Death on a School Board (Book 5 Molly Masters Mysteries)

by Leslie O'Kane

  That gave me an idea for a cartoon. A woman is sitting in her kitchen, the newspaper spread on the table before her, and she holds a cup of coffee in one hand, a microphone in the other. She is smiling as she says into the microphone, “Bobby, stop picking on your sister! Sally, just ignore him.” In the next room, two children cringe as her amplified voice booms over the loudspeaker fastened to the ceiling. The caption reads: Elsie Flattenbush loves her new “Make Mommy Loud!” home audio system from Acme.

  Meanwhile, Karen stormed off to her room and Nathan launched into his tirade of complaints about the torturous concept of homework. I was delighted when the phone rang, allowing me to escape for a while.

  I grabbed the portable phone in the kitchen. The caller was Carol Barr. She said, “An ad hoc committee is throwing a pro-arts rally tomorrow night. They’ve asked all of the school board members to attend, and of course I’m going to be there, since this is so near and dear to my heart. Can you make it?”

  I glanced at my calendar. “I think so, but why such short notice?”

  “They managed to rent out Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady. It was the only time the theater was available.”

  That explanation tripled my interest. Proctor’s Theater meant a lot to me personally. Back when Carlton was considered the sticks, so much so that we didn’t have any movie theaters closer than Schenectady, my family would go to Proctor’s. When I was sitting in my best dress in the red velvet seats, my parents wouldn’t have to tell me to be on my best behavior. I was too busy feeling like a grownup, waiting for the magic of the movie—or, on some truly priceless occasion, a live play or performance—to begin. There was no better place imaginable for a pro-arts rally; from its famous sign and all of its light bulbs to the enormous gold-colored Wurlitzer organ and embossed-fabric walls, this was both art and history at its best.

  “They’ve asked members of the Honor Society at the high school to call ten families apiece and tell them about the rally and ask them to call a couple of their friends in turn. They’re hoping to have at least a couple hundred people, and they’ll play up the fact that they didn’t have any opportunity to advertise, et cetera, to full advantage.”

  “Great. I’ll be there and I’m sure Mom and I can notify people in our neighborhood.”

  “That would be wonderful. Actually, we also need a little help setting things up. Could you possibly get there half an hour early? At seven-thirty?”

  “I’d be happy to.” For once, volunteering was going to be a treat. I would love the chance to explore behind the scenes of that old theater, in its hallowed halls where some of the greats performed during vaudeville’s heyday.

  While hanging up the phone, I remembered that this was Thursday, another soccer-practice day, and we were already late. Nathan greeted this news with his usual grace and announced that he was “having a miserable life!” At the moment, I could only say, “So am I,” which made him launch into his apologies for being such “a terrible son” to cause “everyone around to be miserable.” The joys of motherhood.

  The next day, my parents and I concentrated our energies to notify people about the rally. I printed up some fliers, using a cartoon drawing of Shakespeare on a stage, saying, “To be or not to be.” The caption underneath read: “That truly is the question. So join together and insist that we will not allow our children to be culturally and artistically deprived!”

  Lauren helped us, and we divided Sherwood Forest into quarters and knocked on each door in our section, leaving fliers or handing them to the homeowners.

  Jim said that he would have to work late and would just meet us at Proctor’s as soon as he could get there. Tommy’s teenage sons had a basketball game that night and would be of no help watching the younger kids. Unsure of how late we’d be and uncomfortable with the concept of leaving our children alone at night, Lauren and I decided to hire a joint babysitter at my house.

  Tiffany Saunders was the only one available on such short notice, though I questioned the wisdom of paying someone less mature than my own daughter to babysit. She arrived on time, in all of her green-hairedness, beating Lauren and her daughter to my house. The green hair was now the only thing that stopped her from being the very image of her mother at this age, so I actually didn’t find the unusual hue objectionable.

