4 The Killing Bee

by Matt Witten

  "Terribly sorry," I apologized again. "I didn't mean to—"

  "That’s okay, it’s not your fault. I guess I'm a little . . . spooked, after this morning."

  "You weren't there, were you?" I asked, hoping to sound innocently conversational. "I didn't see you."

  "No, I stayed home. I have a cold."

  Hmmm. She wasn't sniffling, her nose wasn't red, her voice wasn't hoarse, and she was outside gardening. I wished I could have colds like that.

  She caught my doubtful look. "I know what you're thinking. I don't look sick."

  "Well . . ."

  "I guess I might as well admit it, since I already told Lieutenant Foxwell. I'm not really sick."

  "Oh," I said noncommittally.

  "I snuck a day off 'cause I had so much gardening to do." She gazed off toward her backyard, where I saw about eighteen colors of roses and a hundred eighty flowers I didn't recognize. "My first day off all year, and this happens." She ran her fingers through her stiff hair, looking far more vulnerable than I'd ever seen her. And talking more, too. Usually she had a New England reticence, but I guess today she had a lot of stuff to talk about. "Do you think if I was there this morning, Mr. Meckel would still be alive?"

  I thought there was a good chance he would be, but naturally I couldn't say that. "I don't know."

  She sighed fretfully. "I don't know what to do. I offered to go to the school, but the police said I'd only be in the way. So I'm just . . . pruning. Like I was going to do anyway."

  I aimed a curveball at her. "Did you like Mr. Meckel?"

  She seemed surprised by the question, but I didn't see any beads of guilty sweat forming on her brow. "He was okay. He wasn't bad. He was a . . . boss, you know what I mean?"

  Actually I've been freelance for so long, I've pretty much forgotten what bosses are like. When I read Dilbert, I don't really get the jokes. But I nodded like I understood her perfectly, and asked, "Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to kill Mr. Meckel?"

  She gave a confused frown. "The two policemen who came to my house said Laura Braithwaite did it."

  "Maybe, but maybe not."

  "They said they were sure. They caught her red-handed."

  "I'm checking into it."

  "Well, it’s a free country, I guess," she said dubiously. "I know you were involved in a couple of murders before . . ."

  "Did Mr. Meckel have any enemies?" I persisted.

  "Are you kidding? He was a public school principal. Half the parents in the world want to kill their principals."

  "Who wanted to the most?"

  She threw me a sidelong glance. "Besides you and your friends?"

  "Besides us."

  "Well . . ." She turned away from me and began pruning again. I wasn't sure whether she was trying to calm her nerves or avoid my eyes. "The parents of the average kids . . ." Snip. "The parents of the low-end kids . . ." Snip.

  "Was anything coming to a head?"

  She moved on to the next yew bush. "No. Somebody was threatening to sue him, but that’s nothing unusual."

  "Who was it?"

  She didn't answer. She was staring up at the top of the yew bush, where a grapevine was attacking, just out of her reach.

  "You want me to get that for you?" I asked.

  "That’s alright." Standing on her tiptoes and straining her arms, she was able to slice off the offending vine.

  "So who was gonna sue?" I repeated.

  "Lou and Sylvia Robinson," she finally replied. "The couple that lives across the street from the school."

  My ears perked up. I knew Lou and Sylvia, alright—they ran the mom-and-pop Xerox store where I used to get my screenplays copied. But I hadn't known they lived right near the school. That would make it easy for them to drop in on Meckel for a quick morning meeting. . . .

  I thought about the school's layout. The library was located in a different hallway from Meckel's office.

  For maybe ten minutes, Barry, Elena, Susie and their kids were in the library, and Laura was out back. It was entirely possible somebody who had a prior beef with Meckel could have come in from outside, gotten into a quick quarrel that ended in Meckel's freak murder . . . and then run off in a panic as fast as their legs could carry them, with nobody ever knowing anything about it. Except for Barry, hearing some indistinct shouting while he was in the john.

  "What were the Robinsons so upset about?" I asked.

  "Their kid has ADD. Or ADHD, I get them mixed up."

  "But why did they want to sue Meckel?"

