“Me neither,” I texted.
“Who are you texting?” The man peered at my phone like it was a high-tech piece of spy equipment.
A nervous chuckle escaped my lips. “No one. Just… No one. I was checking the weather.”
“You’re in the weather. Why do you need to check it? Are you texting Miss May or Teeny? Do they want an update on the case? I bet they’re worried ‘cuz you’re out here alone. This park can get dangerous.”
“This park isn’t dangerous,” I said. “Nothing bad has ever happened here.”
“Sweetheart,” said the man. “There’s been about a million murders in Pine Grove since you moved to town. Doesn’t matter how cute the place is. Bad stuff can happen anywhere.”
Was that a threat? I thought. I felt a sudden need to get away from the man. My heart rate quickened. My palms got sweaty. I pulled my bag closer to my chest and got ready to leave.
A voice called out from the darkness. But it was not the elderly croak of Mrs. Wimple. It was a stronger, steadier voice. “Chelsea Thomas. You came.”
Coach Sheila emerged from the shadows, wearing her Lakeland High School tracksuit.
Mrs. Wimple stood beside Sheila with a little smile. “I told you Chelsea would come,” Wimple said. “She was one of my best students.”
The drunken man burped. “Wow. OK this just got too real. I’m out of here.” With that, the man climbed to his feet and stumbled back toward town.
And suddenly, I was alone in the park with two suspected killers.
46
One for the Money, Two for the Show
Mrs. Wimple and Coach Sheila stepped closer toward me from the shadows. Wimple wore a sinister grin. Sheila stared me down with a disturbing, glib confidence. Though I had expected Mrs. Wimple, Sheila’s presence made the whole rendezvous feel even more like a trap. Again I wondered if the tipsy old man had been planted by Sheila and Wimple to set me off balance.
I hoped the women didn’t want to kill me, but I knew the odds were not in my favor. Two against one. So I stood from my bench, backed away, and clenched my fists at my side. I felt confident that my karate skills would be more than enough to vanquish the elderly Mrs. Wimple. But Sheila was in terrific shape. I feared she had a tenacity that would put my karate skills to shame.
“Hi Mrs. Wimple. Nice to see you again. Hi, Coach Sheila.”
“It’s OK, Chelsea. Don’t be scared.” Mrs. Wimple kept walking toward me. I continued backing away.
“That sentence is rarely uttered in a situation in which one does not need to be scared,” I said. I couldn’t help it, I was a little bit proud of using correct grammar in front of my English teacher. “What’s going on here?”
Mrs. Wimple looked over at Sheila and gave her a little nod. “We have a lot to tell you,” Sheila said. “We thought this nice, private park would be perfect for a discreet conversation.”
“Why?” I asked. “We could have talked in one of your offices or homes. This setting doesn’t feel safe. Did you two—"
“Neither of us killed anyone,” said Mrs. Wimple. “But, because of that exact suspicion, it was imperative for us to meet someplace like this. If you and your posse showed up at one of our offices or houses, who knows what might have happened? We know all about your past investigations. What if you found some sort of false clue and dragged us to the police station like you have with your prior suspects? What if you karate chopped us for no reason?”
“That’s not how it works,” I said, feeling defensive. “We don’t just go around chopping people or dragging them to jail. We have a specific process, like any detectives. And if the two of you are innocent, why did you insist I come alone? You know as well as anyone that Teeny, Miss May, and I are a team. If you meant to help with our investigation, it’s unclear to me why you wouldn’t have wanted all of us present.”
“I don’t like Miss May,” said Mrs. Wimple. “She’s bossy and rude. Teeny is just as bad, if not worse. Some people seem to think she’s funny but I think she’s annoying.”
“Oh,” I said. “OK.”
“What we’re about to tell you is monumental,” Mrs. Wimple continued. “Are you not competent enough to receive big information without your bothersome counterparts?”
