Back To School Murder #4 (5 page)

L
ater that night, a loud clap of thunder woke Lucy and she lay in bed listening as rain pounded down on the roof. Bill was snoring softly beside her. Lucy had always tried to follow her mother's prewedding advice not to go to bed mad, so she had made a point of seeking out Bill before she turned in for the night. She found him in the little attic office where he kept his files and drafting table.

“Gosh, it's hot up here,” she said as she ducked to pass through the small doorway.

“I've got the fan going. Once you get used to it, it's not bad,” he said, looking up from a lined yellow pad covered with figures.

“Are you upset about Widemeyer? Does he owe you a lot?” Lucy was feeling guilty about spending so much money on the course. If they really needed the money, she could withdraw and pay only a small penalty.

“It'll be okay.” Bill put down his pencil. “I just hope it's not the beginning of a trend.” Bill had seen New England boom in the eighties only to crash in the nineties, and didn't want to have to repeat the process.

“I know things have been kind of crazy lately,” said Lucy.

“Kind of.” Bill picked up an antique agate doorknob he used for a paperweight and fiddled with it. “These days I never know what I'll find when I get home from work and I don't like it. This job of yours is not working out.”

“Maybe not. But I want to give it a try. Besides, Ted only needs me for a couple of weeks.” Lucy hoped it would be longer, but Bill didn't need to know that. She bent down and nuzzled his ear.

He reached his hand around her waist and pulled her down on his lap.

“We haven't done this in a long time,” said Lucy, gently pressing her lips against his. “Am I getting too heavy?”

“No,” said Bill, pulling her closer for another kiss. “I'd say you're just about right.”

 

The next morning the temperature was cooler and the air was crisp. Fall was definitely in the air, and Lucy was the very model of a modern working mother. She made hot cocoa and oatmeal for the kids' breakfast. She packed lunches for herself, Zoë, and Sara. She put out lunch money for Elizabeth and Toby. She unearthed a lasagna she had frozen months before, when Bill had impulsively decided to take the whole family out for dinner, and set it on the counter to defrost. It was amazing what you could accomplish if you were organized, and got up an hour ahead of the rest of the family, she told herself.

By the time she had arrived at
The Pennysaver
, after dropping off a rather clingy Zoë at the day-care center, she felt as if she had already put in a full day's work. She set a bag of tomatoes on Ted's desk and began sorting the mail.

“Hi, Lucy,” said Ted as he entered. “How's it going?”

“So far, so good,” said Lucy, fighting the impulse to yawn. “I thought the paper looked great.”

“Not bad,” said Ted. “If only we had more weeks like this.”

“You don't mean that.” Lucy was shocked.

“Yes, I…” He paused, shamefaced, and shook his head. “No, I don't. Hey,” he said, opening the bag of tomatoes, “are these from you?”

“Yeah, the garden's in overdrive.” Lucy paused. “You know what Sara told me? They had police dogs over at the elementary school.”

“I know. Explosive-sniffing dogs. They checked all the closets and desks.”

“Isn't that kind of closing the barn door after the horses have gone?”

Ted shrugged. “They seem pretty convinced that a student set the bomb.”

“That's crazy. The oldest kids there are fourth graders. They're practically babies.”

“There is a widespread belief that half the kids in America are surfing the Internet looking for instructions on how to build bombs at home. The other half are crashing into adult chat rooms, looking for porn.”

“Most kids in Tinker's Cove don't even have computers.”

“Maybe, but the fact is that the phone call came from the school.”

“What about the staff?” Lucy paused. “What do you know about Mr. Mopps?”

“Not much, except that the kids seem to like him. He's been there for years.”

“Isn't Greece a violent sort of country?” asked Lucy.

“I think it's been pretty peaceful lately. Besides, he doesn't come from Greece. I think he grew up in Brooklyn. Why? Do you suspect him?”

“Sara told me that Ms. Crane was chewing him out over something.”

“Well, I don't think it was for blowing up the school.” Ted put the bag of tomatoes on the top of his desk and sat down, flicking on his computer. “I'd like this story to break, but not just yet. I could use some new developments early next week, so I can get them in next week's paper.”

Lucy shook her head in disgust. “Have you no shame? I'd like this thing solved as soon as possible, so I don't have to worry about the kids.” She began typing entries into the meeting calendar. After a few minutes she raised her head and asked Ted, “Do you know a kid named Lance? He's new in town. From California.”

“I think Adam has mentioned him.” Adam was Ted's son; he was the same age as Toby and the two were good friends.

“He was at our house last night. Caused quite a brouhaha.”

