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

by Leigh Ellwood

  “Hi.” Caitlin sounded breathless. She smelled faintly of vanilla perfume, and only when she was standing directly before Jason did he see that her hair, neck, and bosom were sparkling with glitter.

  “You look great,” Jason told her. It was the understatement of the year.

  Caitlin consciously touched the bulge of hair resting on the nape of her neck. “I wanted to look like Kate Winslet, in Titanic,” she explained. “The day I saw that movie, I knew I wanted to dress like her for prom or some other big dance, so Mom found a lady at the beach who runs a shop. Took three months and about a dozen fittings,” she added, exhaling as if exhausted from the memory. “I couldn’t get the hair right, though.”

  “It looks great, you look great,” Jason repeated. He gestured to more stares around them. “Nobody else seems to mind.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  Jason shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Well, uh, Jenny wants a group picture with all of us. Where’s your date?”

  Caitlin turned from her distant throng of admirers to Jason and smiled, then slipped her arm through his. “Oh, you’ll do.”

  Jason’s heart stopped, and he let himself be led back toward his friends and their dates. Was this part of Operation Prom as well?

  * * * *

  Contrary to prior statements that he would pose only for a group photo, Jason soon found himself standing once again before the backdrop designed to resemble the ocean glowing by moonlit night. The photographer positioned him directly behind Caitlin, one hand gripping a fake railing and the other around the girl’s waist. Caitlin’s hands were pressed against her thigh as the two tilted their bodies to one side and smiled until their faces hurt.

  “Big smile now,” the photographer cajoled, then snapped the picture. “Perfect! This is going to be the best of all of them, I guarantee it.”

  As the evening wore on and the ballroom filled to near capacity, Jason came to enjoy himself. He mingled with other friends, and posed for yet more photographs. Flashbulbs from various cameras exploded like fireflies around them.

  Caitlin stayed close by for most of the time, and Jason obliged her with all the dances in which he was willing to participate—three fast and two slows. Caitlin rested her head against his shoulder during a ballad and closed her eyes, becoming limp.

  “I love this song,” she purred, and in that moment the recent deaths, even thoughts of the priesthood, began to fade. He was glad his father had the foresight to plan his prom night for him, and as he and Caitlin swayed past Dan and Willie he thanked them with a light jab to his father’s shoulder.

  “Switch?” Jason offered.

  “Forget it,” Dan drawled, and pulled Willie even closer, laughing as the two danced away.

  The song morphed into a more upbeat country tune, perfect for a line dance, which appealed to neither Jason nor Caitlin. They retreated to the table and watched and laughed as Mitch and Gooch stepped clumsily along to the music.

  “I think they’re off on the wrong foot,” Caitlin observed. “I see your dad and Miss Pratt didn’t bother to try.”

  Jason sipped from a dewy, plastic cup of tepid soda. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Dad’s not into the line dancing stuff. He’s more at home with the funky chi—”

  A piercing scream broke through his sentence and he bolted out of his chair to see the commotion. Even the disc jockey lowered the music volume as the dancers slowed to an awkward stop.

  “Leave him alone!” screeched a shrill voice from the buffet area, and Jason twisted around to see Bailey Stone, restrained by his father and a varsity football player, trying to scratch at Willie, who was staring in disbelief at a large punch stain splattered across her abdomen.

  “What’s Miss Stone doing here?” Caitlin turned to look at Jason but he was already making a beeline for the fracas.

  Dan struggled to brace Bailey’s limbs to her sides so she could not hurt anyone else. He would have had better luck trying to hold onto a baby covered in petroleum jelly, he thought as Bailey wriggled in his grasp and spat at the students and Willie.

  “You slut!” Bailey screamed, thrashing her head up and down. Veins bobbed in her neck and her face was pink with rage. “Stay away from my Danny Boy!”

  She lurched toward Willie again, baring her teeth like a wild animal. Dan and the student both had to brace themselves against each other in order to keep hold. Willie, too stunned to speak, simply stepped backwards, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Bailey, damn it, calm down!” demanded a furious Dan. “You’re making a fool of yourself. Jason!” Out of the corner of his eye he saw his son approach. “Give me a hand.”

  By this time Mitch and Mimi were gathered with other students in a crooked semi-circle around the action. Jason first took Mimi aside and asked her to take Willie to the ladies’ room. “You probably won’t get the punch out, but she needs to be out of sight.”

  Mimi nodded and complied. Willie’s sniffling escalated into sobs as she left the ballroom and several other female students followed out of sympathy and curiosity. Jason turned to Bailey and stood directly in her face.

  “Stop it, NOW!” he shouted.

  A collective gasp tore through those within earshot. Even Dan paused a moment during his struggle with Bailey, giving the woman the opportunity to wrench free of his grasp.

  Jason caught her and steered her toward the partition wall that separated Colley High’s prom from that of Blair High. The wall shuddered with the force of Jason’s push, but the sliding wheels remained in their track.