  She eyed another vine, way up high on the other side of the bush. This time I didn't bother offering to help. "Maybe you should ask them," Ms. Helquist said as she strained her arms. "I feel a little funny talking to you. After all, you're not the police." Snip. Then she brought her arms down and eyed me challengingly.

  It looked like this particular fountain of information was about to dry up. I might as well hit her with the question I'd been meaning to ask ever since I realized her cold was bogus. "What about you, Ms. Helquist, if you don't mind my asking."

  "What about me?"

  "Did you want to kill him?"

  She stared at me, then broke into a laugh. "I'm too close to retirement to want to kill anybody."

  But the way she pointed those shears, it sure looked like she wanted to kill me.

  It was two o'clock already. Two hours since I'd asked Judy Demarest to take care of my kids for an hour. I should act responsible and go home. I got in my car, fully expecting to do just that.

  But then somehow my Toyota Camry got all rebellious. She flat out refused to take the right turn that would have led me back home. Instead she turned left, toward Lou and Sylvia Robinson's Xerox store on Grand Street. Funny how cars will do that to you sometimes.

  This particular car, an '85, had been with me so long she knew me as well as I knew myself. When I struck it rich two years ago, I thought about purchasing a sleek new vehicle. But I just couldn't bring myself to part with my old love. I mean, she only had 160,000 miles on her, that’s all. And she still ran perfectly, as long as you fluttered her gas pedal just right when you started her and murmured a few sweet nothings to her engine. And the ride was nice and smooth, if you didn't mind her loud muffler and the wind blowing through her half-rusted-out doors like they were made of fishnet.

  Lou and Sylvia's store, L & S Copies, was located in an old storefront that looked as weather-beaten as my car. It contrasted sharply with the shiny new Kinko's that had opened up six months ago on Broadway, right in the heart of downtown. Every time I drove past L & S, I half expected to see for rent and going out of business signs on the front window. But so far, Lou and Sylvia were hanging in there.

  My Camry shuddered to a halt. I grabbed a couple of oil-change receipts from the glove compartment and took them into L & S with me. I was the only customer.

  At the front counter, Lou gave me a big welcoming smile when I came in. Lou was an amiable balding guy in his forties who'd given up a steady gig at Quad Graphics, a local printing company, to run his own business. I wondered how he felt about his career choice now that the two-ton chain-store gorilla had just come storming into town.

  "Hey, Hollywood, where you been?" Lou greeted me. For a large man, over six feet tall and two hundred pounds, he had a surprisingly high voice. "Hanging out with Arnold and Keanu?"

  "No, I've been around, Lou. Just haven't written any screenplays that needed Xeroxing."

  "And here I thought you deserted me for Kinko's like all the rest of my fair-weather fiends." But despite the harsh words, Lou still had that smile. He could be loud and opinionated—we used to have raucous arguments about Ross Perot, back when Lou was a big supporter—but he never seemed to get too perturbed by anything. He rolled with life's punches pretty well. It was hard to picture him seriously threatening to sue Meckel—or killing him.

  What about Sylvia, though? She was off to the side doing some Xeroxing. Also in her forties, with a pronounced vertical worry l
ine creasing her forehead, she was never very communicative; she let Lou handle the customer relations. Maybe she was the strong, silent type. Or maybe not. I tried to picture her as the screaming woman that Barry had heard in Meckel's office this morning . . .

  She felt me watching her and looked up. "Hey, Sylvia," I said.

  "Hi, Jacob," she replied with a brief smile, then went back to work.

  "So is that writer's block still kicking your butt?" Lou asked. "You could make a movie out of this place. Right, Syl?"

  "Maybe a short one," she said dryly.

  I handed Lou the oil-change receipts. "Got a couple of pages for you. Two copies."

  "On the house," he said, going over to the funky old Xerox machine at the front of the store and setting to work. "But when you finally get around to writing your next movie, I better not catch you at that other place."

  I laughed, allowed a brief pause to come in, and then said, "So that’s pretty terrible about Meckel, huh?"

  "No kidding. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy—which is pretty much what he was."

  "Why's that?"

