Alibi High (A Moose River Mystery Book 3)

by Jeff Shelby

  And, just like that, the light bulb went on.

  “That's it,” I said, squeezing Grace so hard she yelped.

  “What's it?” Sophie asked.

  “A talent show,” I said. I laughed. “We can do a talent show at Prism!”

  Emily walked back into the room with a bag of barbecue potato chips. It constantly amazed me that she ate like a horse and didn't gain an ounce of weight. “What?”

  “The fundraiser,” I said to her. “For the computers. We can do a talent show!”

  Her face screwed up with confusion. “What are you even talking about?”

  “Mrs. Bingledorf put me in charge of creating a fundraiser to raise money for new computers,” I explained.

  Will snickered. “That name. So lame. Are you sure it isn't Bingledork?”

  Emily ignored her brother's comment and stared at me for a long moment, a look of disbelief on her face. “Great. So you're going to be spending even more time at my school?”

  “It's not your school,” Grace pointed out. “You don't own it.”

  Emily glared at her.

  “We can put on a talent show,” I said, the idea taking hold. “Students and their families.”

  “That sounds lame,” Emily said, munching on a chip. “No one will go.”

  “Everyone will go,” Will told me. “She's just saying that. If you charged like five bucks, everyone would come see people do stupid stuff.”

  “And some good stuff,” Sophie added. She beamed at me and her expression made me feel like I really had come up with the best idea ever. “Like, people could play instruments and sing and stuff if they can really do those things.” .”

  I just nodded, listening to them as they shouted out their thoughts and ideas. They were all right. Low admission charge. No overhead because we could use the auditorium to hold it. We could advertise it at school and in the community. And we could take donations at the door. It was a far better idea than anything else I'd come up with.

  “Why do you have to be the one to come up with money for the computers?” Emily asked. Her fingers were coated with barbecue residue and she brushed them on her pants. “Shouldn't that be, like, someone who works at school?”

  “You'd think,” I said. “But I have no clue. Your principal president asked me. And now I think I can actually do it.”

  “Yeah, and you should make families participate,” Sophie said. “That way they'd come.”

  “Oh, like a requirement?” I nodded. “That's a very good idea.”

  “You and Em should do something!” Grace yelled. “Like synchronized swimming!” We'd just watched a documentary about summer Olympic sports and she'd been fascinated by the girls who swam in tandem.

  Em's hand, loaded with a new potato chip, stopped halfway to her mouth.

  “Oh yeah,” Will said, grinning. “Emily should totally have to be in it if you're in charge.”

  “You guys could do something together,” Sophie said, looking at Em, then me.

  “No,” Emily said, putting the chip back in the bag as if she'd suddenly discovered she was eating barbecue-coated spiders. “Absolutely not.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, smiling at her. “It will be fun.”

  “You could lip synch,” Grace said, jumping off my lap. “I could help pick the song.” She broke into an off-key rendition of Shake It Off .

  “Yeah, like a duet,” Will said, giggling. His voice had started to change, the deepness surprising me, but his laugh sometimes still sounded like a little boy 's .

  “Shut up,” Emily said. “Just shut up.”

  “Yeah, you could each sing different parts,” Sophie chimed in.

  Grace was still singing, holding up an imaginary microphone.

  Emily tossed the bag of chips on the table. “No. This is stupid.”

  “It's to help your school,” Will said. “Why wouldn't you help? I thought you loooooved your school.”

  “I'll take tickets or something,” she muttered. “But I'm not getting on stage with Mom!”

  “That's mean,” Grace said. She stopped dancing and threw her arms around my neck. “I'd get on stage and swim with you.”

  “Thank you, honey,” I said, not bothering to point out the logistical issues with her suggestion, or the fact that I wouldn't be caught dead in a swimsuit in front of the entire school. “But this time it'll just be me and Emily.”

  Emily's eyes lit like tiny bonfires. “I'm not doing it.”

  “You're going to have to,” I said, still smiling. “If I'm in charge, I get to be the boss. And I say we're going to do something.”

  The younger three cheered.

  Emily stomped to her room and slammed her door.

  It was so good to be home.

  THIRTEEN

  “I think I have the perfect idea,” I said.

  Evelyn Bingledorf, looking fresh and sharp in a kelly green blazer and white blouse, smiled at me from behind her desk. “Let's hear it then.”

  Actually, I wasn't sure it was the perfect idea. I knew it was certainly better than any of the other half-hearted ideas I'd come up with until the kids had planted the seed in my brain. I'd spent the better part of the evening bouncing the idea off Jake, who seemed mainly concerned with the idea that my spending more time at Prism might mean more encounters with Derek. When I'd explained that it was going to happen quickly and would also satisfy all of our volunteer hours for the coming years, he warmed to the idea and told me he thought it was good.

  So I'd made lots of mental notes in my head, slept restlessly and was out the door early to get to school to share my plan with Mrs. Bingledorf.

  “A talent show,” I announced.

