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

by Leslie O'Kane

  “I’m fine. Though I’ll be seeing that scene in my nightmares for a while yet.”

  She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “This is so ironic.”

  “What is?”

  Again, she combed her fingers through her hair and frowned, then met my eyes. “Well, you see, Tommy was home yesterday when he called his office for his messages and got yours. So he happened to tell me how he was heading out to Saratoga to meet you. That’s what…ticked me off so much that he didn’t tell me you…found the body. I asked him last night how things were when he saw you and he just grumbled, ‘Typical Molly Masters,’ and I let it drop.” She rolled her eyes a second time and shook her head sadly. “Anyway, the mention of Saratoga had given me what I thought was a great idea, so I went ahead and called, and now it’s about the stupidest thing I could have done.”

  “What are you talking about, Lauren?”

  “Your birthday a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t get you a gift. And remember how I told you way back how much I enjoyed my trip to the spa in Saratoga?”

  Uh, oh. I didn’t like where this was going. I wasn’t a spa type of person. The very mention of the word gave me an image of a group of naked women being massaged by men with hairy arms, and I knew that I didn’t want to be one of those women. Or one of the hairy-armed men either, for that matter. “I remember, but Lauren, you don’t need to get me a gift. I thought we agreed we’d just take each other out to lunch on our birthdays from now on, and you already did that.”

  “I know that’s what we agreed, but then I got to thinking about how you’ve been moving so gingerly for the last couple of days, ever since your horseback riding, and, well, I decided that this would be the perfect gift.” She held out the envelope as if utterly discouraged. “Of course, that was before I knew what a horrible shock you got at the racetrack.”

  I opened the envelope. It was a gift certificate to the Jackson Mineral Baths. “Wow. Nobody has ever given me a gift bath before.”

  “I made out the certificate myself, just so I’d have something to physically give you. I actually charged the whole thing to my credit card over the phone. And I know that Saratoga is probably the last place in the world you want to return to, but they have a twenty-four-hour cancellation policy, and I already made the appointment for you for tomorrow, so I get charged whether or not you actually go.”

  “You made the appointment for me?”

  “At one p.m. That was pushy of me, I know, and believe me, I regret doing it now. It’s just that I knew you were going to be a little skeptical. I was, too, till I tried it. It really is great for sore muscles, and it’s completely relaxing. Considering all the stress you’ve been under, this seemed like the perfect time for you to go. And I figured that, if I didn’t make the appointmentfor you, you’d just stick it on top of your refrigerator and forget about it till the coupon expires.”

  “Just because I do that sometimes with fruit doesn’t mean I will with a gift certificate.”

  “Sure it does. Molly, I’ve seen the top of your refrigerator.” She had a point. I use the top of my refrigerator as my last line of defense for important things that aren’t to be chewed by the dog or thrown away by my son in one of his cleaning binges.

  Lauren continued, “I’ll understand if you don’t want to use this. I’d have simply gone myself and not mentioned it to you, except I have to work tomorrow.”

  She looked so disappointed that I felt compelled to show my appreciation, which also meant feigning an enthusiasm that I didn’t feel. “Don’t be silly, Lauren. Of course I want to go. This was so thoughtful of you. Thank you. I’m sure I’ll love it.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. It was a wonderful gift idea. Thank you so much.”

  She chuckled slightly and I found myself admiring the way the skin around her eyes crinkled when she smiled. On some people, that might be called crow’s feet, but they were truly laugh lines on Lauren. She said, “I can tell you’re lying through your teeth, but believe me, once you get there, you’ll thank me for real.”

  “I already am thanking you‘ for real.’ I’m faking enthusiasm, not gratitude.”

  “Okay. You’re welcome. All I ask is that you be sure to call me the minute you’re home and tell me exactly how it was.”

  “Will do.” Rats. My having to report the details to her was probably going to mean that I couldn’t simply give the appointment to my mother and have her go in my place. Of course, Mom would have refused the offer. I don’t get my spa squeamishness from nothing.

  Cheered by believing she’d done something nice for me, Lauren left in considerably brighter spirits than when she’d arrived. Jim entered the living room just as I was shutting the door behind her.

  “What did Lauren want?”

  Even before I’d had the time to turn around and face him, the realization hit me that, while I wasn’t a skilled enough actress to fool my best friend, I was good enough to fool my husband. “Guess what? She came by to give you an early birthday present. She got you ‘the works’ at the Jackson Mineral Baths.”

  He furrowed his brow. “What? Let me see that.”

  He snatched Lauren’s certificate out of my hand before giving me the opportunity to lose it through a sleight of hand. The certificate bore my name.

  “Nice try.” He handed the certificate back to me and turned on his heel. “I hope you enjoy yourself tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, dear,” I said dejectedly, feeling as though I was being killed by kindness all of a sudden.

  Because the next morning was a Monday, it was an opportunity to talk to Agnes Rockman. If she had indeed sent me the fax about Sam Dunlap’s not being who he said he was, Agnes could shed considerable light on things. After I’d failed so miserably to get any information whatsoever from Kent, I was in dire need of some light-shedding.

