The Skeleton Haunts a House (19 page)

I
stared at the letter for a solid minute before the snickers started. A full-out laugh wasn't far behind. I knew anybody passing by would think I was insane, but I just couldn't stop myself. Okay, sure, Sid and I had dressed up as Scooby and Velma, but getting a note from “the Ninja” was over the top. The only thing that stopped my giggles was seeing a student outside my open door, so I tried to pull myself together to help him with his paper. Was it my fault if his essay comparing Hong Kong action films to American superhero movies mentioned the prevalence of ninja in both genres?

I headed home as soon as my student left, and went straight to Sid's room to show him the not-so-threatening letter.

“You weren't scared?” he asked.

“Of this? Sacrum, Sid, the only way this guy could have made it cornier is to have cut letters out of a newspaper to spell it out, ransom-note style.”

“Yeah, but it means that somebody knows you're asking questions about the disappearing ninja.”

“
The Disappearing Ninja
would make a great Hong Kong movie title.”

“Georgia, you're not taking this seriously,” he said, waggling a finger bone.

“Sid, do you really think a cold-blooded murderer would be silly enough to leave a note like this? This is like something the Creeper or the Ghost Clown would leave on the windshield of the Mystery Machine. My guess is that somebody thought it would be funny.”

“Who? Who knew you were looking for a ninja?”

“Okay, that's a good question.” The more I thought about it, the odder it seemed.

My family all knew, but I felt pretty safe in ruling them out. Hector might have thought I had an unhealthy interest, but since I'd done him a favor by getting him his ring back, he would have no reason to scare me.

Brownie knew, but I couldn't seeing him playing that kind of prank, especially when he was still feeling apologetic. Soda Pop? She wouldn't have known where my mailbox was. Brownie could have told his parents, and I could see Treasure Hunt playing the joke, but he'd have wanted to see my face when I found the note.

Who did that leave? For about five paranoid minutes, I worried that somebody might be following me and planting listening devices on my phone, spyware on my computer, and a tracer on my car. Common sense prevailed when I tried to imagine somebody who had the wherewithal to keep me under high-tech surveillance but would still send such a ludicrous note.

So who?

Sid and I speculated for a while, but came up with nothing. The evening passed, and I still didn't have a clue. When I went to bed, I lay awake for an hour, mentally going down
the list of everybody I'd discussed the ninja with. Finally, just as I was about to doze off, the answer came. Of course, I'd want to discuss it with Sid to see if my reasoning held, but I was confident enough to be able to go to sleep.

When my alarm went off, the first thing I saw was Sid sitting in a chair next to the bed. “What are you doing in here?”

“I've figured out who the ninja is!”

“Me, too.”

“Who?”

“You go first.”

“How do I know you won't just agree with whatever I say, and pretend you figured it out, too?”

“Sid! We're not in junior high school.”

“Then you go first.”

“Tell you what. I'll count to three, and on three, we both go.”

“Okay.”

I held up one finger. “One.” I added a second. “Two.” I put up the third, and we spoke. Then we grinned at each other. We really had come up with the same name.

Of course, knowing who the ninja was didn't mean we could prove it. It didn't even necessarily mean that the ninja was the killer, though I both hoped he was and hoped he wasn't. While I wanted to solve the case and get Linda out of jail, I liked the guy. But for safety, we were going to act as if he were a killer when we approached him. That took planning and involved both Deborah and my parents. And of course, Sid wasn't going to let anything happen without at least part of him in attendance.

At four thirty, after my afternoon class was over, we had all our pieces in place for me and Deborah to confront the ninja together. Sid's skull was in my bag so he could listen in, and he had a hand and his phone in there, too, so he could text for help if needed. For backup, Mom and Phil were
sitting at a table in the student center where they could watch the only available doors.

We'd discussed bringing in the cops, of course, but didn't feel as if we had enough information to go to them, and were afraid our explanation would be more suspicious than our suspicions. Besides, Mom was still angry at Louis for taking Linda out of her office, and wasn't inclined to throw him any crumbs.

“Ready?” I said to Deborah once we were all set. I'd been worried when I realized that the ninja was someone Deborah might be fond of, but whatever inner turmoil I'd caused her was deeply hidden.