  Bingledorf's expression didn't change. “A talent show,” she repeated.

  I nodded. “Yes. Put on by the staff, the families and the students of Prism.”

  She lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing, thinking. “Hmmm.”

  “There are a few things that make it appealing as a fundraiser,” I explained. “Low overhead. We could use the school's auditorium to host it, we can get volunteers to take tickets and we'd need volunteers to perform. All of those things would be of zero cost to the school.”

  “I like that,” she murmured.

  “The only real cost that I can see is advertising,” I said. “But we can do it cheaply. We can advertise on the school website and Facebook page and we can print and copy some flyers and put them up around Moose River. We wouldn't need more than fifty, I'd think. If we could use the copiers here to do that, we still haven't spent a penny.”

  “That makes sense,” she said, leaning back in her chair. She folded her arms across her ample chest.

  “The only real place we'd need to spend money is for prizes.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Prizes?”

  I nodded. “There has to be some incentive for people to perform. Yes, we'd like them all just to do it out of the goodness of their hearts to benefit the school, but let's be honest. We're more likely to get participants if we offer prizes. And I think cash works best.”

  “People do love money,” she said.

  “So let's say we award the top three places. And, again, we could use volunteers as judges. But let's say we award first, second and third places. I think a hundred dollars to the winner would be fair and throw in fifty for second place and twenty-five for third.”

  She uncrossed her arms and tented her fingers. “Interesting.”

  “So that would be a total of a hundred and seventy-five dollars,” I said, then realizing I sounded dumb because I figured she could do the math. “We could offer less, but I think seeing that hundred dollar figure would be a good incentive to get people to sign up.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, I agree with that.”

  It seemed as if she'd agreed with everything I'd thrown at her. But I still didn't feel like she'd given me a yes.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  She tapped her fingers together, still in their ten
t formation. “I think it sounds like a lot of work.”

  “Do you?”

  She nodded. “You'd need to reserve the auditorium. You'd need to find a host, someone who could be the emcee. You'd need to find the performers. The volunteers for the door. And then some folks to help you get the word out in town.” She paused. “That sounds like an awful lot to do if we're working with a short time frame.”

  “Wouldn't we be working with a short time frame no matter what we decided on?” I countered. “You said you wanted it done quickly.”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “But this seems like a bit much.”

  I wasn't about to be deterred, not when she'd essentially forced me into coming up with something. “I'm not really sure how different it is from anything else we might try,” I said. “Signing people up is going to be the largest chore – and that would've been the same with anything we came up with.”

  She tapped her fingers together again, thinking.

  “How much would we charge for admission?” she finally asked.

  “We can do whatever you'd like,” I said. “But my thought is five dollars for adults, a dollar for students and kids. And I also thought we could have a donation jar at the admission table. I'd think that might encourage people to give more. And we could actually take the prize money from the admission fees, so then it would be at zero cost to Prism.”

  She nodded, but I could see she was thinking again, lifting her chin up and considering things.

  I waited.

  “If we brought in every parent belonging to Spectrum, that's over a thousand adults,” she finally said. “That would bring us five thousand dollars.”

  “And they would bring kids, too,” I said. “And probably other family members – grandparents and aunts and uncles. I can't think of anything else that might net us that kind of money that quickly.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “I do agree. Even with fewer than that number of people, it would seem to offer the most potential to bring in the dollars.”

  “And it won't cover the cost of all of the computers,” I said. “But it would certainly buy some. At the very least, it would help get the ball rolling.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And you think you can get people to sign up? To perform?”

  I hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “What about an emcee?”

  “Uh, my husband already volunteered,” I said, making a note to tell him when I got home that he was going to be emceeing the talent show.

  She studied me for a moment, then went back to tapping her fingers.

  I waited again.

  “How long do you believe it will take you to organize this?” she asked.

  That was the million dollar question, the one that had kept me up during the night. I really wasn't sure. In a perfect world, I would've liked several months. But I knew we didn't have that kind of time, and I knew that she didn't want to wait that long.

  “Three weeks,” I said, giving her the answer I'd settled on when the sun came up. “Longer would be better, but I know you'd like to do this as soon as possible. So I think three weeks is doable. I can start on sign-ups and publicity right away as soon as we choose a date.”

  She peered at me over her fingers. I wasn't sure what she was thinking. She was hard to read and I considered myself decent at reading people.

  “How would you feel about...two weeks?” she finally asked.

  My eyes widened in surprise. And horror. “Two weeks?”

  She nodded. “I think that three weeks opens the window up a little too long. People will already start forgetting about the theft and they'll be less inclined to help. I think two weeks is a better window.” She paused. “But only if you think you can accomplish it within that time.”

  I swallowed hard. Two weeks wasn't enough time. Not if I wanted to sleep and eat and see my kids.

  But I also felt like she was challenging me. It was almost as if she thought I wouldn't be able to do it and wanted me to say no. Then, when people asked why we weren't doing anything about the computers, she could say, “Well, we wanted to but Daisy Savage decided it was going to be too much work.”

