1 Catered to Death (10 page)

“No.” Ruth’s expression became closed. “Frank told me once that that was why he enjoyed scouting so much as well as working in a school—so he could be around kids.”

 
“Oh, wow, the kids. In all of this I completely forgot about Eden Academy’s students. I suppose you’ve arranged for grief counseling?”

“Not really. Claudine thinks each teacher should deal with his or her students since the teachers know the kids best.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” I agreed. “I’m still in shock,” I added to prod Ruth back into the conversation. “I only met Frank on Friday but I liked him.”

“Everyone liked Frank,” Ruth replied. For a second, Ruth’s words sounded almost cynical but as I studied the receptionist’s still tear-stained face I decided that Ruth was being sincere.

“Did you like him, Ruth?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What was he like to work for?” I wasn’t quite sure what I would say if Ruth wanted to know why I was so curious about the late Frank Ubermann and his management skills but thankfully Ruth didn’t ask. Instead she began playing with a pile of paper clips she had on her desk.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Sure you do. Was he difficult to work for?”

“Difficult?” Ruth slowly repeated.

“Did he micromanage you?” I asked, using the same expression I’d heard Jack Mulholland use the day before.

“I suppose you could say that Frank was a difficult man to work for, perhaps a micromanager,” Ruth said after a few moments of reflection. “He was very demanding.”

“How so?”

“Well, for example one time we were sending out a mailing, not a very big one just twenty or so letters. I was in a hurry so I guess I slapped the labels on pretty quickly before I put them in the box for the mailman to pick up. Frank saw them and he just had a freak out. He was so mad at me! I never saw him that mad before. He took them out of the box, waved them in my face while he gave me a lecture on being ‘unprofessional’ and then made me redo them just because I hadn’t put the labels
exactly
in the center of the envelopes. I pointed out to him that it would cost the school more if I printed new labels and used new envelopes—we’re on an extremely tight budget—but he said that he didn’t care and he made me redo the entire mailing using a ruler so I found the exact center.”

“That must have upset you,” I murmured.

“It did at the time but I got over it. He was right, anyway. Those letters did look pretty sloppy. I apologized and promised it would never happen again.”

“You apologized?”

“Of course. It was my fault.”

Interesting. Up until that point, I was totally buying Ruth’s beaten down employee act but now I wasn’t so sure. Ruth was just a teensy bit
too
beaten down to be believable. I looked around Ruth’s tiny office trying to get an idea of what the rest of the woman’s life was like. A large silver picture frame dominated the top of a row of file cabinets. Casually, I walked over to examine it more closely. It was a picture of Ruth and a pretty young girl, both dressed in bright Christmas sweaters and wearing red bows in their hair, the kind people stuck on top of packages. “What a lovely photograph,” I said, picking it up so I could see it more clearly.

“That’s my daughter, Amanda,” Ruth said proudly. “Of course, that picture is several years old but I can’t seem to take it down.”

“I don’t blame you. You both look very happy.”

“We were. That was the best Christmas we ever had.” A note of wistfulness entered Ruth’s voice making me guess that the following holidays hadn’t been nearly as joyous.

“She’s beautiful.”

“Yes, she is. She’s a sophomore at the University of Illinois. She’s majoring in physical education.”

“Simply lovely,” I said again as I carefully put the picture back in its spot. “I suppose the rest of the staff is still quite upset over what happened,” I said. I wasn’t sure why Ruth hadn’t kicked me out yet but I wasn’t about to ask. It was highly possible that Ruth enjoyed having a little company. No one else had popped in to say hello in all the time that I’d been in Ruth’s office. Come to think of it, no one other than Maxi had come in the other day.

“Oh, my, yes. After all, they’ve lost their leader.”

“I wonder why Frank decided to go down to the archery room,” I said. “I thought he said he was leaving for a camping trip with his wife after lunch.”

