Touch-Me-Not (7 page)

C
HAPTER
11

Around 9:30 that same morning, Monday, the phone rang at the Watts’s house. Sarah figured it was that woman caller again, so she let it ring. Or maybe it was Roy. Well, he can wait. Wonder where he spent last night? On the fifth ring, before the answering machine kicked in, she set down her knitting and picked up the phone, ready to tell either her or him a thing or two.

“Well?” she answered.

“Mrs. Watts? This is Joanne, the secretary at the West Tisbury school.”

Sarah immediately readjusted her thinking. “The twins? Has something happened to the twins?”

“The boys are fine, but you need to come in right away. We tried to reach Mr. Watts, but he was out of the office and his office manager didn’t seem to know how to reach him. Shall we say twenty minutes or so?”

“Yes,” said Sarah. “Of course. What’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Watts. I can’t discuss it over the phone,” and Joanne disconnected.

Sarah dialed LeRoy’s office. The answering machine kicked in. “You’ve reached Watts Electrical. . . .” She slammed down the phone. Maureen must be away from the shop.

She went into the bedroom and changed quickly from her sweats to jeans and a long-sleeved blouse with an old-lady floral print. She dabbed on lip gloss, which she seldom used, ran a comb through her thick hair, curled tightly in the humidity. She tied it back with a black ribbon so she would look more serious, then decided to change out of her jeans and into black slacks. She tried calling LeRoy’s cell phone, got the robotic voice that told her to leave a message, asked LeRoy to call the school, and darted out the side door. She started up the Volkswagen and flew over the speed bumps toward Old County Road and the school.

What on earth had the boys done that would cause the school to demand to see her and LeRoy? And right away.

She parked, walked quickly to the office, and followed the secretary to the principal’s office. Mrs. Parkinson, the principal, stood up as Sarah entered.

“My boys?” Sarah blurted out. “Where are my boys?”

Casey and Howland went back into the station house after LeRoy left with Howland’s new computer.

“You wouldn’t find an off-Island electrician making sure stuff was done right like that,” said Casey.

Victoria looked thoughtful.

“Is something bothering you, Victoria?” Casey asked.

“LeRoy’s usually so tidy. This morning, he was disheveled and hadn’t even shaved.”

“I bet he’s been busy since he let Sparks go.” Casey moved papers off her desk. “Let’s check out the videos.”

Howland took the lanyard with the dangling metal piece from around his neck. “I downloaded the videos onto this and, without thinking, deleted them from Sparks’s computer.” He rubbed his nose. “Stupid of me. I know better.”

“Oh?” said Victoria. “You have the copy, don’t you?”

“If we ever apprehend the guy who made the videos, I’ve destroyed evidence that might be important. My copies will never hold up in court.” He turned away from the desk and paced the few steps to the window, and looked out at the pond. “I was too eager to delete the damned things.”

Casey moved away from her desk to give Howland room.

Howland sat in her chair and inserted the thumb drive into her computer, tapped keys, and the videos, complete with sound, popped up onto the screen.

The first was of a young woman taking a shower. She faced the camera, which was somewhere above her. Clearly unaware of being watched, she soaped herself and held her head up to the spray, eyes closed, hands cupping her breasts. She was singing.

The screen went blank for a second. Then there was a second scene of a different young woman. And then another scene and yet another.

“Enough!” said Casey. “I’ve seen enough. He’s got to be stopped.” She picked up the phone. “Sparks lives in Oak Bluffs. Since it’s out of my jurisdiction, I’ll have to call the OB police.”

“Why does LeRoy need to check Jerry Sparks’s personal computer?” asked Victoria. “You wouldn’t think Jerry would have business files on it.”

“He didn’t,” said Howland. “All personal stuff, including those videos. At least one good thing came of my deleting the files—Watts won’t have to view them.”

When LeRoy got back to his office with the computer, Maureen was on the phone. She glanced up as he pushed the back door open with his hip, holding the operating unit against his stomach. The computer still had the flower stickers that Maureen had attached in an attempt to make the machine look less formidable.

She finished her call and disconnected. “Isn’t that my old computer? I thought you gave it to Jerry Sparks.”

LeRoy grunted and set the operating unit on the floor.

Maureen studied him. “You look just awful, Mr. Watts. You haven’t even shaved. Go home and make yourself some hot lemonade with honey and get to bed.”

“I’ve got to check something out.”

“You worked much too hard last week, Mr. Watts. It’s going to catch up with you one of these days.” She straightened papers on her desk. “By the way, the school called while you were out. They want you to call back.”

“Thanks. I’ll take care of that later.”

“It sounded important, Mr. Watts.”

“Right,” said LeRoy.

He unplugged wires from his computer and attached them to the unit he’d borrowed from Howland, and booted it up.

“Can I help you with something, Mr. Watts?”

