Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa - Jersey Girl 01 - New Math Is Murder (8 page)

“I’m here about Sara,” I lied.

“You’re here because you heard rumors about Jason and me.”

“Rumors are commonplace around here, aren’t they? You heard about the parent-teacher conference.”

“Your threat wasn’t a rumor. Two teachers were walking down the hallway and overheard your conversation with Jason. I hope you’re not trying to point the finger at me to divert suspicion from yourself.”

“I didn’t kill anybody,” I told her.

“Neither did I,” she said. “I wasn’t Jason’s last fling. Find the mystery woman if you want to put your scorned-lover theory to the test. Can we get back to Sara’s problem now, or would you rather pursue this Jason Whitley thing a bit further?”

My sleuth time was over as far as Betty Vernon was concerned. “I guess we should get back to Sara. Her grades are awful, and she’s just about done for the year in algebra. Is there anything we can do about it?”

“It depends on why she’s failing,” she said. “She might not have a head for algebra.”

“But she aced Algebra I last year. How can that be?”

Betty Vernon shrugged. “Different teacher. Different style of teaching. I’ve never observed Mr. Da Silva in a classroom setting, but maybe he has a knack for reaching his students.”

“And Jason Whitley didn’t have that?” I asked.

“He didn’t coddle his students, I know that much. His teaching style was direct and no-nonsense—very different from Mr. Da Silva’s style, I’m sure. There are several students from Mr. Whitley’s class who are failing, and they all did extremely well in Algebra I last year. I know Jason was puzzled that these kids seemed to slip over the summer. He said they came to him with empty heads.”

“Odd,” I said. “But I think with my Sara, it had more to do with Mr. Whitley.”

“Yes, but he’s dead, and she’s still failing. Remember Sara’s vulnerable right now. Her world crashed down around her. Her father walked out on her and the family. That’s very traumatic, Mrs. Caruso. It
is
still Mrs. Caruso, isn’t it?”

“Technically,” I mumbled.

“Sara might be able to bring up most of her grades. If she does well on the finals, she shouldn’t have a problem. As you said, Algebra II is another matter. If she doesn’t bring her mark up
and
do well on the final, it’s either summer school or flunk the course. Not only will she lose credits, her grade point average will also be affected.”

It made my head spin. Sara had plans—not exactly on a grand scale, but her grade point average would affect her choice of college greatly.

“What is she interested in pursuing in the future?” Miss Vernon asked.

“This week? Who knows? She keeps changing her mind.”

Betty Vernon smiled, the first genuine one I’d seen her give. “Okay. She’s young. That’s normal enough. I’ll set up an appointment and have a heart-to-heart talk with her. Maybe I can get her to go to the math lab for some tutoring during her study hall.”

“Thanks for your help,” I said. “Now if you could direct me to Mr. Da Silva.”

She glanced at the clock over the guidance office door. “Classes are changing soon. Mr. Da Silva may have a free period. Let me see if I can get hold of him for you.”

Da Silva walked into Betty Vernon’s office when his class ended, chewing on a grainy-looking power bar.

“Lunch,” he explained.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Da Silva, but I’d like to schedule an interview for a story I’m doing on your upcoming basketball clinic.”

“How about a week from Thursday?” he said. “I have to stay late for a senior fundraiser anyway. Say about seven thirty? We can meet in my office. Boys’ gym.”

“Works for me,” I told him. I took out my notebook and wrote down the appointment.

“I would have preferred to be interviewed by the sports reporter, of course,” Da Silva told me. “It would go better talking to a guy who knows a little something about basketball.”

“It’s my assignment, Mr. Da Silva. You’ll just have to settle for me.”

Da Silva’s chin jutted out in a manly pout. “I guess any publicity’s better than nothing at all.”

I stood and smoothed the wrinkles from my slacks. Already about two miles beyond annoyed, I felt a bit nasty. The ex-jock algebra teacher deserved a verbal kick in the pants, the kind only a female reporter could provide, but I also knew it would have to wait until the scheduled interview a week from Thursday.

Domingo’s Enchilada Palace awaited me.

9

Meredith lifted her third margarita to her lips as I slid into my seat at Domingo’s. Seated alone at a table for four, she munched on warm tortilla chips and hot salsa between salty sips.

