Melanie Travis 06 - Hush Puppy (7 page)

“There’re no such thing as ghosts,” Mrs. Plimpton said firmly, striding back in. She’d put a long wool coat on over her dress and tied a plaid, fringed muffler around her neck. “So don’t you be starting any rumors about a thing like that. That’s the kind of trouble that’s likely to come right back around and bite you in the butt.”

We headed out the door and down the steps. “You don’t suppose the police think I had anything to do with what happened?” Mrs. Plimpton asked, sounding suddenly nervous. “I couldn’t have, you know. I was in the kitchen working all morning. Shawna and Bobbi can back me up on that.”

“I’m sure you’re not a suspect. The police just want to know who found the body.”

“It was a girl. I don’t know her name. She came running up the back stairs and pounded on the door. It wasn’t even locked, I don’t know what she was knocking for. She was all out of breath and agitated like crazy. I guess she just felt the need to make some noise.”

“One of the students?” I asked.

“She must be, I don’t know where else she would have come from.” Mrs. Plimpton frowned. “Though I don’t recall ever seeing her in the dining room. Usually I have a pretty good memory for faces. Maybe she’s new. Her clothes were kind of strange though.”

“Strange?” I gulped.

“Well, she wasn’t in uniform, for one thing. And though she was wearing a sweatshirt, she wasn’t in gym clothes either. I remember thinking, maybe that’s a costume for a play. Around this school, you don’t see many little girls running around in blue jeans.”

The knot in my stomach grew. “Did she have short dark hair and big brown eyes?”

“That’s right, she did. Do you know her?”

“I’m afraid I do,” I said.

Jane.

By the time Mrs. Plimpton and I reached the bottom of the hill, Russell and Michael had disappeared, and Detective Shertz was waiting for us. I performed the introductions, then started to tell the detective about Jane.

“Thanks for your help,” he said brusquely. “I can take things from here. I’d prefer to speak with Mrs. Plimpton privately.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

He held up a hand. My voice stilled.

“I’m sure you’re interested in what happened, but my investigation will proceed much more smoothly without your interference.”

“I wasn’t trying to interfere—”

“Maybe you don’t understand, Ms. Travis. This is police business.”

Any idiot could understand that. Of course, that was exactly what Detective Shertz’s patronizing tone implied: that I was an idiot who wanted to meddle in his case for no good reason.

“Fine,” I said, aware that I had a tutoring session in ten minutes. “I’ll get back to my kids.”

Predictably, all afternoon my students were full of questions. Mindful of Russell’s dictum, I merely said that there’d been an accident in the caretaker’s cottage and that the police were looking into it. They could have figured out that much by looking out the window, so I didn’t feel I was betraying any confidences.

By midafternoon, much of the activity around the cottage had died down. The door was shut and padlocked. Though the building was festooned with bright yellow crime-scene tape, most of the police crew had moved on.

That didn’t stop the rumors that had begun to circulate among the students, however. None of the stories approached the truth, but they did make for fascinating listening. If Russell had thought he could insulate the kids from what had happened, he’d better think again. In the absence of facts, they were busy concocting tales that were even more gruesome than the truth.

As soon as I had a free minute, I headed over to the headmaster’s office. His secretary, Harriet, sat behind a desk in the small anteroom outside. Normally, she has the placid look of a Labrador Retriever with a full stomach. Today, her expression was pinched and wary. Like Russell, she seemed poised to expect the worst.

“Is he in?” I asked when she looked up.

Harriet nodded.

“Do you think he can spare me a few minutes?”

“I doubt it, the way things have been going today, but I’ll check.”

Harriet stood up and walked over to the door, opened it, and stuck her head inside. Though Russell wasn’t visible from where I stood, I could hear their conversation clearly. He must have realized that, because a moment later he appeared in the doorway.

“Is it important?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He waved a hand, ushering me in.

“Do you want me to hold your calls?” asked Harriet.

