2 Death Makes the Cut (25 page)

“I’d bet on it.”

She shook her head. “It’s outrageous. I’m writing to the school district to complain.”

“Well, it’ll all be over tomorrow. We’ll know by then whether Roland becomes a star or a stinker.”

“We already know that,” she said.

*   *   *

At home I fed Belle and let her into the backyard, then took my tool kit and sat at my kitchen table with the clock. I tried everything. Screwdrivers, paper clips, hairpins, a pencil, a fingernail file, a nail, and finally the business end of a skewer. I thought about taking a hammer to it, but it was so pretty and it had belonged to Fred and now belonged to his widow. Destroying it would be wrong. In fact, just having taken it seemed a bit wrong, but I knew that Fred had meant for me to know where it was, even if he hadn’t had a chance to tell me about it before he died. I considered my options, but didn’t see any way around it. At last, I pulled out my cell phone and selected Colin’s number from the list.

We hadn’t spoken since the disastrous meeting with Alan. Of course, that had only been a day and half ago, but he’d said he’d call, and he hadn’t. Not yet anyway. Maybe not ever. Who knew? But this was possibly police business, which made it Colin’s business. I just had to make sure I handled it in such a way that it stayed my business as well.

I pushed the Call button. It rang four times, and I was deciding whether to leave a message or just hang up, when I heard his voice.

“Hi,” he said, a wary note in his voice.

“Hi,” I answered, trying to judge what his tone meant. In the background, I could hear restaurant noises, the clink of flatware on plates, the sound of voices and music. “Is this a good time?”

“For what?” he asked with a certain lack of warmth.

“Do you still have my key?” I asked.

“I’ve already told you, it’s evidence. You can’t have it back.” Now his tone was dismissive, even impatient. “You could always make a written request for return. During office hours,” he added.

I ground my teeth together but said nothing. The longer I waited, the more petty his words sounded. At last, I heard him sigh, and shift the phone.

He said more quietly, “Look, I don’t have it on me, but I could get it if necessary. Why do you want to know? And why now?”

“Because,” I said deliberately, “I now know where you can stick it.”

There was a long pause. Finally, he asked, “Do you mean that in the literal or metaphorical sense?”

“Literal, although I’m happy to transition to metaphorical if you make me fill out a written request.”

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Bring the key,” I reminded him.

Colin arrived about an hour later, by which time I was pacing up and down and cursing him under my breath. I jerked the door open before his finger left the bell and pulled him inside. Belle waddled out and yapped at him a couple of times, then returned to her blanket on the couch.

He looked around the room, eyes narrowed. “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked, managing to inject an impressive amount of scorn into the last word.

“Gone back to Dallas,” I answered.

He looked pleased. “He seemed like kind of a wuss. You dump him?”

“What? No! He has a job and he had to go home. He lives there.”

The smug look faded. “Your call,” he said with a shrug.

“Yeah. Did you bring the key?”

He nodded, then scanned the room. “So what does it unlock?”

I’d hidden the clock. Not that I didn’t trust him, but … no, that wasn’t true. I didn’t trust him. I had visions of him taking the clock and leaving and my being unable to stop him.

“You said if I found what it went to, I could see what was inside,” I reminded him.

“Yes,” he agreed warily. “I said we’d open it together.”

“And whatever is inside is mine. Meant for me.”

Frowning, he again nodded slowly. “Okay. To a point, anyway. But I still have to consider it evidence in the case. I’ll have to take it with me.”

“Not before I get to look at it. And I mean really look at it.”

“You don’t even know what it is,” he protested.

“I think I do,” I said thoughtfully. “If I’m right, it might be the reason Fred was killed.”

He looked at me sharply, his blue eyes suddenly intense. “What do you know?”

“I don’t
know
anything,” I said. “I’ve only got suspicions. But I think Fred knew, and the proof might be in the clock.”

“Clock? What do you mean, clock?”

I pressed my lips together.

He shook his head in exasperation. “You know, we’re on the same side here,” he pointed out.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Fine, we’ll look at it together.”

