Nina Wright - Whiskey Mattimoe 06 - Whiskey and Soda (8 page)

“No press?” I asked Jenx, noting the absence of TV cameras. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t spotted any news vans outside.

“Bentwood agreed to give them a statement after the assembly. At ten o’clock. I’ll talk to reporters at the same time.”

Jenx gave me a gentle shove down the center aisle. Heads snapped in our direction and the room’s collective voices became a low buzz. School President George Bentwood stood center stage watching our approach. Without a podium he seemed totally at ease in the spotlight. Technically, since all the lights in the room were on, there was no spotlight; still, I felt the heat of everyone’s curiosity as I followed Jenx up the three steps to the stage. The whole room fell silent. Bentwood greeted us, an agile man three inches taller than I was, and I stood just shy of six foot-one. He wore a tailored charcoal-gray blazer with European-cut pants and black Italian loafers. His thick white hair and neatly trimmed mustache suggested meticulous grooming as well as enormous vanity. He acknowledged first Jenx, then me, with a warm handshake and a cordial nod. Clearly the occasion disallowed smiles.

“Ms. Mattimoe,” he said in a deep fuzzy voice designed to draw others close. “We are grateful that you’re here. So sorry for the circumstances.”

As his astonishingly bright blue eyes met mine, I spotted it—the twinkle. He gave my hand an extra squeeze and leaned closer.

“We’ve met before. You are a stunning woman.”

The twinkle, for sure. He added a winning grin that his larger audience couldn’t see. This was a man whom women would remember even if he didn’t inspire them to leap directly into his bed. Yet he hadn’t lingered in my mind after that long-ago charity fundraiser. How had I missed his appeal? I could chock that up to only one possible excuse. I’d been completely smitten with my then-new hubby Leo.

Now I faced my audience, row after row of bright-eyed children eager to hear what I’d come to say. I glanced at Jenx, willing her to, if at all possible, read my thoughts. This was a horrible idea. How could I recount my grisly experience to these innocents?

Although psychic powers, or what passed for them, seemed to abound in Magnet Springs, telepathy was not among Jenx’s arsenal of strange talents. Hers involved rattling our local geomagnetic fields when she herself felt rattled. Nonetheless, she turned to me now and said, “No worries, Whiskey. Your story is for the adults in this audience only. Mr. Bentwood just wants to say a few words first to the student body.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys,” he began. “As you may know, The Bentwood School has suffered a tragic loss. This morning we gather as a family gripped by shock and grief at the news that our headmaster, Mark Vreelander, passed away suddenly last night.”

Passed away suddenly? That was one way to put it, although not the accurate way. I glanced at Jenx who was busy scanning the crowd.

Bentwood continued, “Whenever a healthy, relatively young person dies unexpectedly, there are, of course, questions. I’ve invited two people to help us answer those questions—Magnet Springs Police Chief Judith Jenkins and Whitney Mattimoe, broker and owner of Mattimoe Realty. Chief Jenkins will offer professional insights, while Ms. Mattimoe will speak as an ordinary citizen who happened to witness a tragic event.”

Tragic? More like violent and probably criminal. As in murder.

I cleared my throat loudly to cue Jenx that this was not going in a direction I liked. Hell, I was already in therapy for my inability to relate well to children. The last experience I needed as a wary expectant mother was the traumatic memory of making hundreds of them simultaneously cry. With all those cherubic faces blinking up at me, I couldn’t imagine a single reassuring remark. Mine was not a family-friendly story. There was no G-rated version of death by broadhead arrow on a public bicycle trail, and Bentwood must have known that.

As if reading my mind—and maybe, in fact, she could—Jenx signaled for the School President to lean down to her level. Jenx is only five-foot-five, so Bentwood had to bend. Listening intently, he frowned before straightening and returning his attention to his audience.

“I’d like you to please give your full attention to Chief Jenkins,” he said, and gave her the floor.

The younger children applauded until the older children hushed them. Jenx took a small step closer to the edge of the stage.

“Good morning,” she said loudly.

“Good morning!” all the kids replied.

“I’m here because sometimes part of my job is passing along important information.”

A boy who looked younger than Chester shot his hand into the air. Jenx paused for a nanosecond, apparently weighing her options.

