The Codebook Murders

by Leslie Nagel

“ ‘Text’? ‘Uniform’?” A suspicion began to grow in Charley’s mind.

  “My turn,” Vanessa announced. “The one hundred twelfth word on page twenty-five. That’s, um…” Her eyes widened. “The word is ‘cafeteria.’ What on earth? That has to be a mistake. Lawrence, check it again.”

  Charley sat forward. “I don’t think it’s a mistake. Don’t you see? ‘Text’ could be short for textbooks. ‘Uniform’ is, well, uniforms, and ‘cafeteria’? What do those three words have in common?” She answered her own question. “They’re expense items for a school district.”

  “Someone was ripping off the schools?” Marc asked.

  “It sure looks like it.” Charley stood and began pacing as she worked through the possibilities. “Regan had keys to the school offices as well as the student lockers. If she snooped in one area, she wouldn’t have hesitated to snoop in another. Plus, Merritt said he’d caught her coming out of the main office at night. I’m guessing Regan found a budget or an expense report, and something about it raised her suspicions. She did a little more digging, and…” She frowned as she paced. “Not a student this time,” she decided. “Not a janitor or a teacher. The principal, maybe, or the superintendent. Who holds the purse strings for a school district?”

  “A treasurer?” Heddy ventured. “An accountant?”

  Vanessa held up a hand, as if all this talk of school had transported her back to the classroom. “School districts do have treasurers, but that person is typically chosen from among the members of the school board.”

  “The school board?” Charley whirled to face the group. “Kendall told me her father was on the Oakwood School Board. What if Sawyer Magellan was involved in some sort of financial hanky-panky, and Regan found out about it?”

  “From what we’ve seen,” Heddy offered, “Regan would definitely have used that information in some way.”

  “And I think I can guess how.” Charley’s pulse raced as she pursued this new theory. “Kendall’s mother, Pansy, told her daughter that the Fletchers had done something that stopped Sawyer’s senate run in its tracks. Kendall figured it was an illicit affair or something equally embarrassing. But what if this was the something? Kendall also assumed that when Pansy said the Fletchers, she meant Douglas and Doris. They’re the ones who had the big rivalry going. But what if it wasn’t them? What if it was Regan?”

  Silence, broken at last by Marc. “Regan found out Sawyer had been embezzling from the schools. She threatened to reveal the truth unless he dropped out of the race.”

  “But for what reason?” Heddy turned from Marc to Charley. “Why would a high school girl care if Sawyer Magellan ran for political office?”

  Charley resumed pacing. “Maybe she didn’t, not really. But I can think of something Regan did care about. Perhaps she went to Sawyer and told him she had proof of his financial double dealings. When he asked her price for keeping quiet, she told him she and Carter were still together, and to back the hell off, or else. She could have thrown the senate thing in there as payback for all the grief he’d caused her family. That feud went both ways.”

  Heddy said sadly, “That poor, mixed-up girl.”

  “Now imagine if you were Sawyer,” Marc put in. “Even if you agreed to those terms, you could never be sure Regan wouldn’t still blab at some future point. You would always be under her thumb. For someone like Sawyer Magellan, that would be worth killing over. Especially coming from the daughter of his hated rival.”

  Vanessa hummed thoughtfully. “I wonder how tall Sawyer is.”

  Before anyone could reply, the front door flew open and Katie burst in. She was a mess. Her clothes were soaked and filthy, her purple tresses bedraggled and plastered to her pale cheeks, her eyes wild with fear.

  Charley crossed the room in two swift strides. She laid her hands on the girl’s shoulders and felt their violent trembling. “Katie? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  Katie stared at her. “It’s PJ. He’s missing!”

  Chapter 19

  Charley led Katie to the sofa next to Afiya. She sat on the girl’s other side and put an arm around her. “Can you tell us what happened?”