  Karen was too polite to say anything, though her eyes widened as she stared at Tiffany’s head. Nathan, on the other hand, instantly broke out laughing at the sight of her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Is your hair lime flavored?” he asked.

  Tiffany’s cheeks colored, giving her a bit of a Christmas-like appearance. “I like the way it looks. So do my friends.”

  “Why?”

  She clicked her tongue and said, “You’re too young to understand.”

  Rachel threw open the front door, froze at the sight of Tiffany’s hair, then backed out the door again, saying, “I gotta go ask my mother if it’s all right for me to be babysat by someone with green hair.”

  “As if!” Tiffany grumbled, clicking her tongue.

  I had no idea what Tiffany was referring to, but collected my coat and purse, knowing that Lauren would have already seen Tiffany in her green-haired splendor at the high school. Rachel ducked back inside a moment later, saying, “Mom says it’s okay.”

  Scowling, Tiffany clicked her tongue again and thrust her hand on one hip. “Like, I’m so relieved.”

  “If we put colored sprinkles in your hair, it’ll look just like a Christmas tree,” Nathan said and giggled, still finding this hilarious.

  Tiffany rolled her eyes and looked at me. “If he makes one more joke about my hair, I’m charging you double.”

  “Nathan, that’ll come out of your allowance.”

  He put his hand over his mouth and called a muffled, “Bye, Mom,” at me.

  The four of us—my parents, Lauren, and I—drove out to the theater and found a parking space. My parents seemed to be in no hurry, moving slower and slower these days. I lingered with them as they made their way down one of the aisles. Lauren rushed to the stage to ask what needed to be done to set up the room. Amazingly, I could hear her conversation even from my position in the center of the auditorium.

  That struck me as so extraordinary, it brought out some childlike glee in me. “Lauren,” I called, waving to her. “Come up here. Let me show you something.”

  She obliged, trudging up the steps to me.

  “The acoustics of this place are unbelievable. You wait here.” I trotted down to the stage and waved at her. “To be or not to be,” I said in a normal speaking voice. “That is the question.”

  I trotted part of the way up the aisle again. “Did you hear that?”

  “Perfectly,” she said appreciatively.

  “That’s without microphones or shouting. Do you want to try it?”

  “My one chance on stage, hey?” Lauren trotted down the steps. Granted, we should be setting up as promised, but there seemed to be no chief to boss us around, so why not have fun?

  Lauren stood on stage facing me and said in lilting tones, “Oh, Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

  I laughed and started to head back to the stage to join her. Just as I was about to do my “light from yonder window” speech, I heard a derisive laugh and turned to see who it was. Stephanie.

  “I thought this was going to be a rally, not amateur night,” Stephanie grumbled as she made her way onto the stage.

  “We were just having a little fun, Stephanie,” Lauren snapped at her. For a whole host of good reasons, Lauren and Stephanie get along even less well than Stephanie and I do.

  “In front of the entire school board, I see,” Stephanie added under her breath. I scanned the seats and saw that, indeed, all of the board members had not only shown up, but arrived a good twenty minutes before the rally was supposed to begin.

  “I wonder why even the pro-sports people are here,” I muttered.

  “Stuart called all of us pers
onally and suggested we come.” Carol Barr came up to us on the stage. “Molly, Lauren, thanks for coming.”

  “Stephanie was just pointing out to us how all of you board members are here. Are you going to help us set up?”

  Carol shook her head. “No, if we helped set things up that would make it look like we had a conflict of interest…board members running a funding rally.”

  “If only I could convince my husband that my cooking dinner every night represented a conflict of interest for me.” Someone was playing around with the lighting, and I found myself with an overwhelming urge to run into the spotlight and do a dance of some sort. “Stephanie, I’ll bet you took tap dancing lessons at some point.”

  “Yes, I did. How did you know that?”

  I pointed at the spot downstage from where we were standing. “Here’s your chance to hoof it.”