  Bailey seethed and thrashed against Jason, pressing her hands against his chest. “Danny!” she cried. “Why? Why didn’t you wait for me?” Her peach gown rustled as she tried to kick Jason away.

  “My dad doesn’t want anything to do with you, why can’t you see that?” said Jason forcefully yet quietly. “It’s over, it’s been over with you. He’s moved on, and so should you.”

  Tears ran down the distraught woman’s face. She tilted her head to see Dan, who stood stiffly by the buffet table rubbing his sore wrist. “That’s a lie,” she insisted. “Tell him, Danny. Tell him it’s not true, that we’re going to be together.”

  “Bailey,” Dan began wearily, but he was cut off by his son.

  “Maybe we should tell Dad about how you tried to give me Mrs. Wallis’s exam answers,” he said. This brought on curious muttering among the crowd.

  Jason felt a hand grip his shoulder. “Son, leave her,” Dan said quietly. “I’ll handle this.” To Bailey, he asked if she was going to be still. Immediately the woman ceased squirming and gazed lovingly at Dan. Dan slipped his arm through Bailey’s and led her outside. Not one person in the room diverted his or her attention away from them for a full thirty seconds, until Lawrence Brantley blocked the door with his body and called the prom to order.

  “Show’s over, people,” he announced, waving everybody back to the dance floor and other parts around the ballroom. Outside Dan and Bailey were well out of visual range. “How about some music, buddy?” Brantley called to the DJ. “You’re still on the clock.”

  Seconds later the ballroom was alive again with a buoyant Destiny’s Child tune and couples resumed dancing and gossiping as if somebody had undone a pause button on the prom. Jason cooled off with a cup of punch, forgetting that Caitlin was waiting for him at the table.

  Dan returned to the ballroom amid stares and murmurs and joined his son, plunging his hand in an ice bin filled with canned soda and bottled water. “Where’s your date?”

  “My date?” asked Jason, confused. He craned his neck to see a forlorn Caitlin tapping her feet to the music, elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.

  “Oh, right.” Jason reached into the bin for two Sprites. “I better get her something. How’s Miss Pratt?”

  “Don’t know. I’m going to check now,” Dan looked back to the door and sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know what is wrong with that woman. There was a cab outside, so I put her in, and all
the time she’s yammering on like we were a couple and Willie was...” he stopped himself with a long pull from the can. Jason decided not to encourage his father to finish. Whatever words Bailey used to describe Willie were probably not worth repeating.

  “I thought Miss Stone was kind of kooky when she tried to give me those test answers, but man!” What else could he say? Who could have predicted that the woman scorned would pull such a stunt.

  “Well, I don’t think she’ll be giving away anything anymore, not in a classroom,” Dan grumbled. “She should be answering to a psychiatrist.” With that, he stormed away, leaving the open Dr. Pepper can on the buffet table.

  Jason relayed everything he knew and heard to Caitlin when he returned to her with the canned peace offering. The anger on the young woman’s face quickly melted. “That’s terrible,” she said, astonished. “I didn’t see much from here, but I noticed Mimi taking Miss Pratt outside. I didn’t know Miss Stone messed up her dress. Is Miss Pratt gonna be okay?”

  “None the worse for wear, I suppose.” Jason then winced at the unintentional crack, and was punished with a light slap on the shoulder.

  “Anyway, I’m sorry for all this,” Jason added. “It wasn’t exactly a moment to remember...”

  “Don’t apologize, it wasn’t your fault. Miss Stone should be the one apologizing.” Caitlin folded her arms and sulked. “I can’t believe she actually crashed our prom. How did she even know when it was, or where?”

  “You mean, aside from all the posters around school?” Jason replied drily.

  Caitlin sighed. “Why come to prom, then?”

  “Easy. To make my dad’s life miserable.” Mine too, Jason thought to himself, and Miss Pratt’s.

  “Quicquid.” Caitlin shook her head. “It means ‘whatever’,” she said to Jason’s question mark.

  “I know what it means,” he said. “I live with the Latin teacher, after all. I just don’t think the old scholars meant for the word to be used in that context.”

  “Quicquid!” she repeated, accenting the last syllable flippantly, and the two laughed.

  “You eat dinner yet?”

  Caitlin shook her head. “Gooch called in a reservation for about eight people at The Blue Hippo a while back. I think he meant for us to be two of those people.”

  A quick jog to the dance floor confirmed this. Jason fell in step with Gooch and Jenny as they danced. “We’ll go ahead and get the table, okay?”

  Gooch nodded. “It’s under the name Gucci,” he hollered in his friend’s ear over the music. “Don’t know who else is coming, so we’ll just have to push tables together. We won’t be long.”

  Jason danced awkwardly back to Caitlin and lunged with her right out the door and down the hall to the lobby. Bemused stares followed them all the way outside.

  Caitlin whooped with delight and tossed her head back. The bun in her hair was about to give, but she did not appear bothered by it. “Hold up, Fred Astaire!” she laughed. “You’re in a good mood.”

