Murder on the Prowl (21 page)

49

Eerie quiet greeted the animals as they padded down the hallway of the Old Main Building, the administration building. The faculty meeting was heating up in the auditorium across the quad. Not one soul was in Old Main, not even a receptionist.

“Think the cafeteria is in Old Main?”
Pewter inquired plaintively.

“No. Besides, I bet no one is working in the cafeteria.”
Tucker was anxious to get in and get out of the place before the post office closed. If Harry couldn't find them, she'd pitch a fit.

“Perfect.”
Mrs. Murphy read
HEADMASTER
in gold letters on the heavy oak door, slightly ajar. The cat checked the door width using her whiskers, knew she could make it, and squeezed through. Fatty behind her squeezed a little harder.

Tucker wedged her long nose in the door. Mrs. Murphy turned around and couldn't resist batting Tucker.

“No fair.”

“Where's your sense of humor? Pewter, help me with the door.”

The two cats pulled with their front paws as Tucker pushed with her nose. Finally the heavy door opened wide enough for the corgi to slip through. Everything had been moved out except for the majestic partner's desk and the rich red Persian carpet resting in front of the desk.

“Tucker, sniff the walls, the bottom of the desk, the bookcases, everything. Pewter, you check along the edge of the bookcases. Maybe there's a hidden door or something.”

“What are you going to do?”
Pewter dived into the emptied bookshelves.

“Open these drawers.”

“That's hard work.”

“Not for me. I learned to do this at home because Harry used to hide the fresh catnip in the right-hand drawer of her desk . . . until she found out I could open it.”

“Where does she hide it now?”
Pewter eagerly asked.

“Top of the kitchen cabinet, inside.”

“Damn.”
Pewter rarely swore.

“Let's get to work.”
Mrs. Murphy flopped on her side, putting her paw through the burnished brass handle. Using her hind feet she pushed forward. The long center drawer creaked a bit, then rolled right out. Pens, pencils, and an avalanche of paper clips and engraved St. Elizabeth's stationery filled the drawer. She stuck her paws to the very back of the drawer. Mrs. Murphy shivered. She wanted so badly to throw the paper on the floor, then plunge into it headfirst. A paper bag was fun enough but expensive, lush, engraved laid bond—that was heaven. She disciplined herself, hopping on the floor to pull out the right-hand bottom drawer. The contents proved even more disappointing than the center drawer's: a hand squeezer to strengthen the hand muscles, a few floppy discs even though no computer was in the room, and one old jump rope.

“Anything?”
She pulled on the left-hand drawer.

Tucker lifted her head.
“Too many people in here. I smell mice. But then that's not surprising. They like buildings where people go home at night—less interference.”

“Nothing on the bookshelves. No hidden buttons.”

Murphy, frustrated at not finding anything, jumped into the drawer, wiggling toward the back. Murphy's pupils, big from the darkness at the back of the drawer, quickly retracted to smaller circles as she jumped out. She noticed a small adhesive mailing label, ends curled, which must have fallen off a package.
“Here's an old mailing label. Neptune Film Laboratory, Brooklyn, New York—and three chewed pencils, the erasers chewed off. This room has been picked cleaner than a chicken bone.”

“We could go over to where Maury McKinchie was killed, in the hall outside the gymnasium,”
Tucker suggested.

“Good idea.”
Mrs. Murphy hurried out the door.

“She could at least wait for us. She can be so rude.”
Pewter followed.

The cavernous gymnasium echoed with silence. The click of Tucker's unretractable claws reverberated like tin drums.

“Know what hall?”

“No,”
Mrs. Murphy answered Tucker,
“but there's only one possibility. The two side halls go to the locker rooms. I don't think Maury was heading that way. He probably went through the double doors, which lead to the trophy hall and the big front door.”

“Then why did we come in the backdoor?”
Pewter grumbled.

“Because our senses are sharper. We could pick up something in the lockers that a human couldn't. Not just dirty socks but cocaine lets off a sharp rancid odor, and marijuana is so easy a puppy could pick it up.”

“I resent that. A hound puppy is born with a golden nose.”

“Tucker, I hate to tell you this but you're a corgi.”

“I know that perfectly well, smart-ass.”
Ready to fight, she stopped in front of a battered light green locker.
“Wait a minute.”
She sniffed around the base of the locker, putting her nose next to the vent.
“Sugary, sticky.”

