Murder by the Slice (29 page)

“When was that?”

“Oh, goodness, a month or so ago, at least.”

“Did she have a key to the secretary’s desk?”

“Yes, she and Marie Tyler both did, but I just gave those keys to them at the carnival so they could lock up the cash box.” Frances gasped. “Oh, my goodness. Marie gave her key back to me, but Shannon never did, of course. I never even thought about it until now. Surely the sheriff has it, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” Phyllis told her, “but I intend to find out.”

She hung up again and looked around. “What street are we on?”

“I don’t know the name of it,” Sam said, “but we’re about to get back to the one where the Dunstons live. By my reckonin’, we’re a couple of blocks past their house.”

Phyllis nodded. “That should do. Can you find a place to stop where we won’t be too obvious?”

“I’ll try.”

Sam made the turn and a second later pulled the pickup to the curb in front of a large, two-story house that was still under construction. It appeared that no one was working on the place at the moment.

“Anybody notices the truck, they’ll likely think it belongs to one of the contractors,” he said.

Phyllis nodded. “This is perfect. I can see the Dunston house from here.”

“While we’re keepin’ an eye on it, how about tellin’ me just what’s got you in such a tizzy?”

“In a minute.” She made one more call, this time to Mike’s cell phone number. As she waited for it to go through, she saw Joel Dunston’s car back out of the driveway into the street. Joel was behind the wheel, and someone—probably Becca—was in the front seat beside him. The backseat was occupied, too. That had to be Kirk, who was probably accompanying his half sister and stepfather to lunch reluctantly. The car headed the other way along the street, away from where Phyllis and Sam were parked.

Mike answered promptly. “Yeah, Mom?”

“I’m not interrupting you, am I?”

“No, I’m out on patrol, but I was just about to stop for some lunch. What do you need?”

“Can you call in and get the records for Kirk Warren?”

Mike sounded puzzled. “We’ve already checked on him. He’s clean since he turned eighteen.”

“What about before that?”

“Juvenile records are usually sealed and sometimes even

expunged. Nothing showed up on Kirk. That means he either never got in trouble with the law or his parents were able to get his record wiped clean.”

Phyllis nodded, a little disappointed but still convinced she was on the right track. “Find out what you can about a man named Lane Erskine, and meet me at Shannon Dunston’s house as soon as possible.”

There was a note of alarm in Mike’s voice as he asked, “Mom, what are you doing? Have you found out something?”

Phyllis’s fingers tightened on the phone as she spotted a familiar pickup several blocks away, coming toward them. “Just get here as fast as you can,” she said, then closed the phone as the other pickup swung over toward the curb and then pulled into the driveway of the Dunston house. Just as she had figured, Lane Erskine had been parked somewhere close by, too, watching and waiting for Joel, Becca, and Kirk to drive by so that he would know the coast was clear. Phyllis saw him get out of his truck and go to the side of the garage, where there was probably a gate leading into the backyard. Erskine disappeared around the corner.

“Who’s that?” Sam asked tensely.

“His name is Lane Erskine. He’s the one who burglarized Loving Elementary a while back, along with Kirk Warren. Shannon had a key to the school, and Kirk must have gotten his hands on it and had a copy made. Then they hid what they stole in the shed in Kirk’s backyard until they could dispose of it.”

She glanced over to see that Sam was staring at her. “You know all this for a fact, do you?” he said.

“I’m convinced it’s true. They may have been burglarizing places for years. When Kirk was sixteen, he was running with an older, rougher crowd. Lane was part of that crowd. Kirk got sent away to military school. But when he came back, he was still friends with Lane, who had supposedly straightened up after he got some girl pregnant and she had his baby. That baby grew up to be Nicole, Becca’s little friend. Lane took her to the carnival. I saw them there in the cafeteria. Nicole was wearing a T-shirt with Elmo on it.”

“Elmo who?”

Phyllis frowned at him.

“Oh, the Muppet,” he went on. “Yeah, even I know about
Sesame Street.
But what’s Elmo got to do with anything?”

Before Phyllis could answer, Lane Erskine reappeared, rounding the corner of the Dunston garage. He was carrying a fairly large cardboard box. He placed it in the back of the pickup, turned around, and went back around the garage.

