Jingle Bell Bark (15 page)

“These can go on next,” I said. “You're in charge.”

“Cool,” cried Davey. He ran back to the tree.

“About Aunt Peg,” I said to Sam. “I'm afraid she doesn't know what she's getting herself into. People who have killed someone are desperate. They have secrets they don't want exposed.”

“You never worried about that when you were the one doing the poking around.”

“When it was me, I knew I'd be careful. You know Aunt Peg. She thinks she's invincible.”

Sam laughed at that. “I've never seen anything stop Peg yet. For all I know, she may
be
invincible.”

Superwoman to the rescue? As if
that
would solve our problems.

S
ometimes it seems as though Aunt Peg calls me on the phone every other minute. Now that I was on the other end of the equation, however, wondering what sort of trouble she might be getting herself into, I found I had to resist the temptation to do the same. The least she could have done was check in every so often and let me know what she'd found out.

“Nothing,” Peg said huffily when I finally broke down and called her Wednesday during lunch break. “Not a blessed thing.”

Well that was a relief.

Apparently Aunt Peg didn't think so. “It's rather depressing when you think about it. I had such high hopes for myself. Then Monday my septic system backed up. And Tuesday I had three baths to give.”

Heaven forbid Aunt Peg's Poodles ever look anything less than perfect.

“I did manage to put a call in to Cindy Marshall,” she said. “Cindy got back to me yesterday.”

“And?”

“I discovered that, over the phone, it's nearly impossible to ask someone you barely know whether or not they were having an affair with a dead man.”

No surprise there. “You think that would be easier in person?”

“I'm about to find out,” Aunt Peg said with some satisfaction. “Cindy and I are having lunch tomorrow.”

“I thought you and I both agreed that Rebecca Morehouse was more likely to have been involved with Henry.”

“Yes, but from what I've heard about Rebecca, I can't imagine I would like her at all. Why on earth would I want to eat lunch with her?”

Okay. What we had here was a totally different animal than I was used to. Murder investigation as social event.

“But since you've called,” said Aunt Peg. “There's something you could do for me. Remember the office lady from Davey's school who was quoted in the article about Henry?”

“Michelle Raddison.”

“She's a friend of yours, right?”

“I knew her when I used to work at Hunting Ridge.”

“Perfect. Stop by and have a chat with her, would you? She seemed to know plenty about Henry. Perhaps she could put us in touch with some of his friends.”

“Why would she want to do that?”

“Because you're going to ask her very nicely,” said Peg.

Put that way, I supposed I was.

Which was how I came to find myself ducking out of school early that afternoon just after my last tutoring session ended. I raced from Greenwich back to Stamford and dropped off the Poodles. From our house, Davey's school was only a five minute drive. With luck, I'd reach Hunting Ridge Elementary before the last bell.

Two years had passed since I'd been employed as a special education teacher at the neighborhood public school. Still, the minute I drove up the sloping driveway, bypassed the front of the low brick building where a fleet of buses was already lined up at the curb, and parked in the teachers' lot on the side, I felt right at home. Hunting Ridge Elementary had given me my start as a teacher; I'd worked there for nearly a decade. Much as I enjoyed being at Howard Academy, it was hard not to feel a tug of nostalgia for the place, and the people, who had shaped my early career.

Hurrying along the wide front sidewalk on the way to the door, I gazed through windows into familiar classrooms, their walls adorned with colorful posters and artwork. It didn't look as though much had changed in the time I'd been gone. A round clock situated next to a doorway informed me I had only a few minutes to get to the office before the school day ended.

Still staring in the window, I picked up my pace and barreled right into someone heading the other way. “Oof!” I grunted at the impact, then stepped back quickly. “My fault. Sorry.”

“Yeah, it was.” The surly voice belonged to Davey's bus driver, Annie Gault. We stared at each other in surprise. “Hey, I know you,” she said after a moment.

“Melanie Travis. We met last week. You drive my son's bus.”

“That's right.” She nodded toward the big yellow vehicle parked at the curb. “You here picking him up?”

