Dying to Teach (7 page)

“Angie is Gwen’s replacement.”

“Temporary,” Angie said. “Just till the show is over.”

They shook hands. Thankfully he didn’t say what everyone else had said—glad to hear you’ve come to find Gwen’s killer. He said something perfectly normal, “Good to meet you.”

Cilla locked the door, calling over her shoulder, “What are you doing here?”

“I told Randy how rough you were taking Gwen’s death and he sent me home to be with you.”

“That was nice of him,” Angie said.

Cilla laughed. “You must’ve caught him at a weak moment.”

“I did. When I went into his office I had to plow through a battery of cops in the secretary’s office.”

Angie and Cilla said “Uh-oh” at the same time.

“They were waving a warrant to search Ted Chalmers’ office.”

“Oh no,” Cilla said. “He wouldn’t—he couldn’t have killed Gwen. They were getting married. Angie, what’s wrong?”

“Excuse me?”

“You looked surprised at the announcement.”

“Not surprised that it’s happening. Surprised because I thought they’d been in sometime last night.” She explained how the auditorium had been a disaster twice already.

“Perhaps they ran out of time last night,” Josh offered.

“Maybe.” It wasn’t her problem. She and the kids would clean up the mess again, and go on with the show. “The search is routine anyway. And the school is big. It’ll probably take a few days to get through the whole thing.”

“Wh-who?” asked Cilla.

She didn’t finish the question and Angie wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Possibly she wondered if her home and shop would be put under tight scrutiny also. More likely she worried what that scrutiny would do to her business.

“You should’ve seen Randy’s face when he saw the warrant,” Josh said. “You would’ve thought they served it on him personally.”

“In a way they did. That’s his school.”

Josh set an arm around his wife’s shoulder. Cilla flinched away, then relaxed. What was up with that?

“Come on, let’s go home.” Josh stuck out a hand again to Angie, who took it. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you around the school,” she said though she doubted it. The English department was at the other end of the building from the auditorium.

As she walked away she wondered, who had searched the auditorium.

SEVEN

Angie drove around the back of the school, passing two police cruisers parked against the curb outside the doors. Had they, in reality, executed the search of Gwen’s office last night and were now finishing up? If so, they’d be sitting in the green room, probably around the long table, toe-tapping and thumb-twiddling as they waited for her to return with a key. Second thought: they were searching Ted’s domain. Ted was head of the boys athletic program. He had control, or at least access to, the gym, locker rooms and an office, not to mention the teachers’ lounge. Third thought: something else had gone wrong.

She shoved away the myriad of questions and found a space as far from the vehicles as possible. Nobody guarded the double doors. Nobody in the corridor that led to the auditorium. Her heels clicked like castanets on the floor. Nobody came to see what caused the noise.

She found the auditorium empty, the green room also. She fitted the costumes on hangers in the dressing room and the costume jewelry in the special box on a shelf with other small props. For now her schedule was free. The rest of the week she had classes just like a regular teacher.

School let out in an hour. At that time, the place would teem with actors and stagehands. She slid the key into the office doorknob. A sound from the dressing room made her spin around only to find she was alone, yet as she turned the key, the noise came again, soft, just a rustle, like a mouse moving inside a wall. Cops coming through the auditorium? Didn’t sound like cops. Their equipment clinked and squeaked. She rubbed the hairs on her arms. Prince & Pauper had the occasional mouse also. Rodents were one thing Tyson tended to.

Angie retreated into the office where it dawned on her that she might be trapped with one of the furry critters. She rubbed her arms again and sat at the desk to read scripts. Three Can be Deadly started out with suspense that brought the hairs on her arms back to attention. On page four the suspense took a nosedive. Angie looked for a pen to make notations. No pen. She pulled open the top drawer and groped inside. Snap!

Angie jerked her hand from the drawer, a mousetrap clamped around two fingers. She eased it off, heaved it in the wastebasket, and rubbed the injured fingers. Who ever heard of mice in a desk? The only thing that would draw them was food. She slid the drawer open all the way. No food. Just ordinary desk items. She selected a pen and shut the drawer. Then something struck her. There was no bait in that trap. Angie leaned down to inspect it in the wastebasket. No bait. Odd.

