by Matt Witten
Despite our herculean efforts, though, Adam burst into tears four or five more times that evening. And he didn't get to sleep until after midnight.
When our baby-sitting chores were finally done—for today, anyway—Andrea and I lay in bed exhausted. We spoke quietly, so we wouldn't wake up the kids in their bedroom down the hall. "So what do you think?" Andrea asked.
"I think I should go down to Grand Avenue tomorrow, by Lou and Sylvia's store, and find out if any of their neighbors saw them there around seven-thirty—"
"I mean about Laura."
"Oh." I scratched my head. The fact was, despite my best efforts to convince myself Lou or Sylvia was the killer, in my heart of hearts I still felt it was Laura. But if I admitted to Andrea that I suspected her bowling buddy and dirty joke guru of murder, would she jump down my throat?
I decided to take the coward's way out. "I don't know. What do you think?" I said.
Andrea bit her lip. "Adam is Laura's baby. Ever since her husband died, Adam is all she has. She lives for him. But . . . killing for him?"
"Whoever did this probably didn't mean to kill the guy."
She poked at the pillow with her finger. "I feel guilty even thinking she might've done it. But she does have a temper. I ever tell you about the guy at the bowling alley?"
If she had, I'd forgotten. Another symptom of my onrushing middle age. Either that or it's a symptom of being married for so long I only listen to my spouse intermittently. "It doesn't ring a bell."
"This jerk tried to kick us off our lane at eight-thirty for a nine-o'clock league. Laura gave him such a tongue-lashing, I bet his balls are still shriveled."
Andrea never used to use such salty expressions. She learned them from Laura.
"I think she's still mad at her husband for OD'ing," Andrea went on. "And that makes her kind of mad at the whole world."
We both lay there silently for a moment. Then I said, "So . . . what are you saying? Do you want me to go easy on the sleuthing till we see if Laura confesses?"
Andrea flushed. "Of course not. I'm just saying . . . Oh God, I don't know what I'm saying. Laura didn't do it. She couldn't have." She shivered. "What’s gonna happen to her?"
"Near term? Tomorrow she gets arraigned. The judge will set bail."
Andrea turned onto her side and looked at me. "Laura won't have money for bail."
That was my cue. I hesitated, but only briefly, and said, "We can pay it. I doubt she'll run away."
Andrea's eyes peered into mine. "You sure you're okay with that?"
I shrugged, with more nonchalance than I truly felt. "Of course. She's your buddy."
"I love you," said Andrea. "You're the best man in the world."
Then she started making love to me. I was so wiped out, I didn't expect to respond.
But I did.
As we lay in bed afterward, I heard Andrea say, "Honey?"
Like most guys I'm not big on postcoital conversation, so I was tempted to pretend I was asleep. But I managed to say, "Mmm."
"Are you awake?"
"Mmm," I repeated.
"You know," Andrea said with feigned casualness, "you never did ask how my classroom observation went today."
Now I really did wake up. I propped myself up on my elbow. "I can't believe it—I forgot. How'd it go?"
"Not good."
Oh, no. Did this mean curtains for Andrea's tenure chances? "Are you sure?"
"I'm afraid so." Then she gave me a sly smile. "It wasn't good, it was great. Henry said watching me teach was inspirational."
"Hallelujah." Henry was the department chairman. "So you're in like Flynn?"
"Looks like it." Her words may have been low-key, but she was grinning ear to ear.
"I can't believe you kept this to yourself all day."
"We had so much craziness going on, I was looking for the right moment to spring it on you."
"So you're actually going to be one of the few people left in America with honest-to-God job security?"
"Unless I'm found guilty of moral turpitude, yes."
"Honey, I'm so proud of you." I kissed her. "You've worked so hard for this."
"There's only one thing that bothers me."
"Yeah?"
"What exactly is moral turpitude?"
"I doubt making love to your husband qualifies," I said, and kissed her in a different place.
She giggled. "Honey, what are you doing?"
