Appliqued to Death

by Kathleen Suzette

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “No choir again?” The girl in front of me asked her friend.

  “No, Miss Baines is out sick again. They had Miss Emmerson fill in and she doesn’t know anything about choir. I don’t know what we’ll do about the spring concert if she doesn’t come back soon.”

  That was news to me. Usually, if a teacher was out sick, it got around.

  “How long has it been?” the second girl asked.

  “Since Monday,” the first said.

  "That’s awful. Did you hear about Christine Tidwell?" the girl walking in front of me asked. At the mention of Christine's name, my ears perked up.

  The other girl looked at her friend. "No, what?"

  "I heard she's in trouble," the second girl said knowingly.

  I took a couple steps closer as we walked. "Trouble? What do you mean trouble?"

  The other girl giggled. "You know, trouble. The only trouble a girl doesn’t want to get into."

  The other girl looked at her friend, wide-eyed. "No way!"

  She nodded and giggled again. "I swear, everyone's talking about it."

  "Who?" Came the question.

  The second one shrugged. "No one seems to know."

  I cleared my throat loudly. "Girls, don't you have a class that you need to get to? The bell’s going to ring any moment now."

  They both looked over their shoulder at me and their faces went pale. "Yes ma'am," they both said in unison.

  "And spreading rumors about people when you don't know what the truth is, is reprehensible. Look the word up if you don’t know what it means."

  "Yes ma'am," the first one said. "Sorry, ma'am."

  "Sorry," the other one said over her shoulder as they hurried to their next class.

  I crossed my arms as I walked. I hoped it wasn't true. Christine needed to finish high school and get on with her life. I didn't think she was college-bound, but I hated for her to be in trouble. Her life was complicated enough without adding that to it. I turned down the home economics corridor and headed to Peggy's classroom. I’d had a few minutes between classes, and I had brought some paperwork to the office.

  "Hey Peggy," I said entering her classroom. "What are you up to?" I still felt guilty about asking Peggy if she had dated Darren and Bill, but she hadn't brought it up again, so I decided I would let it lie.

  She looked up from the paperwork on her desk in front of her. "Just planning next week's menus. What's up?"

  I shrugged and walked up to her desk. "Not much. I just took some paperwork down to the office. I heard something though. Someone said Christine Tidwell is in trouble."

  She looked at me blankly for a moment, and then my meaning dawned on her. "Really? Who said that?"

  I shrugged. "A couple of freshmen girls walking down the hall. I hope it isn't true."

  She shook her head. "I hope it isn't either," she said. "Is she even dating anyone?"

  "I can't remember seeing her with anyone recently. Since she had to take her senior over, I haven't seen her hanging around anyone, to be honest. All her friends graduated last year."

  She nodded. "It will be tough on her if it's true," she said carefully. "Maybe she's dating one of the boys that graduated last year."

  I nodded, trying to remember who she had dated last year. "She’s been working on a sewing project and I thought it was a dress for her niece. But I could've sworn she said her niece was a toddler and the outfit she was making looked like it was for an infant."

  She sat back in her chair, thinking this over. "Could be her sister is expecting another baby."

  I nodded. "That could be it. And maybe somebody saw her making the infant dress and just assumed it was for herself."

  She pointed her pencil at me. "I bet that's exactly it. You know how things are around here. Rumors move faster than lightening."

  The thought made me feel better. Many girls got married right out of high school, but with Christine not being married yet, it would make her life harder than it already was. "Well, let's hope that's it, then."

  She nodded, then her brow furrowed in thought. "But if she is, then I wonder if there's any possibility it could be Darren's baby?" She looked at me.

  The thought made me feel sick. “You don’t think it could be, do you?”

  She sighed. “They were awfully chummy when we went to the café. I hope not.”

  "Well, Christine is certainly of an age where she can decide to see somebody that much older. But I really don't think that was what was going on." I didn't want to believe that was what was going on anyway. Even if Christine was an adult, it still wouldn’t have been appropriate for Darren to be seeing her.

  "Sure she is. I'm sorry. I probably shouldn’t have thrown that out there. Darren wouldn’t have done that anyway. Sure, he was different, but that doesn’t mean he was unethical. Christine is a nice girl, in spite of what some people say about her."

  "She is. Just because Principal Jefferson doesn’t like her and made sure she was held back from graduating, doesn’t mean she deserved it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he said something about her and it got spread around.”

  She nodded. "Right? He tried to do the same thing to me. Just threw my name out there right after Darren was killed like it was nothing."

  I glanced at her. Was she hinting at the conversation we’d had at her house?

  “Principal Jefferson is something else. He has no business pointing his finger at anyone and I think there’s still a good chance that he’s the killer.”

  “I’m with you on that one,” she agreed.

  I glanced up at the clock. "I better get back to my class, my students will be here any minute."

  "Okay, I'll talk to you later," she said.

  Some of my students had already arrived and were taking their projects from their cubbies when I got back to my classroom.

  "Good morning girls," I said.

  There was a chorus of good morning's and I went and sat at my desk. Christine walked to the door and smiled at me. "Good morning, Mrs. Taylor."

