The counter was bereft of packets. I checked my pockets and the floor. Sherwood swore he hadn’t taken it, and even emptied his pockets to prove his innocence. After a further search and a great deal of grumbling, we left the building and went to our respective cars.
I was still irritated when I arrived home, both irritated at myself for carelessness and at the unknown thief for tactlessness, among other things. I decided it would not be wise to ask Caron to stake out the high school the rest of the night. I confirmed that she was asleep, then picked up the last issue of the
Dear Miss Demeanor,
Why does everybody make such a big deal about dates, anyway? Two girls can have a better time, and not have to put up with a lot of yucky kissing and grappling from some Nauseating geek.
Dear Reader,
Hang tight-someone will ask you out one of these days, and you’ll discover the purpose of kissing and grappling, even with geeks.
After a deep breath and a moment of introspection as to my failure to provide adequate maternal guidance, I continued reading.
Dear Miss Demeanor,
How contagious is mono?
Dear Reader,
Contagious enough.
Dear Miss Demeanor,
If you were supposed to provide moral leadership to a bunch of people, and you had a choice between being divorced for adultery and bending a teensy little rule, which would you choose?
Dear Reader,
Miss Demeanor doesn’t bend teensy little rules, because she has journalistic integrity. She doesn’t stay awake at night worrying about being divorced for adultery, because (a) she’s not married, and therefore (b) she can’t commit adultery, even if she wants to. If driven to choose between such unpalatable options, she would probably climb in a closet and stay there. May I suggest the same for you?
I put down the newspaper and closed my eyes. It didn’t take too long for the obvious to open my eyes, and eventually shove me to the telephone. I called Evelyn, apologized for the lateness of the hour, and asked if Herbert Weiss had been entertaining Bernice Dort in the Xanadu Motel every Thursday.
It took longer for her to respond, but at last she said, “I knew you’d figure it out, Claire. I had suspected as much since the first letter appeared in the Miss Demeanor column, but I saw no reason to speculate about it in the teachers lounge. They’re both adults; they are entitled to behave however they desire-after school hours.”
“But you’re convinced of it now,” I said. “You’re not speculating any more. How can you be sure?”
“On the morning Weiss died, I was in the ladies room when they happened to come into the lounge. They discussed it rather loudly, I’m afraid. I would have preferred not to be there, but it was too late to show myself and pretend I didn’t hear them. In any case, their affair couldn’t have anything to do with his murder, so I chose not to mention it to the police or any of the faculty. Bernice wouldn’t poison her lover, and there’s no point in causing more grief to his family by exposing rather ordinary peccadilloes.”
“Well, someone else knew. If you weren’t writing those blackmail letters-and I shall trust you weren’t-then someone else was.” I gnawed my lip until a fragment of conversation came back to me. “Cheryl Anne, Daddy’s little princess, was the author. I happened to overhear her tell Thud that her scheme hadn’t worked, that she would have to think of a new one.
“Weiss and Bernice didn’t seem to know who wrote the letters, although I thought it was fairly obvious. I would guess that Cheryl Anne was hounding him at home to reinstate Thud, and using the column to keep him in a distraught frame of mind at school. The untimely cancellation of the newspaper put a stop to that. You don’t think Cheryl Anne…
“No,” I said slowly, “I don’t. I considered the possibility earlier, but the motive is feeble and the opportunity almost nil. After all, it’s just a silly high school dance.”
“You’re one of the chaperones, aren’t you?” Evelyn said. “Wait until you see how seriously they take these things before you dismiss it as a motive. Wallflowers have been known to transfer to other schools, and the intricacies of parking-lot misconduct dominate the conversations for weeks. But I think you’re right about Cheryl Anne, Claire; surely she wouldn’t poison her father dyer Thud’s eligibility problems.”
“Would Thud?”
“He’ll end up in prison eventually, but it will be because of a barroom brawl, not a premeditated and well-planned crime. His mental limitations preclude that sort of thing. He’d be more apt to go after someone with a pool cue or monkey-wrench, and in a mindless rage.
“That doesn’t get us anywhere, then,” I sighed. “It’s tidier, but it doesn’t get us any closer to discovering the identity of the poisoner. Cheryl Anne may have tried to blackmail her father, but she didn’t poison the compote.”
“Do the police still think Emily is the culprit? Have they been able to find her for interrogation, arrest, and execution?” Evelyn sounded as depressed as I felt.
