The Cereal Murders

by Diane Mott Davidson

  To my great relief, the bell rang. Miss Ferrell called out, “Okay, drafts of personal essays before you leave, people!” I fled to a corner to avoid the press of jostling teenage bodies. By the time everybody had departed. Miss Ferrell was slapping papers around on her desk, looking thoroughly disgusted.

  “Quel dommage,” I said, approaching her. What a pity.

  “Oh! I didn’t see you here.” She riffled papers on top of her roll book. “It’s always like this until a few days before the deadlines. What can I help you with? Did you come to see me? There’s no French Club today.”

  “No, I was here to see the headmaster. Forgive me, I just wanted to drop in because, actually, Arch loves French Club. But he’s having trouble with his school-work—”

  She looked up quickly. “Did you hear about this morning?” She drew back, her tiny body framed by a rumpled poster of the Eiffel Tower on one side and a framed picture of the Arc de Triomphe on the other. When I shook my head, she walked with a tick-tock of little heels over to the door and closed it. “You’ve talked to Alfred?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Mr. Perkins told me about Arch. About his academic and … social problems.” Come to think of it, he’d only mentioned the schoolwork mess.

  “Did he tell you about this morning?”

  “No,” I said carefully, “just that Arch was flunking a class.” Just.

  “This is worse than that.”

  “Worse?”

  Miss Ferrell eyed me. She seemed to be trying to judge whether I could take whatever it was she had to say.

  I asked, “What happened to Arch this morning?”

  “We had an assembly. The student body needed to know about Keith.” Her abrupt tone betrayed no feeling. “When it was over, I’m sorry to say Arch had a rather strenuous disagreement with someone.”

  I closed my eyes. For being basically a kind and mature kid, Arch seemed to be getting into quite a few disagreements lately. I wondered what “rather strenuous” meant. “Who was it, do you know? We’ve just had someone throw a rock through one of our windows, and maybe …”

  “Later Arch came and told me he’d gotten into a fight with a seventh-grader, a boy who is frequently in trouble. The other boy apparently said Keith was a tattler. Puzzling … most seventh-graders don’t even know seniors.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. When Arch arrived at his locker, he found a nasty surprise. I went to check and … there was something there….”

  “What?”

  “You’d better let me show you. I put my own lock on the locker, so it should be undisturbed.”

  She peeked out into the hallway. The students had settled into the new class period, so we were able to make it down to the row of seventh-grade lockers without being seen.

  Miss Ferrell minced along just in front of me. Her bright red scarf fluttered behind her like a flag. She fiddled expertly with the clasp on Arch’s locker. “I told him to leave it alone and the janitor would clean it out. But I don’t know what to do about the paint.”

  What I saw first was the writing above Arch’s locker. Block letters in bright pink pronounced: PIE WHO WANTS TO BE A TATTLER, NEXT TIME WILL FACE A LIVE …

  Miss Ferrell opened the locker door. Strung up and hanging on the hook was a dead rattlesnake.

  6

  It was all I could do to keep from screaming. “What happened when Arch saw this?”

  When Miss Ferrell did not answer immediately, I whacked the locker next to Arch’s. The snake’s two-foot-long body swayed sickeningly. It had been strung up just under its head, and hung on the hook where Arch’s jacket should have gone. I couldn’t bear to look at the expanse of white snake-belly, at the ugly, crimped mouth, at those rattles at the end of the tail.

  Miss Ferrell closed her eyes. “Since my classroom was nearby, he told me.”

  I felt dizzy. I leaned against the cold gray metal of the adjacent locker. More quietly, I said, “Was he okay? Did he get upset?”

  She shook her head. I recognized generic teacherly sympathy. “Of course he was a bit shaken up. I told the headmaster.”

  “Yes, right.” Tears burned at the back of my eyes. I was furious at the crack in my voice. Hold it in, hold it in, I warned myself. “What did Perkins do? Why didn’t he tell me about it this morning? What happens now?”