“No,” I reached up and rubbed my shoulder. The girl packed quite a wallop. “He'll ride with you to the arts center like he usually does on Wednesdays. I'm here to see someone.”

Annie popped the wad of gum in her mouth. “Really, who?”

I couldn't imagine why she'd care. Nor why she wanted to prolong the conversation. Maybe since school had yet to let out, she had nothing better to do.

“Michelle Raddison,” I said. “In the office. Now if you'll excuse me—”

“Is it about Henry Pruitt?”

I'd started to walk around her. Now I stopped. “What makes you think that?”

“I got told some of the mothers think I don't drive the bus as well as Henry did.”

“There's a reason for that,” I said bluntly. “You don't.”

“Hey, I'm new around here. Cut me some slack, okay?”

“Being new should make you more careful, not less so. Those are our children you're transporting. Did you think we wouldn't be watching how you drive?”

Annie rolled her eyes. “That was my first day. I didn't know where I was going and I was trying not to mess up the schedule. I've slowed down some since then.”

“Good,” I said.

“So what's the big deal about Henry?”

“What big deal?” I asked curiously.

“You know, like all the mothers think he was some sort of saint or something. He was just a guy who drove a bus, that's all.”

Considering the care with which he'd treated our children, Henry Pruitt had been a great deal more than that to every mother on the route. I thought about trying to explain, then decided Annie was probably too young to understand. Someday she'd have children of her own. Then she'd know why we'd treasured him.

“Did you know Henry?” I asked.

“We'd met, like a few times.” Annie shrugged. “He was all right for an old guy. He liked to talk. He liked to ask questions.”

She made that sound like it was a bad thing. “He was a friendly person,” I said. “He liked to connect with other people.”

“Yeah, well, look where it got him. Look, I gotta go.”

She slipped past me, grabbed the pole that ran along the door to her bus, and swung nimbly up the stairs. As I started to turn after her, she sank into the driver's seat and snapped the door shut.

Inside the school, the bell rang. Perfect, I thought. Now I was late.

 

 

It turned out that it didn't matter. Michelle Raddison was not only still in the office, she was still seated at her desk with a mountain of paperwork piled on her blotter. Michelle had always been a bundle of frenetic energy, well suited to the demands of her busy job. We'd been friends as well as coworkers; seeing her again now, I was sorry I hadn't done a better job of keeping in touch.

“I'm glad I caught you,” I said, pausing in the doorway to the glass-walled office.

“Caught me?” Michelle looked up and smiled. “You're joking, right? If you actually think I leave when the bell rings, that private school of yours must be staffed by dilettantes. Get yourself in here, Travis, and grab a seat. It's been entirely too long. What's new with you?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the bustling outer office. Like most schools, Hunting Ridge thrived on gossip. Quarters were tight in the administrative area; things could be easily overheard. As I shrugged out of my coat, I nudged the doorjamb free with my toe. The door swung shut as I sat down. The gesture wasn't lost on Michelle.

“And here I was hoping this was a social call,” she said.

“It is. With a bit of personal business thrown in at the end. It's good to see you, too.”

We took a few minutes to catch up with one another. Michelle brought me up-to-date on changes at Hunting Ridge: one teacher I'd taught with had gotten divorced, another had had a baby. I filled her in on some of the idiosyncrasies of my ritzy private school job; she came right back with stories of her own. We had a good laugh at each other's expense, then settled down to business.

“Is it Davey?” she asked. “You know I try to keep on top of all the kids, but with nearly two hundred enrolled here, sometimes things get past me. Is he having trouble in school?”

“No,” I said quickly. “No, Davey's fine. He loves being in Miss Cooke's class. Third grade suits him to a tee.”

“I'm glad to hear that.” Michelle leaned forward, rested her elbows on the desk, and steepled her fingers. “So tell me what else I can do for you.”

That was one of the things I'd liked best about working with Michelle. Her office was strictly a no bullshit zone.

“Tell me about Henry Pruitt,” I said.

