Prepped to Kill (Ricky Steele Mysteries Book 1)

by M. Lee Prescott

  “Driver’s side, same as her. Seems Mr. Phelps dragged himself, probably when he was unconscious, through the garage before hopping in. I’ll be by your place later to check out the garage down there. I may want to talk to the Franklin kid, too. I’ll be in touch.”

  Missy, I thought, running back toward the dorm. What in the world would this do to Missy? Actually, she was less shaken up than I expected.

  CHAPTER 39

  Dinny and Brooke decided to hold classes as usual. Dorm parents were instructed to inform the students of the tragedy and assure them that it was a suicide and that they were in no danger. Everyone was told to stay away from the maintenance barn and its swarm of police cars and strangers running around. After our meeting, I sent my charges off to class and hopped into the shower. As I stepped out, the phone was ringing.

  “Dorothy?” Muriel, voice shriller than usual. “I need to speak with you, this morning, right away.”

  Just what I needed, another tête-à-tête with the Dragon Lady. “Can it wait till later? I’m supposed to be here when the police officers come to search the garage.”

  “No, it cannot wait. And I forbid you to speak to the police. I made that absolutely clear when I hired you—no police. I will expect you at my door in fifteen minutes. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” I said, hanging up. What did the old bat want now?

  Fifteen minutes later, Cookie opened the door to me. “In the den,” she whispered. “Want coffee?”

  “No, thanks, Cookie. I can’t stay long.” She nodded, disappearing, out of the line of fire.

  I found Muriel in a huge brown leather armchair, dressed in a bright yellow house dress, matching slippers on her feet, looking like a bedraggled canary fallen into a mud puddle. “Sit.”

  I sat in a stiff-backed armchair at the far end of the room.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Come closer, this instant. I can’t see you way over there and I have no intention of shouting.”

  I moved to the straight-backed chair nearest to her. “What’s going on, Mrs. Petty?”

  “I’ll do the talking, thank you. I cannot ask you to leave today, not with all this fuss. I would if I could, but the girls need you, so I’m resigned. I understand that the governor herself has called to thank you, so it would appear my hands are tied. But let me tell you this, young lady. I will not have you dallying with my nephew another instant, do you understand me?”

  “Mrs. Petty, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Dinny—Mr. Petty—and I do need to speak from time to time, you know. You both hired me.”

  “Don’t play coy with me, Dorothy Steele. I saw the way he looked at you the other night and I see it in his eyes whenever he talks about you. You’ve bewitched him same as you used to do to the other girls.”

  “This is ridiculous. I’ve got to get back to the dorm.” I rose and took a step toward the door.

  “Sit down, young lady!” I sat. She pulled a folded paper from her pocket, handing it to me. “What do you make of this filth?”

  I recognized the sickeningly familiar artwork—a bedding advertisement, different coverlet, but it looked to have been torn from the same catalogue. This time instead of Jared and Ellen Petty’s heads, Dinny and yours truly were featured on adjoining pillows. The sender had made a photocopy of my senior picture, and Dinny’s photo, also photocopied, appeared to have come from the same era. “Where did you—?”

  “Cookie found it this morning. Slipped under the door. I will not show it to Dinny. He’s got enough on his mind without worrying about this filth.”

  “You should show it to the police, Mrs. Petty. Along with all the letters.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “With all due respect, what’s absurd is your worrying about Dinny and me dallying when there’s a murderer running around the campus.”

  From their watery depths, her eyes spit fire. “Don’t you dare spread such a vile lie. Dinny assures me that Mr. Phelps took his own life, and I believe him.”

  Then you’re as big a fool as your nephew, Mrs. Petty, I thought. “That may be a little difficult when the police think it’s murder and are questioning everyone with that theory in mind.”

  “This is unspeakable. Wait till I find out who phoned them this morning.”

  “I believe it was your nephew.”

