Cooking the Books

by Chelsea Thomas

  I wanted to help, to move, to do anything, but I was more frozen than the pond. Usually, Miss May took charge in these situations, but for once she seemed paralyzed too. This was just all so strange.

  Jennifer’s splashing got louder and louder, until another noise rose in the distance...the approaching wail of sirens.

  The cops were coming.

  As the police arrived and surrounded Jennifer, a lump swelled in my throat. I tried to force it down, but it only seemed to get bigger. Ugh. I bet it’s the size of a softball. Bigger. Probably visible from space.

  Why was I so upset? Jennifer had killed two people. In cold blood. But she had also trusted the wrong guy, a guy she had mistakenly loved, and that circumstance was all too familiar to me.

  Yeah, she was probably a murderer. But Jennifer was a victim, too. And as the cops pulled her out of the freezing pond, shivering in her tiny polka dot bikini, she looked way more like the victim than the killer.

  MISS MAY AND I WATCHED as a stocky deputy loaded Jennifer into the back of a squad car.

  I noticed Wayne standing nearby. He caught my eye and sauntered over. “This was a tough one, huh?”

  I nodded.

  Wayne shook his head. “Can’t believe she killed that Vlad guy with a pair of scissors.”

  Miss May and I gasped at Wayne in stunned unison. Wait. What? Jennifer stabbed Vlad with scissors?

  “Oh. You two didn’t know that, I guess,” Wayne said. “Uch. So now I divulged secret information. Terrific. This is why you can’t be investigating these cases!”

  “It’s fine, Wayne,” I reassured. “You can trust us.”

  Miss May nodded. “Now. Tell us more about those scissors?”

  Wayne blew into his hands to warm them. “There’s nothing to tell. We found the scissors this afternoon under a bridge somewhere. Wrapped in a flier for Jennifer’s salon. We put two and two together. Came straight out to Jennifer’s place, saw the three of you across the water, enjoying this fine day at the beach.”

  Miss May and I looked at one another, but neither of us could form words. Murdering someone with a pair of scissors was crazy.

  About as crazy as sunbathing in the middle of February.

  Wayne broke the silence. “Isn’t that a classic way for a barber to off someone?” Wayne said.

  “Women aren’t barbers,” I said. “They’re hairdressers.”

  Wayne scoffed. “Thank you, Professor Knows Everything.”

  “So Jennifer one hundred percent killed Vlad?” Miss May’s brow knotted in concentration.

  Wayne nodded. “Scissors plunged right into the back. Gruesome. But you use what you have, right?”

  “Did she kill Charles with scissors too?” I asked.

  Wayne looked around to check for other officers. “I should not be sharing this information. But no. The weird thing is, Charles technically froze to death. Had a weird mix of toxins in his body, including some rare floral extract that a lot of people think is hard to detect, but, well, science. But the flower juice didn’t kill him. The cold did. Jennifer must’ve lured him into the woods and left him there.”

  Miss May sighed. “I guess it’s solved, then.”

  “What’s the matter?” Wayne smirked. “Disappointed we found the murder weapon before you?”

  Miss May gave Wayne a tight smile. “I’m disappointed two people died and a young woman ended up in jail.”

  “Right,” Wayne said. “Well uh, I’ll see you around.”

  Wayne walked to his car. Just like that, Mabel and Chelsea Thomas had solved another case. With some help from the police, I guess. But only a little.

  31

  Bad Guys and Girls

  I AWOKE THAT NIGHT with Miss May standing above me, shaking me by the shoulders. “Chelsea! Get up! Get out of bed!”

  Groan. “What time is it?

  “It’s almost six AM. Not that early.”

  Double groan. “Six AM is early for everyone except farmers.”

  “I don’t care what time it is.” Miss May yanked my arm. “Jennifer’s innocent.”

  I sat up on my elbow and rubbed my eyes. “She is?”

  Miss May nodded like a crazed puppy and yanked at my arm again. I wondered if she needed to go out and pee. Then I had a darker thought.