“Just knock on the door already!”

I did so, and a minute later, heard Oscar say, “It's open.”

We walked in, and I imagine we didn't looked overly friendly, but he said, “Hey, Deborah, Georgia. What can I do for you?”

“I've got something I need to show you,” I already had the ninja note out, or rather a photocopy of it, so I handed it to him.

He looked at it, and without even taking the time to read it, asked, “Where did this come from?”

“I'm guessing it came from your printer.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come off it, Oscar,” Deborah said. “We know you're the ninja. What we don't know is why you killed Kendall Fitzroy.”

“What? No, I didn't kill anybody!” He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it a mess. “Please, sit down and let me explain.”

With our safeguards in place, we felt safe enough to do so, but both of us watched closely as he shut the door and went back behind his desk.

He took a deep breath. “Listen, I did not kill that girl. I only found out that she'd been killed after I left McHades.”

“But you were there that night?” I said. “In the ninja costume?”

“Yeah, I was. How did you find out?”

“That note. When I found it in my mailbox, I tried to figure out how ‘the Ninja' could have found out I was looking for him. The trail led back to you, from when I was talking to Hector about the ninja costume being in the lost-and-found.”

“I panicked,” he admitted, “and I wanted to scare you off.”

Deborah snorted. “You don't know my sister very well.” I was genuinely touched until she added, “She never knows when to give up. So tell us what happened that night.”

“Okay, here's the thing, after working with Deborah, I wanted to go to McHades, but I was worried about how it would look because of my job. I mean, if I went and got scared, I'd never live it down. So I picked a costume that would hide my face and nobody would know it was me. And I had a great time. You did a super job, Deborah.”

She gave him a look, clearly in no mood for compliments.

Oscar went on. “Anyway, I'd just come out into the courtyard when your security crew asked everybody to stay put. I didn't want to be found out, so I made a break for it.”

“Wait,” I said. “You knew it was a security issue, and you're a security officer, but you ran away anyway?”

“I didn't know why there was a lockdown,” he said. “It could have been nothing more than a missing pocketbook or a fight or—”

“Any of which I would expect you'd want to deal with.”

“Look, it was embarrassing for me to be there in costume, okay. And I had a previous engagement I had to get to. And—”

“Just stop. You're a horrible liar.” His pretexts were worse than mine, and that was saying something. “Just tell us why you ran away.”

He hung his head in defeat, and mumbled something, but I didn't understand him.

“Spit it out, Oscar,” Deborah said.

He pulled himself together and sat up straight. “I got so scared I wet myself. Okay? I was doing all right at first—maybe I jumped a time or two and got a little bothered by the rats—but I was fine until I got to the room with the heads. Then that guy with the chainsaw came at me. So yeah, I wet myself like a little kid. I didn't want anybody to know, because how can anybody on campus take me seriously when I get scared at a fake haunted house?”

“Seems to me that there's nothing to worry about as long as none of the students come after you with a chainsaw,” Deborah said.

“Deborah, that's not funny,” I said.

“Of course it's not funny. Nothing about this is funny. So what if Oscar had an accident? The chainsaw gag gets everybody. I peed myself the first time I saw it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I said it. I peed myself, and I was lucky that was all I did, if you know what I mean.”

“Then you— I mean you don't think—” Oscar said, clearly surprised that we weren't mocking him.

“I think you got scared at a haunted house, just like I did. That's what haunted houses are for. We go, we get scared, we come home safe again. And if we have an involuntary physical reaction, it doesn't make us cowards. Or do you think I'm a coward?”

“God, no, Deborah. I think you're—” He stopped himself just in time. “No, I don't think that.”

“Good. Right back at you. But I've got to ask this. Did you see anything at the haunt that night that would tell us who killed Kendall Fitzroy?”

“Absolutely not. When I found out what had happened, I tried to remember every detail, and there was nothing I
saw that would help the cops with their case. I never even saw Kendall or her friends. I did see Linda Zaharee, but that was earlier, so I can't tie her to the crime or clear her. I swear, if there were anything whatsoever I could add, I'd have come forward, wet pants or no wet pants.”