  The fight drained out of her, she slumped back, lost in her overstuffed chair. “You always were an impudent girl. Leave me now and don’t say a word about this conversation to Dinny.” She grabbed the letter from my hand. “I have no intention of showing him this trash, so don’t you dare mention it. I will not have him worried. Poor Dinny.”

  “Dinny’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

  “Don’t you dare presume to tell me about my nephew. Now get out. And I don’t want to have to speak to you about this matter again. Are we clear?”

  “Look, Mrs. Petty. I’m not one of your girls anymore. You can’t just—”

  “Silence! I can and I will. Now leave me. I’m tired. I need a rest. Tell Cookie to come to me on your way out.”

  She waved her hand, looking away. Just like the good old days. When Muriel dismissed you, you were instantly invisible. It was no good talking to her because she wouldn’t hear you. I was tempted to make a fresh remark, but then I remembered Jared Phelps was dead. The man who had clutched my arm in a death grip not twelve hours earlier now lay cold and silent in the county morgue.

  CHAPTER 40

  When I returned to the dorm, I remembered Brooke Richards’s invitation to dinner. Surely they would cancel, I thought, dialing first his office, then the home number. I got machines at both places and hung up without leaving a message. I was about to call the library, when a sudden urge to get out of the house struck. While I had been enduring Muriel’s lecture, the police had come and gone in their search of the garage. Gazing at the yellow crime scene tape now ringing the building, I cursed my former headmistress.

  I found my way to the Westfield Public Library, recalling my time there spent researching the arctic tern for a biology research paper. Long before the days of online researching at the click of a mouse, I had chosen a topic strategically, after ascertaining that the Whitley School library had nothing on the subject. Therefore, I was granted a precious get-out-of-jail-free pass to spend time at the public library. I had spent luxurious days that year buried in the musty stacks, reading mystery novels hidden inside the covers of ornithology books.

  I parked in the back lot and walked around the building, noticing what appeared to be a new wing erected since my Whitley days, a children’s wing, I assumed, observing the artwork decorating the windows. I asked for Marilyn Richards at the reference desk. Confirming my assumption, the librarian pointed toward the new wing. “She may be holding a story hour,” he added, checking the wall clock. It was 10:40 a.m. “I think it begins at eleven.”

  As I entered the children’s room, I spied a few mothers with three- and four-year-olds gathered in the far corner of the room. The moms sat on the carpet, piles of books in front of them, while their children watched a gerbil run back and forth from one cage to another, passing through a plastic tunnel that traversed a large tank of goldfish. One of the children jumped up and banged on the left cage. The gerbil took off through the tunnel to the larger cage, which held his food, water and exercise wheel. As the same child leapt up, reaching to bang the right-hand cage, his mother grabbed his hand. “Bobby, no.” With a firm hold on his chubby arm, she led him back to the rug. Bobby was not pleased.

  Scanning the room, I spied a prim woman seated at the desk, a stack of books in front of her. She wore reading glasses perched halfway down her nose as she hunched over her task. She appeared older than her husband, sharp angular features weathered by the sun. Her dark brown hair flipped up at her collar, suggesting daily rounds with a curling iron. She wore a cream-colored blouse with navy piping, a straight navy skirt and flat shoes, a single strand of pearls round her neck her only adornment. A
s I approached, she looked up, giving me her best librarian’s smile. “Hello, can I help you?”

  “Marilyn Richards?”

  She set a notebook aside, removing her glasses. “Why, yes, have we met?”

  “No, I’m Ricky Steele.”

  “Oh, yes. I hope you’re planning to join us tonight, Ricky. May I call you, Ricky?”

  “Of course. Your dinner invitation is why I’m here. I tried to call, then thought I’d visit the old library again. I assumed after this morning that you and Brooke might want to cancel?”

  “Well, you know, we thought about it.” She stood, leading me to a table at the opposite end of the room from the growing circle of mothers and children. “Then Brookie and I said, ‘Why not?’ People might need to get together, to support each other, you know? We decided to go ahead. Goodness knows Dinny and Ellen need our support. The others, too.

