Outline for Murder

by Anthony J. Pucci

  The pause seemed interminable. “Well?” Bishop waited for his confession.

  “Eric Munro,” he said even more softly.

  That wasn’t the name he was expecting to hear. “Are you sure? How do you know that?” Aaron was startled. He dropped his pen on the floor and leaned down to grab it. Bishop realized that he would have to slow down and proceed at Aaron’s pace. “Did you see or hear something?”

  Aaron took him back to the day the ID cards were handed out. He had gone up to his homeroom early because he wanted a quiet place to do some homework.

  “What homeroom are you in?”

  “303.” Metcalf looked at Bishop as if he had just asked a stupid question. He realized that it was, in fact, a stupid question. “Go on, please.”

  When he arrived at the room, the door was open as he had expected, but Miss Harris was not at her desk. Eric was standing at the desk looking through the stack of ID cards. Aaron froze where he was standing. At first, he thought that Eric was simply looking for his own card, wanting to take it so that no one would see his photo and make fun of it. Aaron watched as Eric removed one card and slipped it in his pocket. Before Eric turned around to leave the room, Aaron quickly walked away. Later, in homeroom, when Miss Harris handed out the ID cards, he was shocked when Eric received a card and Chris Delaney did not. Only Eric and Aaron knew why. Aaron said nothing. He figured that Eric was just pulling a prank since Eric and his crowd never got along with the jocks. Aaron assumed that he just wanted to have some fun showing Chris’s ID photo to some of his friends and that he would leave it on the teacher’s desk when no one was looking. After a few days, Aaron didn’t give the incident much thought. Friday’s meeting changed that.

  “Am I going to have to tell Lieutenant Hodge? I really don’t want Eric to know it was me.”

  “You may have to talk to him, but I’ll talk to him first and try to keep your name out of it. Thanks for coming to me with this, Aaron. You did the right thing. Again.” He smiled as Aaron slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed out the door. Bishop got up and straightened the desks. He wanted to talk to Ron about this latest development before he brought it to Hodge.

  ***

  Although he hadn’t noticed during his classes, the afternoon had turned unseasonably warm for early November. With his coat draped over his arm and his briefcase in hand, Bishop was eager to get home, change, and go for a walk before supper. He just had to make one quick stop to inform Ron of his conversation with Aaron. To get to Ron’s office, he had to pass by Terry’s desk. As she looked up from her typing, he gave her a wink and a smile. Without any change in expression, she looked down again at her computer screen. She was undoubtedly upset that her attempts to pump him for information had failed. He couldn’t worry about that. She would get over it in a day or two.

  He thought about what he might say if he should bump into either Sister Ann or Sister Pat. Fortunately, their office doors were closed and the lights were out. Perhaps they were in a meeting. Perhaps Sister Ann was in her room at the convent praying for forgiveness for her quid pro quo, her willingness to hire a known sexual predator in exchange for the promise of a large bequest. He should have used “quid pro quo” in that meeting so that he could have observed the befuddled expression on Sister Pat’s face. A better guess was that Sister Ann wasn’t praying. She was probably trying to figure out a way to get him to retire. Good luck with that, thought Bishop.

  Sounds of laughter were coming from Ron’s open office door. As he walked in, he heard one boy say, “No way!” and the other, “How did you do that?” Ron had just finished a display of one of his famous card tricks. He was smiling broadly as he swept up the cards from his desk into a neat stack. Seeing Bishop standing there, he told the boys, “That’s enough for today, fellas. You go home and think about it. Come back tomorrow and let me know if you figure it out.”

  Then he gestured to Bishop to have a seat as he tossed the stack of cards in his desk drawer. “Sorry about that. They’ve been after me to show them another trick.” Bishop knew that Ron was doing more than just card tricks. It was a way for the boys to see him outside of his role as a disciplinarian. One of his strengths was his ability to build a rapport with the students. It had proven useful on more than one occasion when Ron needed information. They knew they could trust him.