“We are not bothersome.” Teeny exploded from the bushes with Miss May a few feet behind her. Uh-oh. “We’re brilliant sleuths. There’s nothing any of us do that annoys anyone. And everyone who has ever met me will tell you that I’m the funniest person they know. You wanna hear a joke? Knock-knock, who’s there, a crazy coach and a mean teacher and they both look like killers to me.”
“Teeny—” I started. But it was no use. Our spot had been blown up.
“We should have known they were hiding in the bushes,” said Sheila. “Let’s go, Geraldine. This was a bad idea. They can’t be trusted.”
Miss May hurried toward the women with her hands held up like a metaphorical white flag. “We can be trusted. And I, personally, understand all of your qualms with both me and Teeny. I can be blunt and domineering. And Teeny, I love you, but you annoy lots of people. Still, regardless of our personalities, we both work hard for justice in this town, just like Chelsea. So whatever you wanted to tell her, you can tell us as well.”
“I am not annoying,” said Teeny.
“You’re being annoying right now.” Miss May glared at Teeny. “Why don’t you let Geraldine and Sheila tell us what they know?”
Wimple glanced at Sheila. Sheila shrugged. “You started this whole thing. It’s your call. But I advise against it.”
“We already came this far,” said Mrs. Wimple. “The ladies are right. They may be difficult but they want the best for this town. I think that’s what all of us have in common.”
“You keep saying that but you haven’t given us any explanations,” I said.
“What do you want me to explain?” said Wimple.
“You could start by telling us about your relationship with Coach Thornton, Geraldine,” said Miss May. “It seems like a complicated situation. If you despised Coach, as you’ve previously stated, why were you helping him at all?”
Mrs. Wimple laughed to herself. “You found the only piece of evidence that connected me to Thornton. The three of you are better than people say.”
“Compliments are nice but the truth is better.” Teeny crossed her arms. “Talk, Wimp.”
Mrs. Wimple cringed. “I hate when people call me that.”
“Yet you signed your note to Thornton as ‘The Big Wimp.’” Miss May pushed her hair back. “Why?”
“Tell them, Geraldine,” said Sheila. “I can’t wait to see the look on their faces.”
Mrs. Wimple nodded, took a deep breath and launched into her story. “Ron Thornton was a bad man. I recognized the evil in him the fist day he walked into my class as a student. Over the course of my life I’ve met plenty of bad men. I’m sure we all have. And each of them had the same little shimmer in his eyes. The same jaunt in his step. Ron had that energy pulsing through him, even as a teenage boy. So from the beginning I didn’t trust him. Eventually we became colleagues, sure. But he was gym and I was English. It wasn’t hard for me to stay away.”
“This sounds a lot like the beginning of a confession,” said Miss May.
“She’s right, Geraldine,” said Sheila. “The backstory is not necessary.”
“It’s necessary if I say it’s necessary.” Wimple shot a sharp look at Sheila. “I’m the author of my own story. You have no right to instruct me how to tell it. Say you’re sorry.”
Sheila hung her head and muttered an apology. My eyes widened. It shocked me to see Wimple have such command over an indomitable presence like Sheila. Miss May was right. The beginning of Wimple’s speech seemed like a confession. And Wimple’s energy was spiky and aggressive.
“Where was I?” Wimple asked. “Oh, yes. I was telling you how I stayed away from Thornton all these years. I always kept an eye on him because I didn’t trust him. But that was
just a gut feeling I had. The guy didn’t do anything wrong that I knew of until a few years ago. That’s when he created that scholarship.”
Sheila sneered with disgust. “The Ron Thornton Collegiate Scholarship for Underprivileged Athletes in America. What a dumb, long name for a scholarship.”
“Thornton was a dumb guy,” said Teeny. “One of the dumbest dummies to ever grace the hallowed halls of Dumb University.” Mrs. Wimple laughed. Teeny pointed at her. “See? I’m funny, not annoying.”
Mrs. Wimple’s smile changed to a scowl. “It’s not hard to be funny when you’re mocking Ron Thornton.”
“Fair point,” said Teeny. “Continue.”
“What was up with the scholarship?” Miss May asked.