  “That means the killer is still out there,” I murmured.

  “Hence the arm tugging and the waking up and the let’s go already.”

  “OK. I’m sorry. I’m processing.” I sat up and took a sip of water from the cup on my nightstand. “They found the weapon. The police said she was guilty.”

  “Since when do the police have any idea what they’re talking about?”

  “Sometimes they get it right.” I took another sip of water. But sometimes they don’t.

  Miss May hurried across the room and flipped on the lights. “What are you doing sipping that water? Stop being so contemplative and get up! Come on!”

  I squinted against the brightness. “Hold on. How do you know she didn’t do it?”

  Miss May smiled, proud. “The scissors. The flower. It all makes sense.”

  I wiped sleep from the corners of my eyes. “Doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Miss May tossed me my winter jacket and a bra and walked out of the room. I called after her, “Do you not think I should wear a shirt for this?”

  But Miss May was already thumping down the stairs, ready to catch the bad guy.

  This time for real.

  “TELL ME WHO DID IT!” I begged Miss May as she sped through town. “Please!”

  “No way, girlie. You have all the information you need. We both did, all along. You can figure this out.”

  “It was the mayor!

  Miss May shook her head.

  “It was Flanagan! It was one of the bookie’s cronies from the city! It was Buzz Aldrin!”

  “Hey. Don’t you besmirch Buzz Aldrin in this car, young lady.”

  “You won’t tell me anything.”

  Miss May took a wild turn, tires screeching. “That’s right. I won’t. I’m either going to get there, and you’ll see for yourself, or you’ll figure it out on your own.”

  “That’s not safe,” I said. “You should tell me who we’re going to catch. Is this someone I might want to use my karate on? If so, I should limber up. Get my donkey kick ready.”

  Miss May chuckled. “I do not suspect your donkey kick will be necessary. Anyway, you’ve got that power on standby, limber or not.”

  May drove sixty miles per hour past the sleeping businesses on Main Street. I held on for dear life. “Whoa! Speed racer over here!”

  “You bet!”

  We hurtled toward one of the mayor’s new traffic lights in the center of town. Miss May smirked. “Watch this.”

  Vroom! She blasted through the light and hung a sharp right turn out of town.

  “Miss May! There are cameras on those lights.”

  “That’s why I did it.”

  I laughed.

  “Also, I figure if we catch a killer, the mayor might let the ticket slide.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Screech! Miss May took a sharp left down Larkspur Road. My goodness, were we going where I thought we were going? “Hold on a second. What are we doing on Larkspur?”

  Miss May looked over at me. “Figure it out yet?”

  Then she pulled up a long driveway to a big colonial house. And I spied Florence Fitz waiting near the walkway, with two big suitcases beside her.

  MISS MAY CLIMBED OUT of the car with her arms spread and a big smile on her face. “Florence! Going on vacation?”

  Florence looked up and froze. “May. Hi. Uh... Vacation?”

  Miss May looked down at Florence’s bulging suitcases. “That’s what it looks like. Unless you start every morning off by packing two suitcases and loitering outside your own home in the freezing cold.”

  Florence shifted her weight from one foot t
o the other. “Oh. Right. The—the bags. I forgot I’m standing here with two giant bags.”

  Miss May nodded. “Yup. If I didn’t know any better, which I do, I think. I’m not sure? Does that expression make sense to you?”

  “Doesn’t make sense to me,” I said.

  “Well anyway,” Miss May continued. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it looks like you’re waiting for a ride to the airport.”

  Florence flashed a nervous smile. “I...uh...that’s not...what are you doing here?”

  In a flourish, Miss May pulled a pie out of her bag. Yet again, it surprised me that she was packing pie, and I’d had no idea. Despite the tension in the air, I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  Miss May handed the pie to Florence. “Chelsea and I are doing our early morning deliveries before we open up shop for the day.”

  Florence narrowed her eyes as she accepted the pie. “I didn’t order a pie.”

  “I know. I felt so bad about what happened at the funeral home. This is my way of apologizing. Instead of emotionally eating, I like to emotionally feed people.”