  Suzanne Ferrell drew her mouth into a slight moue. Her topknot with its bright scarf bobbed forward. “Alfred … Mr. Perkins said that it was probably just one of those seventh-grade pranks. That we should ignore it.”

  Beg to differ, I said silently as I whirled away from Miss Ferrell and headed back to the headmaster’s sumptuous office.

  “Is he still in?” I demanded of the receptionist. “On the phone. If you’ll just take a se—” I stalked past her.

  “Excuse me, sir!” I barked as heartily as any marine. “I need to talk to you.”

  Perkins was staring at the oil painting of Big Ben, droning into his receiver. “Yes, Nell, we’ll see you then. Okay, yes, great for everybody. We’ll be like … underground bookworms who have come up to feast on—”

  At that moment he registered my presence. Just for a fraction of a second he raised the bushy white eyebrows at me, and I knew Nell had hung up. No worm feast for her. Perkins finished lamely, “… feast … on volumes. Ta-ta.” He replaced the receiver carefully, then laced his short fingers and studied me. There was a shadow of weariness in his pale eyes.

  “Yes? Here to check on Friday night’s event at the Tattered Cover? Or about the muffins and whatnot before the SATs? Or is it something else?”

  “When you told me how my son was doing academically, you oddly neglected to mention that someone had left a threat, along with a dead rattlesnake, in his locker. And you say he’s having a little trouble socially? You’re not only the master of metaphor, Perkins, you’re the emperor of euphemism.”

  His expression didn’t change. He unthreaded his hands and opened his palms, a mannered gesture of helplessness. “If we had any idea—”

  “Have you tried to find out? Or are you sticking with the environment-of-trust idea?”

  “Mrs. Korman, in seventh grade—”

  “First of all, Mrs. Korman is not my name. Second, you’ve just had a murder here, at your school, as a matter of fact in your home. Third, somebody threw a rock through our window the night of that murder. You can’t dismiss that snake as a prank! This school is not a safe place!”

  “Ah.” He adjusted his glasses and pursed his lips. Portrait of pensive. The wild white hair gleamed like a clown’s. “Goldy, isn’t it? I do believe we have a safe environment here. Whatever happened to unfortunate Keith was … out of the ordinary.”

  I swallowed.

  Headmaster Perkins drummed his fingers on the antique mahogany desk. “The kids,” he mused aloud, “engage in this … alternative behavior … all the time. I refer to the reptile, of course. If we become authoritarian, they’ll rebel with … more antisocial behavior, or with drugs. Look around you.” His delicate hands indicated his elegantly appointed office. “Do you see any graffiti here? No one is rebelling. And that’s because we make this school an environment where our students don’t need to rebel.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Freud. Threats are worse than graffiti, don’t you think? Maybe the kids rebel in ways you don’t know. A murder, Mr. Headmaster. Rattlesnakes. Now, let’s get back to it being your job to at least try to find out who—”

  The headmaster waved this away. “No, no, no. That simply is not possible, Mrs. K—Goldy. We do not have a regimen of conduct, and we do not go after offenders. We encourage responsibility. This … reptile incident should be viewed as a challenge for your son, a social challenge. It is young Arch’s responsibility to learn to cope with hostility. What I am trying to say to you, what I have to say to so many parents, is that we simply cannot legislate morality.” Perkins gave me his patronizing grin. “And Mr. Freud is not my name, sorry to say.”

  Oh, cute. A social c
hallenge. Can’t legislate morality. I stood. At the door, I stopped.

  “Tell me this, Mr. Perkins. Why exactly do you spend so much time and effort raising money for this school? And worrying about its precious reputation?”

  “Because money is the”—he pondered for a moment, then spread his hands again—“money is the … yeast that … leavens this institution’s ability to provide the best possible education. Our reputation is like our halo—”

  “Is that right? Well. You can have a huge doughball of responsibility, Mr. Headmaster, sir, but without morality it’s going to fall flat. Halos are elusive. Or, put another way, even a reptile knows when he’s in the dirt. Ta-ta.”