“Your blouse matches your eyes,” she said, but it came out
mashes
your eyes.

I’d purposely chosen the blouse for the restaurant review. The gauzy, flowing azure fabric came down to mid-thigh, long enough to cover my hips. I didn’t really mind that the only thing the color did for my complexion was make me look anemic.

“Your blouse mashes your eyes, too.” I told her. “You might want to slow down on those drinks.”

She brushed tortilla crumbs off her red shirt and signaled the waiter. “You need a drink. Something exotic.”

I ordered my usual gin and tonic and surveyed the crowd. “This place is packed.”

Only the table next to ours remained unoccupied. The line of people waiting to be seated stretched out the door. Though I loved Mexican food, I never ate at Domingo’s. The parking lot always looked crowded, and patience—especially where food is concerned—was not one of my virtues.

The waiter brought over two menus and my gin and tonic. I removed the slice of lime perched on the rim of the glass and tossed it aside. Meredith lifted her half-full drink and clanked it against mine. “Here’s to a great review!”

“I’ve never done a review before,” I reminded her.

“I used to do them all the time. I can help you. Did you bring a pad and paper?”

“Of course I did.” I pulled a steno pad from my pocketbook and found an uncapped pen.

“Start with the décor, Colleen. What do you think about it?”

I studied the room, as if the loud colors and ridiculously staged Mexican props needed scrutiny to be noticed. “It’s ostentatious, gaudy, tawdry, obtrusive …”

“Did you memorize every negative adjective in the thesaurus? How about something positive like
’fessive
,” Meredith slurred.

I reached over and took her drink away. “The word is festive and you really need to eat something.”

“I’m fine,” Meredith told me. She sat up straight and grabbed a warm tortilla chip. “As a matter of fact, I’m a lot finer than I was five minutes ago.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because Ken Rhodes is here,” she said. “He’s standing over there in the takeout line.”

Across the restaurant, people stood to place orders at the shocking-neon-orange counter. Ken Rhodes was at the end of line.

I shook my head. “I’m in no mood for him.”

“How could you not be in the mood for
that
?” Meredith said, her voice loud enough to qualify as an authentic Irish whisper.

Rhodes turned and looked in our direction as if mental telepathy told him he was a topic of conversation. He came over to our table and pulled out a chair. “Good evening, ladies. I know you don’t mind if I join you.”

Meredith, ever the predictable soul, flushed and giggled.

“You need to switch to water,” I told her. I signaled the waiter.

Meredith didn’t realize there were no water glasses on the table. She reached for my drink and took a gigantic gulp.

“Whoa!” she said. “That’s not right!”

I took the glass away. “Of course it’s not right. You just mixed three margaritas with gin and tonic.”

I urged Meredith to eat a few more tortilla chips until the waiter came to take our orders. At the table next to ours, the hostess seated a couple—two people who shouldn’t simultaneously exist on the same planet, let alone sit at the same table.

Kate, my kid sister … and Ron Haver.

“What are you doing here?” I looked at Kate.

“I’m going to have dinner. What did you think I was doing here? Turning tricks?”

Ron Haver laughed.

Haver was one of the most straight-arrow guys I’d ever known. He simply didn’t go with Kate. My golden-haired sister’s delicate features, like a young Grace Kelly in her pre-Rainier days, in no way matched her personality. Her eccentricities could not be dismissed, even with her classic looks.

Enthralled with high fashion, Kate had opened a trendy boutique called
Superior Attitudes
four years ago. The store carried lines from dozens of overpriced designers and catered to the nouveaux riches—mostly the wives, squeezes, and current significant others of area doctors, lawyers, and Wall Street honchos. Kate’s clients, as she liked to call them, all weighed about twenty pounds soaking wet, wore size 0, and were filled with so much Botox that their foreheads appeared permanently preserved for posterity. Kate moved easily among their crowd, but her past romances with men like Scrub Callahan and Mongo Mike, who had a monstrous image of Satan tattooed across his hairy back, forever barred her from her clients’ social circles. Still, she looked gorgeous in pricey Joe’s Jeans, nosebleed heels, and a breezy mauve top.

Ken instructed the hostess to fetch another chair and bring more menus. Kate and Ron Haver joined us.

“Where’s Mongo?” I asked my sister.