  “Don’t worry about coverage either. Brooke has it all arranged. In fact, he phoned not five minutes before you walked in. Rosa Diaz has agreed to fill in. I promise, we’ll get you home early, so please say you’ll come. I’ve been looking forward to getting to know you.”

  I wondered why Rosa and her husband hadn’t been among those needing support, but held my tongue, thanking her and asking whether she needed me to bring anything.

  “Heavens, no. Just yourself.”

  “How well did you know Jared Phelps?”

  “Not very.”

  “How about Carolyn Santos?”

  “Quite well, through running. Carolyn, Gerry and I used to race all the time. We even went on a few overnights, until they had their thing. Then that was the end of that.”

  “Thing?”

  “Oops, I figured you’d know, being a private detective and all. Gerry and Carolyn had a fling.”

  “A fling? But, I thought that she was—”

  “Gay. Everyone did till Gerry. Nope, Carolyn was AC/DC. Isn’t that what they call it?”

  “Bisexual,” I said dryly, studying Marilyn Richards. Could she really be as clueless as she sounded? “When was this fling?”

  “Last fall some time. You’d have to ask Gerry. He never told me, but there were the letters and, of course Brooke heard about it through—” She stopped, realizing that she had said too much.

  “You were going to say Dinny, weren’t you? Did members of the community receive letters referring to their fling?”

  Her lips pursed up tight as an oyster. “You’d have to check with Dinny. I’m sorry, Ricky, but my audience awaits. See you tonight. Dress casual. Nice to meet you.”

  She grabbed her glasses and the stack of books on her desk then joined the crowd assembled on the rug. There were now at least a dozen moms and their children. Better her than me, I thought, heading out the door. As I drove back through town, I wondered how many letters Dinny had declined to share with me. And why, if such letters existed about Carolyn and Gerry’s affair, would he have withheld those?

  CHAPTER 41

  I stopped at Dinny’s office on my way back from the library. Nancy buzzed him, and he was out in a flash, hustling me into the office. “Ricky, hi, I’m so glad you’re here. Give me a break from too many difficult phone calls. Sit down. Want some coffee?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t stay but a minute. I’m already late for lunch.”

  He checked his watch. “Why not eat with me? I’ll ask Nancy to order us something.”

  “Thanks, but I can’t. Besides, I hear we’re eating dinner together.”

  “That’s right.” He paused, running his fingers through his hair, gazing out the window for several minutes before turning to me. I wondered if the performance was genuine or put on for dramatic effect. “I encouraged Brooke to go ahead with it. People need to be together at a time like this.”

  “As an outsider, I’m not sure I belong there. Could I take a pass, do you think? The idea of sitting at dinner with you and Ellen makes me very uncomfortable.”

  “This is life, Ricky. Time to grow up.”

  “It’s not my life.”

  “We all have uncomfortable moments. We deal with them.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks. I feel much better.”

  “I really don’t need your sarcasm today, Ricky.”

  “So, you’re just fine sitting with the woman you’ve been coming on to all week while smiling adoringly at the little wife? How do you turn it on and off?”

  “Ellen and I are good at that,” he said quietly.

  “Well, I’m not. What’s really going on here? Am I your idea of payback for Ellen’s transgressions? Or simply another potential conquest in a long line of adolescent liaisons? Have you got more in common with Jared Phelps than your height and build?”

  He had been gazing out the window as I delivered my diatribe. When he turned back to face me, his eyes flashed fire. “In case you haven’t looked in the mirror lately, you’re no longer an adolescent. I know you’ve always been a man-hater, this childish rift with your father and all, but I don’t have time for this today. I’ve got a death on campus, the Board’s going crazy and graduation’s less than two weeks away.”

  I saw red and was fighting hard to stem angry tears. “Man-hater? Where did that come from?”

  “You’re as transparent as glass. It’s plain to see how your relationship with your dad—who is a terrific guy, by the way—colors all your relationships with men.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Freud. After my delightful chat with your aunt this morning, I’m certain you have all your emotional baggage in order and are qualified to analyze mine.”

