“I don’t think it was you,” I told her. “I need to know who it was.”
“Susan Mystroft. Everybody knows that. She thought they’d close the school down and she wouldn’t have to take her science test, but she did it over the weekend, and the only thing they closed was the locker room.”
“What about the other ones?”
Melissa’s voice took on confidence, as she realized I wasn’t mad at her, and was proud she knew something a grownup did-n’t. “The one in the gym was because she doesn’t like Ms. Van Biezbrook,” she said. “She made Susan do sit-ups, and Susan doesn’t like sit-ups.”
“And the boys’ room? Why do the boys’ room?”
“I dunno,” Melissa said. “Maybe they come three to a pack.”
I thanked Melissa and hung up. Running for the door, I grabbed my coat.
“Where the heck are you going?” Abby asked. “Are we out of something?”
“I’ve got to go to the Board of Ed meeting,” I told her. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half. I’ve got a stop to make first.” And I was out the door before she could point out that the dog would need an evening walk.
At a house two blocks away, following a hurried explanation, a small girl broke down in tears, and to their credit, two parents did not try to shift the blame. They blamed each other. But they agreed I could take their daughter, as part of her punishment, with me.
Midland Heights is a small enough town that virtually everything is within walking distance, assuming you’re not a native New Jerseyan, and therefore bred to take a car even if you’re visiting your neighbors next door. Still, parking at the municipal building, where the Board of Education meeting had started fifteen minutes ago, would be a nightmare, so I double-timed the three blocks and arrived to utter chaos. The little girl didn’t want to come inside, but she didn’t want to stay outside by herself more, so she did as I requested. Her father, who had come along, had something to do with her decision.
The chaos in the building didn’t bother me, because even when I was a municipal reporter covering three towns at the same time, I never attended any public meeting that wasn’t utter chaos. You just get used to it, and move on.
As we walked in, the issue being discussed was an appropriation for the Middle School library to buy two new computers to be devoted to Internet use. One father whom I did not know was arguing that the money was being used “to give our children access to pornography,” and was being instructed in the ways of site blocking, and in-class supervision.
Anne Mignano was sitting by herself in a seat far from the entrance, in one of the back rows on the aisle. She looked absolutely composed, a woman completely content to accept what Fate had decreed for her.
As I was snaking my way through the room toward her, the discussion on access to porn was tabled for further research, and Board President Michael Lanowitz announced that the next item would be the “breakdown in security at Buzbee School.” I made it to Anne and sat down next to her at that moment.
I gestured to her, and she leaned over to hear me whisper. “Susan Mystroft,” I told her. Anne’s eyes widened, and I nodded “yes.” “My sources are impeccable,” I said quietly. I pointed to Susan and her father, Brad, who were waiting at the door.
Anne smiled just a bit and nodded to Lanowitz, who was asking for her report. She stood.
“I have very good information,” she smiled, not looking at me, “that would indicate we have solved the security breach in question,” she said to the president. He looked surprised.
“Can you mention names?” he said.
“Certainly not in an open meeting,” Anne replied. “But if you wish for me to speak in executive session, I might be able to be more specific.”
Lanowitz looked around at the board members, including Faith Feldstein, who was showing off her exercise-enhanced body in a tight T-shirt and jeans. They nodded, and he called for a vote to adjourn to executive session, which was unanimously passed.
I gave Anne the information and explanation I had before she had to get up and walk into the anteroom where the executive session was held. She nodded. “I knew it,” she said, “but I could-n’t prove it.” Then she thanked me and walked, head held very high, into the session. The doors were closed, but any good reporter can tell you to stay near them in case any sound leaks through. Susan and her dad walked in quietly when no one except me was looking.
After about a minute, sound leaked through so plainly that the level of murmur in the main meeting room, where I was standing, dropped to silence. Faith Feldstein’s voice yelled “what?” loudly enough to be heard through cinderblock, wood paneling, and steel doors, followed by Faith herself, who exited the meeting, muttering to herself under her breath.
About seven minutes after that, the Board members came out, followed by Anne, who to her credit was not looking like a triumphant administrator who had stuck it to her bosses. She actually wore an expression of concern. The board president immediately suggested that the issue of Buzbee School discipline be tabled indefinitely, and the board agreed unanimously, with one member absent. No doubt, there would be hell to pay in the morning.
Anne and I walked out together, as the board took up the pressing issue of gum in the school water fountains. She allowed herself a small smile, and looked at me as we stood outside, enjoying the chilly air after the claustrophobia that accompanies any public meeting.
“You certainly are the cavalry, riding over the hill in the nick of time,” she said. “Thank you, Aaron.”
“I got lucky,” I told her. “My children just happened to know what was going on.”
“We like to foster communication between parents and students,” Anne said with the hint of a sly grin. “In any event, I owe you a favor.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “You’ve been the best principal I’ve ever dealt with. Ethan isn’t an easy kid to have in your school.”
“No,” she agreed, “but I’ve seen a lot worse. At heart, he’s a very sweet boy. And he’s never boring.”
