A Function of Murder (26 page)

After he read the note, I reminded Virgil of the background on Elysse and her Facebook
campaign. I was proud to mention I’d handled everything with tissue, not to disturb
any fingerprints, but I could tell he doubted they’d find any from the guilty party.

A crime scene tech, who’d arrived with Virgil, went about her business, packaging
the brick, string, note, and a few shards of glass into evidence bags. She transferred
the photos I’d taken to her own device and took several of her own. I was embarrassed
to be taking up the resources of the HPD for such a minor event. I hoped no one on
the other side of town was in real trouble, without a police presence, because of
me.

The tech was gone in twenty minutes. Virgil settled in for coffee.

I wondered what my neighbors thought of Virgil’s visits lately, more frequent than
usual. Virgil wondered about the neighbors, too, but for a different reason, one I
should have thought of, and would have, if freaking out hadn’t been my primary reaction.

“Did you talk to any of your neighbors?” he asked when we sat with coffee at the kitchen
table. I wished I could have offered Virgil one of Fran’s homemade ice cream sandwiches,
but all I had on hand was the same packaged cookies from yesterday.

“You mean canvass the neighborhood?” I blew out a disgusted breath. “I didn’t even
think of it.”

“No problem. We’ll take care of it. We’ll find out if anyone saw or heard anything.”

I pointed out the window, to the west. “Two elderly sisters live there. They’re both
semi-disabled and not too aware of their surroundings. They have a caregiver who comes
in once a day. She may have seen something, depending on when the”—I searched for
a word—“vandals did their thing.”

“Caregiver’s name?” Virgil had his pad and pen ready.

“Wanda. I don’t know her last name. She’ll be around at about ten in the morning.
She stays for close to four hours most of the time.”

Virgil pointed east, north, and then south, with a questioning look. I gave him the
demographic of my street.

Directly east of me was the Rasmussen family with two working parents and one child
in the fourth grade, so no one
would have been home during the day. Virgil agreed that the brick thrower probably
struck after dark, however, so it was worth checking with the Rasmussens. Across the
street from me was a relatively new development with all of the houses facing into
a cul-de-sac, perpendicular to my orientation. It wasn’t likely that anyone happened
to be looking in the direction of my house unless they were driving away, out of their
street.

As I thought about it, I was uncomfortable with Virgil’s plan. “I don’t want to worry
everyone, especially Celia and Evelyn. Obviously, the brick was meant for me. Do we
really need to make a big deal of it?” This from the woman who’d been wigged-out less
than an hour ago. I pointed over my shoulder to my bedroom, the crime scene. “There
must have been quite a bit of noise when the brick hit my door. If a neighbor was
around and heard anything, wouldn’t that person have called nine-one-one, or the police
station right away?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“You always say that.”

“Because you’d be surprised.”

I decided to take a chance and move to the other reason for Virgil’s frequent visits,
and for my constant state of angst for the last couple of days.

“I heard on the news that Mayor Graves’s wife was on a plane to Europe right after
the graduation ceremony.” So what if it was Kira, not I, who was tuned into the news?

“Did you?”

“I guess that’s about as solid an alibi as you can have.”

“Could be.”

“Unless she paid someone to, uh, do the deed?” I didn’t know why my mind was going
in a direction I hadn’t planned. My goal was to get information from Virgil, not hand
him silly theories.

Virgil grinned. “I wouldn’t rule that out, but using a letter opener that probably
happened to be handy isn’t exactly the style of your typical hit man.”

“Thanks. I love hearing the insights of the HPD.” I bit into a cookie. Nervous eating,
since I was still full from dinner and I knew the cookies were tasteless. “I also
heard that Chris Sizemore, who teaches art history at Henley, was taken in for questioning.
Or maybe arrested.”

“You hear a lot of things. Anything else?”

“I heard you were at Zeeman Academy this afternoon.”

“Did you?” Said in mock surprise.

I laughed. “You almost knocked me over.”

“Was that you?”

“Come on, Virgil. Give me something. I’m having a rough time here.” For emphasis I
pointed again toward my bedroom, recently visited by a nasty foreign object.

“Okay, because it affects you in a way, I’ll tell you we found some email and other
communications from the mayor that implied he was investigating the school as you
indicated. That same grade issue you and I talked about. I wanted to catch Richardson
but he’d gone for the day. You didn’t happen to talk to him?”

“No, he was rushing out when I arrived.”

I left out the part where I’d talked to two of his trusted employees. Why bother mentioning
lunchroom chatter? It would all be considered hearsay in the end. I cringed at my
amateur legal reasoning. At some point today, I must have decided that a man who commanded
the loyalty and respect of Rina and Dan, two such honorable and excellent teachers,
couldn’t be a killer. Could he?

“Someone will be coming around in the morning to talk to you and then to the neighbors.
I promise whoever comes will play the incident down to the ladies next door, not to
worry them,” Virgil said, moving me away from a sensitive topic.

“Thanks.”
How about not worrying me?
I wanted to ask.

“The officers will have some questions for you and the usual forms to fill out. You
may not think it’s important,
but fill them out anyway. You never know what this might connect to.”

“You mean, in case there have been other bricks from the same dye lot thrown in Henley
recently?”

“Something like that.”

“With a reference to me on them?”

