“We were hired to find Brianna Madison.”
He nodded, a somber expression on his face.
“Aye, I hear she didn’t come back to her room this weekend, but that’s not unusual.”
“Do students run away often?” asked Katy.
Sam scratched his head again.
“Well, kids will be kids. You put enough straitjackets on them, and they will try to wiggle out and test how far they can push. This young lady is no different.”
I narrowed my eyes. Sam was choosing his words carefully. What did he know that he wasn’t telling us?
He took a step toward the blackberry bushes, like he wanted to get back to work.
“What about that boat shed near the lake?” said Katy. “Those canoes and kayaks look like they’re being used.”
“Aye, there are a handful of good athletic girls every year who take rowing classes. Jayden’s a good man.”
“Jayden?”
“The Phys Ed teacher. He comes to chat with me every day. Nice, smart, young man, but he’s not here for long.”
“Why not?”
“No good teacher lasts here,” said Sam, shaking his head. “Everyone’s itching to get out. I’ll miss him when he leaves.”
“It’s Martha May, isn’t it?” I said. “No one finds it easy to work for her? Is that why?”
He looked away, but didn’t reply.
“Sam?” I said, hoping he wouldn’t clam up like the others. “Did you see Brianna near the woods the day she disappeared?”
He glanced around quickly, as if he was worried someone would overhear us.
We waited.
He took a step closer to us and lowered his voice.
Katy and I leaned in.
“I see everything,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “But, these rich folk, they would never understand. They’d blame me, you see.”
“What would they blame you for, Sam?” asked Katy.
He swallowed hard.
“I’m an old man,” he said, scrunching his forehead. “I wouldn’t wish harm on anyone. I mean, I turned vegan in my twenties. I can’t even hurt a spider. You have to believe me.”
“No one’s saying you hurt anyone, but if you know something, you need to tell us,” I said.
He stood silently, staring at the muddy trowel in his hand for what felt like an eternity.
“Sam?” said Katy, softening her voice. “Is there something we need to know? Something that will help us find Brianna?”
“I’ve lived a simple life,” he said softly, speaking more to himself than us. “I never made trouble for anyone. All I wish is to continue living my life.”
He paused and looked up at us, his face creased with worry.
“How long I have of it, anyway.”
Chapter Eleven
“How come you two get to sit at the head table?”
We didn’t have to turn around to know who was speaking.
The overpowering aroma of the expensive perfume enveloped us. I tried not to gag, and Katy made a face and covered her nose.
It was Ruby, standing behind us, hands on her hips, pouting.
“I’ve worked in this school for four semesters and never got invited. What did you do to sit here? Suck up?”
“You’re welcome to join us,” I said. “I’m sure Martha May would love to have you next to her.”
Ruby pursed her lips.
“I don’t need your charity,” she said with a sniff.
She twirled on her heels and sashayed over to a table where another teacher was waiting for her.
“It’s like we dropped into a daytime soap opera,” said Katy. “I thought they’d be smarter in private academia.”
She reached over to the vase on the table filled with red chrysanthemums and touched the petals.
“Real ones,” she said. “Nice.”
“I think you’re expecting too much from this crowd,” I said. “Teachers are human too. Though Ruby seems extra special.”
We watched the students trickle into the dining hall. They took their seats, chattering loudly like kids at any high school.
I scanned the room to spot the girl who’d pranked us when we drove in, but I soon got lost in the swell of two hundred uniformed schoolgirls. Besides, I’d only seen her from behind. She could have been any of them.
Scattered throughout the hall, in between the oblong student tables, were the smaller tables where the teachers sat. Each of the teachers’ tables had a vase filled with red chrysanthemums.
“Where’s Sally?” I said.
“There,” said Katy, nudging me. “At the far end. To your right.”
I turned to look. Sally was alone, absorbed in her phone, looking exactly as she had when she visited us at the bakery.
She wore her neat auburn hair down to her shoulders and was dressed a simple skirt suit and kitten-heeled shoes. She had one of those nondescript faces that could easily get lost in a crowd, but I recognized her instantly.
She looked up, as if she sensed us watching.
Katy waved, but either she didn’t see or was purposefully ignoring us. She turned back to her phone with a frown.
I had the diamond earring tucked safely in my locked suitcase in our room. I was no longer sure who it belonged to, but the other half had to be somewhere.
It was the type of jewelry that would trigger a police report immediately if it had gone missing. I had scoured more than a dozen lost and found sites near my bakery while Katy had been driving on our way from New York, but I’d found no complaints, no announcements, no notices.
Whoever had lost it either hadn’t realized they no longer had it, or they were staying silent about it.
“One moment,” I said, getting up.
I walked over to Sally’s table and leaned across. She didn’t turn away from her phone, but something told me she knew I was here.
“Hello, Sally,” I said. “How are you doing?”
She looked up, her brow furrowed, like I’d interrupted something important.
“Yes?”
Her voice was cold, distant.