“Tell me about it. Will you have trouble with Faith and her cronies?”
“A little,” Anne admitted, “but not more than I can handle.”
“Imagine,” I said, “all this over a couple of stink bombs. Imagine if there were real problems to worry about.”
“There are,” said Anne. “But they don’t generally come to the surface until it’s too late, I’m afraid.”
She thanked me again, and we went our separate ways. At least I’d managed to save the day for Anne. Now, all I needed was to solve Legs Gibson’s murder and find out who was threatening me, and I’d chalk this one up as a good week.
I got home a few minutes later, and found Abigail on her knees with a can of carpet cleaner and a roll of paper towels. Warren was sitting on his dog bed in the living room, surveying all that was his.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” I ventured.
“What was that all about?”
“I saved Anne Mignano’s job for another year or so,” I informed her. “Based on information I got from our children and Melissa.”
She stood up and assessed the damage. “Warren has been a busy boy,” she said.
“That’s one way of looking at it. You know, the carpet still smells.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice,” Abby said. I have a notoriously bad sense of smell.
“Crazy Legs Gibson would notice. Are you sure we want a dog?”
“I’m sure. Are you sure you want a carpet in here?” She was already eyeing the threadbare wall-to-wall with the eye she generally reserves for things whose days are numbered. Luckily, she has not yet fixed that gaze on me.
“I’m sure I don’t want to move my desk, the computer, my file cabinets, the bookshelves, and everything else in the room to move the rug,” I said.
“Well, it looks like I need to call Mark Friedman and ask him what takes the smell out of an old, old carpet,” said Abby.
“I’ll call him. He’s
seen a picture of you, and may actually pant on the phone.”
“That hasn’t happened to me in weeks,” my wife teased.
“Well, I can’t call your office every day,” I said.
Friedman was home, luckily, so I didn’t have to spend much time talking to his wife Marsha, who doesn’t like me. I don’t know why she doesn’t like me, but she snarls whenever I call, even when she’s saying things like “so, how’s life treatin’ ya?” It’s hard to snarl through a phrase like that, but Marsha manages.
This time, she didn’t even answer the phone, so I could avoid all that and get right to the point. “I have another carpet question for you,” I said.
“More blood?”
“Not this time. It’s not related to a crime, unless you consider rescuing a dog from the shelter to be cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Uh-oh. Dog urine.” Friedman was completely in his professional mode.
“Among other things.”
“The other things you can clean up and forget about,” he said. “The urine is a problem. What kind of carpet?”
I was prepared this time. “Wall-to-wall, shallow pile, looks to have been installed sometime during the Vietnam War. And now it doesn’t smell so good.”
“You’re screwed.”
I waited. “That’s it? I call the carpet maven and I get, ‘you’re screwed?’ What about some magic compound I can cook up in the basement that will take out the smell and make the rug look like I just bought it last week?”
“It doesn’t exist. You’re screwed. Face it. Dog urine on a rug like that isn’t going to come out. It’s powerful stuff. Pull up the carpet and get the floors sanded, if the stain doesn’t go down too far.” Friedman doesn’t pull punches. I could have used a few pulled punches right around then.
“You’re not helping, Mark.”
“Superman couldn’t help you. Face it, the carpet’s a goner. Come on in, Tucker, and I’ll give you a deal.”
“It’s cruel to try and drum up business among friends,” I pointed out.
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t make you go get a dog.” I glared at Abby, who was pretending not to be looking at me. She walked into the living room and started reading my script, which I had left on the coffee table. She must be feeling really guilty if she’s willing to do that, I thought. Wonder what else I can get out of it. . .
“Well, thanks anyway, Friedman,” I said. “I’ll call you if I decide to get another rug.”
“Whatever. Hey, did the Legs thing ever work out? Did you find out about the stain on the carpet?”
“Not yet, but it’s close. That bastard didn’t die the way he was supposed to, writing his killer’s name on the rug in his own blood. Would have made it so much easier to solve.”
Friedman laughed. “He never did have any redeeming social value, Legs,” he said. “No qualities to recommend him.”
“Well, he was taller than me.”
“Not really.” Friedman’s voice had a tease in it.
“What do you mean, ‘not really?’ Legs was at least three inches taller than I am.”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Friedman. “I played basketball with him once, and we changed in the same locker room.”
“So?”
“Didn’t you know?” Friedman asked incredulously. “Legs Gibson always wore lifts. That’s why his legs always looked longer than they should be. It’s the reason we called him ‘Crazy Legs.’”
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Ethan actually got up at six-thirty the next morning to walk Warren, who had miraculously made it through the night without fouling any more of our furnishings, although he did show a preference for our living room sofa over his dog bed. We solved this problem by completely giving in to the dog, and throwing a blanket over the couch in case he shed. So much for my being the alpha dog in his pack.
Now, given three days to come up with five thousand words for ten thousand dollars, I decided to forego the Y Friday morning and concentrate on work. Writing is always the least of the job—it’s gathering the information that takes all the time. And I had gathered information, all right. It just fit together like a jigsaw puzzle put together by a klutzy moose.
