A Simple Suburban Murder (11 page)

We moved quickly as she held the door for us.

I tried to thank her as we waited for a cab.

"Save it," she said. "Don't bother me anymore, and don't come in my bar again. That'll be thanks enough." She squeezed into a cab.

* * *

"She's an unbelievable woman," Scott said.

It was several hours later. We'd eaten dinner at Jerome's, one of our favorite restaurants. We were relaxing in Scott's living room in front of the fireplace. I'd built a fire. He sat up against a couch. I had my head in his lap, my feet rested on a low pile of cushions. As we talked he outlined the curves and valley of my face with his fingertips.

"I have mixed feelings about her," I said. "I think she's exaggerating about the bar owners. The ones I've met are decent people, trying to make a living like the rest of us. I don't agree with what she's doing with those kids, but I understand her reasons. Society will never take care of those boys. She's better than nothing, I guess." I sighed. "I do know that if I'm ever in a fight, I definitely want Daphne on my side."

I shut my eyes. I felt his fingertips feather over my eyelids.

Scott said, "I wonder if we can trust everything Phil told us."

"His answers were a little evasive on a couple of points"—I opened my eyes—"but overall I think we can trust him."

"Can you believe they both had sex with Greg's sister?"

"I don't want to think about that part. The kid's had an incredible life."

"Are you going to open the envelope Phil gave you?"

"No."

"It could be information about his whereabouts."

"He gave it to me because he trusted me. I'm going to deliver it intact. I will ask Keith if he'll let me see the contents, but that's all."

"I suppose you're right. Jim Evans must've been a sick man. I haven't heard one person say anything good about him."

"Yeah. Nobody we talked to is sad he's dead. I'll need to talk to Greg tomorrow. He wasn't very truthful last time. Greg may know more than he told Phil. You know, another thing Phil said made me think."

"What's that?"

"Maybe somebody else walked in on Evans while he molested their daughter. Some father or mother he couldn't bully into silence. Some parent angry enough to kill."

"That's real possible," Scott said.

"I'm going to try Meg to find out more about the father's money situation. She mentioned it when I talked to her. I wonder where the money came from. If at times he had a lot more, I wonder if he tried to rip off the school."

"You think that's possible?"

"He had to get the money somewhere. I'm also going to do the obvious. When we stop at the Evanses' house to deliver Phil's message, I want to ask Mrs. Evans if she knows anything. I doubt she will."

"Are you going to tell her we saw Phil?"

"I think so. That was the original point of this whole thing. It's almost impossible not to. If we're there to give Keith a message, the lies could get too elaborate. Keith might slip and tell her anyway."

"What if she tells the police? They'll be pissed you didn't tell them."

"Let's hope the police never find out. I'll have to think about what to tell them and how to handle it—if we decide to tell them. You're right though. They won't like it that we talked to Phil and didn't let them in on it. I don't want to be around when Robertson finds out."

We fell silent. He continued his caresses. I began to feel drowsy. "We should get to bed," I muttered.

He leaned down and kissed me. We went to bed, but not directly to sleep.

* * *

Scott drove me to school. He promised to pick me up at five o'clock for the trip to the Evanses' house.

At noon I sought out Meg. After leaving a parent volunteer in charge, we entered her office.

"How's the investigation going?" she asked.

"We found Phil."

"Is he all right?"

"As far as I could tell. But we couldn't convince him to come back."

"That's rough. Do the police know?"

"Not 'yet."

"Be careful. They could become nasty."

I told her what we learned from Phil. Her eyes blazed when I told her about Evans's relations with students.

"That son of a bitch," she said.

"I know," I said. "I wanted to ask you about the money situation again. Phil confirmed what you said about the swings back and forth. He said his dad was strapped for money lately. Had you heard anything about recent financial problems?"

"No word on lack of money. Doesn't mean he wasn't though. Phil didn't know why he was broke?"

"He said he didn't. I believe him. I wonder why it kept going up and down. There aren't a lot of ways for teachers on the job to make or lose lots of money."

Meg said, "As for extra money, I know he didn't have an outside job. And he didn't pick up any new extracurricular duties this year, I don't think. Let me check. I've got a master schedule here somewhere." She rummaged quickly through her files, pulled out a salmon-colored form. She ran her eyes down the list. "Nope, he isn't down for any of them."

"How would he lose money?"

"I don't know," she answered.

"Or how would he gain it?"

"That's just as tough. In a school there are very few ways to pocket cash. Oh, you can skim tiny bits of money here and there. Steal a pencil, or a paper clip for instance, but I don't see anyone with an illicit black market in Magic Markers. Makes no sense, there's no real profit in it."

"You're right," I said.

"You know," she said thoughtfully, "I've heard where you can skim money from athletic events. There was some scandal about that a few years ago in some northwest suburb."

"How does that work?"

"I can't swear to this, but I think I remember it right. You make sure you're the one to count the money after a sporting event. You under report the size of the crowd and skim a bundle off the top."

"Don't they have people checking?"

"You would think so. I have no idea how our system works here, who counts it, who checks the counters. As far as I know, Evans had absolutely nothing to do with any part of the athletic program." She perused the master schedule. "He has no coaching responsibilities listed here."

"It doesn't sound promising, but I'll have to check it out later." I felt discouraged. "Is there any other way he could get cash around here?"

"Not that I can think of. There simply aren't that many opportunities in a school for significant stealing."

It had to be something outside school. The chances of my discovering what were dim.

Meg fiddled with a deck of cards on her desk.

"Catch those today?" I asked.

"Yes, yon should see the collection I've built over the years. I could keep Las Vegas supplied into the next century." She gave an uncharacteristic yelp. "That's it!" she exclaimed.

"What is?"

"Gambling."

"Evans gambled?" I gave her a doubting look.

