On my car was a note, sitting on the windshield beneath the wiper blade. In panic I took it and read it, and it was simple:
NO MURDERERS TEACHING AT ST. IGNATIUS!! FIRE PAULINE GALLARD NOW.
I looked around and saw that every car had one. Now this was just immature and downright irresponsible. For the first time I was angry. Up until now, this had been a very pleasant community in which to teach and work, and I looked forward to coming to school every day. But here was this weird small-town mob mentality, where everyone was grabbing their torches and pitchforks and trying to ruin this woman’s career because of a rumor.
When I got home Katie was eating brie cheese and green apple on slices of a baguette. Next to her was a bag of apples that looked like they’d just come off of a tree. This wasn’t her usual afternoon snack these days. Pregnancy had put her in a regimen of eating cheese puffs and drinking mineral water.
“Where’d you get all this?” I asked.
“Your friend Pauline brought these over. She’s so nice, Thomas. She baked this baguette, and these apples are from her tree. And she said she orders this brie from France. You have to try this.”
I had some. The apple was delicious when paired with the brie and the baguette was warm and fresh.
“She said she wanted to talk to you when you get home. Did you know she lives right over on Magnolia? It’s like two blocks from here. Here, she left her address,” she said, and gave me a little piece of her paper with an address scribbled on it.
“Did she say any time?”
“Yeah, any time is fine. She just wanted to talk to you about work or something.”
I strolled over there, and I was amazed at the picture-perfect French cottage she lived in. There was a flower and herb garden in the front yard, with walkways and fountains. Bees and butterflies were all over the yard, and a cat scurried under a bush to monitor me as I approached. I knocked on the door. In moments she answered, wearing an apron. The whole place smelled like fresh bread.
“You caught me in the middle of my baking,” she smiled. “Come in, thank you for coming.”
I came inside and thanked her for the bread and brie and apples, and she told me that she was “trying to correct my sad American palate,” and that her tree out back has too many apples than she knows what to do with. Then she offered me tea, which I accepted. After she gave it to me she turned to me with deadly seriousness.
“You had this on your car?” She pulled out the note.
“Yeah. And I had another parent ask me if I thought you were a murderer. And Catherine told me she’s getting lots of pressure from the diocese, and from parents. They all think you did it.”
“So that is how it works in America, out here in the wild west,” she seethed. “It is just mob justice, eh? Well, you can look at this!” And she pulled out a receipt.
“This is from Robert’s, the market, where I went that day at 5:30 to get groceries. And guess what – after I left school at eight I was home all night with my son and his wife.”
“Did you tell that to the police?”
“Yes, yes, of course. They have spoken to my son and his wife both – they have sworn statements. They can do nothing to me. But I need you to help me find out who did this crime.”
“Pauline, the police – ”
“They are fools! They will never learn the truth! Until I solve this, the community will make my life a leeving hell, I telling you. Do you know what this idiot, Dave Roberts tell me? They are about to close the case. He say they do not have the resources to continue the investigation. Can you believe? And now this will forever stain my reputation.”
“Didn’t they find prints on the spade? The one the murderer used?”
“Everyone’s prints are on the spade, Thomas. I used the spade, all the students used it, you were using it. Maybe you killed Jim Screbbles, eh?” She smiled.
“I have an alibi, Pauline. I was with my wife all night. But how do you expect to solve something like this? I mean, you don’t have any more resources than the police department.”
“I have brains, Thomas. And that is more than they have.”
4
That week I told Pauline that our yard led up to the Pacific Crest Trail and asked if she wanted to hike with us on the weekend, which she eagerly agreed to. On Saturday morning she stopped by our house and said she was going to the Farmer’s Market before our hike and did we want anything?
“Farmer’s Market? Where?”
“The one by City Hall – you don’t go?”
“No, I didn’t know there was one.”
