Death at a Talent Show (Book 6 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 8

  The bell rang and Dave returned a moment later, prior to any students arriving. I handed him both sets of keys. “I had an unexpected visitor while you were gone. Brian Underwood. He had your keys. He told me that he got them from you.”

  Dave’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s interesting. It’s a lie, of course. I never gave him my keys.”

  “He and Jenny said they were trying to retrieve an earring that she said she lost during a make-out session on your office couch.”

  He was turning a brighter shade of red by the moment.

  “Listen, Molly, Brian and Jenny are both good kids and are about to graduate. They could get in a lot of trouble with Jack over this, and I’d really appreciate if we could keep this between us. All right?” He looked to be almost in physical pain.

  I’d had no intention of running to Jack Vance with any of this, but his unexpected request for me not to made me reconsider. “Now that you mention it, don’t you think it’s important that Jack be told, even if it does get Brian and Jenny into hot water? I don’t think we can be too cautious, considering what happened two days ago.” That’s when it hit me. Having Brian Underwood, of all people, with a copy of keys had to be incredibly painful for Dave, because of Corinne’s rumored relationship with Brian. “You know where Brian got them from, don’t you?”

  He hesitated but made no reply. Some students were starting to come into the room. He gestured for me to follow him into his office, and I did so. He dosed the door behind us and said under his breath, “You’re right, Molly. Jack has to be told about this. There’s all sorts of liability issues.”

  “Brian got the keys from Corinne?”

  “He must have. Because he never got them from me.” He stole a glance at the love seat. I knew what he was thinking, that his own office had been used for illicit meetings between Corinne and her young lover. He shifted his vision arid gestured with his chin toward the corner of the room. “That’s her filing cabinet over there. Her students’records. Like a lot of schools, we’re cramped for space. Corinne had a floating classroom. So we shared office space.”

  I thought about my conversation with Brian yesterday, and what Lauren had told me about Corinne’s explanation for their being at a hotel together. “You know, Dave, Brian strikes me as being full of bravado. I think Corinne was telling the truth when she said that the two of them were just friends.”

  Dave rubbed his face. He looked so tired and defeated now that it hurt me to witness his pain. “Do you? You’re the only one who will, once this last bit of news about the keys gets out.” He sighed heavily and grabbed the doorknob to return to his classroom. “Everyone’s going to think I killed her to get even.”

  Chapter 7

  Reserved for Employee of the Month

  After the bell rang and class was dismissed, Dave looked at me and forced a smile. “Thanks for doing this for me. I really appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome,” I replied, but had no idea what he meant. Exactly what had I been “doing?” That is, aside from retrieving a contraband set of his keys, which rubbed his nose in his late girlfriend’s illicit relationship.

  “You were great once again. You’ve got a real knack for teaching.”

  Oh, right. My career-day presentation. I’d been on autopilot. “Thanks.”

  He rocked on his heels and, once again, attempted to smooth down his hair, which I now realized was a nervous habit. “I hate to ask, but do you think you could hang around for a few more minutes? Come with me to see Jack and tell him what Brian told you about how he got my keys?”

  “Of course.” My stomach was beginning to rumble.

  My digestive system never wakes up in time for me to want breakfast and it was now lunchtime, but I figured that this shouldn’t take long.

  Brian Underwood was meeting Jack Vance’s stony glare. Brian projected the very picture of innocence, albeit while sporting a bleached white-blond buzz cut—or whatever the current hairstyle is called these days—and ripped-up jeans and an ugly RAP RULES! T-shirt.

  “I know I told Mrs. Masters that I got the keys from Mr. Paxton, but I made a mistake. I should have admitted right away that I got ‘em from Ms. Buldock.”

