by Diane Weiner
“Not yet. I’ll call Kevin and see what’s going on.”
“He’s guilty,” said Susan, smoldering with anger. “I know it. Oh, and an anonymous witness heard them fighting in the arboretum the night of the murder.”
“An anonymous witness? How did you come by that tidbit of information?”
“I can’t say. I promised I’d keep his identity a secret.”
“His identity. It’s one of your students, right? A male student. A music major. It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who he is. Really, Mom.”
“Did Kevin check the emergency room records to see if Celia had ever been admitted with suspicious injuries?”
“I wish you’d trust the police to do their job without your prodding, Mom. Kevin went over to the ER this afternoon.”
“Just pass the tip along to Kevin, Lynette. I promised my, uh, brother that I’d help.”
“And you, stay out of trouble. You never learn.”
After dinner, Susan took a walk around the neighborhood to try to sort out the recent events. She put what she knew together. Derrick had been having a fight with Celia. She tried to get away, but he followed her into the arboretum. His temper got the best of him, and he whacked her in the head, killing her. Too bad they hadn’t found the murder weapon yet. At least as far as Susan knew they hadn’t found it. Of course, Lynette wouldn’t tell her if they had. Maybe there’d be some good physical evidence when they did––fingerprints, or Derrick’s DNA.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind her. She turned around, but saw no one. What if Derrick was coming after her? She race-walked along the sidewalk. Looked again. Still no one. It was stress. She was imagining things. She picked up her pace. Now she was almost jogging. She could hear herself panting. Then, a hand clamped down on her shoulder. She froze. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Was it Derrick? How am I going to get out of this?
“I need to talk to you.” She was expecting to hear Derrick’s gruff voice, but was surprised when a woman spoke.
Susan froze in her tracks. When she could make her feet move again, she turned around. She was face to face with a petite red head.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“I need to tell you something. Derrick didn’t kill Celia, and he never beat her. She was the one abusing him.”
“What? Who are you anyway?”
“I’m his girlfriend. Derrick was with me the night of Celia’s murder.”
“His girlfriend? If that’s true, no one will believe you. They’ll think you’re trying to protect him. Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Derrick thought it would look bad for him, just like you say. An affair could be motive, especially since he made such a fuss over finding out that she was unfaithful to him. He’s been seeing me for months.”
“Can you prove he was with you the night of the murder?”
“Yes. We were at a hotel, just outside of town. We have credit card receipts, and the front desk person knows us. It wasn’t our first visit. He’ll confirm it. I’m sure there’s even security footage. Derrick didn’t kill his wife.”
Susan didn’t believe her. “What about when he tried to set her on fire?”
“It was Celia who threw hot oil from a frying pan at Derrick. He was too embarrassed to admit it. He was ashamed that she was abusing him. What kind of man can’t stand up to his wife? He was afraid of her.”
“Then maybe that’s why he killed her,” suggested Susan, still uncertain of this strange woman’s sudden appearance.
“I’m going to the police with this in the morning. You’ll see I’m right,” she said and ran off before Susan could reply.
Chapter 19
“Mom,” Lynette said, “Kevin called. He told me you spoke to Derrick Watkins’s girlfriend. Why? She gave a statement this morning, and we verified Derrick’s alibi. He’s off the hook, so stay away from them.”
“Lynette, she followed me last night on my walk. She said Derrick was innocent and she would be talking to the police. I didn’t pursue her. I didn’t even know who she was. What now?”
“Kevin said the security guard is out of the coma. He’s going to question him. Hopefully he’ll get a new lead. Meanwhile, you just enjoy your time with Audrey.”
“About Audrey. I feel so mixed up. On the one hand, I understand she had no choice but to put me up for adoption. She was fifteen. I get that. On the other hand, I resent the fact she didn’t fight to keep me. She came from a rich family. Her parents could have hired a nanny to help out.”
