“What is it, Betts?” Gram asked.
I bit my cheeks. I wanted to tell her. I wanted it to have been Jerome, but telling her what I thought I saw suddenly seemed ridiculous.
“Nothing, Gram. Just getting one more look.”
She turned her head and briefly looked back at the building. “Gent can visit us at the school. We probably won’t go back there.”
I was impressed by my earlier intuition, but I still wanted to go back, now probably more than ever. I didn’t say a word.
Gram drove us back to the school so I could gather the Nova. I told her a cheery good-bye, hopped in the car, and started it, but pretended to be looking at something on my phone as I waved a farewell. The Volvo pulled out of the parking lot, the normally quiet woods still being serenaded by Tim McGraw. Once her taillights were out of view and I could no longer hear Tim, I turned my car off and got out of it again.
I hurried toward the cemetery and then stepped over the low rope dividing it from the parking lot. Though there was a large light on the front of the school building, most of the cemetery was buried in spotty blackness. I could make out tombstones here and there but nothing specific, and because I was looking into the darkness and not at my feet, I didn’t lift one up as high as I should have. My toe caught painfully on the rope.
“Dammit,” I said. I’d avoided all the glass at the bakery, but the rope I was accustomed to had proved the real danger.
I never liked being at the school alone at night, definitely never liked to traipse through the cemetery in the dark. The mere idea had given me the willies even before I knew about the ghosts. I switched on the light on my phone and directed it out toward the plots and tombstones, which ended up making everything only creepier.
“Nice,” I said quietly. I cleared my throat and said, “Jerome, are you there?”
My behavior was a little nutty, and I hoped that no one but me and possibly him was paying attention.
I ignored the burning pain in my toe and walked to Jerome’s tombstone, my shoes flipping and flopping much more loudly than normal. I’d visited his grave a few times since he’d left, but mostly I’d stayed away from it. I aimed the light at the epitaph. It said: HE COULD CHARM THE LADIES, BUT HE COULDN’T SHOOT DIDDLY.
I smiled.
“No, you couldn’t shoot straight, could you? Good thing you didn’t have to,” I said.
No answer.
With the possible exception of the crickets’ chirps, some frenetic moths around the light on the building, and a dozen or so lightning bugs, there was no one else in the cemetery, unless, of course, we were counting the dead and buried. No spirits lurked above the ground. The crickets, the moths, the invisible ghosts, no one cared about or noticed my silliness.
I was, however, surprised to see a coin on top of the tombstone. The one I carried with me for luck was real gold, but this was clearly a fake, perhaps the same one that Jake and I had found before I’d met Jerome. Someone had put this one there or had returned the original token, but I wasn’t sure why. Neither Jim, the police chief, nor Cliff, my recycled boyfriend and a police officer himself, knew about the ghosts, so they wouldn’t think to put it there as some sort of honor. Jake, who knew all about the ghosts, must have been the one sentimental enough to place the coin there. I’d ask him.
I stood still for a few minutes and then looked around one more time. Finally, I took a big sniff searching for Jerome’s wood smoke scent. The night smelled of musty leftover humidity, green from all the trees, and spiced with a far-off tinge of lake water from the Ozarks.
Finally, I turned away from the tombstone and tromped back to the Nova. By then, I was certain I’d only imagined the figure in the window.
My skills of observation weren’t as sharp as they should have been, though. Gram and I pulling in, my explorations of the cemetery, and then me leaving it—everything had been observed. Someone had been lying in wait. The good news was that they weren’t waiting for Gram or me.
But the bad news was that they were waiting for one of our students, who, unfortunately, ended up being at the wrong place at the exact wrong time.
Chapter 6
Oh no, had I slept in? What day was it? Was school in session? Was I home?
These were the thoughts that sped through my mind as I was awakened by my cell phone’s buzz and vibrating dance on the nightstand.
I sat up, still half asleep but half alert from adrenaline, and grabbed the phone. It was Gram calling.
“Hello,” I said with a morning croak. I cleared my throat. “Hello, Gram? I’m sorry. Am I late?”
“Betts, you need to get down to the school right away. Don’t spend time getting ready, just get down here.”
“Okay.”
She clicked off the call before I could say anything else. I blinked a few times to make sure I was seeing the time correctly. According to the phone, it was only 6:00 A.M., which was an hour before I was planning to get up, and an hour and a half before I usually got up.
I didn’t have a clock on the nightstand any longer, so I hurried to the kitchen to check the clock on the stove. It matched the cell phone.
The phone buzzed again as I held it.
“Cliff, hey, what’s up?” I answered. We hadn’t moved in together, but we’d been spending most nights together. The last week or so I’d put all my focus on the beginning of the school year, though, so he’d been at his house and I’d been at mine. Normally, I’d be excited to hear from him after even an afternoon of no contact but I sensed he wasn’t calling to wish me a good day.
“Are you coming down to the school?”
“Yes. Gram just called. Are you there?”
“I am. You need to get here, okay?”
“Sure, but what’s up?”
He paused. “Get here, Betts. We’re trying to get ahold of the other students too.”
“Cliff, what’s wrong?”