"Trying to pretend I'm twenty years younger and can actually do it twice in a row."
But before I had a chance to pretend any further, Adam started screaming.
I threw on some pajamas and went to the kids' bedroom. Adam had woken up with a nightmare about a giant machine that crushed people. He was sitting up, still whimpering with panic, and Latree and Charizard were awake too.
I held Adam in my arms for a long while as he sobbed. I wasn't sure what to say to him, so mostly I just prayed silently. I don't do that much, because I'm not convinced there's Anyone out there listening, but that night I prayed: Please, God, let this poor kid's mom be innocent.
Eventually Adam lay back down. The three kids' breathing slowed, and they finally fell asleep again.
Then I went back to bed myself, but I was too restless to sleep. There had to be a clever way to investigate Sylvia and Lou—something slicker than just canvassing the neighbors. What would Sam Spade do? I got out of bed again and threw on some clothes. Singing in the car hadn't given me any brilliant insights. Maybe a walk in the brisk night air would do the trick.
I stepped outside. It was two a.m., and eerily silent except for the occasional buzzing street lamp. Even at the height of racing season in August, Saratoga Springs is more or less comatose at that hour. On a Tuesday two a.m. in May, the town is dead and buried.
I walked up and down the streets of my West Side neighborhood. I passed Ms. Helquist’s house, with its multitude of flowers rising out of the dark earth. I went by the Gideon Putnam Burial Ground, Saratoga's oldest cemetery. Then I headed up High Rock Avenue and found myself outside Lou and Sylvia's house. I guess that’s where I was planning on going all along, though I hadn't realized it. I eyed the house, a modest Colonial much like my own, and wondered what evil lurked therein.
Unfortunately I'm not psychic, so I didn't feel any vibrations emanating from the house. I walked across the street toward the elementary school and imagined what might have happened there yesterday morning. Dredging up my old screenwriting habits, I created a little movie scene in my head that went something like this:
EXT. STREET - MORNING
Sylvia Robinson, 40s, mother and small businesswoman, steps outside to pick up her morning paper. Her face is pale and lined and she's been up all night, worrying about her beloved but troubled son . . . and about the imminent doom of her small business. She sees a car driving past. It's Sam Meckel, school principal, pulling up in front of the school.
A terrible rage grabs hold of Sylvia. Her son has been viciously maligned by this man. Declared defective. She hurries across the street, follows him into his office, and confronts him, screaming. Offscreen, Barry Richardson is in the john and hears it. Laura Braithwaite is out back smoking.
In the office, Meckel tells Sylvia to shut up and get the hell out if she can't control herself. He's not listening to her anymore, her kid is screwed up and that's that. Sylvia can't take it. She snaps. Grabs the nearest weapon, not wanting to kill him necessarily, just hurt him like he hurt her. . .
Were there any flaws in this scenario? I gazed thoughtfully at the darkened school—
And suddenly a light came on inside Sam Meckel's office.
It was so small and dim and stayed on so briefly that at first I thought I'd just imagined it. But then it came on again.
It was a flashlight.
Who was snooping around with a flashlight in Sam Meckel's office in the dead of night?
I moved closer to the office window, hoping it was too dark outside for the mysterious intruder
to spot me. But before I could see who was in there, an unseen hand pulled down the Venetian blinds. Now I couldn't look in anymore.
Should I just stay put and wait for the intruder to come back outside?
But what if he or she slipped out the back door and I never even found out who it was? I'd feel like a flaming idiot. Chief Walsh would never believe I'd seen what I'd seen.
Should I call the cops right now? But where was the nearest pay phone? Probably Washington Street. How long would it take me to run over there?
Seven or eight minutes, probably. Too long.
I made up my mind. I ran swiftly across the schoolhouse lawn. I almost tripped on a thick branch that must have just fallen from the big oak tree that shaded the front of the school. On an impulse I reached down and found the branch in the darkness. Then I snapped it in two with my feet, so I had a manageable weapon about as long as a baseball bat.
