“But it doesn’t make sense otherwise,” she said, scowling.
“There are lots of practical reasons to put a light onstage overnight,” he said. “That way, the last people out or first people in won’t fall into the orchestra pit.”
“But you’re in a secret society! Passcodes! The occult!”
“Hey, I’m just here for the networking and the brownies.” He stuffed one into his mouth and ambled away.
“Unbelievable,” she said to me. “Not a single person here even believes in Bigfoot.”
“But they were useful witnesses.” I told her what I’d learned.
“You already suspected something was up with Brittany.”
“I suspected, but I didn’t know. This was confirmation.”
“Are you going to tell your detective?” she asked.
“Of course.” Just after I figured out how to explain why invading a secret society was totally not interfering with an investigation.
CHAPTER 28
It took me a good half hour to talk Charlene out of buzzing Marla’s house with a faux UFO. Once that was settled to my satisfaction, if not Charlene’s, we drove home.
Monday, I slept until the sun streamed through the blinds, which, for a baker, is positively hedonistic. We were closed Mondays. It was a win for me, because I had the day off. And it was a win for Pie Town, because if trouble was brewing thanks to the pie-tin UFOs, well, it was hard to make trouble at a closed pie shop.
I changed out of my pie pajamas and lounged, reading, on my futon. Outside, birds twittered a cheerful morning song.
A fist pounded on my door, and I jerked off the futon. Heart banging, I scrambled off the floor and pulled back the blinds.
Professor Jezek stood outside my door. His mustache drooped. Morning sunlight glistened off his domed head.
What was he doing at my house? I let the blinds drop, but not before he’d seen me.
“Come out!” he shouted.
“Keep your shirt on!” Wow. In moments of stress, I sounded like Charlene. Shelving that concern for a later day, I grabbed my baseball bat (a gift from Charlene and for self-defense purposes only). Hiding it behind my thigh with one hand, I cracked open the door. “It’s a little early.”
“You and your friend have come to my house and harassed me.” He quivered with anger and perhaps fear? Alcohol fumes wafted from his rumpled brown suit. “I thought turnabout was fair play.”
I couldn’t really argue that. “Fine, but I can’t talk long. My boyfriend, Detective Carmichael, is coming over to take me to the beach,” I lied. “But give me a minute to put on my shoes, and I’ll come outside.”
He nodded and stepped away from the door.
My shoulders unknotted. He was backing off. I stepped inside, shut the door, and slipped into my tennies. I regarded the baseball bat, then set it on the kitchen counter. The nice thing about a tiny house? Everything’s pretty much in arm’s reach.
I opened the door and stepped outside.
Jezek sat at the picnic table, a move I suspected he’d regret since it was covered in dew. His fingers laced and unlaced. Behind him, beyond the edge of the cliff, sea and sky met in a wash of blue.
Keeping a cautious distance between us, I stood at the opposite side of the wooden table. “Was there something you wanted to discuss?”
His sloping face seemed to sharpen, grow more intense. He exhaled a shaky breath. “What do you know about Theresa Keller?”
So that’s what this was about. “Only that she died in a car accident five years ago.”
“Then why were you asking about her?”
“Professor Starke read a poem called ‘Death in a Parking Lot’ the night he died,” I said, “and it seemed to hint at a murder. And then he was killed.”
“What does that have to do with Theresa?” he asked sharply. If he’d been drinking, he seemed sober enough now.
“There are some similarities between the poem and her death,” I said.
“But she died on a cliff—”
“I know. It’s a long shot, and the poem probably doesn’t have anything to do with Starke and Professor McClary.”
He stood and paced, and I tried not to look at the damp splotch on his baggy trousers. He cleared his throat. “Theresa was a wonderful woman, a true free spirit.” His voice trembled. “Everybody loved her.” He rubbed his glistening eyes with his thumb and middle finger.
“Everybody?” I pursed my lips. Not even the Dalai Lama is universally loved.