Ruth shrugged. “Maybe he was going to borrow some of the school’s camping equipment to take along with him. He usually does. But it really isn’t odd that he went there. Archery was his passion.” Ruth stopped herself. “Well, one of them.”

“One of them?”

“One of Frank’s passions. He was a very passionate man.”

Ruth’s complexion took on a rosy glow and she dropped her gaze to the oversized calendar on her desk. Watching her, I wondered if it was possible that Ruth had been infatuated with Frank Ubermann too, along with Claudine and Monica. She certainly defended him like she might have a little bit of a crush on him. One thing was crystal clear: Frank Ubermann had charisma to spare.

The telephone on Ruth’s desk rang. “I should go,” I said as Ruth reached for the receiver but lingered nonetheless while I waited for her to finish the telephone call. I had remembered one more question for Ruth, a very important question at that.

When Ruth hung up, I said, “I’m sorry I’ve been bothering you, Ruth. I know you have a lot of work to do and I’m being a pest. It’s just that I’ve never been around before when a murder took place. The whole thing has me a little rattled.”

Ruth gave me a small smile. “You haven’t been bothering me, DeeDee. I enjoy talking with you and I certainly appreciated your thoughtfulness in bringing me a plate of food the other day. That was a first. I’m usually the forgotten woman around here.”

“I’ve enjoyed chatting with you too,” I assured her. “Maybe we could get together for lunch some time.” I meant it, too. I did like Ruth and I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better. “Could I ask you one more question?”

“Shoot.” Ruth said and then immediately cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that but it just slipped out. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say ‘shoot’ again without thinking about poor Frank. I meant to say go ahead. What’s your question?”

“Who would I see about getting paid?”

“Paid?”

“For the luncheon I catered,” I explained. “Claudine hired me but it was all so last minute that we never got around to having a contract other than a verbal one.”

Ruth bit her lower lip. “Oh, dear.”

“What?”

“Nothing, really. It’s just that—never mind. I’m sure it will be all right.”

I wasn’t sure if I liked the sound of that. Ruth was holding something back and whatever it was sounded ominous. “Should I talk to Claudine about getting paid or should I go to Monica?”

“Monica?” Ruth asked with raised eyebrows.

“Well, yes. She was Frank’s assistant so I’m assuming that she handles all the bills and everything financial that happens at the school.” I didn’t add that I’d overheard Monica and Claudine squabbling over money at the luncheon. I also didn’t bring up how Monica had been watching the electric bills and wanted Jack Mulholland to kick in for what his electric kilns were costing the school. I didn’t want Ruth to think I was a complete eavesdropper. “Should I go to Monica for my check?”

Ruth laughed, a hard, short bitter laugh that seemed completely out of character for her. “That’s a toss up,” she said. “It’s also an excellent question. Both Claudine and Monica think they’re in charge of everything financial around here—along with everything else—and they’ll fight each other tooth and nail to prove it.” Her brown eyes grew darker. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now that Frank’s gone. He was always able to work with both of those women and everything always turned out all right. Now that he’s not here to act as a buffer, who knows what will happen? We’ll probably be shut down by the end of the semester.”

I planned on getting paid before that dire scenario played out. “So who would you recommend I talk to about getting paid?” I pressed. “Claudine or Monica?”

“Gosh, I don’t know. I suppose Claudine is your best bet since she hired you. Besides, I do think Claudine is a little more ethical than Monica.”

“Oh?”

“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that I’m afraid that Monica might not have a problem with not paying you since you don’t have a written contract.” She shook her head. “The things I’ve heard over the years—we’ve had people begging to get paid and Monica has actually threatened to take them to court for harassment.”

“Why? Were they lying about what the school owed them?”

“Not as far as I know but Monica has always gone out of her way to save a dime wherever she can just so she could shine even more brightly in Frank’s eyes. He thought she could do no wrong.” Ruth’s phone rang again. “Claudine’s in her room if you want to drop in,” Ruth said as she reached for the phone. “Go up the stairs. Her room is the second one on the left.”