Deborah looked at me, and I nodded. I believed him, and could tell she did, too.

“So how did the ninja costume end up in lost-and-found?” I asked.

“The only thing on my mind when I left McHades was to get back here before anybody spotted me. I had a spare set of clothes in my desk, and had just finished getting cleaned up and changed when I got the call that the body had been found.

“That's when I realized the cops would be looking for the ninja, thinking he might be involved.”

“And they'd be the last ones you'd want to tell about your accident,” I said.

“You got that right. So I had to hide the costume pronto. The pants were plain black cloth, nothing to distinguish them, so I figured I was safe shoving them in a trashcan, but the flashy top and hood would be too noticeable. I couldn't leave them here because the other guys in the department use this office, and I didn't want to take the time to go all the way to my car because it was an emergency. I figured lost-and-found was my best shot. There's stuff in there that's been there for years—it never occurred to me that anybody would pick now to rummage around.” He sighed heavily. “I guess you're going to have to tell Sergeant Raymond about this.”

I said, “I don't see why we should. They're happy with their arrest, and if you're sure you don't have any information for them—”

“I'm sure.”

“Then what would be the point? Of course, they might find you on their own, but I doubt it. So we can keep this between us.” Well, and my parents and Sid, plus we'd have to tell Madison, but Oscar didn't need to know everything.

“I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.” The words were meant for us both, but he was looking at Deborah when he said them. Unless I missed my guess, as afraid as he'd been about the campus community and the police finding out about his accident, I think he'd been more worried about Deborah finding out.

I made some noises about it being time to go, and Deborah and I left before he could thank us any more. My parents weren't in sight when we left the office, but from the vibrations in my bag during the conversation with Oscar, I knew Sid had been keeping her and Phil apprised via text.

“Poor guy,” Sid said as I drove us back home. He was still in the bag, but we'd unzipped it so he could join in on the debrief. “He must have been so embarrassed!”

“Speaking of embarrassment, Deborah,” I said, “after all the teasing for me not going to your haunt, you never told me you peed yourself at a haunted house!”

“That's because it never happened.”

“You said—”

“I just said that to make Oscar feel better. He's a good guy, and hasn't got a thing to be ashamed of. It's not like he pushed his wife into the path of the chainsaw or abandoned his kids, which I've seen bigger men do.”

“That wouldn't keep you from dating him? Because you know he's interested in you.”

“I don't care about the chainsaw phobia, but if he wants to go out on a date, he's going to have to man up enough to ask me out.”

“Why don't you ask him?”

She just shrugged.

“Seems to me that Oscar isn't the only one who needs to man up,” Sid said.

Deborah's only response was to lean over and zip up the bag.

M
y parents were in a celebratory mood when we got home—they'd stopped on the way to pick up a bottle of wine and my father was getting steaks ready to grill. Once she heard how we'd uncovered the ninja, Madison joined in on the conviviality, though not the wine. Over dinner, Mom and Phil read Sid's tweets aloud to general hilarity, and toasts were drunk to our success. It was a lovely evening.

But Sid caught my eye more than once, and I knew what was on his mind. After Deborah went home and my parents and daughter went to handle dishes, homework, and television, I joined him in his attic.

“Are you going to tell them, or am I?” he said.

“No need. They'll figure it out.”

He nodded sadly.

What he and I had already realized was that with both the secret McQuaid heir and the ninja out of the picture, we were back at square one.

“Who do we have left to look at?” I asked.

“The people who were at the haunt during the pertinent time window. Plus the haunt crew. Which adds up to—”

“To more people than we'll ever be able to investigate.”

“We could get to them all eventually.”

“By which time Linda will be tried and convicted, Roxanne will have missed her shot at a doctorate, and I'll have retired and will have plenty of time to investigate.”

“Hey, I'm not getting any older.”

I sat and thought, trying to figure out what we'd missed. “We decided early on that Kendall Fitzroy wasn't the real target because we couldn't come up with a single reason why somebody would have killed her. Right?”

“Right.”

“But we're pretty sure she wasn't killed to get the haunt closed, because there are so many easier ways to do that. So that lets out the missing McQuaid heir. Right?”