“Yeah,” I added. “It sounds made up.”
“Ah-ha! It was made up,” said Sheila. “The guy traveled up and down the state raising money from local basketball associations for this scholarship. Every year he would have an article published in the county news, announcing the kid who won all the money. It was a good chunk of change too. Four years at a good school is expensive.”
“But the kids who ‘won’ were hired to pose for the article,” said Mrs. Wimple. “The scholarships didn’t exist. And all that money went straight into the pockets of Ron Thornton’s gross, stinky sweatpants.”
“Still not sure how you got involved with all this, Geraldine,” said Miss May.
“Ron had tons of stolen money, lots of it in cash, but he had no idea what to do with it. He was stupid but he knew that he was going to attract the attention of the IRS, sooner or later. So he started thinking about how he could make all that stolen money look legitimate. About a year ago, he decided to put an end to the scam. The man was greedy but even he knew when to take his hand out of the cookie jar. He wanted to try to legitimize the money so he could have a nice retirement in Florida without looking over his big, ugly shoulders.”
“So you were pretending to help him launder the cash and other money,” Miss May said. “When in fact you were gathering evidence against Coach Thornton that proved the scam. You were building a case against him so you could take him down.”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Wimple. “You wouldn’t think an English teacher would be anyone’s first choice for help with money laundering, but my dad was a tax lawyer. Did the elder Thornton’s taxes for years. So when Thornton came to me asking about tax law, I assumed he was in trouble. Lo and behold, I was right.”
“But you weren’t working with the authorities already?” I said.
Mrs. Wimple shook her head. “We tried. Submitted paperwork. Made a few calls. We were told an investigation would be launched but we never heard back. So we took things into our own hands.”
“I imagine the three of you can respect vigilante justice more than most,” said Sheila.
“Of course we can,” said Miss May. “But the two of you had so many opportunities to tell us this sooner. Why did you wait? And why are you telling us now?”
“We sensed that you suspected one or both of us in your investigation,” said Wimple. “At first, we thought if we shut you down you would go away. But when you didn’t go away, we realized we would need to bring you into the loop or risk being arrested for these murders.”
“We never put the wrong person away for a crime,” said Miss May.
“We couldn’t risk it,” said Mrs. Wimple. “Besides, if one of us was even falsely arrested for these murders that would destroy our credibility in the education world. And we need to be free to do our own work right now, anyway. We’re poking around Thornton’s office and his house just as often as you are. We’re still gathering evidence and fortifying our case.”
“Wow. So your plan is to destroy the guy even though he’s dead,” said Teeny.
“If Sheila and Geraldine manage to thoroughly discredit Thornton, the State Board of Athletics might strip Pine Grove High School of its championships,” said Miss May. “Sheila could recover some semblance of glory in the wake of the scandal. And Geraldine could enjoy bringing down a bad man, even after he died.”
Sheila shrugged. “Just a tiny benefit for me.”
“This is all interesting but you haven’t provided any alibis,” said Miss May. “You two could be making this up to throw us off the trail.”
“I emailed Chelsea several financial statements that confirm Thornton’s theft of the scholarship monies,” said Mrs. Wimple. “She should have the documents in her inbox now.”
I checked my phone. The email was there, along with attachments that proved Ron’s treachery. I put the phone away and nodded at Miss May. “They’re telling the truth.”
“You said Coach Ron took money from philanthropists and sports associations up and down the state?” asked Miss May.
Sheila nodded. “That’s right.”
47
Thinking Twice
Wimple and Sheila disappeared into the park just as quickly as they had emerged. After they had gone, I wondered for a fraction of a second if I had imagined the entire encounter. The whole thing felt like a dream. A drunk man on a bench. My old high school English teacher. The rival basketball coach from the next town over. And so much scandal and murder.
I sat on the bench and heaved a sigh. “How is this my life?”