  Florence stared down at the pie. “Great. Well. I forgive you, so, yeah, we’re all good now.”

  Miss May smiled. “That is such a weight off my back, and let me tell you, I can feel my joints thanking me already. How have you been, anyway? Is there anything else I can do?”

  “You can leave!” Principal Fitz’s voice was sharp and angry. She cleared her throat and tried again in a calmer tone. “I’m sorry. I’m still on edge, if you must know, barely through the first stage of grief, not sure I’ll ever make it to stage number two. I need to be alone, that’s all, alone with my thoughts. It’s hard for me to take visitors. Thanks again for the pie.”

  Florence shuffled us back toward the bus, then an excited voice rang out from near the front door. “Flo! Did you remember to pack the chargers?”

  I turned to see Assistant Principal Marvin exiting the house, holding two beautiful leather duffel bags. Marvin froze when he saw me and Miss May on the driveway, and his excited tone disappeared. “What are you two doing here?”

  Miss May retained her ‘country baker,’ persona, smiling wide. “Delivering a pie, that’s all. What are you doing here, Marvin?”

  “Uh...I was just...helping Florence grieve.” Marvin took a cautious step toward us. “A bit early in the AM to deliver a pie.”

  “That’s true,” Miss May said. “We’re also here to bring you in for the murders of Charles Fitzpatrick and Vlad...the bookie.”

  Marvin walked down from the porch. “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not joking,” Miss May said. “And you’re not laughing. Are you laughing, Chels?”

  I shook my head and looked over at Florence. The woman hadn’t moved an inch since our arrival. She looked so much like a statue, I half-expected a pigeon to alight and take a poop on her head.

  Marvin climbed down the porch and nudged Florence, a smile still plastered on his face. “Florence is excited for our big trip, that’s all. Isn’t that right, Florence?”

  Florence tried and failed to smile. It came out more like a lip seizure. “Yes. So excited.”

  “So you are taking a vacation.” Miss May deadpanned.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Top secret,” Marvin said with a wink. “And look! That must be our ride now.”

  A black SUV rolled up the driveway and stopped behind the bus. Marvin waved and stepped towards it, but Miss May cut him off.

  “You can’t go yet,” Miss May said. “I haven’t told you how I know you did it.”

  32

  Confessions and Captures

  “I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING.” Marvin took another step toward the SUV, but Miss May blocked his path.

  “Humor me, then,” Miss May said. “I got up early and trekked all the way out here in the cold. The least you can do is listen to my stupid theory.”

  “We don’t have time for that. Let’s go Florence.”

  Miss May cleared her throat. “It started with you and Charles. He was smart, but you’re smarter, aren’t you, Marvin? You figured out that Charles was planning on running away with everyone’s money long before anyone else had a clue. Then you decided you needed to earn his trust. You sold him on your technological expertise.”

  Marvin scoffed. “What expertise? I have to call my nephew for help whenever I want to make a social media post.”

  “I don’t believe that for a millisecond, Marvin. I saw that computer you’ve got set up in the office at the school. That’s professional. They don’t sell those in stores.”

  Marvin stammered. “I—I got that as a gift. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Anyway,” Miss May said. “You wormed your way into Charles’ good graces. Then you helped him forge his bank statements and trick the cops into thinking the money was all in his business account.”

  This was all news to me. How had Miss May pieced all of this together?

  She continued, “After that came the coup de grace. You convinced Charles to transfer the money into an anonymous digital currency, so the cops couldn’t trace it back to him. Bonus: once he converted the cash to cryptocurrency, whoever had the password could access the money, and take it all for themselves. Charles realized you were after the funds, and he threatened to expose you to the whole town. He figured he could convince them you were the real thief and use you as a scapegoat. So you killed Charles with foxglove from Florence’s porch.”

  “But Detective Hudson said...” I stopped myself before I said more, but I couldn’t hide my confusion. Foxglove? Wayne told us that Charles froze to death.

