Season of Wonder

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Ruben tried to head off Todd’s exuberance. “Let me do a little digging before we jump the gun. I need to talk to the office staff and see if they can give me some names of people who might have been in the office around the time the jar disappeared.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve already asked the secretaries?” Todd demanded. “They don’t know anything.”

  If he spoke to them with that kind of derogatory tone, Ruben completely understood why no one would want to tell the man what they knew. “I have to follow procedure. You, of all people, should appreciate that. Protocol demands I interview potential eyewitnesses myself, even if they have already been interviewed by school staff. I know it’s a pain, but I can’t break the rules.”

  The vice principal looked torn between his deep and abiding love for rules and his insistence that his way was the best. “It’s a big waste of time, if you ask me,” he finally said. “You would do better to at least search the backpacks and lockers of the ones we’ve had the most trouble with this year. The likeliest suspects. For instance, I hear you had some vandalism at your place a few weeks ago and that our new student from the East Coast was involved. Maybe you should start there.”

  Okay, now Ruben wanted to punch the bastard.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “There’s a rumor going around that her family is connected—organized crime.”

  “Mafia? Really? Because she has an Italian surname? That’s a little xenophobic and racist, don’t you think, Todd? I’m surprised at you.”

  The other man flushed. “Setting aside the rumors I have picked up about her past and that her father was the leader of a crime syndicate, there remains the fact that she vandalized your home and that of one of our most beloved faculty members. Gertrude told me all about it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Miss Capelli moves to our school and suddenly we have a rash of thefts throughout the school year. And now this.”

  “I think you’re jumping to conclusions with no basis in fact. Let me do my job, Todd. I’ll start by talking with the office support staff and we can go from there.”

  He turned away without giving the man a chance to argue his point, hoping against hope that Silver Capelli had been at the exact opposite end of the school building when the jar of money disappeared.

  * * *

  “Any progress?” Marshall asked when Ruben called to check in an hour later.

  “Nothing. I’m stumped. How do you want me to proceed?”

  “Not with a lockdown and not with a person-by-person search, that’s for sure. Your instincts are right on. Call in Todd’s prime suspects and see if you get any hint of anything that doesn’t feel right. These are kids. It should be pretty easy to tell if they’re lying.”

  “You have kids. Can you always tell when Christopher isn’t telling you the truth?”

  “Good point,” Marshall said. “Not always, but he usually has a tell or two. Watch for those who won’t meet your gaze and also the overlong and too-complicated answers. You know the drill.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. I’ll keep you posted.”

  He hung up from Marsh and looked over his list of suspects. He had spoken with all the staff and student office helpers, taking down names of everyone who had been in and out of the office around the time the jar had disappeared.

  One name stood out. Silver Capelli. She had come in between classes during that time frame, claiming she had a verbal message from another student that one of the counselors wanted to speak with her about her schedule. That message, if it really had been given to Silver, appeared to have been a mistake. None of the three counselors claimed to have summoned her.

  He had a grim, tight feeling in his chest. He had to find another suspect. If Silver had taken the donation jar, it would devastate her mother. He couldn’t imagine having to be the one to tell Dani that Silver was on the hook for this.

  With renewed determination, he headed out front to speak to the office staff one last time before he started going through the list of suspects and calling students back to speak with him.

  Before he could reach the desk, the vice principal shoved open the double doors, carrying a large jar in one arm and dragging Silver behind him with the other.

  “Ha! I found it,” Todd declared, giving Ruben a triumphant look. “I haven’t had time to count it but I hope it’s all there, all $250 and change. And guess where I found it? In Miss Capelli’s locker, where I suggested we look an hour ago, if you’ll recall.”

  Ruben’s heart dropped. She looked terrified and confused, but with that come-at-me defiance he had been used to seeing until lately.

  “Sil,” he said slowly. “Tell me you didn’t do this.”

  The vice principal snorted “Of course she did it! The evidence was right there in her locker!”

  “Did you have a warrant to search my locker?” she demanded.

  “I don’t need a warrant.” He gave her an evil grin. “School administrators can search students’ lockers and belongings at will, as long as they can show credible evidence of wrongdoing.”

  “What was your credible evidence?” Ruben asked calmly, trying his best to keep his temper contained. “This is the first I’m hearing of anything beyond suspicion.”

  The Silver he had come to know over the last few weeks wouldn’t do something like that. Sure, she had vandalized The Wonder and a few other places. But she had also pitched in to clean up her mess. He sensed Silver used brashness and attitude to hide her inherent insecurities, like her mother did.

  “While you were busy talking to the secretaries, I received an anonymous tip telling me exactly where to look for the missing money. Apparently someone saw her hiding it in her locker.”

  “How did you receive this so-called tip?” Ruben asked.

  “A phone call in my office. And before you ask, no, I don’t know the number. It was blocked. All I know is that the caller was a female student, obviously trying to disguise her voice by speaking in a false lower octave.”

  “It doesn’t matter who called you,” Silver said, her expression a mix of anger and fear. “They were lying. I didn’t steal that stupid jar and I have no idea how it ended up in my locker.”

  Todd snorted. “So it just mysteriously appeared there and you had nothing to do with it. We’re supposed to believe that?”

  “I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth. I didn’t do it. And whose dumb idea was it anyway to leave a big jar full of money out in a public area full of middle school students? You should have just put a sign on it saying Take Me.”

  Ruben had to agree she had a point but Todd apparently saw things differently. His features turned an ugly shade of purple.

  “That’s quite enough out of you, young lady,” he said, fierce dislike in his voice.

  Why the hell did the man get a job in education when it was clear he couldn’t stand the students? Todd was a bully, plain and simple. A clean-cut, by-the-rules bully. The only trouble was, with the more reasonable principal gone, this particular bully was calling the shots and Ruben didn’t know what to do about it.

  “I don’t know how they did things where you came from,” Todd said, “but here in Haven Point we don’t tolerate this kind of behavior.”

  Silver folded her arms across her chest and gave him a scornful look. “Really? In my whole life, nobody ever told me it was against the rules to steal things. Back in Boston, we got extra credit for it.”

  “Silver, your sarcasm is not helping,” Ruben said.

  She turned a pleading look in his direction. “I didn’t do this. I would never. I’m telling you, somebody had to have planted that in my locker.”

  Ruben was beginning to believe the same thing. He found it highly suspicious that she had been given a mysterious summons to speak with a counselor who never asked for her, right around the time the jar went missing.

 
Coincidences in his line of work were rarely that.

  “Why would somebody set you up? Do you have any enemies?”

  She gave him a pitying sort of look. “I’m new to the school when everybody else has been here their whole lives. I have an accent that’s somewhere between Boston and Queens, I have purple hair and I wear clothes that won’t catch on here for at least three years. Of course I have enemies!”

  “If you have enemies, it’s because you haven’t tried to make friends,” Todd said in a snide voice. “Face it, Miss Capelli, you’ve had a bad attitude since the first day you arrived at Haven Point Middle School.”

  Silver gave a little shuddering breath and Ruben knew instinctively she was close to tears. Damn it. She would hate crying in front of the vice principal, as much as her mother had hated crying in front of him.

  He wanted to wrap his arms around her and promise her everything would be okay, that he would do everything he could to figure out a way to make this right, but he was helpless in the situation. All evidence pointed against her and at this point, Ruben had no proof someone else was behind the theft.

  “Can you narrow that list down a little?” Ruben said. “Are you sure you can’t identify the person who told you a counselor wanted to see you earlier?”

  She shook her head. “I think it might have been a seventh grader. I didn’t know her. She just said someone told her to tell the girl with purple hair that she had to go to the office, so I did.”

  “That’s quite a convenient story,” Todd said with a sneer.

  “Ask Mrs. Hobbs, the counselor. I showed up and she didn’t know a thing about me coming in, since she never asked anyone to get me.”

  “How do we know you didn’t just make up the whole thing? It’s more likely that you came up with some far-fetched story about someone telling someone to get you for Mrs. Hobbs, all so you could have an excuse to be in the office and steal the jar of money.”

  “But I didn’t,” she said. “Ruben, you believe me, don’t you?”

  He could say nothing, not with Todd there ready to jump on his every word.

  “It looks pretty bad, kid.”

  “Stealing is grounds for immediate disciplinary action. Automatic suspension, at the very least, while we determine what charges will be filed in the criminal court.”

  “Criminal court? But I didn’t take anything!”

  “The proof was in your locker.”

  “I told you, someone else must have put that in there. It wasn’t me.”

  Ruben believed her, without question, but he knew Todd wouldn’t see things the same way. It was up to Ruben to prove her innocence, which was always much harder than proving guilt. He just had to find the person who set her up and convince them to admit to the truth.

  No problem. Ha.

  “Any idea who might have been able to do that? Who else would have your locker combination?”

  For the first time, he saw her falter. She looked down at the ground then at her fingernails.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said, her voice subdued, giving him the distinct impression she wasn’t being completely truthful. “Maybe someone watched me get into my locker once and, I don’t know, figured out my combination from that.”

  “Is there a master list on the computer of students and their combinations? Could someone have hacked into that?” Ruben asked Todd.

  “That’s ridiculous. Why would anybody do that?”

  “To frame Silver, maybe.”

  “Highly unlikely.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “Nearly.” The vice principal scowled. “We keep that information in a folder on the secretary’s desk. But I can’t imagine how a student could have access to that without being seen snooping, especially under my watch.”

  Someone had managed to steal a jar of money off the counter without being seen under his watch but Ruben decided it might not be very politic right now to remind Todd of that.