“I’ll take one question now, and we’ll save the rest later,” she said, pointing to the kid.

“That’s what TV is for,” the boy blurted.

Jenx looked confused.

“Passing along important information,” he reminded her.

“True,” Jenx said, “but sometimes the police are the first to know, and so they’re the first to tell you, like I’m going to do now.”

I could feel everybody in the room lean toward Jenx.

“But even before I do that, I want to remind you about another part of my job, the most important part,” she said.

“Getting the bad guys!” the same little boy called out.

A woman hurried down the aisle, presumably to manage or remove the audience participant. I recognized her as Loralee Lowe, the teacher and PTO mother in the flowery dress who had been passing out red papers before the meeting.

Smiling like a good cop, Jenx said, “I do my best to stop the bad guys before they can do anything bad. My main job is keeping people safe. That means I try to prevent bad stuff from happening, including accidents.”

Accidents? Was Jenx going to tell the students and parents of The Bentwood School that their headmaster had died as the result of an accident?

The chief of police drew herself to her full height and cleared her throat.

“Mr. Vreelander was riding his bike last night, and something went wrong. We don’t know exactly what happened yet, but we do know for sure he didn’t suffer. Ms. Mattimoe was out riding her bike, too, and she is absolutely sure that Mr. Vreelander had no pain at all. Right, Ms. Mattimoe?”

All eyes shifted to me. All horrified eyes.

“Uh—right. Definitely no pain,” I lied, straining to blot out the memory of Vreelander’s stricken expression.

Dozens of little hands now waved frantically for attention. Jenx selected a worried-looking girl about four, who pointed straight at me.

“Did she push him off his bike?”

“Of course not,” I cried. “I was riding in the opposite direction.”

“Were you playing chicken with him?” a boy demanded.

“Whiskey—I mean Ms. Mattimoe—was not playing chicken,” Jenx said. “She was just out riding, minding her own business.”

Children are not fools. I could see that most of them no longer trusted me.

“Was she drunk?” a boy asked Jenx.

“No,” Jenx said. “Ms. Mattimoe doesn’t drink. She’s going to have a baby.”

“The cop said ‘whiskey.’ That lady was drunk!’” an older boy informed the crowd.

Jenx gave the universal signal for time-out, which might have worked if Kimmi Kellum-Ramirez had not selected that moment to rush the stage on her rat-a-tat-tat five-inch heels. Stilettos make an alarming noise on solid hardwood. We all shuddered, but I shuddered more than most. Kimmi held a poster-size photo of Blitzen lying on the Rail Trail next to Vreelander’s corpse.

“That’s Mattimoe’s bike, isn’t it?” Kimmi cried. “Lots of people have seen her riding it. You expect us to believe she just happened to be on the Rail Trail when the headmaster died? Two years ago she killed a man with that bike!”

“In self-defense,” I said.

“I’m talking to the cop,” Kimmi snapped. “And I demand an explanation.”

“Yeah, we want an explanation. These are posted all over town!” Robin Wardrip shouted. Thumping toward the stage in combat boots that complemented her camouflage gear, Wardrip held up at least a half-dozen copies of the same poster. Under the photo the caption read

DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS BIKE? CONTACT THE LANAGAN COUNTY SHERIFF.

followed by a phone number that looked even to my mind like somebody’s cell.

“That is not an official poster,” Jenx barked as she seized the papers. “And that’s not the County Sheriff’s phone number. Now step back. Way back. I’m talking to the children. You’ll get your turn later.”

Both Kimmi and Wardrip appealed to Bentwood for support, but Jenx cut them off. They huffed away, one stomping, the other clomping. Bentwood had said nothing. In fact, he had retreated a few steps during the brief confrontation, slipping into the shadows near the back of the shallow stage as if to remove himself from the conflict. Coward.

In a carefully modulated voice, Jenx was once again addressing the children.

“As I was saying, Mr. Vreelander died suddenly yesterday while he was out riding his bike. The good news is that he had no pain. That’s all we know right now,” she summarized.

“Do you mean he fell off his bike and then he died?” a small girl asked tremulously. “Can falling off your bike kill you?”

“No,” Jenx said. “Mr. Vreelander fell off his bike because he was already dead.”

