A Broom Too Far

by Mara Webb

  “Yes, I heard, such a pity. I’m sure many people will miss her,” she said somewhat coldly.

  “But not you?” I said. She turned to face me, the other teachers around her sensed that this was not going to be over quickly so took several large steps away from us and moved to stand elsewhere.

  “It’s not like that. I just…” she sighed and put her coffee mug on the counter, leaving her fingers wrapped around the handle. “Hannah was perfectly lovely, but she made my job harder. That lot were only speaking to me now out of courtesy.” She nodded her head towards the group that had just walked away.

  “Look around you, look at all those photographs on the wall there. There are photos from championships with our students holding up the trophy, a girl in her first year being handed a cheque for her success in a writing competition, mathletes, soccer, every area that students could possibly excel in, they do. Where am I? Look.” She pointed at the closest area of framed pictures.

  I leaned towards the wall, taking a small step to inspect it. I saw the pajama guy in one picture shaking hands with a young woman, they stood beside a blueprint of a building on an easel. The little metal plaque on the frame read ‘excellence in architecture - University of Awa student Ellis Key’. Another picture had students in lab coats standing in front of a projection screen, they were delivering a presentation. Their plaque read ‘New electron microscope awarded to the University of Awa for outstanding work in the sciences’.

  Martha was not in any of these pictures. There were no photographs of the cheerleading team in this room at all. That didn’t mean that the individual students that made up the cheerleading squad weren’t pictured, I recognized Hannah in several of them.

  “I’m a joke to everyone here. This place is rife with snobbery. All the academic subject teachers think what I do is pointless. Sure, the soccer team does alright. They view the sports here as a little hobby for students to take their minds off the more important stuff. Just a stress reliever. I take my job seriously, I run a number of extracurriculars, and I get no respect.” Her lips thinned and rolled over her teeth; she was almost seething.

  “The students do well here though, right? Isn’t that the point?”

  “No,” she snapped. “I want a slice of this,” she slammed her palm against the nearest framed picture. Some other staff members turned to watch. “Do you know how it feels to have people look down their noses at you? You ask for more funding, for new equipment, anything, and get laughed at.”

  “Hannah was pretty terrible, the whole squad is, and you seem really upset about it…” Quin said, trying to goad her into exposing whatever she might have done.

  “I didn’t wish her harm or anything. I wanted the whole lot of them to just practice, rehearse, plan. It is never anyone's priority. Everything else comes so easily to her, no wonder her brother is so bitter. I’m surprised he showed up this morning, he can’t need the money that badly.”

  I looked at her with confusion. I didn’t know Hannah had a brother, I couldn't let on though as Quin and I were pretending to have been hired by her family. To not know the most basic thing about her relatives would make it too obviously a ruse.

  “He works in the cafe here, haven’t you already spoken with him?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, but we may have some follow up questions. We might have some more for you too, so don’t go far.” Quin gave an authoritative glance before guiding me out of the staff room.

  When we were back in the corridor he spoke again. “Right, so she’s crazy. Put her in the ‘maybe’ pile. I think we should speak to the brother, hopefully he gives us something else we can use. The cafe is this way.”

  I followed behind as Quin walked to the end of the corridor and took a right up a flight of stairs. The second floor opened out into a large cafe with one entire wall made of glass overlooking the training field and other buildings. My own University cafe had been like this, despite the direct sunlight hammering down on us during lunch I still managed to put my head down onto a book on the table and sleep between lectures.

  A few students were still in the cafe, most had left to get to their first classes of the day. Staff behind the counter were moving slower than they probably were thirty minutes ago during the breakfast rush. A young man in a hairnet was operating the cash register, his face seemed a little swollen and blotchy. He had the same nose as Hannah. Was he crying?

  Before I got close enough to start our questions, he yelled “If you want hot food it will be another ten minutes, we sold out of everything, sorry.” His voice was a little hoarse. I approached the counter.

  “No food for us thanks, we just wanted to ask you a few questions if that’s okay? You’re Hannah’s brother, right?” As I said her name, he flinched a little, like the mere sound of her name had given him an electric shock. A tear rolled down his face silently.

  “Yes. Why?” His tone changed now, he seemed angry.

  “One of Hannah’s teachers suggested we speak to you; we are trying to establish what happened yesterday afternoon through to the evening. Do you know where Hannah was? Who she spoke to? What time she got home?” I asked, my eyes glancing quickly to Quin who nodded approvingly of my questions.

  “I don’t know much. She’s just...she’s the smart one. She was going to have it all. It was just the two of us and now my parents are stuck with me. They would swap me for her in a heartbeat, I wouldn’t blame them. She should be here.” Tears fell freely now.

  “Does the University not provide compassionate leave? I mean, do you have to be here today?” I reached over and placed my hand over his as he hunched over, he spoke through heaving sobs.

  “Yeah...but what am I going to do at home? At least here I am distracted. I can go almost a whole minute not thinking about it if I am busy. I wish I could take her place.”

  “One of the teachers suggested you two didn’t get along that well, that you were bitter?” Quin interjected.

