“Mutatis mutandis, a change for the better. May I presume my secret is safe with you. Evelyn?” There was a pause during which I prayed for a brief reiteration of said secret. There wasn’t. “Ah, halls swell with the undeodorized.”
good, I knew I could trust you. We’d better retreat before the A door closed. I rubbed my ear as I tried to make sense of the tidbits I’d heard. I did understand why Pius eavesdropped; the conversations were entertaining and provocative, if not lucid. All I had to do was determine the meaning and what bearing, if any, these secrets had on two cases of murder. A transcript and an accusation about a library. Was either worthy of murder?
The bell jangled. I realized it was time for the first period and made my way through the outer room. I opened the door-and crashed into Sherwood Timmons.
“My goodness,” he said, tugging at his goatee, “what have we here? Have I caught you
“You have caught me in the hall-and on my way to meet my first-period class. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Sherwood, I must-”
“I fear I must insist you explain your presence in Mr. Pitts’s closet. Were you seeking clues, or listening to your elders through a convenient hole in the wall?”
“Don’t be absurd. I simply wanted to take a look around, to see if the police overlooked anything of importance.”
“Overlooked-or overheard?” He moved forward until I could smell the wintergreen of his breath. “I had thought better of you, held you in the highest esteem, idolized your famed deductive prowess. Now I wonder if my Athena is but a mortal, as flawed as the rest of us.”
“I am indeed flawed, but my vices do not include tardiness. It’s first period, Sherwood, and I must meet my class.”
“We shall meet again,” he said, bowing slightly.
He stepped back and I hurried away, as pink as a small child caught in the vicinity of a forbidden cookie jar. A misdemeanor, but still embarrassing. I survived the first two classes by debating whether to tell Peter what I’d heard-or overheard, anyway. It was moot. On the one hand, he would be gratified that I cooperated, for once. On the other, he would not be gratified that I was still investigating. In mystery novels, the amateur sleuths are not hindered as they sniff around for clues and analyze casual remarks for Freudian slips. The police share all the evidence and are unflaggingly grateful for what assistance they receive.
I concluded that Peter needed to read more fiction, after which I might consider cooperating with him.
The second-period class wandered away, and I went to the lounge to ponder the puzzle. I was pondering away when Evelyn came in.
“What a nightmare,” she said once we were settled cozily over coffee. “Especially for you, since you found the body. Why were you in the building yesterday afternoon, Claire? Did you really come back for the yearbook layouts?”
The speed with which gossip spread through the school was astounding, but I was beginning to get used to it. I told her about riffling the files for Mrs. Platchett’s and Mae Bagby’s addresses, and the reason for doing so. And the subsequent failure to find Miss Parchester at either residence. I did not tell her that I had also stained my jeans with peach juice, and allowed Peter to prove his manhood with a hammer.
“Poor Emily,” she sighed. “She is so unpredictable, and I hope she doesn’t do anything rash in the name of freedom of the press. It’s her guiding force in life; she’ll defend it to the death, murmuring about the Judge all the while.”
“To the death?”
“No, that was hyperbole. But she is devoted to the cause, which resulted in a lot of rumbling about the
“Do you think this Miss Demeanor nonsense has anything to do with the murders? Most of it was drivel, but the business about the Xanadu Motel was different.” I chewed on my lip, trying to recall a snippet of conversation that seemed as if it might have meant something. It remained steadfastly out of reach, like a mosquito bite in the middle of one’s back.
Evelyn was staring at the wall. “it doesn’t have anything to do with what’s happened in the last week, Claire. I can’t explain, but it really is irrelevant.”
“Why can’t you explain?”
“It was just a tacky little attempt on someone s part to stir up trouble,” she said. “Once the newspaper was halted, so was the smear campaign. There’s no point in worrying about it now.”
I chewed off the rest of my lipstick, then said, “It was blackmail, wasn’t it? You’ve got to tell me what it meant, Evelyn. It could be important, and I must know who was blackmailing whom-and why.” When she shook her head and looked away, I took the obvious shot. “Do you and Sherwood visit the Xanadu on a regular basis?”
“I’m single, and so is he. We both live alone, so we would hardly pay for a sleazy motel room for an afternoon romp, would we? And even if we did, it wouldn’t be much of a crime. A scandal, perhaps, but not a very big one in this day.”
“Then who?” I demanded, forcing myself not to grab her by the shoulders and shake it out of her. I liked her, although her recalcitrance was straining the friendship. Caron evokes the same emotion in me.
“I can’t tell you. You’ll have to trust me when I say that it has no connection to Weiss’s murder, it would make no sense whatsoever, and letting the gossip spread is unconscionable.”
I let it go for the moment, although I wasn’t prepared to accept her word. “Then let me ask you something else. What did you think about Weiss’s comment in the teachers’ meeting about Jerry’s transcript? Is it possible that he falsified it, that he didn’t really graduate and doesn’t have a degree?”