“Right again.”

“It's not the ninja, and Louis eliminated our other random suspects.”

“Still right.”

“And we played with the idea of either Linda or Roxanne being the real target, but didn't find anything.”

“Georgia, if you're trying to cheer me up, you're going about it the wrong way.”

I ignored him. “So unless this was a random killing, which I don't believe, then somebody really did want Kendall Fitzroy dead. Does that make sense?”

“It makes sense to the police—that's how they got Linda.”

“They got Linda because somebody led them to her. Without the planted gloves, they'd never have thought twice about her. The fact is, they still haven't found the real reason Kendall was killed. Neither have we.”

“They would have looked at her family and boyfriend,
but I guess we could look at them ourselves. I can see what I can find online.” Sid didn't sound enthused.

“I doubt there's anything there. Maybe Louis hasn't handled a lot of murder investigations, but he's working with the state police and they've got plenty of experience. They'd have caught a whiff of any motive.”

“You talked to those adjuncts at Brandeis. Maybe you could network with more of Kendall's instructors.”

“I could, but I've got a better idea. Louis thinks that Linda held a grudge against Kendall dating back to high school. Do you suppose he's done anything to verify that?”

“Maybe not,” Sid said. “He's got the gloves, the e-mails, and the phone call. The details of the motive aren't as big a deal for him.”

“We, on the other hand, have nothing, so motive is high on our list. Let's find out if something really did happen in high school.”

He grinned. “Ms. Rad?”

“Ms. Rad.”

Ms. Marie Raduazzo, who went by Ms. Rad out of pity for her students and their parents, had been at Pennycross High School for over a decade, and had taught most of the students who'd graduated from there. I'd met her when she was Madison's freshman English teacher, and she'd been a coworker during my short stint as high school substitute. Not only was she a terrific teacher, but I had great faith in her powers of observation.

As soon as my classes were over the next day, I dropped by PHS, and was lucky enough to catch Ms. Rad in her classroom.

“Dr. Thackery!” she said when she saw me. A perpetually cheerful woman, despite a specialty in Holocaust literature, she was a couple of inches shorter than I was and had tightly curled black hair.

“I thought we'd graduated to Georgia.”

“That was when you were a fellow teacher. I have to be more formal with parents.” She grinned, which showed how seriously she took the rule, even if she was following it. “Since I don't have Madison in my class anymore, and she's doing great with Coach Q, what can I do for you?”

“I'd like to pick your brain about some former students.”

“That sounds intriguing.” She sat down behind her desk, and waved me to one of the student desks.

“I suppose you heard about what happened to Kendall Fitzroy.”

“Oh yes, I heard. Poor girl.”

“You may not know that my sister Deborah is in charge of McHades this year. She wants to write a note of condolence to the family, but has been having a difficult time since she never actually met Kendall. So she asked me to find out what she was like so the note would sound better.”

“I see.” Ms. Rad reached over and patted the stuffed lion on her desk. Lance the Lion was her personal mascot, and a fixture in her classroom. Madison said the teacher spoke to him during class, and I'd seen her pat him before when she was stalling. “Georgia, how long have you been teaching?”

“Um, full-time since Madison was a baby, but I taught while in grad school, too.”

“How long did it take for you to develop a sixth sense for knowing when a student is lying to you?”

I winced. Sid had told me my cover story was weak, but neither he nor I had been able to come up with anything better. “That was lame, wasn't it? Can I just say that I'm trying to find out more about Kendall and why she was murdered?”

“Now, that's honest. And given some of the events during your tenure here, I think I can safely assume you have reasons for working outside the official route.” Obviously Ms. Rad had figured out that I'd had ulterior motives for
spending so much time at PHS before. “What do you want to know about Kendall?”

“Then you're okay with my snooping?”

“If you hadn't snooped before, a murderer would have gone free. So ask your questions. If you ask something I'm not willing to answer, I'll let you know.”

“I don't have anything specific. I just want to know what Kendall was like.”

She pulled Lance into her lap, and patted him some more. “Kendall was a good student. She was always polite to me and as far as I know, to the other teachers. Not an original thinker, perhaps, and focused more on grades than on learning, but she was hardworking and meticulous. She also stayed active in extracurriculars—softball and choir and I think the Spanish club.”

