“I didn’t say that.”
“But you asked if anyone disliked her.”
“I did. I’m just gathering information.”
Sure he is. That’s why the parking lot is flanked with cops scouring for evidence. “I assume you are asking if anyone on the faculty disliked her?”
Bates shrugs. “Sure. Faculty, staff, students . . . anyone who didn’t like her.”
“There isn’t anyone who hated her. Not that I know of, anyway.” Teddy pauses, pretending to think. “Actually, I don’t think the school’s custodian liked her very much.”
“The custodian?”
“His name is Joe. Joseph Apple. He’s been with the school for at least twenty years . . . Getting older now, but still good at his job.”
Bates writes this down. “And he didn’t like Sonia?”
“Well, I don’t know how he felt about her, but I don’t think she liked him very much.” Teddy shrugs a little, like he’s trying to decide how much to say. “Sonia was wealthy, as I’m sure you know. And people like Joe are just . . . the help. I’m not sure she treated him very well.”
“Gotcha,” Bates says, still writing. “And you don’t think Joe appreciated that.”
“As I said, I can’t speak for him.”
But since Joe saw him rooting through the dumpster out back, he’s the first one who comes to Teddy’s mind. Someone has to get blamed for this.
41
BY THE TIME Zach checks his phone after third period, he feels a bit dazed. The rumors are all over the place, making it impossible to know what’s true and what isn’t. Except for the fact that Mrs. B was murdered.
Up until now, he didn’t think she was. Sure, everyone was talking about it, but two murders at Belmont? Not possible. Especially not Mrs. B, because no one hated her. She was harmless.
You still here?
It’s Lucas, sending him a text between classes.
Yeah, Zach says. I doubt my parents know what’s going on.
Come over after school.
Ever since the news got out about Sonia, some of the parents had picked up their kids, taking them out of school—now known online as Homicide High. Belmont’s new nickname is all over social media.
The news hasn’t stopped there, either. Now there’s some rumor about Mr. Maxwell’s wife showing up at the school, looking for her husband. She made some kind of scene near the office, and someone recorded it on their phone.
All Zach can see is a woman who looks hysterical. She keeps saying, “Frank left for work this morning, and so he has to be here,” and she doesn’t understand why they called the house looking for him.
Anyone seen Maxwell? Zach asks Lucas.
Nope.
Now, security guards are everywhere. Unlike this morning, when there were no adults around, a fleet of rent-a-cops is all over school. Zach passes by a tall, skinny one with a plastic badge on his way into English. He almost runs right into Crutcher.
He’s standing at the door, like he’s been waiting for Zach.
“Hi, Mr. Crutcher.”
“You’re almost late,” he says.
Zach is about to answer when the final bell rings. Now, he is late. Only because his teacher stopped him from walking in the door, but he keeps his mouth shut and sits down.
Throughout the class, he stares at the wedding ring on Crutcher’s finger. Maybe he should ask him how his wife is doing.
No. That would defeat the purpose.
But it’s fun to think about.
Yet again, Zach realizes his dad is right about something else. Life isn’t fair. Not by a long shot, he always says.
He’s right. If life were fair, Mrs. B would still be around and Crutcher wouldn’t.
* * *
FRANK SITS IN church, but not his own. He left Belmont, drove right by Unity of Life, and kept going, looking for something. A feeling. Solace. Forgiveness. Escape.
Thirty miles out, he stopped at Touchpoint Ministry. A megachurch, the only one in the area, with a massive building built like an arena. Frank sits halfway up the stadium seating. The stage below is empty, as are most of the seats. On the wall behind the stage, a floor-to-ceiling screen displays biblical scenes. The picture changes every fifteen seconds.
It’s mesmerizing.
Frank recognizes every story. The Bible has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. At first, the pictures are a trip down memory lane. He thinks of his childhood church, a place of so many good memories. Social gatherings, bake sales, church plays. The services were just a prelude to the fun.
For a long time, he stays in that nostalgic place, when life was simpler and he hadn’t killed anyone.
Zacchaeus changes everything.
Frank recognizes him immediately. Zacchaeus was a corrupt tax collector, who cheated, lied, and stole. But the guilt caught up to him.
The picture shows him on the top of a sycamore tree, waiting for Jesus. Waiting to repent for his sins. Jesus did not disappoint.
Frank finally gets it.
Missy and his son may not forgive him, and the police certainly won’t, but God will. God always forgives.
With a heart that feels a bit lighter, Frank leaves Touchpoint Ministry. He drives the thirty miles back, windows open, rock music blasting, and he doesn’t stop until he reaches the police station.
He sends a text to his wife as he gets out of his car.
I will love you and Frankie forever
He walks right into the station. No hesitation, no deep breath, no gathering of courage. Speaking the truth feels like the easiest thing he has ever done.
“I killed Ingrid Ross,” he says.
* * *
DETECTIVE OLIVER LOOKS like a nice man. A little soft around the middle—obviously, he doesn’t work out enough—but he seems experienced. Maybe even wise. Frank just doesn’t understand why he’s still sitting in an interrogation room instead of in a jail cell.
