Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  “The Pink Panther is at the Naro,” Mitch said casually, referring to the movie theater across the street from their workplace. On occasion restored prints of classic films enjoyed special showings. “Late show’s at nine-thirty.” The bookstore closed at eight.

  “Tell Gooch, too, when he gets here.”

  Marcus “Gooch” Gucci, Jason’s other best friend, sauntered into class just under fifteen seconds of the late bell, graciously soaking up a wave of attention from various classmates. Gooooch, everybody hooted in low tones, some pumping their fists in the air as they would normally when Gooch was on the baseball diamond winning another game for the Colley Avenue Generals.

  “Ever get the feeling you’re on Cheers?” Mitch asked his friends, leaning over on his Jason’s desk.

  “Not this week,” Jason retorted, and pulled the lifestyle section of the morning paper from his backpack as Gooch took the desk behind them. He had caught a glimpse of his image on its front page and took the entire section with him, unbeknownst to his father, for bragging rights. “I’m thinking more on the lines of a show still on the air.”

  “I wish,” Gooch grunted. “I could use ten grand in spending money when I get to Athens.” Gooch was scheduled to attend the University of Georgia on a baseball scholarship, unlike Mitch, who would be joining Jason at William and Mary.

  The three joked over the photos in the paper and passed the article around to other classmates. Gooch pressed a finger on a close-up of Bart. “That’s the guy who beat you?”

  “Yeah. He was pretty stoked about winning. I’m surprised he’s not quoted in this article, you’d think he would have tracked down the reporter himself.”

  “Probably too busy spending his winnings at the bar to notice,” Mitch snickered.

  Or spending time with that Elaine look-alike, Jason thought. He wondered what happened to the two of them after he, his father and Willie left the Waterside. Did Bart turn out to be “sponge-worthy”? Did she find a more appealing Jerry Seinfeld clone instead?

  The classroom door closed quietly behind Bailey Stone. “Okay, folks, Mrs. Wallis will be back tomorrow,” she began over the din, “but for now she left this assignment behind.” She gestured to a stack of papers on the teacher’s desk. “I’ll be collecting them at the end of class.”

  The multiple conversations among students continued, oblivious to Bailey, who might as well have been invisible. Two students in the back joined their desks together for a spirited game of paper football, while one young woman in the front pulled a thick Stephen King novel from her purse and began to read.

  “Okay, then.” Bailey appeared unfazed by the collective defiance and reached for the roll sheet, calling names out softly and repeating some several times until satisfied of said student’s presence or absence.

  Jason observed all of this quietly, suddenly feeling sorry for Bailey Stone, though she was not one of his favorite people. On a list of dating dont’s, Bailey ranked one through five, and Jason’s memories of the brief time Bailey dated his father were hardly pleasant.

  He tuned out the conversation bouncing across his desk between Mitch and Gooch. They only saw Bailey Stone as an inconvenience obstructing their hour long holiday from school, yet one who would be heartily welcomed on any of the remaining days of senior year in lieu of Mrs. Wallis. Jason saw somebody much more than that, somebody prickly and manipulative, a snake in a Laura Ashley knock-off.

  Had Dad seen her this morning, he wondered. Of course he had, his room was next door. Had Miss Pratt? Did Bailey know Dad was dating her?

  “Greevey, Jason,” called the substitute teacher, a warm glow in her voice. “Jason? Where are you, sweetie?”

  A few students snorted at the term of endearment and giggled as a blushing Jason reluctantly raised his hand.

  “Jason, would you give me a hand here and pass out these papers for me?” Bailey cajoled. Slowly Jason lumbered out of his desk and obliged her, ignoring the ensuing onslaught of catcalls.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” jeered Gooch under his breath. Mitch punctuated the statement with kissing noises.

  Bailey finished the roll silently, checking names at random, and handed Jason the day’s work. “Saw your picture in the paper this morning.”