“He’s loading up the loot,” Phyllis said. “I saw Lane here the other day and thought he looked familiar, but I didn’t connect him with the carnival because he was alone. If I’d seen the little girl with him, I would have known him right away because I remembered her so well. Like Becca said, she’s really cute.”

“Back to Elmo … ?” Sam said hopefully.

“Yesterday at the school, Lindsey Gonzales said the only other person she saw while she was arguing with Shannon was a little girl who came out of the boy’s restroom. The girl was wearing an Elmo T-shirt. I didn’t make the connection, then, either, but I should have. I knew it instinctively.”

“There could have been other little girls at the carnival wearing T-shirts like that,” Sam pointed out.

“Yes, of course. But we
know
Nicole Erskine was, and we know the girl Lindsey saw came out of the boy’s bathroom.”

“So?”

“When a little girl who’s out in a public place with her father needs to go to the bathroom, if he doesn’t want to send her into the ladies room by herself, he’ll check the men’s room and if it’s empty he’ll take her in there. And that end of the school wasn’t busy, so the boy’s restroom probably
was
empty.”

Sam nodded slowly. “Maybe. You think Erskine was in side that bathroom while Ms. Gonzales and Ms. Dunston were yellin’ at each other?”

“I think it’s possible. I think he was the witness who told the sheriff about it, too, hoping to throw more suspicion on Lindsey when a couple of days had gone by without the sheriff making a good case against anyone else.”

“You’re sayin’ Erskine’s the killer.” Sam’s voice was flat, the words a statement rather than a question.

Now that Phyllis had talked out some of the theory that had formed in her head, she was better able to draw conclusions from it. She nodded and said, “I think so. I suppose Kirk could have killed his mother, but I really think it was Erskine. I never saw Kirk in the cafeteria, but I know Lane was there with his little girl. He could have picked up that knife then.”

“But why?” Sam asked. “Why would he do that?”

Erskine carried another box out to the pickup and returned to the backyard. Phyllis said, “Shannon must have found out that he and Kirk were responsible for the burglary at the school. She sent Kirk away to military school when he was sixteen. If she found out he was still breaking the law, I can see her threatening to turn him in.”

“And she didn’t say anything about that to her friend Marie or anybody else?”

“She was a proud woman,” Phyllis said with a sigh, “and she regarded Kirk as one of her failures. I imagine she would have kept it to herself as long as possible. She could have even given him an ultimatum and told him to turn himself in and testify against his friend Lane, whom she probably blamed for getting Kirk mixed up in crime to start with.”

Erskine added another box to the load in the pickup and went back around the garage again.

“So if Erskine knew that Kirk had been busted by his mama,” Sam mused, “he was probably smart enough to know that the kid wouldn’t go down by himself. Kirk would turn on him and try to save himself.”

Phyllis nodded. She was getting worried now that Mike wouldn’t arrive in time to stop Erskine from getting away.

And once the loot from the burglary was gone, there wouldn’t be a bit of proof against Kirk or Erskine, only the theory that Phyllis had worked out. That wouldn’t be worth a stale cupcake in court.

“So when Erskine heard Shannon and Lindsey arguing, he realized he could kill Shannon and someone else might get the blame for it,” she went on. “He went to the cafeteria and got the knife, knowing that no one would ever connect him with it if he wiped his prints off it. Then, while his daughter was outside on the playground, he found Shannon and somehow decoyed her back down to that end of the hall. It was isolated there, and he wanted the body to be found near where Shannon and Lindsey had argued, just to make the case against Lindsey stronger.”

“What about Gary Oakley?” Sam wanted to know.

“I don’t think he had anything to do with any of it,” Phyllis said. “It was just a lucky break for Lane that Gary had a record and the sheriff pounced on him as a suspect. If Sheriff Haney had been able to make a case against Gary, even though Gary was innocent, Lane probably wouldn’t have tried to implicate Lindsey. He would have been satisfied with anyone getting the blame for the murder, as long as it wasn’t him.”

Sam nodded again. “The whole thing makes sense, but I don’t see how you’re gonna prove any of it.”

“The stolen property from the school will prove that Kirk and Lane were behind the burglary. That’ll give the sheriff something to hold them on while he tries to find more evidence and works on them for a confession.”