“Just get here,” he said before he ended the call.
I wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or angry. I chose a little of both as I threw on some jeans, a T-shirt, and the same flip-flops I’d worn the night before. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail as I hurried down the short flight of stairs off my front porch and cranked the Nova up with one turn of the key.
Broken Rope was a sparsely populated town, but it was spread out into a number of different sections. The residential area I lived in was considered to be on the other side of town from the school, but it still took less than ten minutes for me to reach it. In the middle of the heavy tourist season and with a big influx of traffic, it could sometimes take about twelve minutes, but I didn’t think it had ever been more than that.
The heaviest part of tourist season was over but there were still a few visitors here and there. Even though the trip took only about seven minutes this morning, it seemed like an eternity passed from the moment I pulled away from the curb and then into the school’s parking lot.
It was obvious that something was terribly wrong. The parking lot was full, and it was rarely full. The vehicles that took up the space were worrisome by themselves.
I assumed that one of the two police cars in the lot had been driven there by Cliff; Jim probably drove the other one. Broken Rope had a well-equipped fire station as well as its own fire marshal. A fire truck and two ambulances took up a large amount of space, and a couple other cars flanked the far side of the lot. I assumed they were students’ cars that I would come to recognize as the year went on, but it was still too soon to have paid much attention to who drove what. Gram’s Volvo was parked next to the cemetery, close to the school’s sign. The driver’s side door was open. Nothing was in truly designated parking spaces, including Gram’s Volvo.
I parked behind the other cars and got out with the intention of rushing toward the school and finding Gram. But I was interrupted.
“Betts,” someone said.
I turned to see three students exiting the small blue compact that I’d pulled behind. Freddie, Elia
n, and Jules walked toward me. I conducted a silent self-pep talk about remaining calm around the students.
“Betts,” Freddie said as the three of them approached. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure, yet,” I said as soothingly as possible, “but I’ll find out. It’d be best if you all stay back here until we know more.”
“I think I saw a body,” Jules said, “but there were so many people and vehicles in the way . . .” She sounded more put out by the fact she hadn’t been able to see what was going on than the fact that someone might have been hurt. Or worse. Of course, I realized this was probably just her way of coping. Her Arizona tanned skin was currently more green than tan.
I didn’t have one word of reassurance. “I’ll find out. Just stay back; perhaps sitting in the car is the best idea.”
Jules didn’t appear to have heard me. Instead, she was silent as she peered toward the epicenter of the activity. Freddie put his hand on her arm and led her back to the small blue car.
“This is messed up,” Elian said to me when the other two were out of earshot.
“Well, let’s find out what’s going on before we get too worried.”
“I saw the body, too,” he said. “And I’m not happy about it at all.” He turned quickly and went to join the others.
“Me, either,” I said quietly as I turned the other direction and hurried toward the school. Though I hadn’t noticed her, yet, Gram must have seen me arrive.
“Hang on, Betts,” she said as she appeared from around a vehicle and met me halfway. She put her hands on my arms and held me back with her typical Missouri Anna strength.
“What’s going on, Gram? You’re okay, right? Is someone hurt?”
“I’m fine. But, yes, someone was hurt. It’s bad, okay?”
“Tell me!”
“One of our students, Roger, he was . . . Oh, good Lord, this is hard. He’s dead, Betts.”
“What!” A picture of Roger in his short-sleeved shirts and skinny ties flashed through my mind. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. It is. I found him here this morning.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
“I found his body in front of the school. He was dead when I got here.”
The dead bodies found at the school count had risen to two? In just a few short months? Gram and I had found Everett Morningside’s body in our supply room back in May. And now . . . a student?
“How?”
“I don’t know. There was no blood that I could see. I saw something, maybe his mouth was foaming, but I can’t be too sure at this point. He was draped over the dividing rope. I hurried to see if he was okay, but it was clear he wasn’t. I called Jim right away.”
It wasn’t rare that Gram was at the school early, particularly at the beginning of the school year. But it was somewhat rare that a student was here this early. As the cooking competition neared, some students were at the school twenty-four/seven but it was too soon for that sort of enthusiasm.
The scent of fresh-baked bread suddenly filled the air. It was such a contradiction to the acidy panic I tasted in the back of my throat that I was thrown off for a second. The thought to ask Gram who was baking crossed my mind, but then I realized that I’d smelled the arrival of Gent.
He stood back from the crowd, toward the end of the parking lot and the beginning of the road, his hands in his pockets. He wore the pants and loose shirt I’d first seen him in. Without the white uniform and hat and with his somewhat unruly hair, he looked much younger and even less modern than he did in the bakery. I suddenly had a thought that must have sprung up from my subconscious, because at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less about the details—but, Gent Cylas wasn’t buried in this cemetery. I hadn’t memorized all our dead residents’ names, but I was certain that there was not one member of the Cylas family buried close by. I shook the random thought away.
“Oh, not now,” Gram said quietly as we both looked his direction. Just as she was going to somehow signal him that we couldn’t talk, Cliff rounded the ambulance, blocked our view of Gent, and strode toward us. We must have been looking intently at the ghost because Cliff turned to see what had captured our attention. All he saw was the end of the parking lot and a big white truck passing by.