  She smiled, but said, “Molly, this is not the time nor the place. Nor the shoes,” she added, indicating her stilettos.

  “We need to ask one of the stagehands where the folding chairs are kept,” the woman that Lauren had been talking to earlier said, furrowing her brow at our shenanigans. Drat! A chief!

  On second thought, a chair hunt would allow me to see some of the hidden parts of the theater. “I’ll take care of that.” Meanwhile, Lauren rejoined the woman to discuss some more of the particulars of setting up the stage.

  In one of the wings, I located a man who had enough keys hanging off his belt to lock up the world. I asked him where spare chairs were kept, and he gave me directions that included several doorways and turns off some hallway. Unfortunately, I have no sense of direction whatsoever and also can’t keep directions in my head for more than two seconds. I have too much pride to admit this to strangers, so I headed off into the workings of the backstage area, unassisted by a map or compass. Seeing the “hidden parts of the theater,” indeed. I’d be lucky not to be spending the rest of my life lost in the building like the Phantom of Proctor’s.

  I climbed a back staircase off the stage and soon found myself in a hallway of dressing rooms. I went into the nearest one, which wasn’t as large or fancy as I’d envisioned. It was fairly austere, even, with plain, wood-paneled walls painted white, a makeup counter and mirror surrounded by light bulbs. Had George Burns, Red Skelton, or Al Jolson once looked into this very same mirror?

  Maybe there were larger dressing rooms farther down the hall that boasted pictures or autographs of their famous patrons. I poked my head into the next dressing room. which was essentially identical to the first one. Maybe the largest dressing room would be at one end of the hallway to give the star of the show some separation.

  Just as I was about to enter the last-room off the hallway, I heard someone arguing.

  “There’s no way I’m going to play along!” a woman was saying in an angry whisper. “I’ve had it with keeping your secret! We’re all under a shroud of suspicion now, and it’s high time—”

  “You said you loved me,” a male voice replied. “How can you desert me now?”

  “I’m sorry. I have no choice. It’s over between us. My husband deserves better than this.”

  The voices seemed to be coming from the bottom of the staircase I’d recently climbed. The only people here were a couple of Proctor’s employees, the three or four of us women who’d come early to help set up, plus the board members. Could this be Michelle and Kent arguing? If so, the quarrel could be related to the murder.

  As I tried to double back to see if I could find out who was speaking, Lauren poked her head around the corner. Before I could shush her, she called to me, “I think I found the folding chairs.”

  The voices immediately fell silent.

  A moment later, there was a metallic click, then the lights went out.

  “Oh, fine,” I muttered, not moving while I gave my eyes the chance to adjust to the sudden darkness. “The lights would have to go out right when we’re in a windowless hallway. With stairs.”

  “Don’t panic, anybody,” a male voice called out. “It’s probably a minor power outage. We’ll get the back-up power going momentarily.”

  “What is it about that phrase—don’t panic—that strikes such terror in my heart?” I asked Lauren.

  “Maybe because it’s so often said when there’s good reason to panic.”

  “My eyes don’t seem to be adjusting at all.”

  “That’s because there’s no light whatsoever to adjust to,” Lauren replied. “There are no windows on this entire floor.”

  I managed to press my palms against the wall and slowly start to feel my way toward Lauren. “Did you hear about the ghost in this place? Proctor’s is supposed to be haunted. Some old vaudevillian actor or something, who haunts the dressing rooms.” Realizing that we were currently in the very same hallway of said dressing rooms, I added, “Uh, oh.”

  “Molly, do me a favor,” Lauren said. “Skip the ghost talk when I’m standing here in pitch blackness.”

  Just then a woman let out a piercing scream.

  Chapter 14

  To Be or…Could You Repeat the Question?

  “Don’t panic, everybody,” that same male voice cried in answer to the scream.