Angie went back to reading and making comments on the manuscript, and occasionally rubbing her sore fingers. At 2:30 the final school bell rattled the walls. Angie fitted the script back in the envelope. Though it needed work, it looked like Three Can be Deadly was a definite possibility as an upcoming Prince & Pauper production.

Angie stepped into the green room as the students clattered in and gathered around the long table.

“What happened in here?” somebody asked.

“The cops were here again.”

“Why would they come back?”

“No idea.”

“We can all pitch in and clean up later.”

“Sure, but what are they looking for?”

How much to tell them? She could talk about routine police procedure in murder cases. She could say how it was normal to search all suspects’ homes and work places—though not usually twice. The kids would know that from television anyway. They’d also know the spouse, or intended spouse, was always the first suspect. Chances were that the kids didn’t know of Ted and Gwen’s relationship. Ted had said they kept things low key because of the school.

Before Angie could formulate a reply, Evan said, “I believe it’s a routine search. Since Ms. Forest worked here, they’d look for suspects among her friends and people she worked with.”

Kiana nodded agreement, but one of the crewmembers said, “I can’t believe anybody here would want to kill Ms. Forest. She was always so nice.”

Everyone chimed in with something to say about Gwen’s popularity and bubbling personality.

“I watch a lot of mystery movies,” a girl said. A blush crept over her face and she shrugged. “I love those forensics shows. But what I wanted to say was that, on them, people always hide hate under a smiling face.”

Unusual way to say it, but Angie had to agree. People were rarely what they seemed on the surface. That diva she’d left Tyson to deal with was a prime example. At the outset, Marie appeared meek and mild, a perfect person to play their leading lady. But as rehearsals progressed, her true personality poked through.

* * * *

Neither Kiana nor Evan were here yet, so Angie moved to the head of the table and took a seat. A sharp snap and pain in her behind had her leaping up. The chair clattered to the floor. The nearest teens exploded in laughter seeing the mousetrap attached to her backside. The rayon skirt did nothing to deflect the spring-loaded mechanism. Her flesh was securely caught. Angie winced but managed not to squeal while one of the girls dislodged the thing and heaved it in the trash.

Okay, somebody had a morbid sense of humor. But she laughed along with the giggling group. Kiana and Evan arrived and Angie had to relive the moment as the kids described what happened. But neither Kiana nor Evan was amused. They were even less amused when Angie mentioned another police search of the place.

Kiana dropped her belongings on the floor near the long table. Instead of coming toward the group, she headed for a closet at the end of the room. All eyes watched her duck inside and reach high up on a shelf.

“What’re you doing?” asked one of the girls.

Kiana’s voice was muffled. Angie thought she said, “Be right there. Start without me.”

But everyone’s eyes remained on the sounds coming from the closet. After a moment, Kiana stood on tiptoe and re-deposited whatever she’d taken from the shelf. Then she bowed back out wearing a look of satisfaction. Then she realized everyone had been watching. She grinned. “Sorry for the delay, I had to check something.” Kiana shut the door and walked toward them.

What was on that shelf? Angie hadn’t gone exploring. Hadn’t thought it necessary, or appropriate. But she’d recognized the sounds coming from the closet. Kiana had been looking in a box of makeup tubes. They came twelve to a pack and were separated by cardboard partitions. What had she been doing? Couldn’t be anything nefarious, not with everyone watching. No—nothing underhanded, the girl was investigating. She’d probably just learned about the makeup tube taped into Gwen’s mouth.

“Did you see that weird janitor on TV?” somebody said. “The one who works in her apartment building.”

“You think he’s the killer?” someone else asked.

“But he’s the one who found the body,” Kiana said.

“Perfect alibi, don’t you think?” Evan said. “When the cops ask where he was at the time of the murder, he can say, ‘Waxing the hallway—the floor
above
Ms. Forest’s apartment.’”

“I suppose it makes sense,” Kiana said with a shrug. “Everybody here loved her. Gw—Ms. Forest didn’t have any family, and not very many friends. She spent most of her time here.”

