The Skeleton Takes a Bow (A Family Skeleton Mystery) (14 page)

“We’re set,” I confirmed. Given what had happened to Robert Irwin and Patty Craft, I sure didn’t want Yo spending time with a guy who smelled off.

My chicken Parmesan and her lasagna arrived, and as we ate we went step-by-step through the meeting again, but didn’t come up with anything that explained what it was Frisenda really wanted. Eventually Yo got impatient, so I paid the check and we left.

S
id was watching TV in the living room when I got back, but shut it off as soon as I came in the door.

“Well? Well? You could have texted me something, you know!”

“Nothing worth texting,” I said glumly. “Where’s Madison?”

“Up in her room with the dog. Deborah brought over Thai food and did her best to pick my brain about what you were up to, but she got nothing from me!” He stuck one finger bone through his left eye socket and rattled it around. “See? Nothing to pick.”

“Don’t do that,” I said, wincing.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“I know, but . . . Ew.”

“So what happened with Yo the cold handed?”

I told him what she’d told me, and when I produced the business card, he grabbed it and promised to do his very best to track the man down.

“Yo already Googled him.”

“A three-second Google search on a phone!” he said disdainfully. “I think I can do better than that.”

“Well, knock yourself out. I’ve got response papers to grade.” Then I yawned so widely my jaw cracked.

“Why don’t you give them to me? I can do them overnight and still have plenty of time to track down Frisenda and the Sechrest Foundation on the Web.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“I don’t mind helping. You said yourself that I’m great at grading.”

“I know, and you really are, but my students are paying for a Ph.D. professor, not a gifted amateur.”

“What difference does it make who does the work as long as it’s good?”

“Sid, you know my parents. They are academics to the core, and they raised me to never plagiarize or take credit for somebody else’s work.”

“They let grad students grade papers for them.”

“True, but you don’t even have a B.A.”

“Well, excuse me for dying before I had a chance to graduate!”

“Sid! I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it like that.” I should have been able to come up with a better apology, but all I produced was another yawn. “Look, I really appreciate your offer, but I’ll just let them wait until tomorrow.”

Of course, I still couldn’t go straight to bed. I had to empty the dishwasher and refill it with accumulated dirties, check the mail, and make sure I had clothes set for the next day. Plus I spent a whole half an hour of quality time with Madison.

Then I made sure the house was locked up with lights turned out, and I got ready for bed. As I crawled between the sheets, something Sid had said floated up into my consciousness.

I sat up. What difference does it make who does the work as long as it’s good? Why had Frisenda been so interested in Yo’s test scores? How could Patty Craft have prostituted her talent, and why was the Sechrest Foundation only interested in younger-looking grad students and adjuncts?

I finally thought of an answer that made sense.

If I could have pulled the same trick on Sid as he had on me Friday night—looming over him in his sleep—I would have, but he doesn’t sleep. The best I could do was throw on my robe and pad up the attic stairs to where he was working.

“Georgia, what’s wrong?” he asked when he saw me.

“I think I’ve got it. The Sechrest Foundation is faking standardized test scores. Frisenda wanted to hire Yo to take the SAT for somebody else!”

I
stood waiting for Sid’s gasp of realization, which I expected to be followed by sounds of admiration, but what I got was, “That’s it?”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s it’? It’s fraud, Sid.”

“I know it’s fraud, but I was expecting something a little more . . . I don’t know. More dramatic. Cheating at tests is kind of penny ante, isn’t it?”

“Dude, you need to Google the College Board and see how much money they rake in for standardized testing. Even though not all colleges require those tests, almost every college-bound high school student takes the PSAT and then the SAT at least twice. Bear in mind that the SAT is around fifty bucks a pop! A lot of kids take multiple AP exams and SAT Subject Tests, too. Then there are the ACTs, GREs, LSATs.”

“Are those tests or alphabet soup?”

“Then you’ve got the companies that pay people like me to teach kids how to improve their scores, and the publishers that produce guidebooks to the tests. Standardized testing is a huge business, Sid.”

“Well, yeah, the people giving the tests make money, but how much money would there be in a cheating-for-hire scheme?”

“Plenty. Think of how much is riding on those stupid tests. Admission to a lot of colleges depends on them, plus any number of scholarships. I read that people have been paid two to three grand to take the SAT in someone else’s name.”

“Seriously?”

“You can look it up later, but I remember a case a few years back when a bunch of students at a high school in Long Island hired other kids to take their SATs. It got a lot of press, and colleges all up and down the east coast were worried they’d admitted these students on the basis of those phony test scores. My parents checked to see if they’d accepted any students from that school at McQuaid, and they hadn’t, but you know what else they found out? Nothing happened to the kids who cheated.”

