Death Comes to Suburbia (Book 2 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 9

  Jim continued, “I like to know that my wife and children are still going to be alive when I get home at the end of the day.”

  “So would I. Every person on the face of this earth would like to know that we and all our loved ones won’t be the victims of violence. But life doesn’t give us any guarantees.”

  “I’m not asking for guarantees. I’m asking you to protect yourself! I’m asking… I’m telling you to get out of here while you’re still alive. I didn’t marry a policewoman; I married someone who writes greeting cards. This wasn’t part of the deal!”

  A chill ran down my spine. Until now, the times Jim had been angry with me were always over petty concerns: my not tightening jar lids, or not cleaning his hairbrush after borrowing it. “Sure it was. Our vows stated, ‘For better or for worse.’ Having me get shot at qualifies as worse.”

  Jim cursed under his breath. He strangled a post at the foot of the bed with both hands. “I’m your husband. I want to be able to protect you.”

  “You can’t protect me from all evil. However much you might like to, you can’t.” I struggled to keep my voice steady. “Please, Jim. I can’t just leave Carlton every time something goes wrong.” Jim knew about the guilt that had driven me from town years ago, but he thought that issue was resolved. I had thought so, too, till this happened.” I need your support. I didn’t deliberately set out to put my life in jeopardy. That happened because of something Preston did, which I had no control over.”

  “Maybe so. But now you’re—”

  “I can do what you want,” I interrupted, scooting closer to place my hands gently on his. “I can run away. I can hope that the police find Preston’s killer in a reasonable period of time so the kids won’t miss out on too much school. That they’ll survive being uprooted and separated from their daddy one more time. That they won’t secretly believe we’re getting divorced. That five of us can live in my parents’ tiny, one-bedroom condo without going nuts.”

  Jim released the bedpost from its death grip and resumed his pacing, slower now. His anger seemed to be dissipating. “Maybe you should go by yourself. I’ll take some time off and stay home with the kids.”

  “Absolutely not. The police still have no idea who’s behind the shootings. I refuse to be separated from my children until Tommy solves this thing, if he ever does. Besides, what makes you think the killer won’t follow me to my parents’ place in Florida? Or simply lie low until I return, then shoot me through the window, or something?”

  Jim sighed. “You’ve already made up your mind to stay, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. I want to help catch the person who’s doing this to me. And I want your emotional support.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t support you doing something dangerous. You’re determined to nose around and turn yourself into a duck at a shooting gallery.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m just—”

  “We’ll give the police another week to catch this maniac. In the meantime, you steer clear of the murder investigation. If you get shot at or physically threatened one more time, you’re leaving on the next plane.”

  “Absolutely,” I said and gave him a hug. “My poor, long-suffering hubby.”

  “My wiff,” he murmured and kissed the top of my head.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  The next morning, after we’d shared a quiet breakfast, Jim and the children left. I was tired from a mostly sleepless night, but time was of the essence. A week from now I’d have to become a Floridian unless this thing was solved. I called the high school.

  When Lauren got on the line, I asked if she had a minute to talk privately. She said yes, that she was alone in the principal’s office. I asked what she could tell me about Ms. Nesbitt, Tiffany’s English teacher.

  “Oh, let’s see,” Lauren replied. “Her first name is Deborah, but everyone calls her Deb. She’s popular with students and staff, but not parents.”

  “Not parents?”

  “She’s in her first year of teaching, and she was a bit of a flop at the open house. Most teachers dress up for the occasion, but not her. Afterwards, Preston Saunders was trying to get her dismissed.”

  “Because of her clothes?”

  “That and her tattoo. He claimed she wasn’t a good role model.”

  Hmm. Preston had carried quite a bit of weight in the community. He was the sole owner of a small but immensely profitable import-export business. His threatening to get her fired wasn’t a motive for a sane person to commit murder, but I didn’t know Ms. Nesbitt well enough to assess her sanity. And she had a free period right when Preston was murdered. “Could she have left the school during final period yesterday?”