  Jason grunted acknowledgement and quickly set about the task given to him. Once finished, he saw no reason to continue standing before the class like a dope—many students simply took their worksheets and tucked them into notebooks before resuming play—so he started back toward his desk. A small hand clamped his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

  “Help me for a sec?” Bailey pleaded softly. Before he could protest she looped her arm around his and pulled him toward Mrs. Wallis’s desk, leaning away only to root through the open top-left drawer. “I found these this morning and wasn’t sure if Mrs. Wallis intended for them to passed out as well,” she explained as she carefully lifted a thinner stack of papers bound by a stapled corner. “Maybe you could look at them and tell me.”

  “Well, uh, Miss Stone,” Jason stammered, “I’d think if Mrs. Wallis wanted them passed out she would have left a note.” His stomach fluttered; now he was a party to Bailey’s snooping. Mrs. Wallis never let anyone rummage through her belongings. “I don’t think you should—”

  But Bailey pressed the papers upon him. “Just look, please.”

  Jason sighed and flipped through the pages, stunned to discover he was now holding the AP English final exam and answer key in his hands.

  “Miss Stone...” What was wrong with this woman? Why was she doing this?

  “Bailey, please.”

  “Yeah.” Jason let a loose test page flutter to the desk and he rubbed his hands together to erase any memory of touching the contraband exam. He glanced back at his friends; Mitch and Gooch were engaged in a marathon tic-tac-toe game, and everybody else was chatting. On Mrs.Wallis’s desk he noticed a dog-eared romance novel lying split downward and some doodling in the squares of the desk blotter calendar which was definitely not done by its owner. Mrs. Wallis always kept a tidy appearance, and was not likely to write Dan Greevey’s name over and again in flowery cursive surrounded by red-ink hearts...

  Huh? Jason did a double-take and squinted to see the graffiti better, but Bailey eased herself between him and the desk, blocking his line of vision.

  “Something wrong?” Bailey mirrored his frown.

  “Uh, yeah.” His eyes shot back to the test. “It’s the final exam for this class. I don’t think Mrs. Wallis wants that circulated.” What it was doing in an unlocked drawer where Bailey could find it was a mystery, Jason knew, as Mrs. Wallis was also notorious for keeping the templates of important tests under lock and key.

  “Here.” He picked up the test to return to the drawer, but Bailey’s pushed it persistently back to his chest, her eyebrows knit together with determination.

  “You can hang onto it, if you like, Jason,” she whispered. “I won’t tell, and Mrs. Wallis doesn’t have to know. You could make a copy in the library for reference, and bring it back before school’s over, and—”

  Jason pushed her arm aside and hovered over the desk, dropping the exam back in it drawer, which he immediately slammed shut. The noise was loud enough to attract a few interested glances, but Jason shrugged off the attention and skulked back to his desk without giving Bailey another look.

  He passed the remainder of the hour completing the Mrs. Wallis’s assignment on a single sheet of loose leaf paper, interjecting in his friends’ conversation when prompted, and even then only with single syllable words. Not once did he look toward the teacher’s desk, where Bailey, adrift in her own little world, hummed and busied herself with the desk blotter and a red-ink marker.

  Gooch in particular took notice of his friend’s sudden mood swing. “Dude,” he punched Jason in the arm, “you on the rag?”

  “Just tired from last night,” Jason lied. His mind was on Bailey, still baffled that the woman offered him an avenue to cheat on his final
exam. Why would she do that? What could she possibly gain, unless this was some twisted way to get back into his father’s good graces.

  “You heard him, Gooch, he’s just tarred,” Mitch intoned in a heavy Southern drawl. “That’s how people talk where you’re going, you know. They say words like tarred and nekkid.”

  “And yawnto instead of you want to.” Gooch laughed.

  “And co’cola.”

  “And y’all.” Gooch elbowed Jason for a contribution to the new vocabulary.

  Jason, feeling a bit better, smiled. “Yep.”

