He scowled. “All of them, every single one, were ruining this college. Theresa and Michael fooling around with students—You have no idea what I went through covering up their peccadillos. And Michael was a tenured hack I couldn’t get rid of.”
“After only four years?” I asked.
“It takes three to get tenure. It was a relief to be able to dump Aidan too.”
“And by dump, you mean . . . ?”
“Kill.”
“You killed all those people because you couldn’t fire them?” I asked, incredulous.
He laughed. “Of course not! I’m kidding. The expression on your face. It’s priceless.” He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his tweed jacket. “I’m not a madman. You were right the first time. I was covering up Theresa’s murder.”
I forced down the panic welling in my throat. Joking with his future murder victim? He was insane.
“And you’re telling us this now, because . . .”
“Because you’ll be dead in minutes, so I might as well. They say confession is good for the soul. Not sure who I’ll confess your murders to.” The shoulders of his tweed blazer lifted and dropped. “Oh well. I’ll just have to live with the guilt.”
“I understand why you killed Michael and Aidan,” I said. A breeze flowed through the windows, drying the sweat beading my brow. “When you heard Starke’s poem, you thought he’d seen you in the parking lot the night Theresa died. You killed her there, then dumped her car with her body in it over the cliff.”
Charlene gasped. “Tell him about the wrong spot.”
“Your car wasn’t in its usual reserved spot,” I said. “You parked it beside Theresa’s, didn’t you?”
“Yes, it was that detail that made me certain Michael knew what he was talking about. Of course the fool didn’t know. I should have paid more attention to Aidan’s complaints about plagiarism. But he was always whining about something. Dorothy won’t marry me. I need a green card. My class schedule is too full. Good God, it’s a wonder someone didn’t kill him sooner.”
“You did a good job of making Theresa’s death look like an accident.” I strained my ears for sirens. “But Starke’s death was obviously murder. Why did you change your MO?”
“Crime of opportunity,” he said. “I saw Piotr slash Michael’s tires, and then Michael came out carrying that stupid saber. He was furious when he saw what had been done to his car. I offered to hold his saber while he called for a tow truck. He died quickly. I’m not a cruel man.”
“You call trying to electrocute Aidan kind?” I asked. Gordon, where are you?
“Kindness had nothing to do with it. Weren’t you listening? He was incredibly irritating. I thought it would look like an accident.”
“You’d been to his house before, for one of his faculty get-togethers, hadn’t you?”
“Drinkfest is more like it. He did love playing the passionate Irish writer.”
“That’s when you noticed the electric cable wrapped around the tree.”
“Noticed? You should have heard Aidan go on about that stupid moving van. He was furious. Ah, Charlene. I see you’re recovering. Please move toward Val.”
She shuffled to me, and I wrapped one arm around her shoulders. Stall, stall, stall.
“Some movers delivering a sofa backed their truck into the power gizmo on top of his house,” he continued. “For some reason I never could entirely understand, he couldn’t get anyone to fix it. The sofa company’s insurance wouldn’t pay for the damage either, apparently. Aidan was never a good negotiator. No wonder Dorothy wouldn’t marry him. He couldn’t seal the deal. At any rate, I didn’t care for all the police attention Michael’s death was getting. So, I thought I’d return to making the deaths look like an accident.”
“And when that didn’t work,” I said, “you followed him home after the pie-making class and killed him. I’m surprised he let you inside.”
He quirked a brow. “I’m the dean. Why wouldn’t he? Now, please walk toward that wall. No, not that one, the one over there.”
Charlene and I backed toward the narrow windows. I gritted my teeth. If Gordon was listening in on his confession from somewhere below, he was cutting it close.
I swallowed. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. If you were joking about killing Theresa over her affair with a student, then why did you kill her?”
“Her death was because of the affair.” His face darkened. “I loved Theresa.”
“And so you killed her?” I squeaked.
“She was willing to throw her career away on that student! He was a football player!”
A breeze drifted through the windows and tossed Charlene’s white curls. “Jealousy.” She squeezed me around the waist. “One of the three motives for murder.”
“I wasn’t jealous,” he snapped.
“You just admitted you were,” I said.
“She wasn’t living up to her full potential.”
“Theresa Keller can’t live up to anything now,” Charlene said. “She’s dead.”
“And it’s none of your damn business what her potential was,” I said.
“That’s true too,” Charlene agreed. “You had no right.”
His gun wavered. “How do you—?” He shook his head. “You’re both delaying the inevitable. Val, I think you’ll jump first. I was going to make Charlene’s death look like an accident—the sad result of another of her pie-tin UFO stunts. But you being here changes things.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Charlene says. “Val helps me with all the difficult shots.”
“Charlene!”
“I’m stalling,” she muttered.
That was stalling? Because it felt more like helping.
“Hm,” he said, sunlight glinting off his round glasses. “Now your fall will look like suicide, and then Charlene fell trying to stop you.”
“No,” Charlene said. “Your pie-tin UFO idea was better.”
“I suppose it works either way,” he said. “Unless you’d prefer to go ahead with that heart attack.”
“No,” I said, “it doesn’t work. Suicide doesn’t make sense. I have a very happy pie shop. One of my customers is even making me an app!”