  Katie took a deep breath and seemed to collect herself. “I—I went to PJ’s house. His bike is up on the front porch like always, so he definitely went home after we left the school. I knocked and rang, but there was no answer. The door was unlocked and…I went inside.” She turned a tragic face to Marc. “I’m sorry, Detec—Mr. Trenault, but his family’s out of town, and I was so worried.”

  “It’s okay,” Marc assured her. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Katie sniffled. “Anyway, he wasn’t there. His laptop was out and open, like he’d been working on it. I waited around for ages. Finally I went back outside, and I thought, Hey, maybe he’s walking to Charley’s house. I’ll call him again. So I called, and I…” Her voice rose to a wail. “I heard his cellphone! Charley, it was on the ground, kind of hidden in the flowers around the lamppost at the end of his driveway. It was just lying there. Somebody attacked him, and he dropped it!” She held out the cellphone with shaking fingers, and Marc took it.

  Charley smoothed Katie’s hair. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Kids drop stuff all the time.”

  Katie shook her head vehemently. “Not PJ. You saw how he wears that thing clipped in a holder on his belt? It’s, like, his most prized possession. And why would he come home and then leave again without his bike? He never walks anywhere, especially in this heat.” She wrung her hands. “When he was a no-show at the library, I texted him to meet me here. Just before I left to get the dictionaries, he finally texted back. He said he was on his way, that he’d finished decoding the first half of the journal and he found something he wants us to see. But that was ages ago.”

  “It was shortly after two-thirty,” Lawrence murmured. “If that’s important.”

  “Do you know the pass code for this phone?” Marc asked. When Katie shook her head, he frowned. “There are two possibilities. It’s unlikely someone would try to grab a large, strong teen in broad daylight on an open sidewalk. If we assume PJ was taken, he probably left in a vehicle. Either he was holding the phone when he was forced into a car or van and it slipped from his hand, or he dropped it in the flowers on purpose because he was leaving against his will.”

  Behind Katie, Afiya cast a troubled glance at Charley, but her voice was gentle as she asked, “Would your friend approach a strange car, child?”

  Katie shrugged, the picture of bewildered misery.

  “What if someone called him, someone he trusted?” Charley stood. She couldn’t keep still, so she began pacing yet again. “PJ calls Katie and tells her he’s on his way here. He comes outside, but before he can get on his bike, this person calls, or maybe they just show up. He approaches a vehicle he recognizes—” She remembered Merritt’s departure from the school. “Like a school SUV? One of those, with the logo on the door, would engender trust. He walks down his driveway, but when he sees who’s at the wheel, something makes him suspicious. So he…what? Drops his phone but still gets in the van? Why would he do that?”

  “What if the driver had a gun?” Vanessa asked. Katie gasped, and Afiya wrapped her arm around the sobbing girl.

  Heddy pressed a hand to her heart. “This is terrible. Why would someone kidnap PJ?”

  “The most likely possibility?” Charley frowned. “They think he’s got the key to the journal.”

  “And when the grabber realizes he doesn’t?” As Lawrence asked the question, Marc opened his mouth to speak. A glance at Katie kept him silent.

  Charley felt the heavy weight of responsibility pressing down on her like a physical burden. She paced, faster and faster, eyes fixed on the floor, as if the familiar patterned carpet held the secrets of the universe. This was her fault, no one else’s. PJ was investigating Regan Fletcher’s murder on
her behalf. She had encouraged him, had given him access to the journal, had asked him to keep working, even after her house had been broken into, even after she knew someone was actively seeking to head off their efforts by any means necessary. If something happened to that sweet, smart, funny boy, she would never forgive herself.

  Everyone remained quiet, watching her pace. At last she stopped, meeting their gazes one by one. She found no accusation there, but that didn’t make her feel any less responsible.

  “His parents are out of town.” Charley took a deep breath. “The police won’t file a missing person’s report for twenty-four hours. No one will be looking for him unless we do.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Vanessa shot to her feet and took a step toward the door.