  "Good morning, Christine," I said, taking my rollcall sheet out of my desk. "How are you this morning?"

  She gave me a halfhearted shrug. "I guess I'm all right." She approached my desk and intertwined her fingers together as she stood there.

  I looked up at her. "How are you coming along on your project?"

  "I think I'll have it finished today," she said nodding.

  "That’s a cute baby dress you’re making. Did your sister have another baby? Didn’t you say your niece was a toddler?"

  Her eyes widened just a bit. "Yes, Susie is almost two."

  I looked at her, wanting to ask her more, but I didn't want to offend her. She had always been reasonably open with me and I didn't want to betray her confidence. "The dress you're making, isn't it for an infant?" I asked her, trying to stay neutral. Maybe it was for a friend’s baby.

  She nodded and looked away. "I still have to finish the appliqué work on the front of it, and then it will be done."

  I nodded. If she wasn't going to volunteer the information, I wasn't going to pry it out of her. "Christine, how are your classes? How are your grades?"

  "They’re fine. Everything is fine."

  "Well, if you need any help with your project, let me know," I said, gazing at her. She seemed to want to tell me something, and I waited.

  She smiled and nodded. "Thanks. I think I've probably got it though." She turned and headed back to her cubby to remove her project.

  I wished she would confide in me if there was something to confide about. I really hoped that it wasn't true that she was in trouble. More so, I hoped that if she was, that it wasn't Darren's. As I thought things over, I decided it was ridiculous to think it could possibly be his. As wild as Darren had been, I didn't believe for a minute that he would have a relationship with a student regardless of what Bill had said was the reason he left his last school.

  The bell rang and the last of the girls walked through t
he door and got to work on their projects. I pulled out my roll sheet and began going down the list. The senior girls rarely needed help with their projects, and it gave me a little free time. When I finished roll, I looked up at the class and I saw two groups of girls, their heads together whispering. Christine sat by herself at her sewing machine working on her project her eyes going to the girls now and then.

  "Girls," I said loudly. "Don't you all have projects to work on?"

  The girls scattered and got to work, and Christine's eyes met mine. Her cheeks had gone pink and she looked away. I clench the pencil in my hand. "Girls, we’re not going to engage in idle gossip in this classroom. I don't want to see any groups of girls huddled together. Do you hear me?"

  There were assorted, ‘yes ma’ams.’ I sighed.

  Christine looked at me wide-eyed, and then she put her head down, working on her project. I didn't want to embarrass her, but I wasn't going to have this in my classroom.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I wondered about Ellen Baines being out sick. When I asked around, I was told she had the flu. It was an inopportune time to get it, considering she had the spring concert coming up in a few days. She had seemed upset at Darren’s memorial after she told me she didn’t know him well and it got me wondering about her. At lunchtime I went back to Peggy's classroom and asked her if she had the ingredients to make chicken soup. She did and she promised to have her kids make some during seventh period.

  "Tell me why you want to stop by Ellen Baines house," Peggy said as I pulled up in front of Ellen's house and parked my car.

  I turned to look at her. "I don't know. It just seems odd that a woman that rarely calls in sick is suddenly down and out with the flu a few days before something as important as the spring concert. Did you notice how upset she seemed at the memorial for Darren?"

  "She doesn't call in sick, much does she?" she said thoughtfully. “Maybe she got the Spanish flu. It killed hundreds of thousands of people forty years ago.”

  I shook my head and opened the car door. "I don’t know what kind it is, but either she's on her deathbed or something else is up." I really had no reason to think Ellen Baines wasn't out sick with the flu, but something didn't seem quite right here.

  I went around to the trunk of my car and opened it. We had wrapped the pot the chicken soup was in with kitchen towels and placed it into a small box so it wouldn't spill. The pot was still hot, and I picked it up with potholders while Peggy got the trunk for me.

  "She has a cute house," Peggy said as we headed up the walkway. And she did. Ellen's house had a cute white picket fence around the front yard and the clapboard house was painted white with yellow shutters. The brick planters along the front were filled with daisies and petunias. I thought she must've had to have started the plants indoors for them to be in bloom already.

  Peggy knocked on the door while I held the pot of soup. "It smells delicious, by the way."

  "Thanks," she said. "There's nothing better than hot chicken soup to make you feel better." She turned to me. “What if she’s contagious?”

  “Try not to breathe around her.”

  When Ellen open the door, she stood there with curlers in her hair and a pink bathrobe wrapped around herself. She looked surprised to see us.

  "Oh, hello Mary, hello Peggy. This is unexpected," she said, looking nervously from me to Peggy.

  "Hi Ellen," I said pleasantly. "We heard you weren't feeling well and so Peggy and her class whipped up some chicken soup to make you feel better." I held the pot up.

  Her eyes went wide, and she smiled. "Oh my," she said, nodding. "That sure is sweet of you ladies, but you shouldn't have bothered yourselves. It’s just a touch of the flu."

  "Nonsense," Peggy said. "It's the least we can do. You're one of our coworkers and we were concerned when we heard you weren't feeling well, so I had the girls whip up a pot of soup. It’s good for them to know how to make it for when their own families aren’t feeling well."

