He tossed the blanket aside and shook his head. “Uh-huh. Stuff from Mrs. Krayett. Our yearbook. Just what I was afraid of. You’re pokin’ your nose into the murder.” He folded his arms and glared at me. “Boy, Molly. Don’t know what to do with you. Frankly, I should stick you in jail. For your own protection. ‘Cept, knowing you, first thing you’d do would be to incite a prison riot.”
“I resent that. Want a cup of cocoa?”
“Sure.” He followed me into the kitchen, where I prepared another cup. Before I could finish, he wandered unsupervised back into the living room, then called. “Got any marshmallows?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Rats. What’s a cup of chocolate without marshmallows, right?”
That last remark cost him his dollop of whipped cream. I brought him the cup. To my chagrin, he was flipping through the files from Mrs. Kravett. Right beside the box of files, face up, lay the notebook that stated my thoughts about Tommy’s motives for murdering Steve Wilkins.
“Got a search warrant?”
Tommy straightened. “Looked through this stuff over at Mrs. Kravett’s house already. Sure am glad you’re in charge of the scholarship ‘stead of me. Bet it’s lotsa work.” He grinned. “Her predictions for our classmates sure was fun. Bet the sitcom she pictured you writin’ was Cougar Town.”
I smiled with a clenched jaw and walked toward him.
If I stepped on the edge of the legal pad, it would flip over on the thick carpeting so Tommy couldn’t read it. One step away, Tommy held up his palm. “Careful.” He bent over and scooped up the pad. “You almost stepped on this.”
Damn it! “Thanks. If you were Sir Walter Raleigh, you’d have just thrown your cape over it.”
“Sir Walter Raleigh didn’t have the option of picking up the puddle,” Tommy deadpanned. He handed me the pad without reading it and took his cup of cocoa. “Mind if I take that ‘Solution to a Dual Murder’ back to the station house? The boys’ll get a good laugh outta my bein’ such a good suspect and all.”
My cheeks warmed. I watched him gulp his chocolate.
“Did any of those boys ever tell you that your cap makes a dorky dent in your hair?”
“Yep. Got a, dent in my head to go with it. So. Still think Carolee’s a combination serial killer/cup thief, or you got some more hot tips?”
“Not really, though I did find out that Denise Bakerton has a—”
“Problem with gambling?”
“A daughter named Rhonda who’s a really good babysitter. You may want to use her sometime.”
Tommy raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, that’s right. You said your boys were already teenagers. They probably wouldn’t need a sitter.” I brushed my bangs back. “Actually, my theory is that Steve may have stumbled across something in the school’s data base that—”
“We had Jack Vance print us a report of Steve’s system usage. At no time Saturday was he logged on.” Tommy handed me his empty cup. “Notice I gave your cup right back. Seein’ as you’re so attached to ‘em, and all. Guess so long as you keep your sleuthin’ limited to within your own four walls, we’ll be all right.”
He headed toward the door and put on his coat and hat. As he turned the knob, he said, “By the way, I may have arrested Lauren, but you’re still on my list of suspects.”
He left. I sat back down on the rug. So. Tommy’s visit had thrown some doubt on my best theory: that someone had killed Steve because he’d stumbled onto something about Mrs. Kravett in the school’s data base. Before I ruled the theory out entirely, I needed to get a look at the school’s computer records myself.
On the bottom of my notes, I doodled a little pheasant-like bird saying, “Woe! is me.” That gave me an idea for a card. I snatched up my drawing pad. Under a “What’s My Line?” banner, I drew three identical birds, all claiming to be the real Woe.
The doorbell rang again. It was Lauren. She looked pale, her eyes puffy. I tried to ignore her appearance and said, “Hi. Come on in. I haven’t started getting our lunch ready yet, but how about—”
She shut the door and leaned against it. “I saw Tommy’s car in your driveway. I’m so scared. Molly, I don’t want to go to prison.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. We went into my living room and sat on the floor, where I told her my theory that Steve had discovered some volatile secret in the school’s data base. “I specifically remember him saying something at the party about not having a password for Mrs. Kravett’s files. Remember?”