  “I’m glad you stopped in. I wanted to apologize for skipping out on café duty today. A couple of the kids were out in the parking lot without permission, and I had to grab them”

  “Forget it. I understand. Mary stayed in your place.”

  “I’ll have to remember to thank her for doing that,” Ron said.

  “I think she was hoping that I’d want to vent about my meeting this morning in Sister Ann’s office, but I managed to escape,” he said with a grin.

  “As far as I can tell, that meeting has been topic number one all day.”

  Having decided to keep his knowledge of Sister Ann’s lapse in judgment confidential for the moment, he switched topics. “How did that call to Mr. Delaney go?”

  “Not as bad as I thought,” he said as he tilted back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “I’m used to dealing with angry parents. It comes with the territory. You know, he didn’t even mention anything about suing the school. In fact, I’d say we had a pretty good conversation.”

  Bishop was relieved to hear that since his refusal to call had led the principal to force Ron into it. He suspected that the reason Delaney hadn’t given him a hard time was the fact that Ron could be trusted to tell the truth. He had a willingness to listen and a reputation for fairness. Because Sister Ann was deficient in these areas, she often drew out the worst in people. It was unfortunate that she chose to exclude Ron from her inner circle, relying instead on the embittered and mean-spirited Sister Pat.

  He then briefed Ron on the conversation that he had just had with Aaron Metcalf without mentioning Aaron by name. Ron wanted to know if Bishop believed the young man whom he correctly guessed to be Aaron. Bishop pointed out that Aaron would have had no reason to lie since he was not under suspicion. Furthermore, it was highly unlikely that he was trying to protect Chris since he had been willing to come forward earlier with information about threatening remarks made by Chris’s father. The incident between Eric and Chris at the dance also made it more likely that Eric would want to frame Chris for the vandalism by leaving Chris’s ID card at the scene.

  “That boy has been trouble since Day One. If he is responsible for that vandalism, he’ll not only answer to the law; he’ll be cleaning out his locker and looking for a new school.” The anger in his voice was in sharp contrast to the playful tone of the man demonstrating card tricks moments earlier.

  “Wait a minute, Ron. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Bishop knew that it was unlikely that the principal would expel Eric even if he admitted his guilt. The incident had not occurred on school property or during the school day. More importantly, Eric’s father was a very successful pediatrician in town, and he was a generous supporter of the school’s fund drives. Sister Ann was unlikely to let that well go dry.

  In convincing Ron that Aaron was telling the truth, Bishop began to have some doubts. Aaron and Chris weren’t very close friends, but they were football teammates. There often was a special bond among the players. Could Aaron have made up the story of Chris’s father threatening Zappala as a way of deflecting the focus from Chris? Of course, others had heard Mr. Delaney make similar remarks, but Aaron wouldn’t have known that. Could Aaron have lied about Eric taking the ID card to provide Chris an explanation of how his card could have been found at the coach’s house? Could Aaron, knowing of the bad blood between Chris and Eric, intentionally be setting up Eric to take the fall for the vandalism? Bishop felt that he knew Aaron fairly well. He wasn’t the type to lie, even for a friend. On both occasions that he had shared his knowledge with him, he had appeared genuinely upset and reluctant. Could that have been an act? Having dealt with so m
any students over the years, Bishop thought that he was a fairly good judge of character. If Aaron were lying, it would be an embarrassing error for Ron to accuse Eric of any wrongdoing. Embarrassing to say the least.

  “I’ve got an idea,” announced Bishop. He explained it to Ron. “Let’s give him some rope and see if he hangs himself. That way we can keep Aaron’s name out of this, too.”

  “Do you think I should bring Lieutenant Hodge in for this?”

  “No, I think we have a better chance of getting at the truth if Eric doesn’t feel threatened by the police.”

  “You’re right. I’ll call Eric down first thing tomorrow.”