“Please.” He rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows you were dumped at the altar.”
“I wasn’t at the altar!” I turned to Charlene. “See? This is what happens when you spread your inaccurisms.”
“It’s true,” Charlene said. “She was months away from the wedding.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Though she was dumped.”
“Charlene!” Come on! Trying to not be defenestrated, here.
“Val.” He waggled the gun. “In the window, if you please.”
“No,” I said, heart thumping against my rib cage. “You’ll have to shoot me, and that will leave evidence.”
“I suppose it will,” he said, “since it’s Piotr’s gun. He keeps it in his desk drawer loaded with silver bullets, which I assure you, are just as good as lead.”
“He’ll frame Professor Jezek,” Charlene said. “He’s thought of everything.”
“How do you think I remained dean of this madhouse for as long as I have? I plan ahead.”
He pulled back the gun’s hammer. “Now—”
“Okay, okay!” I backed against the cool concrete and climbed into the window, dislodging an irate seagull. It flapped, squawking, and sailed high into the air.
“Wait,” Charlene said. “What about Frederick?”
“I told you I wouldn’t kill your cat,” he said. “Just put him down.”
“But he needs to say goodbye to Val.”
She lifted his limp paw, dangling from her shoulder, and waved it at me. “Goodbye, Val.”
“Goodbye, Frederick,” I said mournfully.
Charlene set him on the concrete floor.
I looked over my shoulder. The ground accordioning away from me. Dizzy, I lurched sideways and clung to one of the concrete projections. It�
��s not that I’m afraid of heights. But I’m terrified of being thrown from the top of a twelve-story bell tower and landing on solid concrete. I closed my eyes. “I’d rather be shot.”
“And let an innocent man take the blame?” he asked. “Come now, this isn’t you. You’re one of those truth-and-justice crusaders. All you need to do is lean back and let go.”
“Professor Jezek won’t be blamed,” I said. “You made a mistake planning so far ahead. We knew it was you and not Jezek who killed all those people, and so will the police.”
The gun wavered. “How?”
“If you tell him,” Charlene said, “he’ll just go back and fix his mistake, and then the cops will think Jezek’s our murderer.”
“You’re right,” I said. “We can’t tell him.”
He scowled. “You’re lying.”
“And yet,” I said, “we figured out you were the killer.”
“Enough!” He aimed the gun at my center.
Charlene clutched her chest and doubled over. “Oh!” She collapsed to the floor.
“Charlene!” I jumped from my perch to reach her.
A tremendous gong sounded, rocking the tower.
The gun went off.
Frederick leapt to his paws. The cat yowled and streaked down the stairs.
Doran tumbled over Frederick. He sprawled, facedown, on the concrete floor.
I shrieked, heart in my throat. “Doran!” But the word was lost in the cacophony of the bells.
Charlene snagged my ankle. I pitched forward. My shoulder rammed into Dean Prophet roughly at crotch level. The two of us went down in a jumble of flailing limbs.
When we untangled ourselves, Doran had the gun, Charlene was readjusting Frederick over her shoulder, and Gordon and a phalanx of campus cops were pouring into the campanile. The bells finally, blessedly, fell silent.
Gordon’s mouth moved, and no words came out.
“What?” I asked, glancing anxiously at Charlene. She patted Frederick, checking for damage. The white cat tucked his head beneath her ears and shut his eyes.
Gordon’s lips moved again.
I pointed to my ears. They were still ringing from the bells. “I can’t hear you!”
In answer, Gordon pulled me into his arms and kissed me.
CHAPTER 33
Doran and I helped Charlene down the bell tower steps. We passed more uniformed police running in the opposite direction, their steps echoing off the cement walls.
“I thought you’d been shot,” I choked out.
“Oh,” Charlene said, “I was fine.”
“Not you,” I said. “Doran. What were you thinking?”
“What were you thinking?” my brother growled.
“Charlene was in trouble. I had to help her.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged, his leather jacket making crinkling noises.
“I can’t believe Gordon let you up there,” I said.
“I didn’t,” Gordon said from above us. There wasn’t a crease in his blue suit, and he hadn’t even broken a sweat running up and down those stairs. “When I turned my back, he ran into the tower. Then I had to go after him.”
“What tipped you off that Dean Prophet was the killer?” Doran asked.
I glanced up at Gordon, and he smiled. “Oh, go on. You know you’re dying to show off.” Besides, he couldn’t officially know about this until he’d gotten a warrant.
I opened my mouth.
“The personnel files.” Charlene halted and sucked in deep lungfuls of air. “Only the dean would have had the power to get the student’s name off that complaint about Theresa Keller. Everyone involved was over eighteen, so no minor was being protected.”
“That’s it?” Doran asked.
“Not entirely,” I said. “It was like one of those logic puzzles. Dorothy had an alibi for the attack on Charlene’s house, so she couldn’t have been the killer, unless she had an accomplice. Dorothy and Brittany couldn’t have killed Theresa Keller. Neither of them were around at the time. That left Professor Jezek and Dean Prophet.”
“But that assumed the murder had anything to do with Theresa Keller’s death,” Doran said. “What if you were wrong?”
