Gracie's Game: Sudden Anger, Accidentally on Purpose (61 page)

Ken was beginning to think maybe Gracie had drawn the wrong conclusions from these events. "I would assume the car's still at a garage somewhere. It would be easy enough to check for sugar, but that doesn't prove
who
put it there." He chuckled softly. "I didn't know kids still
did
that."

"Well then, what about the antibiotic in the water bottle?" Gracie asked, the look in her eyes daring him to refute that evidence. "You
told
me you had it tested and it was the eree-whatever, just like I said."

"Yes, you were right about that," Ken said calmly to keep her from exploding. "There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that Allison did indeed bring Vodka to class in her bottle, and her parents confirmed that she's allergic to erythromycin. There are more of Allison's prints on the Vodka bottle and more of Amy's on the water; but that doesn't prove it was done deliberately."

"But I
saw
her switch them!" Gracie cried. "So did several other kids; they all snickered when Amy took a big gulp of the Vodka because
they
knew what to expect."

"Damned alky," Amy muttered.

Ken drummed his fingers on the table for a minute, looking around at each of the young people seated there. "I will admit you've put together a lot of circumstantial evidence that Amy was responsible for these so-called accidents. And you've put forward a reasonable motive as well. But none of it is
proof
. From what I told you earlier today you know I found fingerprints on Meaghan's car –
Amy's
prints. At the moment I'm convinced she tampered with the fuses, but I'd like to hear your assessment of how she did it."

"It all started with Mrs. Lane's death," Gracie said.

Chapter 55

"Are you saying she killed the teacher, too?" Ken asked in some shock.

"No," Gracie replied. "I think that was a
real
accident. Amy saw Mrs. Lane flirting with the team at her party, and Jake in particular. I don't know if she
knew
they'd been carrying on an affair, but it was pretty plain that Maggie would have liked to and that Jake seemed willing. That made Amy mad. It wasn't bad enough that Jake dated a dozen girls but now there was an older woman after him. Amy went home with one of her friends, then drove her own car back to Maggie's house early in the morning."

"I bet she thought she'd catch them together in bed," Cheryl put in.

"She drives a white Chevy, that would be the 'light-colored car' the neighbor lady saw," Shawna added.

"I can't be sure exactly what happened," Gracie continued. "My guess is that Amy confronted Maggie and in an attempt to get away from her Maggie fell down the stairs." She looked at Amy, who refused to meet her eyes. "Did you know she was dead, or just decide it was time to leave?"

"I didn't kill her," Amy said, though without any emotion. "You're right, I was yelling at her to keep her paws off Jake and she said she was gonna call the cops. But she was
drunk
. She whirled around to go down those stairs to the telephone and she just
fell
. I didn't know she was dead until the next day when
you
showed up." She raised her head to glare briefly at Ken.

"I believe you, Amy," Ken said calmly. "If you'd left it at that I'd have said it was her own fault, even though you aggravated her. But as it is, I'm adding a count of manslaughter. She wouldn't have died if you hadn't confronted her."

"But she couldn't leave it at that," Gracie said. "Because it gave her an idea. She'd create a string of accidents thinking that no one would get suspicious if one of 'em happened to be fatal. And if anyone realized that bad things seemed to happen to Jake's girlfriends it might scare them away and narrow the competition."

Ken looked thoughtful for a moment. "When you put it that way, it makes sense in a twisted sort of way," he said. "She'd caused the death of the teacher, even if it was inadvertent, and gotten away with it; so now she planned to kill Meaghan, too. How'd she do it?"

"It all started with that lost earring," Gracie said. "The one you found in Mrs. Lane's backyard, Ken."

"You
did
say something about that being a big clue," Shawna commented. "But I still don't understand
how
."

Gracie smiled mirthlessly. "Amy must've seen Jake and Meaghan go outside on the patio and she followed them. She hid in the bushes so she could eavesdrop, and didn't realize she'd snagged her earring on one of the branches. I saw the two of them out there talking, and told Kelly that it looked serious."