  “What did she want?”

  “To warn me not to dally with you.” I spit the words out, despite Muriel’s warning not to burden dear Dinny. I really hadn’t intended to tell him, but hurt turned me into a monster.

  “Oh, Jesus, who put that idea in her head?”

  “One of those head-on-the-pillow collages was slipped under her door this morning.”

  “What!” He looked genuinely stricken and I felt a twinge of guilt. “Jesus, I’ve got to get over there. What’ll I say? She’s gonna…”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, but if I had to bet, I’d have guessed he was going to say, “She’s gonna kill me.” Now who was acting like an adolescent? “Dinny, no, listen. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you. She’s trying to protect you. I think it actually makes her feel needed. She got such delight in chewing me out. Don’t spoil it for her. Pretend you don’t know, at least for now.”

  His eyes softened. He tried to take my hand, but I moved away, gazing out the window. “It will be good to have you there tonight. Please come. It won’t be awkward, I promise. Ellen would like to get to know you and there’ll be plenty of other people. It’s probably not a sit-down affair. You can position yourself as far away from me as possible.”

  As he spoke, the phone rang and he picked up. Covering the mouthpiece he whispered. “I’ve got to take this. See you tonight?”

  I was dismissed. He watched as I moved to go, hand still covering the mouthpiece. I turned back. “If I wanted to find Gerry Weinstein this afternoon, where would I look?”

  “He’s either in class or doing labs. Check with Nancy. She has his schedule, or Brooke can give it to you.” I nodded and left him to his call.

  CHAPTER 42

  Nancy gave me a copy of Gerry Weinstein’s schedule. According to it, he was free now and would begin an afternoon lab in twenty minutes. If I hurried, I might catch him at lunch. I left the car outside Willard House and sprinted across campus. There was no sign of Weinstein in the cafeteria so I headed toward the science center, a rambling brick building behind the main classroom building. Once inside, a passing student directed me to the labs, where I found Weinstein setting up experiments.

  He stopped what he was doing and came over to greet me. “Hello. What brings you out here?” Dressed casually in khakis, a white oxford shirt and tie, no jacket, he removed a thick leather lab apron and set it on the stool beside him.

  “We
ll, to be honest, it’s about Carolyn Santos. I know you have class in a few minutes so I won’t keep you but a couple of minutes.”

  “What’s up?” He pulled up a stool for me, taking the one beside it.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but I’ve just learned that you and Carolyn were lovers at one point.”

  He stared at me, perhaps contemplating the speediest means of booting me out of the building. Then he chuckled. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you? It was one night. Happened the weekend we went up to run Mount Washington two summers ago. No big deal. We were both high as kites after the race. Have you ever run that one? You should try it sometime. I mean, you don’t exactly run it, more like fast hiking, but it’s a rush to finish.

  “Marilyn was supposed to go with us, Brooke, too, but her mom got sick or something and they had to drive down to Pennsylvania. Anyway, we were in separate rooms ‘cause we’d booked two rooms, but somehow, Saturday night, we drank one too many beers and one thing led to another. We laughed about it afterward, but that was it. It wasn’t long after that that her relationship with Judith started up. Gorgeous as she was, men weren’t her thing.” He shrugged, a sheepish grin playing across his boyish features.

  “Do you think there might have been others? Jared Phelps, for instance?”

  “Who knows? She and Jared were really close friends, so of course, there were always rumors about them in the early years. Until people found out Carolyn was gay.”

  “Or bisexual.”

  “Maybe. I guess so.”

  “What about Dinny Petty?”

  “Mr. Straight Arrow? I doubt it. He and Ellen have a solid marriage. At least, they seem to be happy.”

  If you only knew, I thought.

  “How’d you find out about Carolyn and me, anyway?”

  “I probably shouldn’t say.”

  “So, do you think a lot of people know?”

  “That wouldn’t be my impression.”