hardly my idea of a dope dealer.
I could have called the police station and told Peter about my discovery. He could have sent Jorgeson over to collect the evidence and deliver it to the lab to be tested. Then he could have arranged for Miss Zuckerman to be transferred to a cell next to Miss Parchester’s, so that the two little old ladies could chat as they withered away in their prison garb. A murderer and a dope dealer, both with silver hair and porcelain skin.
I took a book of matches from my purse and lit the thing. If it turned out to be some thug’s innocent attempt to save a few cents on prefabricated cigarettes, then there would be no reason not to drop it in the trash can and go about my business. If it was illegally potent, I would have to tell Peter-at some point. I inhaled deeply and waited for the answer.
Oddly enough, I thought I could see Peter’s face. I was sitting on the floor, my head against the desk, when the light came on overhead and footsteps echoed like a Poutian revival. Frowning. I squinted up at the face hovering above me. No body, mind you. It was very, very peculiar. I warned myself to watch out.
“Claire?” it actually said. It sounded like Peter’s voice, which struck me as highly amusing, if not outright uproarious.
I clamped my hand over my giggle-my mouth-and said, “Where’s the rest of you?”
The rest of him came around the desk and squatted in front of me. “What’s wrong with you, Claire? Why are you sitting on the floor in a dark classroom?” His nose wrinkled (quite adorably, I thought), and he looked at the smoldering butt in my hand.
“Where did you get a joint, for Christ’s sake-and why are you smoking it now? Here?”
“Don’t have time later,” I told him smugly. “I’m in charge of five hundred-count ‘em-five hundred juvenile delinquents who want to dance all over each other. Want to show ‘em how to jitterbug, Supercop?”
“You are stoned,” he said in a stunned voice. “I presume there’s an explanation for this, and that you’re going to give it to me. Right?”
“I am not stoned. I am merely conducting an experiment, like the one I did with the pit peach. Peach pit. Remember when you saw me on the sidewalk with the hammer? It must have looked really funny.” I started to laugh as I recalled his expression, then discovered I was helpless to stop-but I didn’t mind one teeny-weeny bit. Finally I got hold of myself, or of something. It may have been Peter’s shoe.
“Give me the joint.” He held out his hand, and I obediently handed over the remains. He pulled me to my feet, which seemed to belong to someone else, and steadied me. “We are going to the lounge for a nice pot of coffee. I have a feeling you’re not quite ready to return to the dance.”
“I am too ready,” I sniffed. “A little wobbly, perhaps, but more than capable of chaperonage. I may even dance, if anyone asks me. Maybe by myself. Anyway, the lounge is locked. We can’t get in because we don’t have a key. Not even Supercop can walk through doors that are locked. Will you dance with me?”
He mutely showed me a key, then propelled me down the hall and into the lounge. I was placed unceremoniously on the mauve monster, and informed that I was not to move while he made coffee. Which was dandy with me, since I wasn’t sure I could move in any case. In any direction.
“If you want to arrest me, go ahead. I was chasing Miss Parchester,” I informed the doorway of the kitchenette, “and I lost her again. That woman is as fast as a damn minnow, and as slippery as a damn sardine. We ought to stake out the public aquarium, Peter.”
He came back into the room and handed me a cup of coffee. “I saw Caron in the gym, and she told me you were in hot pursuit of Miss Parchester.”
“For the zillionth time,” I agreed. “I thought you were on a stakeout, Sherlock. What are you doing at the school?”
“I came to check on you. You are, shall we say, at times unconventional in your investigative techniques.”
“Unconventional?” That rang a bell somewhere, but all I could do was blink at him. Bravely, I hoped.
“As in overzealous, impetuous, and illegal,” he said, holding the last of the joint in his fingertips.
I couldn’t tell if his smile was sincere or sarcastic, but I did like the color of his eyes. When I said as much, he pointed at the coffee cup and turned just a tad pink. “This isn’t my cup,” I said, studying the intricate swirls of roses and pastel leaves. “This could warrant a firing squad-or worse, you know. After you finish locking up poor Miss Parchester and poor Miss Zuckerman, will you come to my funeral?”
“Miss Parchester is still at large, and Miss Zuckerman is tucked safely in her hospital bed. As for the funeral, I’ll make a point of attending-it will be the one time I know exactly where you are and what you’re doing.”
I didn’t much like that, but I decided to let it go. “Mrs. Platchett takes this cup thing pretty seriously. She was more upset at me for borrowing her cup than she was about the deviled eggs.”
“Why was she upset about the deviled eggs?” he asked, not sounding especially concerned about my welfare.
“Well, she wasn’t upset about the deviled eggs, because Pitts hadn’t poked them. Did you know that broccoli doesn’t take fingerprints?”