“I don’t see how,” Evelyn said. “He has to have state certification to be employed as a coach and teacher, and the district office keeps the necessary forms on file. The state board of teacher certification grinds exceedingly slowly, but it does grind and cannot be avoided. I just thought Weiss was needling our golden boy, most likely out of petty jealousy.”
“He did needle him well. I’d like to get a peek at the personnel files, though. There has to be something peculiar about Jerry’s transcripts; he stormed out of the meeting and said some harsh things about Weiss afterward.”
“Did he?” She studied me as if I had admitted poisoning the city water supply, then went into the ladies room and locked the door.
The bell rang (it was beginning to regulate my life) and the other faculty members appeared shortly for what proved to be a very restrained lunch period. Mrs. Platchett and Miss Bagby both gave me inquiring looks. I shrugged and shook my head to the unspoken questions. Ignoring me, Jerry sulked his way through a sandwich and left, despite Paula’s unhappy sighs. Sherwood winked, but I managed to avoid an unseemly reaction; he did possess a key and I a healthy curiosity about the personnel files. Not to mention the journalism books, which I’d almost forgotten.
I retreated to the journalism room for fourth period. When Caron sauntered in, I tossed the roster to Bambi and beckoned for Caron to join me in the darkroom.
“Can you go to Miss Parchester’s neighborhood after school?” I asked her. “I doubt she’ll show up, but I don’t want her to fall into the sticky arms of the law if she does.”
“I wasted an entire afternoon there yesterday, Mother. it was Utterly Boring, and I see no point in putting myself through that ordeal again. Besides, Inez and I have to work on the Homecoming float.”
“What Homecoming float? Is there to be a parade?”
“I was not referring to coke and ice cream,” she sniffed. “The parade is Friday afternoon at three o’clock, and each class has to enter a float. The freshman entry is ‘Broast the Bantams.’ It’s dumb, but no one could come up with anything remotely clever. We’re working on it, stuffing crepe paper in chicken wire and that sort of thing, in Rhonda Maguire’s garage.
“A float is not as important as Miss Parchester,” I began in a sternly maternal voice. I realized that Caron was about to insist that it certainly was, if not a good deal more so. “All right, go work on the float. But if Miss Parchester is arrested for murder, you will not be writing the Miss Demeanor column next week. Or next year, or eons down the road when you’re a senior. Keep that in mind while you’re ankle-deep in crepe paper.
I left her to mull over her thwarted career and sat down at the desk to mull over my thwarted scheme. And my next move. Bambi McQueen approached, a sly look on her face. “If you’ll write me a blue slip, I can take the absentee list to the office now, Mrs. Malloy. It’s supposed to be turned in right after the beginning of class. Miss Dort doesn’t like for it to be late.”
“By all means,” I said. I opened the desk drawer and took out a pad of blue slips. I noticed a key among the pencil stubs, a rusty thing with a tag marked “mailbox- office.” “Does this open the Miss Demeanor box?” I asked with a flicker of interest.
Baxnbi said she thought it did, and I handed it to her with instructions to bring the contents of the box back with her. She waited until she had her trusty blue slip in pocket, then bounced away with a smug expression. Her expression was glum when she returned, however, and I was prepared for the announcement that the box was empty.
Once school was over, I walked slowly to the parking lot, not sure where to go, or what to do when I got there. Miss Parchester was not likely to appear at her apartment, and I had no theories about where else to search for her. A policeman of certain familiarity hailed me before I could reach a decision and beat a retreat.
“I have a message for Miss Parchester,” said Peter. He leaned against my car, his arms folded and his smile deceptively bland. “Good news, actually.”
“I’ll be happy to pass it along when I see her,” I said, miffed that he would think I was hiding her. Did he think I had her stashed in the trunk-or tied up in the attic?
“I brought in an accountant do a quick audit of the journalism books.”
“Oh, did you? That was terribly clever of you.”
“Thank you. The fact that you were involved in the matter gave it more significance than one would normally give it.”
“Thank you. I didn’t realize my presence was quite so ominous.
“Your presence is always ominous. Ominous, omnipresent, and according to some rumors, omnipotent.”
“As much as I’ve enjoyed this repartee, I have more important things scheduled for the remainder of the afternoon,” I said through clenched teeth. “What did the accountant hid in the journalism books? If you’re not going to tell, do it now.”
“The accountant said that the books were basically in order. He said there had been crude attempts to make the account look short, but that the money was all there. He had a few other comments about Miss Parchester’s system, which he found peculiar yet amazingly sound. I suspect she’ll be relieved to find out that the embezzlement charges are going to be dismissed.”
Leaving the minor matter of murder. “Who fiddled the counts to make her look guilty?”
Peter shrugged. “I suppose I could hunt up a handwriting expert, but all he’d have to go on are a few smudgy numbers penciled in over the originals. Do you honestly think this has anything to do with the murders? A few dollars missing from a club account, easily located once the books are examined?”