  He scoffed. “We give each other a hard time, just brother-sister stuff,” he inhaled shakily, “I would protect her from anything, it was just a friendly competition and she won every time. I flunked out and ended up working here. She was going to be something; she had her eyes on a few PhD programmes overseas and we were all excited for her.

  “My mom and dad had eyes only for her, she was their pride and joy. I was just the mess up who they gave birthday gifts to. I should have done something when I got suspicious of them…” His sobs turned into a wailing, then he shook so hard with his tears that he didn’t take a breath. Silently crying like a child who can’t articulate his sadness.

  “Them?” I asked.

  “The Antelopes, that stupid cheer thing. She had started going over to Imogen's house all the time. There’s a patch of trees behind her house, a few of them have houses that back onto the same wood. I think they were trying out some weird magic that they didn’t want anyone to know about. Our cousin joined at the beginning of the semester but dropped out after a week or so, she got the creeps from Imogen. She dropped out; Hannah signed up.

  I think they got in over their head and something backfired. Speak to Marnie if you like, Marnie Winters. She has a practical assessment in the labs that she couldn’t miss today, I feel for her. We’re all in pieces and she’s got to carry out chemistry experiments for some coursework piece.” He pointed out of the window to a building that mirrored this one across the field.

  As he pointed the sleeve of his shirt pulled back a little to reveal a thin friendship bracelet on his wrist. The type they make in girl scouts. The tears started up again and we made for the stairs. I spoke first. “I don’t think he is in our ‘maybe’ pile. I’d guess at a firm no. I think the teacher or the whole cheerleading squad.”

  “Great, so we have narrowed it down to twelve suspects. Fantastic!” Quin seemed positive that we had made progress, I wasn’t so sure.

  11

  We crossed the field and entered the sciences building. There was a pass scan machine
just inside the doors. We used our ID cards to swipe against the laser reader and the short gates opened to let us through. According to the sign by the elevator, chemistry assessments were held on the third floor in Lab C until lunch time today.

  We rode the elevator upwards and stepped out into a small waiting area with three doors. Each door had a small window through which we could see lab benches and a bustle of anxious looking students. Labs A and B had microscopes out and students were peering carefully down through the eyepiece and making notes. It was quite until a student in Lab A suddenly sprouted enormous black, feathered wings and jumped through the window, soaring upwards. The teacher seemed unphased and launched into a speech about the tragedy of exam pressure.

  In Lab C several students were sitting patiently whilst others huddled around glassware suspended above Bunsen burners.

  I knocked on the door to Lab C and a stern looking older man came to the window. He looked unhappy at the disruption but opened the door anyway. “This better be important, these students need to focus. One wrong move and their healing potion becomes corrosive and will burn through this building all the way to the foundations!” He wheezed as he spoke, but his voice still caught the attention of the few students closest to him, their faces turned pale at the thought. They clearly didn’t know the risks.

  “We just need to speak to Marnie Winters quickly. It’s about...her car?” Quins inflection gave away that he hadn't planned the end of that sentence before he started it.

  “Oh, well she is in the second group, they aren’t starting for another twenty minutes. Staggered starts give everyone plenty of time with the moon oil. Be quick. Marnie!”

  A girl with long red curls tied up in a ponytail turned to us, stood up and walked over. “Hey what’s up?”

  “Can we speak to you outside? It’s about your car,” I said.

  She followed us out into the waiting area and sat down in a plastic chair. “Okay, I’ll bite. What do you actually want? Because I don’t own a car.”

  “It’s about Hannah.” Quin got straight to the point. She stood and turned back to the Lab.

  “No, I can’t talk about this right now. Please, just, not today.” She was getting choked up and put her hand up to reach for the door.

  “We spoke to her brother, your cousin. He said you might have some info about the cheerleading squad. We are trying to figure out what happened to her and you might be able to help us.” I pleaded with her. If she really knew who I was she wouldn’t say a word. As far as I knew I was the prime suspect. I had argued with Hannah in front of everyone and then she was found dead on my lawn. Gossip travels fast, everyone must have known. I needed her help so that the rest of her family didn’t kill me for a crime I didn’t commit.

  “Tom sent you? I... he thinks they had something to do with it? They are a bunch of weirdos sure, but I doubt they would kill anyone. He’s grabbing onto anything to give all this uncertainty some answers. He told you about the woods?” I nodded. “They said something about a ritual they were gearing up for, but they don’t have the skills. It sounded like old magic; they wouldn’t know how.

  “All I know is that she seemed off a little bit yesterday morning. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but she was staring out a lot, you know, like her mind was on something else. She was kinda quiet and then...well then, she was found outside some random witch’s house. I’d try asking her why she had my cousin dead on her lawn.” With that she turned and stepped back towards the lab.

  She turned her head back to say “You need to know what happened with Robin. You’ll never get a straight answer out of her, so I’d speak to Imogen. She knows the gossip around here better than anyone.” She walked through the lab door.

  “So, we are down to thirteen suspects now? The whole cheerleading squad, the teacher and now Robin? Unless Robin is a cheerleader too, then it’s still twelve. Still no idea why she was outside our house though. Eliminating the eleven girls on the cheer team would help us out numbers-wise.” Quin said. He was right.