  Marc stood as well. “Hold on. We all appreciate that time is critical, but we can’t just run around town without a plan.” He took out his cellphone and made a call. “Paul? It’s unofficial, but we may have a teenager in trouble.” In a few terse words, he outlined the situation, then clicked off. “Every squad and bike patrol will be looking for PJ or a school van—unofficially, but that’s one of the great things about Oakwood. We’re small enough to skip some of the red tape.”

  Charley forced a small smile. “That’s amazing, but I think we should look, too.”

  Marc answered her smile with a frown. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “I’m not asking permission,” she said evenly. When his frown deepened, she took his hand. “There’s hours of daylight left. Marc, I cannot stay here and do nothing. PJ’s involvement in all this? It’s because of me. If anything happens, it’s my fault.”

  Their eyes met. In that cobalt gaze Charley saw worry and love, but once again, she also found trust. After a beat, he nodded and squeezed her fingers. “All right, but we do this together. Like glue, remember?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Katie pocketed her phone and stood. “I just texted all the Irregulars. Everyone’s going to join in the search and bring whoever they can to help. We’re all meeting behind the library.”

  Dismayed, Charley held up both hands. “No way. I cannot sanction putting any more kids at risk!”

  Katie lifted her chin. “I’m not asking permission, either.” Charley’s heart squeezed. This girl, with her spiky hair and defiant attitude, reminded her so much of herself. “We know the drill,” Katie continued. “We’ll stay together, no going off alone.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.” She flung her arms around Charley. “I have to do this,” she whispered. “I care about him so much. I need to tell him that.” With a final vow to keep in touch if the Irregulars learned anything, Katie headed out the door.

  Vanessa folded her arms. “So, everyone’s searching except for us? I don’t think so.”

  “Neither do I.” Charley managed another smile. “But Marc’s correct. We need a plan. If we can figure out who, maybe we can figure out where PJ’s being held.” She resumed pacing again. “Yesterday when my house was broken into, summer school had been canceled due to the power outage. All of our suspects had the day off, so no one’s eliminated there. Today, our last contact with PJ was his text to Katie at two-thirty. That means he was taken at some point after that.”

  Everyone automatically checked watches and cellphones. “It’s almost five,” Afiya said, her voice reflecting the strain they all felt.

  “Right. That means we’ve got no time to lose.” Charley made her words brisk and efficient in an effort to mask her own fear. She caught Marc’s eye again and knew that he, at least, wasn’t fooled for a moment. He gave a brief nod of encouragement. She rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath.

  “Right,” she said again. “First possibility. Harding is the killer. He hears PJ bragging in biology lab and realizes that, after forty years, he’s in danger of being discovered. We know Berkeley called him around this same time, no doubt ratcheting up the pressure. After our little mouse-capade and the discovery of the memorial box, Harding goes into full-blown panic mode. He decides he needs to act. We left his house shortly after two, giving him time to call or drive to the Konduru home, grab PJ, and stash him someplace. Then Harding returns Berkeley’s phone call and lures the reporter to his death.”

  “Harding is a teacher; PJ would instinctively trust such an authority figure,” Heddy commented. “Can teachers use those school SUVs?”

  “They certainly can,” Marc said. “The district doesn’t have buses, so those vans are used to transport teams or small groups to school events. I’d imagine keys are kept in one of the offices, where any staffer might have access to them.”

  Lawrence had returned to the whiteboard and was scribbling rapidly. “PJ texted at two-thirty; Dye was killed about three o’clock. The timing works, but Harding would have been running like a turkey on the day before Thanksgiving.”

  “Actually, same goes for all our suspects,” Charley decided. “Whoever the culprit is, they executed a kidnapping and a murder within a thirty-minute time window.”

  “The child has to be somewhere.” Afiya studied the whiteboard. “Where would Harding Knox put a kidnap victim?”

  “His house? The basement was nice and creepy,” Vanessa suggested. Lawrence wrote it down.