I looked at him with narrowed eyes.

He threw up his hands. “Really! I said we will look at it together. What, do you want me to pinkie-swear?”

“Fine,” I said at last. Anyway, it wasn’t like I had much choice now that he was here.

I removed the clock from its hiding place behind the flour canister in my pantry and set it on the kitchen table. Colin picked it up, turning it over in his hands, reading the inscription on the back, then he produced the key from his pocket.

I frowned.

“That key’s not even in an evidence envelope,” I pointed out. “You’ve had it with you this whole time.”

He had the grace to look embarrassed, but only slightly. “I might not have had a chance to enter it into evidence. Yet.”

“Uh-huh. You would have been up a creek if I’d actually filled out that request form.”

“It seemed a remote possibility at best,” he said, then shot me a quick grin.

My heart did a little flip, and I felt a warm glow creep into my cheeks. I looked away quickly. Annoying or not, he was far too attractive for my peace of mind.

“Gimme,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Why are you the one who gets to open it?” he asked, holding the key just out of reach.

“Because I’m the brilliant detective who found it,” I answered.

He tilted his head to one side. “Where did you find it, anyway?”

I told him.

He nodded, but then said with a grin, “So your brilliant detective move was to sit on your butt in a quiet room?”

“You didn’t think of it,” I pointed out.

“True. And it worked for you. Definitely brilliant.”

I tried to stare coldly, but I couldn’t help grinning a little, too. “You’re not giving me credit for discovering Pat Carver rooting through the same desk.”

“Yeah, actually that was pretty good. I’ll run a background check on her, see if we can turn up anything. You said she was the school accountant?”

“Exactly. Evil overlord of all the money.”

He snorted. “How much money can there be in a school? You guys are more strapped for cash than the police department. I bet every penny is already allocated for salaries and so on.”

“Sure, the state funds. But you’re not considering the private money. I’m talking thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars,” I said. “Think about the clubs, teams, and graduating classes, all spending every spare moment raising money for trips, for prom, for competitions. There are dozens of organizations at school, and every one of them is required to have an account managed by the school accounting office.”

He gave a low whistle and a little nod. “Okay, Nancy Drew, open the damn clock. The suspense is killing me.”

The key fit, the tumblers tumbled, and the drawer opened. We held our breath, our faces almost touching as we bent over the tiny drawer. With trembling fingers, I pulled out a folded square of white paper and, meeting Colin’s eye with an eager glance, I opened it.

I’ve never been so let down in my life. Opened, the square revealed itself to be three pieces of paper. The smallest, a receipt for three new coolers, the second a requisition for new nets, and the third, an accounting spreadsheet with numbers in about twelve different columns.

We looked at it a long time, and finally Colin straightened, ran a hand through his wavy hair, and turned to me. “Is this what you expected?”

“No. I thought it was going to be a note accusing Pat of embezzling.”

“So, do these receipts mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.”

Or did they? I reconsidered, then tapped the top slip. “Pat said she was looking for this. The thing is we don’t have any new water coolers.”

He picked it up. “This is for a grand total of one hundred and fifty dollars. Nice, big coolers, I’d assume, but not much of a motive.”

Of course he was right. It was ridiculous. And yet, something was bothering me about it. I finally reached out for the purchase requisition for the nets. “This isn’t Fred’s handwriting, and I can’t read the signature.”

“Is he the only person who could ask for new nets? Isn’t that something the booster club might have bought for him?”

“Technically, yes. Booster clubs can and do purchase new equipment and supplies all the time. But in this case … well, the school should buy new nets. That’s considered part of the facilities, just like having goal posts on the football field. And this requisition doesn’t look like it’s for booster club funds anyway. It’s a school form.”

“Again, I’m not sure I see what the problem is.”

“I don’t either,” I admitted. “But it’s odd. And besides if there’s nothing wrong, why would Fred hide it at all?”

“Look, I’ll take all this stuff with me and get one of the guys who knows about financial crimes to go over it. Maybe he’ll see what we’re missing.”

