by Susan Finlay
He hung up the phone a moment later and Kate said, “Could you tell us about your former employee, Maura Barrington?”
“She was an English teacher, fairly new, still learning. This was her first teaching assignment. She worked here for four years.”
“Was she a good teacher, a good employee?”
“She was basically efficient. The children seemed to like her. Pupils in her class did well.”
Kate said, “Were you surprised when you heard the rumors about an affair with a student?”
He didn’t answer right away, seeming to think about it. “She was attractive. Probably too attractive.”
“Why do you say that?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes she seemed a bit too friendly.”
Kate said, “Was she ever romantically involved with a school employee?”
Appearing uncomfortable, he said, “I can’t really answer that.” He put his hands together, steepling his fingers. “Let me make something clear. I believe in cooperating with the press. But these days one must always take into account public opinion. But there must be limits. I am sure you understand.”
Kate nodded. “Of course, our apologies. If it’s acceptable, we would like to speak with a pupil, Penny Miller. We understand she was Jared Raybourne’s former girlfriend.”
“I’m afraid that is out of the question. Our pupils have already been questioned by police and that was difficult enough. I’m sure you understand.”
“We’ll be discreet and-—”
“I really can’t allow that. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He began shuffling papers around on his desk.
“Mr. Fowler, if I may, what does your governing body think about Jared Raybourne’s murder?” Dave asked.
Fowler’s hands froze in mid-air as he looked at Dave. “This is something no school wants.”
“Has it hurt the school’s reputation?”
Fowler rubbed the top of his head. “Parents were shocked, of course. It hasn’t been easy reassuring them. Our students are perfectly safe here. Security is tight.” He nodded and looked at them seriously. “I would like that stressed, please. This did not take place on school property nor during school hours. This is a safe place.”
Dave thought about their arrival in the building. They’d walked right in and no one had stopped them or questioned them. “Does your governing body believe Jared’s murder was connected with their investigation?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Dave said, “With the allegations of an affair, the board was going to conduct a hearing to find out whether it was true. Some people believe Maura Barrington killed Jared to keep him from testifying at that hearing.”
Tight lines formed around Fowler’s mouth. He didn’t speak for a minute, then he said, “I don’t have anything more to say. Now, if you don’t mind . . . .” He gestured towards the door.
On their way out, Dave stopped at the secretary’s desk. “Could you tell us what time school lets out?”
“Three-thirty.”
“Thanks. Is there a restaurant or café nearby?”
“Yes. Bailey’s Café is just round the corner. Further on, there are several cafés.”
“Is Bailey’s popular?” Kate asked.
“I suppose with teenagers, anyway. It can get pretty noisy, though, in the late afternoon.”
Dave and Kate made their way to Bailey’s and found a booth. Dave went to the counter and ordered coffees. When he returned to the table, Kate asked, “What did you think of Headmaster Fowler?”
“He was certainly very nervous and defensive.”
“I suppose that’s understandable,” Kate said. “The scandal happened on his watch. That can’t be good for a man in his position.”
Dave nodded.
They talked now and then while eating lunch. Afterwards, they read newspapers as they waited for school to let out. Dave set the alarm on his watch for a quarter past three, giving them plenty of time to get back to the school before dismissal time.
When students began trickling out of the building at three-thirty, Dave and Kate were on the scene asking if anyone knew Penny Miller. Several knew her, but they didn’t know where she was. As the crowd thinned out, a boy pointed to a girl with long dark hair, coming out of the front door.
Walking up the steps, Kate asked, “Are you Penny Miller?”
“Yes.” She pushed hair out of her eyes the way Dave had seen Maurelle do on numerous occasions.
“I’m Kate Hill, a journalist. This is my associate, Dave Martin. We’re investigating Jared Raybourne’s murder and were hoping we could talk to you.”
Penny’s blue eyes also reminded Dave of Maurelle’s, though musing that Penny’s eyes lacked Maurelle’s sparkle and allure. Catching his mind wandering, he chided himself.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Perhaps we can talk for a few minutes at Bailey’s Café. Do you know the place?”
She nodded.
They walked to the café and took a seat in the same booth where they’d sat earlier. Dave bought three coffees and carried them to the table. They had decided in advance that Kate would ask the questions.
Kate asked, “How long did you and Jared date?”
“I dunno, maybe four months.”
“Why did you break up?”
Penny glanced down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. When she raised her eyes again, she didn’t look directly at Kate or Dave.
“He was nice and thoughtful when we first went out, but he changed. It was almost like he’d turned into a different person.”
“When was this?”
“About two months after we started dating. His parents had just split up. He was angry about it. After that, I got scared sometimes being around him.”
“What did he do that scared you?”
“He would pick fights with me and with other people. He was moody and mean and suspicious. I saw him kill a bird once by smashing it with a bat, and he smashed someone’s mailbox with a shovel. He didn’t have a driving license, but he took his mum’s car out for a joy ride and made me go along with him. While we were out, he hit a dog and left it in the road. That’s when I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.”