  As Bishop left the assistant principal’s office, he realized that even if his plan worked to perfection, it would not bring him any closer to the answers that he really wanted. Who had killed Zappala? And why?

  Chapter 25

  He had made the drive from school to home and from home to school so many times, it seemed as if the car drove itself. Now there was talk that self-driving cars would be a reality in the not-too-distant future. There had been so many technological advances in the last decade that Bishop felt that he had to run just to stay in place. There had been so many changes in education as well. He had been teaching long enough to know that many of the so-called changes were nothing more than fads. If you stayed around long enough, there would be changes to the changes, and you more or less ended up where you began. Despite all the theories about effective teaching, it all came down to two essentials: passion for the subject matter and common sense. He had known many teachers over the years who lacked one or both of those qualities. It was just a matter of time before they realized that teaching was not for them. Unfortunately, some didn’t figure it out for years, and it was the students who suffered.

  No notes had been slipped under his classroom door, so he thought that the day was off to a good start. Bishop’s English 11 class had been reading “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is a classic example of an allegory. Goodman Brown represents good, and the mysterious man he meets in the forest represents evil. The man dressed in dark clothes tries to convince Brown that the true nature of man is evil. When it is suggested that many of the people whom Goodman Brown most admires are in league with the devil including his father, grandfather, respected political and religious figures, and even his own wife, Faith, Goodman Brown continues to resist but lives the remainder of his life distrustful of others.

  The class was struggling to understand the story. Jane raised her hand, and as she did so, her notebook slid off of her desk to the amusement of a few of her classmates. Not paying any attention to them, she grabbed the notebook, and placed it firmly on her desk. As if daring it to do that again, she kept an eye on that notebook as she raised her hand and asked, “Was he dreaming all that stuff or did it really happen?”

  “What do you mean by ‘stuff’?” Bishop asked, concerned with the tendency of his students to use words that didn’t communicate precisely.

  “Well, you know, all that business about the townspeople being secret sinners,” replied Jane.

  “This is a key point in understanding Hawthorne’s theme. It’s a very good question, Jane.” He asked several students what they thought. Alex, whose artistic talents were prominently displayed in his open English notebook, pointed to evidence in the text suggesting that it had to have been a dream since Faith was still wearing the pink ribbon that supposedly Goodman Brown had found while in the forest. Andrea countered that it was entirely possible that many of the good people of Salem had committed sins that would align them with the devil. He waited until several other students had also offered their opinions before he got back into the discussion. “In the final analysis, does it really matter whether it was a dream or not?”

  No one responded. He continued, “What really matters is that Goodman Brown believed that what he had witnessed had been real. It changed him for the rest of his life because he let it change him.”

  Andrea raised both hands to adjust the scrunchie holding her ponytail in place, and kept one raised to ask a question. “Do you mean that if we go around looking only at the evil man does, that is most likely all we will find?”

  “That’s what Hawthorne seems to be suggesting,” he said, pleased with the way the class had responded. “And if we look for the good in man, that is what we will find as well,” he added, sensing that the class now had come to a clearer understanding of Hawthorne’s story. That seemed like a good place to end the discussion. He let the students work quietly on their next assignment for the last few minutes of the period. As he sat at his desk with a set of quizzes in front of him, he had a hard time concentrating on his grading. He kept thinking about their discussion of the question of good and evil. Someone among them, wearing a mask of innocence, was a liar, a thief, a vandal. Someone among them, wearing a mask of innocence, was a murderer. Bishop knew that he needed to find out who had committed these crimes before it permanently affected the way he looked at his fellow man.

  ***

  It was fortunate that Bishop had not planned on using his prep period for any schoolwork. As he walked through the Main Office area to check his mail, Ron Jennings called him into his office.

  As he sat down in one of the chairs often used by students sent down by a teacher for some infraction of the rules, he noticed that Ron had several cell phones on his desk. “Looks as if you’ve had a busy morning,” he said as he gestured to the display of phones.

