I nudged the door open with my hip. Carol hurried over and took the basketball and hockey stick.
“I have to leave in a few minutes,” she said.
“Thanks for coming over,” I said as we walked across the gym. More volunteers had shown up, and things looked almost back to normal. The balls had been organized by type, and the baseball gloves were neatly stacked by size, position, and left or right hand.
“You look better,” Carol said, studying me.
“The shower helped. Thanks.”
After we finished setting up the silent auction, Carol gave me a gentle hug and left. Donations had poured in. Everything from a party at the hockey rink to weekends at lakeside and ocean-side houses to tickets to sporting events was available. One volunteer had set up a table with coffee, tea, and water. By eight-fifteen there was a line waiting outside the doors, and people surged in when the doors opened at eight-thirty.
I spent most of the morning over by the silent auction. The whole thing would be over by eleven-thirty, when I announced the winners. Some of the school board members hadn’t thought a silent auction and a swap meet were a good blend. But the next chance to do an auction was in the fall, after school started, so they had agreed to give it a try now.
Judging from the number of people lingering around the tables and the way the bids were jumping up, it seemed to be going great. By eleven-twenty only the roughest-looking things were left stranded on the tables. The downside to this event was all the noise echoing around the gym. Excited kids squealing, parents reprimanding, neighbors calling out to each other all turned into a cacophony of noise that pressed in on my weary head.
People were still one upping each other at the silent auction tables. I worried about two men who hovered over the Brady jersey. As soon as one bid, the other immediately upped it. They stood side by side, pens in stiff hands, their posture more suited to a couple of boxers waiting to go a round than to participants in a school fund-raiser. I hoped a fight wasn’t going to break out. As time ticked down to eleven-thirty, people noticed what was going on between the two men. Some started taking out their phones and staring at them. Ready to capture any action and post it on social media. Not what I wanted to have happen. A low murmur spread through the gym. Only the two men by the Brady jersey ignored the goings-on.
Chapter 4
The alarm on my phone went off just then. I called out in a loud voice, “The silent auction ends in one minute.” People rushed the tables. The two men tried to elbow each other out of the way. One grabbed the other’s shirt. I stared, horrified, as both pulled their fists back, but I wasn’t about to get between them. Fortunately, someone else did. Ryne flipping O’Rourke.
“Gentlemen, I think we can resolve this without resorting to fisticuffs in front of the wee ones,” Ryne said, gesturing to all the kids in the room, most of whom stared at the scene.
I shook my head at his Irish brogue. Half the time it sounded put on to me.
“How do you figure?” the bigger of the two men growled.
“Let me show you.” Ryne stepped between the two men and placed a bid. He wrote with a flourish and grinned at me just as I yelled, “Time.”
They both looked at him, jaws dropped. I took a step back, not wanting to be collateral damage when they started beating on Ryne. But instead of beating him, they both broke into laughter. One man slapped Ryne on the back.
“Well played,” he said.
“How about I buy you two gents lunch and a drink at Gillganins?” Ryne said to them.
Gillganins was an Irish Pub near Fitch Air Force Base. The men nodded, and all three left without a backward glance. I stared at their backs in astonishment.
* * *
Most people cleared out rapidly. The auction winners smiled as they paid, claimed their winnings, and carted them off. A crash made me jerk around. Someone had knocked over the coffee urn. Brown liquid spread across the floor. I hustled over to the woman.
“Everyone okay? No one got burned?”
“We’re fine. Let me clean it up.” Her son was crying, and her daughter pouted.
“It’s okay. I’ve got it.” I hurried to the equipment room to grab the stack of towels I’d spotted last night. I fished out my key, unlocked the door, yanked it open, flipped on the light, and stopped, staring in horror.
Melba Harper sat there with a vintage ski pole through her heart. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. There were still kids in the gym. I didn’t want anyone out there to be frightened or to run over in response to a reaction from me. I stepped in and pulled the door closed behind me, making a little whimpering noise.
“Melba?” I asked, not expecting an answer. I quickly checked for a pulse, thinking I’d done this way too often recently. Her eyes were closed, as if she had just slipped in here to take a short nap. I felt nothing but cool skin. Keep calm.
I grabbed a grubby towel off a hook by the door before I stepped into the gym and closed the door. A few kids were shooting baskets as their parents laughed in a corner. I hurried over to the spilled coffee, dropped the towel, and stepped on it to encourage it to soak up the coffee. I hoped everything I was doing looked normal, because my mind was spinning in some kind of awful loop.
Melba, the school superintendent, is dead. Keep calm. Get everyone out of the gym. Call for help. I clapped my hands together as loudly as possible and felt a reverberation through my aching body. “Listen up. I need you to clear out of the gym so we can finish cleaning. Thanks so much for coming today.”
There must have been something in my voice, because parents herded protesting children out. One woman threw a nasty look in my direction, but oh, well. Stella hurried across the gym, toward me, as I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my dress. She arrived next to me in time to hear my conversation with the 911 dispatcher. Her dark green eyes widened as she listened to me, and she darted glances toward the equipment room, as if a bogeyman might run out any minute.