“Did he get angry with you over the break-up?”
Penny nodded. “He told his friends that he broke up with me because I was sleeping around. It wasn’t true.”
“Was he ever involved with any other girls here? Maybe a classmate?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Did Jared have any enemies that you know of?”
“He wasn’t popular. People didn’t much like him after he changed. But that doesn’t mean someone would kill him, does it?”
“Did you know the teacher, Maura Barrington?”
“Sort of. I was in one of her classes.”
“What was she like?”
“Nice. I liked her. Most of the kids did. She wasn’t strict.”
“Was she a good teacher?”
“She was all right. She made her classes interesting.”
Kate said, “Do you believe she had an affair with Jared?”
Penny shrugged. The door of the café opened and a group of kids walked in, laughing and talking. She stood up. “I gotta go.”
Dave and Kate watched her leave, then glanced at each other.
Kate said, “Let’s split up, shall we?”
Dave nodded. He approached two teenage boys. One was a slender boy with eyeglasses and the other was an overweight pimple-faced boy. They were sitting at a table. After introducing himself, Dave asked if they’d known Jared Raybourne.
The slender boy, who identified himself as Ray Wills, said, “Yeah, we knew Jared. Grew up with him.”
“Were you still friends?”
Ray glanced at his friend. He looked back at Dave and shrugged.
“Was he popular?”
“A lot of kids disliked him. ‘Course some of us admired him.”
“You ad
mired him? Why?”
Ray stared at him as though he thought Dave was stupid. “Because he got to hook up with that teacher. She was fit. Worth dying for, you know?”
“What do you mean? Do you think she killed him?”
“’Course she did. If he’d told everything, she would have lost her job for sure. That’s what everyone says.”
Dave found another student, Jenny Hayes, and asked her similar questions.
“I saw Jared and Ms. Barrington sitting together eating lunch one day,” Jenny said. “Another time, they were whispering together in the hallway and looking, well, you know.”
“Couldn’t they have been discussing school?”
“He wasn’t in any of her classes. Besides, he was one of the best-looking boys in this school. Dreamy blue eyes and blonde hair. It’s not surprising that she would be attracted to him. I heard she wasn’t that much older than Jared.”
“Do you know Brittany Stevas?”
“Yeah, she’s in some of my classes.”
“Were she and Jared friends?”
“I don’t know.”
Dave looked around for Kate. She was talking to a group of middle-aged women. Not wanting to interfere, he scanned the café for more students. Kate was now standing and preparing to move away from the women. He stood by and waited for her. “Any luck?” he asked.
She touched his arm. “Let’s go. We can talk on the train.”
It was late afternoon, approaching rush hour, and the train was already packed with bodies of all ages. Dave and Kate found two empty seats together near a young woman with three children, including a baby. Dave hoped the baby would sleep during the train ride.
As the train began moving, he said, “The kids think she and Jared had an affair. They believe she killed him to keep him from testifying so she wouldn’t lose her job. His death didn’t help her in any way. She obviously didn’t kill him to save her job.”
Kate closed her newspaper. “She may not have gone there intending to kill him. Maybe she just wanted to talk him out of telling the board the details of their relationship. This is how I see it: They quarreled, she went to leave, he yelled after her, she got angry, went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife, went after him, and stabbed him. A typical crime of passion.”
“Why do you assume that simply because of what those kids said? What do they know? They have no real experience.”
“I talked to a couple of the teachers, too. They told me that Maura Barrington was quiet and gentle, and sometimes it seemed she wasn't tough enough to be a teacher. In fact once, shortly after she qualified, she completely lost control of a class. It got so bad that one day she lost her temper and threw something across the room. A pupil said she had thrown it at him, but another teacher had been going into the room at that point and said it was just a piece of chalk and it hit the ceiling—it was accepted that it was an accident. Still, she left the school for a while soon after, and said she was going to take time out to look after her mother who was dying.”
Dave sat silent, thinking, for the rest of the ride.
Back at Kate’s house, they searched through more emails and faxes that had come through. Somehow, Kate had gotten copies of Jared’s school records, which showed he was an average student. Nothing, however, seemed to move them forward.
Frustrated, Dave ran his hand over his hair and said, “Let’s take another look at the police reports, particularly anything involving Raybourne family friends and neighbors.”
“We’ve already looked at the murder report.” She pulled out a piece of paper, put on her glasses, and began reading out loud.
Dave closed his eyes, tuning out most of it since it was the same report he’d already read.
“On the morning the victim was found, police went to the flat where Maura Barrington lived. She, having recently moved out of the victim’s home and being a potential witness, was wanted for questioning. Upon discovering she’d fled from London, the police issued a bulletin alerting the public to be on the lookout for her.”
