Back To School Murder #4 (18 page)

“Oh, Lucy,” he moaned, grasping her hips and pressing himself against her.

This is insane, she thought, kissing him so hard that their teeth struck. Summoning every bit of willpower she possessed, she pulled away.

“I can't,” she said. “I don't think I'm doing this for the right reason. I'm just feeling particularly unappreciated today. My mother used to tell me I had an unpleasant habit of feeling sorry for myself.”

“Does there have to be a reason?” he asked, lightly stroking her chin.

“There's always a reason,” she said as his fingers slipped down to her neck. They remained there, gently but persistently massaging her. As much as she wanted to stay, she knew she could never go home if she did. She pressed her hands against his chest and pushed him away.

“If you're afraid that you might be taking advantage of me, don't worry,” he said. “I'm perfectly willing to be abused in this manner.”

“Oh, I couldn't live with myself if I did that,” said Lucy, attempting to make a joke of it as she started for the door.

“You must have really loved that job,” he said, causing her to break her stride.

“I really did.”

“Lucy Stone, Investigative Reporter,” he teased.

“You can laugh,” she said. “I deserve it. I wasn't very good at the investigating part. My editor said I was too gullible.”

“Is that so?” he asked, smoothing his hair. Casually, he added, “How did that piece about Carol Crane come out?”

“I didn't get very far,” admitted Lucy, wondering what he was after.

“Oh, well,” he said, “I guess it doesn't matter now.”

“Not anymore,” agreed Lucy, cautiously deciding it might not be wise to tell him she was planning on pursuing the story on her own. “I really have to go. Thanks for letting me cry on your shoulder.”

“Anytime,” he said, opening the door for her.

Hurrying along the dark and empty streets to her car, Lucy was suddenly overwhelmed with the enormity of what she had almost done. A shoulder to cry on, a kiss or two, and she was ready to toss her whole family away.

She thought of Zoë, who still depended on her for so much. Not quite a baby, but always ready for a cuddle. Zoë still thought the world began and ended with Mommy—how could she ever have considered putting her little one's security in jeopardy?

And Sara. Sweet, dependable, helpful Sara. Once Sara made a friend, she had a friend for life. Look how she had stuck up for Mr. Mopps. Lucy thought sadly how she had almost let little Sara down.

And then there were Elizabeth and Toby. Oh, sure, they were difficult teenagers, but that just made them more vulnerable. They were engaged in the difficult task of finding themselves and their places in the world and they needed the security of their mother's love more than ever, even if they didn't know it.

Worst of all, how could she have even considered hurting Bill like this? Maybe he wasn't the most sensitive man in the world, but he had never let her down. He had given her a house, he put food on the table, he had been there by her side when their children were born. He was reliable and steady and she could always depend on him. He would never do a thing like this to her.

The realization stung. How could she have been so selfish? Reaching the car, she jumped in and started the engine. She couldn't wait to get home. But as she sped along the deserted nighttime roads, she wasn't sure whether she was rushing to the safety of Bill's arms, or away from something she didn't want to face.

I
n the wee hours of the morning, Lucy woke and heard one of the children moving around. She got out of bed and met Toby in the hallway. His hair was mussed from sleep and he was pale and shaky.

“What's the matter?” she asked, feeling his forehead.

“I threw up,” he said.

“Maybe you've got a touch of flu,” she said, taking him back to bed. He let her tuck him in, and didn't brush her hand away when she smoothed his tousled hair.

“Can I get you some ginger ale?”

“I'm fine, Mom.”

“Well, call me if you need anything. I'll hear you.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Lucy visited the bathroom and returned to bed. Lying beside Bill, who was snoring gently, she was unable to go back to sleep but remained alert, listening for sounds of distress from Toby's room. Sometimes she wished she could be more like Bill, who could sleep through an earthquake. Instead, she knew she would worry and fret for the rest of the night, watching the minutes pass on the digital clock.

Toby didn't get up again. After about an hour, she went to check on him and found him sleeping peacefully. She went back to bed, but doubted she would sleep. Back in the security of her home, surrounded by husband and family, her visit to Quentin's apartment seemed like madness.

If she were DeWalt Smythe, she thought, she would blame it all on the devil. She had been tempted. It would be nice to be able to shift the blame, but Lucy believed that evil and goodness came from within people themselves, not from external forces. If she had been tempted by the devil, it was a devil of her own making.

Finally, a minute before the alarm was set to go off, she reached out and switched it off. Then she padded downstairs to start the coffee.

An hour later, she woke the rest of the family, except for Toby, and got them started on their day. She planned to keep Toby home from school, but when he woke, around nine-thirty, he was quite upset with her.

“Mom, you should have woke me,” he said as she fixed him a cup of tea.

“Don't be ridiculous. You were sick last night.”

“I feel fine now.”

“That's because I let you sleep,” she said, setting his meager breakfast on the table. “Drink this and we'll see what happens.”

“I don't like tea.”