  From behind her machine, Sylvia said, "Honey, don't be speaking ill of the dead."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know," Lou grumbled. "I just don't appreciate the way he treated our son."

  "Lou," Sylvia said warningly.

  He threw up his hands in surrender. "Alright."

  But I wasn't about to let the subject die so easily. "Was it something about your son having ADD?"

  Voicing that magic acronym was all it took for Lou's dam to break. "That’s a bunch of bull," he spilled out. "Mark doesn't have ADD, ADHD, or any other kind of D."

  "I didn't mean to say—"

  "He's got this complete joke of a teacher, Melanie Wilson, straight out of college, doesn't know diddlysquat about teaching. Only reason Meckel hired her, she's got a nice ass. You can ask Sylvia, she volunteers in the class—"

  "Let it go, Lou," Sylvia said.

  But it would have been easier to stop Niagara Falls than to stop Lou right now. "All the other boys are running wild too, and screaming, even worse than Mark. But this stupid broad singles out my son, says he's got 'attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.' Horseshit. If Ms. Wilson was a half-decent teacher, Mark would start paying attention just fine."

  I clucked my tongue and said, "That’s awful," to prime the pump a little more.

  Sylvia tried to staunch the flow with, "I'm sure Jacob doesn't want to hear this—"

  It didn't work. "Kid's in fifth grade. None of his teachers ever complained about him before," Lou said. "You'd figure Meckel would see through Ms. Wilson's crap, right?"

  "Yeah."

  He waved my oil-change receipts at me. "But this lazy quack psychologist they have, she and Wilson are thick as thieves. She just rubber stamps whatever Wilson says. And Meckel backs them up. Sticks a label on my kid, wants to put him on some kind of drug. For my money, Meckel was nothing but a pusher," Lou spit out. "May he rest in peace or rot in hell, either way is fine with me."

  Obviously I'd overestimated Lou's ability to roll with life's punches. Of course, this was one heck of a punch, having somebody tell you something is seriously wrong with your kid.

  That must be the biggest punch there is. God knows if someone ever said anything like that about Latree or Charizard, I'd feel like strangling him.

  "I hear you were gonna sue Meckel," I said.

  "I was thinking about it, that’s for damn sure."

  I took a flyer and tried, "Yeah, his secretary said you had a meeting with him this morning."

  Lou wrinkled his forehead. "Not this morning, no.”

  "Oh, maybe it was Sylvia." I looked over at her.

  She looked back at me. Something I couldn't define flickered across her face.

  Lou, intent on putting new paper in the machine, didn't notice anything. "No, Syl was here at the store from, like, seven o'clock. We got a big order from the arts council. Thank God we still have a few loyal customers."

  Sylvia stepped away from her Xerox machine. The way her bright green eyes flashed fire at me, she should have been nicknamed Charizard herself. That look could melt boulders into cinders, easy. "Why are you asking us about this morning?"

  "No reason," I squeaked nervously.

  But I didn't fool her for a second. Jabbing her finger at me, she turned toward Lou. "Do you know what he's doing?"

  Lou stared blankly at the two of us for a moment, then he got it. He eyed me in astonishment. "Are you interrogating us?"

  "Look, I'm talking to everybody, okay? I'm just trying to get my friend out of jail—"

  "And you waltz in here acting like my friend?" He threw my Xeroxed pages at me. They landed on the floor. I bent down self-consciously and picked them up.

  "I'm sorry," I said, for at least the third time that day.

  "Yeah, you're sorry, alright. Get your sorry ass out of my store."

  That sounded like good advice. So I took it. But as I opened the door, I turned back and checked out Sylvia one more time.

  I'm lucky I didn't go up in smoke.

  5

  My Camry wanted to head over to the Saratoga County Arts Council on Broadway so I could check on Sylvia and Lou's alibi. However, I managed to wrestle the steering wheel into submission and drove home.

  When I got there, Judy Demarest’s car was gone. But my wife's minivan was in the driveway now. She must have caught wind of Meckel's murder and come home early.

  That meant my child-care services weren't needed, and I was free to go hit the arts council after all. I just had to take off before Andrea and the kids spotted me and I got too busy with all my domestic duties to pursue Meckel's killer.