“Miz, you okay?” Cliff said as he joined us.
“I’m okay, not the best I’ve ever been, but okay.”
Cliff nodded. “Betts. Miz told you what’s going on?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry, but I need to talk to Betts a second, Miz. Can you excuse us? Jim would like to talk to you some more. He’s by the front door.”
“Of course.”
“I wanted her to sit down,” Cliff explained as Gram rounded the same ambulance that he just had. “Jim will take care of her.”
“What happened, Cliff?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. I can’t officially question you, but I was hoping we could talk a minute about the deceased and the other new students.”
“Why . . . Oh, you can’t question me because we’re in a relationship?”
“Yes.”
Cliff Sebastian and I had had one of those perfect high school romances; so naturally, it was bound to end imperfectly. We’d parted ways for college; he was going to become an architect and I was going to become an attorney. I’d planned on our paths crossing after we finished our educations and that we’d fall madly in love again and resume all that perfectness. And, that’s close to what we’d done. Cliff’s detour had been a failed marriage, and my detour had caused me to quit law school and come back to Broken Rope to help Gram at the cooking school. Of course, the biggest surprise of my life (other than a ghost or two) had been Cliff not only leaving his marriage but his architectural career to become a Broken Rope police officer.
We’d most definitely found at least some of that perfectness again, though ten additional years and a few bad life choices caused us to see everything differently, mostly in good ways, but it would be impossible for us both not to have become a little jaded and cautious with our emotions.
I took a deep breath. “Sure, but can we maybe sit down, too. I don’t feel so great.”
Cliff led me away from the front porch and toward the back of the ambulance. Jim hadn’t sent them away yet, so the EMTs stood outside their vehicle and waited. It would be wonderful to say that Broken Rope’s crime rate wasn’t one that caused our EMTs to be busy, but that wouldn’t be true. Not only did Broken Rope have a history of strange and unusual deaths, we also had a number of tourists who overdid their activities, and sometimes the Missouri heat didn’t agree with them. Since Roger was dead though, it looked like their services wouldn’t be needed.
I didn’t hear the exact words Cliff said to them, but a few seconds later they were somewhere else and I was sitting on the bed of the open ambulance with a small paper cup of water in my hands.
“Better?” Cliff asked.
I nodded, but now I couldn’t take my eyes off Gent who was only about twenty feet away. I still hadn’t seen Roger Riggins’s body. Gram’s Volvo was thankfully in the way. Gent continued to anxiously wave me toward him. I opened my eyes wide for a moment, hoping he’d get what I was trying to say: Not now.
“Good. Betts, do you have any details that could help lead us to Mr. Riggins’s killer, if in fact he was killed? Hopefully, Morris can tell us what happened quickly. We suspect maybe a seizure was somehow involved, but we just won’t know until Morris tells us. Roger was a student. Neither Jim nor I have had a chance to get to know any of them. I know you’ve only had a couple days, but we need to get as much information together as we can. Anything you can tell me would be helpful.” He paused. “Jim and I did meet Freddie O’Bannon when he stopped by the station to ask us how to get to the school, but we don’t know him any better than the others.”
“Freddie stopped by the jail?” I said.
“Yes, he was lost.”
Suddenl
y, I forgot all about Gent. “Cliff, that’s strange.”
“Why?”
“Because, we include specific directions and a map to the school in each welcome packet we send. And Freddie’s arrival was a surprise anyway.”
“I don’t understand.”
I explained Freddie’s unusual arrival and why Gram and I let him stay. I told him about the references we still hadn’t checked. He asked for a copy so he could check them, too. I nodded to the blue compact car and told Cliff that Freddie was the one with the green eyes. I agreed that we hadn’t had time to get to know anyone yet, either. It was too early to gauge if our instincts about the students were correct, but I did the best I could to offer whatever impressions I’d already gotten. I even included Brenda’s strange note-taking habit.
“Did you check references on all the other students?” Cliff asked.
“We always do.”
“Anything suspicious? I know Miz believes in rehabilitation. Any previously incarcerated individuals this year?”
I felt a smile pull at the corner of my mouth. This was all far too serious to have a reason to smile, but it was difficult not to find Cliff’s use of cop words odd, cute, and endearing.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. I’m just getting used to you as an officer of the law.” I smiled, though it turned out to be a sad smile.
“I know. Me, too, but don’t tell Jim.”
It had been only ten years since high school, but I’d noticed some significant physical changes in several of our fellow classmates. Cliff had changed only a little and his changes were for the better. He was still tall, with long muscular legs and wide shoulders, but everything had filled out over time, in a pleasing way. His short brown hair was still impossibly straight—I’d never seen such stubbornly straight hair on anyone else. But he wore it so short now that I didn’t notice its inability to bend as much. He also still had a dimple on his right cheek, which had probably been the first reason I’d fallen so head-over-heels for him when we were younger. The dimple was still on the list of reasons why I was falling for him again, but just not quite as high as it used to be.
If Bread Could Rise to the Occasion Page 6