  "Well, would you like to come in?" she asked hesitantly.

  "That would be nice," I said. "We won't keep you long. We were just worried about you."

  She stepped back so we could enter the house. Ellen's home was neatly kept with pink accent rugs and pink throw pillows on the sofa.

  "What a cute house," Peggy said looking around. "It has a lovely feminine touch and I really like it."

  "Oh really? That's so sweet of you to say," she said, and she led us to the sofa. "Would you ladies like to have a seat? Oh, but I hate to get you sick, so maybe you shouldn't have come in."

  "Nonsense," I said. "I never get sick."

  "Me neither," Peggy said and took a seat.

  "Oh, well then," Ellen said. "Why don't I take that soup from you, Mary?"

  I nodded and handed it to her, and she took hold of it with the potholders and took it to the kitchen.

  I sat down next to Peggy on the sofa and looked around. Ellen had family pictures on the wall, as well as paintings. Most of the paintings were old-fashioned looking with vases of daisies and roses. There were some pastoral scenes as well as one of a black horse. As I looked around the room, my eyes landed on an odd painting on the far wall. It was different than the others. It was of a cat with three faces and it reminded me of something Darren might've had in his classroom.

  "That's so sweet of you ladies to bring me that soup," Ellen said, returning to the living room. "I'm sorry that I'm not dressed properly to receive guests." She came over and sat on the overstuffed chair across from the sofa, pulling her robe tighter against herself.

  "You’re just fine," I said. "You weren't expecting us. And we hated to barge in, but we really were concerned about you being out of school when the spring concert is in just a few days. We knew it had to be something serious for you to call in sick."

  She sat up in her chair. "Well, it certainly was bad on Monday and Tuesday. But this morning I thought I should probably come to work, and I considered it, but then decided it wouldn't be worth it to get my students sick if I'm still contagious. If any of the students get sick with this, they won’t be able to perform, and I wouldn't be able to replace them on such short notice. I decided it was the wiser thing just stay home one more day." She nodded for emphasis.

  "I don't blame you at all," I said. "Sometimes the flu can be terrible." Ellen didn't look ill other than being very pale. If she had really been sick the two previous days, then she had made a quick recovery.

  "Oh, this one certainly was," she said, nodding again. “I would have gone to the doctor, but I couldn’t drag myself out of bed.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Peggy said.

  "Ellen, that painting on the wall over there. It's certainly different, isn’t it?"

  She looked at the painting, then glanced back at me before her eyes went back to it again. "Yes, Darren Peabody painted it. He had it in his classroom at school, and when I admired it, he insisted that I have it."

  "Really? That’s a generous gift. Most artists are attached to their work and hate to part with it,” I said.

  "Yes, I simply stopped in to say hello one day and I noticed it. I really enjoy the dark purple and blue in it and I told him it looked so interesting. And right then and there he gave it to me."

  "That was sweet of him," Peggy said, looking at the painting. The look on Peggy’s face said that it wasn't to her taste.

  "I was surprised by his generosity," she said, nodding. "I've always admired artists and artwork, although I don't have any talent myself."

  "It sure is a shame about Darren and Bill," I said to her.

  She nodded. "A terrible shame. I tell you, the more I think about it, the more I think that Christine Tidwell might be responsible for both murders."

  I narrowed my eyes at her. "What do you mean?"

  She shrugged. "She had quite the attachment to Darren, you know," she said. "He told me that she kept hanging around him and he didn't want to get in trouble with Principal Jefferson for it. He asked her not
to come by his classroom, but she kept insisting and making up excuses to come by."

  This surprised me. If Christine had been hanging around Darren's classroom, I hadn't noticed it, but she may have stopped by after school was over. Darren stayed late many days. "I certainly hope it wasn't Christine, she really is a nice girl."

  Ellen made a sound of disapproval deep in her throat. "Everyone knows she's in trouble."

  I glanced at Peggy. "I think that's just rumor isn’t it?"

  She shook her head. "I don't think so. The girls say she's been getting sick in the girls’ bathroom in the mornings."

  "I hate to hear that," Peggy said carefully. "Poor thing."

  "I have a suspicion it may be Darren's," she whispered. We were the only ones in the house, and I wasn’t sure why she felt the need to whisper.

  "Why do you think that? And why do you think she might have killed Bill as well?"

  "I guess maybe I shouldn't say it, but I heard she was hanging around Bill's office as well." She sighed. "Look at me. Spreading gossip just like I was a teenager. I'm sorry, I guess I have no reason to believe Christine had anything to do with either murder."

  "There are a lot of rumors going around the school right now," Peggy said. “Most of them probably aren’t true.”

  "And that's just it, I guess," she said. "All these rumors. But Christine has never had a stable home life and a girl like that is one worth watching."

  I didn't like where this conversation had gone. It felt like everyone wanted to point a finger at Christine simply because she had an unfortunate home life. “It’s always been a pleasure having Christine in my class,” I said. Someone needed to stick up for the girl.