  Marvin charged towards the waiting SUV. “This is ridiculous. We’re leaving. We have to go to JFK!”

  “I’m not going to stop you, Marvin. Do you see police here? I haven’t called anyone.”

  Marvin looked around, and so did I. Miss May was right. No cop cars. Anywhere.

  Wait, what? What kind of master plan was this?

  My teeth chattered in terror, but Miss May was as cool as a winter cucumber, and her voice didn’t waver as she spoke.

  “You thought you had gotten away with Charles’ murder, didn’t you, Marvin? You tricked him into meeting up with you in the woods, and you gave him just enough of the poisonous flower to slow his heart rate, which put him into a deep sleep. Then you left him there to freeze. You didn’t think anyone would know about the foxglove. You thought it would look like he got drunk and wandered off.”

  That’s cold, I thought and nearly giggled. I scolded myself for being tickled by such a bad pun at such a serious moment.

  Marvin scoffed. “Sounds pretty out-there, May.”

  “It was a perfect plan. Except you failed to account for his gambling problem. Charles had racked up a big bill by the time he died. So Vlad came up to collect. He figured out you had the money. He located the digital key to the cryptocurrency account. And he was about to steal it all. So you stopped him with a pair of scissors to the back. Weak attempt to frame the scorned hairdresser, by the way. Why would she wrap up a pair of scissors in her own flier and toss them under a bridge?”

  Florence grunted. “I told him to plant the scissors in her salon, but the little imp got scared!”

  Miss May’s eyes widened. So did mine. Whoa. Florence had come un-statued. Her stone countenance was alive and angry, like a cartoon image of the quintessential scary principal.

  “And you want to know something else, May?” Florence dropped her pie and stepped closer to us. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Miss May stared down at the ruined pie. “Wh-why?”

  “Because!” Florence continued. “You completely bought my ‘scared little woman’ act. And you assumed that the man was the mastermind! You’re just like everyone else I’ve encountered in my life. All the people who told me a woman could never be valedictorian. All the people who told me a woman could never be principal! You’re just like my pathetic
husband, who thought he could cheat on me, and steal from me, and get away with it! You underestimated me. You think I was growing a poisonous flower on my doorstep by accident? Ha! This plan has been underway for years. Yeah, Marvin helped. But I told him what to do every step of the way. Including this getaway. So if you’ll excuse me. As Marvin said. We’re headed to JFK.”

  Florence clapped at Marvin. “Get the bags!”

  Marvin leapt toward the bags and gathered them up as Principal Florence Fitz strode toward the SUV.

  Huh. I always knew she wasn’t a good principal. This wasn’t the time for I-told-you-so’s, but I felt a sick sense of satisfaction knowing that my teenage self had been right to hate Principal Fitz.

  Seconds later, Florence and Marvin had climbed into the waiting car, and their great escape was underway.

  Miss May and I watched as the SUV rumbled down the driveway and disappeared around the bend. “What the heck was that?” I asked. “How are we just going to let them—”

  “Detective Wayne Hudson please.” Miss May already had her phone to her ear. “Sure. I’ll hold.”

  She covered the receiver and turned to me. “Do you want to do the talking?”

  “Uh...What would I say?”

  Miss May shrugged and turned back to the phone. “Hey Wayne. You need to send a few officers over to the Pine Grove bridge immediately. The one that heads out toward the shortcut to LaGuardia.”

  “Not LaGuardia,” I said. “JFK.”

  Miss May glared at me. “It’s definitely LaGuardia. Yup. You were wrong about the killer. Uh-huh. I’ve got the whole confession recorded on my phone. OK. We’ll talk later. Go cut them off at the bridge. We’ll see you there.”

  “If you’re wrong about the airport, they’re going to get away!”

  “I’m not wrong, Chelsea. Think about it. Why would they make such a point to mention JFK if that’s really where they wanted to go?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Besides,” Miss May said. “They were using Big Betty’s Airport Shuttle, and Betty hates JFK. She’ll only do LaGuardia and occasionally Newark, for some awful reason.”