Schooled in Murder (4 page)

I diddled and dithered and wondered what the hell was going on. I graded a few papers. One of my
Lord of the Rings
posters was starting to come loose from the wall. I retaped it.

I poked my head outside my door. Various members of the rival factions had clustered at opposite ends of the hallway. I made my way to the teachers’ lounge for some coffee. I’d have preferred to go home. It was near seven. I was hungry. Not hungry enough to snarf past-its-sell-by-date candy the machines in the lounge disgorged. Someone had started a new pot of coffee. I washed a cup and poured. I took a seat at a table near the back.

Morgan Adair entered a moment after I sat down and joined me. He was in his early thirties and a friend. He was one of the youngest members of the non-suckup faction. The factions didn’t break down strictly along age lines, although the suckups did tend to be younger.

Morgan said, “This is awful. I heard you found the body. Are you okay?”

“It’s not something I’m looking forward to having happen again.”

He leaned close and said in a breathless whisper, “I’ve got to tell you this as long as no one else is here. I know what happened to Gracie is awful, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to you in the past couple days.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I met a guy.”

“Congratulations,” I said. I tried to work up an “I care” look. I must have been successful, because I didn’t detect a dampening in his headlong gush about his new love. I was tired and out of sorts. Hot new boyfriends and dead bodies were not a good mix. Morgan had been trying to find Mr. Right since he got out of college. The long series of tales of his dating woes could fill a season at the Lyric Opera. Morgan was tall with dirty-blond, short, spiked hair.

He burbled into my ear. “And he teaches right here at Grover Cleveland. He is a hunk.”

“Oh, really?”

“He’s a stud. I’m not supposed to tell anyone. He’s very closeted, but I know I can tell you.” I got an awful feeling.

“Steven Frecking. We met in Chicago at a bar last Friday night. We were both surprised to find out we taught in the same school. I sort of recognized him. He’s sweet and funny. We’ve been out twice since then.”

The arrival of two more of our colleagues spared me the choice of whether or not to tell him he was dating a philandering boob.

Luci Gamboni and Jourdan Chase entered and joined Morgan and me around the table. Luci Gamboni said, “You really found her with an eraser crammed in her mouth?”

“Yep,” I said.

Gamboni held her hand in front of her face. She had straight black hair that hung down to her ample bosom.

Jourdan Chase said, “It’s not funny.”

Gamboni said, “It is, in a sort of a Chuckles the Clown kind of way. I mean, I’ve been hoping someone would shut that cow up since the day she was hired. You know what Gracie said to me the day she was hired? She said, ´Why do you have the honors classes?’ She claimed they should be spread out among all the teachers. Me! I’ve been here practically since they built the place. I waited my turn for the best classes. She just wanted to step right in and hog the whole show. And as for going places for conferences. Well!”

Jourdan said, “Those statistics Pinyon had didn’t look right to me. I don’t remember going to a conference in the early eighties.”

Luci said, “Even if we have been to conferences before doesn’t mean we should or shouldn’t go again. They’re all like Gracie. She couldn’t wait her turn. Stupid cow. And she said older teachers should have to give up their classrooms! And travel! On carts! So young people could have rooms. I don’t work thirty years in a place to get a low-class assignment. That’s against the union rules, isn’t it?”

After all these years of not coming to my senses, I was still our building’s union rep. I said, “They need to show cause to make a change in working conditions.” Being made to schlepp all your materials from class to class using a cart was considered the lowest-class assignment.

Luci said, “These new teachers have no concept of what it’s been like. The fights we had to get this far. What it took for me, for us, to get what we have.” Luci was the commando grandmother in our department.

“Selfish,” Jourdan said. “They only want what’s good for them, not for the group.”

“And if we dare to criticize them, we’re accused of not being team players,” Gamboni said. “Team players? We were working in teams in this department when most of them were still in diapers. Team players? And a few of us are
barely ten years older than they are, but they think we’re all ancient.”

Morgan asked, “Did you touch the body?”

“I checked for a pulse.”

Morgan shuddered. “I couldn’t do that.”

Gamboni said, “We’re turning into the Cabot Cove of the educational world.”

