by Kylie Logan
“What?” It wasn’t like Jazz didn’t hear him; it was just that she couldn’t believe what he said. She was convinced her theory was not only sound, it was brilliant. She was positive she was right and that this major piece of the puzzle would lead them to Bernadette’s killer. “But it all makes so much sense, Nick. The learning disability, and Bernadette’s obsession, and the poems. I haven’t had time to tell you about the poems, but—”
“I get it. I really do. And I know just how you feel. There are times when I think I’ve really got ahold of a great piece of evidence, that it’s going to make all the difference in a case. Then when I find out I’ve made a colossal mistake—”
“Is that what you think this is?” Her voice pinged against the high ceiling and caromed back at her. “A colossal mistake?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You sort of did.”
“What I meant was—”
“It’s all right. I get it.” It wasn’t easy to admit, but once her initial anger dissolved and left Jazz feeling cold and empty, she knew she owed him an apology. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”
“It’s hard to get bad news.”
Jazz sighed. “I just thought—”
“I know. Like I said, I get it. Hey, give yourself credit for coming up with a theory Gary Lindsey never thought of.”
“That’s a lot of consolation.”
Nick laughed. “Would dinner tonight make you feel any better?”
Just thinking about it eased her disappointment. “It would.”
“Seven?”
“No Police Patrolman’s meeting tonight?”
“No dog training?”
“I can meet you somewhere.”
“Nah. I’ll pick you up. It’s a beautiful day. I’m thinking dinner someplace on the water. Blue skies, sunshine, lake breezes. The cure for just about anything!”
Jazz wasn’t so sure, but she knew it was worth a try.
She thanked him again, apologized again, and ended the call.
“Shit.”
Eileen was just coming in from the hallway and she slanted Jazz a look. “Coroner?”
“No baby. Not as far as they can tell.”
“Shit,” Eileen echoed. “Where does that leave us?”
“Pretty much right where we were before last night. Nowhere.”
The realization hung over Jazz all that afternoon just like the rain clouds had the day before. She faked a smile for the girls who stopped in on their way home, wished them a good Thursday evening, told them she’d see them the next day.
It wasn’t so easy to keep that smile in place when Maddie fluttered by the office and leaned inside for a quick, “Adios, Ms. Ramsey!”
“Uh, Maddie…” Jazz knew—no, she felt it deep down in her bones—that the secrets surrounding Bernadette’s murder involved Maddie. She had to find out more and she wasn’t sure how to do it. She only knew she had to keep the conversation going, to keep it light and casual so Maddie wouldn’t become suspicious. She got up and walked to the doorway. “Your mom coming to pick you up?”
At the same time she moved one step closer to the front door of the school, Maddie shook her head. “She’s stuck in surgery and Dad’s got a few more patients he needs to see before he can leave. He said I should take Uber home, but I dunno. It’s kind of creepy, don’t you think, getting into a car with someone you don’t know?”
Jazz admitted it was. “If you need a ride—”
“No, no, I’ll be fine.” Maddie grinned and took another step toward the school’s front door. “I’m going to … I’m going to get the Rapid downtown. That’s what I’m going to do. And the bus from there. I’ll call Dad along the way so he knows where I am.”
“A good plan,” Jazz told her. “But I know where you live. It’s not far from my mom’s house and I could use taking you home as an excuse to stop and see what she’s up to.”
“Nah. Thanks for the offer, Ms. Ramsey. But really, I gotta go. Don’t worry about me. I’m good.”
“You’ve been good. And happy.” Jazz hoped the look she gave the girl was not as penetrating as it was friendly and interested. “You must really be enjoying summer school. You like your teacher?’
Maddie sidestepped toward the door. “Sure.”
“And the other girls in Spanish class?”
“Si.” She grinned.
“Except you were already this happy Monday morning, before that class ever started.”
Maddie’s smile froze and a color like blood stained her cheeks. “Is there…” She cleared her throat and moved the books she was carrying from her left arm to her right. “There’s nothing wrong with being happy, is there? I don’t think there is. And it’s been nice talking to you, Ms. Ramsey. But I…” She glanced at the clock that hung on the wall in the hallway. “I really have to get going. I checked the Rapid schedule, and if I don’t hurry I’m going to miss the next train. Bye!”
She heard Maddie’s voice one more time when she excused herself around someone at the front door. The next second, Mark Mercer came around the corner.
“Hey.” He stood there looking for all the world like he’d just been caught cheating on an algebra test. His hands flitted nervously over the front of his windbreaker. He rolled from foot to foot.
“You want to come in?” Jazz waved toward her office.
He joined her near her desk.
“I’ve got…” He reached into his windbreaker and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, but he didn’t hand it to Jazz, not right away.
“If she ever finds out, I’m dead meat,” he said.
Jazz knew—she hoped she knew—exactly who he was talking about.
Exactly what he was talking about.
She darted a look at the paper. “Odessa Harper’s resignation letter.”
“Well, a copy,” Mercer said. “And if Hyland the Harpy ever catches wind of the fact that I went through the personnel files—”
“Your secret is safe with me.” Jazz crossed her heart. “I swear.”