“If it’s the detective, pass it through. Otherwise, take a message. If anyone else from the media calls, just tell them we have no comment at this time.”

I followed him into the inner sanctum. Russell’s office was a large room, beautifully decorated with some of the furniture that had originally graced Joshua Howard’s own library. There was a wide bay window with a cushioned window seat, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The hardwood floor was covered by a slightly worn Persian rug. I’m sure the intent was to make Howard Academy’s wealthy parents feel right at home, and I imagine it succeeded admirably.

Today, the headmaster looked far too distracted to notice, much less appreciate, the luxury of his surroundings. “I hope you don’t mind if we keep this short,” he said. “I’m afraid I have a dozen other things I should be doing.”

“Not at all. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Russell sat down in the plush leather chair behind his desk. I chose one opposite him and did the same. “There doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do right now, except wait and see what the police are able to find out.

“Unfortunately, the fact that this school has been linked to a murder investigation seems to have sent the media into a frenzy. Already, I’ve fielded calls from as far away as Philadelphia, and there’s currently a New York news van shooting footage from the end of the driveway.”

“The police won’t do anything to stop them?”

“Detective Shertz’s men were kind enough to escort them off the property when they arrived. The news team is now set up on a public road, however, so there’s nothing else we can do.” The headmaster smiled wanly. “Under other circumstances, I might even be among the first to tell you that the public has a right to know.”

“Easier to say when it’s not your business they’re interested in.”

“Quite so,” Russell agreed. He leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his lower face. “What can I do for you, Ms. Travis?”

“I was wondering if you’d spoken with Detective Shertz since he interviewed Mrs. Plimpton?”

“Only briefly. Apparently she supplied him with the description of a student, and we’re having some difficulty tracking down just whom she meant . . .’ ’

“That’s what I wanted to see you about. Mrs. Plimpton mentioned the girl to me, too. I’ve seen her several times myself and I believe her name is Jane. I’m fairly certain she isn’t a student.”

“I don’t understand,” said Russell.

“Actually, neither do I. Unfortunately, the person who seemed to have known the most about her was Eugene Krebbs.”

“Krebbs?”

“The two of them were together the first time I met her. We were in the prop room behind the stage, and after she ran away, Krebbs indicated that he’d seen her hanging around before. He said she didn’t belong here.”

Russell was frowning now. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

“I’m afraid that is the beginning. It happened just last week. I asked Krebbs at the time if he’d spoken to you about her, and he told me he was planning to take care of the problem himself.”

“What problem? Who was she?”

“I don’t know. At first, I assumed she was a student, too, but Krebbs said she wasn’t. And she certainly seems to come and go as she pleases . . .”

“You mean you’ve seen her again?”

“Just this morning. After we spoke, I went down to the basement.”

“The archives.”

I nodded. “There’s a room down there that looks as though it might once have been a wine cellar. Jane was in there.”

Russell was looking more perplexed by the moment. “Doing what?”

“I don’t know. She ran off again as soon as I saw her. Krebbs thought she’d been sleeping in the prop room, and he mentioned something about her stealing food.”

“A runaway, perhaps?” Russell mused. “I wonder how long this has been going on. Is it possible she’s been living here and nobody knew?”

“It’s a big campus. Still, I would think that if she were actually making a home here, we’d have seen more signs of her occupancy. I was wondering if maybe she lives in the neighborhood and comes over here during the day when she’s supposed to be in school.”

“Why would she do something like that?”

I had no answer, so I didn’t offer one.

After a moment, Russell said, “You say she calls herself Jane? Any idea of a last name?”

“None. Krebbs laughed when she told me her name was Jane. He seemed to think she was making it up.”

“They’d met before, then.”

“Apparently so. Krebbs was yelling at her when I came across them. I gathered it wasn’t the first time they’d had a confrontation.” Even though the man was dead, I didn’t try very hard to hide my annoyance, and Russell picked up on my tone.