  My theory was that, if the fax was from Agnes, Sylvia, too, had found out about Sam’s ruse before she’d told my father that a second board member had a checkered past. This went along with what Sam had said in his message to me before he was killed. If my theory was correct and Sylvia and Agnes had exchanged information about Sam’s true identity, maybe they’d also shared information about the suspicious board member.

  I decided to drop in at the Education Center. Maybe Agnes would admit that she’d sent the fax and email if I confronted her directly.

  I peeked my head into her office, not sure if the superintendent’s secretary had returned to work today, which would put Agnes back in the other office where she’d been when Stephanie confronted her.

  To my surprise, Stuart Ackleman sat at Agnes’s desk. “Stuart?”

  “Molly.” He immediately blushed and shut the folder in front of him, then put his elbows over it in an obvious attempt to block me from reading it. “What brings you here?”

  “I wanted to speak with Agnes about something. Are you…filling in for her?”

  “Oh, no. She never comes in this early. She’s on a staggered-start schedule and won’t be in for another thirty or forty minutes. No sense waiting for her.”

  “Late start for a school employee.”

  “Yes.” We stared at each other for a moment, then he said, “It was good seeing you again. Tell your father I said hello.”

  I was not about to be dismissed that easily by someone who was acting as though I’d just caught him red-handed. “Actually, I’m perfectly happy to wait for Agnes to return. I’ll just sit over here.” I sat down in a hard-backed chair facing Agnes’s desk.

  “Ah. Well. Good. In that case, maybe you can tell her I was here and that I’ll see her soon. In fact, she might be right next door in Superintendent Collins’s office.”

  “Why would she be there if she doesn’t start work until nine-thirty?”

  “She…starts at eight whenever she has to fill in for his personal secretary, who had the flu last week. Maybe you should go check.”

  “I might do that. What are you doing at her desk, by the way?�
�

  “Oh, we all share this office. Those of us on the board.”

  “I see you’re reading a file.”

  From the hallway came the voices of two women approaching. One sounded like Agnes Rockman.

  Stuart looked all the more disconcerted at the sound. “Yes, I’m checking into the records of the multicultural committee. I’ll just put it back.” He whipped the folder off the table and dropped it into a desk drawer just as Agnes entered.

  She froze at the door. “Mr. Ackleman, what are you doing at my desk?”

  “Nothing. I was just looking for the file on the multicultural committee in order to keep myself up to speed.”

  “That’s in the file cabinet in the corner, as you well know.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course.”

  Agnes gave a little glance my way, but was not about to let Stuart off the hook even long enough to acknowledge my presence. Instead, she marched around her desk and stared down into a drawer of files in the bottom of her desk. “What were you doing looking at the board members’ personal files, Mr. Ackleman?”

  “It was my own file. I have the right to look at my own file.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me for it? And how did you get a key to my desk?”

  Stuart spread his hands. “I don’t recall. You must have given it to me at some point. Or maybe your temp did when you were on vacation.”

  Agnes slammed the drawer shut with her foot, not removing her eyes from Stuart’s. She held out her palm. “Give me back the key, Mr. Ackleman.”

  They stood toe to toe for a moment, then Stuart reached into his pocket and dropped a small key into her hand. He squared his shoulders. “Remember who works for whom, Ms. Rockman.”

  “I remember. We both work for the taxpayers of this city.”

  Stuart shut his mouth and left without another word. Agnes pursed her lips and dropped her pudgy, elderly body into the chair. “What a load of hooey,” she said under her breath.

  “What do you think he was really after?” I asked, hoping she would continue to take me into her confidence, though I’d given her no reason to do so.

  “Probably information to use against one of his adversaries on the board. Unfortunately, Stuart’s no worse than the rest of them.” Then her eyes widened and she looked at me in earnest. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about your father just now. I truly didn’t mean to lump him in with the rest of them, especially now that…poor Ms. Greene’s gone. Mr. Peterson is either more decent or too new at this to join in on the board’s trickery and underhandedness.”

  “It’s the former.” After a pause, I prompted, “Stuart’s behavior reminds me…I was at the football fields yesterday and saw Stuart and Kent get into quite an argument.”

  “It would only be news if they met and didn’t argue.”

  “Just the same, though, I heard a rumor that…” I hesitated, deciding how to best phrase the information that Stephanie had fed me yesterday, “that Kent might be milking the school budget for his own private use. As the coach of the expensive football program, that might not be all that hard for him to do.”

  She paled a little but shook her head. “That’s just not the case. The football program’s funding is watched like a hawk, because it would be so easy for money to wind up in someone’s pocket. Also, Kent’s been offered positions at various universities, at several times his current salary, and he’s turned them down. He says he loves his job too much to sell out.”

  “You’re certain that he doesn’t ‘love his job’ so much because he’s making a fortune off the school budget?”

  “I’m positive. Even if he were pilfering funds, which he isn’t, he couldn’t possibly steal enough to offset the difference in salary between a high school coach and a university coach.” She studied my features, then asked, “What brings you here today?”

  “I received a fax last week from this office. I’m wondering if you can tell me anything about this.” I pulled my copy out of my purse and gave it to her.