“Hey, look at that.”
Pewter involuntarily lifted her paw, taking a step back.

“Dead.”
Mrs. Murphy noted the line of dead ants going into the locker. She glanced up.
“Number one fourteen.”

“How do we get in there? I mean, if we want to?”
Pewter gingerly leapt over the ants.

“We don't.”
Tucker indicated the big combination lock hanging on the locker door.

“Why go to school if you have to lock away your possessions? Kids stealing from kids. It's not right.”

“It's not right, but it's real,”
Mrs. Murphy answered pragmatically.
“We aren't going to get anyone into this locker. Even the janitor has burnt rubber.”

“He rides a bicycle,”
Tucker said laconically, picturing Powder Hadly, thirties and simpleminded. He was so simpleminded he couldn't pass the written part of the driving test although he could drive just fine.

“You get my drift.”
The tiger bumped into the corgi. Tucker bumped back, which made the cat stumble.

“Twit.”

“It's all right if you do it. If I do anything you bitch and moan and scratch.”

“What are you doing then?”

“Describing your behavior. Flat facts.”

“The flat facts are, we can't do diddly.”
She halted.
“Well, there is one trick if we could get everyone to open their lockers. Not that the dead-ant locker has poison in it. That would be pretty stupid, wouldn't it? But who knows what's stashed in these things.”

“Do the faculty have lockers?”
Pewter asked.

“Sure.”

“How do you know the faculty lockers from the kids'?”

“I don't know. We're on the girls' side. Maybe there's a small room we've missed that's set aside for the teachers.”

They scampered down the hall and found a locker room for the female faculty. But there was nothing of interest except a bottle of Ambush perfume that had been left on the makeup counter. The men's locker room was equally barren of clues.

“This was a wasted trip, and I'm famished.”

“Not so wasted.”
Murphy trotted back toward the post office.

“I'd like to know why. Roscoe's office was bare. We passed through April's office, nothing there. The sheriff has crawled over everything, fouling the scent. The gym is a tomb. And my pads are cold.”

“We found out that the killer had to have left the gym before Maury McKinchie to wait outside the front doors. They're glass so he could see Maury come out, or he waited behind one of the doors leading to the boys' locker room or the girls'. He dashed out and stabbed Maury and then either ran outside or he ran back into the gym. In costume, remember. He knew this setup.”

“Ah.”
Tucker appreciated Mrs. Murphy's reasoning.
“I see that, but if the killer had been outside, more people would have seen him because he was in costume—unless he changed it. No time for that, I think.”
Tucker canceled her own idea.

“He was a Musketeer, if Kendrick is telling the truth. My hunch is he came from the side. From out of the locker rooms. No one had reason to go back there unless they wanted to smoke or drink, and they could easily do that outside without some chaperon or bush patrol. No, I'm sure he ran out the locker-room side.”

“You don't believe Kendrick did it?”
Pewter asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear her friend's reasons.

“No.”

“But what if Maury was sleeping with Irene?”
Tucker logically thought that was reason enough for some men to murder.

“Kendrick wouldn't give a damn. A business deal gone bust, or some kind of financial betrayal might provoke him to kill, but he'd be cold-blooded about it. He'd plan. This was slapdash. Not Kendrick's style.”

“No wonder Irene mopes around,”
Pewter thought out loud.
“If my husband thought money was more important than me, I'd want a divorce, too.”

“Could Maury have been killed by a jilted lover?”

“Sure. So could Roscoe. But it doesn't fit. Not two of them back-to-back. And April Shively wouldn't have vacuumed out the school documents if it was that.”

They reached the post office, glad to rush inside for warmth and crunchies.

“Where have you characters been?” Harry counted out change.

“Deeper into this riddle, that's where we've been.”
Mrs. Murphy watched Pewter stick her face into the crunchies shaped like little fish. She didn't feel hungry herself.
“What's driving me crazy is that I'm missing something obvious.”

“Murphy, I don't see how we've overlooked anything.”
Tucker was tired of thinking.

“No, it's obvious, but whatever it is, our minds don't want to see it.”
The tiger dropped her ears for a moment, then pricked them back up.

