A Farewell to Legs (27 page)

I called Mason Abrams that afternoon to tell him
about Bran-ford Purell’s hair, but he wasn’t in, and I was
condemned to voice mail. I would have told Fax McCloskey, but I was
relatively sure he didn’t exist, and was just an illusion run by a
man behind a curtain employed by the Washington D.C. Police
Department. If I ever did get in to see him, I’d ask him for a
brain, or a heart. Or some height.

After that, I tried getting through to Stephanie.
Naturally, I wasn’t going to blow Jason’s cover for him, but I did
want to see if she had any suspicions about Lester, and that would
require my talking to her when she was alone. She wasn’t in, and
that settled that, for the time being.

When Abby got home, she too fell under Warren’s
spell. Of course, she didn’t have that far to fall, since she had
pushed me toward the shelter to begin with. If it had been that
easy to get her to fall in love with me, we’d have married a year
earlier. Women are funny that way.

We had dinner, which Warren watched with great
interest, and the kids did their best to interest him in his dog
toy, which was a rubber ball in the shape of a shoe. Never give a
dog a toy shoe to chew up, because that encourages them to go after
the real thing.

After dinner, the three of them went to play with
the dog, and I cleaned up the dishes. I was distancing myself
emotionally from Warren, since I didn’t want to feel bad when the
urge to kick him out the door overcame me, and besides, I hate to
admit that I’ve been wrong. After all the public bitching and
moaning I’d done about not having a dog, actually enjoying the dog
would have made me look silly. Okay, sillier.

I did preside over a family meeting, at which the
issue of a name for the dog came up, and the overwhelming winner in
the election was: Warren. Go figure.

It was just after seven, and at that moment it hit
me: in less than two hours, Anne Mignano would be facing the wolves
at the Board of Education meeting, and I had done nothing to help.
I hadn’t even failed, because in order to fail, you have to put out
some sort of effort. All I’d done was question a gadfly on exercise
equipment, a janitor, and a gym teacher, none of whom could
actually be considered a source of information, since none of them
had any.

I sat down at the kitchen table and slammed my fist
down like Bogart in
Casablanca
, except I wasn’t mad at
Ingrid Bergman. Why hadn’t I just gotten up the courage to go talk
to those parents? Was there still time to call them on the phone
and tell them to go ask their kids if they were delinquents? This
was probably going to lead to Anne losing her job after her
contract was up, and after all my talk about what a good friend I
am and how I appreciate all she’s done for Ethan, I had done
nothing.

I was a bad friend. I was a bad person. I didn’t
deserve to own such a fine dog.

The dog chased his ball into the kitchen, picked it
up and ran out again, to much laughter. Leah, who had been chasing
him, stopped giggling when she saw the look on my face. She
suddenly reverted to the adorable six-year-old she used to be, and
sat on my lap. I held her close, trying to forget that I was the
scum of the universe.

“What’s the matter, Daddy?” she asked, stroking my
cheek.

“I’m just a little upset, Puss,” I told her. “I
promised someone I would find something out for them, and then I
couldn’t, and I’m upset that I let them down.”

“Oh,” said my daughter. “That’s too bad.”

Yeah. That’s too bad. And wait until your next
principal is some discipline-obsessed Nazi who’ll probably give
your children detention for being cute. Luckily, I wasn’t blowing
this out of proportion.

“I know,” I told Leah. “I’m sorry I’m not being
happy about Warren. I’m just upset with myself, not anybody
else.”

She gave me a Leah hug, which is rumored to be able
to cause a smile on clinically depressed people for whom Prozac is
a breath mint. I smiled weakly and hugged her back. Leah got up off
my lap and headed out of the kitchen. No sense sitting here with a
big old drag like this guy when there was a fun dog to play
with.

At the edge of the dining room, she stopped and
looked at me. “What were you supposed to find out, Daddy?” she
asked.

I sighed. There was no point in trying to evade the
question. “I was supposed to find out who threw the stink bombs in
your school,” I told my daughter.