“Actually, it does, but we can discuss the technical aspects later. Why did she think Pitts might poke the deviled eggs?”
“He poked everything.” I rubbed my forehead, which was beginning to ache. “I think I’d better have some more coffee.”
“I think you may recover,” he said with a smile. “Will you please tell me why I stumbled on to a stoned bookseller in the basement of the high school?”
I told him why. We agreed that I had erred in my decision to test the contents of the cigarette, and that I should have called him. I drank more coffee, my head propped on his shoulder, and told him about the problem of Jerry’s transcript, Paula’s reaction, and Thud Immerman’s reinstatement. None of it amazed him, although he did seem interested.
“Paula’s not as sweet as she acts,” I said, snuggling into his chest. “She might have murdered Weiss to protect her future, or she might have persuaded Jerry to do the dirty deed in order to protect her virtue.”
“He wasn’t in the lounge, and neither was she.”
“The murderer did have to enter the lounge between ten and ten-fifteen, when Evelyn came in to use the ladies room.” I glanced at the closed door of said establishment. “If I’d known about the hole, I might have murdered Pitts myself.”
“The hole was discovered the day after Weiss’s funeral, so it could have been a motive in the second murder. We just can’t find a decent motive for Weiss’s murder, except vengeance.”
“Meaning Miss Parchester?”
“I’m sorry, Claire. I don’t enjoy the idea of chasing some elderly lady around Farberville to question her about her recipe for peach compote, but she did have a reason to be angry at Weiss. I do need to ask her a few questions, if only to permit her to prove her innocence.”
“I know,” I said, sighing. The fuzzy pink slippers must have been wearing thin, considering the miles they’d done in the last six days. The hospital, the parade, the dance, probably the football game, and the school. The woman had been everywhere, but was nowhere to be found-while the judge rotated in his grave. “What are you going to do about the marijuana in Miss Zuckerman’s desk?”
“Ask her, although I would imagine she confiscated it from one of her students.”
“And failed to turn it in to the authorities? If she’s like her sister Furies, she’s probably a stickler for regulations. Maybe she found it the day of the potluck and did not have an opportunity to deal with it.”
He nodded. Before he could say anything. Caron limped into the lounge. “Mr. Chippendale is frantic, Mother. He sent me to search for you, because the band members took off their shirts and he thinks they may take off more. He says they are virtually Out of Control, although I don’t know what he expects you to do.”
“Call in the cavalry,” I said, smiling at Peter. “Surely you can strike a chord of fear in their atonal souls.”
We went to the gym. We didn’t, however, jitterbug until dawn. Actually, it was more like three in the morning.
TWELVE
I went the Book Depot the next morning and opened up for business, the ledgers having hinted at the desirability of earning a few dollars, if not an actual fistful or more. I sold books, straightened shelves, filed invoices, and griped long-distance about delayed orders. It was all fairly normal until Caron and Inez limped through the door, gasping and panting. As always, normalcy fled in the face of post-pubescent theatrics. I could not.
“Did you hear about Cheryl Anne and Thud?” Caron demanded.
“No, I heard about a fire at a university press and something about an order shipped to Alaska by mistake, but nary a word about the queen and the jock.”
“They Broke Up.” Caron folded her arms and stared at me, willing me to blanche, grab the edge of the counter, and beg for further details. “They’ve been going steady for Two Whole Years,” she added when preliminary fireworks failed to explode.
“A blessing for the future of the human race,” I said. “I cringe at the thought of the offspring those two might have conceived.”
Inez gulped. “It was terrible, Mrs. Malloy. They had a big scene in the parking lot after the dance, and Cheryl Anne told Thud to drop dead, preferably in the middle of the highway.”
“In front of a truck,” Caron added.
“He was furious.” Inez.
“He called her dreadful names.” Caron.
“Slut.” Inez, with a shiver.
“Cheap little whore.” Caron, without.
“She told him he was a miserable football player, that he ought to play against twelve-year-old girls.” Inez.
“He said he’d played with little girls too long.” Caron.
“He said he was ready for a real woman.” Inez.
The Abbott and Costello routine was giving me a pain in the neck, physically as well as metaphorically. I held up my hand and said, “Wait a minute, please. I really am not interested in an instant replay of their witticisms, no matter how colorful they may have been. May I assume Cheryl Anne was upset because Thud failed to win the game single-handedly and ensure a Homecoming celebration fraught with significance and glistening memories?”
Caron and Inez nodded, enthralled by my perspicacity.
“And,” I continued, “she was especially upset because she had worked so hard to see that he was eligible to play?” More nods. “By the way, how did Thud convince Miss Dort to reinstate him?”
“Nobody knows,” Caron said, widening her eyes to convey the depth of her bewilderment. I wasn’t sure if it came from the inexplicable behavior of her elders or the failure of the grapevine to ascertain the gory details.