“Perhaps not Rudolph.” He lowered his head. “Theresa was not one for following the dean’s rules.”
“What rules did she break?” I asked.
He scowled. “It was a tragedy when she died. I won’t have you dragging her name through the mud.”
Interesting. “What mud?”
“Leave the dead in peace,” he said, shrill. He spun on his heel and stormed across my lawn and down my dirt driveway. A few minutes later, an engine revved, and the sound of a car’s motor faded into the distance.
Professor Jezek had been afraid. And yet he’d stormed my ramparts to quiz me about Theresa Keller? He’d told me everybody loved her. I wondered if his feelings for her had run as deep.
Shaking my head, I walked inside. I wasn’t going to puzzle this out on my own. I phoned Charlene.
“What?” she asked.
“Professor Jezek just came by my house.”
“Did you use that baseball bat I gave you?”
“No, I didn’t need it.”
“Every woman needs a baseball bat,” she said. “And to know to swing low. What did he want?”
I told her about our conversation.
“Huh,” she said. “Listen, I’m at the courthouse, trying to turn up anything on Starke’s will. On Aidan’s too, since I’m here. I’ll stop by your place when I’m done.”
“See you then.”
We hung up, and I started my Monday-morning housecleaning. It didn’t take much for my tiny house to get cluttered, so I had to stay on top of things. I went through my usual cleaning routine, working from top to bottom. By the time I’d finished, Charlene’s yellow Jeep was pulling up to my picnic table.
I walked outside, and Charlene clambered from the Jeep. Frederick lay, depositing white hairs, on her red knit tunic.
“I’ve got motive,” she crowed.
“You found something?” I eyed Frederick. How had she gotten him inside the courthouse?
“Dorothy may lose out on her alimony,” she said, “but guess who gets Starke’s beachfront house?”
“Dorothy?”
“Exactamundo! It’s worth millions.”
I sat on the picnic bench, remembering too late about that dew. Springing to my feet, I brushed off the seat of my jeans. “But Dorothy couldn’t have firebombed your house. She was talking to Gordon about all the papers she was burning.”
“And we’ll never know what those papers were,” Charlene said in a dire tone. “What if she had an accomplice?”
“Not Aidan. Someone killed him first.”
“Well, maybe Starke wasn’t the only professor with a thing for students?”
“I dunno. I didn’t get that vibe from her.”
“What sort of a vibe does a woman with a thing for younger men put out? Scratch that. A Marla vibe. I’m going to get that woman to print a retraction about my pie-tin UFOs.”
Charlene and I blamestormed some more but couldn’t come up with any better ideas. And since I was sure Gordon already knew who’d benefited from Starke’s death, I didn’t call him to report in.
“What about Aidan?” I asked. “You said you were going to check out his will.”
“Couldn’t find one. He either didn’t have a will, or it’s registered somewhere else, like in Merry Olde England.”
“Ireland,” I corrected.
“Whatever. I’ll bet his accent was a put-on.”
I paced in the shade of my tiny home’s awning. “But he needed to marry Dorothy so he could stay in the
country, remember?”
“Maybe. What if it was all an excuse for Aidan to pressure her to say yes?”
“It didn’t seem to be working,” I said dryly.
“According to Patel.” She perked up. “I know what we need. We need to pay another visit to the White Lady.”
“Do you think Patel will have more information?”
“I think it’s a beautiful day for mimosas, and their patio won’t be crowded on a Monday.”
As I had no better ideas, we hopped in Charlene’s Jeep and drove to the White Lady.
The ocean crashed below the patio. As Charlene had predicted, it was empty of all but a couple and their Irish setter.
Tail wagging, the dog strained against his leash toward us.
“Now, settle down, Frederick,” she said, stroking the oblivious and limp cat. “I know how you love chasing dogs, but we don’t want to be thrown out of our favorite watering hole.”
The white cat yawned.