“The officers will want to know if you remember anything else about tonight. Any detail
at all.”

“I have to be out of here for an eight-thirty meeting tomorrow morning.”

Virgil made a note. “I’ll tell them to get here by seven, seven thirty. You’ll be
up and about?”

I nodded, resigned to the paperwork follow-up, and to failure in my attempts to help
with, or intrude into, Virgil’s murder investigation. He’d shared a lot more about
the brick throwing than the stabbing.

In any case, our interview ended when a glass-bearing truck rolled up. Virgil opened
the door to a man—closer in looks to the old baseball coach in the ads than to the
beautiful people—who immediately went to work in my bedroom. Virgil chatted with him
and I checked my email, taking care of some busywork, happy to find no lurking crisis.

Virgil had called a company he’d dealt with a lot and, whether because they practiced
great customer service or because the request had come from a cop, my non-custom patio
door was repaired in a jiffy.

“I guess you’re all set,” Virgil said. “I’ll be on my way. Let you get some rest.”

As if.

I ushered Virgil out the door. “I can’t believe anyone would go to these lengths over
a few points on an exam,” I said.

“You’d be—”

“Surprised. I got it.”

By eleven thirty
PM
, you wouldn’t have been able to tell that there’d been an official, police-defined
“incident” at my house, except for the rather nervous homeowner inside and the unmarked
cop car outside. I wondered if every brick victim got such treatment. I hoped so.

I put water on for tea and planned to relax in my newly glassed-in bedroom. I texted
Bruce, in case he was catching a nap, and told him our hero, Detective Virgil Mitchell,
had saved the day again. Nothing to worry about.

He called me right back, wanting to know details.

I briefed him and added, “I have a sparkling-clean patio door.”

“We should get the guy to come over here. You can’t even see through the trailer windows
anymore.”

“I believe you. Want me to throw a brick?”

“Not funny,” my serious, concerned boyfriend weighed in.

“Aren’t you glad I’m not still freaked out?” I asked.

“I suppose so. What’s up for you tomorrow?”

I ticked off the details of my full day of meetings.

“Wait, did you say the eight thirty is with Elysse? The one who threw the brick?”
Bruce’s voice was rising in pitch, his tone more and more incredulous. “You’re not
going alone?”

I laughed. “A police escort? I don’t think so. For one thing, the note says “Support
Elysse,” so she didn’t write it. She would have said, “Dr. Knowles, Support Me,” or
something like that, using first person.”

“You think everyone cares about grammar the way you do? I’m off at nine. Can you move
the meeting up?”

“Nuh-uh. I told you, I’m booked through till after lunch. It’s not a problem. I believe
I weigh more than Elysse, anyway.”

“Still not funny, Sophie. I’ll cut out of here early. Ernie won’t mind fudging his
time a little.”

“It’s not necessary, Bruce. Elysse is not a violent person. After two years, I think
I would know that. This is a prank. Committed by some kid who happens to know about
our little squabble.”

“Or someone who wants you to think it’s a kid.”

“Elysse may not even know about it. Besides, I’m not showing up to meet her with my
boyfriend.”

“Where are you meeting her?”

“In my office on campus.”

A heavy groan from Bruce. “Think, Sophie. It’s vacation time. Is it likely that there’ll
be anyone else in the building?”

“You’re scaring me, Bruce.”

“Good. Humor me and at least change the meeting to someplace public. Or even the Administration
Building. They keep regular office hours right through the summer, don’t they?”

“Yes, they work full-time, as our deans and staff are always reminding the faculty.
Okay, I’ll think of another place.”

“I mean it, Soph.”

“I’ll change it, really. We can meet at the Coffee Filter. It’s mobbed on a weekday
morning with everyone stopping in before work.”

I heard a relieved sigh from Bruce. I had to admit, I felt better, too, once I thought
about it. Situated at the very edge of campus, Ben Franklin Hall could be creepy during
the off-season. And if there was one thing I didn’t need any more of this week, it
was
creepy
.

I started down the hallway toward my bedroom with my cup of tea, grabbing three paperbacks
from my to-be-read pile on the counter, plus my e-reader, since I wasn’t sure exactly
what reading mood I was in.

Once I cleared the books away, I noticed the message light blinking on my landline
handset.

No way. My day was over. Wasn’t it?

I turned away, stopped, and turned back again.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I checked off all the channels in and out
of my communications network. Might as well give in.

I hit the button. A computer voice told me I had two messages, then played the first
for me. “Dr. Knowles. Uh, Sophie. This is Doug Richardson, principal at Zeeman, I’m
sure you know. Sorry I had to rush by you at school today. I need to talk to you.
Someplace other than my office. Please call me on my direct line so we can set up
a meeting. The number is 508…”

I pressed pound to stop the message replay. I dropped my books back on the counter
and sat down on a kitchen stool. In spite of what should have been a calming sip of
tea, an eerie feeling took over my body. Was Principal Richardson channeling the deceased
mayor, copying his message, in spirit, and practically verbatim? Right down to using
his nickname, whereas we had never even used first
names before? Just as the mayor had done on the day he was murdered?

Ed and Doug, my new best friends. Except one of them was dead.

I seemed to be starring in the movie where the same thing kept happening over and
over. Speaking of channeling, I was channeling poor Bill Murray. What was happening
to my orderly world?