“Doesn't make sense,”
Pewter, thrilled to be eating, said between garbled mouthfuls.

“What is going on is too repulsive for our minds to accept. We're blanking out. It's right under our noses.”

50

The uneasiness of Crozet's residents found expression in the memorial service for Maury McKinchie.

There was a full choir and a swelling organ but precious few people in Reverend Jones's church. Darla had indeed flown the body back to Los Angeles, so no exorbitantly expensive casket rested in front of the altar. Miranda, asked to sing a solo, chose “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” because she was in a Lutheran church and because no one knew enough about Maury's spiritual life to select a more personal hymn. BoomBoom Craycroft wept in the front left row. Ed Sugarman comforted her, a full-time job. Naomi Fletcher, in mourning for Roscoe, sat next to Sandy Brashiers in the front right row. Harry, Susan, and Ned also attended. Other than that tiny crew, the church was bare. Had Darla shown her famous and famously kept face, the church would have been overflowing.

Back at the post office Harry thought about what constituted a life well lived.

At five o'clock, she gathered up April Shively's mail.

“Do you think she'll let you in?”

Harry raised her eyebrows. “Miranda, I don't much care. If not, I'll put it by her backdoor. Need anything while I'm out there? I'll pass Critzer's Nurseries.”

“No, thanks. I've put in all my spring bulbs,” came the slightly smug reply.

“Okay then—see you tomorrow.”

Ten minutes later Harry pulled into a long country lane winding up at a neat two-story frame colonial. Blair Bainbridge had lent Harry his truck until hers was fixed. When she knocked on the door, there was no answer. She waited a few minutes, then placed the mail by the backdoor. As she turned to leave, the upstairs window opened.

“I'm not afraid to come in and get my mail.”

“Your box was overflowing. Thought I'd save you a trip.”

“Anybody know if Sean's going to make it?”

“No. The hospital won't give out information, and they won't allow anyone to visit. That's all I know.”

“Boy doesn't have a brain in his head. Have you seen Sandy Brashiers or Naomi?” April half laughed. Her tone was snide.

Harry sighed impatiently. “I doubt they want to see you any more than you want to see them. Marilyn's not your biggest fan now either.”

“Who cares about her?” April waved her hand flippantly. “She's a bad imitation of a bad mother.”

“Big Mim's okay. You have to take her on her own terms.”

“Think we can get inside?”
Tucker asked.

“No,”
Murphy replied.
“She's not budging from that window.”

“What are they saying about me?” April demanded.

“Oh—that you hate Sandy, loved Roscoe, and you're accusing Sandy to cover your own tracks. If there's missing money, you've got it or know where it is.”

“Ha!”

“But you do know something, April. I know you do,”
Murphy meowed loudly.

“That cat's got a big mouth.”

“So's your old lady,”
Murphy sassed her.

“Yeah!”
Pewter chimed in.

“April, I wish you'd get things right.” Harry zipped up her jacket. “The school's like a tomb. Whatever you feel about Sandy—is it worth destroying St. Elizabeth's and everything Roscoe worked so hard to build?”

“Good one, Mom.”
Tucker knew Harry had struck a raw nerve.

“Me destroy St. Elizabeth's! If you want to talk destruction, let's talk about Sandy Brashiers, who wants us to commit our energies and resources to a nineteenth-century program. He's indifferent to computer education, hostile to the film-course idea, and he only tolerates athletics because he has to—if he takes over, you watch, those athletic budgets will get trimmed and trimmed each year. He'll take it slow at first, but I know him! The two-bit sneak.”

“Then come back.”

“They fired me!”

“If you give back the papers—”

“Never. Not to Brashiers.”

Harry held up her hands. “Give them to Sheriff Shaw.”

“Fat lot of good that will do. He'll turn them over to St. Elizabeth's.”

“He can impound them as evidence.”

“Are you that dumb, or do you think I am?” April yelled. “Little Mim will whine, and Mommy will light the fires of hell under Rick Shaw's butt. Those papers will go to the Sanburne house if not St. Elizabeth's.”

“How else can you clear your name?”

“When the time comes, I will. You just wait and see.”

“I guess I'll have to.” Harry gave up, walking back to the truck. She heard the window slam shut.

“Time has a funny way of running out,”
Mrs. Murphy noted dryly.