  “Who was that?” I cried. “Lauren? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and I managed to do a Frankenstein’s monster walk till I literally bumped into her. “I think it was someone on the stage. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Lauren, just before the lights went out, I heard some voices down this hall. A couple, arguing. The woman might even have been the one who screamed. Did you see who they were?”

  “No, I…”

  The lights came on. After a second or two of squinting, I got my bearing.

  “You okay?” a gruff male voice around the corner asked some unseen person.

  “Who the hell threw the circuit breaker?” a second male voice called from somewhere above us in the stage area.

  “This way,” Lauren said unnecessarily, for I was already following her.

  We climbed the steps. Stephanie Saunders was surrounded by the half dozen board members and a pair of male Proctor’s employees. She was sitting on the center of the stage, whimpering and sputtering to anyone who would listen about how “horrible” her experience had been. She probably walked face first into a spider’s web and would require months of therapy to recuperate.

  “Somebody tried to strangle me!” she cried.

  I was skeptical, but when I joined the others, I could see that there were red marks on her neck. They were in the shape of fingerprints, as if someone had grabbed her from behind.

  “Oh, Steph,” I said, instantly feeling guilty for having doubted her. “Are you all right?”

  Hearing my voice seemed to jolt her out of her state of distress. Stephanie rose and slowly turned a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, looking at all of us on the stage. In cartoon format, she’d have had daggers shooting from her eyes and steam coming out of her head. I’d never seen her this angry.

  Still eyeing each of us slowly, she said, “One of you people tried to kill me. My youngest child is only four years old! Make no mistake. I will not allow myself to be killed!”

  Stephanie raised her fists and, in a dramatic motion worthy of Vivian Leigh, cried, “As God is my witness, I will find out who you are! And I will make you pay!”

  There was a moment of silence as we all stared at her. I scanned her rapt audience surreptitiously. Agnes Rockman had arrived and was near Stephanie. The same board members were here now that had been suspects in. Sylvia’s murder, including, unfortunately, my father. My mother, too, was on stage. Nobody spoke, but I realized that everyone was doing the same thing I was-taking stock of who else was present and might have tried to choke Stephanie. Meanwhile, we all seemed to share the same inability to come up with anything appropriate to say to her.

  “Um, I, uh, found the folding chairs,” Lauren announced. Never before had so many adults gone to the task of setting up
folding chairs, leaving Stephanie to make her own way back into the flow of the evening and out of her soliloquy. Suddenly none of the board members seemed to consider the act of carrying a chair at a school funding rally to be a conflict of interest.

  While we arranged the newly found folding chairs on the stage, Stephanie watched from the front row of the theater, glowering. Once we clearly had more than enough chairs in place for the presenters, I got off the stage and joined her.

  “I’m so sorry that this happened to you, Stephanie. Is your throat all right?”

  “Fine. I’m fine. You might want to tell your other little worker ants up there that they’re doing this for nothing. We’re canceling tonight’s rally. I’ve already put a call in to Sergeant Newton. He’s going to interview each suspect, and that takes priority over some stupid rally.”

  “But, Stephanie, why cancel the rally? Tommy can just talk to the…suspects individually while it’s taking place, or right afterwards. It’s not as if whoever did this is going to run away or take everyone hostage.”

  “Molly, somebody just tried to kill me! I’d say that that’s a damned bit more important than saving some kindergartner’s finger-painting class!”

  Though I could understand her reaction, the words still rankled. “You need to tell Stuart you’ve canceled the rally. He’s the school board president, after all. Are you going to tell him, or do you want me to?”

  “You do it. I’m not speaking to him or anyone else on this board till my assaulter is behind bars.”

  “That’s going to make working with your fellow school board members really difficult, isn’t it?”

  “Actually, it will be business as usual. Half of those people haven’t spoken to the other half in years. They won’t even notice.”

  I went over to Stuart, who was talking to a Proctor’s employee. I interrupted their discussion of stage lighting and said, “Stuart, I need to tell you something important. I was just speaking with Stephanie, and—”