“I'm surprised. Adam seems to like him.”

“It wasn't Lance's fault. Bill's not ready for his little princess to have a boyfriend.”

Ted smiled. “No father ever is. I remember Sue's father absolutely glaring at me at our wedding. He's never really accepted me.”

“Lance is different from most of the kids around here. He seems older, more sophisticated. Kind of urban. If it was one of the kids, it might have been him.”

“How could he do it? He goes to the high school.”

“The elementary school was open all summer while they were doing that asbestos removal project. Anybody, including Lance, could have slipped in and set the bomb. I bet it wouldn't take more than a minute or two.”

“What about the phone call?”

Lucy leaned forward and wagged a finger at Ted. “I've been thinking about that. The person who made the call wasn't necessarily the same person who set the bomb. The bomber could have gotten one of the students to make the phone call. All a kid has to do is tell the school secretary he forgot his lunch and she'll let him use the phone.”

“You may be on to something, Lucy.” Ted picked up the phone. “I think I'll give Crowley a call and pass along your idea, just in case he hasn't thought of it himself.” He chuckled. “Especially if he hasn't thought of it himself.”

“You shouldn't tease the poor man.”

“Aw, Lucy. I've got few enough pleasures as it is. Don't take this away from me.” He spoke into the receiver. “Chief Crowley? Ted Stillings. How's the investigation going? Got your bomber yet?”

The phone interview didn't take long; Chief Crowley was not known as a conversationalist.

“Well?” asked Lucy when Ted had hung up.

“He said the dogs didn't turn up anything. He wants to question the third and fourth grade students, but Mrs. Applebaum won't let him. He's going to go over her head to the superintendent, and if need be, he'll petition the school committee on Monday.”

“That's going to be some meeting,” predicted Lucy.

“You bet,” said Ted, starting to peck away at his keyboard.

Lucy busied herself with the obituaries. Next thing she knew, it was time for lunch. The afternoon flew by as she organized the old papers in the morgue, answered the phone, and kept an ear cocked to the police scanner.

Just before leaving work, she called Toby at home and asked him to put the lasagna in the oven. She picked up Zoë at the rec center and proceeded to the middle school, where Elizabeth had field hockey practice.

That morning, no longer trusting Elizabeth not to sneak off with Lance, Lucy had decreed she would pick her up after field hockey practice. She had instructed Elizabeth to wait for her on the school steps, but they were empty when she pulled up. She drove around the school to the parking lot beside the playing fields, but there was no sign of her there either. Lucy did see the coach, Mr. Cunningham, talking with one of the players. She approached them, all the while keeping an eye on Zoë, who was strapped in her car seat.

“Hi!” she began. “I'm Elizabeth Stone's mother. I don't see her anywhere.”

“Lizzy's probably in the locker room. Sami, would you go in and tell her that her mom's here?”

“Sure, Mr. C.” Sami obediently trotted off, her plaid kilt bouncing and her blond ponytail streaming behind her.

“Lizzy's a promising player,” said Mr. Cunningham. He was tall, and stooped a bit to talk to Lucy. She thought he was rather homely, with a beak of a nose and a silly mustache, but she could see why Toby and Elizabeth liked him. He seemed relaxed and friendly. “I think she'll make a real contribution to the team.”

“Really?” Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Somehow I don't think of her as a team player.”

“Lizzy?” He sounded surprised. “She has a natural flair with the stick,” he said, walking along with her to the car. “Did you play?”

“Me? No,” said Lucy, with a little laugh. “I'm not much of an athlete.”

“Well, field hockey's different. It's a great game and the girls love it. It's a chance for them to let out some of that teen aggression.”

“No wonder Elizabeth's good at it,” said Lucy, grinning as she hopped back in the car and started the engine.

Pulling around to the front steps once again, she saw Elizabeth waiting for her. Zoë laughed and bounced in her safety seat while Elizabeth loaded her book bag and sports bag and hockey stick into the car.

“How was school?” asked Lucy, wondering if Elizabeth was still mad about the night before.

“Okay,” admitted Elizabeth, staring straight ahead.

At least she answered, thought Lucy. Encouraged, she plowed ahead. “Mr. Cunningham seems nice. He said you're a natural at field hockey.”

“Yeah, he's great. He makes practices fun, you know?” She smiled, and Lucy's heart lifted. It was like the sun coming from behind the clouds after a long gray spell.

“I was surprised you let him call you Lizzy.”

“He said Elizabeth is too long—he can't yell it across the field very well.”

“I think it's kind of cute,” said Lucy.