“Do you think that she’d mind?”

“I don’t think so. They’re all trying to get back to normal.”

I waved good-bye and then left Ruth’s tiny office and headed down the hallway toward the staircase at the end, my mind still on Ruth Sparrow. If I didn’t have Steve to depend on, I could very clearly envision myself in a dead-end job like the one Ruth had, so demeaned and marginalized that she didn’t even protest when left out of things like staff luncheons and probably raises too. I was glad Ruth had a daughter she clearly adored. Having a life outside of work made even the most dreadful jobs a little easier to take.

Chapter Nine

I found Claudine’s classroom easily. Every room had a bulletin board outside of it and Claudine’s had been made to look like a theater marquee. Large black letters outlined in rhinestones spelled out: YOUR LIFE!!! STARRING YOU!!! A huge professional photograph of Claudine wearing a slinky silver outfit was placed front and center and next to it were pictures of sulky looking teenagers who I assumed were Claudine’s students.

I paused to study the display. Claudine certainly didn’t come across as the shy type. Under her picture was a neatly typed list entitled, ‘Some of Claudine’s Favorite Things.’ The list had easily at least a hundred entries. Squinting at it, I quickly read a few of them:
blue eyes, camping
and
silver hair.
Hmmm. Sounded a lot like a description of Claudine’s late boss.

Claudine Markham was sitting at her desk when I entered her classroom. I almost gasped out loud when I saw her. Gone was the stylish—if trampy—woman I’d met a few days earlier. The woman in front of me was a mess, her auburn hair disheveled, her face bare of make-up and her clothes wrinkled and looking like she’d slept in them. Instead of the tight and clinging fashion Claudine had been wearing on Friday, her outfit was shapeless and resembled an oversized garbage bag. Clearly the woman was still in a state of shock.

“Hello, Claudine,” I said.

Claudine looked up from the stack of papers on her desk and stared at me, obviously clueless as to who I was. “Yes?”

“I’m DeeDee Pearson—the caterer from Classy Catering?”

The foggy look in Claudine’s pretty eyes lifted. “Oh, yes. Of course. I’m sorry. I’m a little out of it today. I knew who you were. I just wasn’t sure why I knew who you were.”

“I understand,” I said reassuringly, not hurt in the least. The woman had been through a lot lately. “Please accept my sincere condolences on the death of your colleague.”

Claudine continued to stare at me but didn’t say anything. I cleared my throat a little nervously. I really didn’t want to have to bring up money at such an awkward moment but I did need to get paid and the sooner the better. I’d spent a lot on the groceries and extras for Friday’s meal and unless I got a check from Eden Academy, my credit card bill was going to be awfully close to its limit. When Claudine remained quiet, I spoke again. “I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, but I was wondering when I could expect to get paid for the luncheon.”

“Paid?” Claudine blinked.

“Yes. I left a copy of my bill in your mailbox before—before everything happened on Friday.”

Claudine placed thin hands on her desk and pulled herself up into standing position. “One of the finest educational minds in the country has been murdered and you’re here to ask me when you’re going to get
paid
? That’s the most tasteless thing I’ve ever heard of!”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized and I truly was but I didn’t know what other options I had open to me. I swiftly searched my mind for something additional to tack on to my apology that might make the enraged look in Claudine’s eyes fade a little. “It wasn’t my intention to upset you. I’m sure this is a very difficult time for you and for the rest of the staff. I’m still in shock myself and I barely knew Frank Ubermann––”

Claudine cut me off. “You have upset me. You’ve upset me a great deal. Of all the tactless, tacky things to do, to come in here and ask for money after Frank’s been murdered! You’re absolutely incredible!”