What I had was a theory that fit the facts I’d discovered, but no evidence whatsoever that the theory was correct. In fact, the proven information on this story would indicate to any sane person that the theory was ridiculously improbable. Luckily, there were no sane people in my office, only a freelance writer. Our usual motto is: “When the facts don’t fit, make sure you get your money in advance.” Of course, I hadn’t done that, so the facts had to fit.
Preston Burke came by that morning for his check, which I wrote out to “Cash,” and handed to him. Then, somehow Burke managed to convince me that the cast iron railing on my front steps needed to be sanded and painted, and before I knew it, he was back at work, happy as a clam, assuming that clams enjoy physical labor in the presence of the husband of the woman you think you’re in love with. You never can tell with clams.
It occurred to me that the best way to put off worrying about who killed Legs Gibson was to worry about who threw a rock into my since-repaired front window. This would be the same person who called my house periodically to make extremely general threats that were sounding increasingly weak these days. If a threatening phone caller can’t even muster up a good scare in a short Jewish freelance writer, he really should give up the pursuit and take up botany, or something.
I called Barry Dutton to see if the rock-throwing incident was still his Number One crime priority, and amazingly, it had dropped down the list. Barry said a couple of bicycles had been stolen from people’s garages, and there were numerous reports of motorists exceeding the twenty-five mile-per-hour speed limit that infests Midland Heights, so the whole rock thing had faded as quickly as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s fame. Muscles from Brussels, indeed.
After Barry, I called my other law enforcement buddy, but Mason Abrams had chosen a very inconvenient Friday to begin a long weekend. Since we in New Jersey often go to Washington for three-day excursions, I assumed Abrams would be on his way to beautiful downtown Newark, whose reputation is not entirely deserved, but whose reality ain’t exactly Venice, either.
All this, and still no additional producers had called to express interest in buying the script. It was enough to discourage a normal man.
There was only one person left to call for business purposes, and I had admittedly been putting it off until it could no longer be avoided. But that calendar on the wall was showing Monday coming up rather quickly, and there was no avoiding Stephanie Jacobs Gibson any longer.
I hate having to call people when I don’t have good news for them. I especially hate it when they are people who loom large in my past, even if the reason they loom so large is driven less by deep feeling and more by hormones.
Actually, that was no longer true. When I was eighteen years old, Stephanie could easily have held me enthralled simply by showing up in the right T-shirt. But now, she represented less a legitimate erotic fantasy and more a symbol of an era that I, to be honest, have remarkably little affection for. I’d much rather be the person I am today than the one I was then. And while Steph could still wear a T-shirt with the best of them, I was married to the best of them, and didn’t have the same empty longing I’d had in high school. But as symbols go, Stephanie was a pretty strong one, and I hated disappointing her. Giving Steph bad news— which in this case could be characterized as no news at all—wasn’t my favorite thing to do that morning. So, I avoided it.
Instead, I called Mahoney on his cell phone. He was, it turned out, halfway between Atlantic City and Newark, traveling between emergency calls for his rental car bosses. He had the phone on speaker, which was evident from the level of noise on my end of the line. But his hands were free. I imagine one of them was probably even being used for steering.
“There’s going to be trouble tomorrow,” I told him. “You want to
come?”
“What kind of trouble? Minor household repairs, or foundation work?” Mahoney is, to me, what Bob Vila is to everybody else. Except he’s not on television.
“Neither. Remember the night you spent in my closet?” Of course he remembered. I’d almost gotten shot, and he’d managed to beat up a kid almost thirty years younger than himself. It was quite an evening.
“I believe I do recall a night like that,” Mahoney said.
“It’ll be more like that,” I said.
“Legs Gibson?”
“One and the same,” I told him.
“What the hell. I haven’t faced death in close to six months. What kind of snacks should I bring?” We discussed the menu, he said he’d drive, and we decided to firm up the rest of the details for our brush with mortality later on.
Finally, I couldn’t put off the call to Stephanie any longer. She was at home, and sounded tired and more subdued than usual.
“What have you found out, Aaron?” No small talk, and the tone was less inviting than it had been since this whole thing began. I was starting to feel like an employee.
“Not a huge amount, Steph. But I do know that Lester was in the room when Louis was killed. I can’t tie him to the crime yet, but. . .”
“Lester? Are you sure?” She sounded truly shocked, which surprised me. Ten minutes with Lester in the most casual circumstances could convince you he was capable of violence. Just the way he smiled when he was trying to look friendly was enough to wake me up in the middle of the night for weeks afterward.
“I’m sure, all right. There’s DNA evidence that can’t be explained any other way. Now, where the connection is, I don’t know, but Lester was definitely there. Also, there’s some evidence that Louis may have been illegally funneling money from his foundation into his private accounts. Did you notice any extravagant spending, any financial things that you couldn’t explain, in the past few months?”
Stephanie thought for some time, and answered, “no.” I waited, but there was no elaboration. Just, “no.”
A Farewell to Legs Page 21