She got a strange look on her face, one that
indicated that I must be on an intellectual level just a hair below
Warren’s. “Susan Mystroft threw the stink bombs,” she said in a
voice dripping with superiority. “Everybody knows that, Dad.” And
she turned and walked out of the room, as I heard Abby yell, “no,
no, Warren, not
there!”

I
blinked a couple of
times, then stood up. “Ethan!” I yelled. “Get in here!”

“What’d I do?”

“Nothing! Get in here
now
!” He showed up in a
few seconds, over Abby’s pleas for paper towels and rug cleaner.
Ethan looked worried, like I was going to kill him whether he’d
done something wrong or not.

“Ethan! Who threw the stink bomb in the girls’
locker room?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Susan Mystroft. Why, did
somebody say that
I
. . .”

“No!” I handed him the rug cleaner and paper towels.
“Give these to your mother.”

He did that while I raced to the wall phone. I
pushed the speed dial button marked “Melissa,” and waited until
Miriam answered the phone.

“Hi, Aaron,” she said breezily. “What’s new?”

“No time,” I told her. “Put Melissa on the
phone.”

“Melissa?”

“Your daughter,” I reminded her.

“I
know
who Melissa is,” Miriam said
brusquely. “Why do you need to talk to her?”

“Miriam, I’ve got no time. Please. Melissa,
now
!”

In seconds, Melissa’s usually confident voice came
on the line, sounding like a tiny bear cub looking for its mother.
“Um, hi, Aaron,” she said. “Is Leah there?”

“Melissa, who threw the stink bomb into the girls’
locker room?”

“Not me,” she said. “I wasn’t even there that
day.”

“I don’t think it was you,” I told her. “I need to
know who it was.”

“Susan Mystroft. Everybody knows that. She thought
they’d close the school down and she wouldn’t have to take her
science test, but she did it over the weekend, and the only thing
they closed was the locker room.”

“What about the other ones?”

Melissa’s voice took on confidence, as she realized
I wasn’t mad at her, and was proud she knew something a grownup
did-n’t. “The one in the gym was because she doesn’t like Ms. Van
Biezbrook,” she said. “She made Susan do sit-ups, and Susan doesn’t
like sit-ups.”

“And the boys’ room? Why do the boys’ room?”

“I dunno,” Melissa said. “Maybe they come three to a
pack.”

I thanked Melissa and hung up. Running for the door,
I grabbed my coat.

“Where the heck are you going?” Abby asked. “Are we
out of something?”

“I’ve got to go to the Board of Ed meeting,” I told
her. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half. I’ve got a stop to make
first.” And I was out the door before she could point out that the
dog would need an evening walk.

At a house two blocks away, following a hurried
explanation, a small girl broke down in tears, and to their credit,
two parents did not try to shift the blame. They blamed each other.
But they agreed I could take their daughter, as part of her
punishment, with me.

Midland Heights is a small enough town that
virtually everything is within walking distance, assuming you’re
not a native New Jerseyan, and therefore bred to take a car even if
you’re visiting your neighbors next door. Still, parking at the
municipal building, where the Board of Education meeting had
started fifteen minutes ago, would be a nightmare, so I
double-timed the three blocks and arrived to utter chaos. The
little girl didn’t want to come inside, but she didn’t want to stay
outside by herself more, so she did as I requested. Her father, who
had come along, had something to do with her decision.

The chaos in the building didn’t bother me, because
even when I was a municipal reporter covering three towns at the
same time, I never attended any public meeting that
wasn’t
utter chaos. You just get used to it, and move on.

As we walked in, the issue being discussed was an
appropriation for the Middle School library to buy two new
computers to be devoted to Internet use. One father whom I did not
know was arguing that the money was being used “to give our
children access to pornography,” and was being instructed in the
ways of site blocking, and in-class supervision.

Anne Mignano was sitting by herself in a seat far
from the entrance, in one of the back rows on the aisle. She looked
absolutely composed, a woman completely content to accept what Fate
had decreed for her.

As I was snaking my way through the room toward her,
the discussion on access to porn was tabled for further research,
and Board President Michael Lanowitz announced that the next item
would be the “breakdown in security at Buzbee School.” I made it to
Anne and sat down next to her at that moment.