  “No, she’s got a class then.”

  That let her out as a suspect in yesterday’s shooting. If she was a member of STOP, though, she could easily have had an accomplice or two. “Do you know what kind of car she drives?”

  “A VW bug. Baby blue. Badly dented.” Lauren then looked up Deb’s phone number and address and gave them to me.

  “Great. And who’s her emergency contact person?”

  “Marjorie Shoman, listed as ‘roommate.’”

  “Thanks for the information.”

  “Don’t tell anyone where you learned it. Working in the principal’s office may not be glamorous, but I enjoy it. I don’t want to get fired. Okay?”

  “Sure. One last question. Do you know her personally?”

  “No. She looks like quite a character, though. I wish I could drop in on her class, but I’m not willing to go to the lengths you did. By the way, did you get any pictures of yourself in that getup?”

  “No, thankfully. I shampooed my hair twenty times after I got home to get the purple out. Took me an hour and a half in the shower. Now my skin’s purple and water-logged. I look like a giant prune.”

  She chuckled, and we said out goodbyes.

  My ears were ringing so loudly I couldn’t hear myself think. Someone had put my life in a blender and pressed the puree button. The only benefit I could glean from all of this was it should be good fodder for freelance cards. I grabbed my drawing pad. I doodled for a while and eventually drew people playing charades. Standing in front of the others is a couple, their mouths open as if screaming while they pretend to strangle one another. A woman in the audience waves her hand and says, “Ooo! I’ve got it! It’s that movie starring Liv Ullmann: Screams from a Marriage!”

  The drawing had absolutely no marketing potential, what’s known in the business as “sendability.” Discouraged, I put my pad away. I was too exhausted to be funny.

  I decided to go help out in Nathan’s class to make up for yesterday’s absence. Nathan smiled and gave me a wave as I entered the classroom, which was brightly decorated with pinatas hanging from the ceiling and children’s colorful paintings on the walls.

  The children were doing centers—three or four related projects set up at table clusters from which the students choose on their own. Nathan’s table had worksheets with I see a green leaf written across the top of a page containing the outline of a big leaf. He’d colored his leaf green, but unlike his classmates was now drawing what I recognized as his self-portrait, a smiling figure with a Humpty-Dumpty body dangling from the leaf stem as if it were a helium-filled balloon.

  His kindergarten teacher, an elderly woman who, like the tea kettle in the children’s song, was short and stout, pulled me aside and explained to me that they were “currently doing a color unit.” Then she narrowed her eyes and said in a near whisper, “In my thirty years of teaching kindergarten, your son is the first little boy I can remember whose favorite color is white.”

  “Yes, well, I use that to my advantage when it’s time to get him to brush his teeth.”

  I was kidding, but she still peered at me as if expecting me to register alarm. Months of weekly encounters with this teacher had taught me it would be senseless to point out to her that yes, my little boy’s favorite color was white, but he
was also a little boy who would take a dull task like coloring the one leaf on the page green and turn it into a creative, imaginative project.

  “Does that worry you?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” she answered in a chirpy voice that might work on five-year-olds but was annoying to me. “It’s just…unusual.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want to raise ‘usual’ children. What can I help you with today?”

  For some reason, Karen and Nathan weren’t into the spirit of our tailing Ms. Nesbitt after school. Their periodic moans of “This is so bor-r-ring!” kept wafting from the backseat of our Toyota, where we were parked a few rows away from Ms. Nesbitt’s VW in the high school lot. I told them we were lucky to get the chance to experience this “family time.” They wouldn’t even keep their heads down when people looked our way. Maybe I hadn’t let them watch enough cop shows on TV.

  “Why are we doing this, Mom?” Karen asked for the third time.

  “I told you. I want to watch where the person in the blue vw goes so I can see if she knows anything about who might have been mean to me yesterday.”

  “Did someone shoot real bullets at you?” Karen asked.