“He’s in jail, Colleen. Your paper ran a front page story on him when he was arrested last month. Remember?”

Haver grinned. Nothing bothered the man.

“How do you and Ron know each other?” I inquired.

“I stopped by Mom’s house the night you found Jason Whitley’s body. You were already gone, but Ron showed up to talk to Dick. The rest, as they say, is history!”

I finally knew who to blame for my daughter’s drama queen genes.

The waitress reached our table, and we placed our orders. Meredith, Ken, Ron, and Kate all ordered fajitas. I went for the Burrito Diablo because it had more gooey cheese than anything else on the menu.

“You don’t want to fill up on those,” helpful Kate said when I reached for the basket of tortilla chips. “They’re loaded with grease and carbs.”

I loved my sister and would have walked through fire for her. At that moment, however, I wanted to rip out her tongue. I didn’t need my sister admonishing my caloric intake in front of Ken Rhodes. Luckily, he didn’t hear the comment. His attention was focused on the other side of the room.

Meredith kicked me under the table. “Do you see who that is?”

The rest of us looked over.

“Betty Vernon, isn’t it?” Ron Haver said.

I recognized the polka dot scrunchy and the vivid blue-and-orange dress from our meeting earlier in the day. “And that’s Stanley Da Silva, Kevin Sheffield, and Jennifer Whitley sitting with her. What are they all doing together? Jennifer Whitley hates Betty Vernon.”

“They’re toasting something,” Meredith said.

The four people at the table lifted goblets filled with blood-red sangria. Kevin Sheffield talked, something long-winded and somber. When he finished, they clinked their glasses together and took a sip.

“Either they’re conducting their own little memorial service or they’re congratulating themselves for bumping Whitley off,” Ken Rhodes said.

I addressed Ron Haver. “Are they all suspects?”

Haver shrugged again. I was getting used to the response.

“Did you get a chance to speak to any of them today?” Ken asked me.

I nodded. “Betty Vernon
and
Da Silva, but I didn’t get his interview yet.”

Kate leaned across the table. “Da Silva’s that basketball guy, isn’t he? Didn’t you go to high school with some of them, Colleen?”

“No. I think they were all a year or two behind me. Maybe they were in a few of your classes.”

“Not my class,” Kate said. “I was five years behind you. Still, that big woman looks familiar.”

“Sure she does. You probably noticed her working the streets around the Port Authority when you take the bus into Manhattan on your buying trips.”

Meredith giggled. The waitress returned with our orders and, except for Meredith, we all dug in.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

“I’m just a little tired.” She put her hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn.

I buried my overstuffed burrito in guacamole and sour cream and took a bite, entering Mexican heaven. I wrote a few sentences about the hot and cold sensations in my mouth and the enormous portions, and turned to ask Meredith if I could sample her fajita. Her eyelids were at half-mast.

“I think she fell asleep,” I whispered.

“She’s totally wasted,” Kate said.

Ken Rhodes leaned across the table and reached for Meredith’s plate. “We don’t want this to go to waste then.”

I cut off a small piece of the fajita before Rhodes confiscated her entire meal.

Even the fajitas were good, and I was sorry I didn’t order a few more dishes to sample. Forty-five minutes later, our plates were clean and we sipped steaming mugs of coffee. My pants were causing me all kinds of pain, but I didn’t dare unbutton them.

“Are we doing dessert?” Ken asked.

“I’d rather not explode, thank you,” I said. “I just wish I knew how to spell half the things they serve here.”

“Swipe a menu on your way out,” he suggested.

At the far end of the restaurant, the group at the memorial dinner stood and left the restaurant. At our table, Kate gazed into a compact mirror and reapplied lip gloss. Meredith sat up straight in her chair with her eyes completely shut. Every few minutes her head would bob and she’d snap awake, then doze off again.

“Who’s driving Meredith home?” I asked.

Kate looked away from the mirror. “I’ll drive her car if someone tells me where she lives. Ron can follow me and take me home.”

“Convenient,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

Ken Rhodes paid for dinner. Kate and Ron helped Meredith to her feet and escorted her to the parking lot.

I grabbed one of the takeout menus and walked with Ken to my sad little Escort.

“I doubt Meredith’s head will feel well enough for her to edit your review tomorrow morning. It’s better if you email it to me,” he said.