Then I hurried toward the front door again, taking my AAA card out of my wallet as I went. From experience I'd learned that certain AAA cards—the flexible ones—do a better job of opening locked doors than your average credit card.
It’s funny, I'll bet I get more emotional satisfaction from my successful burglaries than I get from my hit movie or any of the stage plays I've written. In my most primal reptilian soul, being a macho-type lawbreaker is a lot more fulfilling than being a sensitive artiste.
I looked around for security alarms and motion sensors, but didn't see any; Saratoga's not as security conscious as larger cities. I put my hand on the door handle and was about to work my AAA razzle-dazzle, but then stopped quickly. It looked like I wouldn't get a chance to showcase my amazing lock-picking skills tonight. Somebody had already unlocked the door.
How rude of them.
I opened it and walked in, then closed it gently behind me. Not a sound. No scurrying mice, no electronic hums. It was pitch-black. The Exit sign at the far end of the hall shed no light way over here.
Holding the branch in my left hand, I put out my right hand and felt my way along the wall. After a few steps, the wall turned into a window. This, I knew, was the window to the front office, Ms. Helquist’s domain.
The window gave way to empty space. I'd come to the intersection of two hallways. I turned the corner, reached out, and felt the window again. Still the front office. But then the window ended and my hand felt another wall. I kept going, slinking as softly as I could in my Nikes. At last the wall gave way to a door.
Mr. Meckel's door.
It was shut. And the intruder was inside.
Doing what—looking for something?
Maybe something that would implicate him or her in the murder... if the cops ever got hold of it?
Suddenly it struck me: that couldn't be Laura in there, she was in jail. Despite my fear, I was thrilled. This could mean Laura didn't kill Meckel after all.
I put my ear up to the door crack. Stone-cold silence. Damn, had the intruder heard me? Was he or she inside there lying in wait? I doubted it; I'd been awfully quiet. Probably the intruder was moving around in there, and I just couldn't hear any noise through the solid wooden door.
I stood there, mustering up my courage to burst inside. Then I decided I'd be better off staying where I was, and ambushing the intruder when he or she came out. That felt safer than barging in. So I held my branch high and waited.
And waited some more.
Seconds passed. Minutes. Actually I don't know how much time passed, but it was excruciating. My inner eye summoned up an extremely disturbing movie scene:
INT. DEAD MAN'S OFFICE - NIGHT
Intruder tiptoes to window. He or she did hear footsteps in the hall. Even as Jacob Burns, the world's most absurd P.I., stands out there waiting, the intruder is carefully, noiselessly lifting the Venetian blinds and the window… then jumping out through the opening, falling onto the soft ground outside, and running off down High Rock Avenue, leaving nary a trace behind.
And Jacob Burns would waste his one and only chance to find out who killed Sam Meckel.
I strained my ears. To no avail.
This was insane. My reptilian brain began to rebel. What was I so damn scared of? First of all, the intruder was probably a woman, not some big bruiser of a guy. I was betting that the intruder was the same woman Barry had heard screaming in Meckel's office. Second, there was no way she had a gun. Or at least that’s what I told myself. The murder had been a freak accident, I thought, a sudden momentary emotional spasm, not some kind of well-planned contract hit by a well-armed gunman.
I should quit acting like a mouse. Sam Spade would never stand out here in the hallway scratching his armpits while the killer eased out of a window barely ten feet away and headed home for a cup of hot cocoa.
So I took a deep breath. I stealthily slid my hand down the door until I found the handle. My body tensed, I bent my knees—
And threw the door open, brandishing my branch. "Freeze!" I shouted immediately, without even thinking. I guess I wanted to sound like a cop. I wonder, did I really think yelling "Freeze!" was going to stop a murderer?
But there was nobody there. Or nobody I could see. The flashlight was off. Was the intruder gone? Had my nightmare scenario come true? I stepped around the door—
Suddenly I became conscious of movement to my left. Branch held high, I whirled quickly.