At the risk of looking way too eager, Jazz glanced at the letter again. “What does it say?”
Mercer frowned. “Not much. I mean, all the usual. I mean…” He handed the paper to Jazz. “Take a look for yourself.”
Jazz unfolded the paper. “‘It is with the greatest regret,’” she read, “‘that I inform you that as of today…’”—she checked the date at the top of the paper and saw that it was just a couple days after Christmas break had started that year, the year Bernadette disappeared—“‘I am resigning my position at Forestall, Clemons, and Stout. I appreciate the opportunities and experiences I had there and I wish the staff all my best.’”
“See, just like I said.” As if it was actually his fault the letter wasn’t more sensational, more revealing, Mercer grimaced. “Plain ol’ resignation letter. Nothing fancy.”
“Except…” Jazz read over the letter again. “It sounds…” She was talking more to herself than to Mercer, but maybe working in a law office, he was used to that. He danced from foot to foot, watching her, waiting to see what she would do.
What she did was go to the cabinet where Bernadette’s file was kept.
“The police took the original letter, but we kept a copy of course,” she told Mercer, and then because he looked confused, she added, “Bernadette’s resignation letter.”
“Maybe they think the killer really wrote it.”
“Maybe…” It wasn’t polite to mumble, but Jazz couldn’t help herself. Her brain was suddenly caught in a loop with no way in and no way out. She retrieved the letter from Bernadette’s file, then sat down and smoothed it out on her desk next to the letter from Odessa.
“‘It is with the greatest regret,’” she read, “‘that I inform you that as of today I am resigning my position at—’”
“It’s just like I said!” Mercer’s groan betrayed his frustration. “There’s nothing interesting in Odessa’s letter.”
Jazz looked up at him.
“Except I’m not reading Odessa’s letter.”
She knew the instant he caught on. His expression settled. But only for a second. Then his eyes popped and he hurried around to stand next to Jazz, reading aloud along with her.
“‘It is with the greatest regret that I inform you that as of today I am resigning my position at St. Catherine’s Preparatory Academy.’”
Jazz sucked in a breath and Mercer read on.
“‘I appreciate the opportunities and experiences I had there and I wish the staff all my best.’”
Jazz looked up at Mercer.
He looked down at her. “What does it mean?” he asked.
More confused than ever, Jazz shook her head. She tapped a finger on the copy of Odessa’s letter. “I can keep this?”
As if the letter and the desk had suddenly gone up in flames, he backed away from both. “I sure don’t want it. As far as you’re concerned—”
“I get it,” Jazz promised him. “I don’t know anything about how this letter showed up here at school. And I never saw you.”
Mercer lumbered to the door. He stopped when he got there and looked back at Jazz. “Will it help, do you think? Will it help you find out who killed Bernadette?”
As hard as it was, Jazz had no choice but to admit the truth. “The hell if I know!”
* * *
Jazz was still thinking about the twin resignation letters at five when she cleaned up her desk and got ready to leave. She had a little less than two hours before Nick showed up at her house, and Wally to take care of before she could even think about leaving for dinner. She tucked the copies of both letters in her purse so Nick could look them over and maybe offer some opinion that would beat the I have no idea what’s going on that had been whirling through her brain since Mark Mercer came and went.
That afternoon, Eileen really was at a meeting of the volunteers at the hunger center and Jazz was the last one at school. She turned off the office lights and grabbed the handle to close her office door. That was exactly when the phone on her desk rang.
She considered not answering. Whatever it was, it could wait, right? It was five and it was summer session, and whoever was calling, they’d think it was only natural she’d already gone for the day. They’d leave a message, and whatever they wanted, she’d deal with it in the morning.
Too bad responsibility was programmed into the Ramsey DNA.
With a sigh, Jazz slipped her purse off her shoulder, dropped her keys on the desk, and picked up the phone.
“St. Catherine’s.”
“Hi. This is Kate Parker, Maddie’s mom.”
“Doctor Parker, sure. This is Jazz. How are you?”
“Well, I’m a little worried. I just got home and talked to Scott.”
Maddie’s dad, Jazz knew.
“He tells me that Maddie told him she wouldn’t be back until late tonight, that she was going to dinner with Della Robinson and her family.” Before Jazz could say that Maddie hadn’t mentioned it to her, Doctor Parker went right on. “But when I talked to her this afternoon, Maddie told me she was going to a movie with Tatum Lynch this evening. I know we shouldn’t bother you with family things, but—”
“It’s no bother, Doctor Parker. Really.” She didn’t need to ask, but it was only right to get the story straight. “You called—”
“Della’s family and Tatum’s. Yes. Both the girls are home. They told their parents they never talked to Maddie about getting together this evening. And we called Maddie, too, of course. Multiple times. She’s not answering her phone.”
Jazz didn’t even realize her knees had collapsed until she felt the seat of her desk chair under her butt. “I don’t want to worry you more, but when I talked to Maddie this afternoon, she told me she was taking the bus home.”
“Scott…” He was obviously in the room. “Maddie told them at school that she was coming home on the bus.”