  At home I forced my mind off the school and set it onto the penitential luncheon four days away, the bookstore reception that same Friday evening, and the SAT spread for Saturday morning. Thank God I was going to Schulz’s for dinner. But not until I set some menus, ordered food, and had a heart-to-heart with Arch.

  For the clergy luncheon I decided on triangles of toasted sourdough spread with pesto, followed by Sole Florentine with fruit salad. The original recipe for Sorry Cake called for a rich batter developed to offer penance, my cookbook told me. The offender, a thirteenth-century French baker, had confessed to overcharging for bread. The local priest had ordered that the baker give away sweet cakes to all the villagers on Shrove Tuesday. Let the punishment fit the crime, I always say.

  For the bookstore affair, there were soft ripened cheeses—Gorgonzola and Brie and Camembert—to order for the Volvo set and Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti to make for the young crowd. Better than trick-or-treat any day.

  Which reminded me. Since I had to be at the school for the SATs very early in the morning after the bookstore reading, I’d have the pleasure of baking fresh corn, blueberry, and oat bran muffins at four A.M. Saturday. That ought to make me real sharp for dealing with lots of hungry, nervous seniors.

  Arch traipsed in and groaned deeply, not a good sign. Over the summer Arch had fallen under Julian’s spell. In the clothes arena this had meant eschewing sweatsuits and working to coordinate school outfits, holding pants up to the light to see if the color matched a shirt, trying on leather bomber jackets and baggy pants in our local used-clothing store until he resembled Julian as closely as possible. But the three shirts that Arch had carefully layered in hues of blue and gray this morning now hung in uneven tails over his gray cotton pants. His face was unnaturally pale; his eyes behind the glasses, bloodshot.

  I said, “I saw the snake.”

  He slung his heavy bookbag across the kitchen floor. The bookbag, another new accoutrement, had replaced his elementary-school backpack. Not that the new books seemed to be getting a lot of use. Arch dropped heavily into one of the kitchen chairs. He did not look at me, and he was fighting the tremble in his bottom lip.

  “Arch, do you have any idea who-—”

  “Mom, don’t!”

  “But I’ve been so worried! And that painted message! Tattle about what? What do you know that you could possibly tattle about?”

  “Mom! Quit babying me!”

  This would get us nowhere. I asked, “Where’s Julian?” Since Arch no longer took the bus home, Julian was in the habit of driving him.

  “Left me off and went to the newspaper office.” He pushed the glasses up on his nose and released another sigh, as in, You are so nosy. “The Mountain Journal. Okay? Can I go now? I don’t want a snack.”

  I ignored this. “Arch, I also need to talk to you about your grades—”

  “Seventh grade is hard for everybody! Just let me worry about my grades!”

  “Are you worried about your grades? Are the other kids doing this poorly?” I changed my tone. Try soft, I ordered myself. “Do you think we need to go back into therapy together?”

  “Great! This is just great!” My son’s thin face was pale and furious. “I come home after a horrible day and you’re just going to make it more horrible!”

  “I am not!” I hollered. “I want to help you!”

  “Sure!” he screamed before he banged out. “It really sounds like it!”

  So much for adolescent psychiatry. I looked at my watch: 4:45. Too early for a drink. I slapped bratwurst on a platter, cooked spinach and previously frozen homemade noodles for the boys’ evening meal, wrote them a note on how to heat it all up, and wondered vaguely about the suicide statistics for parents of teenagers. But self-preservation as a single mother meant not dwelling on such notions. If things got worse, I promised myself, we would take the therapy route again. Arch had not, after all, thrown his own rock or strung up his own snake.

  Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti

  1 cup sugar

  ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

  2 tablespoons anise-flavored liqueur

  1½ tablespoons sour mash whiskey

  2 tablespoons anise seed

  3 large eggs

  1 cup chopped almonds

  2¾ cups all-purpose flour

  1½ teaspoons baking powder

  1 12-ounce package semisweet chocolate chips

  2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening

  In a large mixing bowl, stir together the sugar and melted butter. Add the liqueur, whiskey, and anise seed. Beat in the eggs, then stir in the nuts. Sift the dry ingredients together. Gently stir in the dry ingredients until well incorporated. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for about 3 hours.