“I know, Mom.” Lynette put her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “What if she’d kept you? Maybe it would have been great, but maybe not. We never would have known Grandma Nancy or Grandpa. Audrey did us a favor as far as I see it.”
Susan sniffed. “And why didn’t Grandma Nancy tell me I was adopted? I just can’t get over feeling resentful.”
“Maybe she was afraid you’d go searching for your birth mother. Maybe she felt inadequate, not being able to get pregnant. I know how I felt all that time Jason and I were trying to conceive. In the end, all that matters is that she loved you. She was your Mom. Audrey can’t replace her. I’m treating Audrey as a potential friend, not a replacement grandma.”
“Thanks, Lynnette. That helps. Do you want to come hear the concert at Trinity Village with me?”
“Annalise has been fussy all day. I think I’ll stay here with her.”
“Alright. I promised my students I’d go. Evan is napping. Audrey isn’t home yet. Guess I’ll go alone.”
“Enjoy it.”
Susan entered the solarium minutes before the concert started and grabbed an aisle seat. She saw the same scruffy male nurse with the patient in the wheelchair. The concert started and Susan’s eyes wandered back to the nurse. Before the end of the first movement, he slipped out the door, just like last time. Where’s he going in the middle of the concert?
She got up and slipped out the door behind him. As she followed, she watched him go in and out of all of the first floor rooms. She knew most of the patients were at the concert. To be sure, she peeked into the rooms after him to verify her suspicion. Empty beds. She glanced at her watch. The concert would be ending soon. One last room. Small and dark. She flipped a switch. Bleach and ammonia fumes burned her nose. A bucket and mop leaned against the wall. Why did the nurse come in here? He didn’t come out holding supplies. Then, the door slammed shut. Complete darkness surrounded her.
Her heartbeat paused. She reached along the walls, trying to locate a switch. The hair on her arms tingled and her stomach felt like an elevator dropping to her toes as she felt the walls for the switch. After a few minutes, she located the door. She pulled the handle and jiggled it. It was locked from the outside. She felt something fuzzy crawling up her leg. She screamed and brushed it off. She stomped all over the floor trying to kill whatever it was in the dark. She hated spiders and all things creepy crawly. Oh, God! What if it wasn’t a spider? It could be one of those flying roaches on steroids that they had here in Florida. She screamed even louder than before. She had to get out now.
My phone. I’ll call Lynette. She groped through her purse and found it. Her fingers hurried over the keys, but to no avail. Inside the closet, the phone was dead. What if I never get out? I wish Mike was here.
Don’t panic, Susan, she told herself. She banged on the door. Surely someone would hear her. Then there was a clap of thunder loud enough to shake the walls. She remembered an evening storm had been forecast. The claps of thunder increased in frequency and volume. No one would hear her banging amidst the raucous noise. Once the patients were returned to their rooms, the halls would be empty. The nurses’ station was clear across the other side of the floor. If she screamed between thunder claps, maybe someone would hear her.
“Help! Help! I’m in the closet!” She yelled until her throat felt raw. No one came. She slumped to the floor, rubbing her sore knuckles. If worst came to worst, she
’d spend the night in the supply closet. In the morning she’d be found. She wasn’t going to starve or freeze to death. She’d be okay. Her eyes felt heavy. The adrenaline racing through her body made it impossible to sleep. Time crawled by. Then, she heard footsteps.
“Mom! Mom! Are you here?”
Did she just hear her name? Thank God! It was Lynette.
“I’m right here!” She pounded on the door. “Lynette, in the closet.” The door flew open. Her entire body sighed at the sight of her son and daughter.
“Mom, what happened?” Lynette hugged her.
“Lynette, Evan, thank God! I was trapped. My phone didn’t get service. It was that male nurse. He slipped out during the concert sneaking in and out of the patient’s rooms. He locked me in here. You have to arrest him!”
“Why weren’t you watching the concert? Were you following him? Tell me you weren’t doing something that foolish, Mom.”