“Tell me again how it happened,” Oliver says.
Frank sighs. He’s been through it three times already. It’s not like confessing to murder is an easy thing. “I saw Ingrid outside the school. When she brought in a load of boxes, I went over to her car and put a diuretic in her green tea. It’s MaxFit 2000.”
“And you just happened to have this in your car?”
“Well, yeah,” Frank says. “For my weigh-ins.”
Oliver nods and writes that down.
“Like I said, I didn’t mean to kill her. That was the day of the party, and she was an organizer, and I . . .” Frank’s voice trails off. It’s hard to admit this part once, let alone four times. “I wanted to embarrass her, I guess. So she’d be in the bathroom the whole time and would miss the party.”
“Why?”
Frank takes a deep breath and goes through it all over again. The drunken night. The staged picture. The blackmail for Courtney’s grade in AP Calculus. After saying it so many times, he’s beyond the point of humiliation. Almost.
“I didn’t even know I killed her,” Frank says. “Not until I googled diuretics and found out they cause heart failure. Obviously, it’s my fault, and that’s why I’m here. So you can arrest me now. I’m not going to fight it.”
Oliver listens, not moving, his glasses perched at the end of his nose. “Give me a minute. I’ll be right back.”
He walks out, leaving Frank alone. He is absolutely positive Oliver will return with a couple of uniformed cops, who will place him under arrest.
Instead, the detective comes back by himself. The only thing he has brought with him is a file folder.
“Mr. Maxwell,” Oliver says.
“Frank.”
“Okay, Frank.” He sits down and opens the folder. “I understand what you’re saying. And I understand that you believe you inadvertently killed Ingrid Ross.”
Oliver doesn’t answer. He flips through the file and pulls out a single sheet of paper, waving it in the air in front of Frank.
“This is a report on Ingrid Ross’s cell phone,” he says. “There was no . . . revealing photo on her phone. Not of any kind.”
“Then she deleted it. Or moved it to the cloud or something.” Frank thinks for a minute and snaps his fingers. “She’s rich. She might have her own cloud.”
Oliver pulls out another piece of paper and holds it up. “I also have this.”
Frank squints to see it but has no idea what any of the words mean. He shrugs.
“This is a lab report with the contents of Ingrid Ross’s stomach when she died,” Oliver says. “She never drank the green tea.”
42
FOUR O’CLOCK IN the afternoon, and Zach is high. So very, very high.
He and Lucas are in Lucas’s theater room, watching a Marvel movie. Zach isn’t sure if he’s seen this one before or not, but it doesn’t matter. He watches it anyway. Lucas’s parents aren’t home, and even if they were, they wouldn’t give a shit. Not as long as Lucas stays on track to be Belmont’s valedictorian.
“What I want to know,” Zach says, pausing to exhale, “is who did you pay to avoid Crutcher? You haven’t had him for a single class.”
“Oh, screw Crutcher. My brother told me about him. I bribed one of those women in the office to switch me.”
“With money?” Zach says.
“Nah. With charm.”
“Dick.”
Lucas shrugs. “Why? You on his shit list?”
“Yep.”
“Sucks for you.”
Yes. Yes, it does.
They stop talking long enough to watch a battle in the movie. Zach and Lucas have seen dozens of superhero movies. They’ve been friends ever since they were twelve, when Lucas told Zach his parents were assholes. Zach could relate.
They pass the bong back and forth, alternating between checking their phones and watching the movie.
“Holy shit,” Lucas says. He struggles to sit up in the recliner. “Did you see this?”
Zach glances over, seeing the glow of Lucas’s phone. It’s so very bright. “See what?”
“The hashtag ‘HomicideHigh’ is trending.”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously. Just around here. Not nationwide,” Lucas says. “Not yet, at least.”
Zach pulls it up on his phone and scrolls through the messages. Most are stupid. Still, he reads them, because he can’t not read them. He scrolls until the screen is just a blur.
“They still haven’t found Mr. Maxwell,” Lucas says. “There’s a rumor he’s dead, too.”
Zach groans and sinks deeper into his chair, trying to hide from this news. If someone else is dead, he’s definitely getting sent to Vermont.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, Frank is still at the police station. He hasn’t been arrested, nor have the uniformed cops shown up. But his wife has.
Missy is angry and crying at the same time. It’s the worst combination, though hardly surprising. Tough to find out your husband is a murderer.
The door to the interrogation room is open, and Frank watches Missy talking to Oliver. She gestures with her hands, often pushing back her hair. She does that when she’s frustrated. Her eyes flick back and forth between her husband and the detective.
Frank knows she must be mad. Must be disappointed, hurt, and confused. All the bad things. But she’d also know that he had to tell the truth. Missy is a huge advocate for the truth.
When she walks toward him, he sits up a little. Braces himself.
“Frank,” she says. Her voice isn’t angry. It sounds a little weird, like she’s talking to their son.
“Hi,” he says.
