Gracie's Game: Sudden Anger, Accidentally on Purpose (56 page)

"Amy hangs out with him a lot, she could be getting ideas and info from him," Cheryl said.

"Bobby talks about Amy a lot," Kelly mused. "I think he likes her. He'd probably answer any questions she had because he wanted to impress her, but I can't see him doing something he knew would hurt anyone."

"Should we talk to Bobby?" Cheryl asked.

"We'd have to be careful what we said. If he's got a crush on her he'd clam up if he thought it might get her in trouble," Gracie counseled.

Chapter 50

"Hi, Ken. Hope you're having a better day today," Gracie said when he answered the phone.

"Hey, Gracie. Yeah, a little better anyway. Finally got a good lead in the case I told you about yesterday."

"That's great!" she replied. "Um, Ken…have you had a chance to check out Meaghan's car yet?"

"I thought that might be why you called," he said with a chuckle. "Yes, the boys at the police garage went over it thoroughly and didn't find a thing wrong."

"Oh," Gracie said, clearly unhappy to hear that result. "Are you sure they looked at the brakes?"

"Yes, Gracie, they looked at the brakes. The lines weren't cut and the reservoir had plenty of fluid in it; there was nothing wrong with the brakes on that car."

"Did they figure out why the airbag didn't go off?" she asked.

"They didn't find anything wrong with
that
, either. Although just between you and me I think it's got 'em a little puzzled; they gave me a lot of double-talk about its maybe being a faulty sensor. When I tried to pin 'em down they told me it'd take more time to find than it was worth. The airbag
might
have saved that girl's life, but it darn sure didn't cause the wreck so it didn't matter why it didn't deploy."

"Well, I guess that's that," Gracie said unhappily.

"I
do
have some good news about your friend Amy," Ken told her.

"You're not going to charge her with manslaughter after all?" Gracie guessed.

"There
is
a case to be made for that," he said. "Inattention to driving, driving too fast for road conditions, following too close, that sort of thing. The bottom line is she
did
cause Meaghan's death, even if it was an unfortunate accident."

"Then why aren't you charging her?" she asked.

"Because Meaghan's parents asked me not to. It's as simple as that."

"I'll bet they told you that putting Amy in jail wouldn't bring Meaghan back," Gracie predicted.

"You got it, Kiddo," Ken said. "Like they pointed out, Ms. Jones will have to live with that knowledge for the rest of her life and that ought to be punishment enough. Oh, and I asked the girl if she'd been taking any medications and she swore she hadn't. She showed me a bottle she carried in her backpack. It was a prescription bottle for sure, but all it had in it were over-the-counter pills; Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Midol, that sort of thing. She said it was easier to use one of her mother's empty bottles than to carry a bunch of smaller pill bottles."

Gracie frowned at the phone. She knew she didn't have any real proof of Amy's complicity in any of these accidents so she didn't want to make any accusations. She'd
really
been hoping Ken would've found something wrong with Meaghan's car, and then she could feel justified in telling him what she knew.
I'm sure Amy would've thrown that bottle away, probably off-campus somewhere during lunch on Friday,
she thought.
After Cheryl saw it I bet Amy ran home and fixed up another empty bottle that would look quite innocent, just in case.
To Ken she said, "Could I ask you something else?"

"Shoot," he said.

"There was a wreck by the school today, could you find out if someone put sugar in the gas tank?"

"Are you still going on about those mysterious accidents to your friends?" Ken asked with some exasperation. "Gracie, I'm a
homicide
cop, not a traffic cop. As ugly as it sounds, if someone wasn't killed then I can't investigate."

"Then you don't want me to ask you to check for fingerprints on an acid bottle in the chem. lab, or if antifreeze was spilled on the path in the park, or if the cyanide came from apples," she said petulantly.

"No, I…whoa! What'd you say about the cyanide?" Ken asked.

"Well, it's just a theory, but we read that apple seeds have cyanide in them and we thought
maybe
someone slipped some into her lasagna in Home Ec." There was a hint of vindication in her voice.

"
Who
?"

"I'd rather not say right now," Gracie hedged. "This person had the opportunity to cause
all
of these 'accidents', including Mrs. Lane's fall and Meaghan's wreck. But I don't know
why
they would've done any of them. And, uh, I don't have any proof," she finished rather lamely.

"I'm inclined to put Mrs. Lane's fall down to drunkenness; I just can't find any evidence that it happened any other way," he told her. "And Amy made a mistake and hit Meaghan's car. All the rest are just dumb shit – ah, pardon me, stuff – that happens to kids. But I
will
ask the hospital if they can determine whether the cyanide came from apple seeds. If, and I repeat
if
, that's true then I'll listen to your theory."

Gracie perked up a bit at that. "Okay, thanks. Call me as soon as you know!"

"I promise," Ken said. "In the meantime you be careful while you're looking for your proof. Bye."

Gracie tossed the phone on her desk and began pacing around her room, talking to herself out loud. Somehow it made it easier to think as she listened to her own ramblings.

"Ken told me to be careful. I bet he was thinking about how I confronted Bill about my Dad's death and that was
Ken's
idea. But it was the only way to prove what he'd done, I had to get him to admit it so Ken could get it on tape. I had all the pieces and they fit together perfectly; I even had a darn good motive."