“No, that’s okay,” said LeRoy. “Why don’t you take off for lunch now. I’ll be around the office for the next couple of hours to take any calls.”

“It’s only eleven o’clock.”

“Take a couple of hours, then,” said LeRoy. “Go shopping or something.”

“If you’re sure?”

“Take your time,” said LeRoy.

“Don’t forget to call the school, Mr. Watts,” and with that, Maureen left.

He went through the files and menus on the computer that had belonged to Jerry Sparks, checked everything that Jerry could possibly have copied from his, LeRoy’s, computer, and found nothing. He went into the washroom and shaved, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and combed his hair. He was a different man.

Maureen returned a little after 12:30.

“No calls,” said LeRoy.

“Did you take care of Mrs. Trumbull’s outlet?”

“I looked at it. I’ll need to spend a couple of hours. It’s a wonder she didn’t have a fire. Old wiring.”

Maureen examined him. “You look better, Mr. Watts. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.” She turned before she got as far as the hot-water maker. “Did you call the school?”

“I will. Tea sounds good.” He checked the files once more. Nothing. Nothing at all. Sparks’s personal stuff, period. Sparks had lied to him. He’d bluffed. LeRoy felt a surge of relief. He’d panicked over nothing.

Maureen brought him a mug of strong tea with sugar, which he didn’t usually take, but he drank it anyway and his spirits lifted. He’d wasted time worrying about those damned videos, and he needn’t have.

“Almost forgot. Isn’t tomorrow your birthday?”

“Thank you for asking, Mr. Watts. Actually, it’s the day after tomorrow. My daughter and her husband and my two grandbabies are coming tomorrow. I was going to ask you if I might take two days off.”

“What a cad I am!” LeRoy smacked his hand on his forehead. “I should have remembered. Of course you can take off both days. Thursday, too.”

“Thank you, Mr. Watts, but I really should get those bills out no later than Thursday.”

“The bills can wait another day. Have a great birthday. Relax. We’ll see you on Friday, then.”

“Two full days of grandbabies is enough. I’ll be back on Thursday.”

“Well, if you’re sure. How old are the grandkids now?”

“One’s two and the other’s six months.”

“Time flies,” said LeRoy. He unplugged all the wires so he could return the unit to Howland Atherton, who must be wondering why he was so concerned about the computer.

Maureen laid some papers on his desk and smiled at him. “You look much better, Mr. Watts. Nothing like a cup of strong, hot tea.”

“You’re a gem, Maureen,” said LeRoy. “I appreciate all you do for me.” He waited until she’d gone back to her desk and was on the phone before he opened the top file drawer to take out the Taser.

The Taser didn’t seem to be in the top drawer. Had he put it in a lower drawer? He opened the second, then the third drawer. Not there. Not in the bottom drawer, where Jerry Sparks’s cell phone lay like a dead mouse. He felt the blood drain out of his face.

Maureen finished her call, set the phone down, and it rang immediately. “Watts Electrical Supply,” Maureen answered. “Just a moment, please.” She pushed the hold button and set the phone down. “It’s the school again, Mr. Watts.” She glanced over at him. “Oh my Lord, Mr. Watts! What’s happened? You look awful!” She put her hands up to her mouth.

LeRoy, wild-eyed and deathly pale, leaped up from his chair and dashed out the back door. The door slammed behind him.

Maureen followed him to the door. “Mr. Watts, the school has to see you right away! Mr. Watts . . .”

LeRoy scrambled into his van and tore out of the parking area.

What had he done with the damned Taser? Where had he put it? He had to find it, and now. Right now.

C
HAPTER
12

“Your boys are with a teaching aide in the faculty room, Mrs. Watts,” said Mrs. Parkinson. The principal was an imposing figure in a tailored gray suit and white silk shirt. Her silver hair was perfectly coifed and she wore pale pink lipstick and matching pink nail polish.

“I’ve called the police. Chief O’Neill should be here momentarily with Mrs. Trumbull. I wanted to speak to you and your husband privately.”

“The police!” Sarah gasped. “What happened?”

“Please, sit down,” said Mrs. Parkinson.

Sarah continued to stand. “Tell me what’s going on!”

Mrs. Parkinson, still standing, pointed to the chair in front of her desk. “I think you’d better sit down.”

Sarah slumped into the chair, not aware that she had done so. Mrs. Parkinson, too, sat.

“We wanted your husband to be here, but as you know, we were unable to reach him.”

Sarah sat on the edge of her chair. “What’s—”

Mrs. Parkinson held up her hand and Sarah sat back. “The boys came to school this morning with what they claimed was a toy gun. According to them, your husband’s office manager gave it to them.”

Sarah edged forward and put her forearms on Mrs. Parkinson’s desk, hands clasped. “Maureen knows we don’t allow the boys to play with toy guns. She knows that!”

