Hush Puppy

by Laurien Berenson

  “Yes.”

  “Policemen are our friends, right? They take care of us when things go wrong. Wendy, this is Detective Shertz. He’s the policeman in charge of the whole investigation. He’s the one who’s going to find out what happened to Mr. Krebbs. I know he looks scary, but he’s here to help us.”

  Seeing what I was trying to do, Shertz had lightened his expression. Until I got to the part about him looking scary, that is; then his glare returned. I slid my foot over and kicked him in the ankle just as Wendy finally raised her eyes. She saw him flinch, but it was better than the scowl he’d been wearing.

  Like most of the students at Howard Academy, Wendy had beautiful manners. She held out a small, delicate hand, and said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Detective Shertz.”

  Shertz looked surprised, but quickly recovered. His large hand reached out and swallowed hers. I was pleased to see he didn’t pump it too heartily. The detective even managed a smile.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, too, Wendy. I apologize for interrupting your class, but Ms. Travis and I have some things we need to talk about. Will it bother you if we do it here?”

  “No, sir. I have some work I can do at the board.” She started to walk away, then paused and turned back. “Are you going to arrest the person that killed Mr. Krebbs?”

  “Yes, I am. As soon as we’re sure we have the right person, we’re going to do just that.”

  “Good.” Satisfied, Wendy went back to her math problems.

  “Nice kid,” said Shertz, when she was out of earshot.

  “They’re all nice kids.” I pulled out a chair beside him and sat down. “They don’t deserve to have something like this happen at their school. This is a place where they ought to be able to feel safe.”

  “You don’t have to lecture me.” Shertz’s momentary goodwill faded. “Believe me, the police department is doing everything it can to get to the bottom of this. I understand you have some information about the girl we’re looking for, the one who found Krebbs’s body.”

  I nodded. “I believe her name is Jane, and I’m almost certain she’s not a student here. I’ve run into her several times recently. She’s like a shadow, always slipping in and out of places unexpectedly.”

  “Do you know where we can find her now?”

  “No, she seems to come and go as she pleases. I suspect she lives somewhere in the neighborhood and comes here to amuse herself when she should be at school.”

  “Just Jane?” Shertz frowned again. It seemed to be his habitual expression. “That’s the only name you have?”

  “It’s the one she gave me. Krebbs seemed to think she might have been lying about that.”

  “She’d lied to him about other things?”

  “I don’t know, I only saw them together once. At the time, they were arguing pretty strenuously.”

  “About what?”

  “Jane’s right to be here, I think. Krebbs had found her sleeping in the prop room behind the stage and was trying to chase her off with a broom.”

  Shertz reflected on what I’d said. “Would you have characterized Eugene Krebbs as a violent man?” he asked finally.

  “I have no idea, I barely knew him. Some of the other teachers who’ve been here longer can probably answer that question better. I will say, however, that I was appalled by the way he treated Jane.”

  “Any thoughts on how we might be able to get in touch with her?”

  “No, although I’d probably start by looking around the neighborhood, maybe checking the public-school records for absentees.”

  “We’ll do that.” Shertz stood. “One last thing. Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

  “When we first spoke, I didn’t realize it was Jane who’d found the body. Then when I knew, you didn’t want to listen.”

  The detective looked exasperated. “I’m listening now. Anything else you think I ought to know?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.”

  I thought so, too. He left the room, and I went back to work.

  Nine

  With all that had happened the day before, I’d never had a chance to go through the box of records I’d brought upstairs from the basement. With two free periods in a row after lunch, I decided to use the time to take a look. I was certain I’d left the cardboard carton pushed against the wall behind my desk, but now it wasn’t there.

  Perplexed, I checked beneath the tables and looked in the storage closet. The box was gone. Considering its musty, dilapidated condition, I guessed it was possible that the cleaning crew had thought it was garbage and thrown it out when they came through the night before.

  Terrific, I thought. Russell had entrusted me with the Howard Academy archives, and the first thing I’d managed to do was lose some of them. I’d never even opened the carton; there was no way of knowing what it might have contained. Hopefully, it hadn’t been anything valuable.

  Fishing the key to the storeroom out of my purse, I headed back down to the basement. Though the lock on the door seemed looser than ever, it opened easily enough. I turned on the overhead lights, picked another box, and began to sift through the papers.

  Like the first carton I’d tackled, this one was filled with a random selection of remnants from the early years of the school. Some of the papers were mildly interesting; others, totally mundane. I found invoices for textbooks and dining-room linens jumbled in with a kitchen shopping list and a pamphlet extolling the virtues of Doctor Elliott’s Miracle Cold and Influenza Cure.

  Near the bottom, a sheaf of correspondence had been clipped together: letters from Honoria to her brother. That looked promising. I pulled them out, sat down at the table, and began to read.

  Within minutes, I’d been transported back to the world of the early 1930s. It was the height of the Depression, but neither Joshua and Honoria nor Howard Academy seemed to be feeling the pinch. Joshua’s wife, Mabel, had died the year before, and he was off traveling “the Continent,” and trying to put his sorrows behind him. His six children, though mostly grown by that point, had been entrusted to the watchful care of his sister.

