“Could be she wasn’t, dude. Maybe she got tired of him and ran off with a Kramer lookalike before he got himself killed.”
“True. I seem to remember her walking off.” Did Bart follow her? Maybe Elaine returned to him. Maybe Elaine was threatened by the killer to keep quiet, or maybe she too ran into foul play and nobody missed her yet. These and other thoughts clouded his mind on the final leg of the trip home.
Jason tiptoed into the house twenty minutes after curfew. The kitchen lights were on and the toaster oven door was open with the wire rack extended. A crumpled French bread pizza box rested next to it, moist crumbs dotted the countertop. Jason frowned. His father only ate this late at night when he was worried or upset.
The television played softly in the living room. His father never watched late night television either.
“Dad?”
Jason stepped cautiously out of his sneakers and into the living room. Floorboards creaked underneath despite the timidity of each footfall and he held his breath; he was loud enough to rouse Ringo from his prone position on the area rug.
“Hey, boy,” Jason bent down to scratch the scruff of the beagle’s neck. Ringo wagged and mewled in appreciation. “Where’s Dad? Where’s your daddy, fella?”
Ringo answered by craning his neck back to the couch, then nosing into a fold of Jason’s jeans. Dan’s feet, sheathed in thick blue socks, poked out from the sofa arm, toes twitching softly as he slept. He lay flat on his back, hugging a plaid throw, his mouth agape.
Jason tapped the soles of his father’s feet. “Dad, I’m back.”
Dan snorted and woke on contact, raising his knees. Jason slid around and took a seat on the vacant stretch of couch, acting nonchalant as he snatched the remote from the floor. Perhaps if he acted calm, he figured, his father would forget that he had missed curfew.
“Ugh,” Dan blinked and averted his eyes from the white-blue glare of the Weather Channel and raised his head to look at Jason. “What time is it?” he croaked.
“Well past your bedtime,” Jason scolded in a mocking tone. “How long have you been down here? Didn’t you go out with Miss Pratt?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Dan yawned, stretching his left arm so that his fingers scraped the floor. Ringo loped from around the couch and lapped at the man’s knuckles. “Actually, we hung around here. Willie cooked dinner and we watched some movies she rented. I wanted to talk to you before you went to bed.” He then hoisted himself into a sitting position and rubbed his sore neck.
Uh-oh. Jason stared at a meteorologist cheerfully reporting travel conditions for Europe for a few seconds before flipping channels. “What about?” Had his father found out about the trip to Phoebus? Or had he been snooping around in his room? Did he know about the magazine and its contents?
Dan watched the moving collage of faces and scenery blinking rapidly on his set. “Well, I guess the best way is to just come out and say it.” He looked at his son soberly. “There was another murder today.”
“What?” Jason’s finger slipped from the channel button, leaving an Andy Griffith Show rerun onscreen, and landed on the volume button, shooting Barney Fife’s shrill voice to the stratosphere.
“Jason!” Dan winced.
Jason mashed the mute button and dropped the remote. “What do you mean, another murder? One related to Bart’s?”
“It’s not been determined yet,” Dan answered quietly, trying to soothe the growing agitation heating up the room. “We were watching the six o’clock news when there was a bulletin about a man found dead in his apartment in Hampton.”
“Hampton? That’s all?” Suddenly Jason felt foolish for having overreacted. Hampton was a town away, farther even than Phoebus. “So what’s the big deal?”
Dan made a face, trying to look as if the news item was minor. “Well, they had a photo of the guy, and Willie commented how he looked familiar...”
“How so?”
Dan picked up Friday’s art section of the newspaper from the sofa end table, which was still folded to the trivia contest pictures, and pointed to a middle-aged man standing between Jason and the late Bart Scarsdale. “That’s the guy they found.”
“This guy? You’re sure?” Jason studied the photo which only yesterday was an object of pride. That his hands were not shaking as he handled the paper was a minor miracle. “Gordon Petersen. He was murdered today?” he asked again, all the while hoping it was not true, hoping this death and Bart’s were just unrelated events, and not the beginning of a bizarre series of killings.
Dan nodded. “They didn’t mention the guy being at the trivia contest but they used this photograph. Must have kept it when they were doing all that coverage on Bart.”
“When today did this happen?”
“The news didn’t say. He could’ve been dead for hours, since late last night. The police are looking at robbery as the motive. Whoever killed the guy probably thought the apartment was empty.”
Jason frowned. “So why tell me? Why wait up looking at me like you’ve got bad news, like Grandma was dying?”
Dan stretched again and struggled to stand. “I wanted to tell you before you found out on your own and went half-cocked, thinking there’s a target being painted on your forehead. I don’t want you to think there’s a connection with these two deaths, because there isn’t. It’s just a coincidence.”
“I probably wouldn’t have given it much thought, if not for you telling me,” Jason shot back. “Thanks, Dad. Now it’s all I can think about.”