But not quickly enough. A hard object—the flashlight?—smashed into the back of my head. Then another hard object—the floor—smashed into the front of my head.
And then my brain gave an angry squawk and went on hiatus.
6
Why was I lying on my stomach on a cold hard floor?
Had I passed out in a bathroom or something? Was I back in college suffering the aftereffects of a Wild Turkey overdose? Did that explain why some evil imp was hammering at my skull?
Suddenly, in between the pounding, it all came back to me. The realization of what had just happened hurt even worse than the physical pain. Damn, had the bad guy—or bad girl—escaped for good? Leaning on Meckel's desk for support, I struggled to my feet. Then I wobbled to the school's front door. I opened the door and looked out.
Nothing.
So I wobbled to the back door and looked out that way.
Still nothing.
I teetered back down the dark corridor to the boys' bathroom. I went inside and turned on the light. It seared my eyes. My brain was on fire. I turned on the cold water and dunked my head in the sink.
My body shivered, but meanwhile my brain began to cool off. I turned my head sideways and let some of the water flow down into my mouth. I gave my head another turn with the increasingly frigid water, then took another drink, and in a couple of minutes I felt more or less fit enough to stumble back to Meckel's office.
I had a job to do. I was going to redeem myself.
First I went over to Meckel's window and felt the blinds to make sure they were still down. They were. Thus reassured, I turned on the overhead light.
The office looked neat and untouched, aside from the branch lying on the floor. If the intruder had indeed been searching the place, it was done so circumspectly nobody would ever know. The only thing that seemed a little off was that the middle right drawer of Meckel's desk had been left partially open. The intruder must have been in the process of going through it when he or she heard me.
Now I was hoping it turned out to be a he. Okay, call me sexist, but I'd feel better about getting knocked cold if a guy did it.
Since the middle right drawer was where my predecessor had left off, that's where I started. I found cafeteria menus, classroom schedules, and an open bag of pretzel sticks.
Now there was a new theory of the crime: somebody was ripping off Meckel's pretzel sticks, and when Meckel caught him in the act, the thief whacked him.
I took a guess that the intruder had started with the top drawer and was working his way down. So I decided to work down, too. In the bottom drawer I found more pretzel sticks, lying on top of about
a million folders containing about a gezillion memos. They came from school board members, superintendents, assistant superintendents, and others of their misbegotten ilk. Sifting through these memos, which covered every minute aspect of school life from insurance to radon testing to the price of light bulbs, gave me a touch of sympathy with Meckel's stubborn resistance to tackling any new projects. The man had his hands full just answering memos.
But none of these memos, however aggravating, seemed worth killing over.
I opened the drawers on the other side of the desk and rifled through them. Nothing jumped out at me. Then I went over to the bookshelf, where a bunch of manila folders lay flat. I didn't want to press my luck and spend any more time in Meckel's office than I had to, so I searched especially for files with labels that might relate to Sylvia and Lou, like "ADHD" or "Psychological Reports" or, simply, "Robinson."
I drew a blank. But underneath a three-inch-thick pile of memos about officially sanctioned procedures for hiring janitorial assistants, I did find a folder marked "Terra Nova." Out of curiosity, I opened it.
The folder contained the Terra Nova test results for every child in High Rock Elementary School. I was surprised Meckel had gotten the results back from the test scoring service already. The students had taken the Terra Novas only two weeks ago.
Then I read the cover page at the top of the folder and realized these were just preliminary Terra Nova results, put together and presumably scored by Meckel himself. The cover page explained that he was using these unofficial results for administrative purposes, including giving him a head start with placing kids in the gifted program. Also he was using the scores to help him evaluate teachers.
As I flipped through the folder, I noted that in general the High Rock kids did quite well. Most had scored above the seventieth percentile for the state. Saratoga Springs schools usually scored pretty high in the statewide standardized tests; but High Rock was the poorest elementary school in town, socioeconomically speaking, and tended not to do as well as the other local schools. These scores would give High Rock parents something to crow about this year.