Ice formed in the pit of Jazz’s stomach and her mind moved a million miles an hour. “I’ll tell you what.” She congratulated herself for at least sounding calm. She didn’t need to let the Parkers know that her insides looped and whooshed like she was on a roller coaster. “Why don’t the two of you come down here. That seems easier than the three of us making phone calls back and forth while all this gets straightened out. We can call the police from here and—”
“The police?” Doctor Parker’s voice edged with tears. “You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think,” Jazz admitted. “But it doesn’t hurt to get another opinion and it would be good to have an objective one. I bet the cops see stuff like this all the time.”
“Yes, yes. Of course.” From the way Kate Parker’s breathing suddenly accelerated, Jazz could tell she was getting her purse, grabbing her keys, heading for the door.
They ended the call and Jazz called Eileen and told her what was happening. While she waited for parents and principal to arrive, she sat back and tried to make her heartbeat settle.
It was no use.
Of course it wasn’t the first time a girl from St. Catherine’s had lied to her parents about where she was going, what she was doing. It was dumb, sure, and most of the girls eventually realized that. But when it came to their social lives, teenagers were often thoughtless.
Except Maddie was responsible and considerate, a good kid, and Jazz couldn’t imagine Maddie making her parents worry.
That was one thing that bothered her.
The other?
None of the other girls who’d lied about where they’d gone or what they’d been up to was so closely connected to a teacher who’d been murdered.
CHAPTER 23
She had trouble getting ahold of Nick—he told her he’d been in the shower when she called—and she didn’t talk to him for a full ten minutes after she talked to Eileen, but he still managed to show up at St. Catherine’s first. He arrived wearing a charcoal suit, a crisp white shirt, and a tie splashed with colors that reminded her of the yellow pansies and red geraniums planted in pots at the school’s front door.
Damn.
He’d planned someplace nice for dinner. Someplace formal.
Someplace romantic.
At the same time disappointment stabbed Jazz’s inside, Kate and Scott Parker arrived in a flurry of questions and tears and Jazz knew there would be other chances for nice dinners, other warm evenings. That was important, sure.
But not as important as finding Maddie.
As Jazz had done when she first talked to Kate Parker, Nick advised Maddie’s parents to call the local precinct and get a patrol car over to the school. It didn’t mean anything was wrong and there was no reason to panic, he was quick to point out, and Jazz couldn’t help but admire the way he sounded so certain, so in control. He was calm and professional and that was just what the Parkers needed. He took charge, at least until two uniformed officers, both women, arrived and he turned Maddie’s parents over to them.
Scott Parker was a tall man with pale skin and ashen hair. Kate was as big around as a pencil and she, too, was light haired and blue-eyed. Between the two of them, it should have been obvious they probably didn’t produce a short, round, dark-haired daughter like Maddie.
Standing just inside Eileen’s office with Nick, the principal, and the Parkers as they gave the police the pertinent details—Maddie’s height and weight, what she was wearing—Jazz mumbled, “I should have known the first time I saw them.”
“What, that Maddie was adopted?” The soft smile Nick gave her was supposed to make her feel better, but at the moment Jazz wasn’t sure anything could. “Would it have made any difference?”
“No.” She hated to admit it, and Jazz and Nick moved farther into Eileen’s, the better to give the Parkers a little privacy.
“I didn’t want to make any calls before the cops got here,” she told Nick, “but I’ve been thinking about my friends in search and rescue. They might be able to help.”
He signaled one of the officers, and she came
over and gave Jazz the go-ahead.
* * *
The fact that three volunteers and their dogs got to the school within a half hour only proved to Jazz how dedicated her fellow dog handlers were. She was proud to be part of the team.
“So what do you want us to do?” Rick Randall had brought his springer spaniel, Lucy, and the dog sat at his side, her tail vibrating with the excitement of being put to work. “School top to bottom?”
Nick and the two uniformed cops agreed it was the best place to start and Eileen went upstairs with them and opened the door to the fourth floor while Jazz went down to the cafeteria along with a handler named Jane and her dog, Pedro, to make sure all the doors down there were open and they had full access to all the storage rooms.
Heading back to her office, she met Eileen in the hallway.
“Your Nick called Detective Lindsey,” Eileen said, and before Jazz could remind her he wasn’t her Nick she went on. “Nick’s in my office with the Parkers and the other cops. Lindsey said he’d be right here.”
They walked along the hallway together. “I wish we could help.” Jazz knew Eileen felt the same way; still, voicing her frustration made her feel as if she was doing at least something, anything. “I’ve been thinking about all that stuff in Maddie’s locker. Maybe we missed something?”
“You mean some sort of clue about what Maddie is up to?” Eileen didn’t need the plan spelled out. She ducked into the office, got the locker key, and a few minutes later she and Jazz stood again side by side in front of Maddie’s locker. They opened it and congratulated themselves. When they replaced all of Maddie’s papers, they’d obviously done a good job. This time, just like last time, that single cream-and-blue note card fluttered to the floor.
Jazz knew what it said inside. “‘Come from the silence so long and so deep.’”
Eileen remembered the words, too. She shivered. “Such a gloomy thing to write.”
Jazz stared at the card at her feet. “From what I saw online, the poet is wishing her mother could come back from the dead and comfort her.”