She thought about how that confrontation could have ended and shivered. "But for a minute there I really thought Bill would throw that bottle of acid on me and Ken couldn't have stopped him. No
wonder
Ken wants me to be careful! And there's acid involved in
this
case, too."

She continued her pacing, walking randomly around her room without seeing anything there, letting her imagination call up the images that went with her words.

"There are some more similarities. Amy could well have thrown that pill bottle in the drive-in trash at lunch like Bill did with the gun; but this time the cops aren't going to dig through nasty trash to find it. Like Bill she's been pretty clever, hiding her tracks so that there's no proof she did all these things. It's all circumstantial; she
could
have done them all, but so could someone else we haven't thought of yet."

She paused in the middle of the room to heave a great sigh. "And there's big differences in the two cases, too. Dad was the only victim, though at first it sure looked like someone had tried to kill him three times but it turned out the first two shots weren't even aimed at him. This time we've got a bunch of victims; does that mean it's the opposite and there's only one killer? Or is it really multiple killers this time? Or are Ken and Mom right and every last one of 'em are really just accidents?"

"We've got 13 accidents. No, wait! We're all agreed that Shaun's locker was a
real
accident so it's only 12. Twelve! And two people
dead
. We
think
Amy could have set them all up, but the only two that we have even a shred of proof for are Serene's desk and Andrea's cyanide. And that proof is pretty slim, really just that it would've been very easy for her to do them."

"Three of them depend on what we've been calling the 'pattern', that someone's after Jake's girlfriends so the accidents
should
have happened to one of them: Brittney should've slipped and fallen instead of Travis, Tanya or Meaghan should've tripped over that rock instead of little Tony, and Allison should've run over the nails instead of Shawna and half the rest of the school."

"But
three
of them
did
have an accident later! Brittney fell when her bike slid off the path, and it was just dumb luck that mine did too. Amy caused Meaghan's wreck, but I can't believe Amy would
try
to kill her; that one must've just gotten out of control. And Tanya broke her wrist when someone did something to
her
car. Which leaves Allison still unscathed."

She shook her head back and forth rapidly, as if that might settle her thoughts into some order. She sat down at her desk and pulled her backpack onto her lap to begin digging for homework assignments. "Maybe if I concentrate on something else for awhile the answer will come to me. And considering I have a math test tomorrow I'd better make sure I know how to solve
those
problems!"

Friday dawned bright and sunny, one of those gorgeous autumn days that promise winter will be held off for awhile yet. Gracie's Gang all found they had trouble concentrating on schoolwork and even the mystery of the 'accidents' of the past two weeks seemed like it must've been only their feverish imaginations due to the previous dark and gloomy weather. This day seemed to hold so much promise of a wonderful weekend that they could think of nothing else.

Gracie hurried into her last class, feeling ready to get the math test over with so she could enjoy the weekend. She even felt confident that she would do well on the test. She watched eagerly as Mr. Morrison handed stacks of test papers to the students on the front row and they in turn began passing them back.

As she waited to get her test she noticed Allison a couple of seats ahead on the row to her left. Allison had nervously unscrewed the cap from her water bottle and took a drink.
I don't know how she expects to get through the pharmaceutical part of Med. school if she's worried about this math test!
Gracie thought. She had a vague feeling of unease, but put it down to the thought of Dr. Allison making a mistake in the dosage of some drug and accidentally killing a patient.

Gracie took the stack from Amy, laid one on her desk and passed the rest on back. A quick glance over the paper and she knew she could answer all the questions. Kelly's tutelage had helped; she'd learned how to solve these problems. She turned her attention to the first question and began working, slowly and carefully, double-checking each answer before going on to the next.

Half an hour later she was almost through when Amy slid out of her seat in front of Gracie and began walking to the front, apparently checking over her answers as she went. Amy was concentrating on her test paper to the point that she wasn't paying attention to where she walked. She bumped into Allison's desk and nearly dropped her bottle of water in surprise. Amy set her bottle on Allison's desk so she'd have a free hand to put to her chest with a dramatic sigh of having just escaped danger. Gracie noticed she was very careful
not
to be caught looking at Allison's test.

Mr. Morrison looked up at the disturbance and Amy waved her free hand in a way that indicated everything was okay. Several students were watching, glad to have any reason not to think about the test. The teacher used the interruption as an excuse to look over the rest of the class; the man was convinced that everyone cheated and he was constantly on the alert for any sign of such.

Gracie started to return to her own nearly-finished exam when she saw Amy pick up her water-bottle. But wait! She was sure that Amy had taken
Allison's
bottle instead. The two had sat side-by-side on Allison's desk, but hadn't Amy put hers closer to the right edge? Well, a few germs wouldn't kill either of them, despite what Allison might say about that. Gracie looked down at her test and went over the calculation that had been interrupted.

Amy turned in her test and strolled back to her chair. She took out her phone and began checking for messages, or maybe texting or posting on FaceBook. Even though she was finished she couldn't leave until the bell rang and Mr. Morrison didn't care what students did as long as they did it quietly. She picked up her bottle and took a large drink, as if needing it to wash away the anxiety of the test.