A Function of Murder (12 page)

“Thanks for siccing Woody on me,” Kira said, with a grin.

Woody? Was he the reason Kira was sitting here? If our old janitor had done that good
a job at therapy, he should get a raise, and maybe a more lofty title. If we could
give an honorary degree to a baseball player, as we did last year, we could give one
to our own dedicated maintenance man. I knew Woody’s birthday was coming up in a few
days, on May twentieth, the same day as Cher’s—I kept track of such things even for
people who didn’t get a Franklin Hall
Friday party—and resolved to at least get him a better present than last year’s pound
of chocolates.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Kira’s face collapsed. “As long as I don’t think about it, I’m okay. Woody said to
fill my mind with other things.”

“That was good advice.”

Kira smiled. “He even said I should buy myself a graduation present, maybe new shoes.”

“A wise man,” I said, thinking about Woody’s physical presence—partly bald and gray,
tall and gangly. Though closer in age to a man who might be Kira’s grandfather, the
general resemblance to her father was clear. Mr. Gilmore, like Woody, was also a shy,
retiring man who, you knew, would be able to fix your bicycle as well as have good
sound advice for you. I thought of calling Woody and telling him to drop his broom
and get over here now in case Kira relapsed.

We took sips of our drinks and I let Kira take the lead as we commented on the selection
of coffees and teas and the whiny, unidentifiable music coming over the too-loud PA
system.

“They’re getting ready to put away the student music and bring on the tourist music,”
Kira said. I agreed. Henley was just close enough to the Cape for easy access for
summer visitors, and just far enough away to have less expensive motels.

I remembered that I’d brought something for Kira. As I’d run out the door of my house,
I’d grabbed a puzzle, Kira’s favorite kind, a wooden sliding block puzzle that, when
solved correctly, would reveal an M. C. Escher drawing. I pulled it out of my purse
and gave it to her now.

“Oh cool. Thanks, Dr. Knowles.”

“That will keep you busy for three minutes.”

She laughed, looking at the misoriented black-and-white segments. “I don’t know. This
looks challenging.”

“Maybe six minutes, then.”

Still on small talk, I expressed the hope that the crowd down the street didn’t all
suddenly need a shot of caffeine. I immediately regretted the comment. I rushed to
move off the topic of the crowd, lest we get to its raison d’être.

“How about that graphing app?” I asked.

“First I need to tell you something,” Kira said, causing a little blip of energy to
run through me. “I don’t know if I should go to the police with this or not.”

Uh-oh
. “What is it?”

“I think I know who killed Edward.”

I drew in my breath, realizing how unlikely it was that her next words would be reliable.
But I gave her a look that said “I’m all ears.”

“Nicole,” she said, sounding sure of herself.

“Nicole Johnson? What makes you say that? I know her parents are angry over Nicholas’s
school situation, but—”

“What was happening at Zeeman, the money running out and all, wasn’t Edward’s fault.
He was trying to work with the principal to make it a better school. He cared about
all the schools. But they blamed him for everything that went wrong.”

“That doesn’t mean Nicole, or any of her family, killed him.” I refrained from calling
the idea absurd, in deference to Kira’s precarious state.

“I found something,” Kira said.

Another questioning look from me brought more nonsense from Kira. “Nicole and I have
lockers next to each other in the gym. And I saw a knife in there last week.”

“What kind of knife?”

Kira frowned and swallowed a couple of times. “A large one.”

If I’d been texting this story, I’d have written LOL next. “Kira, do you know what
weapon the killer used?”

“They said he was”—her voice faltered; I needed Woody—“Edward was stabbed. So I figured
it was Nicole who did it. With her knife.”

Was this a board game?
Poor Kira. Virgil and his homicide division pals should have it this easy, catching
lies. When she heard about a stabbing, she’d naturally assumed the weapon was a knife.
My heart went out to a young woman desperate enough to accuse one of her best friends.

