Hopscotch Homicide (Zoe Donovan Mystery Book 16) (12 page)

“Do you know why Mrs. Brown was suddenly strapped financially?” I asked.

“I didn’t ask. I did verify with her bank that she began missing payments two months before she called me.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me that might help me track down her killer?”

“Not really. I do know that her financial situation was a recent development. She mentioned something about losing her entire savings in a matter of months. If I had to guess, I’d say she had a gambling problem, but I don’t know that for a fact.”

“And has her house sold?”

“We received an offer from a really awesome family on the day she died. I guess at this point it will be up to her heir or the courts regarding how to proceed, but I’m hopeful we can make the deal happen.”

“Well, thank you for the information.” I held up the packet. “I’ll look over this material and see you this evening at the PTA meeting.”

After I picked Scooter up from school I took him over to Ruby’s to meet Digger. Digger and Scooter loved each other on sight. The dog was a couple of years old and already trained. He was energetic by breed and would be able to keep up with a ten-year-old boy.

“Thank you.” Ruby squeezed my hand, tears streaming down her face. “I feel so much better about my decision now that I know Digger is going to the best home in Ashton Falls.”

“I’m really glad it worked out,” I said. “I think Digger will be perfect for Scooter. We can wait to take him if you aren’t ready to let him go quite yet.”

“No. Going with you now will be the best thing for him.”

We were sitting on Ruby’s back patio, watching Scooter and Digger engage in a lively game of fetch. Both dog and child had been running nonstop since we’d been there.

“My daughter has been pressuring me to make the move,” Ruby continued. “Now that Digger is taken care of I guess I’m ready to commit to her plan.”

“I want you to know that you’re welcome to come visit Digger any time you want,” I offered.

“I just might do that, if I can arrange a ride up the mountain. The little scamp has earned himself a place in my heart.”

I laughed. “I remember when you wanted to strangle him for digging up your rosebed.”

“That pup certainly did live up to his name. Guess I’ll never get around to replanting those bushes like I promised myself I would someday.”

I squeezed Ruby’s hand. “I guess not.”

“Time goes by so fast.” Ruby looked out across her yard. “Seems like yesterday I was moving into this house as a young bride. It’s hard to believe so many years have gone by in what seems like a minute. You enjoy those young’uns who are living with you. Before you know it, they’ll be moving out and moving on with their own lives.”

I put my arm around Ruby’s shoulders. From where I was sitting, it was hard to imagine being eighty-six, but I bet she’d thought the same thing when she was my age. I vowed to embrace all the moments I was granted on this earth. I know a lot of young adults my age don’t think there’s anything to be learned from the senior segment of the population, but I, better than anyone, knew differently.

When we got home from Ruby’s, it was time to eat dinner and get ready to head back out to attend the PTA meeting. Being a parent is hard and time-consuming. I’d been running all day and still had metaphorical miles to cover. Luckily, Zak had prepared dinner, so all I had to do was get Digger settled in and then sit down with my family for a wonderful meal.

“How was your first day of school?” I asked no one in particular as I sampled Zak’s spaghetti amore.

“It was mostly fun,” Alex said. “I just have PE, social studies, and science at the middle school because I’m taking math, computer science, and literature and English composition at Zimmerman Academy, but I still had the best time. I even met a new friend.”

“Wonderful. And what’s this friend’s name?” I asked.

“Piz.”

“Piz?”

“His full name is Frankie Pizzano, but everyone calls him Piz. He’s in my science class. He’s pretty smart, so the teacher teamed us up. The curriculum is really nothing more than a repeat of what I’ve already learned at the boarding school, so I thought the class was going to be a total drag, but Piz is funny and nice. I think it’s going to be dope.”

Dope?
I’d never heard Alex use street slang before. I hoped we hadn’t broken her.

“I’m glad you had a nice time. So Piz is in the seventh grade?”

“Eighth. I guess the school decided to put me in eighth-grade classes instead of seventh. It really doesn’t matter; I’m fine with whatever the school thinks is best, but I am a little worried about PE.”

“What’s wrong with PE?” I wondered.

“For one thing, the kids are all three years older than me, and I’m small for my age anyway. I’m afraid if we do any contact sports—or really any sports at all—I’m going to get clobbered.”

“Yeah, I could see that might be a problem. I guess I can speak to your counselor about an alternative.”

“I already have,” Alex informed me. “She agreed that a physical education class filled with eighth-grade students might not be the best idea. Because I’m not a full-time student, she decided she could waive the physical education requirement and I could select an elective instead, if you and Zak agree that’s okay.”

“Did you have an elective in mind?” I asked.

“I really want to be on the yearbook staff. I met a girl named Stephie who’s on the staff, and she told me it meets before school every Monday and Wednesday. Stephie is really nice, and I can see us being friends, so I’d really like to do it, but I’ll need an earlier ride on those days.”

“I think we can work that out,” I said. I glanced at Zak and he nodded his head.

“You have PE second period, though, which is right in the middle of your day. What are you going to do for an hour?”

“I’m going to be a student aide in the office. Their computer system is pretty antiquated, so I’m going to help them do a full backup and then reinstall everything with the software Zak is donating. When I’m finished with that, they’re going to have me give classes to the staff to help them learn the new system. I know that won’t take the entire semester, but the counselor seemed to think they could find other tasks for me to do.”

“I’ll bet.” I looked at Zak. “And you think this is a good idea?”

We’d brought Alex to Ashton Falls to provide her with both an age-appropriate environment and an accelerated learning environment. It sounded like the middle school planned to use her as free labor.