Elizabeth groaned. “You won't tell Toby, will you?” she asked anxiously. “I don't mind Mr. C. calling me Lizzy, but he's the only one. I don't want Toby doing it.” She turned and stared out the window, chewing on a fingernail.

The clouds were back, thought Lucy, pulling into the IGA parking lot. Leaving the girls in the car, she hurried inside and picked up a loaf of garlic bread, an action-packed video, and a box of microwave popcorn.

When she arrived home, she was greeted by the rich, cheesy aroma of the baking lasagna. She tucked the garlic bread in the oven beside it, quickly assembled a salad, and served dinner promptly at six. At half past six the dishwasher was humming and she was on her way to the seven o'clock class at Winchester College, having left the video and popcorn for Bill and the kids.

W
inchester College was a venerable liberal arts college located on the outskirts of Tinker's Cove. With its spacious campus, the college was both part of and apart from the town. Students were often seen on Main Street and frequented the shops and restaurants, where their parents' dollars added to the local economy. Some Tinker's Cove residents found work at the college as secretaries and maintenance workers.

For the most part, however, the college was a community unto itself. The professors tended to live in houses near the campus, and socialized with each other. The college sponsored numerous concerts, lectures, and plays throughout the year, but few Tinker's Cove residents ventured onto campus to attend. They were working people, for the most part, and such high-brow entertainment didn't have much appeal for them. The division between town and gown was very real.

When Lucy parked her car and crossed the quad to Tyndall Hall, where her class was to meet, she felt as if she was entering exciting new territory. It was still quite light, but there was a sense of peaceful calm on the campus. One or two students bicycled past her on the walk, while a few small groups were scattered about on the grassy quad, sitting and chatting. From the open window of a dorm she heard snatches of a rock song.

Maybe this is what it's like for an American to visit England, she thought. You know the language, you know the customs, but it's not your native country. What did these students think of her as they passed? Did they think of her at all? Did she look ridiculously old?

She was dressed much the same as many of the female students in jeans and sneakers, with a light corduroy jacket against the evening chill. A few of the boys seemed to show a bit of interest when they noticed her, walking a bit taller and looking at her as they approached on the walk. But when she was close enough for their eyes to meet, and for them to see her age, they quickly looked away. So much for the theory that young men find older women attractive, she thought.

When she reached her classroom, however, she felt more at home. The students were a mixed bag—a few undergraduates, a handful of senior citizens, and the rest in their late thirties or early forties. Middle-aged, middle managers, middle class—they had the hopeful look of people who were feeling the squeeze and were determined to do something about it.

Lucy slipped into one of the seats with an oversized arm for note taking, smiled at the familiar-looking woman next to her, and waited for class to begin. She didn't have long to wait. At a few minutes past seven the professor strolled in.

Quentin Rea, as he was listed in the course catalog, was not a tall man. He was slight and wiry. But when he removed his Harris tweed jacket, Lucy noticed he was nicely muscled across his shoulders and back. She guessed he was a bit younger than herself—there was no trace of gray in his hair, which he wore rather long. It was light brown, streaked with blond, and he had a habit of tossing it back. His face was lean, and like some fair men, his beard was surprising heavy. Lucy was willing to bet there was a luxurious growth of hair on the chest beneath that pale blue Oxford cloth shirt.

Ashamed of herself because she was not in the habit of mentally undressing men, however attractive they might be, she turned her head away and met the eye of the woman next to her.

“Dishy, don't you think?” said the woman.

“I don't think I will have any trouble paying attention,” said Lucy, with a wink.

“All right,” began Professor Rea, after taking the roll. “Why the Victorians? Everybody used to think they were hopelessly dusty and musty, and all of a sudden they're popular again. Any ideas?”

An older man in the back of the room raised his hand, and the professor nodded at him.

“I read somewhere and it struck me at the time that we have all been influenced by the Victorians. A lot of our ideas and manners, even the way we celebrate Christmas, have been passed down to us from the Victorians. Most of us know people who grew up in that period.”

Lucy nodded, thinking of her friend Miss Tilley, the retired librarian of the Broadbrooks Free Library. Only Miss Tilley's very dearest friends dared address her by her first name, Julia. She was certainly the living embodiment of Victorian ideas and notions.

“It was the beginning of the modern age—railroads, electric light, telegraph—they were all invented then. Industrialization was in full swing,” offered another man.

“It was a time when roles were changing,” Lucy found herself saying. “Then it was the industrial revolution, today it's the information age. The Victorians had to adjust to a new way of living, just like we do.”