  “I feel better,” Jason said truthfully. Instinctively he felt his back pocket for the lump that was his wallet; Dan lent him use of the bank card for the night. “I think when everybody comes to dinner we’ll have a good time, and try to put the nastiness behind us.”

  They walked out into a brisk evening, taking the covered walk which connected the hotel to the Waterside. “You okay to walk then?” Jason asked. “Mitch was my ride, and I couldn’t find him or Mimi for all the people.”

  “I’m fine.” Caitlin clutched Jason’s arm and pressed into his side, falling in step with his long strides. Jason noticed the look of absolute bliss on her face and swallowed.

  The tux, the ticket, the ride, the dinner...just about everything had been covered for him. All he had to do was show up, but what about afterward? Was anything planned for him then? Rather, did Caitlin have anything planned?

  “Er, Caitlin,” he began, twisting his arm slightly to loosen Caitlin’s grip.

  What he had intended to say remained unsaid. As the two stepped down a concrete step into the service way between the two buildings out popped Bailey Stone, her hair awash in tangles and frizz, missing a glove, and her abdomen soaked dark red.

  She lifted a blood-stained hand toward the couple. “Help me,” she croaked, and crumpled to the ground.

  Jason stood frozen to the spot, oblivious to his date’s ear-splitting screams.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Your choice of plain or peanut. Slim pickings at the candy machine, sorry.”

  Hunched over in a neon green molded seat, Caitlin looked up to see Jason dangling two packages of M&Ms over her head. With a grateful smile, she snatched the brown bag and motioned him to take the chair next to hers.

  She pulled Jason’s tuxedo coat tightly around her shoulders and fumbled with the candy. “Thanks, for this,” she said, indicating the coat. “It’s freezing in here.”

  “Yeah, it must be a law that all hospital waiting rooms have to double for cold storage in case a meat truck breaks down.” Jason ripped off one end of his bag and gently shook a few of the multi-colored chocolate pellets spilled into mouth. He did not wait to swallow before adding, “Either that, or the cold keeps the nurses alert.”

  “In more ways than one,” Caitlin grumbled as a well-endowed nurse in a pink smock brushed past, with ‘headlights blinking,’ as her friends might have joked. “Where’s your dad and Miss Pratt?”

  Jason pointed back to the vending machine area with his bag of candy. “It’s not dinner at The Blue Hippo, but maybe I can make it up to you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Caitlin assured him. It was she who had suggested they ride along with Dan and Willie to the hospital. Mitch and Gooch, witnessing the commotion that ensued, expressed an interest to join them, but Dan insisted they remain at the prom. Jason and Caitlin might have to be interviewed by police, Dan reasoned, and besides, he saw no reason why packs of students needed to crowd an already busy hospital emergency ward only for the sake of satisfying curiosity.

  Dan was moody the entire drive, and Jason wondered if his father felt partly responsible for Bailey’s injury. They had arrived about ten minutes after the ambulance, and nobody in the party was able to get word on her present condition.

  “What if she’s dead?” Caitlin whispered. “What if we were the last people to see her alive, Jason? She didn’t even say who did it.”

  Jason wanted to put that thought out of his mind, though his hands still trembled as he tried to dislodge some more M&Ms from the bag. Seeing Bailey Stone bloody and writhing in pain before him only brought back the reality of Bart’s and Gordon’s deaths. The attack on Bailey had to be connected. His father had mentioned that Bailey claimed to have been present at Jillian’s that night, though Jason would not have known. Did the killer settle on Bailey as a substitute? Whomever was responsible, assuming Bailey’s injury was connected, seemed to find the Waterside fertile ground for picking victims.

  Dan and Willie argued as they approached the waiting area where the two sat. The punch stain on Willie’s dress, now dried, had faded to a light pink and looked as if it had spread out around the middle. Shreds of paper towel were caught in a trail of sequins from where she had tried to clean the dress.

  “Dan, I’m not leaving,” Willie protested, taking the chair next to Jason. “I know you mean well, but I’m fine. It’s a little too late to find a dry cleaner who can get this,” she gestured to the punch stain with her coffee cup, “done before the night’s over. Besides, if Bailey lives through this, she’s gonna hear from me while she’s not able to throw stuff!”

  “Willie,” Dan pleaded. Even Jason was shocked to see the normally genial teacher say something so insensitive.

  Willie only shook her head. “Look, it’s terrible this happened, and I know what she did to me can’t compare to being stabbed or shot, but...” she sniffled, wiping tear from the corner of her eye, “I didn’t know what that woman intended to do to me tonight. That coul
d’ve been acid, or something...” she dissolved into tears, and Dan knelt down to embrace her. Jason draped an arm around the woman’s shoulder.

  “That’s okay, we understand.” Dan shushed her gently. “All the more reason why I think you should go home. Jason can drive you, and I’ll come by after we hear from Bailey’s doctor.”

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed, thinking the offer should be extended to Caitlin as well. He had no idea how he could salvage the night for her, and it appeared the doctors wanted no information from them, as evasive as they had been. “It’s no problem, Willie. I can have you back to your car in fifteen.”