A Function of Murder (33 page)

Doug looked sheepish. “Okay, he also threatened to report me to the district. It would
have meant my job. Now here you are taking his place.”

“You think I’m going to report you?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged and bit his lip. “I thought I might be able to give you
my side of the story. I have a wife, a family.”

I never understood why that would matter. Were married parents to be excused just
on that basis while single, childless people could be put in jail willy-nilly? I let
Doug go on without querying him on that matter.

“I know you’re on friendly terms with the HPD,” Doug added.

Why was I not surprised? If I were a less self-confident person, I’d be bemoaning
the fact that my chief value as a friend or colleague was that I was on a first-name
basis with an HPD homicide detective.

I thought of recommending that Doug speak to Kira or Bruce, who were much better sources
of insider information at the moment, seeming to be on the front lines of communication
with the HPD. Instead I ignored the remark and asked my own question.

“What about Superintendent Collins? Is he about to report you?” From his jail cell,
I might have added.

“I’ve taken care of that. He no longer has credibility.”

I frowned, concentrating. Bruce had mentioned that the HPD had acted on information
from an anonymous source.
Was I sharing a basket of bread with the tipster? A murderer?

Before I could relax enough to work out the chain of events, picturing Collins and
Richardson pointing fingers at each other, a hubbub at the front of the restaurant
caught my attention, and that of all the diners.

Two uniformed police officers became the main attraction in the dining room through
their large and bulky presence. But it was the plainclothes detective in front of
them who set my head buzzing. Virgil Mitchell had entered the building.

They were headed for our table. For me? Of course not. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Doug, who’d had his back to door, was now turned one-eighty. He stood and dropped
his napkin on the table. The two uniforms hung back, there for backup, in case the
person of interest put up a fuss, I figured. One of them hung his head, not looking
at the person of interest. Maybe he was a former student and couldn’t bear to arrest
his principal?

I had to admire Doug’s response, one befitting an educator and administrator. He must
have assumed, though incorrectly, that I’d summoned Virgil, but he still spared me
any embarrassment by walking toward the police contingent.

I couldn’t hear the words exchanged as the four men left the restaurant. Had the cops
read Doug his rights? Or simply asked him to accompany them downtown?

Doug Richardson had surrendered himself—I wished I knew to what—causing a minimum
of disruption to the upscale diners.

All eyes then turned to me. An accomplice? The moll? I wouldn’t have minded so much
what anyone thought if I hadn’t also been left with the check.

I wanted badly to drive straight home. I needed a shower. From the weather, which
now bordered on hot, and from the heated activities of the day, beginning with a tricky
negotiation with Elysse, and on to the ambush by Monty, and then a lunch date with
an unhappy ending, all cushioned only by a memorial service stuck in between.

But I also needed groceries for the dinner I’d offered Bruce. With so much mental
confusion to sort out, the idea of dealing with anything as mundane as pasta and vegetables
was frustrating, but a promise was a promise.

As I drove toward the small market near my home, my mind was busy making connections
and putting things in order. Why would the police be involved in what should have
been a school board matter—unless they saw a motive for murder in Doug’s fraudulent
reports to his funding sources?

I revisited my suspect list, drawing lines and arrows on the imaginary whiteboard
that seemed to live in my head. I labeled my work the “CGR Theory,” for Collins, Graves,
and Richardson, with a corollary of “MCS,” for Monty and Chris Sizemore. Having specific
unknowns always made an equation or algorithm seem simpler.

I thought of the ring of crimes I’d constructed from Kira’s information what seemed
like weeks ago, but was really only over the past couple of days. I played out my
theory, adding the meager details I’d gleaned today. It was a simple matter of combinations
and permutations.

C and G point to R: Superintendent Collins and Mayor Graves learn about Richardson’s
fraud and threaten to expose him. At the same time, R and C point to G: Richardson
and Collins are aware that Graves has shady dealings to conceal vis-à-vis waste management.
And finally, G and R point to C: Graves and Richardson know something about Collins
that gets him taken into custody.

Maybe not a simple matter, after all.

Either Collins or Richardson takes care of Graves by killing him; Richardson takes
care of Collins by calling in a tip about—what?—something that gets Collins arrested
so the police won’t believe him if he tattles on Doug.

Too many loose ends.

First, it seemed the police did believe Collins, since they came for Doug. Second,
why would Doug kill the mayor but take such a risk with Collins? Why not kill him,
too? Third, if Collins and Graves both wanted to squeal on Doug, what were they arguing
about at the reception before commencement and why did Collins follow Graves into
Franklin Hall?

I despaired of fitting Monty and Chris Sizemore into this circle; they each had their
own motives, ranging from unrequited love to Henley’s trash pickup.

If I’d been at a real whiteboard I’d have taken up a red dry-erase marker and x-ed
out the theory. Maybe someone entirely outside the circle was taking care of the great
men of Henley.

I was certainly behind the curve in helping catch any
wrongdoer associated with the mayor’s case. Maybe it wasn’t my job to solve the puzzle
in the first place. What a concept. Bruce and Virgil would be proud of me for thinking
of it.

I arrived at the market parking lot, wondering how I’d gotten there.
Very bad
. I had to stop losing focus on what was in front of me, like the road.