  A full minute of silence followed, marred only by my rumbling stomach. Jack had asked me to stay, thinking that with the three of us adults outnumbering the two students, we’d get to the truth faster. If we’d heard the truth yet, we must have missed it, for this was the third explanation from Brian. The previous two were: “I misunderstood Mr. Paxton’s instructions and kept his keys by mistake,” and, “I wanted to show everyone I wasn’t just a geeky brain, so I swiped them, but I didn’t do anything except let myself into the room a couple times.” When Jack countered by asking which teacher he’d swiped the keys from, it apparently dawned on Brian that he could attribute this to Corinne Buldock.

  Jack finally gave up on trying to stare him down and now turned toward Jenny. She’d remained silent, except for two instances, when she’d stated, “I didn’t ask Brian how he got the keys, and he didn’t tell me.”

  “Do you have anything to add, Miss Garrett?” Jack asked.

  She shook her head. Another silence ensued. Dave hung his head and said nothing. Neither of us had spoken a word since the teens had entered Jack’s office. It was clear to me, as it no doubt was to everyone else present, that Brian was determined not to budge from his current story. He was also unshakable with the search-for-the-nonexistent-earring explanation, to which Jenny would merely nod her assent.

  Jack frowned and tented his fingertips, his arms resting on top of his desk. “I must say, I’m very disappointed in both of you. You’re two of our top students, candidates for valedictorian. Now I’ll have to consider disqualifying you.”

  “Whatever you think is fair, sir,” Brian said evenly. “I’m sorry I didn’t come right out and say that Cor—that Ms. Buldock gave me her keys. But Jenny is telling the truth.”

  She gave him a pleading look and cried, “Bri—”

  He froze her with a glare.

  She winced and said, “I knew we shouldn’t have broken into the art room. It was my idea, not Brian’s. I’d like to withdraw my name. I don’t deserve to be valedictorian.”

  “It was your idea, Jenny?” Dave asked. “Why?”

  She clenched her jaw, but answered quietly, “I wanted to be alone with Brian.”

  One of them was trying to shield the other, but it was hard to tell which party was which. Maybe I should have just said to them in the first place, By all means, keep your keys and make out on Dave’s couch whenever you like.

  “Can we please go?” Brian asked. “Lunchtime is almost over, and I’m hungry. So’s Mrs. Masters.”

  My cheeks grew warm.

  Jack nodded. “Go.”

  Brian and Jenny left. Dave and I lingered, to see if Jack had any parting words. He did. While staring wistfully out the window, he said, “I should’ve gone with my first instincts when I was four years old and become a fireman.”

  At home I grabbed a quick, late lunch and decided I had time to make a grocery run before the kids showed up. BC was standing at the garage door by the time I’d located my ever-misplaced keys. I looked at her, her little tail already wagging as she stared with all of her might at the door, lest it should open without her getting the opportunity to join me on the other side.

  “You’re not going to enjoy this, you know, Betty. I’m only going to the grocery store, and you’ll have to wait for me in the car.”

  She risked one quick pleading glance up at me, gambling that the door wouldn’t open and shut in the interim—then returned her concentration to the door itself. “All right. Betty gets to come.” She darted ahead of me through the door and leaped into the Jeep. She scrambled into the backseat and we headed to the store.

  In the produce section, I was studying some peas, trying to decide if I was gung-ho enough to shell them as opposed to defrosting some pre-shelled ones, when a very harsh sounding, “Moll
y Masters!” resounded from someplace behind me. I turned. Danielle Underwood was glaring at me, hands on her hips. Could she already know about my meeting with the principal regarding her son, less than an hour after it had ended?

  “Hi, Danielle,” I said. “I see we’re grocery shopping at the same time.”

  Danielle’s ready smile was absent from her attractive face. In the fluorescent lighting of the store, her skin looked leathery, as if she’d spent too much time in the sun in her younger days. “Brian says you talked to him yesterday about Corinne’s murder. How dare you do such a thing?”

  I tried to rapidly assess how I’d feel if she’d been the one to ask my eighteen-year-old about a murder victim. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that she’d object. “I’m sorry. I asked him because I’m trying to come to grips with the murder, and I hoped that learning more about the victim might help me do so.”