“You’re kidding.”

“The SAT people wouldn’t even release their names—they said they couldn’t because of privacy laws. But they sure prosecuted the people who actually took the tests. And afterward they hired high-powered security gurus to look into their procedures so it couldn’t happen again.”

“But apparently it is happening?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned while working in academia, it’s that you can’t ever stop all the cheating.”

“I get that. I’m just not seeing how this leads to murder.”

“I’m not sure, either, but money and fraud seem like pretty good pieces of the puzzle. If I’m right, that is.”

“How do you find out if you’re right?”

“Tomorrow I’m going to find Charles, and I’m going to make him tell me the truth.”

“You won’t be alone with him, will you?”

“Sid, Charles is not going to hurt me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I have known Charles for years. He’s slept in this house!”

“Georgia, if you don’t take me with you, I will call Deborah right now and tell her.”

I blinked. I’d never known him to make a threat like that. If he felt strongly enough to go for the nuclear option, I had to accept it. Even if I didn’t like it. “Fine, you can come.”

“All of me this time, not just my skull.”

“You know that means the suitcase.”

“I know. Actually, after all that time in the bowling bag, the suitcase is starting to sound almost roomy.”

Sid’s usual mode of transportation for leaving the house was an old hard-sided suitcase with a decorative pattern that was advertised as Antelope, but which looked like bacon to me. All of his bones would fit in, just barely, and since it was wheeled, it made it easier to move him around. He only weighed twenty pounds or so, but that was more than I wanted to carry in addition to my usual load of stuff.

Sid must have been worried that I’d try to sneak off without him. He was downstairs waiting for me when I got up Thursday morning, with his suitcase by the front door.

“What’s with the bacon bag?” Madison wanted to know. “It’s not going to fit into my locker.”

“Sid’s coming with me to McQuaid today.” I had a detailed explanation prepared for why, which wouldn’t have been a lie but which shouldn’t have alarmed her, either, but I didn’t need it.

She said, “Okay. No rehearsal today anyway.”

Having had a bad experience with leaving Sid in the adjunct office once before, I gave Sid the choice of waiting in my mother’s office or coming to class. He voted for class, of course, which made more work for me. On the other hand, it spurred me to give a really good lecture because I knew he was listening.

After my eight o’clock class ended, I hotfooted it for the adjunct office. No Charles in sight, so I didn’t stop, just kept going until I got to my mother’s office. Moving as quietly as I could, I went inside and put my ear against the door to my father’s office.

“He’s in there,” I whispered to Sid. “I can hear him moving around.”

“Unlatch my suitcase, just in case.”

It was easier to agree than to argue, so I laid the case down on its side, next to a wall, and left it open so Sid could get out if he needed to.

Only then did I rap at the door between the two offices.

The movement stopped instantly. Then I heard tiny little sounds as if he were tiptoeing.

I made similar noises myself as I snuck to the door that led to the hall, getting there just in time to see Charles sneaking out of his office.

“Dr. Peyton!” I said in a loud and cheery voice. “Just the man I wanted to see. Might I have a moment of your time?”

Two professors happened to walk by at that moment, and since Charles apparently didn’t want to cause a scene, he said, “Of course, Dr. Thackery. I was on my way out, but I can certainly spare a few minutes.”

“Thank you so much.”

I kept the false smile on my face right up until I closed the door. Sid had originally wanted me to keep it open, but I’d pointed out that if Sid needed to intervene, it would be better for all involved if nobody else saw him.

“Have a seat.”

“I really can’t stay long, as I was on my way out.”

“Charles, you have been avoiding me. I don’t know why, and right now I don’t care. But I’ve got to ask you some questions, and I expect you to answer.”

“What sort of questions?”

“About Patty Craft, and what she did that she was ashamed of.”

“She revealed those matters to me in confidence.”

“I understand, and I know better than most how good you are at keeping confidences.” He’d performed more than one favor for me in the past and had never asked for an explanation or told anybody what he’d done. “But I’m not asking just to be nosy. The fact is, I’m suspicious about her death.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Is there a basis for your suspicion?”

“There is, but it sounds pretty nutty. A friend of mine—a friend who was somewhere he shouldn’t have been—overheard two men talking before Patty’s body was found. He thinks they were talking about murdering somebody, and the only body that has been found in Pennycross in the recent past is Patty’s.” Okay, it wasn’t anything like the whole story, but it was mostly true.