  Honoria began her letter by assuring her brother that the family was well. Josh’s eldest daughter, Agnes, was expecting her second baby; the pregnancy was proceeding nicely. James, a middle child, and one of only two boys, was concentrating on his studies at college—a good thing in Honoria’s opinion as the boy was somewhat lacking in aptitude. Ruth, the youngest, had apparently inherited her mother’s appreciation for art. She’d asked for a set of oil paints for her birthday and was showing signs of real talent.

  As to the school, Honoria’s chief concern was the fact that the fledgling Howard Academy curriculum was lacking a course in Greek. Though Latin was a required subject, she felt their students were not being offered a thorough enough grounding in the classics, an opinion that Joshua didn’t seem to share. Their argument, carried on through several months’ worth of letters, was lively and interesting, and I was so caught up in trying to decipher the handwritten correspondence I never even heard the door to the storeroom open.

  The first clue I had that I was no longer alone came when a shadow fell across the table. I started and looked up.

  “Sorry,” said Michael Durant. He laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned over to see what I was reading. “I knocked, but I guess you didn’t hear me. That must be interesting stuff.”

  “It is. Letters between Honoria and Joshua.” I shuffled the papers back into a bundle.

  Michael pulled up the other chair in the room, dusted off the wooden seat, and sat down. “Anything we can use for the pageant?”

  “Probably not, even though it is fascinating. When these letters were written, Joshua was touring Europe while Honoria kept things running here. They were arguing about whether or not Greek should be added to the school curriculum.”

  Michael fingered the edge of the top letter, glancing at Honoria’s cramped script. “It was certainly a different way of life. Joshua Howard had qu
ite a large family, didn’t he?”

  “Six children, four girls and two boys. His wife died relatively young, and apparently Honoria stepped in to take her place, looking after the family as well as the school.”

  Michael nodded, seeming lost in thought.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” I asked after a moment.

  “Hmm?” He looked up.

  “I was wondering what you were doing down here. Is there something you need?”

  “You, actually.” Michael smiled. “I was looking for you. Two things. First, I wanted to let you know we’re having another pageant committee meeting tomorrow morning before first bell. Any and all scintillating ideas will be gratefully accepted.”

  “Okay.” A memo in my mailbox could have covered that. “And?”

  Michael hesitated. “I guess I was wondering if you were all right,” he said finally.

  “All right?”

  “You know, after yesterday. That was pretty creepy.”

  “It was certainly a shock,” I agreed. “I barely knew Krebbs, but still, to have him die like that—”

  “Not just dead, murdered!” Michael shuddered. “It could have been any one of us.”

  I hadn’t thought of things that way, and I wondered if Michael was right. Had someone deliberately set out to murder Krebbs, or had he simply had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  “I guess maybe you’re used to that kind of thing,” Michael said slowly. “Rumor has it you’ve been involved in a couple of murders yourself.”

  “Only by accident.” Howard Academy was the type of institution that preferred its teachers to keep a low profile, and I’d tried my best to adhere to that policy.

  “But you solved them, didn’t you?” When I didn’t answer right away, Michael leaned closer across the table, his expression eager. “So now what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s your next step?”

  “Me? No way.” I held up a hand, as if to ward off even the suggestion that I might get involved. “I don’t have a next step, except maybe to open another one of these boxes and keep reading.”

  “Oh.”

  He slumped back in his chair, looking deflated, and I felt myself taking pity on him. “How come you’re so curious?”

  “Who wouldn’t be, under the circumstances? Maybe this kind of thing is old hat for you, but I think it’s pretty interesting.”

  “I doubt that Krebbs would feel that way.” My tone was sharper than I’d intended, but Michael didn’t look chastened.

  “I’ve only been here a couple of months,” he said, “so it’s not like I knew the man. Besides, if you discount all the administration hysteria over how the murder is going to affect the school’s reputation and social standing, nobody around here seems very broken up. My guess is, once the initial furor dies down, nobody’s going to miss the guy at all.”

  The sad thing was, he had a point. Though Russell had said Krebbs’s only family was the school, I hadn’t heard a single person profess any real grief at the man’s passing. Instead, everyone seemed more concerned about their own agendas.

  Michael stood. “I guess I’ll be heading back upstairs. Don’t forget. Tomorrow, eight A.M. We’ll meet in the faculty lounge again.”

  “Got it,” I said. “I’ll see you there.”

  Now that I’d lost my train of thought, it was hard to get reinvolved in the Howards’ problems from half a century earlier. I was scanning the top letter desultorily when the door to the room pushed open again and a slender girl slipped inside.

  “It’s about time,” said Jane. “I thought he’d never leave.”

  “Is that what you do?” I asked. “Spy on people?”

  “When I need to.”

  She strode over to the chair Michael had recently vacated and sat down, immediately tilting it back to balance on its rear legs. Her blue jeans were ripped across both knees, and only one of her sneakers was tied. Today she was wearing a T-shirt whose slogan proclaimed, “Beer—it’s not just for breakfast anymore.”