  Both of the children’s bedrooms—my sister’s and my old rooms—were right across the hall from the master bedroom. Karen must have overheard some of our private conversation last night. So much for protecting them from unsettling news.

  “They were probably just blanks, like they use in movies.”

  “Are we doing something bad now?” Nathan asked.

  “Bad? No.” Stupid, maybe, but not bad. “We’re just going to follow the car for a few minutes.”

  “Is a bad person going to be driving it?”

  “The woman who owns that car isn’t a bad person. I’m just hoping she can lead me to the bad person. But we’re not going to get close enough to her car to be seen; we’ll just drive away and tell Sergeant Newton where she went.”

  Just then, Ms. Nesbitt came out of the building. She wore a brown leather jacket and a skirt so worn but it was practically see-through, her hair once again in a messy pile on top of her head. I ducked below the dashboard until I heard her car start.

  “Here we go,” I announced. “Fasten your seat belts.”

  I waited until she’d pulled out of the lot before starting my engine. She turned right at the exit, pulling out in front of a large silver van. The van would prevent her from seeing me in her rearview mirror, but might block my view when she made a turn.

  Deb headed south on the Northway—an oxymoron caused by the name of this particular highway. Maybe they should have named it the Snorthway. It could intersect with the Weastway. Enough, I chastised myself; my mind rambled idiotically far too easily when I was sleep-deprived. Deb was going a full fifteen miles over the speed limit, but I kept pace, planning what I could say if I got pulled over for a speeding violation. “It’s not my fault, Officer. I just happen to be tailing a lead-foot.”

  She took the exit for Colonie, a town that borders Albany. Less than half a mile later, she pulled into the parking lot of an espresso bar. Why would she come way out here when there were plenty of other espresso bars much closer to school and her home?

  I wanted to keep an eye on her long enough to make sure she actually went inside, then I would drive home. Tomorrow, while my children were safe at school, I could come back here and nose around.

  There were no other business lots immediately adjacent to this one, so I went ahead and turned into it too and parked by the exit. I had stayed a good distance behind her on the highway, and even if she’d noticed my car she would probably assume both of us happened to be simultaneously craving caffeine.

  Actually, I didn’t care for cappuccino, or any other espresso product. It tastes to me like coffee that’s been left on the burner till most of the water boiled away. Why are people willing to pay four times, as much for that as they would for a cup of coffee? Isn’t that the same as a breakfast cafe charging extra if they burn your toast?

  Ms. Nesbitt went into the restaurant. I decided to wait just another minute to make sure she was staying. “Mom,” Karen wailed. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Okay, we’ll be home in a couple—”

  “I have to go right now!”

  I glanced back at her. Her legs were crossed and she was rocking in her seat. “All right. We’ll use the bathroom in here and then go straight home.”

  We got out of the car, but I felt discouraged and worried. I’d had no intention of getting my children in the same building with Deb Nesbitt, just in case she was indeed meeting the “bad person.” This hitch in my plans was unexpected. To my knowledge, James Bond never had to blow his cover because of a potty break. With luck, though, Deb Nesbitt wouldn’t pay any attention to a mother and two children dashing into the rest room. She probably wouldn’t even recognize me in my post-pubescent state.

  We crossed the lot and I held open the door. Warm air with a delectable coffee and cinnamon fragrance greeted me. Karen tried to enter, but Nathan grabbed her arm and wedged his shoulder ahead of her.

  “It’s my turn to go in first!” Nathan shouted. “You got into the car first!”

  “But I have to pee!” Karen screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Embarrassed, I scanned the room, which resembled an old-fashioned ice cream parlor with its chrome tables and green vinyl chairs. All eyes were on us, including Ms. Nesbitt’s, who was standing by a table right in front of us. Just then Nathan gave Karen a spin move that would’ve made a wide receiver proud and bolted into the room. He crashed full force into Ms. Nesbitt.

  “Whoa,” she said, grabbing Nathan to steady him. “Watch where you’re going.”