  His friends, scoffing at the lame attempt, batted Jason about the shoulders and sprang from their desks when the bell rang, backpacks in hand. They agreed upon a meeting time for the movies and bade each other farewell until sixth period, which they also shared.

  Mitch and Gooch followed the crowd funneling out the door toward the cafeteria straight to lunch, which both took before fifth period French and PE, respectively. Jason, on his way to Chemistry, had third lunch. He was at the threshold when Bailey stopped him with a single word.

  “Jason?” Her voice was timid, like that of a child caught doing something bad. How appropriate, Jason told himself. Mrs. Wallis should be told about Bailey rummaging through her things, he knew, but he was divided on whether or not to tell anyone. Spilling the beans could ruin any chances of Bailey finding permanent work again in the school district. Who knew what other skills the woman possessed that she could fall back on? Then again, she might have found other final exams to tempt students in Mrs. Wallis’s other classes.

  If Bailey was aware that Jason was annoyed, she did not let on to him. Her disposition was sunnier than spring. “I’m sorry, Jason. I put you in a terrible spot earlier...”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jason interrupted, though a part of him really wanted to make her do so, make her sweat about the future of her teaching career, such as it was.

  Bailey pointed a toe to the floor and swiveled her raised heel. Students from Mrs. Wallis’s fifth period Humanities class filed in around them. “I didn’t know what I was thinking,” she continued, “I guess I just wanted you to do well on your finals.”

  “Yeah,” Jason cleared his throat uncomfortably, “but I don’t need to cheat to get good grades, Miss Sto—”

  “Bailey,” she reminded him, her voice suddenly harsh.

  “Right.” Jason felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl. What was keeping him from just turning around and walking away?

  “I didn’t mean to imply you needed help. It’s just that your father is so proud of you...” her voice drifted away and her eyes glazed at the mere mention of Jason’s father. The seconds toward the late bell ticked in Jason’s ears and quietly he backed away, hoping to escape as Bailey continued in her reverie.

  “I know it’s a tough time for you seniors. I just wanted to help,” she said as Jason made it again to the threshold. “I’m sorry if I put you in an awkward position.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about, Miss Stone.” Just two more steps and he was out into the crowd. Why would he not move?

  “I’m sorry, so sorry,” she repeated, close to tears. “Your father...”

  Jason groaned inwardly; he knew exactly where Bailey was steering the conversation, and he certainly did not want to be in its path anymore. “I gotta go,” he blurted and exited, squeezing between two passing students to get to the far end of the hallway.

  “You’re so much like your father, Jason,” Bailey called from the classroom as Jason made a hasty retreat. “He’s very intelligent, and handsome, like you.”

  “His girlfriend thinks so, too,” Jason called back, face forward and walking even faster. He resisted the temptation to turn back to see Bailey’s reaction.

  * * * *

  Lunch period for Dan should have been a pleasant reprieve from the strain on his neck and back due to prolonged standing and pacing the classroom, being the ever-present eye seeking contraband bubble gum crackling between a student’s teeth. Instead, this half-hour break proved daily to be as grating, if not more so, than having to deliver a long-playing lecture to an uninterested class. Today, news of last night’s murder weighed heavily in his thoughts, adding to the stress.

  Paper bag in hand, Dan lurched into a billowing cloud of cigarette smoke. Business Skills teacher Debra French sat stiffly in a molded plastic chair holding aloft a lit Camel, apparently unaware that people gasped for air around her. She wedged the community phone receiver between her shoulder and ear, a newspaper folded to the employment classifieds clutched in one hand while her cigarette hand dialed.

  She glared at a frowning Dan as he walked toward an empty booth along the wall. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked in a tone that indicated she would be smoking regardless of Dan’s answer.

  Dan settled into the booth and unpacked his lunch. “Certainly not. Mind if I break wind?”