“How about some ginger ale?” she asked.

“I told you—I'm not sick. Could you drive me to school?”

“Not until you've taken something and kept it down,” she said. “Why do you want to go to school so much? Are you afraid you'll miss a test or something?”

“I don't have any tests today.”

“Well, what is it?” she demanded, exasperated. “You're behaving very oddly.”

“It's nothing,” he said, and went back upstairs.

Picking up Zoë, who had been industriously emptying the pot cupboard, Lucy followed him. She found him in his room, sitting on the side of his bed, holding a pile of handwritten letters and notes.

“What are those?” she asked, sitting down beside him with Zoë on her lap.

“They're letters of support for Mr. C. Eddie said his dad could deliver them.”

“The kids did this?” asked Lucy, unfolding one of the notes. Written in a round script it read, “Dear Mr. Cunningham, we really, really miss you. I hope jail's not too bad and you get out soon. The substitute thinks the periodic table is in the cafeteria!”

“Yeah. Everybody thinks it's real unfair, the way they're keeping him in jail. Especially since he didn't do it.”

“You really believe that, don't you?”

“Everybody does. There's a demonstration today and everything.”

“A demonstration?”

“Yeah. We were all going to bring signs and parade in front of the school during lunch.”

“So that's why you wanted to go to school.”

Toby nodded.

“I'll make a deal with you. If you stay in bed and rest, I'll take those letters over to the jail myself.”

“You will?” Toby's eyes widened in surprise.

“Yeah. I'll go after lunch, when Zoë takes her nap. You have to promise to keep an eye on her, though.”

“You're the greatest, Mom.”

“Well, I wouldn't do this for just anybody, but you're kind of special. You're my favorite, you know.”

“I bet you say that to all the kids,” said Toby with a flash of humor.

“Maybe I do,” she said, putting an arm around his shoulders and giving him a hug. “You're still one terrific kid. Now, how about that ginger ale?”

“Okay,” he said, settling himself under the covers and opening up a comic book.

 

Lucy checked in on Toby periodically, and decided that he seemed to be on the road to recovery. He napped for an hour or so around eleven, but woke up refreshed at noon and announced that he was hungry. He grimaced when she offered dry toast and chicken broth, but ate it all.

Zoë spent a busy morning rediscovering her toys, after spending so much time at the day-care center. She didn't show any signs of coming down with Toby's illness and polished off her lunch of leftover beef stew. Lucy snuggled beside her and read
Blueberries for Sal
to her and she settled down happily for her nap.

When it was time to go, Lucy gave Toby detailed instructions of what to do in case of any conceivable emergency, and set out in the Subaru. The county jail was located in Gilead, about twenty miles away, but it was a pleasant drive along windy roads over rolling hills. Lucy rolled down the window and sped along; the wind felt good as it ruffled her hair, and she sang along with the radio.

She was about halfway there, and had just crested a little hill and was heading down the other side, when she noticed a car stopped at an intersecting road. She tapped the brakes; her little wagon was accelerating as it rolled down the hill and she didn't want to go too fast. The hill was steeper than she'd thought, however, and the car picked up speed anyway.

She checked the car at the intersection; it was a little white economy model. As she approached, it suddenly pulled out right in front of her.

Her mouth opened in an O and she stamped down on the brake. Realizing she was going to hit the white car, and seeing that the road was clear, she pulled out into the opposite lane. Just then a car appeared from around the curve ahead, coming straight toward her. She flicked on her lights and honked her horn. The white car that had been blocking her lane suddenly jerked forward and sped ahead.

Gripping the steering wheel with shaking hands, Lucy pulled back into her own lane, and proceeded slowly. The oncoming car came abreast of her and slowed to a stop; the driver glared at her angrily.

He thought I was trying to pass the white car, Lucy realized. She signaled for him to roll down the window, anxious to explain the situation, but the driver shook a finger at her and then drove off.

I can't believe it, she thought angrily. How could he think it was her fault? If she hadn't been driving carefully, and paying attention, she wouldn't have been able to avoid that white car. She would never even think of passing on a hill, with a curve ahead. What kind of driver did he think she was? And whatever possessed the driver of the white car to pull onto the road in front of her?

Lucy drove the rest of the way extra carefully, and was still fuming about the near-accident when she turned into the parking lot at the county jail. It sat solidly at the top of a hill in the county complex, just as it had years before when she'd visited Franny Small.
^*
She didn't like it then, and she liked it even less today. Franny had been confined in the women's wing, which wasn't quite as forbidding as the men's section. As Lucy walked along the wire mesh fence that surrounded the brick building, she looked up and winced, seeing the coils of razor wire gleaming in the sunlight.

Pushing open a heavy door, she found herself in a tiny lobby. It needed to be aired out and smelled unpleasantly of cigarettes. A uniformed guard stood behind a counter topped with a thick sheet of Plexiglas. She leaned forward and spoke into the little round opening.