Mrs. Parkinson held up her hand again. “Let me finish, please.” She waited for a few moments.

Sarah, feeling as though she herself were in fourth grade, moved her arms off the desk.

“At recess this morning, the twins were taking turns showing off this so-called toy gun, pointing it at other children and pretending it was a death ray.” Mrs. Parkinson folded her own hands on her desktop. “The teacher’s aide took the weapon away from them and brought it to me.”

Sarah gawked at the principal.

“The so-called gun is actually a Taser, a sophisticated police weapon.”

Sarah sat still.

“Do you know what a Taser is, Mrs. Watts?”

Sarah shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Mrs. Parkinson reached into her desk drawer and brought out a blocky weapon that looked like a cartoonist’s drawing of a ray gun. She set it down on her desk with a heavy metallic clunk.

“Do you have any idea where the boys might have obtained such a weapon?”

“N-no.” Sarah stared at the Taser.

“Or where your husband’s office manager might have obtained such a weapon?”

Sarah didn’t respond.

Mrs. Parkinson pressed a button on her phone, and when a voice said “Yes?” she asked that the Watts boys be brought to her office.

Zeke and Jared slunk in on either side of a teacher’s aide, a young man barely out of his teens with short, neatly combed brown hair.

“We weren’t shooting anyone!” Jared exclaimed as soon as he saw his mother.

“You won’t tell Daddy?” said Zeke.

“Sit down, boys,” said Mrs. Parkinson. She dismissed the aide with a nod and a “Thank you, Charles.” When the boys were seated, she said, “Why don’t you tell your mother and me how you got the weapon.”

The twins looked at each other.

“Where did you get that thing?” Sarah’s voice verged on hysteria. “Did Maureen give it to you?”

“Please, Mrs. Watts. Let the boys answer.” The principal turned to one of them. “You’re Zeke?”

“No, ma’am, I’m Jared.”

“Tell me from the beginning, Jared, when you went to your father’s shop and he wasn’t there but Maureen was.”

Jared nodded but looked down at his sneakers.

“Well?” asked Mrs. Parkinson.

“Maureen gave it to us to play with.”

“Look at me, Jared,” said Mrs. Parkinson. “Are you sure Maureen gave that gun to you? Think again. You must tell the truth.”

“My boys don’t lie,” said Sarah.

“Mrs. Watts!” warned Mrs. Parkinson. “Well, Jared?” When Jared still looked at the floor, she turned to Zeke. “Would you like to tell me exactly how you happened to have this gun, Zeke?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Zeke, so softly that even Sarah wasn’t sure she heard him.

“Speak up, please,” said Mrs. Parkinson. “Was the weapon in your father’s desk?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Where, then?”

“In the filing cabinet,” said Zeke.

Jared spoke up. “In the top drawer.”

“How did you find it?”

“We was—”

“Were,” said their mother.

Zeke glanced at his mother, then down at his feet. “We were looking for paper to draw on. Maureen keeps scrap paper in the file drawer.”

“And that’s when you saw the weapon?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jared. “We didn’t take it then.”

“We took it when Maureen went to the post office,” said Zeke.

“Where did you hide it then?” asked Mrs. Parkinson.

“In Zeke’s book bag,” said Jared.

“This was on Friday?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boys said together.

“And you brought the weapon to school this morning?”

The boys looked at each other and nodded.

“You know it’s serious to bring a weapon to school?”

“We thought it was a toy gun.”

“We don’t allow toy guns in school.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Parkinson’s phone buzzed. She picked it up and Sarah heard the school secretary say, “Mrs. Trumbull and Chief O’Neill are here, Mrs. Parkinson.”

“Send them in.”

When Sarah arrived home, feeling badly beaten up after her confrontation with the principal and the police, the phone was ringing. Her two boys dragged along behind her, heads down, hands in their pockets, scuffing their sneakers in the gravel path. She hurried to answer the phone, pointing at the mat just inside the door. “You two stand right there. Don’t move from that spot.”

The caller was her sister Jackie. “Sarah, I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. I’ve got to talk to you.” Jackie lived on the Edgartown–West Tisbury Road, not far from Victoria Trumbull.

“I can’t talk to you now, Jackie.”

Jackie’s voice rose. “This is really, really important. I’m coming over to see you.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Sarah plopped herself down at the kitchen table, the phone held to her ear. “The boys got into trouble at school. I’ve just come back from a lovely session with that dragon lady principal. This is not the time to pester me with one of your damned crises.”

“Sweetie, this is one hell of a lot more important than your nine-year-olds getting into mischief, I promise. I’ll be right over,” Jackie said, and hung up.

“Shit!” Sarah got up and slammed the phone at the wall cradle. It fell to the floor and a robotic voice told her that she hadn’t disconnected.

She glowered at the boys, standing exactly where she’d told them to stand, shifting from foot to foot.