“Amazing. You know, this is the only place where I will buy eggs. When I first move to America, I tried eggs and did not eat them for ten years until I found this Farmer’s Market. They are the only place with the local farm that sell the fresh eggs. In France, all eggs are like this. Every egg in every supermarket. We know nothing else. When I return I give you some eggs so can learn the difference. You will never go back. It is fresh, the yolk is bright golden, the taste is creamy, you do not have the rotten sulfur smell.”
“Yeah, I always just thought I didn’t like eggs growing up.”
“Try these. You see.”
On the way back she dropped off a dozen eggs and told me not to overcook them – “Americans always overcook the egg and make it taste like plasteec,” she said. And then she told me how to make the perfect omelet.
“You beat the eggs rapidly in a bowl with salt and pepper until they are golden and mixed perfectly. You put plenty of butter in the pan so the pan is not sticky at all. In a sticky pan, it will be impossible. Start with a simple cheese omelet. You pour the egg into the pan and heat, as you spread it around the pan. You put the cheese, not too much, gently covering the eggs in a thin film. The egg will start to thicken, at which point you tilt the pan like so, at an angle, and run the fork under the eggs to ensure they have not stuck, do you see?” I nodded. “You hold the pan at an angle and knock the pan to fold it over onto itself, okay?” I nodded. “It is now a perfect half moon shape, and you hold the plate up to the pan at an angle like this, and you gracefully transfer the omelet onto the plate.”
I thanked her and she reminded me that my pregnant wife needs plenty of protein for the baby, and I need to make her omelets in the morning with good fresh eggs to ensure the baby’s health. Then she said she would go drop her groceries off at home and come back for our hike.
When she came back we set out from our backyard and after about ten minutes arrived at the Pacific Crest Trail, which traversed the entire mountain range and led down through Banning and up into Idyllwild and on and on, I supposed. I would probably never hike the whole thing, and didn’t want to, judging by the exhausted, emaciated hikers I saw on the trail regularly. They had that look on their faces that you see in war photos – the vacant stare. They’d evidently started the trail somewhere up in Washington state months ago. They were disheveled, dirty, carrying sixty pound backpacks, and never said hi as you passed them.
“So Pauline,” said Katie as we walked, “Thomas said you wanted him to help you figure out who killed Mr. Screbbles?”
I was hoping my nosy wife wouldn’t bring up this whole issue, because I was dreading becoming a Watson to this mad Frenchwoman. I was genuinely thinking that she’d been joking the other day, or that she’d forget about it, and leave it up to the police.
“I have a plan for your husband to help me,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind me borrowing his literary intellect. So Mr. Jenkins, I need to ask you. I know about your mystery class. You can’t fool me – so tell me, what is it that the detective does first, when he is given a case?”
“Well, Sherlock Holmes first gathers all the facts. I mean, he has to figure out what he can establish as a verifiable fact first. And then, let’s see…he has to figure out who had the motive. And then he rules out anyone who had a motive but not the means. Like, anyone who wasn’t there at the time of the murder, et cetera. And then he usually goes in disguis
e somewhere and spies on people. He uses accents and costumes and even stage makeup, and usually Watson can’t even tell that it’s him. But sometimes there are people who had a motive that no one knew about. And they’re using a means to murder the person that is strange and out of the realm of acceptable reality.”
“How so?” she asked.
“Well, in the Hound of the Baskervilles, the murderer uses a huge dog that’s covered with phosphorus, so it’s glowing. But the beauty of it is that the old guy who gets killed, Baskerville, was obsessed with this old legend of a supernatural killer dog that was supposedly haunting the area. This was like an old family legend.”
“Ah, so the killer used a method that no one could have imagined.”
“And he had a motive that was unclear because he was not who he was pretending to be. He posed as a naturalist but he was a villain who stood to inherit the estate when the father and the brother died. So it’s not clear at first that he even has a motive.”
“So…” she mused. “It may not be clear who even has a motive.”
