Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery) (23 page)

“You a cop?” she asked between tosses.

“A lawyer.” The answer didn’t make a lot of sense, but it seemed to satisfy her.

“He was so deep,” she said, blinking hard. “So intense. Nothing like the Neanderthals you generally find around here. And those eyes — all he had to do was look at me, and I was putty.”

I could understand the part about the eyes. The rest of it didn’t sound much like Eddie. Of course, Vicky’s idea of deep and mine were probably a bit different. “How well did you know him?” I asked.

She gave another pert toss of her head.
“Very
well, if you get my drift.”

I did. “Was he in any kind of trouble that you know of? The artfully penciled brows furrowed, but Vicky’s face remained expressionless.

I tried again. “Anyone angry at him?”

“Yeah, me.” The furrow became a full-fledged crease. “Turns out the guy was married.”

“You didn’t know that?”

“Not until I called his house and found myself talking to his goddamn wife. Jeannette or whatever her name is. Kids, even. The bastard.” Afresh round of tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. Vicky was an emotional roller coaster.

“When was this?”

“Four weeks and three days ago, exactly.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I thought I’d finally met Mr. Right, you know, wedding bells and picket fences, and then it turns out the creep was cheating on me.”

That was certainly a novel way of looking at it.

“For a while I was so mad I couldn’t see straight, but I loved the guy, too. I kept hoping we could work it out.” A sniffle. “It was just awful to pick up the paper and see his picture right there on the front page. I’ve never before dated a man who was murdered.” Vicky’s voice trailed off. “Married, murdered — jeez, I really know how to pick them, don’t I?”

I tried to work up some sympathy, but I couldn’t. Too many people I cared about had been hurt. Were hurting still. “When you found out he was married, what then?”

She set her empty juice glass in the sink, adding it to the existing assortment of crusty cups and bowls. “He said he was going to leave his wife, that I just had to be patient until he worked it out. Then he told me we had to lay low for awhile because his wife knew about us.” Vicky’s eyes narrowed. “It took me awhile to figure out that if she already knew, and he was going to leave her anyway, we shouldn’t have to sneak around. God, men are such shits.”

That sentiment I could sympathize with. “How long had you known him?”

“Not long.” She actually sounded embarrassed. “A couple months is all. But it was intense.” The fuchsia mouth quivered. “Intense and very, very special.”

“Did you meet at The Mine Shaft?”

“Oh no, nothing like that” The quiver was gone. The habitual head toss was accompanied by a breathless laugh. “I work for Baker Janitorial and Maintenance. Part-time. I go to cosmetology school, too.”

Baker Janitorial — the name sounded vaguely familiar, although I couldn’t think why. It still didn’t explain Eddie though, so I waited.

“One day he came in to talk to Mr. Baker about an account. It was just like out of the movies. He stopped by my desk and said, ‘Hi, gorgeous.’”

Eddie was deep all right.

“The next time he came by, Mr. Baker was tied up, so I suggested we have lunch while he waited. It kind of went from there.”

“What, exactly, is Baker Janitorial?”

“Commercial cleaning, floors, windows
...”
She did a little shuffle. “You name it, we do it, and do it right!”

It may not have been the job of her dreams, but she gave it her best, I had to give her credit for that. “What was Eddie’s connection to Baker Janitorial?”

Vicky shrugged. “All I know is Mr. Baker wasn’t any too happy to see him.”

“Didn’t you ever ask Eddie about it?”

“No, he didn’t like to talk about everyday stuff like that.”

That was Eddie — deep with a capital “D.”

I’d figured out that Vicky wasn’t going to be able to give me much, but I had one more question. “Where were you last Saturday?” I asked.

She thought for a moment. “Home for the most part. Why?”

“You didn’t go out at all?”

She shook her head. The blonde mane bounced around her shoulders. “I went out that evening, though. There’s this guy I started dating to get my mind off Eddie. He’s got no class at all. Comes to pick me up, and he honks the friggin’ horn.”

I let go of a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Her story matched Jannine’s to a tee. I thanked her and let myself out.

To the best of my knowledge, Benson didn’t know anything about Vicky. I wanted to keep it that way. Jealous wives were a favorite with homicide inspectors, probably with good cause, and Jannine had enough jewels in her crown already.

As
I headed back to Silver Creek, I thought about Eddie and Jannine and Vicky. And love. And I pondered the dark irony of the fact that Jannine was able to provide an alibi for her husband’s mistress, while she herself had none.

Chapter 17

I got to the high school just as the passing period bell rang. In an instant, the hallway was empty, its silence almost as deafening as the preceding bedlam.