  Nathan recoiled in horror at having bumped into a stranger. In the meantime, Karen darted past us and into the rest room.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Deb, deliberately speaking a tone or two higher than normal to disguise my voice. “I’ve been somewhat remiss in teaching my children the proper decorum when entering a restaurant. We don’t get out much.”

  She snapped her fingers and studied me, an amused expression on her face. “Hey. I know you. You’re the woman who pretended to be Tiffany’s cousin. What are you doing here?”

  “Using the bathroom, actually. Excuse me for…”

  A petite young woman called from behind the counter, “Sorry, ma’am. Bathroom’s for customers only.”

  “We are customers.” I put my hand on the back of the nearest chair to demonstrate that I was staying. Caffeine this late in the day gave me the shakes, but I could always get Ms. Nesbitt something. “Can I buy you a drink? This is my son, Nathan, who still owes you an apology for bumping into you.”

  He murmured “sorry” so quietly Ms. Nesbitt had to read his lips.

  “It’s okay. But be nicer to your sister from now on.” She sat at the small, round chrome-topped table and gestured for us to join her.

  We introduced ourselves, and she told me to call her Deb. “You won’t need to pay for my order, Molly. My drinks are on the house.” With a jerk of her head, she indicated the short woman behind the counter and explained, “That’s my roommate, Marjorie. She owns this place. I’m a not-so-silent partner.” She then signaled the waitress, a plump woman with bull-froggish frown lines around her mouth. Deb told her, “I’ll have the usual.”

  The waitress grimaced, but nodded, then turned her unfriendly gaze to me.

  “Mommy,” Nathan said, “I’m hungry.”

  “Do you have any coffee ice cream?” I asked.

  She growled. “Naw,” and handed me a menu. It had several flavors of latte, along with numerous words that ended with the suffix ino. Apparently hard-core coffee drinkers of the world were trying to keep pace with teenagers at inventing words. I read the list of baked goods to Nathan, but he shook his head to each one, his scowl deepening. The daily special was some blend of espresso with a double dollop of whipped cream. “I’ll have the special, with whipped cream on the side. And two
spoons. And you may as well hold the espresso.”

  “Ya just want a bowl of whipped cream?” the waitress replied, sounding as incredulous as if I’d ordered hot ice water.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t have to be a bowl. Any container you have handy would be fine. And you can charge me the full price for the drink.”

  While I spoke, Karen returned from the rest room and immediately elbowed Nathan. He responded with a right cross to Karen’s shoulder. I pried them apart quickly and demanded they sit on either side of me. In their current state of antagonism, expecting them to share an order was out of the question. I called out to the waitress, “Make that two daily specials, and bring two separate containers of whipped cream, please.”

  Deb Nesbitt laughed heartily. “Didn’t I see this in a Jack Nicholson movie once?”

  “Yes, but I promise not to flip the table afterwards. So. Have you lived in Carlton for long?”

  “No, I moved here from New York City. I wanted to get away from the madding crowd, so I applied only to small schools upstate.”

  “Carlton High School is lucky to have you. I enjoyed your class yesterday.”

  “Why were you pretending to be a student?”

  I glanced at Karen and Nathan, who were now sitting peacefully, listening to our every word. If I lied my way out of this, I’d be setting a horrible example. If I told the truth, I’d be giving more information about the trouble their mother was in than any six- and eight-year-old should have to know. “It was research. I’m a freelance writer, of sorts.” Just then, the waitress returned to our table, a welcome distraction from this particular conversation. “Oh, good. Here come our drinks.”

  “Drinks?” the waitress said from the side of her frown. She set Deb’s coffee byproduct on the table, then slammed down two narrow glasses filled with whipped cream. “What? Now you want straws?”

  I ignored her and asked Deb pointedly, “Have you been a part owner here for long?” Our cranky waitress merely slapped the bill on the table and shuffled off. Apparently she didn’t care much about keeping this job.