  She lifted her chin in defiance and flicked her long, light brown hair back from her shoulders. “You’re not a police officer. You have no right to interrogate my son.”

  “I wasn’t interrogating him. I did talk to him about the shooting, but I merely asked him if he had any theories as to who the killer might be.”

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “It’s everyone’s business. The woman was a high school teacher, shot dead in our school. And it happened right in front of both of us. I would think you’d feel every bit as horrified as I do.”

  Though her eyes were focused directly into mine, I had the impression that she wasn’t listening. She had the glazed and frazzled look of an insomniac, which I’d seen in my own reflection often enough to recognize. “Stay away from Brian. He’s been through too much already in this godforsaken town.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Don’t play naive. This whole town knows about what that horrible woman was up to. Getting her claws in my son, for God’s sake!”

  “I can only guess how hard all of that must be for you. But all I did was to chat with your son for a couple of minutes. He struck me as a fine young man, Danielle,” I added. “You’ve obviously done a fine job raising him.”

  She eyed me for a moment. “You’re just saying that to butter me up. You’re starting to sound like Stephanie Saunders.”

  My jaw dropped in my offense at the comparison. Nothing raised my ire faster than to be compared to someone I detested. Especially when there was an element of truth involved. “I meant every word of what I said.” Even if I had thrown in a few words of flattery to appease her.

  She started to walk away, pushing her shopping cart, but then stopped and turned back toward me. Her tight features and her red cheeks made her look as if she were about to explode. “We’re going to get out of this place just as soon as we can. It’s people like you who make Carlton such a dreadful place to live.”

  “How—” I cut myself off from crying, How dare you say that! There was already more than enough acrimony in this community, and we were starting to turn the heads of fellow shoppers. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Everybody insists on knowing everybody else’s business, but nobody raises a hand to help.”

  “That’s just not true.”

  “Leave me alone, Molly. Leave my son alone.”

  Saturday morning I awoke to find that we were in the midst of what could well prove to be the beginnings of a blizzard. In the muted lighting caused by thick gray clouds, the colors had been dimmed several notches. The ground hog’s shadow was irrelevant in upstate New York. While Jim slept—he’s a camel when it comes to sleep, and spreads out the twelve hours he gets on Friday nights for use on the other six days—ever-brewing confrontations emanated below us from the main floor of the house. Karen had a piano recital in the afternoon and was practicing Beethoven’s Waltz in D minor. On the lowest octave, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” rumbled in disharmony, punctuated by Nathan’s laughter.

  I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists in anticipation of what was to come. Before I could get dressed and down the stairs, Karen’s pleas had gone from “Nathan, quit it!” to that ever-predictable “Mo-om!” in her nails-on-blackboard pitch, “Nathan won’t let me practice!”

  By the time I’d reached the landing, I was already my own version of one of those cartoon panel characters with a furrowed brow and huge mouthful of gritted teeth spouting asterisks, exclamation points, and lightning bolts. I snarled, “Nathan! Get away from that piano now! Karen has a recital this afternoon! Your father’s trying to sleep!”

  I had thrown in the bit about his father, knowing that one angry word from Jim carried more weight than a dozen of mine. Indeed, Nathan backed away from the keys.

  “Never mind, Nathan!” Karen cried. “Just keep playing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’! It’s too late now!” She rose and hurled her piano book onto the floor with all her might. “I’m going to do lousy at my concert, all because of my stupid brother!”

  “Karen—”

  “He’s ruining my life!” she shrieked, and then stormed up the stairs to her room and slammed the door.

  The pitter patter of little feet had been replaced by the thump thump thump slam! of teenage feet. Surely Jim was not going to pretend to be able to sleep through this morning’s reveille call. A minute later he called out, “Honey? Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Everything’s freaking perfect,” I called back.