“I'd like to see Josh Cunningham,” she said.

“Name?” asked the guard. He had white hair and a ruddy complexion, and looked as if he enjoyed spending time with the grandkids.

“Lucy Stone.”

He studied a sheaf of papers attached to a clipboard. “Sorry.” He shook his head sadly. “You're not on the list.”

“Oh. How do I get on the list?”

“Here—you fill out this application.” He slid an official-looking form through the slot, and nodded encouragingly. “If you're approved, you'll be notified in three weeks.”

“Three weeks?” Lucy's face fell. “Oh, well, I guess it can't be helped. Can I leave these? Will you see that he gets them?” She raised the shopping bag of letters so the guard could see them.

“What's in there?”

“Letters from his students.”

“Yeah?” The guard leaned forward and peered in the bag. He stuck his tongue in his cheek and considered. “Listen, lady, are you related to the prisoner?”

“Oh, no—I'm just the mother of one of his students.”

“Are you sure you're not his sister? Or maybe his cousin?”

“Oh,” said Lucy, catching the guard's drift. “It just so happens that I am a cousin. Unfortunately, our families were never close and I sometimes forget.”

The guard nodded sympathetically and produced a sign-in sheet. He then instructed her to push open the door next to his window when the buzzer sounded. She did, and found herself in a bare room with a table in the center. The guard met her there and went through her purse, and the bag of letters. He then returned the purse but kept the letters and told her to proceed through another door, into the waiting room. There, she was shocked to see a makeshift nursery, with cribs and toys, set up by a window. It was an oddly human touch in such a stark setting, but it made sense. The prisoner's wives would naturally bring their children on visiting day. She swallowed hard, and sat down to wait.

Before long, a door opened and she was told she could enter the visiting room. There, she found a row of cubicles containing plastic chairs. The sides were solid metal, painted gray, but the front wall was scratched Plexiglas with a few parallel slits cut into it. A Xeroxed sign was taped to it, warning that there could be absolutely no physical contact with the prisoners.

She chose a cubicle and sat down. A few minutes later Josh Cunningham appeared on the other side of the divider. He didn't recognize her.

“Who are you?” he asked. He looked thinner than Lucy remembered, and the easy-going attitude was gone. He was tense and anxious, and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“I'm Lucy Stone—Toby's mother. He's in your science class, and you coached my daughter, Elizabeth.”

“Oh.” He sat down. “Lizzy's Mom. I remember you now. Why are you here?”

“The kids organized a letter-writing campaign. I volunteered to be the postman. The guard took the letters. I think they're checking them for knives.”

A grin flitted across his face, and vanished. Deep lines had set in around his mouth.

“The kids really miss you,” she said, casting about for something encouraging to say. “They can't wait for you to come back.”

He snorted. “That's not very likely, I'm afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even if I get off, which will take some kind of miracle, after all the stuff DeWalt's been saying about me, I don't think I'll have a job. Not for long, anyway.” He looked down at the little counter in front of him.

“You really love teaching, don't you?”

“It's been my life.” He looked up at her and she saw that his eyes were brightening. “I know that's corny, but I love it. When you can give a kid some bit of knowledge, or some skill, you're empowering them. It's a great feeling.”

“I know.” She remembered teaching Toby to ride a bicycle, how exhilarated he had been when he could finally pedal all by himself. “It's scary, too. You've got to trust them, that they'll be responsible.”

“You said it—the DeWalts of this world don't really trust kids to make their own decisions. That's why they want the controversial books out of the library, and they don't want me to teach anything that contradicts the Bible.” He smiled. “And they actually believe that if we don't have sex education, somehow the kids won't figure it out themselves.”

Lucy laughed, and Josh joined in.

“You don't have any alibi or anything?” Lucy asked.

“No. Normally I would have been in school, but thanks to Carol and DeWalt, I was suspended. I had breakfast at Jake's around seven-thirty, and then I went home. I was alone, but I can't prove it. And then they found all this phony evidence that I made the bomb. It's all kind of unbelievable to me. I really don't get it.” He scratched his head. “The worst part is knowing that I'm innocent, but everybody thinks I'm guilty.”

Lucy remembered the angry driver earlier that morning, and how much she had wanted to tell him that the near-accident wasn't her fault.

“I know how you feel, a little bit,” she said, wishing she could squeeze his hand or pat his shoulder. “A lot of people know you're innocent—they believe in you. Really.” She nodded encouragingly. “Don't give up.”

“I'm not giving up—I'm just trying to be realistic. Based on my experience so far, I don't have a lot of faith in the criminal justice system.”

“I don't blame you. But it's all made-up evidence Carol slapped together.” Lucy paused for a moment. “Why did she choose you?”

“I guess because I'm a science teacher. I have the knowledge to make a bomb, if I wanted to.” He paused and added, “Plus the fact that DeWalt was just waiting for an excuse to get rid of me.”

Lucy nodded. “I'd like to help you. If there's anything I can do…”