For a moment she didn't react at all. Then Michelle smiled slowly. “You surprised me with that one,” she said. “And I don't surprise easily. What do you want to know?”

“The newspaper quoted you after he died, so I figured you must have known him....”

“They could have quoted any one of us. Most of us knew Henry, some better than others. I'm the vice-principal. It fell to me to make a statement. Henry was a good guy. We were all sorry about what happened.”

“Me too,” I said. “He's driven our bus for years, and when Davey was with Henry I always knew Davey was in good hands.”

She looked at me shrewdly. “Not quite the same with Annie, is it?”

“Not yet. But I have hopes for improvement. When you said some of you knew him better than others, what did you mean?”

“Exactly that. Henry was a sociable man. He got around. No harm in that. His wife had been dead for a long time, and we're all consenting adults around here.”

“You mean he dated some of the women who work here?”

“Sure. Henry was a really sweet man. Because he drove the bus, he was around a lot. We all got to know him. The thing about Henry was that he was charming in an old-fashioned sort of way. I saw women who weren't even looking, look twice at him.”

Food for thought there, I decided. “I read in the paper that before Henry started driving a bus, he'd worked for a commodities brokerage firm?”

“That's right. One of the big companies in Greenwich. He did well, too, from what I hear, but Henry got tired of being ‘a suit.' That was the phrase he used. His wife had died, his children grew up and moved away. He couldn't see the point of holding on to such a big high-pressure job anymore. He opted for early retirement and then discovered that being home all day bored the hell out of him.”

“So he ended up driving a bus?”

“Pretty much,” said Michelle. “I know he wanted to do something that put him in touch with kids. I think he felt he'd missed out on a lot when his own children were growing up. Plus—and maybe you'll think this sounds dumb, but if you knew Henry, you'd understand—he had these two dogs. Golden Retrievers. Those guys just meant the world to him. And driving the bus, the hours worked out perfectly. He never had to leave the dogs alone at home for too long at a stretch.”

“That doesn't sound dumb to me at all,” I said.

“Oh yeah, how could I forget? You have Poodles, right? The large size?”

“Standards. I had one when I worked here, now I have two. Faith and Eve are mother and daughter. One of the better perks of working at Howard Academy is that they get to come to school with me.”

“Two big dogs like that?” Her eyes widened. “Wouldn't happen around here. Last year one of the kindergarten mothers complained about Hammie the Hamster. Said he was giving her daughter allergies. Bye bye, Hammie. I figure the parakeet in the music room will go next.”

I winced at her tone. “That's the difference between public and private. We don't have to please everybody. Russell Hanover runs a pretty tight ship. Parents can either get with the program or go elsewhere.”

“Lucky you.”

“Lucky for me, I'm not in administration.”

We both nodded at that.

“You still doing the dog show thing?” she asked.

“All the time. I'll be showing Eve this weekend up in Massachusetts.”

“Speaking of which, I think I remember hearing that one of Henry's dogs came from some important dog show kennel.”

“Pepper,” I replied. “In a roundabout way, that's why I'm here. Because of Henry's dogs. After he died, I ended up with custody of them.”

I told her about Alice and my visit to Henry's house. About meeting Betty Bowen and volunteering to care for the Goldens. Outside in the main office, people were packing up their desks and preparing to head home. Oblivious to their departures, Michelle listened, rapt, as I concluded with the story of meeting with Henry's two daughters over the weekend.

“Geez, you couldn't make this stuff up,” she said when I was done. “You're like a magnet for trouble, aren't you?”

“I hope not,” I said, though her assessment wasn't far from the mark. “The problem is, my aunt has decided that she wants to get involved in the investigation. She -wants things wrapped up so that Robin and Laurel will go back where they came from and she can place Pepper and Remington in good homes.”

“The police have been here twice already,” said Michelle. “A Detective Marley and a couple of other guys, too. We told them everything we know. I mean, why wouldn't we? Everybody liked Henry. We'd like to see his killer brought to justice just as much as anyone.”

“Who did the police talk to?” I asked.

Michelle tossed out several names—her own, the principal's, and the school secretary's among them.