Lots of little children wailed. The same older boy who spoke earlier didn’t wait to be called on this time, either.

“So the only reason it didn’t hurt when he fell was because he was already dead?”

“Yes,” Jenx said.

More children burst into sobs.

“I mean, no,” Jenx said. “That’s not why it didn’t hurt. It just plain didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt the headmaster. Right, Whiskey? I mean, Ms. Mattimoe?”

“Right,” I said, but I couldn’t hear myself above the crying children.

The older boy with the big mouth now stood on his chair as if commanding a mutiny. He addressed the whole room.

“You heard her. She said ‘whiskey’ again!” Turning on Jenx, he demanded, “What can kill you without hurting you? Unless you’re drunk?”

“You don’t have to be drunk,” Jenx fumed. “Lots of things can kill you without hurting at all.”

That response unhinged almost every kid not already bawling, and a few adults, too. By the time I signaled Jenx to shut it, her wine-red face was gleaming with flop sweat. Uh-oh. We were about to witness something that might hurt, Jenx’s special electrical talent. Unless School President Bentwood intervened, the chaos was about to intensify. Jenx and other members of her family had the gift—or curse—of geomagnetic agitation. When their anger spiked, so did electrical currents. One stage light was already flickering.

I turned to Bentwood, who stood in the shadows, arms crossed over his chest. Was he a master of detachment, an icon of calm, or a complete waste of skin? This was his student body. High time he manned up and started acting presidential. But before he could or would, someone else did. A plus-sized woman wearing an expensive suit the same color as Bentwood’s blazer heaved herself onto the stage, instantly slicing the noise quotient in half.

“I’ll handle it, George,” she announced.

I detected the distinct leer of cynicism in those few words. A resonant contralto, the woman’s voice was the tool of a seasoned school principal. Facing her audience she said, “Most of you don’t know me although I know about most of you. I am Pauline Vreelander.”

Gasps issued from a few adults, and the widow smiled. My first impression? Although ten years older than her husband and not the least bit buff, she was every inch the polished administrator. Her neatly coiffed brown hair was streaked with gray; she wore tasteful designer eyeglasses and minimal make-up. I could see no sign that she had recently wept.

“I thank Chief Jenkins for being the first to contact me last night,” she said, and I continued to marvel at the mellifluous quality of her voice. “I believe the chief when she says that my husband did not suffer. So you should believe her, too. Now, on his behalf, I have a few words for the students of The Bentwood School.”

She scanned the rows of silent youngsters before her.

“You know your headmaster always wanted you to be brave and strong and do the right thing, don’t you?”

Hundreds of small heads bobbed in agreement.

“So take a deep breath.”

The whole student body did.

“And now, in an orderly fashion, stand up, go back to your classrooms, and get on with your work. Mr. Vreelander would be very proud of you today.”

As if under a sedative spell, three hundred children who had been hysterical only moments earlier rose as one and calmly filed out of the auditorium. Mrs. Vreelander watched them go. When the School President finally stepped forward, she snapped, “Later, George,” without removing her eyes from the students. Only after every child had quietly departed did she turn her attention to the adults in the room.

“I’m glad you’re here. Even though we haven’t met, I feel I know most of you. Despite the miles between us, Mark and I were very close. He told me everything.”

She beamed a chilly smile at her audience.

“As Chief Jenkins knows, I’ve arranged to take a leave from my position at Tree Hill Academy in Dallas. I plan to stay in Magnet Springs until I get the answers I need.”

The assembly should have ended with Mrs. Vreelander’s stunning announcement, but George Bentwood officiously hastened to add that he had nothing to add. He urged parents to watch the school’s social media for updates, and he, Vreelander’s widow and Jenx exited stage left. A teacher’s aide ushered the rest of us from the meeting room out to the school foyer. The parents dispersed although I noticed quite a few lingering on the school lawn to gossip. About “drunken” me and my bicycle? Or about Mrs. Vreelander and her doomed husband?

Frankly, I was relieved and impressed that the widow had arrived and taken control of that scene. I couldn’t blame Jenx for not knowing what she was walking into; it was almost as if Bentwood had set her up. Why would the school president want to make the police look bad? Surely he knew, as most folks in Magnet Springs did, that if Jenx lost her temper, a geomagnetic firestorm could follow.