Jourdan said, “That could be a good or bad thing depending on who dies.”

Gamboni said, “Oh dear.”

Morgan said, “You’ve had some experience with this kind of thing, Tom. What do you think?”

I said, “Whatever’s happened in my past doesn’t give me any special insight now. I know the police don’t like it when amateurs try to interfere.”

“Who would want to kill her?” Morgan asked.

“All of us,” Luci said. “Look at that fight today. Jourdan, what did the police say to you?”

“They asked a million questions. They wanted to know all about even the most minor set-to. Well, what could I say? We do fight. There were a million witnesses to today’s battle, not to mention all the other fights we’ve all had. I’m not the only one who’s had public fights with these people, but I’m the only one who had somebody murdered right after. I think I’m in trouble.”

Brook Burdock entered the room and hurried over to the table. Brook was the kind of guy who was always just a few minutes late for everything. He was a few pounds overweight and a couple years past forty. He struck me as a bit too bluff and friendly, seeming to be a bundle of energy that was always ready to burst forth. Brook worked out once every two weeks and called himself in shape. His wife dressed him in trendy male fashions from Ralph Lauren that never fit quite right. He sat down and said, “The kiss-asses are dying. Dead.
Dead. Dead. I am going to do a dance of joy.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

Luci gasped. “That’s awful,” she said.

Brook thumped his hands on the table, a drummer giving himself a cue. “There is news. You are not going to believe this.”

“What?” Luci asked.

“It is the latest hot rumor. They arrested Mabel Spandrel for the murder.”

A round of astonishment swept the group.

Morgan said, “I knew it. I knew it. Those two were having an affair.”

Jourdan leaned forward in that hot-gossip-tell-me-more posture. He asked, “They were lesbians?”

“I’ve seen them go out drinking together constantly,” Morgan said.

Brook said, “I was told they met secretly at bars on the near north side of Chicago, but I assumed that was to plot and plan. I’m not so sure it’s proof they were having an affair.”

Luci asked, “You have proof of an affair?”

“I don’t have videotape, no,” Morgan admitted. “But I know Gracie drives to Mabel’s house, and then they go off together.”

Jourdan said, “Gracie’s been sucking up like mad to her since she was hired. She’s been her spy on the rest of us. You’ve seen her taking notes at every single meeting.”

I thought maybe she was just efficient and conscientious. I asked Brook, “Did someone say why they think Mabel killed Gracie?”

“Nobody saw Mabel after the meeting.” “That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s what I heard,” Brook said. “I haven’t been this happy in ages. I am not going to be a hypocrite. I hate those ass-kissers. I have always hated those ass-kissers. I hope
some more of them bite the dust, and I hope it’s painful, and they suffer for a very long time.” Luci said, “She’s dead. It’s sad.”

Morgan said, “You were trying to avoid a Chuckles the Clown moment a few minutes ago.”

“Well, that was bizarre, but this is gloating.”

“You can be a hypocrite if you like,” Brook said, “but I’ve heard you talk about them in public and private. You hated them as much as I.”

“That may be so,” Luci said, “But now she’s dead.”

“I know that,” Brook said. “I hated her when she was alive. Sometimes the evil do die young.”

Not often enough, I thought. I said, “It was murder. Those who fought with them are going to be suspects.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Brook said. “I’ve got rock-solid alibis for every second from after that meeting to now. Nope. She’s dead. I’m glad. They’ve tried to undercut the rest of us. They’ve stabbed us in the back. They run to Spandrel or Graniento to tattle on the rest of us. They are awful colleagues. This time the suckup died young. I, for one, am celebrating.”

Jourdan said, “I’m worried about being a suspect. I have no witness, no alibi. After I left the meeting, I went to my classroom to cool off. I shouldn’t have said those things. I should have kept my big mouth shut. I always regret it after those fights, but I can’t help myself.”

Morgan said, “You’re standing up for us. We appreciate it.”

Jourdan said, “Maybe others should be speaking up. Did anybody else hear the rumor that Mabel Spandrel is planning to resign as head of the department? If that’s true, there’ll be more bodies than just this one. Who would replace her? Gracie was the assistant head of the department. Would she have just moved up? There are teachers a lot more senior than Gracie who deserve that job. And now that
she’s dead and if Mabel quits, would we have to replace both of them?”