“Er,” I said, “how did you get him inside the courthouse?”
“I didn’t.” She lifted her chin. “Bringing a cat to court wouldn’t be proper. I’m not one of those fakers who pretend their Fluffy is a service animal to take him into the grocery store. I left Frederick at home and collected him afterward.”
I’d seen Charlene take Frederick into all sorts of places he didn’t belong, but I didn’t argue. It was too beautiful a day. It was September, and I was in a t-shirt at the beach, the sun warm on my arms. You can’t beat California weather.
We sipped mimosas from a swinging bench and watched lines of waves surge and crash against the cliffs beneath us. The sun sparkled off the Pacific, and I felt my worries melting away. It’s hard to be stressed out in the face of all that natural beauty.
A shadow fell across our bench. “Hey, guys, does this place serve beer in the morning?” Ray asked.
I squinted up at him and Henrietta. “What are you two doing here?” They were almost matching, in baggy cargo pants and oversized comic t-shirts.
“Charlene invited us,” he said. “We got that information you wanted.”
“Beers on me,” Charlene said. “But you’ll have to come with me to the bar upstairs.”
Ray gallantly helped her up, and the two meandered inside.
Henrietta pushed back her sandy hair and sat on the edge of the unlit firepit. “So. Pretty crazy stuff. Huh?”
“You should probably wait until Charlene gets back, or you’ll just have to tell your story all over again.”
She glanced at the couple with the Irish setter. “Oh,” she said in a low voice, “Charlene already knows we hacked into the college’s system.”
I coughed up mimosa.
Alarmed, Henrietta leapt to her feet and smacked me on the back.
“You did what?” I gasped, eyes watering.
“That sort of information isn’t public,” she explained.
I groaned and set my glass on the nearby end table. It was also the sort of information I could never share with Gordon, since it would land two of my favorite customers in trouble. “Tell me you didn’t get caught.”
“We didn’t get caught.”
“Really? Or are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
She laughed. “The college’s security system is a joke. We could have broken in with a hacksaw, and no one would have noticed.”
“But you’re engineers,” I said.
“Software engineers. Are you sure you don’t want to know what we found?”
“Of course I do. But keep your voice down.”
“All right—”
The glass door to the restaurant slid open, and Ray and Charlene emerged. Ray carried two beers. He handed one to Henrietta and sat beside her on the brick firepit.
Charlene settled in beside me. “Tell us everything.”
Ray leaned forward, his brown eyes gleaming. “This is juicy. I think we’ve blown this case wide open.”
“Enough with the dramatic suspense,” Charlene grumped. “What did you learn?”
“It was buried pretty deep in the HR files.”
“HR?” Charlene asked.
“Human resources,” I said. “What did you find?”
“A complaint from a parent.” Ray looked about expectantly.
“Well?” Charlene asked. “Complaint about what?”
“About an affair with a student,” Ray said.
I slumped on the bench, and it swayed beneath me. “We already knew Starke was having affairs with his TAs.”
“Not Professor Starke,” Henrietta whispered. “Professor Keller.”
Charlene jolted forward, and my feet skidded from beneath the swinging bench. “Theresa Keller?” she asked.
“When was this complaint lodged?” I asked.
“Three days before her death,” Henrietta said.
I rubbed the back of my neck. That might explain Professor Jezek’s remark about dragging Theresa’s name through the mud. “Then the accident could have been suicide.”
“Suicide?” Ray crossed his arms, resting them on the shelf of his rounded stomach. “I thought it was either an accident or murder. You didn’t say anything about suicide.”
“I wasn’t supposed to know,” I said. “Gordon told me, confidentially, that the officer in charge suspected suicide. But he couldn’t find any reason for it. Now we have a potential reason.”
Henrietta’s broad face twisted in a scowl. “Sleeping with students didn’t seem to do Professor Starke much harm.”
“Did you find any complaints from parents in his HR files?” I asked.
“No,” Ray said.