  That might've been an over-dramatization, but that's what went through my head.

  Two weeks.

  It wasn't enough time. I immediately formed a list of all the reasons why I wouldn't be able to pull the whole thing together. I needed to tell her no, that it needed to be three or we couldn't do it. There was no way any reasonable person would say it could be done in two weeks.

  But I hesitated. “Yes,” I finally said, swallowing again. “We can do it in two weeks.”

  So much for reason.

  FOURTEEN

  Charlotte Nordhoff smiled at me. “What else can I get you?”

  After my conversation with Mrs. Bingledorf, we'd both agreed that I needed a more permanent place to set up shop than the conference room. She led me down the hall to the counseling office, where Charlotte was the only one in an office suited for two. They set me up at the empty desk and Bingledorf left, smiling, but not before she told me she'd arrange for the use of the auditorium on our agreed upon date.

  Charlotte found several blank notebooks for me – there was no extra laptop for me to use – and showed me how to use the school's elaborate phone system. She set a jar full of pens and pencils on the desk next to the phone and looked around, trying to figure out what else she could give me.

  “For now, I think this is probably all I need,” I told her. “I really hope this isn't an inconvenience for you, having me here.”

  She waved a hand in the air and circled back to her desk. “Oh my gosh, no. This room usually feels cavernous with just me in it. It'll be nice to have company, even if it's only temporary.”

  “Well, I appreciate you letting me barge in on you,” I said, sitting down in the upholstered chair behind my new desk. “I just hope I haven't gotten in over my head.”

  “Most folks who work in a school are in over their heads,” she said, sitting back down. “But they don't tell you that during the interview.”

  I laughed. “Might make hiring a little difficult.”

  “Most likely,” she said, smiling in agreement. She looked at me over her computer monitor. “So. A talent show? That sounds like it could be fun.”

  “If I can pull it off.”

  “I don't think Evelyn would've brought you down here and set you up if she didn't think you could do it,” she said. “So you must've impressed her somehow.”

  “Or she's just desperate enough to throw someone to the wolves in the hope that I can round up a little money for the computers,” I said.

  Charlotte laughed. “I guess that's possible, but I doubt it. How much do you think you can raise?”

  “I'm really not sure,” I admitted. “If we could get several hundred people in the building, I think that would be a success. I'd take it.”

  “That would be a good start,” she said. A thick gold bracelet encircled her wrist and she twisted it absent ly -minde dly . “They have to figure something out, though. We need those computers. The kids need those computers.”

  The pressure was beginning to feel like two fat elephants sitting on my shoulders.

  “Have you heard anything?” I asked, glancing at the door. “Do they have any idea who might've taken them? Or how they got in?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head, her earrings swinging back and forth. “No, I really haven't heard anything. I'm not even sure what kind of investigation is going on.” She paused. “I'd think it might get uncomfortable for a few folks, though.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my curiosity sparked.

  She stared at her computer screen, but her fingers weren't clicking on the keyboard. “Well, I just...I'd think the police would need to ask a lot of questions. And that might make some people a little uncomfortable.”

  “You mean, just talking about the theft?” I asked. “Because the school was broken into?”

  Sh
e pressed her lips together and glanced up, as if she was debating what she wanted to say. “That could be part of it, I guess. But some people might have a tough time answering some of the questions. It just might be...I'm not sure what the word is.”

  “I'm not sure I understand,” I said. “Why would it be tough to answer questions? The police want to help, right?” I'd had my fair share of run-ins with – and questioning by – the Moose River police department and, although uncomfortable, they had seemed mostly competent while doing their job.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, quickly. “And to do that, they'll have to be thorough. Which means talking to a lot people here at Prism. And that's where it might get sticky.”

  “Sticky?”

  She started to say something, then stood and walked around the desk. She closed the door to the office then walked back to her desk . She sat on the edge of it and faced me. She fiddled with her bracelet and took a deep breath, as if mustering the courage to speak.

  “Okay,” she said. “Here's the deal. Totally off the record and between me and you. Okay?”

  I tried not to look too confused. “Um, okay. Sure.”

  “We have some weird rules around here,” she explained. “They don't always make perfect sense, but you can kind of understand where they're coming from. I might not always agree with them, but I can sometimes understand the reasoning. If that makes sense.”

  I nodded, even though it sounded like she was talking in circles. “It does.”

  She glanced at the door before speaking again. “So one of the rules is that the building is closed on the weekends. No admittance. They do this for a couple of reasons. One is that the alarm system has been spotty in the past and even when we were allowed in the building on weekends, the code sometimes didn't disarm the system and it would be a huge mess.”

  While that would seem like something you'd want to get fixed, I understood the principle of the idea. Having your alarm system go off while a teacher was trying to grade papers or something on a Saturday was probably a bit of a problem. You didn't want police officers showing up, guns drawn, and all you were trying to do was correct an essay.