“But without that stuff …”

“I know.” Phyllis’s voice rose in desperation, because Lane had just reappeared with yet another box. He placed it in the back of the pickup and turned. “Is he about to leave?” Phyllis asked.

She heaved a sigh of relief when Erskine went around the garage yet again.

“We can’t take a chance on waiting,” Phyllis went on. “Drive down there and block the driveway so he can’t get out with the stolen property.”

Sam glanced sharply at her. “He’s liable not to take kindly to that.”

“Please, Sam. He’s not going to do anything in the middle of a residential neighborhood in broad daylight. At the worst, he’ll run off and try to get away on foot. And Mike should be here any minute.”

“Get out,” Sam said.

“What?”

“Get out of the truck. I’ll go block him in there, but I’m not takin’ you with me where you can get hurt, Phyllis.”

“But, Sam—”

“Up to you. Get out or I’m stayin’ right here.”

She reached for the door handle. “All right, but hurry.”

She stepped out onto the street in front of the unfinished house and shut the door as Sam started the pickup. He put it in gear and hit the gas, sending it rolling quickly down the street. It didn’t take him long to cover the two blocks. He brought the truck to a halt across the Dunston driveway just as Lane Erskine came around the corner of the garage. Erskine stopped short and set the box he was carrying on the ground as Sam got out of the pickup. Phyllis started walking quickly toward them. Sam had made her get out of the pickup, but he couldn’t make her stay here.

Then Sam started up the driveway and Erskine moved quickly to meet him. Phyllis screamed, “Sam!”, then broke into a run as she saw something glittering in Erskine’s hand and knew that it was a knife.

Chapter 28

With a screech of tires, a sheriff’s department cruiser slid around a corner into the street, the lights on its roof flashing. The car fishtailed for a second, then gained traction and sped forward.

At the same time, Lane Erskine slashed at Sam with the knife in his hand. Sam jerked his body backward so that the blade missed, then lunged at Erskine while the young man was off balance. He wrapped his fingers around the wrist of the hand holding the knife, and the two men grappled on the driveway.

Phyllis ran as hard as she could along the street, but she seemed to move with maddening slowness. Her heart thudded from fear and exertion as she watched Sam struggling with Erskine.

Then the sheriff’s car slewed to a halt in front of the Dunston house and Mike leaped out, his service revolver in his hand. “Sam, get out of the way!” he shouted.

Sam gave Erskine a shove to put some distance between them and let go of the younger man’s wrist. He dropped to the ground and rolled, putting himself out of the line of fire. Mike leveled his revolver at Erskine, but didn’t fire.

“Drop it!” he yelled. “Drop the knife!”

Phyllis had almost reached the house by now. She was close enough to see the indecision on Erskine’s face. She knew he was thinking about attacking Mike, and even though Phyllis didn’t want to see anyone else get hurt, even Erskine, she hoped that Mike would shoot him before taking a chance on getting injured himself.

Then as Phyllis slowed to a stop and stood there trying to catch her breath, Erskine muttered an obscenity and opened his hand. The knife clattered to the concrete driveway.

“On the ground!” Mike ordered as he approached Erskine slowly and carefully. “Get on the ground now!”

Sam climbed to his feet and hurried over to Phyllis. He took hold of her arm and asked anxiously, “Are you all right?”

“Me? You’re the one who … got attacked,” she said, still out of breath. “Did he … cut you?”

Sam shook his head. “That knife never touched me. It came a mite too close for comfort, though.”

“Hands behind your back,” Mike told Erskine. The young man complied with the order, and Mike deftly snapped handcuffs on him, performing the task one-handed while the other hand still held his service revolver ready for use if need be. He didn’t holster the gun until the cuffs were in place. Then he grabbed hold of Erskine’s arm and hauled the prisoner to his feet.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but you’ve got it all wrong, Deputy,” Erskine said. “I was just defending myself. That old geezer jumped me! He’s the one who ought to be in handcuffs!”

“You’re the one who had the knife,” Mike said. “That looks like assault with a deadly weapon to me, maybe even attempted murder.”

“But he attacked me!”

Phyllis said, “That’s a lie. He pulled the knife and came at Sam with it before Sam did anything except block the driveway.”