“What about friends?”

“She was fairly popular. I don't recall her dating anybody seriously, but she had a couple of boyfriends. She did have three close friends she ran with.”

“Alexis Primo, Nadine Seger, and Vanessa Yount?”

Ms. Rad nodded. “They were very close, and in fact, the only instance when any of them had to be disciplined was for talking to one another in class. They spent so much time together that I had mixed feelings when they ended up at four different colleges. On one hand, they'd have a chance to learn and grow as individuals, but on the other, I was worried they'd be lonely. I read in the paper that they were all there the night Kendall was killed, so obviously they kept up the relationship, but that must have made it so much more devastating for the three survivors.”

I remembered the girls' faces when the police had brought them to Stuart Hall after the murder. “Devastated” was the right word.

Ms. Rad said, “That's really all I can tell you about Kendall.
A good student, popular in school, and I never had any problems with her.”

“What about Linda Zaharee? Did you teach her, too?”

“I did, and I would never have expected her to do something like this. Not that I expect any of my students to be murderers, but all teachers get those who go bad, and sometimes you're surprised and sometimes you're not. This time I was shocked.”

“My family knows Linda, and we're just not convinced that she's guilty. The police think she was jealous of Kendall and that led to the murder.”

“That's their idea of a motive? Has there ever been a high school student who wasn't jealous of somebody?”

“Verena Rose was the one I envied,” I admitted. “She was prettier, made better grades, and dated the boy I had a crush on, but she's still alive as far as I know.”

“Exactly. Now it's true that Linda was a troubled girl. Her grades were good, and she really did seem to enjoy literature, but she never seemed happy. She didn't have many friends, and I suspected she was a cutter.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I may have been wrong, but she showed the signs: too many Band-Aids, wearing long sleeves in warm weather, and so on. I spoke to the guidance office, they spoke to her parents, and they got her into treatment. I never heard anything else officially, but after a while, I stopped seeing Band-Aids.”

“But she was never violent toward other students?”

“No, never. I'm no expert, but self-injury sufferers usually turn their pain inward, not outward. As for Linda and Kendall having some sort of rivalry, they were in my English class together and I never saw any signs of problems between them. In fact, I don't remember them interacting at all. Linda was very self-contained.”

“What about any other students? Did anybody else show signs of disliking Kendall? Did she ever get into fights or feuds?”

“Not that I ever saw.” Then she started patting Lance, which meant she was either stalling again or thinking.

So I prompted, “But?”

“But Lance didn't like Kendall.”

I looked at the stuffed lion, almost expecting him to join in on the conversation.

“I know it sounds silly,” Ms. Rad said, “but there are some students that I have no particular reason to dislike or distrust, yet on a subconscious level, I find myself getting anxious when they touch Lance. Kendall was one of those students.” She shrugged. “I can't tell you anything more definite than that. Lance didn't like her.”

“What about Linda?”

“Oh, he liked Linda. In fact, on those days when I could tell Linda was particularly sad, I'd leave him with her during class. That's why this all seems so inexplicable. Does any of this help you?”

“I think it does.” Ms. Rad did have a way of figuring people out. If she'd thought something had been off about Kendall, then something probably was. “Thank you.”

“Any time. Stop by again when you get a chance, and let me know how it all turns out.”

“You bet. Just one other thing—”

“Lance likes you just fine, Georgia. And Madison as well.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said, reaching over to rub his fuzzy head.

As soon as I got home, I ran up to the attic to tell Sid.

“So the toy lion didn't like Kendall,” he said. “And you take this seriously?”

“How many friends have I dumped on the advice of an ambulatory skeleton?”

“Are you comparing me to a stuffed lion?”

“Nope. You're far better educated and intelligent and talented—”

“And I know when I'm being buttered up.”

“Perceptive, too.”

“What do you want?”

“If there's something nasty to be found about Kendall, there must be a sign of it, and since you said she was active on social media, there might be something there.”

“You want me to dig?”

“Like you've never dug before.”

“Then hold my calls and bring me a shovel.”