“Thomas, remember we have Laura Woodley’s wedding this weekend,” Katie said. “Dave Roberts will be there. The Robertses are old friends with them too.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. Maybe I can ask him what’s going on with the case.”
“After a few drinks at the wedding,” Pauline said, “I am sure he will talk. He does not strike me as a private person. But we also need to learn more about Mr. Screbbles. We know that someone had something against him, because first his garden is burned to the ground, and then he is killed at our school. The problem is that he is mysterious. Ever since I joined this competition and got to know him, he has been quite private.”
“Pauline, my uncle Terry knows him from church,” Katie volunteered. “I could ask him what he knows.”
“Yes, yes, that would be good.”
“Oh, and I almost forgot!” Katie said. “My friend Fawn teaches at Kennedy. She’s a math teacher. Maybe I could invite her and her husband out to dinner or something and you could ask her if she knew the dead guy.”
We came to a grove of trees and Pauline stopped. “These are ponderosa pine,” she said. “They are native old growth trees. They are majestic, no? Their seeds feed squirrels, deer, birds. And there is a certain kind of caterpillar whose only food is the needle of this specific tree. Can you believe?”
“Wow,” Katie said.
“There is so much we still do not even know about trees,” Pauline continued. “There is some new research to suggest that they have a kind of network amongst themselves, that is underground and takes the form of a fungus, almost like the internet. They are just like us in many ways, in fact. They have a whole life cycle in which they are born, they grow to maturity, they have offspring, they transmit knowledge to the younger generation, and you can even say they teach the younger trees, in a manner of speaking. And after all that, they reach their old age and they die, just like us.”
“So they’re still learning new things about trees and how they’re connected?” I asked.
“Yes, it is still a mystery. Right underneath our feet is an undiscovered world. There are things connecting them that we don’t see. It is like I tell the students, every plant is a miracle.”
GIANOTTI’s was a mom-and-pop place near the college that was run by an Italian guy named Carlo and his American wife. Carlo was a thin, serious, bearded man and his wife, Nancy, was a friend of Katie’s mom, and the restaurant had been there for as long as anyone could remember. The food was always changing depending on the seasons and the place was always full of people from the college – professors talking shop, students with their parents on move-in weekend in August, the occasional group of ten students, all splitting the check I’m sure.
We met Katie’s friend Fawn and her husband there to talk and catch up, and for me to pepper her with strange questions about her dead colleague. Giannotto’s has a patio that is half the reason that people come there (aside from the slow-cooked osso buco, which is good). We sat out back in the patio that night. The whole place is like a large garden, with herbs and flowers growing in planters and brilliant red bougainvillea climbing the fence, and a big fireplace in the center next to a fountain. Over in the corner, by the kitchen, is a large brick stove where they cook the pizzas and the steaks, with a big stack of firewood sitting next to it. The patio is always fragrant with herbs and flowers and blossoms, and the smell of pizza and steak and the burning of the logs in the oven.
Fawn and her husband Jared (who works in construction) agreed to split a bottle of wine with us, and we had an enjoyable night of catching up, and I almost forgot to do my duty for Madame Gallard, who would be quizzing me about this soon. We were about halfway through dinner, chatting about this and that, and Katie’s pregnancy, and Fawn’s plans for having kids (maybe in the next year or so), when I remembered.
“Oh, Fawn,” I said, pouring a glass of sangiovese for myself, “did you know Jim Screbbles?”
“Yeah, he taught AP Bio. I saw him a lot. It’s been a real shock. What’s the news on that? Does anyone know what happened?”
“Well, the people at Ignatius are whispering that one of our teachers did it. Pauline Gallard. I know she couldn’t have done something like that, but I’m just wondering what kind of a guy he was. Did he have any enemies? Anyone who would’ve, you know, hit him on the head with a spade?”