The professor nodded in agreement. “All true, all true. But if you ask me, the Victorians are popular because we've figured out that all that propriety and formality was nothing more than a coverup. They were obsessed with sex.”

He paused, giving the students an opportunity to chuckle.

“Oh, sure, they concealed the piano legs, but we know from their diaries and collections of dirty postcards that they were really a bunch of filthy, dirty-minded little prigs.”

While the professor waited for the giggles to subside, he began distributing copies of a reading list.

“Now, I know the first thing you are going to ask is what happened to the Brownings. Well, they're on page two. Your first assignment is Carlyle's
Sartor Resartus
. Don't panic, you won't have to read the whole thing. And we will get to those wonderful sonnets, I promise. They're for dessert, and as any proper Victorian would tell you, it's meat before sweet. Now, what do you know about Thomas Carlyle?” He scanned the class, looking for a volunteer.

“He was Scottish,” offered a pretty young thing in the front row.

“That's true. It's a beginning,” he said, with an encouraging smile. “What else do you know about him?”

The student squirmed. “Well, he was known as the ‘Sage of Chelsea.'”

“Very good. Anyone else?”

“The Clothes Philosophy,” offered the older man in the back of the room. “The idea that old ideas, even religions, should be discarded like old clothes.”

Lucy regarded the man with new interest. Already she was enjoying the exchange of ideas with her classmates, and the professor's ready wit.

“Ah, yes,” said the professor. “Perhaps D. H. Lawrence, a twentieth-century writer who struggled mightily to free literature from the constraints of the Victorian period, said it best when he wrote, ‘Gods die with the men who have conceived them…Even gods must be born again.' Thank you, Mr.…” He paused and looked down at his class list. “Mr. Irving. And on that note, I think we will end for tonight. I will see you all again on Tuesday.”

Checking her watch, Lucy saw the professor had dismissed the class a little early. With luck she might get to the bookstore before it closed at nine. She was heading for the door, when he stopped her.

“Mrs. Stone, that was a very insightful comment.”

“Really?” Lucy felt a bit uncomfortable at being singled out.

“Yes, it was.” He gave her a lopsided little smile, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “I wonder if you would like to continue the discussion with me at the student union. I usually stop there after class for a cappuccino.”

“Oh, that would be nice,” began Lucy, as an embarrassed blush crept over her face, “but I really want to get to the bookstore before it closes. Thanks anyway.”

It was only afterward, as she stood in line with her arms full of books, that she wondered why she had been so unnerved by the professor's invitation. After all, she was reasonably attractive and this wasn't the first time since her marriage that another man had expressed interest in her. The problem was, she realized with a shock, until now she hadn't felt tempted to accept.

 

Trudging toward the parking lot with her heavy bag of books, Lucy was surprised to see Josh Cunningham.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I was just catching up on my reading,” he said, shortening his steps to walk beside her. “I need to keep up with new developments in chemistry and biology, but I can't afford the journals—teacher's salary, you know. So I come here every now and then and use the science library. Can I carry those for you?” he asked politely, indicating the books.

“Oh, I can manage. Thanks, anyway,” said Lucy, thinking he was awfully nice. “You have another one of my children, you know.”

“Who?”

“Toby. He's in ninth grade.”

“Toby is yours, too? He's a nice boy.”

“I like to think so, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed, just in case.”

“Growing up is tough. Sometimes they make bad choices.” Josh shook his head mournfully. “Even kids from good families.”

“Is that what you think happened with the bombing? Was it one of the kids?”

“I hope not,” he said earnestly. “We're a pretty small school system, almost like a family. I don't think it could have been one of ours, but you never know. Kids can really surprise you.”

“That's for sure,” said Lucy, stopping at the Subaru. “This is my car.”

He took the books while she fumbled for the keys.

“You know, Mrs. Stone…”

“Call me Lucy.”

“Okay, Lucy. I guess you're taking a class? At night?”

Lucy nodded. “Victorian literature.”

“Well, if you're going to be using the parking lot at night, I'd suggest you have your keys ready. That way a mugger wouldn't have time to attack you. And you really ought to park under a light, if you can. And stay away from the bushes.”

Lucy looked around the dark, shadowy parking lot that was surrounded with tall trees and leafy shrubs. She rarely worried about her safety in Tinker's Cove, but she realized Josh had a point.

“It was still light when I parked,” she said, finally pulling the keys from the bottom of her purse and unlocking the door. “Thanks for the advice.”

She took the books and climbed in the car.

“No problem,” he said, giving her a little wave as she started the engine. “Get home safely.”