  Debra waved him off and listened for a ring as Dan chuckled. Diminutive, dark-haired, and fond of wearing navy blue anything, Debra spent every minute of her free time securing job interviews outside academia, which she had learned to hate in only her first year of teaching. Regardless of whether or not she was successful in finding work, Dan guessed, it was a safe bet Debra would not be back next year.

  “Young lady,” called a voice rather tiredly from the far end of the lounge, “will you be much longer on the phone? I suggest you look into something cellular at the rate you’re going.”

  Dan looked back at Lawrence Brantley, the school’s one-man Drama department, and cracked a smile as the older man’s face reddened. Debra, hardly mistaking the older teacher’s displeasure, simply shifted in her chair toward the wall and talked calmly into the receiver.

  Dan, meanwhile, took note that Lawrence, as usual, had taken up an entire round table with stacks of test papers, bound plays and stagecraft manuals. No evidence of food was seen anywhere near the graying, bespectacled man, either—no crumbs or wadded plastic wrap to indicate Lawrence might have wolfed down a sandwich in the first two minutes of the break.

  Thinking a moment, Dan realized he almost never saw the drama teacher eat, and said as much aloud.

  Lawrence adjusted the bridge of his wire-rim glasses to peer above the lenses at Dan with an withering look. “I eat when I’m hungry, and at no other time. Just because I was assigned this lunch period doesn’t mean I have to succumb to the chiming of Pavlov’s bell like the rest of you.” He cast an even paler look at Dan’s turkey and stuffing sandwich. Thick, brown gravy dripped from the saturated sourdough bread and pooled on a napkin. “Even if I were hungry right now I certainly wouldn’t tuck in to something like that, Greevey. All that salt! How can you put that in your mouth?”

  Dan shrugged and swallowed a bite. Why did Lawrence always sound so pretentious? Who was he trying to impress here?

  “Because I’m hungry.”

  “He’s right, you know. That stuff’ll clog your pipes and never get out.” This came from Maura, who took the bench opposite Dan and popped open a diet milkshake can. “This is something new I’m trying, my last ditch effort before swimsuit season. One for breakfast, one for lunch—”

  “And dinner is an entire Taco Bell franchise,” Lawrence harrumphed, setting down his pen and interlacing his fingers over an opened Shakespeare text. “Really, Maura, must you be a shill for the diet industry? You might as well have flushed your money down a toilet.”

  A low, Spanish curse word escaped Maura’s lips, but the teacher paid no attention. “You might lose a few pounds to start, but once you feel confident you no longer need that strict a regimen, you’ll go back to bad eating habits and the weight will return. It may even double.”

  Dan, feeling oblivious to fat and cholesterol in any form, relished the last bite of his sandwich and offered to make a trip for anyone to the soda machine in the back of the lounge. Maura politely declined.

  “And what do you do to keep so fit?” Maura asked sn
idely, her eye on the rounded bulge in Lawrence’s abdomen.

  “Amazing things that have been around for centuries. They’re called vegetables.”

  Dan popped open his dewy can of Dr. Pepper. “So, who’s chaperoning the prom besides me?” The diet debate was getting tiresome, and knowing Maura and Lawrence they would be sniping at each other for the rest of the week. He only hoped he had not opened a new can of worms by inadvertently steering the conversation toward dieting to fit in formal clothing.

  Lawrence raised his hand, the look on his face implying that he had been pinned to the ground by thugs and forced to volunteer. Maura proudly proclaimed her exemption. “I did the senior trip, I’m not doing this,” she said. “Besides, I wouldn’t have time to slim down to wear any of my good dresses.”

  She pointed her shake can at Dan’s own gut, which on a good day appeared flat to the untrained eye. For Dan a good day meant not having to suck in his abdomen to fit into a pair of pants, though he had only added about three inches to his waist in the last year. “I can see all that jogging is helping you. You look a little more toned than you have in the past,” she said as Dan tore apart the seal of a bag of Fritos. “You eat enough of those, though, and soon you’ll soon be filling out that bench.”