“Has he notified the police?”

“He left an anonymous tip, but couldn’t give details.”

“Because of his being where he should not have been?”

“Exactly. Which is probably why the police didn’t take him seriously. My sister has a friend on the force and according to him, the police think my friend is a crackpot.”

“Could he in fact be a crackpot?”

“Oh, he’s definitely a crackpot,” I said, “but he’s also truthful, and he’s really worried that somebody has gotten away with murder. I don’t think he’s slept a full night since hearing those men talking.” Of course, Sid didn’t ever sleep, but it sounded more pathetic this way. “He only told me because he thought I might have known Patty Craft from when she worked here at McQuaid, but of course I didn’t. You did.”

“Yes, I did.” Charles took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, and clasped his hands over his stomach to ponder the matter. I just waited. After maybe five minutes, he said, “Under those circumstances, and in case your friend is right, I think I’m justified in revealing some of Patty’s secrets. But only if you keep it all sub rosa.”

“Of course, unless it had something to do with her death.”

“Granted. I cannot imagine that she’d want her killer to get away with a crime, just to protect her reputation. Which, sadly, was not the best anyway.”

“Was she not a good instructor?”

“She could have been excellent,” he said, “but money woes were a powerful distraction. She had quite a debt burden because of student loans, like so many of our young academics.”

Everybody in academia—and most parents with a child approaching college—knew there were people graduating from college with two hundred thousand dollars or more in debt, with no job in sight and no way to keep from defaulting on their loans. I lived in fear that Madison would be in the same boat in a few years.

Charles went on. “In order for Patty to keep up her payments, she took on too many classes and as a result, the quality of her teaching suffered. That led to her getting fewer and fewer classes, which meant that it became harder and harder for her to meet her living expenses, let alone make loan payments. Then she heard of a way to earn extra money. Had I realized what she was going to do, I’d have tried to stop her, but by the time I found out, she had already dishonored her academic gifts.”

“She was taking the SAT for other people, wasn’t she?”

“How did you find out?”

“It’s a long story, and I can’t tell you all of it anyway.”

“That’s no matter. You are correct. She was paid to take standardized tests while in the guise of a variety of high school students. So not only did she commit fraud but, in doing so, she enabled others to commit fraud as well.”

“And her then-boyfriend Robert Irwin was involved, too?”

His face darkened. “Irwin was the one to draw her into the scheme. I understood her succumbing, given her situation, but he had no particular financial burden. It was pure greed on his part.”

“Greedy and willing to dump a sick girlfriend. What a guy! Did Patty ever tell you how the operation worked?”

“I fear not. She never shared the details of the dreadful scheme with me, and I never asked.”

I’d expected that, actually, though I wouldn’t have minded if he’d had more information for me. “One other question. Why have you been avoiding me? Pretending you weren’t in your office and all that rigmarole.”

He looked abashed. “Oh, that. Well, it seems as if our colleague Sara Weiss has been heard making disparaging comments about my ‘girlfriend,’ and I was afraid that if she had been misconstruing our relationship that egregiously, others may have been, too. I thought maintaining a little distance would preserve your reputation.”

“Charles, dating you would not hurt my reputation. You’re a great guy.”

“There is quite an age difference between us.”

“Which nobody cares about.” I held my hands up. “And no, I am not suggesting anything. You’re a great friend, and I’m very happy with our relationship just as it is.”

“I feel the same,” he said.

“Good. At any rate, the girlfriend Sara has been referring to isn’t me. She’s got it in her head that you and Patty Craft had a thing.”

He drew himself up. “How dare she insinuate anything untoward about my feelings for that child?”

“The same way she dares insinuate stuff all the time.”

“Still, this must not be allowed to continue. I will speak to her immediately.”

“Good idea.” I didn’t think it would make the slightest bit of difference in Sara’s behavior, but if it would make him feel better, I was all for it.

Charles marched off to right wrongs, and I locked the door behind him so I could let Sid out of his suitcase.

“Okay, Georgia, go ahead and say it,” he said.

“Say what?”

“Say ‘I told you so.’ You know you want to.”

“Nope. You were looking out for my welfare and drawing my attention to a blind spot I had about Charles. I can’t tease you about that.”

“Really?”

“Really. Unless you want me to say it—”

“No, thanks. I’m good. So why didn’t you tell Charles about the Sechrest Foundation?”

“I was afraid to. If Charles knew they were the ones Patty was working for, and that they were recruiting here at McQuaid, he’d go all Don Quixote and go after them. I don’t want him to end up dead, too.”