My embarrassment faded a touch. It wasn’t like I was asking for something that Eden Academy didn’t owe me. Maybe my timing left something to be desired but there was no reason for Claudine to jump all over me like I’d just planted whoopee cushions at a funeral. I pulled myself erect and met Claudine’s stare. “I’m sorry if I seem ‘tactless’ to you but we did have a contract, Claudine,” I pointed out. “I didn’t volunteer to make the meal I served you on Friday and I didn’t donate the groceries that I purchased. We entered into an agreement.” I was pleased that I managed to sound both calm and professional. Steve would have been proud of me if he could have heard me. I sounded almost like our lawyer, Doug Lawrence, only Doug had tried to warn me not to go into business for myself. ‘Nothing but trouble,’ he had said, ‘and you’ll never make any money at it.’ He’d been right on both counts so far.

“That may be true but this is hardly the moment I need to worry about petty things like your paycheck,” Claudine sniffed. She narrowed her eyes and shot me the iciest look I’d ever received. What had Jack Mulholland said? Something about Claudine sleeping in the freezer at night. At that moment, I could see what he was talking about. “If you’re so concerned about
money
, DeeDee, go see Monica. She’s the one who cuts the checks.”

“I’ll do that,” I agreed, more than ready to leave Claudine to her mourning in private. The atmosphere in the room was so dour and creepy that I half expected to see a portrait of Frank Ubermann tucked in a corner, draped in black crepe and with a candle burning underneath it. “Again, I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“Not half as sorry as I.” Claudine sat down again, her face suddenly old and defeated. She looked so sad, devastated really, that again I wondered if Claudine had been Frank’s lover. I had considered that possibility when I saw Frank’s hand grazing Claudine’s backside and also when I saw him fondling her knee, apparently without Claudine minding one bit. I know that I tend to be a bit naïve when it comes to people fooling around outside of marriage, but I really hadn’t believed that the two of them were an item. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen too often in the world Steve and I travel in, although it would account for Claudine’s present devastated mood. It was one thing to lose one of the ‘finest educational minds in the country’ but it was surely much, much worse to lose your lover.

“Good-bye,” I said somewhat awkwardly from the doorway. Claudine’s only reply was to lift one of her thin lips in a sneer before looking away from me and out her classroom window where a maple tree glowed with red leaves.

Leaving Claudine alone with her misery, I returned to the stairs and retraced my steps. I felt like I’d just intruded on Claudine and it made me uncomfortable. I hoped talking to Monica wouldn’t be as stressful, although I had my doubts. Monica had been extremely upset on Friday and it was obvious that she’d been very close to her boss too. Frank Ubermann had left behind a string of devastated women.

Reaching the business office, I patted my hair and sucked my tummy in while girding my loins for a confrontation with Monica. From the little I had seen of Monica at the luncheon, I felt like I was going into battle
.

 
“You can mail the check to me,” I told Monica, attempting to sound casual and confident, although if truth were known, I was actually shaking a little inside my sneakers. Monica had eyes that resembled two green stones that had all the warmth of moon rocks and she was staring at me with those moon rock eyes as if I had come in with a tree growing out of the top of my head and demanding that she empty the contents of her wallet into my purse.

I smiled calmly at Monica, determined not to let the woman see how nervous I was to be on the receiving end of Monica’s narrow-eyed gaze. When Monica continued to look at me like I was from another planet, I looked away and took in Monica’s neat office. It was decorated with dozens of silver-framed photographs of the staff at Eden Academy. It didn’t take more than a second or two to notice that the majority of the pictures were of Frank Ubermann in a variety of scenarios and looking very movie starish in each one of them. With his silver hair and slim build, Frank Ubermann had been extremely photogenic. I focused in on a photograph of Frank standing proudly in front of a large target, a bow hanging rakishly over one shoulder. The picture made me shudder and I was surprised that Monica hadn’t taken it down.

Finally the silence got to be too much for me and I stopped inspecting the room and returned my attention to Monica. “I believe you have my address, don’t you?”

