, but I didn't see Laura."
Maybe because Laura was in Meckel's office. "What about Elena and Barry. Were they there?"
"They showed up with their kids a few minutes later, I'm not sure exactly when."
"Who showed up first?"
"Barry did, with Justin. Then he went off to the bathroom for maybe half a minute, and Elena came in with Luce."
"And Elena stayed with you?"
"She dropped off Luce and went to her classroom to do something for a couple minutes. Then she came back." Susie paused. "Look, you don't think we're suspects, do you? It would've been, like, impossible for one of us to kill Meckel without the others knowing."
"Just dotting i's and crossing t’s," I said. I didn't really take Susie, Barry, and Elena seriously as murder suspects—or should I say, I didn't want to take them seriously.
Next I got through to Elena. According to her, she and Luce had arrived in the library only moments before Barry returned from the bathroom; and Susie was already there. Then Elena went off to her classroom, which was next door to the library, for two or three minutes.