“Lynette, he’s up to no good. I bet he’s stealing from the patients.”
“We’ll go down to the station in the morning and file a report. Did you see him take anything?”
“No.”
“Did you see him push you in and lock the closet door?”
“No, but…”
“We’ll make the report, but we have no proof of anything. Except you were where you shouldn’t have been in the first place.”
“Come on, Mom. Let’s go home,” said Evan.
Chapter 20
“Kevin, my Mom needs to file a report. Last night, she was thrown into a supply closet at Trinity Village. She knows who did it, but didn’t actually see him and there weren’t any witnesses.” They stood before his desk at the police station.
“Are you okay?” Kevin turned to Susan.
“No, she’s not,” said Lynette. “Anyone crazy enough to stalk a potential criminal isn’t okay.” She glared at Susan.
“You know I was trying to help, Lynette,” replied Susan. “I saw this guy talking to Alonzo and to a student named Kymani another time. If the school is involved…”
“Come into my office, Mrs. Wiles.”
“I’m going to grab a drink from the vending machine. I’ll meet you outside,” said Lynette.
After Lynette left, Susan filled Kevin in on the details of the previous night.
“All we have is a report of a nurse going into patients’ rooms while they weren’t there. Not exactly a crime, but we’ll take the information in case we get a burglary report later. At least we’ll have it on record.”
“Thanks, Kevin,” said Susan. “I figured as much.”
“Wish all our citizens were as aware as you are.”
She’d always liked Kevin. She headed outside to meet Lynnette, then realized she’d left her sweater in Kevin’s office. When she got back inside, he was on the phone. She couldn’t help overhearing the conversation.
“You were outside of the auditorium, when someone hit you from behind. Is that correct?” he spoke into the receiver. Susan surmised he was talking to the security guard who’d had recently come out of the coma.
“George Roberts. Got it. Blond, muscular. Alonzo Benitez. Schwartz. How do you spell that? Got it. You saw all of these men outside the auditorium the night you were attacked, correct? We’ll get right on it. Get some rest, sir,” concluded Kevin.
“Mom?” Susan jumped.
“Lynette, I thought you were going to wait outside for me?”
“Why were you in the hallway, Mom? Were you eavesdropping?”
“Of course not,” said Susan. “I . . . I forgot my sweater. I’d better get back to school.”
Lynette dropped her off at the auditorium. As Susan was walking to class, she saw a face which made her cringe. It was the male nurse from last night. What was he doing on campus? She quickly turned her head to avoid being recognized.
“Ms. Wiles.” A hand grabbed her arm. She jumped, then realized it was her student.
“Hello, Bibi. Heading to class? We can walk together.”
“Mrs. Wiles, I have to talk to someone, and I trust you.”
“Of course, you can talk to me. Is something wrong?”
“Last night,” began Bibi, “the electricity went out during the storm. Trish always kept a flashlight under her bed, so I reached under there to find it. I found it, but I also found these.” She pulled out several large prescription bottles.
“These belonged to Trish?” asked Susan.
“They have to be hers, or else she was keeping them for someone. She said she didn’t have a drug problem. I don’t want to go to Principal Roberts or the police with this until I know what it means.”
Susan took one of the bottles and poured out a pill. “It doesn’t say what this is on the pill, there’s no prescription label on the bottle. My son’s a med student and he’s taking a pharmacy class. How about if I ask him to find out what it is, then we’ll go from there?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wiles,” said Bibi.
“Let’s go inside,” said Susan escorting the girl into the classroom.
Susan enjoyed teaching her Music History class. It had been a while since she’d seen a textbook, and a lot of new information had been added since then. Today’s topic was music during World War II. She began by asking the students what they already knew.
Starr raised her tattooed hand. “I heard that the Nazis stole a lot of valuable instruments from the Jews. A lot of one of a kind violins were never found. My violin teacher told me that.”