"I saw 'em talking, too," Kelly confirmed. "We thought maybe they were breaking up."

"What Amy overheard was that Meaghan was pregnant, and Jake was the father of the baby. Meaghan knew her parents would freak out when she told them, so she wanted to tell Jake first. To see if he would help.
I
think Jake agreed to marry her, take care of her and the baby."

"
Jake
?" Cheryl's voice squeaked in surprise. "Love 'em and leave 'em Jake who had his pick of any girl in school?"

"Don't forget Jake's a devout Catholic," Gracie reminded them. "You'll have to ask him to confirm it, but I think that's exactly what happened. He felt strongly that he had to do the right thing, and he offered to marry her. Remember when Meaghan was talking about selling the Miata the afternoon before her wreck? She said she was afraid to drive it fast; that was because of the baby. She
also
said she wanted something with a little more room."

"I do remember her saying that," Shawna said. "That would be for the baby, too. She wouldn't have had room in that little sports car for a baby-seat and diaper bag and all that stuff."

"Amy must've been
very
upset," Gracie continued. "She loved Jake and here he was going to
marry
Meaghan. And, um, now I forget with happened first. There was that scene Maggie and Jake made where he sucked the queso off her finger. Amy saw that, too. Between those two things, she was really angry and didn't know what to do about it. She probably made up her mind to confront both Maggie and Meaghan and plead with them to leave Jake alone."

"So she came back to confront the teacher, and Mrs. Lane ended up dead," Ken summed it up. "And
that
gave her the idea to set up a string of accidents?"

"That didn't happen until the next morning," Gracie said. "On her way to the recycling event someone sideswiped her car and she came running in saying something was wrong with it. Bobby went out to see, and it turned out the airbag fuse hadn't been working; she'd seen the warning light flashing but hadn't paid any attention to it until the fender-bender. Anyway, Bobby explained to her how airbags and ABS brakes are on separate fuses and showed her how to replace them."

Shawna spoke up. "Gracie found history on Amy's phone where she'd looked up a website on how the brakes work, so she knew the car would slide without them. She also found phone numbers where Amy'd called the Miata dealer and a locksmith."

"You're getting a little ahead of me," Gracie said, grinning to take the sting out. "Just a few minutes after Bobby fixed her car you came in, Ken, telling us about Maggie's death."

Ken's face lit up with understanding. "Ah, yes. One major competitor is dead and now she sees a way to get rid of the other one." He cocked his head to the side as he considered Gracie's theory. "If she can cause some small harm to every girl Jake goes out with the boy might start looking like bad luck followed him;
possibly
they will begin thinking he's the one doing these things. And yes, if one of his girlfriends happened to
die
then it would look like just a particularly nasty accident in the string."

"Thank you," Gracie said simply. "Now Amy had to figure out
how
to get to the fuses. She knew that road conditions would have to be bad to make it work, but she'd have wanted to set things up in advance so she could put the plan into motion when the weather cooperated."

"So she stole the key from Mrs. Pruitt's ring," Shawna said brightly.

Gracie smiled at her friend. "Yes, but not yet I don't think. Remember that Amy and Meaghan had been at the boutique on Thursday afternoon. They'd planned to do some shopping and they just stopped off there for a few minutes. I bet they went to the mall after that. I'll bet you that Amy conveniently forgot her purse or phone or something so she could borrow Meaghan's keys and go back to the car to get it. That gave her the opportunity to make sure the fuses she wanted were under the hood."

"Gracie, wouldn't it have looked funny if she'd popped the hood in the mall parking lot?" Kelly asked.

"What if some guy came along and asked if she needed help?" Shawna asked.

"True," Gracie agreed. "But all she really had to do was check the fuse box under the dash; if the ones she wanted weren't there then they
had
to be under the hood."