“Krebbs wasn’t always the easiest man to get along with,” he said wearily.

It wasn’t my place to question the headmaster’s policies, but good sense has never stopped me from blurting out a question before. “Then why did you keep him on? From what I could see, the man hardly did any work.”

“I had no choice in the matter. Nor did either of the headmasters before me. Krebbs had preceded all of us, and his job was guaranteed by the school for as long as he chose to work. Whether I agreed with the terms of Krebbs’s employment or not, there was nothing I could do about the situation but make the best of it.”

I sat back in my chair, letting my body relax along the curve of the warm leather. “That sounds like an unusual arrangement.”

“In the public-school sector, perhaps. But not here. You have to remember what things were like when Howard Academy was founded. Joshua and Honoria lived a life of great wealth and privilege. Often such families employed large numbers of servants, and it wasn’t unusual for valued retainers to hold a position for life.”

I quickly counted back the decades and shook my head. “I know Krebbs was old, but—”

Russell smiled slightly. “It was his father, Arthur Krebbs, who worked for the estate as Joshua’s butler. I gather Krebbs grew up on the Howard family compound in the company of Joshua’s children. I suppose it seemed only natural that he, too, would go to work for the family. As far as I know, Krebbs has always been a fixture here.”

“I guess that explains his attitude,” I said under my breath.

“You and he had problems?”

“No,” I said quickly. “We’d never even spoken before last week. But I didn’t like the way he treated Jane, and I told him so. He said
I
was the one who didn’t understand how things worked.”

Russell’s mouth flattened into a straight line. “You might have come to me about that.”

“I wish I had. Then maybe none of this would have happened.”

“Are you saying that you think the girl might have had something to do with Krebbs’s death?”

Until the headmaster voiced the thought, I hadn’t allowed myself to think it. But it did make a certain sort of sense. I knew that Jane and Krebbs had argued, probably more than once. I’d also seen him threaten her. I knew she’d been on the school grounds earlier in the day, and she’d been the one to report the caretaker’s death.

Mrs. Plimpton had described Jane as breathless and agitated. Had the girl’s state been due to the shock of stumbling over a dead body, or could it have been caused by the even greater shock of having just committed murder?

“No,” I said fiercely. I wasn’t sure which one of us I was trying to convince. “She’s only a child. She hardly looked more than ten. She couldn’t have done something so awful . . .”

“Even so, you need to tell this to the detective. Have you spoken with him?”

“I tried, but he didn’t want to hear about it.”

“Try again,” Russell said firmly, rising from his seat. “The sooner the police figure out what happened, the sooner we’ll all be able to get back to normal. I’ve issued a memo on the subject, it’s probably sitting in your mailbox right now. Everyone is to cooperate with the authorities to the fullest extent of their abilities.”

“Of course,” I said, standing as well.

“I’ve called an afternoon assembly. You’ll hear the bell shortly. The students know perfectly well that something happened. Keeping silent on the subject will only encourage more of the rampant speculation that already seems to be sweeping through the school. At this point, they’re much better off having the facts.

“I will also announce that we’ll be holding a small memorial service for Eugene Krebbs this weekend. As far as I know, we at Howard Academy were his only family. My wife, Bitsy, is already working at putting things together. We’re hoping to find some alumni who might be able to provide remembrances and anyone who would like to take part is more than welcome.”

“That’s very nice of you,” I said.

“It’s the least we could do. Eugene Krebbs committed his life to the service of the Howard family and their vision of education. We have no intention of forgetting his contribution now that he’s gone.” The headmaster tapped his finger on the face of his watch and walked out from behind his desk. We headed to the door together.

I’d done my duty by reporting what I knew; now it was time to satisfy my curiosity. “Krebbs seems like a rather unlikely murder victim to me. Do you have any idea why someone might have wanted to kill him?”

“None,” Russell said firmly.

The subject was closed.