Teeny and Miss May sat across from me. Miss May chuckled. “The older you get, the more often you’ll ask yourself that question. I think it all the time. How did I end up owning this orchard? How am I roaming around solving these murders? Just yesterday, I was a little girl climbing in the branches of the apple trees. Today I’m counting the apples and assessing the harvest and budgeting to keep the orchard profitable.”
A cold wind shivered through the park. I tightened my coat for protection. “It’s all the murdering stuff that feels most unreal to me.”
Miss May smiled ruefully. “I get that. Wimple and Sheila seemed like suspects for so long. Now they both seem innocent. It’s disorienting.”
“Disorienting,” said Teeny. “That’s the perfect word. I think it’s disorienting that Geraldine Wimple thinks I’m annoying. She’s annoying with her stupid little glasses and her English teacher snobbery. Nobody uses grammar when they grow up.”
“I use grammar every day,” I said.
“Sure,” said Teeny. “Of course you do. You’re a know-it-all.”
“Wimple was just stressed,” Miss May said. “I’m sure she doesn’t think you’re annoying. And I doubt she thinks I’m blunt and terrible and rude.”
“You are blunt though,” said Teeny. “Sometimes it rubs people the wrong way.”
Miss May chuckled. “Can we talk about this investigation instead of our many flaws?”
“I am not a know-it-all,” I said. “But yeah, let’s discuss the case.”
“The way I see things, the information Sheila and Wimple provided expands the pool of suspects considerably. If any of the organizations Coach Thornton stole money from found out that he misappropriated the funds, they may have had the motivation to murder the guy.”
“So do we need to completely change directions?” I asked. “We don’t know the names of any people or groups that donated to the bogus scholarship fund. We’d need to come up with a whole new plan to figure out who those suspects might be. Then we would have to travel up and down the state and interview each one of them before we even had a preliminary sense of who knew about Ron’s corruption. Seems like a closely guarded secret to me.”
“You’re right,” said Miss May. “I was about to say that. Yes, it’s possible the scam was found out and one or more of Ron’s victims teamed up to murder him. But Sheila and Wimple had kept their investigation under wraps. I don’t think there was further evidence of Ron’s corruption floating around. So I doubt anyone from whom Ron stole money knew they had been victimized.”
“So what do you think?” asked Teeny.
“I think we need to take a step back and look at the case we’ve already built,” said Miss May. “W
e need to think about the suspects we’ve already identified.”
“OK,” I said. “Here are the basic facts. I know, I know, I’m probably about to repeat myself. But there’s a lot to keep straight with this case, and a lot we don’t know. What we do know is we’ve got two dead bodies. The first dead body showed up on our orchard, wearing Coach Thornton’s championship rings. We all heavily suspect that body belongs to Ron’s cousin, Jared. But it’s hard to confirm that suspicion. We’re not sure who might have wanted the man on the orchard dead. But we are sure that the killer wanted us to think that the dead man was Ron Thornton. Then there’s Ron. His dead body was found in the closet in the high school gymnasium. That murder seemed rushed and impulsive, not like the premeditated burial on the farm. It’s possible we’re looking at two different killers here because the methods are so different. But it’s hard to say.”
Miss May stood and paced back and forth. “We need to confirm the identity of that first body. It’s easy to assume that it belonged to Cousin Jared, but I don’t like assumptions. If we can prove that the body on the orchard belonged to Jared we might be able to narrow the list of suspects somehow. And I have a strong feeling we’re not going to be able to solve either of these murders until we know for sure the identity of body numero uno.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Teeny.
I stood, feeling the momentum of our conversation sweep through my body. “This is exciting. We have a new goal. I like that. But how are we going to confirm that the body on the orchard belonged to Jared Thornton? Should I try to talk to Wayne? Maybe he can give us access to a statewide directory of names and addresses. If we could figure out where Jared lived and visit his home, that could be helpful. If the guy hasn’t been around for a while… it might confirm that he’s been dead. On the other hand, if Jared opens the door to the house, we know he’s alive and we need to think harder about the identity of that body.”
“We don’t need any big, fancy police stalking system,” said Teeny.
Dropping Like Pies (Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery Book 11) Page 21