"Either way she'd need a key to get into the car later," Cheryl said. "She'd have to open the door to pull the hood release."

"Exactly. And after talking to the locksmiths she knew it'd look funny if she showed up with a wax mold wanting a new key made," Gracie said. "But I got that one figured out, too!
After
they went shopping they went to Meaghan's house. At least Mrs. Pruitt recognized Amy, so she must've been there recently. I don't know if she
knew
about Mrs. Pruitt's extra key or just prowled through the woman's purse and found it, but she took it."

"Mrs. Pruitt said it was on one of those valet things," Shawna added. "So it would've been quick to take it."

"So now she's all set, and just waiting on the weather," Gracie said. "She didn't want to just pull the fuses right then because something could've happened without her to help it along, and it might not turn out the way she wanted. With Meaghan dead, that is. But it rained the very next day –
and
we had an away-game. Amy carried on about taking the 'short-cut' home, but she must've suggested that on purpose. She told us she'd gone out to her car to get an umbrella when it starting raining during the game…"

"But that's when she pulled the fuses out," Ken said. "It was dark and security wouldn't be watching the parking lot too closely during the game. She tells us this tale of pulling over to take a phone call, but that was so she could get
behind
Meaghan's car. By the way I checked her cell phone records, and she didn't get any calls that evening. She
deliberately
bumps the car, and then very publicly admits to it so she not only appeared innocent of anything more than an unfortunate lapse of judgment but her friends would feel sorry for
her
."

He turned again to study Amy. The girl was crying softly, but whether from remorse or being caught – or the realization that Jake wasn't interested in her – he couldn't tell.

"They were out in the boonies on a lonely stretch of state highway. She dutifully called 911 to report the wreck, but then quite coldly unlocked Meaghan's door and opened the hood to replace the fuses," Ken continued. "By the way, I did check with the paramedics and they said the hood was down and the doors locked. Why did you ask about that?"

"When we went to see Meaghan in the hospital she mentioned seeing the hood fly open during the wreck," Shawna explained.

"We just thought she was rambling, because of the drugs they'd given her," Gracie said. "But later I started wondering if maybe she
had
seen the hood up when Amy was putting the fuses back. She was hurt and in pain and things probably weren't very connected for her."

"I'm glad for her sake that she didn't realize what was happening," Ken said. "Anyway, the plan was that we'd give the fuse box a quick once-over, see the fuses in place, and not give it a second thought. It would look like a terrible accident and nothing more. Fortunately for us, she dropped one. She knew there were extras in the lid, but either her boyfriend hadn't mentioned the color-coding scheme or she just couldn't see in the dark. She used the wrong amperage for the brakes.
And
her fingerprints were on both fuses and the lid of the fuse box."

"So
that
's how you figured it out!" Gracie said in amazement. "At least you finally believed me."

"The fingerprints alone wouldn't necessarily have proven guilt," Ken told her. "She could've claimed that, knowing about the fuses, she was just using her knowledge to help a friend out of a similar jam. We wouldn't have questioned the sticky residue on the dash either, where she put a piece of tape over the warning light so Meaghan wouldn't see it."

"There's one more thing," Gracie said. "After the wreck, at the hospital Amy volunteered to guard Mrs. Pruitt's purse. She did that so she'd have the opportunity to put the key back on her ring."

At last Amy lifted her head to look at her accusers. "Boyfriend?" she asked quietly.

Gracie looked at her with sadness. "Yes, Amy. Bobby really likes you, and as far more than just a friend to hang out with. If you hadn't been so blinded by Jake's looks and talent you could've had a good relationship with Bobby."

"He didn't help me," Amy said, shaking her head. "He didn't have anything to do with this, just ask him! I don't want
him
to get into trouble, he's my friend."

"I believe you about that, too," Ken told her gently. "I
will
talk to this Bobby, but I think the only thing the poor kid's guilty of is liking the wrong person."