“For now. It will be good experience for Alex to install the new system, and teaching others to perform a task is always a challenge. We might take another look at her schedule when the next semester rolls around.”

I shrugged. “Okay. If Alex wants to do it and Zak thinks it’s a good idea I’m on board.” I turned to Pi. “How was your day, Pi?”

“Fine.”

I could see that was all I was going to get out of the sixteen-year-old, so I turned to Scooter.

“Why don’t you tell Zak about your day,” I suggested.

“I caught a snake.”

“You didn’t—” I began.

“I didn’t put it in no one’s desk. I let it go at the end of recess.”

I let out a long breath. “And what else did you do?”

“Me and Tucker played baseball during lunch recess. We’re going to play on a team when soccer is over.”

“I think baseball is in the spring and soccer is over in November,” I informed the boy. “I believe there’s a winter basketball league between the two if you’re interested.”

“Then me and Tucker are going to play basketball. Miss Maxwell said I need to do afterschool sports to use up my energy.”

She probably wasn’t wrong. “Basketball will be fun. I always wanted to be on the high school team, but I was too short.”

“Me and Tucker are tall.”

“So what else did you do?” I asked.

Scooter was a talker, which in this case was nice because he managed to keep the conversation going until we had all completed our meals and the kids were sent to their individual rooms to read or complete any homework they’d been assigned.

“So how was your first day of school?” I asked Zak. I was clearing the table while he rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher.

“Really good. All the kids we’ve selected to begin the school year seemed interested in the curriculum we’ve prepared for each of them. Pi is a lot more advanced than any of the others in terms of computer programming and software development, but Dezil isn’t really all that far behind, and he seems eager to learn. I think they’re going to make a good team.”

“And the others?”

“Alex and Eve want to focus on working with Phyllis, and we’re working with the others to determine the best placement for them. We want all the kids to have exposure to all the subjects we’re teaching, but we also want them to be able to focus on what most interests them.”

I opened the refrigerator to replace the leftover food. Zak had made enough to feed an army.

“Did you have a chance to look into Mrs. Brown’s finances?” I asked.

“Actually, I did,” Zak answered as he began scrubbing out the pan he’d used to make the casserole. “Mrs. Brown wasn’t a rich woman, but prior to about a year ago she had a small savings account. Last December she withdrew five thousand dollars, and she withdrew additional five-thousand-dollar sums several times after that. As of this past May, her balance had dropped to zero.”

I frowned. “And you have no idea what she did with the money?”

“Nope. She took cash out on each occasion; there’s no way to track what she did with the money.”

“I spoke to Yolanda today. She told me Mrs. Brown listed her house for sale two months ago as a result of financial hardship. She was under the impression Mrs. Brown might have developed a gambling problem.”

Zak furrowed his brow. “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible she withdrew all her money and spontaneously gambled it all away, but there are other equally likely alternatives.”

“Such as?”

“Chronic spending, medical expenses, supporting a loved one; the list can be endless without more information. We can’t directly trace the money, but we can look at Mrs. Brown’s phone records and expenditures to see if we notice any patterns,” Zak suggested. “We can find out if she had any regular phone calls that coincided with the withdrawal of the money, or if she traveled on or around the days the withdrawals were made. If she did gamble it away, chances are she didn’t do so in Ashton Falls.”

“So we can search her credit card receipts for large gasoline purchases, hotel rooms, airline tickets?”

“Exactly.”

“You’re pretty sneaky, Zak Zimmerman.”

Zak just smiled.

I looked at the clock. “We need to be at the PTA meeting in thirty minutes, but let’s work on this when we come back. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble onto something.”

“It’s packed in here,” I said to Yolanda as we signed in at the registration table.

“Everyone comes out for the first meeting and signs up to be on the PTA. That way they can say they’re members, but by the second meeting of the school year we’ll be down to fifty percent attendance, and by the Halloween Carnival in October we’ll be down to twenty to thirty hardworking parents who are willing to put in the time and make the association a viable enterprise.”

“Wow, really?” I slapped a name tag on my chest. “There must be two hundred people here tonight and you’re telling me we’ll be whittled down to thirty in two months?”

“If history serves. I do hope we can encourage additional long-term members this year. The more money we raise for the school, the better education we can provide for our students. We almost had to cancel the sixth-grade trip last year due to lackluster fund-raising. If it wasn’t for Zak,” Yolanda smiled at the man standing beside me, “we would never have pulled it off.”

I looked at my husband. “You paid for the sixth-grade trip?”

“I donated the money to rebuild the playground, and they used the money they’d raised for that for the trip, plus some new computers for the computer lab.”

Yolanda peeled the backing off Zak’s name tag and pressed it onto his chest.

I rolled my eyes. Zak certainly did seem to attract a lot of attention wherever we went.

I placed my hand in Zak’s. “Let’s go find a seat before they’re all gone.”

I had to admit the meeting was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. We heard from several teachers, who updated everyone on the new curriculum that had been handed down from the state. Mr. Bower gave a speech welcoming everyone and asking for the continued participation of all the parents in attendance. Yolanda outlined the fund-raising goals for the upcoming year and asked for suggestions as to the type of fund-raisers the PTA should sponsor.

Somehow Zak ended up being voted vice president of the association and I was nominated to oversee the fund-raising committee while I was in the ladies’ room. I’m not really sure how that even happened, but in that moment I felt enthusiastic rather than overwhelmed. That would soon change, but for now I felt like Supermom, and that was a feeling I found I quite enjoyed.