Schooled In Lies (14 page)

I could feel myself starting to panic. I was desperate, hot, scared, and highly annoyed. I finally realized there was no place to go but up. I managed to lift my arms, scraping them against the side of the garage in the process, and pushed with all my might against the window in front of me. It opened swinging inward and I almost cried with relief. I calculated that there should be just enough room for me to fit through the window. I unbuttoned and unzipped my skirt in the front, quickly wriggling out of it, braced my palms on the windowsill, hoisted myself up, and slid through the window leaving my skirt behind. I landed on the hard, dirty floor of the garage. I quickly got up, dusted myself off, and reached out of the window to grab my skirt. But with me no longer it, the skirt had come loose from the fence and fallen to the ground. To my supreme horror, I watched the dog run, with my skirt hanging from her jaws, back under the bush to her puppies. Damn!

I groped around the semi-dark garage until I found a light switch and flipped it, filling the garage with dim lighting. It smelled like motor oil and bug spray. Besides the car, which I could now see was actually dark brown, there was a lawn mower, hedge clippers, a rake, and a shovel arranged neatly along one wall. There was a small table in one corner that had two large boxes sitting on top of it. I got excited hoping there would be some pants or shorts I could put on. I tore the lid off one box and rummaged around inside. It was filled with old books. A fat black spider scuttled up my arm and I shrieked and slapped at my arm knocking the box off the table in the process. I picked up the books, briefly glancing inside an old copy of Alice in Wonderland and saw it had the name Alice Rivers written inside. The second box held what looked to be junk including vacation pictures of Ms. Flack as a skinny teenaged girl with her family. It looked like they were in Hawaii. There was also a dried out coconut, a dusty lei, and something brown and bushy at the bottom of the box. At first, I thought it was a dead rat and jumped back. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was an old matted grass skirt.

I scoured the entire garage but could find nothing to wear, not even an old sheet or a tablecloth. I realized that even if I’d found some clothing, Ms. Flack was a size six and I was a size twelve on a good day. The only way I’d be able to wear anything of hers was if I wrapped it around my head. There was only one thing to left to do. After shaking it out to make sure there were no spiders nesting in it, I reluctantly wrapped the dried out grass skirt around me. It was actually too big and almost wrapped around me twice. I quickly left the garage through the side door. I grabbed my purse and sprinted towards my car. Predictably, the dog came chasing after me. I ran and almost made it. But the dog jumped up and ripped a large piece of the grass skirt from my backside, it’s sharp little teeth grazing my right butt cheek. I angrily ripped off the skirt and beat the dog back with it before jumping in my car and taking off.

After going home, showering, and changing, not to mention enduring the pointing, stares, and laughter of some neighborhood kids out riding their bikes upon seeing me in my pink cotton undies with the red hearts, I headed over to the high school to confront Ms. Flack. Summer school was out for the day, but I knew she always stayed at least an hour past dismissal time. I wasn’t wrong. Her office door was open and since Mavis looked to be gone for the day, I walked right in.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” I tossed the package of press-on nails on her desk. Her eyes got big but when she looked up at me her expression was infuriatingly neutral.

“And don’t try to deny it because I found these in your trash can. You’re the one behind all the accidents we’ve all been having, and the threatening messages, too. I’d just like to know why?” I continued before she could protest.

“I’m not sure what’s gotten into you. Maybe you need to go home and lie down. You don’t look well.” She shook her head slowly and looked at me like I was someone to be pitied.

“You’re right. I’m not feeling too good. I just found out someone I’ve known and trusted since high school, someone I respected, has been playing some kind of sick game.”

“I don’t have time for your issues. I’m going home.” She pulled her purse from her desk drawer and stood up abruptly then marched past me out of her office. I was right on her heels.

“What is it you want us to pay for? What did any of us ever do to you?” I persisted as I trailed her down the hall. She turned and gave me a dirty look. It wasn’t until we’d gotten to her car that she turned to address me.

“Look, I don’t know what your problem is. I have no idea what you’re talking about and if you keep harassing me like this on my job, I’m getting a restraining order.” She opened her car door.

“Do you have a restraining order against Calvin Lee Vermillion, too?” I asked. She froze and then turned to stare at me. Her expression had changed from angry indignation to one of sheer terror. She looked around quickly like she was afraid someone would overhear what she was about to say.

“Get in,” she commanded, jerking her head towards her car before hopping in herself. I got in on the passenger side. Ms. Flack had her head buried in the steering wheel. When she finally looked up, she had tears in her eyes.

She sighed and her shoulders sagged. “He’s someone I knew a long time ago. Someone I wish to God I could forget.” She looked at me pitifully.

I nodded urging her to continue.

“It was thirty years ago when I was fifteen. My family and I lived over in Urbana. I was a typical teenager. Whatever my parents wanted me to do, I wanted to do the exact opposite. I started seeing Calvin Lee just to piss off my parents. He was twenty-five and I thought he was cool. My parents forbid me to see him. But I would sneak out of the house at night and hang out with him and his friends. I knew Calvin Lee and his friends hated black people but I never really thought about the wrong of their beliefs. I was only fifteen. I was just happy he liked me. God! I was so stupid.” She buried her face in her hands.

“Go on,” I prodded gently. She looked up and gave me a tearful nod.