She thought. “Well…I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. I will tell you, he was the kind of guy where you either loved him or you hated him. I was more on the hate side. It was like if you took Yosemite Sam and put him in a small town high school, you know? He was like a bull in a china shop at our school. He was so obsessed with that stupid garden. Here’s the thing: he didn’t really teach. His class was basically a joke. There was like one assignment all year, and it was a big project where everyone got an A. But the way you could get extra points in his class was by volunteering in the garden. And if you didn’t volunteer he might take off points. That’s what my students kept telling me. You know how the kids will complain to you about other teachers?”
I nodded and laughed.
“I just kept hearing complaints. There’s this one student, a girl named Riley MacNiven, and she’s this super grade-grubber, who wants to go to Harvard, and if she gets an A minus on an assignment her mom will march into your classroom and ask you why. And she will get in your face and tell you that you just don’t like her daughter.”
“Yep,” I said. “One of those types.”
“I’ve been on this lady’s bad side before,” Fawn continued. “But Jim is a stubborn guy. Or was, I guess. And this lady, Debbie MacNiven, she kept complaining that he wasn’t preparing the kids for the AP exam. You know, the AP Bio exam is no joke. There is a lot of material on that thing, it’s like taking the MCAT or something. But he would literally just show movies in class. And so the two of them have been going back and forth all year. You could hear them yelling at each other in his classroom,” she laughed.
“Wow,” I said.
“I mean, I’m not saying she hit him on the head with a spade. Especially on your campus, of all places.”
“Well, weirder things have happened,” I mused. “I wonder if I could get in touch with her somehow.”
“Wow,” she laughed. “You’re actually doing the whole Sherlock Holmes thing, aren’t you?”
“Well, it’s getting to the point where the school actually might fire Pauline, just because all the parents are complaining. We don’t have unions, you know. They can do anything at a Catholic school. There are no rules.”
“Well, Riley’s mom owns the flower shop over on First Street. If you want to go talk to her,” she said. “I think it’s called the Garden House. But you know, you might not want to just walk in there and accuse her of murder.”
“You’re right.”
“Maybe you could have Pauline go in there,” Katie said.
“That might be worse,” I said. “
We’ll see.”
THAT weekend a family friend of Katie’s got married at the Deer Valley Botanical Garden, which is a lovely ten-acre site in a mountain community about ten miles away from us. There are meadows and streams and a gazebo, as well as a fragrant rose garden and a large native plant section and a butterfly garden. The wedding was a typical one, but as Pauline had promised to stop by the next day to check on my progress, I realized I had to talk to Dave, who was another family friend of the bride’s and was there with his family. I waited until the whole party had moved from the gazebo over to the ballroom where the full bar was set up, and everyone had had a chance to get a drink or two. Once I had my beer Katie and I walked over to Dave and his family to say hi. His boys were bored to death and his wife was trying to socialize and entertain them at the same time, and he happened to be free. He said hi to the two of us and I just launched right in.
“So, Dave, how’s the Jim Screbbles case? I’m pretty curious, as you can imagine.”
“You have a right to be curious, Tom. We’re getting nowhere. I wish I could give you more information, but we just don’t have the resources to do much more with this. The case will stay open, but the investigation is probably pretty much over.”
“No suspects?”
“We have a few people of interest, but we can’t do anything without DNA evidence or witnesses.”
“So what do you know? I mean, what are the facts of the case?”
“All we can tell for sure is that he entered the school sometime that evening. The gate was locked, so we don’t know how he got in. And there was no sign of forced entry. Anyway, Screbbles was at dinner at home until about 7:00 and then he left to go to school and get something from his classroom – at least, that’s what he told his wife. Father George was here in the chapel and Pedro was in the maintenance shed, and one or two people were there with Screbbles, and at least one of those people was probably a woman. There was a kerfuffle of sorts, probably some kind of an altercation, and somehow one of those people whacked him with the shovel.”
Murder in the French Teacher's Garden Page 5