Lauren’s spirits rose a bit. She looked thoughtful. “I don’t remember that, but maybe I wasn’t in the room at the time. The important thing is, Steve might have been hooked up through his modem to the school computer at the time of his death. Maybe he was looking at the file with someone right then, not realizing that someone was going to kill him over it.”
“According to Tommy, Steve wasn’t working on a file from the school’s computer at the time of his death.”
“But the killer could have pulled up a different file, right after erasing the one that incriminated him. Or her.”
I shook my head. “My opinion of Tommy has changed. His nice-but-not-too-sharp routine is just an act. Computers automatically keep time logs of files and sign-ons. Tommy already checked those logs. He knows precisely what Steve was really working on when he died.”
Lauren fidgeted with the nap of the carpeting. “Did Tommy tell you what that was?”
“He said it was a goodbye letter to you.”.
Lauren cursed under her breath. It had already occurred to me that Steve’s killer might be Lauren’s jealous lover. I was dying to learn the lover’s identity. Besides, it seemed absurd to be trying to solve this while not having such a potentially important piece of the puzzle.
“Who’s your lover?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“It’s going to come out during your trial, anyway.”
She didn’t look at me. “Not necessarily. It’s over with. It never meant anything to us in the first place. He looked at it as extracurricular activity. I was lonely.”
“Maybe you’re wrong about what your relationship meant to him. Maybe he killed Steve to have you to himself. Or maybe they argued, and he stabbed Steve in self-defense.”
“In the back? While Steve was sitting in his chair?”
I shrugged. “Maybe during another burglary attempt.”
“Burglary? There was no burglary. That was him.”
“Who?”
“My lover. We never wanted anyone to see his car so he parked different places each time and came in through the back. Every Monday evening, while Steve was either working late or taking Rachel to her soccer practice. Trouble was, her soccer league ended the week before. I thought I told…my lover that,…I always left the back door open, too, as another signal. I locked it Who knew he’d try to open the window?”
“Are you sure it was him?”
She nodded. “While Steve was in the basement with the kids, thank God, the fool tried the back door. Instead of leaving immediately, he spotted me passing by the office doorway and tried to throw open the window to tell me the back door was locked. Is that stupid or what?”
Pretty darn dumb, all right “But Steve said there were crowbar markings on the—”
“Steve had already found out about him the week before. We had Rachel, Karen, and Nathan with us when the alarm went off. I had to act…I tried to pretend it was a real break-in attempt. Then, after the police had already been called, Steve put two and two together and confronted me. He put those markings on the windowsill himself before the police arrived, just to save face.”
While I tried to assimilate the information, Lauren burst into racking sobs. “I’m getting what I deserve. I’m a terrible mother. I let my own daughter— my own—”
“You have to forgive yourself for that. You’re still her mother and she needs you.”
“Steve was never there for me when I needed him. I felt so neglected. I
just…I wanted to hurt him back. Deep down, I wanted Steve to find out about my affair.”
Truth told, I believe in monogamy, in loyalty to wedding vows. I couldn’t pretend to support or vindicate Lauren, so I offered her tissues, waited until she’d collected herself, and changed the subject.
“Tommy told me your fingerprints were on the medicine bottles in Mrs. Kravett’s house.”
“Huh? She had a heart attack. What difference does it make if—”
I shook my head. “That’s just what’s been reported to the press. The police know that the pills weren’t in the right bottles. Her pills had been switched, essentially giving her a toxic dosage.”
She let this sink in, then said, “Oh.”
“So how did your prints get on those bottles?”
“At the barbecue in July, I went through her medicine cabinet.” She said this matter-of-factly, then looked at me. “Don’t you do that?”
“Of course not. Why would I go through someone’s cabinet?”
“Aren’t you curious to see what type of medications people use?”
“No, not at all.”