I hadn’t expected that.
“Thank you for dropping in at our bakery yesterday,” I said, smiling. “We came to see how we could help you out and find the runaway girl.”
“Uh-huh.”
A flicker in her eye told me I was making her nervous again. I wondered if she was going to scoot out of the dining hall like she did at the bakery.
“Hey, Sally, did you drop one of your earrings?”
“My what?”
“I found a pretty earring on the ground when you came in the other day. It doesn’t belong to any of us, so I thought it was yours. I brought it with me, if you want to look—”
“It isn’t mine.”
She spoke too fast. Did Nick already tell her about it?
“I don’t wear jewelry.”
She turned back to her phone, her head bowed low, her hair falling across her face.
“Listen, Sally,” I said, trying again. “Would you have a few minutes to chat after dinner tonight? We’re trying to dig up as much as we can about Brianna—”
“Tonight’s not good.”
She didn’t even look up.
“Tomorrow morning, then?”
“I’m booked all day.”
I got the message.
Suppressing the urge to reach over and shake her, I turned around and returned to our table. There had to be another way to get her to open up.
“Everyone seems weird here,” said Katy, after I told her what happened. “Sam’s the nicest out of the lot. The most normal.”
“Except he’s not telling us everything either,” I said.
Earlier that afternoon in the greenhouse, the dinner gong had cut our conversation short. Sam had jerked at the sound like he’d been whipped.
“Will you join us for supper?” Katy had called out, as he’d walked away. “We’re sitting with the headmistress.”
He shot her a s
hocked look.
“Dear lord, no. She’d never allow that. I have my supper downstairs with the kitchen staff.”
He had mumbled something about being late and had stumbled out of the greenhouse with his trowel still in his hands. I’d watched him as he walked over to the back kitchen door, wondering if he’d seen something but was too afraid to talk.
An unsettling feeling gnawed at me.
We had only arrived at the school, but I already felt stifled by the heavy atmosphere.
It was like a heavy thunder-filled cloud swirled over this hundred-acre lot, threatening to pour down at any moment. There were things going on in this place that shouldn’t, things you wouldn’t expect in an all-girls boarding school.
Katy was feeling the same way, as she said she was having second thoughts about enrolling Chantelle in this school.
“Wasn’t it strange, what Sam said?” I said.
“How Martha May won’t allow him to take time off?” said Katy, glancing around to make sure the principal wasn’t nearby.
“No, it’s what he said about rich folk not understanding him. About them blaming him. What did he mean by that?”
“Do you think that sweet old man had anything to do with Brianna’s disappearance?”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“He loves his roses, reads books in his spare time, and he’s a vegan. He’s friendly and has a nice smile.”
“Everyone has a dark side,” I said. “The question is, how dark is Sam’s other side?”
“Good evening, ladies.”
We looked up to see Martha May heading toward our table, followed by her assistant. Nick pulled her chair for her, then with a low bow, stepped away toward his own table.
“Apologies,” said Martha, as she picked up her neatly folded napkin, shook it open and placed it on her lap. “I had a few disciplinary actions to take care of.”
She was slightly more relaxed than when we saw her in her office. Only slightly. I wondered if this woman had ever kicked her shoes off and laid back in her life.
Katy raised an eyebrow.
“Misbehaving students?”
“Two girls skipped class today,” said Martha, pouring herself some wine. “They won’t be making that mistake again.”
She turned and smiled a smile that didn’t go to her eyes.
“Nobody forgets the conversation once they’ve had a good heart-to-heart with me.”
That cold smile sent a shiver down my back.
Sitting with Martha May felt like sitting down for dinner with a rattlesnake.
You never knew when they’d strike you.
Chapter Twelve
The principal’s table was large enough to seat six diners, but we were three, spread out evenly.
From Ruby’s reaction, it was a privilege to be invited to the head table—a sign you were on top of the food chain.
I wondered if the other teachers chomped at the bit to get summoned to eat with Martha May too. This had to be one way the principal kept her minions in check.
Martha picked up her glass of wine and turned to us.
“Find anything I need to know?”
“An anonymous warning to start,” said Katy. “This was our second one.”
The principal arched a brow.
“Someone slipped a note under our door saying go home,” I said. “The first warning to stay away came to my phone the day before we left New York. Someone knew you sent Sally to us.”
“Everyone knew,” said Martha, sitting up straight. “I told my teachers and staff I was going to get outside help. I needed to stop them from panicking, so I announced it at a staff meeting. That’s when I asked Sally to drive over to your shop. She’s the only one without a teaching schedule, so I could spare her being away for the day.”
That partly explained Sally’s reluctance. She’d been picked in public to go on an errand she hadn’t wanted to. That still didn’t explain her nervous jitters.
There was also that unfamiliar black pickup truck in the alleyway that day, but until Tetyana confirmed its owner and the driver, I had no idea if it had anything to do with our investigation.
I pulled the anonymous note from my pocket and handed it to the principal, watching her as she read the contents.