“And you didn’t tell the police last night that you saw a knife in Nicole’s locker?”
I knew the police had canvassed all the dorms already but I couldn’t count on Virgil’s
letting me in on a detail like this.

I let out a long breath when she shook her head
no
. I could just imagine the dip in her credibility if she’d told the officer this wild
story. It would have called into question any real information she might have and
possibly caused nasty repercussions for Nicole and her family.

“The cops just took all our phone numbers and where we’d be in the next few days and
asked some questions, like where we were and did we see anything unusual. We’re supposed
to call them if we think of anything else.” Kira hung her head, already remorseful,
I guessed. She seemed to be breaking down again, the way I’d heard her on the phone.
“I wouldn’t have let Nicole go to jail, honest, Dr. Knowles.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know why I said that now about the knife. There wasn’t a knife in the locker
except for the plastics ones from the lounge.” She looked at me, her eyes pleading.
“I’m not a liar.”

“I know,” I repeated, with a feeling of helplessness.

“I’m just so mad at Nicole and her dad for saying those things about him yesterday.”
More sniffles. “I loved him.”

Another decision to make—whether to quiz Kira on what she meant; what, if anything,
she and the mayor had together. Did she have a crush, a full-blown fantasy, or had
there been a real, mutual relationship between them? Or some fourth variation that
was part of the youth culture? A simple
Loved him in what way?
would have sufficed, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

I had the crazy thought that going coed might have one more advantage than we’d considered
at the grueling faculty meetings to decide the issue for Henley College. Maybe having
dating material sitting right next to the girls in the classroom would prevent this
kind of older-man infatuation in the future. Probably not.

I’d been pleased when Kira had become involved in city politics, but it hadn’t seemed
to help much with her emotional growth and, in fact, may have twisted it. I feared
now for her survival without the built-in camaraderie and safety net of college classes
and dorm life. I knew she’d be able to cope with the toughest graduate school curriculum
intellectually, but I worried that the environment of a large institution would force
her further and further into herself.

I put my hand on hers. “Give yourself some time, Kira.” I knew I was perilously close
to platitudes, but I was running out of creative advice.

“I feel like I have to do something for Edward.”

I forced myself to adjust to calling Mayor Graves “Edward,” at least while talking
to Kira. “If you really want to help find Edward’s killer, you’ll tell the truth.
When the police come around again, just tell them all you know about the problems
at Zeeman Academy. Did he talk about it with you in any detail?”

“You think that’s the reason he was killed?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you know.”

Kira rambled on about the conflicts among the mayor, Superintendent of Schools Patrick
Collins, and Principal Douglas Richardson of the Zeeman charter school.

“Edward was convinced that Principal Richardson was inflating the grades and the test
scores, making it look like the kids were doing better on the state tests than they
actually were. The school has to put out a report every year—they call it their Report
Card—and it covers teacher qualifications, student achievement, and accountability
to
the district. Edward thought Principal Richardson was fudging the marks.”

I got it. Charter schools depended on funding from outside the school system, so unless
they could show good performance, they’d lose money.

Kira went on. “No one wants to give donations to a school with poor grades, not even
the parents of the kids who go there, right?”

I nodded my agreement, as if I’d given this issue a lot of thought and had a well-informed
opinion. “But the state funds the school no matter what.” I’d gotten that much from
my brush witheducation sites online.

“Yeah, but only partly. And that’s what everyone wanted Edward to do, to get more
funding from the state no matter how the kids did on the state tests.”

Whether this was pillow talk or not, I felt I could trust Kira’s information this
time, unlike her fiction of a few minutes ago. I knew that many aspects of charter
schools were not as transparent as the typical public school. There was a less rigid
chain of command, as air force vet Bruce had pointed out, and possibly, therefore,
more opportunity for off-the-books dealings.