  “I don’t get these kids, sometimes,” he said in a tone of exasperation. “They know that they’re not supposed to use their phones during the school day. But does that stop them?” He answered his own question with an exaggerated, “Noooooo. They have to text a friend that they just talked to in the hall five minutes earlier. Or they’re just posting a quick tweet.” Students knew the consequences if they were caught using a phone. A teacher could confiscate it, and turn it in to Ron who could keep it for up to twenty-four hours, or until a parent came in to pick it up. The theory was that students would be judicious enough to avoid the inconvenience of losing the phone and having their parents involved. Of course, teenagers, like the rest of mankind, are not always judicious in their choices. Compounding the problem were the teachers who were compelled to pounce on every infraction. Bishop occasionally had to confiscate a phone that rang or vibrated during class, but instead of turning it in to Ron, he would often just hold it until the end of the day when the student could retrieve it. That was normally enough of a punishment to deter a repeat offense. Sister Pat, on the other hand, was among those who seemed to enjoy snatching phones from the guilty party. These were also the teachers who often took calls on their own phones during class time, failing to appreciate the inconsistency of their behavior.

  Convinced that Ron had not asked him into his office to discuss cell phones, Bishop asked, “What did you want to talk to me about? Everything all right with you and Stephanie?” They were spending more and more of their time together, and they both seemed very happy.

  “Yes, yes. Everything’s fine. She’s really looking forward to Thanksgiving at her parents’ home.” Steph had been kind enough to invite Bishop to join her and Ron and her parents for dinner. “I called you down to fill you in on my meeting with Eric.” He got up to close his office door, then sat down again.

  “When I called Eric down, he clearly had no idea what was coming,” Ron explained. Getting to the truth of the matter wasn’t always so easy, so he didn’t always play by the rules. “When Eric was seated, I closed the door and tossed Chris Delaney’s ID card on my desk. I had placed it in a clear, sealed pouch. I have to give you credit. Your plan worked so well I’m going to add that to my repertoire.”

  Bishop remained silent, somewhat embarrassed that he had so easily come up with the deception.

  “I told him that I already knew how he had obtained the card, and how the card had been used. I told him that if he were to come clean with the whole story, I would try
to convince Sister Ann not to expel him.”

  “Well?” said Bishop, waiting for the details.

  “Let’s put it this way, Mike. If there was a restroom in my office, Eric would have used it.” They both burst into laughter. He went on to explain that Eric immediately confessed to taking the ID card from the desk of his homeroom teacher. It was just a prank. He intended to pass it around to some friends for laughs and then leave it someplace where Chris could find it. He said he actually forgot he had it after a few days and didn’t remember it until the night of the Halloween dance. I hadn’t realized that Eric had briefly dated Bonnie King. He was still upset that she had dumped him for Chris. He also admitted that he and his friends had never gotten along with the football players since they felt that the jocks always got special treatment. After the incident at the dance, Eric and his friends were looking for a little revenge. They had a few beers, decided to go up to the coach’s house, soap the windows, break a few things, and make it look like Chris had done it. Once they got up there, things got out of hand, and before long, they had trashed the place.

  Jennings added that Eric had readily fingered his two accomplices who verified Eric’s story when they were called to the office. I’m going to notify their parents and turn all three of them over to Lieutenant Hodge.

  “One mystery solved, thanks to you.”

  Bishop replied, “One small mystery solved, thanks to Aaron. One big mystery to go,” he said soberly.

  “You’re right, of course.”

  Then Bishop stunned Ron with a casual comment. “I’m not going to press charges against those boys.”

  Ron’s mouth gaped open, “What?”

  “Those boys told the truth.”

  “Only after Eric was tricked into it,” Ron quickly countered.

  Bishop continued, “As long as they and their parents are willing to pay for all of the damage, I see no point in giving them a criminal record. Have them do community service, and deal with the drinking as a violation of school rules. That’s what I’d recommend, anyway.”