Another student added how Sixty Minutes had done a show about stolen Stradivarius and Guarneri violins.
“I heard some Jewish musicians were saved because they were brought to the officers to perform,” said Manolito. “Mr. Schwartz talked about it in European History class.”
“There was a movie about that. I saw it with my parents,” said Bibi.
The lively discussion made the class go by fast. Before lunch, Susan typed up the program for next week’s Trinity Village concert. Done. Now I need to throw it in the mail on my way to lunch. She searched for a large envelope.
The bottom desk drawer was full of mailing supplies. She reached to the back. What’s this? She pulled out a red and white copper enamel bracelet. She’d seen a similar design on a pair of lederhosen that her husband Mike had worn to a Halloween party last year. Where else had she seen something like this? Now she remembered. She’d seen this type of bracelet back in Austria when she’d visited all those years ago. The inside of the bracelet she now held in her hand was inscribed. It said, “Ich liebe dich, Celia.” Thanks to German diction classes, she knew it translated to, “I love you, Celia.”
I love you? Surely this wasn’t Derrick’s style. No way could she imagine him knowing German or buying Celia a sentimental piece of jewelry. But why did Celia hide this bracelet at work?
“Susan, what am I going to do?” Audrey burst through the door, waving a newspaper. “This came out in the paper today. It paints our school in a terrible light. Our donors and parents are going to see this.”
Susan read the article. It accused the school of sweeping the attacks and murder under the rug and not pushing hard enough to solve Celia’s murder.
“Do you have any leads?” Audrey asked her. “The big donor benefit dinner is coming up. The bad publicity is going to kill our funding.”
“We’ve ruled out her husband, Derrick Watkins,” said Susan. “He had an alibi which checked out. There’s the possibility the robber whose brother Celia shot years ago in that home invasion was released from prison and sought revenge. I’m also wondering if Celia had a boyfriend. Perhaps things went sour.”
“Boyfriend? Celia? I can’t imagine it,” said Audrey.
“A student from the boy’s dorm saw a man in the arboretum the night of the murder,” said Susan. “Another reported hearing an argument. At first I thought she was arguing with Derrick, but now we know he wasn’t there. Any thoughts as to who else she may have argued with?”
“I have no idea,” replied A
udrey, her forehead puckered intently. “I spoke to our principal. She’s recovering, but slowly, just one day at a time. She mentioned Celia saying she needed to talk to her about a student she was concerned about, but she never had the chance to find out who she meant.”
“Could it have been Trish, I wonder?” mused Susan.
“It’s possible,” replied Audrey.
Chapter 21
“Evan, I need your help,” said Susan. She pulled out the pill bottles that Bibi had given her. “Can you find out what kind of pills these are? They aren’t labeled.” She poured a few into Evan’s hand.
“I can check,” he said. “My pharmacology text is online.” Susan followed Evan into Evan’s room, where he turned on his laptop. He scrolled through the chapters, taking notes as he read.
“Find anything?”
“Not yet. It could be any of these.” He showed her a short list.
“Okay,” she said, “but which one? Can you keep looking?”
“Let me see the bottle.” He poured the contents out on a sheet of paper.
“What are you doing?”
“Seeing if they are all the same. Maybe there are some that are marked.”
“Well?” she demanded, her head over his shoulder.
“These appear to be all alike,” he concluded. “Let me see another bottle.” He poured out the contents of the second bottle. “Look!” he cried, pointing. “There are two different kinds of pills in this bottle. One type is a little bigger than the other. See that?”
“Yes,” noted Susan. “What does it mean?”
“I’ll tell you what it means,” Evan concluded, “I’m pretty sure these pills didn’t come from a doctor.” The door opened.
“Mom? Evan? What are you two doing?” Lynette stuck her head in.
“Lynette? We were just chatting,” Susan smiled broadly and moved in front of the pill display.
“What are all those pills?” asked Lynette, having already seen the small items strewn on the bed.