She sighed and stared into space, chewing on her lip. “I checked out of the hotel today. We’re back in my house again. I drove Rachel to school this morning. This is all so hard on her. I don’t know what to do.”
She looked at me, her eyes again brimming. “I need your help. I can’t face this alone.”
Chapter 13
Trouble Balancing the Books?
That night, I spoke to a potential customer about an eCard she wanted me to create to advertise her bookkeeping company. The more input a customer gives me into a design, the longer the work takes me, and this woman had been very specific. I spent a couple of hours after the kids were in bed and a couple more the next morning. The caption read: Trouble Balancing the Books? The drawing showed a woman juggling hardbound books, one spinning on her nose. Below the drawing was the customer’s address and phone number.
Afterward, I toyed with the idea of designing a business card for myself: Molly Masters. Owner of Molly’s eCards, Inc. Mother of Two. Meddles in Murders in Her Spare Time.
By 10:00 a.m., my time was reasonably spare. This was an opportunity for me to visit Jack Vance at the school and try to get a look at the computer logs.
The more I’d thought about it, the more he seemed the likeliest candidate for being Lauren’s lover. Steve had groaned when Jack arrived at my house. Lauren had had a major crush on him in high school, till Howie Brown came along. Jack had brightened when I first said she was coming to dinner. It all made sense.
I drove to school and entered the lobby. As I was already aware from my dealings during school registration, Jack’s office was guarded by a barracuda in a dress. This lady could scare off Dracula. She had permanent frown lines etched in her face, and the reading glasses on her nose were probably fake, worn just so she could scowl over them at those who dared to bother her. She sighed audibly when I asked if Jack was in, then snarled, “And you are?”
“Molly Masters. Mother extraordinaire.” I gestured at the closed door behind her. “If you’re too busy to get up, I could knock on the door myself.”
She puckered her lips. For a second I thought she was going to spit on me, but then she punched a button on the intercom and leaned across her desk, keeping her eyes on me the whole time. “There’s a Mrs. Masters here.”
“Send her in.”
Keeping my distance from his bodyguard, I entered. Jack looked genuinely glad to see me as we exchanged pleasantries. Then he asked. “Have you had lunch yet?”
I glanced at my watch in surprise. “It’s barely after ten.”
“Great. I had an appointment cancel on me, so let’s go grab an early lunch.”
Visions of Tuesday’s junket with Denise haunted me. What if he was the Jack, as in Jack’s Inside Straight? “You do mean at a restaurant, don’t you?”
He chuckled as he rounded his desk and took my arm. “So you’ve heard about my little hobby already.”
Hobby? Such as gambling? Here we go again. Another visit to Jack the heterosexual. “I have to be back before noon to meet Nathan’s bus.”
“Don’t worry. I can only take an hour for lunch. We’ll be back by eleven.”
At least that eliminated the possibility of our roaming the countryside for little hideaways. He drove us in his red sports coupe. Within two miles, Jack pulled into the parking lot of an entertainment complex that featured batting cages. “Here we are.”
I glanced at his face in profile. He looked as excited as a little boy. He pulled a pair of tennis shoes from under his seat and kicked off his loafers. His left sock had a small toe hole. “School hours are the only chance I get to come here. You’d be amazed how fast the kids clear out of the place when I’m around. Nobody wants to have their principal near while they’re hangin’ out. The owners specifically asked me not to come after school or weekends.”
We got out of the car. Jack adjusted the band on his ponytail, then pulled an aluminum bat out of his trunk. He went up to the vacant-eyed man at the counter and bought a handful of tokens. He faced me.
“Would you like to take some swings? Here.” He dropped a token into my palm. “Ten pitches per token. I’ve only got the one bat, though.”
In my jeans, pullover, and sneakers, I was dressed appropriately. I chose a light bat from their selection, all of which were too shoddy for anyone to want to steal.
Having lived in Boulder, fitness-freak capital of the world, I’d played on many a softball team. But this ball machine had a perverse tendency to spit out a pitch just as I’d given up on it. It reminded me of the way my husband took photographs. He would say, “Smile” four or five times and wait until my teeth dried out and I blinked to finally click the shutter.