The student assistant working at the front desk was the same cherubic young lady I’d met on my last visit.

“You here to see Mrs. Walker again?”

“Mr. Peterson first. Is he available?”

“He’s got someone with him right now. You want to wait?”

I nodded and she went back to the paperwork in front of her, but not for long. “This is so bor-ring,” she said. “And now it looks like I’m stuck here for the rest of the year. I’ll never get back to attendance.”

“I thought this was temporary, until the regular girl got well.”

She smiled, a shy, girlish smile you don’t see on many her age. “You’ve got a good memory.” Then her face grew serious again. “I don’t think she’s coming back. She isn’t sick after all. She ran away. Nobody knows where she is.

“Cheryl Newcomb?”

“You know her?”

I shook my head. “Do you?”

“Yes. No. I mean, we’ve been classmates since kindergarten, but you know how it goes.”

“What’s she like?”

A shrug.

“Who did she hang around with?”

The girl thought. “Mostly she kept to herself. Last year in junior high she used to hang around with Eva Holland, but Eva’s kind of. . .” She made a circular motion with her finger. “You know that expression, her elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top. She was in regular classes last year, but high school’s tougher. They had to send her to a special school in Northvale. I don’t know whether Cheryl stayed friends with her or not.”

“Do you happen to know where Eva lives?”

“Sure. The little white house across from the school. Doesn’t seem fair. She could practically fall out of bed and roll to school, and instead she has to be bussed clear over to a different town.”

Just then an interior door opened, and Jack Peterson ushered out a couple and a freckle-faced boy who was obviously their son. None of them looked happy, including Peterson, who looked even less pleased when he saw me.

“Miss O’Brien,” he said. “What a surprise.”

“I’d like to speak with you if you have a moment.”

“I have another parent conference coming up, and then this thing with Ch
...”
He looked over at the assistant, then caught my eye and mouthed, “the missing girl.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, the school is not directly involved, but we’re trying to cooperate any way we can.”

“That’s part of what I’d like to talk to you about.”

His smile was gracious, but unbending. “I really don’t have the time just now, I”

“It will only take a minute.”

He frowned. “Well, just a minute then.”

Peterson’s office didn’t begin to compare to the partners’ offices at Goldman & Latham, but I would have been willing to bet it was fancier than any other room at school. It certainly outshone the teachers’ lounge by a country mile.

The room was large, probably a remodel of several smaller offices, and furnished with an antique armoire, several easy chairs and a large oak desk. Clearly none of it was regulation issue.

He caught me looking, and smiled. “I want the students and parents to feel comfortable here. No reason for the principal’s office to look like the reception area at San Quentin. But I paid for it myself. I’m fortunate to be well enough off that I can afford such indulgences. Now, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like to talk to you about Eddie.” I settled into the green wing chair across from him. “How did he seem in the days before his death?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he seem worried or upset? Anything out of the ordinary?”

Peterson thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, not that I was aware of.”

“Did he talk to you much about his uncle or the tavern?”

“He’d mention it on occasion. ‘My ticket out of here,’ is how he referred to it. He and his sister inherited an interest in the tavern from their father.”

“So you'd be looking for a new coach?”

“At some point, most likely.
 
But we expected that.
 
Eddie was taking business courses, you know, working on his MBA.” Peterson smiled. “Those of us in education sometimes feel the need to move on to something a bit more . . . challenging. I may be running for State Assembly, myself.”

I smiled back and tried to look impressed. “Are you familiar with any of the details of the transaction? Like where Eddie was getting the money to buy his sister’s share?”

“We never got into that sort of thing.”

For a man who liked to talk, Eddie had been surprisingly closemouthed about his business venture. “He apparently stopped by school the Saturday morning he was killed,” I continued. “Would there be some record of the time he arrived or left, the calls he made, that sort of thing?”

“No. Teachers aren’t required to sign in on weekends, and we no longer have a central switchboard. I’m afraid I can’t help.”

I hadn’t expected much, but I was disappointed all the same. “Cheryl Newcomb was here that morning, also,” I said, shifting to the second item on my agenda. “One of the students saw her talking to Eddie.”

“I hadn’t heard that” Peterson swallowed hard. “So many terrible things happening all at once. And it had been such a successful year, too, before all this.” His fingers drummed the desk top and then stopped suddenly. “Surely you don’t think there’s a connection?”

“I don’t know. It seems odd that they were both here Saturday morning, then suddenly Eddie’s dead, and Cheryl is missing.”

“I suppose, looking at it that way, it does seem odd. But teachers and students are frequently here after school hours.”

“What do you know about the girl’s disappearance?”