I gestured to her, and she leaned over to hear me
whisper. “Susan Mystroft,” I told her. Anne’s eyes widened, and I
nodded “yes.” “My sources are impeccable,” I said quietly. I
pointed to Susan and her father, Brad, who were waiting at the
door.

Anne smiled just a bit and nodded to Lanowitz, who
was asking for her report. She stood.

“I have very good information,” she smiled, not
looking at me, “that would indicate we have solved the security
breach in question,” she said to the president. He looked
surprised.

“Can you mention names?” he said.

“Certainly not in an open meeting,” Anne replied.
“But if you wish for me to speak in executive session, I might be
able to be more specific.”

Lanowitz looked around at the board members,
including Faith Feldstein, who was showing off her
exercise-enhanced body in a tight T-shirt and jeans. They nodded,
and he called for a vote to adjourn to executive session, which was
unanimously passed.

I gave Anne the information and explanation I had
before she had to get up and walk into the anteroom where the
executive session was held. She nodded. “I knew it,” she said, “but
I could-n’t prove it.” Then she thanked me and walked, head held
very high, into the session. The doors were closed, but any good
reporter can tell you to stay near them in case any sound leaks
through. Susan and her dad walked in quietly when no one except me
was looking.

After about a minute, sound leaked through so
plainly that the level of murmur in the main meeting room, where I
was standing, dropped to silence. Faith Feldstein’s voice yelled
“
what
?” loudly enough to be heard through cinderblock, wood
paneling, and steel doors, followed by Faith herself, who exited
the meeting, muttering to herself under her breath.

About seven minutes after that, the Board members
came out, followed by Anne, who to her credit was not looking like
a triumphant administrator who had stuck it to her bosses. She
actually wore an expression of concern. The board president
immediately suggested that the issue of Buzbee School discipline be
tabled indefinitely, and the board agreed unanimously, with one
member absent. No doubt, there would be hell to pay in the
morning.

Anne and I walked out together, as the board took up
the pressing issue of gum in the school water fountains. She
allowed herself a small smile, and looked at me as we stood
outside, enjoying the chilly air after the claustrophobia that
accompanies any public meeting.

“You certainly are the cavalry, riding over the hill
in the nick of time,” she said. “Thank you, Aaron.”

“I got lucky,” I told her. “My children just
happened to know what was going on.”

“We like to foster communication between parents and
students,” Anne said with the hint of a sly grin. “In any event, I
owe you a favor.”

“No, you don’t,” I said. “You’ve been the best
principal I’ve ever dealt with. Ethan isn’t an easy kid to have in
your school.”

“No,” she agreed, “but I’ve seen a lot worse. At
heart, he’s a very sweet boy. And he’s never boring.”

“Tell me about it. Will you have trouble with Faith
and her cronies?”

“A little,” Anne admitted, “but not more than I can
handle.”

“Imagine,” I said, “all this over a couple of stink
bombs. Imagine if there were real problems to worry about.”

“There are,” said Anne. “But they don’t generally
come to the surface until it’s too late, I’m afraid.”

She thanked me again, and we went our separate ways.
At least I’d managed to save the day for Anne. Now, all I needed
was to solve Legs Gibson’s murder and find out who was threatening
me, and I’d chalk this one up as a good week.

I got home a few minutes later, and found Abigail on
her knees with a can of carpet cleaner and a roll of paper towels.
Warren was sitting on his dog bed in the living room, surveying all
that was his.

“Hi, honey, I’m home,” I ventured.

“What was that all about?”

“I saved Anne Mignano’s job for another year or so,”
I informed her. “Based on information I got from our children and
Melissa.”

She stood up and assessed the damage. “Warren has
been a busy boy,” she said.

“That’s one way of looking at it. You know, the
carpet still smells.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice,” Abby said. I
have a notoriously bad sense of smell.

“Crazy Legs Gibson would notice. Are you sure we
want a dog?”

“I’m sure. Are you sure you want a carpet in here?”
She was already eyeing the threadbare wall-to-wall with the eye she
generally reserves for things whose days are numbered. Luckily, she
has not yet fixed that gaze on me.