I told her about the escape from Happy Meadows, the close encounter in the hospital, and the scene in the emergency room. Once she stopped laughing, she told me I ought to confess before Peter found out, interrogated, arrested, and executed a certain red-haired bookseller. She had a good point.
The next day my morning classes inched by without incident. The denizens of the lounge were almost mute during lunch, although Mrs. Platchett did report that Tessa Zuckerman was doing poorly. We all produced money for flowers and signed a gay little get-well card from “the gang at the office.” She then gave me a questioning look, I shook my head, and we settled down to the soft whoosh of Tupperware.
Cheryl Anne did not appear during the Falconnaire period, presumably still in mourning over the demise of her paternal blackmail victim. Thud, presumably still ineligible, stayed hunched and unapproachable, although I wasn’t sure with what I would have approached him. Or why.
Once I was free, I met Caron and Inez in the parking lot and drove them to Rhonda Maguire’s garage, Caron having informed me she would At Least watch the work in progress. I went on to the police station, arranged a contrite expression, and asked to be admitted into the presence of Lieutenant Peter Rosen.
He closed his office door and put his hands on my shoulders to give me an unobstructed view of his eyes. The corners of his mouth twitched, but he gained control before he actually smiled. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
It occurred to me that I really did like the man. It also occurred to me that I hadn’t behaved well, and was apt to jeopardize the relationship if I continued on my blithe path. Getting a tad misty, I eased from under his hands and sat down on a battered chair. “I have come to confess all. You may then lock me up and swallow the key, but bear in mind that you will have to pick Caron up at five-thirty and fix dinner for her. She’s incapacitated by a bad ankle, and I’m afraid her bark is as bad as anyone’s bite.”
He flashed his teeth at me as he sat down on the far side of his desk. “Before I order rabies shots, you’ll have to tell me the extent of your crimes.
“The usual stuff,” I said, squirming as if I were a teenaged truant facing Weiss’s wrath and paddle. “Not mentioning little details to you, for instance. Prowling around the corridors in the dark to solve the murders and prove how clever I am. Evading the truth, although not as a rule.”
“Are you going to elaborate?”
I elaborated for a solid thirty minutes. I told him how I’d been coerced into substituting, and why-which seemed to do odd things to the corners of his mouth. I recapped the conversations with Miss Parchester, the argument between Jerry and Paula after the teachers’ meeting, the inexplicable comments I’d heard through Pitts’s hole, the visits to the Furies, the hospital scene, the midnight prowl with Sherwood, and the enlightening discussion with Evelyn that led to the identity of the Miss Demeanor author. Then, making a face, I went so far as to admit how the letters had been stolen from under my nose. Not that they were still important, I mentioned in conclusion, unable to fathom the thoughts behind his expressionless face and somewhat uneasy because of it.
“You have been busy,” he said. “Some of it I knew, and some I merely suspected, based on your track record. None of it surprises me, however, although for some naive reason hope springs-”
“Some of it you knew?”
He shrugged. “This morning hospital security reported an incident of minor importance. It did not require a brilliant flash of female intuition to guess the identity of two teenaged 007’s in the room across the hall from Tessa Zuckerman, a witness in an investigation of particular interest to an unspecified party. The floor nurse related the details of the panicky visitor and the crazed attack that ended on the floor. One of the girls was rumored to be verbally precocious to the point the security men considered a tourniquet just below the chin. It was a good guess on your part, by the way.”
“Thank you. What else did you already know before I came in here to grovel, apologize, and ultimately make a fool of myself?” I asked, resigned to the aforementioned trio.
“We asked the Xanadu manager for a description of his Thursday regulars, and he told us. No brilliance needed there, either. I discussed the affair with Miss Don; I’m satisfied it was not a factor in Weiss’s murder.”
“Maybe she was jealous,” I suggested. “Weiss was panting after Paula Hart, and we all know hell hath no fury. Miss Dort’s efficient enough to crack a hundred peach pits in a precise row, grind the insides, put them in the compote, and shove a fork into her paramours hand-all before the fourth period bell. There are likely to be notations on her clipboard.”
“She said Weiss panted after women all the time, but that she was used to it and fairly confident after ten years that he lacked the balls to follow up on his lusting. She was scornful, not scorned.”
I yielded for the moment, although I was not convinced. “You could have saved me a lot of trouble, you know. I had to learn all this the hard way.”