"It's quite possible."

"At school?"

"You're so naive. The math department for years has run a gambling operation. They set up a system on one of their computers. I hear it's quite sophisticated. If it's a sports statistic, it's in their program. They have it figured for every sport in every season."

"Do they bet significant amounts of money?"

"I don't know. I always figured it was small time. You'll have to ask them."

"How did you find out about it?"

"How do I find anything out? I listen."

"Could Evans have been involved heavily enough to make and lose large sums?"

"That could solve the riddle of the wild swings in cash he had."

"It's definitely something worth exploring. I'll talk to Vance again."

She glanced into the library. "Sorry to rush you, but Sylvester's out in the hall. I'll keep thinking and let you know if I come up with anything else."

"Thanks, you've been a big help."

We left her office. Sylvester stood by the desk talking to the parent volunteer. He eyed us suspiciously. Without skipping a beat Meg picked up a stack of nearby books, handed them to me, and said, "Here are the books of plays you request for your script-writing unit. I'm glad we could help you."

I thanked her again and left.

After school I asked one of the other teachers to check in on my tutoring students. I didn't think they'd tear the place apart, but I like to be safe and know there's an adult nearby. I gave them their assignments for the hour. Then I took Greg aside and asked him not to leave even if I didn't get back by the end of the session.

I found Leonard Vance in his classroom.

"How're you doing, Sherlock?" He gave me a friendly grin.

"Hot on the trail," I said. "Can I check something with you?"

"Sure."

"It seems that Evans was pretty broke lately. I'm trying to find out if it's true and, if so, to track down the reason. Supposedly at other times he had vast excesses of money."

Vance sat down at his desk. He rubbed his hand across his chin. "Broke, huh. I'm not sure about that. Excess I am sure about. He used to brag about all the things he bought— fabulous stereo systems, new cars."

I didn't know how to put this delicately so I said, "Could he have made or lost a bundle on the gambling operation the math department runs?"

Instead of taking offense, he gave this idea calm consideration. He pressed his hands against the top of his desk and leaned forward. "I'd say no. I'd have to check the computer records to be sure. We keep close track of everybody's bets, winnings and losings. Individuals seldom win or lose significant amounts of money. Over a year's time a person might average a total winning of maybe five hundred dollars, tops. Nobody's ever lost more than two or three hundred in a year."

"Exactly how much money are we talking about, if it's not out of line for tuc to ask?"

"It's okay. We average about five thousand a week in bets."

"Five thousand?"

"That surprises you?"

"Yeah."

''It shouldn't. That's peanuts compared to most operations. Remember that five thousand is collectively. We have fifty or sixty people in the pool on a regular basis, sometimes over live hundred on big games or events like the Super Bowl or World Series. There's more than just the people at school in on it."

"Could somebody lose a lot, say if you backed losers for several weeks in a row?"

"With the whole system computerized we've minimized the risks. It would be a bad week if someone lost even a hundred. Usually we break even or win a little. Right here in the department we don't bet ridiculous amounts. We're teachers, remember."

"Could Evans have been cheating some way to increase his take?"

"No. When we set up the system, we tried all the cheating methods we could think of, and built safeguards against them."

"Could he have used the information from here to place side bets with another operation?"

"Sure, but we wouldn't know about it."

"Could he have duplicated your system and tried to set himself up in his own business?"

"He couldn't have an exact duplicate of ours. The discs we use can't be copied. He could set up one of his own, but that's a tremendous amount of work for one person. We have several people for each sport collecting and entering the data."

I strolled to the window. Outside the football team practiced in the November gloom. I turned back to him. "But he could have set one up for himself?"

"It's possible."

"But not probable." "Right."

"And he couldn't be cheating?"

"No way."

I'd found out all I could. I prepared to leave. "One last thing I can't resist asking: Aren't you guys afraid of getting caught for illegal gambling or betting on school property?"

He gave a friendly grin. "Not really. Sure, people know about the operation, but we don't flaunt it. And what's to find as proof? A couple of floppy discs that are useless if you don't have the access codes. Significant dollar amounts change hands off school grounds."

In my classroom I found Greg's lean frame draped in the chair behind my desk. The other students were gone. He jumped up when he saw me.

"Is this going to take long, Mr. Mason? I've got to meet some guys in fifteen minutes."

"That depends on your answers, Greg."

"To what?" he asked.

"I talked to Phil last night."

"You did." His attempt at cool only partly covered his surprise. "How was he?"

"Fine, all things considered. He told us a couple things about his dad. Some were hard to believe."

"Phil can tell some pretty wild stories."

"He mentioned you several times."

"I never did anything."

"He didn't say you did. He talked about the time you guys stopped at your house before a basketball game, and who you discovered inside." "Oh, shit," he whispered. He hung his head, stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets.

"I know this won't be easy to talk about, but it might help. It might be a starting point in finding out why Mr. Evans died, and who the killer is."

"I can't talk about this," he mumbled.

"Phil already told me. It's only a matter of time before the police find out and begin asking questions."

"Are you going to tell them?" His gaze remained fixed on the floor.

"I'd rather talk about it between ourselves." His shoulders lost some of their rigidity. "Greg, I don't want to bring trouble to you, your sister, or anybody else in your family. You realize if and when the police find out, they might try to connect Evans's sleeping around with students to the murder. They'd be dunces not to. Because of how angry you got that night they may begin to suspect you."

"Do you, Mr. Mason?"

"I think you're glad he's dead."

"You got that right," he said in a classic teenage mumble.

I ignored his comment. "But I don't think you killed him. I don't think you're the type, but the police might not agree with me."

"I was with friends the night he was killed."

"The police told us he'd only been dead a couple hours when I found him. He probably died around three or four in the morning. You mean to say on a night with school the next day you were out that late?"