  “Moving on. Merritt Vance had free rein to wander that school today,” Charley continued. “My visit put him on high alert. What if he followed us? He could have overheard PJ talking in the halls; those kids weren’t exactly being quiet. Shortly after that, I saw Merritt driving off in a big hurry. Seeing a janitor in his driveway would’ve seemed much odder to PJ than finding a teacher waiting, but,” she emphasized, “Merritt was driving a school SUV.”

  Heddy harrumphed. “That is what I call suspicious behavior. Where was he going in the middle of a workday? That awful man is my pick for the killer.”

  “Vance could stash a hundred PJs in that school, or even in one of the two elementary buildings,” Marc mused.

  “What about Sawyer Magellan?” Afiya asked. “I know he is elderly, but Charley did see him walking with great purpose earlier today. Perhaps his daughter Kendall told him about all that is going on.”

  Vanessa said, “Don’t write off the senior generation. For all we know, Sawyer’s a social media junkie. He could’ve seen the Instagram posts. If Regan told him back in the day that she had written proof of the embezzlement scheme, he’d have no choice but to believe her. For forty years, he’s wondered where that proof was. When her journal surfaced, maybe he thought the proof had, too. Didn’t Kendall say he still drives?”

  “How would he get a school van?” Lawrence protested.

  “That’s speculation,” Vanessa countered. “We don’t know the kidnapper used one.”

  “One more suspect,” Charley murmured. “I suppose Kendall could have been blowing smoke up my skirt. All that hand-wringing about Carter? All that stuff about hiring me to clear her brother’s name? It could have been a lie. And once school let out today, she was free to go and do whatever she liked, including coaxing PJ into a school van, or even her personal vehicle. Berkeley called Harding. He might have called Kendall as well.”

  “Like the others, she had opportunity,” Marc agreed. “But we still don’t have a motive for Kendall. Without that, it’s tough to see her as the killer.”

  “She’s protecting Carter,” Heddy suggested.

  Vanessa shook her head. “Carter’s too tall, remember?”

  “Enough of this.” Afiya rose to her full height, dashiki swirling around her ankles. “We cannot know the truth of it until we find this boy. It is time to act.”

  “We should split up. Heddy and I will take Harding’s house.” Vanessa cracked her knuckles. “I hope he tries to stop us.”

  “Lawrence and I will remain here with Bobby,” Afiya said, “in case any of the children c
all or return and need help.”

  Charley nodded. “That leaves Merritt Vance and the Magellans for us.” She turned to Marc and braced herself for an argument. “I know we said we were sticking together, but it makes more sense for us to—”

  “I know. Just like I know when I’d be wasting my breath.” Marc cupped Charley’s cheek. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “I will be in my very fast new car,” she reasoned. “I’ll be perfectly safe. Also…” She stepped into the kitchen and fished her cellphone out of its dish of rice. “It’s been almost three days. Think I can risk it?” She pushed a button and nothing happened. “Duh, the battery’s dead. I’ll plug it into the car charger. We can keep in touch now. It’s not glue, but it’s better than nothing. Twenty-first century, how I’ve missed you.”

  As Charley turned to leave, she froze. The double doors to the dining room had been pushed open, and her father sat framed in the doorway. She noted with alarm that his face was flushed. The stress of the break-in, his fear for her safety—none of it was good for his health. Something else that was her fault, she thought with a pang.

  She knelt and took his crippled right hand in hers, noting how thin and frail his arm was, the skin paper-thin and mottled with age.

  “Daddy? Will you be okay? I’ll stay here if you want.”

  Bobby smiled his lopsided smile, and her heart nearly broke. “You’ll stay for me but not for Marc? Glad to know where your priorities lie.” He laid his good hand over hers. “What I want is for you to find that boy and solve this case. End this. Then we can all sleep safe in our beds. Do that for your old man?”

  “I will do my best.” She kissed his cheek and rose. “Keep him safe, Lawrence. Whoever we’re dealing with, he’s desperate. Once he realizes PJ doesn’t have what he’s searching for, he might come back here and try to break in again.”

  Lawrence folded his arms. He seemed to expand, filling the room with immovable strength. “Nobody is getting near the Coach. That is a promise.”