  Everything about Jane radiated defiance, and I had to wonder how she’d managed to become so hard, so young. She looked scarcely older than Wendy, but the two girls were worlds apart.

  “Done looking yet?” Jane wiggled her foot against the table’s edge, and her chair rocked precariously.

  “I guess.” Matching her mood, I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest, “What are you doing here?”

  “You asked me if I was hungry. Well, I am.”

  Just like that, I thought. As if there hadn’t been twenty-four hours and a dead body between question and answer.

  “I imagine I can find you some food. What are you going to give me in return?”

  “You want money?” Jane snorted. “That’s a laugh. Everyone around here is rich.”

  Not entirely true, though I could see how she might perceive things that way. I pulled out an apple I’d saved from lunch out of the pocket of my blazer, and tossed it to her across the table. Jane snagged the fruit one-handed and bit into it immediately. I wondered if she’d had any breakfast that morning; or, come to think of it, dinner the night before.

  “I wasn’t thinking of money,” I said. “How about information. Do you know the police are looking for you?”

  “Big deal.” She tried to sound tough, but her gaze shifted away.

  “They want to talk to you about what happened yesterday—”

  Jane’s chair thumped to the floor. Abruptly she stood. “Don’t tell me they think I whacked that old guy?”

  Before I could answer, she was already backing toward the door. “I’m not going to chase you,” I said. “But I wish you wouldn’t leave. The police just want to talk to you, that’s all. You were the one who found Krebbs, weren’t you?”

  “So what if I was? It doesn’t mean I killed him.”

  “Of course not,” I agreed. “It must have been terrible for you, finding him lying there like that.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She stepped back toward the table. Having made short work of the apple, Jane was now gnawing on the core. “Got anything else?”

  Clearly she didn’t want to talk about what she’d seen. I couldn’t say that I blamed her. “I don’t have any more food down here, but I bet we could get something from the kitchen.”

  “You mean steal it?”

  “No.” I almost laughed. “I was thinking more in terms of asking for something politely.” Jane didn’t look convinced. “We had meat loaf for lunch. Maybe the staff could find us some leftovers.”

  “Why should they?”

  “Why not?” I walked out from behind the table and headed for the door. “Coming?”

  “Maybe I’ll wait here. You could bring something back.”

  “And take the chance that you’ll disappear while I’m gone? I don’t think so.”

  Jane grinned. “I guess you’re not as dumb as you look.”

  “And I guess you’re not as hungry as you said you were; otherwise, you wouldn’t be wasting my time arguing.”

  I turned off the light, then waited until she’d walked through the doorway and pulled the door shut. When I took out the key, Jane shook her head.

  “I don’t know why you bother,” she said. “A three-year-old could pick that lock.”

  “Probably.” The door jiggled loosely as I flipped the bolt. “Have you tried it?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the only door down here that’s locked. Right away, that made it the most interesting place to be.”

  That made sense. “Did you get in?”

  “Less than a minute,” Jane told me proudly.

  “So how come you keep hanging around here? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  Jane followed me up the stairs. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we are in school.”

  “I mean one where you’re enrolled, where you take classes with other kids your age and learn things.”<
br />
  “School’s boring. Besides, I already know plenty.”

  I didn’t doubt that for a minute. I’d been leading the way, but as we neared the dining room, Jane skipped past me and went on ahead. She seemed to know the hallways and passages of the old building just as well as I did.

  She bypassed the door leading to the large, formal dining room and scooted down a narrow alleyway that angled back to the kitchen. “Come on,” she said. “If we don’t get there soon, they might throw everything out.”

  The kitchen was quiet and nearly empty when we got there. The only person in sight was one of the serving-women I’d met the day before. She took one look at Jane and screamed. The sound ricocheted loudly off the gleaming appliances and tiled floor.

  “You’re back!” she said, pointing a finger at Jane and looking as if she’d seen a ghost. “Don’t tell me somebody else is dead.”

  “Nobody’s dead,” I said firmly. Afraid she’d slip back out the door, I grasped Jane’s hand. It was cold as ice. “We’re looking for something to eat.”

  “Eugene Krebbs is dead. Don’t try and tell me he’s not. I saw the whole story on the evening news. Shawna, I said to myself, girl, that is one dangerous place to work, when spirits be loose in the hallways and even an old man isn’t safe.”

  Jane glanced at me and rolled her eyes. I was glad to see she wasn’t taking Shawna’s performance to heart.

  “Maybe we should just help ourselves,” I said.

  Shawna didn’t try to stop me, so I took that as assent. Two big subzero refrigerators filled one wall. I found the leftover meat loaf on the top shelf of the first one I opened. Several loaves of whole wheat bread were stored beneath it.

  “Sandwiches?” I asked Jane.

  “Is there ketchup?”

  An industrial-sized jar was in the pantry. While I cut two thick slabs off the wedge of meat loaf, Jane found a glass and filled it to the top with milk. She drank the first glassful down and filled it again while waiting for me to finish.

  Shawna, meanwhile, tended to business on the other side of the room and studiously ignored us. I was probably the first teacher she’d ever seen raid the kitchen, but she didn’t say a word.