“Maybe that’s why,” I said.
“Was it a boy student or a girl student?” Charlene asked.
“What does it matter?” My mouth flattened. “It’s an abuse of power in any case. Starke shouldn’t have gotten away with it, and neither should have Professor Keller.” But killing herself did seem extreme.
“It was a guy,” Henrietta said. “And he was over eighteen.”
“Val’s right,” Charlene said. “It was still wrong. Not that Marla would care,” she muttered.
“What?” Ray asked.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Did you find anything else?”
He handed me a thumb drive. “Just more HR stuff. Dates of hire, salaries, personnel evaluations, that sort of thing. I’m glad Dean Prophet isn’t evaluating me. That guy is a real hard ass. Oh, and this will self-destruct after you open it.”
I fumbled the drive, nearly dropping it on the flagstones.
Ray laughed. “Just kidding. But seriously, you should delete everything and get rid of it when you’re done. It’s not the sort of thing you want to get caught holding.”
Because then we’d have to explain how we got it. “Gotcha.” I tucked it into the front pocket of my jeans. “And thanks, this has been helpful. But no more crime solving through crime, okay?”
The others groaned.
“I mean it,” I said.
“Killjoy,” Charlene said.
The glass door slid open and closed behind us, and I glanced over my shoulder toward the source of the sound. A silver-haired couple claimed a table and angled their chairs to face the Pacific.
“Oh, there’s one more thing,” Ray said. “I took a peek in the files of that UFO group that’s been on your case.”
I glared.
“It wasn’t hacking,” he said, looking shifty. “I joined the group and gained access to their online discussions. It was quicker.”
Charlene shook her head. “Should have hacked ’em. You’re never getting off that group’s email list, son.”
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, the good news is they believe you, and they’re not mad about being punked. They think you’ve brought new attention to old UFO cases. The pie tins also make people aware that not every light in the sky is a flying saucer.”
“And the bad news?” I held my breath.
He tugged on the collar
of his t-shirt. “After that sort of negative newspaper article, they’re planning a rally of support tomorrow. At least, that’s what they’re calling it. But it seems like they’re really rallying on their own behalf.”
Charlene clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s not so bad. Tuesday’s a slow day. Think of all the extra customers.”
“How big a rally?” I asked, wary.
He gulped. “Um. That’s the bad news. They’re expecting well over a thousand people. I’ve been tracking the group’s social media, and I think they might be underestimating.”
“Well over!” I couldn’t manage a thousand people! The max occupancy in Pie Town was 125.
He winced. “And based on usual Main Street traffic flows on Tuesday afternoons—”
I sank my head in my hands. “My neighbors are going to kill me.”
CHAPTER 29
“Blech. Modern poetry.” Charlene shifted on her burnt couch, the plastic beneath her making crinkling sounds. “It’s just lazy. There’s no rhyme. No meter.”
“But it might be a clue,” I said, stopping in front of her boarded-up window. A chill night breeze slithered through the gaps and fluttered the curtains. “Er, what do you plan to do with that couch?”
Frederick raised his head from a nearby wing chair.
“Why?” she asked. “Do you want it?”
The cat’s ears swiveled toward me. I thought I glinted hope in his blue eyes.
“I don’t think it would fit in my tiny house,” I said diplomatically. Also, it stank of burnt synthetics.
Frederick sank his head on his paws and sighed.
“I can take it to the dump for you though,” I said. “If I remove the racks from the van, it should fit inside.”
She shook her head. “Never mind about the couch. I’ve got a new one on order, and the deliverymen have promised to take this one off my hands.” She patted the plastic and sighed. “It doesn’t seem right to throw it out. We’ve got history, this couch and I. Bringing it home from the store when it was fresh and filled with possibility. Huddling together when it was storming outside. Making love—”
I cleared my throat. TMI! “But back to the poem!”
“Right,” she said. “Clues.”
I began to read out loud:
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