It would help my focus if I knew whether all three—Collins, Doug, and Chris—were being
held at the police station. I had the crazy thought that if I could talk to them,
I could figure out which one was a murderer.

I pulled out my phone and called Bruce, who should be awake at one in the afternoon.

“Hey,” he said, sleepy voiced. It was a sign of my current frenetic state that I felt
little sympathy. “Are you cooking?”

“Something like that. I’m in the lot at Al’s Market. Anything special I should pick
up for tonight?”

“I assumed pasta primavera, salad, good bread? Ice cream. I can get that. Mmm, I can
almost taste it.”

“That’s still the menu but I thought there might be a special veggie or—”

“Sophie?”

“Yeah?”

“You want to know what’s up at HPD?”

Busted.
“Well, it’s either you or Kira.”

Bruce laughed. “Zucchini.”

“What?”

“I’d like some zucchini in the primavera.”

“Bruce.” My tone was as serious as I could ever make it when Bruce was in a joking
mood. I was also a little envious at how he could go from sleepy to funny in a matter
of seconds.

“Okay, give me a minute.”

I waited a very long minute for Bruce to return.

“Soph?”

“I’m here.”

“Here’s the latest. Doug Richardson—your lunch
date—just arrived at the station a few minutes ago. Don’t know why. Probably the grade
fraud you’ve been talking about.”

That much I knew. “Did you tell Virgil where to find him? That I was having lunch
with him at the Inn?”

“My lawyer advises
no comment
.”

“I’ll take that as a
yes
. Go on. Is Collins still at HPD?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. Pat Collins, you wouldn’t believe. They’re getting ready to indict him for
embezzling city funds to the tune of a quarter million dollars. That anonymous tip
I told you about sent the cops to a storage locker in Hopedale, rented under another
name. Looks like Collins has been buying personal items with Henley money and also
buying and selling stuff on eBay for a couple of years.”

I opened my window for air, warm and humid though it was. It would take a while to
process the picture of Superintendent Collins sneaking around the city’s books, siphoning
off funds for himself. I wondered if the image I was constructing should include a
snapshot of him tossing a brick through my patio door, though I couldn’t imagine why.

I found it hard to imagine a person leading a double life. I hardly had time for a
single one. Besides, it always amazed me when high-profile people took the risks they
did, especially when punishable offenses loomed on the horizon. Did big shots think
they were above it all, that their infractions would go unnoticed? Didn’t they realize
they had a better chance of getting caught than low-profile people, like college professors?

Which reminded me. “Are they still holding Chris Sizemore?”

“As far as I know. Looks like Richardson for fraud, Collins for theft, and Sizemore
for murder. Not Henley’s finest hour.”

I flinched. I knew Bruce hadn’t meant to be careless
about a homicide, but the whole crime wave was setting us all on edge and clouding
my perspective.

Every time I tried to put the case behind me, Mayor Graves’s voice rang in my head.
I heard his plaintive cry at the fountain, and his simple request to talk to me on
my voice mail. I was glad the HPD was cleaning things up, ridding the town of thieves
and frauds (all without my help, miraculously), but I couldn’t quit before someone,
if not I, put his killer behind bars.

“I’m sorry, Sophie, that sounded pretty insensitive. I know this is personal for you.”

Of course, Bruce would understand. He dealt with similar situations day after day.
He didn’t know the man who died in the car crash on Saturday morning, but he felt
as bad about the loss as if he’d been his soccer coach, and as much a failure as the
EMT or surgeon who couldn’t save him.

“I’m okay.”

“Hey, don’t you want to know about the brick?” Bruce asked.

I’d almost forgotten. Probably because I hadn’t reentered my house since this morning.
“Did they find fingerprints? Or trace it to the one store in Henley that sells them?”

“It’s not
Law and Order
, unfortunately. Your brick is garden variety, so to speak, like the ones you’d use
in small garden projects, not big buildings. But they’re still working on it.”

I couldn’t think of anyone I knew who had a garden project going on, other than the
guys who lined Henley Boulevard with magnificent blooms. One more dead end among many.

A signal that it was time to zero in on pasta and veggies.

But not until I was finished with Bruce, my confidential informant. I had one more
question. “By the way, Bruce, my love, how are you coming by all this up-to-the-minute
information? Are you and Virgil joined at the hip these days?”
And if so, why can’t I be, too
? “I remember a time when you guys would talk about anything other than your jobs.”

“It’s not just me now. It’s the demographics of MAstar personnel. Every guy in the
trailer has a buddy on the force. Three of the guys were EMTs, another couple of them
came over from the fire department, another was in boot camp with a few cops, and
on and on. It’s like HPD annex here.”

“So, you all sit around and talk about police cases?”

“What else is there to talk about? Our new special medical interiors, our high-skid
gear, the intensity searchlights we just installed, the more than twenty thousand
radio frequencies that enable us to communicate with any agency?”

I faked a yawn. “I see what you mean.”

“There are only so many chores to keep us busy between emergencies. After we dust
all the furniture, iron our flight suits, polish the silverware—”

“I get it, thanks.”

I might finally believe Bruce when he said his job was boring between dispatches,
that medevac pilots and their flight nurses worked at EMS—
earn money sleeping
.