Morgan said, “More important right now is, who killed Gracie? It could be someone from outside, although that doesn’t make a lot of sense. They’d have to hunt through the school, wait for the meeting to get over, and know she’d be in that storeroom.”

Brook said, “It could have been someone from outside who was very patient and very determined and very desperate.”

Morgan said, “Yeah, but for that kind of person to succeed, there are a lot of things that would have to go right. They’d have no ID, no idea what other people’s schedule was. I think it’s got to be somebody in the school.”

Everybody nodded agreement.

Luci said, “It’s not likely a kid. Would any of them still have been in the building?”

I said, “A few athletes might have been in the gym, but that’s a long way to go undetected or risk being seen.”

Jourdan said, “So it’s got to be one of the adults, faculty or administrators or custodians or secretaries.”

Morgan said, “It wasn’t done with a conventional weapon, so they can’t blame the metal detectors for not working.”

I wondered if the killer held Gracie down or knocked her out first and then crammed in the eraser. The boxes hadn’t been disturbed, so I didn’t think there’d been much of a struggle–although the storeroom is a mess most of the time, so it would have been hard to tell. The bruising I’d seen on her face might have meant the killer had held her down.

Brook said, “Maybe they’ll think it’s Francine. Maybe she finally got fed up with nobody listening to her peace overtures and turned to violence.”

Luci said, “Remember that peace party she tried to have over the holidays last year? I heard she made this huge spread and decorated until she nearly died and nobody went.”

“It was sad,” I said.

“Did you go?” Brook asked.

“I was out of the country.”

Brook persisted. “Would you have gone?”

“No,” I admitted. I didn’t go to a lot of faculty parties. This was where I worked. This wasn’t normally where I socialized.

Morgan said, “I’ve never been able to figure out how anybody knew she went to all that trouble if nobody went to the party.”

Brook said, “It can’t be nobody went. Someone must have gone, but I don’t know who.”

Jourdan said, “They’re going to think one of our faction killed her.”

Luci said, “They can’t think we did it. None of us are like that.”

“Who would be more logical?” I asked.

“But killing her wouldn’t gain anything,” Morgan said. “She was assistant head of the department, so her position would be vacant, but would somebody kill for such an unimportant position?”

“I can’t imagine it,” Luci said.

“It must have gained somebody something,” I said, “otherwise she wouldn’t be dead.”

Brook said, “Spandrel would have only picked another suckup. Maybe they’re finally turning on each other. They have no morals. They’re worse than Nazis. They’d turn on each other in a heartbeat.”

“You have evidence of this?” I asked. “They seem to pretty much stick together.”

So did the non-suckup faction, for that matter, but I adjusted my comments to my audience.

Jourdan said, “Not a one of them has ever broken ranks.”

Brook asked, “Do I have evidence they have no morals, or that they’d turn on each other? Once you’ve stabbed
someone in the back, what’s another one or two? What more logical step than to commit murder?”

“Maybe she crossed one of them,” Morgan said. “Maybe she was a traitor to them.”

“Again,” I said, “do we have any proof of that?”

No one did.

Jourdan said, “None of us would have done it. I mean, come on. Murder? Over this stuff?”

Brook used the old cliché, “Wars have been fought for less.”

“What’s going to happen tomorrow?” Luci asked. “It’s that stupid institute day. Maybe they’ll cancel it because of the death.”

Brook said, “These asshole administrators are never going to call off school.”

“What about Monday?” she asked. “I hope this is over by Monday. I’m not going to have to give up my planning period, am I? I have work to do.” This work during her planning time consisted mostly of making personal phone calls and surfing the Web, planning her next vacation, then erasing the evidence of her Internet searches. It would be like Luci to obsess about the part of an issue that affected her. Destruction of half the planet? Was it going to bother her schedule? If not, then it wasn’t a problem.

“Grief counselors,” Brook Burdock said. “The school is going to be lousy with them. I’ve never seen such hypocritical nonsense in my life.”