The kids didn’t seem to notice Kiana’s slip with Gwen’s first name. Had they really been that close? Angie remembered from school—there was this one teacher she had a crush on. In private, she always referred to him by his first name. Occasionally she slipped up when saying his name.

“Something funny?” Evan asked.

Angie caught her breath and smiled. “No. Sorry for the distraction.”

“So,” said a dark haired boy in a blue windbreaker, “the killer
had
to be one of her neighbors.”

“She had to have
some
friends,” one of the others said.

“She was good friends with Mr. Philmore’s wife,” ventured Kiana, then seemed to regret her words, probably feeling like she’d drawn attention to Mrs. Philmore as a suspect.

“I know Mrs. Philmore!” a dark haired girl said. “Our family shops in her store all the time. She’s wicked nice. No way she’d kill Ms. Forest.”

“Of course not,” agreed a relieved Kiana. “Friends don’t kill each other.”

Man, did she have a lot to learn.

“Besides,” added Evan, “she’s too small to overpower somebody Ms. Forest’s size.”

“Ms. Forest wasn’t very big,” said the dark haired boy.

“No, but she was strong. You get that way working around the theater. There’s things to lift and fix. Besides, she was active in lots of outdoor sports.”

“She and Mr. Philmore’s wife did a bunch of outdoor things together,” Kiana said. “They went canoeing and hiking and—oh yes, Mrs. Deacon, did you have any trouble getting the costumes?”

“No,” Angie said. “Cilla remembered a brown dress too.”

Kiana slapped a palm to her forehead. “I forgot all about that one. Good thing somebody’s on the ball.”

Good thing, indeed. Poor Kiana really should be at home, not supervising a major school production. Amazing that she remembered anything. But one thing was clear, Kiana Smith knew a lot about her teacher’s private life.

“Look guys, we could discuss this all day,” Kiana said, “but the truth is, we need a professional to sort out the clues.” She didn’t actually look at Angie, though one of her dark eyes did flicker in Angie’s direction.

“Trouble is, there aren’t any clues. None we know about anyway.” Evan wasn’t as gentile as Kiana in his guilt-flinging; he gazed right at Angie. “I tried to talk to one of the cops doing the search. Wouldn’t hardly speak to me. Ms. Deacon, we really need you to help with this.”

“Guys. I don’t think you realize how dangerous investigating can be,” Angie said. “I got involved, inadvertently, in a case recently. My home was blown up. My boyfriend and I barely got out alive.”

Several
oohs
followed this information.

“You can bet that someone willing to murder Ms. Forest would be willing to kill anybody who threatened to expose them.” Angie made eye contact with each teen around the room. “Now please, let the authorities do their jobs. It’s what they’re trained for.”

“We really want to help.”

“You can.”

“You’re gonna say we can help by staying out of the way.”

Angie couldn’t help smiling. “That would be one way. But there is another.” Now she had everyone’s attention. “Keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not telling you to snoop or follow people around but you, as a group, are in a perfect position to watch and listen. Report what you see to the police or to Mr. Reynolds.” As an afterthought she added, “Or to me.”

There were several nods of agreement, and two faces full of disappointment.

Angie shook off two things. First, guilt. They all knew she was in an even better position to look and listen. She had access to Gwen’s associates and the inner workings of the school. Second, Angie shook off the explosion of energy that made what Hercule Poirot called ‘zee little gray cells’ surge into overdrive. Something she’d seen today was wrong. How? What?

No. Stop. It was probably the stupid mousetraps that put her on alert. Angie flexed her sore fingers. It was not a clue—just mousetraps.

That so-called explosion of energy was a physical reaction she could no more control than a reflexive knee-jerk. She would not succumb to its demand for attention. She would perform Gwen’s job to the best of her abilities and then go home to Alton. “Now can we get to work—we have a performance to prepare for.”

After that, except for two more mousetrap incidents—one on a tall table in the wings that got her in the elbow and one in the pocket of the costume she’d brought back from Cilla’s shop—things went smoothly. Being more familiar with the play and the kids, Angie was able to give more guidance, feel more useful.