I’d barely finished telling the dispatcher what had happened when Officer Awesome, Stella’s boyfriend, ran through the door. He dashed over to us.
“You two all right?” he asked. His last name was actually Bossum, but I’d misunderstood him the night we met, and the nickname had stuck.
We nodded, even though I wasn’t sure how all right I was. I took him over to the equipment room.
“She’s in there,” I said.
“Okay. Stay back. Stay over in the corner.” He pointed in the general direction of Stella. Other officers were piling in, along with some EMTs.
I trotted back over to Stella’s side.
“What happened?” she asked.
“She’s in the closet, and she’s dead.” I took a shaky breath. At least I didn’t blurt out the details. I didn’t want to think about the details. “Did you know her?”
“She was my math teacher my senior year. It was her first year of teaching.” Stella looked so shaken, I led her to a folding chair.
Melba had been the one who called and asked if I’d run the equipment swap. She’d been my champion with the board when a couple of board members didn’t think I was the person for the job. Melba stuck up for me because the last person had quit promoting the swap and fewer people were participating.
“Was she a good teacher?” I asked.
Stella hesitated. “Yes. Everyone loved her. When she retired from teaching and ran for the school board, there was a huge uproar.”
“Why?”
“No one wanted her to leave the teaching field. There was a huge party at the town meeting hall. People cried. I think some even offered her money to stay on as a teacher. But she felt it was time for a new challenge. After five years on the board, she became superintendent.” Stella swiped at a tear that rolled down her cheek.
“Did she have any issues while she was on the board or as superintendent?” I tried to think back if I’d heard anything about the school system over the past year. But my life had been so crazy, and since I didn�
��t have any kids, I hadn’t paid much attention. The only thing I could think of was the controversy over installing Astroturf on the football field, although most of the town had been all for it and had helped raise the money to get it installed.
Stella frowned. “She was pro-teacher, having been one herself. Sometimes the other board members didn’t like that. Melba wasn’t a big fan of the new football field.”
“But didn’t they use funds they raised?”
“Mostly, but she saw a bigger picture of what that money could be used for.”
“Like what?”
“Art, music, drama. She wasn’t anti-sports. She just thought other things were important, too.”
Even I had gone to a few of the high school football games last fall. I could hear the beat of the drums in my apartment on lonely Friday nights. I’d walk over, buy a ticket and some hot chocolate, and join half the town in cheering the Ellington Eagles on. I thought back to the cold seeping through the hard metal bleachers, trying to remember if I’d seen Melba there. I wasn’t sure. What I was sure of was that she had seemed pleasant enough and had gotten along well with the five-person school board.
“You hesitated when you said everyone loved her.”
“I hated her class.”
“Was she mean?” I asked.
“No. She was a doll. But algebra.” Stella did a fake shiver.
It wasn’t my favorite, either. “So as superintendent, she should have had a good understanding of what teachers needed.”
“I think that’s why she was hired,” Stella said. “I’ll check with my aunt Nancy. She might know more.” Her aunt Nancy Elder was the town manager, with aspirations to a bigger political future. If anyone knew what was going on in this town, it was her.
Awesome walked toward us. I felt a weariness settle over me. Another statement to give.
Chapter 5
DiNapoli’s Roast Beef and Pizza was packed when I walked in at one-thirty. I came not only for the wonderful food but also for the company of the DiNapolis during times of trouble. Rosalie and Angelo were surrogate parents, since my own were back in California, where I’d grown up. They’d been especially solicitous since CJ’s departure, always sending me home with extra food or dropping some by unexpectedly. I’d lost almost ten pounds, and they were trying to make sure I ate. Little did they know that my freezer was stuffed and I’d taken to giving food to Stella or leaving some outside Ryne’s door.
I waited in line, trying to decide what to order. A lot of people stared at me, which must mean they knew about Melba’s death. On one hand, I was starving. On the other, every time I thought about Melba . . . I toyed with the idea that I should bolt.
“Sarah, what can I get you?” It was Rosalie. Just hearing her voice made me feel better. Seeing the concern in her warm brown eyes almost brought me to tears.
Behind her I saw Angelo whirl around at the mention of my name. He had a ladle in his hand, and it was dripping with red sauce. “You go to the hospital and don’t call us? You took a taxi home?”
Angelo was motioning with the ladle, and red sauce was flying. Gale, one of their employees, ducked, and sauce splattered onto the back of a guy chopping vegetables. He looked up in surprise. The kitchen had a low wall between it and the dining area. I was never sure if that was so Angelo could keep an eye on the crowd or if it was so they could watch him. People held up menus, trying to protect themselves. Another streak of sauce landed on the far wall, just missing a woman eating a slice of pizza. Her kids laughed as it rolled down the wall.
“I’m sorry, Angelo. I should have called.” That seemed to satisfy him, and the sauce attacks ended.
“How did you know about the taxi?” I asked Rosalie. That they knew this was even beyond the normal level of gossip in Ellington. And since I’d had someone stalking me last winter, I was a little more paranoid than I used to be.
“Your taxi driver was Angelo’s second cousin twice removed. He recognized your name on your credit card.”