Thinking of my absent husband only made me lose power in my swing. He would be back in his Manila hotel sometime today. I should have called his office to trace down his temporary hotel and tell him about the threats and the murders. What was I doing in some stupid batting cage, waiting on a ball machine with no arm? I should be with my husband. I should have gone to the Philippines. They probably even have Pizza Huts there, which would’ve appeased Nathan and Karen.
When I’d netted the tenth ball, I returned my bat to the counter and went to watch Jack in the fast-pitch cage.
He flashed me a quick grin. “See that last one, Moll? This pitcher’s trying to brush me back. I might have to charge the mound.”
I laughed and watched him clown, pointing a la Babe Ruth at where he was going to send the ball, playing announcer of the unseen game that always had him stepping up to bat at the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded. My, did he miss his boyhood fans.
My thoughts tumbled between new questions and old memories.
When at last he had finished, he buttoned his shirt and replaced his tie. His face was red and damp, his breaths hard. “God, that was fun,” he said, beaming. He shot a glance at me as if he expected me to launch into some “Rah rah ree, Kick ‘em in the knee.” If so, he had the wrong girl. That was Stephanie’s territory, then and now.
All those homecoming parade floats Jack and Stephanie had reigned on. When the cheers faded, so did their relationship. Lauren had informed me in a letter a long time ago that Stephanie dumped Jack their sophomore year in college, when he failed to make first string for the second time. Jack’s athletic prowess in high school had apparently been largely due to his lack of competition among the small upstate schools.
“Can I buy you lunch?” Jack asked.
“No thanks. My stomach doesn’t wake up till after noon.”
Jack bought himself two hot dogs, nachos, and a cola.
We sat at a pea green, circular fiberglass picnic table cemented to the porch. As if anyone would actually want to steal it.
We chatted idly about our careers while he wolfed down his food. At the first opportunity, I asked, “Have you kept up with Lauren much over the past few years
?”
“Not really. I heard about her arrest. Hard to imagine why she’d do it.”
“There was a rumor she had another man in her life.”
“Hmm.” He grinned. “That’s interesting. I wish I’d have known she was available. She was a four-star in my little black book in high school. If only Howie hadn’t moved on her first, I might have had another notch on my belt. If you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did, and it made me tighten my fists under the table. “Tommy said you were dating some young woman at the barbecue last July at Mrs. Kravett’s house.”
“Jane is not all that young. Mid-twenties. Anyway, that’s over. Dropped me like a hot potato soon as she got her boyfriend suitably jealous.”
“Least you got another notch on your belt.”
He grinned, and I tried not to stare at a piece of hot dog stuck on his front tooth. He patted his rounded stomach. “Lately I’ve got to keep letting out my belts.” He stared off into space. “I was the star of every sport in high school. Remember?”
I nodded, but he still had a faraway look in his eye. He was seeing remembered fans and victories, not me.
“You have no idea what it’s like, Molly. To reach the apex of your life when you’re only eighteen. What did Mrs. Kravett predict for me?”
“How did you know about that?”
“The detectives told me when they interviewed me about Mrs. Kravett and Steve Wilkins. So what did she say?”
I remembered well. Insurance salesman. After the job description, Mrs. Kravett had written, “Jack Vance strikes me as a classic case of an ego that knows no bounds in a boy yet to face any hardships. When the real world intrudes on his image, he’ll collapse.”
He read my face. “Don’t answer that. Phoebe always hated me.”
“That’s what I always thought she felt about me. Did you hear about her decision to put me in charge of the scholarship program?”
He ignored my question. “But in my case it’s true. She lobbied like hell to block me from getting the position as principal. She may have wasted plenty of breath claiming it was nothing personal, that there were more qualified teachers at Carlton than I, but it was obvious from the get-go. She resented my success. She wanted the position herself.”
Death Comes eCalling Page 13