“Seems like someone doesn't want us to investigate Brianna’s disappearance,” I said.
“I don’t know who called you at the bakery, but this is most probably one of the girls,” she said, shaking her head. “This is a prank.”
“Do you recognize the writing?” I asked.
“I have two hundred students here,” she said. “It could be any of them.”
“Is there any way to check this against their handwriting?” asked Katy. “Do you have tests or written reports we could look at?”
“Everything’s done electronically now. No one takes notes. I’m not going to line everyone up to give a writing sample, if that’s what you’re asking. Only my staff know Brianna has run away, and that wasn’t written by any of them.”
She leaned across the table, her eyes cold.
“I need this investigation wrapped up with minimal disruption to school activities.”
I slipped the letter back in my pocket.
“That doesn’t make our job easy, but if that’s what you want, we’ll plan accordingly.”
“What’s your plan?”
“We’ll search the school first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll check the grounds next, and we’ll also go to town to make inquiries.”
The principal made a face when I said “town.”
“Katy and I will pretend to be tourists and ask a few discrete questions from the town folk. No one will know.”
Martha’s face didn’t clear, but she was listening.
“I’d like to talk to your staff and teachers during their breaks tomorrow,” I said. “Is there anything special you can tell us about them in advance?”
She turned to her wineglass and stared at it for a while.
“Can’t think of anything,” she said, finally.
“You met Ruby, who’s literally a royal pain and useless at her job. Sally Robertson and Nick Davies do what they’re hired to do. Jayden Brown, the Phys Ed teacher, is my best teacher. He works hard. Tom White’s okay. All the girls love him, maybe a bit too much. The other teachers are lukewarm, humdrum. They do their job, not much more, but not less either. They’re all here to get the school’s name on their resume, so they try not to get into trouble with me.”
“Does Ruby know of your plans to cancel her contract?” I asked.
“You can beat that woman with a baseball bat, and she’d still think she’s the queen of Mesopotamia,” said Martha. “She’s going to lawyer up. She’ll claim discrimination or whatnot, I’m sure.” She looked up, her lips set in a straight line. “I’m ready for battle.”
“Would she have it in her to kidnap a student to take revenge?” asked Katy. “Out of spite for you?”
Martha stared at her glass for a few seconds.
“There’s a part of me that wishes she’s behind this. That would be an airtight justification to fire her. But that woman doesn’t like work of any sort. Laziest teacher on the roster. Her performance is abysmal. I can’t imagine why the girls like her so much.”
She paused to take a drink.
I had so many questions swirling in my head, but before I could ask, Martha put her glass down, frowned at her placemat, and snapped her fingers. A young server scurried over, a terrified look on her face.
“Yes, ma’am?”
The name tag on her white uniformed shirt read Lou-Anne.
The principal picked up her knife and held it up with a distasteful look on her face.
“You tell Cathy, I expect my cutlery to be cleaned properly, you hear me?”
The girl’s face flushed red. She took the knife with shaking hands.
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
“One more mistake like this and you know what I’ll
do to you all.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl replied in a choked voice.
She gave a small curtsy, her eyes down. Without another word, she spun around and scurried out of the hall.
I felt bad for Lou-Anne. I could only imagine the shame she was feeling for being berated in front of strangers. But this gave me a good indication of how the principal treated her staff.
I cleared my throat.
“What can you tell us about your gardener?”
“Sam? He’s a fixture. Been one for decades. He was here before even I arrived. Potters around the grounds and does his job.”
“Is he one of your charity cases?” asked Katy.
Martha’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that have to do with your investigation?”
“Do you trust him?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“When someone becomes a fixture, they also become invisible.”
“Are you saying Sam had anything to do with Brianna?” asked Martha. “Be realistic. The man can hardly walk with his arthritis. I would have fired him years ago, but then I’d have a riot on my hands. Besides, his wages are…” She trailed off.
“He comes cheap, eh?” said Katy.
“He’s affordable,” snapped Martha.
“What about Nick, your assistant?” said Katy. “Does he have a beef with you or the school?”
Martha rolled her eyes, but caught herself.
“That man needs to grow a spine,” she said, giving a distasteful look his way. “He irritates the heck out of me, but he works fast, asks no questions, and delivers promptly, which is all that counts.”
“A loyal staff member, then?” I said. “You trust him?”
She nodded.
“He does what he’s told. Hardly takes his eyes off his shoes when I’m around. Too nervous and self-absorbed to notice anything.”
She looked up, a smug expression on her face.
I was surprised she was so forthcoming about her thoughts. It was like she felt invincible, like nothing she said or did would come back to haunt her.
Martha smiled at us.
“I can squeeze all I want out of him and that’s just the way I like my employees.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You seem to put a lot of trust in Sally Robertson,” I said, changing the topic.
Merciless Crimes: A Thrilling Closed Circle Mystery Series (Merciless Murder Mystery Thriller) Page 5