Monica continued to stare at me as she tapped a sharp pencil up and down on her desk with a quick staccato beat. Any harder and she’d break the perfect point off her pencil. I had an almost overwhelming desire to shrink like a flower under a heat lamp beneath Monica’s furious glare but I resisted. The school
owed
me the money I had spent on the food for the luncheon and also the fee I charged for preparing the food and serving it. I was entitled to ask for it. With that thought in mind, I responded to Monica’s glare with a stoic gaze of my own.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Monica said after several more long awkward moments.

“I’m not sure I follow,” I replied. The leg shaking thing increased ever so slightly but by forcing my feet firmly onto the beige and brown linoleum tile on the floor of Monica’s office, I was pretty much able to control it.

“I
mean
that we can’t pay you right now. Frank has died and that means that we can’t write any checks.” Monica said, still looking at me as if I’d just asked her to hand over her firstborn son instead of the paltry check the school owed me.

“Why not?” I persisted. Monica had to be lying. Of course the school could write checks. How would the staff get paid if they couldn’t write any checks? It didn’t make sense.

The glare became laced with shards of pure contempt. “Because Frank is—was—the school’s director. He has to sign every single check that goes out of this office. Without his signature my hands are tied.”

That sounded absurd to me, not to mention fiscally irresponsible. “Don’t you have a back-up plan? There must be someone who is second in command. I’ve never heard of a business having only one person control the purse strings. Suppose something had happened to Mr. Ubermann?”

“Something did happen to Mr. Ubermann.”

“Exactly my point.”

Monica sniffed and turned her head away. She began picking at a large plant on her desk, her attention apparently focused on getting all of its leaves perfectly aligned. “We didn’t think it was necessary to have anyone else or any other kind of back-up plan. Frank was the picture of health and had the stamina of an Olympic swimmer. None of us ever imagined that he wouldn’t be here every single day.”

Now I had truly heard everything. What kind of place put all of their eggs—financial and otherwise—into one basket? It was hardly any wonder that the other staff members resented Frank Ubermann if he had been that much of a control freak that no one else had the authority to sign a check but him. Things like car accidents and heart attacks and murder happened pretty randomly, even to Olympic swimmers and private school directors. “Well, it looks to me like you’re going to have to come up with a plan now, aren’t you?”

“I hardly think that’s any of your business.”

This woman was really starting to tick me off and the angrier I felt, the less my knees shook. “Maybe not but getting paid
is
my business. So how long do you suppose I’ll have to wait before you’re able to write that check for me?”

Looking up from her plant, Monica gave me a small, tight smile that clearly took a great deal of control as well as a huge amount of effort on her part and I had the feeling that what Monica would really like to do was throw me out of her office and into the school’s parking lot. “I really have no idea, DeeDee.”

I wasn’t buying what Monica was trying to sell me. “Surely you’ll have to pay your staff this month. Can’t you cut me a check at the same time? I can wait a week or two.”

Monica sighed loudly and then spoke brightly, as if she’d just had a brilliant idea. “I know—why don’t I call you when I have a better picture of what’s going on? Do I have your number?”

It was better than nothing, although not much. “Claudine has it but I’ll give you my card too. All of my contact information is on it. I hope I’ll be hearing from you fairly soon, Monica. I have financial obligations too.”

Suddenly Monica slapped a stack of papers that was on the top of her desk, a stack that was easily three inches high and separated with several large paper clips, each one a different color and each one precisely one inch apart. Small wonder that Frank had been fond of Monica; she seemed to be something of a control freak too. “Financial obligations? You? You run a two-bit catering business.
 
You have
no
idea of what true financial obligations are.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I began but Monica ignored me.

“Do you see all of these? This is just a tiny portion of the paperwork that I need to complete without Frank’s input and I have no idea of how I’m going to do that. Frank and I worked together very closely and it’s going to be next to impossible for me to handle everything I need to do without him next to me, giving me the firm support he always provided and helping me decide what needs to be done first. Do you hear me? Next to impossible!”

“I’m sorry––” I tried again but Monica wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise.