One Way Ticket (A Smith and Hughes Mystery Book 1)

by Jay Forman

  “She loved it!”

  “He’s all yours.” I turned around and cleared the way for Jack to have at Greg again.

  Jack’s hands were gripping his crutches so tightly that his knuckles were snow white, but he didn’t make a move. “When did she start asking you for money?”

  “She came back the next week for her lesson, all nice and friendly. I figured she’d ask me for another ride back to the school, you know? But she drove her own car that time. It wasn’t until just before she left that she handed me a USB key and told me to watch it in private.”

  “When was that?” I kept an eye on Jack’s hands. Some colour was returning to his knuckles, but I could tell he was still incredibly tense.

  “October, November, I don’t remember. All I know is that one fuck cost me almost one hundred grand and it wasn’t worth it. She hit me up five times, fifteen grand each time. So you can understand why I didn’t get all weepy when we got the call about her dying.”

  “Now we’re really done.” Jack spun around on his good leg and started heading for the car.

  “I’m going to tell the police about this.” I didn’t want Greg to think he was going to be able to keep his dirty little secret any longer, even though I doubted that Will could charge him with anything. I just wanted to scare him. He’d recovered too quickly from Jack’s attack and his cockiness made my blood boil.

  “How’d you find out about the video?”

  “Erica gave it to us.”

  Greg’s face went as white as Jack’s knuckles had been. “Erica’s seen it?”

  “Yup.” I, too, turned to leave. A trickle of satisfaction ran through me. I’d hurt him far more than Jack’s macho act ever could. I’d found Greg’s weak spot – he was scared of Erica Talbot.

  *

  “Floor it,” was the only thing Jack said once we were both back in the car.

  My tires threw up a shotgun blast of gravel and I heard the rocky projectiles hitting the side of the stable as we drove away. Neither of us spoke again until after I’d turned onto the highway.

  “I shouldn’t have lost it like that. Sorry.” Jack said softly.

  I slowed down to the speed limit because I wanted to. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for. I wanted to hit him, too...,”

  “But you didn’t touch him. I did.”

  “Everybody’s got their breaking point, Jack. I just knocked him out a different way.” I told him how scared Greg had looked when he found out that Erica knew about the video.

  “She’s a powerful foe.”

  “You don’t need to tell me that!”

  “Poor Pam.” Jack sighed and pushed the button to tilt the back of his seat down a bit. “She hasn’t had it easy. She’s a perfect example of money’s inability to buy happiness.”

  I would have disagreed with him before. But not now. “Do you think Greg was really in Texas when Kayla died?”

  “That’s easy enough to find out.” He pulled his own phone out of his pocket and called someone. “Hi George, I need you to find out if Pam Horscroft’s plane filed a flight plan, Muskoka to Texas and back sometime earlier this month, with special attention to the return date. Thanks.” He unplugged my phone and then plugged his own in. “I didn’t look at your phone, I just need to recharge mine.”

  “No problem. I should call Will, tell him about what just happened.”

  Jack nodded.

  “It can wait until after lunch.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Neither am I.” I let snippets of my conversation with Pam playback in my mind as I headed toward Berkshire. There’d been something that Pam had said that stuck out at the time, but it took me a few minutes to refresh my memory enough to know what that something had been. “Mind opening my contacts and finding Will’s cell number for me?”

  “I thought you said...,”

  “I want to ask him something.”

  Jack looked at me. “You don’t mind me looking at...,”

  “Just find the number, okay?”

  Jack stayed quiet as I talked to Will hands-free through the car’s Bluetooth.

  “Do you have a list of everything you took out of Kayla’s room at Berkshire?” I asked Will.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Was there a big panda bear, really big, like almost life-sized?”

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re asking this?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Give me a minute.” It took Will less than a minute to check whatever he had to check. “No panda.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “What’s up, Lee?”

  Jack’s phone started to ring and I was literally saved by its bell. I didn’t want to lie to Will, but I also didn’t want to answer his question.

  “Gotta go, Will. I’m getting a call on the other line.” I pushed the button on the steering wheel that disconnected our call.

  Jack picked up his phone and looked at the screen. “It’s Marcy. I think you’ll want to hear this.”

  I had absolutely no idea what it was that he wanted me to hear, but I was willing to listen.

  Jack answered his phone on speaker. “Hi Marcy, I’ve got you on speaker. I’m in the car with Lee.”

  “Hello to both of you then. How’s your leg doing, Jack? Weren’t you getting your walking cast today?”

  “I was indeed. It’s on and things are healing nicely.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. And you, Lee? How are you?”

  It struck me that Marcy was the first Berkshire person to start a conversation with either Jack or me by asking about our well-being. “I’m good.”

  “I hope you’re surviving your reintroduction to Berkshire unscathed, even if it’s happening under unpleasant circumstances. The school’s changed a lot since our day.”

  “So far, so good.” Why hadn’t I been friends with her? She seemed so nice.

  “Did you find anything, Marcy?” Jack cut in. “I couldn’t see anything, but my brain hasn’t been working at full speed because of the painkillers I’ve been taking.”

  What had Jack asked Marcy to find? I wondered if it had something to do with her son, and his involvement in the boathouse sex video.

  “Not really. It would help if you’d tell me what I’m looking for. I’ve been over all the documentation and everything seems to be in order. There were a few minor discrepancies, but I’d rather explain those to you in person so we can both be looking at the same thing at the same time. Are you anywhere near the school?”

  “We’re actually on our way there. Are you there?”

  “I can be there in about fifteen minutes. I’m at our place right now. I drove Glen up to visit with Glyn for a bit. They’re both having a hard time dealing with Ethan’s death, not surprisingly. They needed some twin time so I took the day off to play chauffeur. They won’t miss me if I pop over to the school to talk to you.”

  She was nice and a caring mother. So very different from Erica.

  Jack made plans to meet up with Marcy in the rotunda and then explained what it was he’d asked her to look into – the offering memorandum for Allamanda Cay. “I wanted to get her expert opinion, even though I’ve looked at everything and nothing stuck out.”

  “Except for the fact that Greg’s lying about construction having started on the island.”

  “Are you absolutely sure you were at the south end?”

  “Positive. But if you’d like me to qualify that with numbers, I’m one hundred percent positive. And I don’t care if Marcy agrees with your assessment of the numbers – there’s nothing built or being built on that island.”

  “Marcy’s the Vice-Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission; she’s a Certified Financial Analyst, if there’s...,”

  “I don’t care if she’s Warren Freaking Buffet in disguise! I’m telling you, there’s nothing there.”

  “Except those ducks you mentioned, right? Look, let’s hear what Marcy as to say...,”

  “I don’t need to
, Jack.” My foot was slowly pushing down harder and harder on the accelerator. Why couldn’t he take my word for it?

  “Numbers don’t lie, people do.”

  “Well, Greg’s definitely lying about what’s on that island so he could easily be lying about the numbers, too.” The silence between us was awkward, so I just drove.

  “Why did you ask Will about a panda bear?”

  I stared straight ahead. “Jocelyn has a big one in her dorm room and it’s lumpy and heavy. It would be a great place to hide a ton of cash.”

  “Whoa! You’ve just jumped leap years ahead of me. Take me back to the beginning of this thought process of yours.”

  “If Greg was telling the truth...,”

  “But you just said that he’s lying...,”

  “About Allamanda! I’m talking about the blackmail. If he was telling the truth about Kayla blackmailing more than one person and if she asked for fifteen thousand every time it would add up to a lot of money, a lot of cash, right?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Hey, you’re the numbers guy, do the math. And you always say that the quickest way to find out the truth about something is to follow the money, right?”

  “But you just told me not to do that with Allamanda...,”

  “Show me the money.” I cut Jack off and chose not to react or reply to his comment. “You use that line from Jerry Maguire all the time. Where’s the blackmail money? It’s not in any bank account that you found, so maybe it’s still cash, real cash. Like untraceable, stuffed in a mattress or a big stuffed animal, cash.”

  “But we don’t know if Jocelyn was involved.”

  “We don’t know anything for sure, but that note Kayla wrote to Jocelyn was definitely about money. About Jocelyn expecting Kayla to give her some. Oh! What if Kayla tried to rip Jocelyn off? What if they were working the blackmail thing together, sharing the money, but Kayla got greedy? Maybe they met up in the tower room that night, had a big fight and Jocelyn lost it and pushed Kayla out the window?” The speedometer jumped up with each new thought I had. “And...,”

  “Slow down!”

  I lifted my foot off the accelerator.

  “Not the car, your mind. You’re going way too fast for me.”

  He was right, my mind was racing. “Aloysius, that’s the name of Jocelyn’s big panda bear. What kid would pick that name for a stuffed animal? The most obvious reason is...,”

  “Sebastian’s bear in Brideshead Revisited.”

  “Exactly! But when I mentioned that to her she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. The names Kayla chose for things – her little panda, her horses – all came from Sesame Street. So where did Jocelyn get the idea for a name like Aloysius?”

  “Should I stick with the movie and television train of thought?”

  “It’s worth a shot. That’s the business Jocelyn wants to get into.”

  “The police chief in Stanley Kramer’s It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was named Aloysius.”

  “Jocelyn’s too young to know that movie. Try something more current.”

  “It’s a classic.”

  “You’re old. Try again.”

  “Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader Dum Dum Dugan?”

  “Who?” I took the turn onto the side road that led to Berkshire too fast and heard Jack suck in a scared breath, but he didn’t miss a beat in the conversation.

  “He led the Howling Commandos in Captain America: The First Avenger.”

  “No, that doesn’t fit either. Kayla’s panda was Bert, her horse at Pam’s stables is Ernie, the polo pony Erica bought her for the island was going to be called Elmo. See the theme?”

  “What about Aloysius Snuffleupagus?”

  I jerked my head to look at Jack. “Are you serious? That’s Mr. Snuffleupagus’ first name? It’s perfect! Now I’m even more sure that that’s where the money is!”

  “Bears!” Jack screamed as he pointed at the front windshield.

  I looked forward just in time to avoid hitting the black bear who was calmly shepherding her two cubs across the two lane road. They were getting too used to humans and their cars. Then again, most humans wouldn’t be coming at them that quickly on that side road. The speed limit was 50 km/h and I was doing almost double that. I slammed on the brake pedal and Jack caught his cell phone as it flew off the console between our seats.

  It rang while it was in his hand and he answered on speaker. “What did you find, George?” His voice was a little shaky.

  I decided to keep to the speed limit for the rest of the drive, no matter how excited I was. I was onto something, I could feel it.

  “The Grey corporate jet flew to Houston on March thirty-first and returned to the Muskoka airport at ten hundred hours on April 8th.”

  We still didn’t know if Greg had actually been on that plane, though. Or if he’d been in Houston with Pam. “Is there a cancer clinic in Houston? A good one?” I asked Jack after he thanked George and ended his call.

  “The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre is one of the best in the States.”

  “So maybe Greg really was away when Kayla was killed.” I slowed down as we drove up to the slightly smaller pack of reporters outside of Berkshire’s gates.

  “If she was killed.”

  “But we don’t know where he was when Ethan was killed.”

  “He wouldn’t do that to his own stepson!”

  “That jerk is capable of anything.”

  “True.”

  I pushed the button to lower my window and the pack started to move in for the questioning kill.

  “I’ve got you on camera, Miss Smith, come through,” a male voice squawked out of the intercom speaker before my window was all the way down.

  “We should talk to him about what he saw the night Kayla died,” Jack suggested as I drove through the opening gates. “That sounded like Karl.”

  But we didn’t get a chance to talk to Karl on our way into the school. Marcy pulled into the visitors’ parking just as I was walking around to the other side of my car to help Jack.

  He didn’t want, or really need, my help. He’d had plenty of practice with crutches, playing with mine whenever I’d had a lower limb wrapped up in a cast or bandage.

  I didn’t want, or need, to go with him when he and Marcy headed for the boardroom to discuss the paper contents of Marcy’s large briefcase. I already knew I was right, no matter what their numbers said.

  What I wanted to do was go up to the dorm. Lunch had just started, which meant Jocelyn’s big panda bear would be alone for at least half an hour.

  What I got was Mem C in my face. And beside me at the high table in the dining hall. She’d “taken the liberty” of rearranging the seating to make sure I was seated beside her. Thankfully, neither the religious studies teacher nor the Latin teacher were there.

  What Mem C wanted was to pump me for information about what Jack had hinted at, that we were looking at one of the boys as a possible suspect.

  “I simply can’t believe that one of our children might be responsible for Kayla’s death.”

  “Anything’s possible.” I filled my mouth with the last forkful of my chicken Caesar salad.

  “But how would a boy get up into the tower room? Don’t you think you should be looking at one of the girls?”

  I wasn’t going to tell her about the secret passage in the chapel ceiling. The maintenance department probably knew about it, but there’d be no need for the teachers to know about it. And I didn’t want to jeopardize any future girl students’ possible escape route. Instead, I decided to play along with Jack’s false information that he’d given her earlier. I leaned in closer to make her think I was about to share a secret. “We’re not dismissing any possible suspects. Everyone who was in the school that night could have done it – student, staff or visitor. And Ethan’s death has made us look at one person in particular.” It was complete bull, but I could tell that she was lapping it up almost as fast as she’d lapped up my des
sert the night before.

  “Goodness! You and Jack certainly have moved fast to narrow it down so quickly.” She smiled up at the waitress who removed her empty plate and then leaned in so close to me that our heads almost bumped. “I’m not surprised, though. You always were nosey. And Jack’s an extremely intelligent man. Are you working with the police? Sharing all your information?”

  I spotted Jocelyn sitting at the far end of the dining hall and had an idea. Mem C was going to love it. It would make her feel like part of the team. “Yeah, we are. Actually, you might be able to help me with something.”

  “Anything!” A member of the kitchen staff put down a bowl of fruit salad in front of Mem C and her excited face drooped when she looked at it.

  “I need to get into Jocelyn’s room to look for something. Would you keep her busy for me after lunch? It shouldn’t take me long.”

  Mem C pushed a slice of pineapple to the side of her bowl and then stabbed half a strawberry. “I can do that. Can you tell me what you’re looking for?”

  I thanked the woman who brought me my bowl of fruit salad. It looked delicious. “I’d rather not. I don’t want to lessen your opinion of Jocelyn and I could be wrong.” I’d already been wrong about something. I’d promised Will that I wouldn’t tell anyone we were working with him. Oops!

  “I doubt anything you say would lower my opinion of Jocelyn. I’ve said from the beginning that I thought she had something to do with all this.”

  Thankfully, Mem C was so fixated on Jocelyn that my slip-up was probably long gone from her thoughts. She proceeded to tell me just how low her opinion of Jocelyn was as china teacups and saucers were put in front of us. By the time both of our teacups had been filled with tea (that was so black that it could have passed for coffee) Mem C had moved on to adding five of the seven deadly sins to her list of Jocelyn’s faults: gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, and pride. I was tempted to ask her how she really felt, but knew my sarcasm would confuse her and I still wanted her on my side to help keep Jocelyn out of her dorm room. So I asked her to pass the milk instead. She willing did that, but picked up the sugar bowl and stood up.

  “That’s not proper sugar.” She then proceeded to walk down the length of the High Table, removing every single sugar bowl, and disappeared into the kitchen.