  So I fluttered the old gas pedal again, said, "Come on, baby" to the engine in my sexiest voice, and started off. Two minutes later I was back downtown, driving past Kinko's and parking in front of the brand-spanking-new Saratoga Cultural Arts Center. This complex, complete with high-ceilinged art gallery, fancy theater, classrooms, and office space, was the million-dollar brainchild of Gretchen Lang, the executive director of the Saratoga County Arts Council. A vibrant woman in her fifties with big dreams and a big heart, she had dedicated the past ten years of her life to nurturing the local arts scene and making the center a reality.

  When I walked into the elegant gallery, Gretchen herself was behind the front desk doing paperwork. "Jake!" she said warmly. "Just the man I wanted to see!"

  "Nice exhibit, Gretchen," I said, pointing to the abstract nudes all around me. Some of them had one head, some two or three, and their arms numbered anywhere from zero to a dozen. The arts council used to specialize in bland watercolors of flowers and racehorses, but when Gretchen took over she really livened things up.

  And she was still as exuberant as ever. "Hey, Jake, how would you like to judge the Annual Children's Poetry Contest?" she asked, her voice chirping cheerily.

  Perish the thought. "I don't think I'm your man."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, to start with, I hate poetry."

  "But you're a writer."

  "I know, I know," I said, a little sheepish. "But poems always seem like just words to me."

  "You'll love these poems, Jake." She held up a folder full of the darn things. "They'll warm the cockles of your heart. Maybe they'll even inspire you to write again."

  Why did so many people seem to think I was so eager to write again? I was perfectly happy with my life just the way it was . . . wasn't I?

  "I need you, Jake," Gretchen cajoled. "You know I'll just keep bugging you till you say yes."

  She had me there. "Okay," I said resignedly, holding out my hand for the poems. "Warm my cockles."

  "You won't regret it."

  "I already do. Listen, I have a question. Did L & S do any Xeroxing for you today?"

  "Yes, for our annual fund-raiser."

  "You happen to know what time they finished the job?"

  "Let’s see, I called at ten and they weren't done yet. Th
en they called me right before lunch and I picked it up. Why?"

  "How big a job was it?"

  Gretchen shrugged. "Not all that big. Four pages, double-sided, eleven hundred copies."

  Having done a lot of Xeroxing in my life, I did some mental calculations. That kind of project wouldn't take more than half an hour or forty-five minutes. And it wasn't like the Robinsons had a lot of other jobs competing for their attention.

  "So it sounds like they didn't go in early this morning to finish your job." There went their alibi.

  Gretchen cocked her head at me. "What’s this about?"

  "Uh, nothing important. Hey, thanks for the literature." I headed for the door.

  "I need the three best poems from each grade level by Friday," she called after me.

  "No problem. I'll just throw them all down the stairs, and whichever poems go the farthest are the winners."

  I was just acting grouchy for effect. The truth was, I expected to like the kids' poems more than I like most grown-up poems.

  I mean, at least the stuff would probably rhyme.

  When I'm alone in my trusty Camry, I like to sing. So on my way home, I fought the creaky windows and succeeded in rolling them up. Then I let loose with the old chestnut "What do you do with a drunken sailor?" Except instead of "drunken sailor" I substituted the words "busted alibi."

  I was hoping my choral efforts would loosen up the old mental neurons and get them inspired. But it didn't work. They seemed frozen solid. I knew there was no point in going to Chief Walsh with my too vague suspicions about the Robinsons. But what else could I do?

  When I got home and asked Andrea for advice, her neurons weren't working any better than mine. She was distraught about Laura's incarceration, though for the first few hours we didn't get a chance to talk about it in much detail. We were too busy keeping the three boys—especially Adam—distracted.

  First we went outside to the driveway and played basketball with them, to wear them out. Then we cooked Adam's favorite dinner, plain unbuttered noodles and popcorn. After that we rented his favorite movie, the old Fred MacMurray version of The Absent-Minded Professor. When we put them to bed, I read aloud a few chapters of his favorite book, Redwall.