  “Seems like Imogen is the one to find next then, she can fill us in on the Robin thing, whatever that is, and point us towards a boyfriend.”

  “I got stuck watching a Crime and Investigation channel once. I say stuck, I was flicking between channels and it caught my attention. Humans are a mess, that’s the first thing I learned. The things people kill over, it’s crazy. Some of the cover ups are straight up embarrassing, like there was this one guy who killed his wife, he’d been pretending she had a stalker for months too.

  “He thought it would make her fall in love with him all over again if she was scared and he protected her. He ended up killing her, was all like ‘Oh no, she’s dead? That’s so sad, should I collect her life insurance now or what.’ But then I was thinking—”

  “Hey, was there a point to this story detective?” I interrupted.

  “Oh yeah, sorry. It’s always the husband. The husband did it, in this case, the boyfriend. I bet you, hmm... what do I have? I bet you...five dollars. NO WAIT! I will be quiet for a whole day!”

  “You’re on,” I enthusiastically replied, we shook on it.

  We got back into the elevator and descended to the ground floor. We needed to find Imogen on a campus full of students constantly moving from one room to another. We also had to rely on the hope that she had shown up today. If we were lucky, we would just bump into her in a hallway.

  “Where should we start? I can only think of looking for more brag-boards? There must be a display of the trophies and pictures from competitions that is out for everyone to see, not just the one tucked away in the staff room,” I said. “If so, we can try to see if Imogen is name checked anywhere, try to figure out her major and work out where she is.”

  Quin knew where such a display would be. We had discussed going back to the staff room and asking there, but all the classes had started. The staff room would be a ghost town for at least another hour, and we didn’t want to waste time. If there was a chance we could figure it out by ourselves then we would try, plan B was to wait and ask.

  When we got to the first corridor lined with photos, I started to look at the left wall, Quin inspecting the right. I saw Hannah on stage shaking hands with various other students and teachers. Frame and frame filled with faces I didn’t recognize. After ten minutes of examination I heard a “Yes! Over here!” from Quin.

  “Look,” he said. Quin had jumped up on a small table that held a bowl filled with complimentary breath mints. He pointed to the frame closest to him. “That’s her, Imogen.”

  The plaque read ‘Final year criminology & law students hosted another successful forensic experience day for local elementary schools to enjoy, inspiring the next generation of crime fighters!’

  “Well that helps, so she’s law or criminology, or both? I don’t know how it works,” I said, pleased with our discovery.

  “Doesn’t matter, they share a building. This way!” Quin jumped down from the table and we hurried outside again and through another set of doors leading off the central field. The heat of the buildings was starting to make the outside feel unpleasantly cold. As we stood inside the doors of the Law building, we shuddered a little to shake off the chill. A group of students were walking down the stairs with books hugged to their chests. Imogen was among the second wave of bodies descending.

  “Imogen,” I shouted, waving to attract her eye. She muttered something to a girl next to her and they parted ways, the stranger headed for outside and Imogen came to us.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she said, seemingly disinterested in either of us.

  “We just wanted to say that we are sorry for your loss, I know Hannah was your friend. We were hoping to get a bit more information about her movements yesterday, are you able to shed any light?” I was trying to make eye contact with her when I spoke, but she was looking at the ground.

  “Sure, so first off I will not be saying anything without a lawyer present. I will need to see your IDs as well.” She was de
fensive and snappy. We promptly showed her our ID cards, but I had doubts about how much information we were going to get.

  “You can make an appointment to speak to me, I won’t be putting myself in any sort of vulnerable position in this corridor.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait, her cousin said to ask you about Robin.” I was clutching at straws; she wasn’t going to open up much but perhaps she would tell us something. She turned back to us.

  “Oh, Robin? I can tell you about Robin. Robin isn’t the brightest, she wanted to tip the scales in her favor, so to speak. She broke into the desk of the magical history teachers’ desk, stole the exam paper master copy and made some notes. She thought she could just put it back and no one would ever know.

  “Hannah is a, was a double major in English literature and Magical History. She was like, really good at it. She saw Robin bust open the desk, take the paper out, the whole thing. Hannah didn’t want to play if it wasn’t a level field, so she snitched, told Professor Burne all about it. I’m surprised Robin wasn’t expelled.” She smiled a little, more like a smirk. I didn’t think Imogen and I would ever have been friends.

  “Did Robin know it was Hannah?” Quin asked.

  “For sure, we all did. When Robin joined the cheerleading team, it was pretty awkward.”

  “When was that?” I asked.

  “Oh, maybe three weeks ago, I forget. Robin got lucky for sure, it’s on her permanent record though, she just managed to sweet talk her way into staying. That and the money…” Her eyes widened sarcastically. I couldn’t read her well at all.

  “What money?” I asked.

  “Well Hannah was a pretty terrible dancer, an atrocious gymnast, she had no rhythm. She truly was the whole package...but without her we would have nothing. Her family donates money to the squad. Without her we would have dissolved last year. But then Robin joined, and her parents donated an impressive amount too, more than enough to keep us going. Without the Huxley’s it would have been curtains for Martha, our coach. Robin’s dad will be able to keep us afloat though.”