She pulls the other chair around the table, next to him, and sits down. “I’m not sure what’s going on with you, but we’re going to get you some help.”
“Help? I don’t need help. I need to be arrested.”
Missy nods and smiles. She reaches over and pats his hand. “I know you think that.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that? I know what I did.”
“Of course you do.”
Frank frowns. It doesn’t sound like she believes him.
The detective walks into the room. He’s smiling—like everything is fine, just fine. “Here’s the thing, Frank. It’s illegal to spike a drink with anything, even a diuretic. So, yes, we could arrest you for that. But the thing is, we don’t have any proof you did it. That bottle of green tea is long gone.”
“You don’t keep evidence?” Frank says.
“Once we determined she never drank the tea, it wasn’t evidence anymore.”
“So . . . you aren’t going to arrest me?”
“No,” Oliver says. “But we are going to get you some help. Because if you did what you say—”
“I did,” Frank says.
“All right. We all just want to make sure you don’t do it again. You don’t want to do it again, do you?”
Frank shakes his head no. “But I don’t need help.”
Oliver doesn’t answer that.
Missy is giving him that patronizing smile again.
Frank is confused. And disappointed. He should be locked up and punished, or else he’ll never be forgiven.
* * *
FROM HIS BEDROOM window, Zach watches his parents drive up to the house. Separate cars. They both went straight from work to the big meeting at school.
He’s sitting at his desk, working on his math homework while eating Chinese takeout. Zach is an expert on all the Chinese restaurants in town. The problem is, one has the best Mongolian beef but another has the best noodles. It’s always so hard to decide.
He flips over to social media, checking the #HomicideHigh tag. Tonight, Belmont held a meeting for all the parents to “clear up any rumors and misunderstandings.” The reports are already coming in, and Zach is reading them when he gets a text from his dad.
Come downstairs please.
They’re waiting in the living room. Zach sits, but they don’t, which is never a good thing. His mom also hasn’t taken off her shoes. She’s still wearing those high heels.
“That meeting was a madhouse,” Dad says. “Total chaos.”
This isn’t what Zach heard online. Not surprising. James Ward has his own version of reality.
“Here’s where we are,” Mom says, getting back to the facts. “Sonia Benjamin was, in fact, murdered at the school. I’m sure you already know that.”
She’s using her lawyer voice. Zach nods.
“Good. As for Frank Maxwell, he disappeared today but is not dead. He apparently had some kind of breakdown. Everyone seems to think it was because he saw Mrs. Benjamin die, but no one really knows.” She pauses to gauge Zach’s reaction. He doesn’t have one. “He’ll be out on medical leave for the time being.”
“Unbelievable,” Dad says, pacing back and forth in front of the sectional couch. “All your mother and I wanted was to give you the best education. ‘Belmont,’ everyone said. ‘Send him to Belmont.’ And now”—he waves his arms around in the air, as if trying to capture the words—“this happens.” In the middle of his rant, he stops and takes out his phone. “Have to take this,” he now says, walking out of the room.
Zach would sigh if he dared.
Mom sits down next to him. Her face softens when she stops being a lawyer.
“You know we just want what’s best for you,” she says.
“That’s not Vermont.”
“I know you want to stay here with your friends. And I know this whole thing with Courtney has been very difficult for you, but you have to understand that we’re afraid. God forbid anything should happen to you.” She pauses. “Or any of the students.”
“You’re acting like there’s some serial killer at Belmont,” he says. “No one’s wandering around with a machete butchering people.”
“No, they’re poisoning people.”
Before Zach can answer, Dad walks back into the room. “Sorry,” he says. “What did I miss?”
“I was just telling Zach how worried we are about him,” his mom says.
“Well, of course we are.”
“Understood,” Zach says. “Can I go now?”
Mom says nothing. Dad glances at his phone. “It’s getting late, and I’m sure you have work to finish,” he says. “Let’s plan on discussing this further on Sunday. Dinner?” He says it like they’re setting up a business meeting.
“And from now on, don’t eat or drink anything at school,” Mom says. “Bring your lunch.”
“Sure, I can do that,” Zach says, having no intention of doing that. He leaves the room before they say anything else.
* * *
BACK UPSTAIRS, ZACH’S computer is still open on his desk, but there are now hundreds of new messages with the #HomicideHigh tag. Weird, since he was only away for twenty minutes or so.
It doesn’t take him long to understand why.
43
IN A PERFECT world, the judicial system would work as it’s supposed to. In the real world, Teddy knows it needs a little help. A nudge, so to speak. So that’s what he did. He nudged.
By the time he wakes up in the morning, the news is everywhere. As he’d expected.
TWO MURDERS, ONE POISON?
Sources say that Ingrid Ross, 45, and Sonia Benjamin, 38, were killed with the same substance. Neither the police nor the district attorney’s office have publicly disclosed the name of the substance that killed Ingrid Ross, but the new information is making some wonder about the arrest of Courtney Ross, who stands charged with her mother’s murder.
For Your Own Good Page 14