He opened his eyes. She’d run away before she was ever questioned and was only considered a witness at that point. He thought back to the many times she’d run away: when she was flustered in the general store, again when she saw the gendarmes, and when his grandmother and Jeannette had intimidated her at lunch. And what about when she’d supposedly been attacked by the man who’d given her a ride? Did she always panic when cornered? Or was she always running away because she was guilty?
Dave frowned. Up until now, he’d convinced himself that no one could ever manipulate him again, that he knew how to spot the Diana Lewis’ and he wouldn’t fall prey. The evidence was telling him otherwise. His grandmother had also succeeded in fooling him, and now Maurelle . . . .
As he’d done on numerous occasions, he continued the debate internally with himself. Was he an idiot? Did he really know what he was doing? What was his motive for getting involved? Part of him wanted to hand her over to the police and let them sort it out. Another part wanted to just walk away and have done with it. Yet another part wanted . . . what? To find the truth no matter what it took or where it led?
Realizing that he was not going to fare any better with this internal argument than he had on prior occasions, he looked at Kate and asked, “Can we look at other crimes committed in the area? Maybe we’re missing something. Maybe it was a random murder or a break-in. What about a case of mistaken identity, or maybe someone from school had a grudge against Jared? Or just maybe, his murder is linked somehow to something else.”
“All right. We can do that, but I doubt we’ll find anything more.”
By evening, Dave and Kate were bleary-eyed and hungry. Dave suggested to Kate that they take a break and grab some dinner at a local Indian restaurant Kate had pointed out earlier in the day, saying it was a favorite of hers. During dinner, not being able to break habit, they discussed a couple of vandalism reports, a couple of drug-related arrests, several Peeping Tom reports, and a cat killing report that had never really developed into a real case. They decided to visit some more of the neighbors the next day.
After dinner, and after seeing Kate off, Dave went back to his hotel, hoping that he would get a call from Greg. He waited up until midnight, vaguely watching TV, but after dozing off three different times, he gave up and went to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Dave awoke abruptly to the buzzing of his hotel room telephone. He almost knocked over an alarm clock when he reached for the phone. “Hello?”
“Cheerio, mate,” Greg said.
“Hey, you made it to Reynier.”
“Yep,” Greg said. “Met your Simone, too. She’s pretty and sexy and flirty the way you described her.”
“Sounds like you two hit it off, if she’s flirting already,” Dave said, rubbing his eyes and the stubble on his face, trying to fully wake up.
“Oh yeah. So how goes the investigation?”
“Long story,” Dave said. “We’re slowly moving along, though we haven’t got a suspect yet. At least nothing concrete. Right now, I’m more interested in what you found out.”
“Well, I’m heading to Orleans this morning with Simone. We’re going to visit her mother at Simone’s aunt’s house.”
“Does that mean Simone knows you’re working with me?” Dave felt a flash of alarm. “I thought you were working this on the down low.”
“Don’t worry, I am. She told me that she was going to visit her mother, and I asked if I could tag along, seeing as how I had nothing better to do. I played up the fact that you ditched me the way you ditched her. She seemed to like that.”
“Thanks. I sound like a real nice guy. Anyway, that certainly sounds like Simone,” Dave said, chuckling. “Does that mean you’re already . . . getting friendly?”
“Jealous? I thought you weren’t interested in her anymore.”
“I’m not. I’m curious. I didn’t think even you worked that quickly.”
“I haven’t made a move on
her—yet,” Greg said. “But that might change.”
“Yeah, sure. While you’re staying in her aunt’s house with her mother down the hall. Fat chance.” Dave grinned, imagining Greg in a house with those women, and he was suddenly thankful that it was Greg going there and not himself.
“Yeah, you’ve got a point there, old man.” He laughed and added, “Oh well, maybe when we get back to Reynier.”
“Have you found out anything about Maurelle and my grandmother?”
“Only that the police have been asking lots of questions around this village. Most people aren’t talking to me, probably because I’m a stranger.”
“What about Paul? Simone said he’s the one who called the gendarmes.”
“From what I heard, he told the gendarmes that Jeannette Devlin has two cousins who live in Paris. He thought that’s where they would go to hide.” He paused for a second, and before Dave had a chance to comment, added, “Oh, I almost forgot. The gendarmes also discovered that Maura’s or Maurelle’s father lives in Paris. That gives them two possible hiding places in the same general area.”
“Hmm,” Dave said. “Actually, that might be a good thing. I don’t think they would go there. Maurelle would steer clear of Paris.”
“Hope you’re right. Anyway, I’d better go. I’m supposed to meet Simone in fifteen minutes. I’ll call when I can.”
“Hey, before you go, how did you get all of this information if no one knows that you’re working with me and nobody’s talking to you?”
“Easy,” Greg said. “This whole damned village is a gossip mill because of all the excitement. Everyone’s talking to everyone else. All I have to do is eavesdrop. Apparently, the police were the only people around here who couldn’t get an earful, so they left.”