“Go to your room!” She pointed to the stairs. “Homework! Not a sound from you until your father comes home. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jared.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” asked Zeke.

“You’d better hurry.”

There was a soft shuffling up the stairs. After a minute, the toilet flushed and their door shut.

On the floor, the robotic voice on the phone said, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up. . . .” Sarah started to kick that voice, thought better of it, picked up the receiver, and hung it up. What could Jackie have on her mind that was so important? Jackie, the alarmist. Her twice-married, twice-divorced younger sister. The glamour girl. How would
she
deal with two nine-year-olds who’d somehow acquired a serious police weapon and brandished it around the school yard?

Sarah cleaned up the breakfast dishes she’d left when the school called. She poured a cup of coffee, put it in the microwave, and was about to push the button that read
BEVERAGE
, when the door burst open and Jackie flew in, her golden hair attractively awry, her large blue eyes looking helplessly appealing. Sarah had seen it all before.

“Well?” Sarah pushed the microwave button.

“Look at this!” and Jackie flung down a small camera.

Sarah turned and glanced at the camera. She opened her eyes wide and stared at it. With a sick feeling, she knew what was coming. She turned back to Jackie. “What’s that supposed to be?”

“A video camera, sweetie.” Jackie folded her arms under her perfect breasts, covered modestly by a blue sweater that exactly matched her eyes.

Sarah sat. “So it’s a video camera. So what?”

Jackie slipped into another chair at the kitchen table, sitting across from her sister. “Mark found it.”

“Who’s Mark?”

“My new boyfriend. Don’t you remember meeting him?”

“Apparently not.”

Jackie sighed. “Well, he was in the john and saw this camera hidden in the heating duct. Aiming at the shower.”

Sarah looked away. Too much was happening. The boys and that gun. And just yesterday, Emily Cameron had given her those two DVDs, “WATTS 1” and “WATTS 2.” Jackie hadn’t appeared on either one, but then, the videos were dated two months ago. How many women had Roy filmed?

“Motion-activated,” Jackie continued. “It’s a remote sensor. Sends pictures to a receiver somewhere.”

The microwave beeped and Sarah got up to retrieve her coffee. She needed those few seconds to regain her composure. She returned to her seat. “Taking pictures of you showering? Why would anyone want to do that?”

“What do you mean?” Jackie sat up straight.

“Oh, come off it. Who put it there, Mark?”

“No, of course Mark didn’t put the camera there. He found it. He removed it.”

“Then who do you think
did
put it there?”

“I’m getting to that. I need a drink.”

Sarah pointed to the coffeepot. “Help yourself.”

“A drink, I said.”

“Are you kidding? It’s not even noon.”

Jackie strode over to the cabinet next to the sink, opened it, and brought out an almost full bottle of Scotch. She reached down two glasses from the cabinet above the counter and set one in front of Sarah and one at her place.

“Ice?” she asked.

“Don’t bother. You’re right. I guess I
can
use a drink after all. The boys . . .” She held her glass up and Jackie poured.

“What about the boys?”

“Never mind. It’s a long story. How do you think someone snuck a camera into your bathroom?”

“You want to guess?” Jackie took a large swallow and brushed her golden hair out of her eyes.

Sarah said nothing.

“Your ever-lovin’ husband, LeRoy Watts. That’s who put the spy camera in my bathroom.”

That was exactly what Sarah didn’t want to hear. She stood up and pushed her glass away. “What are you talking about?”

“Roy’s been spying on me.”

“You arrogant bitch!”

“He’s been trying to make out with me for a looong time, sweetie.” Jackie examined her nails, painted a metallic lavender. “Since he didn’t get anywhere, he’s getting his jollies long-distance.”

Sarah pointed to the door. “Get out.”

Jackie remained seated. “Don’t you want to know how I found out?”

“No. Get out. Leave!”

Jackie didn’t move. “Roy and his whacked-out assistant did some electrical work for me a month ago. That camera’s been there a month, Sarah. Your creepy husband has been salivating over me every night for a damn month. Taking my shower.”

“You . . .” Sarah knew Jackie was right. “How dare you accuse Roy!”

At that, Jackie laughed. “Striking a sensitive note, are we?” She lifted her glass and drank. “I don’t suppose Roy watches
you
in the shower, does he?”

Sarah collapsed back into her seat. What was she going to do? Confront Roy the minute he came home? What?

“He was installing an extra outlet in the hall outside my upstairs bathroom. Actually, they were.”

“Roy and Jerry? Why two people?”

“How should I know? Ask them. I wasn’t even home.”

Sarah pulled her glass toward her. Her face had regained some color.

“Frankly, Sarah, I never trusted that bastard husband of yours.”

Sarah ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “You’re so prejudiced against Roy, you haven’t even considered Jerry.
He’s
the creep.”

“Ha!” said Jackie.