I thought of the mayor’s message to me, that I might be able to help with whatever
was troubling him about Zeeman. But if Kira was right and there was a grade inflation
problem, how would I have been able to help? I didn’t even assign grades to the students
in my little corner of the school curriculum, let alone involve myself in overall
grade reporting. I simply dropped in for a couple of hours twice a week and showed
fidgety youngsters how much fun math could be. Since the regular teacher always stayed
in the classroom with me, there was never a serious discipline problem, and since
I wasn’t being paid, I had few interactions with anyone in administration.

That was how I liked it. Dealing with one administration at a time was enough for
any teacher, including me. I
was sure administrators felt the same way about working with faculty bodies.

I decided it was safe to quiz Kira a bit more. She seemed to have settled into her
own version of stable. I knew she’d have a better grasp of the politics than I did.
It would be nice to go into Zeeman tomorrow with a little more of a handle on the
situation than I’d had up to now.

“Do you know what made the mayor suspicious of the grades? Did someone tell him?”
I asked.

“The grades from all the district schools eventually go through Superintendent Collins.
He was the one who suspected something first, because Zeeman has more than its share
of problem kids and he couldn’t believe how high the grades were, so he told Edward.
But then Principal Richardson told Edward something about Superintendent Collins that
Superintendent Collins didn’t want found out, and poor Edward was caught in the middle.”

It was a dizzying triangle. Everyone had something on everyone else, which seemed
not uncommon in political situations. And which was why I tried to steer clear of
them.

Maybe in fact it was more than a triangle—a quadrilateral. “Why are the Johnsons,
Mr. Johnson especially, so upset with…Edward?” I asked.

“Edward wanted to step in and yank Principal Richardson out of there. He could have
put him in jail, actually. Since there’s money involved, that makes it fraud. If Edward
could have proven it, the city could have taken over the charter. But Mr. Johnson
wanted the mayor to just leave the principal alone and throw more money at the school.
He thought that would fix the problem of poor grades. Edward wanted to save the charter
by having a clean slate. He wanted to report the test scores as they were and work
to raise the kids’ grades legitimately.” Kira had already shredded two brown Coffee
Filter napkins as she
talked. She picked up a third. “Isn’t that the best thing for the kids?”

It seemed so, but as with all political issues, I fell easily for the latest spin
that made some sense. I couldn’t help wonder, though—was all this connected to the
mayor’s message to me? Had he intended to tell me something that would make his case
for having Principal Richardson charged with fraud? If so, what was it?

I wanted to take notes on the three-, maybe four-party war, each one having something
on the other. I quickly eliminated Nicole’s dad as I remembered his driving off with
his family after the dinner at the Inn. There wouldn’t have been time for him to drive
all the way across town to where the Johnsons lived, drop off his wife and son, and
drive back to stab the mayor. Nasty as he’d been during dinner, I couldn’t envision
him leaving the car running, with Nannette and Nathan inside, while he dashed on campus
to commit murder.

The superintendent and the principal, however, were another story. I wouldn’t have
been surprised if either of them knew a little tidbit about the mayor that wasn’t
fit for a layperson’s ears. My slightly jaded view of the political system at all
levels said that’s how the machine worked.

I thought I’d test my theory on Kira, my current political consultant.

“Is there anything that either of the men knew about Edward that he might not want
revealed?”

Kira’s eyes went wide, her face reddening. “Of course not,” she said.

Uh-oh. Could Fran have been right, about that “seeing him” thing? Or was Kira embarrassed
that someone might actually believe her fantasy?

How to deal with Kira’s mixed signals? She’d obviously wanted everyone to think she
and the mayor were close. Now that I was calling her bluff in a way, she was pulling
back. I saw all the signs of a dreamer, afraid of losing the dream to reality.

Before I could decide how to proceed, Kira took over again. “There was also that other
issue, the waste management contract. The one Mr. Sizemore was trying to force down
Edward’s throat.”

A transparent tactic on Kira’s part, but I was as happy to move off the hot politician-intern
button as she was. Kira was smart enough to know that I was looking for motive in
the mayor’s stabbing, and that, right now, she was my best bet for information.