  “This is all a waste of time. Miss Capelli obviously stole that money. I am not surprised.” He turned to her. “I’m just shocked that you would bring your ways to our school and think you can get away with it. We got you, didn’t we?”

  He grinned maliciously and Ruben again had to fight the urge to deck the little bastard. He could take him out with one good punch, but that would solve nothing and the paperwork would be a nightmare. He just had to figure out how he could fix this for Silver and for Dani.

  Silver seemed to shrink in her chair and Ruben could see tears forming in her eyes.

  “I am ordering suspension for the remainder of today and of course tomorrow, then I will consult with Principal Garcia during the break and we will determine the correct course of action from this point.”

  “The correct course of action would be to pull your head out and accept that I did not do this,” she insisted.

  Ruben wanted to tell her to stow it, that she was only making things worse for herself, but he could say nothing under the circumstances.

  “I’m calling your mother right now. I’m sure Dr. Capelli will be shocked that her daughter could stoop to such terrible behavior.”

  “My mom? Why do you have to call my mom?”

  “Because she needs to come and get you. As of this moment, you’re suspended.”

  Silver sat back in the chair and covered her face with her hands and Ruben’s heart broke for her.

  “Given the seriousness of the situation, I don’t think this is something that should be done in a phone call, Todd. I’m sure you agree with me on that.”

  The vice principal looked confused. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I know Dr. Capelli. She works with my father, as I’m sure you’re aware. Right now she’s at the clinic. I think the best course of action would be for me to take Silver to her mother and speak with her there about what has happened today.”

  “I think it would be best if we call her in so I can tell her what kind of trouble Silver is in.”

  The anticipation in Todd’s voice curdled his stomach. So you can bully Dani, too, just like you’re doing with her daughter? No chance in hell, Ruben thought.

  “Because of the seriousness of the matter, this is really a matter for law enforcement now. I’m afraid I need to take her into custody.”

  “What?” Silver said. She looked completely betrayed. He again wanted to assure her that everything would be okay but he couldn’t say anything in front of the vice principal. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could promise her anything of the sort, not when the evidence was so damning against her. It was hard to argue her innocence when the missing money was found in her locker.

  “It would be best if I talk to her mother in person. Thank you for your help with the investigation but I’ll take care of things from here.” He met Silver’s gaze, hoping she could see he was on her side. “Do you have everything you need? Your coat, your books?”

  She lifted her backpack without meeting his gaze, her face crumpled as if she had lost faith in everything good and right in the world.

  “Okay,” he said in his most stern voice for Todd’s benefit. “Let’s go talk to your mother.”

  * * *

  “You haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet? I’ve been done for months.”

  Dani cringed inwardly at the chiding tone from Gloria. Yet one more thing for her to feel guilty about. She had been a little busy the last few weeks trying to keep up with her work at the clinic and juggle being a mom to a troublesome teenager and an energetic six-year-old.

  “I did most of mine online, which took so much hassle out of it,” Gloria went on. “I’m afraid you’re too late for online delivery now, though, especially up here in Haven Point. I always figure it takes things at least an extra day or two to make it over the mountains from Boise.”

  “You’re probably right,” Dani m
urmured. “I’m mostly done. I was thinking I would make a late-night trip to the big-box store in Shelter Springs after the girls are in bed tonight.”

  “You better finish before the weekend,” Gloria advised. “I wouldn’t be caught dead shopping on the last Saturday before the holiday. The crowds will be insane. People think Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year, but it’s not. It’s the Saturday before Christmas.”

  She had lived in metropolitan areas all her life, first New York then Boston. Somehow she had a feeling her version of insane crowds and Gloria’s version would be significantly different.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Dani said. “Can you find my notes from my last appointment with McKenzie Kilpatrick’s poodle? She’s bringing her in again this afternoon for a follow-up appointment and I want to go over what we talked about last time.”

  The clinic door opened before Gloria had a chance to respond. Both of them turned to greet the newcomer but Dani’s automatic polite smile of welcome never even had time to sprout at the sight of Ruben, in full, forbidding uniform complete with Stetson and coat, walking in with a subdued-looking Silver.

  Dani’s stomach plummeted. She could only think of a few reasons her daughter would be escorted home by a deputy sheriff, none of them good.

  Oh, Silver. What kind of trouble are you in this time?

  She straightened her spine, vertebra by vertebra. “What’s going on? It’s the middle of the school day. Are you sick?”

  To her astonishment, Silver burst into tears and rushed through the door to the reception area. Dani barely had time for the shock to register before her daughter threw her arms around her, sobbing words she couldn’t understand.

  “Honey, it’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay. We’ll fix it.”

  “You can’t fix this. I hate it here. Please, Mom, can I go back to Boston or New York? I could stay with Chelsea’s family or...or Grandma DeLuca said I could live with her. Please, Mom.”