“Jason—”
“How do you know there’s no connection, really?” He thought suddenly of the folder from Bart’s office, tucked underneath a pair of unworn jeans in his duffel bag. The chances were slim, but perhaps Gordon Petersen was connected to Bascock. Maybe Bart did the guy’s taxes. Phoebus was not too far from Hampton, so it was not entirely implausible, but how he could ask any of the Scardales that? They would want to know what business he had in asking.
“Jason,” Dan warned. “What are you thinking? You look like you’re trying to solve a Rubik’s cube in your mind.”
“A what?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m thinking perhaps now is the time to invest in a good bulletproof vest,” Jason said. “I wonder if I could get one to match my letter jacket, one I could wear under my cap and gown.”
“Don’t think that way, nobody is trying to kill you, son. Why would anyone want to do so, for game show tickets and gift certificates?”
Jason felt dizzy, but he resisted the temptation to sit down again. He just wanted to go upstairs to bed and hide under the covers forever. To hell with Mass in the morning, school on Monday, graduation, the future. Bart Scarsdale no longer had a future, and the same could be said, to some extent, for Bart’s mother. Now a second murder. Who were either of them to say some nut was not plowing through the list of trivia finalists?
“Does anybody really have a reason to murder somebody?” he asked. “Kids are murdered for their basketball shoes. I’m going to bed.” He retreated into the kitchen for his duffel and slung it carelessly over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “We have to be up for Mass, and we don’t need to be stewing over this. You going to be all right?”
Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. Not much I can do now that it’s almost one in the morning.” He glanced back at the TV to see Andy and Opie strolling toward the Mayberry fishing hole for a day of familial bonding. Even though the set was still muted he could still hear the hokey, whistled theme song in his mind as he leaned over the couch and shut off the set.
“That late, huh? You let me sleep on the couch all this time since you got home?” Dan eyed his son pointedly. “Before curfew?”
Uh-oh. “Uh, goodnight, Dad,” he said, faking an exaggerated yawn. “See you in the morning.”
“Yeah,” Dan said wearily, watching his son ascend the stairway. “And keep an eye on the clock next time, would you please? I wouldn’t want to ground you, so close to
prom,” he added jokingly.
“Whatever.” Jason’s dull voice floated from his room. “I hadn’t planned on going anyway.”
“No? Why not?” All the worries of the previous day flooded to the front burner of Dan’s mind. Why the sudden disinterest in prom, he wondered, after three years of vehement enthusiasm for school activities? Had the girl he wanted to ask turned him down? What kind of girl would refuse a date with his son?
“Can’t dance,” came the non-committal answer from his son, crossing the hall to his bathroom.
“Personally, I don’t think any of you kids can dance,” Dan argued, “if you call that epileptic leaping and grinding danc—”
“Dad!” Jason emerged from the bathroom, shirtless and barefoot, gripping his dampened toothbrush. A thick vein bobbed back and forth in his neck. “I’m not interested in going to the prom, or dressing up in a stiff monkey suit, and eating over-boiled asparagus smothered in some gross hollandaise sauce and having my picture taken in the backdrop of the Titanic, okay? So drop it. Just drop it.”
Dan backed away from the threshold, mouth agape. “Okay, son, tell me how you really feel then.” When Jason did not laugh, he added, “Fine, but it’s okay if you weren’t able to get a date. Lots of people go stag.”
“Maybe my not wanting to go to prom has nothing to do with not being able to get a date, Dad. Maybe I’m just not interested in dating at all.”
As soon as the words spilled from his mouth, Jason wished he was able to suck them back inside and erase any memory of his father having heard them. Instead he was treated to a prize view of his father’s face twisting from worry to shock. What he must have been thinking!
“What?” Dan asked. “What do you mean—”
But Jason quickly shut the bathroom door. “Goodnight, Dad,” bellowed his muffled voice, obscured by the sudden rush of running water.
“Goodnight.”
Dan lingered in the hall a few seconds more, distracted only by the jingle of Ringo’s tags as the beagle circled his ankles and wagged his tail, hopeful for a goodnight pat. Dan obliged half-heartedly before retreating to his own room.
Not interested in dating. What red-blooded teenage boy was not interested in dating? True, Jason was a serious student, but not to the point that his nose was constantly in a book and his shirt pockets protected with plastic. He didn’t have a problem with dating during his junior year, why the sudden change?
He thought again of the muscle men magazines hidden in Jason’s room. Would Jason be reading them tonight, alone?
Dear God, Dan prayed. Is my son gay? What do I do if he is?
Chapter Nine
Dan checked his school mailbox on Monday morning, bothered by the mix of suspicion and amusement on Alise’s face. Then again, he thought, the smirk cracking the thick layer of foundation makeup slathered on her face was a welcome change from the lustful leers usually directed at his and other male posteriors entering and leaving the office.