“Obviously,” Charlene said, “we weren’t.”
Frederick lifted his head from her shoulder and meowed.
* * *
The disheveled, bath-robed man floated through a bowling alley, his image flickering on the rear wall of my tiny home. My friends sat on lawn chairs and ate popcorn, its buttery scent faint against that of the eucalyptus grove behind us. A cloud drifted over the moon, and the movie on my outside wall brightened.
Gordon pulled me closer on our blanket. “So, your brother is staying and all’s well that ends well,” he murmured in my ear.
I looked around.
Ray and Henrietta, cuddling on a nearby blanket beside the projector.
Tally Wally and Graham in lawn chairs, making wisecracks and throwing popcorn at the side of my house.
My friend from the comic shop, Joy, sitting impassively on a lawn chair and watching the makeshift screen.
Doran and Abril on a blanket, their hands loosely clasped.
My heart swelled. I was thrilled my brother was staying, but I hadn’t had to worry about being alone. My family was here, in San Nicholas.
“What are you thinking?” Gordon asked in a low voice.
“I’m glad you didn’t arrest me.” I grinned.
“A fellow Baker Street Baker? Never. We got that warrant for the college’s personnel files, by the way. It wasn’t hard after catching Prophet in the act of trying to push you off the clock tower. He confessed to everything.”
“Good.” And Gordon was only an associate Baker Street Baker, but there was no sense rubbing it in.
“But I think Prophet’s trying for an insanity plea.”
I went rigid. “He knew exactly what he was doing.” But he was kind of nuts.
“I said trying.”
I relaxed. Gordon would gather the evidence he needed.
His hand made exploratory circles on my waist, and I sighed in the darkness, my body melting beneath his touch. Life was perfect. I wriggled closer.
Bones creaking, Charlene lowered herself onto the blanket beside us. “Did I hear insanity plea?”
“He was covering up for a crime of passion,” I whispered. “He won’t get away with it.” But would he? In the bell tower, there’d been a moment when I was sure he was crazy. So why would an insanity plea bother me?
“You never know what a jury will think,” Charlene said. “This is California.”
A silhouette of a flying saucer lowered itself over the screen, and she laughed, nudging my side.
Joy, Tally Wally, and Graham booed.
“This isn’t Mystery Science Theater,” Joy shouted.
Graham hooted. “Down in front!”
I shook my head. “How did you . . . ?”
She drew her hand from inside her knit jacket and showed me the thick twine wrapped around her index finger. “Tee-hee! It’s all done with wires.”
“I thought you’d retired the pie-tin UFOs?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Tonight is my UFO’s swan song. Can you believe Prophet was daft enough to think I’d dangle from the top of a clock tower for a shot? Maybe he is insane.”
“Yeah,” I said dryly, thinking of my misadventure on the Father Serra statue. “Insane.”
Slowly, the UFO lifted and vanished over the roof of my tiny house.
Tally Wally and Graham cheered.
A woman’s silhouette crossed in front of the screen. More boos and popcorn flew.
Marla brushed popcorn from her platinum hair and sat beside Gordon. “So this is where everyone is.”
“And you weren’t invited,” Charlene snapped.
“Of course,” Marla said in a ringing voice, “if we’d done this at my house, we could have used my private theater.”
The crowd fell silent.
> “You have a home theater?” Ray asked.
“I like watching movies outdoors,” Henrietta said stoutly. “The weather’s beautiful, and the stars . . .”
A family of raccoons waddled in front of the makeshift screen, and the crowd groaned.
“What are you doing here?” Charlene hissed at Marla.
“I’m having a little soiree at my home next month,” Marla said. “I wanted to talk to Val about having some of those lovely pies in ajar for dessert.”
“You could have come to Pie Town for that,” Charlene said.
Marla leaned back on one elbow and rested a hand on Gordon’s chest. “But I wanted to finalize this now, so I came here. Of course, I had no idea the rest of you would be here too.”
Uh-huh. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somehow Marla had become part of our little gang. She must have felt left out when we hadn’t invited her to movie night. “Sure, Marla, but let’s talk about it later. Why don’t you stay and enjoy the movie?” I plucked Marla’s hand from my boyfriend’s chest.
She grinned, unabashed.
“Or,” Charlene said, “Marla can go to—”
“Charlene,” I said warningly.
“Fine. I’m getting more popcorn.” Charlene clambered to her feet and walked around the side of my tiny house.
Marla smiled and rose. “She’s just annoyed the media has lost interest in her UFO promotion. I’d better go help. She’s getting so frail.” The elderly woman swaggered after Charlene.
Gordon gave me a look. “Do you need to go after them?”
“They’re both adults and are too old for a babysitter. Besides, if anything goes south, my bet’s on Charlene.”
He pulled me closer. “Mine’s on you.”
Recipes
Salted-Caramel Apple Pie
Ingredients
1 pkg (i.e., 2 crusts) refrigerated pre-made piecrust (because Charlene’s not giving up her secret recipe, and pre-made crusts—when fresh—are pretty good)
¼ C all-purpose flour
¼ C sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Pies Before Guys Page 26