  Her cheeks grew pink, giving me my answer before she could deny it.

  “Did you send it?”

  “If I did, it would be because I didn’t like the way things were going, but didn’t feel that I was in the position or had enough evidence to go to the police.”

  “Evidence against whom?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know specifically. Just that the afternoon before the board meeting, Ms. Greene told me she was scared and that she’d miscalculated. She was sitting right where you are now. She said, ‘I’ve got to get this taken care of immediately, before the whole thing blows up in my face.’ And that, otherwise, a lot of people were going to get hurt. I asked her to explain, but she said she wasn’t at liberty to do so.”

  “Did you hear what happened to Sam Dunlap on Saturday?”

  She nodded slowly, her wide lips in a frown, “I read about it in the papers. Such a strange thing. Someone must be desperate to keep some secrets buried.”

  “Is there something in those files in your desk that might indicate who?”

  “No, Ms. Masters. I can tell you that much.”

  Playing along with her attempts at vagueness rather than admitting that she was the sender, I asked, “How might one have known about Sam Dunlap’s family history?”

  “Someone who was close to Sylvia Greene could have heard directly from her.”

  “And how did she find out? And when?”

  “I don’t know how, but she found out the day of the meeting, before she lost her life. I assume she had some contact with someone who told her about Mr. Dunlap.”

  “And there’s nothing in this office that might tip you off as to who that might be?”

  “Nothing except for the fact that Stuart broke into my desk. And that he lied just now about looking at his own file.”

  Though I hadn’t permanently crossed Agnes off my list of suspects, she had moved farthest down on that list by virtue of my appreciation for the woman’s character. “Do you have any hunches as to which one of the files he was looking at?” I asked.

  “Not a hunch. I saw its color-coded tab. It was Gillian Sweet’s.”

  I thanked Agnes and headed out the door without even bothering to make a pretense that I was going anyplace other than to visit Gillian. Agnes could be pulling quite a number on me, lying about everything and setting me up, but I vowed to work harder to identify and trust my instincts.

  I trusted Agnes. I now no longer trusted Stuart and had never trusted Gillian Sweet.

  By the time I arrived back in my own neighborhood and pulled into Gillian’s driveway, I had formulated a legitimate topic to discuss with her. In her royal blue dress and heels, she was positively dressed to the nines when she answered, which was a cliché that I’ve never understood. Wouldn’t someone rather be dressed to the tens? Or to the eights? Though she swept the door fully open, she looked startled and ill at ease, as if she’d been expecting someone else.

  “Hi, Gillian. Did I catch you on your way out?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. What’s up?”

  “You said something about Stuart that night when Sylvia was killed. I’d all but forgotten about it. You said that he was a doctor. He denied it, but you seemed pretty sure of yourself.”

  She held her face immobile, but blinked a couple of times. My question had thrown her. “I must have been misinformed. I can’t even remember who told me that he was a retired doctor. Someone on the board, perhaps.”

  “Sylvia?”

  “I…don’t know. Maybe.”

  “But you really don’t remember now?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I was just curious. I’m still hoping something obvious has been overlooked that will vindicate my father.”

  “Molly, I’m sure you’d like that to be the case. But I’ve spoken to the police so many times about this that my throat is raw. I’m sure they investigated Stuart thoroughly. I wasn’t in my right head at the hospital. I never should have said what I did ab
out Stuart’s being a doctor. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Confused, I studied her features. “Why would his being or not being a doctor have anything to do with his hurting someone?”

  “It wouldn’t. I’m just saying that he wouldn’t kill anyone.” She gestured with her chin at the still-open door behind me. “This isn’t a good time for me to visit with you. I’m waiting for my ride to a meeting.”

  “I’ll let you go then. Thanks.” I returned to my car and backed down the driveway, too curious now to do anything other than plot my surveillance of her house to see just who showed up at her door. By the time I reached the bottom of her driveway, I realized how easy this would be as an often-recognized member of the neighborhood. Who just happened to be going for a stroll. Albeit on the opposite side of the development from her home and right behind Gillian’s house.

  I parked two cul-de-sacs down and walked back, trying to keep up a pace that made it look as though I were simply walking for exercise, yet trying to recognize the shape of her house. The more I thought about it, the stupider I realized this was. I couldn’t see who drove up this way. Not even I had the nerve to stroll right through the woman’s lawn to check for cars in her driveway, and if she was getting a ride someplace, the vehicle would be there for less than a minute.

  I deserted the plan entirely, returned to my car, and was just about to head home in defeat, when Stuart Ackleman pulled in and parked directly across from me. I immediately ducked out of view, then watched him walk through the woods toward Gillian’s house. There was only one reason I could come up with for him to be so averse to being seen by neighbors that he would park here. After a couple of minutes, Gillian and Stuart emerged arm in arm from the very same path through the woods that I had used. They were deeply involved in a heated discussion, and Gillian shook her head and started to run away from him, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a passionate kiss. She was crying, and Stuart seemed to be indicating that she should come with him to his car. This was when Stuart spotted me, sitting there, watching all of this. He froze, and Gillian followed his gaze. Her jaw dropped at the sight of me, then she darted back through the woods toward her house.