Abruptly her attention shifted to a pair of broad-shouldered strangers lingering by the copy machine. Both sported matching buzz cuts and slate gray suits. Dan did not recognize them as substitutes and wondered if the ROTC program scheduled guest speakers for the day.
Alise informed him differently. “They’re here to see you,” she hissed. “They’re detectives. One of them even showed me his badge, it’s the real deal!”
Dan nodded, his head bent over Alise’s desk. “Notice any wedding rings, too?”
“Ha, ha. We’ll see who’s joking later when they offer you a ride downtown. So,” she said, her eyes fixated lustily on the taller, blonder detective, “what did you do and why wasn’t I invited?”
“Nothing!” Dan barked defensively, then gasped quietly as the detectives turned toward him in unison and approached.
The taller, blonder man of Alise’s affections casually flipped his credentials in Dan’s face. “You Daniel Greevey?”
“Yes.” Dan’s heart pounded upward into his throat. Only his late father ever called him Daniel, usually before he was to be severely punished.
The detective extended a thick, callused hand, which Dan took cautiously. The man must have thought he was shaking a jellyfish, he thought.
“Detective Simons, Norfolk PD.” Detective Simons cocked his head to the other buzz cut. “My partner, Detective Gross.”
“Hello,” Dan mumbled politely to the unsmiling Detective Gross. He would be the bad cop in this pending play, Dan guessed.
“We’d like a few minutes with you, if we could, Mr. Greevey.”
“Certainly, but may I ask why? Does this concern one of my students?”
“It might, if your son is one of your students.” Detective Simons glanced uncomfortably at Alise. “Uh, we understand you’re not teaching a class during the first period. Perhaps we could move our discussion somewhere more private? Say your classroom?”
“My classroom is occupied by another teacher this period,” Dan said. He was surprised that the detectives did not know this, yet were aware of his teaching schedule. It surprised him also that Alise had not apprised them of classroom availability, much less permitted the detectives access to his personnel file and draw a map to his house. What was the old adage Father Ben had spouted during a memorable sermon?
Those who will gossip to you will gossip about you.
“Gentlemen, if you prefer, the principal’s office is free,” Alise suggested. “Mr. Rockwell won’t be in until this afternoon. I could go in there real quick and arrange the chairs.”
“That’s fine, Alise, but I’ll escort them to the faculty lounge, if that’s all right with you, Detectives?” Knowing Alise, she would switch on the intercom in Rockwell’s office and listen in from her desk. She could have an entire transcript of his conversation with the two detectives typed, copied, and in every teacher’s mailbox by day’s end. “Besides,” he added, “I could use something to eat. I skipped breakfast.”
“Lead the way,” Detective Simons said without consulting his partner. “Your son, Jason...is he available now? We’d like to talk to him as well.”
“I know where his first class is. We could stop on the way—”
“Dad?”
All three men looked up as Jason poked his head inside the office doorway. He was clutching his binder in one hand and holding up a light blue slip of paper used for students being paged to an appointment with the dean.
“Somebody gave me this. What’s going on?”
All heads turned back to a now grinning Alise, who shuffled a similar stack of blank slips like a pack of cards.
“Just thought I’d save you boys a trip,” she purred, winking at Detective Simons.
* * * *
“Why do you want to talk to us? What makes you think we have any pertinent information about the Waterside murder? I mean, that is why you’re here, right?”
Detective Simons sat across from Jason in the back booth by the vending machines and stifled a chuckle. Upon entering the lounge, they had chased away three teachers, including Debra, who was miffed at losing an hour of telephone job interview time. Maura remained the lone straggler, and she lingered at the vending machines under the pretense of digging for change in her cavernous tote bag, much to annoyance of the detectives.
“The Mormons finally tracked you down, no?” she whispered as Dan closed in and shoved a wrinkled dollar into the candy dispenser.
“They just want to talk to us, and we need our privacy,” Dan seethed. “So could you please...” He crooked his head toward the exit.
Maura appeared unfazed by Dan’s mild hostility. “Okay, but I want details later, and if those guys can get me a deal on Osmonds tickets, let me know, too.” Dan waited for the giggling Spanish teacher to leave before joining Jason at the table with his Snickers bar.
Simons had the other bench to himself; Detective Gross chose to slowly pace the perimeter of the lounge, studying a bulletin board laden with interoffice memos and fingering the catalogs left behin
d for teachers to peruse. If that was his sole duty during the interview—to meander about and make him nervous, thought Dan—the man was succeeding.
Simons relaxed slightly with Maura’s exit. “I’m sorry, son,” he said warmly, “but I believe I’m the one who gets to ask the questions here.”
“Ask away,” Jason said bravely, puffing up his chest. “You won’t get much, because we don’t have much to offer, do we, Dad?”
“Jason...” Dan held up his hand.
“What, Dad? We’ve got nothing to hide. Bart Scarsdale was alive when we last saw him,” he directed his gaze straight at Detective Simons, “if you guys are thinking we had anything to do with his death...”
Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial) Page 53