“Calvin Lee was a white supremacist. He and his friend’s called themselves the Righteous Whites. One night I was hanging out with them. We’d been drinking heavily. Calvin Lee was driving and he rear-ended another car. The owner got out to inspect the damage to his car. When Calvin Lee and his friends saw that the man was black, they got out and beat that poor man to death. Kicked him until they caved his head in. I saw the whole thing. I still have nightmares about it.” She broke off, unable to continue.

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with you stalking the reunion committee,” I said in exasperation.

“That night Calvin Lee told me if I ever told anyone what he’d done, he’d kill me. And I didn’t tell. But what we didn’t know at the time was that a woman was on the road walking her dog that night. She saw Calvin Lee’s car and got a good look at us. The police tracked me down and told me if I didn’t testify against Calvin Lee and his friends, I’d go to prison, too. So, of course, I testified. Calvin Lee got thirty years to life. I’ll never forget the look on his face when they led him out of the courtroom. He started screaming that he’d kill me if it was the last thing he ever did.”

“And now he’s getting out?” I asked, though I already knew.

“I got a letter from the Ohio board of corrections about a month ago informing me that Calvin Lee was being released on parole. I’ve been married and widowed since I last saw Calvin Lee. He knew me as Alice Rivers. After I married my late husband Stewart, I started going by my middle name, Ivy. But I’m sure it won’t take him long to find out that Alice Ivy Rivers is now Ivy Flack. I had to get away from here but I was afraid he’d find me. That’s when I got the idea to fake my own death.”

My mouth must have fallen open because she quickly continued before I could interrupt her.

“I caused the accidents and sent the messages so everyone would think someone was stalking us. The accidents would then culminate in my death—”

“How?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity any longer.

“I was planning to sabotage one of the paddle boats at Lake Mead and fake my own drowning at the reunion picnic. You know how deep that lake is. People have drowned and their bodies have never been found. I needed to have witnesses, which is why I involved the reunion committee. Then I was going to go to Mexico to start a new life where Calvin Lee would never find me.”

“So, you’re the one who took the reunion fund money? So, you could force the committee to have a picnic at the lake instead of a catered dinner?”

“No, I swear I didn’t take the money. But I’ve known it was gone for almost a year. And, yes, I was going to use the missing money as an excuse to have the reunion picnic at Lake Mead.”

“You could have killed one of us,” I said angrily.

“That was never my intention. I was the one who yelled for you to get out of the way when I pushed the planter from the roof. I only injected a little alcohol into Audrey’s Diet Coke can. I fixed Dennis’s vacuum so it would just short out and give him a small shock. I set fire to Gerald’s kitchen curtains because I could see he had a smoke alarm in that room, and I never planned to actually hit Cherisse. I really wasn’t going that fast. I thought I was giving her enough time to get out of the way. I didn’t realize she’d freeze up like that.”

“That’s the problem. Despite your intentions, people did get hurt. Audrey was in the hospital for two days. Dennis sprained his wrist and bumped his head. Gerald was asleep on his couch when you started that fire. What if he’d been overcome by smoke before he woke up? And, if I hadn’t been there to push her out of the way, you would have run Cherisse down like a chipmunk in the road.” My voice got louder and more irate with each sentence because the blank, clueless expression on Ms. Flack’s face told me that she truly didn’t understand what she’d done wrong.

“What are you going to do?” she asked in a terse whisper.

“I’m not going to do anything. You’re going to the police and tell them what you did, and if you don’t, I will.”

“Why?” she exclaimed. “No one was killed. What would it accomplish for me to go to the police? I’ll stop. I swear. No more accidents and no more messages. Please, I’m begging you not to tell on me. Calvin Lee will be out soon. I’ll be arrested and what I did will be all over the papers around here. He’ll know where I am and he’ll wait until I make bail and then kill me just like he killed that man thirty years ago.” She started sobbing and I could feel myself start to waver.

She did have a point, sort of. Luckily, no one on the reunion committee was killed or hurt too badly. If this Vermillion guy was truly looking to kill her for testifying against him, then could I really blame her for resorting to extreme measures to try and get away from him, given that she’d already witnessed him brutally murder someone?

“How do you know he’s still looking for revenge? It’s been thirty years. People can change after all that time,” I reasoned. She shook her head so vigorously I thought her earrings might fall out.

“Not Calvin Lee! He’s the most hateful man I’ve ever known. A while ago someone did a documentary about him and the other Righteous Whites and he blamed everyone for him being in prison but himself. He even blamed his victim. He never said my name, but he swore if he ever got out he’d make the bitch who testified against him pay!” I looked at her red tear stained face and let out a breath.

“Okay. I won’t tell the police. But this little plan to fake your death is over. If you want to disappear, then you need to do it without involving anybody else. And if Harmon and Mercer figure out you were the one behind all this, don’t you dare mention my name and that I knew what you were up to, got it?”

“Oh, yes, I got it. Thank you. Thank you.” I’m sure the sigh of relief she let out could be heard in the next county. She pulled out a silver compact with her initials engraved on it and started checking her makeup and fixing her runny mascara.

“That’s a beautiful compact,” I commented.

“Thanks. My husband gave it to me,” she replied absently.

I continued to stare at her. Looking at the polished, put-together woman sitting next to me, I’d have never guessed that she had something so horrible in her past.

“Please don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking.” She snapped the compact shut and tossed it into her purse. “We all have secrets. It’s just some of us know how to hide them better than others.”

“So, what are you going to do now?” I asked cautiously, ignoring that last comment.

She looked startled and slightly shocked like the answer to that question should be obvious. “I’m getting the hell out of here,” she said, in such a chillingly calm voice that the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Chapter Ten