That made sense, although I was reluctant to lose possession of the clock and the papers. If only Fred had been able to tell me what it was all about. I was somehow not clever enough to see what had apparently been clear to him.

Feeling let down, I followed Colin to the door. He turned abruptly, and I had to stop and sidestep to avoid running into him. I found myself inches from his broad chest, looking up into blue eyes. He raised his free hand as though to touch me, then let it drop.

“I like things out in the open, where I can see them even if I don’t like them,” he said, his West Texas accent becoming more pronounced. “And right now, I think I’m seeing something I don’t much like.”

I felt the heat rise in my cheeks, but I met his eyes squarely and said nothing, not sure what he was getting at.

He gazed back, searching my face, his expression unreadable. “The thing is,” he said finally, “it looks like you have a boyfriend, but I can’t tell for sure. I can’t tell if I should walk away while I still can.”

A sudden pressure filled my chest, a mixture of longing and pain. I thought of Alan and our last words before he’d driven away, nothing resolved. He hadn’t called since that day, and I hadn’t called him. There had been a few moments when we’d laughed, but the meeting had ended so awkwardly. I knew he’d felt it, too, and that he’d wondered about Colin, about how things stood between Colin and me. Worst of all, I’d wondered, too.

“Two months ago, I would have been able to tell you that. Now…” I swallowed hard to push back the lump in my throat. “I’ll have to let you know when I know.”

A muscle worked in his cheek, then he gave a curt nod. “I guess that will have to do.”

Chapter 17

FRIENDS AND FAREWELLS

I did not sleep well that night. I tossed for so long that Belle, who normally slept at the foot of the bed, gave me a watery, reproachful look and took herself off to the sofa, small shoulders hunched with resignation. When the eastern sky finally lightened into a pearly gray and a single mockingbird began its trill in the oaks, I gave up. I rose, took a hot shower, and got myself dressed, feeling exhausted and headachy. The circles under my eyes were almost as dark as the fading bruises at my temple, giving me the countenance of a raccoon who’d spent a hard night on the tiles. My biggest worry was that my students would think I was hung over, which was completely unfair. Looking and feeling this bad should at least be the result of something more fun and exciting than stewing by myself. Briefly, I considered calling in sick, but I had too much to do. I hadn’t graded anything the previous evening, and another day off would put me even further behind.

I arrived at school even earlier than usual. Parking by the tennis courts, I cut through Building A to reach the courtyard and then the academic building. Halfway down the darkened hallway that ran between the theater and the gymnasium, I skidded into something wet and slick, my arms flailing wildly to regain my balance.

What the hell, I thought, startled and outraged. What idiot would spill water all over a floor without bothering to clean it up? The fluorescent lights overhead had not yet been turned on and the only illumination came from the faint morning light streaming in through narrow windows above and beside the big double doors. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, I could see that this wasn’t the result of an overturned cup or a dropped can of soda. A shallow pool had spread across much of the hall and appeared to be growing. Stepping gingerly, I traced it back to its source and saw a slow steady flow coming from the girls’ bathroom.

I groaned. The Bonham bathrooms strike again. Every month or so, at least one toilet overflowed, sometimes helped along by idiocy (flushing something patently unflushable) or intent (flushing a cherry bomb). The janitors could amaze and disgust with their tales of the items they regularly found jammed inside the school toilets.

I looked around, trying to decide what to do. Finding the janitors was the best option, but it was unlikely they were here yet. A large part of me wanted to avert my eyes and scamper on to my classroom as quickly as I could. “Oh my goodness,” I could picture myself saying, “I must have walked right by without noticing.” But the next person might fall and really hurt themselves. I would have to do the responsible thing, I thought with reluctance, which meant going into the bathroom and attempting to shut off the water before the lake on the floor grew any larger.

Stepping gingerly through the puddle, trying not to splash it on my clothes, I pushed open the door. The sickly white fluorescent lights flickered and hummed overhead. Inside, I could hear the sound of softly trickling water more clearly. I set my purse in the relative safety of a sink, then waded forward, checking each stall for the source.