  Preheat the oven to 375°. Butter 2 cookie sheets. Shape the dough on cookie sheets into 3 loaves, well spaced. Each loaf should be about 2 inches wide and ½ inch thick. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the loaves are puffed and browned.

  When the loaves are cool enough to touch, cut each loaf into diagonal slices about ½ inch thick. Lay the slices on their cut sides and toast them at 375° for an additional 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool.

  Dip biscotti in chocolate the day they are to be served. In the top of a double boiler, melt the chocolate chips with the shortening, stirring frequently.

  Remove from the heat and stir until a candy thermometer reads 85°. Holding each cookie by its bottom, gently dip the tops into chocolate. Turn immediately and allow to dry, uncoated side down, on wax paper. Continue until all biscotti are topped with chocolate. Makes about 4 dozen.

  Being in a temper made me think I’d better keep busy. I cut butter into flour and swirled in buttermilk, caraway seeds, raisins, and eggs to make a thick speckled batter for Irish Soda Bread. This I poured into a round pan and set to bake while I nipped off to soak in a steaming bubble bath. Great-tasting bread and a great-smelling caterer. What else could Tom Schulz want?

  Better not think about that, either.

  When the bread was done, I began to wrap myself in a down coat, mittens, and earmuffs. After a two-day respite, thick, smoke-colored clouds had poured over the mountains. During the afternoon, the mercury had dropped fifteen degrees. The red sunrise was proving its warning. Flakes drifted down as I emerged from my front door. The icy wind made me hug the warm, fragrant round of Irish bread to my chest. I was thankful to see Julian chug up our street. Without telling him where I was going, I begged him for the four-wheel-drive Range Rover. I could just imagine myself facing a sudden blizzard and then saying to Schulz, “Oops, guess I’ll have to spend the night.”

  Right.

  Turning the Rover around sounded and felt like an advanced tank maneuver. But once I had managed it, I headed toward Main Street through the thickening snow and began to reflect on my relationship with the homicide investigator.

  Being with Schulz was like … I smiled as I put the Rover into third and skittered through a channel of mud on the edge of the road, Like what, Mr. Perkins? Like an enigma, sir.

  Irish Soda Bread

  2½ cups all-purpose flour

  ½ cup sugar

  1½ teaspoons baking powder

  ¾ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
<
br />   1 cup raisins

  1 tablespoon caraway seeds

  1 large egg

  1¼ cups buttermilk

  ¼ cup sour cream

  Preheat the oven to 350°. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan. Sift together the dry ingredients. Using a food processor with the steel blade or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles small peas. Blend in the raisins and caraway seeds. Beat the egg, buttermilk, and sour cream together until blended. Stir the egg mixture into the dry mixture just until blended. Transfer the batter to the pan and bake for about 50 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Makes 1 round loaf.

  During the emotional stages of my divorce, numbness had been followed by hatred and then resentment. During that time I’d had neither the energy nor the desire for relationships. I had forsworn marriage, for ever and ever and ever. And since I was a good and faithful Sunday school teacher, swearing off marriage didn’t leave many options in the fulfilling physical relationship department. Which was okay with me. I thought.

  A strange thing happened, though, after the cocoon of animosity had worn off and John Richard had become merely an annoyance to deal with on a weekly basis. Not so strange, Marla had insisted at our frequent meetings where we, his two ex-wives, discussed addiction to unhealthy relationships. Anyway, I began to have unexpected waves of Sexual Something. I’d met Schulz, but kept my distance. I’d had a short-lived, nonphysical (but disastrous nonetheless) crush on a local psychologist. Then when Arch gave up his swimming lessons at the athletic club, I was surprised to realize how much I would miss his coach’s easy smile. And there had been Arch’s art teacher at the elementary school, whom I had helped on occasion. I had unexpectedly found myself watching his trim backside as he walked slowly from student to student, correcting their drawings.