  Nathan was slowly sidling out of the room. He seemed to believe that I had the observation skills of a canary, that as long as he didn’t make any sudden movements he would be invisible to me.

  I had been through enough of Karen’s pre-recital jitters to know that she would have gotten upset at missed notes and flown out of the room in hysteria—the moment I was there to witness her distress, that is—regardless of Nathan’s actions. “Nathan, did you have any breakfast yet?”

  “No,” he said in a voice almost as low as the last piano key he’d played.

  “We’ll let Karen simmer down while you get yourself some cereal. And don’t get anywhere near your sister for the rest of the morning. She’s just as nervous as you would be if you had to play a soccer game all by yourself in front of a hundred people.”

  “How could I do that? I’d have to be the goalie and the forward and eight people at once.”

  “Right. It’d be difficult and you’d be nervous.”

  “But would I have to play against an entire team? Because all they’d have to do is pass the ball and I’d get scored on. And I couldn’t score myself because—”

  “It’s an analogy, Nathan!” I had lost the last vestiges of my patience, and my voice reflected it. “The point is: Stay away from your sister, or else I’ll make you come to Karen’s piano recital instead of letting you go to Michael’s house to play.”

  At that foulest of threats, Nathan widened his eyes but, wisely, stopped talking. This was out of character. He normally milked an argument till it was not only dry but was begging for a mercy killing.

  There was no coaxing Karen into having breakfast. Once I’d completed my token attempts to do so, I sat down and started doodling, which, as usual, resulted in a cartoon.

  In my cartoon, I showed a woman with her hands clasped in delight as she gazes at the sign inside her one-car garage, which reads: Reserved for Employee of the Month. She says to herself, “Me? Again?” The caption reads: “Sharon Gooley takes particular delight in a unique advantage of self-employment.”

  I studied my cartoon after its completion, trying to decide how to market it. I decided that the caption upon opening the eCard could be: Congratulations for getting such a wonderful new boss.

  Remarkably, the family managed to survive the next couple of hours, despite the fact that Karen was going through emotional states quicker than Meryl Streep on fast-forward. Jim had, of course, forgotten all about Karen’s recital, then didn’t hear my reminders while he read the sports section. Rather than get upset or be late ourselves, I told him we’d meet him there, and
then I accepted a ride for Karen and myself from Lauren, whose daughter, Rachel, was also one of Elsbeth’s students.

  “Isn’t Tommy coming?” I asked Lauren as we got into her car.

  She shook her head. “He’s wrapped up in the investigation.”

  I nodded and waited until the girls were too absorbed in their own conversation to tune, into ours. “Did he have any luck tracing the gun?” I asked quietly.

  “No. It was purchased at a trade show three years ago. The previous owner died of natural causes last year and left no record of who wound up with his guns.”

  “So there might be more unregistered guns floating around the neighborhood?”

  “That’s always a given in this country, Molly,” Lauren said quietly, giving a sad glance into the rearview mirror at our beloved daughters.

  We didn’t know until now that there was a local murderer on the loose to hook up with those firearms, I thought.

  Upon our arrival, Elsbeth greeted us as we all claimed folding chairs in her living room. She was deep into her performer’s personality, her gestures exaggerated and her booming voice full of pride while she had us all applaud for ourselves for raising such “wonderful pianists.” She was wearing a full-length muumuu, elbow-length white evening gloves, and two butterfly clips in her tomato-red hair.

  Jim managed to arrive only ten minutes after the recital had begun. This meant that he missed hearing Rachel, Elsbeth’s newest student, who therefore played first. She and all the students played well. Karen was wonderful and performed better than anyone, although there were some who hit fewer wrong notes and played with slightly better dynamics and meter. After all, mothers were not put on this earth to be impartial. She was the cutest, in any case.

  We all milled around Elsbeth’s house afterward for her usual post-recital party. The female students were clustered in one gaggle of gigglers, while the male students, in a second group, eagerly helped themselves to the refreshments.