Yeesh, nothing slipped by the people in this town.
Rosalie leaned in. “How are you doing?”
I glanced at the line of people behind me. The place was way too busy for any kind of discussion, so I just shrugged.
“We have a special today, half a roast beef sandwich with a side salad. It’s half off if you rode with Angelo’s cousin in his taxi in the past two days.”
I managed to smile at that. Rosalie was always thinking up some reason to give me a discount.
The guy behind me leaned around. “I rode with Angelo’s cousin.”
I heard a few other people chime in with a “Me too.”
“Show me your receipts,” Rosalie said with a sweet smile. “Not you,” she said to me. “I know you were with him.”
The people behind me grumbled good-naturedly. The guy right behind me said, “It was worth a try.”
Stella showed up and joined me at my table. I picked at the Greek salad that came with my sandwich. I tried hiding some of the roast beef under the lettuce so it would look like I had eaten more than I had.
“Don’t think you’re fooling me by pushing your sandwich under your lettuce,” she said. “But if you’re not going to eat your croutons, I’ll take them and the kalamata olives, too.”
I scraped both onto her plate. “Any other news from your aunt about Melba?”
“Nothing. She’s gone radio silent.”
“But it’s already all over town. Do you think something else happened?”
Stella shrugged. She looked over my shoulder toward the door, and her eyes widened. “Incoming,” she said.
Before I had time to turn around, Pellner appeared by my side.
“Sarah, would you come down to the station with me?” he asked. His tone formal, his dimples deep.
“Of course.” I scooted back my chair and stood. No need to make a spectacle of myself. Although this would be breaking news before we hit the door.
Pellner held the door open for me.
“Wait,” Angelo yelled. He hurried toward us. “What’s going on? Sarah, don’t say anything without a lawyer.”
“She’s not in any trouble,” Pellner told Angelo. “We just want to pick her brain on a couple of matters.”
“I’m calling Vincenzo,” Angelo said, wagging his finger at Pellner.
* * *
“You don’t need Vincenzo,” Pellner said when he sat me in the interrogation room at two-thirty.Vincenzo was Angelo’s cousin and had reported ties to the Mob in the North End of Boston. He’d helped me out of more than one bad situation.
“Then why am I in here?” I gestured around the room, with its two-way mirror, recording equipment, and cameras.
“Because we are a little busy today. And the state police showed up and want to talk.”
Only three towns in Massachusetts were big enough to have their own homicide divisions—Boston, Lowell, and Worchester. State troopers were in charge of investigations in all other municipalities, which meant I probably didn’t know whoever wanted to talk to me. I thought about Angelo’s “Never talk to the cops without a lawyer present” rule.
“In that case, I’m going to give Vincenzo a quick call.”
Pellner frowned and left the room as I dialed. Fortunately, I was able to reach Vincenzo without any problem. He made me promise to clam up and call him back if I became concerned about the line of questioning. Angelo wouldn’t be happy if he found out, but it would save us all time. I still had a garage sale to organize this afternoon.
Pellner came back with a round man with a round head and round eyes. Even his thin brown hair seemed to round his head. He wore a state trooper’s uniform and introduced himself as Simon Ramirez as he settled on a wobbly chair across from me. Pellner stood by the door.
“Tell me about the attack on you last night,” Ramirez said.
That surprised me. I’d been expecting to talk about Melba’s death. “Why?” I asked.
“There’ve been two crimes very
close together at the same place.”
“I already told Pellner what happened. He must have shown you my statement.”
“He did. But I’d like to hear it from you.”
I shrugged and ran through the events of last night. Ramirez typed into a laptop while I talked. Repeating the story wasn’t any easier than telling it the first time. It made me shudder, and I started to feel every sore muscle again.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded. What was I going to say? “No, I’m terrified”? He wanted the facts, not what I felt.
“Did you see your attacker?” he asked.
“No. The lights went out, and then I heard him. Or at least his footsteps.”
“Why do you think it was a man?” He ran a chubby hand through his hair. A gold wedding band dug into his ring finger.
“Good question.” I ran through the whole incident again in my mind. It was still way more vivid than I wanted it to be. “The footsteps I heard were heavy.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a woman,” Ramirez said.
Pellner just stood there, hands folded in front of him, listening.
“The person was really strong.”
“Women can be strong.”
I thought of Gennie “the Jawbreaker.” Of course that was true.
“Think. Maybe there’s something that didn’t seem significant in the moment that will give us a clue as to who did this.”
“And why,” I added.
“It was a robbery, Sarah. Don’t make it into something it’s not,” Pellner said.
Ramirez gave him a sharp glance.
“Right.” I closed my eyes but snapped them back open, not liking the images I’d conjured up. “Aftershave. The person wore some kind of distinctive aftershave. It wasn’t perfumy. It was masculine. Musky.”
“Any chance you recognized the scent? Have a name for it?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Let’s move on, unless you can think of anything else that would be helpful.”
We talked about the items that had been stolen from the gym. I gave Ramirez as thorough a description as I could of each item.
I Know What You Bid Last Summer Page 3
